The Book of Aziraphale. The words flit through Crowley's mind, ultimately failing to register as they do not make sense, he decides. They don't make sense because the bible was written by man, by the word of God, and Aziraphale was never once anywhere near any of that nonsense, and the bible hasn't been updated in… a very, very long time. He certainly feels like he would have heard some sort of rumour about such a thing, or it would have made the nightly news, if such a thing happened. Anything concerning religion seems to be high news, after all.
But he's heard nothing of this, and combined with everything else that's happened, it leaves a cold knot of dread nestled in the pit of his stomach, and doesn't like it. Not one bit. Not at all.
He itches to snag the book from Aziraphale's hands and set it ablaze with hellfire, but it's just a book, he reasons; surely it can't be worth all that trouble, and Aziraphale would be cross with him, and he just can't do that.
So he settles for glaring at the book.
They linger outside the church for a long time, which is decidedly not a wise idea, as Hastur could be lurking anywhere, at the edge of the church somewhere. While all of the ground is supposed to be consecrated, it's mainly the structure itself which gives demons trouble, not invisible property lines. An intact church can be a strong repellant of demonic entities, but it's also just that: it has to be intact. Bombing the church, after all, certainly doesn't leave the structure intact.
Perhaps the church isn't as safe as he thought it was.
To be fair, though, he'd been slightly out of his mind, picturing Aziraphale disappearing into a spout of hellfire, because that almost happened tonight. Just a couple hours ago, it almost happened. The cottage was supposed to be safe, was supposed to be a breather for them—a chance for him to wrap his head around the idea of Aziraphale safe and alive, after slowly losing his mind with the thought of him flickering, but the cottage now seems like such a blatant lie, luring him into a false sense of safety.
Perhaps nowhere is safe. Hastur is a Duke of Hell, and could probably venture inside a church if he really desired to do so—demons can do almost anything if they're angry enough, and Hastur has always been bent the wrong way, even by demonic standards.
But there is holy water in the church and that might keep Aziraphale safe.
Of course, Hastur could simply torch the whole place with hellfire. Their little show at the cottage might have dissuaded him of the notion that Aziraphale is, in fact, immune to such a thing. He could report this back to Hell, and then it is only a matter of time before more demons come sniffing around with hellfire…
"Does that fancy book of yours tell us where we should go?" He asks bitingly, pacing back and forth in front of Aziraphale, too much negative energy coiled inside of him.
Aziraphale flicks through the pages. A soft glow emanates from the book and Crowley fights the urge to squint and bare his teeth. That book hums with that edge of wrong which has been circling Aziraphale since he healed that bloody man, and Crowley really wants to bite something.
Aziraphale's gaze catches on the last page and his breath stutters to a halt before he quickly snaps the book shut and looks at Crowley. "Nothing of interest," he says briskly.
"You're lying to me? Really, angel?"
"This… this is all nonsensical," Aziraphale says, and then starts walking away. Toward the parking lot. Toward the Bentley. "I want to go home, please."
Oh, he said please and everything, Crowley thinks numbly. Must be bad, then.
He doesn't want to know.
Or, rather, he really needs to know, but knowing makes it real, and he isn't certain how much more of this he can handle.
He hurries after the wayward angel.
"Aziraphale, tell me what it says!"
"It's really nothing, my dear."
"Stop lying to me," Crowley hisses, snapping his fingers to keep the Bentley's doors from opening when Aziraphale pulls at the passenger door. The angel huffs—actually huffs—and spins to face him, and the look in his eyes is cold hard steel. Crowley stops mid-step, frozen in place. Absently, he notes that this really doesn't look like Aziraphale. "What is wrongwith you?"
"Nothing is wrong with me!" Aziraphale snaps back, which is, again, really unlike him. Angels can certainly be wrathful, hence all the smiting, but Aziraphale has been more out of sorts the past couple of days than ever before, and Crowley really doesn't know what to do with this new side of him.
Well, he haggards, maybe it's not so new, just hidden until now.
"I want to go home, Crowley," Aziraphale says, and turns back to the car. He doesn't try to open the door again, but he doesn't seem to want to face Crowley, either. Then, very quietly, he adds on, "please."
Crowley's fingers rub together, the middle and the index, scratching against each other in the briefest of movements, and the doors audibly unlock on the Bentley. Aziraphale pries his open and slips inside, and he sits so tense and rigid, uncomfortable in his own skin.
Is it his own skin?
Crowley drops into the driver's seat but doesn't key the ignition. Just sort of sits there, numbly, his mind whirling.
The silence drags on, tense and unyielding, and then Aziraphale snaps his fingers. The car revs to life, and Crowley manages a scowl as he hisses at the angel riding shotgun.
"Hey, we don't do that to poor Bentley." He means for the words to be sharp and biting, a reprimand—but instead they come out more soft and whispered, as it's too much effort to find his voice in this moment, with his mind swirling with the unthinkable.
"Home," Aziraphale says again, briskly.
Crowley Looks at the angel. He's still bright and unyielding, but there's a shadow cast over that brightness, or perhaps sprung from the sheer amount of it, he's not certain. But it's there, and it's wrong, and Aziraphale might be just a little too bright.
This isn't Aziraphale, he thinks, breath stuttering in his chest, not really.
There's been something off about him since he exited the church, and if this church has hurt him, changed him in some way when it was all Crowley's idea to come here—
The engine dies. Crowley kicks the door open and slips out of the vehicle. He's on his way to the church doors before he can fully register his own movements, but something happened in there and he needs to know what it is.
The passenger door slowly opens. "Crowley?"
Oh, that sounds much more like his angel—but he won't be deterred.
There's a wave of divine energy, the sting of it distinctly Aziraphale, and then the church doors snap closed once again, right in front of him. He snarls and whirls to face the angel, who has quickly come up behind him.
"My dear, whatever are you doing? It will hurt you, going in there."
"I need to know what's wrong," he says back, somewhat calmly.
"Crowley, nothing is wrong. I'm just…" Here, that tense expression crumples, and the steel melts from those eyes, and that's just Aziraphale looking back at him with that broken expression. "I'm tired, and I have a part in the bible now, Crowley—none of this makes any sense to me, and I am tired."
He's overwhelmed, is what he isn't saying. Overwhelmed by all that is happening, and he just needs the peace and quiet of his own space to ground him, but he could have just said that. Crowley would have understood—of course he'd understand, he feels the same way after all, but Aziraphale chose to lie to him instead… and that edge of wrong to his presence…
Crowley Looks again. Still bright, still powerful, still warm and Aziraphale—but the shadows are gone.
They're gone.
"You're… alright, then?" He manages rather weakly, the confused rage dying away from him as quickly as it overtook him.
"I was never not alright, my dear. Just… thinking."
"What's the book say, then?"
Because that's he issue, he thinks. That's what ignited that cold hard steel in Aziraphale's gaze, what set the shadows into motion.
The lines of Aziraphale's face harden again. "Forgive me, my dear," he says flatly, "but I really don't wish to speculate on it right now."
Fuck me, it's really bad, isn't it?
Crowley makes a mad grab for the book in question, clutched limply in Aziraphale's fingers which dangle near his hip. He snags it from those fingers and snaps his fingers, miracling himself back in the Bentley with the doors locked as he opens the bible.
Aziraphale knocks on his window.
The bible was written by man, so Crowley has, of course, been able to read it in the past. That hasn't changed now; he can read the bible just fine, but that new addition at the end of it? The words appear as silver glowing particles of light, and try as he might to focus on them through that blinding brightness, he simply can't.
The Book of Aziraphale is only two pages long, he notes.
Two pages, and that's it.
Something at the end of it got Aziraphale's attention—if he could just… squint… through the light…
Aziraphale miracles himself into the passenger seat. A hand snags the edge of the book and Crowley snarls and holds on tightly, attempting to decipher that brightness, burning eyes be damned.
"Crowley, you must stop! You'll blind yourself!"
A whine escapes him as his eyes squeeze shut tight, the burn too much. Aziraphale takes the book from him.
"Oh, my poor dear. Are you alright?"
"Tell me what it says," he hisses, white spots dancing and bursting behind closed eyelids. Afterimages of a bright burn. "Jussst tell me what it sssaysss, Asssziraphale."
"It's a new assignment," the angel finally says. "That's all, Crowley."
"New… assignment?" He forces his eyes open but it's hard to make out Aziraphale sitting next to him with his eyes burning and watering like that. "What kind of new assignment?"
"Apparently, I am meant to cover for the Almighty for a time."
Cover for…?
"So you're basically God now?!"
"Oh, I wouldn't say that at all, my dear. Certainly not! She simply expects me to care for the humans while she is… otherwise preoccupied, it seems."
None of this really wants to sink in, Crowley thinks, wiping at his traitorous eyes. "And that sent you into a bleeding mess, did it? The fact the Almighty… likes you?"
"Crowley! She likes all of us," Aziraphale says very calmly. "She loves every single one of us."
"Not me, she bloody doesn't."
"She loves all living things," Aziraphale says.
Crowley bites back the urge to snap. Aziraphale is having a bad day, and Crowley can cut him some slack. Don't snap at him, he tells himself. Just don't snap at him. "What does this… new assignment… entail?"
"Oh, I am not quite certain."
"It doesn't bloody say?"
"It's not instructions, Crowley." A brief pause. "And it was written by man, though guided by Her, so we shouldn't take it as scripture. It could be wrong."
"What has you so worried?"
Aziraphale looks away, turning his gaze forward. "I would like to be home now, if you would please, my dear."
"Angel," the demon says quietly, "we can't go back there, remember? Hastur knows about it. He could be there waiting."
"Yes, I expect he might be."
He says this calmly, almost flatly, and keeps his gaze straight ahead.
Fear twists Crowley's stomach again. "Well, so we should go somewhere else."
"No. I would like to go home."
"Aziraphale," Crowley hisses, "what the bloody fuck is wrong with you?"
"I am to fight the Duke."
"You what?"
A thin smile slips across the angel's face. " 'And lo, the angel did smite the unholy, with twin fires aligning.' "
Crowley stares at the angel for a moment, spluttering sounds which can't be words. "What in the name of Satan is that supposed to mean? She bloody—? She wants you to fight him?"
"So it would seem."
"But—" You'll lose!
Except, according to whatever is written this stupid book, he won't lose.
Crowley himself has bested Hastur in the past—surely he and Aziraphale together can at the very least discorporate him and send him packing.
He just.
Doesn't want to see Aziraphale anywhere near hellfire, is all.
Not ever again.
"The bookshop, please," Aziraphale says quietly.
Crowley starts the car absently and pulls out of the parking lot.
xXx
Crowley doesn't speed back to the bookshop in his usual manner. This is perfectly okay, Aziraphale decides, as he doesn't particularly want to fight anyone. There is nothing saying Hastur will be there waiting for them the moment they arrive, but the bookshop isn't safe by any means. Crowley is no rush to take them to the bookshop, and Aziraphale is certainly in no hurry to arrive, and the drive is a moment to catch his bearings.
The addition of his part in the bible is certainly overwhelming, but the last words of it are what made Aziraphale rather numb to it all. If he thinks on it too long, he thinks he might burst into tears, and that certainly won't do right now, now will it? He doesn't have time to fall apart. He doesn't have time to mourn.
Don't think about it. He dashes the worries from his mind. Now really isn't the time.
Even if those words haunt him. Taunt him.
He tries to think of the other things he read. God seems to have faith in him, specifically, and that is touching and awe-inspiring as much as it leaves his stomach twisting with guilt and shame. The Almighty has put Her trust in him, a poor excuse for an angel, and he really isn't worthy of her Love and faith.
He's not worthy at all.
She didn't say why She felt the need to have a middling wayward angel 'cover for her' while she is otherwise preoccupied with Heaven. Aziraphale doesn't know what 'restructuring' really means, and if the event on the escalator is anything to go by, he really doesn't ever want to find out, he thinks.
But for some reason, She put him in charge of humanity in her absence.
He's been helping humanity for 6000 years, but now it feels more… substantial. More official. He was just supposed to observe and lead mankind toward the light with blessings and miracles, nudging them in the right direction but never outright interfering.
Now, it seems, he is blatantly interfering. Saving people from certain death, healing them in dark alleyways, and now this mention in the bible.
Well, perhaps mention isn't the right word. There's a whole new portion just for him, even if it's only two pages long.
And even if it ends with the words—
No. Don't think about it. You can't do this if you're worrying about that.
Even if those words make him cold all over. Even if they tempt him to preemptively comfort the demon next to him.
No. Not thinking about it.
When they finally arrive at the bookshop, two sit there in the car for a long moment.
The bookshop appears perfectly normal, and just how they left it. It's not aflame as Aziraphale feared it might be, Hastur having torched everything in his absence. The doors and windows aren't broken or busted in or anything of the sort. It all looks perfectly normal.
They slip out of the car.
Crowley leads the way toward the front door, snarling at Aziraphale when the angel tries to slip past and lead the way himself. The demon shoulders him aside, miracles the door open, and slowly steps inside.
Nothing happens.
Crowley sniffs the air and flicks a forked tongue out to taste it.
He prowls through the shelves and through every room, and Aziraphale remains at the door simply because Crowley is radiating infernal threat and he doesn't want to startle the poor thing if he accidentally comes up on him.
Finally, the demon returns to him. "No one here," he says.
Aziraphale nods and enters the bookshop.