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Entry tags:

good omens (d2) a.j. crowley

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Characters: Aziraphale (

extutela) and Crowley (

exserpens)
Time: Monday night
Location: The Ritz
Summary: Crowley and Aziraphale's realities have merged, giving Aziraphale access to the Ritz (in one nice and orderly piece, anyway) for the first time in well over a decade. Naturally they have to meet for dinner! Except things went very not-as-planned the last time they saw each other, so this might be interesting.
Warnings: Light language (I think...I forget), really vague sexytiems, and lots of awkward. :|b

It felt odd, meeting the angel at their intended destination instead of picking him up halfway there. It'd become habit over the years, an automatic swing through Soho before continuing on to the Ritz, or whatever they'd planned for the evening.

If anything, though, the last five months had been fantastic for breaking old habits.

Slipping out of the flat had been remarkably easy, given that Henrietta wasn't even speaking to him any more. She'd started leaving notes around the flat when she needed something, wanted to call his attention to something. He'd tried knocking at her door, reasoning through the door, sliding things under the door, but had eventually come to realise that he was doing just that: interacting with the door, not his 'daughter.' Before he'd left for the evening tonight he'd stuck a bright yellow post-it to the centre of her door, letting her know that he'd be out for the next few hours at least.

She'd probably rejoiced when the Bentley pulled away.

He left the keys with the valet out front, sliding through the front doors into the lobby of the Ritz London. His message for Aziraphale hadn't been entirely clear on a meeting place, because that was the sort of mindset Crowley was in these days. Ah, well. He took up an unoccupied section of wall, resolving to wait for another few minutes before grabbing a table and letting the angel sort things out himself.

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Aziraphale came from the uppermost floors, having just secured his charges in their new quarters. They marveled, laughed, cried, and for once not because of loss. It made him feel good. It made him think that maybe this wasn't such a bad thing after all.

Habit made him take the stairs, entering the lobby from an angle that felt completely unfamiliar. Of course, the whole building felt completely unfamiliar at this point.

He nearly missed Aziraphale's entry into the lobby, not anticipating that the angel might have been upstairs. It made sense though, he reasoned, staring vaguely toward the staircase and the angel through the dark lenses of his sunglasses. If the world were ending around him, Crowley would probably shack up in the Ritz as well.

All right, scratch the 'probably' on that one.

Without a word, the demon pushed away from the section of wall he'd been holding up and sauntered over toward the entrance to the Ritz restaurant, assuming that the angel would follow along after him. It mightn't have been the best of ideas, not saying a word, given the last time they'd seen each other...but there would be plenty of time for awkward conversation later, he was certain.

Oh dear, there went Crowley, and Az resisted the urge to hurry after him, instead walking as sedately as he could. Was he angry? Was he enacting part of a ritual entrance that Aziraphale, in the comparatively short period between now and before luxurious life ended, had forgotten?

He gestured at Crowley when he entered the restaurant, a vague indication--I'm with him.

With him. Az bit the inside of his cheek and followed Crowley to the usual table for the first time in twenty-odd years.

The dining room was busy, tiny white cloth-covered tables crowded with the wealthy and influential of London and beyond. The red, vaguely heart-shaped chairs and yellow lighting gave the room a warm feel, cozy now that the light through the windows was dying. Never mind that the restaurant was the sort one had to have reservations for weeks in advance; Crowley had never made a reservation for anything. They knew him, knew his preferences, and knew that most times he was accompanied by the blond, bespectacled gentleman tagging along behind—Aziraphale needn't have worried on that score.

By the time they reached the table, the house's best wine had already arrived. Crowley took one of the seats, waiting a moment for Aziraphale to be seated as well before speaking.

"Thanks for coming," he said evenly, just loudly enough to be overheard above the hum of the dining crowd.

The formality stung. Az ran one hand over the tablecloth, enjoying the feel of cloth that had never been bloodstained. He could still tell. Even now, he could always tell. "You're welcome."

He didn't know what else to say, how to make what had happened all right.

Crowley knew it was his fault they were treating each other as if they'd just been introduced. It was all his bloody fault lately, wasn't it? Henrietta not speaking to him, the...incident in the Astral bar the other night...

Before he realised what he was doing, half of his first glass of wine was already gone. Propriety and company be damned, the demon reached up and loosened the tie at his throat, feeling that air would be sort of fantastic at this point. At this rate he might not even need dinner, as long as they kept the wine coming.

"Look," he began, eyes never trailing farther up than the collar of the angel's shirt, "I'm sorry. About the bar, I mean. We should just, you know, forget about it, right? Never happened."

"Yes." Very, very quietly. "Of course."

After all, this wasn't his Crowley. This Crowley had a life, a London that still looked like the Ritz--whole, lit up, alive. He was, in all the small important ways, a stranger. Az had never seen his flat, didn't know the child he looked after, who knew what else had changed?

He poured himself a glass of wine. Stopped. Set the bottle aside. "If you would prefer I go..."

He felt his throat tighten, despite having loosened his tie only moments previous. Clearly that hadn't been the right thing to say.

"No," he replied quickly, reaching a hand out to grab Aziraphale's wrist before the other man could move, get up, walk away. Crowley somehow got the feeling that if the angel left now, things would never be right between them again. They might not be right again anyway, because the chances of them clearing this whole thing up in one night were staggeringly dismal, but they had to at least make some kind of effort, didn't they?

A moment passed with the demon only partially aware that he hadn't removed his hand from Aziraphale's wrist quite yet. "I'm sorry," he said at last. "I don't think I meant that quite how it came out."

He closed his eyes, let a slow breath fall and hoped it didn't sound like relief. ...it was, but that was beside the point.

"It... it's all right. You never were particularly good with words. Not enough Wilde." Yes, the joke is feeble, but at least it's a joke.

It took a second for the joke to register as such, lighting a weak smile on the demon's face when it finally did so. Crowley even managed to squelch most of the old, familiar pang of jealousy that flared in his chest whenever he heard the name.

"Miserable hack," he chuckled quietly.

One of them needed to decide where the conversation should go from that point and Crowley, frankly, hadn't the vaguest idea. Thankfully (or not), the waiter made the choice for them, choosing this point to reappear and ask for their selections for the evening. Crowley self-consciously released the angel's wrist.

Az drew his hands off the table, slowly enough to (hopefully) indicate that it wasn't to get them away from Crowley. He stared at the waiter, at a loss as to what to order.

Exercising a suavity heretofore unseen up to this point in the night, Crowley took over the conversation with the waiter, ordering the venison for both himself and Aziraphale. As the waiter departed again, Crowley reached for the bottle of wine and topped off both glasses, then proceeded to drain his halfway again within seconds.

"If you don't end up liking it, there's always dessert." It was his own feeble attempt at teasing his companion; that seemed to be where they were at right now. It was better than nothing, at least.

A moment of quiet fidgeting, then, "How are you? The park--is that still the only effect that you've noticed?"

He glanced around the room, as though somehow they would be overheard, discovered, as though something awful waited under the tablecloth of the rotund man eating two spaces down. He wasn't used to this any more. It made him feel awkward and nervous and out of place. Get used to it. You'll be staying here now, some little Crowleyish voice whispered. Yes. He would. Nervous or not, in here, in the warmth and the aristocratic daydream of it, he could almost feel safe.

"So far." The answer to that question was far simpler than the former. "No marauding bands of angels yet that I've seen."

It wasn't as if anyone overhearing the conversation would know what to think of it anyway, but Crowley nevertheless sent a little nudge of power out through the room, altering reality just enough so that no one would overhear them period. It was the same sort of effect he used to ensure that driving well over the speed limit through the middle of London didn't get anyone killed—not that he stopped aiming for them in the meanwhile.

"You've got a room here, then?"

"Yes." He brightens at that. "We finished moving everyone in today, as a matter of fact. I think the people at the desk were somewhat alarmed by the general state of dress, but--" Er. He blushed. "I made sure they didn't mind."

The waiter reappeared just then, bearing a tray with salad and appetizers and cutting Crowley off just as he'd opened his mouth to ask what the angel meant. To cover it, the demon sipped at his wine until the waiter disappeared once more, leaving them with a full table.

"...everyone?"

He hadn't even considered the angel moving others into the Ritz as well, let alone the several others that 'everyone' sort of implied.

"Well. Yes." He was a bit surprised at Crowley's surprise, but then, he hadn't really talked much about his--clan? Tribe? Accidental adoptees? "I couldn't exactly move in here without them. And the children are safer this way."

The demon blinked in surprise—only once, but he didn't blink often ordinarily.

"I...suppose that makes sense," he managed, barely suppressing a laugh. Leave it to an angel to bring a group of apocalyptic misfits to the Ritz, eh? He would've paid to see the initial look on the hotel staff's faces before Aziraphale had influenced them.

More than that, it reminded him that Aziraphale was indeed caring for people, and children at that. The idea struck him in about the same way he imagined the idea of himself taking care of a child had originally struck Aziraphale. Certainly angels were all about caring and giving, displays of charity, all that rubbish, and Aziraphale had always done his best in those regards. Still, he couldn't push the image of the stand-offish bookseller out of his head that easily.

"How many rooms did you take?" he asked, fighting a smirk. "Please tell me you were at least selfish enough to take one for yourself?"

"Yes." Oh Someone, yes. It was Christmas and Easter and every other holy holiday's worth of good cheer to breathe his own air in his own space again. "I did. I sort of..." And again that awkward blush. "Took a floor?"

Edited 2009-02-04 02:22 (UTC)

There was no use fighting the laughter on that one. He did, however, manage to keep it to a dull roar so as not to cause a scene in the middle of the restaurant.

"Good for you," he grinned. "Nice to see they haven't beaten the bastard out of you quite yet." I rather like that part.

Neither of them had so much as touched the food yet. Crowley picked up his fork, intending to at least make a show of pushing the lettuce around in his salad a bit before the main course arrived. "Just think, perhaps next merger you'll be able to get a flat of your own, eh? Another bookshop?"

"It--that wasn't a bastard thing to do." He fidgeted. "We need the space." They do! Or well. They might. Eventually.

And besides, he's only using two of the rooms himself. He looked down and started eating the salad with more enthusiasm than he actually felt. But it was tasty.

He chose not to push the bit about Aziraphale getting his own place just yet—it was still early in the evening, after all, and the fact that he hadn't even acknowledged the idea meant that it was something he wasn't comfortable talking about just yet.

Plenty of time to push him on it later.

Crowley continued to toy with his food, consuming far more of the wine than the actual meal. At this rate they would need another bottle before long.

"How many are there, anyway? The children and such."

He paused, frowning. "There are fi--four, excuse me, between ten and sixteen, and one newborn, and then... twenty...? Three. Twenty-three between twenty and forty or so. That's excluding the angels."

He finished off his salad and poured himself some more wine, before taking a tentative poke at the appetizers.

Edited 2009-02-04 03:40 (UTC)

Crowley's fork paused halfway between his plate and his mouth, leaving him to stare, gaping, at Aziraphale.

"Angels?"

He replaced the fork on the plate quickly and glanced around for potential eavesdroppers (more a force of habit than anything, considering he'd already taken care of that little problem) before leaning over the table a bit closer to the angel. "You didn't...don't tell me you've brought angels with you as well?"

And there he is stuck in that classic pose, fork half-way to his wide open mouth. "Er. Yes?"

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