Nice: A Good Omens Fanfic

In which paintball isn't nice

Sometimes Crowley admitted to himself, deep in the serpentine depths of what passed for his heart, that angels did some things better.

Keeping up sartorial standards, for instance. Not style, Satan still had that market cornered, and no one had called tartan bow ties stylish in several decades. Still, there was no doubt that over the last few thousand years after the Fall, the hosts of Hell had let their standards slip. Look at Beezlebub. Or rather, smell them. Catch Gabriel or Michael going around smelling like that. It was embarrassing.

Aziraphale smelled rather nice. Like old whiskey and morning rains and warm fur and an almost undetectable undercurrent of incense.

"Just miracle it away, angel."

"I'll still know it was there. You know, deep down underneath it all."

They were both of angelic stock, and Aziraphale's coat was if anything better up to standard than Crowley's jacket, splash of blue paint aside. That was a perfectably reasonable, er, reason, to call on a minor demonic miracle. Oh Satan, restore this jacket.

It was nothing at all to do with the beseeching, decidedly not up to standards puppy-dog eyes Aziraphale was turning on him. Or the way he then looked at Crowley, as if a run-to-seed demon was absolutely the most wonderful and nicest being in creation.

Aziraphale's cheeks pinked and his gaze dropped, and Crowley was already catching himself smiling indulgently when reality hit him in the face like a dead frog.

It wasn't just that Aziraphale determinedly saw the best in everyone, even his Adversary. It was that it really had been a nice thing to do, hadn't it? It had hardly been required by the Arrangement, a functional miracle now swapped for a quick temptation later.Crowley found himself desperately searching for excuses, like he had for his actions back in the Blitz. Aziraphale had clearly been upset by the stain. If the angel was fussing and pouting it could delay the search for the Antichrist by precious minutes. But then, so would getting drunk together on century old brandy and Crowley was definitely planning on that tonight.

It had felt nice. Being nice. Specifically, doing something nice for Aziraphale and have Aziraphale show he felt Crowley was nice.

Bloody angel, with his blushes and pouts and shining eyes and complete obliviousness to how much trouble Crowley could get into Down There for being nice to an angel. As if losing the Antichrist wasn't enough. Tempting Crowley into niceness.

He leaned over and picked up a gun, feeling it in his hands, feeling the weight and balance change as he pointed it at Aziraphale, rage flickering behind his yellow eyes. What was the angel saying? Something about guns lending moral weight?

He'd show them who was nice. It definitely wasn't Crowley.

oooo

Of course, the plan would have worked better if Crowley wasn't, deep down, also weak as non-holy water.

"They'll all have miraculous escapes," he admitted. "It wouldn't be fun, otherwise."

Aziraphale beamed. Dear Satan, he really did beam, as if it was still the nineteenth bloody century. Nobody beamed these days. Only Arizaphale. "You know," the angel said, radiating joy and affection, "I've always said that, deep down, you were really quite a ni–"

The rage swelled up, over an uncurrent of what was probably terror, and the next thing he had Aziraphale against the wall, and he really wasn't certain what was going to happen if they really did fight. Technically, as a serpent, he had been a Seraphim, and that supposedly made him more powerful than a mere Principality, and his bodily vessel was certainly in better shape than Aziraphale's, but Aziraphale was still in a state of Grace and–