a_fell | (no subject)

(no subject)

I.II.III.

Consciousness descends on him by inches, and with the growing light that has been edging onto his pillow comes the growing awareness that the other side of the bed is empty.

There's a terrible crick in his neck, as well; he remembers waking with a start after drifting off over his book last night, Crowley still snoring blithely on beside him, and crawling under the covers rather than waiting any longer for the demon to wake. He's slept the night through, and while he can see that it's still early morning outside, daylight has fully broken across the water.

He sits up carefully, rubbing at his neck as the crick fades. The suitcase abandoned last night is nowhere to be seen, but Crowley's watch is on top of the dresser, and a few of his own handkerchiefs are folded in a neat pile nearby. Someone's unpacked, then. He looks again at the sky out the window, frowning; it can't be more than nine yet.

He stands carefully, considers making the bed, and just as quickly discards the idea. He'll do it when he's getting dressed, perhaps.

He wanders into the kitchen with a vague idea of making some tea, discovers a bowl of apples on the counter, and glances out the window for the culprit. There on the veranda, hair lifting gently in the breeze, is Crowley.

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There's a pause (not a very long one), in which Crowley realises quite quickly that if he follows Aziraphael down that path, he's almost certain to lose.

The thought itself doesn't seem to disturb him much - but on the other hand, it's a matter of principle.

Diversionary tactic: "I hope you brought enough books for all the reading you're going to be doing."

There aren't many other distractions in the immediate vicinity, after all, and almost none that don't involve venturing out into the direct sunlight.

"I'm sure I brought enough," he replies. "There was no telling how far I'd have had to go to find an appropriate tree in Jamaica. It never hurts to be prepared."

Which suggests that there's a small truckload concealed in that ratty little suitcase. He doesn't seem to mind the diversionary tactic at all, as though the change of subject was expected.

"I think I feel sort of insulted," Crowley says vaguely, although he doesn't elaborate.

Insulted that Aziraphael thinks he wouldn't have picked a spot with adequate shade, perhaps?

Or perhaps insulted that Aziraphael thinks Crowley wouldn't have found ways of entertaining him.

It is a mystery!

"It isn't as though it's much different from what I do at home," he points out. "I just have to bring them a little farther. Or is the lack of variety what's insulting?" he asks, tilting his head back to look up at Crowley again.

"...No?" Crowley hazards, a little bemused.

Between Whitman, Wilde, and Mills & Boon, Aziraphael usually has a fairly varied reading list.

"No," he repeats, satisfied, and his head comes to rest at a normal angle once again.

"What's insulting, then?"

"Oh," Crowley says, waving a hand in the (rough) direction of the window. "Just that you'd - "

There's a long, considering pause.

"Well there would have been plenty to do in Kingston," he mutters.

"I'm sure there would," he concedes. "As I said, it never hurts to be prepared."

He raises a hand from Crowley's back and traces it across his eyebrow.

"We can go next time, perhaps."

"Bloody right, we will," Crowley agrees, which doesn't do a blessed thing to hide the sort of grin he's grinning.

(Aziraphael's hand might, still lingering by Crowley's temple. But then - he's seen it before, once or twice. It's not the sort you forget.)

He beams back at him in response, and moves his hand out of the way. He doesn't see it so often that he wouldn't mind missing it.

"Perhaps I'll leave a few more books at home, then."

"And I might see my way to doing one or two cultural activities in the shade, if you find any you can't survive without."

He says it with a benevolent - even gracious - air. So it's spoiled, rather, when he adds, "Just one or two, mind. And not on this sodding trip."

"Swim, walk, read, sit," he repeats dutifully.

"I'll just be somewhere close enough to watch. Reading."

All right, it wasn't entirely intentional that he let that part slip out, but it isn't as though it's a great secret.

"I won't go far," Crowley reassures him, which is more or less a lie.

He's still somewhat... languid at the moment, for reasons both obvious and extremely understandable. But beneath that, beyond it -

They say that energy can never be destroyed. Only transformed. It's one of the laws of physics, like that bit about reactions. Equal and opposite.

And the heat that's streaming down in the air and in the sunlight is seeping into Crowley's bones, and his muscles and his tendons and his stomach and his blood. And there - it changes.

He could go for miles.

"I hope not," he says, though he probably has some idea of what Crowley's like in this sort of heat.

"It makes me nervous when you just disappear. But I suppose that 'going far' is one of the reasons we came here."

"'We' nothing," Crowley points out complacently. "You're the one who - "

"Nervous?"

"Perhaps 'nervous' was a bit severe," he says, after a pause. "It's just that sometimes you're gone for hours when it's hot. And you always think you'll be right back."

He gives him a sheepish smile.

"I suppose it's not so terrible in the long run."

The expressions working their way across Crowley's face suggest that it's not so much the case that he doesn't know what to say, as that he doesn't know where to start.

(Something that might be a clue, though: they're all variations on 'amusement'.)

"Have we... not spent decades and decades not seeing each other once? Not even on the same landmass, even?"

Well, barely. The Isthmus of Corinth is a pretty shoddy excuse for a bridge.

"Of course we have; I don't mean there." He waves an dismissive hand, presumably taking in the rest of the world.

"I mean when we're on holiday and you say that you think you'll go see what's just over there, and you'll be right back, and then you don't come back for six hours and I imagine all sorts of terrible things."

He says it in a rush, and the sheepish look is back by the end.

"Aziraphael?" Mock-patient, and patiently mocking, for all the world as though Crowley himself doesn't live with a healthy dose of paranoia. "That's ridiculous."

"Yes, well," he repeats, mildly defiant. The message is clear: if Crowley wants to continue this line of questioning, he can expect a return to the 'soggy' subject from earlier. And no one wants that.

Though Aziraphael wouldn't mind.

"Yes," Crowley agrees, satisfied that Aziraphael thinks so too.

"Anyway," he says, after a thoughtful pause, "'s not as though you can't come find me."

He hesitates.

"It's much more difficult if you leave your shirt and jacket in the house," he points out.

"I suppose I could. In the sun."

"One or the other, Aziraphael," Crowley says.

It's accompanied by an eyeroll, but the demon's been marinating in afterglow for rather too long for it to be quite convincing.

"All right, all right," he says, doing his best to sound exasperated.

"Perhaps next time I'll look. But when I find you - well."

He sniffs, to convey that there will be Terrible Things, like five minutes of huffiness.

"Pff," Crowley says expressively. "The way you make it sound, when you find me, you'll be so relieved, you'll succumb to a fit of the vapours."