Meet My Invisible Friends

Not because of a birthday or anything. That video where David Tennant talks about how he likes paying taxes because of schools and the NHS and shit was so incredibly attractive.

Summary: Not Season Three Compliant!

Thanks to the rather limited duration of their new mortal lives, Aziraphale and Crowley wasted no time deciding they wanted to spend their time together. Within twenty-four hours they had accomplished a surprising amount of kissing, one decent orgasm each, and a rapid introduction to hunger, thirst, fatigue, and other baffling features of the human condition. (See previous fic in the series!)

Over the next few months, everything starts to fall neatly into place. With the notable exception of their ability to actually say how they feel. Naturally, they get there in the end; there would be little point in telling the story otherwise. Unfortunately, getting there requires a number of failed attempts, several near-confessions, a handful of arguments, a few reconciliations, and rather a lot of sex. They do, at least, learn something about themselves and their relationship in the process.

@goodomensafterdark

Wordcount: 4400/80k

Rating: E for sex reasons, mind the tags, specific triggers to be noted at the top of individual chapters.

A/N: This will be an out-of-order series of snapshots from their first three months of living mortal, human lives. It follows on from ‘In the Interests of Time’ but you don’t necessarily need to read that first. You also don’t really need to read this in order (with the exception of a few pairs of chapters which are single events split across two chapters because those events got out of hand wordcount wise). I think this works best read front to back and not in temporal order but who knows?! I’ll post the chronology at the end for anyone who wants to try!

Thank you enormously to Unicornbeck who has left me dozens and dozens of lovely comments over the years and who left this very wonderful and reasonable note just before the epilogue got posted for ‘In the Interests of Time’:

I have but one request, but it’s rude to expect an author to obey the whims of one reader among many. I’m going to spill it because like Eric before me, I CANNOT keep my mouth shut, but please understand I’m expressing a yearning that A) you put there (I’m pointing at you) and B) you are under no obligation to fulfill. I will not be hurt or offended if you ignore me for what your story needs. My begged ask is just this, because let’s face it: you’ve edged us all, here: Words of love

Which is a totally awesome comment to receive and I responded very reasonably with something along the lines of:

Nah. I’ve already written the epilogue and Crowley’s shit at feelings and I cannot figure out how to make him say it.

Although I was probably nicer about it. I then thought about it for a little bit — especially in the aftermath of season three (which has absolutely no connection to this fic thank you very much) — and became quite unreasonably obsessed and now, here we are. Twelve chapters and close to 70k words, all squarely focussed on ‘words of love’.

But I will argue that at least I am not ‘edging’ anyone because you get an ‘I love you’ right out the gate. No tricks or gimmicks here (okay lots of tricks and gimmicks). This has been an absolute blast to write and I hope it hangs together how it does in my head. Telling the story out of order is always a bit terrifying so I hope it makes sense.

Thanks to Narumila and u/ModernDayKlutz for jumping on board as betas! They’ve managed to dive right into a messy 70k and hardly even blink at the absurdity, not to mention wading through some very verbose sex scenes (as usual). Their notes and corrections have been big improvements!!

And thanks to all of you for reading! Enjoy chapter one which just so happens to sit about halfway through our three month journey!

Excerpt:

“I love you.” Aziraphale states it casually across the little dining table in the back room of the bookshop while Crowley makes a mess of a warm pain au chocolat. 

Crowley doesn’t stop chewing but he grins around a mouthful, white teeth shining and his lips flecked with crumbs. His nose scrunches in pleasure as he rolls his eyes and chocolate smears from between the pastry layers to drip down the back of his hand. 

Aziraphale smiles back at him before taking a sip of his tea. He watches Crowley cram more of his breakfast into his mouth and then lick his fingers, all without pausing to swallow. Crowley grunts some sort of unintelligible response that definitely isn’t an attempt to say it back, nor is it resistance to hearing it, before finally washing the pasty down with large gulps of his morning coffee.