#institutional problem

Me and @isiaiowin entry for week 4 of the GOAD Poetry Pillow Fight: Bubble Bath!!

Michael introduces Dagon to a bubble bath. Will they dive in?

Excerpt:

Un deep pond without fish, bubbles rise up and break, but no ocean scent left to trace — it's strange. --- Relax. Take a deep breath, and for once don’t question; the warm water is rather nice, you see?

Read it on Ao3! 💛

It's only the third time they are holding their earthly meetings in public, and if you were to ask them why they had suggested it, the answer would be something vague like 'research' or 'keeping up with what's happening with humanity. The real reason, however, is much simpler and closely connected to the almost casual outfit the Archangel has chosen for today; a bit overdressed for the café, but neither they nor Dagon have much of a grasp on human social norms.

Dagon, who is sitting opposite them in a dark blue blouse, and, here we are getting very close to said reason, soft, pale human skin.

"Grand Duke of Hell, huh?"

"You heard?" They wrap their hands around their mug, still cold-blooded and seeking warmth, and yet there is a slight blush rising to their cheeks. Michael's eyes are drawn to it like a moth to the flame, flickering from side to side and biting back a smile when it spreads further down their neck.

"I have my sources," they respond lightly, basking in the sharp glance Dagon shoots them.

"Oh, don't be jealous, you know you're my-"

Ah.

Reaching for their own cup, Michael interrupts themselves and blinks rapidly. Now it is their turn to study the pattern on the wall behind Dagon's chair and ignore the flush claiming their face. Leaning into their personal space, Dagon jumps on the unfinished sentence like a predator pounces on their prey. A curtain of shimmering ginger hair moves with them, rippling like the ocean surface in a sunny breeze.

"I'm your what?"

Michael's gaze snaps back, landing not on silver-blue eyes but the genuine, amused smile tugging on their lips, and while the urge to taste it is by far not a new one, the intensity of it still catches them off-guard every single time, a fact Dagon is well aware of.

"Oh, shut it," Michael bites back, but there is no real heat behind it, and hides their shaky exhale with a sip of coffee.

Good stuff, coffee; humans did something very right with that. Bitter, and comforting, and nothing like the salty-sweet chill they have definitely NOT imagined for Dagon's lips.

The newly promoted Grand Duke of Hell does indeed 'shut it', falling back in their chair and stretching out one leg under the table.

Michael swallows a choked sigh and tips their heeled foot against Dagon's just once, an acknowledgement of something they both cannot quite name.

Neither of them says a single word for the next two hours, draping them in an amicable silence, and yet when they part outside the café, Michael turns around and says, "Good talk. Same time next week?"

Dagon tilts their head curiously, a measured look in their eyes, and gives them a once-over that leaves Michael covered in a comfortable warmth they know will linger even in the cold sterility of heaven.

Please read this:

"Crowley loved God once, Aziraphale.

You remember he was an angel, yet you never take that into consideration.

Crowley loved God, and he was speaking to Her as recently as the last armageddon. Crowley loved God, and was loved enough by God as an angel that he was tasked with a major component of the universe’s Creation. Crowley crafted starlight and nebulas, constellations and Alpha Centauri, and he did it perfectly. He made it so beautiful, he loved it so much—even now, he can’t stop growing things, can leave behind everything except his plants. He obeyed the will of God once, Aziraphale. He made the universe out of wonder and beauty and curiosity, and because the God he loved so dearly, the God he thought loved him, asked him to. And that God didn’t even tell Crowley that their Creation was meant to only last six thousand years. Who knows when They decided? She wrote the end of Earth’s story before it even begun, and made it so anyone who questioned it would Fall from Their Grace forever. Aziraphale, you know that just because someone says they’re good doesn’t mean you agree with their thinking or their morals, yes? Didn’t Job, Wee Morag teach you that? The hubris, to think you know better than him. How can you lecture on Truth and Light and Good when you’re speaking to the demon who was once the angel chosen by God to let there be light. 

***

“You don’t know me.” “I know the angel you were.” “The angel you knew is not me.” —The Book of Job (season 2, episode 2)

Aziraphale doesn’t understand what it means to Fall.

This isn’t his fault. No angel can know, until it happens.

But it is his fault to assume he understands the distinctions between the mechanisms and moralities of demons and angels, when between he and Crowley, he’s not the one who’s been both. 

Crowley can’t ever be an angel again. How can you ask him to return to a place that damned him and cast him out—much less to wield your love as bait? As contingent? 

Crowley loves him with patience, with care. He didn’t have to be an angel to protect Aziraphale, to stop time and save the world, to save his books from the Blitz. He didn’t have to be holy to walk into Heaven for Aziraphale and breathe fire at the Archangel Gabriel, and he didn’t have to be an angel to make him cocoa. He brats over Aziraphale’s silliness and snaps when the angel’s stubbornness butts against what Crowley knows are mutual values, a shared, fundamental need to save who they can, where they can. He does all this as a demon.

So, to hear I forgive you…" [...]

"Serpent of Eden, gardener cast from the garden, sculptor of starlight doomed to the pits of hell. You thought nothing would hurt worse than falling, and then you fell for him.

Crowley’s waited this long. He’s come to know himself as a wretch of wanting. It’s in the flex of his fingers, the set of his jaw, the lines of his spine and the plants in his car because he won’t ask Aziraphale to let him move in unless Aziraphale asks first. “You go too fast for me, Crowley.” Surely it’s fair for him to take that to mean that they’ll arrive at the same destination, even if it takes Aziraphale more time to get there? Crowley knows exactly what Aziraphale would be giving up for him. And he resists asking that of him for so, so long—until the very higher-ups who would’ve punished them go off together.

He wouldn’t do it if he didn’t believe in his heart that this was finally the time. Even after Aziraphale said what he said, even after Aziraphale asked of Crowley the very thing Crowley could never, ever do—he tried.

And he wasn’t wrong. Aziraphale had been as ready as he’d ever be. He’s agreed to “our side.” He’s wanted Crowley all season, and he’s not hiding it. He’s wooed Crowley all season, the ball and the dance and rescuing me makes him so happy. He’s been openly lusting, making up excuses to touch him. He’s been taking Crowley’s side over Heaven’s again and again, in the little ways that matter. They already are in love, and they act like it.

That’s what makes this hit so hard—love isn’t enough."

Wow. Wow. A really great analysis (this is just an excerpt). Read it all here:

Muriel introducing themselves as "no one" hurts me so much.

Yesterday @isiaiowin and I shared our contribution for GOetry pillow fight week 4 (you can read it here !). Together with the poem, both of us also painted something, and this is mine :D

[Timelapse and rambling under the cut, as usual]