#goevents

An Ending (Ascent)

July, 1969

Somehow he’d forgotten it was today, even though it was all over the papers and it was all the radio announcers spoke of. A dozen people stood outside Tyler’s, crowding around the Sony Trinitron display, and he remembered that up in the darkness, in the vast blackness beyond the Earth’s thin atmosphere, a tiny ship circled the barren moon.

Aziraphale joined the fringes of the crowd and he could just about see the flickering, grainy images through the bobbing heads, just about hear some man’s voice droning on about modules and landers and fuel. The picture wasn’t of space but some BBC studio somewhere, Earthbound men in ties nattering on. 

The astronauts were suspended up there in their little origami spaceship, poised between Worlds. Crowley had explained it all to him, sketched it all out on his back when they’d laid in his bed. It had been incomprehensible. And it wasn’t that he was bad at numbers, you had to be good at doing maths in your head at St Thomas’s. But the way Crowley had described the Newtonian mechanics of it all made his head spin. Trajectory, velocity, acceleration, deceleration.

(Crowley’s fingers drawing circles and flight paths on the bare skin of his back, his low voice gone soft, a smile in it, instead of teeth. That’s what had made him dizzy. Not the numbers, not the idea of being in a tiny little shoebox in the sky. Just a precious human thing, skin on skin, the two of them lying there in the dark.)

This is my preview for the Good Aumens event, written for the prompt “doctor”, coming on June 7.

“Crowley, can I ask you something?” Aziraphale says. On the TV an attractive man is halfway through dismantling a perfectly lovely set of 19th century stairs and replacing them with some slat and iron offense to good taste. 

It is twenty years before Armageddon, five years since the first dinner at the Ritz, hours since a picnic in St James park, minutes since Crowley asked, “nightcap at mine?’ and mere moments since Crowley panicked and invented HGTV five years early to distract from what it might mean that Aziraphale said yes.   

It is also just shy of thirteen years before certain events would transpire to set in motion the End of Days. But to the demon trying to work up the nerve to put his arm around the angel on the couch and to the angel trying to work up the nerve to let him, it still seems that they have all the time in the world. 

“Do you think I ought to renovate?” Aziraphale continues. 

“Oh,” Crowley says, still thinking about the warmth of a picnic blanket in the afternoon sun, about watching Aziraphale close his lips around a candied walnut and the secret idea, old and well worn, I could feed him by hand, followed closely by a newer realization, bright and startling: he might let me. “The bookshop you mean?” 

“Oh, no...er....” Aziraphale looks down at the curves of his body. “It’s just by now this corporation is quite old. A bit frayed. I can’t imagine you like it much. I thought of asking for a new one before our picnic today, but it wouldn’t have come in time. The incorporation department is on backlog.” 

Crowley gapes. “What?” 

“Well, I think it’s comfortable, but it's a bit...soft. 19th century. It’s silly of me to be attached to a corporation when it’s all just...furniture really.”

“Just...furniture.” Crowley repeats. “You were planning to go up...up there. Acquire a new body, show up at the park, and expect me to be all, well I hated that wallpaper anyway or much better now that you have an open plan kitchen. That’s what you expected?” 

“Er…” Aziraphale says. “I’m afraid I’ve lost the metaphor. Anyway, I rather thought you would compliment my biceps.” 

“What the Heaven has gotten into you?” Crowley hisses. “Hang on, did Gabriel come by the shop again?” 

Aziraphale’s shoulders wilt. “He sent a memo. I didn’t want to tell you earlier for fear of spoiling the picnic.”

“It was a lovely picnic,” Crowley says fiercely. 

“It rather was, wasn’t it?” Aziraphale’s smile is soft but hesitant.

“For the record, I like the wallpaper,” Crowley says. The tips of his ears go red.

“You...you do?” 

“Course I do angel, I...I like you.” 

“Oh.” Aziraphale’s cheeks have gone red to match Crowley’s ears. “Well, I guess there’s no rush to change it then.” 

“Nope,” Crowley pops the P. 

On the screen in front of them, a show that will become one of Hell’s most successful recruitment campaigns and the scourge of dentist office waiting rooms everywhere plays on, unaware that it won’t premiere for another fourteen years. 

“You’re quite sweet you know.” Aziraphale’s smile is sly. 

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Quick recap for anyone not familiar with the ongoing GO Rom Com Event: FAQ | Masterlist | Discord where you can read more/ask questions

After the Rom Com event is over, this blog will be transitioning to “GO Events”, and we’ll run five events over the course of 2020 and into 2021. (We ran a few surveys to gauge interest in lots of different event ideas, and these decisions were made based on the data gleaned from those results.)

Support/betaing/brainstorming/etc. will be available via our discord chat server for every event. Betas are not compulsory, but strongly suggested. More details about each event will be coming up closer to the event dates, but here is a quick rundown of the general concept for each event:

GO AU Fest: No angels or demons, AUs only, using GO characters. Fic, art, and other media welcomed. Prompts will be assigned via claims. 

GO POV Pairs: Beginning with a list of canon-compliant story ideas, creators will sign up as an Aziraphale or a Crowley. Prompts will be given out to pairs via claims. Those pairs can work together or separately (you will specify a preference upon signup) but everyone will create a work to their prompt done solely from the POV of their chosen character.

GO MystAU: From a list of mystery genre plotlines (submissions accepted via Tumblr/Discord) participants will claim one and create a work based on it.

GO OTP Prompts Fest: We’ll collect writing/art prompts from places such as the OTP prompts generator and other prompts lists. Artists and writers would claim a prompt from the resulting list and create a work based on it.

GO Book AU: We’ll compile a list of classic books, and then participants will claim one to adapt using GO characters. (This event has been positioned late in the event cycle because I believe it may take the most planning on the part of the participants. We will likely start the claims process long before the previous event has wrapped up to give everyone extra time to brainstorm and plan.)

MystAU and the OTP Prompts events were both high scoring as far as votes and 1st/2nd/3rd place rankings went, but also had a high number of low rankings. When their rankings were compared, I found that many people who liked one of the ideas disliked the other. When we run these events concurrently, hopefully people who aren’t interested in one will feel drawn to the other, and we can have more participants and works to enjoy.