There Will Come a Day: A Good Omens Fanfic

All the hearts flew to him

Aziraphale woke to his steward placing tea on the bedside table, the curtains to the porthole already drawn. He blinked, confused. He was alone in the bed. Someone had put a nightshirt on him, so he was modest enough not to offend the steward's sensibilities. Someone. Crowley could be oddly considerate at times. And it had been his own bedroom after all. He felt warm and refreshed and half drowned in syrup, his senses rested but deliciously sluggish, his eyes heavy. Was that was what sleeping did to you? No wonder Crowley liked it so much. All his problems were still there, but they felt cushioned by drowsiness.

"Morning, Mr Fell. Not like you to be still in bed. You're usually up and about with your books before I come in, and the bed made for us. We joke that you don't even sleep at all."

"Good morning, Charles," Aziraphale said, trying to clear his head. The very normality of the conversation was confusing him. "I suppose I read too late last night. Thank you, my dear, that's lovely." He took the tea.

The steward gave him a conspiratorial glance out of big dark eyes. "Your valet's still got his door closed. Always a bit nerve wracking, waking that one. Somehow I'm always afraid he'll bite me."

"Oh, Crowley's not so bad," Aziraphale said, a tiny bit of his brain delightedly storing "your valet" for later use. "Keeps his fangs sheathed most of the time. Leave his tea in the living room, if you prefer."

"Thanks, sir. I mean, he's not a bad valet, I suppose. Always keeps your things beautiful," Charles said, giving an admiring glance at Aziraphale's nautical outfit, which had somehow moved from the living room floor to being set out neatly for dressing. "But we are all a bit nervy around Mr Greasepot—if you don't mind me calling him that."

"Oh, I don't mind at all." Aziraphale sipped his tea and beamed at the steward. "He makes me nervous sometimes too," he confided.

"Well, it takes all sorts. For example, you know Daniel, I was telling you how he wouldn't leave my Maisie alone, despite her and me—"

Aziraphale realised with a kind of panic that Charles was settling himself in for one of his lengthy confidences about his trouble-ridden courtship of one of the maids. Although he usually had every sympathy and enjoyed their morning chats, he really didn't think it was the best idea to leave Crowley shut up in his room while he gossiped right now.

As if in answer to a silent prayer, the door to the other bedroom flung open, and Crowley flounced into the room. He glared at the innocent human. "Get out," he suggested.

Charles got out, so fast he left his trolley behind him.

"Oh dear," Aziraphale said. "I hope he doesn't get scolded. I hear the upper steward can be a real martinet." Aziraphale hesitated, then decided one frivolous miracle in the service of good wouldn't matter, and magicked the trolley outside the door.

"Valet! Last time I trust you to defend my honour." Crowley drew his lips back in a hiss. "As if a valet dressed like me."

"Some of them are very stylish," Aziraphale said reasonably. "I wouldn't take it as an insult—Mr Greasepot," he added quietly.

"Shut up. I'm going to make him suffer for that."

"You will not. He's a very pleasant and hardworking young man. Sending money to his mother back home."

"Some of which he lifts from passengers' side tables. Just a little bit. They have so much, it doesn't hurt. They don't even notice it."

"He does not—" Crowley grinned at him and Aziraphale pouted. "Well, if he does, who put the idea into his head?"