The Middle Distance

No HBP spoilers here. Not yet. Oh, I've read some rumors but they're just that, and I won't be posting about them. Just hmmmmm.

But then I think it really only now just started to hit me: Holy shit, there's a new Harry Potter book in three days!

...


Wow.


In a not entirely unrelated thought, I've been going back through my files of old stuff, and realized that wow, I do have a decent-sized ouevre after all...scattered all over various archives and communities and mailing lists in five different fandoms, much like the trail of toothbrushes I've abandoned in houses and hostels and hotel rooms over three continents.

I've never gathered it all in one place (the FPF material, anyway) because I've never been a member of Fanfiction.net or any general archive like that. But I'd like to. I'm thinking about whoring for a Skyehawke account, I like the stuff there. I know some of you are to be found there - what do you think?

(ETA: Done. I'm in. Thanks a jillion to cornfields! Now I suppose I'll start uploading. I'd still definitely welcome tips from the oldbies there.)

ETA 2: OK, I've started uploading over there. I put up a couple older LOTR pieces. Definitely not a one-night job: there's nothing more obnoxious than the whole "Latest" page being a dump of 3 years' worth of stories by one person. :P

***

Hope to have a more substantial fic post later when I've done some fact-checking and stuff. In the meantime, for those who liked Sunday's smutlet, here's a very rough sketch of what the first conversation when they meet after that might sound like. In which both the demon and the angel consider repentance and decide, "Naah." In which Aziraphale banters suggestively and Crowley makes a joke that won't make sense for another four years.



Hardly anyone in the jam-packed streets took note of it when the nondescript preacher was swept up by a swaggering Army of Northern Virginia officer with the jaunty white feathers in his hat, who clapped an arm possessively around his shoulder and pleaded, “Have a drink with an old sinner, Reverend?”

The preacher nodded, perhaps a tad tensely, and the two men veered into an alley where the officer was able to unlock an iron gate without use of any key. They sat in a courtyard, shadowed by fragrant trees and lit by flickering lanterns, punctuated with the laughter of rough soldiers and loose women one low brick wall over.

“So…” Aziraphale said awkwardly when Crowley produced a flask. “How’s…things?”

“Muddy and bloody, what do you think? Nasty business. I don’t know what they expect me to do out on the blessed battlefield. But –“ and he turned his face close to Aziraphale’s, a little sly, noticing the angel was staring just a second too long at the feathers. At close range you could see they had stains.

“Oh, those?” Crowley said, pointing up at them. “Hunting trophy.”

Aziraphale’s mouth opened a little, and then he closed it again. He looked down at the ground.

“I meant to ask you…” Crowley leered, his affected Southern drawl trailing out the words as if he relished them, which he certainly did. “I wonder if I’m a little…quick on the trigger sometimes. Maybe I should work on…endurance. Comes with practice, I hear.”

“You looked very well-practised, my dear.” Aziraphale blurted and refused to regret it.

Crowley laughed whole-heartedly and approvingly. “Well…I am. And you, that was a good hiding job up until the end there. Like Peeping Thomas--wasn’t he one of the Apostles? Wrote a very apocryphal gospel?”

“Crowley!”

“Oh spare me. I blaspheme, you get prissy about it. It’s very rote by now. Well. I might apologise for shooting you, when you apologise for skulking about like that. The civilised thing to do would have been to offer a fellow a hand.”

Aziraphale was sure Crowley could hear him blushing in the dark. “Well, you seemed to have matters well in hand. It’s not such a big job, is it?” No, he hadn’t just said that. Oh yes. Yes, he had.

“Fine,” said the demon airily, with mock hurt. “If you must get yourself shot at the theater, I hope you at least enjoyed the show.”

Aziraphale drew in breath hard. He had to do this. “Er…I did, yes.” He could definitely hear Crowley smirk. “Very much. One of Creation’s miracles, that was,” He turned around and met Crowley’s gaze in the half-light, and the demon was positively gleaming at him.

Crowley reached up slowly and pulled one of the long white feathers from his hat. “I should give this back to you,” he said softly. “It’s half yours, to be fair.”

“Why?” Aziraphale asked, and their fingers brushed as he took it, and it fell to the ground between them. Crowley was leaning towards him, lamplight glittering in his eyes.

“I wassss thinking about you,” Crowley whispered.