Disclaimer: Aziraphale, Crowley, and Good Omens are created and copyrighted by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. This is a fanfic, intended only in the spirit of fun. Tons of love and thanks is owed to the amazing and wonderful Daegaer, who provided tons of feedback for the first half of the fic, and then ended up somehow volunteering herself as a beta-reader and a proofreader, and who helped me correct many of my Americanisms with proper British English. And thanks to y'all for reading!
Ordinary Miracles
by Nenena
Chapter 16
Driessen, Alfred and Suarez, Antoine, eds. 1997. Mathematical Undecidability, Quantum Nonlocality, and the Question of the Existence of God. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston. QC6.M357
Sometime later, the two angels left their snowy field and wandered back into the nearby woods. Theo was bewildered and had no idea where they were, but Aziraphale, strangely, seemed to know exactly where he wanted to be going. As they passed beneath the leafless trees weighted down with thick layers of snow on their branches, Theo gave a shiver, and realized that the rips in his shirt had been mended, and that he seemed to be wearing a coat again. He glanced back at Aziraphale and saw that he was once again wearing his long coat and scarf and cap. Aziraphale shook his head and whispered to Theo, "Don't tell Crowley. As far as he's concerned, I never take shortcuts like this."
"Not a problem," Theo said as he gratefully pulled his coat closer around him, shivering in the cold afternoon air.
Soon they heard a pair of voices arguing, and emerged into the gravely clearing where the Bentley was still parked, with a pair of demons standing beside it, arguing heatedly.
Crowley was leaning in a familiar, sleazy, slightly sinister way against the driver's-side door, once again dressed in the same black jeans and black leather jacket which he had been wearing when Theo had first met him. There was a pair of shades resting on his nose, and his pale, gaunt cheekbones were ever so slightly flushed with anger as he gesticulated wildly, almost yelling at Pauline. Theo was not surprised to see that even Crowley's hair seemed to have grown back in, past where he had cut it such a short time ago. Pauline, for her part, looked exactly as she always did, her eyes flashing with rage and her lips pursed tight as she stood, stiffly, listening impatiently to Crowley, and occasionally interjecting with her own cold hiss of a voice.
"I don't care what the other idiots in the legal department will say or not say about you," Crowley was saying, stabbing an angry finger in Pauline's face, "but you made a deal with the idiot boy, and you're obligated to honor that contract--"
"This is a matter outside of our formal contract," Pauline spat at him. The gold rims of her glasses flashed and glimmered in the reflected light of the setting sun, as if strangely punctuating her angry words. "You don't understand a thing, YOU don't work DOWN there every day, my reputation is at stake-- Even though we DID make a contract with him, there was nothing in there about providing assistance in situations external to, or not derived from, the immediate concern of the destruction of his illegal miracle--"
"Fine! Then you can just stay here then, or WALK back to London for all I care! I'm going to go look for them!"
"Look for who?" Aziraphale asked pleasantly, as he and Theo stepped onto the gravel.
The demons both whirled to stare at them at once. "Where have you BEEN?" Crowley immediately demanded, furious. "Did you think it would be funny to just DISSAPPEAR and leave us waiting around in the freezing cold--?!"
"We had to deal with a minor crisis," Aziraphale said smoothly. He fixed his calm, cold gaze on Pauline and continued, "Your boss apparently felt that he was perfectly entitled to breach the terms of the contract he had made with Theo and me."
"What?" Pauline asked, quietly, raising one eyebrow.
"I thought," Aziraphale said tersely, "that the terms of our deal were such that if we succeeded in destroying the miracle before the set deadline, then Theo was to go free and remain unharmed. Your boss, however, thought otherwise."
The expression on Pauline's face was unreadable. "So he reneged on the deal, then, did he?"
"Exactly."
Pauline clenched one fist at her side. "Well," she said. For a moment, she almost seemed to tremble with anger. "Well," she said again, obviously struggling to control her nerves, "That is infuriating, isn't it? And against his own rules, too." Her voice almost seemed to choke on her own forced calmness. "When I return, I can assure you that I will have a word with him about that. Yes, a word. Just a word."
"You sure you want to do that?" Crowley asked, tossing his car keys casually up and down into the air. Unlike everyone else gathered around the car, he was the only one who didn't seem to be angry about anything anymore. "I dunno, Pauline, you know that nobody ever has much luck confronting him about anything like that."
"Maybe cowardly demons don't," Pauline snapped. Crowley immediately caught his car keys and held them still; his expression darkened dangerously. Pauline didn't seem to notice, or to care. "The only problem with the Boss is that he smells fear and he won't listen to you if he knows that you're afraid. But I'm not afraid of him. Never have been, and never will be. And I WON'T stand for it if he thinks that he can get away with pulling such terrible, reckless stunts like this, throwing all of our rules and laws to the wind, and ruining the reputations of honest demons everywhere!"
Theo was far past the point where he would have wondered (probably out loud) if "honest demon" was an oxymoron. Instead, he said wearily, "I'm tired. Can we just go home now?"
Crowley glanced over at Pauline. "Shall we?"
"You three can go back to the city," Pauline said, tersely. "I'm going to take myself straight back Down There, right away." She gave him a curt nod. "Crowley, it's been a pleasure." She turned toward Aziraphale and Theo. "Angels," she said, perhaps a bit less coldly than usual, "thank you for your help." She turned away from them, and walked away from the car. Her feet began sinking into the gravel, as if she were walking down an invisible flight of stairs hidden just below the ground. "Just so that you know, angels, we've decided to drop the lawsuit," she called over her shoulder. A few steps later, the top of her curly-blonde head was swallowed by the gravel, and she was gone.
Crowley had already pulled open the door of his car and had slid into the driver's seat. "Let's go," he said impatiently, beckoning toward the angels. "I've had enough of this place. Let's get out of here."
Aziraphale slid into the passenger seat, Theo climbed into the back, and Crowley twisted his keys in the ignition. As the engine of the Bentley roared back to life, Freddie Mercury's voice, accompanied by a melodramatic crescendo of guitars, burst forth from the car's speakers.
"'Cause we are the champions, my friends,' " Queen sang from somewhere within the Blaupunkt.
Crowley actually slammed his head against the steering wheel. "Dammit. Dammit. Dammit."
"I'm sorry," Aziraphale said, sympathetically.
Theo shrank back into his seat, feeling embarrassed and guilty. Everything really had gone back to the way that it had been before the miracle touched it, it seemed.
They drove back to London in silence. Crowley refused to play any cassettes. There was very little conversation between any of them, and what little conversation there was seemed altogether too short, curt, and to-the-point. At one point, Crowley asked Aziraphale what had happened to the Colt, whereupon Aziraphale had shrugged (guiltily) and mumbled something about "misplacing" it. Crowley gleefully pointed out that it was a terrible thing for Aziraphale to steal one of Jefferson's guns and then not be able to return it when he was finished. Aziraphale had flushed but said nothing, apparently holding his tongue. Then there had been silence. As night deepened around them, Theo found himself dozing in the back seat.
He found himself being groggily woken up when the Bentley pulled up in front of the bookshop in Soho, and Aziraphale was gently pulling him out of the back seat. "Out we get, then," the angel said cheerfully, as Theo stumbled out of the car, leaning heavily against Aziraphale's arms.
"I'm stopping by tomorrow," Theo heard Crowley saying. "If you hear anything from Upstairs before then, you let me know right away, okay?"
"If my lines are being monitored, I'm not going to call you," Aziraphale stated quite calmly. "And there's a very good chance that from now on, they will be."
"Well, do whatever. Just don't lose your job without at least telling me." The Bentley's engine roared angrily as Crowley drove away.
The two angels were left standing on the curb in front of the bookshop. Theo rubbed his eyes sleepily. "Is it over?" he yawned.
"No," said Aziraphale, as he pulled Theo to the door, "No, it's not over yet. Now that things have gone back to normal Down There, I'm certain that at least one demon must have filed a complaint against Heaven about this, by now. They're allowed to do that, you know. And the miracle that you created was highly illegal. It's only a matter of time before Nathanael hears about all of this."
He unlocked the door, they entered the shop, Aziraphale hung up his coat, and then he glanced over at the wilting house plants lining the front window, and sighed. "Poor things, they've been without attention for days." He puttered over to the plants and began talking to them softly. "There, there now. It's all right. It'll be all right. I'm back now. Yes, yes. I know."
Theo stood watching him, too numb to even take off his coat. He was sleepy and exhausted and emotionally drained, and now his knees were beginning to feel weak beneath him. It still wasn't over? He still had to face the prospect of being told that he wasn't actually cut out to be an angel?!
It wasn't fair, Theo thought, feeling his throat tighten unpleasantly. He'd have to tell them that, yes, as soon as the phone call from Above came, he would have to tell them everything, but he'd make a defense for himself, oh yes, he could still make a defense. Sure, the miracle was his fault, but he'd helped see that it had been properly destroyed, hadn't he?! He'd taken responsibilities for his actions. AND he had done good deeds, performed at least one (albeit unconventional) miracle, and earned his wings in the process. They had to let him stay on as an angel now, didn't they?! After all, he had his wings, right?!
Wrong. Theo knew that such thoughts were dangerously, terribly wrong. Heaven didn't care who had wings or who didn't. They were probably going to kick out Aziraphale for this, too. And Aziraphale had been holding down his job for thousands of years already.
"Hey, um..." Theo swallowed nervously. "Hey, um, Aziraphale. What'll happen to you if you, er, lose your job?"
Aziraphale turned away from the plants and began groping around the bookshop, looking for his own dusty plant mister. "Well, 'lose my job' could mean several things," he said conversationally as he rummaged around piles of stacked books and accumulated antique junk, kicking up clouds of dust as he did so. "I could be removed from my post in the field, and re-assigned to a different job," he said. "I'll most certainly be demoted to a lower rank. And, in the worst case scenario, if the jury Upstairs judges my crime in this instance to be severe enough to warrant their strictest punishment, then... I'll lose my wings. They'll cut mine off, and I'll be cast out of Heaven."
"What do you mean, cast out?" Theo asked sharply. "Where would you go?!"
Aziraphale paused, and his shoulders seemed to slump a little. Then he answered, slowly and sadly. "Oh, Theo. There's only one place where a Fallen angel can go. You know that."
"So - so - " Theo's lower lip trembled dangerously. "So, then, everything that we went through today will have all been in vain?! You'll just Fall anyway and that'll be the end of it?!"
"I never said that I was going to Fall for certain," Aziraphale said, as he finally found the plant mister and headed toward the back room, assumedly to fill it up with water from the sink. "Falling is just one possibility. And we do - both of us - we do have mitigating circumstances on our side."
The angel had taken three steps in the direction of the back room, when the coat rack beside Theo suddenly burst into flame.
"AZIRAPHALE!!" the burning coat rack roared. Aziraphale's camel-hair coat, still hanging on it, was enveloped in blue and white flames.
Aziraphale dropped his plant mister and whirled around quickly, reaching out one arm to yank a terrified, petrified Theo away from the flames. "Uh, er, hello," he said. "Er, Metatron, again, is it?"
"NO, THIS IS MALACHIEL! WHO ELSE WOULD IT BE?! IS YOUR APPRENTICE WITH YOU?!"
"Right here," Theo squeaked.
"Ah. Good." The voice of the burning coat rack reduced itself to a normal volume. "Well, well now. Aziraphale. How have you been?"
"Uh..." Aziraphale seemed taken aback by the question. Something was not right. He had not imagined that when Heaven finally came calling, their conversation would start off like this. "Uh, fine?" he tried, hesitantly.
"Better than fine, I should hope!" the coat rack boomed cheerfully. "Tell us, please, we're all DYING of curiosity up here. How HAVE you been doing it?!"
"Doing... doing what?"
"Why, Saving all of those poor, misbegotten souls!" the coat rack exclaimed. "Yesterday we recorded over one hundred of human souls being Saved in your immediate geographic area. At this rate, we've outclassed the Infernal work in the area by nearly four hundred percent already!"
Theo turned slowly toward Aziraphale, disbelieving. "Over one hundred?" he mouthed silently.
Aziraphale flushed a deep, deep shade of crimson. "I'mnotlimitedbyhumanstamina," he muttered quickly under his breath, hoping that the coat rack wouldn't hear. Theo still stared at him warily, not entirely satisfied with this explanation.
"So," the coat rack continued, all friendly-like, "Do tell us, then. What is your secret? How have you been doing it?"
"Well," Aziraphale gulped nervously, "Er, it's just like you said. That is my little secret, you understand. A secret."
"Oh, surely you can tell us."
"Er, I've just been, ah... spreading the Holy Ghost?"
"Of course, of course, we know that already. But HOW have you been doing it?"
"Really," said Aziraphale faintly, "can that please be my little secret for now?"
"Oh, all right," said the coat rack, as if it were indulging a particularly cute child in a small, harmless transgression. "You can keep your secret for now. But whatever it is - whatever you've been doing to these humans, Aziraphale - whatever it is, you keep it up, you hear?"
"Um... sure."
"Oh, and congratulations," the coat rack said, "to your apprentice. We heard that he'd earned his wings already. Is that true, boy?"
"Uh, yeah. It's true," Theo said nervously. "I, uh, yeah, I got my wings." Just please don't ask me HOW I got them! Theo pleaded silently. He was fairly certain that Heaven wouldn't be too pleased to hear that he had earned his wings while doing a good deed for the Devil himself.
"That's wonderful, really, quite wonderful," the coat rack said, apparently deciding not to press Theo the way that it had Aziraphale. "Well, Aziraphale," it continued, addressing the older angel again, "You really seem to be on a roll now. You may keep your apprentice until the end of your month together, and continue to teach and train him as you see fit. I must comment, however, that you two - both of you - have already more than proven yourselves in our eyes." And then, the coat rack added, in a much lower, softer voice, "None of us can wait to see the look on Nathanael's face when he hears about this, either."
There was a bright flare of light, and then the flames vanished. The coat rack stood still and cool, hardly singed at all, and on it still hung Aziraphale's coat, looking as clean and new and unburnt as it ever did. Which is to say, not all that clean.
Theo shot Aziraphale a curious look.
Anticipating the question that Theo was about to ask, Aziraphale answered quickly, "No, Nathanael isn't very popular among other angels. Even by angelic standards, he's somewhat more of an arrogant prick than most."
Crowley dropped by early in the morning the next day, with news from Below.
"Nobody dares file a complaint against Heaven about any of this," he reported, unusually cheerful, as he helped himself to Aziraphale's liquor cabinet in the back room. "Pauline called to confirm it with me this morning, but I had already gotten dozens of memos from just about every department Down There, all filled with dire, dire warnings against anyone who would dare speak out against the hush-up."
"Hush-up?" Aziraphale asked, incredulous.
Theo was staring at them both. "You mean... We're going to get away with this?! Heaven won't ever know?"
"Yes, see," Crowley said slowly, as if explaining it all to a particularly dense child (which he believed that he was), "the only way that Heaven could know about what had happened with your illegal miracle, would be if somebody from our side informed them. It's not like they have any eyes or ears of their own Down There. But nobody from our side is going to inform them."
"Why not?" Theo demanded. He still didn't believe it - it sounded too good to be true.
"Because everybody's so perfectly embarrassed about it all!" Crowley drained a bottle of beer in one gulp, and continued. "What demon in his or her right mind would dare to admit to a bunch of snotty angels that one of their miracles, produced by one of their least experienced and youngest agents, was able to gain entry into the Five Hundredth and Twenty-Ninth Circle and from there proceed to conquer the entire damned kingdom? No pun intended. One lousy little miracle lays waste to five hundred and twenty nine circles of Hell, destroys every demon that it comes into contact with, and even succeeds in turning Lucifer himself into an inane, helpless fool. And then, to top it all off, a pair of idiot angels had to be called in to save the day, and save all of Hell as well. Okay, so, tell me, Theo. Do you think that anybody Down There is at all particularly keen to start telling Heaven about this? If there's one thing that demons really, really hate, it's having to admit defeat. Second only to having to admit that they all might be in debt to a pair of idiot angels. Which, as long as nothing is put down on paper about this, they won't be."
"Okay," Theo said, staring at the bottle of cola that Aziraphale had produced for him, still unwilling to jinx himself by taking a celebratory swig, "Fine. I'll believe that much. But wouldn't Heaven still find out about what the miracle did while it was on Earth?"
"Probably not," said Aziraphale. "Heaven's eyes and ears aren't everywhere down here either; in fact, Theo, you and I are probably the only halfway divine witnesses to anything that the miracle did while it was on this plane of existence. And until the end of time, that it all going to remain our little secret." He steepled his fingers together, slowly, meaningfully. "Understand?"
"Our little secret," Theo repeated, allowing himself to finally take a sip of his cola. "Right. Gotcha." He struggled to remain outwardly calm, although he felt like jumping up and down and screaming with joy. WE ARE SO FREAKIN' TOTALLY GETTING AWAY WITH IT!!! his brain screamed at him.
Theo bit his lower lip, though, and refused to jump up or shout, forcing himself to swallow his excitement. No way he was going to act like an idiot in front of Crowley.
Crowley, however, was ignoring Theo for the moment. "How's your wing?" he asked Aziraphale.
"Mmm." Aziraphale frowned. "Not good at all, I'm afraid."
"Can I see it?"
"Not in here. There's not enough room."
"Maybe you should go see an avian veterinarian? Or an ornithologist."
"That's not funny."
"Fine. If you can't afford that, I'm sure that a general veterinary practitioner will do."
"Crowley..."
"Well, it's either that, or let me take a look at it."
"I said, there's not enough room in here for me to pull a wing out."
"Then," said Crowley, grinning mischievously, "we'll have to go up to where there is enough room."
That meant the roof.
The three of them sat on the roof, Theo shivering in the cold morning air, but neither Aziraphale nor Crowley showing any signs that they were uncomfortable. Aziraphale had taken off his shirt and was bare-chested, his wings spread out over the building, the alley, and the street below. Theo thought that, up close and in the flesh, Aziraphale shirtless was looking far too pale, pudgy, and soft for Theo's taste. Crowley was crouching behind the angel, frowning as he examined Aziraphale's injured wing.
"Is it bad?" Aziraphale asked nervously.
"I don't understand how you can be clumsy enough to do this to yourself," Crowley grumbled.
"Ouch - don't poke it!"
"I have to poke it, how else can I tell if it's broken or not?!... Oh, er, it's broken. I think."
"What do you mean, you think?"
"Well... I'm not a doctor... But it looks pretty busted-up to me."
"I could have told you as much."
The streets below were crowded and bustling, but Theo knew that not a single soul down there would be able to see them, even if one of them did happen to glance up at the roof of a single nondescript two-story building in the middle of the block. Still, Theo felt somewhat uncomfortable, sitting up on the cold roof and being buffeted by the winter wind howling through the city. He felt somehow vulnerable, exposed.
"Hey, kid," Crowley was saying, gesturing impatiently for Theo to come around behind Aziraphale and join him. "You wanna learn a quick and dirty first-aid lesson?"
"What, you're actually going to try to fix it?" Theo asked incredulously, as he ducked beneath Aziraphale's good wing and joined Crowley at the angel's back. "Do you know how?"
"Good question," Aziraphale said, turning his head to shoot Crowley a hard, flat look.
"It's all bent wrong here, see," Crowley explained to Theo, wiggling the bent part of the wing, as Theo heard Aziraphale hiss out his breath slowly, obviously in pain. "And see this silver stuff sticking
out here? That's bone. Definitely snapped this metacarpal, but not cleanly in two. We'll have to set and splint it."
"Oh, no," said Aziraphale quickly, "No splints. I won't be able to pull them back in again if you do that!"
"What, you'd prefer it to heal itself all bent and useless like that?"
"No..."
"Then you'd better get used to having your wings out for a while."
"That's not fair. You know what a handicap that will be for me."
"I know," said Crowley, grinning. "It means that I get to have more fun than usual, from now on."
"Wait, wait, wait," Theo said quickly. He suddenly recalled a memory of Aziraphale touching his tired, sore legs and restoring them to health instantly, even after a full day of almost ceaseless walking. "Can't you just, er, miracle that wing back to normal?"
"Really," Crowley muttered darkly, although he was addressing Aziraphale, "Haven't you taught that boy anything?!"
Aziraphale ignored this comment - he was quite good at ignoring Crowley, Theo was beginning to realize - and turned his clear blue eyes back toward Theo. "My wings are part of my real body," he explained, "So, no, I can't perform miracles to heal my real body. Our ability to perform miracles can only affect the reality of this four-dimensional world; but my real body is thirteen-dimensional in and of itself."
"My wings, too? Are like that? Er, real?"
"Oh, yes. More real that anyone or anything on this planet."
"Which is all, of course, very deep," Crowley snapped, impatiently, "but would you please hold still, Aziraphale, while I try to set this part?!"
When they were finished treating Aziraphale's wing, Theo pointed out, somewhat embarrassed to be the bearer of bad news, that there was no way for Aziraphale to re-enter the bookshop as long as his wings were still out. He could neither fit through the door nor through any of the windows. Nor, Aziraphale admitted, chagrined, could he pull the convenient little trick of allowing himself to pass through solid barriers, not as long as one of his wings was injured so badly.
"I'm stuck up here," Aziraphale moaned, sounding miserable. "No flying anywhere, no falling anywhere, no walking anywhere. Not until this blasted wing heals."
"Relax, will you?" Crowley soothed, as he finished bandaging the last of the splint. "It'll knit itself up exponentially faster than a human bone could. Three, maybe four days at the most. You've been through worse. And I'll try not to do anything too evil around here as long as you're still laid up," he said in a tone of voice that betrayed just how untrue that was, and the fact that he was obviously enjoying watching the angel's reaction to everything that he said.
"I'll, uh, I'll bring up some books for you," said Theo, trying to be helpful. "And a warm blanket, and some cookies."
Aziraphale seemed to brighten up at the prospect of cookies.
Aziraphale ended up curling up with a book and camping out on the rooftop for the next three days, while he sent Theo out to run his errands around town and to keep and eye on Crowley. Theo was doing considerably better with his miracles than he had been before; at least, this time around, he didn't accidentally give anybody duck's feet.
In the middle of the afternoon on the third day, Paul Edwards stepped out of the front door of his shop, glanced up at the roof of the building next door, and called out cheerfully, "Hey, up there!"
Aziraphale glanced up from his book, and then down, over the edge of the roof, startled. "You can see me?!" he shouted in reply.
Edwards shaded his eyes and squinted up at him. "Why wouldn't I? Er, what happened to your wing?"
Aziraphale glanced quickly up and down the busy street. No good; people on the sidewalks and driving down the road were starting to stare at Edwards, as if wondering who or what he was shouting at. "We can't continue a conversation like this," Aziraphale muttered under his breath. A moment later, every single pair of eyes within sight of the bookshop suddenly, conveniently, found a compelling reason to turn away and look in the opposite direction; at the same instant, there was a faint popping sound, barely audible above the noise of the busy, crowded street, as Edwards suddenly vanished from where he was standing on his front stoop, and reappeared with a similar pop sitting on the roof right next to Aziraphale.
"Wow," Edwards said, pulling his coat closer around himself and shivering, "It's freezing up here. How can you just sit there without a shirt on?"
Aziraphale was momentarily taken aback by the question. Here was a guy who apparently had no problem accepting the fact that his neighbor had a pair of wings, or that he had just vanished and in an instant been transported to a location several stories higher than where he had been a moment before; yet he still wondered why and how Aziraphale could sit outside, in the cold, without a shirt, and still be comfortable. "Well, I am an angel," Aziraphale said, as if that explained everything.
"Oh, I know that."
"Er... How exactly do you know that?"
"Well, you told John and I, remember?"
"Yes, but, most humans, er, they don't, normally, that is, they don't... They don't tend to believe me when I do tell them... And I'm not supposed to tell them, normally, anyway."
"Yeah, you know, you're right, I bet that most humans wouldn't believe you. But then again, most humans probably haven't felt your divine member being rammed up their--"
Aziraphale coughed, loudly. Edwards thankfully got the hint, and smoothly switched over to a different subject. "Actually, I was quite embarrassed to realize this morning that I never got around to properly thanking you for taking care of Margie for me."
"Margie? How is Margie?"
"Well, she's a cat again, for starters. And she's back to being a she."
"Oh. Thank goodness."
"And she doesn't seem to have any memory that she was ever anything different."
"I'm glad to hear that."
"And... Well, there's some news that you might or might not want to hear."
"What, er, kind of news?"
"Regarding the work that you did with Bill." Edwards was smiling at him with a sort of infectious good cheer. "He compiled some digital video files of your footage and uploaded them to the website of one of the companies that he freelances for. They've already made a fortune off your videos; they've become their biggest-selling downloads ever, practically overnight. Of course, half of those download requests came from pirates, as usual, and they're already copying and reposting your videos all over their own websites. You might want to know that I did some checking around this morning, and you're all over the internet. I mean, really, all over. You've just become a smashing success."
"Oh," said Aziraphale. He wasn't sure quite what else to say.
"And, I mean, the footage is just amazing - even the still shots are amazing," Edwards continued, enthusiastically. This was apparently a subject very near and dear to his heart. "I watched a bit of your scene with the twins, and it was just, wow, incredible! And you actually deep-throated Big Ben! Just, wow, you know, wow, Big Ben! His cock is practically an extra appendage down there, what was it, like, thirteen, fourteen inches?"
Aziraphale waved his hand vaguely. "Oh, it's not as if I measured or anything, but it felt to be much longer than twelve inches, at least. But it was also prosthetically enhanced, so--"
"But you swallowed all of it! How did you do that?!"
Aziraphale blushed. "It helps that I don't have to breathe... It means that I also have no gag reflex." I am so very, very glad that Theo is out running errands and not around to hear this, he thought, silently but fervently thanking God as he did so.
"Anyway, lots of people have been asking around... When do you think you'll be available to do some more work again?"
Aziraphale fluttered his wings, once, and then looked Edwards squarely in the eye. "Never," he answered. "I've decided to retire from the business."
Edwards shrugged. "That's fine. That's your decision. Lots of people are going to be disappointed to hear it, though."
"Are you? Disappointed, that is."
"No," Edwards answered honestly, and Aziraphale was suddenly immensely pleased (and secretly relieved) to hear it. "Somehow... And this is going to sound kind of weird, I know, especially after everything that happened that day, and after how I was the one that sort of dragged you into it in the first place... But somehow, I dunno, I just don't think that it suits you. You're just not that type of person."
"I'm not a person at all. Not technically."
"Well, there's that too." Edwards laughed. Then his expression turned serious, and he asked, in a low tone of voice, "Listen, you aren't... I mean, you're an angel and all, but you're not going to, er, get in trouble for... you know... are you?"
"I might have," said Aziraphale, "but Heaven will never actually know
about any of it." He shrugged his shoulders, and his wings lifted up and down, rustling softly.
"And you don't regret... What happened between us?"
"No," Aziraphale answered, unable to suppress a smile anymore, "No, not at all. It was lovely."
"And we're still friends now, right? But just friends."
"If you'd like... Er..."
"Oh, I see." Edwards seemed to brighten up suddenly. "Perhaps we could try being friends with benefits?"
Aziraphale smiled, and his whole face seemed to light up with joy. "Hmm. Yes. That sounds like a wonderful suggestion."
On the last day of his month of apprenticeship, Theo went out to lunch with Aziraphale and Crowley one last time. They took him to the Ritz. Theo thought that through most of the meal, Crowley was behaving himself remarkably well, and actually managing to act civil, mostly. That was, until he lifted his shades off his face and tipped the angels a quick wink at the exact same moment that a woman three tables over stood up, flung her bowl of salad at the head of the man that she was dining with, then threw a glass of water at him, plucked a ring off her finger and threw it down on the table, screamed an obscenity, and then stalked away furiously.
The whole restaurant fell silent.
Crowley calmly took a bite of his steak, chewed thoughtfully, and then said, "She was thinking of doing it anyway. She probably would have done it anyway. I just wanted to make sure that it happened before the lunch crowd left the place."
"Well." Aziraphale nibbled at his apple turnover as conversation began to resume at the tables around them. "That was still uncalled for. I thought we'd agreed on refraining from, er, official business, during social occasions."
"It wasn't a consensual agreement. I was drunk. And it was five hundred years ago. And you never got it down in writing. That wasn't very good foresight on your part, was it?"
Theo ignored them both, and munched contentedly on his salad.
"Can we at least agree to it now?" Aziraphale was asking, still not willing to let the matter drop.
"Hey," Crowley said, starting to sound a bit angry. "I don't feel like I owe you any favors right now. I did fix up your wing all better for you, didn't I? A little gratitude would be nice. If anything, you owe me."
"Crowley, a monkey could have splint that wing better than you did. You're lucky that it healed well and I'm lucky that I can fly again at all. And have you forgotten that Theo and I just saved you from an eternity of eating vegan, saving the whales, and knitting your own scarves and mittens?"
Crowley dropped his fork and gaped at the angel.
"If anything," Aziraphale said, with a small, pleasant little smirk lurking on his face, "You owe me."
"You bastard..."
"You owe Theo, too."
"I do not!" Crowley spluttered, angrily.
Theo lazily twirled the prongs of his fork in the leftover salad dressing greasing his empty plate. "Actually, yeah, I think you do," he
said, matching Aziraphale's casually dangerous tone of voice word for word.
Crowley glared at them both. "What kind of a favor are you two talking about?"
"I want you to mention Theo in your next report to your authorities," Aziraphale said briskly. "I want you to specifically detail what a sickeningly good and frighteningly self-righteous angel he is, and I want you to tell your bosses that he successfully thwarted some of your most brilliant wiles several times over in the past month." Aziraphale dabbed his lips with a napkin. "Theo is going back to Heaven tomorrow, and he could be receiving an assignment back in the field as early as next week. If there are any other demons lurking around his new post, well... I want to make sure that his reputation precedes him."
"Are you saying that you want me to report false intelligence about your apprentice?"
"Oh, it's not all entirely false," Aziraphale said, sipping his glass of wine. "But at least we all know that Theo isn't a total prick. Although it would be nice if you made him sound that way in your report."
At sunset, Aziraphale took Theo to St. James Park. They sat on a bench together, and watched children playing in the snow and older couples strolling through the park.
Theo stretched his arms over his head and looked apprehensively up at the sky. "I don't know if I want to go back Up There," he finally said. "I don't want to get an assignment out in the field already. I don't think I'm ready."
"Oh, I think you're ready," Aziraphale countered, calmly.
"But there's still so much that I don't know..."
"If you know that, then that's all you need. You're ready."
"Hmm." Theo turned his gaze up toward Aziraphale. "I'm gonna miss you."
"But we might see each other again, someday. Maybe at staff meetings. Those things can sometimes drag on for decades."
"Yeah, but still..."
"We have until tomorrow to put off saying our goodbyes." Aziraphale reached over and squeezed Theo's hand gently. "So let's not think about that just yet, shall we?" Then he gazed out at the frozen duck pond and said, "You know, I'm going to miss you too."
"I know."
Aziraphale's eyes were misting over. "You're going to make a wonderful angel," he said, although he choked on the last word.
"Aw, hey, don't cry..."
Aziraphale sniffled, and wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his coat. "Crowley would think I was a ninny if he could see me now," he laughed.
Theo thought that he would probably be crying too, come tomorrow. But he didn't want to think about that just yet. Aziraphale was right - they could still afford to put off their goodbyes. But he still wanted to say something to comfort Aziraphale, nevertheless. So he snuggled himself happily against the angel's warm side and said, "Aw, it's all cool. I learned everything that I know from one of the best in the business."
Aziraphale sighed, almost wearily, at that comment. "Er, ah,
Theo..."
"Yes?"
"That little trick of mine that you've probably figured out by now, the, ah, the--"
"Fuck'n'Save?"
Aziraphale blushed a deep shade of crimson.
"Oh, I just thought of the name, just now," Theo said quickly.
"Anyway," Aziraphale coughed, "I don't want you trying that. At least not until you're eighteen." And then, "And we'd better go home and wash out your mouth with soap right away, young man. Using the F-word in front of another angel, I mean, really. Haven't I taught you better than that?"
"Excuse me," Theo said, hopping off the bench, "But it's not as though I haven't picked up a thing or two from hanging out so much around Crowley, either."
Almost the End.