Charting a Course - Chapter 3
Written by me for the Summer Omens Big Bang (@gosummerbang). Art by the fabulous @skullfragments.
I forgot it's Monday. Almost forgot, seeing as it's still Monday now. 😅 Blasted summer break, messing up my sense of time and filling my days with telling my kids the same thing 20 times and trying to keep them fed, hydrated, and entertained...
Tags: Alternate Universe - Human, Idiots in Love Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, POV Crowley (Good Omens), POV Aziraphale (Good Omens), Mild Angst, past emotional abuse, He/Him Pronouns For Crowley (Good Omens), He/Him Pronouns For Aziraphale (Good Omens), Romance, Autistic Aziraphale (Good Omens), Dyslexic Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley Has ADHD (Good Omens), crowley has heterochromia, Photosensitive Crowley (Good Omens), Non-Consensual Touching, brief and not explicit, Dubious Consent, dubious consent kissing, also brief and not explicit, First Kiss, Gaslighting
Anthony Crowley is a uni dropout turned barista who’s worked at the same café for 15 years and has lived with his friend Ana and her little family ever since his relationship to Luca Morningstar ended. He’s decided dating is not for him because (nearly) all men are wankers who aren’t interested in anything beyond the physical. Aziraphale Fell is an accountant who’s lived in the same building as Ana for the past five years and has been a regular at the café ever since. Aside from an ill-advised relationship with Gabriel Messenger, he has been single for a while.
Crowley and Aziraphale are both interested in each other and very much convinced that the other has no interest in them. Ana has been trying to gently push Crowley to ask Aziraphale out and been dropping hints for both of them, but nothing is working. Then Ana hears Aziraphale is going on a singles' cruise, and since Crowley has a birthday coming up, she’s making plans…
Crowley meets the kind of person he expected at the meet-and-greet - but someone quite unexpected as well.
‘Oh bugger!’ Fearing he knew where this was going, Aziraphale squeezed his eyes shut, tried very hard not to listen and quickly started listing all of Shakespeare’s works in his head. In reverse chronological order. Supporting the man’s hobby by listening to him talk about it was one thing. But he’d rather not hear such detailed recounting of murder and bloodshed.
He didn’t get any further than ‘Cymbeline’ when he heard the distinct clinking noise of a glass being set on the table.
A fresh glass of red wine was in front of him; still attached to it was a lean, long-fingered hand that seemed incredibly familiar. A lean, long-fingered hand that led to a shapely, equally lean arm clad all in close-fitting, black cloth with a soft sheen to it. His gaze naturally followed along that route and up the arm to a sharply cut shoulder with deep red hair cascading over it. His gaze slid to the striking edge of a jawline, to prominent cheekbones, carrying sunglasses and the man’s eyes — a mere suggestion through the darkly tinted glass — hiding behind them.
Then he saw the small, lopsided smile playing over the thin lips under the almost Roman nose. A smile Aziraphale hadn’t seen before. Friendly and open, yes, and surely sympathetic but also… personal. As if it were just for him.
“I’m sorry. Took me a while to get everything sorted. But here is the drink I promised you earlier,” Mr Crowley said. To Aziraphale, mysteriously enough.
Aziraphale, who knew not to question good fortune no matter how mysterious, grabbed it with both hands and held on to it for dear life.
Thank you @gosummerbang for this wonderful event and @skullfragments for your beautiful art! 💜
Thank you to @angie-words for beta-reading and cheering like the champ she is. Thank you also to the @whickberstreetwriters for being the same fantastic, crazy place on the internet they have always been. 💜
