27. Digesting the elephant
"You were right. It broke me," Crowley says days later, watching a pale orchid that blooms on a tree nearby. He is not clinging to Aziraphale so desperately anymore. He knows he won't lose him, he knows they are safe. But when the memories come, it's still easier to be alone.
Aziraphale sighs, playing with a blade of grass. He's anxious again. Crowley can see it in his movements, in the position of his shoulders when he turns his gaze to the angel. For a moment he considers leaving, but they are past that already.
"Crowley, I wish I could have reversed our places," Aziraphale says. "That first choice… I got it all wrong. I have always been better at justifying the lesser evil. At convincing myself that it's actually good. It's you who always saw through that. I think… I think I would be able to hurt you and not break with it if I saw it as the lesser evil. But I chose, I chose a stupid self-sacrifice that broke you. Wasn't really thinking much, was I?"
Crowley's fists clench. "I did not say it so you could blame yourself," he mutters darkly.
"Oh, I'm sorry…" Aziraphale raises the blade of grass as if he was trying to hide behind it.
"Fuck it! You're always sorry! Stop being sorry!"
Aziraphale's words come with tears in his eyes. "I told you, I can't…"
Those tears hit Crowley like an arrow straight to the heart. "Shit. I'm sorry. I don't know what…"
"It's okay," Aziraphale says softly and stands up, dropping the blade of grass on the ground. "See… see you tomorrow, okay?"
"Tomorrow," Crowley nods, his heart a hollow cavern echoing you hurt him you hurt him over and over.
They leave. Both of them are thinking about the bottle hanging on the Tree of Knowledge.
"Crowley, I… I'm not sure if I can be strong enough," Aziraphale says two days later. They met yesterday, but it was an awkward thing, that meeting. They didn't speak. So now Aziraphale does, and his eyes are sorrowful. Again. "To pull you up without sinking myself. I… Maybe it would be better to forget. Save ourselves more pain."
"No."
"No? Are you sure?"
"I don't know. But the fear… I don't sense it from you anymore. Well, not fear of me, at least."
"Not of you," Aziraphale nods, on the verge of tears. "But you are hurting. You are hurting and I don't know how to make it better and it's just taking longer and longer…"
"Angel. Angel, look at me," Crowley says and there is such gentleness in his words that Aziraphale obeys and the tears don't fall. Not yet. "I'm sorry for pressing you to somehow fix yourself so you can help me."
"But how else…"
"That's our problem, isn't it?" Crowley sighs. "I can see it now. We are too used to hiding the pain… just so it's not reflected in the mirrors. Or trying to, at least. It didn't really work, but bugger it all if we didn't try. To be strong for the other one, I mean."
"That's how we survived, though."
"Yes, we did, didn't we? But we are safe now. And I just had a head start at realizing how messed up I am, that's all. You saw it and hid your own hurts not just from me but from yourself as well."
"No, I didn't," Aziraphale protests. "I was being honest."
"About the fear. The part you couldn't control… couldn't hide. The rest you hid too deeply, even from yourself."
Aziraphale bites his lower lip, sensing an unpleasant truth in Crowley's words. "How do you know?" he whispers.
"Been doing that all the time until you remembered. And then just… something broke, you know? I can see something breaking in you now. I know it too well."
"But you asked me for help. You said you can't do it yourself."
"I didn't see then. I thought I'm the kid and you're the adult on a plane. But we are just two scared kids and we are losing cabin pressure fast. Gotta help each other."
"Or forget."
Crowley kneels in front of Aziraphale, taking his hands. "It's too precious to forget," he whispers.
The tears fall from Aziraphale's eyes. "It is, isn't it?"
"Yes. You know, now one of us doesn't have to be strong for the other one anymore. We are safe. We can allow ourselves to be weak together."
Aziraphale sighs shakily. Then nods.
But when the memories come, he still finds it better to be alone.
"You were right. It broke me," Crowley says again. It's a new day. Same beginning, though. Aziraphale doesn't reply, doesn't apologize, aware of where it led last time. He lets Crowley speak.
"You can say you are sorry if you would like," Crowley prompts gently. "I know you do."
"I am," Aziraphale whispers. "Sorry."
"I know. It's all right. But it can't be your fault if it wasn't your choice, right? I told you, Satan decided who he would pick long before He asked. He knew."
"Knew what?"
"That you would not break if you had to hurt me. Lesser evil, right? But he wanted to break both of us and knew exactly how to do it, no matter what you chose. His final goal was getting me to serve him again."
"Yes, you told me before. When you spoke about the mirrors. He talked to you after you discorporated, didn't he?"
Crowley looks at Aziraphale, alarmed. "How do you know I was discorporated? I never told you…"
"Oh. Forget it."
"No, Aziraphale. How do you know? You don't need to tell me now, but I don't want to forget it. Please, don't hide from me."
"What if I hide because I don't want to hurt you more?"
"It would hurt me more to know that you are hiding something painful… to not hurt me."
Aziraphale smiles faintly. "Mirrors, right? Complicates the math…"
"It really does," Crowley nods.
"I'll tell you if you tell me about the talk with Satan."
Crowley signs heavily. "Alright then. Tomorrow."
It is not easy to say that. It means facing the memories together.
It is tomorrow.
Aziraphale does not feel more ready, but he takes a deep breath and tells Crowley.
He tells him about the disorienting feeling of a new corporation, about Gabriel and the room above the mirror.
Crowley's eyes are full of daggers. But not aimed at him. "The asshole! He shoved you into a corporation right away, after… after… And he fucking… made you watch? That utter, complete prick! Damn… if I had known..."
"...you would've what, dear? Waved at me?" Aziraphale's tone is light, but the weight of the memory is pulling his shoulders down. Crowley. Alone. Bleeding. Broken. So hurt by losing Aziraphale that he welcomed the physical pain.
Crowley takes his hand. "I don't know. Maybe. I'm sorry you had to watch that. Must have been ugly."
"See?" Aziraphale smiles faintly. "Apologizing as well."
"Bless it. It seems I am. Yeah, I get why you do it."
Aziraphale takes a deep breath. "I watched as… as that demon killed you. Just so, without any warning. As if you didn't matter…" his voice falters. "I … I was afraid that I lost you, too."
Crowley embraces him around the shoulders. "No. You didn't."
Aziraphale leanes at the demon, tears falling on the grey tunic.
As they cease after a while, he glances up at Crowley's sorrowful face. He takes a deep breath, banishing the traces of tears from his voice.
"You know what I told Gabriel?" he whispers with a little blush, like telling a dirty joke during an official event. "I told him he could go fuck himself."
That catches Crowley by surprise. He throws his head back and laughs. He only laughs once, a lonely "hah" sound, but it lifts the weight of the memory from Aziraphale's shoulders for a little while. It's all right. If they can laugh about it, it's all right.
"And I told Satan I was done talking to him," Crowley says and chuckles again.
Aziraphale opens his mouth into a shocked o. "Oh goodness. You are so brave."
"It didn't feel brave," Crowley murmurs. The laughter is gone, buried six feet under. "I'll tell you about it, as I promised. Tomorrow. I'm too pissed off at Gabriel right now. Want to hear what I would like to do to him?"
"Yes, please."
There is a fresh breeze in the canopy of trees. The air feels sharp, although not unpleasant.
"A sandstorm outside," Crowley murmures.
"Ah. It's good it can't reach here."
"Yes."
A moment of silence. Then Crowley takes a deep breath.
He tells Aziraphale about the pool of boiling lava and his conversation with Satan. He tells him again about the deal that he refused, still haunting him.
"Lesser evil, right?" he asks hoarsely. "Still can't convince myself about that. I remember… remember a moment of clarity, when I could see all the consequences. But it got clouded and never cleared again. I don't know how. How refusing to sacrifice myself and throwing you into pain could be a lesser evil. How could I ever think that?"
"Look through my eyes," Aziraphale says.
Crowley looks at him. "I don't know how anymore."
"You think it changed because you hurt me?"
"Hurt you, Aziraphale? I almost killed you. Really killed you, not just discorporated. You feared me. Sacrificing myself for you would have been the best thing I could have done. None of that would have happened."
"Now who's judging himself based on choices he didn't really have?" Aziraphale huffs, but his eyes show compassion. "I know… it's hard not to. Like the fear, the guilt doesn't respond well to reasoning, does it? It feels like you had a choice that could have made a difference, even if you know you didn't. I just want you to know that the deal you made was exactly what I would have wished you to do if we'd had a chance to discuss it. And nothing you did can change that."
Crowley is quiet for a long time. "So what would I see?" he asks then. "If I looked through your eyes?"
"Someone incredibly brave," Aziraphale says without a shade of doubt. "Someone who puts my needs before his own. It's so much easier to sacrifice yourself than to be the one left behind."
"It doesn't feel that way. If I had known what He was going to do to you… what I was going to do..."
"What He was going to do to us," Aziraphale corrects. "I would still find it better than being left alone with the knowledge that you sacrificed for me. That you were a… a mindless tool," Aziraphale shivers. "I don't think I could bear that."
"I don't think you saw it like that. When you were in so much pain you couldn't even scream. When you begged for it to stop. When you called for Mother. When… when…"
Crowley's fists are clenched, his breath quick and shallow. Aziraphale, on the other hand, looks like a marionette with cut strings. Unable to move, unable to raise his head and look at the demon. Finally he makes a faint, strangled sound.
"It's okay…" Crowley breaths out, the words trembling like mayflies at the end of the day. "It's okay. We can allow ourselves to be weak together."
Aziraphale nods and crumbles, burying his face into the moss. "It's over," he says hoarsely. "It's over. We survived. Why does it hurt still?"
Crowley curls next to him. They weep. They are thinking about the bottle hanging on the Tree of Knowledge.
"Too late to drink it now, isn't it?" Aziraphale whispers.
"Yes. We got too far already. Wouldn't be fair, to give up."
"I'm sorry… should have accepted right away."
"I'm glad you didn't."
