Work Text:
That did not just happen. That didn’t. Aziraphale wouldn’t pick Heaven over me… right?
We’ve spent literally eternity together, sure we haven’t always been as close, but he’s always been there. I can’t believe he would choose this! He was starting to see the problems with this whole heaven and hell thing.
The road I’m driving along is miraculously just long enough for me to stop fuming by the time I get to my emergency shack. I built my emergency shack when Aziraphale did not come down to earth in 100 years. After 70 years I decided to make a little shack on a secluded coast in Wales. It has all I could ever need after a heartbreak: Ice cream, plants, and copious amounts of alcohol. Aziraphale had ended up just having a lot of paperwork to do, but this time it had a much clearer reason.
Aziraphale has left me, and I have a feeling this time it’s for good. The next time I see them will probably be the end of the world, literally. So, I moved my car plants into the shack and prepared for the long haul. I may get a few visitors from hell over the next couple of centuries, but they won’t be able to bother me as much as my torturous mind can.
The first couple of decades are fine, I get a few visits from Gabriel and Beelzebub but those slow down after they somehow create a child between them. My plants go through a lot of changes but by the end, they are looking better than ever. Miraculously I never run out of ice cream or booze.
It’s been 13 years since I’ve talked to a real person, and 36 years since the incident. It’s a normal day, and it stays a normal day until I hear knocking at my front door. I don’t expect anything more than to find a woodpecker hammering away at my door. What I find instead is so much worse.
There they are, standing in my doorway, looking just as good and holy as the day we met. I don’t say anything, and neither do they. It seems like neither of us is ever going to talk, and I don’t think I can have that. It’s been over a decade since I’ve talked to anyone and now my lifelong friend turns up on my doorstep.
I have to remind myself though, that Aziraphale is not my friend, the only friends they have are their angel friends. Although that’s probably not true, is it? Aziraphale is probably best buds with The Almighty now. Now that they’re free of me.
I can’t leave us standing here in silence though, so I decide to be the bigger man-shaped-being and be the first to speak up. “Whadya want?” Good start, Crowley, good start.
Aziraphale takes a bit of time to probably think about their response, seemingly going over a few ideas in their head. They eventually do decide on something to say though. “Well, it’s a long story, and I will not ask any more than this, but would you be willing to listen to the whole story before dismissing me?”
It is so incredibly tempting to slam the door in their face right now, but I don’t think I will. I don’t know if I’ll listen to them either though, they’ve not talked to me for 36 years, the least they could’ve done was send a letter. So, I don’t say that I’ll listen, I make no such promises, but I do step aside so they can come in.
They look around, seemingly approving of what I’ve done with the place since the last time it was used. I don’t care though; I don’t need their approval. I would just like to get this over with, so I sit down on my favourite armchair, and they sit down opposite on my least favourite armchair. “So?” I prompt.
“Well it’s a very long story, you see. So how about we start from where you last left off? After you left, the Metatron and I went up to heaven. It was fine at first, no, it was fun. That definitely didn’t last though as I’m sure you expected. The Metatron started getting much more… involved shall we say. It wasn’t bad at first, he was being quite helpful, until I told him to stop. I know I should have remembered what you said all that time ago because you were right. I didn’t remember though, and I didn’t think of the implications of the Metatron trying to gain more power, you would have I’m sure, you did in fact. Over the years it just got worse and worse until I realised that I had absolutely no power. I was doing nothing. So, I decided to hatch a plan, to slowly phase out the Metatron from day-to-day life up in heaven. I also decided that if someone is able to slowly take my job without me even noticing then I probably shouldn’t have the job. I went to where Beelzebub and Gabriel were staying and tried to convince them to rule heaven together. It took quite a lot of convincing before they finally agreed, they did request the ability to reproduce but the was quite easy to provide. So, over the last decade and a half, that’s what I’ve been doing, phasing out the Metatron from the main line of work, and doing the same for myself, replacing us with Beelzebub and Gabriel.”
That… is a lot. I don’t really know what to say exactly. I have so many questions but none of them are really what I want to know, “So what are you doing here? Why now? Why not years ago when you realised you had no duties in heaven?”
That was clearly a question Aziraphale expected to need to answer as their face looks resigned and a little bit guilty “That I do not have an excuse for, it was merely my cowardice keeping me from visiting earlier. I feared that when I showed up you would just send me away but now, I understand that I was depriving you of the choice to do so.”
The answer wasn’t perfect, but it is more apology than not so that’s positive. I would like to hear them say sorry though, “Say sorry, with the dance.”
They don’t even sigh, probably having expected this. They stand up in the middle of the room, facing me, and start doing the dance. “You were right. You were right. I was wrong. You were right.”
I certainly haven’t forgiven them, I’m a long way off from that but I will always want to be near them, and I can’t resist the erg after 35ish years. So, I get up, Aziraphale seems to tense a little but when I open up my arms to them, they fully collapse into me.
I haven’t forgiven them, but I am ready to begin a new chapter by their side, and far less alone.