oOo
love With A Little LThere was a tentative knock on the door.
Crowley sniffed miserably. "What?"
Another cautious knock.
With a noise between a whimper, a growl, and a sigh, Crowley stretched across the doorway and flicked the lock. It clicked open.
Silence.
And then yet another quiet knock.
"Oh, for God's sake…" Crowley leaned over and pulled down on the door handle, gave it a gentle push and allowed the door to swing open into the hallway.
"Hey, angel," he said with an air of breezy existential exhaustion and chipper nihilistic despair as he turned back to staring blankly at the wall. "What'sss up?"
Crowley didn't need to look up to know that the Angel would be standing off to one side of the doorway, neither in nor out, wringing his hands and wearing a worried expression on his careworn face. He didn't need to look up to know that he would be running an anxious eye over Crowley's crumpled and hunched form, folded up and wrapped around itself on the cold, black floor tiles. He didn't need to look up to feel the Angel's concern when he saw his bruised and lacerated knuckles or the small smear of blood on his lip from his bitten tongue. He didn't need to look up, and so he didn't.
Aziraphale said nothing. He just slid down and joined the Demon on the floor. He sat in the hallway with his back against the wall, posture mimicking Crowley's. An untwisted mirror image of himself. An Angel sitting across a doorway from a Demon. Across the gap.
"Hi," Crowley drawled, as though he were sitting at some bar somewhere instead of huddled up on his bathroom floor. As though this were nothing outside of the usual.
"Hi," Aziraphale said back.
Back to the silence. Crowley could feel Aziraphale's eyes on him. He didn't look up.
"Your hand," the Angel finally said.
"Yeah."
Crowley hoped Aziraphale wouldn't ask about it. About anything. He just hoped he'd… Well, he didn't really know what he hoped for. He didn't want the Angel to leave, he knew that much. But he didn't want to talk about it, either. Crowley didn't know what he wanted, anymore.
"... May I?"
Crowley rolled his head to the side and stared at Aziraphale. The Angel was wearing an expression of earnest but anxious concern. That was Aziraphale up and down the line, really, wasn't it? Earnest, anxious, concerned.
Why are you here? Crowley didn't ask. Why are you still here? Is it just because you have nowhere else to go? Is it because you feel duty-bound? Is it because you pity me?
You know it isn't. Aziraphale didn't reply.
Yeah. Well. You can know something and still not believe it.
Yes. I know.
Taking a breath, Crowley shifted and held out his bloodied hand to the Angel. When Aziraphale looked back at him with his eyes wide, Crowley inclined his head an infinitesimal degree, a tiny gesture of assent. Go ahead , he said and didn't say.
And so, cautiously, as though approaching a scared and wild animal, Aziraphale reached across the open doorway. Gently he wrapped his fingers around Crowley's wrist, holding it up and pulling him closer.
Crowley became painfully aware of just how fast his pulse was beating, racing nineteen-to-the-dozen beneath the Angel's fingertips. He hoped that Aziraphale wouldn't notice, but expected that he probably would. Oh well.
Aziraphale placed his other hand over the top of Crowley's lacerated knuckles, and the Demon winced in anticipation of pain that never arrived. Aziraphale ran his fingers so lightly across the back of Crowley's hand that he could barely feel it. All he felt was a strange, tingling, feathery sensation, like spiders scuttling beneath his skin. And then it stopped.
Aziraphale slowly lifted his hand. The angry cuts and the threatening bruises were gone. Crowley flexed his fingers. The Angel had healed him.
"Thanksss," he hissed.
"Oh, don't mention it," Aziraphale replied, "no trouble at all. Just glad I could help…" He was still holding Crowley's hand, supporting it underneath with his palm, fingers wrapping around his bony, delicate wrist, thumb stroking the back of his hand.
When Aziraphale let go, Crowley just let his hand fall to the floor. A dead weight. He didn't have the energy. He stared at it for a few seconds in silence before dragging his gaze up to meet the Angel's.
"You're wrong, you know," Crowley said.
Aziraphale smiled weakly. "In general? I don't doubt it."
"I'm sssserious, angel. You -" Crowley frowned and turned away, unable to continue looking him in the eye. "You didn't... have to apologissse. Before."
"Crowley -"
"No, just lisssssssten . None of that, none of what you said… You didn't do all of that ssssstuff out of selfishness, or malice, or cowardice, or... It wasn't out of… I know that you were protecting me as much as yourssself. More than yourself. Sometimes I forget that, that, that- That you, nnmmgggkkk, care ."
He glared at Aziraphale defensively, as if challenging him to argue the point. Challenging him to say that he was wrong. That he didn't care, hadn't cared, would and could never care. But the Angel just watched him, silently.
"You just- you- I- you- I understand . I mean- Like with the Holy Water. You didn't- you weren't- At the time I thought you were just being, you know, petty, or obstinate, or, or, ngkmmk, like, you just… Like it was too much hassssle for you. That I was too much hassle for you. But that wasn't your fault, that was- it was- you were only trying to protect me. And not just with that, with, with, with, with all of it. The Arrangement . All of it. It- I- It-..."
Crowley shook his head.
"It's dangerous, I get it, it's… I get it. We've taken a lot of risks, you and I. And I might have taken more, if you'd let me, and who knows what might have happened then. We were on thin enough ice as it was. And all the times you- I didn't always see it at the time, but- ...I thought you were- ...but you weren't, it was- ...You were always trying to keep me safe , angel. I get that, now. And you shouldn't apologise for that. Shouldn't apologise for... Because that matters - It- I- I get it. I…"
Crowley trailed off with a groan, dragging his hands down his face. "I am no good at this."
"Oh, I don't know," Aziraphale said, gently.
Leaning his head back against the wall, and letting his arms fall to his sides, Crowley stared at the ceiling and sighed.
"It was worth it, angel. The risk. All of it. You were worth it. Don't be sorry. 'Cause I'm not sorry. I'm not sorry."
Aziraphale's breath caught audibly in his throat; a small noise which sounded distressingly like tears being restrained.
"Look at us," the Angel said with a broken laugh. "We make a right old pair, don't we."
Crowley tilted his head to one side. Yes , he thought. Yes we do .
"Angel," Crowley said, softly.
"Mm?"
"You said, before…" Crowley trailed off. He wanted to ask, but he wasn't sure he knew how to.
"Yes?"
"You said... you said that you forgave me…" Crowley spoke very, very quietly.
"Ah."
"Do you?" He pressed, though he knew he should know better. "Forgive me?"
Crowley felt Aziraphale's eyes searching his face, and watched as a flood of thoughts flitted across the Angel's features. Crowley could read them all.
There's nothing to forgive , said the set of his jaw.
I would take everything that's ever hurt you and suffer it in your place, if only I could. If only I could, said the inward pull of his eyebrows.
I can't even begin to tell you how much I love you, every last bit of you, all that you are , the tugging at the edges of his mouth said, betraying him.
And I'm sorry, his eyes lamented, soft and sad and bright with pain. I'm sorry that you even feel the need to ask. It should be me begging for forgiveness. It is. I am.
"Yes," Aziraphale said.
"Oh."
The Demon dropped his gaze to his lap.
Aziraphale took a breath.
"Could you ever forgive me ?"
That caught Crowley off guard. It shouldn't have. He should have seen it coming. It was obviously coming. The rules of the narrative universe demanded that it came. And he would have expected it, had he not been so tired. But if he hadn't been so tired, he wouldn't have brought it up in the first place. He wouldn't have said anything. He would have known better. Would that have been better?
Crowley's initial reaction was to reply " no ". He wanted to say that there was nothing for him to forgive. He wanted to say that perfection doesn't need forgiveness, that the flawed could never forgive the flawless. That was Crowley's gut reaction. That was his heart's reaction. That was the reaction that had been hammered into him.
It was the wrong reaction.
Because to say that, to say 'no', to say any of those things, would be to do the Angel a severe disservice. Aziraphale was better than that.
Crowley looked back across at the Angel, and really looked at him.
That's what they'd always demanded of him, wasn't it? Heaven. Perfection. They'd held him up against impossible, unreachable, unwantable standards. They'd wanted him to be like Gabriel, like Michael, like Sandalphon . Anodyne and obedient and unimaginative and heartless . Cruel . To never make mistakes, to never want anything they thought he shouldn't want, or do anything they thought he shouldn't do. To never deviate from the party lines. To be the version of Aziraphale that they had written for him. For all of his existence the Angel had been told that they would all love him just the way he was, as long as he was perfect .
Aziraphale wasn't perfect. Not their version of perfect. He was hedonistic, and curious, and he had a wicked sense of humour. He was compassionate, and anxious, and so full of questions, even if he was too afraid to always ask them. He was petty, and he was ridiculous, and he was more than a bit of a bastard at heart. He was unabashedly Aziraphale , and he was overbrimming with an unrestrained love for life .
Angels weren't supposed to love. They were supposed to Love , in that cold, distant, abstract way with a capital L and a ™ at the end. Aziraphale loved with a little L. He loved personally, and selfishly, and possessively, and complicatedly. He loved things . He loved ideas . He loved people . And he loved the world. That was a big one, that. Big mistake, in the eyes of Heaven. The world wasn't a thing to be loved, it was an exercise in design, a cog in the Great Plan, a stage for war. They'd all helped to build this fantastic, beautiful, interesting, messy universe, only to be condemned for becoming invested in it. Condemned for caring. And Aziraphale was so invested in it. Aziraphale cared so much .
Where Crowley had rebelled against all of that, against those unfair expectations, that imbalance of power, all of the blatant hypocrisies, the Angel had turned his cheek. Where Crowley embraced those things they said were flaws, suffered them and flaunted them, the Angel had taken them to heart. He had locked them up and buried them at his very core, and they bled, poisonous, into every part of him.
Because he believed them. He believed that he was capable of being what they wanted him to be, that he ought to be what they wanted him to be, and that his 'failings' were exactly that - his, and his alone. Instead of questioning Heaven, he questioned himself. Instead of blaming them, he blamed himself. Instead of fighting them, he fought himself . He took on all of their criticisms, all of their passive aggression, all of their toxicity and cruelty and manipulation, and he used it to try to make himself better .
Only, he was better from the start. Better than the things they wanted him to be. Better than the person he strived to be, misguidedly. He was better than them . But the Angel couldn't see that. He had never seen that. He still couldn't see that . He still saw his greatest strengths as his most unforgivable weaknesses. Beneath his kindness, beneath his vivacity, beneath his intelligence, and empathy, and courage, Aziraphale was wounded.
Crowley found it hard to remember that, sometimes, when the Angel was being particularly obstinate, particularly holier-than-thou, particularly naive and wilfully so. It was hard to remember that those things didn't come from a position of superiority. Quite the opposite. It was insecurity. Instability. Uncertainty. The feeling that he was standing on shifting sands, and that no matter which way he turned, it would be the wrong way. The feeling that he was always standing on the edge of losing faith. Losing hope. Losing the only foundations that he knew. The feeling that he wanted to jump ...
But never mind all that. Keep calm and carry on. You can get through it, if you just try a little harder. If you just work a little smarter. If you just be a little better . Come on, Aziraphale, buck up!
It was infuriating. It was devastating. It wasn't fair .
So, yeah. Aziraphale was far from 'perfect'. He was flawed, and fallible, and in spite of everything, in spite of them , he was still so kind.
Perhaps forgiving someone didn't have to be the same as saying that they had done something wrong . Not necessarily. Perhaps forgiveness could be less about tolerating imperfections, and more about embracing them. Maybe it could be saying I accept you, for all that you are . A sort of unconditional absolution, for all the things you could never forgive of yourself. Perhaps, after all, forgiveness was just one more way of saying for all of your mistakes, for all of your flaws, you are my version of perfect. Because of them, you are my version of perfect.
Was that what Aziraphale had meant, too?
Perhaps.
"Yeah," Crowley said. "I forgive you, too."
In that moment, Crowley's tiredness suddenly overtook him. It felt as though the few remaining bolsters of nervous energy that had been propping him up had faltered. The last remaining barricades had broken. He had been exhausted since… Well, he actually couldn't really remember a time he hadn't felt exhausted. He was so tired he couldn't imagine what it was like to not be tired.
He blinked.
"'M' just gonna lie down for a sec'..." he said, slurring the words. He laid down on his side on
the cold bathroom tiles, curling his knees in towards his chest. He pulled the soft, plushy, grey towel from his lap and balled it up beneath his head. "Jussssst for a sec'."
He sensed Aziraphale move, and his eyes flickered back open. He hadn't realised that they had closed.
"Don't go," he said without meaning to.
He heard a smile in Aziraphale's voice. "I'm not going anywhere."
Crowley opened his eyes again to find Aziraphale's face ten or so inches from his own. Crowley glanced up and realised that the Angel was now laying on the floor too, curled up opposite him. Head in the doorway, feet in the hall. A mirror image. A puzzle piece.
"Gap's gone," Crowley murmured.
"What?"
"S'nothin'," Crowley replied. "Just a thing."
He reached out his hand across the doorway, and Aziraphale took it.