Chapter Two: Leaving on a Jet Plane
AN: We would like to apologize for all the airline related bits because honestly, I have not been on an airplane since I was ten and Julie is possibly the least helpful person ever. So if there're any mistakes, you can totally blame it on her! thumbs up!
Disclaimer: Good Omens belongs to a lot of people, none of who are named Krissy or Julie.
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"Isn't this wonderful?" Aziraphale said without any hint of sarcasm whatever. He even had the nerve to look delighted at the humans streaming past them, much like an eccentric aunt doting upon her nieces and nephews (the strange thing was that this description fit Aziraphale rather well). Crowley wondered idly what would happen if he killed the angel and danced on his mutilated remains. Probably nothing good, he decided as he grumbled a reply.
"What did you say?"
"Where do we go now?"
"The nice young man at the counter said we're in terminal 6G."
"Oh. And you know where that is, do you?"
Aziraphale opened his mouth and made a curious wiggling motion. It made him look remarkably like a fish, or possibly like he had just dislocated his jaw.
Crowley sighed. "Let's just go this way. How hard can it be to find terminal 6G?"
This was sort of a big mistake. They spent two hours wandering around the airport, and when they finally found 6G, they had already missed the plane.
If Aziraphale were the violent sort and not an angel, he probably would have thumped Crowley solidly over the head. As it was, he only sighed heavily and said, "Oh dear." Crowley had no such angelic restraint, and very seriously considered burning the airport to the ground, but decided not to on the grounds that Aziraphale wouldn't like it. Aziraphale patted him on the shoulder sympathetically. "It's all right. We'll just get another plane."
"Can we get back to the place where we got the first one?"
The angel brightened at Crowley's apparent enthusiasm, which had been notably lacking up until that moment. Crowley stared at him for a few seconds, then took off in the direction he thought the ticket counters were. Aziraphale made a noise of delight that sounded mostly as if he had just been stepped on and clapped his hands together. "Oh, this is so exciting!" Crowley grunted noncommittally, and kept walking.
The airport was very large.
They had discovered this in the process of walking around in it for two hours looking for their gate and now they were re-discovering it. Aziraphale found that the experience wasn't any more enjoyable the second time around. It took another hour to find their way back to the ticket counters. The line was huge. Mind-bogglingly large. Words alone could not describe the length of the line, and even if they could no one would care all that much in the first place. Aziraphale pulled knitting needles from nowhere and started working on what looked like a dead snakeskin.
"What is that?" Crowley asked him, looking pained.
"It's a pair of legwarmers." Aziraphale replied happily. "Apparently they're all the rage."
"..." Was Crowley's only reply to this.
"Would you like some?"
"NO!" Crowley yelped before he could get his survival instincts under control. "Er. That is... I wouldn't want to trouble you with something like that..."
"Oh, it would be any trouble at all! I'll just need to buy some more yarn and---"
"Look! A distraction!"
Aziraphale turned.
Crowley breathed a sigh of relief. Now if that was only enough to make the angel forget about the legwarmers...
"I don't see anything, Crowley." He pressed his hand against Crowley's forehead.
"Perhaps you're getting a fever! Oh dear, and right before our trip."
"I'm fi--" Crowley paused. "Actually, I do feel rather off... Maybe I should just stay home and get some rest."
Aziraphale laughed, and then leaned in and whispered in what he obviously thought was a quiet voice, "My dear, you can't get sick. But we've got to keep up the pretense. Musn't let the you-know-whats think we're odd."
Crowley sighed as several of the people near them in the line gave Aziraphale odd looks. "Oh. Right. Silly me."
The angel beamed. "Now, what color would you like your legwarmers to be? I can even make them striped, if you'd like."
Desperately, Crowley tried another distraction. "I think that line over there is shorter than this one."
"No, it's not."
"Are you sure? Look, the last person in that one is a lot closer to the counter than the last person in this one."
"Crowley, I know the line is long, but you have to be patient."
"We could be there by now, you know."
"We already discussed this."
"We could still change our minds."
"But we won't."
"It would be a lot easier."
Aziraphale smiled again, the type of smile that said "Ho ho, you sillyface! Silly sillyface. Hee hee."
Crowley shut up. There was no arguing with the angel when he put on that smile.
Clacky clackity clack! Went the angel's needles. Crowley wished he had a plant to threaten.
The line moved forward inch by agonizingly slow inch.
Clack clack, clackity clackity clack. Aziraphale started to sing a little knitting song that went something like, "Knit one purl two, I am here and so are you! Knitting knitting, oh so fun, fun fun in the sun! I am knitting Crowley some legwarmers--Oh dear, what rhymes with legwarmers?"
Crowley began to plan out exactly what he would say to his plants when he got back to keep from killing anything. Or anyone.
"Do you think 'horrors' rhymes with legwarmers?"
"No."
"Hmmmn."
Another inch forward.
"How about...'performers?'"
"I suppose..."
Two inches this time.
"I hate to think what kind of condition my plants are going to be in after this."
"What on earth does that have to do with anything?"
"We wouldn't be away so long if you'd let us go the easy way."
"Hello!" chirruped the girl behind the counter.
"Hi, we need tickets."
"All right. How many are in your party?" she asked, looking at them.
"...Two." Crowley refrained from turning her into something unpleasant with great difficulty.
"And where is your destination?"
"Tibet."
"Where in Tibet, sir?"
"Er..." Crowley searched his memory for a location.
Aziraphale sneezed.
"Nagchu?" The girl asked. "I'll see what's available."
"Bless me!" said Azirphale.
Crowley sighed. At least the angel had managed to get him out of thinking of a location.
"There is a flight to Nangchu later this afternoon," said the girl in the perky voice of airline workers everywhere. Aziraphale was aware of the fact that he should probably support this in the spirit of politeness and so on and so forth, but found that it was grating on his nerves.
Crowley stared at the girl. "So does that mean we have tickets for it now?"
She smiled. "How many are in your party, sir?"
"Two." Crowley told her again, through gritted teeth.
"All right. Round trip or one way?"
"Round trip."
"That'll be 1360 pounds. Credit or debit?"
"Credit."
Aziraphale was glad that Crowley, at least, knew what the lady was talking about. Funny little plastic squares. How could they pay for anything? Crowley handed one to the lady.
"You're all set! Your flight departs at gate 6G."
"Thank you." Crowley grated, taking the boarding passes she was offering, and stalking off.
"Oh!" the lady said suddenly, turning to Aziraphale. "It leaves in ten minutes. You might want to hurry."
Crowley stopped dead.
"Let's go, dear," said Aziraphale, linking his arm through Crowley's and dragging him away before things started getting bad. Crowley was a demon, but he was also very weak vs. Aziraphale, which the angel knew but pretended he didn't because he didn't think Crowley's ego would be able to take the crushing blow.
"Do you even remember how to get back to 6G?" Crowley hissed at the demon. "And do it in ten minutes?"
"Of course. You're the one with the horrible sense of direction, you know."
Crowley did not--quite--scream at this comment. Or kill anyone.
Aziraphale frowned. "Do stop behaving like a child, Crowley. We are almost there--you can see the terminal down at the end of the hallway, look."
"You mean that place right there where all the people aren't?"
"No," said Aziraphale with exaggerated patience, "After that."
"Oh, the one where all the people are leaving?"
"Yes."
"Oh. And how long do you think it will take to get there your way?"
"Er," said Aziraphale.
"Exactly."
"What do you suggest then?
"We hitch a ride."
"On what?"
"That."
Aziraphale stared at the demon in disbelief. "Those are for the old and the sick, Crowley! We can't just take one of them!"
"Would you rather miss another flight?"
"...I am not allowing you to drive it."
"Fine, fine, let's just get it!"
Aziraphale drove much like an old woman who had to sit on three books just to see over the steering wheel and wore bifocals an inch thick. In a snowstorm.
Crowley let him for about two seconds, then concluded that if they continued at this speed they might reach the gate by, oh, next Thursday. So he decided to speed things up a bit. Aziraphale made a sound remarkably like "asdfjlkcrowleywhalfkasdjf!"
"You can stop now." The demon told him calmly, slowing the cart down from its headlong rush down the hallway.
"Nhngh!"
"Shall we board? We don't want to miss our flight."
And lo, they did. And it was good. Until they found their seats.
"I think those are ours," Aziraphale said, looking at the tickets.
The two women who glared up at him could have filled three of the tiny seats, but had somehow managed to squeeze into one each. They did not look pleased at the prospect of moving.
"Er," said the angel.
"Please take your seats sirs," A stewardess told them.
"Well, we...can't. Really. At all."
"What's the problem."
"These people are in them!"
"May I see your tickets," She said, snatching them out of his hand.
"Wha--"
"Ma'am, may I see your tickets as well?" She waited until the woman in the closer seat handed them to her. "...oh." said the airplane lady.
"Oh?" Crowley asked, "Is that a bad oh?"
"Don't be ridiculous," said Aziraphale, "I'm sure it's the very nice kind of 'oh'. The kind of 'oh' that's followed by tea and correct seats." He looked in a hopeful manner at the airplane lady who shuffled back a few steps and tried to make herself smaller. Aziraphale prepared himself to take Crowley down, or at least to kick him in the shins discreetly.
"I'm... afraidyou'vebeendoublebooked"
Aziraphale threw an arm across Crowley's chest just as he made a strangled noise like 'arajfdkl!' and lunged.
The stewardess shrank back a little, then straightened up and did her very best to look down her nose at the pair. "You'll have to wait here while we find you somewhere else to sit."
"Of course we--Crowley! Put that down."
"Put what down?" Crowley attempted to hide a tire iron behind his back.
"I do not even want to know where you hid that."
"Hid?"
"Just come over here."
"You're two feet away from me."
If Aziraphale were the sort (which he was most decidedly was not) to swear at his friends, he would have definitely done so at that moment. Instead, he took Crowley's ear and twisted it.
"OWOWOWOWOWOW! What was that for?"
"Shush."
"What are you shushing me for? You're the one abusing me!"
"You are talking nonsense. Perhaps you have a fever."
Crowley looked at his tire iron, wondering whether it would be better to use it on himself or the angel.
The stewardess reappeared behind them, saving Aziraphale from an almost certain threat of pain.
"We've found you some seats, sirs. If you will follow me." She turned and headed towards the rear of the plane.
Crowley mimed hitting her with an axe and Aziraphale twisted his ear again.
This earned the angel a glare over the top of Crowley's sunglasses before he stalked off after the stewardess. She led them to two seats. This time the seats were thankfully empty. Crowley thought, as he sat down, that had they been otherwise something would have exploded.
"Look," said the angel, "we even have two extra seats."
"I don't think those are for us."
And then--she arrived.
She was large. She was Albanian. And she smelled like a fish that had been in the trash for a month.
"Er," said Aziraphale.
And then another one came up behind her.
"Vell, hallo." said one, looming in the aisle like a beached whale. A beached whale with maggots. Aziraphale was torn between politeness and horror and settled for a combination of both.
She peered down at him. "Vot is ze matter?"
"...indigestion?"
She nodded in what was probably supposed to be a sympathetic manner, and sat down.
Her companion followed suit. Crowley began to make quiet choking noises.
Then he realized that he didn't actually need to breathe. This, he decided, would be a very useful thing on this flight.
"Agkj!" commented Aziraphale.
"Still glad we're doing this the normal way?" Crowley hissed at him.
Aziraphale stopped breathing. "We're being educated," he sniffed.
"We could be educated by getting torn apart by rabid bears, too."
Aziraphale did not technically sulk. Angels do not sulk because it makes them look truly ridiculous and, if they happen to be friends with demons, it tends to get them taunted cruelly and at great length. Instead, Aziraphale's eye twitched and he slid down in his seat dejectedly. Crowley, however, felt that it was perfectly acceptable for a demon to smirk and generally act as smug as possible for the duration of the flight.
"I need some tea," said Aziraphale.
"They don't serve tea on airplanes."
Aziraphale went completely still.
"Aziraphale? Az? Halloooo?"
"Mmgh." said Aziraphale in despair. "Do they at least serve liquor?"
"They do in the first class..."
Aziraphale stared blankly into the seat in front of him. "Why hast thou forsaken me, God?" he asked.
Crowley nobly refrained from making another comment about how bad of an idea this was.
The large Albanian woman on his left patted Aziraphale's arm sympathetically. "God haz not vorsaken you," she said. "God is vatching right now."
Aziraphale moaned softly.
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ALSO NOTE THE COMPLETE FABRICATION OF ALBANIAN ACCENTS AND/OR HYGIENE! We would like to formally apologize to any Albanians who may be reading this.
