Title: Sobering Up
Author: Circeniko
Rating: PG
Fandom: Good Omens
Summary: Just how did Crowley and Aziraphale develop that ability to sober up?

The first time Crowley was drunk, the angel pushed him over a cliff.

He should have expected it, but he hadn’t considered how suceptable his human body would be to alcohol. When he came to he swore revenge.

It took planning. The angel was naturally wary of him. Crowley had always believed that goodness was more gullible than evil, certainly Aziraphale had appeared to be gullible while they were in the garden. But apparently the angel had learned a few things since then, because it took Crowley a good two centuries to get him to have a drink. Two centuries of following the angel around, of them dancing around each other, getting on each other’s nerves, tormenting. It was great fun.

He’d been afraid that it would be difficult to get the angel to consume enough of it to actually get drunk. That turned out not to be a problem. One glass had the angel tipsy, and a tipsy angel could be urged to drink more, and more…..

Aziraphale would doubtless have gotten alcohol poisoning had Crowley not been matching him drink for drink. As a result, there came a point where encouragement became impossible, because neither was capable of getting up to refill the pitcher. The last thought Crowley had before passing out was that he never would have expected Aziraphale to be so affectionate when drunk.

oooo

Crowley would almost rather have been thrown off a cliff.

Groaning, he rolled over and came up against a leg. The leg was attatched to a thigh, and the thigh was attatched to a waist, and the waist was attatched to an angel. An angel that looked so peaceful that Crowley poked him in unpreventable rage. The angel’s groan was satisfying, though not the revenge that he had planned.

He wavered to his knees and almost threw up. Why did humans do this to themselves? Granted, last night had been enjoyable, but it wasn’t worth the agony that was his head right now.

There was a rustling and the angel popped up next to him. Unbelievably, there was a cheerful smile on his face, which was completely not what should have been there after a night of binge drinking. He appeared quite concerned about Crowley, reaching out to touch him, and Crowley could not contain the instinctive growl that rose in his throat at the gesture.

Aziraphale drew his hand back quickly, and looked reproachful.

“You should really let me do something about that,” he said.

Crowley was loath to come into any sort of contact with an angel, but remaining in this state was intolerable. He closed his eyes in misery and ignored the gentle hand drifting over his brow. Amazingly, the hazy cloud of pain that had been hovering around his ears drifted away like so much fog.

He opened his eyes and stared at Aziraphale incredulously, then said slowly, and with as much distinction as he could muster, “Angel, if you will teach me how to do that, I will forgive you for the cliff incident.”

Aziraphale appeared to be nonplussed, he blinked, blinked again, and then asked in bewilderment, “The cliff incident?”

Crowley ground his teeth together to prevent anything untoward from escaping them. It would not do, after all, to let the angel go without having had the secret of whatever had been done imparted.

“Yes, angel, the time when you took advantage of my inebriated state to push me off a bloody cliff!”

A light entered Aziraphale’s eyes, and he chuckled. Crowley saw red.

“Oh, no, my dear, you completely misread the situation. There was a large snake at the top of that cliff. I was attempting to save you from a vicious snakebite.”

Crowley closed his eyes and let his head fall to the floor. “Angel,” he said in a muffled voice, “you are aware that I’m immune to snake venom, aren’t you?”

He opened his eyes to see Aziraphale looking a little ashamed of himself, a rare look on an angel. He enjoyed it as much as he could, quickly realizing that now was the perfect time to extract the information that he’d been wanting.

“Aziraphale.”

That got the angel’s attention, they rarely ever used each other’s given names.

“Given that you nearly discorporated me--and no, the fact that it happened two-hundred years ago does not change the situation—given that you nearly discorporated me, I think that I’m owed some sort of compensation.”

The angel was looking distinctly nervous now. “What sort of compensation?”

“Oh, nothing that you won’t be able to part with, just how to do that little trick of yours.”

Aziraphale had a blank look on his face, so Crowley clarified. “That little bit of sobering up that you just did.”

Aziraphale’s expression cleared up, and he said, “But of course, my dear, why didn’t you ask me earlier?”

Crowley had no words to respond to that.

oooo

Much later, when Crowley asked Aziraphale where he’d learned the trick, Aziraphale got a hunted expression on his face and hurriedly changed the subject. Crowley wasn’t bothered. There would be hundreds of years for him to find out.