THE OPPOSITE OF RETIREMENT

Blurb: Having moved in together after the Apocalypse, our pair takes a break from London and quickly becomes embroiled in a new conflict between Heaven and Hell.


CHAPTER 6: Regrets


Aziraphale settled back against the black headboard of Crowley's bed, and the two drank their wine in companionable silence.

"I suppose we need to get out of London with all due speed," he hummed eventually. "Find someplace remote, no humans at all."

"What? Why?" Crowley protested. All due speed sounded a lot like right now and he was just getting comfortable amid the blankets and the angel.

"Did you see the mess from all the fighting at the cottage?" Aziraphale raised his eyebrows. "Both sides nearly razed everything before Heaven restored it. Can you imagine if the next demon comes to Soho and renounces before we can get them clear of the area? With all those angels and demons pouring in to fight each other, we won't need an Apocalypse to destroy the world."

"You don't want to leave here yet. You love the bookshop." They had talked of leaving London for a while. It would need to be long enough that when they returned, everyone who knew them would either be dead or too old to suspect the pair were the same ageless beings. But one weekend minibreak was hardly enough for Aziraphale to make peace with his exile.

"I love Earth," said Aziraphale. "And the humans. And a great many other things besides. It will be best if we go somewhere with fewer innocent bystanders, don't you think? At least temporarily? And it's not as if I'm going naked and alone into the wilderness. I'm bringing my books. And you'll be there too. Home is where we make it."

Crowley didn't disagree. He was just a little surprised by how readily Aziraphale had updated his thinking.

As immortal, miraculous beings, they could survive just about anywhere. They didn't need much in the way of shelter from heat or cold; they didn't need food or drink or rest. They could survive in the most extreme and inhospitable places on Earth and beyond, but life would be considerably less enjoyable in such a place.

But it wasn't really about comfort or enjoyment right now. And it wouldn't be for a while, or perhaps ever again.

"How much time do you suppose we have?" Aziraphale asked when he finished his drink. He set the empty glass on the bedside table; now was time to focus.

"That depends on what we're waiting for," said Crowley, "for Above to get bored or for Below to get lucky?"

"Angels are quite happy with performing the same task ad infinitum," Aziraphale primly observed. "I would not worry about them."

Crowley looked askance, as if to remind his companion of who had tried to end his existence. As far as Crowley was concerned, angels were definitely worth worrying about. However, if more demons like Goral attempted to escape Hell and renounced the devil, Below could not allow the situation to continue. And the best way to bring about another Armageddon was with another Antichrist.

"It took Hell 6,000 years to produce one Antichrist," Crowley said with a roll of his shoulders, digging into the bedding and nesting next to his companion. "Surely they've invented some efficiencies in all that time. If the devil was smart, he would already have a spare on Earth or at least in the works, and protected by caretakers who would make absolutely certain that this second child wanted to destroy the world. It took Adam Young eleven years to grow into his potential, but I doubt we've got that long."

"That… that's not a lot of time," Aziraphale said quietly.

Crowley looked at him from the corner of his eye. "How much time would be enough for you?"

After everything Aziraphale had witnessed -- the entire human pageantry of joy and suffering, loss and triumph, and with a certain demon increasingly at his side -- he didn't want it to end ever. "That's the problem with being immortal," he mused. "The concept of running out of time -- truly running out -- is just unfathomable."

Crowley leaned into him, a comforting and familiar weight. The demon said nothing while he finished his drink, then leaned over the angel to rest his empty glass on the table beside Aziraphale's.

Rather than rolling away, Crowley stayed draped over the angel's chest. "Pet me," he commanded, remembering how comforting that was the night before.

Aziraphale had the gall to laugh at him. "Are you a domesticated demon now?"

Crowley reared up and hissed in response, revealing rows of sharp fangs. It would have intimidated a stranger but Aziraphale curled his fingers into the short hairs at Crowley's nape until the demon rolled his eyes back behind his lids and dropped his head back on the angel's chest.

"Maybe Gabriel is right," Aziraphale said with a slight smile as he worked his manicured fingers against the demon's scalp. "Maybe I am a little soft."

Crowley opened his eyes and fixed Aziraphale with a look. "Thank Somebody for that, Angel," he drawled. "The universe doesn't need any more arch-twats than it already has. Give me one good argument why he's better than Hastur. He isn't fit to fasten your sandals."

Aziraphale giggled at the warm defense and added his other hand to Crowley's head. The demon hummed appreciatively but he continued to dwell on the problem of Gabriel.

For as long as Crowley had paid attention, Above had behaved badly to their Earthbound agent. The archangel had teased and bullied the principality, belittling Zira to his face in front of other angels. It was in no way comparable to the torture that Goral had endured for centuries in the Pits, but there were some similarities. And if an archangel treated one angel that way, what were the odds that there were others likewise intimidated or oppressed but lacking the means to avoid their tormentors because they were stuck in Heaven?

"You don't seem to find this relaxing, Dearest," Aziraphale said, breaking into Crowley's thoughts.

"It's not you, Angel," he said. "Just, what are the odds that there are a few angels in Heaven who are tired of never measuring up to the archangels' expectations? What if a lowly angel hears about demons defecting from Hell and realizes that damnation isn't their only alternative to an eternity of listening to Sandalphon? What happens if an angel gets fed up with Gabriel's sanctimoniousness and defects as well?"

The idea was a horror. Heaven was only protecting them because it benefited them to do so. As long as Crowley's existence was more damaging to Hell than it was to Heaven, they would try to keep Crowley alive. But if Heaven thought that Crowley would cost them even one angel, they wouldn't hesitate to destroy him instantly.

Aziraphale's own opinions and desires -- even his very existence at this point -- was secondary to Crowley's apparent worth to Above. But Aziraphale knew that either by his choice or Heaven's, he wouldn't outlive the demon.

Suddenly, Aziraphale's heart was beating too fast. It was squeezed by an unknown force. His hands began to tremble and he clenched them before hearing Crowley hissed at him again and he released fistfuls of red hair although his hands still trembled. To have come this far, to have won some measure of freedom to do what he wanted with whom he wanted, and to know that it could be snatched away in an instant… it was unfair.

"How do the humans cope with it?" he asked.

"Alcohol," Crowley volunteered, "drugs, sex, denial, really bad choices, wallowing in regret. Some of them, if they can't avoid fate, they run headlong toward it."

"And do you… Do you regret anything?" Aziraphale asked as the thought occurred to him again. "You said the other night that you have regrets but when I asked you about them we ended up talking about perfect moments instead."

Crowley grimaced. He had hoped that Aziraphale would forget about that in all the other distractions. He was nowhere near drunk enough nor was his death imminent enough for him to confess what he truly regretted. "I suppose I regret not having more perfect moments."

Aziraphale looked at him and seemed to understand what he was trying not to say. He gathered up the demon's hands in his own.

"Well then, let us make the most of the moments we still have while we're still here to have them."

.o8o.

Aziraphale stayed in the bed until Crowley drifted to sleep.

When the demon was unresponsive, the angel slipped from his grasp and silently eased out of the room. No doubt Aziraphale could have spent the entire night with a book open in one hand while the other hand continued to stroke the demon's hair. He could have done so in pursuit of more perfect moments but it felt lacking when Crowley was unconscious, so instead he began to research where on Earth they should go.

Remote was his keyword. Remote and uninhabited. While the world's population continued to climb, certain areas remained empty, places like Antarctica, the interior of Australia, the northern reaches of Canada and Siberia, volcanic islands, and isolated mountain peaks like Tibet.

Aziraphale frowned at the list of unappealing destinations. Then he frowned at his own softness. Gabriel had often chastised Aziraphale for being soft and Crowley had just defended that trait. The angel knew that there were multiple ways to be soft, and that the archangel and the demon could both be right.

Just as he was about to open another tab on the Great Victoria Desert, Aziraphale wondered how crowded the Scottish highlands were. A few more clicks had him intrigued. He carefully constructed his next query ("highlands hideaway for sale") and hoped for a miracle.

He was not disappointed.

There was an abandoned estate, complete with outbuildings and a ghost town, in the middle of nowhere. Bairderick had been awarded by King James to Lord Henry Dannel but the line had died out in WWII. The town also suffered heavy losses during the war and more losses after as soldiers refused to come home and other young people began to move away in droves. The last surviving resident passed away in the 1950s, and the entire area had been deserted since, slowly being reclaimed by nature.

It was sure to be falling in on itself, Aziraphale noted, inhospitable and decaying. There were no recent pictures of it, only scanned black and white photographs taken before the last Dannel had died. It would take miracles and labor to make the estate livable, but Aziraphale had hope, and an angel's hope was a powerful force.

They would have to start with one of the smaller structures, maybe with the dower cottage or the stables. Once that place was safely warded and structurally sound, they could expand to the other buildings. As more demons joined them, they'd have room for them. And with the number of outbuildings, he was sure that he could finagle some privacy and separation for himself and Crowley.

He had composed and emailed a letter to the estate agency that he wanted to call on them that very afternoon to discuss the property. It would take some creative timing bordering on a miracle to close up the shop indefinitely and to get them all up to Scotland in time, but Aziraphale was sure they could manage. They had motivation enough.

It was then that Aziraphale wondered at how Goral had been able to track them, and how to lure more demons to their new base. The thought of murderous agents of Hell pursuing fleeing refugees through the crowded streets of Soho was sobering, moreso now that it was the middle of the night and he was alone. And it was certainly very taxing on the escaping demon as well, if Goral's injuries were any indication. It would be so much easier if Aziraphale could come up with a way to rescue them straight from the Pits and then transport them immediately to safety without increased risk to the demon or any risk at all to humans. And if he could arrange for the defection to happen when Heaven's companies were at the ready to rebuff hellish forces, so much the better! But it was not like he could just summ--

If he'd had anything in his hands, he would have dropped it; if he'd had anything in his mouth, he would have spat it out.

He could summon demons. Goral must know a few by name to the point that Aziraphale could pull them into a summoning circle and see if they wanted to defect. And then he could just keep them on Earth if they did want to remain. It would certainly be easier for everyone involved, comically easier.

But it was so short a distance that it was barely a leap -- more of a shuffle really -- to imagine that Hell would try to summon Crowley and Goral back into their clutches.

In fact, they might already be trying it.


NOTES: ugh. can you tell that this was written in a pandemic when every day was a new record count of how many people had died?

other than that, how are you enjoying it so far? drop me a ping to let me know.