Chapter 1: chapter 1
Chapter Text
I feel so lonely just for you only
After the Second Coming’s come and gone, Crowley tells Aziraphale he’s going to sleep for a month. Maybe longer. And then he goes back to his old flat - Aziraphale can feel him there, not even a mile away from the bookshop - and does exactly that. Aziraphale supposes he doesn’t blame him, after what had happened. Aziraphale’s feeling a bit frazzled himself. He’d be happy if he never had to think about it ever again. Fortunately, there’s a lot of work to be done in the bookshop. Muriel had certainly done an able job in the three years he’d been up in Heaven, but the books have been organized in some strange system Aziraphale doesn’t understand,1 and the statutes have been rearranged to form a tableau representing, he thinks, The Last Supper. Or maybe it’s a fashion show, given the additions from Aziraphale’s centuries-old wardrobe.2 So. Aziraphale has a lot to keep himself busy. And he’s never learned how to sleep, so he reorganizes the bookshop,3 tries to scrub the ichor stains off the walls,4 and waits for Crowley to wake up.
It’s awfully lonely.
The Second Coming had started Christmas Eve and lasted well into Boxing Day. Now, as Aziraphale flutters around his shop, carrying armfuls of books and thinking of Crowley in his dark bedroom, eyes closed in sleep, only in sleep, Aziraphale tells himself, firmly, the humans bustle by in the aftermath of a Christmas they don’t remember. It’s for the best, he thinks. They fill the streets, returning gifts, shopping for parties, going out for drinks with friends and loved ones, and Aziraphale is almost overcome by all of them. He hasn’t been around humans in a long time. Three years, in fact. He’s happy to be back in his bookshop. He’s missed it. Muriel’s gone off to Australia, or maybe Hong Kong, Aziraphale’s really not sure. So Aziraphale’s alone in the shop he’d created all those years ago as a haven. It’s no longer an embassy, of course, but it is still his, still protected.
He waits, and tries not to think about the fact that he’s waiting. Crowley could sleep for a very long time,5 which means that Aziraphale will be here, waiting, alone, on earth, for a very long time. Still. It’s what he’s chosen.
He sees the New Year through alone. It’s strange. For thousands of years he and Crowley, if they were in the same city (or country, or continent) had been ringing it in together. China in 908, Prague in 1407, London, of course, dozens of times. 6 This year, at midnight, Aziraphale raises his single glass of champagne to the air, says, “To the world.” His voice sounds hollow in the empty shop, and he downs it, the glass light in his hand. All around him the humans celebrate with noise and light and kisses7 as they’ve been doing for thousands of years, and a mile away, he feels Crowley wake briefly. A slow swimming rise to consciousness through murky waters. Aziraphale holds his breath, empty champagne flute clutched in his hand. And then he feels Crowley slip back under. Aziraphale sets the flute down, very carefully, so he doesn’t break it, and refills it, and drinks for Crowley, too, because it would be bad luck not to. And then. Well, he can’t go to bed, not really, so he sits up in the bookshop, listens to the humans all around him, momentarily connected in their joy of making it through another year.
When Crowley wakes up again, two weeks later, Aziraphale knows. He can feel it tugging at the edges of his essence. No, it’s going straight through him, like oil dropped in water. On the human level, he can feel it in his chest, a tight, hot thing. He stops in the middle of rearranging the cooking books,8 holding Cabbage the Athenian Way in one hand. Once he determines Crowley’s not going back to sleep, he reshelves the book, walks back to his desk, and sits himself down. He waits until a decorous amount of time passes,9 and then he calls Crowley.
Crowley picks up on the second ring. Strange; he’s never had to wait that long before.
“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, and he’s very proud of how calm his voice is. “Would you like to have lunch?”
“Bit-” Crowley’s voice catches, raspy, like he’s been asleep for weeks. He clears his throat. “Bit late for lunch, isn’t it?”
“Drinks, perhaps, and then dinner?”
“Alright,” Crowley says.
So they go out for drinks, and it turns into dinner, and although on the surface it seems easy, Crowley is very, very tense. Aziraphale asks about Crowley’s nap, and Crowley asks about the bookshop, and then Crowley tells him stories of the bizarre things he’d seen in America when he’d been over there, before he’d come back to help Aziraphale stop the Second Coming. Which they didn’t manage to do, after all that, and it seems like they keep remembering it, and breaking off in the middle of sentences, and looking away 10 or falling silent.11
It’s when Aziraphale’s done eating, when he pats his mouth with his napkin and places it on his plate, that he learns why.
“I’m leaving London,” Crowley says, in his best faux-nonchalant-but-secretly-very-worried voice. Aziraphale spills his wine, and Crowley’s.12 Crowley does a little miracle to right and refill the glasses. He even tops them up. Aziraphale takes it and downs it, eyes smarting. Crowley frowns, sitting back gingerly. Even just that little miracle takes it out of Crowley, Aziraphale can tell. He feels horribly guilty. That’s nothing new, though.
“Crowley,” he says.
“I’m fine,” Crowley snaps. “Just need a few more days.”
Do you know that? Aziraphale wants to ask, but he doesn’t. Instead, he says, “Did you, ah, have a place in mind?”
“What?”
“Typically when one leaves a place,” Aziraphale says, “They’ve got someplace new in mind…?”
Crowley stretches out, kicking his legs out under the table, narrowly missing Aziraphale’s. Aziraphale pulls in on himself. “South Downs, I thought,” Crowley said, negligently, “Supposed to be nice there this time of - well, all the time, really.”
“The bookshop,” Aziraphale says, nervously.
“I don’t except you to come,” Crowley says, a trifle rudely.
“Oh,” Aziraphale says softly. He stares down at the tablecloth. His eyes burn. There it is, that thing between them now, that wrongness, ever since that morning, oh, three years ago, when Crowley had kissed him, and Aziraphale had -
Aziraphale tries to calm himself down. Maybe it won’t be so bad; Crowley is endlessly picky. After all, it could take him ages to find a suitable place to live, and maybe in that time Aziraphale could - somehow convince him to stay, maybe a new flat, perhaps, he could move in above the bookshop, Aziraphale’s dreamt about that for, oh, ages, but he never could ask, a demon living in an angelic embassy. For centuries, letting him through the wards automatically was the closest Aziraphale could ever get towards inviting him to stay.
“Well,” Aziraphale says, and tries a smile. “You must let me know when you’ll be going.”
“Tomorrow, I was thinking,” Crowley says, and Aziraphale’s corporation’s chest does something complicated and terribly unpleasant.
≠≠
He invites Crowley back to the bookshop. He can’t not. This is it, his moment, he has to confess, has to admit everything, because maybe if he tells Crowley now how he feels, Crowley will stay.
Except. He’d tried that once before, hadn’t he?
The ride back to the bookshop is mostly silent, something low and soft playing on the Bentley’s stereo, -skip a life completely and Aziraphale just keeps watching the city slice by them like Crowley’s going to outrun it, and all he can think is where’s Crowley’s going to drive now? Where’s he going to race around, a menace to himself and others? It’s ridiculous of him. There are roads in places other than London. Probably even in the South Downs. He doesn’t know. He’s never been. He wonders if Crowley’s been. Wonders if Crowley was there the last three years. There’s so much he doesn’t know about Crowley. He and Crowley have been on Earth for millennia; they’ve known each other for even longer than that - time didn’t even exist back then, only Her, and the angels, and raw firmament - and rarely have they spent as much time together as they have recently. Well, not recently, of course, but. The past twenty, thirty years or so. So, recently. Minus the last three years, of course.
“Hello?” Crowley’s saying. “Earth to Aziraphale.”
“Hmm?” Aziraphale says, and then, “Oh.” He realizes they’ve pulled up in front of the bookshop. Strange. For a minute he almost didn’t recognize it, wrapped snugly around its corner, lights inside glowing yellow against the night. “Oh. Yes. Right.” He climbs out, and Crowley follows him, slowly, hanging back a little, almost like -
almost like he doesn’t want to be there.
Still, Aziraphale holds the door for Crowley as he saunters into the shop, then shuts it firmly behind him. There’s a strange stiffness to his walk, his hands shoved in his pockets. “That’s new,” he says, almost despite himself, nodding to a new bust Aziraphale had pulled out of storage.
“Yes,” he said, clearing his throat. “It’s a replacement for the griffon. I don’t know what Muriel did to it while I was gone, but it wasn’t fit for being displayed.”
“Mmm,” says Crowley, pretending to be deeply engrossed in the newly arranged cookery section.13
“Didn’t you - weren’t you here? While I was, ah,” Aziraphale points Up.
Crowley looks up, stares at him in disbelief. Even with the glasses on, the look of absolute disgust on his face makes Aziraphale feel about six centimeters tall.
“Oh,” Aziraphale says, softly. “You could have - you could’ve stayed, you know.”
“No,” says Crowley, a little bitterly, “I really couldn’t’ve.”
Aziraphale bites his lip and looks around, a little desperately. “Drink?”
Crowley unfolds a bit. “Thought you’d never ask.”
So Aziraphale pours them each a glass and leaves the bottle very, very close, because it’s clear they’ll need it, something’s wrong, it’s wronger than it’s been in a long time, it hadn’t even felt like this in 1941, not at all. Does he need to - no, he won’t orchestrate some ridiculous scheme for Crowley to come rescue him. In part because he’s not entirely sure Crowley will, not this time. He edges his way towards his chair and finally settles in, angling himself towards the chess board he’d placed there before he’d left, just in case Crowley needs something to distract him. But Crowley either doesn’t get or doesn’t want to get the hint. He’s uneasy; he paces, finally comes over to lean on the sofa on, arms crossed, but he won’t sit down.
And then - Aziraphale’s drinking a bit more than he should; he’s nervous, perhaps it can be excused, it’s been a rather trying few days14 for himself as well - which is why he can maybe be excused when he blurts out, “I did mean what I said.”
Crowley gives him a Look that means, you’re going to have to be more specific than that, angel, you say a lot of things.
“When I said it was our bookshop.”
Just like that, the Look shutters. Crowley actually rears backwards like a startled snake. “No, what you said was it was your bookshop, but I got plenty of use out of it.”
Oh dear. “Yes, but what I meant was-”
"And then you left. Your bookshop, that is, I mean.” Crowley continues as he gets up off the sofa arm and darts to pace.
“Crowley," Aziraphale says, following him with his eyes. He feels like they’re doing this all over again; this isn’t what he wanted - “I didn’t - I had to - of course I didn’t want to leave, but it’s just a bookshop, that’s all-”
“I thought it was home,” Crowley says, and stares at him, and whose home, he means, he doesn’t say. Aziraphale sucks in a breath and they stare at each other across the shop. Crowley opens his mouth. Oh don’t, please don’t, Aziraphale thinks, but either Crowley can’t hear him think that or he doesn’t care, because he continues on, relentless. "And I got to thinking, if you can turn your back on home so easily, what’s that say for - for anything else?”
“Crowley, I had to go,” he bursts out. “I had to, I didn’t have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice, Aziraphale,” Crowley hisses, and suddenly he’s crossed the shop and he’s very, very close to Aziraphale, right in his face, leaning down over him. “If there’s anything I’ve learned in millions of years of this miserable existence, it’s that.”
Aziraphale knows all about choice. Aziraphale knows just as well as Crowley, he thinks. He should tell him, he thinks, but. Tell him, his brain shouts. But he can’t, not now, not while they’re fighting, Crowley will brush it off, or say something unkind, or, or.
So it becomes just one more thing unsaid between them.
“It wasn’t easy,” Aziraphale says.
“What?” Crowley frowns.
“You said it - it was easy for me to leave. It wasn’t easy,” he says, looking down. He fiddles with his glass, because there’s nothing left to fiddle with, no ring, not anymore.
Crowley stares at him, his fluff of hair quivering a little, the only giveaway of his extreme agitation. Well, except for his rapidly rising and falling chest, and the way he’s got his back leg held as if poised to run.
“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, and he gets up, using his chair to push himself up, because he’s had an awful hard few days too, and Crowley takes a step backwards, and then Aziraphale reaches out, and Crowley takes three steps backwards, putting the table between them, and he looks. Oh. Aziraphale has to turn away, then, to his desk, pretend to fiddle with his letter opener, because his face is doing something terribly embarrassing. Crowley doesn’t want Aziraphale to touch him. He wants to plead with Crowley, but he’d already done that, once, and it hadn’t worked then, so why should it now?
“Crowley, I,” he tries again, and has to clear his throat, and say, “Crowley,” again, like his name is the only thing that’s centering him. “But you’re leaving too,” he says.
Crowley blinks; he can hear it. “That’s different,” he says.
“Is it?”
“Yeah. Look, I - I should go.” He drowns his drink, sets the glass very carefully on the table with a soft clink.
“Of course,” Aziraphale says. “Perhaps I’ll - see you around?” He wants to kick himself, because Crowley will be 40-some miles away up to who knew what kinds of things, forgetting all about him, most likely. Crowley makes a noise behind him, almost like he’s taken a step towards Aziraphale’s turned back. Aziraphale can’t look. He stares down at a book on his desk and fiddles with it; it magnifies, triples, his eyes are hot, he, oh no -
“Yeah,” Crowley says, and his voice sounds strange too. “Alright, figure I’ll be - I’ll be around, now and again. Stop by. Take you out to lunch, or something.”
“Yes,” Aziraphale says, faintly, “Yes, that sounds lovely,” and something splashes on the book, wet, and he wipes his eyes, quickly, and sniffles, but Crowley’s already out the door, he won’t hear, he’s gone.
≠≠
Crowley doesn’t call for three days.
Crowley doesn’t call or three days and four nights, to be exact. Aziraphale is not terribly surprised, but he is hurt, more hurt than he’d thought he’d be. Crowley is the stubbornest demon he knows, he can hold a grudge like nothing else, and good Lord, he is still so angry with Aziraphale. Aziraphale could feel it at dinner, at the shop, Crowley’s anger barely contained, simmering under the surface, dark and sulfuric. He can also feel Crowley’s trying not to be angry with him, the dear.
Aziraphale supposes he doesn’t blame him. He deserves it, he supposes. He left. But he’d been trying to fix - well, everything. He couldn’t not. For so many reasons. And he knows he left Crowley behind, but he’d asked Crowley, and Crowley wouldn’t go, and besides, Crowley was strong, he’d been alone a long time before Aziraphale had known him, up in the stars, and then again, down in the pit, before they’d met - again - on the wall. It’s not fair, Aziraphale thinks, that Crowley is so angry. Still, he guesses, after all, what is righteous is not always fair. He knows that, now. He hadn’t, not for a long time.
But on the fourth night he can’t take it anymore, and besides, he’s had three glasses of cognac and read “The Dancing Serpent”15 and that always gets him a bit maudlin, and so he calls Crowley.
Crowley picks up on the first ring. “Aziraphale!” He says. He sounds delighted, as well as a trifle drunk. There’s the crash of dishes in the background. “Whoops,” Crowley says, and laughs.
“So?” Aziraphale says.
“Buttons,” Crowley says, and laughs.
“What?”
“Nothing, angel.” It’s the first time he’s called him angel since - well, in years. “What were you asking?” Crowley says, and his voice is lowly amused.
“How’s the - where are you, exactly? You’re not living out of the Bentley again, are you?”
“Nah,” Crowley says, “s - Found a place. Little cottage. S’all - cottage-y. Got a sunroom and everything. No garden. Fixing that, though.”
“Oh,” Aziraphale says. “How wonderful.” It doesn’t feel wonderful, and what is wrong with him, he wonders, to not be happy for his dearest friend finding a nice little cottage of his own, one with room for a garden?
Crowley continues, “Y’should see it. It’s wonderful, angel,” Crowley says, and he really means it, Aziraphale can hear it, he’s drunk without Aziraphale and oh, that shouldn’t make Aziraphale feel - what is this, envy? But then Crowley continues, Think you’d like it. S’ not, s’not the bookshop, though.”
“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale says, his heart swelling in his chest, “that’s perfectly alright.”
“Yeah, guess so,” Crowley mumbles.
“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, and he shouldn’t ask, only he doesn’t seem to be able to stop himself. “How long is it exactly you’re going to be gone?”
“Nnngh,” Crowley says. There’s the sound of a cork coming out of a bottle. “Couple centuries or so, I guess. Depends on what the humans do with the place. S’a bit - bit crowded in London, innit?”
It is. They used to like that. Aziraphale says, softly, “A couple of centuries?”
“Yeah,” Crowley says. “S’not forever.” He can hear Crowley swallow over the phone. It hangs there, between them, like a stone.“Crowley,” he says, wrecked. “Crowley, I need to explain.” Aziraphale wishes he were there. He wishes Crowley were here. It’s so much easier, when they’re around each other. When they’re together. It’s why he’d wanted Crowley to come to Heaven.
“Nah. Don’t have to explain anything.” Crowley’s voice gets further away, then comes back. “S’alright. I get it.”
“Crowley,” he says again, around the lump in his throat, but Crowley barrels on, like he doesn’t hear him. “Look,” Crowley says, and he’s got that little slur to his voice he gets when he’s very, terribly drunk, and when he’s he’s trying hard not to seem drunk. Like each time he tries to convince Aziraphale he can drive the Bentley back to the bookshop without sobering up. Or that time he’d tried to convince Aziraphale he could pose as the shop mannequin at Marks and Spencer and not get caught. Or the time he’d tried to convince Aziraphale to steal King Nebuchadnezzar’s goats, or the time with the bees. “Look, I have to go. Do - thingsss.” He hisses, doesn’t seem to notice. He must be terribly drunk, and Aziraphale feels very sad, thinking of Crowley all alone in his new home in the country. But no. That’s Aziraphale, in the city. Alone. Crowley’s just gotten what he wanted, is all.
Crowley says, “You around Saturday?”
“Am I-yes, of course I’m around Saturday.” Where else would I be? Aziraphale thinks.
“Good.” The sound of liquid filling a glass. At least he’s still drinking out of a glass. That’s promising. “Dinner? Pick you up at six. Need some decent wine. Kind they jussst bring to you. Don’t have to make yourssself.”
“I’ll be here all day,” Aziraphale says, softly, but he’s not sure if Crowley’s heard him, because all he hears is the dial tone, long and loud, because that’s what he expects to hear when Crowley has just hung up on him, forty-some miles away.
≠≠
Time carries on, as it has for thousands of years. Aziraphale’s worst fears seem unfounded, as not a week passes without Crowley swinging by London with various excuses. Forgot my hedge-clippers, he says one week, or needed some bone meal from that place on Gloucester, only one who gets it right. Plants know if I get it somewhere else. And a few times, Aziraphale’s favorite times, he just comes out for lunch, or dinner, or once, to go see a show Aziraphale wants to see.16 The days Crowley sweeps into town and saunters into the shop are almost just like the old times; lunch turns into drinks, and dinner, and more drinks, and Crowley comes back to the bookshop after, almost as if he can’t keep away, and it ends with Crowley driving off into the night, and Aziraphale just sozzled enough he can pretend to himself Crowley’s only going home to Mayfair, only a mile away.
On the days Crowley comes into the city,17 Aziraphale is amused to find himself the tempter. He takes Crowley to that posh wine bar he likes so much, because he likes seeing the doctor’s wives tip slowly off their stools when they’ve had too much. He books them a table at that little Greek place because Crowley always loved their baklava.18 They talk about what they always do, history and humans and books Aziraphale’s considering purchasing, or books he’s already purchased, or books he deeply regrets not purchasing. Crowley talks about the garden he’s putting in at the cottage, bringing it up almost shyly, which, knowing him, is clear evidence of his fervor. There’s a splash of freckles across the bridge of his noise and the tops of his cheekbones, half-hidden by his glasses. It’s. Well. It’s adorable, really. So Aziraphale takes him to Kew Gardens one week, where he catches Crowley shaking some fern spores into an envelope. “Crowley!” He hisses, but isn’t that why he’d brought them here, after all?
“Do you miss it?” Aziraphale asks, once, when they’re back in the bookshop. He really means, do you miss me.
“Course I do,” Crowley says. “Can’t get a decent cocktail for miles. But it’s - y’know. Needed a change.”
“Right,” says Aziraphale, and feels hopelessly stuffy and stodgy.
Crowley’s happy out there, Aziraphale realizes. Each week when he comes out he’s leeched a little more tension out of himself. It’s a tension Aziraphale hasn’t seen ease up in ages. Not since after Edinburgh. After their terrible fight. The first one, that is. So Aziraphale doesn’t ask him, anymore, when he’s coming back. And sure, he’ll spend the week wracking his brain for amusing ideas around London to tempt Crowley with, but he doesn’t, he won’t be the reason whatever happiness Crowley has found has been taken away from him. Crowley shows him pictures of the cottage, on his little telephone,19 and although it’s hard to see, exactly, it looks - nice. Cozy. Pleasant. Surprising, really.
So the other six days of the week, Aziraphale keeps himself busy. He’s been keeping himself busy for millennia; there’s no reason to fall apart now, is there? So he’ll spend his mornings reading the paper, and then doing the crossword, and then making the momentous decision between completing inventory on the ancient erotica scrolls or going out to the National Gallery for a diverting afternoon. The afternoons Aziraphale spends on his newest project, which is that of Getting On, or Finding Himself. Aziraphale has given it an awful lot of thought, and he’s come to the conclusion that what he has to do, now, is learn how to not be an angel. Sure, he’s technically an angel, still of angelic stock, will never not be, on some level, an angel. Just like Crowley. But Aziraphale’s not employed anymore. Has been, in fact, been rather emphatically unemployed. So what is he now? He’s not sure. He feels adrift. It’s as if his entire reason of being for millions of years has suddenly wrenched away from him.20 Now he’s just - Aziraphale. Mr. Fell. Crowley’s friend.21 Owner of half of Whickber Street. Former Principality, former Guardian, former Supreme Archangel. He’s not Fallen. Just. An Angel emeritus, he supposes.
For thousands of years he had been an angel who lived in the world, who explored it in a very intrepid manner, he thought. He’d been amused by it, and charmed by it, and horrified by it, in turns, but entirely and ultimately unaffected by it. Or so he’d thought. And now he’s. He’s in it, he’s a part of it. There’s no place left for him in Heaven, it’s clear. He certainly doesn’t want to go to Hell.22 There’s space, but the entropy’s Hell on books. So he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself. Crowley’s moving on, it seems, and serves Aziraphale right, he’d always worried he’d go to slow for Crowley, Crowley was fast, flash and spit, clever and debonair, able to create galaxies with a single slow draw down, able to see straight through to the heart of things, again and again -
He’d always thought he’d gone too slow for Crowley, but now it turns out he’s done one worse. And a small, somewhat sensible part of his brain says, Just bloody tell him, in a voice that sounds startlingly like someone else’s, and the larger part of his brain, which has been responsible for keeping both himself and Crowley alive for this long, says, Keep your stupid mouth shut, it’s not welcome, not anymore, you lost your chance forever when you raised that trumpet to your lips -
Aziraphale doesn’t know, exactly, who to be now. Now that he’s allowed to be. Now that he’s allowed to want.
So Aziraphale tries to find out who exactly it is that he wants to be. He goes to all the museums. Twice. He starts reading a book he finds in the shop titled Finding Yourself the Quick and Easy Way. He can’t think of where it’s come from, but the title sounds promising. That is, until one March day, when Crowley comes by and says, “Oh, Satan, I remember that one. That was one of mine. Must’ve left it here ages ago. Don’t let it near the other books, it’ll poison them.”23
Aziraphale goes to the park almost daily to feed the ducks; he feeds the scruffy black drake a little extra.24 It quacks at him distrustfully.
“Yes, I know,” he says to the duck. “I miss him too.”
Talking to ducks. Is that what he’s come to? Apparently so. He participates in a few neighborly exchanges with Maggie, with Mrs. Sandwich, with that horribly persistent Mr. Puce, when he can’t get away in time. He deals with the filing under the back stairs, which hasn’t been touched since 1873. He tries no fewer than a dozen new restaurants with an eye towards ones Crowley might like, but somehow it’s not the same, sitting alone. He finishes his meal much quicker, for one, and finds himself home much sooner than he’d expected, with all of the night before him. And he can feel Crowley, miles away from him.
Spring comes, wet and dripping and grey, with rare glimpses of warmth. In late April, there are several days of unseasonable heat, and then they break, and it rains, and Aziraphale finds himself sitting in his bookshop in the evening listening to the rain. It’s cut down on some of the pedestrian traffic, but not all, and Aziraphale, sitting alone in his bookshop, listening to the rain, drink in his hand, wonders what it’s like in the country. In the South Downs, specifically, of course because country has come to mean South Downs to him, now. It’s the kind of day where Crowley would normally splash up the sidewalk, trudge into the shop, snapping his boots dry as he passes the threshold, and he’d tease Aziraphale a little, rile him up, then take him out.
It may not even be raining there, Aziraphale thinks, in the South Downs, and most likely, Crowley is not thinking of those times at all.
He calls Crowley anyway.
“Angel,” Crowley says. He’s a little drunk; Aziraphale can tell.
“Crowley,” says Aziraphale. “Is it raining there? It’s raining here.” He’s a little drunk, too. The air coming in through the open windows is wet and humid and chilly on his skin. All he needs is Crowley sprawled across the sofa, gesturing with a wine glass arguing with him about Spain. Or Mesopotamia. Or foie gras, or claret, or the pianoforte. It doesn’t matter. The air coming in from outside smells so fresh and clean. A new start, Aziraphale thinks. Can he get a new start? Can angels have those?
“S’raining here too,” Crowley admits.
Aziraphale misses Crowley desperately. A car shushes by on the pavement. He imagines it’s lovely at the cottage. “How is it?” Aziraphale asks. “In the rain?”
Crowley knows exactly what it means. “S’nice,” Crowley says. “I can see it all - m’in the sunroom, course. All - s’all gray, and beaded, and stuff. Plants like it, I think.” There’s a pause. Aziraphale can hear the rain on the bookshop, the sidewalks, imagines he can hear it on Crowley’s end of the line, too.
“You still having trouble with that leak in biographies?” Crowley asks.
Aziraphale’s heart swells.25 Before he can stop himself, he blurts out, “Crowley, I miss you.” There’s shocked silence on the end of the line. Aziraphale takes a long noisy sip to disguise it. “It’s alright,” he says when he’s swallowed, a trifle desperately, “You don’t have to - I just wanted you to know. Is all.” There’s silence. He sips again, more noisily.
“Look,” Crowley says, and it sounds like he’s pressed close to the phone. “Why don’t you - you want to come out? See the place?”
“Oh, Crowley,” he says, and he means it. “I would love to.”
≠≠
Crowley picks him up three days later. Aziraphale feels - well, he’s all in a tizzy. It’s utterly ridiculous. They drive out of the city and into the country, and everything opens up, green and wet, bursting into life around them. It makes Aziraphale recall the days of the landed gentry, with their ceaseless invitations to their country houses, and how sometimes he and Crowley would find themselves at the same weekend parties, and how, sometimes, Aziraphale would accept invitations he really didn’t want to, for places he really didn’t care for, just in the off-chance Crowley might be there.26
Aziraphale’s charmed by everything he sees, and he can’t help but comment on it all to Crowley, who rolls his eyes behind the glasses, and says, “They’re trees, Aziraphale,” or, “Those’re cows, Aziraphale, I know you’ve seen them before,” but the set of his mouth is surprisingly soft, for all that. When they pass a small farm stand, with honey and jams and asparagus and fresh eggs, Aziraphale lets out an audible gasp, and Crowley sighs dramatically, but wings the Bentley around. Aziraphale chats with the nice young lady running the stand and purchases an assortment of foodstuffs while Crowley leans on the Bentley and huffs behind him. When they get going again, he cracks open a jar of blackcurrant jam.
“You are NOT eating jam in my car,” Crowley says, warningly, but Aziraphale’s already making a little noise of delight. Beside him, Crowley flushes. “Really, you must try this,” Aziraphale says, digging in for a fresh spoonful of jam. He holds it out to Crowley, other hand cupped under it in case of drips. Crowley looks vaguely disgusted, but reaches out anyway, taking the spoon from him, letting go of the wheel, his fingers brushing Aziraphale’s.27
“S’alright,” he allows, and Aziraphale has to very hastily look away as he licks his lips, and then wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Aziraphale doesn’t need, or particularly even want, another taste, it’s so sweet, but he dips the spoon in again, wraps his lips around it. Just because.28 Next to him, Crowley’s practically vibrating. Aziraphale doesn’t know what it all means, exactly.29
Crowley follows some incomprehensible route, turning sometimes left, other times right, and the landscape raises, opens out into gentle hills, shockingly, falsely green, a dark haze of mountains, far off. They pass through innumerable villages, each looking very much like the last, until they roll30 through one where Crowley points out things like the shop and the pubs with startling familiarity. Like they’re his. And then they’re through the village, and they continue on, climbing up and up the side of a hill, and then Crowley suddenly cuts a sharp left and turns into a little lane, hidden by some large budding bushes Aziraphale can’t even begin to guess at, a lane that Aziraphale wouldn’t have known was there otherwise. “Oh!” Aziraphale says as they slow down to a crawl, crunching up a long gravel drive. “Is this it?”
“It is indeed,” says Crowley, gravely. When Aziraphale looks, he is just barely not smiling, and he doesn’t even tease Aziraphale for asking such a silly question. There’s a surprising number of trees planted along the drive; it feels rather intentional, and rather expensive. They’re freshly leafed out and bright with promise; it feels as if they’re in their own little world, and he says as much. “It’s like-” he starts.
“-don’t you dare say it,” Crowley growls, and so Aziraphale says, “Erm, very idyllic.”31
Crowley bares his teeth, but doesn’t say anything.
He parks at an angle in front of the cottage, which Aziraphale gets out and admires, loudly and specifically. Crowley sulks, and leans against the Bentley, and picks dead leaves off an old rosebush, and looks unbearably pleased, if the slight flush on his face is anything to go by. The cottage is a little two-story thing, brick and flint. It looks well-taken care of, as if it’s been loved. There’s a fairly new sunroom built onto the front, getting the best of the sun, a little glass box. There are Crowley’s new gardens, full of deep, rich soil, and the last of a tremendous display of daffodils and irises, yellow and white and blue, which Aziraphale rhapsodizes over.32
“The trick is,” Crowley says, warming to his subject, “You have to strike the right note with them - turn you into a garnish, I will,” he snarls to one of the irises, which looks about done blooming. It shivers.33
“Oh!” Aziraphale says. “I almost forgot.” He turns back to the Bentley and digs around the passenger footwell, dislodging his recent purchases. He emerges, triumphant, with a small box. “A housewarming gift,” he says, and holds it out to Crowley. Crowley stares at it a few seconds, then reaches out slowly, as if it might bite him.
“For me? You shouldn’t have.” Still, he unwraps it, long fingers tugging at the ribbon, letting it slip to the ground, and he opens the box. “Seeds?” He says, and raises the box to face level. He sniffs at them. “Apple seeds?”
“Not just any apple seeds,” Aziraphale says, and Crowley whips his head up to look at him so quickly he almost upends the box with his nose.
“How did you-”
Aziraphale just smiles. There’s that look again, the one he loves, the one Crowley gives him when Aziraphale’s surprised him. You what?
“You always were a packrat,” Crowley mutters, but he’s really, tremendously pleased. “You don’t think Someone’ll notice, I plant these?”
“I don’t really think Anyone’s much paying attention,” Aziraphale says.
“Might be right,” Crowley says. “Come on, won’t be a mo’,” he says, and he opens the door and Aziraphale follows him in, through the narrow, dark entranceway, crowded up by the stairs, and the long way around into the kitchen, which is awfully small, and still with its original cooking fireplace. Aziraphale looks around what he can see of the living room from here. It doesn’t look at all the sort of place he’d thought Crowley would choose in this day and age, and he tells Crowley this.34 Crowley just shrugs. He’s bent over the single kitchen counter, doing something complicated with a wet paper towel and the apple seeds that he assures Aziraphale means instant success. Just a few months and they’ll be ready to plant out, if they know what’s good for them, he mutters. He’s just barely peeking over his glasses to look at the seeds more closely, a tall dark shape against the low ceiling. So Crowley will still be here in a few months. Maybe it won’t be so bad. Crowley’s not so terribly far away, after all. At least they’re in the same country. And telephones exist, now, it isn’t letters, coming to him smelling of camels and dust, or stained by carrier pigeons.
“C’mon,” Crowley says, straightening up, apparently done with whatever alchemy he’d been doing. “Give you the tour.”
He takes Aziraphale through the house, one hand shoved deep in his pocket,35 the other gesturing as he talks. The house is lovely, very charming. The living room is spacious enough, with low heavy ceilings and a small tiled fireplace. “Oh,” Aziraphale says with warmth, “that’s something you don’t see much anymore.”
“Might paint it white,” Crowleys ays, offhandedly. “S’all the rage these days.”
“Oh Crowley! You wouldn’t!” Aziraphale raises a hand to brush his fingertips along the cool tiles. He darts a glance over at Crowley, who’s almost grinning.
“Nah,” Crowley says. “Shoulda seen the look on your face though.”
There’s a mix of things familiar and new in the space; Aziraphale recognizes the ridiculous chair and desk set up at one end of the living room, near the built-in bookshelves.36 There’s that dreadful statue of the angels. There’s a great big lectern of a bird that looks familiar, somehow; a small falcon statue.37 Unfamiliar to Aziraphale are a large dark leather sofa and a large armchair. A big book on stars is opened on the coffee table. The place is immaculate, and out every window is the country, green and bright with spring, the mountains far off.
Crowley takes him into the sunroom, bustling with plants who gently quiver with recognition when Aziraphale walks in. It’s warm in there, in the sun, almost too warm. There’s a single lounge chair, and a small table at its side with an empty glass atop a sticky ring on the table. Crowley sees him looking and snaps his fingers. The glass disappears. Aziraphale wonders exactly how much time Crowley spends out here, sprawled out in that chair, eyes half-closed in the sun.38
There’s a bedroom downstairs, next door down from the sunroom, clearly Crowley’s, all dark curtains and massive dark bed, low and heavily silken. Crowley shoves the door open and stands there, Aziraphale leaning in past him to look. Aziraphale flushes. “It’s, ah, very dark.”
“S’for sleeping,” Crowley says, and shoots Aziraphale a look.
“Ah, of course.” Aziraphale still hasn’t slept. It’s something he’d like to try, one of these days. Er. Nights. Now that he’s his own angel. He doesn’t think he’ll like it, of course, but still. He’s always been wary about shutting himself off, down. Exposing himself and those around him to potential danger. And it had seemed - slothful. Wasteful.
Crowley takes him past the stairs again, and Aziraphale asks, curiously, “What’s upstairs?”
“More rooms. Attic. Bathroom,” Crowley says. “Great big tub. C’mon, I’ll show you the garden,” he says, and takes him out back, to what he really wants to show Aziraphale. It’s tremendous, a few great big beds with dark rich amended soil that smells simply divine, neat rows of peas and chard and cabbages. “I don’t remember Mendel’s peas ever looking so neat and tidy,” Aziraphale says suspiciously, looking up over them, and Crowley says, “Don’t give them ideas!” Crowley takes him through the rows, telling him all about what he’s going to plant when, in a few weeks, when the weather breaks -
“And I was thinking the apple trees, there,” Crowley says, gesturing to an expanse of greenery that looks exactly the same to Aziraphale as all the rest of it. “What do you think?”
“I’m sure whatever you think is just fine, dear,” Aziraphale says, absentmindedly, and Crowley makes a strange noise beside him.
They go back into the living room, then, and Aziraphale’s brought a very nice red, so they settle in,39 start drinking. The sun slips across the windows, and the room falls into darkness, filling up the corners first, until Crowley’s just a vague dark glittering shape, last of the light reflecting off his glasses. It’s strange, to Aziraphale, this unfamiliar space, and them here. They’ve been in the bookshop so long, the bookshop’s been theirs so long, it’s hard for Aziraphale to imagine them anywhere else. But it’s not bad. It’s actually rather nice. They drink through dinner, through the evening, bottles miraculously refilling themselves - “should show you the wine cellar, I should. ‘Nother time. Stairs,” Crowley says, gravely.
“Nasty buggers, stairs,” says Aziraphale, who’d once had a rather embarrassing turn on the steps at Camelot.40 They start recounting their favorite places they’d lived. For Aziraphale, it’s the bookshop, naturally. Crowley’d liked that spooky castle he’d been in - “The one you were pretending was the Grail castle?” Aziraphale says.
“Got em, every time,” Crowley says, and snorts a little.
Aziraphale tells him he’d rather liked Crowley’s Roman villa; Crowley, apparently, had been fond of the little oikos Aziraphale had had in Greece. “It was awfully sunny there,” Aziraphale says, wistfully. This devolves, naturally, into them listing every place they’ve ever lived,41 which takes them to well past one AM, when Crowley lifts his head from the back of the sofa and groans. He drops his head back. “Nngh,” Crowley says. “S’pose I should get you home." He makes a face. “Should sober up.”
“You don’t have to,” Aziraphale says, and darts a look at him.
“Sober up? Don’t think you’d like that,” Crowley says, and his hands do something, like he’s miming driving the Bentley.42
“No, I mean. I could just. Stay here. Until the morning.”
Crowley raises his eyebrows, and Aziraphale flushes. “I don’t mean to presume,” he says.
“Presume away,” Crowley says. There’s an odd look on his face.
“Oh look,” Aziraphale says, a little desperately. “More wine.”
So they drink two more bottles, and then Crowley is well and truly sloshed. He gets to his feet with none of the grace of the serpent and all of the flopping of an intoxicated eel. “M’ going. Bed. There.” He points.
“Wish I could,” Aziraphale says, wistfully.
Crowley trips and catches himself on the back of Aziraphale’s chair. Poor thing must be really inter. Into. Drunk.
“You can, y’know,” Crowley says. He sounds strange. Nervous, almost.
Aziraphale cranes his neck to look up at him. “Don’ think so. Tried one. Two. Some times.” He’s trying to count on his fingers but gives it up as a bad job. When there’s two of everything it’s rather hard to count. “I’ll just. Stay here.”
Crowley gapes, then seems to collect himself. “You - wait. What’re you talking about?” Crowley squints.
“Sleeping?” Aziraphale says.
“Sleep. Right. Yes,” Crowley says. He pulls his hand off the back of Aziraphale’s chair and wobbles a little. “What’re you going to do while I. While I sleep.”
Aziraphale holds up his hand and miracles the book he’s currently reading into it. “See?” He says.43 “Ll’be fine, go, off with you,” he says, waving Crowley off, and Crowley goes. Crowley must leave the door partially open, because he can hear, very faintly, something that sounds like Crowley crawling into bed, or flopping, by the sounds of it, and then he can hear, even more faintly, Crowley’s breathing as it slips and evens out.
A few hours pass like that, the cottage making small, unfamiliar nighttime sounds, very different from the sounds the bookshop makes.44 Crowley not even ten meters away and it’s like, oh, it’s almost as good as when he’d napped occasionally in the bookshop, not that he’d ever let Crowley know. Sometimes Crowley’d show up early or unplanned and get bored waiting for Aziraphale to dust, or inventory, or clean, and he’d fall asleep, boots crossed on the arm of the sofa, sinking into slumber, and Aziraphale would watch him, creeping around the bookshop as quietly as he could, duster in hand, and sometimes he’d dust a section two, three times, just to watch Crowley sleep just a little longer, that spill of red hair across the sofa -
And then there’s a noise in the cottage and Aziraphale sits bolt upright, book falling from his hand as Crowley cries out. Because he sounds scared, and Aziraphale is up and on his feet, everything spinning just very slightly around him as he moves down the hallway to the bedroom.45 “Crowley?” He says. “Crowley?”
There’s no answer. He can’t feel any strange demonic or angelic presence in the cottage; that doesn’t rule out something else, of course. Crowley’s bedroom is dark, the door cracked, and he can hear Crowley in there. Still breathing. “Crowley?” He says, face pressed to the door.
Nothing.
He gathers up his courage, and pushes the door open further. Crowley’s breathing hitches, and he whimpers.
Aziraphale steps over the threshold into Crowley’s bedroom. “Crowley?” He whispers. There’s no answer. It’s dark in there, only the faintest sliver of light coming in where the curtain’s not tugged all the way shut. The air is hushed, and still, and smells of Crowley, that blend of soft spring flowers and infernal musk, the faintest crackling of ozone. The smell of his skin. He’d held Crowley close, so close, in his arms twice now, and once he’d been breathing into Aziraphale’s own mouth, trembling with the force of it, and the second time he hadn’t been breathing at all -
Crowley cries out again, just a wordless noise. “Crowley,” he says, more insistently. A whisper of silk on silk, then nothing. Aziraphale can see well enough in the slice of dim light, can just make out the bed,46 a dark, vast, vaguely threatening shape lurking across the room. A nightmare, then. Aziraphale’d read about them, of course. For a second, he dithers, unsure what to do, then Crowley cries out again, and the poor dear sounds so lost, so scared, and that makes up Aziraphale’s mind for him.
He makes his way across the room to stand by the side of the bed. Crowley’s right in the middle, half curled up on his side. “Crowley,” Aziraphale says, kneeling on the bed to reach him, the bed moving slightly under his weight, the sheets cool and slippery under his hand, “Crowley, please wake up.” His other hand hovers over Crowley’s shoulder and descends. He curls his fingers around Crowley’s shoulder, slides his palm down to Crowley’s chest. “Crowley,” he says again, very, very close to him. Crowley twitches then, and seems to almost wake, his limbs shift, and he moves as if to roll over. Aziraphale draws back hurriedly. Crowley would not like waking up with an angel looming over him - or anyone, really, Aziraphale thinks, and hurriedly pushes aside that voice that says and just how many humans do you think he’s taken to bed while you were busy shutting yourself up in your ivory tower?
It’s not any of his business, and besides, he really doesn’t want to know. He doesn’t think he could bear it.
Crowley doesn’t wake. But the frown creasing his face relaxes slightly, and he murmurs something that might, or might not, be Aziraphale’s name. He rolls back to face Aziraphale then and breathes out, softly. Aziraphale can see his eyes flicker and move beneath his eyelids, a very faint gleam of yellow visible at the bottom, and he stays, half-kneeling on the bed, entranced, because -
Crowley doesn’t take his glasses off now. He hasn’t taken them off since that awful time they’d been knocked off his face, at the very end of things, when Aziraphale had faced the host of Heaven, trumpet in his hand, and told them he wouldn’t do it, he wouldn’t, he had been put on Earth to guard it and guard it he would, supreme archangel or not, he refused to bring on the end of days, and they’d threatened him, and Crowley, beautiful, foolish Crowley, had stepped in front of him and started to bluster back -
and a dozen angels moved as one, and Crowley had been thrown back by their combined holy force a good, oh, twenty or thirty meters, like the rag doll Aziraphale had once seen him fish out of the river for a little girl back in Prague in the 18th century, already limp before he hit the facade of Give Me Coffee or Give Me Death, and then he’d crumpled down onto the street, and Aziraphale had started moving towards him, crying out, and had stepped on his glasses and broken them, Crowley’s going to be so upset, he’d thought, and then very quickly realized Crowley wasn’t going to be anything at all, not ever again -
Aziraphale stops that thought, firmly, in its tracks. Crowley’s here, now, and he’s alive and safe, laying in his great big bed. And he’d been having a nightmare, but it seems to have passed, now. Aziraphale waits there a few more minutes, watching Crowley sleep. His thin chest rises and falls gently, doesn’t need to, of course, but somehow it’s still comforting for Aziraphale to watch: the tiny movements this body makes as he inhabits it, thousands of years of small repeated gestures have become infinitely precious to Aziraphale, have worn him down like a river wears down rock, or, say, chalk cliffs. Aziraphale’s chest is full of some terrible heavy feeling, so sharp as to be almost painful. Oh, Crowley, he thinks again, watching his face, his gentle breathing. He could stay there all night. But he shouldn’t. So he gets up off the bed, slowly and carefully, so as not to wake Crowley, and goes back out into the strange living room that Crowley has chosen for his own, now that he no longer wants the bookshop, and Aziraphale picks up his book and sets it in his lap. He’s only half-reading, the rest of him alert, listening, on guard. He’s left the door open wide so he can hear Crowley if he cries out again.
Crowley has no more nightmares the rest of that night.
1. Largely by the feelings the books gave them. back
2. He only knows Crowley wasn’t involved because none of the statues are doing anything crude. Perhaps he hadn’t been able to figure out how to manage it. back
3. Twice, and then puts it back the way he had it, before Jim had come around. back
4. Miracles won’t work for it; never have done. He’d never told Crowley about that time in 1837 when Crowley’d been down in Hell, after the graveyard, and Hell had sent a demon sniffing around the bookshop. Aziraphale had handled it. He’d meant to tell Crowley when he’d gotten back, but of course then they’d fought, and after the war, when they’d made up and Crowley had come around again he’d made a few slithering little comments about another demonic presence in the shop and Aziraphale had said it was the Pierre Louys books, most likely, because he knew how Crowley would get about it, and, too, because they never talked about those terrible years when they hadn’t been speaking. back
5. Once, after a fight they’d had in the ninth century, Crowley had slept for three decades. By the time he’d emerged from his castle his hair was very long and a terrible patch of briars had grown up all outside the gate, and the humans had written a story about it.
Aziraphale had not had anything to do with waking him up. He’d managed that all by himself, thank you very much.
6. It’s entirely arbitrary, of course, but they each like celebrating alongside the humans. Rather like they were all in this together. They also celebrate the anniversary of the first day, although they disagree which day that should be, which means they celebrate both of them. Aziraphale claims it’s the day God created Earth - or humans; depends on how drunk he is at the time. Crowley says it’s when they were banished from the Garden. “That’s when it really started,” he’d said, shaking a finger at Aziraphale.
Champagne sales spike dramatically in October in whatever city they’re in, and no one ever seems to know why.
7. Aziraphale is not thinking about kissing. back
8. Muriel had arranged them by mean oven temperature, as far as Aziraphale can tell. Really. back
9. Twelve whole minutes. back
10. Aziraphale. back
11. Crowley. back
12. And every other wine glass in the place via a sympathetic miracle, but neither of them notice. The staff blame it on a very small, very centralized earthquake, that seems to only affect the glasses on the tables, and not, say, the bottle of Colt 45 the line cook is chugging out of in the back.back
13. He even pulls out 101 Best Recipes From the Holy Graele and cracks it open with every appearance of interest. back
14. Few years, really. The last time he’d been really happy, really relaxed, he and Crowley had been standing, oh, just over there, and the music had been playing, and their hands had pressed together, Crowley’s fingers tangling with his, pinky and thumb folding around his, oh, and they were dancing - back
16. He always calls ahead, almost as if he’s worried he’s not welcome, or that Aziraphale might have plans. back
17. Once a week, one out of every seven days, and that’s more frequent that almost all of their history, so why does it not feel like enough? Aziraphale wants too much. He has always wanted too much. back
18. He surprises Aziraphale by eating two large pieces. “What?” He says, as he swallows one of them almost whole, like a snake. Aziraphale watches it go down. “Gardening’s hard work.” back
19. Crowley had handed him the telephone, shown him how to view pictures by running his finger across it. Of course he does it wrong. “No, you have to swipe, like this, no, not that way!” Crowley says in alarm, as Aziraphale swipes his finger, apparently, the wrong way, and a picture of the Bentley is revealed, and Crowley snatches the phone out of his hand before he can look any further. back
20. Suddenly, he finds he understands demons a smidge more. back
21. He hopes. back
22. He rather doubts he’d be welcome there. back
23. Aziraphale hides it under the sofa when his back is turned. Later that evening, when Crowley’s gone, he pulls it back out, and stares at it very firmly until it’s surprised to find itself on the bathroom bookshelf of a trust-fund baby turned wellness guru, who rather enthusiastically takes to social media, claiming it’s turned his life around.
It absolutely does corrupt the other books, but he never notices.
24. It’s all black, a little mean, prone to chasing the others off for a particularly good bit of bread by pulling out their tail feathers. For all that, it’s a real pushover. It’s Crowleys favorite, although he’d never admit it. back
25. He’d never been able to fix it, leading him to surmise it was of a distinctly infernal provenance. Especially as it only ever seemed to rain on the Margaret Thatcher biographies. back
26. “Hate these things,” Crowley’d muttered to him once, in Lord So-and-So’s billiard room, and Aziraphale had said, “Beastly parties,” and then they’d both buggered off to the gardens, and walked a turn, or three, or twenty, until all the guests had gone to bed and they could raid the liquor cabinets in peace. back
27. The Bentley swerves slightly. Aziraphale, very heroically, does not nag. back
28. He had wanted desperately to kiss Crowley again, had thought about it all the time up in Heaven. Now, being around it, it’s a constant want, something he’s as aware of as his own halo. back
29. He hopes it means that maybe, just maybe, Crowley will allow him a second chance. back
30. Blast. back
31. It’s best not to antagonize Crowley, after all. The poor dear is nervous, and it would make for a terribly awkward ride back. back
32. When he gets back to the shop there’s a small vase of them on his desk, and his heart rises, and soars - back
33. Aziraphale swears, the next time he glances at it, it’s pushed out another flower. back
34. It’s really rather closer to Aziraphale’s taste; he does not tell Crowley this. back
35. And just how he manages that Aziraphale’s sure he does’t know; must be a minor miracle. back
36. Empty. “My dear,” says Aziraphale, his fingers itching, and Crowley says, “Absolutely not, Aziraphale, you are not annexing the bookshop here.”
“The South Downs Extension,” Aziraphale says, a little dreamily.
“No,” Crowley says.
Nature abhors a vacuum; Aziraphale, an empty shelf.
37. For a snake demon, Crowley has an awful lot of bird statues, Aziraphale thinks. back
38. And what exactly he’s wearing. Surely it’s too hot for much clothing out here - ? back
39. Aziraphale is pleasantly surprised to find that the armchair is exactly as he likes it, rather like the one in the bookshop: slightly squashy, mostly firm, good for the posture. He wonders how Crowley’d known. back
40. It’s hard to look down in armor, okay? back
41. “D’you remember that brothel you accidentally lived next to?”
“How could I forget,” Aziraphale moans. “Every night. And morning. And afternoon. And, well - anytime, really.”
“Bit of a habit with you, really,” Crowley says. “Come to think of it. You know that Mrs. Sandwich-?”
“Yes, well somebody’s got to live next to them,” Aziraphale sniffs.
42. Not very well. Aziraphale would not like that.back
43. He tries for Marie de France but gets a Marie Antoinette biography instead. A prime example of why one shouldn’t drink and miracle across great distances. Sometimes the signals get warbled. back
44. The soft rustle of the poetry singing itself to sleep. Occasionally, a scream from biographies as one of the larger biographies eats a smaller one. Or the soft siren call of Aziraphale from L-space, which he resolutely ignores. back
45. Good Lord, he must be drunker than he’d thought. back
46. But not so well, of course, that he doesn’t stub three of his toes against no fewer than two pieces of furniture that had apparently leapt out of their places and into his path some thirty seconds later. back
Chapter 2: chapter 2
Notes:
L-space is, of course, Terry Pratchett’s idea.
Chapter Text
≠≠
When Crowley drops Aziraphale back off at the bookshop the following day, 47 Aziraphale makes himself a cup of hot cocoa, which he immediately forgets about, and sets off to dig up every book he has on dreams, which, if you include the fiction, is - well, all of them, really. Funny, how the humans seem so obsessed with them. Dreams, to Aziraphale’s mind, are something that are wholly human and entirely foreign to him. Like, like hangovers, or waiting in lines, or sexual congress. 48 Aziraphale even goes into the bookshop’s L-space just to make sure he’s really gotten everything, although he knows by now to tie a piece of red thread to his desk and keep the ball end firmly in his palm at all times. 49
He takes a lantern and ventures back. He hasn’t been back there in ages. It’s dark, and gets perceptibly colder as he steps through the shelves, and the smell of old books and mildew becomes almost oppressive; real, this time, and not simply manufactured or enhanced by Aziraphale to keep prospective customers away. Right around the Travel Jokes section he starts to get the feeling that something’s watching him, that warning prickle right between his wings, but as he always gets that feeling around this part, he just keeps his shoulders straight and keeps looking ahead, scanning the poorly-labelled shelves 50 for the section he wants. There’s no dust in L-space, amazingly, as the natural predator of dust often makes its lair there, lured by all the books and their gentle decay. Aziraphale has occasionally, during his yearly dusting of the shop, contemplated, from the depths of despair, moving his entire book collection into L-space just to have a little help with the dust. But it seems a little too much like playing with - well, unspeakable eldritch horrors, really.
Aziraphale finds the nightmare section, which is surprisingly expansive, spanning three whole bays of shelving. The bottom shelf of the third bay is oozing lightly, and he steps over it carefully as he holds the lantern up to the shelves. He knows not to look too closely at the books with his name in the title; elementary rules, in L-space, although he does get waylaid by one titled Do Angels Dream? until he sees the subtitle: Why Don’t You Just Lie Down Right Here and Sleep, Aziraphale, You Must Be So Tired, After Millions of Years. He decides against a set of matching books bound in a soft dark silken covering, with gilt letters. The titles of the set are: Do You Know He Dreams of You, Aziraphale; its sequel, If You Dreamt, Would You Dream of Him, Too? followed by the highly anticipated final book in the trilogy, I Think You Would.
There are many more books on nightmares and dreams that Aziraphale skims over, books chronicling the dreams of great men and ordinary men, books of the dreams of rivers, even a book that purports to list and interpret the dreams of the Almighty. Aziraphale wonders about the Almighty’s dreams, then, and wonders, perhaps, if this is Her dream, here, on earth. He doesn’t take the book off the shelf. It doesn’t seem to be for him. There’s a book that, when he takes it off the shelf and opens it, makes his eyes incredibly heavy. He catches himself rocking slightly in place and snaps it shut, quickly. Practical Dreaming, the book’s called, and he considers it briefly before shelving it.
Finally, Aziraphale selects a few books that seem promising: Daemons and Nightmares; Daemons and Nightmares, Part II, Straight to the Electric Chair for You; and finally, Just Because Your Dream Hasn’t Happened Yet Doesn’t Mean It Doesn’t Tell the Future! Subtitled, Prophetic Dream Interpretation for Dummies. 51
When Aziraphale finally emerges from L-space with his selected volumes, he makes himself a bracing cup of tea, 52 pulls the books to him, puts his glasses on, and gets to work. He reads that demons are incapable of dreams, that demons are incapable of dreaming of anything other than the Fall, 53 reads that nightmares about losing one’s teeth are a clear sign that one is going to lose one’s teeth within the fortnight. Putting these books aside, he turns to the regular, human books, and reads all about nightmares being the result of a restless mind, learns that Crowley may be reliving past events, and that nightmares are caused by a demon sitting on one’s chest. 54 He reads many other facts of dubious usefulness and veracity, and then gets distracted reading Wuthering Heights. He rather thinks he and Crowley will be on their own on this one, as they so often are. He’s so engrossed in reading, he misses the phone ringing, and only realizes what’s happened when Crowley screeches up outside the shop an hour and a half after. “Crowley!” he says in delight when the demon bursts into the shop, wheeling around like a snake scenting danger, head up, eyes wild behind his glasses. When he sees Aziraphale looking up from his book, Crowley’s face does something complicated; his shoulders come down, relaxing slightly. He stuffs his hands in his pockets, saunters forward, like he hadn’t burst into the shop like it was - well, on fire or something.
“What’s wrong?” Aziraphale says, half getting up out of his seat. If She’s gone back on the deal - he thinks.
“Thought - never mind,” Crowley says, slinking forward towards him, checking all around him, it seems. Whatever he’s looking for, he seems satisfied. Then he frowns. “What’s that you’re reading?” He cranes his neck at Wuthering Heights. Aziraphale flushes, and buries it behind a pile of scrolls littering his desk. “Erotica,” he says, firmly. Crowley’s eyebrows shoot up.
“Right,” he says, slowly. “Tempt you to a spot of lunch, Marquis?”
So they have lunch, and then they go to the park, and Crowley’s duck is absolutely overjoyed to see him, and gets an entire bag of frozen peas for his efforts - “S’better for em,” Crowley tells Aziraphale, emptying the bag out over the pond and watching with some satisfaction as his duck elbows 55 the others out of the way. Aziraphale swears it even dunks one of them. 56
They have a spirited debate about lawn sports on their way through the rest of the park 57 and into the Bentley, where Crowley swings the door open, still arguing 58 as Aziraphale settles into the passenger seat, his seat, which is still perfectly formed to the contours of his human body. Over dinner, Crowley describes, dramatically, the ongoing battle he’s fighting with garden slugs, waving his hands across the table, nearly upended the wine glasses and candles.
“Sister Slug,” Aziraphale corrects, and Crowley barks out a laugh. “Should have Brother Francis come on out, lend a hand. His garden was always miraculously slug-free.” He shoots Aziraphale a look. There’s a little smile playing on his face. And Aziraphale realizes despite his griping, Crowley’s happy. And yes, it’s without Aziraphale, and yes, it’s not in London, where they’ve made their home for centuries, but - well, who is he to hold Crowley back, anymore.
So he doesn’t say what he was going to say, which is, “I hear London is quite slug-free,” and says, instead, sententiously, “Yes, well, there’s no telling what a good conscience will do for one’s exterior circumstances,” just to rile Crowley up.
Two days later, Crowley calls Aziraphale up, and asks if he’d like to come out to the cottage again. “Thought maybe you might want to see the cliffs?” he says, casually, as if Aziraphale will say anything other than yes, and so of course Aziraphale says yes, and they have a lovely time, walking the chalk cliffs for hours, the sea wild, the air cool. Far above, seabirds wheel and cry, and Crowley amuses Aziraphale by translating what they’re saying. 59 Aziraphale is absolutely not disappointed when Crowley says he’s worked up an appetite, by which he means Aziraphale has, and whisks them back to London that evening, and they dine at the Ritz. It’s a far cry from their atmosphere earlier in the day, the polite, cultured music, the low murmur of human conversation, utensils on plates, low sparkling light, and he tells Crowley such.
“Not a country girl, Aziraphale?” Crowley asks, a strange, look on his face, leaning back, and Aziraphale says, “Now, I didn’t say that. It’s just - it’s astounding, how much variety there is on earth. What they’ve come up with.”
“Isn’t it just?” Crowley says.
“Makes you glad it’s all still here,” Aziraphale says, smiling, but Crowley frowns, and looks away, grabbing his glass hastily, and drinking far more wine from it than it had actually contained.
Generally, things improve dramatically, in Aziraphale’s mind. Crowley comes out weekly to London, and Aziraphale goes out weekly to the cottage, and in between, they talk on the phone.
Aziraphale orders all the walking guide books he can find on the South Downs, and Crowley groans when he sees them. “Really, Aziraphale?” He says. “You’ve lived on this earth for thousands of years, and you need some human telling you what to go see?”
“Well I haven’t lived in the South Downs,” Aziraphale says, primly, and something flashes across Crowley’s face before he flops down, picks one up, and sticks his nose in it. Only to make fun of it, he assures Aziraphale. 60
When Crowley’s not in the city, Aziraphale keeps himself busy. He does a handful of good deeds. 61 He reshelves all the books on nightmares, even the ones from L-space. 62 He goes back to all the museums to look at his favorite pieces, again, and wonders, vaguely, why it feels like he’s trying to memorize them, as if he won’t see them again. Crowley’s tried to show him a dozen times how to use the little phone he’d gotten Aziraphale, but Aziraphale can’t quite get the hang of it. He’s certain it’s an infernal thing. 63 Instead, he takes his sketchbook and spends hours sketching things he thinks Crowley might like to see, things he’s missing out on, being out in the country. He shows them to Crowley when Crowley comes to visit. Once, in June, he takes a sketch along to the cottage that he’d done that week, a pencil-drawing of a statue of Eve and Crowley. Eve’s holding the apple, and Crowley twines up her arm to look at it, almost as if she’s offering him a bite, and not the other way around. “Mmm,” says Crowley, taking it from him and holding it up to the light. “Nice likeness.” Aziraphale flushes, and looks down, pleased.64
Aziraphale’s there every week, and he gets used to the place, learning where Crowley keeps the glasses, where to sit in the living room to get the best light during what times of the day. He doesn’t stay overnight again for some time, and if he’s disappointed, it’s only because it’s so lonely in the bookshop at night, now, something he never thought would trouble him. Some nights Crowley drives him back at three AM, sometimes it’s dawn, and Crowley drives off into the sun. Other nights he’s back at ten, or eleven, or, on one particularly awful night, five in the evening, practically the afternoon, because they’d gotten into a horrid fight over what else, the ineffable plan, and they can each feel all the things unsaid between them, and that ratchets things up, makes them both tense, both nasty. Crowley had swung by not two days later with a bottle of wine and swept Aziraphale out to lunch, and they hadn’t talked about it again.
One night, when Crowley drops him off at the bookshop, he refuses Aziraphale’s offer to come in - “Got to get back,” he says. “Get some sleep.” And he looks awful, like he hasn’t been sleeping, even with the glasses on. Aziraphale does a tiny little miracle when he gets out of the Bentley, just a little tug down and over and Crowley frowns as he feels it wash over him. “What’s that?” he says, suspiciously. “What’d you do to me?”
“You had something on your shirt,” Aziraphale lies.
Crowley sleeps, that night, and as far as Aziraphale can tell, he doesn’t have any nightmares. The next nightmare 65 happens a month after the first. Aziraphale stays over in much the same way, Crowley too drunk to sober up, and reluctant to do so. Aziraphale shoos him off to bed, settles back into the armchair - he’s trying not to start thinking of it as his armchair, but it’s a lost cause, he’s afraid - with a book, and every semblance of unconcern. 66 Crowley leaves his bedroom door cracked open again, and after the small silken shuffling noises stop and Crowley’s breathing evens out, Aziraphale finds he’s not reading so much as resting his eyes on a spot in the dark living room and listening to Crowley breathe, softly.
And then there’s a sudden noise, and Crowley says, “No,” in a very small, very audible voice. “No, don’t-”
Aziraphale’s up and at the bedroom door before he even thinks about moving. Crowley just lets out a low, miserable moan. Aziraphale slips through the door and into the room, makes his way over to the bed. 67 This time, though, when he kneels on the bed and puts a hand on Crowley’s shoulder, gently whispering his name, Crowley cries out, and thrashes, and tries to pull away from him. He moans again.
“Shh, no, Crowley, it’s me. Aziraphale. I’m here.”
Crowley doesn’t seem to care. Aziraphale gingerly lowers himself down into sitting on the bed, on top of the covers. Crowley rolls into him, leg bumping into his hip. His top has ruched down and an awful lot of chest is visible. Aziraphale tears his eyes away. Rather monstrous of him to be looking now. Crowley makes another little whimpering noise, his mouth pulling down in a perfect picture of misery. “Hurts,” Aziraphale thinks he whispers, so he leans forward. “Crowley, what hurts?” He doesn’t answer. “Please wake up,” Aziraphale says. Crowley’s hair is limp, wet with sweat and plastered to his forehead, so Aziraphale reaches forward and gently, so gently he’s barely touching Crowley, brushes his hair back. His forehead’s clammy. Crowley lets out a noise like a sigh. “Oh, I wish you’d wake up,” Aziraphale say, wishing no such thing; he really just wants the nightmare to stop. He brushes Crowley’s hair back again, daring to slide his fingers into Crowley’s hair, where his scalp is damp with sweat.
It is rather warm in here.
Crowley sighs, and relaxes, his face turning towards Aziraphale, eyes moving very slightly under his eyelids. Aziraphale’s hand is still in his hair. Aziraphale freezes, but Crowley’s eyes don’t open, so Aziraphale very gently disentangles himself. Crowley makes a little noise, but doesn’t move. “I’ll just open the window,” he says to Crowley, softly, and gets up off the bed. He creeps over to the window and slides it very carefully open. A wash of cool night air comes in over him, cooling his own flushed face, and he closes his eyes, and takes it in a moment, before he moves to let the air come in to the bed. Crowley makes another noise. “Yes, I imagine that’s better,” Aziraphale says, and goes back over to the bed. He shouldn’t. But. He reaches out once more, smoothes Crowley’s hair back, again, and he’s not imagining it; Crowley turns into his hand. Aziraphale says, “Dream of whatever you like best,” with as much fervor as he can to come just shy of a miracle.
The next morning, when Crowley saunters out of the bedroom, once again dressed, his dark glasses firmly on, Aziraphale says, innocently, not looking up from his book, “How’d you sleep?”
He can feel Crowley looking at him, suspiciously, but he doesn’t say anything about the open window, and so neither does Aziraphale.
≠≠
Two weeks later, Aziraphale makes a rather unnerving discovery about dreams; namely, that not everything that sounds like a nightmare actually is a nightmare.
Case in point:
The next time he stays over (two weeks later; it’s getting more frequent) Aziraphale gets up as soon as he hears the noise. It’s not like he wants Crowley to have more nightmares, that’d be monstrous, awful. But this is his only chance to see Crowley, unguarded, now. To sit close to him as he slumbers, place a hand on his chest, on his head, soothe him. Like he wants to. Like Crowley deserves. So when Crowley cries out, now, just an openmouthed sound, almost a gasp, really, Aziraphale goes into the bedroom quickly, makes his sure way to the bed, and sits down on it. The window’s open wide, it’s been a hot day, and it’s stuffy in the small room. Crowley’s kicked off the covers and most of the sheet as well, his eyebrows contracted, and oh goodness, he’s shirtless, and Aziraphale hesitates, then reaches out, puts a hand on Crowley’s warm shoulder, and Crowley rolls towards him easily, and the sheet slips down and - oh.
Aziraphale can’t look away. Because it’s not a nightmare, after all.
Aziraphale’s read about these kinds of dreams, too. There’d been a whole book in L-space on them. With pictures. Aziraphale had renewed his withdrawal on that one.
Crowley whimpers, again, an open breathy sound, and his snakey little hips shift very slightly, and Aziraphale can’t look away because Crowley’s hard in his silk pajama bottoms, and there’s a small damp spot, right where, right where, good Lord. Aziraphale is struck suddenly with the urge to lean over Crowley, hands on his hips, to press his face right there, to open his mouth, to breathe in, to taste -
He’s never, before. Of course he’s thought about it, in passing. Idly. And now the urge hits him as he stares, as he thinks of Crowley’s mouth, pressed to his, Crowley’s desperate grip on his lapels, the way his lips had felt against Aziraphale’s, Aziraphale’s awful desire to pull Crowley closer, pull their earthly bodies all the way together, like the humans do.
Crowley whimpers again. His head turns towards Aziraphale. “Mmm,” he says, or breathes, his lips parting slightly, and Aziraphale can just see the wet flash of his tongue in his mouth, the gleam of sharp teeth, and Aziraphale flees. 68
Aziraphale’s never touched himself before. He knows about it, of course. But he’s never needed to. Never felt the urge. He’s an angel. And then Crowley had kissed him and it had been like the ox ribs all over again. Aziraphale hadn’t known he was hungry until he found out he was starving.
When Crowley drops him off at the bookshop the next afternoon, Aziraphale locks the door, pulls all the blinds, and goes upstairs, for good measure, to the dusty daybed he uses only for book storage. He shoves the books aside, and, with shaking hands, unbuttons his trousers, and slips a hand inside.
He closes his eyes, and like this, he could be anywhere, anywhere dark. On any bed. He wonders if Crowley touches himself. He’s suddenly, as he squeezes, gently and gasps, absolutely certain that he does. He can even picture it. Maybe Crowley’s even doing it right now. 69 He’d be sprawled across those black silk sheets, those lazy yellow eyes of his half-closed, and he’d stretch his long limbs as he slid one hand, or maybe both - yes, definitely both, Aziraphale thinks, biting his lip, and oh, this is wonderful, how has Aziraphale not tried it before, Good Lord, he’s never going to get anything done again, is he - definitely both hands, and Aziraphale’s picturing Crowley’s hips now, Aziraphale had seen them, once, in a Roman bath, sharp, drawing the eye down, made for holding onto, and Crowley had seen him looking, hadn’t he, and the one side of his mouth had curled up very slightly, showing sharp teeth, and he’d cocked his hip at Aziraphale, he had, Aziraphale’s known it for millennia, and Crowley’s probably sprawled across that great big bed right now, after whatever dream’s he’s had, Aziraphale’s starting to sweat, now, he can feel it prickling at his hairline, his cheeks flushed, Crowley’s head would fall to the side on his pillow, his sharp teeth exposed as he gasped, open-mouthed, his tongue coming out to flick his lips, his long legs propped up, or even fallen open as he tugs gently, or maybe not even all that gently, what would Crowley like, Aziraphale wonders wildly, for that matter, what does Aziraphale like, he likes, oh -
Well. Aziraphale pants, the bed creaking slightly beneath him, shaking, very slightly. He likes that. He rather thinks the books piled to either side of him might be judging him, and he makes a rude noise at them, and then flops back, his shirt sticking to his sweating back, and tries to catch his breath.
≠≠
Summer crashes onto the city like a heavy wave. It’s cooler out in the country, somehow, fresher. As if just the knowledge isn’t enough, Crowley tells him all about it on the phone, rubbing it in. They’ve started to talk on the phone every day. If Aziraphale didn’t know better, he’d think Crowley missed him. Aziraphale knows he misses Crowley. Sometimes they talk for ten minutes; other times, it’s in excess of an hour. It’s usually at night, when they’d normally be together, in the bookshop. Crowley’s voice is low and amused when Aziraphale picks up. “You’ll never guess what I did today,” and then he makes Aziraphale guess, and if sometimes Aziraphale makes a long series of preposterous guesses just to wind Crowley up, well, the demon doesn’t seem to pick up on it.
Sometimes Aziraphale calls Crowley for help with the crossword; he’s so much better with pop culture, although sometimes Aziraphale wonders if Crowley’s giving him the wrong answers on purpose, because after penning BONER in for “Nazi fighting-professor Indiana——” he’d had to force RICK into “Shakespearean king,” and then TICK into “animal irritant,” and although it technically works, something about it bothers him. Maybe it’s the general air of demonic smugness coming down the line, when Aziraphale had asked, “Are you certain?” and Crowley had said, pompously, “Aziraphale, which one of us has seen more than one movie in the past ten years?”70
Once, Aziraphale calls him in the early afternoon, because after searching the entire bookshop, he realizes he’s forgotten his copy of Brighton Rock at the cottage.71 He suspects it’s by the armchair in the living room. When Crowley picks up, he sounds muzzy. “Did I wake you?” Aziraphale asks. Crowley had felt calm, on the line between them. Perhaps he was almost asleep.
“Nnngh,” Crowley says. “Just a little nap.”
“Trouble sleeping?” Aziraphale asks, and Crowley grunts a little. “Are you in the sunroom?” Aziraphale asks, suddenly sure. He can picture Crowley in his mind, dark, sprawled out in the lounge chair, surrounded by gently shivering plants, a sheen of sweat on his face, his chest.
“Yeah,” Crowley says, “Usually. S’great for naps. Living room’s meant for-” he cuts himself off. “Meant for what?” Aziraphale says, curiously.
There’s a few false starts, and then Crowley says, “Well, s’for company, isn’t it?” and somehow, Aziraphale is sure that’s not what he’d been about to say at all.
Other times, Crowley will ring him up to call on their collective memory, asking him something about Anne Boleyn, or that monastery, back in the day, the one that’d been possessed by devils.72 Or, once, the drinks they’d had in Babylon, you know the ones, with the little palm-umbrellas in them, what had been the base - ?
“Fermented date juice, I believe,” Aziraphale says. “Planning on having company?” He is not jealous, he is absolutely not jealous.
“Depends,” says Crowley. “What’re you doing tonight?”and Aziraphale can’t help the excited little flutter that rises in his stomach.
Crowley picks him up an hour and a half later. It’s late by the time they get back to the cottage, and later still by the time they’re done making those little cocktails, because they have to miracle the exact right dates from Iraq and Aziraphale’s still not sure they’d got it right when he takes a sip. Crowley just shrugs. “Come on,” he says. “Now you’re here. Care for a spot of stargazing?”
So they wander outside, cocktails in hand, and sit on the patio. Already it’s getting cool out; it’ll be a foggy morning, Aziraphale thinks, mist clinging in the valleys, and Crowley sighs, and slumps, boneless, in his patio chair. Aziraphale can feel him there, in the dark next to him, can feel the restless shift of his long legs, hear the rasp of his denim trousers as he moves.
“It’s so dark out here,” Aziraphale says. “In the country.” And it is, terribly dark, the faintest glow, far off, of the next city over, blocked by the mountains. It’s a clear sky, dark, not much moon.
“It’s nice,” Crowley says. Aziraphale can tell he’s looking up, by the way his voice sounds.
“Yes,” says Aziraphale, watches his dark shape, watching the stars. “I imagine it is.”
“Don't you miss it?” Crowley says, and he turns to Aziraphale then; Aziraphale can see his glasses flash. “When the world was dark?”
Aziraphale almost says no, almost says of course not. He’s a creature of the light, after all. He loves his lamps, a crackling fire, his brightly lit bookshop. And yet.
He does remember back when the world was still dark. After he’d given his sword away that night in Eden there’d been no flame, no fire, just the stars, barely seen as he and Crowley huddled under the Tree. It was still raining, and water dripped from the leaves to the dirt below, everything smelling rich and alive and forbidden. Crowley had his arms around his knees, and was leaning forward a little, peering out, as if to look up at the sky. Aziraphale had realized, centuries later, when Crowley had been telling him, excitedly, about what the humans had made of the stars, the stories they had made up, the shapes they had seen, that he’d probably been trying to look at the stars, at his stars, because, Aziraphale realized, with something that felt like a blow to the gut, he probably hadn’t seen them in millions of years. Not a view you could get in Hell, Aziraphale imagined.
Or back in Babylon, how if you got far enough out from the palace and its torches, and from the humans and their fires, you could see the stars, and he’d found Crowley out there, once, nearly tripping over him when he’d gone for a walk, just laying there, on his back, looking up at the sky. Or that one time in Greece, when they’d been leaning against Aziraphale’s balustrade - Crowley lounging, really, back to it, head craned back impossible to look at the stars - passing the bottle back and forth, only knowing where the other was by bumping hands. Or the rustle of Crowley’s robes, the sudden sharp sound of him drawing a breath in.
“Sometimes,” Aziraphale says now. He looks up at the stars. The sky’s lovely, speckled bright, a deep, rich navy-purple, not fully dark. “Whatever happened to your nebula?” He asks, and chances a glance at Crowley. They’ve never talked about it, not directly, not once. He can see the bright sliver of Crowley’s eye out the side of his glasses, like a star. And then Crowley turns his head towards him.
“Should still be there. For now,” he adds, gloomily.
“Oh,” says Aziraphale. “Good.”
Of course, by the time their cocktails are gone,73 it’s too late to take Aziraphale back home, so Aziraphale stays the night. Again. Aziraphale’s brought a book with him this time, but it’s a modern one he’s not particularly interested in, so it’s no hassle at all when he hears Crowley cry out in the midst of another nightmare. He puts the book down, not even marking his place, and slips into the bedroom. Crowley’s sleeping, lovely, and afraid, thrashing his head; Aziraphale soothes him with a hand on his brow, the other on his shoulder. “You’re perfectly safe here, Crowley,” he whispers to him, brushing his thumb just over Crowley’s exposed cheekbone, and Crowley settles. Aziraphale wanders over to the curtain and pulls them open so the bright starlight can come in, and the room brightens, perceptibly. He can see Crowley’s dark form, still and slight, can see his face, smashed into the pillow, his hair mussed, and Aziraphale thinks, I should go, so he does. Not twenty minutes later, though, Crowley cries out again; by the third nightmare that night,74Aziraphale huffs, and, toeing off his shoes, sits gingerly on the bed next to Crowley, on top of the covers, moving slowly, so as not to wake him. He leans against the headboard, and, reaching out, places one hand on Crowley’s forearm.
Crowley makes a little noise, and shuffles closer to Aziraphale, and relaxes, Aziraphale can see it in the slump of his shoulders. His arm is warm under Aziraphale’s hand, and warms further, the silk sleeve of his pajamas slippery under Aziraphale’s fingers. Aziraphale chances, holding his breath, brushing his fingers, lightly, over it. He can make out Crowley’s profile in the dark, can feel how close Crowley is to him, how close he is to Crowley. He wonders - he knows that humans sleep together, 75 sometimes. He’d seen them, Adam and Eve, holding each other in sleep.76 Their arms around each other, faces pressed into each other’s necks. He’d always wondered what it would feel like, but one had to sleep, first, to feel it, and so he’d chalked it up to one of those things he’d never really know, one of those things that wasn’t meant for an angel, wasn’t meant for him. Like traffic tickets, or indigestion, or love.
Aziraphale slips out when the world begins to lighten behind the curtains, and birds start singing, goes out to the kitchen to make coffee for Crowley and tea for himself. He’s starting to feel more comfortable here, almost like he might belong, someday. There’s that time Crowley is raging around the kitchen, unable to find the spoons, and Aziraphale says, “Second drawer to the right of the sink,” without even looking up from his book. There’s a silence, then a curse, and the sound of a drawer, rattling open. The tea tray is plunked down in front of him, not thirty seconds later, the teaspoon still quivering in its placement. “Thank you, dear,” Aziraphale says, and Crowley grumbles something in response. He knows all about the Toblerone stash Crowley keeps behind the bag of diatomaceous earth that miraculously never melts, knows all about the creaking third stair, knows the way you have to turn the cold water tap just so, so it doesn’t leak.77 He learns, too, about the way Crowley likes to sleep with the windows open, especially when it’s raining. He learns that sometimes throughout the night Crowley shifts, kicking a long leg out, bumping into Aziraphale’s ankle, the thin sheet separating them. Aziraphale learns that there are many things he would give to be under the sheet with Crowley, so that he could feel the sheet rise and fall on his own chest with the movement of Crowley’s breathing.
Aziraphale drags him all over the downs to look at old Saxon churches, which Crowley resolutely refuses to go in, and tumuli, which now stand empty, and forts, and tours of old country estates, and Virginia Woolf’s house. Crowley tags along, complaining the entire time, but he always packs the best wine in the hamper, and once he suggests they go look the remains of a medieval village.78 At one of the manors, Aziraphale catches him eyeballing a particularly atrocious painting of a blond cherub, the painted cherub sporting one of the most openly lecherous looks Aziraphale’s ever seen. 79
“Absolutely not,” he hisses to Crowley, looping his arm through the demon’s, and dragging him away from the temptation of petty theft..80
They walk a great deal on the paths, driving the Bentley to a new location each time and going for a leisurely stroll. Crowley wants to see the orchids in a particular field, so they go there (and Aziraphale spends a great deal of time standing lookout while Crowley digs a few specimens up. “Less cocky than the domesticated ones,” Crowley says.) Crowley gets more freckles. And then one day, on a picnic they’re having on some grassy down with a remarkable view Aziraphale had spotted from the Bentley and rhapsodized over, he looks over at Crowley, sprawled back, cocks-comb hair very lightly ruffled by the breeze,81 and he thinks, my goodness, I love him. And that’s that. Thousands of years of agonizing, and the beast of his love, this monstrous feeling, lured up by the sunlight, rises up to the surface of the ocean and rolls over, baring its vast pale belly to the sun. There it is, finally put into words, plain as day.
Crowley makes an inquisitive noise beside him, and Aziraphale turns, raising his eyebrows politely, but he can barely focus on anything but the feeling in his chest. “You’re all - you’ve got this - Look,” Crowley says suspiciously, and Aziraphale, almost without thinking, snatches up Crowley’s hand, gives it a squeeze, and drops it again.
“I’m just glad you’re alright, my dear,” he says, and Crowley makes an odd guttural sound, and finally comes out with, “Me too.”
That night, when Crowley falls asleep,82 Aziraphale slips into his darkened bedroom on socked feet like a thief, and when he settles down next to Crowley, oh so reminiscent of their picnic earlier, just in the dark, this time, he takes up Crowley’s hand, which is limply curled, palm-up, between them. Crowley makes a little noise, a small murmur of surprise. Aziraphale holds it til morning. Crowley doesn’t have a single nightmare, not a one, not all night.
They’ve had so many variations of the Arrangement throughout the years; this is just another version, unspoken. It’s every week now, every time he’s at the cottage, that Crowley makes some excuse about not wanting to drive back, and Aziraphale tells him it’s really quite alright, he’ll just sit right here and read the latest Dickens, won’t he. And Crowley slinks off to bed, but he leaves the door cracked. And when Aziraphale hears his breathing slip into sleep, he takes a pillow from the sofa83 and sidles through the cracked door, and lays down next to Crowley, on top of the covers. It’s strange, laying here, close enough to touch Crowley. He shuffles, lays on his side, facing Crowley. He can see Crowley’s chest rise and fall in the dim light of the bedroom, can see his eyes flicker under closed lids, can feel the nearness of his body, the space between them like the electricity that crackles between the atoms of the universe, the kind of electricity that really only angels can feel. He can lay like that for hours, next to Crowley, tracing the contours of Crowley’s face with his eyes. And so he does.
Aziraphale knows he really ought to tell Crowley about their nighttime rendezvous. They really should talk about it. But Aziraphale is struggling with how, exactly, to bring that up.
Oh, Crowley, I thought perhaps you might clear a drawer for my pajamas? Oh, yes, I’ve taken up sleeping lately. Well, not sleeping, but. Well yes, I did notice there was only one bed, but you haven’t seemed to mind it too awfully much, have you? In fact, I think you rather like it, or you would, if you knew.
Or, over breakfast, Crowley, my dear, do be a dear and let me know if I snore, won’t you?
Or worse yet, Crowley, perhaps you could turn in a little early tonight, so I can join you - ?
No. It just won’t do. And so they don’t talk about it, because they are awfully good at not talking about things. So they sleep together, sort of, at night, or Crowley sleeps, and Aziraphale lays there, and watches him, and as long as Aziraphale’s there, Crowley doesn’t have nightmares. Then, when morning approaches, Aziraphale will slip out of bed, straighten the wrinkles out of the covers, and sidle back into the armchair in the living room.84 Sometimes, when he gets up, Crowley makes a noise, and immediately rolls into the warm space Aziraphale’s just left, and Aziraphale’s left standing there at the doorway, wanting. When Crowley gets up and comes out of the bedroom each time, he has his saunter and his day clothes on, but he’s just very slightly wobbly, like a newborn camel, and there’s a very tiny hint of baffled confusion around his eyes, behind the glasses, and Aziraphale is coming to realize he would give up any number of sunny mornings in the bookshop to be able to see this, and oh, isn’t that a thought. A slightly troubling thought, but a thought, that, now that he’s had it, he can’t very well un-have it.85
That is, Aziraphale’s found, the problem with existence.
And then one night in July Crowley can’t be bothered to drive Aziraphale back - of course - and he goes to bed - of course. They’d had a long day; Crowley had picked him up early, and they’d gone to see the Long Man figure,86 and then had an early dinner - they were trying all the places around - and come back to the cottage, and begun drinking and talking, like always. Crowley had, at Aziraphale’s insistence, set up a record player87 in the cottage, and they were listening to Satie, a good compromise for the two of them. And eventually Crowley had gotten tired, and gone to bed, and Aziraphale had gotten up and walked the house, then, and waited for Crowley to fall asleep.
And then there’s a faint noise from the bedroom, Aziraphale can hear it, so he walks through the hallways and through the cracked door and slips into bed next to Crowley, and Crowley rolls over towards him as he does each time. They’re almost, but not quite, touching, Crowley trapped under the black silk sheet. And they’d been on such a long walk that day, so Aziraphale wriggles down onto his back, hands folded across his stomach, and gets comfortable. There’s no harm in that, is there? He can hear Crowley’s even soft snuffling breathing, and his own breathing slows to match it. It’s a corporation thing. It’s nice, laying here like this, nice to be close to Crowley, nice to be on a soft, comfortable bed. He imagines it’s even nicer inside the covers, but that seems like a liberty too far. Outside, he can hear the very soft hoot of an owl, the whisper of a slight wind. His eyes are heavy, and they close once, twice, of their own volition. His body’s heavy too, pleasantly so. It feels like too much trouble to move. So he rests. He’s been going for so very long, it seems. Since he’d been called into being. He’s tired. The last few years have been - well, dreadful, really. All sorts of awful things. He doesn’t want to think about that now. He wants to lay here, with Crowley, in the dark and the quiet, and rest his eyes, and let these strange snatches of things float through his head. Like a memory of Greece, bright and sunlit, Crowley’s head thrown back, laughing at something Aziraphale’s said, and Aziraphale pleased, feeling clever, and then they’re in the Museum Cafe, that’s odd, Aziraphale thinks, surfacing slightly, is he, oh, is this sleeping - ?
≠≠
They’re in a rubbled mound of earth and old stone, a place Aziraphale knows instinctually is the remnants of an old Norman fort. There’s two half-walls still standing, at odds to each other, and Crowley’s leaned against one of them. Overhead, the sky is dark. A storm’s coming. Aziraphale can smell it, far off, getting closer. Is it wind? Is it a flood? What will they use? He knows, too, even though he can’t see them, that he and Crowley are surrounded on all sides, the heavenly host before them, and all the demons of Hell behind. Crowley’s holding Aziraphale’s flaming sword, loosely, down by his side. In Aziraphale’s own hand is a trumpet, golden and holy, a low, barely audible buzz already coming out of it.
“It’s too late, Aziraphale,” Crowley says. “It’s over. They’ve won.”
“It’s not over,” Aziraphale says, “Don’t say that. Look, I just need to-”
Outside the fort, a roar, a thousand angelic voices raised in triumph. A rush of wind picks up; Aziraphale can feel it, cool, on his skin, fluffing up his hair. He looks down at the trumpet in his hand, then raises it to his lips.
“Angel,” says Crowley, “What are you doing?”
“She’ll come if I blow this, She’ll come help, She told me so-” Aziraphale says, absolutely sure of this, and Crowley says, “Aziraphale, don’t-” but it’s too late, Aziraphale’s lifted it to his lips, presses them against the trumpet and blows.
Nothing happens; there’s no noise, just the rush of wind, the sound of thousands of wings shifting in preparation for battle. He tries again, blows harder, until his chest is tight, completely out of breath, and there’s still nothing, and Crowley says, “It’s no use, Aziraphale,” and Aziraphale looks at him in horror, and gasps, because Crowley’s bleeding from the ears, blood trickling down his jaw, his neck, and Crowley says, “She’s not coming, not for me, not for you, She’s abandoned us, I tried to tell you, you’re all alone, just like the rest of us.”
Aziraphale sucks in a great big breath and blows again, and again, can feel the mouthpiece buzzing against his lips, but nothing happens, nothing comes out, “It’s because you don’t have faith,” Crowley croaks, and now there’s blood staining his teeth, filling his eyes, gold and ruby like a king’s ransom, says, “Even if She comes, it’ll kill me, Aziraphale, you know that, right, me or Her, you have to choose,” and Aziraphale blows again, even harder, and Crowley collapses, dead, dead, Aziraphale knows he’s dead, he can feel it, Crowley’s yellow and red eyes still leaking, very wide, not seeing Aziraphale, his eyes, which have always seen Aziraphale, are sightless, blind, filming over with blood, and Aziraphale feels so alone, Aziraphale is so alone, and Aziraphale is crying, Crowley, Crowley, and he’s on his knees, dropping the trumpet to the dirt, and he tries a miracle, and another, and another, but nothing happens, what good is being supreme fucking archangel if you can’t do anything with it -
Aziraphale wrenches himself awake in the middle of an outcry he can still hear echoing in his ears, and then he freezes, immediately, because he’s in a strange room, in the dark, and all his angelic senses are crying danger, are crying, warning. There is something infinitely still and incredibly dangerous in the dark with him, coiled next to him, watching him, he is already two steps behind, any moment now it will strike -
“Aziraphale,” says Crowley, his voice low, a serpent’s warning rattle. “What are you doing in my bed?”
47. Crowley drives him back incredibly slowly. A sedate 70 mph; practically a snail’s pace. Incredibly, Aziraphale doesn’t notice. back
48. A small part of his brain asks if he thinks Crowley is as familiar with sexual congress as he is with dreams? And Aziraphale resolutely shuts it down. back
49. Not just loose in his pocket. He’d learned that the hard way for three whole days back in 1921. He’s lucky Crowley hadn’t been coming around back then, because if he’d wandered in after him, they’d both have gotten lost, and there was no telling where they’d be, now. back
50. Faded pencil, hard to read handwriting, certainly not his.back
51. Also by the same author: Just Because the Events in Your Dream Have Already Happened, Doesn’t Mean They Won’t Again! Subtitled, The Universe is Cyclical and the Horrors are Never Ending. back
52. Crowley-style. Three fingers scotch, one finger Darjeeling. The congealed hot cocoa on the corner of his desk looks on enviously. back
53. Both of which Aziraphale’s not convinced by. back
54. How would that work? Aziraphale wonders, and then in a lurid mental picture, discovers exactly what that might look like. He puts that idea firmly to bed. Tucks it in, even. back
55. Er, wings. back
56. He also swears it quacks, sadly, as he and Crowley walk away, but when Aziraphale turns around, it’s busy tugging the tail feathers out of a nearby white duck, who’s looking mightily annoyed by the proceedings, so perhaps it’s found a friend in a more species-appropriate format. back
57. Aziraphale defends croquet as a perfectly appropriate lawn sport, although, he confesses, rather more for other people than for him; Crowley condemns it as boring, boring boring, except for that one, you know, the version you play with flamingos - and Aziraphale had looked at him in disbelief and said you mean like in Alice in Wonderland, the children’s book? And Crowley had promptly tripped a woman pushing a stroller and Aziraphale’d had to jump to the ready with a quick miracle; by the time he’d tried to return to the conversation, Crowley had pretended it had never happened. back
58. “Polo,” Crowley says like a blasphemy, “s’croquet but on horses. Leave it to humans to find a way to make anything worse.” back
59. “I swear, angel, you don’t even want to know what that one right there said about your hair. Good nesting material, she said. Don’t look at me like that. Would I make this stuff up?” back
60. But then not ten minutes later, there he is, sitting up suddenly in a flurry that makes Aziraphale look up, alarmed, and he’s scootching to the end of the sofa cushion, holding the book out to Aziraphale, pages splayed, in a way that makes Aziraphale wince. He stabs one long finger at the page, babbling to Aziraphale about dew ponds, and how he’s pretty sure there’s one not five kilometers from the cottage, and Aziraphale should come see it. “Now?” Aziraphale says, a trifle alarmed - he doesn’t have any picnic fixings - and Crowley says, “Well, no, not now, tomorrow, maybe? Saturday, or, or-”
“Tomorrow’s fine,” Aziraphale says, “Tomorrow’s splendid.”
They went, tomorrow. It was, in fact, splendid. (“It’s a pond,” Aziraphale said, staring at it, and Crowley went on about the feats of human engineering that mostly seemed to consist of straw and chalk, and Aziraphale just watched him, that little curl of his up top flopping around in excitement.)
61. Not Good Deeds. Two totally different things. back
62. Resolutely avoiding the apparently new, How to Get a Demon to Sit on You section of books. Shockingly well-stocked. back
63. It is, but only barely. back
64. The next time he’s at the cottage, five days later - his visits are getting more frequent, almost as if Crowley wants him there - the sketch is framed and on the mantle in the living room. Aziraphale sniffs. “At least the decorations have improved around here,” he says, and Crowley smiles, when he’s not looking. back
65. That Aziraphale knows about, although he’s pretty sure he’s starting to be able to sense them back in London, now that he knows what he’s looking for. A surge of fear, then Crowley, suddenly, awake. And he doesn’t go back to sleep, either. back
66. He’d tried for Don Quixote and got Monsignor Quixote instead. He’s going to have to start leaving books here, if this keeps up. back
67. Successfully avoiding the furniture this time, thank you very much. back
68. After that, he’s very careful to listen and determine exactly what noises Crowley’s making before he goes in there. Now that he knows what Crowley sounds like, or might sound like, when he. Well. back
69. Aziraphale conveniently ignores the fact that Crowley’s not back at his cottage yet, couldn’t be, if he’d be touching himself, he’d be in the Bentley, and oh, that’s a thought, isn’t it, Crowley sprawled in the backseat, looking up at Aziraphale, touching himself, as Aziraphale kneels over him - back
70. “That’s a bit of an unfair metric,” Aziraphale pouts, “Considering I spent the last three years-” He stops himself, but not a minute or two later, Crowley says he’s got to go do honorable battle with the flea beetles out in the garden, but Aziraphale can feel him brooding, all the way out in the South Downs, and Aziraphale doesn’t feel too tip-top himself. back
71. Really, it was the best environment to read it in. back
72. “Really, I think that’d be more your territory,” Aziraphale says, severely. back
73. And three miracled refills later, decreasing exponentially in quality, but increasing exponentially in quantity, each time. back
74. Or perhaps it’s still the same one; Aziraphale really doesn’t know; perhaps it’s like a book, and you pick up where you left off, each time? back
75. Yes, he knows humans sleep together, too. That’s not what he means. Well, it’s not what he means right now. back
76. The first time he’d ever seen Crowley sleep had been in the Garden; apparently he’d been watching the humans do it, and had decided to try for himself. The problem was that Aziraphale hadn’t known demons could sleep, had never seen it, had never seen angels sleep, for that matter, had, for that matter, only seen them dead, during the War, and so he’d panicked, seeing the demon sprawled in the shade of the Tree on his back, a large dark stain on the grass, and Aziraphale hadn’t known why he felt so horribly stricken, but he had. He’d rushed over, dropped to his knees beside the demon, and grabbed his shoulders, and he was surprisingly warm and firm, and he’d squeezed, leaned over him, and called him by his old name, his angelic name, as it was the only one he knew for this creature, and the demon had gasped, and his eyes had flown open, and he’d yelled, and Aziraphale had yelled, and it was all very embarrassing, especially afterwards, when he’d straightened his robes and explained it all to Aziraphale. back
77. A stern look will do just as well, but Aziraphale likes getting into the spirit of the place. back
78. Although he’d said he’d put a curse on it, centuries ago, for having the worst ale he’d ever drank, and wanted to see the remains of his handiwork. He’d gotten out of the car, kicked at a bump on the ground, and sniffed. “Serves ‘em right,” he’d said, and then been ready to go, immediately, to a nearby pub. Aziraphale had talked him out of getting a pint there, just in case. It seemed a nice enough town. It would be a shame if something had happened to it. back
79. And Aziraphale lives in Soho, for Heaven’s sake. back
80. The next time he comes to the cottage, it’s hanging in the bathroom, above that frankly unsettlingly large tub. “What?” Crowley says, defensively, when Aziraphale drags him in there to demand he explain himself. “Replaced it with a perfect replica. They’ll never know. Last time they even looked at that thing was 1986.” “Yes, but why do you want it?” Aziraphale says. “It’s dreadful.”
“Dunno,” Crowley says. “Pretty good likeness, looks just like you, when you see those little tea cakes, the ones with the chai frosting, you know the ones I mean-”
“Oh, hush,” Aziraphale says, but the next time Crowley comes to London, he takes Aziraphale to that little cafe. You know, the one with the little tea cakes, with the chai frosting.
81. Not more; it wouldn’t dare. back
x
82. He might have a nightmare, alright? And prevention is, after all, the best treatment. back
83. Really, there’s no harm in being comfortable. Not if he’s going to be here all night. back
84. Or, on particularly nice days, out on the patio. back
85. Crowley had said to him once, “I know you miss your bookshop,” and Aziraphale had said, quite truthfully, over a greasy full English breakfast on the way back to London, that it was quite alright, that he’d spent such an awful lot of years in his bookshop, after all, and Crowley had frowned, then, and abruptly changed the subject. Later, on his way back from paying, when Aziraphale had spotted him angrily and miraculously switching the contents of the salt and sugar shakers, he’d realized he’d said the wrong thing, somehow. back
86. Crowley’d said, “Poor bastard’s missing something. Ought to put it back,” and Aziraphale had tutted, and shook his head. “Could put some wings on him,” Crowley suggested.
“Might as well take out an advertisement that says ‘Here we are,’ Aziraphale said, and Crowley had given him a funny look.
87. “I am absolutely not putting in a gramophone, angel,” Crowley had said. back
Chapter Text
≠≠
Crowley’s furious with him, simply vibrating with it the entire ride back to the shop, his rage filling the car like a low fog, making it hard to breathe. It’s three AM, and Aziraphale’s coat is wrinkled, and he’s forgotten his book back at the cottage. Crowley’s so angry he hasn’t even put his glasses back on, and his eyes glow yellow in the dark car like another dashboard light as he stares straight ahead. He’d torn out of the drive like - well, a bat out of hell, really - spitting gravel everywhere.88 There’d been no one on the roads at that time of night, and Crowley had hit speeds in excess of 120 mph, and Aziraphale had asked him to slow down, for Heaven’s sake, and then Crowley had called him an old maid, and he’d called Crowley reckless and said he’d get them killed, and Crowley, veering right to pass a truck, sneered, “Already done that, haven’t I?” and Aziraphale snaps, “Again, then.”89 The landscape flashes past them, ghostly in the headlights, the horizon brightening as they approach London at terrific speed. Oh, Aziraphale knew he shouldn’t have done it, shouldn’t have given into his great weakness, but he didn’t expect this. “Crowley,” he says, “I’m really very sorry. I only thought-”
“What givesss you the right,” Crowley snarls, and Aziraphale realizes that Crowley’s scared. Crowley’d been woken up from a dead sleep with something in his bed that hadn’t been there when he’d gotten in, and then he’d clocked that thing as an angel, and then he’d realized that angel was Aziraphale, and whatever Crowley’s thoughts on that might be, Aziraphale’s not sure, but based on the way he’s gripping the steering wheel, knuckles turning white, it’s not exactly positive. “After everything,” Crowley continues, “I tell you - I tell you, and then you forgive me for it, and then you fuck off back to Heaven, and then you end the fucking world, Aziraphale, and you think you can just pretend none of that happened?”
Aziraphale gulps and gulps again and looks down at his sleeves, which seem to have been caught in a sudden rainstorm. “Crowley,” he tries again as they pull up to the shop, “I’m so very sorry, please-”
“It’s alright,” Crowley says as Aziraphale fumbles to let himself out out of the Bentley, and those words shouldn’t make Aziraphale hope, that’s not Crowley’s understanding tone. “I’m sure I’ll forgive you sometime. How’s next week sound?” he yells after Aziraphale, and pulls away from the curb, a great, dramatic screech of tires that wakes up half the neighborhood.90 Aziraphale stumbles towards the bookshop door, heart pounding in his ears, hand pressed to his mouth to keep the noise in. The door swings open easily for him as he approaches. This is it. He’s home.
≠≠
Of course, it hadn’t gone like his dream, not at all, not really. Aziraphale had read that dreams were frequently amalgamations of things that both had and had not actually happened, twisted up in confusing ways.
In reality, it had been a little more straightforward.
Aziraphale had been given the trumpet to start the end of days, and had been told to blow it. It was his job, his sole purpose as an angel, it was explained to him, and when he’d refused, it had been suggested that if he was unworthy of doing the sole thing he’d been created by Her to do, then perhaps they should alleviate him of that bother, and Aziraphale was about to say Jolly right I resign, and you can stick your trumpet - but then the host had moved in, and he’d realized, swallowing, that they’d meant something a bit more permanent than just resigning. And then Crowley had barged up at the worst possible time, where angels feared to tread and all that, and then Crowley had been hit by all that holy power, a sheer blast to his pure essence, and the worst part was Aziraphale had been able to feel where Crowley was, and then where he wasn’t, something snuffed out in Aziraphale’s own chest, a star extinguished, and Aziraphale felt it, and oh God, it was terrible, and he’d cried out in anguish, Crowley, oh, God, Crowley, please, no, but it was already too late, and when he realized that, he’d raised the trumpet to his lips even as the eyes of the angels gleamed like weapons and he’d blown as hard as he could, took the sum of every single breath this body had ever breathed and poured it into the trumpet, to start the end, where the dead rose and walked the earth once more, and he blew and he blew and he blew, to bring it all down, the sound coming out holy and terrible, rolling out over the world; throughout the earth and across the universe every creature raised their heads and listened, the trumpet said come and see, it said the end has come, it had said, damn you all, because he’s dead.
And Aziraphale had stood there, teeth bared, panting, as at his feet Crowley had stirred and gasped and risen, and said, in a voice like the grave, “Aziraphale, what have you done?”
“Crowley,” Aziraphale had said, dropping to his knees, reaching for Crowley, pulling him up by his jacket, his shoulders, anything he could get his hands on, “Crowley, I had to. Please forgive me,” even as the ground shifted and surged underneath them as all the dead there had ever been on earth began coming to life. Crowley had snarled, “That isn’t how this ends, angel,” his hands coming up to grab Aziraphale’s arms, and he shook him, Aziraphale clinging onto Crowley’s shoulders, the two of them tangled together, hanging onto each other, in each other’s faces, Crowley’s yellow eyes very round and very wide. “There’s no forgiveness, not for me, this is the end of the fucking world we’re talking about here, I won’t be forgiven and I certainly won’t forgive you,” and Aziraphale had gasped, taking Crowley’s face between his hands, and then had felt something begin to descend, or no, it was more like something was bubbling up in the space between atoms, something where there’d been nothing, and then suddenly God was there, on Whickber Street.
What is this? God said, and Her voice rolled out across the earth, the dead pausing, the angels staring, some dropping to their knees, some of the demons doing the same as others looked at them in disgust. And when She received no response, She said again, What is this? sounding a trifle testy, this time. And Michael had stepped forward, and said, “It’s the end of days, my Lord, as it was written,” and God had asked, Who dares? Who did this? and Aziraphale had swallowed as every single eye on Whickber Street turned, slowly, towards him. Aziraphale had glanced at Crowley, and rose unsteadily to his feet, dusting himself off, and straightening his waistcoat, as Crowley scrambled up next to him.
Aziraphale lifted his chin, and said, “I did, my Lord.” Crowley’s trembling, alive hand found his, and squeezed.
Aziraphale, God said, and did She sound disappointed? Why have you done this?
“So many questions,” Crowley had murmured next to him, and God’s weighty gaze had started to swing from Aziraphale to Crowley, and She started to move Her hand, or rather the mass of light that was Her gave the impression of raising a hand, very slowly, and Aziraphale stepped forward, pushing Crowley behind him, and with that step forward -
And he found himself in the Garden, with God and without Crowley.
And he called Crowley’s name, again and again.
And God commanded him to be still, Aziraphale, for the love of Someone, because She had an awful headache, coming here always did that to Her. She had done nothing to Crowley.
And Aziraphale had asked why they were there, then.
And She told him She just wanted to know why it was that Aziraphale had brought down pain and suffering upon this world?
And Aziraphale had told Her that She ought to know why.
And She had asked if he would really doom the earth he’d been entrusted to protect for one demon?
And Aziraphale had replied it certainly seemed that way, didn’t it, My Lord.
And God had sighed, and reached out to the Tree, or rather the light shifted and moved, giving the impression of reaching out to the Tree, as if to pluck an apple, and then gave the impression of seeming to think better of it, and dropping a hand down to Her side.
And then Aziraphale - who perhaps had been spending a little too much time with Crowley, read, four thousand years of it, asked Her what happened now, if this was the end of days, the Final Judging.
And God asked, Do you want that, Aziraphale? Is that what you were seeking, when you blew the trumpet?
And Aziraphale had said, “No, Good Lord, er. No. No, that’s not what I want.”
And God had said, What do you want, Aziraphale, Guardian of the Eastern Gate? and then had gone on to tell Aziraphale, as if She had seen to his very soul, which angels were not supposed to have, but it was a figure of speech, that he wanted so much, perhaps too much, for an angel.
And Aziraphale had admitted that perhaps he did want too much, perhaps he had always wanted too much, for as long as he could remember, all the way back to when they were making the stars, but for now, what he wanted most was Crowley alive again, and for the end of days to stop, and for the earth to stay exactly as it was. “It’s really quite wonderful, you know, what they’ve made of it,” he told God, and then to his great dismay found himself suggesting perhaps She pop on down there a time or two and get some sushi.
And God had asked if Aziraphale had thought they deserved that, the earth to remain whole and hearty and un-ended, and Aziraphale had told Her yes, he rather did, and what’s more, he thought She did too.
And Aziraphale had gone a step too far, perhaps, because there was a crackle in the air, the smell of ozone, and, inexplicably, apple pie, and God had said, You think you know what I think, Aziraphale? I think there is always a price to pay. I think that if I give you want you ask, you cannot come back. Not ever.
And Aziraphale had swallowed, and raised his chin, and asked God if he was cast out of the garden, so to speak, and when She had said, Yes, he had smiled, just a little bit, and said, “Very well, my Lord,” because he had been expecting this for so very long, hadn’t he.
And then God said, It is done, and then, Aziraphale - is it worth it?
And Aziraphale had said, amazed at his own impertinence, “Shouldn’t you know that?”
And then the Garden dissolved, and he was standing in the middle of Whickber Street, with a very alive, and very scared, and very angry Crowley beside him, surrounded by hordes of dead humans and animals and angels and demons, the planet positively teeming with them, as the host raised their spears, and behind him the demons rattled whatever weapons they had.
God raised Her hand, or, the light pulsed rather violently, or rather, a hundred birds broke out in a cacophony of sound all above and around them, as if from the rooftops. It is not your time. Go, sleep, once more, and at Her word, all around them the dead dissolved, and the host and horde disappeared, sent back to their domains, and Crowley swayed on his feet a little, and Aziraphale grabbed his arm and pulled Crowley tight to him. “Don’t you dare,” he shouted at God, over Crowley’s shoulder. “Don’t you dare!”
“Angel,” said Crowley, “It’s alright, s’what happens,” bringing his arms up around Aziraphale, pulling him tight. He dropped his head to Aziraphale’s shoulder, rolled his face into Aziraphale’s neck, a brush of lips across his throat, was Crowley speaking, his lips were moving, what was he saying? Aziraphale pulled Crowley tighter, tighter, if She took him away, well then maybe Aziraphale would have to follow him -
He could swear, later, that God had winked, or at least, the light gave the impression of winking, or at least, something cried out, sharp and shrill overhead, a final cry of victory. And then She was gone, and it was just Aziraphale and Crowley, holding each other, in the middle of Whickber Street. It was very early in the morning on Christmas Day, the only light coming from the streetlights and shopfronts and Christmas lights. Crowley raised his head, and looked around, his yellow eyes very wide, arms still around Aziraphale’s waist, fingers tangled in the fabric of Aziraphale’s coat.
“Crowley,” Aziraphale had said, his lips trembling, and he raised one hand slowly, cupped Crowley’s face, and Crowley turned into it. He brushed his thumb over Crowley’s jaw, and Crowley swayed forward, his eyes falling closed, just a second -
And then Crowley pulled himself away roughly, taking two huge steps, boots echoing on the cobblestones.
Aziraphale dropped his empty arms.“Crowley,” he said again.
Crowley said, hoarsely, “Guess She finally found me worthy of something after all.”
≠≠
Aziraphale goes upstairs, slowly, to the bookshop’s spare bedroom, and sits down on the lumpy bed, fists clenched on his thighs, staring off into space. He’s - oh, he’s really put his foot in it now. Crowley’s never going to forgive him, not ever. His heart’s still pounding. He’s still off-balance from that - well, he guesses that’s what a nightmare was like. It was horrid; it had felt so incredibly real. He’s not really sure why humans sleep, if that’s what they risk, except he supposes they get tired.
For the rest of the day, and the evening, and the following day, Aziraphale can feel Crowley at the other end of the line between them, awake and furious, humming like a wire. Crowley doesn’t go to sleep, which means, at the very least, that he doesn’t have a nightmare. Aziraphale should go out, he knows, should try to take his mind off the fight; perhaps Crowley will come around, given sufficient time.91 But he just can’t seem to get himself out the door of his shop. By the third evening, he begins to feel tired, like he wants to sleep. He’s exhausted. He thinks it’s like the ox ribs, like the first time he’d tried wine,92 like, well, Crowley’s kiss. He hadn’t realized he needed sleep until he’d had it, and now he’s not quite sure how he’ll manage without it. This fallible human body. Usually, he embraces it as a learning experience, but other times, times like this, he wonders if it’s Her punishment.
Crowley hasn’t slept yet either. Is he tired? He must be. Aziraphale goes up to the bedroom, his footsteps loud on the stairs in the silent shop. It’s evening, pitch-dark upstairs, but Aziraphale doesn’t light any lamps or candles; he knows exactly where everything is. He’s lived here for over two hundred yeas, after all, and has changed very little. He takes his shoes off, and, on second thought, his coat, and curls up on the lumpy bed in the dark. He stares at the sliver of city lights coming in through the shutters, and then he rolls away from it, and closes his eyes, and tries to sleep.
Finally, after three hours, Aziraphale huffs, and gets up.
He tries to sleep for the next three days; tries the sofa, where Crowley has always slept, except it smells like him, tries the bed again, then tries the bed again with silk sheets,93 in case that’s what does it. Nothing. He drinks his way through two cases of wine. In desperation one afternoon, he tries the floor. He walks in the park for hours, trying and succeeding in tiring himself out. And still, when he gets back to the shop, he can’t sleep.
And then, five days later, across the line, he can feel Crowley slip into sleep. Aziraphale has been able to feel his anger lessening very slightly as each day goes on. He’s going to have a nightmare, Aziraphale thinks, and then firmly tries to tell himself that’s not his problem, or rather, Crowley doesn’t want it to be his problem. Still. Crowley’s peaceful, for now. Aziraphale closes his book, slips upstairs, takes off his shoes and coat. He’ll try it one more time. He curls up in bed, under the covers, and - there’s no one here to see it, so what’s it matter- he pulls the spare pillow over to him and hugs it to his chest. He squeezes his eyes tightly shut, and tries to picture Crowley’s breathing; if he leans into the link hard enough, he can even feel it, can feel Crowley’s chest, gently rising and falling. He focuses on it, feels his own breathing begin to slow. And he thinks he’ll just pretend, just for a few minutes, pulling the pillow tighter, just for a moment, he’ll pretend it’s Crowley in his arms, sleeping peacefully, he’ll pretend it’s Crowley’s neck he’s burying his face into and not this scratchy pillowcase. If Crowley comes in now, he thinks, this will all be very embarrassing. But Crowley doesn’t come in, of course, can’t come in, because he’s asleep, alone, somewhere Aziraphale isn’t.
Aziraphale crushes the pillow tightly to himself, and falls asleep.
Aziraphale dreams of many things. He dreams Crowley’s holding him, dreams he’s holding Crowley. He dreams it’s 1941 again, and Crowley had reached a hand out to him as the gramophone played softly, and Aziraphale had taken it, and they’d danced. He dreams he’s down in Hell, alone, and he’s trying to find Crowley in the crowded hallways, and the lights are throbbing green, and he can’t find Crowley, doesn’t know where he is, where he’s gone. He dreams them in Babylon, in Greece, in Japan, dozens of dreams where they’re laughing, or getting themselves out of a fix, or drinking, and one dream where Crowley leans in, very seriously, and takes his face in his hand, running a thumb across his lower lip.
Outside the bookshop, in the real world, it rains, and Aziraphale dreams they’re on the ark again, those long dark nights in the hold, Crowley’s back pressed against his as they’d passed Noah’s wine supply back and forth,94 and Crowley had asked, Why, for the both of them, because Aziraphale couldn’t. He dreams himself in the graveyard after Crowley’s been taken, sobbing, clawing at the dirt with both hands, trying to dig a tunnel down into Hell to get him back as all around him the dead rise up, all the dead but his own, and his sleeping body curls more tightly around the pillow in his arms.95 He dreams he’s holding Crowley, dreams they’re making love, dreams Crowley opens the bookshop door, the little tingle of the bell which has only ever meant Crowley, dreams he says, I’m back, Aziraphale, did you miss me? and Aziraphale says, Of course I did.
Aziraphale sleeps so well, in fact, that when he wakes up, it’s three days later, he’s got terrible creases on his cheek, and the pillow is crumpled from his grip into an almost unrecognizable shape. His arms ache. He pushes himself up, rubbing his eyes. His clothes are twisted around him, and he feels both terrific and terrible all at once. He’s - where is he? He’s upstairs, in the bookshop, afternoon light beating against the shutters and coming in, very faintly, lighting up an entire battalion of dust motes.96 And then he remembers his nightmare, remembers coming awake in the dark next to Crowley, remembers Crowley, angry and afraid.
Aziraphale stumbles out of bed, almost falls headlong down the stairs, and rushes to the answering machine. There’s only one message,97 and it’s not the one he wants. He reaches out, tentatively. Crowley’s neither angry nor afraid, now. Aziraphale gets only a peaceful sort of resignation across the line, and a small burst of irritation.98
Well. Aziraphale supposes there’s only one thing left to do now.
≠≠
A few hours later, Aziraphale crunches his way up the gravel drive and around the back of the cottage to the garden. It’s hot, the late afternoon sun heavy and yellow, the sky above pure blue. Everything feels like it’s sleeping, or about to sleep. Maybe that’s just Aziraphale. He still feels a little funny after his three-day long nap. Crowley’s crouched down in the vegetable bed doing something with the base of a plant Aziraphale doesn’t care to recognize outside the bounds of his plate. Crowley’s wearing an utterly absurd floppy straw sun hat, and it throws a moveable shadow over his bare shoulders and arms. Aziraphale swallows. His heart’s pounding. Crowley doesn’t seem to notice him there, or perhaps he’s ignoring him.
Aziraphale clears his throat.
Crowley leaps about a mile in the air, each limb going a different direction. By the time he gets his feet back on the ground, his sunhat’s disappeared.99 “Aziraphale,” Crowley says, spins to face him, and crosses his arms. His mouth is tight. “Didn’t know you knew where this place was.”
“I have been here a time or two,” Aziraphale says, and fiddles. “Crowley, it appears I owe you an apology.”
“Nnnrf,” says Crowley.
“So I am prepared to-” Aziraphale says, stepping one foot forward, and Crowley says, “Aziraphale, please don’t do the dance. The plants’ll all start laughing at you and you’ll spoil their fruit. Everything’ll taste like guilt.”
What does guilt even taste like? Aziraphale wonders,100 but doesn’t ask. Instead, he pouts, very lightly, and Crowley makes a face at him. “Look, it’s - s’fine.”
And yes, Aziraphale’s very happy to not have Crowley mad at him again, but. “It’s not fine,” Aziraphale says. “I shouldn’t have been - there.” In your bed, Aziraphale adds in his head, but Crowley flushes anyway, even though he doesn’t say it aloud. Maybe it’s just the heat.
Crowley frowns, shifts, uncrosses and recrosses his arms. “Why not?”
Aziraphale presses his lips together, blinks. “You don’t want me there.”
Crowley opens his mouth, closes it. He studies Aziraphale, closely. He huffs out a breath. Aziraphale thinks his eyes close, very briefly, behind his glasses, but Aziraphale’s not sure why.
“Aziraphale,” he says. “I really don’t know what it is you want.”
You’re not the only one, Aziraphale wants to say, but Crowley will think Aziraphale means himself, and not Her. And Aziraphale knows what it is he wants, really. He’s just been so scared for so long.
Aziraphale says, slowly, “I want you safe, Crowley-” and his voice cracks, and he looks down and away, at the verdant plants, the faintest blush of ripening tomatoes. Love-apples, he thinks.101
“We’ll never be safe, angel. Not really.” Crowley’s voice is soft, gentle. Aziraphale nods. He transfers his gaze, now, still on the ground, to feathery carrot tops.
“I miss you,” he says. “I’ve missed you for so terribly long.”
There’s a pause. Crowley shifts, restlessly. “…d’you want a drink?” he asks.
So Crowley takes him inside and sits Aziraphale down at the small wooden table, and Aziraphale runs his palm over the table top, sniffling a little, while Crowley graciously pretends not to hear him as he muddles some mint and doses both their drinks with a hefty pour of whisky, some new drink he’d tried back in the 1980s. He brings the glasses over to Aziraphale in a flourish. “American,” he says to Aziraphale, and clinks their glasses together.
Aziraphale takes a sip. “It’s horrid,” he says, shivering, and drinks it, quickly.
Crowley kicks back across the small kitchen table, crosses his legs. There’s a smear of dirt on his cheek, his fingertips stained, dirt across his knuckles. When he sees Aziraphale looking, he discreetly miracles the dirt away from his hands, but misses the spot on his cheek. Aziraphale should tell him about it. Instead, Aziraphale smiles, and hides his face behind his glass of fermented creek-water.
“How’d you even get here, anyway?” Crowley says.
“Oh!” Aziraphale says, and puts his glass down. He wriggles a bit in delight. “I got a you - burr.”
“A you - you got an Uber? I didn’t know you knew how to use your mobile.”
Aziraphale frowns.
“…you don’t know how they work, do you,” Crowley sighs.
Aziraphale shrugs.102 “Only I’m not certain how to get back,” he confesses.
The corner of Crowley’s mouth twitches. He says, “I think I can help you with that, angel.”
After three more of those dreadful drinks, Crowley takes Aziraphale through the garden to show him the apple Trees he’s planted out in a small expanse of cleared ground that Crowley’s rather grandly calling The Orchard. The Trees are already knee-high, healthy looking, with dark shining leaves that gently quiver at Aziraphale as he bends slightly to hold a leaf between his fingers. When he straightens up, Crowley’s looking at him, head cocked. “Since when do you sleep, anyway?”
“I’ve been trying new things,” Aziraphale says, a little defensively. Crowley runs his eyes down Aziraphale’s body; Aziraphale flushes, and Crowley notices, raising his eyebrows. Aziraphale watches him file that away for later.
“Well then, Aziraphale,” Crowley says, “Let’s do something new.” Aziraphale’s heart thumps, his mouth goes dry, but Crowley doesn’t reach out and pull him close, landing that cool mouth on his in the heat of the sun. Instead, they go to the pub.
“We’ve been to hundreds of pubs,” Aziraphale says, a trifle petulantly. “Thousands, even.”
“Yes, but not this one,” Crowley says. “Come on, you’ll love it. You’ll pretend you don’t, but you’ll be charmed by all the locals. Make best friends with half of them by the time we’re out.”
“I most certainly will not,” Aziraphale says, as Crowley holds the door for him, and then follows him through. It’s dim and stuffy in there, and they’re greeted with a cloud of cigarette smoke, food smells, and a holdover of wet dog. The jukebox plays some song about girls with large bottoms in a voice Aziraphale vaguely recognizes.103
Crowley, apparently, comes here fairly regularly, because his arm barely comes up to Aziraphale’s back, more a suggestion of guidance than anything else, as he steers them towards a booth fairly out of the way. This is confirmed when the barkeep bustles over, sliding Crowley a pint,104 and says, “Tony, haven’t seen you in, oh, blue moon. Oh my, is this your Mr. Fell?”
Tony, Aziraphale mouths, but Crowley’s already face down in his pint and doesn’t show any inclination of coming up soon.105 Aziraphale takes the burden of conversation onto himself, introducing himself and answering the appropriate questions, such as, and what is it that you do, love, or, we could use a bookshop here, couldn’t we, Ron. Aziraphale swears he can see Crowley smirking into his glass. When Aziraphale starts to say something about the air - too humid, bad for the books, really - the woman just says, “We’ll get him here one of these days, don’t you worry, Tony,” patting Crowley on the back.106 One of the old men at the bar starts grousing at her, then, and she biffs off to grouse back at him.
Aziraphale stares after her. Crowley surfaces from his pint, gasping, lips wet. His tongue flicks out, pink and wet, to lick his lips, and Aziraphale is helpless to do anything other than watch it. He doesn’t even try to hide it. “Tony?” He says, because he doesn’t even know where to start with the rest of that conversation, and Crowley makes a weird gurgling noise and disappears face-down in his glass again.
They have a lovely dinner, plain, solid English faire, well-prepared.107 Or, well, Aziraphale has dinner, and Crowley drinks, and watches him, chin in his hand, a dark shape turned sideways in the booth, boots sticking out into the path of anyone trying to get to the jukebox.108
“The way they do this roast,” Aziraphale says, “reminds me of-”
“Camelot,” Crowley says, “Yeah. Remember how the cook always used to burn Kay’s portion, no matter what?”
“Yes, how did she manage that?” Aziraphale says. “I always wondered. It was served family-style, I seem to recall.”
Crowley grinned.
“You didn’t!” Aziraphale says.
“What? He was an arse. You should’ve heard what he said about you that time you fell down the steps.”
“I did,” Aziraphale admitted. “His aketon was always riding up after that. I seem to recall he had a bit of straw in it no matter what he did, in all sorts of places he couldn’t reach. Terribly itchy, I hear. Of course, I wouldn’t know.”
Aziraphale takes a long sip of sherry and watches with pleasure as Crowley throws his head back and laughs. They stay there for hours; when the barkeep starts putting chairs up, Aziraphale checks his pocketwatch and is surprised to see it’s past ten. His heart sinks. He glances at Crowley. Maybe, just maybe, Crowley will say he doesn’t want to drive Aziraphale back -
Crowley tries to get up and stumbles, and Aziraphale realizes Crowley’s so drunk he won’t be driving anyone anywhere, except Aziraphale, round the bend the next morning, when he complains about his hangover.109 “Come on,” he says to Crowley. “Let’s get you home,” and hoists him up and out of his seat, waving his fingers slightly, so the humans doesn’t see anything too unusual.110
ˆ∆ƒƒ˚∂∑, Crowley says in Enochian.111 The ears of the few people left in the pub ring briefly; a small, localized tinnitus.
“You most certainly will not,” Aziraphale says tartly.112
He bundles Crowley into the Bentley and slides into the driver’s seat himself.113 Crowley’s head lolls towards him. It’s dark out here, darker than in the city; there are streetlights, certainly, but fewer and far between. It’s - nice. Pleasant. “Angel,” Crowley says, and his eyes - oh. He’s lost his sunglasses somewhere in the shuffle and his eyes are startlingly bright.
“Let’s get you home,” Aziraphale says, very softly, and starts to drive them back.
Crowley makes a noise and then struggles up in his seat. “London’s that way, angel,” he says, pointing.
Oh, that’s not fair. “Your new home, I meant,” Aziraphale says. “You like your new home.”
“Like it a lot better if you were here. When you going to come out here for good?” Crowley slurs slightly, and Aziraphale turns to look at him. Crowley’s face is very guileless and open, mouth parted slightly, eyes, on him, very wide.
“When you ask me,” Aziraphale says, knowing it suddenly to be true, and Crowley makes a wounded sound.
“You don’t mean that,” he nearly whispers. “Your bookshop.”
“I assure you, I do,” Aziraphale says, dodging a traffic island, and when he turns back to Crowley, he’s staring out the window, as if he’s thinking.
Aziraphale drives them back to the cottage without further incident.114 Crowley’s sobered up enough by then to stumble out of the car by himself, although Aziraphale has to talk him out of oozing into the sunroom and giving the plants a stern lecture.115 He gets Crowley to the bedroom and onto the bed, feels strange walking back into this darkened room, but Crowley doesn’t seem to notice, dropping heavily to the bed, sprawling out, sideways.116
Aziraphale thinks he’s likely too drunk to have nightmares, so Aziraphale reads, or pretends to read, for almost two hours.
And then Crowley wakes up, a quick return to consciousness, a rush of breath from down the hall. Aziraphale looks up, very slightly, from the edge of his book, and just sees Crowley pass from the bedroom into the kitchen, hears him running a glass of water, then drinking it. Good Lord, he must be drunk. He comes into the living room, slowly, and stands there, shielding his eyes from the lamp, squinting a little. His hair is mussed, clothes disheveled, glasses off. Aziraphale puts the lamp out. He can still see Crowley’s darker shape in the dark room, the gleam of his eyes, as he stands there looking at Aziraphale.
“Yes?” Aziraphale says, softly, setting his book down.
Crowley grunts. Then he turns, and, without saying a word, goes back into his bedroom. He leaves the door wide open. Aziraphale hears him drop down on the bed, hears the boxspring protest. Is this an invitation? Aziraphale’s not sure. Aziraphale can hear him breathe from all the way out here, and he listens for a long time, and eventually, his own eyelids get heavy, and he wriggles in the chair slightly, and before he knows it, he’s waking up, and it’s daylight, and there’s a blanket thrown over him that certainly hadn’t been there before. His book’s been placed on the table nearby with a bookmark in it. He can hear Crowley fussing around with something in the sun room, can feel the faint tingles of a demonic lecture directed at, perhaps, a collection of quietly terrified plants. He wriggles a little deeper into the blanket, and lets himself fall back asleep.
≠≠
Aziraphale doesn’t go out to the South Downs the next week, or the following week, because Crowley doesn’t invite him. Instead, Crowley comes to London, ostensibly to take him out to dinner, or to a show, or a museum, anywhere with air conditioning. In reality, Aziraphale thinks he’s in London with the sole demonic intention to irritate Aziraphale into a state of near murder. Attempting an angel to Fall via homicide,117 or something like that.
Crowley’s complaining about the heat. It’s his fifth hour straight of complaining about the heat; they’re sitting at a trendy rooftop bar Crowley had wanted to go to, and then complained incessantly about: his critiques touch on the heat, the sun, the decor, the flies, the alcohol, and, finally, the waiter’s attitude. Aziraphale’s hot too, he’s sweating terribly through all his layers, and the tapas is, quite frankly, not all that good. But you don’t hear him complaining about it. “But you like the heat,” Aziraphale says, perhaps a trifle irritably.
“That’s just stereotyping,” Crowley grumbles. “Snakes’re- s’bad as anybody, really.”
“You wouldn’t believe what humans get up to when it’s this hot,” Aziraphale says. “Yesterday I received three threats to my person or the bookshop on Yell. Three! I normally average three a year.”
“You know what you need,” Crowley says, leaning on the table to wag his finger at him.
“Enlighten me,” Aziraphale says.
“You need a vacation,” Crowley says. “You ever taken a vacation? Not work related.”
“Well-” Aziraphale says.
“Or book-buying related,” Crowley says, suddenly. “Nothing planned, no excursions. Just a nice little two-week getaway to do bugger-all.”
And that’s easy for Crowley to say, out in his little house out in the country -
“I believe I know just the place,” Aziraphale says, triumphantly, and Crowley’s eyes widen a little in his oh, bugger face.
They make arrangements for Crowley to pick Aziraphale up in two days. That’s two more days of suffering in the London heat. Aziraphale tries to bear it with grace. He is an angel, after all. Crowley’s got to get provisions for a fortnight; Aziraphale’s got to pack and close the shop up.118 He’s still agonizing over which books to bring when Crowley comes by to pick him up on Friday. He’s got three dozen packed, and he stands there, a book in each hand, trying to figure out which to take. “Just one more,” he says to Crowley. “That’s only a little over two a day, I don’t know what I’ll do if I run out-”
“If that’s not enough, I’ve got some old Snake Fancy articles for you to read,” Crowley says, snidely, and Aziraphale takes the hint, and packs the larger of the two books he’s holding.
Those two weeks are some of the best of Aziraphale’s life.119 They spend the first day unpacking,120 and then go out to dinner to the pub in town and then stay up all night drinking. Aziraphale is absolutely not disappointed that Crowley shows no inclination to sleep. After all, it means more time spent together, as after this, Crowley will surely not come around for awhile, tired of Aziraphale’s company. They’ve never spent this much uninterrupted time together, not even as Brother Francis and Nanny Ashtoreth. Not even on the ark, where Aziraphale was mostly off trying to keep the humans from killing each other, and Crowley was busy bothering the horses.121
They spend the day at Brighton, which Aziraphale finds horrid, and Crowley, quite inspirational, actually. They go see more ruins. They see the donkey wheel, and Crowley says, “Going to get one of those for the cottage, for whisky. Put you in it,” and Aziraphale ignores him like the martyr he is. And then the fifth night of vacation, Crowley yawns, and stretches on the couch. Aziraphale watches his shirt ride up, then looks away. “Think I’ll go to bed,” Crowley says, “That alright, angel?”
“Of course,” Aziraphale says, and he truly means it, but it doesn’t stop him from feeling - well, rather lonely, once Crowley goes into his room and drops off to sleep.122
Aziraphale finishes his book,123 so after he digs up a small snack from the kitchen, he walks the house. The plants shiver gently at him through the sunroom door, so he wanders in, wine glass in hand. It’s still sultry in there after the heat of the day, and he brushes the back of a finger along the devil’s ivy he’d recognized. He’d purchased it for Crowley decades back, thought it cheeky. Crowley’s nose had wrinkled. “Really, angel?” He’d said. “Bit on the nose, don’t you think?” But he’d taken immaculate care of it over the years, and the leaves were large and strong and shiny, and it seems pleased to see Aziraphale. “Treating you alright?” Aziraphale murmurs to it, then sighs, and closes his eyes, and breathes in the smell of plants and earth. It’s funny. With your eyes closed, you could almost pretend you were in the Garden. He wonders if Crowley does, out here, if he sleeps out here, dreaming he’s in the Garden once more.
And then, a sound. Crowley’s having another nightmare. The plants quiver, as if in a low, sustained breeze.
“How often does he does this,” Aziraphale says to the plants, and they shiver more, as if they’re being blamed for Crowley’s nightmares. Aziraphale swears he hears a tiny eep from the peperomia.
Aziraphale should - he shouldn’t do anything. He wants to go to Crowley, to comfort him, to gather him up in his arms, to press his lips to his forehead, his cheek, to say I’m here, to say, You’re safe. Instead, he stays in the sunroom, fist clenched around his wine glass, seeing his useless reflection in the windows, bright and tan-colored against all that greenery and darkness, and listens to the sound of Crowley in pain. He’s not sure how much longer he can stand it -
And then Crowley wakes up.
Aziraphale can feel it, can hear his harsh panting, as he slips out of the sunroom and back towards the living room. He settles back into his chair124 in case Crowley comes out. Crowley doesn’t come out, but he doesn’t go back to sleep, either. Instead, he lays awake the rest of the night, and Aziraphale knows they can both feel the other awake, meters away.
The next night, Crowley comes out of the bedroom not three minutes after he’s gone in. He’s in his dark pajamas, with his glasses on, and he says, “You can come read in there. If you like.” He’s not looking at Aziraphale, that’s obvious even with the glasses on, but Aziraphale would like, very much so, so he rises, slowly, and follows Crowley in the bedroom. The windows are open, and the dark sheets are rucked up on the large bed, and there’s an armchair and a lamp in the corner Aziraphale’s pretty sure hadn’t been there before.125
Crowley takes his glasses off, puts them on the table, and tosses himself onto the bed. Aziraphale slowly lowers himself into the chair. “Won’t the light bother you?” Aziraphale asks, and Crowley says, “Nah,” and pulls the sheets up higher, over his face. Under the sheet, his shoulders are stiff. He’s slept in front of Aziraphale dozens of times before in the bookshop on the sofa, but something’s different between them now. Aziraphale takes his eyes off him, and turns them to the page.
When Crowley falls asleep a half hour later, he sighs and rolls over to face Aziraphale, and the sheet comes down, exposing his face, the slump of a shoulder, his hand curled up next to his pillow. He’s breathing softly, his mouth relaxed, although his forehead is crumpled up, as if he’d fallen asleep thinking about something.
Crowley stays that way all night.
In the morning, Aziraphale slips out of the room, and when he hears Crowley start to stir, he starts fussing with Crowley’s complicated coffee machine, knowing before he gets himself in too far, Crowley will come out to rescue him.
So they start doing that, then, at night. Aziraphale reads, and Crowley sleeps. The remainder of their days - and Aziraphale is helplessly aware of a little clock in his head counting down the hours, not dissimilar to how he’d been about the end of days, after, oh, 72 BC or so, when he’d really started to enjoy himself here on earth - Crowley has only one nightmare, and it’s easily dissolved. He whimpers, and thrashes, and Aziraphale simply leans forward from his chair, resting a hand on Crowley’s shoulder, says, “I’m here, Crowley, you’re safe,” and his thumb strokes Crowley’s slippery pajama top, and again, and Crowley settles.
On the antepenultimate and penultimate days of Aziraphale’s vacation, it rains the entire time. Crowley and Aziraphale spend their time indoors. Aziraphale reads in the sunroom, while Crowley in turn putters, potters, and, frankly, emotionally terrorizes his plants. They have a liquid brunch, which turns into liquid hors d’oeuvres, which somehow turns into Crowley persuading Aziraphale to go take a bath. Aziraphale’s not entirely sure how they’d gotten on the topic; they’d been talking about baths, he thinks, Roman ones, and Aziraphale had said he hadn’t had a really good bath in, oh, ages, the bathtub in the bookshop was too small, and if you miracled a tub up it never held water quite right.126 There was nothing better, he tells Crowley, than reading a book in the tub with a glass of wine. “So do it,” Crowley says, “Got one right - right up there.”127
“I’m not sure,” Aziraphale says, and Crowley says, “Really, angel, I’ve never used it, somebody’s got to, it’ll start feeling bad about itself, start leaking, get clogged pipes, you know how temperamental they are.” He’s tempting Aziraphale, literally; Aziraphale can feel it, just a prickle. Of course, they can’t truly tempt or bless the other, but Crowley’s trying his best, really, a lot of lounging and sharp half-grins.
“But it’s all the way up there,” Aziraphale said.
“Stairs,” Crowley said, knowingly.
Aziraphale raises his eyes skyward. “Not stairs. Going up’s the easy bit.” It’s just. Aziraphale doesn’t want to say it, but he only has one more day left with Crowley, and he doesn’t want to spend a single second away from him, if he can help it. Crowley seems to understand, because something passes over his face, and he says, hoisting himself up with the bottle, “C’mon, I’ll come with you. Be like - old times, Rome, or something. Here, which book do you want?” He starts rifling through them.
“Not that one!” Aziraphale says with no small amount of horror, and directs him towards something a bit more waterproof.
So they spend a few hours in the bathroom, Aziraphale submerged in the tub under a nice modest layer of cloud-like bubbles. Crowley’s sprawled against the base of the cabinets across from him. When Aziraphale picks up his book,128 Crowley fidgets, and squirms, and says, finally, as if it’s being dragged out of him, “What’s it about, then?”
And Aziraphale starts to explain, and then he says, “Really, better if I just - let me just read-” and he started reading, and Crowley pours them both more wine, and there they are, Crowley leaning his head back against the cabinets. Occasionally he brings his glass up to his mouth and swallows; other times he laughs at what Aziraphale’s reading, and sometimes he issues corrections on facts he finds patently untrue. Every time the water starts to cool, Crowley lazily lifts the hand not holding the wine glass, and miracles it hot again. Each time, Aziraphale wriggles down into it, and Crowley gets that smile on his face he gets when he wishes he wasn’t smiling but can’t seem to help himself.
At one point, Aziraphale goes to take another drink and finds his glass empty. He turns it mournfully over atop the bathwater, and frowns at the single red drop that slides slowly out to plunk into the water below. There’s a noise, a movement, and Crowley is crawling across the bathroom floor, bottle of wine in one hand. He takes Aziraphale’s glass from him, their fingers brushing, and refills it for him, clinking the mouth of the bottle against the rim of the glass a little more violently than necessary. He shoves it back over to Aziraphale, and their fingers brush again when he takes it.
“Mmm,” Aziraphale says, taking a sip. Crowley collapses next to the tub, resting an arm along the top of it. The knees of his trousers are wet from the floor, from where Aziraphale had splashed water in an attempt to appropriately emphasize the truly dastardly actions of the book’s villain. Aziraphale can feel something drawing close, and when he’s like this, this close to Crowley, naked except for the bubbles and a little tipsy,129 he thinks, please, oh please, Crowley. Crowley’s so close, sleeve getting damp from the top of the tub. If he just moved the tiniest bit his arm would slip off the side, down into the tub, into the soapy water, perhaps his hand would even fall on Aziraphale’s knee, which is just barely breeching the surface of the water, perhaps his long fingers would slide up Aziraphale’s thigh.130 Crowley doesn’t, though, just stays there, like that, his arm so close, but he doesn’t take his eyes off Aziraphale, even sways closer, as if hypnotized, when Aziraphale licks a fingertip to turn a page. So Aziraphale makes sure he does it for the next page, and the next, and the next.
After a few hours, Aziraphale’s stomach rumbles, delicately, and he darts a look over at Crowley, who’s looking terribly amused. “Hungry, angel?” He says and Aziraphale says well he certainly wouldn’t turn down a little nibble, and really, Crowley had all the makings of a truly satisfactory omelet downstairs, if he wasn’t mistaken - ? Aziraphale’s entirely wrinkled by the time he gets out of the tub. “Oh, don’t laugh!” He says to Crowley, who’d taken his book, and is now holding a towel out to Aziraphale, who’s definitely not laughing, and definitely hasn’t sneaked a peak, and it should make Aziraphale feel terribly embarrassed, and it does, a bit, but they’ve seen each other naked before, a handful of times, back when it was more socially acceptable, and besides, it’s Crowley’s bathtub, so it’s Crowley’s fault he was in this shocking state to begin with. So there. With that infallible logic, he gives the cherub over the tub a stern look, and follows Crowley downstairs.131
That night, Crowley has another not-nightmare; Aziraphale has box seats for it. He should leave, he really should, but what if he wakes Crowley up when he gets out of the chair, what if he wakes Crowley up when he’s coming back in, after - Crowley sighs, a heavy exhale, and rolls over, hips down on the bed, face smashed into the pillow, facing Aziraphale. This shouldn’t be doing things to Aziraphale, but doing things it is. Aziraphale hastily turns his eyes back to his book, but he can still hear Crowley, the little breathy noises he’s making, the way they’re increasing in frequency and pitch and desperation, the sound of the bed shifting under him, and Aziraphale’s face is burning, and then Crowley says, “Angel,” and Aziraphale’s eyes fly off the page and onto the bed, half-expecting to find Crowley awake, looking at him, those yellow eyes half-lidded, mouth curled in a little smirk, but his eyes are closed, and he’s dreaming, he’s dreaming of Aziraphale - ?
Aziraphale knows, is suddenly absolutely certain, that if he goes over to the bed, kneels on it, hovering over Crowley, touching his arm, says his name, that Crowley will surge awake, pull him down. He doesn’t. He wants it to be a thing done properly. So he gets up, using every ounce of angelic stealth he can muster, and sneaks out of the room, and, dithering, finally chooses the bathroom upstairs - it’s already been tainted with Lust from Aziraphale’s bath; if Crowley can sense it - and Aziraphale’s pretty sure he can, based on some half-surprised, half-considering looks he’s gotten from the demon this summer - it’ll blend in. Aziraphale does, however, drape a towel over that leering cherub painting before leaning back against the closed door and palming himself through his trousers. Below, he swears he can hear another whimper from Crowley, although it’s impossible, really. It doesn’t take much at all, as his eyes linger on the tub, thinking of Crowley kneeling up over the tub, maybe, kissing Aziraphale, Aziraphale bringing one wet hair up to slide his fingers though Crowley’s hair and hold him in place, as Crowley dips a hand below the water, playing with him -
Aziraphale presses one hand over his mouth, biting his knuckle, hard, to muffle himself. He takes a turn around the cottage afterwards, although he swears that one of Crowley’s plants, the red one with the suspicious yellow protuberances, is laughing at him. When he slips back into the bedroom, his book is on the floor where he’d abandoned it, the lamp is still on, and Crowley’s turned away, facing the window, his back rising and falling gently in extremely calm sleep, thank you very much.
The next day, their last day together, they have a small breakfast on the patio - well, Aziraphale eats some pastries they’d picked up in the village, and Crowley drinks three cups of espresso, rapidly, until even his hair perks up and starts to gently quiver. It’s lovely out, just the faintest hint of fall, a coolness in the air that has Aziraphale pulling his sleeves down and snuggling down into his coat. Aziraphale wonders what this place will look like in the autumn, hopes he will get a chance to see it, even just once. It’s lovely here. It’s so calm. It’s, it’s -
Good Lord, Aziraphale doesn’t want to go back to London.132
Oh, of course, he misses it, misses the Ritz, and the park, and all those people, and all the wonderful things to do, collections of art and any kind of cuisine you could dream up.133 He misses the bookshop like a human toothache.134 But - he’d rather be here, with Crowley, in this small little cottage. Aziraphale’s dreading it, keeps waiting Crowley to say something awful, like, well, better start packing, or, time do you want to leave tomorrow-? And so he keeps darting looks at Crowley across the breakfast table, but Crowley doesn’t say anything, just stretches, and rubs at this face, and says, “What, have I got something on my face?”
“Just, ah, a little bit. Right, ah, right there.” Aziraphale reaches forward and uses his napkin to wipe at a pristine spot on Crowley’s face, right by his mouth. He lingers. Crowley blinks. Aziraphale can see it through the glasses. When he sits back, Crowley grunts something that might be a thank you.
When Crowley gets up and wanders inside a bit later, Aziraphale follows him, muttering something about, “Suppose I should-” and goes into the living room to eye the bookshelf. Crowley had said no books, but maybe if he just leaves these here, if he ever gets invited back for another long stay, he won’t have to pack so much -
“Sunroom, angel, coming?” Crowley says, breezing past him, and so Aziraphale follows him, clutching a book to him, and if he spends more time in the sunroom in Crowley’s chair watching him repot a few African violets, well, Maugham’s not going to tell.
They walk the garden, and then Crowley suggests they go for a drive, so they spend a few hours driving the countryside, and Aziraphale keeps thinking he’s really not going to have enough time to pack, if they keep this up. They have dinner in town, and then come back to the house, lazily, in the dark. Getting out of the Bentley, there’s the faintest chill to the air, and Aziraphale says, “Reminds you of fall, doesn’t it, all those bonfires they used to have, do you ever miss those?”
“S’long as they’re not trying to burn me,” Crowley says. “Let’s have one, then,” and Aziraphale says, “Oh, really?” And Crowley gives him a look in the that can’t be interpreted as anything other than fond. The moon is bright, nearly full, and it throws a ghostly glow over everything, Crowley’s skin pale and incredibly touchable in the light. Crowley builds a rather spectacular fire as Aziraphale miracles a chair and a nice cozy blanket for each of them,135 and they settle in, watching the flickering flames. Aziraphale arranges his shoes carefully at the edge of the stones, feeling his feet warm up. Crowley snaps his fingers and a bottle of wine appears from inside, and, after taking a long drink, hands it over to Aziraphale. They talk lightly for a few hours, passing the bottle back and forth, the fire crackling and popping and somehow, miraculously, never needing more wood. The fire’s warm, almost too warm, keeping Aziraphale’s face, shins, and feet just this side of comfortable. The moon gets higher; it gets even darker in the woods around them, and insects keep up a shrill chorus.
At one point, Crowley gets up to pull his chair closer to the fire, which brings him, coincidentally, closer to Aziraphale, close enough to hold hands comfortably, if they wanted. Aziraphale takes a deep breath, then another. It’s his last day here, and they haven’t talked about it, haven’t addressed it at all, which isn’t so unusual for them.
Aziraphale says, “It’s funny,” and his heart’s hammering in his chest, but he should say it anyway. “I used to think I’d never want to leave the bookshop. But there are more important things, sometimes.”
There’s a sharp intake of breath beside him. He looks over, Crowley’s face lit dramatically by the fire, flames flickering in his glasses. Crowley would be pleased, if he could see it. Crowley doesn’t look pleased. His mouth is turned down, jaw is working; he’s thinking, about to say something that, probably, Aziraphale doesn’t want to hear, like, pack your things now, I’m taking you back tonight.
“Why’d you do it, Aziraphale?” His voice is low, almost a murmur. Crowley’s starting straight ahead at the fire. Aziraphale can see the whites of his eyes in the dark. “With the-” Crowley gestures blowing a trumpet. “Thought you went up there to stop all that.”
Aziraphale swallows.
“You brought on the final judgement, the end of days. You, of all people, Aziraphale.” Crowley says, and here it is, the anger, the hurt, what’s been there, between them, since Christmas. Since before, maybe.“You’re all about forgiveness. The one thing I couldn’t forgive you for and you went and did it. I thought after everything-”
“You died, Crowley,” Aziraphale says, sitting up, blanket falling off his shoulders. He turns towards Crowley’s dark shadow, surprised at his own anger he feels welling up inside him. His fists are clenched. He’s shaking. “Not just discorporated. Not just temporarily inconvenienced. You were dead. You weren’t coming back unless a higher authority got involved. And I thought - I thought-”
“You thought if you blew the trumpet She would finally show Herself and wave a hand and make everything right,” Crowley says, a little wearily.
“I knew that if I blew the trumpet, the end of days would begin and all the dead would rise to walk the earth once more as it had been written!” Aziraphale snaps. “It was the only thing I could think of. And then at least whatever happened you would be alive. I didn’t expect Her to make everything right. I just wanted you back.” He swallows. Crowley makes a noise next to him, and when he looks over, Crowley’s mouth is turned down, lips pressed together. Crowley raises his hand, snaps. The fire dies down to embers, the world going, briefly, cold and dark.
Crowley stutters, once, twice, and then says, looking at Aziraphale, his face completely unreadable, “Let’s go to bed.”
≠≠
They go inside, depositing the empty bottle in the bin. Crowley sticks his head in the sunroom to check on the plants - “You will not vine up the fiddle-leaf fig,” he tells another of the plants, sternly, while Aziraphale watches from the doorway, holding onto it with one hand, feeling strangely breathless and weightless, like he needs to hold onto something to keep himself in place. Crowley looks up to see Aziraphale staring at him, and whatever sharp remarks he’s going to make to the next plant fade and die on his face, and he’s just left staring at Aziraphale, mouth a little slack. He moves over to Aziraphale, rests a hand on the doorframe, just under Aziraphale’s, fingers a centimeter apart. Staring at their hands, without planning to do it, Aziraphale moves his pinky just slightly until it bumps Crowley’s. Crowley sucks in a big breath and so does Aziraphale.“Aziraphale,” says Crowley, his voice low, now. He steps forward, crowding Aziraphale against the doorframe, and Aziraphale can feel the entire rangey length of Crowley pressed against him, can feel it as his chest inhales, rises and falls, erratically, can feel every single part of himself straining to press back, and so to Hell with it, he does, pressing forward. Crowley’s eyes close briefly behind his glasses; he can see the movement, the fall of his lashes. “Come to bed. With me,” Crowley adds, head cocked, looking at Aziraphale’s mouth.
Aziraphale swallows, and nods, a few times, and Crowley moves his hand until his fingers brush over Aziraphale’s, and then he pulls away, and saunters down the hallway.
Aziraphale follows, but when he gets inside the bedroom - lamp lit softly - he hovers, nervously, unsure of what to do, where to go.
“Sit down, angel,” Crowley says. “On the bed,” he clarifies. In a snap, Crowley’s changed, dark silk pajamas and all. “Just pretend I’m already asleep or something.”
Aziraphale looks at him reproachfully.
Crowley does a little thing with his mouth that says, I’m sorry.136 So Aziraphale sniffs, and accepts the apology. He toes his shoes off, takes his coat off, folds it neatly over the back of the chair, and sways towards the bed, slightly.
“That’s it?” Crowley says, so Aziraphale takes off his vest, too, very deliberately. Crowley raises his eyebrow. Aziraphale stares back. Crowley sighs, takes off his glasses, folds them neatly, and places them on the nightstand, and then looks up, at Aziraphale. His eyes are very round, and yellow, and impossibly soft and familiar. Still, he waits by the bed, one leg cocked, covers pulled back. Not yet in. Aziraphale, fingers trembling, slips off his braces, unbuttons his shirt, takes off his trousers, until he’s in his undershirt and pants. He glances up at Crowley, who’s looking at him, mouth open, and the look on his face, it’s, oh. Crowley eases himself on the bed, under the covers, all spindly angles. Aziraphale pauses, a second.
“Well, come on, get in,” Crowley says, and Aziraphale does, folding himself, sitting down, down, the slowest, shortest fall, and Crowley pulls back the covers with one hand and Aziraphale slides between Crowley’s sheets. They’re cool and slippery on his skin, his bare legs, his arms, and he tries to get comfortable, slips a bit, and Crowley laughs at him.
“Don’t laugh at me,” Aziraphale says, and Crowley says, “I’ll laugh at whatever I want to,” but his face, oh, it’s so fond, and Aziraphale huffs, and wriggles, and slides, until he has himself laying on his back, Crowley laying on his side, facing Aziraphale, incredibly close. Aziraphale raises his hand and snaps; the lamp goes out, and throws them into darkness.
“Thank Satan,” Crowley says, “that blessed lamp shined right in my eyes.”
‘You said it didn’t bother you!”
“Yeah, well. M’a demon. I lied,” Crowley says.
It’s dim in the bedroom; the curtains most of the way open, letting in the bright moonlight. There, in the half-dark, Crowley shifts, and says, softly, “You really would’ve ended the whole world for me?”
Aziraphale says, “They would’ve all been doomed to Hell, you know. With the criteria Heaven was using. Oh, a few might’ve made their way into Heaven. But everyone else, all of them - and I didn’t care, Crowley.” Aziraphale sounds steadier than he feels. “They’ve could’ve all burned for an eternity, if it would’ve brought you back, even if just for a minute.” His voice cracks on the last word.
Crowley makes a noise beside him. A slight shift, as if he’s moving closer. “They don’t - you know they don’t burn them. Not really. Not most of them, anyway.”
Aziraphale swallows. “It doesn’t matter,” he says. “I don’t deserve to be an angel, anymore. And I’m not. Not really.” He closes his eyes, then, and a tear leaks down his face into his ear, then another. It’s rather unpleasant. What leaky things these corporations are.
“What - what do you mean?” And there it is, the shuffling sound again, and Crowley’s bony knees, curled up slightly, bump into Aziraphale’s thigh.
“I made a deal with God,” Aziraphale says.
“The Almighty makes deals?”
“Apparently.”
“What, er. What was the deal?”
Aziraphale turns his head to look at Crowley, then, and Crowley is so incredibly close, close enough to kiss, even, his eyes wide on Aziraphale’s. “She’d bring you back. Keep you back, I suppose.”
“And in exchange?”
“I can’t ever go back.” Crowley’s eyes dart to his lips, then back up. “Cast out of the garden, as it were.”
Crowley reaches out, very slowly, giving Aziraphale time to pull away, but Aziraphale doesn’t move. The moonlight pours over Crowley’s face, illuminating the high points: his eyebrows, the bridge of Crowley’s nose, his knuckles, coming up, so slowly, to brush Aziraphale’s wet face.
“I never wanted you to Fall for me, Aziraphale.” He sounds incredibly sad, and very soft.
“Oh, I didn’t Fall. I’ve been checking. Still white.” He shuffles his feathers on another plane, and on another plane, Crowley reaches out, very slowly, to brush against them. Aziraphale makes a huff that’s almost a laugh. “I just. I can’t ever go back. I’ve been disavowed. Homeless, I suppose.”
“I’m so sorry, Aziraphale,” Crowley says, and Aziraphale rolls to face him, then. Their noses are almost brushing.
“Don’t be,” Aziraphale says, and Crowley shivers, closing his eyes, very briefly. “I didn’t like Heaven very much anyway. Oh, come now, don’t look so surprised, I was a rotten angel.”
“You’re the very best, angel,” Crowley says, and his emphasis is - well, it’s terribly touching. So Aziraphale looks at his mouth, again, and moves, very minutely, towards Crowley, bringing their lower bodies in contact. Their legs tangle. Crowley hisses very lightly. He may not even know he’s done it.
“Crowley,” Aziraphale says.
“Yuh,” Crowley says. His lips are parted, very slightly, golden eyes flickering between Aziraphale’s own mouth and his eyes, hoping Aziraphale doesn’t pull away, maybe even praying. Aziraphale can feel a very slight tug at the edges of his grace, or maybe it’s just Crowley’s presence, close like this, getting closer, until Aziraphale closes the distance between them, Crowley breathing out the faintest puff of breath, as if of surprise or impatience, and then Aziraphale kisses him. Crowley sighs against his mouth, and struggles closer, and Aziraphale opens his mouth, very slightly, and then they’re kissing, really kissing, a love-kiss, the kind Aziraphale’s read about ever since humans had started to write, all the poetry on the walls in Egypt he’d linger in front of at night in the torchlight after leaving Crowley drunk in some tap house, hoping he didn’t fall off the dock, and wondering why he was drawn there, night after night, to read those words. All the minstrels he’d listened to, in King Arthur’s court, all the scrolls and books and cheap paperbacks, and Crowley’s tongue, sliding against his, their mouths moving together, and millions of years of existence have distilled down to this exact point, his very human mouth moving against Crowley’s very human mouth, and all he can think is more, more, please, more.
Aziraphale makes a helpless noise, and Crowley pulls away, very slightly. Crowley looks dazed. He licks his lower lip, just a flash of tongue, and Aziraphale’s helpless but to watch it. They’re so close, they’re on the same pillow, and Aziraphale reaches his hand up, very slowly, just hovering over Crowley’s shoulder. Crowley’s collar’s slipped; he can see Crowley’s chest, heaving. Alive. Alive. He looks from his hand to Crowley’s eyes, as if asking permission, and Crowley’s head inclines, oh so very slightly, more the rasp of his hair on the pillowcase than anything. Aziraphale brushes the backs of two fingers against Crowley’s chest, then, can feel it, warm, the feel of his human skin, feels the firmness of breastbone beneath his touch, and Crowley gasps, sucks in a breath that Aziraphale can feel breath his hand, and Aziraphale slides his fingers into Crowley’s pajama top and hooks them around, tugging slightly, and Crowley gasps again, and it’s not enough, suddenly, just to see him breathe, or hear it, it may never be enough again. Aziraphale hears himself making a strange noise, almost like a sob, and he presses his palm flat to Crowley’s chest, feels his heart pounding, snakes his other arm around Crowley’s waist and tugs him close, on top of him, one hand still pressed to his chest, and Crowley’s curled over him in the darkness, his hips on Aziraphale’s, anchoring him, his eyes very bright. He reaches out, very slowly, towards Aziraphale’s bare arm, and when Crowley looks at him under his dark brows, as if unsure, Aziraphale says, “Yes, Crowley, please,” and Crowley touches him, latches long fingers around his wrist. Aziraphale shivers. Crowley’s eyes tighten very slightly and then widen, a predator sighting on its prey, and he tips down or Aziraphale tugs him down, hand fisted in his top, Aziraphale’s not really sure, maybe it’s both at once, and Crowley catches himself, fingers locked around Aziraphale’s wrist, pins it above Aziraphale’s head, a split second before his mouth crashes into Aziraphale’s. He stops, lips so close to Aziraphale’s that when he says, “Are you sure, angel,” just a whisper, really, Aziraphale can feel each syllable as its own kiss and he whimpers and bucks his hips and tugs Crowley down with his free hand the final infinitesimal distance between their human bodies.
Crowley’s lips are just the barest side of rough and warm and Aziraphale wraps a forearm around his back and pulls him close and kisses him, Crowley’s fingers flexing around his wrist, and oh, he can feel it in the pull of his shoulder, tingling out from his spine across his entire body, and he and Crowley move together, and it’s, oh, they’re never going to get anything ever done again, are they, might as well sell the bookshop, trade in all the books, this feeling of his body and Crowley’s body no longer separate, not at this moment, and it’s not just bodies, is it. On the other plane, the one they’re in all the time, the plane where they really are, Aziraphale opens all his eyes. Crowley’s already there, so to speak, looking at him, so to speak, because none of that works in any human way at all, and as they let each of themselves ripple out to brush the other, they seem to breathe, together, in relief. There you are.
Aziraphale releases the arm crooked around Crowley’s neck; Crowley’s grip relaxes on his wrist. “Much better,” Aziraphale says, against this mouth, and Crowley shivers, a full body thing Aziraphale can feel every inch of, and, oh. Oh. He pushes his hips up into Crowley, experimentally, and Crowley lets out an enthusiastic noise and then buries his face in Aziraphale’s neck.
“Oh, come on,” he says into Aziraphale’s neck, slightly muffled. “Pretty good for a first go.”
“Pretty-” Aziraphale pulls Crowley away from him so Crowley can feel the full force of his disbelief. He stares at him. “Crowley, it was abysmal.”
“What, like you’d have done better, your first time,” Crowley sulks.
“Well, it certainly wasn’t what I’d pictured.”
Crowley grins, and does so very slowly, so Aziraphale can have enough time to reflect on exactly how he shouldn’t have admitted to that. Crowley moves, slowly, pins first one wrist, then the other, above Aziraphale’s head, and he slithers himself along Aziraphale’s body, until he’s grinning, right in his face. “Exactly how often did you picture it, angel?”
He can feel the smugness radiating off Crowley like a virtue. “Silence, serpent,” he says, and Crowley does a complicated little wriggle against him, and Aziraphale wrenches loose from Crowley’s grip, takes him by the hips, and flips them, arm under Crowley’s waist, pulling him up to Aziraphale. Crowley’s arms fly out to steady himself, and he lets out a wounded noise, staring up at Aziraphale, eyes incredibly wide in the dark.
Aziraphale frowns, then. “Was that-”
“Yes, yes, it was great, angel, come on, just shut up already, no more talking-”
Aziraphale leans in, and stops just short, his nose brushing Crowley’s, breathing heavily, and lets time tick past, until Crowley says, “Are you going to make me beg, angel, you’re such a bastard-”
“Now that’s an idea,” Aziraphale says, and thinks about it when he kisses Crowley, runs his tongue over Crowley’s teeth, until Crowley slides his tongue across his, and then Aziraphale’s not thinking much of anything at all, for once in his literal millions of years, except oh and yes and right there. They kiss, until it slides slowly into something else, electricity prickling up Aziraphale’s spine, building, until there’s a little less tender touching and a little more grabbing, his grip around Crowley’s waist hard, a nip of Crowley’s sharp teeth on his neck, and he cries out and Crowley just starts to back off until he rolls his hips into Crowley’s, and then Crowley grins against his neck and licks across his skin before pressing an open-mouthed, sucking kiss to his skin.
Hours pass like that. They undress each other, slowly, and Aziraphale runs his hands all over Crowley’s chest in the moonlight, his pale bare skin, his body moving, lovely and sinuous. Aziraphale feels like he’s discovering Crowley anew all over again; millions of years, and how did Aziraphale never know he could be so gentle, so tender, so openly desperate? He bites a lot more than Aziraphale’s expected, it’s true, little nips that send literal shivers all over Aziraphale, as if he can’t help himself, as if he keeps getting carried away. And Aziraphale keeps pressing him closer, closer, his hands all over Crowley, and then his mouth, too, because he kisses Crowley’s collarbone, and Crowley sighs, like when he’d been dreaming, says, “Angel,” and Aziraphale says, “You know, you had the most interesting dreams the other night,” and Crowley flushes, but rolls his hips anyway, and Crowley purrs into his ear, “Want to know what they were about?”
“My dear, I’d be delighted,” Aziraphale says, running a palm down his side, and Crowley captures his hand, and brings it around, and says, “Well, in one of them, you touched me like this,” wrapping Aziraphale’s fingers around himself, and they both gasp as Aziraphale palms him, “and sometimes you were on your knees for me,” he growls, and Aziraphale gasps, and rolls them again, pulling Crowley up to kneeling, and towards him, and over him, and - “Fuck,” Crowley bites out, and grabs onto the headboard over him with a creak as Aziraphale opens his mouth.137
“When did you-” Crowley pants, some time later, his thighs trembling, and Aziraphale, coming up for air, says, “I’ve been doing some reading,” surprised by how rough his voice sounds, how ragged, and Crowley murmurs, “Aziraphale,” half approving, half amazed, and Aziraphale hides his face in Crowley’s thigh, briefly, and bites, just to make a point, although the finer point might be lost in Crowley’s gasp.
And later, much later, when Crowley finally sinks into him - and Crowley’d made him beg for it, the absolute wretch - Aziraphale gasps. It’s so much, he’s overcome, has to turn away, press his face, wildly, into the cool sheets.
“Hey, angel, hey,” Crowley’s voice, low and soft and dark and not entirely unaffected, asks, as he paws at Aziraphale’s shoulder, his jaw. “Angel, are you alright?”
Aziraphale turns his face to look at him, forces himself to hold Crowley’s eyes, Crowley’s face, very wide and open, mouth curved the tiniest bit downwards in concern -
“Yes,” he sobs, “Oh Crowley, yes,” and Crowley smiles then, a smile he hasn’t seen in, oh, millions of years, and he pets Aziraphale’s sides, his chest, the side of his neck.
Aziraphale asks, “Is it always like this?”
“Don’t know,” Crowley says, and oh, he’s shaking, the poor dear, his arms, his shoulders, so Aziraphale presses his hands all over him, his hips, his chest, runs fingers up the back of his neck, through his hair, across the top of his head, bowed almost down to Aziraphale’s chest as he shakes. And when he’s close, he whispers, “Yes, angel, yes,” eyes burning brightly, locked on Aziraphale’s, chest heaving, and when he says it like that, says, angel, like he’s always said it - oh, Aziraphale realizes, it’s a benediction, so soft, like a brush of feathers, like the slip of slithering scales through the undergrowth of a garden and Aziraphale sighs, softly, breeze through a Tree, and lets himself go.
Some time later, they lay tangled together. It’s begun to get cold out - indeed, it’s almost morning, Aziraphale notes, by the way the sky is lightening in the corners. Crowley’s warm, though, and solid, and Aziraphale’s got a hand on his chest again, just to feel it rise and fall. Maybe Aziraphale will have to leave in the morning, but not now. And now, with this - oh, he doesn’t think they’ll ever get rid of each other, now.
“Just - wondering,” Crowley says, and Aziraphale can feel his voice rumble in his chest; he rubs a little, with his thumb. “Why were you in my bed, again?”
Aziraphale flushes. “You were having nightmares. Bad dreams.”
“I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams,” Crowley says, very softly, and Aziraphale wriggles in delight, and smiles.
“I thought you thought that one was gloomy,” he says, softly.
“Yeah, well,” Crowley says. “Will was a bit of alright. Knew what he was talking about.”138
“Your dreams - seemed to get better, when I was here,” Aziraphale says.
Crowley makes a face. “I did sleep better when you were at the cottage. Thought it was just.” He trails off, turns his head to look away; when Aziraphale touches the side of his face, very lightly, he looks back. His eyes are terribly bright. “Knowing you were around. What was your - nightmare about? That - y’know. That one time.”
Aziraphale pulls him close, then, and Crowley lets him do it. Aziraphale says, into his hair, “I couldn’t save you,” and Crowley shivers, and snakes his long arms around Aziraphale, puts his hands right where his wings would be. “But you did,” he says. He swallows. Aziraphale can feel it.
“But I did,” Aziraphale agrees.
“What are you going to do with it?” Crowley says, and Aziraphale moves back just enough to tip his head up and kiss him, slowly and softly, the way he had imagined for, oh, millennia.
They drift off to sleep, then, finally. Aziraphale feels Crowley drift off before his own eyes close slowly.
Some time later, Crowley comes awake next to him in the darkness. It wakes Aziraphale up: the intake of breath, a quick restrained flinch. Another nightmare. He can feel Crowley’s heart hammering from here. Aziraphale shifts slightly, rolls to gather Crowley in his arms, pressed to his back, one arm over his waist - hand pressed to his heart - and pulls Crowley close. His other arm shoves under Crowley’s pillow, and Crowley turns his face into it, presses an almost-kiss into the soft skin of his inner arm. “None of that now,” Aziraphale whispers to his back, and Crowley huffs out a laugh. There are birds, already, calling outside. Aziraphale wants to wake up to them every morning like this.139 Aziraphale buries his face in the back of Crowley’s neck, and they both fall asleep.
≠≠
When Aziraphale wakes up again, it’s very slightly cold in the room, the first hint of fall. Crowley’s gone, and Aziraphale sits up in a panic. The bedclothes are still warm, so Crowley can’t be far. He becomes aware of a light scratching sound, and rolls to look out the bedroom window. Crowley’s out in the garden, looking down his long nose to lecture the Brussels sprouts sternly, and Aziraphale feels such a rush of, of, of. Well, of love, really. So he gets up, and puts the kettle on while he figures out Crowley’s ridiculous coffee machine,140 and makes them a cup of tea and coffee, respectively, just the way they each like it, and he brings them out into the garden. It’s - well, it’s autumn, out there, a fine mist hanging low on the ground, rising, slowly, towards the sky. Aziraphale’s trouser legs get damp as he walks towards Crowley, who is standing in the mist as if up in the clouds, a thin dark slash cutting through the landscape like a pacing crow.
“Crowley,” he says, and Crowley turns to him, and looks surprised, and delighted, and then he reins in his face, but only just. He’s not wearing his glasses. He holds out his hand wordlessly, and their fingers brush as he takes the cup, and Aziraphale says, a little breathless, “Crowley, I would really rather much like to stay.”
“Oh,” Crowley says, “That’s. Oh. Alright.”
“If I may,” Aziraphale says, a little stiffly, because oh, what if he’s misread somehow, sure, perhaps Crowley likes a, a tumble, every now and again, that doesn’t mean he wants Aziraphale in his home -
“Aziraphale,” Crowley says. “Why the heaven do you think this place has got a library? I don’t read books."
“Library?” Aziraphale says, and twists around to look at the house, as if he’s missed something important.
“Nngh. The. The living room. All the shelves. I thought. Could make more shelves. Probably have to. Make it a bit bigger in there. Or even upstairs, maybe, upstairs, f’you want, knock out a few walls.”
“Oh,” Aziraphale says happily, something rises in his chest, “Oh, no, that won’t be necessary. I’m sure I could just…persuade a few more shelves out of the living room…” he’s already flexing the fingers on the hand not holding the tea. Crowley groans.
“I suppose I - oh, when, Crowley? I suppose I should wrap some things up at the shop - I imagine I wouldn’t sell it, of course, but perhaps I could-”
“You don’t have to, y’know,” Crowley says, and he looks oddly nervous, and a bit like he’s ready to pull himself back, if Aziraphale says, actually, I rather think I will. Crowley continues, “Y’can always change your mind. Anytime.”
“I’m not going to change my mind, thanks ever so,” Aziraphale says, a little testily.
“Nothing lasts forever,” Crowley says, and Aziraphale’s throat is tight, and he blinks. Crowley’s own eyes look wet.“Even this.” He gestures. “Someday this’ll all fall into the sea. Coastal erosion, and all.”
“Oh,” Aziraphale says, and looks down.
Crowley steps forward, then. “Hasn’t fallen in yet,” he says, and Aziraphale looks up. “Got a lot of time before that, I suppose. Find - find another cottage, somewhere. Not Alpha Centauri. That’s right out, now. Bad neighbors.”
“I suppose so,” Aziraphale says, and Crowley extends a hand. “What’d’you say?”
Aziraphale takes it. He squeezes, and then their hands slide together, palms touching, fingers tangling. They look at each other there, in the mist. Crowley’s eyes are so terribly vibrant and alive, and the way the brief fall of sunlight is hitting the mist around him makes it look as if he has a halo. Not a holy one, though, just an earthly one. One only Aziraphale can see.
“Come on, dear,” Aziraphale says, and starts tugging on Crowley’s hand, pulling him back towards the cottage.
Crowley sputters, but he lets Aziraphale pull him along. “Now where you going?”
“Back inside! I’m going to see if I can coax a few more shelves out of the living room. Come on, I’ll need you to help make it bigger.”
“I’m not gonna comment on that,” Crowley says.
“And that horrible cherub painting goes.”
“The painting stays,” Crowley says, putting a hint of demonic persuasion into it.
“Oh, alright,” says Aziraphale. “But it’s not going in the bedroom.”
“I’ve got all the angel I need in my bedroom already,” Crowley leers behind him. Aziraphale can feel it, an itch on the back of his neck.
“Oh, hush, serpent,” Aziraphale says, and pulls him inside, back into their home.
≠≠
88. Miraculously, none of the gravel hit the Bentley nor damaged its paint; it was neither Aziraphale nor Crowley’s miracle. It was the Bentley’s. The stones wouldn’t dare. back
89. He hadn’t known how much Crowley remembered, because they hadn’t talked about it. Still, he imagines dying leaves an impression. back
90. Well, except Mrs. Sandwich’s girls. The ones that work nights. back
91. Say, 120 years or so. back
92. Crowley’d had to come fish him out of the Nile, three days later. back
93. Tartan, of course. back
94. No use in letting Noah’s daughters get ahold of it. back
95. Funnily enough, Crowley had been having a very similar nightmare at the same time, except, of course, he’d been trapped down in Hell, hearing Aziraphale calling him, and been unable to climb back up. A common enough nightmare for him, being trapped in the pit, and unable to get out. Aziraphale’s presence is new, though. back
96. L-space. Worth it? Aziraphale wonders, fuzzily, and shelves that thought for reevaluation. back
97. Your bookshop’s extended warranty is about to expire. back
98. Troubles in the garden, but Aziraphale’s not to know that. back
99. Aziraphale’s surprised. So’s the hat, which finds itself on a head in an English garden one minute - a placement it was meant for - and on the rear of a rhinoceros the next - a placement it was most certainly not meant for.
Of course, the hat’s not nearly as surprised as the rhinoceros is.
100. Fire and brimstone. Too much wine, a candle that’s been snuffed out, your best friend’s mouth. back
101. When was that, oh, it was Venice, that time Crowley had been moonlighting as a gondolier for several months, and he’d seen Crowley rowing a boat heaped full of ripe tomatoes. Except then Crowley had seen him, and then through a typical series of events Aziraphale’d found himself on the boat, and then they’d found themselves drinking in a cafe, and by the time Crowley had remembered his cargo, it’d all been stolen, and it had taken him and Aziraphale, three hours and several dozen miracles to get the lot of them back, and even then, they tasted off. In their defense, they were fairly intoxicated, even for them. back
102. He asked Maggie how one could get a reliable cab in this day and age, and she’d told him about Uber. Aziraphale didn’t really understand mobile apps, so he’d picked up the bookshop phone and told it he’d wanted a you-burr sent to his shop in ten minutes, please, and he’d walked out, and there it’d been.
The driver was extremely confused, terribly polite, and very well-tipped. Also, they hadn’t needed to get more gas for three months after. back
103. It’d been playing “Danny Boy” before they’d walked in, but neither Aziraphale nor Crowley were to know that.
(Except, somehow, the signals had gotten crossed, so to speak, so what was really coming out of the jukebox was Oh Danny Boy, the bums, big bums are calling.)
104. A twist from Crowley under the booth-top and Aziraphale’s got a glass of sherry. The barkeep doesn’t seem to notice. back
105. The fact that he doesn’t need to breathe and can refill at will is quite unfair in situations like this. back
106. Crowley jumps a mile. back
107. Perhaps a little too well prepared. A minor miracle fixes that right up. back
108. Maybe it’s because I’ve got a fat bottom / that I love London Town back
109. Aziraphale could forcibly sober him up, but Crowley’s never appreciated it. back
110. Wouldn’t want Crowley to be embarrassed in front of his new neighbors, after all. back
111. Rough translation: I will operate the vehicle that drives the Heavens. back
112. Rough translation: You most certainly will not. back
113. After sobering up, naturally. back
114. A whole host of local fauna suddenly find it in their best interests to be nowhere near the road at that point in time. back
115. “If you go in there like this, I imagine the plants will laugh at you,” and when Crowley slurs something back at him in argument, “And that’s if they can understand a word you’re saying.” back
116. Aziraphale doesn’t permit himself a glance back when he leaves the room, which means he doesn’t see Crowley struggle to sit up, looking after him. back
117. Demicide? Fallen-Angicide? Even thinking about it’s annoying Aziraphale immensely. back
118. Sign posed on the door: Most definitely closed, for an indefinite length of time. back
119. So far, he thinks. One can only hope. back
120. “Fine,” Crowley says, after a two-hour argument, and Aziraphale smiles at a battle well won versus a wily adversary, as he loads his books onto the living room shelves. They look right there. Even Crowley doesn’t complain as much as Aziraphale expected, once they’re up. back
121. Aziraphale always thought the reason horses didn’t like Crowley stems from genetic memory of those two horses. back
122. The door is cracked, why does Crowley keep leaving the door cracked, what does it mean? back
123. Only 3/37 down so far. Perhaps his worries were unfounded. Still, better safe than bookless. back
124. The chair, he corrects himself. back
125. They hadn’t. If they had, he’d have stubbed his toes on them. back
126. It didn’t leak, exactly, but the water was never all there by the time you’d finished. back
127. He points somewhere in the vicinity of the chimney. back
128. Georgette Heyer. Even an angel deserves a little light reading every now and again. back
129. Utterly blotto. back
130. Aziraphale shifts a little. The only problem with this vacation is Aziraphale hasn’t yet figured out how to best indulge in his new hobby. back
131. Carefully, one hand on the wall. Crowley goes ahead of him, taking both the empty wine bottle and the book. back
132. “Alright, angel?” Crowley says at something he sees on his face, and Aziraphale waves him off, and continues thinking. back
133. Including a few that Aziraphale would categorize as nightmares. He and the other angels had worked very hard to create the universe out of only molecules; it’s a quintessentially human thing to want to reduce everything back down to them again. back
134. Which he’s never experienced, thank you very much, but he understands the general principles of it. back
135. Which Crowley glares at, and suddenly, Aziraphale’s got two blankets. back
136. But also, I’m hilarious, and you know it. back
137. Thank you, L-space. back
138. Actually, that had been one of Crowley’s, piss-drunk in a pub off Avon. He hadn’t slept in six years, had a rash of bad dreams. back
139. Well, perhaps a bit later than this. back
140. It turns out it’s quite simple, after all, provided you lean over it and tell it you’re going to take it out to Brighton one day and fling it directly into the ocean, if it doesn’t give you a cup of coffee, just like Crowley likes it, please.
(Crowley notices the espresso tastes a little terrified this morning, and he eyes Aziraphale with intrigue and a bit of respect when Aziraphale’s back is turned, looking down at the Brussels sprouts. “They look a bit-” Aziraphale says, of the plants, and Crowley says, “Don’t they just,” with every bit of relish.)
Notes:
This story would not exist without Humanities_Handbag, who brought up the South Downs. The idea wormed its way into my brain and started kicking the walls until this story came out.
A big thanks to everyone who’s been along for the ride (and all those footnotes). <3
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