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Chapter Text

“Is that why you’re here?” Aziraphale demanded. “This is what you want?”

“And what exactly – ” Crowley’s smile turned sharp, voice curling low, “ – do you think I want?”

The ruby necklace swung from Crowley’s hand, a deep red that matched the rouje painted across Crowley’s lips, that smile a scar, a wound. Unlike the last time they were here, Crowley had his longer hair tied loosely to the back, strands coming free to frame that crooked smile, his tailcoat far more form-fitting – with its top button undone – and his heeled snakeskin boots riding up to his knees. In the chandelier light, it was hard to see past those black lenses.

And yet, something in them made Aziraphale pause anyway. A challenge, that moment when push became shove, and shove teetered on the edge of falling. Aziraphale clung to his balance against the tides. There were many things Crowley said he wanted. But that wasn’t the question, was it?

“We’re not on opposite sides,” Aziraphale answered, in the end. Neither of them wanted a fight. “Not right now.”

He watched the pinpricks of light dance across the dark mirror of Crowley’s glasses. Light, reflected. Light, recycled into shadow.

The demon stepped closer. “Turn around, angel.”

From anyone else, the command would have been a threat. And for Aziraphale to obey, it would be a surrender, turning his back to an enemy he couldn’t ever trust, opening himself up to a betrayal crueler than Judas’ kiss on Christ’s cheek.

But from Crowley, it was a temptation turned into a promise. And for Aziraphale to obey, it would be a supplication, a leap of faith – opening himself up to a truth that was equal parts betrayal and confession: a truth, that perhaps a kiss was less a betrayal, and more a desire. That perhaps Aziraphale didn’t know what he wanted, didn’t know what he’d come here to find.

Gardens of Versailles

January 1804

“Haven’t you learned your lesson?”

Aziraphale didn’t turn, but Crowley spotted the dimpled dip of his cheek anyway as Crowley stepped closer, the gravel of the footpath crunched beneath his snakeskin boots.

They both stared up at the sculpture tucked between the overgrown hedges. White marble wings curved over a hunched back, shaping a little awning. Stone curls carved gently around the statue’s soft cheeks – that is, if stone could ever be called soft – and a chipped hand curled around a broken weapon.

“I do have standards,” Aziraphale huffed his reply. His grey silk cravat poked through his beige waistcoat, almost exactly the same as when they’d last been in Paris. “And this is hardly the Bastille. There isn’t anyone around.”

Almost, because the angel had replaced the chains around his wrists with white gloves, as he promenaded freely in the rare winter sun. As he gazed at the statue of – oh. The broken weapon, with its marble cut off at one end, was a bow and arrow. A bow and arrow which, Crowley slowly realized, usually belonged to Eros.

“I hope you aren’t here for another nibble,” he muttered at Aziraphale’s back. “Is your bookshop so dull that you’re sneaking across the Channel again?”

In the years since the French Revolution, the Gardens of Versailles had gone into some disrepair with the Republic Government selling off the palace treasures to pay its debts, and other members of the government milling about the grounds to turn it into a museum. But Versailles was fortuitously deserted today, or as fortuitous as a demonic intervention could be called: the moment he’d spotted the overdressed angel wandering about in the open cold, he’d put up wards to keep all prying eyes out.

The last time he’d seen the angel was – what, seven years ago? He’d been in London to check out the new apartment Hell had rewarded him with, which he’d promptly left behind to bother Aziraphale’s shop, still halfway finished. And which he’d then left behind to have a long drink alone because his heart wouldn’t stop doing those ridiculous flips when –

“Haven’t had a customer in months,” Aziraphale answered, finally turning to him and beaming proudly, almost smugly. “I thought I might take a stroll amongst the artwork here. And the libraries. Oh, the libraries!” Aziraphale clasped his hands together, grasping at the empty air. “We never did get a proper chance to look inside before, and I’ve heard the most marvelous things.”

We? Crowley hummed, shifting to stand a little closer to the angel.

It was warmer near the angel, like a private patch of sun, and Crowley covered the move up with a little smirk. “You could take some of the books home.” He polished it off with a wink. “I’m sure there’s plenty in there that’d fit your shelves.”

“That would be stealing!”

“Call it art preservation.” He waved at the sculpture. “Or, if you prefer, it’d only take a small miracle to bring this beauty home.” In fact, he might just do it himself – his newly assigned apartment in London needed some sprucing up, and – Crowley paused. He squinted through his glasses, first at Aziraphale’s wide eyes, and then at the statue’s curled hair, the slope of the statue’s shoulders, and the robes sliding off the marble chest. Those feathers really had quite some detail, and that smile on the statue, bordering halfway between sweet and smug – “Wait a minute, angel, is this you? You inspired Eros? The god of carnal desire, that’s your doing?”

Aziraphale shifted, guilty, flustered. “I don’t know what you’re suggesting. My side frowns on idolatry.”

The pantheon of gods had been a distinctly human creation, stories so old they evolved into myth. The concept of Eros was also a human thing, though Crowley liked to claim credit for his original apple. He’d done his fair share to help the Greek worshippers spread their beliefs – if anyone asked, yes, he’d received a commendation for increasing the number of false gods, and no, the snake on Aesculapius’ Staff of Healing had nothing whatsoever to do with his own serpentine form, thank you very little. He’d just been off his head on arsenic and he hadn’t intended to bless a House of Healing. The rest of the details were as vague to him as his report to Hell had been.

The image of the gods, though – Crowley had his face carved as the likeness of Hera, once, as a joke. But the more Crowley stared at this statue of Eros, the more he saw the resemblance. Aziraphale had always been a patron of the arts, in his own way, and a romantic too. And, Crowley knew how well-read the angel was: under the terms of the Arrangement, Aziraphale had done a seduction for Crowley once, and had been concerningly good at it. (I’m an angel, Aziraphale had insisted, of course I’m good.)

Crowley snorted at the red flush high on the angel’s cheeks, now. He himself wasn’t good enough to not enjoy this, and his own smirk turned smug.

“You’re a terrible liar, angel.”

Aziraphale walked on to the next statue with a pointed huff. “If you must know,” the angel mumbled, glaring at him, “I blessed the sculptor. Healed his broken wrist. I didn’t ask him to turn me into a – a Greek god. And certainly not Eros.”

“Shame,” Crowley said. “Looking like that, you could start a cult.” He flashed a crooked grin, which quickly turned into a laugh, unable to help himself. “I’d sign right down.”

Something twisted across Aziraphale’s face, flickering between indignance and annoyance and something dangerously close to fondness. It settled there, soft and warm in the winter sun, the light catching on it as Aziraphale shook his head.

“What are you doing here, you foul fiend?” He fell into step beside Crowley. “Spreading foment, again?”

Fiend was just one letter away from friend, and Crowley happily chewed on that letter. “They’ve been hanging laundry over the bushes.” He was all for the democratization of the palace, of the people having access to it and tearing down its righteousness from its very roots, but, “The trees haven’t been making fruit.”

“You’ve become a palace gardener?”

“I’ve been a commander,” Crowley corrected. (He hadn’t learned about talking to plants yet. All he had been doing thus far was glowering at the plants and hoping he got his message across as he angrily sprayed water at them, until winter had rolled around and all he could do was sulk. No, he didn’t sulk, he skulked.) As it was, he flapped his hand, and cleared his throat, and ignored the fact that there was a thin sheet of ice over everything. “Commanding the plants. To grow properly bad. They’re harder work than the merchants I was supposed to tempt.”

Aziraphale had the decency to hold his laugh. “Can I come meet your little army?”

“No.”

It had been three days since the last snowfall, but most of the estate was still covered in powdered white, the air cold enough that their breaths puffed mist into the air. He hadn’t planned on the angel knowing of his work here – Aziraphale would only be smug that Crowley was using his powers for something other than foment.

But the merchants really hadn’t needed any tempting to ruin themselves on all the usual vices, and Crowley had to be seen doing something, so he’d been telling Hell that he was helping plan another revolution in France. And if the revolution involved the grass taking over Versailles’ stone paths (infrastructure damage, very demonic indeed) while Crowley snuck royal jewels out to give to sick children (thieving, arguably the original sin), no one needed to know.

And Crowley had been zapping the snow away from the palace grass when he’d been lucky enough to spot Aziraphale casually strolling past the frozen hedges as if he owned the place. Really, was the angel trying to get into trouble at a demon’s expense?

Crowley had better things to do than spend an afternoon rescuing an angel from trouble over again. He much preferred tempting said angel to some indecency.

But Aziraphale beat him to the punch.

“How about something warm to drink, then?” Aziraphale suggested, walking in the general direction of the palace building, past several more statues. His breaths puffed in the air. “Tea? Cocoa?”

“Coffee,” Crowley said, and when Aziraphale made a face, Crowley laughed some more. “Weren’t you there when the Pope baptized coffee?” He leaned against a sculpture of Pandora, her robe pooled around her hips. Crowley toyed with the crook of her finger as Aziraphale’s gaze darted away from the state of the statue’s undress.

The angel stared instead at Crowley’s hand. “The Devil’s Brew, they called it. Was it really your doing?”

“Well.” He couldn’t take all the credit for the popularization and democratization of coffee. He had simply stolen all the credit, in his reports to Hell. “I did do some work on the Ottoman legal system. Freed a lot of wives when it was legal for them to divorce on the grounds – ” and here Crowley grinned a little wider, “grounds, get it? That their husbands weren’t giving them enough coffee.”

Aziraphale moved along from Pandora’s statue, toward the next, which really was in a worse – or depending on perspective, better – state of undress. “You’re incorrigible, Crowley.”

“I live to please.” Crowley gave a small bow, courtly, the kind used to ask for a dance. Then, he straightened back as much as he could stand straight, and followed the angel along to the palace doors. “Which Pope was it again? I liked Benedict – selling the Papacy, now that’s a revolutionary thought. Our Lord in Hell should have tried auctioning Heaven off.”

“Will you be back in London, soon?” Aziraphale asked, studiously ignoring everything about auctions. He led them in through one of the side doors, the rusted metal hinges wiggling open with just the gentlest bit of persuasion.

The threshold between the palace and the garden had a more jarring difference than Heaven and Earth. That, Crowley supposed, said more about Heaven’s poor and bland tastes than it did about the Earth – and the humans always did have more imagination than all the Archangels combined. He closed the gilded door behind them, and stared down a corridor lined with thick velvet curtains on one side, and tall portraits on the other. 

Snakes didn’t usually do well in the winter cold, especially not with just a tailcoat and snakeskin boots. And certainly not when he’d left his top button undone for style. But Crowley had his own standards, and he shivered gratefully in the warmth of the palace walls, free from the chill winds outside.

Then, he frowned. The curtains were closed, plunging them into deep shadow. Crowley could see well enough in the dark, but Aziraphale had made no move to bring any light. Did the angel expect Crowley to do it for him?

Sighing, Crowley tamped down on his shivers to smile as cocky as he could manage. Really, he should stop indulging Aziraphale. Should stop indulging himself. But he was a demon, and his job was to run – or saunter – toward temptation. Crowley snapped his fingers to light up the lanterns along the wall, and tucked his own hair behind his ear.

“Did you miss me, angel?”

Aziraphale stared at him in the firelight, the amber color warm on his skin, a halo over his hair. His gaze flicked up and down Crowley’s face, and there was something thick in the air that Crowley couldn’t place. It couldn’t be lust. Greed, maybe, or gluttony – unsated want, left behind in the palace walls, and remarkably fresh for a place that had been empty for so long. Crowley waggled his brows –

“I – no!” the angel protested, catching himself, and the thickness in the air cleared. Crowley barely had a moment to think about what that implied, before Aziraphale looked away from him, gazing at the murals painted high on the ceilings. There was Apollo up above them, and the sun that had melted Icarus’ wings.  “It’s just – the world’s changing, faster than ever.” There was a Heaven, drawn in pastel pinks and whites and gentle blues, and the punishments it deemed just. “Everywhere you look, there’s a revolution.”

The Americans had recently declared their independence, and so had the Haitians. If the rumors in Hell were true, the Serbians were planning their own revolution too. Uprisings always had Hell’s blessing, for better or for worse, and the air lately had been thick with equal amounts of fear and hope.

“They’re reclaiming their power.” Crowley shrugged. “Shouldn’t you be happy? No more tyranny. You were fine when Moses walked out of Egypt.”

Aziraphale reached forward to brush the dust off the wall, grey staining those white gloves. The corridor was as deserted as the rest of the palace grounds, and when Aziraphale spoke, it echoed with his grief, old and new alike. “They’re dying, and I can’t – I can’t save them all.” His hands curled into fists. “Sandalphon put a miracle blocker on me. Too many frivolous blessings. Said I was only to observe.”

Maybe Crowley did need to come back to London, if Archangels were roaming about making trouble. “So, what – ” Crowley eyed Aziraphale from over the top of his glasses. “You figured you’d come here and stare at art instead?”

Beneath that beige coat, Aziraphale’s shoulders stiffened. He turned to Crowley, the firelight dancing in his eyes, the shadows stretching long behind him in place of wings, looking as lost as a parishioner before a priest. It was unsettling, and Crowley wanted to claw the feeling away, wanted to do –

“Won’t you do something to save them?” Aziraphale asked.

Ah, so the angel had come to find Crowley. This wasn’t a coincidence – he should have known he wasn’t so lucky.

And he would, usually. Do something about it. And he would usually point out that this was Heaven’s fault – they’d scattered all the peoples of Babel, into fractured nations always destined for war. But that wasn’t the point here. Crowley nudged the angel forward, past another doorway, and into the Hall of Mirrors.

The silver ribbon in Crowley’s hair snaked down his back.

“Sandalphon’s just scared.”

Aziraphale startled, frowning at him. “Scared?”

“Let there be light,” Crowley muttered, and the chandeliers all around them burst into brilliance – Hell didn’t keep track of his miracles, and it was worth it, to see Aziraphale’s gaze shift from that twisted worry into an open awe. To one side were tall arching windows covered up in thick, black velvet curtains, and to the other were equally tall mirrors, cut out into the same shape as the windows, with marble pillars in between them to hold up the golden ceiling, with more murals of battles and victories painted above them. Crowley gestured at all the opulence around them, some of the mirrors cracked, some of the chandeliers missing its crystals – symmetry broken. “Scared,” he repeated. “If this all comes tumbling down – what if Heaven comes tumbling down, too?”

The awe now shifted into stubbornness, that bastardly audacity as Aziraphale huffed at him, meeting his gaze through one of the cracked mirrors.

“Heaven doesn’t tumble. Your side couldn’t defeat us, the first time around.”

That still wasn’t the point. Two drawing rooms bracketed the Hall of Mirrors: the War Room, and the Peace Room, with glistening panes of fragile glass tying them together. He walked toward War, and the pile of tables and chairs and jewels in the corner of the Hall that the French hadn’t gotten around to selling yet. Rumor had it that a bloke named Napoleon was going to move in soon, but tonight, the palace belonged to Crowley, and so did all its ghosts and all its shadows. All its wine, too, if he could remember where that cellar was.

“We can’t save them all,” he told Aziraphale. The light caught on their reflection, the crystal chandeliers refracting as the mirrors reflected, changing course and changing direction. “You’ve always known that. And we certainly can’t save them from themselves.”

“But all that suffering – ” Aziraphale followed him, footsteps clacking on scratched wood, a broken record spinning on a broken dance floor. “Why would anyone choose any of this?”

Aziraphale had asked the same question, at the height of the Crusades. She never asked them to kill, to die, the angel had wrung his hands, his head bowed, and Crowley had watched the Pope recite Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and answered: She made them, to die.

There was a harp, among the pile of things, gilded and abandoned. In the streets, people were singing with only their own voices to serve as melody, a defiant song, and Crowley could never, had never been able to do anything about that – because however short, however long, however good, however bad, She made them to live, too. And life had always been a greater mystery to angels and demons than time itself, than the future already written.

“They chose freedom,” Crowley answered. He tugged a necklace free from the pile of forgotten things. The jewels glimmered in the light, rubies as red as blood. “Life isn’t just something you bury, angel.” He thought of the ground beneath his broken, burning wings, he thought of the earth beneath his feet, between his fingers as he stamped a pomegranate seed in the ground, a sunflower seed – never quite as bright as the stars, and the stars never quite as fierce as their roots, burrowing deep into homeland and heart. “It’s something you bury your hands in, too, while you get the chance.”

Aziraphale stared at the necklace. Stared at Crowley. “Would you make the same choice?”

Crowley had picked himself up, from the rubble of his own faith. He had handed humanity an apple, not a weapon. “I’ve made the choice.”

Aziraphale stepped forward, closer, and plucked a harp string. A sweet ringing thing, a note high enough to be heavenly.

“Was it worth it?” Aziraphale asked, unwavering. His gaze stayed heavy on Crowley, almost a test of faith, trying to balance out the scales of life and death and the world gone out of tune.

But if Crowley wanted to look through the world with rose-colored glasses, he would have found himself some pink lenses. There wasn’t any romanticizing this, there was just the truth of it, and all the facets of the truth, yes and no refracted until it no longer recognized itself. Until Crowley no longer recognized himself, some days. Freedom wasn’t all it was chalked up to be, and Hell liked to remind him that freedom was a fragile thing, too.

So Crowley picked the most convenient truth. “I get to do whatever I want to, now,” he said, shrugging one shoulder up, lifting the royal jewels further into the light. “Mostly. Loosely speaking.”

Aziraphale crossed his arms. “Is that why you’re here? This is what you want? Trinkets?”

Something sharp rose up in Crowley, indignant. Was this – he clutched at the necklace in his fist, the hard edge of the rubies digging into his palm until it stung, his mortal flesh and mortal heart too easily wounded. There was a time when he could touch starlight without even a sting, but now – now what he wanted was alcohol. He wanted more than an empty kingdom. He wanted Aziraphale to get on with the program and get away from Heaven. He wanted to spend a day arguing semantics with the angel without worrying about their Head Offices finding out, to strip away some of the angel’s prim properness and get to know more of that bastard worth knowing, and get to know more of the friend he’d always had, and couldn’t have, and wanted to have.

Also, if his own heart would listen, he wanted it to stop making those ridiculous flips every time Aziraphale did something ridiculous. Quite frankly, it was ridiculous.

And, of course, he wanted the unicorns to come back.

Yes, Crowley was aware there were bigger problems in the world. No, he wasn’t going to do anything about it, not now that the angel was here and judging him for choices that were never theirs to make – for choices the angel was too holy to make.

“And what exactly,” Crowley hissed, “do you think I want?”

Aziraphale paused, still searching Crowley’s gaze through those dark glasses. The mirrors all around them reflected each other in an infinite asymmetry, frames caught out of time, until Aziraphale answered, as certain as he was uncertain, “We’re not on opposite sides.” Then, quieter, “Not right now.”

Boundary lines, drawn and redrawn. When push came to shove, they met each other there, at the edge of everything, still standing on Eden’s wall – that space where paradise became forsaken. Still trapped by choices they couldn’t hide from, by a roll of God’s dice and the high ringing note of Her laugh. Crowley tamped down on a frustrated snarl: what did Aziraphale think Crowley wanted? Here, all alone, the candlelight blurring the edges where shadow became bright, and brilliance became shadow, the empty rooms more hollow than loneliness –

Taking a step closer, Crowley let the rubies of the necklace swing in the air. Thirteen of them, linked together by small diamonds in between, and a silver clasp to hook it closed.

“Turn around, angel.”

“Why?”

The question came as a whisper. The wide blue of Aziraphale’s eyes were just a shade greyer than the world, silver linings for a world still worth saving. And still, Aziraphale turned, the tension between them pulled taut. Aziraphale turned, a step of faith, a trust undressed, and watched through the mirror as Crowley took another step closer toward his back, until there was scarcely any space between them –

The weight of the necklace was heavier than Heaven’s medals of commendation.

Crowley felt Aziraphale’s breath hitch as he tugged the silk cravat off the angel, slipping it loose and away onto the floor, until Aziraphale’s neck was bare. And when the angel made no protest, Crowley hooked the ruby necklace around it. His thumb brushed Aziraphale’s skin as he clasped the necklace on, lingering as he felt a tremble run through. In the mirror, the rubies glittered, a stark contrast against the angel’s colors, and Crowley had to stop his own breath from stuttering, his own corporation betraying him as much as he betrayed it.

“This miracle blocker,” Crowley managed to say, “how does it work?”

“Sandalphon said I get one emergency miracle.” Aziraphale’s hand drifted up to brush against the gemstones, and when he spoke, he sounded distant, absent. “Then no more miracles for me, until I explain myself to Heaven.”

Crowley could curse the necklace, turn it into an amulet of protection, to try keep the angel safe from Heaven. But there were lines he knew Aziraphale wouldn’t cross – and there were easier ways to rile the angel up. Besides, Aziraphale could very well take the necklace off on his own, could very well be rid of its weight if he wanted to. There was no Heaven or Hell stopping them, not here, not now with the palace warded as it was.

So instead, Crowley bent to take the angel’s cravat from the floor, and when he straightened, he asked, “You didn’t check that the blocker works?”

That made Aziraphale snap out of it. He whirled back around to face Crowley, indignant. “I won’t waste my one miracle on checking!”

Really, Crowley couldn’t help his snort. “You crossed the Channel to get here from London by boat, then?”

“And horseback.” The indignation turned sullen. Aziraphale’s back was pressed against the mirror. “Could feel you in the area.”

Horses were hard on the buttocks. Crowley shrugged again, eyeing the distance between them, and how easy it would be to shove Aziraphale against the glass, and –  

Crowley cleared his throat, blinking away temptation. The silk of the cravat in his hands was soft, and it would be so easy, too, to break it. To tear into it, nail ripping against thread, turning want into wound –

Crowley cleared his throat again, and tucked the cravat away into his own pocket as he said, voice somehow steady:

“‘It’s not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner’.” But from their regard to their own interest, he finished the quote in his head.

Aziraphale perked up, impressed. “That’s Smith! You read Smith’s book?”

But wasn’t that why their Arrangement worked, why Aziraphale had come to him today? Out of their own self-interest? Wasn’t that what Heaven and Hell really were about? When the world ends, it won’t be the benevolence of angels that saves it.

“I met Smith,” Crowley corrected. “Seemed to be very convinced about the economy’s invisible hand.” He strode away and pushed the door open into the Peace Room instead – any longer with the mirrors, and he wouldn’t be responsible for where else his hands roamed, or for any broken mirrors and any angel pushed up against them. “A greater force balancing things out, demand and supply. An equilibrium of good and evil.”

“Well.” Aziraphale nodded as he followed along. “The Almighty works in mysterious ways.”

An equilibrium of fear, too. “Everything has a price, doesn’t it? Life, freedom, miracles.”

“What?”

Crowley pushed another door open, into the Queen’s bedchamber, and whispered low in Aziraphale’s ear. “There’s no miracle blocker on you.”

Aziraphale shut the door behind him. His gaze flicked down to Crowley’s lips, and the short distance between him and Crowley and Crowley’s touch. “How –” Aziraphale winced at his stutter. “How would you know?”

The bed was still there, a large thing with more than enough space for two, and the room was as cold as any other, and it took only another snap of Crowley’s fingers for the fireplace to light itself up.

Pulling away from the angel, Crowley grinned, teeth scraping against lip. “I know how you smell.”

“You – Crowley!” Aziraphale chided. He unclasped the ruby necklace, and threw it on the bed, glaring at Crowley all the while. It landed on a diadem that had been left behind, which Crowley snatched before Aziraphale could stop him.

“Look,” he started, plopping the diadem on Aziraphale’s hair, the gold around its diamonds glinting brighter than a halo, “you’re a Principality. There’s very few of you – ” Crowley held up a hand to stop Aziraphale from cutting in, “ – and your powers’re tied to your kingdoms.”

Aziraphale glanced up at the crown before he took that off, too, with a huff. Pale cheeks flushed pink. “The Eastern Gate doesn’t exist anymore.”

“It’s an idea, isn’t it?” Crowley argued. “A dream, stronger than the land.” A promise, as steady as Aziraphale’s constancy. He took his glasses off and placed them over the mantelpiece, beside the clutter of forgotten books and perfume bottles. If he remembered Heaven’s policies as well as he remembered their passwords, taking away a Principality’s miracles while they were in their domain required centuries of training that no one in Heaven or Hell had ever cared to complete, not even Gabriel. “It’d take more than a rude note to block your miracles.”

After all, the Eastern Gate had always marked humanity’s escape from Eden – banishment, punishment, freedom, however anyone cared to name it – and as ironic as it was, Aziraphale held guardianship over that change, that promise that every human choice was balanced out some consequence. By God’s justice, by an angel’s mercy.

It had been Aziraphale’s sword that had first saved humanity, it had been that sword that damned them to a future of war and loss and grief. Everything had a price, whether by an invisible hand or an auction trying to find the highest bidder for Heaven, for that paradise lost: and wasn’t that the crux of Aziraphale’s kingdom? Everything had a price – books, art, freedom, forgiveness – but price paid or not, there was no going back, only going forward.

Only going forward, onto the sun and rain waiting on the horizon.

And perhaps, one day, onto a promised land to call a homeland, instead of a paradise. To call home, instead of a fantasy, instead of a foolish hope, instead of this wanting, this fighting, this yearning.

The shadows flitted in and out of the light. Aziraphale shook his head. “Crowley, Heaven’s changed since you were last there.”

“They’ve all become wankers,” Crowley agreed. Without his glasses, all the colors sharpened into focus, and when Aziraphale blanched, he added, “Well, not you, angel.” And when Aziraphale preened, Crowley finished, “You’re just a bastard, sometimes.” 

How did Shakespeare’s quote go? Heaven is empty, and all the gits are here. 

Aziraphale shot him a glare, the crown still in his left hand. “I don’t know why I bother with you, sometimes.”

“Well.” Crowley gave another exaggerated bow. He reached across to take Aziraphale’s right hand, lifting it up to his lips to press a kiss over the back of it. “Your Highness – ” the rouje on his lips stained Aziraphale’s white gloves, propriety turned vice, all their boundary lines redrawn as Crowley tried to push shove into trust – “You came to me.”

Through the flickering firelight, Crowley watched Aziraphale freeze, eyes fluttering shut, breath frozen on an exhale: one second, and then two, and – Aziraphale pulled himself away from Crowley. “Oh,” he looked at his stained gloves, mournfully. “Oh, it’ll be impossible to wash that off.”

Crowley hummed. “It’d take a real miracle.”

Aziraphale kept glaring. “I’m not using my miracle on this.” Then, spiteful, he closed the gap between them and dropped the crown over Crowley’s head, messing with the carefully combed hair. “You know very well that I’ve never had a kingdom, never been trusted with one – you can stop mocking my, my helplessness.”

Helpless? The angel had never been – alright. Maybe sometimes, Aziraphale could be stubborn to the point of helplessness, but helpless was the last way Crowley would think to describe him. Ridiculous was definitely on top of that list of adjectives that fell under the Aziraphale category in his head, followed by some roughly scratched out ones (which included lovely, pretty, pleasing, and some too far scratched out to read), but Aziraphale was far from helpless. He was cleverer than all of Heaven put together, and braver too.

It was the kind of courage that hid in the corners, silent but stubborn enough to keep picking itself up, the same way Aziraphale liked to hide himself. The same way Aziraphale kept climbing every mountain that Heaven set before him, brilliant enough to find loopholes and shortcuts across. Crowley wasn’t mocking him – Crowley was only trying to draw him out, the angel who was properly good, tarnished at his edges and a little bit of a bastard and all the better for it, for having buried his hands and wings and knees into the life all around them. Heaven was scared, of the world and of Aziraphale – of this angel they didn’t understand, dressed all in meek colors but stained through with a fierce love for all the little things Heaven overlooked.

This angel, who Crowley had spent the past thousands of years learning to find, beneath white robes traded for silver chainmail traded for beige coats. This angel, who Crowley would crown in rubies and sapphires and amber and all the colors he knew Aziraphale coveted but would never let himself have – this angel, who was too holy to make the same choices Crowley had made, but was still damned to live the same life of fear and doubt.

Adjusting the diadem on his head, Crowley wisely stopped himself from mentioning any of that. The weight of the gold felt eerily like the halo he’d lost, now replaced by the snake on his ear, which curled dangerously beneath the edge of gold – ready to strike at the crown.

“Offer nostras preces in conspectu Altissimi,” Crowley said instead in Latin, a prayer of exorcism, the words harsher than venom against his throat. Carry our prayers up to God’s throne. “Ut cito anticipent nos misericordiae Domini, et apprehendas draconem, serpentem antiquum, ut non seducat amplius gentes.” That the mercy of the Lord may quickly come and lay hold of the beast, the serpent of old, so that he can no longer seduce nations. 

He didn’t finish with an Amen. 

“I’m too busy seducing nations to bother with mocking you, angel,” Crowley added, rolling his eyes.

“If you won’t help me with any of this,” Aziraphale replied, marching over to the opposite corner of the bedroom and crossing his arms, “I don’t see how the Arrangement will work.”

That was low.

Crowley could go much lower. He was a demon, after all.

“Is that a threat?” he asked as he stalked closer.

Aziraphale’s gaze flicked up to the crown still on Crowley’s head. There was the Queen’s bed between them, and there was another door behind the angel, leading to more rooms, but Aziraphale made no move to run, to leave. He only shook his head as his hands curled defenseless around empty air.

“It’s a choice,” Aziraphale replied.

Brave, beautiful, bastard. “A choice?” Crowley parroted back. “And, pray tell, what exactly do you want?”

A flinch. Aziraphale glanced at the ruby necklace coiled over white satin sheets. “I’d love you to help me.”

Crowley snarled, and walked back to the fireplace, the shadows flickering in and out of focus. His sunglasses stayed perched on the mantelpiece, but he too made no move to take it.

“To help you go against Heaven’s wishes?” Crowley asked, staring at the fickle outlines of the flames, his back toward the angel, because love –

“No!” Aziraphale protested again. “Of course not, why would you suggest – I – it is only.” There was a pause so long that Crowley nearly turned back to face the angel, but Aziraphale continued. “There isn’t anyone.” Another pause, their shadows stretching long, outlines of wings and divinity they’d hidden away to fit into the world, before Aziraphale finished, repetition pushed to the brink of confession, “There isn’t anyone else.”

And there. As angels could sense love, demons could sense fear. Crowley felt a flash of it, now, from Aziraphale – but it was quickly smothered again by the angel’s courage. No, not courage, it was. It was trust, a trust so whole that it was almost holy, that it almost burned against the edge of Crowley’s temple, where crown met shattered halo.

He closed his eyes against it.

“You have your miracles, angel.” And even without miracles, Aziraphale was more than capable of doing good. “You’ve no need for me.” You’ve no want for me.

“Seven years.”

“What?”

“It’s been seven years since you were last in London,” Aziraphale said, and Crowley opened his eyes to turn and frown at the angel.

They’d gone centuries once without seeing each other. What did seven years have anything to do with Aziraphale’s refusal to see the truth of things?

“Hell’s kept me busy.”

Still at the other side of the room, Aziraphale bowed his head, hands twisted nervously together. Almost clasped in prayer. “I waited for you.”

“What?”

“Sandalphon came the day after you left.” Aziraphale’s throat bobbed, lips twisted down. “Made me try do a miracle in front of him, and I – couldn’t.”

Crowley was still racing to catch up. Seven years was nothing. It was nothing to the thousands they’d lived, to the timeless eternity before that when the world was barely more than a whim and time was only a scribble in a discarded draft to a Mediocre Plan.

But the gall of Heaven to trick Aziraphale for so long –

“You want me to come back, to London?” He’d stayed away because he couldn’t trust himself near the angel. And yet, “Then you’d use me as an excuse for miracles – to thwart my wiles there? That’s what you want?”

Aziraphale shook his head. “The whole world’s changing.” There were questions they’d never been allowed to ask, and questions they’d never learned to say. A thousand eyes and a thousand wings and still damned to the same silence, to the same blindness. “And I – there isn’t anything for me.”

There isn’t anything for me. Was the angel bored, or – “The world’s always been changing,” Crowley argued. “And you’ve always been clever enough to know it.”

Straightening his shoulders, Aziraphale pursed his lips, stubborn, as he shook his head again. Then, more declaration than question, Aziraphale said, “Have dinner with me.”

Not bored, Crowley realized as he felt another flash of fear. Lonely. The angel had come because he was lonely.

Seven years without miracles, cut off from Heaven – and Aziraphale had come here to find Crowley. If Crowley were a better demon, he’d use that to tease the angel, to draw out a confession: So you did miss me? But Crowley wasn’t better, so he hid his gaze in the shadows of the firelight, and said:

“No.”

Aziraphale stumbled back, shoulder knocking against the closed door behind him. “No?”

“The world’s changed. I’ve changed, too.”

He’s had to, hadn’t he? He’d buried his hands and broken wings into the life all around them, too, because what choice did he have? It was either Hell, or the world, and Crowley knew which he preferred. It was either Hell, or Aziraphale, and that was the easy choice to make, wasn’t it? Would Crowley have chosen a demon over Heaven, if he hadn’t Fallen? Did the question even matter?

He’s changed: how many pieces of himself had he discarded in unmarked graves? Names he’d shed and stars he’d dimmed and towns he’d burned. He’d buried his hands into the life all around them, wrapped a noose around hope’s throat and buried it half-screaming in his scorched chest. And watched it sprout again anyway, every Spring, leaves greener than ever and Aziraphale’s smile brighter than ever. And Crowley watched all those discarded pieces linger forever anyway, those pieces of himself that the angel kept safe behind those sky-blue eyes, memories clearer than starlight.

Crowley wanted to resent Aziraphale for it, some days. But he couldn’t, because –

Aziraphale shrugged, straightening his lapels to collect himself.

“All the more reason,” the angel perked up again, “for us to, how do they say it? Catch up. Have dinner.” There wasn’t any more fear there. Only that brightness so heavy it was almost blinding. “Have you changed your name again? I – I should like to know.” A small smile came and went, shadows folding around the corners of those blue eyes. “I would like to know.”

But it’d been a long time since Crowley had last let himself be blinded by Heaven’s light. And how many pieces of Aziraphale had the angel buried beneath the trappings of the world? Jagged edges cut away to fit into Heaven’s clean lines: if Aziraphale remembered all the people Crowley had once been, Crowley remembered all the truths that Aziraphale was, that Aziraphale is. The flaming sword given away, Job’s children rescued – the angel desperately trying to change who he was, but never quite being able to outrun his heart.

It was just like Heaven to punish Aziraphale for it, and if Crowley ever saw Sandalphon again, he would – no, that wasn’t the point. The point was seven years. He pictured Aziraphale miserably wringing his hands in the bookshop for seven years, waiting for Crowley to come back and what? Eat cake together?

It was ridiculous.

It was everything Crowley wanted.

(He thought of Aziraphale fumbling his way to the docks to get passage across the Channel from London to Paris, no blessings to ease the sea-sickness, but still insisting on ludicrously fancy coats and gloves. It really was ridiculous. It really was everything Crowley loved.)

It really was everything Crowley didn’t trust himself with.

“We’ll have dinner,” he decided. “But on one condition.”

Aziraphale perked up even more. His hand curled around the doorknob behind him, ready to lead the way. “I’m happy to negotiate terms. We can figure out what to do with our Arrangement.”

“No.” Crowley ran his hand across the books and bottles on the mantelpiece beside him, and hummed. “You miracle the dinner here.”

A scowl, Aziraphale’s shoulders falling. “Must you be so difficult?”

“It’s in the job description.”

“My miracle is for emergencies only.”

Crowley’s hand paused over a Bible on the mantelpiece. The crown was still on his head, and he was no stranger to playing devil’s advocate – in fact, that was the job description, most days. But Aziraphale had said he’d come here for help, and if the angel wanted a deal with the devil, then a deal he’d get.

“You know your problem, angel?” Crowley replied, rhetorical. Of course Aziraphale couldn’t do a miracle in front of that git Sandalphon. It wasn’t a blocker, it was – “Your problem is you don’t trust yourself.”

Aziraphale huffed, arms crossed again. “I trust myself a great deal.”

That, Crowley knew, was true. That, Crowley understood, was also a lie. And it was just Crowley’s luck that the Bible on the mantelpiece was an old version too – a copy of the Bible de Genève that the angel would have loved to collect for his shop.

“You trust yourself more than Heaven?” Crowley challenged, pressing harder, until shove teetered on push, and push became fall.

Another flash of fear. Aziraphale’s eyes were wide in the fireplace light. “You can’t ask that, Crowley!”

Right, then.

Drastic measures.

Aziraphale wasn’t the only one who knew a thing or two about sleight of hand – and if emergencies were the only way Aziraphale could be persuaded, then Crowley would just have to provide one.

“I can, and I do,” Crowley said. Because he did trust himself, because he did trust Aziraphale. “And so can you.”

And he shoved the Bible into the burning fire.

Chapter Text

The reaction was immediate.

“Really, there are limits!” Aziraphale shouted. He stood his ground in the far corner of the room, far too angry to do anything but curl his hands into fists and demand, with more than a hint of angelic commandment, “Stop this, right now, or I’ll – I’ll – ”

“All you need is a miracle,” Crowley shrugged.

He wiggled the Bible around in the fire, drawing up a smirk to dare the spluttering angel into action.

The flames were warm, and it took just the smallest miracle on Crowley’s part to keep his hand and the book unhurt. If Hell ever asked, Crowley would simply say he was prolonging the Bible’s suffering. The hint of holiness on the book did sting like a papercut, though, so if Aziraphale could hurry up –

“Stop it, or I’ll never talk to you again,” Aziraphale finished, with a finality so severe it was vicious.

Crowley almost flinched. Then, he remembered the crown on his head, and the glasses he’d taken off, and he made himself keep up the act. “I can send you rude notes if that’s what you’d like.”

The air crackled between them, their wills crashing against each other.

Aziraphale stared at the Bible, which for all purposes looked like it was slowly turning into ash, pages catching fire quicker than any weapon. “I don’t see why you’re being so cruel.”

“I’m a demon.”

Leaning on the mantelpiece, he ignored the way the dusty perfume bottles clattered against each other, and grinned as wide as he could muster. The secret to a magic trick was in the light, in what you allowed others to see – the same secret Heaven and Hell ran on, the same secret Crowley had long since learned to use against them.

Something twisted in Aziraphale’s gaze: it wasn’t as gentle as betrayal, and it was far from benevolent, but it was tender all the same. Tender, the way a wound teetered on the edge of breaking. “This isn’t what you want,” Aziraphale said.

Crowley very nearly dropped the book into the flame. “What exactly,” he asked this time, fumbling, the bottles and books beside him clattering again, “do you think I want?”

“You – ”

One of the bottles toppled over, hitting the edge of the mantelpiece, shattering open, and Crowley only had a moment to register the sickly sweet scent of holiness, and to think fuck, before the water splashed all over – and of course it was just his luck that they weren’t all perfume bottles, it was a bottle full of Holy Water, kept next to the blessed Bible for the Queen to pretend at faithfulness – 

This really was a ridiculous way to go.

And Crowley didn’t have the time to stop time.

For once, he was too slow as his hand stung from the Bible and his thoughts still stuck on Aziraphale’s accusation, and the Holy Water was going to melt through his –

Crowley yelped and his head hit – a pillow? The crown toppled off him, clattering on the floor.

And –

Aziraphale was by the fireplace, looking dazed.

The front of that beige coat was splashed through with water.

It took a moment for Crowley to understand.

The angel had miracled them to swap places. No, even better: Crowley’s tongue darted out, tasting the air – the angel had miracled them to swap places and miracled all the holiness away from all the water.

More precisely, though, Aziraphale had miracled Crowley onto the bed.

They stared at each other across the room. The Bible was still in Crowley’s hand, unharmed, and he tossed it onto the sheets beside the necklace as he pushed himself up. His legs swung off the edge of the bed. This wasn’t exactly what he’d had in mind when he thought of Aziraphale getting him into bed, but he supposed he’d always take what the angel gave him.

“I have to say,” Crowley croaked out, “that went down like a lead balloon.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale blinked. “Oh,” he laughed, gloved hand touching the splash of water on the front of his coat and miracling it away with barely a thought. “How will I ever explain this? The paperwork.”

Still perched on the edge of the bed, Crowley shrugged, collecting his wits enough to smile an easy smile.

“Tell them you were thwarting me.” It was a commendable thing Up there, to preserve a holy text. “That’s three miracles, now,” he added, allowing himself this victory, “I told you there wasn’t any blocker.”

Aziraphale glanced down at the floor between them.

“You did.” His hand reached out to take Crowley’s glasses off the mantelpiece, thumb brushing the dust on them away. A snap of the angel’s hand, and the room lit up in brilliant light, the forgotten chandelier overhead bursting bright as Aziraphale traced the edge of Crowley’s lenses. The edge of revelation, fragile glass wrapped in unyielding steel. “You were right, and – ” Aziraphale smiled at him, so gentle that Crowley wanted to claw at it, “And you’re alright.”

Was there ever any golden light to name fate, or faith? Crowley had picked himself up from the rubble of his own beliefs, and he’d learned – the trick, the magic was never in the light: it was in what the light touched. He watched the brightness limn Aziraphale in newfound truth, and wasn’t that why sight existed? Because light had touched something first, because light traveled, and light reached, and one day, one day they might get to reach too – might get to learn how to touch lightly.

One day, one day he might learn how to stand beside Aziraphale, and not have it be ruin. Not have it be ruination, damning himself more for one moment more.

The little rouje stain was still on Aziraphale’s glove. Crowley nodded at it. “You can get rid of that, now.”

But Aziraphale slipped the gloves off, and held them close to his chest before tucking them away into one of the pockets inside his coat. “I’ll – it can wait.”

“Or I can do it,” Crowley offered. There wasn’t a point left to prove. “My treat.”

It was another moment before Aziraphale lifted his gaze again, and when he did, he walked over to the bed, standing over Crowley. His shadow fell onto Crowley’s empty hands, onto Crowley’s lap. Then, Aziraphale reached down, Crowley’s glasses still in his hand, and slipped them into Crowley’s pocket, bare hand lingering there over the fabric, over the only thing between them and touch.

The silence stretched between them for a moment, long enough that the fire made Aziraphale’s shadow flicker in Crowley’s hands, his palm cradling the angel’s dark and their changing lines.

Aziraphale shook his head, in the end. “I believe I promised you tea.”

There wasn’t a point left to prove, except the point left to confess.

“Tea?” Crowley huffed. When he looked up, there wasn’t any gold or paintings. There was just the angel, brighter than any painted Heaven, better than any real Heaven. “Aziraphale, we’re in Versailles. I believe we’ve earned ourselves something stronger.”

Hell had a lot of poor losers. Crowley was a poor winner. More accurately, he was a petty winner, and he used his victory to all his advantage: getting Aziraphale to break into the wine cellar.

“Look,” Aziraphale had said, trying to weasel his way out of thieving, “I saved you from Holy Water. I shouldn’t have to – to steal, or do the silly dance.”

“I’m not asking you to do the dance,” Crowley had pointed out, handing a crowbar over for Aziraphale to pry the locked cellar door open. I didn’t ask you to save me, either, he was about to say, but he held it back, too much like a question for his liking.

Aziraphale sighed, using a miracle to open the door.

“That hardly counts as a miracle, if I’m thwarting you from property damage.” Aziraphale glanced down the rows and rows of barrels and bottles. “And I suppose some Châteauneuf-du-Pape would be nice.”

Crowley laughed. That came from the Pope’s vineyard, in Southern France. “Stealing the Vatican’s wine?”

“It’s the former French King’s wine. He bought it, and I’m paying for it – with a little blessing,” Aziraphale said, leaving behind a prayer on the doorstep. 

“That’s cheating!” Crowley protested.

“That’s the invisible hand.” The angel took two crystal glasses from a shelf by the wall. “Supply – ” He handed Crowley a bottle. “And demand.” Their eyes met. “An equilibrium.”

Cancel each other out.

And when the light found them again, it was their hands that touched the light first – it was their hands, that touched.

In his report to Hell, Crowley would write that he liberated Versailles’ store of intoxicating drinks, making it accessible to the public, smuggling bottles out to the merchants he was supposed to be here tempting.

In his report to Heaven, Aziraphale would write that he purged Versailles of all its intoxicating drinks. He declined to specify details, and Heaven didn’t care enough to ask. He did get a note from Sandalphon saying that he had proven himself well in thwarting demonic wiles, and that going forward there wouldn’t be an issue with miracles anymore.

Aziraphale never accused Sandalphon of lying.

Sandalphon never accused Aziraphale of knowing.

They had a late lunch in the library. Crowley was marginally sure that one of the armchairs they were sitting in – sprawled in, because even Aziraphale was slouched in his chair, next to Crowley – was once a throne of some sort. Just to their left was a fortepiano. In front of them was a table, littered with the oldest and best of France’s wine and crystal glasses.

“A beauty,” Aziraphale said. They’d both sobered themselves slightly, but the world was still moving slower than it should.

Crowley squinted. “What?”

The angel pointed an accusing finger at him, smug in that usual, bastardly way. “You – you called my statue a beauty. You wanted to bring me home.”

Swatting the angel’s hand away, Crowley slouched further into his chair. He’d hoped Aziraphale had forgotten about that. “I said you should bring your statue home.”

Aziraphale pursed his lips into a little pout. “I remember hearing stories of you.” They sobered up a little more. “Dancing with princes. And princesses. Madame De Pompadour.”

Behind them, the windows arched tall, their curtains pulled back to let the setting sun in. Aziraphale had warmed the room for them both.

“Are you jealous, angel?”

For all that Crowley said Aziraphale was a terrible liar, the truth was that Aziraphale was equal parts a terrible and excellent liar – though Crowley was wise enough to never bring that up in conversation. After all, the secret to magic was in the light, and Aziraphale had an abundance of it, so bright that no one noticed the shadows all around him.

“The crown did fit you,” Aziraphale confessed, a deflection, a misdirection lost in his tipsiness. “Very well. You’ve always been so at ease – in their arms. Royalty, that is.”

Tamping down on the warmth that rose up at the praise, Crowley let an easy smirk rise up instead. “Really?” he teased. “Which courtiers have you been gossiping about me with? Should I be jealous?”

Aziraphale’s cheeks were flushed pink again, one shade darker than the pastels painted into the ceiling. He pretended to huff at Crowley. “Jealousy is a sin.”

“Good thing I’m a demon, then,” Crowley huffed. It really was the angel’s fault for never asking Crowley to a dance, to be in his arms – Crowley scrunched his nose. Better to think of something else. “I never wanted a kingdom,” he huffed out. There weren’t any holy oils to anoint him, there wasn’t any benediction enough to pay the price of forgiveness. He was too damned to have anything more than –

“I know,” Aziraphale replied. Taking one of the wine bottles still full, the angel poured more into Crowley’s glass. The red of it sloshed against the edges. “I never wanted to never speak with you again.”

The trick was in the light. The magic wasn’t in the light. The magic was in stopping the light. In making enough of those shadows to keep a secret, to hold a confession. In stopping the light, and telling it where to look. And allowing it to take no more.

The only trouble was that Crowley would let Aziraphale take all he wanted.

The only trouble was that Crowley wanted to let himself get drunk on this, this easiness, the angel’s soft laugh. 

No, that wasn’t right. He didn’t want to be made senseless on the angel. Premise was just once letter away from promise, and he happily switched the letters around until he didn’t know which was which – here was the premise: they were temporarily not on opposite sides. Here was the promise: their Arrangement kept them there, boundary lines smudged just enough to fill in the empty spaces. 

He wanted the angel, with all his sense and all his knowledge, with all his understanding of choice and consequence and chance. Eve’s half-eaten apple, and Pandora’s half-opened box, and Crowley’s half-said truths –

“I know,” Crowley parroted back. It was as much of a confession as he dared to make today. “You’re just a bastard, sometimes.”

“And you’re – you’re a – ” Aziraphale tried, but the words stuck there, lost in translation, slurred from the wine, until he settled on saying, “Mon amie.”

“Ami,” Crowley corrected, though perhaps Aziraphale was right. It had been too long since he’d had his longer hair, and silk scarves. “Your French keeps getting worse.”

Aziraphale hummed. “You understood me, my dear.”

“It’s in my worst interest to understand your French.”

There was another small statue on one of the shelves beside him. Atlas, holding up the world, the marble turning everything monochrome. Taking his sunglasses out of his pocket, Crowley perched it over the marble globe, the map of it carved all wrong with land yet to be discovered and kingdoms yet to be made.

“Will you be staying here longer,” Aziraphale asked, hand toying with the lapel of his coat, where the ruby necklace had been before he’d tossed it off, “to command your plants?”

Crowley watched the last light of the setting sun break as it hit Aziraphale, still the same light as that very first day, crowning Aziraphale guardian of this little corner of the world.

He made a garbled noise. “The plants can manage without me. But you’ll need someone to balance out all your good.” Now that Aziraphale knew he had his miracles, someone had to keep the angel from trouble, and as terrible as London was, Crowley did have a new flat there to decorate. “You can’t save them all.”

“Would you still make the same choice as them? Freedom?”

It was Crowley’s turn to deflect. “Everything’s changing,” he said. Everywhere, the balance of power was changing, and there wasn’t any going back – the rain and sun and new world waiting on the horizon. “Sometimes, all it takes is a little temptation to tip things over.” Heaven and Hell never cared much for the details, and it was in those little shadows that the world triumphed.

Aziraphale swirled the wine in his own glass, and met Crowley’s gaze. “It’s the little kindnesses,” the angel realized. “The little rescues.”

The way Aziraphale smiled. The gentle words. The silent wing to shelter. It wasn’t miracles that made Aziraphale an angel, and it wasn’t miracles that made Crowley linger as long as he could beside the angel.

And Crowley was just far gone enough to confess, more honest than he liked:

“And you’ve never needed miracles for that.”

“You didn’t need one either, just now,” Aziraphale said. “To show me.”

It wasn’t a question. It was an understanding. A little step forward, halfway to reaching –

Crowley scrunched his nose, and stood to walk to the fortepiano, sitting on its small wooden bench. He flipped its cover open, plunking down on a little black note.

“I didn’t rescue you, I tempted you into seeing my side of things.”

There was a Heaven painted in tender, forgiving hues, and there was the truth of Heaven, in its hollow, stark white lines. Clinically clean, cut free from all the color that made the world worth saving. It wasn’t freedom that Crowley had chosen when he’d been cast out from the skies he’d built – all that light, just out of reach. Trapped, on the outside looking in, the rubble of his own faith too shattered to be worth saving. He had only wanted answers, to the same questions Aziraphale was asking now, to the same doubt –

There wasn’t any promised land, there wasn’t any forgiveness – not for him. But here, with Aziraphale, the light didn’t feel quite out of reach. Here, with the angel, there was still an answer worth finding, a faith worth saving. 

“Well,” Aziraphale said as he followed Crowley, and settled on the bench beside him: Crowley facing the piano, and Aziraphale facing out, toward Crowley. “I do quite like the view from here.”

Crowley pressed on another note.

The middle C. The note rang clear in the air as he willed the instrument back into tune, piano strings strung taut with the echo of all the melodies lost to him, the echo of those first stars, the blurred memories of songs of worship he’d never learned right.

His elbow knocked against Aziraphale’s. “You could have come found me sooner.”

“It isn’t always easy to trust.” They were so close, Aziraphale’s words brushed over his cheek. “And I – I’m glad, that we aren’t on opposite sides.” Their shoulders brushed, wingspan turned into touch. “At least, not right now.”

Another note, black keys against white, thumb tucked beneath palm as Crowley moved up half an octave, before going back down again. A hymn of revolution, before he switched songs into a simpler lullaby.

“Don’t mention it,” Crowley tried his best to scowl, but the bench was far too small, and he could feel the warm press of Aziraphale’s thigh against his, and it was hard to look at the piano keys when Aziraphale was right there, all sharp aftershave and burning grace. “I mean, don’t. We’d both be in trouble.”

Aziraphale’s gaze drifted down to Crowley’s hands. “Do I know this song?”

The middle C, again, and then a higher A. “Hasn’t been published yet.” Crowley had met the composer’s family, the last time he’d been in London. “I believe it’s to be called Long, Long Ago.” There were lyrics, too, but Crowley could scarcely confess them to Aziraphale, now.

Do you remember the path where we met, long, long ago?

“It’s beautiful.”

Then to all others, my smile you preferred – Love, when you spoke, gave charm to each word.

“It’s a simple song.”

Still I remember the praises I heard, long, long ago, long, long ago.

“Will you teach me it?”

Let me believe that you loved, as you loved – long, long ago, long ago.

They were so close, it would be so easy to lean forward. To tilt his head just the slightest bit and let himself fall all over again, let himself slip down and press a kiss over Aziraphale’s cheeks, over Aziraphale’s lips – to press against the open wound of want and stitch it shut with teeth and lip and touch.

The wide blue of Aziraphale’s eyes were just a shade greyer than the world, silver linings for a world still worth living, still worth loving, still worth trying. Crowley wished he had his glasses on, to hide behind. He wished he’d never needed them at all. There but by the grace of God, Crowley thought with crooked bitterness, but there was no grace, here. There was just his heart that wasn’t a heart that was a heart, racing with all its truths undressed – there was just twisted muscle, wrapped around forgotten starlight.

They were angels and demons. They had no need for bodies, but –

It would be so easy, to give into temptation. To give into vice, and drink himself drunk from the chalice of all his chances missed and regrets vowed, the wine still red and sweet on the angel’s lips. To take the forbidden fruit, so neatly and nearly placed beside him. To touch, where the light touched. To touch, where the light couldn’t.

Without the cravat, he could see the pulsebeat on the angel’s throat, dipping down to collarbone before slipping back beneath soft silks. He watched the angel’s lips part just the slightest – unsaid wish curled around its corners, and Crowley could feel it. The flash of sin, of vice, of want – unsated, and older than the palace walls – before it was smothered out again by that burning holiness. A holiness so whole, it –

Crowley pressed on the last note.

“Turn around, angel.”

Aziraphale blinked. “Why?”

“Can’t teach you,” Crowley said, voice catching at the back of his throat. “Can’t teach you when you’re looking at me.” Like that.

“Ah.” But this time Aziraphale didn’t turn around. Didn’t look away. His bare hand reached sideways instead, until it found Crowley’s in between all the black and white keys, and thumb brushed over knuckle, and hope brushed over doubt. “I’ve a fortepiano in my bookshop.”

Crowley blinked back at the angel. “Are you. Are you inviting me over?”

His hand was frozen beneath Aziraphale’s, warm – warmer than sunlight, and so full of all that quiet courage the angel so often hid away. This was Aziraphale, who’d given up his emergency to save Crowley, to save a demon. This was Aziraphale, who’d never wanted a sword or a weapon, who’d only ever wanted –

“I owe you a miracled dinner.”

“We’ve had just had miracled lunch.”

Aziraphale’s thumb traced a little curl over the back of Crowley’s hand, swooping beneath wrist and teasing the edge of his dark sleeves. The shape of a snake, curled in peace.

“A promise is a promise.”

Then promise me, Crowley wanted to demand, but there were questions they’d never been allowed to ask, and questions they’d never learned to say. And as easy as it would be to lean close, to curl his hand around Aziraphale’s, and tuck his other beneath Aziraphale’s chin – palm against unguarded jugular, against dimpled cheek and pliant lip – as easy as it would be to lean close, it would be harder still to pull away. To trust himself to pull away, and come back from this fall.

“Here,” Crowley said instead. He took his hand away to reach into his pocket, and return the cravat he’d stolen earlier. Undemonic of him to return something stolen, but it was more undemonic to go and fall for an angel. “Before I forget.”

“Keep it,” Aziraphale replied, and before either of them could stop him, before courage could fail them again, the angel looped the silk around Crowley’s neck – until it was almost a scarf. “The color suits you. It suits you quite well.”

And Aziraphale reached out to adjust it, hand trembling just the slightest as he brushed between collar and silk and skin to smoothen the fabric out. Crowley swallowed against it, and Aziraphale’s own breath caught between inhale and exhale. Caught between life and the messiness of living, between human body and folded wing –

“I gave up whites and beiges a long time ago, angel.” Crowley tried to scowl. “I’m not wearing them again.”

Aziraphale’s lips tilted up, half-teasing and all too tender. “It isn’t white. It’s a very, very light grey.”

“I prefer the darker greys.”

“I know,” Aziraphale replied. His hand fell back down onto the piano, and he pressed the black key Crowley had first played. F sharp. “But white isn’t just Heaven’s color.” The angel tipped his gaze up to the murals painted onto the ceilings, wars and victories and the world in vibrant hues. “It’s theirs, too.”

Crowley played an A natural on the piano, tying the chord together with a C sharp. Black and white, as he read between the lines until he found another truth Aziraphale had squirreled away from sight.

“It’s yours, too,” Crowley said, and Aziraphale –

Aziraphale shifted on the bench beside him, and on the polished surface of the piano, the outlines of their reflections brushed against each other, until they blurred into one.

“Crowley?”

“Ngk?”

They were so close, he could see the creases at the corner of Aziraphale’s eyes. Age does not wither, nor custom stale, Crowley thought, and wouldn’t it be easy, to press a kiss there too, over temple and call it worship? It would, it would, just one taste of that forbidden fruit, but Aziraphale’s hand had fallen down from the piano – his open palm resting light over Crowley’s knee, and Crowley’s elbow knocked against the piano keys. The notes, too, blurred and jumbled into one.

A jarring, discordant music. The stuttered skip of his inhuman heart.

A music, nonetheless.

They stared at each other, Aziraphale’s gaze straying from the silk and up to meet Crowley’s unshielded gaze again. Equally defenseless, as when they’d first met, until Aziraphale asked, quieter than that first dawn:

“Allow me to mention it, just this once?”

“What?”

“Thank you.”

And Aziraphale leaned forward, and kissed Crowley’s cheek.