Nice: A Good Omens Fanfic

All the way back home at midnight (you were sleeping on my shoulder)

Crowley was sure he should feel something–happiness? Relief?–at averting the Apocalypse. Mostly he just felt exhausted, and not very well. The strain of murdering a fellow demon, losing Aziraphale and then being found by him again, holding the Bentley together, that last miracle, fear, not having had a straight answer from Aziraphale about whether he was coming back to the flat, all coalesced into just feeling tired, very tired indeed.

Aziraphale and he were sitting together on the bus, though. Crowley felt dimly that was nice. They often met up on buses to exchange notes, talking over the back of seats, or standing together trying not to fall over, but this was the first time seated comfortably side by side, expecting a long journey together. It felt significant, although it probably wasn't.

Fuck, he was tired.

The engine purred softly, the night landscape slipped past. He could hear the rustle of crisp packets, boring conversation, the driver's radio playng something inane. Crowley kept expecting the singer's voice to change to Freddie Mercury, or possibly Dagon, but it never did. Just remained a meaningless hum. He rubbed his temples.

"You can sleep, if you want," Aziraphale said. "I know you enjoy it. And it's been quite a long day."

"Shouldn't. Gotta think. Gotta figure things out," he muttered.

"Leave it to me. I'm really quite intelligent, for a stupid angel."

"Stupid angel," Crowley agreed, already nearly asleep. It was a relief to leave everything in someone else's hands.

He woke when the fellow passengers had finally noticed that the bus wasn't going to Oxford, and were raising objections with a confused driver. He didn't stir. He could feel Aziraphale's soft heat all down his side, and a comforting, warm weight through his trouser fabric, on his thigh.

Wait. Where had that come from, again?

He rolled his eyes carefully behind his glasses to check, making a point not to stir. There was a book in front of him. Aziraphale was clearly not worried enough about drawing attention to refrain from miracling up reading matter, although that was no guarantee of safety, as he couldn't be trusted to see sense about books in any situation. The way Crowley was slumped against him, the pages were clearly visible, something impossibly dry about brutalist architecture. That was nice, Crowley thought confusedly. Brutalism was his work, after all, and Aziraphale had resented the existence of brutalist monasteries.

Aziraphale was only holding the book with one hand. His other rested casually on Crowley's thigh.

Okay, it was important to remember to breathe. Presumably, as long as he pretended to be asleep, he could just sit there for hours, and... Well. They were cramped into the seats. Possibly Aziraphale had nowhere comfortable to keep his hand so he had just put it on Crowley's thigh for safekeeping, as it were. Corporeal forms were prone to irritations like pins and needles. It didn't mean anything.

He could shift in his sleep and cover Aziraphale's hand with his own. Or at least put his hand next to it, so their skin would touch along the sides. For some reason, this seemed far more terrifying and intimate a proposition than anything he had ever suggested to a human. And he had suggested quite a lot. None of it, suddenly, felt as significant as imagining Aziraphale's prickly-hot skin next to his hand.

"I do wish they would stop arguing," Aziraphale said, a little peevishly, and Crowley realised the angel knew he was awake. He straightened up in his seat, removing his head from Aziraphale's shoulder, flushing. "It's making it hard to read."

"They're a bit confused, to be fair." The hand wasn't moving.

"Such a fuss about nothing. The bus will take them to Oxford when they've dropped us off."

"Perhaps they have loved ones waiting for them, and want to see them." This was surreal. He was arguing with Aziraphale to be more sensitive to human emotions, and the angel's hand was still resting on his thigh, as if it was perfectly normal and something he did all the time. The world was a new one, and it seemed to be spinning off its axis.

"Patience is a virtue," Aziraphale said crossly, and Crowley grinned, happiness bubbling in his heart in a most undemonic way.

"Never mind, angel. So, where do you want to be dropped off?"

Aziraphale hesitated. "Well, I am sure a room will come free at the Savoy. Not that I need to sleep, but I could do with somewhere private to organise my thoughts."

"Offer's still open." Keep your voice causal, Crowley.

A sidelong glance, half stern, all twinkle. God, their faces were so close. Even in the artificial light of the bus, Azirphale's lashes were golden. "Are you trying to tempt me with your infernal luxury, fiend?"

"You adore luxury. The Savoy isn't exactly a caravan site, you know. But I don't know if you'd say my apartment was luxurious, really." Except the throne, he thought guiltily. Maybe he should get rid of the throne before Aziraphale saw it. "It's more modern industrial. Almost–"

Aziraphale glanced at his book. "Brutalist?"

"More contemporary than that. But I guess so, yes. I have caviar in the fridge," he wheedled.

Aziraphale sighed and closed his book. "It couldn't hurt to expand my horizons, I suppose."

Crowley hadn't even realised he had tensed until he relaxed back into a slouch. It felt like an incredible victory. "Right," he said casually. "You'll like the greenery, anyway. Just don't be too soft on them, or I'll have to make them pay for it later."

Maybe he still had time to miracle away the throne.

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Aziraphale seemed to dismiss the thought. "Oh, well, it's probably for the best. Do you have reference books on–oh, of course not."

"I have the internet. Plenty of books on the internet. Plenty of reference material on the internet, even religious stuff," said Crowley, although he mostly used the internet to convince people to get into fights on social media. He'd seen the potential in the internet as soon as he'd heard of it and was right into bulletin boards, inventing spam. He had never thought to get a modem or data plan or, indeed, a telephone line, but it worked perfectly anyway.

"But the internet is so slow. "

"Only because you bought your computer in the eighties, and it was a piece of rubbish then. It's a miracle you can go online at all."

"Possibly, possibly," Aziraphale conceded guiltily.

I'll buy him a better computer, Crowley thought in a rush of generous feeling. Something with massive brainpower, like his. Something that will store all the books in the world. And a mobile phone, so I can always reach him. He'll miss his shop at first, but he'll have fun looking for a new collection, and the computer will help. We can rebuild. If we live to do so.

He was acutely conscious of the warmth on his thigh. He'd be damned–saved–something if he was going to let them be separated or die, now that things like this were happening.

Notes:

1) I will get back to the fallout from Crowley's needling about angelic love next chapter. It's not like this thing is linear any way.

2) Chapter title from the Pet Shop Boys' "Liberation." I don't know why I associate the PSBs with Good Omens almost as much as I do with Queen--perhaps because I listened to them so much while reading it, back in the day. On my off-brand Walkman. Gosh. Anyway, the song came up on my playlist, this chapter happened.

3) Image by arnauldlamure0 from Pixabay