Nym's Fanfic - Tumblr Posts

Fic: My Bonds in Thee by Nym - Good Omens (TV)

Aziraphale comes back. Their love was never in doubt but they still have different exactlys.

Pairing: Aziraphale/Crowley Wordcount: 42,600 of (probably 80,000 - WIP) Rating: Explicit AO3 Archive Warning: No archive warnings apply Tags: Second Kiss, First Time, Flashbacks, Angst, Hurt/Comfort Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/49148341/

If you need an AO3 invite code to view fanworks set as 'visible to logged-in users only', just contact me at the e-mail address on my AO3 profile.

Excerpt from My Bonds in Thee chapter 8:

The world ended here just a few days ago. His world. He's not sure he feels good about returning, but Gabriel got one thing right (one damned thing in his damned smug damned charmed damned bloody Supreme existence). Home is wherever the heart is. And Crowley's already given his to Aziraphale. That's like Armageddon: You don't get a do-over when it goes pear-shaped. Push on, then.

Crowley scratches his head through the cloth of the hood, relieved to feel that he still has hair.

"How, um, deviant are we thinking? I mean," he gestures to the spiral staircase, upstairs, shocked to feel his cheeks and ears getting hot. "Physically?"

Aziraphale freezes while putting the front door keys into the top drawer of the desk. He clears his throat lightly and composes his features into his usual expression of placid warmth.

"If you can't choose your form, my dear," he says, with a facade of ease that Crowley really admires under the circumstances, "I'd say, 'very'. Not that one knows much about these matters, being an angel." He closes the drawer, slowly, and turns around. "Were you, um, hoping to find out now?"

Crowley pictures Aziraphale in Eden, hastily turning his back on Adam and Eve with a shocked little huff when they figured out what all the naked bits were for.

He still wonders what would've happened if he hadn't tempted Eve to try the bloody fruit. Suppose he'd seduced an angel instead—whispered visceral temptation in that innocent ear and stroked that sweet, soft, angelic hair until Aziraphale shivered and dropped his flaming sword?

That would've looked great in Genesis.

"One doesn't bloody know," he says, throwing himself lengthways onto the couch in a dramatic sprawl. "And one would like a bloody big drink now."

Aziraphale brings him a small drink, a careful measure of Scotch, but he has the decency to bring the bottle too.

For a moment, the angel hesitates about where to sit. Crowley sees the moment when Aziraphale remembers the park, the water's edge, and their kiss. It softens his whole face with wonder and quiet joy. This in turn makes Crowley stop breathing. He pats the edge of the couch beside his hip, raising a questioning eyebrow.

Aziraphale sits there, flustered, and hands him the glass.

"Can we really do this?"

"It's too late to ask that now." Crowley's not sure of much right now, but he's clear on that. They can only move forward.

"No. I mean, the other thing. 'Pillar of salt time'."

"Oh." Crowley empties the whisky down his throat in one gulp. "I've no idea. Can we? It's not actually written down anywhere, is it? 'Thou shalt not have carnal knowledge of an angel stroke demon'?"

"Carnal knowledge," Aziraphale echoes fretfully. "Sounds very bad when you put it like that."

"You'd blush if I put it any other way."

"I'm already blushing. They call it 'making love'. The humans, I mean. That's nice. I like that one."

"I think we..." Frowning, Crowley tries to think it over. He's not supposed to be out of his mind with temptation. It's been his job to do that to other people. But the possibility of the two of them, more together than they're already together... "We can be anything we want. Any shape, I mean. So I guess we can find one that, you know." He gestures vaguely with his glass, unwilling to sully the idea with what Aziraphale would call 'vulgar language', "Works," he finishes, awkwardly.

"Do snakes, um..."

"Don't go there."

"I'm a bit worried that we could accidentally destroy each other," Aziraphale admits. "With carnal knowledge."

"According to most humans, it's one hell of a way to go."

"Oh." Aziraphale bites his bottom lip. Crowley holds up his empty glass with a meaningful nod. Aziraphale ignores it, instead putting the whisky bottle down on the floor. "It's worrying me," he confesses, almost whispering. "I know nothing worries you, but—"

"You think that?"

"What?"

"That nothing worries me?"

"Well..."

"I'm terrified." Crowley slaps a hand to his chest as evidence of his thundering heart. "I'm absolutely scared out of my mind. Hence the empty glass," he adds, meaningfully. "I don't have the answers, Angel. I'm not sure I even know the questions."

Aziraphale takes the glass out of his hand and puts it down next to the bottle with a tidy little 'chink'. Crowley watches it go with a tiny pang of grief, the hint of a pout.

"I had no idea. I'm sorry." He lays his hand on top of Crowley's with slow care. "I assumed again. That you'd— Being a demon, with all the temptations and everything..." It tails off as the merest hint of a question.

Crowley wrinkles his nose.

"Humans?"

"Yes."

"Ugh. No. It was my job to get them doing it to each other without, you know. The love bit. Selfishly. Destructively. Unadulterated lust. Except when it's adultery, I suppose. Does that adulterate it? Does it get cancelled out if it's adultery but they love each other? Or if they love each other but do it selfishly? There's a few decades of temptation time I'll never get back."

Crowley realises he's babbling and stops.

"I see." Aziraphale's fingers curl around Crowley's unresisting hand, fingertips brushing his chest. Even through two layers of clothing, the sensation makes Crowley's toes curl. "And how exactly does one tempt a human to succumb to the flesh?"

"Uh..." Crowley blows out his cheeks. It's been a while. His temptations, halfhearted anyway, have been on a larger scale since the Industrial Revolution. Whole populations, technology, not furtive couples. "Well, you know. Rainstorms, shelter together under an awning, Jane Austen's balls. That sort of thing. They look uncertainly into each other's eyes, go in for the big, climactic kiss and... and Bob's your uncle. Carnal knowledge all over the sho—place." He fidgets uncomfortably, suddenly regretting the way he draped a nonchalant leg over the far arm of the couch. He's exposed everything, and Aziraphale is looking uncertainly into his eyes. His sunglasses, anyway. "It's programmed in for them. Some of them. A lot of them."

"Crowley," Aziraphale says, making a devastatingly unsuccessful attempt to look naughty. "Take off your glasses. I can't kiss you if you're not looking at me."

Never, never, in the thousands of years since he invented the bloody things, has it taken Crowley so many agonising eternities to snatch the stupid bits of glass and wire from his nose.

Aziraphale plants a hand on either side of Crowley's shoulders and bends swiftly, pecking him on the lips and—Crowley gulps—chuckling in the back of his throat. It's a deep sound. It's the sexy, evil twin of Aziraphale's guilty, nervous titter.

"Oh, God," Crowley mumbles, kissing upwards, like it's programmed in. "If this doesn't work—" kiss, "—we'll be cringin—" kiss, "—cringing about it 'til mumnff—" kiss, open mouths, a shared gasp, "'til the heat death of the universe."

[continue reading on AO3]

My Bonds in Thee by Nym on AO3 Fandom: Good Omens (TV) Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley Additional Tags: Second Kiss, First Time, Character Study, Flashbacks, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Post-Series 2, Hell is Terrible, Heaven is Terrible, Ineffable Idiots, Ducks, Lack of Communication, different exactlys Chapters: 19/? Summary: Aziraphale comes back. Their love was never in doubt but they still have different exactlys.

1839. London. The Hesperus Club. A demon, broken and bleeding, hunches naked on the tiled floor. His knees beneath his chin, arms wrapped around his legs, he'd succeed at making himself appear small if not for his wings. They're magnificent, as wings go—black, broad—but they're not currently obeying the demon's will and they've seen better days. They droop weakly behind him, spreading across the wet floor like spilt ink, pulling against his visceral need to curl into a ball and vanish into stillness. An angel kneels behind him, slowly scooping water from the bathing pool with the cup of his hand; patiently pouring it over the demon's wounds. Blood and water mingle, pooling over the moss-green tiles and trickling towards the brass-lattice drains. Towards the pool, where the water slowly darkens to rusty brown. "Crowley," the angel prompts when the demon begins to crumple, ready to join his useless wings in a boneless sprawl across the floor—something fit for a gothic painter or the pen of a tortured poet. At the angel's voice, Crowley stops himself falling (but he's always falling; a raging star plunging in cold fire across the heavens towards bottomless destruction). With such effort, he holds himself still. Allows the angel to wash the neglect from his wounds and then, when the wounds are raw enough to begin healing, to gather up one raven wing at a time in careful, angelic hands, folding Crowley like the limp bellows of a broken accordion. Hissing with pain—and it is a hiss, fork-tongued, instinctive, and warning—Crowley tugs his right wing from the angel's grasp and sits up a little straighter. With more of an effort, he folds both wings against his back. Brittle feathers break quietly against the ground. "Oh, but they're filthy, my dear. Let me—" "Someone'll come in here. They'll see." Crowley glances towards the doors. He's suddenly alert enough, present enough, to know that time has passed since he came to this place, and that it's a human place. His wings shrug themselves unthinkingly into some other sliver of reality, safely out of sight, exposing more bloody sores on his flanks for the angel's fussing hands to tend. Water and prayers, wasted on him. "No one will come," soothes the angel (but his voice shakes, too angry and hurt to soothe anyone). "No one will see. You're safe now. I promise." Crowley nods automatically. Safe. Yes. Safe from the humans, anyway. The angel's made sure of that. "Thank you." He grits his teeth when the angel tips water over a crusted gash beneath his ribs, refusing to make another sound. "Don't mention it, my dear." The saddest part is, the angel really, really means that.

why was crowley gender switching in the sex scene?

Crowley thinks he's having a demonic allergic reaction to using the L-word about Aziraphale for the first time, and is thus losing control of his form/powers. He's much more upset about the revolting tastebuds than he is about the unruly lower-down bits.

The author feels he's externalising his stress and existential panic as physical tics and needs to learn to articulate his deeply held Aziraphale feels using words. Or, failing that, diagrams and a Powerpoint presentation. (Give him a 'wahoo!')

But I'm all for 'death of the author', especially in the Good Omens-verse where it's right at home, and I'm not sure Aziraphale really realised anything unusual was happening to Crowley's nether regions anyway, not having tried giving anyone an orgasm before. He was just happy when it worked and they ended up all cuddly.

Aziraphale has the vague notion that Crowley's tended to opt to be human-male-shaped recently, possibly because he likes how it makes the skinny modern trousers fit, and that he doesn't usually have scales or long hair anymore, but that's about as far as his train of thought goes. He'll take Crowley exactly as Crowley comes.

(Er... So to speak.)

wait, you hadn't seen spn when you posted the good omens wip? the language with the angels is so similar and everything?

Nope. Pratchett fan of many years, completely new to Supernatural these past three months (with the exception of Cas' love confession, cuz I think everyone on the internet who didn't know to duck and cover in advance got sp*ilered for it that night in 2020.) Something of a lifelong thing for fictional angels, though.

I went with a quasi-Judeo-Christian-theological, liturgical, and poetic vocabulary for the Heaven and Hell/angel and demon stuff. More straight-up/slightly unintentionally ironic for Aziraphale, who wants to take it all at face value (even when he can't); more filtered through the questions of Milton's Paradise Lost, and more despairing and hurting, for fallen angel Crowley.

Muriel's dialogue has a touch of the innocence and wonder of catechism - a discovery, a flowering that opens up to them through the spoken and written word. They question without hidden motive.

Metatron's got a smidge of the manipulative certainty of commercially-driven televangelism: clinical, cynical, tailored for maximum impact on his target audience (Aziraphale). A performance.

I'd guess the Supernatural writers did much the same, cherrypicking for whichever aspect bolstered their storyline or character at the time! Throw a rock at the English language and you'll hit a Judeo-Christian concept somewhere, somehow. "Grace", "vessel", "the Michael Sword" and so on - that stuff paints a lyrical picture that "essence", "body", and "archangel's avatar" couldn't, because it pulls hard on sources rooted so deep in English prose and poetry that we infer deeper meanings without, necessarily, ever giving them a moment's thought before. I'd guess that Good Omens itself influenced Supernatural, too?

A lot of scriptural and liturgical vocabularly and cadence is hardwired into the lyrical use of the English language via influential sources like the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer.

"I'm the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition," tells us a boatload about Castiel's mindset before he even reveals to Dean that he's "an angel of the Lord". Then he's taken aback when Dean doesn't believe him - challenges him and keeps on pushing back; Cas expects this shit to be hardwired into Dean's brain and for Dean to respond accordingly by bending at the knees. Shock and awe using language.

They spend most of season 4 in that state of disconnect, barely communicating even when they both try, because Dean's just not doing "because it's God's will/because I say so", not for anyone or anything; he won't respond to that portentous vocabulary and Cas struggles to adapt to that (not least because he gets brutally punished when he tries).

Put 'em away Cas.

On your AO3 you wrote The pieces I'm proudest of are the Broken Wheel series (Once Upon a Time) and Madness for Two (Doctor Who).

What made those two series stand out above others for you if it's ok to ask?

It's completely okay to ask!

Those stories are the ones that turned out on the page looking something like the vision in my head. They were relatively quick and painless to write, probably because they're so contained compared to my long fanfics, but also because I threw away some of the self-imposed constraints that make writing harder (if ultimately more likely to be attractive to a wider audience). They're more self-indulgent and removed from canon than I normally go for as either writer or reader.

Broken Wheel explores a Dark Castle-based romance for Belle and Rumple without really digging into the pitfalls of their relationship. They desire each other and they go for it. As a canon-divergent AU it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but as a fairytale take on OUaT's twist on a fairytale, it's kinda fun. It's quirky because Belle and Rumple are both quirky characters capable of becoming lost in each other to the exclusion of everything else. They spend the story exploring what's possible on their terms and - to deploy a phrase I didn't yet know when I wrote those pieces - matching each other's freak. I think it was the first time I wrote Rumple's POV, which I don't find easy or comfortable compared to Belle, so I'm proud of how that turned out.

Madness for Two is similar in a way - short, contained, smutty with feels, showing POV's I usually avoid because I find them hard. Self-indulgent, quirky, prioritising the Doctor/Master 'ship and smut over the more complex realities of their canon relationship. I wrote it for the 50th anniversary of the Master's debut on DW so I wanted to avoid really diving into the morality of it all and just celebrate my love for the characters. As with Broken Wheel's Belle and Rumple, I wrote Thirteen and the Master (and the subplot with Twelve and Missy) in an obsessive, claustrophobic, and quirky collision of personalities. Nobody matches freaks like those two!

In this case I added a MacGuffin to stop 'em actively fighting for five minutes so the story could work, not so much to enable the smut (though it was nice to do that for the Master's birthday - they've been jonesing for some quality Doctor-time in my head since the 1980's!) but to force their POV's to deal with the antagonism and intensity of their bond in words. I wanted them to describe each other as intimates and, in doing so, throw a light on themselves.

I intended both Broken Wheel and Madness for Two to be character studies first, smut second, love story third. The DW piece throws in angst and hurt comfort too, because that's my fave playground. I played with tone and voice and imagery more than I usually would and - on the whole - was happy with the results. I enjoy reading these stories back, actually seeing the story instead of the flaws in my writing/things I'd do differently now I've learned that bit more.

Lastly, they're actually finished pieces and not WIPs that keep me awake at night listening to the unfulfilled character voices in my head! I've always hoped to add a third piece to make Broken Wheel a trilogy, but it doesn't need it if I never can. I've never quite found the right narrative voice for it, maybe because it wants to be told from Belle's POV while the first two are Rumple's. It's a cute enough story from her POV, but I'd like the set to match and haven't yet figured out how to do that.

Hey Nym--- in Antithesis is the Master aware of the kinky implications of the collar they put on him?

Yes, I think so. Aware, amused. It's not what outrages him, though - just a nuance he's aware of and not above using to his advantage to mess with the Doctor and Jack. Being restrained infuriates him, but he sees the emotional manipulation potential in their chosen method.

The Doctor either isn't aware of the human kink connotations of putting a collar on him, or isn't letting himself follow the train of thought (because Time Lord Dignity, etc etc, lalalala healthy denial). He's too busy being horrified that security measures are needed at all.

Jack... well, he knew exactly what he was doing in terms of payback, even as he found a way for it to be 100% rational and necessary for everyone's safety to shock-collar the Master. To be fair, his options for using the technology were limited once the Master broke his own hand to escape the handcuffs. It had to go where removal of the restraint would equal fatality.

(These men are not well.)

Please, will Azi get his beloved outfit back?

I don't know the answer to that one. Sorry! The endpoint for My Bonds in Thee will probably arrive before there's a chance of it happening, unless Crowley (or Muriel!) snaps and - very concisely but effectively - storms Heaven to get the Aziraphale outfit back.

I think Metatron still has Aziraphale's clothes in a secret box somewhere, just so he can look at them sometimes and get all smirky with himself for being so cunning. And no story of mine is likely to foreshadow the Metatron getting what he wants in the long run. :P

A Bed of Thorns - the ending

I've answered a few Asks recently about the state, fate, and ending of my 12-year-old Belle/Rumple WIP, A Bed of Thorns.

I don't have it in me to admit that this thing defeated me (Once Upon a Time is all about not giving up hope, after all, so that would be silly) but I think it's time to put the ending out here for anyone who'd like the closure to find. It's not a huge secret. I've been sharing details of the ending and epilogue with anyone who asked privately since a couple of years into writing it, and I've never asked those people not to tell others.

As with all my works, anyone is welcome to snag my ideas and original characters for use in their own non-profit fanworks, so if my planned ending doesn't float your boat, by all means create your own! Of all my stories, I know that A Bed of Thorns was, is, and always will be so much bigger than myself. I lay claim to nothing but the words I've written. Even if I'm never able to complete it, the story lives in my head and heart, and the privilege of touching something once-in-a-fannish-career special still leaves me humbled (and more than a bit intimidated!)

Don't click the 'keep reading' if you don't want to know how the story ends!

Rumple eventually lets the Dark Curse (and Regina) go, trusting Belle to find a way to reunite them with Baelfire. A way that doesn't rack up the cosmic debt and devastate more lives. Belle finds the way, because there was always another way—multiple other ways to move between the Enchanted Forest and the Land Without Magic—Rumple just couldn't access those solutions by using dark magic, distrust, or dealing. And, having let Baelfire go all those years ago, he couldn't see the flaw in his approach until he had love in his life again. Magic bean, plot, then Rumple hesitates at the portal, afraid to go through and become powerless on the other side. Afraid it won't work. Afraid that Bae won't forgive him. Afraid he'll fail as a father again. Belle just holds out her hand and waits patiently for him—trusting him to make the right choice for Bae, not doubting for a moment that he will. She's so excited for the big adventure of this strange land without magic. They step together through the portal into Victorian London. In the brief epilogue Rumple and Belle finish up an anxious search by knocking on the Darlings' door, finding young Bae before he's taken to Neverland. Before it's too late for them to be a family.

If you love A Bed of Thorns even a fraction as much as I do - thank you.

Nym - September 2024

It's been an awfully long time since I was so affected by a character's emotions that I struggled to continue working on a piece of fanfiction. I'm pretty good at not letting fictional anything bleed over and actually harm my mental health. Avoidance is always a valid option, just... this is my own damned fanfic!

I was in a really vulnerable place when I wrote what's published of My Bonds in Thee, and I'm in a much, much better place now. So why I could tackle these issues and feels then but struggle to face them now is a bit of a mystery. It's not as if I don't know it's going to have a happy ending, all's well that ends well, kissy happy couple off to kick the arse of the second apocalypse. I've been nopeing out of rewriting the next chapter for months.

Am I getting squeamish about angst in my old age? Have I lost my tolerance for fictional owwies after a lifetime of craving them? Am I going to have to start writing fluff now?

(If any of the characters I've ever dabbled with could appreciate being turned to fanficcy fluff, it's Aziraphale and Crowley. They could be so obnoxiously happy together if everyone would just leave them in peace to get on with it.)

I've become bogged down, blocked, or plain stuck on WIPs before now; I've run out of physical energy to get the writing done; I've walked away from pieces that were generating wanky fandrama or other unwanted attention. I've never (yet) just wimped out of finishing something because it gave me feels. I can't believe I'm even asking myself if that's what's holding me up.

Send help. And possibly a supply of raw fluff.

TY for writing how much Aziraphale hurts too from the finale, not just Crowley pain.❤️‍🩹💜🩶

Well, they like to do everything together. Even getting their hearts broken.