Chapter Text
One Of You
CROWLEY HAD CHOSEN. Not without a certain amount of cursing and crying, but he had chosen.
“Just spit it out. I’ve got things to do,” growled Beelzebub.
“Fine. I promise I will never cause substantial trouble again. I will do only what I’m ordered to. And I admit that you were indeed right to punish Adam. I am your loyal subject.” Crowley had said this mechanically, as fast as he could. Now he spoke in his normal voice. “Oh, and you’re all vile murderers. Will that do?”
“Mh-hm. You will never call me a murderer again. Will you?”
“No. Lord.”
Hatred writhed in Crowley, swinging around from target to target like a broken compass. Beelzebub, for having this power over him. For turning him into a traitor to Adam. For knowing him so damn well.
Beelzebub’s shoes, for being so stupid. Made of the cheapest snakeskin he had ever seen, also known as real snakes. So uncreative.
Himself, for being so easy to read. So small-minded that he would sacrifice everything for Aziraphale. Even the decency he had tried to cultivate.
“Congratulations,” he said, oddly relieved at saying the words aloud, “you’ve turned me into the evil scum of a drone you’ve always wanted. Good for you.”
“I’m not in the mood for a monologue either.” Beelzebub flicked a claw. “Get out.”
That’s when the desire flared inside Crowley. With great effort, he kept his composure and managed not to run. He simply walked out.
Only one thing would make it close to all right. He had to see Aziraphale.
Now.
THE BOOKSHOP DOOR CLOSED.
Feeling a desperate need to release some of the energy that had built inside him, before he exploded, Aziraphale opened the door again and shouted: “Gabriel! Your tie is on backwards!”
“We’ve got to work on your insults,” said a voice.
Crowley stood in the frame, illuminated by the light of the autumn afternoon. He was more run-down than Aziraphale could remember him being in millenia, even on the day of Adam's death. There were permanent creases in his brow; the weight that had seemed gone, or at least suppressed, was back. He was not his unflappable self. But under no circumstances would Aziraphale mistake him for anyone else.
He said,“I’m perfectly happy with my current insult capacity, thank you.”
“And that’s what I like about you,”
It struck Aziraphale that Crowley might have come from his own ultimatum. Must have. Beelzebub has Crowley, Gabriel had said. Should he say something? No, much better to wait, see how Crowley handled it. He reached for his coat. “Shall we-”
“Angel, I can’t do this. Gabriel came by, didn’t he?”
Or perhaps not.
“Well, yes. But it was nothing important.” He couldn’t think about what he’d done. What it meant.
“I’ve told you not to lie to me. You’re lousy at it.”
The implications of those words were so casual, they hit with full force. How easily they spoke of millennia together. They stirred something inside him that he didn’t have time to think of, because suddenly Crowley was crying. It felt wrong. So much so that Aziraphale embraced him without thinking.
He had always suspected that when true crisis came, Crowley would be the composed one, always calm and optimistic and defiant. He had thought he would be the one breaking down. Although he should have known it was more complicated when they visited the void, he had continued to hold Crowley’s strength in the highest esteem. Guilt crashed over him. What would have happened if he kept taking it for granted that Crowley would be alright?
“Crowley, did they make you-”
“Yes. They’re utter wankers.” He was gradually regaining control.
“Thank you.”
“So they made you that deal?” Crowley wiped his eyes and tried to make it look as though he hadn’t been crying.
“Yes.”
Crowley looked away. “Um, what did you say?”
It took much longer than it should have, but he forced the words out, past the guilt and rage. “You, Crowley. I told them I want you.”
Silence. Total and complete. Then the slither of Crowley’s swallow.
“Yeah. I mean, yes. Me, too,” the demon said.
Tears-of joy, at last-stopped up Aziraphale’s vocal chords. “That-that’s good of you to say.” An understanding began to come. An understanding which made the idea of pulling away from Crowley as unbearable as the memory of Adam’s death. The feeling brought as much fear as joy. He laughed nervously. “Now I suppose you’re going to say you never did say that.”
“Yeah. Damn, you know me.”
For the first time in a year, Crowley sounded like his old, casual self. The one who always knew how to make light of the dark. And it was wonderful and awful. He shivered. Which part of Crowley did he want?
And yet all of Crowley set him ablaze.
He forced himself to pull back, though this newly awakened part of him cried out in protest, and said: “I find I do. And despite what I’m told I should feel, it doesn't damn me.”
Crowley blinked. “Well, er, that’s good.”
And Aziraphale dispensed with restraint, an unimportant, cumbersome thing. “It blesses me, Crowley. Having you in my life is a blessing Heaven never meant to give me.”
For a moment, his usual self surfaced. He saw what he was doing for what it was. It was madness, lunacy. He had to stop.
He leaned across the space between them and kissed Crowley. There was nothing in the world but a feeling, drowning everything else. He was full, now and only now.
Crowley pulled away. He made no effort to kiss back.
“No,” he said. And with no warning, he locked eyes with Aziraphale, put a hand on the angel’s shoulder, and punched him hard enough to knock a mortal unconscious.
AZIRAPHALE WAS CONFUSED by the blow. It had nothing to do with horror at the response to his life-long desire, yet. It was simply that Crowley did not hit people. He was not that bald-faced, that physical, however Aziraphale complained about his lack of subtlety. And yet there was blood on his face and Crowley’s fist was red, and he rubbed it with the other.
“No,” Crowley said again.
Aziraphale said, “What was that?” He had noticed there was a deliberate, practical way to the punch. Deliberate and practical were other things Crowley almost never tried to be. It was important that he understood where that had come from. He dropped into a chair.
“Stage combat,” Crowley said.
“What?”
“Stage combat. When you hit people in a play. Before you hit someone, you put your hand on their shoulder.”
“But this isn’t a play.”
“I know. But I wanted to hit you.”
“Crowley. I’m sorry.”
“No,” Crowley said. “We’re okay. Just…don’t.”
“It’s not choosing me over him to…to love me.”
Crowley flared out his wings, knocking over a stack of books. He seemed to relish it.
“I know. Because I already did that. You think I can kiss you?” The vitriol drained away. His muscles relaxed. “We can be friends. But I can’t love you. Oh, god, angel, they-they killed him, and I…just went along with it.”
Aziraphale took a deep breath. He had to be the strong one. And as he grew certain of that, all other doubt seemed to leave him, as though in response. He believed what he was about to say. “We can’t fight to destruction, Crowley. I’m not going to break for their amusement.”
“But how can we just give in when they-”
“He knew, I think. That he might not…” Aziraphale couldn’t keep going, but there was no need.
“We have our own ways of rebelling,” he continued. “Things they can never say are wrong. Filling in for each other. Being just a little late to those department meetings. Helping the humans in ways we can justify.” He rushed on, but it was unnecessary: Crowley was staring at him, speechless. “Besides, turns out I can lie. I have no intention of trusting them again. Yes?”
“Yes. You dither over everything, but that you can say?” Crowley outright laughed.
“Not if it’s true I don’t.”
“Oh well-well, er-” Crowley stammered, holding out a hand. Aziraphale took it.
After a pause, Crowley said, “Do you know what I was thinking about when Adam was dying?”
Aziraphale felt himself a child, two feet tall. But he had befriended Crowley, had clung to him despite everything. Surely he could ask one poltruy question.
“What?”
Crowley’s eyes, bright yellow, the shades of sunshine and gold and honey poured together, met Azraphale’s, and both shoved aside the thrill they felt at this contact. Far too intimate and nowhere near intimate enough. “Cake frosting,” he said,
The understanding between them vanished. But Aziraphale could not ask a question, because Crowley was talking again. “Cake frosting,” he repeated, and now his tone was different. It wasn’t flat, it wasn’t affectless, but neither was Crowley laughing, and those had always been the basic options before Adam’s death, even if there was more underneath.
Now the tone of voice was unmistakable. It was hatred. For a moment there was nothing more underneath. And then there was.
And Aziraphale understood. He understood as though for the first and only time, one of his children’s magic tricks had worked perfectly. He understood who Crowley hated.
Crowley hated himself.
It had always been himself.
It had never been Aziraphale.
Now Crowley was crying. Jagged, never-ending tears. Tears which you know, without them touching your face, are hot. Then there were words discernible in the mess, the way a puzzle is discernible when you look at the cover. Garden, dead, light, water, light, water, knife. Here a ragged breath, the breath of someone trying not to scream. And then, much more clearly: “Cake frosting!”
It always comes back to the cake frosting, Aziraphale thought, and there was a bitterness in the thought which he didn’t understand.
But all he did was kneel next to Crowley. All he said was, “Crowley, what’s wrong?” Immediately, he knew it was the wrong question.
“What do you think? Come on, I know you can get it if you try.”
Aziraphale refused to be angry. He changed the question. “What does what’s wrong have to do with the cake frosting?”
Crowley didn’t answer. Then he said:
“You know what I was thinking when he was dying? When Adam was dying? His blood looked like cake frosting.”