Well, Aziraphale has had his sad/angry freak-out already, which is understandable. But what about the fear? And what can his best friend do to help?
And while we're on the subject of best friends, as you may have guessed, this whole "ship" is headed onto some uncharted seas. ;-) Just stay on-board, and we'll get there!
Enjoy!
SIX
The two of them combed through the book shop over the next few hours, and weeded out Bibles, Korans, Talmuds, Vedic texts, copies of Tao Te Ching, and anything else in the shop that could have been considered "holy."
"Oh, dear," Aziraphale fretted, seeing the very large stack of books now in the middle of the floor of the shop. "I don't think I can bear to part with these. I've spent centuries and centuries and centuries amassing this collection. Crowley, do you know, I have the most extensive collection of irregular Bibles in the world?"
The demon, who was standing across the pile wearing oven mitts, answered, "I thought we could just store them somewhere. You know, along with a couple sets of haz-mat gloves aprons, that way you can still access them. Just like Agnes' manuscript. Only less convenient."
"Well, I was renting a storage space in the rectory at Our Lady of the Assumption and Saint Gregory, but I suppose that's out of the question, now," Aziraphale said. "I'll have to go and return the key to Father Lawrence, and get my deposit back."
"You'd better get a shift on," Crowley warned. "If you wait until tomorrow, that task will be a lot harder."
"I suppose that's true," Aziraphale sighed. "Well, then, Crowley, would you mind perhaps leasing a storage locker of some sort, while I go speak to Father Lawrence?"
"Here's a novel thought," Crowley said. He paused for effect, and took off his mitts, laying them down on a display table. "Why don't we put them upstairs in your flat."
"We couldn't do that! The books would take up too much space!"
"Too much space? The place is sitting empty!"
"Well, for the moment, yes, but…"
"Really?" Crowley interrupted. "Are we really, after all the shit that's gone down today, still pretending that you have any intention of going back up there to live?"
"Oh, Crowley," Aziraphale whispered, staring at the floor.
"I'm a patient demon, Aziraphale, and I've kept mum because you're you, and I know you well, and I know you've got your little hang-ups, and you have your adorable excuses for why you do the things you do. Frankly, it's part of the magic that is you. But today of all days, can't we just admit, you're in my flat to stay?"
"Well, I suppose it only makes sense now, doesn't it?" Aziraphale practically murmured, not making eye-contact, and wearing a shy smile. "I suppose I will have to let go of my little hang-ups, as you put it. No room for that any longer."
"Not all of your hang-ups - just the one. We need space for books that will begin to literally burn your flesh in the next eight hours, and there's a perfectly good, perfectly empty space upstairs, which you already happen to own. If you continue to be all proper and angelic on me, then we'll have to find another space, and then transport them, which I don't fancy, and which will be twice as difficult if we are still working on it after midnight."
Aziraphale smiled slightly. "All right, then. Let's put them upstairs. I'll never come back to live up there… I don't suppose I ever planned to."
Crowley desperately wanted to go further, and ask why, and what does it mean, and shouldn't they be breaking down other barriers now as well. But he recognized this in himself, the occasional tendency to want to force things. Once in a great while, something would happen, that would bring his frustration and desire to the surface. He's supposed that today, it was Aziraphale's fevered confession that he was in love with a demon, even if he hadn't fully realized he'd said it.
But, ultimately, Crowley left it alone, because he understood now better than ever that Aziraphale could not be pushed. So, the fevered confession itself would have to be enough for now. That, and this one incredibly important hang-up now hurdled.
And, he only smiled. "Feel better?"
The angel beamed. "Loads."
Aziraphale walked several blocks to Our Lady of the Assumption and Saint Gregory, to return his storage key, but then decided to donate the hundred-pound deposit back to the Church, as one last minor act of charity. He told the new priest (as it turned out, Father Lawrence had died in 1952 - Aziraphale didn't have the best grasp of time passing) that he simply didn't need the storage anymore, and wanted to free it up for someone who did need it. He agreed to pay a handsome amount to have the five boxes of books from the storage locker delivered to the shop the following day.
Meanwhile, Crowley walked over to a local DIY store, and ordered two sets of HazMat gloves, aprons, and tongs, of the grade worn by nuclear technicians. And by demons setting a holy water trap for minions of Hell entering his flat, and bent on dragging him back down into the deepest pits. He'd had to do a minor bit of "miracling" in order not to get background-checked by the clerk.
Afterwards, they met up at a local restaurant, of Aziraphale's choosing, of course, for a meal meant to take both of their minds off what was to come.
"Señor Aziraphale… and an amigo," said Pedro, the owner and host of Platos Brillantes, a Tapas restaurant, five blocks away from the book shop. He smiled widely, and held his arms out for a double-handed handshake.
"Yes. Pedro, this is Crowley," Aziraphale said, obliging the handshake. "Crowley, Pedro. ¿Tiene mi mesa usual?"
"Por supuesto" said Pedro, who led the duo to a perfect little table in the back, near a window that looked out into an unexpected little courtyard. "Will you be needing menus?"
"Better do," Aziraphale said. "Crowley's first time here."
"It's all right," Crowley said. "I don't need it. You can just tell me what to order."
"Muy bien," Pedro responded. "Marques de Murrieta?"
"Gran Reserva 2009?" asked Aziraphale.
"You doubt me?"
"Wonderful! We'll have that, and two glasses, please!" Aziraphale said, and Pedro hurried away. To Crowley, he said, "One of the best wines ever to come out of Spain!"
Crowley leaned back in his chair, and looked around. "This is trendier than your usual fare, Aziraphale."
"Yes, that's true, but I'm finding lately that I rather like the severe décor, much more than I used to."
It did not escape Crowley's notice that the place was dark and boxy, not unlike his own flat.
"And what is this?" he asked, indicating the greened-in area outside the window, where people sat at long picnic tables drinking beer, and eating bread-and-cheese-stuffed mushroom caps.
"Oh! There's a Biergarten on the other side of the courtyard," Aziraphale said, with some excitement. "It's called Oliver Spencer's. They have some intriguing new brews this year, and a bangers-and-mash appetizer, wrapped in miniature pastries, that is absolutely Heavenly."
He didn't even balk at using that word. Crowley smiled. Now this was his best friend, through and through.
"There you are. This should be proof positive that there are definitely worse things than becoming a demon," Crowley said.
"How do you mean?"
"This is a fascinating little restaurant where they know you. And tomorrow, you can come back if you like."
Aziraphale smiled. "Are you trying to tell me that it's not the end of the world?"
"I suppose I am," Crowley said, with a smirk.
They, of course, drained the Murrieta dry (three bottles of it - Pedro's entire stock), plus complimentary shots of Cuarenta y Trés, from an ancient recipe, and they ordered a fair amount of Tapas.
"This isn't like the old recipe," Aziraphale complained. "In 20 BC the flavour was richer."
"That's probably because they are allowing fewer dead rats to decompose in the barrels nowadays," Crowley said, downing his fifth shot, along with the angel, who was content to complain, but also perfectly content to consume it. "They don't make anything like they used to. Shame, that. "
After leaving Pedro's, they went for a walk around Soho, and didn't bother to sober up. They had coffee and dessert in a hole-in-the-wall Baklava joint where Aziraphale had been going ever since the area was much seedier, and the current owner's grandfather had arrived from Greece and opened the establishment. He ate the crispy pastry a bit drunkenly, but with no less than his usual indulgent delight, and repeatedly reminded himself, and Crowley, that being a demon would change nothing about the way they had spent this evening, and that was fine with him.
"Unless, of course, they pull me down under to do paperwork or some such nonsense," Aziraphale slurred, rolling his eyes like a teenaged girl.
"They won't," Crowley said, waving his hand about, as though it were a windsock. "Like I said, fifty luck… no wait. Uck lay fff… shit! Fiat lux…"
Aziraphale laughed hysterically, and the only other people in the joint, an Arabic-speaking family of four, looked at them curiously for a few moments. "What the Hell are you on about?" he asked, still laughing.
Crowley took a long sip of his coffee, then sat up straight, frowned, acted very serious, then said, "Okay, I've got it now. If they fuck with you, as I said before, they'll have to wheel myth dee. I mean… deal with me. Don't forget, angel, down below, that lot think we're both made of something else now."
"But won't they know that's not the case if my name turns up on the roster?"
"Maybe, but it's not like anyone is sitting there staring at the roster all the time. It takes, like, a decade to do roll-call, so you may even have a yen keer tush. A ken beer bushel… wait, what?"
"A ten-year cushion? Well, that's not much, but I'll take it," Aziraphale said, sloppily. He raised his coffee, and toasted it in the air, then took a big drink that seemed to burn his mouth.
"Most likely, angel, they're too scared of both of us. So, even if they realise what's happened, they just won't touch you. And you can go on eating Tapas and Baklava and crêpes and Obbo Succo…"
"Osso Bucco?"
"Yeah, that! For as long as you like."
"I roper height," Aziraphale said, sticking his fork back into the last little triangle of Baklava on his plate. "Wait, no. I hope you're right."
They did sober up before going home, which was a good decision for their language skills, but a poor decision for their calming-down skills.
Aziraphale chose to turn in as soon as they were in the door, just after eleven p.m. Crowley wondered what he ought to say. "Good night, Aziraphale," seemed a safe bet, rather than "good night, angel," which might serve as a reminder that in an hour, he'd no longer be an angel. Even "See you in the morning," felt a little insensitive to say.
He settled on, "Good night. Let me know if you need something."
Aziraphale hadn't answered. He'd just nodded, and disappeared behind his bedroom door, closing it softly.
Crowley honestly believed that Hell would continue more or less to leave the two of them alone. Yes, he'd been down there twice since "Wet Sunday," but both times it had been of his own volition, and both times, they had allowed him to leave without a fight. He hadn't been in the room when the events of Wet Sunday had scared the pants off all of them, but he had imagined it quite a few times, and knew his former bosses well enough to recognise when they were in retreat mode. So, his reassuring Aziraphale this evening had not been lipservice.
But he also knew Aziraphale well enough to recognise when he was actually terrified. Not that the angel was exactly a closed book; he was wont to wear just about every emotion, right there on his face. His eyes alone, at least to Crowley, could betray everything. And this evening, when they'd left the Baklava place, and decided to purge the wine from their bodies, as soon as it was done, Crowley could see that worry had replaced alcohol in his companion's veins. And there was no miracle they could perform to put worry back in its bottle.
And if he was honest with himself, there was a hint of worry in his own veins. Not for himself, or even for the future, but over the prospect of Aziraphale spending the next hour alone in his room, waiting for an axe to fall.
He retired to his own room. Much as he had the night before, and many nights over the past month, he undressed down to a fitted black tee-shirt, and a pair of black silk boxers, lay down on his bed, and failed to sleep.
Aziraphale very slowly undressed, and pulled on a set of cream-coloured satin pyjamas. He then scrupulously folded over the shirt he'd worn today, and set it in the hamper, then did the same with the trousers and socks. He hung up his waistcoat and coat on two separate hangers, and put them in the closet for another day. Underneath them he laid his shoes, and he hung his bowtie on a hook, just inside the closet door.
And then, he went to the window and stared out for a few minutes. Eventually, he miracled himself a cup of cocoa, then sat on the edge of the bed, and continued to contemplate the city. From here, he had an excellent view of Westminster, and a good length of the Thames.
He had watched this ancient metropolis grow up – he and Crowley both. They had watched them build the Abbey, back when "Westminster" and "Londontown" were two different things. They had both been about in 1666 when most of the main city had burned to the ground, and they'd watched it rebuilt. They'd been there again in 1941 when it was bombed almost to smithereens, and again, rebuilt. It was a tough town, that had, somehow, been quite gentle on the pair of them.
And he wondered how differently he would see it in the morning. His companion had assured him that he wouldn't suddenly have the urge to do terrible things, but he also knew that Crowley was a different creature than other demons. He'd known that Crowley's "fall" from Grace wasn't the most dramatic in history, because he hadn't been the worst fallen angel in history, so what if he didn't know the whole story? When Crowley had been cast out, he hadn't done anything as drastic as thwarting an Apocalypse. Aziraphale's experience was bound to be a Hell of a lot more violent.
And yet, he just sat there, on the edge of a bed, shaking, docile, watching London mill about in the night. Shouldn't he be preparing?
He set the cocoa on the night stand, and stood up. He began to pace, as he had earlier today in the book shop… only then, he'd been seething with anger, at the Archangels, the Almighty, the unfair lot he'd been given as an angel bound to watch over Earth, with free will, but not actually permitted to enjoy anything about humanity or its inventions and quirks, or even try to save it.
Tonight, with less than an hour to go, the anger was gone, and he was simply terrified. He'd known that Crowley had done his best this evening to try and take his mind off what was going to happen, and he now sincerely wished that he, himself, had not suggested sobering up. He knew that Crowley kept plenty of alcohol in the flat, more than enough to dull the trepidation, but somehow that didn't seem fitting of an angel… or a demon, frankly. Weren't supernatural beings supposed to face these things with a certain resolve?
And so, he tried to steel himself. Whatever was going to happen, the worst of it would be quite soon, and if Crowley was to be believed, quite short (though, he now sort of doubted Crowley's testimony). What was it to be? Fire? Boiling sulfer? Fast food? The Sound of Music, until his brain bled? All of these things, he knew he could handle. He was stronger than he mostly gave himself credit for…
And he reckoned that Crowley was probably correct about Hell being too scared to mess with them too much, so he wasn't truly afraid of losing his life, or his pleasures.
But, what was he to do? What would he become? Could he keep his name? Could he continue to wear light-coloured clothes? Would he grow a "familiar," like Beelzebub and Hastur, and their flies and frogs respectively? He had nothing against animals, but the idea of having one constantly attached to him, like an appendage, didn't appeal. Then again, Crowley was his own familiar, in a manner of speaking – perhaps Aziraphale would get to be a wolf or a rabbit in disguise.
Would he have to start behaving less like an English dandy, and more like the lead singer of a rock band? And if not, how could he invoke any sort of fear, or visions of evil? But then again, why should he need to?
He walked back and forth, and wrung his hands over all of this. His breath was coming in short spurts, and he was holding back from panicked weeping…
"Oi," said a voice.
Aziraphale stopped pacing, and turned toward the sound. Crowley's head was leaning in through the door, yellow eyes blinking expectantly.
"Crowley," he sighed.
"I couldn't sleep," said the demon. "Just wondered if, erm, you'd be up for a chat, or something. Or watching a film?"
Aziraphale smiled softly and moved a little bit closer. "Thank you, Crowley. Yes, I would like some company during the… transition."
Crowley smiled a bit sheepishly, and stepped inside the bedroom. To Aziraphale's surprise, he shut the door behind him.
"You saw through that, eh?" asked Crowley, not actually very surprised.
"Yes," Aziraphale confirmed. "But I appreciate the attempt at a ruse."
"You okay?"
The angel's instinct was always to say, "Yes! Absolutely! Tip top! Tickety-boo!" or some such doddery twaddle.
But tonight, he just couldn't say those things, and even if he could, there was nowhere to hide.
"No. No, I'm not," he confessed, his voice breaking.
I hope you got feels and laughs reading this chapter!
And I hope you will review. Silence the crickets, and make my day! :-D
Thank you for reading!
