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sing for the angel a psalm of shadows by raven (singlecrow)
Fandoms: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Good Omens (TV)
24 Jul 2019
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Summary
“Sahib,” Aziraphale says. “I am not named for Israfel. I am the one to whom Allah gave the name.”
Five times Aziraphale attempted to tempt a human being and failed, utterly and completely, in service of God’s plan.
Series
- Part 11 of author's favourites (don't read in order)
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Bookmark Notes:
The angel-plaited hair, the flowing cape, the slightly different timbre of Crowley’s voice, all come together into a harmonious whole. Crowley isn’t a woman, just as a hood, cowl and flowing robe don’t make an angel into Brother Aziraphale. In this domain of austerity, they both gleam luminous; they’re both temptation. Crowley kisses Aziraphale, a little off-centre, for their audience.
Aziraphale shivers again, a whole-body shudder. Something is happening inside his head that he can’t quite comprehend. “You want us,” he says, “to… put on a show.”
Even the phrasing makes him cringe. He hugs his knees in embarrassment and looks up at Crowley through his lashes.
“You’re going to have to get better at this,” Crowley says again. They push Aziraphale up against the wall, with more melodrama than real force. Aziraphale surrenders to it anyway, his head tipped against the damp stones. Crowley kisses him in a way that feels practised, suggestive of four thousand years of tempting humans. It feels good, and strange, and violating.
--
Ghalib’s pleased. “You like it?”
“Of course,” Aziraphale says, honestly. He sits up again, hugging his knees. It makes him think of Adomnàn centuries before, leaning against the wall while Crowley used Aziraphale to Hell’s own purposes. The thought should make him feel angry or unclean, but doesn’t. Adomnàn became a saint, in the end. Crowley never did anything to him, or Aziraphale, that either of them didn’t want.
--
“An angel attempts to tempt me?” Ghalib looks at him. “Am I Yakub?”
“Oh, no,” Aziraphale says hastily. The angel that wrestled with Jacob was Uriel, and it was very embarrassing for everyone. “No, I’m, ah, I’m covering for a friend.”
Ghalib laughs. “You have other friends, Israfel? Do you do so well in tempting them?”
He reaches in and kisses Aziraphale briefly, then leans back on the cushions. Aziraphale shouldn’t be able to blush, but he does. When Ghalib reaches for him again, he smiles and draws again on the mood of self-indulgence. Because the poet knows what he is, this isn’t temptation: it’s truth. As it is with him and Crowley, Aziraphale thinks, while Ghalib discovers various things about angels. (Their skin is cooler than humans’; their blood burns deep.) Crowley, who knows all of what he is, failures, temptations and all, a truth unburdened by the divine. But Crowley has never asked him for this, and Aziraphale will not ask them.
--
The screen has frozen where they hit it. The voiceover goes on to talk about the publicity stunt, the sop to the front pages, and talking heads opine on the use of theological imagery for what is the plainest sin, while Crowley stares at Aziraphale caught in a moment. Crowley themself can’t be tempted. But the image of an angel, with torn outstretched wings, naked down to the bare hands and feet, sexless and bedraggled, makes them feel… something.
--
“I think we’ve fallen.”
“It’s not a Fall,” Crowley says. “You’d know, angel. Believe me. Yelling. Sulphur. Lot of sulphur.”
“I don’t mean that sort of falling,” Aziraphale says, struggling to articulate what he does mean.
“Do you know what eight thousand tonnes of elemental sulphur smells like?” Crowley asks. “Like – well, sulphur. But a lot of it.”
“Not that, Crowley,” Aziraphale says. “Just this.”
He kisses Crowley, because he wants to, and he can. What he’s worried about is Adam and Eve, in the garden, who ate of the apple and knew that they were naked. Figleaves and shame entered their world with the snake.
Crowley smiles. “It took you long enough” – which makes Aziraphale splutter.
“You weren’t exactly leaping forwards yourself,” he says. “You could have tried to tempt me, any day of the last six thousand years.”
“Not against your will, angel,” Crowley says, softly. In a moment, Aziraphale is back on Eilean Ì, in a more innocent world. He wore the ring God gave him, and he plaited Crowley’s hair.
--
“And Ghalib was the greatest devotional poet of his time,” Aziraphale says. “Not that he wasn’t already, when I, ah--”
“You fucked him.”
“Crowley, don’t be vulgar,” Aziraphale says. “It wasn’t temptation, anyway. Quite… the reverse.”
Crowley looks a lot like they want to go back in time and knock Ghalib around the head in a jealous rage. It’s extremely endearing. -
Bookmark Notes:
A compass