Archive of Our Own ^beta

"Don't think this means I'll go easy on you," he tells his plants as he carefully moves them up the stairs and back onto their original spots. "I expect better than usual performance now that you're not getting your sunlight through tinted glass windows." 

The plants barely shake. One of his Devil’s Ivy is actively wilting before his eyes. Crowley must be really losing his touch. 

Shax has done a strange number on his flat. He can’t make heads or tails out of half of the décor decisions that have been performed here—from the iron twisting garden chairs in the kitchen to the velvet throw hanging above the throne on the study. It all looks like it was put together by someone with a child’s comprehension of luxury. Crowley snaps his fingers and all the mismatched furniture disappears, and it’s just him in his flat again, alone.

It's all so empty. He lounges in the living room for a while, relishing in the privilege of being able to get a direct, steady mail delivery again, and then he reaches under the couch and digs out the bottle of wine—Mouton Rothschild, 1980. He'd always been saving it for a special occasion, because Aziraphale likes—liked—he was always a Bordeaux kind of guy. Crowley sneers as he decorks it and then chugs it anyway. 

Aziraphale would have made at face, seeing him drink it like this, not even a glass—but Aziraphale is not here, and Crowley is doing an admirably terrible job of not thinking about him. 

"Fuck him," Crowley says aloud into the quiet of the room. He catches sight of the statue resting on the table, and now it doesn't seem so funny anymore—before he can think about it he's hurling the bottle at it, demolishing both things in one go and coming out of it wineless and with shards of marble all over his living room. 

His bed is cool and feels boundless when he climbs into it, dizzy and numb enough that he can look at the little clock on the nightstand Aziraphale got him (Maybe this way you’ll stop being so late to our outings, he had said, eyebrow arched and a little smile on the corner of his face, to which Crowley had replied I’m not the one who got so consumed by a first edition Dickens they missed our reservation) and not feel like Satan himself is doing acupuncture directly on the soft tissue on his heart. Mostly. 

He falls into an uneasy, heavy sleep. When he wakes up it’s only because there's a rhythmic, annoying sound percolating through the quiet daze. Something smashes in the distance. 

"Whazzit," Crowley mumbles, starling awake—his head hurts and his eyes are too-dry. The pounding continues. There’s faint yelling coming from the front door. 

He lies there for a bit. Neither Hell nor Heaven would bother knocking on his door if they were coming to—what, smite him? Give him a friendly heads-up about the end of the world (again)? 

The pounding stops, eventually. Crowley shuts his eyes and thinks he might sleep some more—he’s not sure what date it is, but if the world is still spinning it can’t have been too long.

Then the front door creaks open. Something shifts in the living room. Crowley sighs, clears his throat and reaches for his sunglasses on the nightstand. "If you’re gonna sneak into someone's house you should at least try to be stealthy, don’t y'think?”

“See, I told you he was fine,” someone says from the doorway. Crowley stumbles out of bed, sheets tangled like a devil’s snare, and folds himself over the door frame.

"What the hell are you doing here?" 

“Good question,” Nina murmurs. Maggie turns from where she’s poking at the shards of statue on the floor and smiles at him.

“This is breaking and entering, you know,” Crowley tells them, still feeling foggy and faintly apathetic. 

“Her idea,” Nina points. 

“We need your help."

“I don’t care,” Crowley tells her, heartfelt. “Now get out of my flat.” He rubs a hand across his face. “How’d you even find out where I live? I’m not registered anywhere.”

"Your car is very distinctive," Maggie informs him. “Also, Mr. Fell keeps an address book in his shop, but Muriel only bumped into it today.”

“Of course he does,” Crowley says, walking back into the bedroom, “and why, exactly, have you been rummaging around his bookshop?”

"He’s gone," Maggie tells him, brow furrowed. Crowley slowly slides back down until he's horizontal again. “Has been gone, that is.”

"Is he, now." 

"What happened?" Nina nudges an empty bottle of wine with her heel. “I thought you two were gonna—y’know. Talk and figure it all out.”

"You give awful advice is what happened," Crowley says, so bitter he’s surprised acid doesn’t start dripping from his mouth. "I wouldn't wait around for him to come back. Hey, you won't have to worry about your rent ever again—he certainly won't be here to collect."

"But—why? Where'd he go?" Maggie perches on the corner of the bed. Crowley considers for a moment how upset he should be about it. 

"Home," Crowley murmurs. "Just give it up. Everything’s fixed, you can move on with your little lives." He waggles his fingers at her. 

Nina pulls open the blinds, unmoving before Crowley's hissing. “Listen,” she says, “I’m sorry you guys broke up.”

“It’s all your fault. We were perfectly fine before, not-talking at each other.” Nina makes a face. 

“Were you?” 

"This has been nice," Crowley tells her, profoundly insincere, and gestures towards the door. It opens with a click. 

Neither Nina, who is curiously peering at his plants, nor Maggie, who is thumbing through Crowley's record collection, seem to hear him. He snaps his fingers and the front door slams shut and re-opens more forcefully. 

"Oh, I know all of these," Maggie says. 

"That’s great, now get out of my flat," Crowley tells her, eyeing the half open bottle of berry liquor at the counter. Too sweet for his taste, but in a pinch…

"No, I mean—I remember selling all of these to Mr. Fell." 

"What? No, he always said he found them... around. Coincidence. No one wants records in this day and age." 

"He just 'found' a limited edition Queen record, of which there have been a hundred sold in the entire world?" Maggie holds it up, eyebrows raised. "I had to pull some strings to get it for him. I always thought it was sort of strange—it's not really his kind of music, is it." 

Crowley grits his teeth. He wants to tear the thing into pieces. He wants to clutch it to his chest and curl himself over it.

"I've never even owned a record player," he snaps. “He was just—he likes collecting things. All the same.” Maggie and Nina share a knowing look—Crowley hates, hates it. 

"He does, though, right? I’ve seen it sitting there in one corner of his bookshop.”

“What,” Crowley says, and it thunders outside. The windows rattle. “Is it. You want.”

Nina and Maggie don’t look cowed. Crowley debates the merits of disappearing them into the tundra for a week. He decides hiding beneath the sheets again is probably less effort at the moment.

“It’s been over six months,” Maggie says. “It’s just… you both disappeared, out of nowhere, after all that. It’s as if Mr. Fell has fallen off the face of the Earth, and that Muriel person is sort of…”

“Strange,” Nina says, laconic.

“Muriel’s a good kid,” Crowley murmurs into his comforter. “So Aziraphale’s moved. What is it to you? He was never even a real book seller.”

“There’s strange stuff happening,” Maggie insists. “It’s kind of hard to look away now, you know?”

“Well, try harder.” There’s another crash of thunder. Nina clicks her tongue.

“We have to walk back on that weather.”

“Seems like a you problem,” Crowley informs her, and sticks his head underneath the pillow. His sunglasses dig into his face uncomfortably. Nina sighs.

“Come on, then.” Maggie makes a soft sound of protest, then quiets. Crowley can just picture them—Nina with a hand on her elbow, giving her a knowing look. His nails tear the pillow cover. 

“We’ll be back,” Maggie tells him, like a threat. “I have something to show you.”

“Piss off,” Crowley says, muffled, already thinking of ways he can miracle the flat invisible. Maybe he’ll just move to the Arctic for a decade. No, not a decade. They won’t have that much time.

“Sure you’ll be okay on your own?” Nina asks him before leaving. Maggie is already out the door. Crowley snorts, lifting his head enough to glare at her.

“You don’t need to keep me in suicide watch,” he says, and bares sharp teeth at her. She doesn’t laugh or look away in discomfort—just watches him with a piercing, knowing gaze. Crowley holds it, but just barely. “I’m fine. Fine. Demon, remember. Not much that can knock me down.”

Later that night, he sits cross-legged on the floor of his bedroom and slips out a bottle from underneath the bed. 

"Just fine," he says out loud. The new moon is dark, and in London the stars are too dim to illuminate anything. All that light pollution. He traces the tartan-patterned lines of the top with the tips of his fingers, but he doesn't unscrew it. Crowley falls asleep looking up at the unlit sky, the bottle of holy water cradled on the crook of his elbow. 

He tries to fall into a routine. He can have a life, he tells himself—his whole world doesn't revolve around Aziraphale. There have been decades and decades when they barely crossed paths. There was even a whole century, back before the Great Plague. And Crowley has been fine. Great, even. Should be better, now that neither Hell nor Heaven is constantly on his ass. He's not going to die from not seeing Aziraphale for a few months. 

Feels like it, though. 

Crowley doesn't like routine, is the thing—not really. He likes taking care of his plants, he likes driving his car, he likes sitting around and drinking and picking at Aziraphale’s nice food and mildly inconveniencing people by bringing down the entire electrical network around the cinema the day a new movie goes out. But it's boring to do all of it all the time on his own, without any other input or distractions. 

Maybe that's why he allows this. 

"I could turn you both into ash," he tells them, annoyed. Maggie is busy spreading newspaper cuttings all over his living room table, but Nina pats him once on the shoulder. “Or a—what’s a really humiliating creature? I could turn you both into slugs.”

“That sounds kind of nice, honestly,” Maggie says, looking down at her project.

UNPRECEDENTED STAR SHOWER IN THE MIDDLE OF JUNE, one headline reads. A tiny local newspaper cutting: CRUMBLED SCHOOL, MIRACULOUSLY REBUILT OVERNIGHT.  

"Who even reads newspapers these days," Crowley scoffs, skimming through them. It’s a lot of “unexpected” and “miraculous”.

"It’s nice staying informed," Maggie says. Nina snorts. “It’s weird though, isn’t it? Proper weird.”

“Weird shit happens to humans all the time.” Crowley hops onto the counter and picks up an article that reads SCHOOLS OF FISHES IN THE ATLANTIC MULTIPLYING AT ALARMING RATES. “Whales? Now that is properly strange. This, on the other hand… this is really just none of your business." 

“Whose business is it, then?” Maggie tilts her head at him. Crowley shrugs bodily.

“Heaven and Hell, as always. Mainly Heaven this time, I guess, but I’m sure Hell has got their grubby little hands stuck on it too for their own reasons.”

“So you do know what’s going on!” 

“Didn’t I tell you to forget about everything you saw? Go back to your lives. Serve your coffee and sell your records. Get married, or don't, I don't care, and leave me alone. Got it?" 

"I spent half an hour lobbing tomes of the Encyclopedia Britannica at demons," Maggie says. "Can't really come back from that." 

"I still think you can," Nina says, weary, but she's smiling a little. “Your friend Muriel has been keeping these.” She points at the newspapers. “They’re one of them too, right?” She points up. Crowley groans and buries his face in his hands.

“You really wanna know? Fine. It’s your funeral.”

Fifteen minutes later, Nina takes the bottle of wine from his hand and takes a long swig. Crowley watches her, mildly amused. 

“So, what,” Maggie says. She doesn’t look half as perturbed, but she’s frowning. “The world’s just gonna… end?”

“Well, all of this seems like regular… miracle stuff,” he says, waving his hand about. “I presume they’ll have to bring Him down to heel a bit, if he’s just out there performing random acts of Good. But then, yes, the Rapture and all that. You know how it is.” He’s quiet for a moment. “I thought we’d have more time. Thought with Az—with him up there, there’d be some… delay. They’re really into bureaucracy.”

“Ugh,” Nina says.

“Hell’s not any better, if it helps.”

“How do we stop it, then?” Maggie looks determined. Crowley almost wants to laugh. He rubs the nose of his bridge. 

“It really is none of your business,” he tries. Maggie purses her mouth at him. “Hell, I don’t know. I presume if He’s out there, just doing… unsupervised miracles, it's because they've lost track.”

“How do you lose track of Jesus Christ?” 

“They’re all shit at their jobs.” Crowley shrugs. “Good thing, that.”

“Great!” Maggie says. “We’ll just have to find him, then. Before they do.”

“Oh, is that all,” Crowley murmurs, but—really, what other option is there?

“Could we at least get a ride back?” Maggie asks quickly, before they leave. “It was really wet the other day.” Crowley, who is feeling simultaneously more energized than he has in a week and so apathetic that the sky could fall and he would barely blink, wordlessly shuffles out of his flat, both women in tow. 

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," he says once they're outside. 

The Bentley is still parked where he left it months ago—anyone who tries to steal it is in for a very unpleasant trip to ER—but it's as if someone has upturned a bucket of paint on top of it, sunflower-yellow. It's like he drives a fucking taxi. 

"What do you think you're doing," he hisses at it. "Behave!" The Bentley shudders, tires squeaking. Crowley bares his teeth at it. "Now." The yellow slowly, slowly bleeds back into black. "Those too," Crowley snaps, but the door handles and the side-view mirrors remain stubbornly bright. "In the back." He tears open the door. "No backseat driving, unless you want to end up in the curb." 

"Lindsay kept our car," Nina tells him, kindly understanding. Crowley kicks in the ignition with too much force. 

"It's my car," he says. From the rear view mirror he catches them glancing at each other again, knowing. 

The radio blasts into life as soon as he hits the gas—something soft and melodic, very much Sondheim, very much not Crowley. 

“Enough,” he barks, and the radio stutters into silence. He can’t get anything else to play on it for the rest of the trip, so they drive quietly. Crowley runs twenty different red lights, including all the green ones, which immediately turn red as he nears them.

Crowley drops them off in front of Nina’s shop. He sits on the car, gripping the steering wheel, for a good ten seconds, and then goes, ah, fuck it.

He stands in the doorstep to the bookshop he's been in for a thousand times and wonders if this is the one where the wards will keep him out. Then he staggers inside. 

"Oh, hi! Customers!" Muriel's peppy voice lifts over the shelves. Crowley looks around, heart in a vice—he's not sure what he expected. Torn books, maybe. The floorboards upturned. But it's all the same. Less dusty, even. Shelves have been moved in a more symmetrical way. The armchair is away from the desk where Aziraphale likes it. Liked it. "Oh. It's you!" 

"Yup," Crowley says, mouth dry. "Still here, huh?" 

"Of course," they say, wide-eyed and painfully genuine. "I was tasked with looking after this place. It's very important." 

“You seem do be doing, erm, a good job?” He looks around. The books are definitely in a different order than they were when Gabriel was done with them.

“Oh, you really think so?” They beam at him. Crowley squints a little, even behind his sunglasses. “Humans have lots and lots of ways of organizing their books, did you know? I think they’re very clever—there’s this thing called the Dewey Decimal System—“

Crowley shuts his eyes. He feels a headache coming in, except that really what hurts is his skull, and his eyes, pressure beneath his eyelids. 

"Oh, wait! I almost forgot,” they say, and disappear into the backrooms. Crowley isn't even capable of feeling baffled—he just collapses on the sofa and puts his head in his hands. 

The whole place still reeks of him. Crowley can feel it in his bones, tastes it on the back of his tongue. Familiar pressure, smelling like old books and fresh grass and the clinking of glass. He clutches at the flannel blanket thrown over the sofa and presses it to his cheek, and if it soaks up any moisture that might be there, well. No-one’s the wiser.

“Here,” Muriel says, and Crowley blearily pats his face dry and accepts a cup. They smile down at him. “You’re supposed to drink it, but I prefer holding it. It’s good to look at.”

“Right,” he mumbles. “Cheers, thanks.”

They sit in silence for a long while. Muriel keeps staring at him, with that sort of boundless enthusiasm that should be grating but is actually a little too endearing. 

“So,” he clears his throat. “You’ve been enjoying it here, then? Earth.”

“Oh, yes!” They beam again. “It is all so delightful, don’t you think? Humans are so inventive. Did you know they make these—sort of, boxes? And you open them and they play music. And there’s a little figurine twirling.” They laugh. “And—and tiny towns in glass spheres that have snow on them! Only it’s not really snow, but everyone pretends that it is. It’s all so…”

“Pointless?” Crowley smushes his cheek against his hand. Muriel tilts their head at him.

“I was going to say loving.”

“You would,” he murmurs. 

Crowley folds back into his car an hour later feeling like he’s been scraped raw inside. He just sits there, hands loose by his sides, and stares off at nothing. The radio quietly clicks on.

Someone to know you too well, it croons. Someone to pull you up short, to put you through hell. Crowley leans his forehead on the steering wheel and lets the tears drip onto the leather.

The barn is a rickety wooden building that has been half-swallowed by the nearby vegetation. That in itself is not odd—the perfect circle of burned grass surrounding it is, a little. 

"It’s been months, and it’s just stayed that way," an old farmer tells the three of them when they arrive, accent thick, skin weathered by the sun. “Whenever you pluck one of ‘em they spring back up like a weed. Only, well. Not really a weed.”

Crowley crouches to look at it. There, on the scorched earth, grow a hundred little passion flowers. The soil is dry and barren when he touches it, but the flowers are flawless, beautiful. 

“Huh,” he says. 

“What happened?” Maggie asks.

Crowley leaves the two of them talking to the man and drifts closer to the barn. Something about it itches at him, like a half-remembered dream at the back of his mind. He waves a hand through the air and touches the tips of his fingers to his mouth—it tastes like wet-soft grass, a meadow in the early morning. A miracle has happened here—no, a capital M Miracle. He turns the door handle, very slowly.

It doesn’t creak as it opens. Seeing as it looks a thousand years old, that seems like an accomplishment. It’s dim and dry inside, and it smells of grain and wheat. And there, in the corner, crouched and reaching towards the floor—

He must have done something to hide himself, Crowley thinks in between a wave of rising panic and anger and something he can’t identify but that is crushing his chest inwards, because usually Crowley can pick him out of a crowd in the blink of an eye, can feel him as if he was an ambulatory limb. 

He wavers at the door for too long, indecisive—he wants to turn around and leave, pretend he hasn’t seen him, and he wants to rush inside and throw Aziraphale against the wall and scream at him until his throat bleeds. 

He does neither, then, which means that when Aziraphale turns around, holding something in his hands, Crowley is standing in the middle of the doorway, completely disarmed.

“Good Lord,” Aziraphale squeaks, sounding exactly the same as ever, hand to his chest, and takes a step back. “I—Crowley.” It’s a thousand words loaded. “I wasn’t expecting… What are you doing here?”

Two days ago, early in the morning, there had been a quiet moment where Crowley had been lounging about in his flat and all of a sudden thought what if he doesn’t remember me?

He had dismissed it swiftly and without mercy, but it had still nagged at him, like a thorn stuck to a place he couldn’t reach. They wouldn’t. Probably. That would defeat the point. But what if?

So it is a relief, in a way. Then comes the heartbreak, of course.

Crowley reaches for the arm of his sunglasses almost defensively. Still in place, obviously. Aziraphale is staring at him with his mouth half-open, eyes wide, eyes that are— 

"Oh, that's just wrong,” he blurts out. “I can see Heaven’s treating you well." He tries to relax his shoulders, which have come up defensively, but he can’t seem to make himself. His body feels like a coiled, live wire. A piece of wheat by his feet has started lightly steaming—he crushes it beneath his heel.

Aziraphale looks almost like a completely different person. The suit fits him horribly—it's the sort of thing Gabriel had pulled off by sheer presence of self, but in Aziraphale it’s just corporate. Not a hint of tartan anywhere. Not even a tasteful pattern. He looks washed out. And the eyes. Crowley shudders.

The posture, too. Shoulders back, spine straight, like someone has shoved up a steel rod to replace his skeleton. Crowley doesn’t like it, not one bit.

"Yes, well," Aziraphale says, clearing his throat and adjusting his tie (tie! What has the world come to?). "It's just—protocol, isn't it?" 

"I wouldn't care to know," Crowley tells him, acerbic as he can, trying so hard not to sound scared. It’s easier than he would have thought—the anger spills out of him like mercury flowing over a sheet of metal. "I'm shocked they even let you out of Michael's range of vision without an escort." 

"I can go wherever I please, thank you very much," Aziraphale snaps, defensive. Crowley arches an eyebrow, leans forward, sharpens himself as mean as he can be. 

"Sure, angel," he says, and the name is bitter in his mouth. "Or, sorry, should I say archangel? Good luck with that." And he turns on his heel. 

"Wait!" He hears Aziraphale chase after him. Crowley feels, for no good reason, a little bit like crying. "Why are you here?" 

"Just taking a stroll," Crowley says, not missing a beat. He doesn’t turn.

"A stroll," Aziraphale repeats, skeptical. Arguing has made him lost that fake-agreeable tone, and he just sounds the same, the same as ever. Crowley’s best friend, arguing with him for the sake of doing it. If only. "In the middle of rural Scotland?" 

"Yeah, well." Crowley crosses his arms. "Maybe I fancied a change of scenery. What's it to you?" 

"Crowley," Aziraphale says, softly, mournfully, and—no. No. "I'm—" 

"Don't," he snaps. "Do not. There is nothing—nothing—I could possibly want from you, Aziraphale.”

“Must you be like this?” Aziraphale asks, anguished, and Crowley—

“How’s Heaven, Aziraphale?” He turns to look again, which is a mistake—Aziraphale smooths out his face as fast as he can, but Crowley knows him too well and can’t miss the tremble of his lower lip, the dip of his lashes. 

“Busier than I thought, actually. I have quite a lot of ideas.” 

“I bet. They let you put all of them into practice, then?”

Aziraphale gives him a guarded look, but he's just never been that good at concealing his emotions—there's a nervous twist to his mouth, too-wide eyes. Crowley stares. 

"Really," he says, and laughs, sharp and mean. "They gave you the job and not the authority? Well, isn’t that a surprise. If only someone had told you." 

"That's not how these things work!" Aziraphale is flushing, though, as if embarrassed. "It's just—slow going, is all. Change takes time, Crowley." 

"Sure, yeah," Crowley says, "climb your way up, but not too much, ey?" 

"It's not about me," Aziraphale says, snappy, in that holier-than-thou voice. Crowley smiles mirthlessly, bares his teeth. 

"No, you're just a tool for the greater Good, are you. How's that working out, d'you think?" 

"It's going swimmingly, actually, I'll have you know." Aziraphale tilts his chin up, but there's something thundering in his eyes. The stress lines in his forehead are pronounced. "The Metatron really appreciates my suggestions." He smiles at that—soft, wondrous, almost disbelieving. Crowley wants to scratch it out of his face. Wants to shake him until he comes to his senses and drops to his knees and begs him— 

"I always knew you were naive, but not this much," he hisses, stepping close enough that their chests brush. "They're going to chew you up and put you through the grinder until you can't take it anymore and then, when you finally, finally snap, they'll cast you down like they did the rest of us." 

Aziraphale's eyes flick down once—to his mouth, Crowley realizes, and abruptly steps back, face prickling with shame. Shame, him. Imagine that. 

"I'm sorry you feel that way," Aziraphale says primly, self-righteous. Crowley almost recoils, and his face softens. "I'll prove it to you, Crowley. You will see." 

"I'm all full on pointless promises, thanks," he says, and sidesteps out of the barn. When he looks back, Aziraphale is gone. 

Outside, Maggie is crouching next to a sheep, scratching it in the chin. She frowns when she sees him.

“That bad in there?”

“We’re not the only ones following the trail,” he grits out. Maggie pats him on the shoulder, and he feels so unmoored that he doesn’t even flinch. “Anything good?”

“The man’s cattle has been ill for a while, apparently,” Nina says. “He says a few weeks ago a noise woke him, coming from the barn, and that when he looked it was… glowing?”

“Yeah, sure,” Crowley says, distracted. “Miracles and all, you know how it is.”

“I’m sure I don’t. But—he said someone came out of it, completely naked, asked to borrow some pants, and left. The animals are all healthy now. He says there was even an extra cow, and he has no idea where it came from.”

“Healing cattle,” Crowley murmurs. “Don’t think that one’s in the Bible, but why not.”

“It seems kind of… mild, doesn’t it?” Maggie pats the sheep on the head. “I was expecting more like—I dunno, raising the dead.”

“Oh, that could get messy,” Crowley says. “Let’s be grateful he’s decided to stick with other mammals for now.”

He parks in front of Nina's shop, and by the time he steps on the sidewalk she has walked up to him, holding her tray under her arm and grinning like Christmas has come early. 

"What," she says, clearly trying not to laugh, "is that?" 

"What does it look like?" Crowley peels off his gloves. 

"Since when do you drive a motorbike? You're full-on having a mid-life crisis, aren't you?" 

Crowley gives her a look through his sunglasses. She's not even cowed a little. He's really losing his touch. 

"I'm older than the beginning of the universe," he tells her. 

"Feels like it still applies. What happened to your car? Why does it look like it belongs to a fifty year old divorcée?" 

"Wow, who stole Terminator’s bike?" Maggie shouts from the other side of the street. Crowley flips her off gracelessly.

"Jesus, everyone's a critic," he murmurs. "Maybe I just wanted to try something new, alright?" 

"Is this about your car turning more yellow every time I see it?" 

“The Bentley is on probation,” Crowley says, “until it learns to behave again.” 

Maggie gives him a knowing look. “It’s okay to miss him, you know.”

“I don’t,” Crowley grits out. “What is it, then?”

“I have our next destination,” Maggie says, and hands him a newspaper that says HUGE OIL SPILL IN BEACH MIRACULOUSLY DISAPPEARED. Crowley snatches it from her hand and scowls down at it. 

"Don't you two have jobs? How else will people get their overtly-complicated orders of coffee now? Or their records they’ll never play?" 

"I have other employees," Nina says. Maggie just shrugs.

"Barely anyone comes into the shop, let alone in August. And I've never been to Liverpool before.”

"What?" Nina crosses her arms. "It's not even that far away." 

"I don't really like traveling alone. And I can't drive." 

Crowley clicks his tongue. "What do you mean, you can't drive? Cars are the most ingenious thing you lot have come up with since the ballpoint pen. Although that might have been one of ours, now that I think about it, if only for the ones that won't work even when they're brand new." Maggie shrugs.

“You have to be a bit mental to drive in Central London.”

“Thank you,” Crowley tells her. “Not sure what’s so miraculous about this—it was about time you lot started taking proper care of your messes. Earth was made for you, you know.”

“No one’s more stressed out about the fast pollution of the planet than me, thank you,” Nina says, “but we still haven’t figured out how to magically get rid of petrol spills, so there’s definitely something going on there.”

“I haven’t been to the beach in ages,” Maggie says, dreamily. 

“Oi! We’re not on vacation. This is serious second-coming-of-Christ business.”

“I’m good at multitasking,” she says. “I’ll pack my swimsuit just in case.”

He can’t drive them all to Liverpool in a motorcycle, obviously. The Bentley stubbornly refuses to change out the wheels, trunk, and rear and side-view mirrors back to their normal color. Crowley menacingly thinks thoughts of car landfills at it. 

They drive all the way up the M1 and then the M6, which he thankfully had nothing to do with. Maggie chatters about Muse, Nina does the crossword, and the radio refuses to warble anything other than Chopin for the entire ride, which means that by the time they make it to Liverpool proper Crowley is prepared to crawl out of the car through the exhaust pipe if necessary. 

They walk to the beach. It’s a broad, long stretch of shoreline, soft sand meeting the water. Maggie holds up the newspaper picture of the spill, dark and thick, and the three of them stare out into the sparkling water. It’s so clear Crowley can practically see the schools of fishes swimming around from the shore. 

“Well,” Nina says. “Now what?”

Crowley walks around in a circle, slowly, and sticks his forked tongue out. Beneath the sea-salt and brine it smells the same as it did on that farm, like ozone and starstuff and freshly rained on soil. 

“Yep,” he murmurs. “Definitely the right place. But why?”

“Maybe Jesus is really into the environment these days,” Maggie says. Nina’s laugh is loud and strident—Maggie blushes, looking pleased.

They wander about the beach, aimlessly. It’s relatively crowded—people seem to be doing the same thing, just staring out into the ocean as if it holds the secret to the universe. There are also a fair amount of people splashing around, just having a jolly old time.

“Well, isn’t that nice,” Crowley mutters, and kicks at a pile of sand dejectedly. Maggie and Nina have split off—Crowley can see them from here, smiling at each other as Maggie sticks her feet in the water. 

Something buzzes in the air, then, and there’s a pressure pop. Crowley straightens in place—it’s like the oxygen has turned sharper. He knows this feeling.

He crouches behind a dune. There, standing next to the water, are three figures in cream-colored suits. They almost blend in with the sand. Crowley stares at Aziraphale’s mess of curls, tamed and brushed out, and his gut twists.

He seems to be explaining something to Michael, gesturing out into the open ocean. Crowley can’t see his face from here, but he seems frustrated, shoulders drawn up and motions wide. Uriel, with his arms crossed, doesn’t look particularly impressed. 

Crowley has half a mind to make himself known, because he wants to see what sort of face Aziraphale would make in front of his superiors—equals, now, subordinates even, but who believes that? He wants to see if Aziraphale can keep his guilt on check, if it spills over as easily as Crowley’s grief. 

He doesn’t. He watches the angels confer, and none of them take notice of him, not even Aziraphale. 

“Hey,” Maggie tells him later, when the angels have gone and Crowley is left staring at the waning sunset on the water, “I thought—um, there are some nice restaurants around here. And, well, it’s been a while since the whole Lindsay thing, and—“

“Yeah, yeah, you’re finally shooting your shot,” Crowley says. “Congratulations. However—and I mean this—I am not your bloody chaperon.”

“I know that,” Maggie tells him, raising her eyebrows. “But it’s not like we’re going to find out anything else today, right?” Crowley waves his hand at her and she smiles, patting him on the elbow. At least someone’s getting their happy ending. 

In 1936, a month before the civil war broke out in Spain, Aziraphale and Crowley had bumped into each other in the sunny streets of Vigo. They spent the better part of the day eating—that is, Aziraphale eating and Crowley watching—fish and octopus and a particularly large lobster. And drinking, of course. 

“I don’t know how you can stand it,” Aziraphale had grumbled later, just as the harsh sunlight of the afternoon started to soften, while Crowley dragged him to the beach. “The sand, so coarse, getting everywhere—sure, it was unavoidable in Mesopotamia, but—”

“Shhh,” Crowley had slurred, and then drunkenly waddled into the water, scooped up a handful of shells, sand and algae, and stood in between the waves delighting in the wet-slimy feeling of it in his skin. “You can always miracle it out, angel.”

“Do not even think about it,” Aziraphale had said when Crowley turned to him, and then he yelped as Crowley splashed water in his direction. He had ended up sitting just at the edge of the sand beneath a small cliffside, nursing another bottle of wine and gazing at Crowley with such attentiveness that it had made him feel like he was glowing from the inside out.

“Here,” he had told Aziraphale later, pressing salt-roughened fingers to his palm. Aziraphale had wobbled a bit beneath his sun cover and held up the iridescent shell in between two fingers. “Looks kind of like your wingsss, don’t it?”

Aziraphale had been quiet for a long moment. He had turned the shell over and over in between his fingers, and they had both stared at it, transfixed, taken by the way the sunlight warped and refracted off of it.

“Come here,” Aziraphale had said, voice honey-warm and unreadable, “you’ll get sunburnt.”

“Demons don’t get sunburns,” Crowley had said, and handed him a net full of oysters. Aziraphale had startled.

“Crowley, these belong to someone!” 

“Well, it’s the ocean. You can’t really steal fish, they live there. Same thing.”

“You’re impossible,” Aziraphale had murmured, but he had taken the shucked oyster Crowley had offered, and made such a face of pure bliss upon eating it that Crowley’d had to look away for a moment.

Later, after Crowley had splashed around the water to his heart’s content and Aziraphale had eaten all his oysters, Aziraphale patiently smeared aloe over his reddened nose until Crowley stopped complaining about it. Neither of them mentioned that it could have simply been fixed with a thought—it was much better to selfishly enjoy Aziraphale’s sticky fingers on his skin. 

He goes back to the beach after dark, because he doesn’t really have anything to do, and brooding near the sea feels more appropriate than brooding inside his car parked on the sidewalk. The sky is clouded—no stars to be seen. 

There is another figure by the shore. Crowley’s traitorous heart stutters in his chest. 

“Where are your minders, archangel?” 

Aziraphale, to his credit, doesn’t startle quite so badly this time. He does trip and almost fall into the water—Crowley has grabbed him before he can think about it, one arm around the waist to pull him upright. He lets go as if burned.

“They are not my minders,” Aziraphale says, flustered, and straightens his horrible clothes. The shirt has wrist ruffles, for fuck’s sake. Crowley steps a few feet away from him and sticks his hands in his pockets. 

“Uh-huh, sure. Gave them the slip, did you?”

Aziraphale turns to look at him, mouth pursed. “We keep meeting.”

“Mmm,” Crowley says, non-committal. “Tell me—how did you all manage to lose Him? I’ve been wondering.”

Aziraphale flushes, delightfully, and looks at him out of the corner of his eye. He’s holding his hands behind his back, clearly stopping himself from fidgeting. A cold stone settles in Crowley’s gut. 

“Of course you know already. Well,” he says. “Things were already, er, underway, by the time I got there. It seems someone made a… clerical error.”

“A clerical error,” Crowley repeats, raising his eyebrows. “You lost track of the Second Coming of God’s child because someone misplaced a paper?”

“These things happen, Crowley, as you very well know!” 

“That was not all my fault. Doesn't take away that they're all incompetent. Almost becomes a regular thing, one might argue.” Aziraphale purses his lips and says nothing else, which means he agrees, and isn’t pleased by it. Crowley has to wonder, again, how much they’re really letting him do—what exactly is going on Up there.

“It’s,” Aziraphale starts, then stops. “You’ve painted your nails.” Crowley waggles his fingers. His long nails are painted black, the tips shiny red.

“Maggie keeps insisting,” he says. “I draw the line at glitter.”

“Of course,” Aziraphale says, and he sounds so painfully fond. Crowley balls his fists. “Your hair is getting long again, too.” Crowley, horrifically, feels his face turn warm. He resists the urge to tug at the edges of his hair. 

“Better than your businessman look. That long coat makes you look like someone’s taxidermied grandmother.” Aziraphale purses his lips at him. 

“What do you really know?” Aziraphale gestures vaguely. “About… all of this.”

Crowley shrugs. “’Bout as much as you, I’d wager. Wouldn’t tell you if I knew more, though, so—“ He shrugs. Aziraphale frowns at him. 

“We’re not… we aren’t in opposing sides, Crowley,” he whispers, and oh—

“Oh, that’s rich,” Crowley snarls. “You have some gall, you know that?”

“I’m not going to let them—“

“Let them!” Crowley laughs, feels himself showing too many teeth, and digs his heels in the sand. “You couldn’t stop them from doing anything if you tried, angel. Be reasonable.”

“Well, it’s good to know that’s how you really feel,” Aziraphale says stiffly. 

“I’m not insulting you! I’m being realistic! What could you possibly do, against Michael and Uriel and all the other angels in Heaven? They would all turn their backs on you in a second.”

“I don’t know,” Aziraphale says furiously, “but I asked myself the same thing during the Apocalypse, and that was against Hell, too, and it all worked out in the end!”

“Yes!” Crowley raises his arms helplessly. “But, and you might recall, you were not on the same side as the people trying to destroy everything back then!”

“You were with me,” Aziraphale says—it sounds accusing. Crowley clenches his fists. The waves brushing up on the shore have started steaming. “And now…”

“That’s on you,” he says. “That is purely, unequivocally on you.”

“Crowley.” Aziraphale grabs his wrist before he can walk away. The touch burns. There’s a tone of voice he’s not very familiar with. “How much do you actually remember?” 

“Wuh,” Crowley says, so thrown by the change in conversation that he just lets the holding happen, “well, the twelfth century is pretty hazy, but apart from that—”

“No,” Aziraphale says, frustrated. “That’s not—you know that’s not what I meant. From before. That is, Before.”

Crowley balks a little. They don’t talk about this, not really. And now? Now, of all times, for Aziraphale to ask him this?

“I,” he starts, “it’s… hazy. Why?”

“I just thought… maybe if you remembered.” Aziraphale looks wistful, and mournful, and—and pitying.

Crowley bares his teeth and rips his hand away. “You think I just don’t know how good I had it, is that it? Fuck off, angel. I may not fully remember, but I certainly haven’t forgotten how it felt.”

“You looked so happy,” Aziraphale whispers. Crowley recoils, as if struck. “You were so bright and you looked so happy, Crowley, I only wanted—”

“Shut up,” Crowley shouts, and grits his teeth together. There is an awful headache coming on, like every time he tries to feel out the edges of that bright, empty hole in his head. “Shut up. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I do,” Aziraphale insists, getting all up in his face, “I still know you, Crowley, you’ve misunderstood—“

“I think I understand very well,” Crowley hisses down at him. “Can’t make a horse drink and all that. You can’t turn an apple into a peach, angel.”

He leaves Aziraphale with the last word in his mouth. Running away is getting old, really, but—what else is there to do?

The recently-dubbed Jesus Search keeps on. Crowley could do this on his own—would prefer to, actually—but Nina and Maggie keep tabs on him what feels like constantly. Nina leaves him occasional texts and doesn't seem bothered when he doesn't reply. Maggie, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have the same reservations. 

"I'll block your number," Crowley threatens her, shouting into the speaker-phone from where he's pruning a lily, "no, I'll erase it from existence, if you don't stop calling me." 

"We're having brunch tomorrow," she tells him cheerfully, "you should come." 

"Sure you’ve got the right person? Crowley, demon? Because it seems you’ve mistaken me for someone who does brunch. ”

“I know your schedule isn’t that busy.”

"No, listen to me," he snaps. "I don't do friends. Certainly not human ones. And I certainly don’t do brunch." 

"I think you don’t really know what friends are.” She sounds amused. “Come to brunch.”

“I don’t eat,” Crowley says, almost desperate.

“There’ll be wine,” Maggie tells him, and hangs up.

He shows up for brunch. 

“He jusssst left,” he says, an hour later and a bottle-and-a-half in, sprawled over the table, “like it all meant—“ He gestures with his hand, poof. Nina looks exasperated, but she pushes a puff pastry towards him. Crowley makes a face at it. 

“It is kind of a dick move,” Maggie says, and hands Muriel the sauce jar. They’re still poking at their egg with a mystified look on their face. 

“Maybe you just need some time apart.” Nina shrugs at Maggie’s disbelieving look. “Well, you’ve been together for—thousands of years, right? Maybe it’ll help you sort yourself out.”

“You’re liter—litra—you told me to talk to him!” Crowley hiccups miserably. Muriel hands him a strawberry. 

“Well, I’m sure by now they’ve had more than enough time to sort themselves out,” Maggie stresses. It looks sort of pointed. Crowley hiccups again. 

“Oh, come on.” Nina crosses her arms. “You can’t rush that sort of stuff.”

“I’m not saying that.” Crowley reaches for the wine again and pours Muriel two fingers while Maggie talks. “But there’s a point where it becomes less about self-actualization and more about avoidance.”

“It smells strange,” Muriel tells him quietly, looking down at their glass. They make a face when they try it, sputtering. “Oh. No, I don’t think this is for me.”

“’S good to try out stuff,” Crowley says, pointing at them with a finger. “Good for… good for character. Builds it. Though you’ve got a good character, already. Well, you could probably stand to get a little meaner.”

“Thank you,” Muriel tells him, smiling in that way they do when they’re confused. “I don’t want to be mean, though. What angel would do that?”

“Mm, well, you’d be surprised.” He stretches out his legs and, with one last mournful sip, sobers himself up. He claps his hands in the middle of the table, startling Maggie and Nina out of their tense argument. “It’s good to know we all still have issues. Really helps you feel connected, you know? However—I’ve had a thought.”

“Praise be,” Nina mutters. Crowley makes a face at her. 

“It might not be much of anything,” he says, “but at least she’ll have a different perspective.”

Anathema opens the door with a circle of keys hanging from her ear and bright blue paint smeared below her jaw. 

"We don't take solicitors," she says, and then, "Oh, it's you!" 

"People do keep saying that," Crowley says, a bit amused despite himself. "Bad time?" 

"No, no," she says, and waves them through the door. "We're just repainting the living room—there was a whole thing last month with the—oh, hi?" 

"These are Maggie and Nina," Crowley says. "Maggie, Nina, Anathema. Helped save the world once." 

"Is that all," Nina murmurs, and shakes her hand with a smile. 

"I'm actually just passing by," Crowley says, as Anathema leads them further into the house. 

"I thought you might, yes.” Crowley raises his eyebrows. 

"On a prophecy-level, or…" 

"No, no, but your friend was here two days ago." Crowley steeples his mouth. "Yes, he looked like that, too. Very strange, all of it. I presume you’ve spoken to Adam already?”

“Yup,” Crowley says, peering around at the stacks of books scattered over the kitchen. “Very emphatically communicated that he wouldn’t be saying anything to anyone. Teenagers are so… yeesh. Stick it to the man, for sure, but come on.”

“Sorry, what are we talking about?” says Nina.

“The kid from earlier, it’s a whole thing—remind me to tell you about the Apocalypse that didn’t happen sometime.”

“I think he feels a sort of… kinship.” Anathema takes out a stack of cups from the oven. Crowley does not want to know.

“What, the Antichrist feels sympathy for Jesus Christ? I mean, talk about a punchline.” Anathema looks at him, unimpressed, and Crowley clears his throat. “Yeah, yeah, I get it, in a… grand scheme of things sort of way. Well. This was a waste of time, if he really won’t say anything, and if you can’t help either…?” He looks at her hopefully.

“I’m afraid not.” She shoves a teacup in his direction. “Stay for a drink, at least. I have some questions, too, and your angel wasn’t particularly forthcoming.”

“Shocker,” Crowley mutters. "Not my angel, anyway."

They all have tea outside, in Anathema and Newton's garden, which is overgrown and wild and with several tufts of poison ivy growing all over the place. 

"Well, I'm obviously not about to start mowing the lawn," Anathema says when Crowley points at them. "You need to let the autochthonous plants grow, it's good for the soil and ecosystems." 

"Yeah, obviously," Crowley says, trying not to laugh. Maggie is listening with great interest, but he shares a commiserating look with Nina. 

"And what do you do?" he hears Nina ask Newt. 

"Witch hunter, this one," Crowley says, leaning in. "All the rage these days." 

"Retired!" Newton clarifies. 

“What I don’t understand,” Anathema says, cutting them off, “is Adam was born—well, a baby, right? So why not him, too? Sorry, Him.”

“My best bet is they got scared,” Crowley says, draping himself over the back of the garden chair. “Heaven saw the whole shitshow with the baby switch and decided it wasn’t worth it. Or that it couldn’t wait, maybe? Or He just works like that, I dunno.”

“Hm,” she says, dejected. “I suppose that makes sense.”

“Were you expecting a clever answer that leads to the crux of all of it?” Anathema gives him a look over her thick glasses. “You should know better by now than to give either of them that much credit.”

“Clearly,” she says. “Will you fix it?”

Crowley exhales, slowly. It really is nice in here—Anathema and Newt have carved a lovely life out for themselves. The place feels lived in, loved, messy and worn at the edges. Crowley aches a little. 

“I’ll do my best,” he tells her, honestly. 

“What else could you do?” she says, and shakes her head.

The ducks at St. James’s are hungry all the same, at night. Crowley feeds them peas from a slowly-defrosting bag in his lap and watches the stream bubble. The stars are dull here too, but he can just make out Mars, shining bright. One of his, that one. He thinks. He’s pretty sure. 

"Yeah, yeah," he tells them when they start snapping at his fingers, and he feeds them some more. 

There's no one here at this time, save for the odd night runner and lost drunken student. Crowley stretches out his legs, crosses his ankles. The book he has tucked into his jacket feels like it’s burning a hole in his pocket. 

After Aziraphale—left, he had gone into the bookshop one last time and snatched one of the volumes up before driving back to his flat in a grief-muddled rage. If he has a problem with it, he had thought viciously, he can come and tell me himself. Aziraphale hadn’t, obviously. He trails his fingertips over the cover of Pride and Prejudice—he hasn't even cracked it open yet. 

"She was definitely better at heists anyway," he says out loud. He stargazes some more. Time these days seems to go either too fast or too slow, and it all just feels—pointless. Still a world to save, though. For all the good it will do him. He pulls out a carton and fishes out a cigarette. 

There’s rustling beside him. Crowley almost drops the peas.

"You don't smoke," the freshly materialized Aziraphale says, scandalized. Crowley fumbles with the cigarette for a second, then lights it with the tip of a finger and raises his eyebrows. 

"Oh, I don't? I wasn't aware—thanks for the heads-up, then." 

"Don't be glib," Aziraphale snaps. 

"Come on, angel," Crowley says, actually caught off-guard, "it's just like wine. Who are you to lecture me on human vices? No, wait, nevermind that—why are you here?”

"Wine isn't disgusting." Crowley blows smoke in his face, irritated. "Crowley!" 

The worst thing is how easy it is, to fall back into it. Like nothing has happened and they're still Aziraphale-and-Crowley. Not just Crowley and Aziraphale.

“What do you mean, Crowley? You came to me! I was just sitting here, having a lovely night. How did you even—were you watching me?” 

He says it as a sort of joke, a disorganized thought that pops into existence, but Aziraphale actually blushes. Crowley sinks further down onto the bench, disbelieving. Some ash flutters in the wind. 

"Well," he says, first thing that comes out of his mouth, “I knew all angels were sort of voyeurs.”

“Crowley.” Crowley blows more smoke in his direction. “I—won’t you put that out?”

"No,” Crowley says, petulant. “It's not as if you have to put up with it. Nor me, these days. What a relief that must be."

“Crowley,” Aziraphale whispers. He’s clutching his hands in front of himself. “You know that’s not fair.”

“I don’t know anything, archangel.” He does stub out the cigarette. Damn him.

“You think I’m out of my depth,” Aziraphale says, out of nowhere. He sounds unusually subdued. “Yes?”

“I,” Crowley starts, and he shifts to sit at the edge of the bench. A gaggle of ducks has followed him, and they honk imperiously until he throws them a few peas. “Are you trying to tell me that you’re not?”

“I have eyes, Crowley,” Aziraphale says, softly. “I have no delusions that I am wanted or really even needed in Heaven. But to pass up the opportunity. To help."

Crowley shakes his head, already exhausted. “Not like this.” He leans back, until his neck is bent over the back of the bench. “It’s more tiring than I expected, this whole arguing business. I don’t think we’ve ever done it this much. This long, definitely, but not…”He trails off and gestures vacantly. Aziraphale laughs, like it’s shocked out of him.

“No. No, I don’t suppose we have. I am helping, you know.” Aziraphale fidgets, then sits at the other corner of the bench. Crowley wants to shrink away from him and crawl into his lap all at the same time. “I know you think—it is working, Crowley. Sort of. Things can change.”

“You’re either crazy or even more naive than I thought,” Crowley tells him, teeth bared. 

“Better than being a—a disillusioned nonbeliever!” Aziraphale snaps. Crowley laughs.

“Come on, angel. When have I ever believed in anything?”

“You believed in me.” Soft, almost whispered. Crowley stands up. "I just don't understand why you're being this way, Crowley," Aziraphale says, almost desperate. "We agreed—we chose the world! I'm trying to make things better for this place we both care about!" 

"And I'm not part of that world, am I," Crowley hisses. 

"No, I—I asked you! 

"I wanted you to choose me," Crowley says, and his voice breaks horribly, terribly. “It’s you and me and the world. Not—not this.”

Aziraphale looks a bit stunned. Crowley feels a brief flash of satisfaction before it’s drowned out again. 

“I,” Aziraphale starts, earnest, wide-eyed, heartbroken. 

“Save it,” Crowley says. “If you don’t mind. I’m feeding the ducks.”

He bends down to upturn the rest of the bag onto the ground. When he straightens the bench is empty again.

“What happened?” Crowley asks, striding into the bookshop. Maggie is sitting next to Muriel, who looks a bit queasy, while Nina paces. 

“Nothing!” Muriel says. “It’s just, um. The Metatron just… came by to check on my progress.”

“Oh, don’t like that.” Crowley steps closer. Under closer inspection Muriel looks agitated, their spine too-straight, hands clasped tight. “Was he…”

“He just wanted to see how I was handling everything. He said I was doing a good job!” They smile a little. “But then he saw, um. The newspapers.”

“He was sort of terrifying,” Nina says. Crowley raises an eyebrow at her. “I was making tea in the back. Didn't see a reason to come out.”

“Not scary,” Muriel says. “He just… he said I shouldn’t concern myself with this. That—well, that I know my position and other people are already dealing with that.”

“He sounded like a patronizing teacher, but worse,” Nina says. “I mean, I don’t—what happens when they’re onto us?”

“Nothing, if I have anything to say about it,” Crowley mutters. He had, on the back of his mind, thought Aziraphale might have done that already. He flicks the glimmer of guilt away. “Who cares, anyway? He’s The Metatron. He can see—I mean, I’m not sure what the range on it is, but a lot of stuff. We’ll find a way to use that. Go around him. Something.”

“Easy, then.”

“Am I doing the wrong thing?” Muriel asks, loud. All three of them swivel towards them.

“Do you think you are?” Crowley peers at them carefully. They look down at their hands, frowning in thought. 

“I don’t—how could I know? It feels like I should. But I don’t.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much how it works,” Crowley tells them. “You don’t know for sure. You can’t.”

“What do you do, then?” Muriel’s eyes are big. They look scared. Crowley’s dead, shriveled heart squeezes in his chest. 

“Do your best. Surround yourself with people you believe are doing right.” Crowley shrugs. “But you’re asking a demon.”

“I am,” Muriel says, looking deeply pensive. “Yes.”

Crowley leaves them to sit with that. Not much more he can do. Nina and Maggie crowd around him, looking worried. 

“It’ll be fine,” he says. “Stop looking like that. He’s not going to—I don’t know. Have you stoned to death. That’s too Old Testament.”

“We’re worried about you, idiot,” Nina tells him. “What if he—or Hell—figure out what’s going on?”

“I don’t think I register as enough of a threat on their radar,” Crowley tells her honestly. “With Aziraphale—maybe. But now, I think I’m covered.”

“Huh,” Maggie says. “Silly of them, isn’t it?”

“Well, we’ve already covered they’re not the brightest and best.” He looks at the two of them, half-smiling. “Where’s the map, then? We’ve narrowed it down close enough.”

Crowley doesn’t dream.

Demons don’t, as far as he’s concerned—what would be the point of it, when they are not made to sleep and certainly not to hope?

But he spends a lot of time napping these days. There are empty hours to fill, when there simply are no more leads (clues, even) and he spends a good portion of them curled in Aziraphale’s armchair, right at the spot where the sunlight beams for most of the day.

So it is strange to be dozing off one second and in the next finding himself in the middle of the clinical brightness that is Heaven. Crowley blinks, twice, then looks down at himself—all the bits seem to be there—and around him. He taps his heel on the floor. 

“What the fuck is going on,” he says out loud, and someone gasps behind him.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale stares, mouth half-open, hands up and half-curled towards him. “How—why—what are you doing here?”

“I don’t think I am,” Crowley says, spinning in a slow circle. “Here, that is. I’m sleeping.”

“What? No, you are most certainly in Heaven,” Aziraphale says, voice dropping to a whisper. “You—we could get into big trouble if anyone saw you. It’s tetchy, these days.”

“Aren’t you Archangel Supreme?” Crowley leans forward and arches an eyebrow at him. “Shouldn’t be able to get into much trouble.”

“Yes, well,” Aziraphale says, acerbic, and oh, isn’t that a lovely change? “We both know how that worked out for Gabriel.”

“Aziraphale,” someone calls out before Crowley can reply to that. He twists around to see Michael stalking towards them. 

“I can explain,” Aziraphale says quickly, stepping in front of Crowley. Crowley stares down at the top of his head, gut twisting. 

“Can you?” they ask. “Can you really explain, Supreme Archangel, how it is that we have been looking and looking for the Messiah for almost a year and found nothing but faint tracks in the snow?”

They do not look at Crowley, who is standing directly in their line of view. In fact, they don't even glance at him. They just stare down at Aziraphale.

“Well, He is God’s child, is He not? I’m certain He’ll turn up.” Aziraphale's voice is so perfectly pleasant and equally passive-aggressive that it makes Crowley want to laugh.

“You’re certain.”

“I’m sure it’s all God’s will,” Aziraphale adds, smiling beatifically. There is something about his posture Crowley hasn’t seen before, not like this—an easiness to him, none of that self-conscious hand-wringing. It’s strangely alluring. 

“Argh,” Michael says, and stomps off in a hurry.

“Wo-ow, I’ve never seen them so rattled,” Crowley marvels. “Also, what was that about?”

“Nothing important,” Aziraphale murmurs, but he’s frowning. “Why couldn’t they see you?”

“I told you.” Crowley taps his head. “I’m sleeping. This must be what dreams are like.”

“It most certainly is not a dream from my point of view!”

“Listen,” Crowley says, leaning on what must be Aziraphale’s desk, “don’t sweat it. Also—this place is depressing.”

“What do you mean, don’t sweat it? And my desk is perfectly lovely!”

“Call it—I dunno. What is that thing humans talk about? Astral projection?”

“This is not astral projection, Crowley.”

“How would you know? In any case—ineffable, and all. And there's not even a proper armchair here, so I know you’re lying to me.”

Aziraphale takes a deep breath. Crowley takes a moment to trail his fingers over the overtly-clinical neatness of the table, nothing like Aziraphale’s sturdy, physical oak desk. There are a few knickknacks on it—a little bell. A calendar, for some reason. A small box.

“Is that,” Crowley says, and laughs, grabbing it. “Really, angel?”

Aziraphale doesn’t blush. He doesn’t even frown in that play-pretend way of his. Instead he just looks at Crowley with a thoughtful melancholic expression. Crowley shifts in his feet, awkward, and thrusts the stupid box back at him.

“Do they use it to send you little insults? Or are they too prissy even for that?”

“Not as such,” Aziraphale says. “Arariel likes it, actually. I’m not sure he entirely understands the purpose, but he thinks it’s sweet. Big Vivaldi fan, that one.”

“Big—huh?” Crowley stares at him. Aziraphale is making that face—the one he makes when he’s done something and is feeling quite proud of himself. “No music in Heaven, angel.”

“No,” Aziraphale agrees. “Michael thinks it quite sullying.”

Crowley squints at him. “You’re—what, rebelling by showing little cherubs your mixtape? Good job.”

Aziraphale looks down at the box. “They think it’s lovely, a lot of them. You hear all about it, you know. The miracle of human creation. But not so much about—well, humans creating, themselves.” He smiles a little, and it’s devastating. 

“Angel,” Crowley says, helpless. “You can’t fix them all.”

“But maybe we can save everyone,” Aziraphale says. “Gabriel changed, Crowley. There’s good to be done here. Actual Good.”

Crowley, from his spot leaning across the desk, looks at him for a long time. “You really do believe that. The Right Thing To Do, it’s this.”

“Well, why not?”

“W—why not? D’you hear yourself? They could string you up by the tiniest feathers of your wings and make you do a triple somersault and you’d still go oh, but maybe! Grow up, angel. Did you miss the part about paving with good intentions?”

“Naps did always make you cranky,” Aziraphale muses, but there’s a tightness to his jaw that Crowley can spot. 

“It’s just that you’re clutching at a flame and not even complaining when it burns you,” Crowley says. “Let it go out. Help me put it out.”

Aziraphale looks at him with such plain, naked longing in his face that Crowley stumbles back. Aziraphale sidles up to him and brushes a knuckle over his cheek. Crowley jerks. 

“I was,” Aziraphale starts, “thinking about you. Quite intently, I suppose. Perhaps that’s why…”

“What,” Crowley laughs, voice cracking, hysterical, “you summoned me?” Aziraphale shrugs.

“I miss you.” Crowley blinks tears out of his lashes. 

“You’re such a selfish prick.”

“Sweet dreams, my dear,” Aziraphale murmurs, and presses a kiss to his forehead. Crowley wakes up in bed, face wet with tears, his forehead burning.

“I think I figured it out,” he shouts at Nina, standing at the door of her shop. An old lady mean-mugs him on her way out. “Not talking to you, am I?”

“Leave the clientele alone,” Nina shouts back, wiping her hands on her apron. “Figured out what?”

“The Location,” he says, and waggles his eyebrows. The air feels thicker for a moment, like in the few seconds before a storm. Nina sighs, looking at her watch, and then makes a signal to her coworker before tearing off her apron. 

“What are we waiting for, then?”

They retrieve Maggie from her nap at her front desk, and he drives. He hits the gas and goes well over the speed limit and almost gets into five different car crashes and they end up in a little field near Norwich, bucolic and perfectly inoffensive. 

“Deeper in the forest,” he tells them, and they start walking. 

The trees thicken very quickly. It’s one of the last warm days of autumn, but once they’re deep into the brush the air becomes cool and damp. There’s mud on Crowley’s heels and sticks getting tangled in Maggie’s hair. They all walk in silence. There is no birdsong to be heard. 

They reach a clearing and it’s almost as if the light that pours in through the trees has a different quality, hazy and dusty. Mushrooms grow all over the trees and ground, spongy beneath their feet. He shares a glance with Nina and Maggie, who nod.

“Alright, then,” he says out loud, and spreads his arms wide. “Come on, show yourself. I already know you’re watching.” 

The air is very still. There are no crickets, no wind. Crowley stretches his awareness, lets it sink deep. The fabric of the Universe tingles. 

“You’ve always been quite perceptive,” The Metatron says from behind him. “Too much for your own good, I think.”

“Yeah, well.” Crowley leans casually against a tree trunk. “Story of my life. Been keeping your eye on me for long, have you?”

The Metatron spreads his hands wide, inoffensive. “It is my job. And you did call me, my boy.”

“Ugh, no,” Crowley says. “You were gonna let us do all the work for you, right? Let us run around like headless little chickens and then—bam.”

The Metatron shrugs. “We use whatever tool She puts at our disposal. And you are… craftier, shall we say.” Crowley snorts. 

“Aziraphale is plenty crafty.” 

“Yes, Aziraphale,” The Metatron says. His face pinches ever-so-slightly. Crowley tilts his head. “Perhaps too much. Maybe it was too much to expect, after all those centuries next to you.” Crowley grins.

“Why, thank you. I’m a wonderfully corrupt influence.”

“Not as much as you’d like to think.” Out of the corner of his eye Crowley can see Maggie and Nina, shifting on their feet, almost on their marks. “What is it, then? You’re going to try to kill me?” He makes a mocking gesture, wide-eyed and surprised, and Crowley hates him. “I think perhaps we should all forget this whole endeavor, before anyone embarrasses themselves.”

“Now,” Crowley says, and the whole place goes up in flames.

Nina and Maggie scurry away quick enough—Crowley lets the fire lick at him for a moment before stepping back from the circle. The Metatron is spinning on his feet slowly, clinically looking at the ground. 

“Holy oil,” he says. He sounds slightly impressed. “Hard stuff to get, these days.”

“I’ve got connections.” The Metatron fixes him with a long look. 

“It was a genuine offer, you know.” There is a deep vastness in those eyes—Crowley tries not to look too close. “You broke our little angel’s heart quite effectively, I must say.” 

Crowley grits his teeth. “He broke his own heart, and you didn’t help. I think we’re all quite done with you.”

“Hmm,” The Metatron says. “I do like enterprising people. You think discorporating me will put a stop to all of it? All the pieces are already in place. We just need to find Him—and we will.”

“I think you’ve got a lot of power,” Crowley tells him, “and it makes people afraid to tell you no. And I think the best way to tear anything down is to smash up the top bit and watch it turn into an avalanche.”

“I am curious,” he says, “and After? If you get your wish—“ He waves his hand. “Heaven is toppled. Hell dissipates. What then?”

“What d’you mean, what then?” Crowley laughs. “You think Heaven and Hell have had that huge an impact on the world? No! It’s all people.”

“What a… human way of seeing it,” The Metatron says, amused. “I’m afraid that won’t be it, in any case.” And then he clicks his fingers, and the fire goes out. Crowley goes cold all the way down to his feet. 

“You said you were sure,” Nina mutters to him. Crowley shifts until he’s standing in front of them. 

“It’s supposed to,” he says. “Ah. Well.”

“You tried your best,” The Metatron says, obscenely patronizing. Crowley bends his knees a little, because he might as well go for the nose, after all. “But I’m afraid you have become too disruptive.”

He waves a hand softly and the air around him shimmers until he’s holding a scroll. It looks like he’s carrying something made out of clear water. A chill runs down Crowley’s spine.

“What’s that?” Nina squints. Crowley exhales hard.

“The Book of Life,” he says. “It won’t do anything. I’m just one demon. And—“ He swallows. “Aziraphale won’t let you get away with it.”

“Hmm,” The Metatron says. “Who knows? Desperate to come back to us, that one. For a pat in the back. Just a little understanding. And once he doesn’t remember you… well, the mind is a very malleable thing.”

“You’re wrong,” Crowley tells him. Despite the bravado, his palms feel sweaty, and his heart is hammering in his chest. I don’t want to go, he thinks frantically. “Aziraphale is good to the core. You think I’m some sort of moral compass? He would’ve figured it all out on his own.”

“Perhaps.” He unfurls the scroll—it runs like flowing water down onto the earth and soaks up into the soil, all around the circle, until it starts lightly glowing. “Let us not take that chance.”

He reaches for it. Maggie and Nina move behind him, but Crowley pulls them back—really, what sense is there in it, he shouldn’t have even brought them, let someone have their last months of peace before it all ends—and then, then— 

“STOP,” someone bellows, and Crowley has to close his eyes against the sudden brightness. When he opens them Aziraphale is standing there, in between them and Metatron, hair in disarray and fists clenched. “What are you doing?” The wind has picked up. There is a radiance coming off of Aziraphale, like the sun has been stuffed inside him too tightly. The Metatron doesn’t look surprised.

“Ah, Aziraphale! I see you have decided to join us.” There is a look in his eyes Crowley doesn’t like. Like a spider watching its web.

“You were just trying to get him here,” Crowley says, shaking and terrified and offended. “I’m bait? Never in my life have I been bait.”

The Metatron ignores him. “You’re a remarkably good liar, Aziraphale, for an angel. Then again, considering the company you keep…”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Aziraphale says, spine perfectly straight, chin up. Crowley feels such an unbearable fondness for him. “But I will thank you to put that thing away.”

“I’m afraid not. The Messiah, boy. Michael and Uriel might have been fooled, but you forget I see what goes on in Heaven better than anyone.”

Aziraphale is quiet for a bit. He makes eye contact with Crowley—his eyes are wide and afraid, but his jaw has that determined set to it. Crowley wants to reach for him, take his hand.

“But you still need me to tell you,” he says finally. He sounds smug, above the trembling fear. He tilts his chin up, and Crowley is very much in love with him. “Isn’t that right?”

“This is not funny, Aziraphale,” Metatron scolds, as if Aziraphale is an unruly child. “Important things are pinned on top of Him. Where did you put him?”

“Hmm, isn’t that strange,” Aziraphale says. He’s trying to act glib, and for the most part succeeding, but Crowley can see the shake in his hands and hear the soft wavering in his voice. “I don’t seem to remember.”

“I thought you might say that.” The Metatron lifts the scroll again. “Let’s see if this shakes things up a bit, shall we?”

“Sorry,” Crowley says, stepping up. Aziraphale moves in tandem, keeping himself in between Crowley and The Metatron. Something twinges in his chest. “Don’t mind me, but what, exactly, is going on?”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale warns, and Crowley scowls at him. He’s biting his lip.

“You know, it really was a shame,” The Metatron tells him, “when you Fell. You were always one of our brightest—but then again, too many questions. Impertinent. Too proactive for your own good.”

Crowley bares his teeth at him joyfully. “Why, thank you very much.”

“And now,” he continues, “I’m starting to see the same behavior in your friend, here.”

“Well, was I to simply sit around and be a pretty face?” Aziraphale bites out. “You brought me in because you needed me.”

“Certainly. But I’m not sure your usefulness is worth this newfound arrogance.”

“Arrogance!” Crowley crows. “Oh, that’s good. Aziraphale, arrogant.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale sounds fond, long-suffering. Crowley wants to beam at him—he contents himself with smiling a little, teeth barely poking out.

“Not so convinced in change anymore, are we, Aziraphale?”

“Always,” Aziraphale says fiercely. “In the angels I know? Always. In your plans? I’m not so sure.”

“Aziraphale,” Crowley murmurs out of the side of his mouth, leaning forward so that he’s almost brushing his ear. Aziraphale inhales. “Did you hide the messiah from Heaven?” Aziraphale hems and haws a little and flushes, bizarrely. Relief unfurls in Crowley's chest. It's not all lost, then. Fuck.

“It’s a bit more complicated than that.”

“Tell me where he is, Aziraphale,” The Metatron says, sounding still perfectly amicable. “You could still come back to the right side. It’s not too late. We’re your family.”

“I’ve realized, rather foolishly and late, that I already had one.” Aziraphale’s stance loosens into something defensive, like he’s getting ready to fight. With what, Crowley couldn’t say. He feels a bit lightheaded. “And I don’t care for your attitude.”

“Very well,” The Metatron says. “Either you tell me where He is, or I write the demon Crowley out of existence. It pains me to have to reach these lengths, Aziraphale, but it’s your choice. “

Maggie and Nina make a noise of protest behind them, and Crowley lifts a hand lazily to stop them, fingers curled. 

“What, I don’t even get a trial? Thought you lot would run a tighter ship around that sort of thing.”

“People hardly take notice of occasional extra-official measures,” The Metatron says. 

“Cheers,” Crowley murmurs. “Well, then.”

“I,” Aziraphale starts. He looks—actually, he looks furious. Crowley hasn’t seen him like this since Armaggeddon—except that’s not right, either, because back then there wasn’t this spark in his eyes, that ugly twist to his soft mouth. “You will not.”

“I am sorry, Aziraphale, but this is how things must go.” Aziraphale wavers in place, clenching his fists. He seems to almost be vibrating with rage. Crowley’s mouth is dry. “But you know how to stop it.”

Aziraphale opens his mouth.

“Don’t,” Crowley gets out. He sounds entirely too raw, but—well. If there was ever a time. “Aziraphale. I—don’t. I know I said I wanted you to choose me, but—it’s not worth it. The entire world, and all.”

Aziraphale turns to really look at him. Beyond distraught—he looks heartbroken.

“Not worth it,” he repeats, and his voice wobbles, then catches in his throat. Crowley realizes with a start that he’s crying. “Oh, Crowley. I am so sorry.”

The Metatron unfolds the scroll at the same time Aziraphale moves his hands, and something gives.

Crowley shakes his head to try and get the ringing out. He steps into the bright, purplish haze that is surrounding him and blinks.

“This doesn’t look like Nothing,” he says. “Aziraphale?”

“Crowley!” comes from beyond the haze.

Crowley runs, like he’s being pulled by an unseen thread. “Aziraphale!” he calls. The haze around him shifts—purple bleeds into pink bleeds into orange bleeds into blue, and from there it takes shades of colour beyond human retinae. He almost trips into Aziraphale, who is sprawled on his knees, looking up at the shifting nebulae with wide eyes. The lights play a rainbow of colous on his face. 

“Oh, thank Heaven,” Aziraphale gasps, and reaches for him, pulling him down. Crowley goes easily, like string being unwound. 

“I wouldn’t thank them for this particular venture,” Crowley says. “What did you do, angel?”

Aziraphale is clutching at his elbow. The touch spreads warmth all over his arm. 

“I, uh, mm.” 

“Yes?”

“I’m not quite… sure? But—are you alright?”

“Am I—who cares? Where are we?”

“I do,” Aziraphale murmurs. “I do care very much. And I don’t know, really. I’m afraid I might have lost my temper a little.”

“A little,” Crowley says, and very carefully ignores the way his heart is twisting in his chest. I do care very much. He can’t do this again. “Is he… do you think you…” He clicks his tongue and makes a slicing motion with his hand. Aziraphale’s eyes go wide.

“No!” Aziraphale purses his mouth and looks at him out of the corner of his eye. “Um. Hopefully not?” He’s biting his lip again. “I’ll be in so much trouble if that really is the case.”

“Angel, if you really did turn the voice of God into ash, I think you don’t have to worry about being in any trouble ever again. How did you manage that?”

“I don’t know! He was going to—“ he cuts himself off. Crowley watches his face, breathless, as he seems to wrestle through his emotions. “I was not going to let him use that book.”

There is so much Crowley wants to say. Even more he wants, selfishly, to hear. He tears his eyes away from Aziraphale and looks at the swirling stars, grateful for his sunglasses. 

“You could’ve,” he says, “for the Greater Good, and all.”

“Crowley.” Aziraphale grabs his collar to swerve him around to face him again. Crowley stares, wide eyed, at his fingers digging into black fabric. Aziraphale looks upset again, mouth stubbornly set, eyes dipping down—

“We should go.” Crowley springs up into his feet, and Aziraphale remains kneeling, a furlong expression in his face. “Maggie and Nina—we should figure out what happened with—“

“Oh, yes, yes,” Aziraphale croaks out, and then they both just sort of—stand. 

“So?” He gestures.

“I don’t—oh, very well. One moment.” 

Aziraphale closes his eyes and stands very, very still. Crowley takes the opportunity to just watch him—blond lashes fanning over his cheekbones, the wrinkles around his eyes. The pink tip of his tongue, held in between his teeth in concentration. 

“That’s a bit distracting,” Aziraphale murmurs.

“I’m not doing anything!” Crowley says, flustered. 

“Your attention is very intense!” Aziraphale opens his eyes. “And I’m not quite sure how it is I’m mean to—“

Something pops. Crowley stumbles over his feet and grimaces, the fresh air and faint sunshine on his face underwhelming after the lightshow. 

“Jesus Christ,” Nina says a few feet away from him.

“See? I told you they’d be fine. Hi, Mr. Fell.”

“Hello, Maggie. Nina! Lovely to see you again.”

“Fine is a bit strong a word,” Crowley mumbles, feeling a bit like his insides have been rearranged. “You two okay?”

“Just peachy,” Nina says. She pulls him upwards. “Did you vaporize that guy? It all went very… bright.”

Aziraphale grimaces a little, but he looks… unrepentant, sort of. That’s a new one. “Maybe?”

“Good,” Nina tells him. “Now can we please get out of here?”

They trek back towards the car in stunned silence. Crowley brings up the rear, and he keeps staring at Aziraphale, who looks slightly singed but beyond that is fine, and whole, and maybe killed the top guy in Heaven just because he was about to erase Crowley from existence. What’s Crowley supposed to do with that?

Crowley ushers them towards the Bentley. Aziraphale remains in place, looking up at the sky with a muddled expression. Crowley stops with one hand on the door.

“Would it be possible,” Aziraphale says, softly, not looking at him, “for you to give me a ride?”

Crowley looks at him from across the field. He swallows and grips the door handle so hard it bends.

“I imagine you have urgent business in Heaven to attend to,” he says. “What with the whole.” He wriggles his fingers. Aziraphale tilts his head and half-shuts his eyes, like he’s listening to something. 

“I think I have perhaps just become persona non grata in Heaven,” he says, casually, and then strolls up to the Bentley and pats it on top of the front lights. It beeps, the traitorous little thing. “I knew you would change your mind about the yellow.”

“I did not,” Crowley says through gritted teeth. “You’ve spoiled it too much.”

“As she should be,” Aziraphale croons, fucking—petting it. Crowley is going to either lose his mind or start screaming. He gets in the car and slams the door instead. Aziraphale slips in next to him.

It feels like a dream. He wants to reach out and touch him. He wants to throw Aziraphale out of the car. He wants—

“To the bookshop, then,” he murmurs, and hits the gas.

The radio bursts into life. Love me just enough, it croons. Crowley groans. Maggie giggles on the back.

“It’s been playing Company nonstop,” she whispers to Aziraphale conspiratorially. Crowley mentally makes a note to turn all her favourite records into copies of Yellow Submarine.

“I’m this close to rupturing my eardrums on purpose,” Crowley says, and very pointedly does not stare at Aziraphale. Humiliation crawls hot on his stomach and his face—it’s not like it’s a secret now, but for his—his affections to be just there for Aziraphale to see— 

Aziraphale is quiet, though. 

He only makes a handful of complaint noises as Crowley makes it back to London in record time. He takes Aziraphale back to the bookshop, because—really, where else would they go? 

Something in Aziraphale unwinds as soon as they step inside, and his shoulders sag. Crowley stands in the doorway and watches him take everything in. 

"Oh!" Muriel peers out from behind a bookshelf. "Oh, you're here! They didn't tell me you would come—how exciting." 

"Muriel," Crowley says, and tilts his head at them. 

"Right," they say, a little breathless, and head towards the door. "It's really good to see you again, Aziraphale." 

"You—you too," Aziraphale says, almost uncertain. Crowley nudges him towards the armchair—Aziraphale ignores him, looking around. He’s still in that dreadful off-gray suit jacket. "It's all… the same. Mostly." 

"You sound surprised." Crowley leans on the coffee table. Aziraphale is frowning down at his hands. 

"Well, I went away, didn't I?" He smiles softly. "You all could have done whatever you wanted with it." 

Crowley swallows. His throat feels raw. He feels raw, all scraped open. 

"It's basically all I had left of you.” He doesn't look at Aziraphale. "You love this place." 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, and breaks into tears. 

“Oh, no,” Crowley blurts out, waving his arms like a windmill. “No, no—angel, what’s wrong?”

It’s not as if he hasn’t seen Aziraphale cry before, ever. He’s—emotional. He gets teary eyed at the opera and when he sees lovers reuniting at the airport and when a cat rubs itself against his leg. But he’s never seen him sob like this, like it hurts. Crowley is a little horrified. He makes an involuntary noise in the back of his throat.

“Oh, blast,” Aziraphale gets out, nasal and stuttering. Crowley relaxes a bit. “I’m fine, just fine.”

“You don’t look fine?” He approaches Aziraphale as one would a wounded animal. “Did you get hurt?”

Aziraphale shakes his head. “I’m afraid I simply don’t know how to—how to make it up to you.”

“Make it up to me,” Crowley repeats. “What?”

“I have done you wrong,” Aziraphale says, so very softly. Crowley looks away, uncomfortable even behind his glasses. 

"Well, I guess I would take a reprise of the apology dance," he says, trying to smile. “With back-up dancers. Pull out that sequin dress you keep in the back.” Aziraphale doesn't laugh. Instead, his face crumples again, and before Crowley can do anything at all Aziraphale is falling to his knees in front of him. Crowley's noise of surprise strangles in his throat. 

"I'm sorry," Aziraphale whispers. "You were right. I'm—Crowley—" He sounds miserable—it's not a tone of voice Crowley enjoys. 

Crowley had thought, during one of his early-days drinking bends, off his ass on old wine and cheap liquor, let him cave and apologize to me. Let's see who forgives who, then. He had been spiteful and bitter. 

Now, with Aziraphale prostrated below him, hands spread over his thighs and head bent low, Crowley doesn't feel particularly vindicated. He just feels sort of sick. 

"Forgive me," Aziraphale says—pleads. Crowley laughs, shocked, and takes a step back. 

“Angel,” he says, mouth dry. “Come on. We did it again, right? Saved the world. And you’ve got—your bookshop back, so—we can just—“

“Crowley.” He shuts his mouth with a click. “You know it can’t go back to how it was.”

“No,” Crowley agrees, voice raw.

He paces. Aziraphale hasn’t moved—he’s just sitting there, on his knees, face wan and hair soft and looking penitent—  

“I can’t,” he says, and his voice catches in his throat. “I can’t do it again, angel, I.” He tugs at the ends of his hair. 

“Crowley, please.” Aziraphale’s hands curl on his lap. “Please come and sit, and let me explain.”

Crowley laughs. It sounds watery even to his own ears. “I don’t know that I’ll be able to handle it, Aziraphale.”

“Sit,” Aziraphale says, and takes his hand. Crowley drops onto the armchair, feeling disgustingly fragile. 

“Are you just going to stay there?” Aziraphale squeezes his fingers. Crowley looks away. “This feels blasphemous. You on your knees.”

Aziraphale snorts. “Well, I can tell you it’s not.”

They stare at each other. Crowley’s face is blushing again, and Aziraphale looks like he’s caught between laughter and tears. His face smooths out after a bit.

“I really am sorry, my dear,” he says. Crowley scowls and stares into a shelf. 

“Right. Sure. Well, if that’s all—“

“You don’t believe me,” Aziraphale says, crestfallen. His eyes are blue again, Crowley realizes with a start. 

“I believe you feel sorry,” he says. “I believe you’re very good at it.”

Aziraphale winces, but his grip on Crowley’s hands remains steady. “Be that as it may. I am sorry for leaving you, Crowley.”

Crowley tries to laugh. He needs, all of a sudden, to be moving—he feels too vulnerable just sitting here and letting Aziraphale look. But Aziraphale is still clutching his hands and he is so soft and so warm.

“I just don’t get it,” he breaks. “We had a good thing going. Why?”

Aziraphale is quiet for a long moment. He’s playing with Crowley’s fingers in what looks like an unconscious motion that is driving him insane.  

“I don’t think I’ve ever been happier than when we’re together,” he says simply, as if Crowley doesn’t almost keel over at that. “These past years, especially, have been—a dream. Too good to be true, really.”

“And it was.” Aziraphale smiles, watery.

“Crowley. If you believe there’s anything in the world I wanted more than to run away with you, anywhere—but you know it wouldn’t have been right.”

He does. 

“We could have,” he insists anyway. 

“I had to try,” Aziraphale murmurs. “I had to. Even if I was wrong. I’m sorry I left you alone. And I’m sorry I hurt you, on purpose, simply because I was—well, upset, too.”

Crowley’s hands are trembling, ever-so slightly. Aziraphale must be able to feel it. He rips them away and stands up again, and faces the exit for a moment, gripping his own elbows. 

“Did you really think I’d say yes?” Aziraphale is quiet. Crowley taps his heel and looks down at the floor. “I know I’ll never be good enough for you, angel, but you can’t possibly think I’d—“

“What?”  

It’s so loud Crowley starts himself out of his melancholy. Aziraphale seems to have materialized right behind him in a second, and he grabs Crowley by the shoulders with an intensity that makes him dizzy. 

“What d’you mean, what? I’m never gonna be anything except what I am, Aziraphale, and you should know that by now.”

“Of course I know that,” Aziraphale says, and shakes him a little. Crowley lets him, mildly overwhelmed. “I’m in love with you—all of you. As you are, you—you impossible thing.” He’s staring up at Crowley, fiery and resolute. “I suppose I… well, you’re always so insistent you can do no good. I know you are a demon, Crowley, for better or worse. I’m sorry I made you feel—I only thought—I don’t know.” He breaks off. “I really, really want you to be happy. And—well.” Aziraphale smiles a little. “Perhaps I thought they ought to love you as much as I do, in Heaven, and then maybe you would believe it. That you deserve it.”

Crowley feels, slightly, like he’s been hit upside the head with a mallet.

“Mmm,” he says, which comes out as a sort of nkkgh? Aziraphale is just looking at him with his determined hopeless face. “That’s ridiculous,” he manages after ten seconds of open-mouthed floundering. “You couldn’t just have told me this?”

“You couldn’t just have told me about what you saw Up there?” Aziraphale lifts his hand and brushes his knuckles against Crowley’s cheek, feather-soft, and then rests his fingers on the leg of his sunglasses. Crowley shuts his eyes, then opens them once they’re gone. Everything is a little too bright. Aziraphale’s smile is blinding. “Hi. There you are.”

“Hi,” he croaks. "You're in love with me?"

Aziraphale squints. "Crowley."

"I," he starts, "okay. Okay." He takes a deep breath.

“I understand if… well, I have quite cocked things up, as it were.” Crowley barks out a laugh.

“Understatement of the century.” Aziraphale taps him on the chest. Crowley wobbles.

“And, well, I know I’m usually too slow, in our relationship.” Our relationship. Crowley makes himself focus.

“What?”

“Am I too late?” Aziraphale’s fingers are curled on the lapels of his jacket. Crowley has rarely felt so grounded in his body, a thousand synapses firing. 

“Angel,” he says, helplessly. “After six-thousand odd years?” But Aziraphale doesn’t laugh. He keeps staring. “No. No. I’ve always been willing to wait.”

“I’ll try to catch up quickly, then,” Aziraphale murmurs, and then he’s rising on his tiptoes and kissing him. 

Crowley, in all truth, barely remembers their first kiss. It’s all overshadowed by the sheer rage and heartbreak, and the need to make him understand, but beyond all that he remembers Aziraphale’s frozen frame against him, his lips hard and unmoving, hands scrabbling for purchase. He remembers desperation and not much else.

This is none of that.

Aziraphale kisses him softly, one hand cupping his cheek. He kisses Crowley with all the thoroughness and delicacy and attention he can harness, grabbing him by the waist and pulling him closer. His mouth is soft and wet against him, and his teeth catch on his bottom lip for a moment. Crowley makes a garbled sound before he can stop it.

Aziraphale is still smiling when they separate, faintly. He exhales, eyes closed, and then rubs his thumb over Crowley’s tattoo. Crowley’s legs promptly become jelly. 

“That’s more like it,” Aziraphale breathes. Crowley’s fingers are still curled on Aziraphale’s collar. “All right?”

“What?” Aziraphale gives him a look. “Oh, well. I’m not sure I could tell. Sample sizes and all, you understand.”

“Impossible,” Aziraphale breathes, and leans up to kiss him again. And again. Crowley makes a noise—certainly not whining—when he pulls away, but Aziraphale is frowning, thumb brushing under his eye. “My dear boy, you’re crying.”

So he is. “Huh,” he says. “Don’t worry about it?” 

The tears do keep falling, once he’s aware of them. He tries to turn around, but Aziraphale puts one solid hand on the back of his neck and Crowley tucks his face against his throat. Aziraphale smells right— like old script and ink and sunshine after a long day of rain. Crowley shudders. Aziraphale runs a slow hand down his back.

“There, there,” he says. “That’s right, let it out. It’s okay.”

“Don’t baby me,” Crowley hiccups. Aziraphale kisses the side of his ear, where he can reach, and Crowley digs his nails into his back. 

“Better, isn’t it?” Aziraphale asks when he pulls back, and then he pulls out an embroidered handkerchief and starts dabbing at Crowley’s face.

“Ugh, angel,” he protests, but he feels pleasantly warm, below the embarrassment. Aziraphale pats him on the chest.

“I missed seeing your eyes, you know.” Crowley looks down in instinct, and Aziraphale tuts and puts a hand below his chin. “There we are. Beautiful.”

“You’re not gonna change your mind, are you?” Crowley blurts. Anything to get Aziraphale to stop looking so adoring. “It’s just—a lot of rejections. Kind of starts to pile up.”

Aziraphale’s face tightens again. Crowley wants to smooth it out with his fingers, but he also needs to know.

“Never,” Aziraphale says, and reaches for Crowley’s hands, stopping short of touching him. Crowley tangles their fingers together, feeling electrified to the tips of his toes. “If I do, may God strike me where I stand.”

“Angel!” Crowley hisses, a little scandalized, and laughs. Aziraphale smiles at him. “I, uh. I read some Austen, while you were gone.” Aziraphale’s face morphs into sheer, pure delight. 

“Did you, now.” He bounces on his toes. Ridiculous. Crowley has missed him so much. “That’s a pleasant surprise, seeing as the last time I tried to get you to read a book I enjoyed you stalled for three centuries.”

“It’s a thousand pages!” Crowley rolls his eyes. “There are a thousand people I could tempt in the time it would take me.”

“Don Quixote is a foundational piece in the history of fictional novels,” Aziraphale starts, and then grumbles. Crowley can feel his own face smiling without his input. “Did you like it?”

“Huh?”

“Austen.”

“Not one bit,” he says. Aziraphale sighs, but he looks fond. “Well, she’s better than Shakespeare."

“Your literary tastes vex me,” Aziraphale tells him. Crowley clicks his tongue at him.

“I did wonder. The whole thing with—the ball, and the dancing. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you. That’s what you wanted.”

Aziraphale blushes. “It’s quite romantic, isn’t it?” Crowley makes a noise in the back of his throat. “Oh, come off it. You’re in no position to speak.”

“Mm, well.”  

Aziraphale opens his mouth to argue—Crowley can just kiss him quiet, he realizes. So he does, bending down to press lips against the corner of his mouth, and Aziraphale falls silent with a soft noise. His fingers on Crowley’s waist are very alluring.

“Don’t start thinking you can distract me like that from everything.” 

“I wouldn’t dare,” Crowley says, and kisses the edge of his jaw. Aziraphale makes a very interesting sound. 

“Crowley—not that I don’t—there are still things to—“

“There’s never enough time,” Crowley hisses. Aziraphale’s face softens, knowingly. 

“There will be, dear. Only we ought to make sure this is fine, for now, and then…” He looks unsure again. Crowley waits him out. “Then perhaps you’ll come back here? And stay.”

Crowley won’t—can’t—cry again. He tucks his chin over Aziraphale’s head and breathes deeply. 

“Yes,” he says. “Yeah, y—that sounds good.”

“Wonderful.” He can hear Aziraphale’s smile. 

“Oh, thank God,” Nina says when she sees them exiting the bookshop, Aziraphale’s hand resting casually on his back.

“None of that from you,” Crowley tells her. “Listen, we have to go for a bit—make sure Muriel stays put, alright? We’ll figure it out from here.”

“We’re happy for you,” Maggie tells him, hand on his elbow. Crowley feels himself softening, despite himself. Ugh. 

“Thanks,” he says. “I’ll see you for breakfast on Friday, if the world doesn’t end before then.”

“All in all the same, then,” Nina says. Aziraphale is looking at him with a soft, wondrous expression. He also looks sort of smug.

“Stop that,” Crowley tells him.

“I’m only happy you’ve made friends.” Crowley scowls at him. “You did figure it out, then. On your own.”

“Don’t look so pleased at that,” Crowley grumbles. “No-one should’ve been able to. I didn’t get close enough, anyway. Never sure when the old man’s watching.”

“Well, you’ve always been smarter than all of them.” 

They walk, arms brushing, across neighborhoods, until they slowly start getting less and less crowded. It’s turning dark—the streetlights flicker on, but half of them are out. Aziraphale surreptitiously waves his hand and they burst back to life, LED this time.

“Guess your miracles still work, then,” Crowley murmurs. Good to know.

They stop at a park. They have, from here, perfect view of the soup kitchen down the corner. It doesn’t look too busy today—there’s a worker in blue scrubs leaning against the side of the building, smoking. 

“Is that Him?” The person turns to talk to someone, handing them a lighter with a smile that shows crooked teeth. “Uh, Her? Huh.”

“She’s really quite pleasant,” Aziraphale says. He looks a little awestruck, but Crowley thinks he can forgive him that. “I think she’s finally learned to tone down the miracles. Or, well, time them better, perhaps.”

“That’s good,” Crowley says dubiously. “So we just… leave her here?”

“Same as we did with Adam, isn’t it?”

“Eeh,” Crowley says. “Feels like the circumstances weren’t quite the same.”

“Would you like to go and explain?” 

“Maybe not today,” Crowley concedes. “But… as long as she’s here, won’t Heaven keep trying?”

Aziraphale purses his mouth. Crowley shifts in place, disquieted. 

“I don’t believe so,” he says. Crowley squints. “Crowley, in all truth. Heaven is falling apart by the seams. I think they have much higher concerns right now.”

“I bet they’ll have even more once they realize he’s gone,” Crowley says, and grins with all teeth. Aziraphale baps him on the knee, but he looks pleased as punch with himself. Crowley has to steal a quick kiss—it turns into an actual one, Aziraphale’s hand on the back of his neck, his tongue brushing his lip. Crowley doesn’t need to breathe, but he still feels lightheaded when he straightens back up. “Come home with me?”

Aziraphale gives him a look from beneath his eyelashes. Their elbows bump before he’s lacing their arms together, like some sort of eighteenth-century couple. “I would like that.”

It’s strange to watch Aziraphale putter around his flat for the first time. There wasn't time, after Armageddon, and then Shax got her hands on it. He peers at the furniture with a critical eye, smiles pleasantly at the plants and sniffs at his empty fridge. Crowley watches him do all of this while uncorking and pouring a bottle of wine, not feeling nervous. 

“So.” He offers Aziraphale a glass. “Verdict?”

“I like it.” Crowley gives him a look. “I do! It’s all very you.” Aziraphale seems to mean it, too. He’s running a hand over the satin pillow on the couch and smiling. “It feels like you, too. All… everywhere. I find it quite reassuring.”

“Alright, well,” Crowley murmurs, disarmed, and chugs half of his glass. They both sit on the couch for a long moment, exhaustion catching up with them. “Would you like to go to bed? Not like that.” He stands up. “I mean, if you—well, I’m not saying not, only right now—“

“My dear,” Aziraphale says, trying not to laugh. Crowley deflates. “I understand. Of course I would.” He offers Crowley a hand and lets him guide them. 

He sinks into Crowley’s bed with a noise that should be made illegal, Crowley thinks wildly.

“I think perhaps I understand your fixation with sleeping a bit more now,” he sighs, wiggling happily. 

“’S not a fixation.” Crowley miracles them out of his clothes and into soft pajamas, too tired to even think about undressing. Aziraphale looks down at his tartan-patterned shirt and raises his eyebrows. “You looked stupid in that suit.”

“I didn’t like it much either.”

Something dawns in Aziraphale’s face, then, cracking open, and Crowley tenses.

“Angel?” 

“Is that,” he murmurs, and reaches for the nightstand. Crowley curses himself and grabs the bottle first. 

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, too-fast. There’s a thick silence—Aziraphale just sits there and looks at him, and then swallows. His face is too blank. “Angel—I promise. Please.”

“It is. You…”

“I wasn’t,” Crowley tells him vehemently. “I wouldn’t. Aziraphale. If you will ever believe me in anything. This is not… I was just feeling dramatic. I swear I wouldn't. There isn't even—there are maybe five drops left.”

Aziraphale has turned a bit from him. Crying again, Crowley realizes, his heart in his throat. “I’m really so sorry,” he hiccups. 

“I think I don’t want to hear you say it ever again,” Crowley says. It startles a laugh out of him. “Truly. Angel. I can’t—if you start feeling guilty over this I might lose it.” 

His voice cracks at the last syllable. It seems to strike something in Aziraphale, because he takes a deep breath and looks at Crowley. He reaches out a hand and cradles Crowley’s face, who leans into it and shuts his eyes. 

“Alright?” He murmurs. Aziraphale’s thumb strokes under his chin.

“All right,” he says. “I believe you.”

Crowley exhales. Some tension he hadn’t realized was there uncoils and he slithers back down onto the bed, taking Aziraphale down with him, who goes easily and curls himself around Crowley so tightly it quiets the buzzing on the back of his head.

“I like your hair like this,” Aziraphale says in a low voice. He’s combing through it with clever fingers. “You look very fetching in any way, of course. But the longer locks frame your face very nicely.”

“Heaven and Hell,” Crowley groans, and tucks his face onto Aziraphale’s neck. His ears feel hot. “Enough of that. For today.”

“For today, hmm?” Aziraphale presses a kiss to his forehead. It doesn’t burn. Crowley meets him halfway for a kiss. “We shall see how tomorrow looks, then.”