Work Text:
This is it, Aziraphale supposes. He is standing before God and Satan with Crowley beside him, and he looks right at Crowley, and this is it. This is the end of it all. He feels the edges of him start to break, and he can’t bear it. He closes his eyes. In the last second he feels something incredibly soft brush against his face, and he imagines if he was looking that it would be feathers, and they would be black.
*
Aziraphale had expected an absence. Death, erasure, nonexistence, it’s supposed to be nothing, isn’t it? This is something. The feeling of being cradled. Numbly, cautiously, Aziraphale opens his eyes. He’s solid, undoubtedly corporeal. Yellow eyes lock with his – when did Crowley get so close that Aziraphale could feel his breath?
“We did it, angel.” Crowley whispers. His smile is bright, sharp, with a hint of teeth. That strung out fatigue, that exhausted hopelessness of only a moment ago, it is gone. Aziraphale realises that Crowley has wrapped his wings around him, as if to hide him. Whatever miracle he worked must have been off the scales.
“Did what?” Aziraphale’s voice cracks halfway through. Crowley has already stepped back. He’s thrumming with energy. They’re still in the bookshop. Crowley has turned his back, is rummaging through the books with a fixed determination, throwing books in piles over his shoulders.
They’re alive.
“It’s gotta be in here somewhere.” Crowley mutters. “Angel, will you look on the other shelf? Best to get a move on, She shouldn’t be back, but you never know with Her.”
There’s something like a boulder in Aziraphale’s gut. He’s never felt this ill before, even when Heaven drowned the children in the flood just for being there. Something is yelling in his head, so loud, and yet he can’t hear it.
“Angel?” Crowley pauses, turns. “What are you doing?”
Aziraphale is on the ground. He’s not quite sure when, or how. He can’t breathe, his heart juddering, breath staggering, mind whirling. Crowley is on the floor in front of him in a moment, eyes bright and wide and worried. Aziraphale blinks, trying to see him clearly. That’ll be the tears, then.
“What – happened?” Aziraphale wheezes.
“I did a miracle, to hide us.” Crowley says carefully, something creeping at the edges of his tone. “So She would think we were dead, and leave. Now we just have to find the backup of the book, read it, believe in it, that should be enough.”
“What?”
Crowley inhales, like he’s breathing in broken glass. “Aziraphale, did you – I thought you were playing along?”
“To what? When – when did you even hint?”
“With Her watching?” Crowley’s voice is hoarse, tight. “I asked you to trust me.”
He had whispered it, in the garden, so quiet as to almost be nothing at all. Aziraphale had heard it, with a sharp pang. But then Crowley had said he wanted to kill himself. So Aziraphale had said yes. (He had had nothing left in him, nothing to offer, nothing to prove Crowley it was worth staying to fight. Nothing to fight with. Their world was gone, and he had an image of another better one, and Aziraphale had thought at least let him choose how we go out).
“I did.”
Crowley’s hands go to Aziraphale’s face – where is his taut anger, his tired emptiness, his alarming distance? “Look at me, please.”
“My dear,” Aziraphale breathes.
“It was a trick. You’re alive. I’m alive. We have time to find the printer, or the catalogue, or the digitised whatever, wherever the copy of the book is. We can put this back together.”
“You ridiculed me when I suggested that.” Aziraphale says tightly, hurt.
“I – She was watching! Fucking, million eyes on my skull watching. We had one shot, I thought – I thought you would see that I wasn’t – that I had a plan.” Crowley grabs Aziraphale’s hands. “Angel, I’m sorry. Don’t cry, it’s alright, you’re okay.”
Aziraphale is crying. It’s one of those unleashed things, that you can’t rein back in. Crowley makes a haunted noise, and then he is wrapping his spindly arms around Aziraphale, loose enough to be shaken off. Aziraphale slumps into him. Crowley just holds him tighter.
He’s being ridiculous. He hasn’t even properly apologised to Crowley, shouldn’t be accepting his kindness with Aziraphale’s errors trailing long behind both of them. Crowley had it all sorted. He had a plan, where Aziraphale had nothing, outsmarted God and the Devil with a little sleight of hand. Aziraphale should be showering him with compliments, be suggesting that he took up some magic, should be standing up at the very least.
Aziraphale is speaking, he realises. A little rushed litany. “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry.”
“Angel, I know,” Crowley says into his shoulder. “I know. It’s alright, I know.”
“We should, you should do your – what you were doing.”
Crowley shakes his head, Aziraphale feels Crowley’s hair brushing his neck. “We have a moment.”
“My dear,” the tears have slowed, “my dear, I thought … what of your plan, a world with Free Will?”
“Angel,” Crowley murmurs wetly, “we’ve had that all already, here. Did you forget?”
“… That idea was for Her.” It’s starting, numbly, to make sense.
“Thought She’d enjoy the drama of it all. Hoped so, at least. We hadn’t talked in a while, me and Her. Was guessing really.”
“You really think we can fix things?”
“Angel,” Crowley’s voice is warm, and gentle, and so deeply guilty, “we can always fix things.”
“You can, my dear. I believe that.”
“No,” Crowley presses, “us.”
“Us. Still?”
“What do you mean, still? Angel.”
“But I was so cruel.”
Crowley says nothing.
“I was so – so shortsighted, and cruel, and I hurt you, and I – I’m so sorry. I really, really, am.”
“I know why you did it.” Crowley says, but he’s pulled back a little, voice deadened slightly. “I for-”
“It was not worth it. It was never worth it. I thought I was choosing the world over you and that wasn’t – I was a fool.”
“And then you thought I was choosing a world over you.” Crowley has sat back fully now; they aren’t touching anymore. Aziraphale feels that absence below his sternum, please …
“You are a good actor, my dear.”
“You thought I wanted you to die?” Crowley’s voice is only jagged edges, now.
“Not wanted. Thought it necessary. I thought you wanted to die. I thought you’d given up. Do not judge me, it is what you said.”
Crowley is shaking his head, and Aziraphale recalls with a flash of blinding understanding how much of an optimist Crowley is, at his core.
“Never, never. I’d never hurt you.”
“My dear, that wasn’t what hurt.”
“It should have!” Crowley yells, startling even himself. “Angel, you’re not – you’re worth more than that.”
“Well. I said yes, didn’t I?”
Crowley freezes, face stricken. “Y-You did.”
“Well.” Aziraphale says. He feels like the entirety of him has been scooped out, nothing left. “We had ought to look for the book.”
“Yes.” Crowley says, though he doesn’t move.
“I’ll look on this side, you keep with what you were doing.”
They find it. Of course they do. Or rather, they find the printing blocks, already set up, under a desk right up the back. Crowley finds the ink. And there is paper absolutely everywhere.
Aziraphale gets to work.
*
The world unfurls around the bookshop, which fills up too. Aziraphale hadn’t realised how much he had missed the sunlight. His books are back. The bookshop is now empty from three years of absence, not from the lack of a world.
“Aziraphale?” Someone squeaks from the far corner of the room.
“Muriel?” Aziraphale blinks. They shuffle out from behind a bookshop, eyes wide. “Are you alright?”
They look at Crowley, who’s put back on his sunglasses, and smile uncertainly. “What happened?”
“Eh, Second Coming. False alarm and all that.”
Muriel looks at Aziraphale. Their hands are shaking, visible even across the room. “I thought it all … stopped.”
“It did for a moment,” Aziraphale says softly, “but it’s better now. Crowley fixed it.”
“Yes, if Michael turns up be careful around them, yeah?” Crowley swaggers over to Muriel, and presses a book to their chest. They clutch it automatically. “Copy of the Book of Life, hang on to it.”
“What, what do you-?”
“We’re distributing it.” Aziraphale says, gestures to the pile of books to his left, the printing press, the papers.
“Bad thing to have, a book that can destroy the world.”
“Then why are you giving it to me?” Muriel is halfway to panicking.
“Break the mythology. As soon as people stop believing in it so much, it can go back to just being a book,” Crowley shrugs. “That’s the theory. But it’s worked, hasn’t it? Things are back together.”
“Are they?” Aziraphale asks, voice small.
“Angel, be my guest,” Crowley gestures to the door.
Aziraphale doesn’t go slowly. He hurries, pushing the door open, looks out to see – the footpath, the sky, the street. There’s a young man sitting on the curb, despite the passing cars, head in hands. Crowley follows, leans against the doorway of the shop. He takes off his sunglasses. He’s smiling. The Bentley is purring contentedly, next to the crying man.
“Oh, you marvellous creature,” Aziraphale exclaims.
Crowley looks at him, a longing sort of look. Aziraphale gives up; he takes the two steps to stand in front of him, places a hand on his chest. “Please.”
Crowley looks a little strangled. “Yep, uh huh, go for it.”
Aziraphale kisses him, drawing him in firmly by the collar. Crowley kisses back, hands clutching Aziraphale’s hair, and it’s a rushed and wild thing.
“Oh my darling,” Aziraphale says, when he pulls away, “oh thank you, my dearest.”
“You’re smiling,” Crowley says, like it’s something wondrous. “You’re smiling again.”
“Your glasses are off.”
“Brave new world, innit?”
“Old world,” Aziraphale says, “our world.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” and the final vestiges of Crowley’s cool disappear, and he kisses Aziraphale like he might disappear at any moment, like he almost did. Aziraphale doesn’t mind, he kisses back with as much abandon. For the first time in his existence, he doesn’t check behind his back to see who’s watching. It starts raining, gently, and they slowly separate, but Crowley keeps a hold of one of Aziraphale’s hands, and he can’t stop smiling.
The man on the curb is Jehoshua, which Aziraphale ought to have expected. He’s shaking in the rain, isn’t looking up. Rude of Aziraphale and Crowley really, to kiss so near to his emotional moment. Ah well, Aziraphale can’t even pretend to care.
Crowley nudges Aziraphale, looking at Jehoshua. Aziraphale glares at him pointedly, and the ex-demon sighs.
“Alright there, Jesus?”
The boy startles. Oh, goodness, he really is quite human, isn’t he? He looks at the two of them and doesn’t smile. “She’s gone.”
“Yup.” Crowley sits beside him, stretching out lithely. “She is.”
“For now at least.” Aziraphale says, standing behind them uncomfortably. The rain is less romantic without wings to shelter Crowley with. He hopes he still has his wings. He hasn’t checked and is now scared to.
“No.” Jehoshua speaks with the certainty of something eternal, though his eyes are big and young and scared. “She is not coming back.”
Crowley doesn’t move for a long moment. “Are you sure?”
“Yes!”
Crowley’s grin is giddy. “Look at that then, angel.”
“What do I do?” It’s so deeply plaintive, a twisted mourning thing. “She didn’t even say goodbye.”
“No. She doesn’t go in for all that.” Crowley says darkly.
“My dear,” Aziraphale fusses with his sleeves. “My dear, the first thing you should do is come in from the rain.”
Jehoshua looks at him, and something hopeful unfurls in his eyes. Oh dear. Aziraphale had so liked looking after Warlock, and that same part of him begins to twitch out of forced slumber. He leans down, gently takes the man’s arm and guides him to his feet.
“I’ll make cocoa,” Crowley says, jumping to his feet and swaggering back into the shop.
“My dear, it’ll be quite alright,” Aziraphale is saying as he walks with a bedraggled Jehoshua into the shop, to the back room, “Crowley makes excellent cocoa.”
*
The world really does seem to be back to normal. Crowley checks the news, skims the channels, and Aziraphale uses the landline to ring his contacts, to see they’re still around. There isn’t a peep from Heaven or Hell, though Muriel mentions that Heaven itself is closed – an “out of order” sign. Aziraphale imagines there are angels and demons, in Hell or Earth, trying to work out what to do in a world without God.
Jehoshua is consoled by Crowley, somehow. Aziraphale leaves them to it, steps out to go behind the counter. His heart is beating, a bounding terrified thing. It has all been too much. He doesn’t know what to do with any of it.
A little while ago there was a fire in this shop and Crowley had thought Aziraphale had died. He had mentioned it, but shortly, had not dwelled. Aziraphale wonders now how he had carried that. The ache of it, the shuddering pain. The guilt too, though Aziraphale has more to be guilty of than Crowley ever had. So much, really, for being an angel. In the end, he has always been week.
How can Crowley look at him? How can Crowley smile at him, kiss him, after all of this? Aziraphale has given up, had not fought for them. Has Crowley forgotten that? Did he simply not understand?
But then again, Crowley has always been smarter than Aziraphale.
“There you are, angel.” Crowley’s voice is warm and smug.
“Just looking, um, looking at the till.”
“Why? It’s been closed for three years.”
What an excellent point. Aziraphale forces himself to turn. “I’m afraid, unless you want a repeat of, um, earlier, that you should go back to Jesus.”
Crowley raises an eyebrow. “You’re allowed to cry, Aziraphale. I’ve cried in front of you.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
Crowley pauses for a long testing moment. Then he looks over Aziraphale, lascivious, slow. “I can think of a couple of things.”
It’s ridiculously timed, what with tears brewing in Aziraphale’s eyes. He finds himself laughing, is surprised. “Oh hush.”
“You look very good out of that grey suit, angel,” Crowley strides forwards, lines of false confidence, takes Aziraphale’s elbows in his hands, pulling his hands from his face. “Gorgeous.”
“You can’t just f-flirt with me to get me in a good mood.”
“I can’t? But you’re smiling.”
He is, just a little. The grief is there, much to large to really dislodge, but it’s sharing space in Aziraphale’s chest with a ridiculous fondness.
Aziraphale really should return the compliment. “I-I’ve always liked your outfits.”
He curses himself the moment he says it – it’s such a weak thing, said with a stammer. But then Crowley preens, smiling, eyes bright and almost laughing. “Really?”
“Oh yes, I always thought – well, it suits you.”
“A real charmer, angel,” Crowley says, but it’s a little too sincere to be the joke he’s aiming for.
“I can’t stop thinking about it all.”
Crowley’s grin slides away. “Did you want to talk about it?”
“No, not – not really … will you.” He stops.
“Will I?”
“No, I’m being ridiculous.”
“Come onnnnnn.”
“Will you hold me?”
Crowley says nothing.
“Oh dear, I didn’t mean to overstep, I …”
“Shut up, angel,” Crowley says, “I’m thinking logistics.”
“Logistics?”
“Do you have a bed?”
“Crowley, I know we were joking about this but I really don’t think I could …”
“Not propositioning you, angel. But if we’re going to do this cuddling thing, we should do it properly.”
Oh. That sounds quite nice really. “I have a bedroom.”
“Lead on, then.”
For all that Aziraphale has imagined, in his lowest moments, inviting Crowley to stay the night, he has never actually been in Aziraphale’s bedroom. Aziraphale doesn’t really sleep, there had never been the need. So Aziraphale leads him into the warm, cozy room without a thought of how it might look.
“Angel. Why are there two single beds in your bedroom?”
“Uh. It’s economical, isn’t it?”
“Uh huh.” Crowley fixes him with a prodding look.
“Oh, blast it. One’s for you.”
“For me?” Crowley frowns. “A single bed?”
“Like in … like in the talkies.” Aziraphale mutters.
Crowley starts grinning. “Like in a romance from the fifties? The married couple with the two beds?”
“Well. Obviously.”
“This isn’t a film, angel.” Crowley says, and then he’s pulling the bedside table out from between the bed, and shoving them together. Aziraphale doesn’t move; his face feels quite warm. Crowley looks at him, stills. “If you don’t want-”
Cursing himself, he crosses the distance, removing his jacket, his waistcoat. “I do.”
“Well,” Crowley shoves him, but gently, “get in then.”
Aziraphale gingerly climbs into the bed, laying down cautiously. Crowley makes a snorting noise – laughter, most likely – and gets in with much less hesitation. Crowley slips an arm over Aziraphale’s stomach and leans his head against Aziraphale’s chest. He’s warm, for a snake, a reassuring weight. Here it’s almost easy to remember that he isn’t dead.
“How about we try to sleep,” Crowley murmurs, “and we sort the rest out in the morning?”
Aziraphale kisses the top of Crowley’s head. “My dear, that sounds like an excellent idea.”
“I love you.” It’s said frankly, with a warm sort of confidence.
“Oh,” Aziraphale’s free hand flutters. “Crowley, I love you too.”
Aziraphale doesn’t take to sleep naturally, but he manages to drift into it after some time. The weight of Crowley is a reassurance, something to keep his mind from spinning. There’s a gentle stretch of nothingness – Aziraphale, when he sleeps, doesn’t ever really dream.
Something shatters, broken glass. A voice yells. Aziraphale shifts, eyes fluttering, and then he’s on his feet, wings outstretched, looking for the danger in the room. There’s nothing in the shadows, nothing in the door. Just Crowley, sitting on the ground next to a dropped glass.
Aziraphale gestures to the sky. “Let there be light.”
The room is bathed in a white light that banishes all shadows. Crowley hunches his shoulders.
“Sorry.”
“What happened?” Aziraphale steps towards him.
“Nothing. ‘s stupid.”
Aziraphale waits.
“Bad dream.” He still isn’t looking up. “I’ll clean up.”
Aziraphale tuts and flicks his fingers, the glass delicately pieces itself together. Crowley is clearly not moving, so Aziraphale takes the softest blanket from the bed, tucks it around his shoulders.
“What happened?”
“Heh?”
“In the dream. What happened?”
Crowley finally looks up. There’s something unsettling to his yellow eyes. “You were gone.”
Aziraphale clicks his tongue, sits beside Crowley. “Well, I’m here now.”
Crowley’s face does something complicated at that.
Aziraphale decides to take a little of Maggie’s old advice. “My dear, I know I cannot fix what happened. We will need to talk, I think.”
“Fucking hate talking,” Crowley shifts under the blanket.
“Me too, my dear. Did you have a better idea?”
Crowley grumbles.
“Perhaps we can talk in the morning?”
“Yep,” Crowley springs to his feet, blanket still wrapped around him, “I’ll just go – check …”
Crowley’s swagger is rather muted as he leaves, and it’s not simply because of the blanket. Aziraphale squeezes his own hand tight to stop himself from speaking, begging – don’t go. It has been altogether too much and he needs – well, perhaps what he needs isn’t the most important thing.
The thing about escaping death by the skin of one’s teeth is that the chill of it doesn’t leave when the deed is done. Aziraphale wants Crowley, wants his presence, his brittle affection. But Crowley doesn’t want that, right now, so Aziraphale goes back to the bed (which had quietly become a queen while they weren’t looking) and pulls the blankets up to his waist. He sits, back to the headboard, under his own miracled light, and he waits. His heart picks up a drumbeat, and breathing is something to force out, and he finds moving to be much too difficult. So he sits, losing time, waiting for Crowley to slink his way back home.
*
“You said yes.”
Aziraphale flinches, opening his eyes. He had been adrift, not asleep, simply beyond. Time uncounted has passed. Crowley is in the doorway. His glasses are on.
“Crowley? Are you feeling any better, dear boy?”
“You said yes.” It’s flat, as if Aziraphale can’t see the twists in the lines of his face. “I said we had to die and you said yes.”
“Was I to say no?”
“Yes!” Crowley snaps, flinging his arms. “If you believed it!”
“Well. Then your plan wouldn’t have worked. And you asked me to trust you.” Aziraphale says primly, shrinking only a little into the bed.
“Angel.”
“I said sorry.” His voice is curt. “Should I say it again?”
Crowley growls.
“Oh really? You pull this … stunt and I’m the fool for believing it?”
“You’re. Not. A. Fool.” Crowley grits out. “Just tell me what you were thinking, angel, because I’m …”
“Yes?” Aziraphale says tightly.
“I’m sssscared.”
Aziraphale looks at Crowley. It cost him to say that, and yet he chose to. Aziraphale recalls that argument in the 1800s concerning holy water.
“I didn’t want to die,” Aziraphale says, softer now.
Crowley stares. “You said yes.”
“Oh dear. Please – stop lurking like that, Crowley. Sit at least, if we’re … if we’re talking, now.”
Crowley sniffs but he does perch on the edge of the bed, torso twisted towards Aziraphale.
“Crowley,” Aziraphale says after a long moment, “you’ve always had a better perspective than me.”
“What are you on about, angel?”
Aziraphale reaches out, and Crowley lets him take his hand. Indeed, the ex-demon leans into it, something sharp in his shoulders slowly uncoiling.
“You’ve been better at seeing things how they are. Much better than me. You didn’t have the luxury of lying to yourself, I suppose, these last 6000 years.” Aziraphale’s breath stutters. “There you were, at the end of our world, and you couldn’t see an escape. All you could see was a sort of – glorious self-sacrifice. Was I to take that from you?”
Crowley scoffs at all that, but his voice is delicate. “You didn’t want to die?”
“Absolutely not.” Aziraphale sniffs, eyes blurring. “It was all quite awful, really. And after the last three years, too.”
“I didn’t want to die either, angel.”
“Well. That’s alright then.”
“I don’t think it is, though, is it?” Crowley says.
“What else could it be?”
“You – I don’t know how to help.”
“Is that what you’re trying to do?” Aziraphale says, snippily. “Marching off, marching back, reprimanding me?”
Crowley is silent for a long moment, though he clings on when Aziraphale tries to pull his hand away. “You’re angry I left to go have a panic attack, angel?”
“Panic attack?”
“Lotta fun, you should try it sometimes.”
It doesn’t feel like the time to mention the hoofbeats in his chest, the breathing, the lack of time. Surely it will come up later.
“Crowley.”
“Aziraphale. Are you really angry with me?” It’s said lowly.
“I – I.” Aziraphale stops.
“If I were you, I would be angry,” Crowley says, “but I’d be angry at a lot more than just me. You were up there for three years. I lost my car, lost you. What did you lose?”
“I used to think they were good. We were never good.”
“Ah, you’re being hard on yourself angel, I’ve seen you do some good deeds from time to time, when you weren’t shirking them off onto me.”
“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale says, “I’ve been – am being – altogether unfair. You did your best, it is only … I can’t stop thinking about what has happened, what you said.”
“I won’t ever use a suicide pact as a ruse to escape God again,” Crowley says solemnly.
“What if She just comes back, and destroys it all?”
“I’ve thought about it. It’s not Her style, She likes to get her lackeys to do that. And why would She look over here again? As far as She knows, it’s all gone. You don’t go back to the house you moved out of.”
“I had … I had hoped She was still, somehow, good. That She didn’t know, that She wasn’t-”
“Angel, the only thing She had ever proved to be was cruel.” Crowley makes a face. “Gah. I’ve talked too much, about emotions. Gotta set fire to a cat later, restore balance.”
“Dear, you don’t have to do that anymore.”
“It’s not have to, angel, it’s get to. I love setting fire to cats. The noise they make.”
“Yes dear. Will you get into bed, now?”
“If you will let me.”
“Psh, get in.”
Crowley does. And the jagged edges between them are still there, still waiting like ghosts, but the relief in having him here still overpowers even Aziraphale’s irritable brain. They don’t touch, but they lie down together, and soon Crowley starts snoring lightly. Aziraphale watches him, curled up tight, with a solid affection in his chest. At some point the sun rises.