There Will Come a Day: A Good Omens Fanfic

Paid for every dance

As the glass doors swung shut behind them, much of the laugher and conversation was dimmed. The jazz band music still drifted lightly through, discernible above the crashing of waves on the beach below. Lights sparkled above the cliffs, and the moon was huge and yellow.

Crowley looked around as if checking for something, then gave a satisfied nod, lips pressed together in a slight smile, as if some difficult and important task had just been ticked off a list. "This will do nicely."

"Do for what?" Aziraphale was feeling unsettled, and it came out in snappishness.

"Just in general." Crowley smiled in a way Aziraphale suggested was deliberately infuriating. He held out a hand invitingly. "Come here, darling."

Aziraphale hesitated, shifting weight from foot to a foot. It was just a hand hold. Perfectly necessary for dancing, and not at all intimidating. If only Crowley would wipe that sinister grin off his face. Aziraphale suspected he was being deliberately demonic, and that this was some kind of a trap in a way he hadn't anticipated. The darlings were still making him nervous, although of course Crowley was right, these young people called everyone darling. It didn't mean anything.

"You're leading?" Aziraphale put his hands behind his back.

"What, afraid of being led around by a demon?"

"Not at all," Aziraphale lied.

"Of course I'm leading. I'm the one who knows what to do. You can't tell me you've danced since Gilbert & Sullivan was in vogue."

"I'd like to inform you that the Savoy operas are still very popular, and the gavotte is a very fine dance."

"Whatever you say, angel. Why don't you come to the theatre more often anyway? You used to love the music halls. I keep expecting to see you around. Lots of chorus girls on the verge of falling into iniquity for you to rescue."

"And you prodding them towards it, I suppose," Aziraphale sniffed.

"Naturally. You should come do some thwarting some time, and then come out for supper. Now stop trying to distract me," Crowley said, quite unfairly, Aziraphale thought. "We made a deal."

"I don't recognise the music," he procrastinated. "It's quite pleasant."

"It's called Shimmy with Me. From rather a lovely little show called Cabaret Girl. It's written by Plum Wodehouse, you'd like him, he writes books and he's irritatingly virtuous. Adopts stray animals. I can introduce you some time. Let's dance."

"My kind of books?"

"How the heaven would I know? Not theological tracts or books of prophecy, anyway. Come here, Aziraphale. I'm beginning to feel ridiculous with my hand stuck out like this."

"Only beginning?" Aziraphale said archly, and Crowley glowered at him and dropped his hand. "What on God's earth is a shimmy?"

"Well, you close close to each other, very close, and you move your lower body as usual, and your shoulders do this ." Crowley did something utterly fascinating and shimmery and boneless with his upper body that Aziraphale was fairly certain only someone of serpentine heritage could manage. He could feel his cheeks burn, and was glad for the relative darkness. He looked away.

"Impossible. I couldn't possibly move that way."

"You could if you took that stick out of your spine." Crowley stepped closer, his smile softer and more snakelike, and he extended his hand again. "Come on, darling, let me help."