...Stays at Drunk Brunch [closed]

[eliotwaugh]

The sun is getting low, and it's causing infuriating little beams of light to filter through the branches of the trees outside and the curtains in his bedroom and dance a merry jig on Eliot's face. He is not prepared for this kind of happy sappy tomfoolery about the wonder of nature, because his head feels like someone has stuffed it full of knives.

Oh fuck, what even happened? How horrific (or successful) did the brunch get?

He tries to move, and that sets off a round of throbbing in his temples and he screws his eyes shut tight and exhales a sigh. Ugh, he smells like death, death and eggs. What time even is it? This is why he doesn't take naps. At least he's in his own bed this time, and not passed out on the floor.

He makes a second attempt at moving, at least to get his face out of the light, and this alerts him to the presence of someone else in the bed. Someone skinny and cute flopped half underneath him with a perfectly peaceful expression. That kind of dreamy contentment does not belong on the face of someone who showed up to brunch thinking it was a sexy date and oh god, who called Eliot his boyfriend oh no, it's starting to come back in a horrible flood of remembered images.

Eliot lurches upright, fighting against the pain and the dizziness, and frowns down at the sleeper.

"Wake the fuck up, Johnny."

finally you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world [closed]

[anguiform]

 The Devil hadn't wanted much with Crowley after he'd returned from dumping Aziraphale back at his bookshop. That, apparently, had merely been to reinforce the terms of their agreement; Crowley did what Lucifer said, and Aziraphale might get strung up and horribly tortured, but he'd be alive at the end of it. He'd had no immediate tasks that He wanted Crowley for, and, satisfied that Crowley had got the message (he had), He'd buggered off. Crowley had cranked up the heat as high as it would go, and crawled into bed to pass out, feeling more miserable than he had in centuries.

He wakes up a day and a half later, according to the fancy digital clock on his nightstand, and he still feels cold.

His flat is a wreck. Crowley spends a moment simply standing in his living room, gazing at what had once been a row of almost obscenely verdant plants, and is now a spill of shattered pottery, spilled dirt, and withered and frost-scorched stalks. One wall has scorchmarks on it, courtesy of his own infernal fires, and he feels an awful twist of guilt somewhere under his diaphragm. Crowley has never had much truck with guilt; it's bloody pointless when you're a demon, but occasionally, and more often as time has gone on, it's shouldered its way in anyway. And he shouldn't, he tells himself firmly. Aziraphale had as good as given him permission, and even if he hadn't, Crowley had saved his life, more or less; he doesn't doubt that Lucifer would simply have killed him if Crowley hadn't acquiesced to his terms.

So guilt, really, is pointless. Pointless.

It doesn't work.

Crowley goes to take a shower.

He turns the water up so hot it probably would scorch a human, but Crowley luxuriates in it, and scrubs himself pink under the spray.

He knows, of course, that he shouldn't go check on Aziraphale. The angel's fine, of course he's fine, and even if he weren't, the Devil is probably watching and the last thing Crowley needs is for Him to see him going to make sure his pet angel is all right like some kind of-- well, like whatever Crowley actually is. Aziraphale's flat and shop are both warded, and if Lucifer wants him for something and can't find him because he's behind a ward, he doesn't imagine that it'll go well for him. But he also knows that channel surfing will only entertain for so long, and so it's not at all to his own surprise that he finds himself, uncomfortably anxious, at Aziraphale's shop some few hours before noon.

There's no reason for the anxiety, he tells himself; he has never been anxious about seeing Aziraphale, but there's something twisting up his insides nevertheless as he slinks into the bookshop, the ever-present layer of dust muffling the closing of the door behind him. The angel is not in immediate evidence, and Crowley slides past the front desk towards the back room, where he suspects he's most likely to be, lifting his voice as he goes. 'Oi, Aziraphale! You here?'