Commentary on 'New Day'
Jan. 30th, 2004 03:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
louiselux for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
daegaer
This story was written very quickly for a challenge, the first line of which had to be 'this was not the worst moment of his life', or something similar. This coincided with me seeing the pin-up priests calandar. From there it was a highly logical step to make Aziraphale fall in love with one of them. I'm not saying which month Fr Benicio was though.
This was not the worst moment of his life-- he wouldn't let it be. The clatter of the market mixed with the clanging of the church bells, blaring tunelessly like a tone-deaf singer. They seemed heartless and spiteful now where only days ago they had promised joy.
Aziraphale stood in the middle of the street letting the traffic flow round him like a river; callow, shouting youths on Vespas, pretty girls with dark eyes, men and women weighed down with bags of shopping or with nothing more than a cigarette, buses, blaring cars, the high piping of scooter horns as they swerved round him, all shrieking their discordant song into the smoky air.
He had never wondered what it would be like to die. There was a truck coming-- he faced it square on, staring at the driver, who couldn't see him, then let it swish by. Dying wouldn't help, he'd only have to come back, and then he'd have to remember. On the pavement a couple swept by; two young priests on their way to the church. He gazed after them, and one of them seemed to look his way and smile, his face pale and luminous against the dingy surroundings. They hurried together, their robes swinging around their feet and their white collars standing out so clearly. The black doors of the church swallowed them up, and he wondered if he could feel any worse.
The Vespas and dark eyes are meant to suggest that this is set in Italy. I guess I could have been more sophisticated there. Aziraphale is having a very bad day and is in rather a fragile state at this point. I don't think he'd ever kill himself (his material body), but seeing him wonder about death is a clue that he's seeing life from a rather more human perspective than is usual for him. The harsh sound of the church bells is also foreshadowing of what's wrong, if you can have foreshadowing in such a short story. Everything is too loud, too fast and too stark and he feels lost in the crowd. He's isolated even though he's in the middle of a seething hubbub of humanity.
Crowley found him later that day, sitting in a small café that had faded green paint and heavy, uncomfortable wrought iron chairs and tables.
'I could have told you what would happen,' Crowley said, dropping casually into the chair opposite and waving his hand at the waiter. Aziraphale nodded, not lifting his gaze from the grubby table. He didn't want to hear what Crowley thought, and wondered vaguely how Crowley always managed to track him down. He studied his glass of foul-tasting wine, stubbornly keeping his gaze turned down. But from under his lashes he could see Crowley's fingers gripping the stem of his glass, stroking it nervously.
'Ugh,' Crowley said, sipping his drink, 'that's nasty. Why are you drinking it?'
'I'm not.'
There's lot of stuff in this first part about physical discomfort: the church bells, the noisy street, the hard uncomfortable chairs, the nasty wine, and the reason I put it was to imply emotional and mental distress without actually having to say it plainly. It's a device that I'm probably too fond of. but I do like it. Aziraphale's state of mind isn't mentioned at all, it's just implied through the general physical discomfort. The physical details also point to where the trouble lies: Aziraphale is being confronted by human emotions and desires and they've got out of control. I put a sly bit of sensuality in there too; he notices Crowley's fingers stroking the stem of his wine glass despite himself. I probably have a thing about fingers and wine glass stems. His physical awareness of Crowley is heightened, even if he hasn't got a bloody clue why.
There was a long pause, during which Crowley didn't move at all. Then he leaned forward.
'You've made a bloody mess of things, Aziraphale,' he hissed. 'You know the rules; don't feed the humans.' He laughed unpleasantly at his own joke, then fell silent. Aziraphale couldn't bring himself to say anything.
Crowley's words give the first hint that someone else is involved, a human.
'Look, why don't we go away somewhere?' Crowley was now saying, with a bright, false cheerfulness. 'What about Brazil? I haven't been there for centuries. We could go to the ruins... ' He tailed off, and Aziraphale had a pang of guilt. Crowley was trying to be nice. Something inside him broke.
Crowley really is trying to be nice, which is unusual. It's the thing that snaps Aziraphale out of his mopey trance- much like the experience of someone asking if you're all right, your response to which is to burst immediately into tears.
'I can't bear it Crowley,' he blurted, not meaning to tell the truth. He just couldn't seem to stop it coming out. 'I've ruined his life. It's awful. I'm awful!'
'Stop it,' Crowley hissed, gripping him by the wrists. The violence of his grip shook Aziraphale, making his teeth judder together. It was shocking. The tears that threatened to come didn't. Crowley was staring at him, as angry as he'd ever seen him.
'You bloody-- fool, Aziraphale! What did you expect if you choose to go mooning around after doe-eyed priests? I mean,' he was hissing almost incoherently now, 'just what did you expect? That he'd declare his undying love and you'd live happily ever after and have babies?'
Crowley's anger reflects the extent to which he's upset by Aziraphale's friendship with the priest, and he's really quite cruel here, mocking Aziraphale's feelings and twisting them into something that Aziraphale hasn’t really let himself think about. Aziraphale was aware of what was happening between him and the priest on some level, which he chose to ignore so he could keep the friendship. Crowley pushes it in his face.
'No, Crowley,' Aziraphale cried, confused and miserable, 'it wasn't like that, it wasn't.' Maybe the more he said it the more it would become the truth. The words had seemed true enough once, but now he wasn't sure. He went cold all over. He didn't know. 'We were friends-- good friends, I thought,' he cried again. 'That's what I thought,' he whispered.
'Oh really? Is that what Father Benicio thought too? Because he seemed to think otherwise when I saw him last.'
Fun fact: I got the priests name from Benicio Del Toro.
'You saw him? Where? Why?'
'Oh,' Crowley released his grip on Aziraphale's hands and sat back, a little too casually, he waved a hand carelessly, 'just around, you know. He was throwing away his dog collars.'
'Crowley, no-- '
'He's packing and leaving. He doesn’t remember you now. He'll be okay. And so will you.'
'Oh, Crowley,' Aziraphale whispered feeling more miserable than he could ever remember. 'What have I done?' He buried his face in his hands. He thought he might be sick.
Suddenly Crowley was round his side of the table, pulling at his wrists, gently this time. Aziraphale looked up and saw that he'd taken his sunglasses off. Yellow eyes looked into his from a short distance.
'Listen to me, Aziraphale. You made a mistake. It's easily done, you weren't to know, although by this stage in the game I'd have thought you'd have learnt. Anyway, that doesn't matter. What matters is that you'll be alright, and that he's forgotten he ever knew you. He'll be happy.'
'But he left the church because of me, Crowley!'
Aziraphale's distress isn't truly about Fr Benicio leaving the church, although he wants to believe that. His guilt really comes from letting Fr Benicio fall in love with him in the first place. It's at the point that Fr Benicio leaves the church because he's in love with another man- or what he supposes to be a man- that Aziraphale realises he's let things got too far. We never hear of Aziraphale being fond of people in the way that Crowley is, although he does seem far more protective of them than Crowley. He cares what happens to human beings but keeps himself at a distance. He certainly doesn't approve of Crowley hypnotising people, for example, and is far more concern with protecting humans than his own life, as the end of GO shows. In this instance he hasn't kept his distance, for whatever reasons (all right, all right, because it's Mr January), quite the opposite, and this indulgence on his part has led ultimately to Fr Benicio feeling he can't be part of the church. And Aziraphale realises there's something he can't have which he wants quite badly. On a more pragmatic level, the whole thing could get him into trouble with his superiors- it's his job to be a good influence, not a bad one. His actions have had yet another effect, of which he not aware: Crowley is upset.
'So what? Bugger the church. Blame them, but don't blame yourself.' Crowley stared at him hard for a moment, then let go, moving back and dropping his gaze to the table top. He studied it as though the peeling paint was completely fascinating. 'Did you love him?' he asked eventually, picking imaginary lint of his suit.
Crowley never had lint on his suit, Aziraphale knew that. 'I love everybody,' he said eventually.
That line about the lint: Aziraphale can see Crowley acting in an odd way, but he can't quite work out why. I imagine that C and A never normally talk about things like this.
'Yeah, yeah, party line,' Crowley shrugged with great nonchalance. 'But some people you love more than others.' He paused. 'You can tell me. I know what it's like,' he finished, quietly.
Aziraphale thought about what to say. Talking and laughing and feeling happy with someone, knowing each other. That was one sort of love. He thought of Father Benicio and how they'd spent so much time talking. Some people were easier to love than others.
'Well?' Crowley prompted, leaning forward. Aziraphale realised that he hadn't seen Crowley for a long time, not since he began visiting the little church so often. It was good to see him, even though he seemed to be behaving a little strangely, not quite like himself.
'Maybe a little more than I should've done,' Aziraphale said slowly. There was an empty sensation in his chest, and he wanted to rub at it, but he didn't think that it would make it go away.
'It's easily done,' Crowley said in an odd, gentle voice that Aziraphale couldn't remember hearing before.
'Is it?'
'Yes.'
Crowley was looking at him intently and Aziraphale felt like he was being told a secret, if only he could decode it, then he was startled and pleased to feel a quick squeeze on his hand. A question occurred to him.
Crowley is really going out on limb here, telling Aziraphale quite plainly through touch, tone and look that he loves him and cares deeply about him. Perhaps he says it exactly because he knows Aziraphale wouldn't understand. He wouldn't ever tell Aziraphale that he loved him, Aziraphale would have to figure it out for himself or not at all. Aziraphale, of course, just doesn't get it. He doesn't put the clues together because he's not used to thinking consciously about anyone that way, let alone Crowley.
'Where have you been all this time, while I was-- ' he trailed off, unable to describe adequately what it was he'd been doing.
'...falling in love,' would be the words he was looking for, but he doesn't say them because, even though he'd know what they mean to humans, he doesn't understand how they apply to what he feels for Fr Benicio.
'While you were falling in love with a pretty face, you mean?'
This is an nasty little jab on Crowley's part, a little bit of unpleasant revenge for ignoring him, and he's pushing Aziraphale to admit to himself that his affection for Fr Benicio wasn't totally pure, and it works, maybe better than Crowley intended and Aziraphale's resulting unhappiness dismays him.
Aziraphale's face went hot at Crowley's tone, and a flush of shame seemed to heat his entire body from the toes upwards. Crowley's smile faltered a little. He hooked his hand under Aziraphale's elbow.
'I was being your guardian angel, of course', he said, pulling Aziraphale up from his seat and through the café doors, and then out into the day.
Crowley as a guardian angel is a rather disturbing image. But Aziraphale's happiness matters to him, from a mixture of selfish and unselfish reasons. He's been looking out for Aziraphale, making sure he's not getting himself into deep waters.
daegaerThis story was written very quickly for a challenge, the first line of which had to be 'this was not the worst moment of his life', or something similar. This coincided with me seeing the pin-up priests calandar. From there it was a highly logical step to make Aziraphale fall in love with one of them. I'm not saying which month Fr Benicio was though.
This was not the worst moment of his life-- he wouldn't let it be. The clatter of the market mixed with the clanging of the church bells, blaring tunelessly like a tone-deaf singer. They seemed heartless and spiteful now where only days ago they had promised joy.
Aziraphale stood in the middle of the street letting the traffic flow round him like a river; callow, shouting youths on Vespas, pretty girls with dark eyes, men and women weighed down with bags of shopping or with nothing more than a cigarette, buses, blaring cars, the high piping of scooter horns as they swerved round him, all shrieking their discordant song into the smoky air.
He had never wondered what it would be like to die. There was a truck coming-- he faced it square on, staring at the driver, who couldn't see him, then let it swish by. Dying wouldn't help, he'd only have to come back, and then he'd have to remember. On the pavement a couple swept by; two young priests on their way to the church. He gazed after them, and one of them seemed to look his way and smile, his face pale and luminous against the dingy surroundings. They hurried together, their robes swinging around their feet and their white collars standing out so clearly. The black doors of the church swallowed them up, and he wondered if he could feel any worse.
The Vespas and dark eyes are meant to suggest that this is set in Italy. I guess I could have been more sophisticated there. Aziraphale is having a very bad day and is in rather a fragile state at this point. I don't think he'd ever kill himself (his material body), but seeing him wonder about death is a clue that he's seeing life from a rather more human perspective than is usual for him. The harsh sound of the church bells is also foreshadowing of what's wrong, if you can have foreshadowing in such a short story. Everything is too loud, too fast and too stark and he feels lost in the crowd. He's isolated even though he's in the middle of a seething hubbub of humanity.
Crowley found him later that day, sitting in a small café that had faded green paint and heavy, uncomfortable wrought iron chairs and tables.
'I could have told you what would happen,' Crowley said, dropping casually into the chair opposite and waving his hand at the waiter. Aziraphale nodded, not lifting his gaze from the grubby table. He didn't want to hear what Crowley thought, and wondered vaguely how Crowley always managed to track him down. He studied his glass of foul-tasting wine, stubbornly keeping his gaze turned down. But from under his lashes he could see Crowley's fingers gripping the stem of his glass, stroking it nervously.
'Ugh,' Crowley said, sipping his drink, 'that's nasty. Why are you drinking it?'
'I'm not.'
There's lot of stuff in this first part about physical discomfort: the church bells, the noisy street, the hard uncomfortable chairs, the nasty wine, and the reason I put it was to imply emotional and mental distress without actually having to say it plainly. It's a device that I'm probably too fond of. but I do like it. Aziraphale's state of mind isn't mentioned at all, it's just implied through the general physical discomfort. The physical details also point to where the trouble lies: Aziraphale is being confronted by human emotions and desires and they've got out of control. I put a sly bit of sensuality in there too; he notices Crowley's fingers stroking the stem of his wine glass despite himself. I probably have a thing about fingers and wine glass stems. His physical awareness of Crowley is heightened, even if he hasn't got a bloody clue why.
There was a long pause, during which Crowley didn't move at all. Then he leaned forward.
'You've made a bloody mess of things, Aziraphale,' he hissed. 'You know the rules; don't feed the humans.' He laughed unpleasantly at his own joke, then fell silent. Aziraphale couldn't bring himself to say anything.
Crowley's words give the first hint that someone else is involved, a human.
'Look, why don't we go away somewhere?' Crowley was now saying, with a bright, false cheerfulness. 'What about Brazil? I haven't been there for centuries. We could go to the ruins... ' He tailed off, and Aziraphale had a pang of guilt. Crowley was trying to be nice. Something inside him broke.
Crowley really is trying to be nice, which is unusual. It's the thing that snaps Aziraphale out of his mopey trance- much like the experience of someone asking if you're all right, your response to which is to burst immediately into tears.
'I can't bear it Crowley,' he blurted, not meaning to tell the truth. He just couldn't seem to stop it coming out. 'I've ruined his life. It's awful. I'm awful!'
'Stop it,' Crowley hissed, gripping him by the wrists. The violence of his grip shook Aziraphale, making his teeth judder together. It was shocking. The tears that threatened to come didn't. Crowley was staring at him, as angry as he'd ever seen him.
'You bloody-- fool, Aziraphale! What did you expect if you choose to go mooning around after doe-eyed priests? I mean,' he was hissing almost incoherently now, 'just what did you expect? That he'd declare his undying love and you'd live happily ever after and have babies?'
Crowley's anger reflects the extent to which he's upset by Aziraphale's friendship with the priest, and he's really quite cruel here, mocking Aziraphale's feelings and twisting them into something that Aziraphale hasn’t really let himself think about. Aziraphale was aware of what was happening between him and the priest on some level, which he chose to ignore so he could keep the friendship. Crowley pushes it in his face.
'No, Crowley,' Aziraphale cried, confused and miserable, 'it wasn't like that, it wasn't.' Maybe the more he said it the more it would become the truth. The words had seemed true enough once, but now he wasn't sure. He went cold all over. He didn't know. 'We were friends-- good friends, I thought,' he cried again. 'That's what I thought,' he whispered.
'Oh really? Is that what Father Benicio thought too? Because he seemed to think otherwise when I saw him last.'
Fun fact: I got the priests name from Benicio Del Toro.
'You saw him? Where? Why?'
'Oh,' Crowley released his grip on Aziraphale's hands and sat back, a little too casually, he waved a hand carelessly, 'just around, you know. He was throwing away his dog collars.'
'Crowley, no-- '
'He's packing and leaving. He doesn’t remember you now. He'll be okay. And so will you.'
'Oh, Crowley,' Aziraphale whispered feeling more miserable than he could ever remember. 'What have I done?' He buried his face in his hands. He thought he might be sick.
Suddenly Crowley was round his side of the table, pulling at his wrists, gently this time. Aziraphale looked up and saw that he'd taken his sunglasses off. Yellow eyes looked into his from a short distance.
'Listen to me, Aziraphale. You made a mistake. It's easily done, you weren't to know, although by this stage in the game I'd have thought you'd have learnt. Anyway, that doesn't matter. What matters is that you'll be alright, and that he's forgotten he ever knew you. He'll be happy.'
'But he left the church because of me, Crowley!'
Aziraphale's distress isn't truly about Fr Benicio leaving the church, although he wants to believe that. His guilt really comes from letting Fr Benicio fall in love with him in the first place. It's at the point that Fr Benicio leaves the church because he's in love with another man- or what he supposes to be a man- that Aziraphale realises he's let things got too far. We never hear of Aziraphale being fond of people in the way that Crowley is, although he does seem far more protective of them than Crowley. He cares what happens to human beings but keeps himself at a distance. He certainly doesn't approve of Crowley hypnotising people, for example, and is far more concern with protecting humans than his own life, as the end of GO shows. In this instance he hasn't kept his distance, for whatever reasons (all right, all right, because it's Mr January), quite the opposite, and this indulgence on his part has led ultimately to Fr Benicio feeling he can't be part of the church. And Aziraphale realises there's something he can't have which he wants quite badly. On a more pragmatic level, the whole thing could get him into trouble with his superiors- it's his job to be a good influence, not a bad one. His actions have had yet another effect, of which he not aware: Crowley is upset.
'So what? Bugger the church. Blame them, but don't blame yourself.' Crowley stared at him hard for a moment, then let go, moving back and dropping his gaze to the table top. He studied it as though the peeling paint was completely fascinating. 'Did you love him?' he asked eventually, picking imaginary lint of his suit.
Crowley never had lint on his suit, Aziraphale knew that. 'I love everybody,' he said eventually.
That line about the lint: Aziraphale can see Crowley acting in an odd way, but he can't quite work out why. I imagine that C and A never normally talk about things like this.
'Yeah, yeah, party line,' Crowley shrugged with great nonchalance. 'But some people you love more than others.' He paused. 'You can tell me. I know what it's like,' he finished, quietly.
Aziraphale thought about what to say. Talking and laughing and feeling happy with someone, knowing each other. That was one sort of love. He thought of Father Benicio and how they'd spent so much time talking. Some people were easier to love than others.
'Well?' Crowley prompted, leaning forward. Aziraphale realised that he hadn't seen Crowley for a long time, not since he began visiting the little church so often. It was good to see him, even though he seemed to be behaving a little strangely, not quite like himself.
'Maybe a little more than I should've done,' Aziraphale said slowly. There was an empty sensation in his chest, and he wanted to rub at it, but he didn't think that it would make it go away.
'It's easily done,' Crowley said in an odd, gentle voice that Aziraphale couldn't remember hearing before.
'Is it?'
'Yes.'
Crowley was looking at him intently and Aziraphale felt like he was being told a secret, if only he could decode it, then he was startled and pleased to feel a quick squeeze on his hand. A question occurred to him.
Crowley is really going out on limb here, telling Aziraphale quite plainly through touch, tone and look that he loves him and cares deeply about him. Perhaps he says it exactly because he knows Aziraphale wouldn't understand. He wouldn't ever tell Aziraphale that he loved him, Aziraphale would have to figure it out for himself or not at all. Aziraphale, of course, just doesn't get it. He doesn't put the clues together because he's not used to thinking consciously about anyone that way, let alone Crowley.
'Where have you been all this time, while I was-- ' he trailed off, unable to describe adequately what it was he'd been doing.
'...falling in love,' would be the words he was looking for, but he doesn't say them because, even though he'd know what they mean to humans, he doesn't understand how they apply to what he feels for Fr Benicio.
'While you were falling in love with a pretty face, you mean?'
This is an nasty little jab on Crowley's part, a little bit of unpleasant revenge for ignoring him, and he's pushing Aziraphale to admit to himself that his affection for Fr Benicio wasn't totally pure, and it works, maybe better than Crowley intended and Aziraphale's resulting unhappiness dismays him.
Aziraphale's face went hot at Crowley's tone, and a flush of shame seemed to heat his entire body from the toes upwards. Crowley's smile faltered a little. He hooked his hand under Aziraphale's elbow.
'I was being your guardian angel, of course', he said, pulling Aziraphale up from his seat and through the café doors, and then out into the day.
Crowley as a guardian angel is a rather disturbing image. But Aziraphale's happiness matters to him, from a mixture of selfish and unselfish reasons. He's been looking out for Aziraphale, making sure he's not getting himself into deep waters.