aj_crawley | (no subject)

(no subject)

I.II.

He'd fallen asleep.

If Crowley had been nearly too exhausted to drive, he'd been by far too exhausted to lean back and will the jeep to drive itself. The first had required only concentration; the second would have needed the sort of resources which, after fighting to will himself warm against the cold cold cold that had seeped in anyway, Crowley simply hadn't got. By the time they'd pulled into the car-park of the tiny inn, there'd been a tremor - a shaky sort of weakness - in his knees and elbows. He'd barely managed to open the heavy jeep door; barely managed to climb the stairs to their little room; barely managed to hold the key steady long enough to unlock the door.

Shrugging off coats, discarding gloves and scarves and sunglasses, and then it had hit them both at the same time, as though it had simply been waiting for the click of their heavy, wooden door, and the rustle of their curtains being drawn: Crowley's breath suddenly uneven, Aziraphael sitting down abruptly on the edge of the bed, and the raw immensity of the time out on the ice all crashing home.

There'd been such need when Aziraphael kissed him (or perhaps when he had kissed the angel; either way), when they'd crawled back towards the pillows, pressed as close as could be. Slow, and intense, and fiercely tender, and in the time it took Aziraphael to extricate himself, flushed and urgent, to pull off his shoes and set the clunky radio alarm, Crowley'd fallen asleep.

(Wearing everything but his coat.)

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Aziraphael had managed to master his disappointment when he'd realised Crowley was still wearing his shoes: a sign of true exhaustion if he'd ever seen one. He'd pulled them off before curling as close as possible and falling asleep himself, too tired even to fight Crowley for the covers.

The next morning hadn't been any better. Crowley was still tired and cranky, the angel oddly rushed and nervous, and since they'd seen what they had come to see, they were only headed straight back to the airport. The angel dressed (he had to take half his clothes off from the night before, first) with even less thought than usual, checking every five minutes to see if Crowley was awake.

It had been a near thing; closer to comatose than asleep, there'd been more colour to the aged, fading bedsheets than there had been in the demon's face. He's needed less excuse in the past to crawl in somewhere dark and warm and sleep off the cold for a few days.

The hot shower had helped - the hot breakfast, less so. Aziraphael had had to steer him down the stairs and to the table by the elbow, and when the angel had set down a plate in front of him (greasy, glistening sausages, more fat than meat; dry and crumbly toast with a pat of butter just a little too fresh; a glass of indescribably foul milk), Crowley had thought, with brief and singular clarity, that he was going to be sick.

Aziraphael hadn't been responsible for the breakfast, nor indeed for the treacherous frost slicking the tarmac of the car-park, but you wouldn't have known it to judge from Crowley's scowl.

The drive to Keflavik: silent and (for Crowley at least) painfully slow, the demon peering at the road with no less hollow-eyed concentration than he had the night before.

Aziraphael had made no real attempt at conversation as they drove; he assumed that Crowley needed all his powers of focus and concentration for the road, anyhow. He'd picked alternately at his trousers and his fingernails instead, frowning, apparently lost in thought.

Once they'd finally arrived, Crowley's disorientation had seemed worse rather than better. When he had finally wandered off toward 'Arrivals' rather than 'Departures,' Aziraphael had declared that it was Crowley's turn to have a break, set him down with a hot drink on an uncomfortable plastic bench, and went off to check them in himself. It'd been very hard to tell whether the angel was getting huffy, but Crowley was too tired to put much effort into curiosity.

Keflavik airport, though elegant enough, was small - but at least it was quiet. Uncomfortable bench or no, by the time Aziraphael had gotten back, Crowley'd been nodding gently off into his cup. Having decided that, on balance, it was better to risk the demon's ire sooner rather than later (especially when 'later' involved a boarding call), the angel had shepherded them briskly through security. Except insofar as he'd been required to wake up and move again, Crowley hadn't much noticed, glowering at the tiled floor until he'd found himself planted on yet another bench.

(He didn't think he'd ever felt quite so much despair as when he realised that it was sectioned off into separate seats by steel armrests - that he couldn't stretch out horizontally and go back to sleep. In the end, he'd done so sitting up, instead.)

He'd still been more than half-asleep when the angel had guided him off the bench and over to the gate, asking dazedly if their flight had been called. They'd traversed the long hallway between airport and plane without much incident, settled into their seats and been offered drinks, but the first class chair was clearly more comfortable than the one at the gate. By the time the plane had turned toward the runway, Crowley'd been asleep again.

Aziraphael had spent the flight reading a book that he'd pulled from somewhere in his coat, then staring into space, then reading some more. Generally, he'd picked up again at the top of the same page he had been reading before his thoughts had drifted away.

The next thing Crowley had known was Aziraphael's hand on his shoulder and the bustling noise of people gathering their carry-ons. The angel had watched him closely, but Crowley had waved off his hovering, instead turning his sluggish thoughts to mapping out the quickest way to the car.

He'd done it with his eyes closed; though most of the shutters were mostly pulled, the cabin had still seemed unpleasantly bright after so long asleep. Finally, though, the noise had died down, and people had stopped jostling Crowley's seat in passing with their knees and their elbows and their suitcases, and he'd sat up.

And he'd found, that to retrieve his sunglasses from the seat pouch, he needed to disentangle himself from three layers of thin woollen blankets: his own (which he remembered), Aziraphael's (which he remembered stealing), and another (which, running his fingers over the weave and glancing over at the angel, he didn't remember at all).

Sunglasses. Cabin empty; crew at the exits.

He'd leant forward, tugging at Aziraphael's sleeve with cold, dry hands, and muttered (very seriously), "I, er. 'M sorry for being a prat."

*********

The airport is - bright. The airport is unreasonably fucking bright, and Crowley squints as he emerges from the bridge, hand coming up to shield his eyes.

Then it deepens into a scowl - frightening, on the worn, tight lines of his face.

"Fuck," he says despairingly. "Bloody, buggering, fucking Heathrow."

The last time Heathrow remodelled, they'd sent him through what seemed like miles and miles and miles of temporary, plywood-walled corridors, doubling back and going in circles and piling up against stupid flocks of other tourists at at least two more checkpoints than normal, and it's so bright and he's so tired, and he just wants to get home -

Aziraphael only presses his lips together and murmurs a quiet "Hmm," which is neither agreement nor rebuke for Crowley's adamant cursing. His glances at the demon are becoming a little more frequent, and a little more perceptibly nervous.

"Er," he says at last, looking from Crowley to his empty hands and back again.

"To baggage claim, then? It isn't far, if I remember correctly."

"Um," Crowley says, looking left, looking right, looking lost. "I don't - "

He doesn't know where baggage claim is.

He doesn't remember Heathrow even looking anything like this.

"No," he agrees, though Crowley hadn't actually finished his thought.

"I hope you didn't have your heart set on going straight back to London, my dear," he blurts out at last. "It's just that I thought you might like a detour someplace that's warmer, first."

"What," Crowley, says, turning around to level a look of you are not making any sense at Aziraphael. But -

Behind Aziraphael, there are windows. And outside the window is their plane. But behind their plane is -

Is so bright.

"What," he says again, with a face full of sunshine.

"It's the Barbados airport," he admits. "We were here before, once, but I think they've changed it a bit."

If you listen carefully, there's a faint strain of anxious hope in his voice.

A helpless gesture.

"But we," he says, increasingly pointlessly.

Crowley takes a step towards the window - carefully, as though he's afraid the view is going to dissolve, to shimmer away and then vanish into the low, grey haze of London in January.

It doesn't.

He only moves further into the light.

(You'd say: illuminated. You'd say: lit up.)

"Yes," he agrees again, "but I made some adjustments to that. To be honest, I thought you'd catch on before now, but you were asleep, and, well."

And he didn't have the determination necessary to wake Crowley up to examine the label on the gate in Iceland or to hear the boarding announcement or the pilot's monologue about the weather in Barbados, which might have clued him in. But he doesn't say so, only shrugs helplessly.

"Surprise?"

Turn and turn about.

(Equal and opposite.)

And Aziraphael had -

The light is different. The light is entirely different. Crowley thinks he might need to sit down.

Instead, though, he takes another few steps, and props himself up against Aziraphael.

Aziraphael breaks into a wide smile as his arms go around Crowley. He's holding on tightly enough that his face can't be seen, but Crowley might be able to feel it, given that the angel is burying his face in his shoulder.

"Yes - that's good, then," he mumbles nonsensically.

There's such a smile starting to surface on Crowley's face: dazed, and simple, and rather stupid.

"When did you even come up with."

(He's losing words to a shaky exhale that might, maybe, be a laugh.)

"Oh, I suppose I was thinking generally of Barbados months ago," he tells Crowley's shoulder, "but I didn't decide I needed to bring you here until the other night. It was all rather last-minute."

He pulls back a little, enough to give Aziraphael a quizzical look - though he's tired enough that it edges, perhaps, towards 'mystified'.

(His sunglasses are crooked, and one side of his hair is mussed from sleeping on the plane.)

"Why didn't you ssay? Before."

Aziraphael looks amused, then takes pity and makes an attempt to smooth down Crowley's hair. Of course, it is mostly ineffective.

"That would have defeated the purpose of the 'surprise,' my dear."

"No," he says, swatting away Aziraphael's hand (which turns into an impatient gesture). "I mean, before. When you were wanting to go for months."

"Oh," he says, considering. "I wouldn't say that I had wanted to go for months. But the idea of coming back had been brewing for a while, you might say. And there's no point coming when it's warm at home." He reconsiders that statement fairly quickly.

"Not much point."

Crowley opens his mouth to reply, and then - hesitates, looking faintly confused (again). His forehead furrows slightly.

"Why didn't you say," he repeats.

There's a tinge of wariness to it.

"I--" He frowns slightly, shaking his head.

"Coming to Barbados was never about me," he explains. "I had a marvellous time when we came before, of course, but I'm the one who suggested we go to Iceland in the summertime, you remember. So when you chose Iceland in winter, and were sleepy and cold and unhappy for so much of it--" He shrugs uncomfortably.

"I thought you'd like to go someplace warm for a while. And we know this place."

"But - "

Crowley shakes his head, an unconscious imitation of Aziraphael's gesture, and takes a step back (the better, perhaps, to run a hand through his hair, undoing all Aziraphael's good work). He's tired, and he's - he's not at his best, and he can't conceal the fact that wariness on his face is deepening into suspicion.

"That's not... what I asked."

It's a simple question. There's a simple answer. Just one. So why -

Aziraphael looks a little hurt - and again not at all certain that he's done the right thing.

"Crowley, I don't know what - I didn't say because it wasn't even on my radar as a possibility. The winter trip wasn't my choice to make; we were going to Kingston, and then - we didn't."

He looks away, toward the sunlight streaming through the windows, and takes a slow breath.

"We can still go to Kingston, if you'd prefer. It's much closer from here than from London. And it's probably at least as warm."

He tries for an encouraging smile.