Here we are for Chapter 2! I'm marginally more happy with this one, because at this point I had an idea of what I wanted out of this fic.

Not gonna lie, I think this fic is pretty OOC, but I did try to make it as in character within the out of character as I could. See what you think. Heigh-ho, and away we go!

Chapter 2

Aziraphale came back to himself outside his shop, just in front of the heavy wood door that was familiar as breathing. He should have felt confused. He felt nothing.

He did not know how he had returned to England, but he was unsurprised to find himself there. Later, he would liken it to the way life moved in one of his rare dreams, a seamless and senseless shift of environments that seemed perfectly reasonable at the time.

His ears rang, and the smell of blood hung around him like a shroud. The blue eyes looking blankly back through him from his reflection in his shop window were distant, and the hand that unlocked the door was thin.

And the demon in the chair by the fire was furious.

Crowley glared balefully from within the circle of light. Aziraphale stopped dead in his tracks, looking at him. Crowley's voice was low and angry. "Where the hell have you been."

Aziraphale turned his gaze to the fire, blinked once, and then sat down in the chair that he knew was his. He had been standing by the door, and now he was sitting by the fire and looking into it, and that was the way of things, wasn't it?

"Aziraphale," said Crowley in rather a different voice, after a moment of shocked silence. "You look like ten kinds of fried shit. What happened?"

Aziraphale didn't move, couldn't say anything. He'd left because he'd needed space. He'd come back – why? He couldn't remember coming back. Or why. But here he was.

There was a sharp clinking sound nearby

the sound of a semiautomatic jamming

but he didn't react, didn't seek cover like he knew he should have. He didn't move until Crowley shoved a mug into his hands, and then he only looked at it stupidly. Crowley had to wrap Aziraphale's fingers around the cup to get him to hold it, and then the angel gripped it so hard that his knuckles went white.

"It's tea," Crowley growled. He was still angry, his eyes were blazing and his teeth were clenched but he was putting that on hold for now and Aziraphale had better be grateful. "Drink it. You like tea, remember?"

"Tea," said Aziraphale, and drank it.

Crowley, in spite of the fact that he kind of wanted to kill Aziraphale, was beginning to be really worried. It wasn't like the angel to disappear without a word for six years, and return looking like he'd survived the heat death of the universe.

Still more troublesome was that he hadn't returned. Not of his own volition, anyway; he had been brought back. Crowley had found an envelope on his sofa when he'd returned home that afternoon, addressed to "A. Crowley" in an unfamiliar hand. The brief note inside had said only,

Crowley,

I am bringing Aziraphale Home as ſoon as the Wind is more favourable. He is cloſer to you than to me, and of the two of Us, I believe that he truſts you more. Be in his Shop when he arrives, pleaſe, and thank you for your Diſcretion in keeping the Contents of this Miſsive to yourſelf until ſuch Time as may be neceſsary. That being ſaid, pleaſe remind him that Love is not a Sin.

'Чаo,' as you ſay,

~M.

The antiquated phrasing and odd rendition of Crowley's usual farewell had alarmed him, as had the simple initial at the end and the request to keep the letter private. Whoever had written it was both familiar with Crowley and severely behind the times, which usually meant Below. That this 'M' knew that Aziraphale apparently trusted Crowley did not bode well for either of them.

But six years with no word from Aziraphale was unusual, and now this note had turned up, so he had gone to the shop and got a fire going. And, growing angrier and more worried by the minute, had sat down to wait.

And then his associate had staggered in and Crowley had lit into him without thinking, six years' worth of accumulated resentment and questions all set to come tumbling out, but they'd died on his lips as soon as the angel had come into the light and Crowley had gotten a good look at his face. He hadn't seen Aziraphale look like this since the Crusades.

He gave the angel a few minutes' peace to drink his tea before he asked again what had happened. Aziraphale didn't move.

"I need you to tell me." Crowley leaned a little closer, wary. "You need to tell me. You disappeared for years and now you look like you're going to die any moment. Aziraphale—" he hesitated briefly, then swallowed his pride and forged ahead. "My hand in your belt, my hand on your head." The idioms were Arabic and didn't really translate, but they better than please, which just would have been degrading.

Silence.

"All right, fine, just –" He didn't think about it, didn't dare stop and consider for a moment what he was doing. The walls of defense around his mind came crashing down. "Fine. Show me."

There was a pause.

And then Aziraphale told him, sent him wave upon wave of images and sounds and smells and emotion. Grief, mostly, and confusion, and something shielded and blurry. Crowley wasn't surprised.

He shuddered out of Aziraphale's mind, stared at the angel in consternation.

"What were you thinking?" he demanded. "Have you lost your bloody mind?"

Aziraphale still wouldn't look at him. "I was needed. I had to go."

"Without telling me?"

Aziraphale shuddered. "Please leave."

Crowley was very tempted to go and come back when things had returned to normal. This blank, unblinking creature was not the angel Crowley knew.

Except he wouldn't return to normal, not without some kind of impetus. Crowley had seen him like this once before, only once. The Crusades had been hard on both of them, and while Aziraphale's faith in the Almighty was not something that could be moved, Crowley had nearly lost the faith he had in humanity. Bitter and hateful, he had finally turned on his silent associate, throwing everything un-angelic the angel had ever done in his face, all withering sarcasm and cruel truths until finally Aziraphale had responded and discorporated him in a fit of relieved and righteous fury. They had both felt much better after that.

But this time was different. Now they were—not friends, but something similar, similar enough that verbal abuse wouldn't help, and anyway Crowley's schedule was too busy for him to invite discorporation. He would have to try something different.

Finally he decided he had had enough. "I will destroy this building and everything in it," he snarled, stepping around to stand in front of Aziraphale, crouching so that the angel would have to look at his face. It didn't work. Aziraphale just looked through him. "So help me, I will burn it to the ground if you don't stand up and start caring. I will tear the throat from your human corporation and force you home if I have to. Look at me, damn you!"

"Leave me alone," said Aziraphale, turning away.

"No," Crowley snapped, and kissed him. Hard.