33. The apple of my eye
They asked for a few days. Musdur and Zadkiel put up a tent outside, giving them the privacy they did not ask for aloud (because when you spend centuries blending in with the Brits and then have to act as a host, some things just stick). The tent is well supplied by the drinks and meals that Eden can offer, including a vintage of rather passable Cabernet Sauvignon.
It feels strange, visiting the familiar places in Eden and knowing that the whole world is waiting outside of these walls and it is safe for you. It is strange, when you were ready to spend eternity in one place and then you get to leave it. A part of you doesn't want to. It is scary.
They are sitting in the Bentley.
"You will get to drive the real one soon."
Crowley touches the wood and gold. He could have remade it with steel after they got all of the recording gadgets containing different materials, but didn't.
"This one is real, too."
"I know."
They sit for a while longer.
"Where to, angel?" Crowley asks.
"We could take a walk at St. James's."
Crowley nods and drives off, but his heart is not in it. He even imagines keeping the speed limit for a few seconds.
He opens the door for Aziraphale. They walk together down the stone path.
"Do you think it felt like this, to Adam and Eve?" Aziraphale asks suddenly.
Crowley shakes his head. "It was more of going into the unknown and having to take care of themselves and a kid on the way. They had no idea how big that unknown is."
"Not really."
"They did?"
"No. It's not that big, I mean. A matter of perception. Human senses can only encompass a bit of it at a time. And then you can move and encompass another bit, still remembering the previous one. Your reality is a bubble of memory and perception. You can't take in the whole world at once. You can't know all the people. You can live in a huge city and be familiar with exactly as many people and places as in a small town. It's not that different from here. You don't get to deal with all the world at once."
"That sounds manageable."
"Yes. I rather meant the feeling of leaving something behind. Regret, maybe?"
Crowley shakes his head. "They weren't meant to stay here forever. It was just a matter of time."
"You think?"
"Come on, angel. You don't? A forbidden tree right in the middle of the garden? That was never supposed to last. Imagine the two of them, immortal, no kids, lollygagging here for all eternity. No challenges to overcome, no greatness to achieve. No actual humanity to speak of."
Aziraphale considers it for a moment. "So you are saying you actually did the right thing?"
"Heh. Maybe. Who knows."
"We could."
Crowley follows Aziraphale's look. They are in St. James's Park. Or, by other words, in the heart of Eden where a dead tree stands next to a living one.
"Don't tell me you've never wondered…"
Crowley chuckles. "Angel, are you tempting me?"
"As a matter of fact… yes, I am."
Crowley's expression gets serious. "You could Fall, angel."
"For tempting you? If that was the case, I would have Fallen long ago."
"For eating it, I mean. Don't tell me you're not going to take a bite if I do."
Aziraphale smiles. "No, I'm quite certain I wouldn't Fall. You know what's the worst that can happen? She could cast us out. I didn't want to try before, but now? What can we lose?"
He stops under the tree and picks an apple, blood-red and spotless. He extends his hand, offering it to Crowley.
"Do we have free will like humans do? And if not, then whose will are we fulfilling? You were troubled about this, weren't you? We could know."
Crowley watches the apple and then the angel, as if savouring the sight. "Principality Aziraphale, Angel of the Easten Gate, the Tempter of Tempters," he whispers. "It suits you."
Aziraphale blushes.
Crowley reaches for the apple. He doesn't take it from Aziraphale's hand but closes his hands around the angel's. He brings it to his lips. He kisses the hand and takes a bite from the apple.
Aziraphale takes a bite right after him, not waiting for the consequences - or wanting to experience them together.
A bit awkward moment of chewing and swallowing while watching each other.
"Hm. Quite juicy and sweet with a little hint of spicy tartness," Aziraphale evaluates.
Crowley snorts. "Admit it angel, you wanted to do this for the culinary experience."
"Absolutely," Aziraphale smiles. "I expected that would be the only experience to get from it."
Crowley pauses in a moment of introspection. "No change… How did you know?"
"For a start, we are wearing clothes."
"Huh."
"And not just for the fashion. We get embarrassed without them… in front of others, I mean," Aziraphale adds quickly before Crowley can object.
Crowey, who was going to do just that, closes his mouth.
"If I remember correctly, that was the effect of the apple on Adam and Eve."
"Yes, a rather interesting side-effect, if you ask me."
"Well, it led to humans inventing all those lovely clothes."
Crowley smiles a little, thinking that he can guess exactly what clothes Aziraphale is thinking about. The keyword is ruffles.
"Remember our first talk?" Aziraphale asks, sitting down under the tree. It doesn't seem like the Almighty wants to show up and kick them out just yet. "We talked about good and evil."
Crowley joins him, leaning on the bark and Aziraphale's shoulder. "I told you you must have done the right thing because you are an angel."
"Yes. And do you still believe it?"
"Heh. Absolutely not. You did the right thing because you are you."
"I think the rightness could be debated, considering what the sword became. But basically, I agree. It was a choice. My choice. Not inherently right or wrong, just a choice with consequences. Just like yours."
"We did have free will then? Since the beginning?"
"We just didn't know the true difference between good and evil."
"That's what the apple is supposed to teach you," Crowley says. "Back then, we still thought angels were Good and demons Evil. But those are just names of the sides. The real good and evil is a choice you make, no matter your side."
"See? You didn't need the apple to know it."
"But how did we learn it?"
Aziraphale shrugs. "Humans, of course. Being around them. Pretending to be them. Do you remember Adam's hell-hound?"
"You mean Dog?"
"Yes. Form influences nature. And we have been in human shape for a long, long time. It must have rubbed off. We make our own choices, unless someone limits them. I know why you've worried about it. Satan must have told you so many awful things, my dear. But you are not anyone's tool. You're an individual. Always have been. I just wanted to show you."
Crowley sits quietly for a while, his head a pleasant weight on Aziraphale's shoulder. Then he smirks to himself and turns to look at Aziraphale's face, tickling him on the cheek with his hair as he moves. "You weren't completely sure, though. Admit it. You wouldn't have waited until now, if you were."
"Well, yes. I didn't want to risk the slight possibility of getting us kicked out, obviously. But apparently we're fine. Fancy an apple fritter?"
The private conference room is on the ground floor of the building, at the end of a hall you can only enter if you have a very specific security card, fitting into the slot next to a reinforced steel door behind the escalators.
Beelzebub waves their hand nonchalantly and the door opens, revealing a well-lit hallway with fake plants placed in pots at regular intervals. At the end of the hallway, there is a simple plywood door leading into the conference room.
It's all polished chrome and glass and fake leather. A table in the middle, two leather chairs at its opposite ends, a carafe with water, two glasses and a bowl of fruit in the middle. The fruit's more of a decoration than an actual snack because who the hell would peel an orange in the middle of a business meeting, right?
Beelzebub strolls in and perches on the backrest of the leather chair, their feet trailing dirt on the seat.
Gabriel stands up from the other chair, a broad smile showing a shade of white that's only seen in human teeth after spending a considerable amount of money on it. "Prince Beelzebub! I'm glad you accepted my invitation."
"Spit it out, Gabe. Some of uszzz have a Hell to run," Beelzebub snarls.
"Of course, of course. Leadership responsibilities. Heh, tell me about it…"
Beelzebub reaches into the fruit bowl and starts peeling an orange.
"So. Yes, I don't want to take much of your time. Just wanted to discuss a common strategy. For, you know. If some journalists come asking about the whole punishing the traitors business."
Beelzebub discards an orange peel on the table and raises their eyebrow. "What about it?"
"See, we cooperated on capturing them, obviously. Obviously your Boss has had His fun with them and obviously the version shown in Heaven was different from the truth."
"Obviouszzzly." Beelzebub bites into the orange as if it were an apple, without separating the slices. The sticky juice trickles down their chin and flies sit down to drink it.
"Yes, well," Gabriel puts on a pleasant smile. "The censorship happened on your side, since you didn't want Heaven to know about Satan's special interest in the traitors. I already got the censored version."
Beelzebub leans forth, orange juice dribbling on the glass table. A few flies land on the drops. "Juszzzt to make it clear," they drawl, "an Archangel iszzz tempting me to lie?"
Gabriel's expression is shocked. "No! Not at all! You must have misheard. I'm merely offering a favour."
"A favour. You. To me."
"Of course. Do you think some other leadership would be that accommodating to you? It is in your best interest to assure that I keep my position…"
Beelzebub smirks. "I don't give a fuck about your pozzzition. Where were you when Satan chaszzzed me over the galaxies to find the traitorzzzz?"
"I was busy! The political situation…"
"I don't give a fuck about your political situation."
"You say that until your demons start getting ideas about democracy. Then you will come to me pleading to give you some pointers about how to win the elections!"
"Not gonna happen," Beelzebub smirks. "Someone elzzze wanna try running Hell? They're my guest. I'll gladly szzzit back and watch. But nobody would, becauzzzzze it's a hard and thankless job and I'm most competent at it and they know it."
"I can have your whole plumbing system renovated!"
"You can," Beelzebub nods. They pop the last bit of orange into their mouth and wipe their sticky hands into Gabriel's suit. "Very selfless from you. And now excusze me, I've got more important thingszzz to deal with."
Aziraphale did start packing, but stopped soon. Taking anything away from Eden felt wrong. Crowley felt it too and did not even start. In the end, they only took their clothes. That apparently didn't count, since Adam and Eve were allowed to take what passed for clothes back then, too.
But the gadgets from Musdur and Zadkiel were not originally from Eden, and once Crowley realized that loophole, he spent a few hours photographing all of Aziraphale's original additions to his library, despite the angel's protests that it wasn't worth it. In turn, Aziraphale took photos of all Crowley's paintings, taking great care to capture them in the best light while the demon was rolling his eyes behind his back.
They left Eden in the morning, with the sun greeting the eastern wall where Aziraphale once made a gate. Now he didn't bother. They used the rope ladder and once they were down, Crowley set it on fire. It burnt for a bit and then the wind put it out, so they left it like that.
Crowley took the driver's seat after opening the door for Aziraphale. They sat in an embarrassed silence for a moment. Then they exchanged places because the jeep's driving wheel was on the left side. Zadkiel and Musdur exchanged a look, but didn't say anything as they took the back seats.
When the low sun made Crowley squint, Zadkiel offered his sunglasses without a word. Crowley took them.
Now it's evening and they are in London. They are sitting in the Bentley - the original Bentley - in front of the bookshop. Beethoven's Don't Try So Hard is playing on the radio.
"Should we go in?" Crowley asks.
Aziraphale nods. "Yes. Yes, we should. It was a long day, wasn't it?"
But neither of them moves.
"Here's a phone with a few contacts," Zadkiel said when he and Musdur were leaving. "Don't hesitate to call if you need anything."
"Yeah, sure," Crowley muttered and stuck it into his pocket.
"Are you sure you don't want us to stay longer, until you settle in a bit?"
Crowley rolled his eyes. "Kid, we've known every street in London since there were just a few muddy huts. We don't need someone who's been on Earth less time than smartphones to show us around."
"Right," Zadkiel nodded. "I just thought… nevermind."
The sign on the door says "closed". It looks as if it was just yesterday that he turned it over from the rarely used "open" side. Aziraphale reaches for the doorknob.
The door is not locked. It opens easily when he pulls it.
Saying after you feels wrong. He enters first.
The noise from the street subsides as soon as they get inside, as if the windows had some insulation. They don't. It is an empty silence.
The door should have been locked. There are books inside, valuable first editions piled on bookshelves towering along the walls like a dark amphitheatre full of staring, judging spectators.
But the door was not locked.
"You will find your things pretty much how you left them," Musdur said as they were sitting under the sunshade of a small restaurant near the garages of the jeep desert safari that did not mind one of their jeeps returning several days late.
"Yes. There has been a field of disinterest put over them. When you get back, nobody will remember that the bookshop hasn't been open for years," Zadkiel said and then turned to the waiter to order them cold lemonade.
"Oh, and we've also tidied up a bit," he added as an afterthought when the drinks arrived. "I hope you don't mind."
Aziraphale shook his head, but his attention was on the waiter. There were no other guests in the restaurant at this time of the day. The waiter was human. Delightfully, overwhelmingly human. Aziraphale's eyes shone with shy joy.
Crowley switches on the lights.
There are no plants. They all must have died long ago. Tidied up.
There is no fruit in the bowl on the table. Tidied up.
The cups are clean and stashed away in the cupboard. Tidied up.
Someone threw away the dead plants and mouldy fruit, someone washed the cups. The door has not been locked, just a field of disinterest put over it.
There are still faint remnants of it in the air. It wasn't Musdur and Zadkiel who put it there. It smells like ozone mixed with sulphur.
Aziraphale tenses. His fists clench and he looks around as if expecting an attack.
Crowley is tense, too. He moves further along the dark bookshelf with plant encyclopedias and spy novellas. On the kitchen counter, there is a coffee maker.
Crowley gags.
Behind the Bentley's windows, London is flowing like a river, busy and overwhelmingly human. The little island inside is threatened with being swept away by the flood.
The radio is silent. The only sound is that of a duet of fast and shallow breaths.
A quiet sob. Then silence and the steady stream of London eroding the shores.
"How do you pick up the threads of an old life?" Aziraphale whispers shakily, in his book-quoting voice. "How do you go on, when in your heart you begin to understand... there is no going back?"
"Shit, why's there always someone who said it so much better than I would?" Crowley mutters.
"Tolkien. On the third shelf on the left, in the upper row. First edition, signed to my friend A. Z. Fell, a fellow hobbit. I want it back, but I don't want to go there for it. I don't want to stay where they just… walked in and snatched us up. I don't think I can ever feel safe there."
"Now it's you who said it better than I would."
The radio starts playing All Dead, All Dead.
"Shut up, I didn't mean you," Crowley snarls and the radio goes silent again.
They stay in the car while the night passes into dawn.
Crowley sighs. "We should find some other place. Somewhere calmer, in the country."
Aziraphale watches out of the car window, at the bookshop door. He nods regretfully.
"We're gonna ask for help, aren't we?" Crowey mutters.
"It does seem that we need it, my dear," Aziraphale says softly. "I don't know where to go, how to begin…"
Crowley takes out the phone from his pocket. He watches it for a moment, then puts it down. "I still can't believe it," he says. "I can't believe that someone else could be on our side."
"Yes," Aziraphale sighs. "It's hard to believe."
"It would be nice, though."
"It would."
Crowley picks the phone again. He circles through the contacts and pauses at the name of Warlock Dowling.
"We should call him sometime later," Aziraphale comments. "Invite him for a few days."
"When we have a place to invite him to." Crowley scrolls just a bit further until he sees Zadkiel's number.
"Well, the two of them seemed ready to help. And wouldn't need much explaining." He doesn't touch the call symbol, though, fighting with his pride.
"Let me, dear," Aziraphale says.
Crowley nods thankfully and gives him the phone.
Aziraphale presses his hand and calls the number.