please don't say you have to go;

[wingborne]

Aziraphale was quite impregnated in the most semi-literal of senses. Him or Crowley, that is, because it was quite difficult to tell in the early stages. (Always such troublesome things, they were, pregnancy tests.)

“Crowley,” Aziraphale began.

“Dear,” Aziraphale added kindly.

“I think I’m pregnant,” Aziraphale announced while both of them were watching an angry man on television shout at his frightened audience.

“Well,” Crowley said, being quite of practical mind, and having been drinking practical amounts of the best sort of wine, “I’m going to talk to you seriously because after all we’ve been through together, you deserve it.”

He took another sip before he set down his glass, crossed his legs, looked Aziraphale in the eye, and said, “That’s impossible and you’re stupid.”

“No,” Aziraphale protested weakly, “I mean it.” He rubbed his belly with a certain glowing fondness.

“Yes, well.” Crowley took another drink. “I mean it too.”

“You’re being close-minded.”

“Are you honestly telling me to believe that you’re pregnant?” Crowley cocked his eyebrow, which was a clever trick he had learned a few good centuries ago, though at the time, it had been a nervous facial tic that was responsible for the deaths of three point five persons. “You’re an angel. You can’t get pregnant. It’s not possible.”

“Still,” Aziraphale persisted.

“Well, who did it?” Crowley tipped his glass, disappointed that all the rum had gone. He sometimes felt he needed to feel drunk around Aziraphale. All the goodness radiations were a bit too much after a while.

“You, probably.”

“No.”

“What?”

“No.”

“You can’t refuse.” Aziraphale looked personally affronted. “It’s a fact.”

“Look,” Crowley said slowly, for sometimes Aziraphale couldn’t understand him if he talked quickly and used big words, “You aren’t pregnant. And I’m not responsible even if you were. Which you aren’t. Because you can’t. And won’t. And never will. Following?”

“You are being rather close-minded today,” Aziraphale said, almost crossly, before sitting back into the sofa and watching as the angry man’s face turned an unpleasant shade of purple.

--

Crowley had just finished dangling one of his plants over the balcony (to teach the other plants a lesson, and the discerning reader would notice a slight tremble in the bright green leafy fronds after) when Aziraphale triumphantly came flopping down to his doorway. That is to say, he knocked on the door, beaming in the proud way he got after finally finding one of his dusty rare old books, and he carried Crowley’s newspaper under his arm.

“I got sick,” he said proudly.

“I’m feeling rather ill myself after having seen your face.” Crowley ushered him in, snagging his own newspaper along the way. It was very important to keep up with how well a demon was doing in today’s world, wouldn’t do to just sit back and hope there were results. He first flipped to the sports pages, of course. He could tell how he was doing by the sports pages alone, honestly. That was a trade secret. Occasionally he’d read the advertisements, just to double-check to make sure the world was going wrong. Aziraphale always flipped to the comics first, though he couldn’t be quite sure if Aziraphale really was amused by the funnies or that he was checking how the side of good was doing in the world.

“No, I think it was morning sickness.” Aziraphale sat down at the edge of Crowley’s chair, still beaming and occasionally looking at the plants strangely.

“None of my business what comes out of you.” Crowley set the newspaper aside for the moment in favour of turning up the music to tune him out. After a moment, he popped his head back up from the stereo. “Either side of you.”

“I think I’m pregnant.”

“Oh, not this again.”

“I read my horoscopes this morning,” Aziraphale said hopefully. “Said I should get ready for a big event soon.”

“You know those things are a load of tosh. The other day, I read one that said I should avoid cabbages. What sort of horoscope is that? Am I going to get attacked by a raving vegetable?” With that end, Crowley scowled at his plants, who seemed to shiver and draw themselves up to look their flowery best.

Aziraphale frowned distractedly. “No, I mean, they’re sometimes fun.”

“Fun doesn’t mean accurate. Just give it up, you’re not pregnant and I want nothing to do with it. Now, you should get out of my house before I start brewing my morning coffee. That would make you sick.”

Looking green and nauseous, Aziraphale threw a queasy look at the boiling kettle before he took the funnies and left the flat, because Crowley liked his coffee to be so energetic that it would get up and dance, and it often did, to disastrous results.

--

In some other part of the world, a golden retriever sat on the side of the road, panting lazily as the sun rolled over the sky. She yawned, her pink tongue flapping about as she showed her gums. After a few more lazy smacks, she turned around and around in her spot until she made herself comfortable, and then she fell asleep.

All this was observed by the two scientists in the bushes, who were busy taking notes and scientific observations as they disguised themselves in the field of wheat by cleverly wearing bright white lab coats and aluminum foil tin hats which, despite popular opinion, proved remarkably well in blocking out elevator music. To be more exact, one scientist was busy jotting down notes—the other was drawing an extremely ugly stick figure of a dog.

“Remarkable,” one scientist said to the other.

“Remarkable,” the other scientist said to the one.

And they sat in silence on the hot day, letting sleeping dogs lie.

--

“Well,” Aziraphale said, crossing his legs and weaving his fingers quite anxiously together, “Then you might be pregnant. If it’s not me, I mean.”

“No,” Crowley said promptly. And then, “What?”

“One of us has got to be. I can tell these sorts of things, you know. Birth of a new life and all,” Aziraphale said anxiously, creasing his brow. “Well, I mean, you should know it, too, but it’s not so much your area.”

“My area.” Crowley leaned back in his charming white chair. All cafes down near Lower Tadfield had those—charming chairs with charming round tables under charming umbrellas under the charming drizzling rain that wouldn’t let up after two entire weeks and everything was smelt and were either messy, soggy, or just plain ruined, if not a combination of the three, and there really was a difference, a terrible one. But the café scene was just very charming.

“We have areas,” Aziraphale explained patiently, for Crowley sometimes did not understand him if he spoke too quickly and used big words. “Of expertise, I mean.”

“This isn’t mathematics, of course I know what you mean expertise.” Crowley scowled and sipped his tea as he stared out into the rain. The scent of Aziraphale’s herbal mix tea and the sight of the recyclable paper cup was making him feel downright ill. “It’s not like we have perimeters and parameters and jizz-whits to calculate.”

“Jizz what?”

“The—” Crowley stopped and affixed the angel with a stony glare, which would have been a lot more effective if a rain drop hadn’t suddenly tipped over from the edge of the umbrella and plonked rightfully on top of his head. “Listen, have you just been reading too much again? Overactive imagination, that’s what you got, angel.”

“No,” Aziraphale protested, “I haven’t even been out collecting books lately. I mean, I did get this rather nifty catch on this little bookstore off Fifth and Corner, but that’s quite a different matter, and—” He stopped when he realized Crowley’s stony glare had melted into a droned state of absolute boredom. After a moment, he ruffled his metaphorically literal feathers and loyally added in a low voice, “It was just The Lyfe and Tymes of Lyle Yeneystyne.”

“Oh,” Crowley said.

“Yes,” Crowley said.

“Lyfe,” Crowley said.

“Listen,” Aziraphale insisted, leaning forward suddenly and nearly upsetting the fancy little crumpets that Crowley had ordered. “What have I got to do for you to believe me?”

“You’re just not making any sense.” Crowley sighed deeply, idly picking at a crumpet. “You can’t get pregnant. I can’t. We’re both, you know. What was that word again? No, more than one word, I mean, the thing about us, what makes us special, makes us tick—oh, right, not bloody human.”

“I know,” Aziraphale said impatiently.

“And there’s no possibility for us to have a child,” Crowley said. “We haven’t done anything more suspect than having a spot of tea together on the occasion.” He paused, and then added, “And watching bad telly, but that’s a different matter.”

After Aziraphale had avowed that bad telly was indeed not to be discussed, he continued to pursue the subject. “You have to trust me on this.”

“No.”

“But you honestly have got to,” Aziraphale said, waving his hands around emphatically. “We can’t raise a child without trust.”

“Well, that’s good, because we’re not raising a child at all, since neither of us are having one, especially since you can’t tell which one of us is bearing the little brute. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to cleanse myself of this terrible conversation by blasting music at horrendous levels on my drive home.” He stood up, having made sure that Aziraphale would be taking the check, and strode away in the rain, an appropriately dramatic exit that left Aziraphale with the bill of $18.75.

--

Lyle Yeneystyne was actually a doctor, though in those days, they called him an old gossip. He mixed medicine and handed herbs and gossiped goodly about the shepherd’s wife and have you heard about what she did, really quite terrible, how could she and after all she’d done. He also had a terrible accent and tended to put y’s for i’s and y’s for just about anything. Most people couldn’t understand him, for it was difficult to tell if he was saying something or another, or if he was just asking why.

But he was a very good gossip, and people came for miles to hear about their neighbours. He was such a good gossip that he occasionally even told the future, with a higher accuracy rate than the neighborhood soothsayer. He didn’t mean to do it, but sometimes he just slipped from gossip to truth to future to truth to gossip and it was all very topsy-turvy, especially when he grew older.

So one day, as he sat on his porch with his cane, he stared vacantly out into the fields.

“It be a bad idyea,” he announced solemnly, “to watyre the vegytables wyth too mych mygic wyter. Oyne syeed possesses that pywer, and it shyall growe.”

Of course, like all good prophecies, it was swiftly ignored and promptly tossed aside until years later; and then it would be dredged out, like all good prophecies, for a big fat “I told you so” and a wet, slobbery raspberry from three hundred years in the past.

--

“What would we even name her?” Aziraphale looked quite distressed, wringing his hands as Crowley took another sip of beer. They were at the local pub, and being a local pub, the stools all twirled around with a loud squeak, which could still be heard over the beating music. Crowley took advantage of the twirling stool now to twirl away, and jam a fistful of small peanuts into his mouth.

While Crowley looked like he had been carved out of the walls of the pub and stuck onto a stool, Aziraphale could not have physically stood out more. With his carefully pressed tweed suit, bowler hat, and a handkerchief tucked in his pocket, he looked fit to be in a librarian outing rather than any pub. He didn’t seem to notice the many stares slowly being attracted to him as he nervously chewed on a peanut. When he did notice a stare or two, he brightened up and waved, only to look downcast again when they turned away quickly.

“Why are you here?”

“I want to talk to you about her name. I mean, if she’s even a her,” Aziraphale mused, staring vacantly at the many-colored bottles of many-colored alcohol. “If he’s a he, then… well, what do you think about gender-neutral names? Like—Leslie, or—Polka?”

“You’re not naming anybody Polka.”

“But it’s a very family-friendly name.”

“Listen, don’t follow me around sprouting about names of all things. Can’t you see I’m on duty?”

“I don’t mean to follow you,” he said apologetically, “It just happened.”

“Things don’t just happen.”

“All right, I followed you for a reason.”

“That’s not what I want to hear.”

“Well,” Aziraphale said finally, with an added tone of petulance, “Too bad.” With an air of finality, he also twirled on his stool, stopping in front of his own glass of alcoholic beverage and sipping it like water. Crowley stared, sighed, and slid on his sunglasses to try and block out the angel on the very corner of his vision.

“Polka just sounds silly,” he finally said.

Aziraphale brightened up, and with a loud squeak, turned back to him. “Yeah?” he asked eagerly.

“Can’t we name him Wormwood or something like that?”

“No!” Aziraphale said, horrified. “Imagine how terrible that would fit on a cake.”

“We could call him Wood.”

“I’m not going to have any wood here,” the angel said indignantly. “I’m trying to go for a neutral name, you know. Something that the both of us don’t hate too much.” He would have said “liked,” but there were very few areas where their preferences overlapped. Sure, Crowley could tolerate angry infomercials, and Aziraphale could tolerate loud football stadiums, they could never decide on a channel they liked, just some they could tolerate better than others. In the end, they always watched something generally disagreeable to last night’s dinner.

“I don’t know,” Crowley said crabbily, stirring his drink. “Something human, then.”

“How about Apple?”

“Oh, you have a sense of humor now, don’t you.”

--

In some other nonsensical part of the world, the two scientists radioed in eagerly on a little telly-device, that would have worked quite well if the aluminum foil hadn’t been wrapped around snugly on the edges. As it were, it had the annoying habit of perfectly recording the finales of all the bad soaps, and having a very difficult time radioing in to their boss.

The one with a rather large nose and thin lips squirmed closer to the screen, watching Anna Marie storm out for the sixteenth time with vapid eagerness. The other one with the thin nose and large lips jutted him out of the way.

“Have it yet?”

“Almost,” the first said impatiently. “Anna Marie just found out she was actually pregnant with Rachel’s child. Now, isn’t that something?”

“Not that, you twat! Here, let me—” The other scientist fiddled with the stations, and after another blip of Anna Marie’s traumatic life, a shadowy figure filled the room.

“Have you got results?” a slippery voice asked silkily, in a rather succulent manner.

“Oh, yes,” they both jabbered at once, until the second one elbowed the first out of the way again.

“Yes,” he clarified eagerly, “Yes, of course. She’s pregnant, she is—“

“And ingests this much water per day—“

“And eats this many kilos of food per week—“

“And frequents the gas station quite a lot—“

“It seems that you have gathered plenty of data,” the voice said smoothly.

“Yes,” the first said happily, wiping his brow quickly with his polka-dotted handkerchief. “Yes, we—“

“So tell me,” the voice said seethingly. “Why does that dog glow in the dark?”

“Ah,” the first said.

“Ah,” the second said.

They looked at each other, and finding no answers, slowly turned off the telly screen again so they could catch the last moments of Anna Marie slapping Rachel, as all good soaps tended to end.

--

“Does this make me look fat?”

“Yes,” Crowley said without looking up from his grilled cheese sandwich. When he finally did, he found Aziraphale standing in front of him, beaming in his gentle manner, with his arms outspread as if expecting a hug. He looked no slimmer or fatter since Crowley had last seen him yesterday. (Then again, he had allowed himself to get drunk to some level, so there had been three or four Aziraphales—but he was almost certain that their size remained the same.)

“I knew it,” Aziraphale said, smiling brightly.

“What? Are you trying to gain weight?”

“It can’t be helped,” the angel said.

“Yes,” the demon said. “Yes, it can. It’s called a diet plan, and it’s one of mine.”

“Really?”

“Well,” Crowley said. “Somewhat.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah.”

Aziraphale shifted his weight from foot to foot before he suddenly rushed and sat in front of Crowley, his hands spread out in excitement as the table rocked violently. Crowley had to reach out and snatch his cup from shattering onto the ground. “No, but this is something different. I think it’s me—definitely—I mean, it’s not like it would make sense if it was you.”

“What?” Crowley looked affronted as he balanced the cup on one pinky. “What’s wrong with me?”

“Oh.” And suddenly the angel was all bashful and shifty eyes, playing with his long fingers and suddenly interested in his perfect cuffs. “Oh, well, you know.”

“No.” Crowley leaned back slowly, a patented trait that would always make Aziraphale crack under pressure. He was no good with lies, but the annoying thing was that he was very good with truth, and it would take Crowley’s best to pry it out of him. “No, go on.”

“I’m just more the sort.”

“The sort.”

“The… heavy sort,” Aziraphale said hopefully. “More—you know, with the—you know, and the—you know. You know.”

“I don’t want to bear a child,” Crowley said emphatically. “But if I wanted to, I could. You don’t need to be any sort about it.”

“But, dear,” Aziraphale pleaded. “It’s not like you’d be bad at it, but come on, you’d probably—forget or—“

“I wouldn’t forget about a bloody child in my bloody womb.”

“Language, dear.”

“Like the little tot could hear anyway! He’s probably got his head all full of clouds, just like you, except worse, I say.”

“They can actually hear music,” Aziraphale continued happily, rubbing his stomach. “I’ve been playing Queen for a long while now.”

“Queen?”

“Yeah?”

“That won’t do,” Crowley said, leaning back and putting his feet on the table. “You’ve got to expose him to more of the classics in this early stage.”