October 26, 2019
The bus to Oxford (well, Mayfair, actually, by way of demonic miracle) was boarded by Aziraphale and Crowley in a sluggish, squiffy silence. The driver had taken fare from a gangly hand and waved his own, very average hand, to gesture to the several available seats, before resting it again on the wheel and driving off toward a quite different destination than what he had in mind.
Crowley collapsed into a window seat with a glint of interest in his concealed gaze- Aziraphale did not proceed to the seat behind him, but instead, reached for his hand and took his place beside the demon. Crowley let his fingers intertwine with the angel's and tilted his head back thoughtfully. Though six millennia in the making, their relationship had never been very… well, physical. There were of course, brief moments of digits and hands brushing against each other but nothing was ever so purposeful as this. And yet, there was no tension, no desire to pull away. Perhaps it was the bottle of cheap wine (a brief stop at a convenience store was, as it were, very convenient and cheap wine was conveniently the best for a superficially speedy buzz) talking, but Crowley had never felt more content with such a simple action.
They stayed like this, quiet and mostly stagnant, for what seemed to be forever and still, no time at all. Aziraphale's thumb had taken to rubbing occasional circles around the back of Crowley's hand, and Crowley would respond with soft squeezes. Neither looked at each other once, and both kept their gaze very forward as their minds raced in the harsh, artificial, white light of the bus. Aziraphale took the lead as the bus came to a halt (the driver visibly perplexed because this was not Oxford at all), needful to keep Crowley's hand in his own, even as Crowley dug out a generous tip for the driver. The demon followed the angel out, and onward toward his Mayfair flat.
In the many years that Crowley had lived there, Aziraphale had not stepped into the dwelling even once for fear of Holy consequence. Everything was exactly as he had imagined it, of course- from the stark grey walls, to the plants that Crowley had griped about frequently (they were remarkably lush but had a strangely stiff air to them)- although the statue of two angels- wrestling?- certainly not wrestling- was a surprise.
Crowley went off to prepare some tea, which took all but five minutes (three to steep the tea, twenty-three seconds to stir in sugar and tea, and one minute and thirty seven seconds spent studying dust that had gathered in the corner by the kettle). Five minutes in which Aziraphale had taken to critically scrutinise the piece of artwork before him. The demon, evidently, was into minimalism with the very few pieces of furniture and decor (he took note, warmly, of the statue from the Nazi espionage incident of 1941) with their very specific purposes for even being in the dwelling, yet- this?
"Evil's triumph over good, angel." The demon was suddenly beside him, and was received with a gasp and a jolt a few centimeters opposite of where he stood now.
Aziraphale composed himself, adjusting his bow-tie with his gaze remaining upon the sculpture. "It's very suggestive to have displayed right in the foyer."
Crowley's brows raised in unison. "They're wrestling, angel. Nothing suggestive about it."
The angel wondered if the demon even knew, recalling a comment in Mesopotamia thousands of years prior.
"You went out of your way to purchase that specifically?"
"I liked it." Crowley handed Aziraphale the mug of steaming tea and slunk back around to his office's doorway, grimacing at the puddle of Ligur's remains on the floor. Aziraphale had followed and emitted yet another gasp, which startled Crowley and earnt the principality a mild glare.
"Who…?"
"Ligur. I was really hoping that it would have been Hastur instead when I planned it out." He gestured to the red plastic pail, and up to the top of the door, to explain how Ligur had become the Wicked Witch of the West on his otherwise pristine floor.
"That's what you-" Aziraphale trailed off as he absorbed and processed the scene around him, "Oh."
"For insurance, I told you."
Aziraphale felt stupid. Of course this had been what Crowley had meant by that, and he'd spent centuries agonising over the presumption that Crowley had wanted the holy water to do that to himself. Perhaps he ought to start putting more stock in his friend's reassurances.
"Oh, I'm such a fool, Crowley, I'm so s-"
"No," Crowley raised a hand as if to physically stop the apology before it began. "No more apologies, angel. They're redundant, don't. Please."
"Crowley."
"You can make it up to me by disposing of that, though, not so sure that I can touch it without suffering the same fate."
The angel snapped his fingers, pulling his power downward from some Holy levy, and instantaneously the puddle of foul fiend on the floor was gone. Crowley was scrutinizing the action from several safe feet away, and Aziraphale took note of that purposeful distance with great relief. He made a note, also, of Crowley's evident discomfort in regard to Ligur's fate- a look of vague shame, that told Aziraphale that the stakes had been detrimentally dire and desperate and that the demon would have much preferred to go about Eternity without having dealt- well, this. He was not proud. Of course, Crowley's designated Cardinal Sin as a demon had never suggested itself as being Pride.
"How do you propose we deal with that prophecy exactly, angel?"
"Well, seeing that I was capable of possessing a human yesterday, I was thinking rather that," he took a moment to consider word choice, "that, well, we could try to do the same. With each other."
Crowley's eyebrows knitted together and the corner of his lip popped up to wrinkle his nose.
"Possessing a demon, though, Aziraphale? I thought you said we would explode from that earlier?"
"Not if we are precise about it." Pause. "I hope."
"You hope?"
"Well, if we don't try, we'll certainly meet a fate worse than explosion, Crowley."
"Right, so a lose-lose situation."
"Not if we are precise enough. And, anyway, it's not- it's not proper possession."
Crowley shot the angel a dubious glance, then looked down at their locked hands, sighed, and pulled Aziraphale over to the settee. He slumped into it, and with more grace, the principality assumed his place beside him, all prim and proper and cherub-cheeked. With his free hand, Crowley placed his shades aside and turned his serpentine gaze to meet Aziraphale's hazel one. There was so little time to deal with everything that was happening, and it admittedly had him fairly unsettled. But there wasn't even time to be unsettled. He gave Aziraphale's hand another squeeze, more firmly this time. More profoundly.
"I trust you, angel. Let's get on with this being precise, then, shall we?"
It took roughly two, or three, or perhaps four hours of bickering and coaxing and nitpicking at fine details, but ultimately the pair- their hands entwined yet- very precisely and nicely and accurately timed their trade-off of celestial soul and succeeded with ineffable ease.
And it took roughly two, or three, or perhaps four glasses of Moët Chandon Brut (circa 1974) to celebrate not exploding, and to strengthen their resolve to face the consequences of their respective head offices, wisely, in the approaching morning. At daybreak, they parted ways so as to avoid suspicion. At 9, precisely, they met at St. James Park and prepared to save each other's skins.
October 27, 2019
It was the end of the very first day of the rest of their lives, and they were free. Hand-in-hand and alcohol bubbling in their heads, they strolled down the moonlit pavement after a visit to the Ritz. Each could swear that they heard, beneath the cacophony of London nightlife, the song of a nightingale.
"Gabriel is such a wanker, Aziraphale! How the Heaven did you put up with him?"
Aziraphale's eyes sparkled impishly at the demon's exclamation. Crowley didn't sound so much surprised as he was exasperated at the reminder of the archangel's demeanour- he had been an angel, too, after all.
"Avoiding him was easy enough, up until last week."
They settled into the Bentley when they reached it, and Aziraphale thought to comment on Crowley driving under the influence before coming to the conclusion that there would be little difference to the fashion that Crowley normally drove in. The alcohol might even be an improvement.
Crowley took his hand again and for a minute or two, they sat in silence, smiling.
"I like this," Aziraphale murmured, hardly audible as he glanced down at where they met. What he had meant by this could be any number of things: the nightlife, the sense of satisfaction after an expensive meal, the hypothetical harmonising of the nightingale, the moonlight flooding in through the windshield to illuminate their union, the act of the union itself, and how nice Crowley's spindly palm felt in his portly one; perhaps it meant all of the above.
"S'nice."
For some seconds followed more soundlessness that became increasingly static, and concluded with the principality rolling his rounded cheek to rest on the head of his seat. He regarded the other with a thoughtful gaze. His lip gave the slightest twitch, then his mouth began to open to release a choked noise before closing again. He made another attempt.
"I'm sorry, Crowley."
"Sorry?"
From the demon's peripherals, it was evident that Aziraphale was fretting and rather abruptly upset. Crowley furrowed his brow. Always fretting, that angel of his.
"Yes, you know," the angel waved his hand vaguely, eyes dark and shifting in an attempt to keep them from spilling over, "sorry."
"Angel, you needn't apologise to me. You know this. I don't like it."
"But I do need to, Crowley!" His attempt had failed now. "You've been so patient with me, and I've wasted so much time being afraid of- of them," he gestured upward, "and being afraid in general, and I'm sorry for not being able to keep up. I've wanted to, so badly, and it's taken this long."
The bags beneath his eyes swelled and became reddened, and he was blinking his tears away frantically, staring out at nothing in particular. Crowley brought his hand up to his lips. There were so many things, so many words that he wanted to say to reassure the angel, and he searched for the right ones as he pressed gentle kisses to Aziraphale's knuckles.
"I know, angel. There was no choice, before."
Aziraphale nodded slowly. Of course Crowley knew, and Aziraphale knew that the devil was innately more perceptive than he would ever admit to. The principality's face was flushed, from the champagne and from thin lips laying their affections down upon his skin. The shadows of night cloaked the bloodrush well, and for that, he was grateful.
"Of course I understand, probably more than you think that I do," Crowley began, his voice confident and soft and low as it had been at the bus stop the previous night, "but there's no need to fret over this now, angel. There's no use in it, at least."
"They won't leave us be forever, Crowley."
"Forever is a long time, you should know. And it's certainly a long time to be fretting. And," he inhaled, swiveled a sharp cheekbone toward Aziraphale, and let his shades slide slightly down the bridge of his nose, yellow eyes gleaming, "it is indisputably a waste of time that we could spend enjoying each others' company while our respective head offices are the ones deservedly fretting instead."
Crowley had been so cool about this, Aziraphale considered. And here he was, fearful and fretting because it was all that he knew how to do for the sake of self-preservation, and for Crowley's preservation, since it appeared to him that Crowley hadn't the sense to preserve it himself. He huffed. It had begun to occur to him in the past three days that Crowley, despite being reckless and spontaneous and never seemingly being as meticulously methodical as Aziraphale, was frequently right in every aspect of the word.
Wouldn't it be funny if I did the right thing and you did the wrong one?
"So, your place, then?"
"Yes, fine, you dastardly serpent."
Crowley had assessed the bookshop the previous morning- had taken note of the new titles (Biggles Goes to Mars, and Jack Cade, Frontier Hero and 101 Things a Boy Can Do and Blood Dogs of the Skull Sea), of the precise placement of previous titles as he remembered them, of the otherwise not-aflame everything. Still, as he re-entered A.Z. Fell Co. in tail of A.Z. Fell himself, he found himself impulsively brushing his fingers along dusty spines for the sheer familiarity of them. For the reassurance that they were there, unharmed (save for the few editions that had been sold to Aziraphale with dog ears, much to his ire) and intact and not burnt to smithereens. One of those spines did not, however, belong to a book.
The Principality paused at the suggestion of fingertips resting between his shoulder blades, sheepishly requesting some heeding to. He turned on a heel, slowly as he felt he may startle the creature before him, and knew well that a startled serpent was more inclined to bite. If he were to further delve into his studies in herpetology, he would recall that serpents also do not blink, which would hold true even if serpents wore ominously dark Valentino brand shades. To attest this, the angel reached for said shades but was promptly stopped and slithered past hurriedly.
Making a beeline for the scotch, Crowley wasted no time in pouring two glasses nor in downing his serving alarmly fast. Aziraphale sat, and sipped once at his own glass. He watched Crowley pour himself another helping, and had half a mind to question him and half a mind to keep his mouth shut. He chose to mind the latter. The second serving was consumed more slowly, but not near enough for Aziraphale to deem appropriate. Expensive scotch deserved some thoughtfulness. Crowley went in for a third serving.
"You can't shoot scotch, Crowley."
Crowley sneered and gestured to the crystal tumbler clasped between spindly fingers. "Not a shot glass. Not a shot."
"Especially not at five hundred quid a bottle. It isn't mediocre vodka."
Silence. A fourth glass poured.
Aziraphale took it upon himself to confiscate both makeshift shot glass and the nearly drained bottle, just as Crowley had reached for it and attempted to drink straight from it.
"For Heaven's sake, Crowley! What has gotten into you?"
"Scotch. Obviously."
"You know damn well what I mean."
The demon shook his head.
"I'm not stupid, Crowley."
"I know, angel."
Aziraphale shifted agitatedly in his seat and made a second round of going for Crowley's shades. Crowley's hand wrapped itself gingerly, yet firmly, around the angel's wrist. Aziraphale's grip on the glasses was unyielding and Crowley arched a brow inquisitively. Aziraphale responded only with a determined stare, and at the end of it, he had his way and finally slid the shades from his companion's face.
Oh.
The demon's irises like burning embers were stretched predominantly over his scleras, but the white that was visible was bloodshot. There was a wet glint that shone in the warm, dim light.
"Oh, Crowley-"
"Please don't fuss over me, angel." Crowley reclined in his seat, placing snakeskin shoes on the table and some distance between himself and Aziraphale. His gaze shifted away, toward nothing in particular.
"Pleassse," he stressed, "I can't take it if you do. It'sss just that, I sss'ppose, the whole end of the world thing hasss caught up to me."
He was promptly ignored by the stout thumb that briskly pivoted away the first of his tears, and then the second and the third and all of those thereafter. When, some minutes later, his lacrimals ran dry he found himself reaching toward the plane of the angel's chest and resting his head upon it. Consoling fingers ran through his flaming head of hair. He breathed.
"I gave up," he said. "I gave up, and I did a hundred right to that pub and got ssshitfaced, and I waited for the end. The bookshop wasss burning, and you were gone."
I lost my best friend.
Aziraphale held him and this time, it was his turn to suffer a liquid gleam to the eyes. He knew that Crowley's hissing was indication that he was forgetting himself.
Ah. So sorry to hear that.
"And I thought," Crowley continued, catching his tongue as if Aziraphale had projected his observation, "that there was no point anymore, without you. Nothing else on Earth mattered, and it wasn't... worth saving, suddenly."
"The Bentley?" Aziraphale provided. "The plants, the ducks, the books that you claim you don't read."
The demon's brow scrunched in acute anguish and he gave a shake of his head. He could feel the rush of scotch to it now, and the offer of liquid courage needn't have asked twice to tempt him.
"Angel- Aziraphale," he pleaded, hushedly and rose unsteadily from his seat to be at eye level with the other.
"Aziraphale," he repeated. "'Ziraphale."
It was as though he was struggling to push past for the words that he wanted to say but, in saying the angel's name, could communicate them all anyway in voice and in amber orbs alone. The You are my World, and the I only value this World if you're in it with me, and the It has always been you, us, against- for the World, and We are on Our Own Side now, and the It's Ineffable.
His hands slid upward to cradle either side of Aziraphale's face with such great vehemence in his golden gaze that Aziraphale's mock-human heart went through a bewildered series of stopping and swelling and bursting all simultaneously. Crowley pressed their foreheads so desperately together with the principality's name still whispered hoarsely on his lips.
Aziraphale understood, and so closed the gap between them.
There was a surge of electricity as this occurred, and in the morning there would undoubtedly be a news report regarding a sudden worldwide power outage. Some would speculate that it was a sign of the Apocalypse. That couldn't have been further from the truth, of course.
October 27, 2020 - Devil's Dyke, England
The last time that Crowley had a wicker picnic basket in hand, he had been delivering the Antichrist in it to a Satanic nunnery eleven years prior to the End Times.
The End Times never did come.
In fact, it had been roughly a year since Armageddon's due date, and like most days (especially End-of-October days) in England, it was grey and dreary. There was some meager suggestion of sunlight boring through wispy clouds. A lone beam like a spotlight shone down upon cream-clad shoulders and a shock of flaxen curls, belonging to the only Ethereal being sat at a beachside bench on that afternoon. Crowley glared upward in bemusement, because of course the only source of light from the heavens graced Aziraphale, refracting some semblance of a halo.
Aziraphale turned to smile at him. Crowley softened.
They settled down together along a rocky shore, and a picnic was had (sandwiches and crisps and, one might say, particularly divine angel cake from a local bakery) upon a red plaid blanket.
Upon reaching into the very depths of the wicker basket for the divine angel cake, however, Crowley instead felt the brush of toothy paper at his fingertips and promptly froze, something like an electric shock rushing from his pointer digit and up his spine and to his head.
Aziraphale's voice was fuzzy as it called for him, inquisitive. Pouting, probably, at the delay of his dessert.
Crowley retracted his arm, and in his hand, he held a scrap of age-stained parchment marked up in dark ink. Aziraphale gasped, and his grey-hazel gaze shifted quickly to Crowley's serpentine ones.
"No. Absolutely not."
"Already read it."
The angel, if he hadn't been pouting previously, was doing so now.
"So've I," he admitted. Crowley's brows arched high in response, and he narrowed his gaze.
"Well then. Game's afoot, best prepare. Precisely so, probably."
"Probably," said the angel. "But after dessert."
The demon smiled, softly, at the angel. Yes, fine- after dessert.