Heaven and Hell could agree on these two things:
One: They both wanted the Great War between Heaven and Hell—the war to end all wars, the war to end everything—to happen. Now, who was going to win that war was a point of contention, but the war itself was supported by both sides.
Two: (rationally following from one) Crowley and Aziraphale, having stopped Armageddon right as it was about to begin, were irritating, awful, extremely inconvenient, and deserved retribution. And since holy water and hellfire hadn't worked, they'd have to come up with something else.
The opportunity for proper retribution arose almost immediately after their respective trials in the form of a very big oversight of Adam's. In all fairness, it wasn't Adam's fault; no one quite understood the way the Antichrist affected the world, no one could predict how he would affect the world, and the boy had only a vague idea of his own powers himself.
This had resulted in a few things: there were tunnels underground but no people in them. There was a spaceship wreck discovered in a meadow in Tadfield. The local weather in Tadfield seemed to over-correct for twelve years of perfect weather for the season and snowed in the middle of summer for two and a half days. And, rather than disappearing Atlantis had sunk back down into the ocean —luckily, sea levels had not risen.
It took a considerable effort from Heaven to make the tunnels disappear (they didn't like the idea of people spying) and a considerable effort from Hell to make all the snow disappear (they didn't like the cold). The spaceship wreck was an easy fix. Atlantis was different for one very big reason: there were still people on the island when it went under.
"I'm so sorry," said Aziraphale, feeling faint, "would you repeat that please?"
Gabriel clasped his hands in front of himself and, suppressing his glee badly, repeated, "You and the demon Crowley have been given a special assignment from your respective offices—"
"Yes," Aziraphale interrupted, feeling panicky, "I got that part. Did you say—I must've heard you wrong—did you say there were people on Atlantis when the island sank back to the bottom of the ocean?"
"Yes, Aziraphale, I need you to keep up with me. I don't have all day." Gabriel cleared his throat aggressively. "You did ruin eternity."
"Oh, goodness." Aziraphale, who'd stood politely when Gabriel entered the bookshop, sat down. He took several deep breaths. "How many people were…"
"They're not dead, Aziraphale," Gabriel said flatly.
Aziraphale looked up quickly, astonished. "They're not?"
"No," Gabriel said impatiently, "Although, if they were, it would be much less trouble to get this mess sorted out."
This didn't sit well with Aziraphale. To say the world was better off without someone alive seemed very unholy. "Well," he said crossly.
Gabriel took no notice of this. "Do you understand?"
Aziraphale blinked. "Well," he said again, "Uh—no. What exactly am I supposed to do?"
"I don't know," Gabriel said, in a way that suggested Aziraphale was an idiot for asking. "Handle the situation? Figure it out."
And before Aziraphale could get another word in, Gabriel was gone.
"Oh, fiddlesticks," Aziraphale muttered. He turned around in his chair and called Crowley.
Crowley, at that moment in time, was just finishing up his own meeting with Beelzebub.
"You want me to just… set things right?" Crowley asked skeptically.
Beelzebub frowned, flies buzzing angrily around zir head. "No, you're a demon."
"Yes, I know that."
"Set thingzzz wrong, Crowley," Beelzebub said with irritation, and then sunk into the dark floor of Crowley's apartment. As ze left, Crowley thought he heard zem muttering about Crowley really going native, forgetting how to be a demon.
"Just asking clarifying questions," Crowley said defensively, but Beelzebub had fully descended at that point.
Crowley considered marching right down to Hell and insisting on a real assignment, but he did like being left to his own devices; he was, he thought, always in his best element when he was allowed to just wing it. Besides, if it turned out to be much less efficient because he hadn't gotten specific instructions, all the better. More time with Aziraphale.
The thought was as electrifying as it was terrifying. Now that the end of the world wasn't approaching, or was Aziraphale going to go back pretending they were nothing but temporary allies on different teams? The idea that he might made Crowley feel physically ill.
Come to think of it, maybe he did want the mission to pass quickly; he wasn't sure he could handle going back to what they used to be. As he was just trying to decide whether he should attempt to stall the Atlantis mission or to expedite it, his phone began to ring.
He was about to let it be. After all, he had better water his plants and give them a good hollering-to if he was going to be gone for a while—so much for them leaving the two of them alone.
"Antony Crowley, you know what to do, do it with style," came his own voice, and then, following this, "Oh for Heaven's sake, is this your answering machine again, Crowley? You had better pick up, I assume you've gotten the news—"
Crowley picked up the phone.
"I really think we ought to step to it," Aziraphale was saying, "could I meet you at yours in a minute?"
"Uh? If you must do," Crowley answered. "You're in a rush."
"Well yes," said Aziraphale, "Great, I'll see you in a jiffy."
There was a beeping at the end of the line.
"A jiffy," repeated Crowley. He felt the sudden and intense urge to find Aziraphale and kiss him. It was not an uncommon urge. It was not an urge Crowley ever thought he'd be able to act on. A jiffy. What a lovely idiot.
"Of course, I'm in a rush," Aziraphale said from beside Crowley. "There are people on Atlantis. Still! Right this minute!"
Crowley squawked and whirled around, his hand accidentally hitting Aziraphale on the shoulder as he startled. "God—Satan—"
Aziraphale shot him an unimpressed look and straightened his coat. Aziraphale and his coat—there it was again, the desire to kiss him. "Honestly. I said I'd be over in a minute."
Crowley scowled. "I thought you'd drive." It was just then that what Aziraphale had said sunk in. "There are?"
Aziraphale paused, looking him over. Unlike Aziraphale, Crowley believed in a diverse wardrobe. Sure, he didn't wear much other than black, but he changed outfits every day or week or so. Crowley wondered if Aziraphale liked the leather jacket, or if he should go back to the blazer.
"They didn't tell you?" Aziraphale asked incredulously. Bless his soul, he never stopped hoping for the best in people, even the people down in Hell.
"Uuh. You know Hell," Crowley hedged. Hell was, to Crowley, kind of like embarrassing parents. He had a sort of, oh, yeah, those are the idiots who tell me what to do all day feeling about them. Crowley offered a hand to Aziraphale, and then found he could not look at Aziraphale's face while waiting for the hand to be accepted. "The more lives lost, the better, don't you think?"
Aziraphale's hand stopped on its way towards Crowley's. Crowley thought he had never experienced a more tense moment since the almost-Armageddon. He stopped breathing.
"Don't I think?"
Crowley did not have to see Aziraphale's face to imagine his offended expression.
"No," said Aziraphale, "no, of course, I don't think so."
"I meant Hell, not you." Crowley sighed loudly. "Not me either."
"That's good to hear," Aziraphale said, sounding pleased and proud, as if he himself had been responsible for Crowley's unfriendly disposition towards death. He accepted Crowley's hand, and Crowley resumed breathing.
And then he promptly stopped breathing again, because Aziraphale's fingers laced through his. Crowley had been going for a sort of neutral hand-holding situation, just for the miracle to Atlantis. Aziraphale was making this much more of a thing.
"Shut up," Crowley said, to distract from the flush crawling up his skin, "They can't sin if they're dead, now, can they? How am I going to tempt a dead man into the sins of the flesh?"
Aziraphale made a sort of gasping noise, like someone had stabbed him straight in the chest and he had blood in his lungs. "You don't tempt men into the sins of the flesh." He said with utter conviction.
Crowley looked over at him. Aziraphale was frowning, eyes wide and his cheeks were very red. He looked quite scandalized and also… something else, something Crowley couldn't quite identify. He waited. He was good at waiting. Lying in wait was a very important skill.
Aziraphale gave in. "...Do you?"
Crowley grinned triumphantly. "No," he conceded, "but you believed me, didn't you—that's what counts." He tipped his head down, peered over his sunglasses, and winked.
And then they were somewhere else.
— — —
Crowley had had plenty of time to get around, and so he had. He'd been to every country in the world—he liked to visit them as soon as they were established in order to find out what sort of new thing the world was dealing with now (unless he was feeling lazy, at which point he sometimes might put off visiting for a century or two). Plus, he liked to ask Aziraphale if he'd had their local cuisine, and, upon receiving a no, invite him to a quick bite.
This place was certainly not like any land Crowley had ever seen before. It was rocky, without even the sign of a road anywhere, devoid of street signs or symbols, and yet it was clearly quite developed: squat stone buildings spread in every direction, all different shades of worn, dusty brown. The land rose and fell naturally, and seemed not to have been shaped or carved away by the people living there, but rather, built around. The buildings themselves reminded Crowley most strongly of Ancient Greece and Rome: they were short, they commonly featured columns, arches, and windows that were nothing more than holes cut in the stone walls.
Also, it was under water. It took Crowley a moment to realize, because he was distracted by the scattering of broken timber and the sparkle of gold coins across the rocks. Only when he looked up did he realize the blue above them was not, in fact, the summer sky he had left behind, but the open ocean.
This particular area of rock, he realized, must be enclosed by a very large bubble, or something, because although he couldn't see the end of the bubble, he certainly couldn't feel any water against his skin. And he was still breathing. He could breathe underwater, but it would've taken a bit of magic he certainly did not remember expending.
"Huh." Crowley watched people milling their way between buildings, as if there weren't miles of seawater pressing down upon them. "Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."
"Sorry," Aziraphale was stammering beside him, "I didn't mean for that to happen so suddenly. I would've given you warning—my apologies—my thoughts were rather a mess—"
"Angel," Crowley interrupted, "you've brought us to Atlantis."
"Yes." Aziraphale's stammering halted. "That's where I was supposed to take us, was it not?"
"Uhh, yeah." Crowley gave a nod. "Yeah, here's the place to be. Say, it doesn't seem sort of… old-Greek-y to you, does it?"
Aziraphale, who'd been fussing with his clothing and then squinting at Crowley, presumably attempting to figure out whether Crowley's feathers had been ruffled by the unexpected miracle, finally took a look around. His expression softened, the worried wrinkle of his brow smoothing out. Watching it happen was like watching a flower bloom—like you were extraordinarily lucky to see this wonder unfolding in real time.
"You know, you're right." Azirphale's eyes followed a handful of white-robed people striding purposefully across the rocks towards a large columned building that resembled a temple. "It does seem awfully old-fashioned."
"Old-fashioned." Crowley couldn't help smiling. Aziraphale was so charming when he was serious and thoughtful. "Yeah, something like that."
They stared at Atlantis spread before them for several seconds longer. Crowley was waiting to see if Aziraphale was going to start doing something, and Crowley could follow suit, having no instructions himself, but Aziraphale did not do anything.
"Right," said Aziraphale finally. "I suppose we'd better dress for the occasion." He snapped his fingers and their clothes were both instantly replaced with white robes, loose, flowy, and blindingly clean.
"White?" Crowley plucked at the seam at his shoulder. He reached up, making sure his sunglasses were still in place. Thankfully, they were. "Is this entirely necessary? Wh-I—bleh. Angel, I might as well wear a cross around my neck."
Aziraphale looked at him. "Um. You look good in white. You look good in black, too, of course. Obviously."
"Of course? Obviously?"
"But white is what everyone is wearing?"
Go back, Crowley wanted to say. What was that bit about "of course"? Instead, he said, "I'm not a follower. You're not a follower. Are you a follower? No, I don't think so, or you wouldn't still be wearing that old coat of yours."
Aziraphale humphed. "It's a wonderful coat. And besides, it isn't good to be wasteful, especially when it comes to clothing. It's a real problem, you know."
"You can just miracle your clothes." Crowley demonstrated, turning his robe black. He always did look a bit alluring in black. Not that he had any intention of luring anyone other than Aziraphale. Or that he was nursing any delusions about even being able to lure Aziraphale.
The black got him a frown and another humph, but Aziraphale didn't actually say anything more about it. Aziraphale looked him up and down, or something like it. Actually, he looked Crowley up, and then he looked Crowley part-ways down, but he seemed to get a little bit stuck along the way.
Crowley stood there patiently, trying not to squirm, tingling all over.
"Shall we go?" he finally suggested, after a very long moment, when he felt the urge to squirm was about to overtake him.
"Oh!" Aziraphale's cheeks flushed an angelic pink. "Yes. Yes, that seems like a good idea."
They picked their way down the rocks, Aziraphale carefully and Crowley much less so. The rocks were jagged, black and sort of pock-marked. Volcanic rock that had never been exposed to weathering. This made sense, as Atlantis had only existed for a couple of days.
When Aziraphale stumbled over a particularly unstable rock, Crowley caught him about the waist without thinking, saving him from what would have probably been a very nasty gash on the head.
"Mmph," Aziraphale mumbled into Crowley's chest, "Thank you."
Crowley felt absolutely electric. Whatever apprehensions he had about going on a mission with Aziraphale flew from his mind and vanished like smoke.
They weren't huggers, Crowley and Aziraphale. They were, in fact, only barely hand-shakers. Part of this was because they could never be quite sure who was watching and what might get back to Heaven and Hell respectively, but much of it—Crowley might even dare to say most of it—was because Aziraphale was very proper and polite. They had never hugged, not once in six thousand years. This was one of the closest instances. He was very soft, Aziraphale, lovely and very solid. He was very warm through the robes and even warmer where they touched skin-to-skin. This latter bit was likely due to Crowley's cold-bloodedness.
"Guh," Crowley said, by way of you're welcome, and then, more coherently, "Careful, angel. Don't get discorperated on me now."
He steadied the angel with a hand on the small of his back and another clasped tight in Aziraphale's before stepping back.
"I was careful," protested Aziraphale. He was very red. "More than you, anyway."
"Ah," said Crowley, feeling clever, "But I've got the luck of the devil."
Aziraphale set off across the stones again, lifting the hem of his robes in one hand. It was like the seventeenth century all over again, Crowley thought, when nothing but a glimpse of someone's ankles was enough to get one going.
"That joke is only funny when I make it," Aziraphale sniffed primly. When Crowley barked out a surprised laugh, Aziraphale's prim expression dropped altogether and he smiled brightly, looking very pleased with himself. "Come on, Crowley, Atlantis isn't going to save itself."
— — —
Aziraphale had had plenty of time to try different foods, and so he had. One of his favorite things about being an angel was eating. This may seem paradoxical, because angels don't really eat, but Aziraphale had found that food across the centuries was so enjoyable, it quite outweighed the annoying little hiccup of being looked down upon for eating.
It had quickly become clear that neither of them had received specific instructions about what, exactly, to do about Atlantis, and so they were wandering aimlessly over the rocks, wondering what to do, when Aziraphale caught sight of a couple women with a tray of oysters between them. They were giggling brightly, the kind of giggle that suggested something not entirely proper was going on, and they were extremely pleased with themselves about it.
"Crowley, they have oysters," Aziraphale said urgently.
Crowley nodded knowingly. "Makes sense," he pointed out, "We are at the bottom of the ocean."
It was a good point, but it wasn't the point. The point was—
"Ah," said Crowley, "I suppose you'll be wanting oysters, then."
Aziraphale beamed. Really, he should have smiled politely and said only if you don't mind a quick stop, but Crowley had a way of making normally bright moments incandescently bright, as if someone had turned the knob not on the goodness of the world, exactly, but the enjoyableness of it all.
Crowley, as if reading his mind, insisted, "Really, angel, we can get oysters. It's not like we've anything better to do."
"We've got to save Atlantis—" Aziraphale began, but Crowley waved his hand dismissively.
"Look around, does it look to you like any of these people need saving? They're fine. They're going to temples! They're—uh—walking about! They're eating oysters!"
Aziraphale had to admit Crowley had a point. The people on Atlantis appeared perfectly happy, they were all protected by an enormous bubble of air, and they certainly seemed to have food.
Food made everything better: it helped you get through a difficult century, it filled time when you were nervous about something, it was a great excuse to spend time with certain demons, and it always helped one think. Well, it sometimes helped one think. Or, perhaps, it simply satisfied the desire to eat so that one could get back to thinking.
"Oh alright," Aziraphale conceded, delighted to have been talked over, "I rather—well. An oyster or two wouldn't go amiss. Just until we figure out what to do about the island."
"Yes, of course," Crowley agreed immediately, grinning, and Aziraphale had to look away. Crowley was so Crowley. It was very hard to get anything done at all when looking at Crowley.
So Aziraphale and Crowley set off to look for where the oysters had come from. ("You could just ask," suggested Crowley, to which Aziraphale responded, "I have no intention of rudely interrupting anyone while they're eating oysters.")
They first walked aimlessly some more, past two long buildings with neat lines of square windows that Crowley kept trying to peer into and Aziraphale kept tugging him away from, past six randomly placed columns that stuck straight up into the air and appeared to serve no purpose at all, and past countless piles of rubble that Crowley murmured appreciatively at until Aziraphale miracled them into something more useful—a small courtyard, a flattened road between two houses.
"The rubble isn't hurting anyone," Crowley grumbled at the fifth pile of rubble.
Aziraphale fixed a wall and smiled over at Crowley. He liked the way Crowley's frown always softened when he smiled. "I expect people find it very annoying."
"Yes," Crowley agreed, "I like that."
Aziraphale had sighed and, against his better judgement, let the rubble be. It added to the atmosphere, he told himself.
The third time they passed a particular pillar, one that had what looked suspiciously like a Satanic cross created out of slightly damp seaweed, Crowley said what Aziraphale had been thinking but didn't want to say.
"We're going in circles."
Aziraphale frowned over at Crowley. If he was fully honest with himself, part of him actually hoped they wouldn't find the oysters soon, because he had been enjoying their wandering quite a bit. He had let himself trip several times since the first, and Crowley had never failed to grab him. A couple times, Crowley had simply caught Aziraphale's wrist as Aziraphale flailed, which was a mild disappointment, but on other occasions, Crowley had caught him proper, an arm across his chest or about his waist.
So no, Aziraphale wasn't eager to admit they weren't getting anywhere, because he sort of felt like he would like to do this with Crowley forever.
"We're not," Aziraphale objected with very little conviction.
Crowley pointed to the Satanic cross. "I can feel it whenever we get close to this thing, and I'm telling you we've been here at least three times. Feels spooky."
"We're going in ovals," Aziraphale amended, "or wiggly, uh—"
"Circles?" Crowley suggested, cocking one eyebrow.
"Well, we're doing our best." Aziraphale dragged his gaze away from Crowley's smirk. "Have you a better idea of how to go about this?"
Crowley grunted in disagreement and looked around. Aziraphale wasn't sure what Crowley was looking for; everywhere looked like everywhere else there—all dusty grey-brown buildings and obsidian rock. He found he very much liked the columns and the squat houses, but that didn't erase the fact that they were all very similar to one another.
"Dunno, Angel." Crowley shrugged. "You're the one who eats food."
"Well then," Aziraphale said cheerily, and gestured forward. "Shall we?"
Crowley didn't start forward. He was considering the sky—which is to say, the sea—above them, an empty, featureless blue. "Walk in a straight line," he said. When Crowley tipped his head back like that, Aziraphale could see the way his throat moved when he talked.
"Mm?"
Crowley stopped looking up and Aziraphale stopped looking at him. "That's my better idea," Crowley clarified, "There's got to be an edge to this bubble, wouldn't you expect?"
Aziraphale agreed.
"So we find it and we walk 'round the edge. The oysters—I mean, they're probably coming from somewhere along the edge, don't you think?"
Aziraphale agreed again. "So your idea is to walk in a bigger circle?"
Crowley considered. "Could be a square."
Aziraphale picked a direction at random and set out. He tripped one more time, for good measure.
Crowley, of course, caught him.
The people of Atlantis stared at Crowley as he walked by, murmuring among themselves. Aziraphale was unsure whether this was the black robes or simply Crowley himself—his demon swagger, his red hair, his dark sunglasses. Aziraphale couldn't blame them for staring.
When they finally arrived at the edge of the bubble, they both stopped and stared at it. It was semi-iridescent, and the rock fell away into murky depths just outside the line of the bubble. The deep sea was a dark, foreboding blue that faded into black, and the edge of the bubble seemed to radiate cold like an open fridge. Aziraphale had, up to this point, not put much thought into how far below the surface of the ocean they were.
"There it is," said Crowley.
"I don't like this place, it's spooky," said Aziraphale, only half joking. "Crowley—have you thought about—what if the air here runs out?"
Crowley tipped his head to one side, considering this very thoughtfully, as if it wasn't an absolutely terrifying thought.
"I mean, what if everyone here died," Aziraphale continued, just in case he hadn't gotten his point across.
"Right, that would be very bad, obviously," Crowley agreed. His lips were doing the pouty thing; he pushed them out when he was thinking. "Something tells me that's not going to happen. You can't feel it?"
He could. If he concentrated very hard, Aziraphale could feel a feeling of protectiveness enveloping the island, not unlike the feeling of standing in the middle of Tadfield. "Or what if it pops?" Aziraphale fretted.
Crowley looked over at him, and then, without any warning, walked up to the edge of the bubble—
"What are you doing, Crowley—"
—And poked a finger at it. The bubble stretched like a trampoline, shimmering.
Crowley withdrew his hand and stuck it into the pocket of his jeans. "Cold," he said briefly, and turned around. "Nothing to worry about, hey angel?"
Aziraphale spluttered for a good few seconds before managing, "You could have been hurt."
"Yeah," Crowley said, "Also everybody could have died, except we happen to be able to fix those situations with miracles. Calm down, angel, everyone's fine." He sauntered back over to Aziraphale's side before adding, "I wouldn't let you get discorperated. You know that."
Before Aziraphale could respond, Crowley was already wandering along the edge of the bubble, running his fingers lightly against it with one hand.
Aziraphale felt very warm. "Oh." It took him a moment for his mind to clear. "That would be an immense miracle. You're sure we could've pulled that off?"
"Ah, eh," Crowley offered blithely in response, "anything for you."
He said it so casually, Aziraphale was sure Crowley must've been joking, but when he looked Crowley's way, Crowley was gazing back at him with his fond smile, not a trace of irony to be seen. Aziraphale didn't know what to make of that.
"Do you think they're going to run out of air?" Aziraphale asked, even though Crowley had already answered his question. That was one of the nice things about Crowley—he was always willing to repeat himself to soothe Aziraphale's fretting if hearing the same thing twice ever made it feel more true (which it quite often did).
"No," Crowley said predictably, "I don't expect they will. This is not a normal bubble."
"This is not a normal island," Aziraphale countered.
Crowley dragged his nails against the surface of the bubble. "It'll be fine."
As they made their way around the edge of the bubble, Aziraphale and Crowley came across much more variety than the village area they had landed in. There were mountains dotted with greenery and topped with palm trees, dusty paths that people pushed carts full of produce along, and the occasional gathering of people dressed in colors other than white, cheering and laughing among themselves.
Aziraphale was warming up to it more and more, and he would hate to see it go under. At one point, they ran straight into a young woman with an armload of scrolls, knocking them loose. When Crowley bent to pick them up for her, his sunglasses slipped; when she caught sight of his eyes, she hardly blinked. After that, he kept his glasses near the tip of his nose, peering over them with traces of a smile as he looked over Atlantis. The sight made Aziraphale uncontainably happy, he had to clear his throat, pick up his pace, and walk a half-step ahead of Crowley so he couldn't catch any more glimpses of that soft, pleased smile unprepared.
Walking around the island seemed to take a very long time—it was hard to tell the true passing of time, because it appeared Atlantis had no days.
"We really ought to be getting almost no light at all," Aziraphale pointed out when Crowley made that observation, "of course we wouldn't have any days."
"Well, we are getting light," Crowley observed helpfully, pointing one finger at the sea above them as if to illustrate his point further. "I wouldn't expect a mythical island brought to reality by a pre-teen boy to be very accurate on details like that."
This was a good point, except that presumably, Adam had no idea that Atlantis still existed; it stood to reason that Adam would assume it had simply disappeared with the rest of his manifestations. Whatever the case was, Atlantis was not following the rules of the universe at all, which made it very hard to tell time.
"How long do you suppose it's been, then?" Aziraphale asked, checking his watch: twelve o'clock. Then again, it was set to London time, and twelve might mean midnight or noon. They had been walking for a very, very long time, Aziraphale and Crowley, stumbling occasionally over rocks and reminiscing about the past several centuries.
Crowley, to Aziraphale's astonishment, remembered not only every time they had ever had a meal together, but what it was Aziraphale had eaten, despite not having partaken in the eating himself. Aziraphale, in turn, let Crowley talk to him about music he liked (Queen, as of late) and the best of his temptations to date (the M25, for example, and the invention of social media).
Aziraphale had always felt he could never keep track of time when he spent it with Crowley. They had once had a conversation that felt absolutely normal and natural and then found out, upon turning on the radio, that they'd been speaking with each other for over two days. Another time, Aziraphale had felt that the moment they were sharing over a glass of wine and a superb French onion soup was never ending and must've been at least several hours long, but it turned out to have only been about forty-five minutes.
Such was the nature of being in love.
"I haven't the faintest idea," Crowley said.
Unsurprisingly, knowing it was twelve did nothing for either of them.
"Well," Aziraphale reasoned, "You like to sleep. Have you been getting tired?"
Crowley shrugged. "I don't get tired, angel. I sleep for pleasure."
Aziraphale found that concept extremely baffling. "But you don't—feel sleep-deprived?"
"Give me a century or two, and maybe I will." Crowley grinned at Aziraphale over his glasses, his yellow eyes bright. "You know I only sleep when I'm bored."
They had now happened upon a long, vibrant meadow, so green the color almost seemed aggressive. The grass swished around their ankles, soft beneath their sandals. It made Aziraphale think of the Garden of Eden, of Crowley as a snake, cutting a smooth path through blades of grass. Crowley had been, from the very first moment Aziraphale laid eyes on him, captivating. Aziraphale did not think he could ever get bored while with Crowley.
"I'd expect we'd have come up with a better way to find the hour by the time a century or two rolls around."
"In a century or two, we won't be here," Crowley pointed out. "We'll be back up top, running more errands for Gabriel and Beelzebub."
"Mm," said Aziraphale. He didn't like to think about it. It was beautiful on Atlantis, and so far quite peaceful, and besides, they had oysters. And—it hardly needed to be mentioned—Crowley was there. He didn't like to think of them going back up and parting ways.
Crowley seemed to wait for Aziraphale to continue, but when Aziraphale didn't, he said, "Well, angel, it looks like people aren't selling oysters along the edge of the world."
"I don't think we've made it all the way around." Aziraphale gestured to the waving grass before them. The grass was remarkably green, it was like it had something to prove. "I would have remembered this meadow."
Crowley grunted. "How many people have we run into this whole time? Three?"
Aziraphale was faced with a choice. One option was to capitulate and say, no, you're right, we'd better head back and the second one was to admit he really didn't even care about the oysters anymore—not much anyway—he just wanted to keep walking around the perimeter of the island, listening to Crowley recount his deeds of the day and telling Crowley about his collection of prophecy books.
He said, "I think there were more than three."
Crowley looked at him, unblinking, over his sunglasses. "Were you accidentally counting sea turtles instead of people?"
"Um."
"They're clearly congregating in the center of the island." Crowley made a vague gesture towards the mountain, on the other side of which lay—if memory served—a large scattering of houses and what had appeared to be commercial establishments. "If you want oysters—"
"Oh, would you leave it, Crowley, I just want to walk around with you."
Crowley, who'd been sort of slinking about, froze in place and stared. The yellow of his eyes was a bit wider than normal. Aziraphale couldn't have looked away from them if there was someone selling oysters two feet away from them. "Oh." Crowley's voice was high, pitchy. He cleared his throat. "I thought you wanted oysters."
"Of course I do," Aziraphale said, "I just thought we should finish the perimeter, just in case."
Crowley wrinkled his brow at Aziraphale, looking very stumped. If either of them had been paying attention, they would have been able to tell that they were only a quarter the way around the coast (so to speak) of Atlantis based on their orientation about the mountain range in the distance, but both were too occupied with the other to make this observation. It had, in fact, been about two days at that point, and the women Aziraphale had seen had finished their oysters, gone to sleep, woken up, and bought more oysters by then. Unlike demons and angels, humans did get sleepy and therefore had their own internal clocks telling them time was passing.
"In case?" Crowley inquired, resuming their walk.
Aziraphale searched for a reason and came up empty. In case we never get to be like this once we go back up, was all his mind would provide. "Oh, in case. Just in case."
Crowley, for his part, had no objections.
And so it came to be that Crowley and Aziraphale spent their first two weeks on Atlantis simply walking in a very long circle.
They came across tide pools ("How on Earth are there tidepools when there are no tides?" Crowley asked, poking a sea-cucumber. The sea-cucumber promptly released its guts onto Crowley's hand.) and a long stretch of beach ("I suspect our dear Adam Young doesn't quite grasp the process by which sand is created," said Aziraphale. Crowley found sea glass, melted it down, created a ring, and tossed it to Aziraphale. "Catch," he said, "Souvenier." And then kept walking without waiting up).
It wouldn't have taken quite so long to get around the island if they hadn't, at one point, happened upon a skyscraper, sticking up from the volcanic rock and looking aggressively out of place.
"I thought this place was based on ancient Greece." Crowley stared up at the seventeen stories of concrete and glass. "I don't remember seeing any of these."
"I bet they have food," Aziraphale said. "It seems to be a hotel."
"And alcohol?" Crowley considered the skyscraper with renewed interest.
The hotel, unsurprisingly, had both.
Aziraphale made unprintable sounds over platters of extremely fresh, extremely local sushi, and Crowley watched him, propped on one elbow, leaning towards Aziraphale like a plant towards the sun. He moved only to drink, taking swigs straight from the wine bottle as if chugging beer.
By the end, there were three empty bottles of wine and two very concerned waiters hovering near the table.
"Crowley," Aziraphale admonished, lining up the bottles in a straight line, "I think you've had enough."
Crowley burped.
Aziraphale nodded to a hovering waiter, who produced a check instantly. He had been waiting to do so, eager to see the two wrap up their meal and be on their way. They'd been eating and drinking for three hours, it was almost closing time, and there was something very strange about them that the waiter couldn't put his finger on.
"Thank you, good sir." Aziraphale took a look at the check. It asked for cash only, in golden drachmas. He miracled the sum, plus an extravagant tip.
"Alright," he said to Crowley, who was still peering blearily at him over his sunglasses with unblinking, chin in his hand and dead still, "Time to get you home."
"We're not— 'ss not—home isss very far away," Crowley mumbled. "But I want to ssstay here."
Aziraphale swallowed hard. He knew Crowley was drunk and not thinking straight. However, Aziraphale was very sober and could think perfectly straight, and he'd been wishing the same thing all day. He was coming to like Atlantis very much, and he wanted to stay. With Crowley, of course. Only if Crowly was staying too.
It didn't do to think about.
Aziraphale pulled Crowley to his feet and slung Crowley's arm over his shoulder, wishing they were somewhere private where Crowley could sober up inconspicuously.
The best Aziraphale could do in that department was haul Crowley to the front desk (despite being a stick-figure made three-dimensional, he was actually rather heavy when it came to hauling him around) and get them a room for the night (there was only one bed, but that was fine; Aziraphale didn't plan on sleeping) and then haul Crowley over to the elevators and take it to the 15th floor, where he laid Crowley out on the bed and looked for a large saucepan.
The room was large, made to look even larger with a huge square window that offered a view of Atlantis' single mountain range. It had one neatly fixed queen-sized bed and a desk with a chair that turned about. The kitchenette had a stove, a microwave oven, and a sink. The fridge was empty but for a stick of butter and the freezer contained a box of striped popsicles.
Crowley crossed his ankles. "D'you remember any elevators in ancient Greece?"
"No," Aziraphale answered indulgently, puttering about the kitchenette, "There aren't any, dear."
"But we just went in one," Crowley said reasonably.
"Do you remember a giant bubble encircling ancient Greece?"
Crowley frowned, thinking hard. "No," he said finally, "I don't think there was."
Aziraphale had located plates, bowls, glasses, an extraordinary array of spices, and a small collection of cookbooks. It made him want to try his hand at cooking again, although his last attempts had been disastrous and one of them had involved the fire department. It was sometimes hard to remember that one couldn't sit down and read for two days straight because there was something on the stove.
"There you have it," he said patiently, over his shoulder, "We're not in ancient Greece."
"Oooh," Crowley agreed sagely, "Yeah."
Aziraphale found a large saucepan and brought it over to the bed. "Sober up?" he suggested, holding it out.
"Good idea," groaned Crowley, sitting up. His robe was falling off his shoulder. He certainly looked like a demon of temptation, Aziraphale thought, and then told his thoughts to stop right there.
Crowley pulled off his sunglasses—heavens above, his eyes were beautiful—and got a very determined expression on his face. He moaned like a dying cat for a long ten seconds; the saucepan filled slowly with wine.
When he finished, he ran a hand through his hair, messing it up so that it fell in tufts around the top of his face. Aziraphale's heart fluttered warmly at the sight of Crowley clear-eyed and sunglasses discarded, his hair a mess.
"Get me something—an ice cube or something," Crowley mumbled, blinking several times. "Mouth tastes like—like—" As someone who had never tasted much of anything, Crowley found himself unable to finish this sentence accurately. "It tastes bad."
Aziraphale went to the freezer and fetched Crowley one of the striped popsicles. It was red-and-blue, wrapped in thin, squeaky plastic. Aziraphale wholly objected to such bland, mass-produced, low-effort food—if it could be called that—but that was all they had at the moment.
"I can miracle you something else," he offered when he handed it to Crowley.
Crowley held it up to the light, squinting. As if the squinting had reminded him, he reached over to the bedside table without looking and grabbed his sunglasses, opening them with his teeth and sliding them back onto his face. Aziraphale felt a bit like a cloud had just drifted in front of the sun.
"You know I don't eat," he said, but he leaned over and gave it an experimental lick. "It's so sweet."
"Yes," said Aziraphale.
Crowley licked it again. "It tastes like nothing but sugar."
"Just about," agreed Aziraphale. "I can miracle you something else."
Crowley shook his head. "No, this is fine. I kind of like it." He stuck it in his mouth.
"Well…." Aziraphale stared. He couldn't stop staring. He should definitely stop, he thought, but he kept staring and staring at Crowley with messy hair, lips around a convenience-store popsicle. "There's no accounting for taste," he said finally, and managed to peel himself away.
Aziraphale selected a book from the bookshelf—a memoir about a woman who had once planned to climb Everest and decided not to after meeting her wife—and dedicated himself to blocking out Crowley, who was discovering popsicles on the bed.
Aziraphale was just getting to the good bit—she was learning the small joys of daily life—when Crowley opened the window and threw the popsicle stick out.
"Don't litter, it isn't nice," Aziraphale said.
"Exactly," Crowley agreed, shutting the window with a snap. He lay the book on the bed, pulled off his sunglasses, and closed his eyes. "I'm going to sleep if you don't mind waiting around—just for an hour or two. I think I drank too much."
Aziraphale, rather inclined to agree, was about to reassure Crowley that they were in no rush (he had a good book, a chair that spun, and that was all an angel could desire) when Crowley added—
"Even better, you could come and sleep with me."
"Sleep—"
"Sleep beside me," Crowley amended loudly, eyes flying open. He sat up very quickly. "That's what I meant, sleep beside me."
Even an angelic miracle would not have kept Aziraphale from flushing. Aziraphale didn't even try. He eyed the bed. He liked beds in theory: soft, comfortable things that enveloped one like a hug and gave one a rest after a long day, but he had never actually spent very much time in one. He had once found himself tied to one when a mortal tried to figure out how to bleed the magic out of him and use it, but Aziraphale had merely miracled himself free, and that was the end of that. He supposed they were comfortable places to be, beds. Good for sleeping in, if one felt the need to sleep.
"I don't really," he hedged, "I mean, I'm not sure I could sleep."
Crowley frowned. "You mean you've never tried?"
"No, I—I have." Aziraphale paged through his memory, but he couldn't actually remember any time he had slept. No rest for the good, he liked to say. "I think perhaps once." It seemed plausible, at least.
Crowley's mouth opened in wordless dismay. As one who found sleeping to be one of the pleasures of life—and Crowley was a big fan of self-indulgent pleasure—he found the idea of never sleeping absolutely abhorrent.
"Angel," he said, "get in the bed. You've got to try this."
Aziraphale closed his book. "I'm actually about ninety-percent sure I have." He paused. "Eighty."
"It's great," Crowley promised, "It's brilliant. It is absolutely worth your time. Are you in a rush? I'm not in a rush. In fact, the longer we make Hell wait, the better I'll feel, personally."
Aziraphale considered the bed, and then he considered Crowley. It was an easy decision, after he considered Crowley. Even if sleeping turned out to be an absolute drag, he was sure he'd enjoy it very much if he was doing it with Crowley, and it was only a handful of hours in the middle of an eternity.
And again, Crowley.
There was quite a lot of shuffling about before they settled in, but neither of them brought up the possibility of miracle-ing another bed, or even making their single bed bigger. Crowley simply laid down in a straight line, watching Aziraphale very carefully. Aziraphale plucked at his robe, turned off the lights, got in between the covers, turned towards Crowley and then away and then looked over his shoulder and so on, until finally Crowley very lightly pressed a hand to Aziraphale's rib cage and said, "Can I hold you?" with a thin, shaky voice. Aziraphale nodded. He found he couldn't get any words through his throat, but it didn't make any difference; he couldn't think of anything to say.
Crowley turned properly on his side. With aching slowness, he slipped his arm over Aizraphale's waist. Aziraphale found Crowley's hand and held it. It was so much easier, he thought, to do things like this in the dark.
In the end, they slept for much longer than a handful of hours.
Blame the several days they had walked without stopping, or blame the stress of the almost-Armageddon finally catching up to them, or blame how easy it is to fall asleep in the arms of someone you love—whatever it was, their three-days rest was the best Crowley had gotten in centuries and the best Aziraphale had ever gotten.
When Crowley woke, approximately fifty-four minutes before Aziraphale, and discovered the angel had somehow nestled his face into the crook of Crowley's neck while they slept, he lay there, unmoving and unbreathing, staring at the ceiling.
Crowley had not been joking when he said the longer they stayed in Atlantis, the better. After all, Aziraphale appeared absolutely delighted over every new piece of Atlantis they discovered, from the dress to the extraordinarily fresh sushi to the green, green meadows. Crowley wasn't sure he'd ever seen Aziraphale smile so much.
Stay with me here. He gazed down at Aziraphale's blond curls and tried the words out in his mind, then stuffed them unceremoniously at the very back. He had already asked Aziraphale to run away with him twice, neither of which ended very well, and he didn't think he should push his luck.
This was nice, anyway. Short-lived though it was bound to be, Aziraphale was sleeping with his head tucked into Crowley's neck, and the world was good.
— — —
That was how they ended up back in the center of Atlantis not three days after leaving it, but a solid two weeks. The women Aziraphale had spotted had changed oyster providers. Aziraphale had still not had a single oyster himself.
"Now are we looking for oysters, angel?" Crowley asked.
Aziraphale had found himself faintly baffled by Crowley's behavior up until that point. One moment, he was declaring he'd love nothing more than to keep Hell waiting, the next he was poking at Aziraphale to hurry it up. Aziraphale had long since decided that if forgoing oysters was what it took to keep them from going back up and informing Heaven and Hell that actually, Atlantis was faring just fine on its own, he could forgo oysters forever .
Fortunately (or unfortunately) Aziraphale was saved from answering by a red-faced man who had, it appeared, overheard Crowley calling Aziraphale "angel" and taken it the wrong way. He was a bit short, mustachioed, and quite rude.
"It's wrong to be gay," he said shortly, stopping in the middle of the square Aziraphale had created when they first arrived. He pointed between Aziraphale and Crowley with one hand and shook the other in a fist.
"Sorry," Aziraphale said pointedly, "What was your name again?"
"Challan," the man said, not at all picking up on Aziraphale's pointedness at all, "It's gross and it's disgusting for two men to be together. And it's sinful. It's bad and I hate you, and you're going to hell."
Crowley and Aziraphale both stood there for a moment, utterly baffled.
"I'm afraid you've rather misinterpreted the Almighty," Aziraphale informed him politely. "Of course, her plan is ineffable, but there are some things you just know."
"I hope you die soon," the man replied.
"I am a demon, actually," Crowley said, pushing his sunglasses farther up his nose.
"Yes you are," the rude man agreed emphatically. "And you deserve to burn in hell forever and ever."
"Which means, technically speaking, I don't have a gender," Crowley continued blithely. "But I think I'd go get one myself if it made what I do more sinful."
Aziraphale bugged his eyes out at Crowley, but Crowley was not one to be slowed down when he felt like having fun, and his Adam's apple was bobbing about in a way that suggested he was getting ready to transform his head into something horrible and hellish.
"That's quite enough," Aziraphale interrupted before Crowley could so much as sprout a feather. He quite liked to see Crowley get creative, actually, he found it amusing and rather endearing, but he felt the more responsible thing to do was keep him in check. After all, there were plenty of other people walking around them as well and they didn't need a hellish creature rearing its head in the middle of their town square. "We'll be on our way."
Crowley gave the man a sort of snarl as Aziraphale tugged at his elbow, but he allowed himself to be pulled away, out of the square, and around the corner of the nearest building.
"You can't just go around saying things like that," Aziraphale scolded, peering around the corner. "Do you have any idea what—what that was?"
Crowley was also gazing around the corner. His snarl had completely disappeared and he was grinning widely, his signature demonic grin that never spelled anything good (in the literal sense, that is; usually it actually meant something rather delightful, if a tad bit blasphemous).
"I think we just experienced bigotry," Crowley declared with absolute glee. "I think that is twelve-year-old Adam's idea of a bigot."
Aziraphale, who had turned back to Crowley (it was only polite), turned and peered back around the corner, where the mustachioed man was marching off with clenched fists into one of the many stone buildings. "Oh?" he said. He was rather enchanted by Crowley's clear delight and was having a hard time following the conversation. "Is that right?"
"He's just—" Crowley gestured with his arms. "He's bad for no reason! He's—he's just mean!"
"And rude," Aziraphale added, proud of himself for contributing even a few words. "Incredibly rude."
"Yes!" Crowley said, the way one says, I've won the lottery! "God, Angel, I love Atlantis. I want to stay here forever, I'd never get tired of this place."
Sure, Crowley was melodramatic and liked to speak in absolutes simply to get his point across. He didn't always say things he meant, but rather, said things that gestured vaguely in the direction of the things he actually meant. But Aziraphale felt this was as good a time as any, since the thought would not leave him alone and it was eating him from the inside out. It was also possible that Aziraphale's reasoning was slightly impaired at the moment, because he found it was very hard to control himself around Crowley when he was like this.
"We could stay," Aziraphale said.
And Aziraphale was not melodramatic, not one bit. If anything, he would dance around what he was trying to get at, sort of hoping someone else might get it for him.
"Ueeh?" Crowley asked. His mad gestures had stilled, and somehow, even through the sunglasses, Aziraphale knew he was getting another one of those unblinking stares.
"Here, I mean," Aziraphale clarified. "In Atlantis."
"I know what you mean," Crowley interrupted. "But—angel—what do you mean?"
"Well. I mean." Aziraphale fiddled with the ring Crowley had tossed him at the beach, which he had not put on his ring finger—he found that extremely suggestive and presumptuous at once. "I thought it might be fun. It's just an idea."
Crowley snatched the sunglasses off his face like they'd offended him personally and peered at Aziraphale's face. Aziraphale thought about telling Crowley that if he wanted Aziraphale to be more coherent, showing his jeweled eyes might not be the play, but his mouth was too dry.
"Do you mean we could stay here in Atlantis?" Crowley asked eventually. His voice was high and scratchy, and his wide yellow eyes seemed impossibly, irresistibly open. "We?"
Aziraphale flushed, feeling suddenly foolish for mentioning it. Why would Crowley want to be here? Despite his melodramatic proclamations of love for Atlantis, they had only come across one single bigot. Crowley liked air pollution, and there were no cars on Atlantis (at least, that they had found so far). Come to think of it, Crowley liked all sorts of pollution—noise pollution, air pollution, light pollution, water pollution, you name it. Atlantis had none of that.
"I only meant—don't bother yourself thinking about it. It was just a silly idea." Aziraphale paused, and when Crowley didn't fill the silence, or blink, or breathe, he added, hesitantly, "I only meant I wouldn't stay if you weren't staying. I only really want to be where you are, is all."
Crowley finally moved, but only to run his fingers through his hair and mess it all up. "Oh," he said. He was very red and he sounded like he was about to faint. "Aziraphale."
Aziraphale waited some more, but Crowley just kept opening his mouth, licking his bottom lip, closing his mouth, opening it again, making a wordless noise, that sort of thing.
"Would you like to stay here?" Aziraphale asked, because the waiting was driving him mad. He tried to articulate his worries about the lack of pollution, and how he wasn't sure if Crowley really liked this place enough to stay for a long time, and how it wasn't exactly like the rest of earth, was that okay? But all that his mind could come up with was, "There's no bebop."
Five seconds passed before Crowley emitted a laugh. It sounded half-hysterical. "Bebop?" he repeated, and then he was himself again, breathing and speaking and everything. "Angel—bebop? Do you mean the Velvet Underground?"
Aziraphale waved a hand, as if to say potato-potahto.
Crowley shook his head, an incredulous smile growing. "Aziraphale, of course I want to stay in Atlantis. I've thought about asking you if you wanted to stay down here, myself, for days."
Aziraphale blinked. "You did? Well, why didn't you?"
Ignoring this, Crowley took Aziraphale by the shoulders and looked him solidly in the eyes. Aziraphale thought he might swoon. He thought that if he did, Crowley would surely catch him, just as he always did when Aziraphale tripped—or pretended to—on the rocks. "Are you sure?" Crowley asked, so seriously, one might have expected the fate of the world to be on the line. For Crowley, it practically was. It was a terrifying question to ask, because it very nearly stood in for another thing, something sort of like do you love me or maybe I'm in love with you.
"Of course I am," Aziraphale answered impatiently, "why didn't you just ask, my dear?"
Crowley winced faintly and pulled his hands away from Aziraphale. Aziraphale found this to be extremely tragic. Crowley slipped his sunglasses back on, and Aziraphale found this to be, impossibly, even more tragic. Somehow, hands-in-pockets (which he must've created; Aziraphale hadn't made them any pockets when he miracled the robes) and sunglasses on, watching Aziraphale intently and with no small amount of terror, Crowley managed to say I love you without saying I love you. He said, in a very soft, careful voice, as if afraid he might scare Aziraphale off, "I thought that might be too fast for you."
And Aziraphale found that string of words to be the most tragic thing that had ever happened to him in his entire life.
"Crowley," he started. There was nothing to be said. He had been in love with Crowley for centuries and Crowley had been waiting. Had been being careful. Well, maybe not the whole time, but possibly for several decades. "My dear—" he started again, but quickly abandoned the effort.
Aziraphale walked up closer to Crowley and pulled Crowley's sunglasses off. He wanted to disappear them completely, but he settled for slipping them into one of Crowley's pockets, hands trembling. Crowley looked as if he was waiting to be discorperated.
"Crowley." Aziraphale gathered up every drop of courage in his angelic body. "Can I kiss you?"
The very last of the whites of Crowley's eyes disappeared. Crowley leaned against the building behind him, as if he couldn't figure out how to stand on his own. "Bluh?" he said.
Aziraphale pulled in a breath. "I'm going to need a yes, my dear."
Crowley made a couple attempts at a yes, but his throat was properly blocked up, probably by his heart. He couldn't tell. Maybe he was simply being discorperated right now, from sheer romantic frustration—Aziraphale was trying to kiss him, but he wasn't doing it yet because, of all things, Crowley couldn't figure out how to say yes.
Realizing he was going to make no headway in the speaking department, Crowley seized the front of Aziraphale's robes and kissed him.
Aziraphale, thankfully, seemed to find this an adequate answer, and proceeded to kiss Crowley so thoroughly, Crowley was ninety percent sure he would never be able to form a coherent sentence ever again.
Crowley had tried not to imagine doing this, because it never does anyone any good to dwell on things they will never have, but he had not been successful. He thought, somehow, that Aziraphale would find kissing pleasant, and do it with the same enthusiasm with which he took refreshing morning walks—that is to say, with somewhat-interested indulgence.
He was dead wrong.
Aziraphale kissed Crowley furiously, like it was some sort of competition. His hands came up to Crowley's face and cradled it like something precious. Aziraphale kissed Crowley like he could not bear to do absolutely anything else but kiss Crowley. Aziraphale kissed Crowley the way he ate food: without so much as an attempt at self-restraint.
And Crowley kissed him back as if he'd been waiting several thousand years to do so—which, of course, he had.
This is why, when they pulled apart, Crowley said stupidly, "I haven't shouted at my houseplants. I'd better miracle them over." He had just had his brains kissed straight out of his skull. What else was he supposed to say?
Aziraphale, breathless despite not needing to breathe, blinked. "Yes, you had better," he agreed gamely. He kissed Crowley again, this time for only thirty seconds. "Does that mean we're staying?"
Crowley himself didn't comment on the use of we this time, but his heart commented very loudly on it from inside his chest. "Yes, obviously," he said. He straightened Aziraphale's robe, more because Aziraphale liked to appear put together than because Aziraphale looked any better put together. Actually, he looked incredibly, stunningly captivating after being soundly kissed and it was detrimental to Crowley's remaining one or two neurons. Crowley solved this by looking away from Aziraphale's very pink mouth for a moment, and it was then that he caught a glimpse into the building he had just been pressed up against, through one of its square windows.
He let out a bright laugh. "Say, angel, did you still want those oysters?"
Aziraphale considered this very seriously for all of half a second. He had waited for oysters for over two weeks. He had waited for Crowley for over two centuries.
"The oysters can wait," Aziraphale decided, and kissed Crowley again.