Title: the race thing
Fandom: Good Omens
Rating: PG-13
Length: ~1.3k words
Content notes: References to racism & homophobia. Racebending (or is it?).
Author notes: First work for GO. Haven't quite finished the book yet, whoops. Also for the "Generosity" square in my FFW bingo card. 
Summary: Aziraphale doesn't understand. For five thousand years, "race" didn't quite exist.

Aziraphale has quite a few thoughts about the form he's taken while on Earth. Of course, everyone does— Crowley has the strongest thoughts of the bunch, something or other about how hot he is.

But for Aziraphale, most of his thoughts revolve around the whole race thing.

He doesn't understand humans, really. Sure, demons and angels are two different creatures, doomed for fighting when the Apocalypse happens, but there's a difference between that and the human concept of race, which came into function about five thousand years into him being on Earth.

It was, needless to say, a very weird change. Usually humans just hated each other based on their nationality, their place of birth, but now it was just the color of their skin, some characteristics of their faces. Further back everyone just sort of hated everyone. Romans hated everyone who wasn't Roman.

But now it was like this, with a whole more things to add to the mix. Belief in racial superiority, scientific racism, genocide, you know, the works. Humans always are out there, trying to kill one another, but it's even more heinous now because they're trying to make up excuses for it.

And well, Aziraphale’s body, the man-shaped form he'd taken, fit neatly into one of the races humans had named— he was Black. And that didn't matter much, of course; at least for the first five thousand years. He barely noticed it.

But after Columbus “found” the Americas, well, everything went downhill ever since then, he believes. But he's managed to adapt and to try to blend into the background, although it's quite hard when one is a Black man-shaped thing amongst a sea of white Englishmen.

When he started up his bookshop, he didn't care to pretty it up. He didn't want anybody to take any of his books. He didn't want anybody to breathe in the direction of his books. But still, he kept it all clean, and his bookshop grew and got a bit more aesthetically pleasing as the years passed.

It's not like he, as an angel, isn't inclined towards aesthetics. Quite the opposite, in fact— even if Crowley insists they're aesthetics stuck on the nineteenth century, sometimes getting as far as the fifties of the twentieth.

But it's about nineteen-eighty-something, and Crowley's found his new obsession— a band called Queen, and everything is pretty okay apart from the close threat of the end of times. But it's all okay.

It's always nice when older white humans walk into his bookshop. By nice, he means… it's a bit of schadenfreude, a term he doesn’t like but it applies to what he feels whenever they see him.

He knows what they think when they see him. Rich brown skin, curls he keeps with care, and earrings dangling from the piercings he asked a friend of Crowley's to give him back in the sixties or so.

“You look even more like a pansy now,” Crowley had told him as he switched them up, trying out different earrings.

“Dear,” he had said, a bit tired, fiddling with the ones in his hands, “that's the whole point.”

And his point sure has worked. Sometimes people still do get in and look through his books, gaining them dirty looks. But sometimes those older humans walk in, and their eyes bore into his.

“Welcome, darlings,” he says every time, straightening up and clasping his hands together, making his voice a bit higher. “What'd you like from my bookshop?”

Angels are sensitive. Angels can sense love and hatred alike, everything in between. Usually he's not paying much attention to those things, focused on his books and accounts and Crowley, but it sometimes reeks of hatred just so strongly, he has to look up when the door opens.

He doesn't understand that about humans, either. You can tell Aziraphale one and a thousand times about the complexity of humans, how they're assholes most of the time. He still doesn't quite understand why do they hate so much.

But whenever a hateful human comes in, he says the same thing, always, in the gayest way he can manage. Lots of them always turn and run off— a Black gay man is too much for the lot of them, he guesses.

Being genderless was great, but he likes the title, the identity. Gay means happy, and it also means loves men. And based on various experiences with men, some famous, some not, he's taken it as his own. Men are great.

It's just a normal day of possible and very unwanted customers coming through the door and him scaring them off through homosexuality.

Aziraphale senses curiosity drip off whoever opens the door, and then surprise covers the bookshop, almost blinding and overwhelminy.

He straightens up, ready for the same thing of always, before he sees an Indian young man, skin a shade or two lighter than Aziraphale's own, eyes wide and a giddy smile making its way onto his face.

“I was wondering why I never saw anyone come in here,” the man says, stepping inside and starting to look through the books. Aziraphale doesn't even protest— he seems like a very nice man. Maybe he'll even sell a book, which is an egregious thought. Crowley would scoff at the mere idea of his love selling one of his books.

The man turns to him. “What's your name, mister?”

“Ah,” he says, not used to the question. “Aziraphale.”

“What an odd name!” the man exclaims, grinning wider. “I'm Lawrence, it's a pleasure.” He offers him a hand.

He doubts for a second, but shakes his hand. He'd met Lawrence of Arabia once. He wasn't a very apt for conversation, or charming, but few army men ever were. “Feel free to look through all of them,” he says.

The man beams and goes back to the bookshelf, taking out one of those antique, dusty books.

“Oh,” he says as he looks through the pages. “I wouldn't ever be able to read this.” He turns to Aziraphale, with this kinship in his eyes he's seen always with other non-white people in England. A mutual understanding. “You see, I moved here a while back, but I still have just, a bit of difficulty—”

Aziraphale doesn't want to desecrate the historical context of the book, really, he doesn't, but he still focuses on the book. It's about four centuries old, one of the first few compilations of short stories in the written form in England.

“Look at it again,” he nudges Lawrence.

Lawrence turns back to the book and his eyes widen. He looks at him, and then back at the book. “How—?”

Something about religion in India briefly crosses Aziraphale's mind. He shrugs.

“I swore it was unreadable a few seconds ago!” He goes closer to him. “How much for it?”

“Ah,” he says, shrugging. “Just ten pounds, don't worry about the price, dear.”

Lawrence hums contently and looks through his pockets, eventually giving him the money. Aziraphale takes it in and nods.

“See you, dear, if you ever decide to come back.”

He grins at him, bows his head a little. “I'll be sure to, Azi-rap…”

“Aziraphale.”

He looks at him, and swallows a little. “I'll stick to mister. I know how annoying it is for someone to get your name wrong, it happens all the time with my last name, but—”

He shakes his head. “Don't worry about it, Lawrence, dear. Mister works just fine.”

He doesn't know this exactly, but when Lawrence came home that night, he'd told his wife that he had met a Black angel.

And for that, he'd be correct.