Disclaimer: Good Omens and the characters therein belong to Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.
A/N: This little ficlet was inspired by a day trip I took to one of Britain's most un-scenic seaside resorts with my family a few weeks ago. Any and all feedback appreciated.
Crowley wasn't quite sure how Aziraphale had managed to persuade him that a day out to the seaside would be a good idea. He had a vague inkling that it had probably happened sometime between the fourth bottle of Jack Daniels and him sobering up outside the angel's bookshop. The motorways had been gridlocked practically all of the way with bank holiday traffic, and Aziraphale had unequivocally vetoed Crowley's suggestion that they 'remove' all of the vehicles within a thirty-mile radius to give a nice clear run.
By the time they actually reached the run down coastal town it was raining hard, and Crowley was in a foul mood.
"... bloody tosser thought that he could just go and..."
"Crowley just because someone cuts you off in traffic it doesn't mean you should try and teleport half their internal organs to a back alley on the outskirts of Tehran."
"Yeah well, not as though you gave me the chance was it."
"You did promise that there wasn't going to be any unpleasantness."
"I did?" asked a surprised Crowley. He must have had more to drink than he originally thought.
"Yes, you did. I think it was shortly after you told that obscene joke about Beelzebub, Metatron and Cilla Black walking into a house of ill repute."
"I told you that one?"
Aziraphale nodded.
Bloody hel... heav... somewhere, he really must have had more to drink than he thought.
The first thing that Aziraphale insisted that they did was visit the dilapidated fairground, which had, rather ironically in Crowley's opinion, been christened 'Fun World'. Crowley usually quite liked fairgrounds on bank holidays. The ranks of tired irritable parents, hyperactive children, and hormone crazed teenagers provided rich pickings for the accomplished tempter. Not that they actually needed any tempting, but it was always fun to add just a little more discord to an already heated situation. Unfortunately both he and Aziraphale had agreed to refrain from any work related activities, so he had to make do with watching people tarnish their own souls.
"Look, you don't think this roller coaster is going a bit slow do you?" asked Crowley as the carriage descended down the track at speeds approximating five miles per hour.
"But this way you really get to appreciate the view from up here," said Aziraphale, smiling happily and taking photographs.
Behind them people started muttering darkly about how they should have gone to Alton Towers instead.
Half an hour later they finally returned to solid ground. The engineers were scratching their heads in bewilderment as to what had gone wrong. For one thing, the ancient rust bucket of a roller coaster seemed to have suddenly started to show signs of complying with EU safety regulations.
Any hopes that Crowley might have had about going somewhere else were dashed when Aziraphale spotted the bumper cars. Aziraphale however didn't really seem to get the hang of the 'bumper' part, and took great delight in trying not to crash into the other cars.
"Look, can we do something else now?" asked Crowley, after he had been dragged on the Ferris wheel, the waltzers, and least scary ghost train in existence.
"Oh, like what?" said Aziraphale.
Crowley nodded towards the amusement arcade.
"Work of the devil."
"Your point being?" said Crowley, leading the angel in the direction of the slot machines.
Crowley liked amusement arcades. The sight of so many young people taking their first steps on the path to compulsive gambling gave him a real feeling of professional pride. As he poured twenty pence pieces into the machines Aziraphale tutted disapprovingly. "Come on angel," he said passing his companion a handful of coins. Aziraphale began to put them into the one-armed bandit with a great show of reluctance. The reluctance however quickly faded, and twenty minutes later he was feeding a steady stream of cash into the machines.
"Should we do something else now?" said Crowley who had by now got bored of repeatedly winning on the coin shuffle.
"Hmm?".
"Do you want to do something else now?"
"I'm fine here," said Aziraphale, fishing around in his jacket pocket for more money.
"I'll just have a wander around outside by myself then," said Crowley.
"Hmm. Yes... yes you do that," said Aziraphale absent-mindedly.
Feeling neglected Crowley walked along the promenade. None of the shops seemed to be selling anything apart from generic tourist tat, so he contented himself with browsing the dirty postcards in Crazy Simon's Gifts.
Eventually he decided to go back and see whether Aziraphale was ready to leave the arcade. He wasn't. When Crowley returned the angel was staring wild-eyed at the fruit machine. He didn't notice Crowley's approach.
"Aziraphale?"
There was no response.
"Aziraphale, are you alright?" Crowley waved his hand in front of Aziraphale's face.
"Huh, what... oh fine, fine. Do you suppose that they take Switch here? I'm almost out of money."
Crowley shook his head as he watched Aziraphale try to get the attendant to give cashback on his debit card. There was only one thing for it. He snapped his fingers. The arcade was suddenly hit by a highly localised power cut.
"... Really Crowley I can't understand why you're being so smug. We all have our moments of weakness you know."
"Oh come on, how much did you put in. Fifty pounds? Sixty?"
Aziraphale mumbled something.
"What? One hundred and twenty!" Crowley laughed gleefully.
They were walking along the beach. The weather had cleared up, and it was quite nice a nice stretch of coast, if you put the waterborne industrial waste out of your mind and didn't look directly at the offshore oil rigs. There was however, in Crowley's opinion at least, something distinctly odd about this place. For one thing none of the people seemed to be fighting, arguing, or engaged in any form of unwholesome activity whatsoever. Children laughed and played, parents talked about what a nice day they were having, dreamy couples walked hand in hand without a care in the world. His suspicions were confirmed when he overheard a boy in his late teens say to his girlfriend that there was '... something to be said for waiting until you're married'.
"Aziraphale!"
"Yes Crowley."
"I though we both agreed not to work today."
"Ah." Aziraphale had the decency to look guilty. "Sorry. It rather slipped my mind for a moment."
"Hah, and you were the one who made me promise not to cause any trouble," said an indignant Crowley.
Behind them a violent fight broke out between two men over a game of frisbee, and a dog urinated in someone's picnic basket. Crowley grinned.
"Oh now that's just being childish," said Aziraphale.
"What? Consider it payback. Although I think that with all..."
"Lets get something to eat," said Aziraphale changing the subject.
"You're paying," said Crowley.
The woman at the fish and chip shop didn't question why she was suddenly serving lobster thermidor and Bollinger instead of the usual stale battered cod and out of date Sprite.
"Where should we sit?" asked Aziraphale.
"Over there," said Crowley pointing to a patch of beach that was suddenly litter free.
Three hours later and a pair of extremely plastered supernatural entities sat staring out to sea and drinking from a bottomless bottle of champagne.
"... So... so," said Crowley trying desperately to remember the punch line. "So Gabriel says to Hastur 'yes I know that, but we aren't going to get in dressed like this'."
Aziraphale was far too drunk to pretend to be scandalised, and instead began to snigger.
"You're my best mate you are," proclaimed Crowley putting a slightly more than friendly arm around Aziraphale's shoulders.
"One tries," said Aziraphale happily. "You know tomorrow I was thinking of going for a nice long walk in Snowdonia. Why don't you come along?"
"Sssounds like a good idea," slurred Crowley.