Being an angel, Aziraphale thought it was only right to cling to hope for as long as there was even the spark of a possibility left. But month after month slipped away, like pearls sliding off a necklace's strand one by one to leave a naked string. The day came that marked a year since Crowley's discorporation, and harsh reason forced all of Aziraphale's surviving hope to shrivel into cold, hollow despair.
A mug of cocoa sat untouched on the table, a fuzzy coat of mold growing with a will around its rim. But this time it wasn't because the angel was too distracted by a thrilling new book to be bothered to take a sip. This time, it was because his limbs felt too heavy to move the cup to his lips, his heart too heavy to desire the warming drink.
No human could have sat so still for as long as he did, perched stiffly in a well-worn armchair, listlessness glazing over his once-so-lively eyes. The furrows frozen on his brow and the weary frown on his lips matched the unseen sorrow etched into his very essence.
They had discussed it many times after the Almost-Apocalypse—what would happen if they were discorporated, that is*.
They'd been almost suspiciously lucky so far—neither of their respective sides had made any effort whatsoever to contact them. As long as they didn't get discorporated, they figured, they wouldn't have to confront their masters about that fateful day in Lower Tadfield...ever.
Because if they did have to face inquiries with their masters, well…chances seemed rather slim that they'd be given a new body and be allowed to return to Earth.
Their wine-accompanied conversations always ended with Crowley clumsily clapping Aziraphale on the shoulder and slurring out, "Ssso we'll just make sure not to get ourselves killed, eh, angel? Nothin' ter worry 'bout."
All right. Easy enough. Play it safe, steer clear of potential war zones, look both ways when crossing busy streets. They managed nicely for years.
Then Crowley had gone and gotten himself shot.
If it had indeed been his final discorporation, if the demon really was gone for good—and the cruel, coldly logical portion of Aziraphale's brain assured him that this was almost certainly the case—Crowley would be mortified to know how he'd gone.
"Just try and call me a bloody hero, I dare you," he could imagine Crowley growling, so clearly in his mind's ear that the demon might have been standing right in front of him.
Unbidden, images from that terrible night flashed into his mind, one after the other.
They were walking down a deserted street in a dodgier area of London, placidly discussing the musical they'd just attended**. The light from the streetlamp overhead glinted in the lenses of Crowley's sunglasses as he turned his head to laugh at something Aziraphale said.
That roguish smile froze on Crowley's lips as a high, childish scream rang out from an alley to their left, breaking the stillness of the night.
It might come as a surprise to know that the demon didn't hesitate any longer than his heavenly companion to dash towards the source of the noise. As one they raced down the alley, and came out on a horrible scene.
A mugger, his face obscured in a black mask, pointed a gun at a man shielding a little girl behind him. The man was attempting to pull his wallet out of his pocket with shaking hands, while trying to keep the child behind him.
Just as Crowley and Aziraphale arrived, fight-or-flight instinct seemed to take over in the terrified girl's brain: she ran out from behind her father, running towards the angel and the demon.
The masked figure, jumpy with adrenaline, fired.
One moment, Crowley was panting beside Aziraphale. The next, faster than a human could ever have hoped to move, he was in front of the girl, standing right in the path of the whistling bullet.
Aziraphale supposed the yell that pierced the air was ripped from his own throat. His world became thick and muggy, like a bad dream, as he stumbled for his friend's body, slumped on the filthy ground of the alleyway.
The mugger fled; the girl was crying; the father was shouting not to worry, that he was phoning an ambulance; but Aziraphale's ears were deaf to it all, his human heart pumping blood into his veins at a pace that made him dizzy.
Seeing the crimson stain spreading rapidly across Crowley's shirt wasn't doing anything to help his dizziness.
"Crowley, Crowley, you foolish…oh, my dear…" He reached out to touch the wound. Crowley stopped him with his own hand and clutched the angel's in his own. Aziraphale squeezed back. He knew it was too late, and so did the demon.
Crowley was already fading. He opened his mouth, and blood burbled past his trembling lips.
"Ang—angel, if I—"
"Shh, Crowley, you don't need to speak, it's all right."
"No! If—if I don't come back—you've gotta—" he couldn't finish. Aziraphale dabbed gently at the blood dripping down the demon's chin.
"Crowley, you'll come back, you will, I need you to come back, all right?"
Crowley nodded tiredly, the spirit draining from his limbs. Aziraphale felt the strength fade from the hand clinging to his own.
And the angel wept.
No.
He was through remembering that night. No more. Desperately, he grabbed the nearest book, a battered old volume gathering dust on the table beside him, and opened it to a random page. Tennyson, a corner of his mind registered vaguely. Good choice for mourning.
"Break, break, break,
On thy cold grey stones, o Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me."
His finger moved mechanically across the page, but his gaze was distant and his mind blurred, processing nothing.
"…And the stately ships go on,
To their haven under the hill…"
The next lines managed to pierce the patina enshrouding his brain; his eyes unglazed to read them:
"But o for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!"
He felt a sudden fury surge up inside him, breaking through the numbness incrusting his spirit. He hurled the book across the room and took a deranged satisfaction in the sound it made smacking first into the wall and then the floor. To add to the noise, he slammed his fist down on the chair's arm, and reveled in the pain that shot up from his hand to his elbow. Such a human sensation, pain. Just like grief.
Then his whole being seemed to crumble; whatever final store of energy was holding him up in his seat drained from his muscles, and he crumpled into himself. His head in his arms, he sobbed and sobbed, silently at first and then with loud, keening gasps.
His sobs drowned out the soft sound of shop bells tinkling in the front room.
"Hey, angel."
Aziraphale's sobbing stopped, and the room was suddenly deathly still. That voice—it couldn't be, it simply could not be… He didn't raise his head right away; he was too afraid to. Finally, slowly, warily, he looked up.
It was him. It was Crowley.
There he was, standing there in one of his dark suits, his sunglasses off for once but visible, tucked into his front pocket, and his hair a bit longer than usual but slicked sleekly back from that wonderfully familiar face. The smirk was familiar as well, if a bit wobbly.
"Sorry I'm late. Customs was hell."
Aziraphale continued to sit frozen in his chair, gaping up at the figure before him. His mind, dull and listless for so long, was abuzz with a thousand thoughts and questions.
Crowley shifted from one foot to the other. He had a strong urge to scoop the angel up into a hug, but wasn't sure how that would be received. So he simply stood, waiting for Aziraphale to make the first move.
But Aziraphale continued to sit immobile in the armchair with its faded tartan pattern and stuffing leaking from the seams, and they simply stared at each other for a long minute. Then, to Crowley's horror, more tears welled up in his companion's eyes.
"Ah hell, don't cry anymore, Az, come on; not for my sake," Crowley croaked, his own voice pathetically close to breaking.
He stopped worrying about propriety and etiquette and awkwardness and gathered the shaking angel in his arms. Aziraphale collapsed gratefully into his embrace, and Crowley clutched him so tightly to himself that their hearts beat one against the other, a ragged harmony of anguish and anxiety and blessed, blissful relief.
When Crowley had collected himself, he pulled back a bit and grinned at Aziraphale. "Honestly, tears for a demon? You've officially gone off the deep end, angel."
Aziraphale snuffled a few more times, and managed to shoot his counterpart a bemused look through puffy lids. "Deep end of what?"
Crowley stared. Then he burst into laughter. "God, how I missed you—if you'll pardon my French."
Aziraphale didn't know what was so funny, but he found that his friend's laughter, too long unheard, was impossibly contagious. Tear-tracks still clearly visible on his cheeks, he laughed as well, happy for the first time in a year.
Not long after, they were seated at a table for two on the patio outside a lavish restaurant, facing each other across a rosy tablecloth of a rich satin material.
Aziraphale had insisted that Crowley pick the place, but that he'd pay, and he hadn't even batted an eyelash when Crowley chose one of the priciest restaurants he could think of. A look of alarm did cross the angel's face when his counterpart ordered a very expensive lobster dish, but it faded into an indulgent smile as he watched his too-thin friend tuck into the meal with relish.
"They don't serve up grub like this in Hell, that's for sure," Crowley said, grinning at Aziraphale, who was too busy watching him to get started on his own meal.
The demon, who had noticed that his companion had lost quite a lot of his old plumpness in his absence, was determined to get the angel to eat. "Hey, eat up, will you? And have some of this wine while you're at it. Angel or not, no friend of mine is going to practice temperance on my watch."
Aziraphale looked down at his plate as if noticing it for the first time, and obediently began stuffing his mouth with sushi as Crowley carried on speaking.
The demon kept his description of his time in Hell carefully vague—no need to trouble Aziraphale with what was already past, after all—but explained that there'd been a tribunal to decide his fate.
"It wasn't easy, but I convinced them that I played no role whatsoever in stopping the Apocalypse." He leaned forward in his chair. "Adam did something to them, Azi, jumbled their brains—their memories of how Armageddon went down seems to be really fuzzy. They genuinely didn't seem to know about our, er, stand against Satan or any of that. They're clueless about everything. I'm pretty sure they suspected I had something to do with stopping it all simply because they don't know what else could've happened." He leaned back in his chair again, a smug look on his face. "I managed to persuade them I was perfectly innocent—well, you know, not innocent, since I'm me, but uninvolved with stopping the Apocalypse, anyhow. They let me off with a warning not to let it go wrong next time, whenever that'll be." Then he scowled, continuing, "But I guess they thought it would be funny to keep me waiting for a new body for bloody ages. They tied me up with paperwork—I had more files to fill out than you have books in that beloved shop of yours."
He kept speaking all through the main course—Aziraphale had noticed long ago that Crowley was always exceptionally talkative whenever they'd been apart for an extended time; but he wasn't about to complain today. He abstractedly ordered a sundae when the waiter asked what he'd like for dessert, and forgot to touch it as Crowley ate his own pie and kept chattering on.
"Of all the ways to get my arse blasted back to hell, it had to be by saving a blessed human," he was saying now. He shook his head disgustedly. "And a child, too. Next thing you know I'll be rescuing you, and then what will the world come to?" He scraped the last bit of pie filling from his plate. "I think I'm growing soft. What d'you think, Az, am I growing soft?"
"Huh?" Aziraphale said, with the look of someone who's been jolted from a dream. He'd been gazing raptly at his counterpart, but he'd been paying less attention to the meaning of the demon's words than to the sound of them. Golly, he'd missed that voice. "Oh, yes, my dear—I mean, no, no of course not, Crowley, you're just as evil as you ever were."
Crowley smiled at him. "I missed you, Aziraphale," he said simply. Unlike times in the past, he didn't sound the least bit ashamed to admit it.
"After all," he added after a moment had passed, a wicked glint in his golden eyes, "It's so much fun messing with you." And with a sudden lunge across the table he swiped a huge spoonful of ice cream*** from his counterpart's dish.
Aziraphale made a show of protesting, but his smile did not fade as Crowley continued nicking spoonfuls, until together they'd scraped the bowl clean.
Footnotes:
*They only approached the subject when they were well and truly plastered, of course.
**Crowley always made sure to complain loudly every time Aziraphale "dragged" him off to a play or opera, but the angel knew perfectly well that his counterpart secretly enjoyed them every bit as much as he did.
***By all scientific laws the ice cream should have been more or less completely liquid by that point, but being in the presence of an angel and a demon it had thought better of making so foolish a move as melting.