Chapter Text
It all started with a show. Crowley hadn’t been to a show just to go to a show in forever. He’d always been on the stage and he was itching. He looked to see if there were any shows going on that night and luckily enough, there was. He was annoyed to see it was at a notoriously straight edge venue, one that regularly had the pretentious kind scampering about. But, beggars can’t be choosers, so he sucked it up and decided to go to the show.
Now, Crowley finds himself in the back of the crowd. He absentmindedly bobbed his head and moved his body to the heavy sound of the music and political lyrics blasting through the speakers, performed excellently by the band. As the song concluded, the next band filed in from the back, getting set up. There were four of them. As they got into position, Crowley figured out who’s part was. The lead was very basic looking for being the vocalist, hair dark brown and styled the way you’d see a business man style it. He was wearing a white button up tucked into blue jeans, black Doc Martins peaking out from under the legs of his jeans. Next to him stood a woman with short black hair. She adorned light colored mascara on her eyelashes with white highlights in her coily hair. She wore light-coloured clothes that contrasted nicely with her darker skin tone. She must be the bassist, she is holding the bass after all. The guitarist was another woman who also looked shockingly basic, Her brown hair was long and partially tied up in a ponytail. She wore a baggy t-shirt and a long, black skirt. She looked uptight, he noted. Like the way a rich person looks when they don’t get exactly what they want. What shocked him most was the person who set himself up behind the drum kit. He had a pale face and bright blue eyes. His hair was slightly curly and a brilliant blonde. Crowley thought he looked just like an angel. Crowley found himself watching him more than anyone else in the band.
The crowd cheered loudly. ‘They must be popular in the area,’ Crowley thought to himself. He was pretty new since he recently moved to a little town about 15 minutes out from Los Angeles with his sibling. Moving overseas to California was certainly tough, but it helped one of his band members live there and had been renting a house for him and a few other roommates who ended up leaving to go back home after graduating. It also helped his sibling who was also in the band with him was accepted into a college there. It didn’t take long for them to find people to fill in roles for the ska punk band Crowley had been wanting to start since, well, since he was a 13 year old girl discovering the Specials and Operation Ivy. Their band members went from 3 to 6 before they knew it.
Crowley was a vocalist and occasionally played guitar when the song called for it. Beelzebub was their sibling. They did backing vocals and drums. Eric was the bassist, the one who lived in California originally. They were originally just a trio, with Crowley playing the guitar and singing exclusively with Bee on the drums and Eric on the bass. It wasn’t working with Crowley and Bee being located in Edinburgh and Eric being located just north of Los Angeles. This is when the idea of Bee and Crowley moving in was prompted. Eric said his roommates were graduating that year and were moving back home. Mad dash commences, Bee and Crowley figure out how to get citizenship. Bee then got accepted into a college they wanted to go to. Now they’ve been here for a few months. They were still in the process of getting citizenship, but other than that they had felt pretty settled.
Crowley’s thoughts were cut short by the lead introducing their band while the others fiddled around with their equipment, making sure everything was correct. “Angry Angels” was the band’s name. He made a mental note of that to do some research on them later. One of the songs started off with drums and Crowley felt something shift in him at the sight of the drummer. He was amazing at it. He was wearing a light blue button up and khaki slacks. He noticed a gold earring in his right ear. He noticed how sweat began to drip down his face. He noticed the huge smile on the drummer's face as he absolutely wailed on the drums. Crowley tried to stop himself, but he couldn’t help it. The drummer was incredibly attractive, and something about him looking like a beautiful, pure angel, playing along to angry music on the drums and doing a fantastic job at it really got him going for some reason.
The show concluded and he left the venue with an odd, heavy feeling in his gut. He ran his fingers through the mullet he was currently rocking and chewed on his lip. He felt weird for being so attracted to someone and feeling something so strong for someone so quickly. Apparently he wasn’t paying attention while thinking about the platinum blonde drummer he’d just seen and he ran directly into someone.
“Urrghh…” Crowley mumbled, having fallen backwards. He looked up and felt his mouth go dry at the person who was crouching down to make sure he was alright.
“Are you alright?” Asked the blonde drummer, a concerned look in his eyes. He looked like he barely stumbled. He spoke with a British accent. Crowley didn’t expect that. This man was full of surprises from the looks of it.
Crowley blinked, “Uh, yeah. Sorry,” he murmured. As the blonde man opened his mouth to speak, Crowley was already taking off. “Sorry, in a rush, thanks for checking in.”
That was a total lie. He had nothing planned after this but maybe a joint and a deep dive on this band. He just was embarrassed and didn’t want to. He b-lined for his car. He opened the driver’s side, sat down, took in a deep breath, and released it as a long sigh. What was wrong with him? He started the car and took off as fast as he possibly could without being pulled over.
After about a twenty minute drive back to his place, he grabbed some supper which consisted of microwave ramen and a leftover soft boiled egg from this morning’s breakfast. He went directly to his room and opened up his laptop.
He found out everything he could’ve possibly found. He lit up a small pre-rolled joint and puffed on it as he dug. It made him feel a little less weird about practically cyber stalking this band with one thousand listeners on Spotify. He found out the lead’s name was Gabriel and that he could be very pretentious at times, the bassist’s name was Uriel, there wasn’t too much information on her out there. The brown-haired woman was named Michael. She was the eldest of the band members, being somewhere in her late 30s while the rest of the band was in their mid 20s. And finally, Aziraphale, the drummer. There was almost nothing about him on the internet. Everything he could find was about Gabriel. Apparently he was quite the controversial topic on the internet. He used to be a devoted Christian before “realizing how toxic and frankly awful the community is.” The whole speech felt preformative and like he needed an excuse for starting a hardcore band with heavy Christian influences. He talked about growing and changing and now is an atheist, as is the rest of the band. That part was a relief. But, the band is notoriously straight edge. The obnoxious, ‘I’m better than you because I don’t smoke weed or drink or do drugs,’ kind. He continued on his deep dive until the clock struck midnight. He had work early in the morning.
He got himself ready for bed and laid down with his eyes shut. His mind was racing.
Little did Crowley know, though, that their bands would each slowly gain more and more popularity in their own respective scenes, resulting in an aggressive and angry rivalry between the two bands.