Wow, this took a long time to update. I've been having computer trouble, been working on some Doctor Who stuff, and also, reading quite a bit of others' fanfic, which I haven't done in quite some time! But hopefully you aren't too annoyed, because chapter 3 is here!

Chapter 2 left off at the end of Crowley and Aziraphale's stint in Tadfield after their time-travel escapade, waiting to catch up with time... or for time to catch up with them. Now, we're back in regular time, they have Agnes Nutter's second volume, they are still adorably stilted in their relationship issues... so what happens now?

Enjoy!


THREE

Two weeks together in Tadfield had been one kind of glorious – a thirsty, revelatory, very together, almost titillating kind of glorious.

And the next two weeks back "home" in London had been another kind of glorious. It was the glorious of two creatures, somewhat metamorphosed, free to interact like old friends, almost like old marrieds, having their own space, their own time, their own kind of restrained, unacknowledged yet fully-acknowledged, cerebral, blossoming, love. They swam in it. Not necessarily in each other, but in the phenomenon, the domesticity, the breathing room, the luxury, the camaraderie. And to a certain extent, both Crowley and Aziraphale had a chance, for the first time, to swim in themselves.

It was batch number six of crêpes that Crowley had made, in an attempt to duplicate his companion's favourite Parisian street-food. It was a long-shot, but worth it, if Aziraphale could satisfy that intermittent crêpe-craving without having to try out his French (which was worse than his slight-of-hand magic).

"Well," Aziraphale said, savouring the first bite of the latest crop, along with some strawberry purée, and fresh whipped cream. "I do like the buckwheat flour variation, but… it's its own… thing."

"It's its own thing?" Crowley asked, cynically, sitting across the table with a cup of coffee. At home, he usually left his glasses off, since Aziraphale was not likely to freak out over his yellow serpent's eyes, as would a human.

"Yes. You can't just say, would you like some crêpes, and serve these, because this would not be what your average crêpe-enthusiast would be expecting."

"There's no such thing as your average crêpe-enthisiast, Aziraphale. There's just you."

The angel took another hearty bite, and through the chewing said, "But if you said, would you like some Buckwheat Crêpes, the crêpe-enthusiast would know what to expect, and would, in fact, be expecting this somewhat heartier fare, with a different texture, that interacts differently with the purée and other ingredients one might add… and he or she would be delighted!"

"I see."

"So, you see… it's its own thing. Not at all Parisian, but thoroughly buckwheat."

"So, not as good?"

"I didn't say that," Aziraphale said, taking another bite, not in the least bothered that it didn't taste Parisian. "Apples and oranges, really. And for what it's worth, I think these would be particularly delectable if you were to give them a Mediterranean flair. Some olive oil, feta, some portobello mushrooms and kalamata olives…"

"Okay, then. Back to the drawing board tomorrow," Crowley sighed, feigning exasperation.

Though, in reality, he quite liked this little exercise, this trial-and-error of finding out exactly what makes Parisian crêpes tick, and what makes Aziraphale so ravenous for them. He had always rather enjoyed watching the angel partake of rich and delicious foods, even before a time when he himself had discovered the not-just-something-to-put-in-your-stomach quality of cuisine. Part of this crêpe-duplicating venture was just about that – watching Aziraphale's delighting in it. But there was definitely a newness to it, the particularity of discovering exactly the right combination of ingredients, exactly the right pan and instruments, exactly the right toppings…

Exactly the right button to push.

Crowley wasn't an idiot, and as a demon, he was well-versed in the id, the basic illogical needs of sentient, corporeal beings such as himself, and his angelic partner-in-celestial-crime. And as someone who had performed more than a few temptations himself, he figured Aziraphale must understand as well, at least on an intellectual level, even if he wouldn't yet let himself understand it on a visceral one. They fully understood exactly why they looked so forward to the next batch, the next breakfast, the next little experiment in crêpe-precision… or simply the next rich meal together.

It was just that, as usual, it was on Crowley to do all of the work – at least for the moment. And he really didn't mind that either. As Aziraphale had reminded him over and over, he was "the nice one," and could not be expected to do certain things… like embrace his own hedonistic tendencies, without hedging and/or any general skittishness.

They sat in silence – Aziraphale eating, and Crowley watching. He had, himself, already eaten one or two crêpes this morning, testing his work, so for now, he was content with just coffee and companionship.

After a few minutes, he noticed Aziraphale's expression change, as though his attention had drawn itself away from the food.

"What?" asked Crowley. "What's wrong?"

"You know what's strange?" Aziraphale said.

"Yes," answered the demon. "I do. I'm an expert in knowing what's strange, in fact. Part of who I am."

"Gabriel has not yet come looking for his book."

"His book, eh?" Crowley questioned. "That's how you think of it?"

"No, it's no one's book, save for perhaps Anathema Device, but she doesn't want it. Gabriel thinks it's his."

"You have as much right to it as he does," Crowley reminded the angel. "So does Beelzebub. But I say, since you are the one who took the trouble to get it…"

"I did have help."

"… and you are the one who wants it for unselfish reasons, you are the one who should have it."

"You're using unselfish reasons as logic?" Aziraphale asked, with a delighted, teasing smile.

"Yes, yes," Crowley groaned. "But not because I'm nice. It's because I know you are."

"Right, right, of course," the angel chuckled.

"So... keep the blasted book. You want it - you know you do."

"Don't tempt me. And anyway, Crowley, we've been through this," Aziraphale sighed. "I don't want the burden. Miss Device's family were slaves to the first volume for over three hundred years!"

"You're six thousand years old!"

"That doesn't mean that I don't feel the passage of time! You know that."

"Then why haven't you pawned it off on one of the bureaucratic wonks yet?" Crowley asked.

Aziraphale looked distressed. "Well, I suppose it's because I can't quite bring myself to."

"Then don't! Just tell the Archwanker Gabriel that you couldn't get it."

Again, Aziraphale shook his head. "I couldn't do that – I've already peeked at all the prophecies, and I wasn't supposed to."

"Wasn't supposed to," Crowley scoffed. "Gabriel is not the boss of you. Not anymore… if he ever was. Besides, technically, you only peeked at one prophecy. I read you the rest."

"Still, spirit of the law, and all that," Aziraphale said, more to himself than anyone else. Then, "I just need another day or two with it, and then I'll be ready to let it go."

Crowley studied him through narrowed reptilian eyes. "You don't know yourself at all, do you?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You'll never be ready to give it up!" Crowley laughed. "You're a rare book collector – it's in your blood! You have blood, right? You must do, because I do. Do you honestly believe you could ever cleanly part with that manuscript, Aziraphale? You're obsessive and meticulous, and you love posterity. You want that book, for God's sake, and it would always eat away at you, if you gave it to Gabriel."

Aziraphale, again, looked pained. "Oh, if only there were a way to copy it. I don't need to have to original, just have access to the information. That's what book-owning is really all about – access to information."

"We'll just photograph the pages, then," Crowley shrugged.

"That's a lot of photographs. It would be cumbersome."

"It would be a cinch," Crowley argued, pulling his Smartphone from his pocket, and laying it on the table. "Are you forgetting what century it is?"

"Yes, clearly," Aziraphale said, annoyed. "I do tend to do that, don't I?"

"If you want, I'll take photos of all the pages, and store them away in a computer file, so you can see them whenever you want."

"That would hardly be practical for the likes of me," said Aziraphale, who had broken down and purchased an IBM P.C. in 1985, and had used it a total of four times.

"And that's why you have me," Crowley said. "Well, one of the reasons. I'll show you how to access it. There would be no internet involved, nothing difficult nor detailed. Just a file with a bunch of pages in it, that you could read like paper, okay?"

"If you say so. I suppose I trust you."

"You suppose? Oh, thanks ever so. Is the manuscript still in the top drawer of your dresser?"

"It's in the top drawer of the dresser in your guest room."

"Potato, po-tah-to," Crowley groaned, getting up. "Finish your breakfast, I'll go get it."

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM

Late that afternoon, it was done. Agnes Nutter's entire second volume of hand-written prophecies, was now a digital file on the desktop of Crowley's laptop computer, over one hundred and fifty photographs, pulled from Crowley's phone, set in slide-show mode, for easy browsing.

They could have used magic for this, of course, but they they didn't want any bureaucrats from either side of the good/evil coin knowing they had done this. In supernatural speak, miracling could be a paper-trail, of sorts.

The two of them now stood in Crowley's office, in front of his five-year-old Samsung laptop with its wireless mouse off to the right.

"It's so cold and impersonal," the angel said, with distaste, staring at the machine.

"Yeah, well, you'll get used to it," Crowley muttered. "I used to think that about you, but you grew on me."

"What?"

"Never mind. Sit down, give it a go."

Aziraphale sat properly down in the high-backed throne with a red velvet cushion, and moved the mouse about just a bit, to get the feel of it. Crowley put his hand on top of Aziraphale's, and guided the little arrow on the screen to the file labelled "NA Prophecies AN – 2."

"Now, do this," Crowley said, tapping his index finger against Aziraphale's twice quickly, to demonstrate how to double click to open a file.

Something struck Aziraphale then – a frisson of something new. This touch, this type of touch was unprecedented, and very, very pleasant.

Aziraphale did as Crowley had modelled, and the file opened, showing a white pane of tiny thumbnail images.

"Go up here," Crowley was musing now, guiding the mouse up to 'view,' then 'slide show.'

The cover page came up then, and the demon then showed the angel how to use the forward and backwards arrow keys, to "thumb" through the volume.

"That's not so hard," Aziraphale said, with a bright smile.

"Nope," Crowley agreed, standing up straight again. "It's all there. And if the manuscript gets burned again, then this will still be here. We could even back it up to the cloud, if we wanted, just in case something happens to the computer, or on the off chance that time passes and we have to upgrade."

"To the cloud?"

"It's… never mind," Crowley said, waving off the question. "That's a convo for another day. The point is… are you happy? Will this drive you non-barmy for the rest of eternity?"

"Yes," the angel answered, with no hesitation. "I can give the original to Gabriel, and still have access to it myself, without him knowing anything of it. Unless it goes to the cloud. Am I right?"

"Er, no… but… good. Now you can hand it off, no harm done. Well, very little harm done."

"What will you tell Beelzebub?" Aziraphale asked, knowing that Crowley had also promised the manuscript to Hell's prominent Bored Lord.

"I'll tell her to go jump in a flaming vat of sulfurous shit," Crowley shrugged. "What do you think I'll tell her?"

"Well… I didn't think that.


Aziraphale decided to wait until the next morning to deliver the manuscript. It was always easier to access the Archangels before lunch; after that, they tended to get bogged down in paperwork… incoming souls and all that. Michael and Uriel liked to keep a scrutinous eye on Saint Peter, as they had not trusted his judgement since letting in Galileo, and it had got worse since admitting Elvis Presley. They liked to double-, sometimes triple-check his work, and thoroughly enjoyed sniping at him over grey areas in people's pasts, and minor blemishes on souls.

The two of them had been known to incite debates over the nature of forgiveness, and Heaven's role in rounding out the goodness in the human soul. Aziraphale had got into it with them once, back in 1066 when King Harold had been brought in after the Battle of Hastings. He'd argued for Harold, who had fought valiantly to save his kingdom falling to the Normans, and Michael and Uriel had wanted him turned away at the gates for a few indiscretions, securing his Earldom in East Anglia. Actually, the Archangels had suspected Crowley's work there, but to this day, Crowley swore to Everybody that he hadn't been involved.

But Aziraphale had been on the battlefield in Hastings, had watched in horror the triumph of William the Conqueror. At the time, he felt that Harold would be forever longed-for, and remembered amongst the English, who would certainly never assimilate with the Normans, and never accept William as their monarch. He'd felt that it would not do at all to have such a king wandering around in Hell for the rest of time, whilst his people forever praised his valour.

In the end, the Almighty intervened like an annoyed parent breaking up a fight between children, and deemed Harold fit for heaven. Aziraphale had had to restrain himself from sticking his tongue out at his purported "superiors."

Although, he supposed that as many times as he had felt railroaded by the Archangels, Aziraphale had had almost as many personal victories over them. Not just with cases like Harold, or with the very recent Apocalypse, but also inside his own mind. Michael and Uriel were particularly good at menacing, at throwing their weight about, at trying to intimidate the lesser angels and the like. Aziraphale had, more often than not, been able to shake off very quickly whatever annoyance or agitation their infernal tittering had caused, forget about their infuriatingly beatific faces and move on.

Even his long, long partnership with Crowley, he thought, was a win. Uriel had, on two occasions, come dangerously close to catching him performing a temptation on Crowley's behalf, when she'd popped in to check up on the status of a blessing. Gabriel had sometimes mentioned Crowley, as though the angels knew he existed, but Crowley would somehow be too daft to realise there were angels about. Aziraphale and his favourite demon had run into each other and interacted in a not-particularly-adversarial manner at least once per century or more, from the beginning of time, all the way up until they both more or less settled upon England as a home-base in the fifth century or so. Since then, they'd met up at least once every decade or two, both intentionally and unintentionally, and much more often than that, over the past five hundred years or so. And yet, it had taken Michael until a month ago to figure it out.

Aziraphale felt somewhat ashamed in the way he relished thinking about how annoyed Michael must have been when she realised that he was in league or "fraternizing" with Crowley, and the shock on her face in seeing that somehow, "Crowley" was able to survive a bath of holy water. Even more than that, he really enjoyed thinking about all the delicious things that Michael didn't know. Like, they had had an "arrangement" that suited them both, ever since Edward the Confessor's Canterbury crisis 1051. Crowley had taken the initiative on that one, tempting Edward to reject his rival Godwin's cousin as Archbishop of Canterbury, which incited a hell of a lot of unrest, whispering, intrigue and general treachery amongst the clergy, many of whom might otherwise have been spotless characters. But he had also blessed Edward on Aziraphale's behalf, protecting him from Godwin' plot to assassinate him. Edward died in exile, but basically of natural causes, and went down in history as he should, and Aziraphale hadn't had to rush all the way back to London from the Holy Land.

The arrangement not only suited them both on a practical level, but truth be told, Aziraphale quite enjoyed doing some temptations. Though, he had learned recently that Crowley had kept him away from the nastier ones – ones that might require the tempter to get violent or engage in fleshly pleasures – which was something that had never occurred to him on his own, in all those years. He appreciated not being asked to do any of those things. When he thought of this, he forced down a wave of jealousy (actually, he had not consciously acknowledged it as jealousy), and was left with a certain affection for Crowley, specifically for sheltering him from things he'd have known the angel would have been incredibly uncomfortable doing.

Anyway, Heaven and the Archangels were, frankly, an organisation which Aziraphale now felt he could do without. He didn't mind being an angel still, and he realised that some truths would always be constant – he was immortal, ethereal, bound by some laws of physics and biology, but not most. He was able to perform miracles and magic, but the power was, ultimately, borrowed, so he would always, at least, a little bit, have to answer to those who "owned" it, even if he had wriggled free of them. And all of that was fine. Overall, he didn't mind being him.

But dealing with Gabriel, Michael, Uriel and Sandalphon had been, for six thousand years, the most tedious, frustrating part of his job, and he was glad to be rid of it. The fact that he no longer had a direct line to the will of the Almighty (if he ever had one) was worrisome, but one cannot have everything. He was basically quite happy to rest the part of his soul that had been wound up in bureaucracy for his entire existence, and concentrate on the creature comforts, on living, on existing amongst humans, and relishing in this little victory with Crowley.

And so, one more night with Agnes Nutter's second volume by his bedside (well, by the side of the bed that figured currently in Crowley's guest room), and the knowledge that the entire manuscript had been, as Crowley had put it, "backed up." And then, to Heaven, bright and early tomorrow. He fell into a peaceful sleep, as he had begun to do each night, like a proper corporeal being…

…but to his surprise, the slumber turned fitful..

"Crowley!" he called out, sometime around four o'clock in the morning, before he could stop himself.

He heard the demon padding across the hall almost immediately. His mussed red hair came through the crack in the door first, then his drawn, groggy face. "What? What's the matter?"

"I had a nightmare!"

"What about?"

"Hell. I dreamed of Hell."


Yikes, the fevered, hellish dreams of an angel!

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Thank you for reading!