(no subject)

[ineffable-angel.livejournal.com]

Date: May 14, 2000
Setting: Front desk
Status: Private - Crowley, Aziraphale
Summary: Aziraphale is getting restless.






The thing was, Aziraphale was tired. He was exhausted of pushing paper and writing notes, performing only the barest miracles and human interaction at a minimum. He missed his old life (not that this one didn't have his perks) where he got to go out and have delicious food prepared by internationally famous chefs with expensive wines and Crowley's drunken company. He thought of their philosophical conversations that let him lay worries and fears out in a roundabout way, holes in his belief, and replenish that faith, and the angel realized, suddenly, how much he did miss them.

The Manor was becoming too familiar, and Aziraphale itched to leave, go out and have fun. He was finished in four minutes, exactly, and it would be easy to go and ask Crowley about the possibility of reenacting their old habits and finding new haunts. Aziraphale didn't even know the names of the pubs in Tadfield, after all. It was a tragedy.

Comments

[ineffable-angel.livejournal.com]

The angel blushed as he glimpsed Crowley's new outfit. Those trousers were very snug, weren't they.

Aziraphale walked into the late afternoon sunshine and felt the coolness of evening in the wind, grateful for the jacket. After they'd started off, zooming towards the city (more accurately the village) of Tadfield, Aziraphale began to fiddle with the music player. "Crowley," he asked, holding up a CD to squint at the label on it, "Who is Lou Bega?"

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

Perplexed and staring at the CD, Crowley said, "It doesn't matter. It's been in the car more than a fortnight. It'll be Queen by now." But he knew that he'd never bought a wretched Lou Bega album.

Wondering if his car was becoming sentient, he wasn't paying all that much attention to driving and he narrowly missed hitting a small, older man out walking his small, older poodle. Zooming by with inches to spare, Crowley flipped him the bird just because and swerved into Lower Tadfield's nicest restaurant, the unfortunately named Black Boy Inn.

[ineffable-angel.livejournal.com]

"Really, my dear," Aziraphale admonished as the poor man with his poodle was miraculously moved out of harm's way, and coincidentally inside a nearby chocolate shop, where he was the one-thousandth customer to enter the store. Immediate rewards included about a lifetime supply of chocolate, which made him suddenly popular with the ladies of Tadfield.

"Black Boy Inn?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "I hope they have a decent winelist."

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

Crowley smirked at Aziraphale's action. Too bad the angel didn't know that Mr. Tyler was allergic to chocolate and that his popularity with the ladies of the town would utterly dismay both him and his wife.

"I didn't name it," he said. "And it's the only place in town with any kind of winelist. Shall we?"

[ineffable-angel.livejournal.com]

"Please," the angel agreed graciously, "but just give me one moment..." The angel reached over, giving Crowley's knee a playful squeeze, and then used the spare second when Crowley froze to kiss him, sliding up his sunglasses as he opened his mouth and slid his tongue between Crowley's lips.

"Ready, my dear," Aziraphale replied, pulling away.

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

Raising a bemused eyebrow, Crowley wondered if he'd been too good at tempting the angel. Or being tempted by the angel. Or something. He still wasn't quite sure how they'd gotten to this point. Still, it made him feel fizzy and warm, like he'd already had two drinks on an empty stomach, and he was ready for the actual alcohol to catch up.

"Someday, someplace, when you're least expecting it..." he murmured with a wicked grin on his face as he led Aziraphale into the restaurant.

[ineffable-angel.livejournal.com]

"I wouldn't expect anything less," Aziraphale told him, most agreeable with the prospect of being pounced at a late date.

The vast array of beautiful fixtures and furniture was surprising. They were seated immediately (but of course) and Aziraphale took the opportunity to admire their surroundings.

"Let me guess," he said as he sat down, bringing in his chair and picking up the fabled winelist. "The only fancy restaurant in town?"

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

"You have to ask?"

Crowley picked up his menu and began to peruse it. It seemed like pretty standard upper class British food with some French influences. He thought he'd be safest with one of the simpler dishes and was thinking about the roast lamb when a waiter walked by with two glasses of red wine on his way to another table.

It really was terribly unfortunate when the poor man tripped over his own feet and poured the wine over the white blouse of a female customer at another table. Crowley felt a smirk tug at his lips as she shrieked. This was more like it.

[ineffable-angel.livejournal.com]

Aziraphale gave a long-suffering sigh, decidedly not rolling his eyes, and turned his gaze back to his menu, perusing through the list.

"Gewurztraminer?" he asked Crowley. "Unless you'd prefer something else entirely?"

(The waiter apologized and offered to pay for the blouse, which coincidentally matched a very grand tip he'd been left in the next receipt to pick up. The woman's date also very gallantly gave her his jacket to wear, which miraculously fit.)

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

Considering this, Crowley asked, "Is it French, Italian, or Eastern European?"

He didn't mind the angel's interference this time. As it turned out, the waiter lost a tip, the woman lost her favourite blouse, and her date lost a jacket because it was now miraculously too small for him to ever wear again and it had cost a lot more than the woman's shirt. Crowley chalked it up as a win and returned to his menu.

[ineffable-angel.livejournal.com]

"A Gewurz? It's an Alsace one, my dear, most modern. Avez-vous decide?"

Aziraphale seamlessly flipped to the dessert menu as he spoke, reading down the list of descriptions with something akin to joy.

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

"Well that's all right then. Those Hungarian ones just aren't the same. Bien-sur. J'ai le canard. Et tu?"

Crowley smiled faintly as the angel's face disappeared behind the dessert menu. It had been far too long since they'd done this. He wondered if he'd get more than two bites of his own dessert this evening. Maybe if he played his cards right...

[ineffable-angel.livejournal.com]

"Cheesecake," he announced, blond head emerging. "Er," the angel added, a bit quieter, "I have a craving for a raspberry cheesecake. It will be a little sweet for the Gewurtz- and don't smirk at me, my dear, I know you, and I know that you're laughing at my dissatisfaction of this detail, but I daresay that I am right in this case. But I will persevere and we shall perish - quite happily, perhaps - from massive amounts of sweets tonight."

The waiter arrived, and they both ordered the duck - although Aziraphale had long found canard to be a ridiculous word, even when he couldn't remember it as a langue de boeuf or a langue d'ouef word, precisely. Probably the latter; the French had a weird sense of humour.

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

"No, you've got me all wrong, angel. I'm laughing because you decided on your dessert before your dinner. Crappy wine pairing or no. And because I'll be policing your sweets intake. You really shouldn't let your brand new body go like that. Gluttony is a sin, you know."

Crowley smirked again just because he could and his foot found Aziraphale's beneath the table.

[ineffable-angel.livejournal.com]

Aziraphale raised an ambiguous eyebrow.

"I thought I'd decided on supper, dear. The duck?" He sniffed decorously. "It's not a familiar restaurant, I'd hate to choose something that would turn out awful." As was his luck before in a new restaurant, they both knew. "Remember Russia, not so long ago?" He wore a pained expression simply at the memory.

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

"How could I forget? I did suggest you keep it simple..."

[ineffable-angel.livejournal.com]

He squirmed, for more than one reason. "Don't remind me; we are about to eat."