Chapter Text
Aziraphale groaned, the sound of a Dukes of Hazzard carhorn breeching through the remaining hotel curtains and crashing against his consciousness. A lamentation passed his lips, a splitting headache was descending upon him, was in direct competition against the godforsaken taste of dead rat that now lived in his mouth. Opening a cautious eyelid, he found himself straddled atop a sequined couch; the little bits of shiny plastic having dug little fingernail shaped impressions onto his cheek.
“Oh, good Lord,” he muttered, voice low and hoarse as his fingers rubbed at his temples. He trails off, his eyes finally cooperating enough to focus on the hotel room which greeted him with the sight of enough empty bottles he nearly mistook himself for being back in Toulouse-Lautrec's flat. He squinted at a half-hung curtain creating a velvet pool on the floor, a few feet from what appeared to be a horrendous statue in a cartoon style of a portly orange cat. Feathers were strewn across the dark floor, interrupted by flecks of – is that rice? A dull thud pounded behind his eyes, drawn to loudly patterned shirt he had no recollection of purchasing, let alone wearing.
“Where in the world….?
An answering groan came from the floor, startling the angel. It sounded no better than he felt. A pause, then a yawn. “.....Vegas, Angel."
"Pardon?"
"We're in Vegas." Crowley grunted, now relatively vertical, but still slumping forward from where he kneeled on the unforgiving marble below. He patted the chest of a leopard print bathrobe he wore over his vest, finding both his sunglasses and shirt missing. (Why either of them had decided to begin adopting a fashion sense that would have made Bethsaida weep remained to be seen – it was one too many mysteries for the morning.) The demon toddled forward, knees creaking against stone – he moved - one, two steps, before nearly collapsing across the mirrored coffee table adjacent to the couch.
Aziraphale winced at the noise, a quite undignified burp bubbling up before he could ask his next question. Clearing his throat, he tried again. "Las Vegas? In the United States?" He met Crowley's eyes, looking incredulous. "We're in America.....again?"
Crowley shrugged, having recovered from his trip across the coffee table, leaving smudges of fingerprints in his wake. His eyes blinked around the room, before settling on some vile pink concoction from the side table and bringing it to his nose to sniff. He balked at the scent. "Appears so, ticket for two to the desert dens of iniquity." Swirling the drink, he slurped obnoxiously out of the cocktail glass, the ghastly neon liquid disappearing from view. "Sounds like someone's idea of a vacation."
Far in the distance, he could hear the vaguely thumping baseline of some song intermingle with the sounds of two men arguing, followed ineloquently by the sound of shattering glass. Aziraphale cringed, looking scandalized at the array of noises outside, while his brain caught up to digest Crowley’s words. "Of course, you would see this as relaxing -" He grimaced, preparing for the worst as he rose from the couch to survey out the window. It was half open, and thousands of lightbulbs, still incandescent orange in their glow littered the landscape, the sky a dark bruise of purple fading to night. So much for the morning. He flapped a hand at the open sill, slamming it shut with a miracle just as the wail of a siren began. Wincing, he turned back to Crowley who was now making a shrill noise of his own. Mouth open like the spout of a teakettle, he had splayed out his arms, clearly upset.
"What, and you think it’s my fault we're here?" Crowley challenged, his eyes moved wildly across the room, and crashing into every shade of red and black imaginable on the way.
At the raise of Aziraphale’s brow in response, Crowley's jaw set. The demon sniffed, his brain also needing the additional time to catch up. "Yeah, okay. Vacationing in Vegas does sound like me." He folded his arms across his chest, cheetah print hugging the bend of his elbows as he glowered at the backlit four poster bed situated at the other side of the room. Acquiring a target, he finally stood, coming eye level with what appeared to be a frilly white doily.
He poked at it, tossing it over to Aziraphale, who barely managed enough of a reaction to catch it. "Looks like we may have gone a bit overboard here, though." He mused, the edge of his voice still craggy with sleep.
For a moment, the angel turned over the delicate lace in his palms, taking a moment to register that the small intricate latticework did not form into a doily, but a white lace garter. As if burned, he flung the offending fabric across the hotel suite, where it landed particularly skillfully across the head of a statue of Baccus. How fitting.
Refusing to remove his gaze from the statue, he shot back the quickest retort he could manage. "Well, don't look at me! It's not as if it's mine!"
Crowley’s brows bowed.
"As if it's -" A garbled noise escaped Crowley as he leans forward, weight cantering onto the couch and next to Aziraphale. The sequins crunch in response, throwing miniature prisms around the room in protest. "What, so you're just pilfering these off of unsuspecting women, then?"
Azirzphale balks, mainly at the suggested lack of impropriety. "What in Heaven's name would give you the idea that I -" He blinks, a pause, and the shadow of a memory tugs at the shroud separating sobriety and drunkenness. Awareness slams into him. "Actually, yes, that is precisely what happened."
He remembers snippets- a bottle of champagne, a pair of dice, a woman placing a familiar garter in his hands, beaming. Oh, and Crowley. Despite the stale taste of alcohol coating the back of his throat, he is now aware of the very familiar scent of kindling, mingling with the taste of a good bourbon. He sighs, feeling his pulse speed up at the flashes of lips pressed to lips, of tugging hands and well-worn laughter. Kissing Crowley. It would seem that within the haze of night, quite a lot of kissing had also been involved. (In the scant day and a half between the world not being destroyed and up to today, such kisses were not unheard of, and did not give Aziraphale pause. However, the sheer volume of them (judging by the heaviness Aziraphale's tongue and aching jaw) was surprising.
Crowley clears his throat, pulling him down out of the reverie. Impatient for an explanation, he has begun to toe a tapping rhythm into a floor below, now beginning to lose its top coat of polish from the heat radiating off of a certain demon’s soles. "Well...?" Crowley prods, brow climbing higher.
The cogs of thought have finally began to warm up, as another flicker of memory slots itself into Aziraphale’s mind, "My dear, we need to locate a man with a rubber chicken."
Crowley buries his head in his hands.