TITLE: break my cage and spread my wings

SUMMARY: Everyone called the Titanic the 'Ship of Dreams', but for Aziraphale, it was the ship of nightmares, carrying her away from her home in England, and her dreams of freedom, and towards the bleak future of her arranged marriage in America. The only spark of light in the darkness is her new and tentative friendship with the boldly intimate Crowley.

AO3 TAGS: Alternate Universe - Titanic Fusion, Ineffable Wives (Good Omens), POV Aziraphale (Good Omens), Human Aziraphale (Good Omens), Female Aziraphale (Good Omens), Rose Dewitt Bukater Aziraphale (Good Omens), Human Crowley (Good Omens), Female Crowley (Good Omens), Male-Presenting Crowley (Good Omens), Female-Presenting Crowley (Good Omens), Jack Dawson Crowley (Good Omens), Caledon Hockley Gabriel (Good Omens), Ruth Dewitt Bukater Michael (Good Omens), Arranged Marriage, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Flirting, Teasing, Smooth Crowley (Good Omens), Protective Crowley (Good Omens), Hand Holding, Dancing, Touching, Neck Kissing, Light Angst, Temporary Break Up, First Kiss, Kissing, Gentle Kissing, Naked Female Clothed Female, Naked Aziraphale (Good Omens), Insecure Aziraphale (Good Omens), Virgin Aziraphale (Good Omens), First Time, Top Crowley (Good Omens), Bottom Aziraphale (Good Omens), Cunnilingus, Vaginal Fingering, Tribadism, more tags to come (probably), tags only look scary because of all the '(Good Omens)' additives (set by AO3 not me)

AN: *radio announcer voice* Gooooood morning, Femslash February! We're kickin' off the month here with my first proper attempt at femslash and we're bringing you updates every week on the week! This fic is brought to you by a comforting conversation with a good friend, Cascada's 'Everytime We Touch', and the lyrics:
- "When you touch me, I die, just a little inside / I wonder if this could be love, this could be love" from Lady Gaga's 'Venus', and
- "And it burns like a gin and I like it / Put your lips on my skin and you might ignite it" from Billie Eilish's 'my strange addiction'.

Bone apple tea!

Chapter One: Meet Cute

Chapter Summary: "Are you thinking about jumping?"

1912 April 12, Friday - Day 3 (Part One)

The railing around the edges of the stern was freezing, even through Aziraphale's fur-lined gloves, but she couldn't convince her fingers to release the metal. Overhead, the night sky over the Atlantic was a deep black, studded with more stars than she thought she could count in her lifetime. Below her, below the Titanic, the ocean was just as dark as the sky, but instead of stars, there was only the froth of stirred waves in the wake of the steamship. When she stared at the horizon where sky and water met… it felt like she was looking into the heart of the universe.

"Are you thinking about jumping?"

The voice made Aziraphale jump and she whirled, her hand pressed to her racing heart. "I'm so sorry, I didn't realize anyone else was out here," she apologized reflexively and then paused, confused.

The voice had been a soft, husky feminine, but the person leaning on the railing just a few feet away was most certainly dressed as a man. A man's button up shirt, a man's trousers, and a man's suspenders, all so dark that they practically blended into the night. Only, the shirt was very improperly unbuttoned down to the waist, revealing a strip of skin so pale that it seemed to glow in the meager outdoors lights, and the subtle swell of breast just inside the gap. As if to starkly contrast the masculinity of the clothes, the stranger's flame-red hair was cut decidedly bohemian, feminine, hanging down to their chin in gentle waves. But above all that, the one thing that really struck Aziraphale as unforgivably odd was the stranger's complete lack of coat.

"You must be freezing!" she gasped, hurriedly trying to make her fingers work to unbutton her own long coat.

The stranger laughed, lovely and soft, and waved a hand. "I run really warm, don't worry about it. You stay bundled up."

"Are you sure?" Aziraphale asked sceptically, staring them down for any hint that they were lying.

"Positive," they replied with a sharp grin.

"If you insist..."

The stranger stared at her a moment longer, and Aziraphale stared back, unsure. While she couldn't seem to pinpoint the stranger's gender, it was a great deal easier to identify the accent and the rough clothes that belonged to a class Aziraphale had never been allowed to speak to. First it had been her mother, and then later Gabriel, who had decreed that it was beneath them (beneath her) to speak to anyone who worked with their hands for a living, who got dirty and lived poor. And Aziraphale, despite her desire for conversation, knew she lived in a gilded cage, with not much more than her books to keep her company - books that the people she was allowed to speak with hadn't read either, and she had no idea how to even start a conversation.

"So, you were about to jump?" the stranger asked, almost expectantly, and Aziraphale was relieved she didn't have to be the one to start. Relieved, but-

"Jump?" Aziraphale echoed, confused. The stranger nodded out towards the water, and Aziraphale followed their gaze for a moment before she realized what they had meant. "Oh! No! Heavens no!" she denied with a frantic wave of her hands. "Even if I survived the fall, the water is cold enough to kill me in an hour. Not a particularly comfortable way to die."

She looked back over the stern into the dark. "No, I was thinking about…" She paused, unsure if she should confess, and then realized there was no one better to confess to than to one who neither her mother nor Gabriel would ever speak to. "I was thinking about flying."

She'd dreamed of it ever since she'd been a child, of sprouting a pair of bird's wings large enough to lift her into the sky and into freedom. She'd daydreamed about it every time she'd been forbidden from leaving the house, whenever her mother had been unable to spare a servant to escort Aziraphale in an aimless walk about the city. Then, when she'd been promised to Gabriel, she'd dreamed of it every time he hadn't had the time to escort her. Even now aboard the Titanic, though she was freer than ever to enjoy the open air, she'd never felt so trapped, each step watched by crewmen more than willing to return her to Gabriel or her mother if she was suspected of any impropriety.

No, the illusion of freedom had never been so great, and Aziraphale had never wished for wings so hard. She would even gladly become Icarus if she had to.

"Have you ever flown?" the stranger asked curiously, settling in against the railing, hands in their pockets and hips canting out in a way that Aziraphale couldn't seem to pull her eyes from. They were everything Aziraphale wasn't, tall where she was short, whip-thin and corded where Aziraphale was thick and soft. She couldn't decide if she was envious or… something else.

"I had the pleasure of taking a ride in a dirigible several years ago," Aziraphale admitted. "It was…" Even then, she hadn't been able to put the experience into words, standing amongst the clouds, above the birds. It had been the view she'd always wanted, the one she'd never dared hope for, the one her imagination had failed to ever properly create. "Ineffable."

The stranger smiled at her, expression amused. "Ineffable?"

Aziraphale coloured, embarrassed. "I'm sorry, it means-"

"Oh, I know what it means, gorgeous."

She frowned. "It doesn't mean-" Her companion's eyebrow rose with an amused quirk to their lips, and Aziraphale felt her face get even hotter. "Oh."

The stranger's grin was sharp and wicked, and there was something about it that sent the heat from Aziraphale's face through her entire body.

"Name's Crowley, by the way," they introduced, holding out their hand, and continuing to be absolutely unhelpful about any sort of gender identification. Miss Crowley? Mister Crowley? Finishing school had utterly failed to provide the protocol for addressing someone with no determinate gender, but then again, this was the first time Aziraphale had encountered someone who was not clearly a man, but was not clearly a woman.

"Lovely to meet you," Aziraphale returned, grasping the proffered hand. To her surprise, Crowley didn't shake it, but lifted it to their lips and pressed a kiss to the back of Aziraphale's glove. Hadn't it just been freezing outside a few minutes ago? Why was she suddenly so warm? "I'm-"

"Aziraphale!"

The heat under her clothes evaporated in a split second, replaced just as quickly with a cold wash of despair. Her mind was suddenly empty of everything except a single, echoing thought: 'How did they find me?'

Like a knock to the head, the rapping of boots crossing the wooden deck sparked Aziraphale into action, and she stepped hurriedly back, her hand ripping from Crowley's fingers and their lips. The nearing steps drew her eyes, like the threat of a nightmare, and dread turned her head towards the sound. She almost would have preferred a nightmare to the sight of her mother strolling towards her arm-in-arm with Gabriel, Gabriel's valet lingering behind them. Every part of her screamed that she should run, but her feet were frozen. But even if they weren't, where could she go? There was only her gilded cage - Titanic, and the icy waters it sat in. She had no wings with which to fly away. She had no freedom at all. She was trapped.

"Aziraphale, you shouldn't wander the deck alone at night," Gabriel admonished as he stepped up to her side, wrapping a proprietary arm around her waist. His clothes still smelled of cigar smoke, and his breath of brandy; he was warm from sitting inside, but the way his hand squeezed her ribs only numbed her. As did the cheerfulness to his voice, but that cheer was, at best, a facade to hide the cruelty that lay underneath. "Anything could happen in the dark."

It felt less like a warning and more like a threat.

Sandalphon stepped up beside Gabriel and the smug, spiteful expression on his face turned the beat of Aziraphale's heart into tar, slow and sluggish and sickly-heavy. She knew at once that he'd followed her when she left the dining room, that he had spied on her while she'd been talking to Crowley. It would have been him who had returned to the dining room to inform Gabriel, and her mother, that she was embarrassing her good name by speaking to someone she shouldn't be. His grin turned nasty, and Aziraphale had to look away.

Her mother stepped up to Aziraphale's other side, and Aziraphale could feel the bars of her cage closing back in around her. Somehow, despite the height Crowley had on her mother, more than a head in fact, Michael still managed to look down her nose at Crowley. Aziraphale swallowed, feeling her shoulders rising up to her ears as the floor drew her gaze, as her heart crept into her throat.

"I was quite alright, dear," Aziraphale softly tried to placate her fiancé, and her mother by proxy. And as much as she didn't want to get into trouble, she knew the kind of trouble Gabriel, with all his wealth and prestige, could cause for someone of their own class, much less someone in steerage. Her mind raced for the optimum excuse, but for once, the truth seemed to be, hopefully, sufficient. "I was just stargazing and-" she paused, gesturing at Crowley, still unsure how to address them.

"AJ," Crowley said.

"Yes, AJ- AJ?" she startled, confused once again. She didn't particularly like being confused, but it had been a constant companion her entire life. Why should tonight be any different?

"Yeah," Crowley said, staring down Gabriel even as they held out their hand. "You can call me AJ."

Aziraphale couldn't help but notice the difference in the introduction she had gotten and the one Gabriel was getting. When Crowley had introduced themself, they had clearly said that Crowley was their name, but they had only told Gabriel to call them AJ. And then there was Crowley's expression, suddenly cold and somehow angry, all the warmth they'd used to speak to Aziraphale gone. It was distinctly uncomfortable, and it made Aziraphale fight not to fidget in her discomfort.

Gabriel looked down at Crowley's hand with a look of distaste, and very pointedly did not take it. Crowley let their hand drop, looking unsurprised by the rude dismissal. Embarrassed for the way Crowley was being treated and suddenly aching for the quiet solitude of her bedroom, caged but... alone, Aziraphale swallowed and pushed on.

"I was stargazing and AJ here kindly came over to ensure that I was alright. I was just relaying a story of the time mother and I rode in that dirigible when you arrived." She carefully, and slowly, linked her arm with her mother's, wary of being rebuked - her mother never had been a fan of public displays of affection from or for Aziraphale, neither physical nor verbal.

"She does so love to chatter on, doesn't she," Gabriel said amicably to Crowley, and Aziraphale flushed, dropping her eyes. She didn't want to see the expression on Crowley's face when they inevitably agreed with her fiancé.

"I thought she was a rather good conversationalist."

Aziraphale had to fight not to look up - Crowley's assessment seemed to beggar so much disbelief as to be an outright lie. She knew she wasn't a good conversationalist, she never had been. As had been made quite evident over the years as she consistently failed to keep even one friend, even one conversation partner.

Clearly Gabriel agreed because he seemed to be struck silent. Aziraphale's mother, on the other hand, wielded her tongue like a weapon.

"Aziraphale learned many things at finishing school, but being a good conversationalist was not one of them."

The cold numbness of feeling trapped was replaced with a hot wash at shame, and worse, Aziraphale could feel tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. She very carefully did not look up as she tried to blink them away.

"She must have already been quite good then."

Crowley's unexpected attempts at defending her were very kind, but it only made Aziraphale's shame burn brighter at the outright and too-obvious lie.

"I do apologize," Aziraphale finally spoke up, unable to lift her eyes - she didn't have the strength to look at Crowley again, "but it has been quite a long day and I'm afraid to say I'm ready to retire for the evening. Gabriel, would you care to escort me back to our rooms?"

There was just enough of a delay in Gabriel's answer for Aziraphale to being thinking she was to be denied her request, and then the hand at her waist tightened. "Yes, of course. Michael?"

Aziraphale's mother pulled her arm free of Aziraphale's hand and stepped away. "Quite right. It's rather late," she said, walking away without anything as polite as a farewell. Her heels on the wood deck as she strode away were as harsh and piercing as war drums, and the tug at Aziraphale's waist from Gabriel's hand made Aziraphale feel like she was suffocating.

"It was lovely to meet you," she said again, her voice almost lost under the sound of the waves as Gabriel walked her away.

"No," she heard Crowley say behind her, and her heart clenched tight in her chest. "The pleasure was all mine."

TBC

Update next Saturday and don't forget to toss rebloga to your Writer (themadkatter13fanfiction tumblr, post / 190591686323)~