14 february. good omens. ca

Valentine's Day had been ordained in the calendar by a disgruntled Viking war-woman who'd had enough of her husband cheerfully ignoring her for blood, pillaging, horned helmets and other women (the latter of which were not so pleased at his attention and were in favour of Valentine's Day to give themselves a bit of a break) and had instigated the holiday in order to get him to, at least, compensate her for the trouble of washing blood out of his fur pelts.

That might have been true. Several stories existed on the origins of Valentine's Day; the only problem was that neither side cared enough to figure out which was the true story.

It might have been ordained years later, in the age of wandering poets, ruffled shirts and using 'y' instead of 'i' in the written word, by a poet who had been, as all poets who have nothing more to speak of, honouring his young rulers*. It was the story the angels preferred to stick to, though given their fondness for fussy love poems written by even fussier poets, Crowley was hardly surprised that this was the case.

It could have been in between. A ceremony in honour of fertility – no small surprise there, considering that the Romans had come up with that excuse. Crowley's idea of the Roman army had always been the image of a few hundred thousand modern-day frat boys hopped up on videogames, sugar and lust. Going on a walk through Ancient Rome, you were bound to trip over couples copulating in the streets as a mean of stopping dysentery, or whatever smart excuse a lad could come up with to get underneath a girl's tunic.

He'd had nothing to do with most of them. For once, lust had been taken completely out of his hands, which had made his life a great deal duller.

Regardless of the origins of Valentine's Day, now it was here, and Crowley hated it just as much as Christmas, a little bit less than Thanksgiving and found it just as ridiculous as the Catholics' habit of giving even the smaller saints a day of their own**. Those Catholics did anything for the chance of a holiday.

The problem with Valentine's Day was that it was, simultaneously, his busiest and most relaxed holiday. It was a paradox that occurred only today, where large stretches of nothing were broken up by small stretches of crowded chaos and panic that had Below's Call Centre ringing like a pack of schoolboys with an unwanted alarm-clock. The difference between 'I love you' and bloody murder with the edge of a box of chocolates was mere minutes, context and, in some cases, being fool enough to write down the wrong name on the 'To My Beloved' card***.

In short: Valentine's Day could go shag itself — Crowley wasn't paying any notice to the holiday. Except to try and find a gift for Aziraphale. For a holiday that didn't make a damn bit of sense, and personally assaulted his eyes every time he stepped outside for a smoke.

Finding presents for Aziraphale was not as easy as it seemed. Books were a picky subject with them. Clothing was an even pickier subject. Movies were out, as was music, magazines, houses and slaves****.

He'd resorted to the unthinkable. No, that was far too dramatic; Crowley had resorted to the thinkable idea that was so ludicrous and bound to fail, that it was a fool's errand to consider it. It was a waste of time.

It was the only solution he could think of.

. . .

The first person he'd asked in his foolish quest was Newt.

That had been entirely by accident.

It wasn't like he'd expected to run into Newt. Crowley never expected to run into Newt, mostly because his mind could not hold all the evil things he wanted to do to him upon sight of his twitchy little nose. Bad things happened when Crowley and Newt met, and if it wasn't for the certain knowledge that the angel would find out and would punish him for it, that wouldn't bother Crowley.

They'd met in the exact same shop; a corner one whose sign read a title incongruous to the actual contents of the shop. There are many of these around Britain. The sign would read 'Newspapers' and the shop would sell sweets in newspaper wrapping. Aziraphale suspected it was some sort of new modern art movement. Crowley didn't have the heart to tell him that it was probably just Bartok (5) having a laugh.

This particular shop had been named 'A Little Bit of England', and it boasted exactly one Union-Jack-patterned cow by the cash-register. The inside of the shop was papered wall to wall with magazines. There was even a little reading corner shaped like a muffin with helium pumped inside it. There were no other traces of anything even remotely English in the shop. Not even a single issue of Daily Mail.

Newt had been staring despondently at an entire rack of magazines clearly aimed at women (6). Against his better judgement, Crowley selected the one least likely to contain recipes (7) and flipped aimlessly through it. After a few minutes, Newt still hadn't spoken, and Crowley was no closer to figuring out what he should get Aziraphale.

Lingerie seemed to be a popular item, but that just proved that the magazine didn't know what it was talking about. Lingerie was such a pedestrian thing to give him. Had to be something special, for a holiday. It said so in four out of five magazines in this rack, in Big Bold Letters that Meant Business.

He was thinking so loudly that Crowley could hear the enunciation in his words. What Newt wanted was a magazine; a women's magazine, that Anathema had sent him to get. Somehow, Crowley doubted the veracity of the words that were being thought out, but handed him the one he had in his hand regardless. The man looked up; Crowley's eyes narrowed behind their lenses.

Within five minutes, they were outside, Newt holding a magazine he'd been coerced into buying. The old hatchback that Crowley pointedly ignored put up a fight as Newt struggled to get its door open wide enough for him to toss the magazine in through the gap. At his side, Crowley lamented.

"Bloody holiday makes him go all weird and giggling," he Grumbled (8) to Newt. Crowley's brows were stuck together in the middle of his forehead as he frowned, the unhappy downturn to his lips almost cartoonish. "Giggling. He only giggles when he's drunk. What am I supposed to do?"

It was not a question that he required an answer to yet. Newt was not in any position to give an answer to him, as he'd currently dropped his keys into the sliver of car available through the sliver of open door.

"I don't like this holiday. No, I don't like any holidays, except for Halloween, when humans are actively asking to be toyed with. I especially don't like this holiday because it's such a bloody pointless holiday. It's a weak holiday, no sort of good memories or events tied to it... If the other holidays were cars, Valentine's day would be a tricycle with racing stripes," Crowley said. All of his collective effort went into not hissing with irritation. Newt was unsympathetic.

He had, however, gotten his keys from the car and jiggled them happily in his pocket as he went to lean against the bonnet. After a moment's pause, he pushed himself off the bonnet and stood a little way away. Newt didn't know how teenages did it, but leaning against the bonnet of an aging hatchback was not very comfortable. Or cool.

Crowley was looking at him expectantly.

The unspoken plea for help was answered with, "m-maybe you should g-g-get him flowers?"

It wasn't a bad idea, per se. Flowers were one of His creations and they went well with old book shops since they covered up the scent of rotting words and pages turning slowly to dust. However, Crowley knew very well the states of flower shops in London on Valentine's Day – suffice it to say it was the only time he could think of where the phrase 'hell on earth' was applicable (the other times were in the events of the Apocalypse and Christmas).

The hatchback shuddered to life. From within its ancient voicebox, the word 'Banzai!' stung the air and it charged towards Newt.

Crowley didn't even pretend like he didn't have a thing to do with it.

. . .

The paradox of asking someone very, very young for a gift for the very, very old wasn't lost on Crowley. Upon occasion, he too read things like books and games that dealt with the topics of paradox. His favourites were often the ones that made Aziraphale wrinkle his nose, and were often in the the kind of videogames in the news getting told off for popularizing violence (9).

Such as, was it still considered wrong to do evil in video-games considering that the actual things involved in video games were a bunch of pixels, a mathematical equation given emotions to wear as a skin?

Maybe that wasn't what a paradox was. You see, English words often changed their meaning. Nice used to mean accurate before 'how accurate' lost out in the competition of compliments one could give to another. Several other words, none that could come to mind now, had meant other things. Oh, good was one of them. And cake.

The Bentley cruised down the road in relative silence. Inside, the radio was off – an unusual thing for Crowley, but he hardly wanted a reminder of the day or a call down from Downstairs telling him to push more expired candies and whacky hi-jinks involving naughty telephone calls. And Lower Tadfield was as far away from Valentine's Day as the moon was from earth. There were a few requisite signs of it – confetti hearts like candy drops on pathways, signposts painted red, graffiti scrawled on abandoned houses suspiciously laden with arrows and fat little men in diapers. Adam looked just as dejected as he did, sitting glumly on the porch with Dog gnawing at an old shoe.

It was quite strange to see a hell-hound gnawing on a shoe that didn't have the foot attached to it, but Crowley pushed it out of his mind and settled on the porch next to him. Behind him, the sounds of a radio tuned to some debating station sounded like a pack of buzzing bees.

"You too?" Adam asked. He was a bit older than Crowley remembered, about two or three years older, though his eyes looked as though they'd been dragged through the entire six thousand years of existence, and he wore the expression of a man about to go into war armed with a small knife for peeling fruit, an orange and a great big target on his head reading 'fire here'. His hair had lengthened considerably, and a stubby little ponytail tufted over the back of his shirt. Occasionally, he'd tap his fingers over the worn-through knees of his jeans, or give Dog a glare for no good reason.

This was his first holiday with a girlfriend.

"Mmmh," Crowley sighed.

Adam, whom had once snuck into his sister's room, gave him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. Then, as the humming sound of the radio turned into the less-soothing sound of pots and pans being clattered about on marble, Adam said, obviously drawing from his visit to his sister's room, "... it's gotta be meaningful and stuff. 'cause, you know... it's got to have symbolism." Adam paused. "...I think it means like... poems."

Crowley sincerely hoped that it didn't mean poems.

He'd written all of one haiku since the Grim Fourteenth (10), and far less before that.

But that did give him an idea.

. . .

The Day was over. Humming softly, Aziraphale disentangled a heart-streamer from one of the top shelves of his bookstore, pushing the paper into a crumpled mass in his hands. He tossed it, without hesitation, into the recycling bin by the desk and kept his mind carefully away from Crowley's absence. Usually, the demon came in for a drink or for some company – today, he hadn't seen hide nor hair of him.

The idea of his demon crushed underneath a mountain of chocolates and paper hearts, all with misspelled names and vulgar messages, was the one that popped into his mind first. He chuckled to himself, swaying on the footstool as a soft, February wind swirled dust on his shelves. Oh, well. It would have been nice to spend the day with him, regardless. It was a day for love, and if what he felt for Crowley wasn't love, then he was agog to what it was.

Privately, Aziraphale suspected that it was a love doomed, like Romeo and Juliet (and God, how he hated that allegory) but The Man Upstairs had never really protested against it. Maybe it wasn't wrong, what he felt for the demon. Maybe, he could hope to change him a little, to redeem him from the path that he walked on – so they could be together, not just as man-shaped creatures but as more. Angel to angel.

The halo wouldn't suit him entirely. Crowley had a face made for sinful thoughts and naughty pranks.

Aziraphale brushed dust from his hair as he turned towards the desk and stopped. There, weighing down a sheaf of pink papers and promotional offers he'd been too kind to turn down from haggard-looking people about London, was a small silver key. Looped through the eye, a white ribbon held it close to a single black feather and a little note. It looked modern and old; it felt powerful. Gently, Aziraphale lifted it into his palm and turned the note around to scrawled, slithering words on yellowed paper – Crowley's handwriting.

'Don't come home too late.'

Aziraphale smiled, tucking the little key into his top pocket. The papers rustled again, like people whispering in a crowded theatre, and all the books behind him seemed to snicker. He turned to give them a level look, boring through covers to the words of saints and lords and middle-aged women bored with their normal life. Nothing.

Valentine's Day wasn't quite over yet.

. . .

Home was a curious word.

The word has a certain warmth, garnered over years of being spoken lovingly by people whom have had homes – by Romans and Greeks and French people and Japanese people, by people in the Other Worlds, and lesser gods and the Kraken's bubbling dialect. It is a warmth that wraps around the letters like an aura, that sits pleasantly upon the tongue like the name of a beautiful thing.

Aziraphale.

His head, resting light against his chest, dozing fitfully. When Angels Fall is playing on the telly, and Crowley hasn't even attempted to change the clunky, overripe dialogue.

It is a warmth that flows easily, dispels dark connotations. As there is War, there is Home. As there is Hell and Heaven, there is Home, and it is neither of those places, and a bit of both as well.

Crowley's fingers stroked through Aziraphale's soft hair. The angel cracked an eye open, didn't speak, moved his head just enough that he kissed his fingertips. Half a bowl of heart-shaped candy has snuck its way into his flat and found the coffee table. It's resting there, nestled between ferns.

Miles away, in Lower Tadfield, a magazine exchanges hands, lips exchange kisses.

A sneaker kicks a pebble by mistake, and it hisses across the grass of Home, and nudges a sleepy dog. A necklace, grubby and old, with a complicated symbol, finds its way around a slender, feminine neck. There's a laugh, a proud exclamation, a tussle.

Lower Tadfield, if seen from above, has a distinct blush about it.

"Crow..." Aziraphale yawned, his head pillowing down on Crowley's lap. The demon looks down and bends himself at an impossible angle to press his lips to the corner of Aziraphale's sleeping mouth. ".. Can... switch it if you like."

"I'm good," Crowley murmured, and picked up a book as the angel's eyes closed again. The movie rolled on. His mind switched to murder and chaos, but an ear picked up the dialogue on behalf of the angel dozing atop him.

Home was one of those words whose meanings had changed. It used to mean four walls and furniture, taxes, a place to call one's own. Now, it meant comfort and safety, which often did not involve walls or furniture or wainscoting or crown molding or taxes, but love and patience and understanding and always pressing forwards.

The movie ended with Aziraphale sniffling, as always. Crowley hid the roll of his eyes as he hefted him from the couch and pressed soft kisses to his cheeks. They all had their little quirks. Crowley hated spiders, for instance. With a passion. And the little insects that ate the leaves on his plants. And all other insects, really,  but particularly the creepy ones that looked like aliens and made him remember that one awful moment a few years back when Everything nearly became dust and fundamentalists.

'If I should fall,' Aziraphale's thoughts are sleepy and heavy and slow, 'he'd catch me'.

The assured phrase unnerves as much as it relaxes. There are plenty of what-ifs to consider. If he was fast enough, strong enough, if he'd be able to fight hard enough, if he'd be able to protect him enough; but as Aziraphale addendums his thoughts with 'and stop reading my mind, Crowley', the demon grins and unbuttons his shirt slowly, taking pleasure in the human task, in the little things of home.

Aziraphale's already half-naked, burrowed underneath the blankets like a cat.

Crowley slides in next to him, and yawns. Before his mouth has closed, Aziraphale is pressed up to his side, a hand to his bare chest waiting for his own to join it (and it does) and his lips to his neck (and his pulse seems to triple, and it's all because of him) and a quiet squeeze of the hand symbolizes 'goodnight' and 'I love you' and 'Happy Valentine's Day' and 'don't you dare grab my arse, I'm paying attention'.

Most of all, it symbolizes 'home'.
  



* This might not have been such a foolish thing to do considering the temperament of teenagers and the fact that beheadings were still seen as the nobility's version of a slap on the wrist. A word ill-taken could've been quite messy, though it would have saved on hair-cuts which were a rarity during the 1300s. What, you didn't think that the long, flowing hairstyles were for fashion, did you?

** This was more or less true; even Saint Julius the Flu Healer had a day of his own, now. He rarely answered his prayers. Flu was a relatively embarrassing thing to be a patron saint of, and it did pass within a couple of days. Besides which, nobody other than Catholic school-children slogging their way through exams knew about St. Julius. Quite a large number of them suspected that he was made up.

*** He'd only done this once, and it had taken off like wildfire.

**** The last time he'd given Aziraphale a gift had been a while.

(5) The editors have informed us that five stars are a bit much for a simple footnote. This was supposed to be about Bartok, fifth demon in charge of Mildly Irritating Things, but the stars issue is worth a mention.

(6) It wasn't the fluorescent pink heart banners that tipped the casual watcher off. It wasn't even the fact that three out of four of those magazines had a pretty girl in a dress on the front, plumped and pinked and polished and laminated to cover perfection. It wasn't even the bright 'PSS LADIES' arrow tacked lopsided atop everything. It was the fact that most of those things, when put together, naturally formed a man-repellent. Newt had been the only one to go near the magazines. The cashier remained unimpressed.

(7) Crowley didn't often flip through magazines. Things Had Changed, but not as far as he knew.

(8) That is not a typo. There are many forms of grumbling and Grumbling is the one most exercised by crotchety old people, demons and pigeons. It is also categorized as a bio-weapon in 92 of the 192 member states of the United Nations.

(9) Not that it did any good, mind you. Video-games listened just slightly less than children did when they were being told off.

(10) There had been very little to do in those days, other than eating. And starting small wars. And explaining to Aziraphale why he had started small wars. Oh, and sleeping of course.