maskormenacelogs | One more cup of coffee for the road [CLOSED]

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One more cup of coffee for the road [CLOSED]

WHO: Chloe Decker & Aziraphale [CLOSED]
WHERE: A quaint coffee shop
WHEN: Shortly after this thread.
WHAT: Coffee, conversation, trading stories about what it's like when your boyfriend is literally from Hell. The usual.
WARNINGS: There will be pastries.

The angel, as is his wont, is terrifically punctual. Right on time and looking downright chipper about the whole thing. And why wouldn't he be? He's looking forward to talking with Chloe. And to the coffee. And checking out the various sweets this establishment has to offer. Something smells positively delicious, sweet and buttery and he thinks perhaps brown sugar as well, but he will find out what it is.

Aziraphale secures them a conveniently open table for two and keeps an eye to the door. When Chloe arrives, he'll lift a hand to wave, rising to his feet as she approaches the table because his manners are still lingering somewhere around the turn of the last century rather than this one. "Wonderful. You've made it. I hope I didn't pick some place too out of the way."

He'd hate to be an inconvenience. "I've been looking at their menu, and if you like cappuccino, they do claim it's a specialty."

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He's hardly the inconvenience. Chloe is late, which is usual for her. Not too late, mind, but you get used to a certain flow when you are wrangling a child who by her very nature is never punctual in any way, and she's learned to bend on either side of five minutes. Now that she doesn't have Trixie as a continual excuse, she hasn't found that to have changed at all, so many it wasn't Trixie but Chloe the whole time.

After eight years, it's easy to forget what is just in your nature and what you easily blame on your children.

"Not at all," she assures him, offering him a warm smile in greeting. "I don't mind out of the way. It helps me find all kinds of places I probably wouldn't have noticed."

She gestures to him to take a seat and she does, too, picking up the menu and glancing over it.

"I like cappuccinos," she says. "And I really like lemon bars. You think they have any of those?"

He settles back into his seat and reaches for the little menu to leaf through it. "You know, I think I saw that mentioned. Excellent choice really."

Though Aziraphale is nothing if not a being with a sweet tooth, so what isn't an excellent choice when it comes to that sort of treat? Minor details. He sets the menu down having already planned out his own selection and considers the young woman across the table.

"I take it you've settled in decently well? Despite some of the stranger goings on? I hope you weren't caught up in any of that strange crystal mess." It had not been pleasant and he is terrible unfond of the things, and quite glad they're gone. The faerie infestation while occasionally annoying is much less unsettling.

Chloe still has her nose buried in the menu, deciding on what she wants to stuff her mouth with, but Aziraphale's question draws her out and she tilts her head.

"Nothing too bad. A few drunk texts from a friend and I think Lucifer might have hallucinated his brother trying to kill me so, kind of typical day for me."

That's not really an exaggeration. Her life has been really weird since Lucifer stepped foot in it, whether she realized it or not.

"But more or less, yeah. I hate my job and my housing situation involves way too many roommates, but other than that I can't say it's okay. How about you?"

Aziraphale starts to smile like her answer must be a joke, but halfway into the expression he turns serious instead, "Good lord, you're serious aren't you?" He shakes his head slightly. "Well, at least you're well-prepared for the strangeness I suppose."

There's a bright side, right? He'll go with that.

"Oh. Well, my roommates seem fine. One is Crowley, which helps. Actually, I've given up my room to the former Antichrist and rather invaded Crowley's room instead." Cohabitation with his demon boyfriend and they temporarily adopted the boy who almost destroyed and then totally saved their world. Very normal things.

"... Pretty prepared. Some things I didn't know about at the time, and Lucifer had to fill me in later. But there's not really a point in freaking out about it."

She did enough of that when she finally learned the truth. And she wasn't going to spend the rest of her life scared just because Lucifer's family is powerful. If they want to kill her, she's not going down without a fight.

"You moved in with Crowley already?" She'll address the Antichrist bit in a minute, probably. "Isn't that kind of fast?"

"That's remarkably, if not alarmingly, level-headed. You said you were a detective. I assume this is the sort of skill that is entirely invaluable in that line of work." Cool under pressure? That's what he's going with anyway. Also, if Aziraphale knew her plan to not go down without a fight, he'd be all for that too. Sometimes you just have to stand up to Heaven. Or Hell. Or both. And hey sometimes you even live through it.

"Well, we've known each other six thousand years at this point-- oh! No I see. Actually, the moving in happened before our trip to Paris. It didn't seem right to leave Adam alone. He's only eleven, and really a wonderful boy. So it only made sense to make space for him. And it isn't as though I sleep, generally, so it's more just having a place to regroup."

"If I let all of this get to me, I'd probably have a mental breakdown. Between Uriel and Lucifer's mom and everything else that's happened, I'm just at the point that if I want him in my life, I just... have to deal with the fact that this is my life now."

It's really that simple, and that straightforward, when you get down to the heart of it. Chloe didn't know what she was getting into when she fell in love with him, but being in love with him also meant she wasn't going to turn her back on him, either.

"Oh, okay, that's a little more understandable, I guess." She's tempted to ask why they didn't just get a bigger place but... She's not going there. Chloe had to puzzle through her own mental gymnastics of why she did a lot of what she did to keep Lucifer close to her. If Aziraphale needed an excuse to move in with the man he was clearly head over heels for, who was she to judge?

"Adam? The Antichrist's name is Adam? And he's eleven?"

Don't mind that Aziraphale makes a brief face at the name Uriel before his expression smooths out once more. "I see. I suppose that makes sense. I'm glad you've managed to find a way to handle it."

Humans really are so astonishingly adaptable. It's one of their better qualities, Aziraphale thinks. After all, if they weren't, Adam and Eve wouldn't have made it a week outside the garden.

A bigger place will undoubtedly be on the agenda soon, but it's all a bit of a process. Celestial concepts of time are a bit skewed.

"Yes, on both accounts. Though I suppose it's fairer to say former Antichrist. He turned from that path and saved the world in the process. He's a very nice child."

It's okay, Aziraphale. It turns out Uriel is a jerk everywhere, apparently.

She's much more interested in this new topic, leaning forward to concentrate her attention entirely on him. Chloe isn't sure about any kind of Antichrist in her world - if there was one, she'd know about it by now, but it's not something that's come up. Maybe that's something else the books got wrong. Or maybe it's just something else Lucifer has failed to mention.

"I don't understand. How can someone be the former Antichrist? How does that even work?"

A universal constant. It would be comforting if it weren't the opposite of comforting.

Aziraphale considers how to best explain the question. "Armageddon, the end of the world, the destruction of Earth as we know it, all of that was foretold... apparently. And the precursor and trigger for that destruction was the birth of the Antichrist, the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Prince of This World and Lord of Darkness. He was meant to come into his power, and trigger the end of the world. And the armies of Heaven and Hell would battle."

He pauses and waves a hand. "All very dramatic, you understand. And entirely unnecessary. When the time came, instead of starting Armageddon, he stopped it. Denied his Satanic father. Put everything right and went straight back to being a normal eleven year old boy."

Well, that's certainly a lot of descriptors for a kid. Granted, Antichrist and everything.

"That's amazing. He was supposed to be the Antichrist and he just... decided not to be?"

It's actually, she realizes, a perfect parallel to a lot of what she's seen back home. Especially in Lucifer and Maze, turning their backs on their predestined natures to make a home on Earth and become better people. She's seen redefine themselves in ways that would never be expected.

So there's something to be said for free will.

"At least I don't have to worry about that happening back home. Lucifer doesn't even like kids. I mean, he's great with Trixie, but his own kid?" She starts to laugh, picking up the menu to glance over it and snorting a bit through her nose. "Besides, that would mean he and I wou-"

Suddenly the snorting stops and she drops the menu onto the table with a plop.

"Oh, God."

"More or less, yes. It turns out being raised in a normal, loving family and getting to live a normal, happy childhood helps one grow up to be, well, quite human despite any powers."

Free will really is a remarkable thing. Aziraphale is a fan of it. For a long time he'd been a fan of it for humanity, mostly, as that was more or less what they were set on the Earth for these days, to make their choices. More recently? He's decided he likes having his choices too.

He is however, not prepared for Chloe's next line of thoughts. His eyebrows lift. "Not that any of either of your... er, potential-parental decisions are any of my business -- at all, thank you -- but in the case something like that were to happen, perhaps look into prophecies to be prepared. Screen nannies very well."

Edited (spacing got screwed up) 2019-09-10 23:59 (UTC)

"Yeah, no. No." She starts to chuckle nervously and waves her hand in the air as if she's attempting to shake off the remnants of whatever the hell just came out of her mouth. "That is-- That is not going to happen. Like, ever."

But it could. It happened to Linda and Amenadiel. But maybe if she convinces herself that Linda and Amenadiel were irresponsible, that something like that could never happen to her (except it already had, a "surprise" known as Trixie), she can get this horrible thought out of her brain.

"I've had my fill of prophecies for the rest of my life," she admits. "They never make sense. They're too vague, and you never understand them until they're already happening. It didn't do Lucifer any good, anyway."

And here is an angel, ancient and ethereal being trying to decide if it's poor manners to buy a young woman and her boyfriend-who-is-the-actual-devil a very large bulk box of condoms. It probably is. He considers it anyway.

But instead he laughs. Nervously. Very nervously. "Probably for the best, really."

Haha. Hilarious.

"Prophecy can be a bit like that, it's terribly true. They're clearest in hindsight which isn't always helpful."

Meanwhile, Chloe is recalling the conversation she had with Jonathan about Costco, and she wonders if they sell condoms in bulk. She doesn't know. She's never needed to stock up before.

But she might check it out.

"We thought we had the last one figured out and tried to do everything we could to outthink it. And considering what happened... It didn't do us a lot of good." Maybe they could have stopped Hell coming to Earth if someone had stopped Chloe and Lucifer from even meeting in the first place. But the prophecy was already in full swing by the time they even knew about it. "It doesn't sound like yours did you much good, either."

"Oh no, quite the contrary in our case. A descendant of the prophet in question made great use of the prophecies to be in the right place to avert the launch of Earth's entire supply of nuclear weapons. And it's through that same book of prophecies that I was able to locate the Antichrist in time to be there at the end."

He pauses, almost hesitating before adding the last bit. "And the final piece of prophecy was warning enough that Crowley and I were able to survive Heaven and Hell trying to destroy us for the part we played in stopping the Apocalypse."

Therefore, why he is no longer on good terms with Heaven. Well, one of the reasons.

"Wow. Okay."

It feels as if she's been using those two words, in some kind of order, a lot lately. Chloe has seemed to lose interest in her menu again, her attention completely on Aziraphale as she puzzles out everything he's said.

"Ours was only one prophecy. And it didn't really make any sense to begin with." Vague and useless is what she really wants to say, but it doesn't help that it was, in some way, right. Eve might have sped things up a bit, but it would have all happened eventually. "How did it help you and Crowley?"

"In our case, it was a book. Each prophecy in it was entirely accurate -- the only volume of its kind in human history."

Very impressive book. And he finally got his perfectly manicured hands on it for a bit.

Setting his own menu down, he considers. "It gave us the warning and the tools we needed to defend ourselves when we were taken for execution." It's a vague answer, and he knows it. He offers a sheepish, apologetic smile. Aziraphale has been open about most things, but this particular trick he has kept quiet. If Heaven ever heard of it, or Hell, well, Aziraphale can't bear to think of them coming for Crowley again knowing the truth of how they survived the firs time. So he hasn't even spoken the words out loud, in this world. And after they switched back at home, he's never spoken of it there either.

"Oh my God. They were going to execute you?"

Why is it that every time she gets any more information about Heaven, it just makes it all sound worse. It's either just neutral and boring, according to Eve and Crowley, or downright deadly, considering, well, this.

"What's going to happen to you? Are they still looking for you?"

"They were, yes. Both sides were very unhappy about Armageddon being averted."

Aziraphale has no regrets either. Stopping the Apocalypse was the right thing to do, no matter how it turned out. But he is so grateful it turned out the way it did.

But he smiles at the concern with a shake of his head. "They tried to destroy us, and they failed. All parties have agreed its best if we're left alone, for the time being at least."

"Wait, sorry, they were unhappy? That the world wasn't going to end?"

Sometimes, it's easy for Chloe to forget that while there are a fair number of angels and demons who are close to her heart and who are, in turn, incredibly protective of her to go to the point of risking their lives to keep her safe, there are far more that couldn't give a thought to the perils of human existence.

Of even the existence of other angels and demons, it seems.

"For 'the time being' isn't very comforting."

"Oh yes. Heaven and Hell both wanted Armageddon very much. It was to herald the start of the new war between both factions." His distaste for the entire idea is clear by the way his face twists as he speaks the word.

A sigh, rather heavy, but he manages a smile. "Thankfully neither Heaven nor Hell were allowed their way. Earth and humanity continues, and reality is all the better for it."

Earth is a wonderful place. Humanity, for all its flaws and faults, is lovely.

"I just don't understand that. I guess I thought, you know, finding out all of this is true... That angels were supposed to look out for people. Help keep us safe."

He doesn't have to elaborate on why either side was so eager for a war. That much is obvious to Chloe, mostly because it's incredibly human. Putting ego before anything else.

Lucifer's always said as much. That his father's only interests are power and manipulation. Aziraphale's world isn't her own, but there are too many similarities sometimes for her to completely let it go. Chloe has tried to navigate in this new world with the knowledge that Lucifer could be overdramatic and narrow-minded, but that didn't make him wrong.

She leans forward, her voice dropping slightly. "They don't care about us at all, do they?"

"Yes, I rather thought so too. I believe some of us may have lost sight of that, stood a little too far away from Earth and humanity. She created you, loved you dearly, and we should share that love."

Aziraphale, for his part, absolutely adores humanity. Certainly it has its darker parts, but even so, there's more than enough good to make up for it.

The smile that finds his face is tinged with sadness. "Some of us do, my dear. And I believe more would, were they given the chance to know humanity."

Chloe reaches up, wiping a tear from her cheek that she didn't realize she let loose. It's a tough conversation, talking to an angel about how insignificant human life must be to most of them. But he's right - there are ones that care. Lucifer could have let Hell reign on Earth if he wanted to, because it would have benefited him; but, he hadn't, and that counted for something.

"The ones I know care. I guess I can be happy with that." At least they had some angels on their side. And the Devil. And a demon. In the face of a scary universe, the thought of that helped a little.

"Sorry. I didn't mean for this to get so awkward."

He reaches out to set a hand atop one of Chloe's, quick to shake his head. "There's nothing to apologize for, my dear. These things are... well, complicated feels like an understatement, but it's the only word I can think of. In a kinder world, there would be more caring all around I think."

A great deal more. Heaven has grown more and more distant over the millennia, he thinks, too high above to remember the Earth below.

That touch is comforting, and Chloe lets out a long breath of air. Aziraphale is comforting all on his own - he reminds her a little of Amenadiel, actually. He's kind, and gentle, and he loves humanity. Chloe kind of wishes she talked to him more, after she found out the truth, so having someone kind of like him makes her heart swell in a way it hasn't for a long time.

"I should know that. I'm a cop. I see the kinds of things people do to each other. And if people don't always care, I shouldn't expect angels too, either."

In a way, it's a wonder that any of them do. While Chloe is far from a pessimist, she sometimes wonders if humanity is deserving of even any of the grace they are given.

"So... God is a woman? In your world?"

He nods in understanding. Being a police officer seems as if it would open windows into some of the darker sides of humanity. And she's right. Angels are more individual than they might want to portray themselves at times. And not all of them care.

But some do, and there's so much of humanity that deserves so much more than they're given. He's seen that, too.

His smile brightens at her final question and he waves a hand. "Yes and no. Gender is a very human concept, and even then not entirely immutable or black and white. For the more celestial sort, even more so. But yes, for such that we can put it into words, She is the word that comes to mind. Last I heard her voice, at least. It has been a while, admittedly, since she's done much speaking to any of us directly."

"That's something else our worlds have in common, I guess. God hasn't exactly shown up in mine, either."

She has tried not to fall into the "why does God let terrible things happen?" pit, but she also wonders if it's coming. It doesn't help that Lucifer constantly reminds her that his father doesn't care, that He's more than happy to stay uninvolved and let everything run its course. As much as she wishes He would step in, maybe that's not what humanity deserves.

"Lucifer's mom did show up, though. She took over the body of someone who turned out to be my friend, and did a lot of damage before she left."

Chloe misses Charlotte, but she doesn't miss Mom. They were both very different people.

"I... your world certainly sounds like it's never dull, my dear." And like living in it might give one a reason to need a holiday. Often. He's trying to wrap his head around the idea of Lucifer's mother -- and that's a road that he quickly stops wandering down.

"Possession can be a bit of a tricky situation. But it's unfortunate that she used that time to cause damage." His own foray into possession had been -- thankfully -- short-lived. And Madam Tracy was very understanding and magnanimous about the whole thing.

"Yeah, I think she really messed with Lucifer's head. All of ours, actually. And I really don't get the dynamic. Like, I thought my family was dysfunctional but knowing how Lucifer talks about his? I'm kind of worried about them being in charge of anything."

That comment is at least a little more light-hearted, although it's also true. Celestials are a disaster. It's a wonder they haven't managed to trigger the apocalypse completely on Chloe's world, too.

"It would be a lot duller if any of us knew what was going on half the time. Even Lucifer and Amenadiel don't seem like they're in the loop."

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One more cup of coffee for the road [CLOSED]

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