Aziraphale stares up at the church. It towers over him, a heavenly beacon seen from afar with it's large cross resting atop its massive roof, and there's a low-grade level of warmth ebbing off the property. Churches are meant to be pure and filled with love—Her love. Her grace. Her beauty. It's been a long time since Aziraphale stepped foot in a church.
He has never quite felt at home in them. Some part of him clung to Heaven in the past, and he thought churches might offer some semblance of a home he rarely saw anymore, but the truth of the matter was it was never really his home. So it never felt quite right, standing in a church.
Feeling Her presence was everything, of course, but he always felt a bit like a fraud, standing there. He had lied directly to her when asked a pointed question about where his flaming sword was, he spent time in the company of a demon on a semi-regular basis, and he'd even done temptations himself. He felt like a lousy, pathetic angel, and felt as though he were living a lie, standing inside a church like that.
So he hasn't gone near one in a long time now. Not since 1941, at the very least. Contrary to popular belief, it hadn't been his idea to meet in the church. It had been those Nazi's idea, and Aziraphale hadn't argued, even if his skin had crawled as he stood there within those confining, loving walls which reminded him of some distant version of himself he could never, ever be again.
He doesn't want to step inside another church. Especially not after tricking Heaven and severing ties with them.
Crowley insists, though, and short of warding the bookshop against demons, he doesn't quite know where else to go which might be safe. He doesn't want to be here, at this church, but he knows he can't go back to the bookshop, either. Hastur surely knows of it, after all, and it would be recklessly idiotic to return there and expect things to turn in their favour. Hastur found them in the middle of nowhere, in a cottage they'd never been to in the past, and if he could do that so easily he would surely know if they showed back up at the bookshop or Crowley's flat.
This doesn't mean the church is the first option Aziraphale would choose, but Crowley basically herded him here nevertheless, driving like a bat our of hell toward the sanctuary of the church while ignoring Aziraphale's complaints and wishes to go somewhere else.
So now here they stand, just outside church grounds. Crowley prowls next to him, eying the church then Aziraphale then back again, and Aziraphale tries to ignore the twisting of his stomach as the church towers over him, some heavenly light calling to him in a way he's learned to resist.
He feels torn between the allure of Heaven and the demon beside him.
"Well, get on with it, then," Crowley huffs.
"You can't go in," Aziraphale says quietly.
"I can," Crowley insists, as he has been for the past hour they've been driving. They popped back to the cottage to get the car, and then quickly fled the place. They hadn't seen Hastur there when they went back, but that doesn't mean the demon wasn't waiting around for them.
He might have followed them, even.
Hesitating outside like this could spell certain doom.
But still, Aziraphale simply stands there, unable and unwilling to take a single step forward. He whirls to face Crowley instead.
"Crowley, this is ridiculous," he says firmly. "I am not hiding out in some church! And it will hurt you if you go in there."
"Done it before," Crowley says calmly, despite how he prowls like a caged animal. "Can do it again."
"Yes, and it burned you! You still have the scars," Aziraphale reminds him, frustration seeping through him.
"Aziraphale," Crowley says very slowly, stopping his movements as he rips his sunglasses off his face, yellow eyes boring into his, "you are going into that church. Hastur wants to kill you!"
"Precisely! If he wants to end my life so badly, a church won't stop him. You can tolerate it, and so can he."
Crowley snarls and resumes his prowling. "He's a Duke," he says, "it should hurt him more to step foot in there. That's what churches are bloody for, angel. To keep demons out!"
Maybe, since Hastur is higher up in the demon hierarchy, churches will hurt him more—but maybe the opposite is true as well. Maybe it will do nothing to him.
"This is absolutely absurd!" Aziraphale says.
"Don't care! You're going in there!"
"I'm not," he snaps back, glaring at the demon. He doesn't raise his voice or speak harshly often, and it gives Crowley at least a little pause. The demon's mouth snaps shut, a muscle ticking in his jaw, and Aziraphale continues. "I didn't leave Heaven to be bossed around by my best friend, Crowley."
The demon hisses. "Low blow."
"I'm sorry, but I'm not going in there. We'll just have to think of something else."
"There isn't anything else! There's just Hastur coming for you, and I need—" Crowley breaks off with a snarl, whirling away from Aziraphale. He stomps several feet away before he turns back to close the distance, prowling again, the lines of his body taut with tension. "There's holy water in there, Aziraphale. If Hastur shows up, you can end him."
"I," Aziraphale repeats, squaring his shoulders, "am not. Going. In there."
"Stubborn bloody angel!"
"Stubborn demon."
"Graahh!" Crowley growls and spins away from him again. He paces. He prowls. He hisses beneath his breath.
But when he turns back to Aziraphale, his shoulders slump in defeat.
"I don't know where else to go," he says, very quietly. The wind ripped from his sails, so to speak.
Aziraphale quietly approaches him. Crowley watches him, guarded and cautious, and Aziraphale reaches out to gently grasp those long fingers and give them a soft squeeze. "We'll get through this, Crowley. Together."
They always do.
The church doors burst open, then. The sound is so sudden it leaves the two jumping apart and whirling toward the disruption, Crowley with a snarl and Aziraphale with a small gasp of surprise.
A priest stands there, clothed in holy garbs. His gaze focuses first and foremost on Aziraphale, and there's a flash of recognition there which really shouldn't be present. The two have never met, Aziraphale is quite certain. He doesn't spend time around priests these days, and he avoids churches if at all possible unless he needs to do a blessing in one—which, thankfully, hasn't happened in a long, long time.
"Aziraphale," the priest says quietly, but the words carry over all the same—a soft prayer, his name.
"How do you know me?" He asks, unable to stop himself even as he steps forward to approach the human.
The priest moves to meet him halfway. His eyes never leave Aziraphale's face, and the look present there makes Aziraphale distinctly uncomfortable. Reverence, he thinks. Awe and reverence. For him.
"She said you would come," the priest says.
"She?" Crowley asks sharply, coming up behind Aziraphale.
The priest merely blinks, not looking away from Aziraphale as he answers. "The Most Holy, of course."
Hmm. Most assume God to be a him, though God isn't truly any gender. She did make humans in Her image, though, and genders must mean something, but to Aziraphale She has and always shall be a her, even if such things like male or female don't strictly apply. She is the Heavenly Mother, even if most call Her the Heavenly Father, but this human seems to have gotten it just right.
This in and of itself is odd.
"God spoke to you?" Crowley asks in disbelief. "About Aziraphale?"
The priest finally slips his gaze away from Aziraphale and toward Crowley. He immediately rears back at the yellow eyes, since Crowley has yet to put his sunglasses back on after ripping them off in their fit earlier. "Demon," the man hisses, and holds up his holy cross. "Back! I will send you back to Hell!"
Crowley hisses and backs away, eyes flashing with unholy radiance, and Aziraphale quickly steps between them, holding his hands up placatingly.
"There needn't be any of that," he says quickly. "Crowley is a… a good demon, he wouldn't—"
The priest starts reciting an exorcism.
Crowley snarls, and Aziraphale snaps his fingers.
The priest vanishes.
"What the bloody hell did you do that for?" Crowley asks briskly.
"He tried to hurt you," is all Aziraphale says, tone rather flat even to his own ears. The priest knew him and immediately tried to send Crowley packing, which is simply not allowed. Crowley will return to Hell over Aziraphale's dead body, so to speak. It's not happening. Not while he's still around to say something about it, anyway.
"He might have answers for you," Crowley says quietly.
"He could."
But he tried to hurt Crowley. And that isn't going to happen. Not tonight, not ever.
He looks back at the church. Now that the doors are open, there is a heavenly flow of energy circling him, it seems—gently urging him forward, to the sanctuary within.
He doesn't want to go, he thinks, even as his feet move of their own accord.
"Angel?"
Aziraphale enters the church and the doors slam shut behind him.
xXx
Crowley throws himself at the doors again.
They won't budge, and where his shoulder knocks against the wood, it burns. It hurts so much worse than walking on consecrated ground all those years ago, and a wail slips past his lips before he can bite back the sound.
He hits the door again, and again, but it still won't move—still won't open, and Aziraphale is somewhere inside and he's not answering.
"Aziraphale! Aziraphale, open the bloody door!"
His shoulder and arm connect with the door and he cries out as the burns worsen and renew, his skin steaming. Tears prick his eyes and he stops for a moment, his other hand holding onto his throbbing, searing arm even as his eyes scan over the door once more.
The church was supposed to be safe.
It was supposed to keep Aziraphale safe.
Instead, those doors slammed shut behind Aziraphale and they just won't open, no matter how many times Crowley snaps his fingers or sends demonic energy at them. Heavenly energy locks the path, and there's a tingle of familiarity to this magic, he thinks—something off which he can't quite place at first.
When it hits him, he throws himself back against the door. "Aziraphale!"
Maybe it's God's doing, or something else entirely in Heaven, but it's the same off-ness he felt when Aziraphale healed the man in the alleyway. That edge of wrongness, of not-Aziraphale, and it's currently focused on keeping the demon out of the church, and Aziraphale spent all this time telling him he didn't want to go in the church—and then he just walked in anyway, and it all screams wrong to him.
The door flings him back this time—another burst of holy energy, and he nearly sobs at the pain coursing through him. His arm hangs limply at his side, steaming and smoking and burning, and he thinks it is rather a miracle he's not actually on fire.
He moves around the building, searching for a window to look through, anything to let him see inside, see Aziraphale, but the windows reflect only darkness back at him. Even in this, he is locked out and alone.
He growls low in his throat, frustration and desperation mingling together inside of him. For all he knows, Azirpahale is being hurt. For all he knows, whatever attacked Aziraphale at the Main Entrance could be hurting him now, and Crowley is stuck out here being useless—
The doors open.
The energy fades—the heavenly light, the sharp burning pain at the back of Crowley's mind as the building hums with that holy energy—it all fades away and the doors open and there's Aziraphale, safe as can be, and his eyes lock on Crowley and he has the nerve to smile.
"What the bloody fuck was that?" Crowley snarls, stomping toward the angel.
Aziraphale's eyes land on his arm and shoulder, hanging limply and still steaming. "Oh, Crowley! You're hurt!"
And then the angel is right there in front of him, and his hands are up and there's this warm, soothing glow and the wounds slowly start to mend. At least the burnt skin parts; they start to mend, turning into what they might look like three months down the road, all puckered and jagged lines of upturned red flesh, but the searing within him still remains, and it will take much longer to fade.
"What," he tries again, "the Hell. Was that."
"I'm not entirely sure," Aziraphale admits, still fretting over his arm and shoulder. "It was another Urge, I think."
"And what did you do in there? Was someone dying?"
"No."
"Then what?"
Aziraphale frowns and drops his hands, the holy light fading. "It seems there has been a new addition to the bible."
"The… bible?" What the bloody hell does the bible have to do with anything? It was written by man, after all, and isn't exactly an accurate retelling of anything at all. Some things are correct, but others exaggerated or just flat-out wrong. "What is it? What's been added?"
Aziraphale snaps his fingers and the bible appears in his hand. He flips to a certain page without looking, seemingly aware of exactly where it is—the end of the bible, like an actual add-on, Crowley can't help but think.
He should know the words, he thinks, but they are so bright—slivers of heavenly light melded with paper, and he can't read them. He squints. "What's it say?"
Aziraphale exhales slowly. "The Book of Aziraphale."