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Just an idea for Good Omens Noir. I wanted Crowley as the world-weary detective, and Aziraphale as the femme fatale. *grins a bit* It ended up sort of a Good Omens/LA Confidential fusion. Think Crowley as a Jack Vincennes who got fired for hanging around with the wrong crowd when scandal hit, and Aziraphale as a sort of mash between a gentler, less abrasive Ed Exley, and Lynn. *shakes head at self* I'm weird, we have established this, yes?
Title: City of Angels
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Good Omens
Characters/Pairings: Crowley, Ezra Fell (Aziraphale). Mention of Lucifer, Metatron, Adam, Pepper. Crowley/Aziraphale
Summary: Anthony J. Crowley, that day when an angel walked into his office, had taken the damn kid at face fucking value, had fallen for the pretty, innocent picture, and hadn't had the damn sense to say no.
Wordcount: 1659
Warnings/Notes: Written in my best noir style, which ... isn't the best -_-;
Disclaimer: Oh, so very not mine
Title: City of Angels
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Good Omens
Characters/Pairings: Crowley, Ezra Fell (Aziraphale). Mention of Lucifer, Metatron, Adam, Pepper. Crowley/Aziraphale
Summary: Anthony J. Crowley, that day when an angel walked into his office, had taken the damn kid at face fucking value, had fallen for the pretty, innocent picture, and hadn't had the damn sense to say no.
Wordcount: 1659
Warnings/Notes: Written in my best noir style, which ... isn't the best -_-;
Disclaimer: Oh, so very not mine
City of Angels
If you'd been there, and listened hard enough, while the din of gunfire faded in your ears, you coulda heard the boards of the battered shack sigh in relief. You coulda heard the rumble as bullet-shattered wood slowly crumbled, the plink-patter of water from one of the burst pipes, the whisper of the shredded curtains in the breeze. You coulda heard all that.
Crowley didn't. He didn't hear any of it. He was too busy lying on the floor like a schmuck, watchin' the blood slip steadily between his fingers out onto the floorboards, too busy watchin' his leg bleed like a stuck pig. He was too busy listening to the odd whistling in his ears, and the laboured weight of his breathing. Too busy. Too damn busy. He shoulda listened, too. Shoulda heard how it all went down in the end. But he didn't, couldn't, and the first he knew of how it ended was when the copper, his copper, knelt gently down beside him, and pressed soft, white hands over his to stem the flow.
"It's over," Ezra said softly. Ezra Fell. Hah! He oughta tell the man to sue his parents, over that one. Maybe he already had. Hadn't he? He grimaced, white with pain, and looked up from the black seep of his blood in the darkness. Looked up to the pale moon that was his copper's round, angelic face. Looked up to the soft empathy and steely determination in those blue eyes. Listened, like he oughta. "It's over," Ezra said. "He's dead."
"Yeah?" he murmured, and maybe felt something crack, inside, where his heart oughta be, where his heart hadn't been in years. Not since he fell from grace, maybe not even before. "Sorry about that, angel. Didn't oughta be you that did it. Sorry about that."
Ezra smiled at him, a dark gleam, a slice of deadly humour in the night, and patted his sticky hands softly. "Don't worry about it, Mr Crowley. Tony. I just did what needed to be done. You don't have to be sorry for that. You don't ever have to be sorry for that."
But he did. Oh, he did. Not least because those were sirens coming over the hill, their eerie blaring coming closer all the time to this shit-house motel, to the scene of all those old and faded crimes, and the fresh splash of the night's blood over them. Not least because of that.
"You gotta go, Ezra," he rasped softly. It wasn't heroism. A.J.Crowley was no damn hero, not now nor ever. But his copper had to go. His copper couldn't be found with blood on his shirt, and a gun in his hands, and the damn Metatron's corpse, the Police Commissioner himself, lying still and pretty out in the driveway. His copper, with his stiff cuffs, and proper shoes, and his badge still so shiny you could see your face in it. Not Ezra Fell, the one damn decent copper he'd met in the long years since he'd hit bottom. "You gotta get outta here, angel. Before they see you. You gotta leave."
Ezra smiled at him, all soft and round and gentle. Always so damn gentle, his copper. Ezra smiled at him, and reached up with one sticky hand to cradle Crowley's jaw, and drop the most quiet kiss he'd ever received on his forehead. The place where his lips brushed felt burned, for a moment. Felt seared.
"Don't be silly, dearest," said his copper, his angel, Ezra Fell, holding him close and pressing soft hands against his wounds. Not letting him go. Not letting him fall, not again. "Don't be silly. I'm staying right here, and we'll sort everything out once you're better." He smiled again, so bright and broken Crowley had to close his eyes, and in the sudden darkness he felt again the burning press of lips against his forehead.
"I'm staying right here."
***
It hadn't started out like that. It hadn't started out all bloody and violent and impossibly noble. If it had, he wouldn't've gone anywhere near it. Anthony J. Crowley was no damn fool, and if his rather spectacular fall from grace had taught him anything at all, it was to stay the hell away from bright shiny people with a Cause. If Lucifer had taught him nothing else, the ex-Commissioner had taught him that. Crowley wasn't ever gonna make those mistakes again. Not ever.
But it hadn't started out like that. It had actually started out pretty swell. It had been a good day, when the young, shiny copper had walked into his life. He'd just gotten a lucrative deal for a consultant spot on Badge of Honor, advising young, handsome, steel-jawed actors how to play the heroic detectives, and look head-on into corruption and crime, at the shock and insult of death, without flinching. Which, in his own experience, mostly involved copious amounts of alcohol bolstering the system against horror, but that wasn't what the punters wanted to see. Not unless it was the hero triumphing over his angst-driven alcoholism to stand tall and firm in the face of the law once more.
It truly amazed him, sometimes, how utterly blind people could really be. All they wanted were their pretty illusions of justice, their little thrills of vice experienced at one remove, sure in the knowledge that real corruption couldn't touch them in this safe, black-and-white bubble formed by the screen. Temptation at a distance, the illusion of virtue. And when they turned the television off, went out into the bright, glittering world with all it's terrible shadows ... they carried the illusion with them, and never noticed their own falling.
Well, if that was what they wanted to think, he was fine with letting them. If that's what they wanted to believe, Crowley could play the distant seducer better than any of them. He could peddle the best and brightest illusions, and drink himself into an unheroic stupor as he watched them fall because of it, if it put money in his bank and whiskey in his belly. He could do that. He was the best in the business. He could do it better than anyone.
So that day had been going pretty good, by his standards. He'd been as cheerful as he ever got these days when the copper walked in the door, a shot of whiskey sitting warm in his belly and his hands happily counting out the green in his wallet. Mentally working out the distance to the next cheque, and calculating how many side-swindles he oughta put in to get his account back in the black after having to pay Adam off last month. Damn kid had the best protection racket in town, and with the meanest moll in LA as his enforcer, petty swindlers like Crowley had to be real timely with the cash. But with the new job, that was lookin' like less of a problem already ...
And then the kid walked in the door. All bright and shiny, with that round, friendly face, and those warm, gentle eyes, and those soft hands, and that stiff and starchy uniform. All soft and innocent, he'd looked then, shiny and untarnished as his bright new badge. Damn near angelic. He'd made Crowley feel old just lookin' at him, made him feel old and dirty and so damn tired. Took all the shine out of his day, that did. Ezra bloody Fell, new cop on the block, and he'd taken the joy right outta Crowley's day before he ever opened his damn mouth. Walked right in the door, and knocked Crowley's whole world down around him, though he hadn't known it at the time.
"Mr Crowley?" the damned man had asked, soft and gentle and precise, with good breeding and gentle upbringing all but dripping from his voice. A shiny smile for a shiny man, and Crowley found his hand whispering under the desk for his gun almost on pure instinct, braced for a shake-down. Not that it looked likely, with that face, but Lucifer had seemed friendly, too, with his offers of little jobs on the side, Detective, just cleaning out the undesirables, sure it couldn't hurt. Couldn't hurt! Hah! So Crowley was braced and ready for just about anything to come outta this angel's mouth.
"Mr Crowley, I need your help," said Ezra Fell, with a smile fit for an angel and the gentle wringing of soft, innocent hands. Hands, Crowley hadn't noted then, that never trembled. "I've heard ... that is, I've heard some things about you, about your connections around here, and, well, I have this problem, there's a few cases that just aren't adding up, and I was wondering ... Mr Crowley, I was wondering if you would be interested in a little ... Arrangement?"
And he smiled the most hopeful, helpless grin Crowley'd ever seen, and Crowley, dumb, stupid Crowley who never learned, who never noticed the bright shiny illusions until they'd already drowned him in the shadows lurking beneath ... Anthony J. Crowley, that day when an angel walked into his office, had taken the damn kid at face fucking value, had fallen for the pretty, innocent picture, and hadn't had the damn sense to say no. He hadn't said no. He'd followed the illusion of innocence out into the black waters of corruption, and damn well drowned in blood, lots of it his own, because of it.
But then ... oh, but then. Ezra Fell, with his soft hands and his soft smile, and the steel beneath his seeming innocence ... Los Angeles was the City of damn Angels, after all. For all the shadows under it's harsh twinkle, it was the city of angels. And in Ezra Fell, Crowley had found his own angel, bright and untarnished as the badge he wore, steel under the softness, the perfect angel for this city. Crowley's angel. And Crowley'd been falling all his damn life.
What was once more, one last time, for the sake of an angel?
If you'd been there, and listened hard enough, while the din of gunfire faded in your ears, you coulda heard the boards of the battered shack sigh in relief. You coulda heard the rumble as bullet-shattered wood slowly crumbled, the plink-patter of water from one of the burst pipes, the whisper of the shredded curtains in the breeze. You coulda heard all that.
Crowley didn't. He didn't hear any of it. He was too busy lying on the floor like a schmuck, watchin' the blood slip steadily between his fingers out onto the floorboards, too busy watchin' his leg bleed like a stuck pig. He was too busy listening to the odd whistling in his ears, and the laboured weight of his breathing. Too busy. Too damn busy. He shoulda listened, too. Shoulda heard how it all went down in the end. But he didn't, couldn't, and the first he knew of how it ended was when the copper, his copper, knelt gently down beside him, and pressed soft, white hands over his to stem the flow.
"It's over," Ezra said softly. Ezra Fell. Hah! He oughta tell the man to sue his parents, over that one. Maybe he already had. Hadn't he? He grimaced, white with pain, and looked up from the black seep of his blood in the darkness. Looked up to the pale moon that was his copper's round, angelic face. Looked up to the soft empathy and steely determination in those blue eyes. Listened, like he oughta. "It's over," Ezra said. "He's dead."
"Yeah?" he murmured, and maybe felt something crack, inside, where his heart oughta be, where his heart hadn't been in years. Not since he fell from grace, maybe not even before. "Sorry about that, angel. Didn't oughta be you that did it. Sorry about that."
Ezra smiled at him, a dark gleam, a slice of deadly humour in the night, and patted his sticky hands softly. "Don't worry about it, Mr Crowley. Tony. I just did what needed to be done. You don't have to be sorry for that. You don't ever have to be sorry for that."
But he did. Oh, he did. Not least because those were sirens coming over the hill, their eerie blaring coming closer all the time to this shit-house motel, to the scene of all those old and faded crimes, and the fresh splash of the night's blood over them. Not least because of that.
"You gotta go, Ezra," he rasped softly. It wasn't heroism. A.J.Crowley was no damn hero, not now nor ever. But his copper had to go. His copper couldn't be found with blood on his shirt, and a gun in his hands, and the damn Metatron's corpse, the Police Commissioner himself, lying still and pretty out in the driveway. His copper, with his stiff cuffs, and proper shoes, and his badge still so shiny you could see your face in it. Not Ezra Fell, the one damn decent copper he'd met in the long years since he'd hit bottom. "You gotta get outta here, angel. Before they see you. You gotta leave."
Ezra smiled at him, all soft and round and gentle. Always so damn gentle, his copper. Ezra smiled at him, and reached up with one sticky hand to cradle Crowley's jaw, and drop the most quiet kiss he'd ever received on his forehead. The place where his lips brushed felt burned, for a moment. Felt seared.
"Don't be silly, dearest," said his copper, his angel, Ezra Fell, holding him close and pressing soft hands against his wounds. Not letting him go. Not letting him fall, not again. "Don't be silly. I'm staying right here, and we'll sort everything out once you're better." He smiled again, so bright and broken Crowley had to close his eyes, and in the sudden darkness he felt again the burning press of lips against his forehead.
"I'm staying right here."
***
It hadn't started out like that. It hadn't started out all bloody and violent and impossibly noble. If it had, he wouldn't've gone anywhere near it. Anthony J. Crowley was no damn fool, and if his rather spectacular fall from grace had taught him anything at all, it was to stay the hell away from bright shiny people with a Cause. If Lucifer had taught him nothing else, the ex-Commissioner had taught him that. Crowley wasn't ever gonna make those mistakes again. Not ever.
But it hadn't started out like that. It had actually started out pretty swell. It had been a good day, when the young, shiny copper had walked into his life. He'd just gotten a lucrative deal for a consultant spot on Badge of Honor, advising young, handsome, steel-jawed actors how to play the heroic detectives, and look head-on into corruption and crime, at the shock and insult of death, without flinching. Which, in his own experience, mostly involved copious amounts of alcohol bolstering the system against horror, but that wasn't what the punters wanted to see. Not unless it was the hero triumphing over his angst-driven alcoholism to stand tall and firm in the face of the law once more.
It truly amazed him, sometimes, how utterly blind people could really be. All they wanted were their pretty illusions of justice, their little thrills of vice experienced at one remove, sure in the knowledge that real corruption couldn't touch them in this safe, black-and-white bubble formed by the screen. Temptation at a distance, the illusion of virtue. And when they turned the television off, went out into the bright, glittering world with all it's terrible shadows ... they carried the illusion with them, and never noticed their own falling.
Well, if that was what they wanted to think, he was fine with letting them. If that's what they wanted to believe, Crowley could play the distant seducer better than any of them. He could peddle the best and brightest illusions, and drink himself into an unheroic stupor as he watched them fall because of it, if it put money in his bank and whiskey in his belly. He could do that. He was the best in the business. He could do it better than anyone.
So that day had been going pretty good, by his standards. He'd been as cheerful as he ever got these days when the copper walked in the door, a shot of whiskey sitting warm in his belly and his hands happily counting out the green in his wallet. Mentally working out the distance to the next cheque, and calculating how many side-swindles he oughta put in to get his account back in the black after having to pay Adam off last month. Damn kid had the best protection racket in town, and with the meanest moll in LA as his enforcer, petty swindlers like Crowley had to be real timely with the cash. But with the new job, that was lookin' like less of a problem already ...
And then the kid walked in the door. All bright and shiny, with that round, friendly face, and those warm, gentle eyes, and those soft hands, and that stiff and starchy uniform. All soft and innocent, he'd looked then, shiny and untarnished as his bright new badge. Damn near angelic. He'd made Crowley feel old just lookin' at him, made him feel old and dirty and so damn tired. Took all the shine out of his day, that did. Ezra bloody Fell, new cop on the block, and he'd taken the joy right outta Crowley's day before he ever opened his damn mouth. Walked right in the door, and knocked Crowley's whole world down around him, though he hadn't known it at the time.
"Mr Crowley?" the damned man had asked, soft and gentle and precise, with good breeding and gentle upbringing all but dripping from his voice. A shiny smile for a shiny man, and Crowley found his hand whispering under the desk for his gun almost on pure instinct, braced for a shake-down. Not that it looked likely, with that face, but Lucifer had seemed friendly, too, with his offers of little jobs on the side, Detective, just cleaning out the undesirables, sure it couldn't hurt. Couldn't hurt! Hah! So Crowley was braced and ready for just about anything to come outta this angel's mouth.
"Mr Crowley, I need your help," said Ezra Fell, with a smile fit for an angel and the gentle wringing of soft, innocent hands. Hands, Crowley hadn't noted then, that never trembled. "I've heard ... that is, I've heard some things about you, about your connections around here, and, well, I have this problem, there's a few cases that just aren't adding up, and I was wondering ... Mr Crowley, I was wondering if you would be interested in a little ... Arrangement?"
And he smiled the most hopeful, helpless grin Crowley'd ever seen, and Crowley, dumb, stupid Crowley who never learned, who never noticed the bright shiny illusions until they'd already drowned him in the shadows lurking beneath ... Anthony J. Crowley, that day when an angel walked into his office, had taken the damn kid at face fucking value, had fallen for the pretty, innocent picture, and hadn't had the damn sense to say no. He hadn't said no. He'd followed the illusion of innocence out into the black waters of corruption, and damn well drowned in blood, lots of it his own, because of it.
But then ... oh, but then. Ezra Fell, with his soft hands and his soft smile, and the steel beneath his seeming innocence ... Los Angeles was the City of damn Angels, after all. For all the shadows under it's harsh twinkle, it was the city of angels. And in Ezra Fell, Crowley had found his own angel, bright and untarnished as the badge he wore, steel under the softness, the perfect angel for this city. Crowley's angel. And Crowley'd been falling all his damn life.
What was once more, one last time, for the sake of an angel?
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