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May. 14th, 2006 02:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nnyMilliways-verse Crowley/Raguel as requested by Sophie, based on this icon.
I'm afraid I didn't quite manage the 'civil partnership' feel, love, but I hope it suffices.
On the wall by the ridiculously expensive fridge (which is humming quietly to itself despite never having been plugged in), a pinboard. It doesn't fit in with the theme of the kitchen; something bright and hard-edged and metal with uniform magnets would have suited. Not corkboard and unattractive (though durable) wood, coloured pins of all shapes and sizes. It's one of the few reminders left.
It's not as though they are needed.
The pinboard is emptier than it used to be. The programme from a local independent cinema has been taken down, sushi restaurant menus, snatches of poetry, the odd (when he remembered) post card. A couple of curling post-its. There are new postcards in their place, mismatched and brightly coloured; only one of them looks odd without the detritus that had once surrounded it.
Postcard #1: A fire extinguisher, artistically photographed in black and white.
Aziraphael had been horrified.
Crowley had stared for a moment or two, eyes wide behind dark glasses, then hooted with laughter. That bastard. There was no message on the back, but then there didn't have to be; angels had twisted senses of humour.
He'd carefully selected two white pins and given it pride of place in the centre of the board as Aziraphael had stared at him like he'd lost his mind and then tutted and sighed that 'boys will be boys' in a long-suffering tone that had had Crowley pushing him up against the living room until he was... sorry.
Crowley makes sure not to think about that part of it.
He'd sent back a picture of a defenseless white mouse with tiny biro-drawn wings being slowly devoured by an enormous snake with carefully coloured sunglasses. Aziraphael had insisted on writing something polite and apologetic on the back, as a condition of it being sent.
The second postcard is almost obscured by others; just a small section of colour and a patch of black is visible.
Postcard #2: A Warhol postcard covered in Mickey Mouse
It was the first post he'd received since. Since. And before he even got to the hallway, even from the stairs, he could tell it wasn't from - the angel'd never liked pop art.
He was grateful for that.
No words on the back. No comfort would have meant anything in any case and just that it was sent was enough.
He didn't send anything in return.
He's received a number of polite postcards from Aziraphael. He keeps them seperately, filed in date order, in a box under his bed. Sometimes he takes them out to look at them, but less and less frequently these days.
'Time to think' is on a different scale when you're six thousand years old.
Postcard #3: Not a postcard at all. A battered and ripped ticket to a night out - folk and country bands, to judge by the names.
Of course he hadn't intended to go. It was just that he didn't happen to be doing anything else and country music fans probably deserved to be corrupted in any case. He got hit on by a girl who claimed, wide-eyed and earnest, to actually be called Peggy Sue, he'd inspired a fight between two rather large gentleman over who had trod on which hat, and he'd had some surprisingly decent beer. It wasn't a bad night, all told.
It'd taken some doing, scouting around, but eventually he'd found an enormously tasteless post card featuring pigs in straw hats. On the back he'd scrawled 'heaven has no taste' in his spidery writing.
He was trying to be ironic, and he was trying to let on that he'd enjoyed it without any admission of the sort.
He got the impression that Raguel would understand.
Lucifer's postcard had been burned long since. It wasn't the sort of picture (a white feather, burning, slowly turning black) that you'd be likely to find anywhere other than art galleries, museums.
On the back he'd mentioned the weather, in LA. On the back he'd mentioned how much he'd been seeing of Raguel, and Crowley could picture the way his mouth would have curled around the words, and he told himself he had no idea why the H- why Lucifer would have sent it to him.
He waited anxiously for the post, each day, before he'd consider leaving the flat.
Postcard #4: A donkey up a minaret.
It's an old story: A donkey sees an open doorway and walks through it. And there are stairs to climb, sure, until there aren't any more and there's no room to turn around and there's no bloody way you'll get a donkey to walk backwards down stairs.
Seems like the only option is to let the dumb beast fall.
But the serpent is the most subtle of the beasts, damn it, and there are ways and there are means. There's always another option.
He sends a postcard back of a carrot on a stick, and he tells himself that it's only because he refuses to let Lucifer win this one. He tells himself it's because the devil's bloody annoying when he's smug.
Postcard #5: Plain white.
No picture, this time. Nothing to detract from the simple message on the back: Is that an invitation?
And he's still thinking about it, still trying to decide, when he picks up the postcard to send back. A crudely drawn cartoon: Lemmings. Cliff. 'Great minds,' it says, 'think alike.'
It can be.
Postcard #6: A Moroccan goat in a tree
There's really not been that much need for postcards but Raguel had bought this one, just the same. It had been blu-tacked to the door in the little room Raguel'd found in Camberwell and it'd stayed there for maybe a year, maybe two, along with all the cards Crowley'd sent him. Eventually it'd made the move to the bottom right hand corner of the pinboard beside the fridge.
It amuses him that Raguel seems to associate himself with farmyard animals.
But it - something about it prompts a double take, something completely out of place but comfortable there - it makes sense.
There's space, still, on the noticeboard. And it's three years, this weekend, since Raguel came to London. And Crowley's bought the same postcard again, carefully redrawn the tiny wings and painstakingly coloured the sunglasses.
And every time he looks at it, it makes him grin. This time, there's bloody subtext.
I'm afraid I didn't quite manage the 'civil partnership' feel, love, but I hope it suffices.
On the wall by the ridiculously expensive fridge (which is humming quietly to itself despite never having been plugged in), a pinboard. It doesn't fit in with the theme of the kitchen; something bright and hard-edged and metal with uniform magnets would have suited. Not corkboard and unattractive (though durable) wood, coloured pins of all shapes and sizes. It's one of the few reminders left.
It's not as though they are needed.
The pinboard is emptier than it used to be. The programme from a local independent cinema has been taken down, sushi restaurant menus, snatches of poetry, the odd (when he remembered) post card. A couple of curling post-its. There are new postcards in their place, mismatched and brightly coloured; only one of them looks odd without the detritus that had once surrounded it.
Postcard #1: A fire extinguisher, artistically photographed in black and white.
Aziraphael had been horrified.
Crowley had stared for a moment or two, eyes wide behind dark glasses, then hooted with laughter. That bastard. There was no message on the back, but then there didn't have to be; angels had twisted senses of humour.
He'd carefully selected two white pins and given it pride of place in the centre of the board as Aziraphael had stared at him like he'd lost his mind and then tutted and sighed that 'boys will be boys' in a long-suffering tone that had had Crowley pushing him up against the living room until he was... sorry.
Crowley makes sure not to think about that part of it.
He'd sent back a picture of a defenseless white mouse with tiny biro-drawn wings being slowly devoured by an enormous snake with carefully coloured sunglasses. Aziraphael had insisted on writing something polite and apologetic on the back, as a condition of it being sent.
The second postcard is almost obscured by others; just a small section of colour and a patch of black is visible.
Postcard #2: A Warhol postcard covered in Mickey Mouse
It was the first post he'd received since. Since. And before he even got to the hallway, even from the stairs, he could tell it wasn't from - the angel'd never liked pop art.
He was grateful for that.
No words on the back. No comfort would have meant anything in any case and just that it was sent was enough.
He didn't send anything in return.
He's received a number of polite postcards from Aziraphael. He keeps them seperately, filed in date order, in a box under his bed. Sometimes he takes them out to look at them, but less and less frequently these days.
'Time to think' is on a different scale when you're six thousand years old.
Postcard #3: Not a postcard at all. A battered and ripped ticket to a night out - folk and country bands, to judge by the names.
Of course he hadn't intended to go. It was just that he didn't happen to be doing anything else and country music fans probably deserved to be corrupted in any case. He got hit on by a girl who claimed, wide-eyed and earnest, to actually be called Peggy Sue, he'd inspired a fight between two rather large gentleman over who had trod on which hat, and he'd had some surprisingly decent beer. It wasn't a bad night, all told.
It'd taken some doing, scouting around, but eventually he'd found an enormously tasteless post card featuring pigs in straw hats. On the back he'd scrawled 'heaven has no taste' in his spidery writing.
He was trying to be ironic, and he was trying to let on that he'd enjoyed it without any admission of the sort.
He got the impression that Raguel would understand.
Lucifer's postcard had been burned long since. It wasn't the sort of picture (a white feather, burning, slowly turning black) that you'd be likely to find anywhere other than art galleries, museums.
On the back he'd mentioned the weather, in LA. On the back he'd mentioned how much he'd been seeing of Raguel, and Crowley could picture the way his mouth would have curled around the words, and he told himself he had no idea why the H- why Lucifer would have sent it to him.
He waited anxiously for the post, each day, before he'd consider leaving the flat.
Postcard #4: A donkey up a minaret.
It's an old story: A donkey sees an open doorway and walks through it. And there are stairs to climb, sure, until there aren't any more and there's no room to turn around and there's no bloody way you'll get a donkey to walk backwards down stairs.
Seems like the only option is to let the dumb beast fall.
But the serpent is the most subtle of the beasts, damn it, and there are ways and there are means. There's always another option.
He sends a postcard back of a carrot on a stick, and he tells himself that it's only because he refuses to let Lucifer win this one. He tells himself it's because the devil's bloody annoying when he's smug.
Postcard #5: Plain white.
No picture, this time. Nothing to detract from the simple message on the back: Is that an invitation?
And he's still thinking about it, still trying to decide, when he picks up the postcard to send back. A crudely drawn cartoon: Lemmings. Cliff. 'Great minds,' it says, 'think alike.'
It can be.
Postcard #6: A Moroccan goat in a tree
There's really not been that much need for postcards but Raguel had bought this one, just the same. It had been blu-tacked to the door in the little room Raguel'd found in Camberwell and it'd stayed there for maybe a year, maybe two, along with all the cards Crowley'd sent him. Eventually it'd made the move to the bottom right hand corner of the pinboard beside the fridge.
It amuses him that Raguel seems to associate himself with farmyard animals.
But it - something about it prompts a double take, something completely out of place but comfortable there - it makes sense.
There's space, still, on the noticeboard. And it's three years, this weekend, since Raguel came to London. And Crowley's bought the same postcard again, carefully redrawn the tiny wings and painstakingly coloured the sunglasses.
And every time he looks at it, it makes him grin. This time, there's bloody subtext.
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Date: 2006-05-14 09:46 am (UTC)I can't.
I am laughing and crying at once, because oh. And yes, but no, because--
You know.
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Date: 2006-05-14 09:50 am (UTC)*grins*
I had to be all coy and subtle about it because GO is totally my only OTP fandom.
*ssssad*
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Date: 2006-05-14 02:31 pm (UTC)Very, very well-written, my dear.
Ow.
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Date: 2006-05-14 02:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-14 03:47 pm (UTC)I know that was my reaction before, but it hasn't changed much. I love the way the whole plot is related through the postcards, both the ones that are on the pinboard and the ones that are elsewhere or destroyed.
It makes me go aww in a really strange way - I'm a sucker for a happy ending, but of course there's That Other Matter that's very much present throughout. I think it must be incredibly challenging to write this pairing since it's exclusively Millific, and you can't ever just pretend that Aziraphael is off somewhere cheerfully keeping to the Arrangement. There's a feeling that no matter how happy the ending, something greater was lost and so there's this bittersweet quality that stays in your gut. Yes, I consider this a good thing. ;)
That said, the last line KILLED me ded. Also, the Peggy Sue reference made me giggle - Buddy Holly is like the token soundtrack of AU Good Omens. XD