Blank Pages - A "ChillOmenstober" One-shot

“Please, Mister Crowley, what do the empty pages in a book mean? Is it a printing error of some sort?

Musing as usual in the bookshop, a certain little Scrivener Angel discovers a few empty pages in a book. As they ask a certain old demon what it means, they'll learn that, sometimes, the biggest emotions one can have are not always written nor speakable.

ChillOmenstober day 16: "Bookshop" (Illustration + One-shot, Rating T, 1,3k words, Read on Ao3)

TW/CW: light angst, mention of grief ; Muriel is a sweetheart and Crowley needs a hug! ;

Thanks to @captainblou, @floscrap-blog, and @happynachohologram for their wonderful support/beta-reading!

Theseus, and the ending of the story.

The plan is not for these three minotaurs to be together--each has their own section of labyrinth, increasing in scale as the story progresses. (The little single dome here will have stars on the ceiling for Baby Asterion.) But I thought it would be interesting to have them together for a moment, for once not the only one of themselves.

Theseus and the Minotaur will be on their way out of the last labyrinth, Theseus dragging him through outflung doors. I think, just barely visible inside the ceiling where he is being dragged out, there will be a couple more stars.

no but tell me why i started tearing up when i saw the way theseus was dragging him out. by the horn, like the minotaur is just a beast.

Haven't you read the story? Of course it is.

the fucking tags from OP 😭

he's never been held before

tagging @goodomensafterdark

Camping has ended, and I have returned!

I was out for a few days so I could escape the stress of everyday life. But don't fret, I used my time well and completed a couple of things. Like my season 2 drawing.

Beware ... spoilers for Good Omens 2.

........

I'm actually proud of this. I hope the next project will be just as good.

you’re just like an angel

[on thin ice]

(commissioned by the lovely @but-sometimes-im-not)

Today I cried a little bit because I remembered that when Beethoven conducted his ninth symphony for the first time he got a standing ovation and one of the sopranos had to turn him around to see the audience. 

I have never recovered from this illustration by Scott Cameron for Barbara Nichol’s “Beethoven Lives Upstairs.”

"Well, you've still got one of them"

you were steering my heart like a wheel in your hands this one was based off of this vintage photo and powered by my crowley playlist

I cannot create the stars, but I can describe how the morning light turns your eyes to gold.

"Do it again"

Things I had never considered about Alderaan’s destruction until this very moment: this Things I was not prepared to start bawling over at midnight: also this, holy shit

Thinking about Ten standing in front of that glass booth at the end of The End Of Time part two, listening to a man who has only ever treated him like family, who is the only friend he has left, who has never stopped believing in him, tell him that he isn't worth saving, to leave him to die.

Thinking about Fourteen standing on the other side of that glass barrier in The Star Beast, listening to that same man's granddaughter, one of the most important women in his many lives, the soulmate he never expected to find again, tell him that she doesn't matter, that her life isn't worth nearly so much as everyone else's.

And thinking about Fourteen sitting across a dinner table and seeing this kid, the next generation of a family that's meant so much to him, a girl who's already been through so much... and deciding to take her on adventures, to be her weird uncle, to refuse to let another generation of this family go on thinking they're not good enough.

Wilfred Mott didn't think he was worth it. Donna Noble didn't think she was worth it. But the Doctor will be damned if he lets Rose Noble grow up to think the same, to stand on the other side of a divide and tell him not to bother with saving her life.

"It would have been you."

It's raining.

Of course, it's raining.

A soft, constant drizzle leaving his hair a damp, curly mess that falls into his face and clings to his skin. Even though the cold is slowly seeping into his clothes, Crowley stops and turns around. Condensation is collecting on the inside of his shades where his breath drifts up, warm and too fast, and even if it hadn't been late at night, if the street hadn't been empty, he would have still taken them off.

Aziraphale is licking rain drops from his lips and blinking with dark, heavy lashes.

"What?"

His voice is rough, almost drowned out by the noise of rain hitting the pavement, collecting in small puddles around his feet.

"If it had been a choice, a real one, it would have been you."

The world did not end, questions were answered, apologies spoken, but their last conversation before everything went to shit is still a sharp splinter lodged in his chest, cutting him open more and more with every heartbeat. All of the fears he had left unsaid, the viscous doubt pooling in his lungs and weighing down his breaths—the truth might tip the scales and finally destroy him, and yet he cannot bring himself to stop Aziraphale from talking.

"It has always been you, Crowley. You must know that."

"I don't."

Bitterness laces his voice despite his best intentions, a drop of oil tainting an entire river, six thousand years of history, and it hurts because it's the truth, because they both wish it wasn't.

He doesn't know, couldn't know, because Aziraphale always needed him to stop them, to step back when they got too close. Every single time he had tried to push, gone too bloody fast, the angel had recoiled, scared for him, scared for the both of them. Crowley knows, and at the same time, he doesn't, because he still has hope and there is nothing more dangerous than allowing it to bloom; it's small, withered, brittle, on the verge of death and has been for centuries.

(It's still there, though. It keeps fighting, keeps trying. Keeps hoping.)

They're drenched to the bone, wet and pathetic, and there is nothing romantic about any of it when Aziraphale retraces his steps and closes the distance between them; there is, however, love.

There has always been love, whether they could admit it or not.

"I'm sorry. For- for everything, for making you think that I don't care about you."

"Angel, don't lie-"

"I'm not lying."

Crowley stares, frozen to the spot when Aziraphale presses cold, wet palms to his cheeks, his breath a ghost of warmth on his skin. This is too much, too close to 'our side', and if he didn't know better (does he know better? does he really?) he would think that he is about to—

"I'm not lying," he whispers, broken, truthful, "I love you. I won't leave you."

The rain stings in his eyes, masking the tears—hot and wistful—meeting Aziraphale's skin where it is touching his.

"Don't make promises you can't keep, angel."

His voice cracks and so does his heart, and he can feel the walls they have built together crumbling to dust under their feet. It's not real, it can't be real, and yet the truth is shimmering in storm-blue eyes he has been carrying with him since the moment he first put stars into the sky.

"It's you, always has been, always will be. If you let me."

Crowley kisses him as he falls apart, barely healed fractures reopening as his essence spills over and out, drowning him in please, please be real, please let us have this, please, God.

Just this once.

Aziraphale holds his face so incredibly gently, as if it's something worth keeping, something to protect, something he is afraid to lose. When the ground doesn't open up and swallow them whole, when the sky doesn't reach for them with greedy hands, he allows himself to seize Aziraphale's face in turn, cupping his jaw and kissing the rain drops off his lips, his cheeks, the tip of his nose, tasting his tears when they begin to fall.

"It's always been you. God, of course I will let you."

Sapphire blue eyes blink up at him, a smile pressed against his lips, a smile he can feel, a smile that is for him, them.

"Perhaps you could let me somewhere less, ah, sopping wet?"

"I was right, though. It's the rain that did it."

Aziraphale laughs, bright and happy, and infectious enough to make Crowley laugh too, and grabs his hand to pull him back towards the bookshop - back home.

It just hit me all over again how awesome the bigeneration was.

The Doctor's future self arrived on the scene and said "baby boy. my love. my darling. GET. SOME. SLEEP. I am only fine BECAUSE you get help. I am you, and this is our future and we're happy-- but that means you have to start. So stop running and start living. Have coffee in the morning with the love of your life/best friend. Bake bread. Go for a walk (for your stupid mental health.) Take your niece out shopping for her side business. Stay up all night talking to grandad. Get to know your brother in law and mother in law. Smell the roses, breathe the air, and LIVE."

So, so, SO many of us wish we could do that. Reach back through time to our broken little selves and say I promise it gets better and I love you and I am here. But I am only here because you stayed and got help and lived.

So START. LIVING.

And I dont think I'm ever gonna be over that.

I slithered here from Eden

Just to sit outside your door

Something I've been thinking about: Crowley was not sent to kill Job's children.

(Under the cut for length; this got away from me.)