Disclaimer: I don't own Good Omens in any of its incarnations. Duh. It'd have 900% more angst otherwise. A.N- For the prompt "Past" from the Good Omens Celebration. Also, this is way too well researched for a ficlet. XD
War's on
Hell had been on cloud nine – er, karst six – for decades. World War I. Totalitarisms on the rise like poisonous weeds. World War II. No wonder they were so sure that, whenever the Apocalypse did come to pass (and some of his colleagues wondered if it wouldn't be right on the tail of this) they would easily win. There were many, many demons topside back then – more than the humans ever needed, if Crowley knows anything about them – and the results... Crowley might be (was supposed to be) evil, but he also has standards, and during that war he didn't want to be anywhere near the thick of the action. He'd 'accidentally' destroy hell's favourites (soon to be long-awaited guests), and that would be hard to explain.
Thankfully, he had so much stolen clout from centuries past, having claimed to be the inspiration behind people's worst initiatives, that by the time Hitler was at the helm nobody questioned his refusal to deal with 'their' side.
"It's an easy job," he snorted, "let someone who still needs to learn the basics do it. No, I'm staying right here. If we're supporting the Axis, you can bet that angels will meddle with the Allies. Someone's gotta stop them, and since I'm here anyway." He shrugged and sighed, as if the duty bothered him. How his fellow demons haven't seen through him yet, in the past odd six thousands years, is a mystery.
Anyway, he did have to put some effort into it. During most of the war, his favourite game was to hang around with the weapons development crowd and mess with them. It wouldn't do for upstairs to inspire, or worse, bless them. Besides, if you asked Crowley, people were already perfectly adequate to destroy each other. The ice – erm, pykrete – ship, and his maybe favourite, the (and he didn't say so himself) Great Panjandrum were the highlights in his album of hilarious memories.
But all that was later on. In truth, it had been a rather miserable overall time, what with his angel being unreasonably upset with him. He still didn't see what had Aziraphale so uptight about a simple request for holy water. He thought helping each other was what they did, and an extra layer of protection wouldn't go amiss. You'd think there had been enough internal strifes on earth in the past decades to remind even Aziraphale that your own team wasn't necessarily harmless to you.
So maybe he'd been in a mood too. He'd helped leak the exploding rats plan – well, the exploding rats themselves (even if he still thought it was rather farfetched an idea) – only to have his supposed side become paranoid over rodents, which proved very entertaining. He'd left out a few details when asked for info (then again, who still needed to be told which side of the road the Brits drove on) so that their spies, when they tried to infiltrate, were so bumbling that people, decades later, suspected intentional internal sabotage. It wasn't, per se. Just...he couldn't be bothered. And people making a spectacle of themselves was funny.
Of course, a few of them were not so amusing. But they still prompted his best memory in...too damn long. It was no wonder that the Reich was interested in occultism. And – points to its emissaries for finding Aziraphale's shop. You could be damn sure that Crowley hadn't pointed them that way. Well, not intentionally, and if they'd managed to follow him when he mooned about, then these three's talent made their colleagues idiocy all the less excusable.
The layers of the game were a refinement he would have appreciated against anyone else. Was it a triple bluff? Quadruple? With the angel nearby, Crowley's brain cells were too distracted to keep track. He'd kept a watchful eye on them since that bint approached Aziraphale, of course. And planning to discorporate him? Oh, war was on.
Did he sigh when Aziraphale picked a church for the exchange? Just a bit. Of course his beloved would. Open double crossing wasn't something that would make him comfortable. Aziraphale was much subtler than that. So, naturally, he'd looked for an environment to ease his mind. Still, ow. Consecrated ground. Never mind.
Crowley had forged on, borne it, downplayed his agony till it looked ridiculous. But he refused to worry Aziraphale, and he very much had to personally make his point that touching the angel was. Not. On.
Sure, later he'd report that he was trying to stop a literal avenging angel – and preferably kill him – with that little bomb misplacing miracle, and fine, it didn't work, but he still destroyed consecrated ground, and he'd told these idiots to get out. It was peak demonic behaviour, no matter which...interpretation of the events the smarmy bastards came up with in their feeble human minds. Hell, despite the "failure", he'd received an official commendation for it. Beelzebub took him aside right after, and told him to just go along without warning next time (the war had ended by then, but there would always be a next time, since Armageddon hadn't yet started). People were replaceable. Angel deaths coveted.
But out of the church, in that moment, praise and reports and anything else could wait. Nobody knew about the rest of that night. About Aziraphale, more elated about having his books than his corporation saved. About how having him right there in the Bentley unspooled something that'd been sitting heavy and cold inside him for far too close to eighty years, like he'd swallowed a boulder. About being invited in, with a shy smile, "to put his feet up."
How Aziraphale had hovered, the urge to heal him almost overwhelming, and the way Crowley had to stop him, remind him that – given the source of his troubles – angelic intervention was unlikely to help. How much, how cruelly he'd been tempted to let it go on, afraid he'd be out in the cold the second he was fine, the pain inconsequential against the chance to bask in his angel's presence again. He'd fixed himself only because Aziraphale's obvious distress over it was much more intolerable than his own.
He'd been fine, totally, but in that moment – rising and starting to leave the darkened shop on his own, before he could be chased away (again) – his suffering had been more soul-rending than any consecrated ground could ever hope to be.
Then the angel's voice, still so soft, had snared him. "Unless here's...uncomfortable, too," panicky, kind blue eyes darted around, "or...or you have things to do, of course...Stay. You could. On the sofa. Have a drink?"
Crowley had rushed back, draping himself on the all-too-comfortable piece of furniture before the angel could question the sanity of his offer. They were, finally, right in each other's space. No "random" encounters, in public (or as well as) for plausible deniability. As happy as he was for having been allowed in with no need for bodily injury, Crowley had never felt happier for harm in his whole existence. It was, in a sense, very demonic of him. He couldn't really brag about it later, though. Not when the damage was his own.