Chapter Text
Anathema hadn’t arrived at the bookshop yet, which was precisely why Crowley had shown up well before their scheduled ‘session’. He needed space, needed somewhere other than his flat to process his run-in with Aziraphale days before that he’d yet to talk with anyone about. That was perhaps the most miraculous thing to have happened so far- that everyone had somehow had the restraint to resist grilling him about the encounter despite having known what he was planning.
He didn’t know what he’d expected when he’d summoned Aziraphale. Was some part of him idiotic and naive enough to think that Aziraphale would just spill everything and return his memories just because he’d asked nicely? He should have known better… which was why he hated what a stab to the chest Aziraphale continuing to shut him out and leave him in the dark had been.
Aziraphale wasn’t cold and calculating. He wasn’t a tempter. He was warm and good, always worried about others far more than his own agenda or wants, and he never would try to coerce anyone into anything he knew would hurt them. Yet there he’d been, hiding things and trying to pull all the right strings to get Crowley to go along with it.
The worst part? A part of Crowley wanted to. Wanted to give in after not just their six millennia of hiding what they were to each other, but especially after coming so close to what they’d always wanted in the four years after Tadfield, only to have their little slice of a new life they were building yanked out from under him when Aziraphale left.
Stupid? Absolutely. Tempting? Undeniably.
“I don’t think Aziraphale will thank you for wearing a hole in his floor,” Anathema said from the doorway, causing Crowley to jump (which he would absolutely deny. Demons didn't do jump scares.)
“Should have thought of that before he vanished and left me to my own devices then,” Crowley huffed, though he forced himself to sit in case she was right. Deep down, he knew this place was more of a home to him than anywhere else ever had been, and would no more see any harm come to it than the fussy Angel who’d first had it brought to life.
“Ready for this?” she asked, as if Crowley hadn’t constantly been nagging her about speeding up the process with every other word they spoke to each other.
Quirking an eyebrow, he said, “What? No twenty questions? No interrogation?” he’d fully expected her to rain down questions on him the second she got an opening, was frankly shocked she hadn’t already done so when he’d called her now that he thought about it.
Shrugging, she said, “I figure if anything had happened that had any relevance to what we’re doing here, you’d have spilled it already. If it doesn’t, you’ll decide if and what you want to share eventually.”
“Who are you and what have you done with witch girl?” Crowley deadpanned at her lack of nosiness, earning an eyeroll from Anathema that could have been mistaken for irritation if not for the slight fond quirk of her lips.
“We doing this or not?” She questioned matter-of-factly, earning her own eyeroll from the demon in spite of him reclining back without any further quip.
“Don’t know if I'll ever get this smell out of my clothes,” he muttered as she started the same process of lighting the incense and mixing her witchy concoction to spread on his temples forehead and eyelids. (Ok, maybe one quip.)
She ignored him, and maybe it was how much the tension of his meeting with Aziraphale had drained him, or maybe he was just becoming more and more susceptible to this process the more times he subjected himself to it, but he slipped under faster this time than he ever had before…
“Burocracy!” Aziraphale whisper-shrieked as he burst into the bookshop before locking the door behind him, arms flailing with a scroll in one of his hands.
“Uh, come again?” Crowley said, a dumbfounded expression on his face not only at the Angel’s reappearance when they hadn’t arranged a meeting but at… well, that entrance. They’d been sneaking meetings any time they could manage it in the last few weeks since Aziraphale had told him everything so they could compare any information they'd managed to find so far (or rather, not find), but never like this.
“A loophole! I believe I may just have found a loophole!” Aziraphale exclaimed as he rushed to spread the scroll on a table.
“In… what way?” Crowley asked, still struggling to catch up with the Angel’s thought process.
Taking a breath to reign himself in, Aziraphale said, “I combed over the information for the Second Coming, and I may just have found a way around it as you did with Armageddon. Listen to this- ‘Manifestation of a divine presence shall constitute fulfillment of the Second Coming conditions.’” Aziraphale beamed as if that was all the answer needed.
When no more explanation was given, Crowley finally cleared his throat and said doubtfully “... And what exactly did you take away from that?”
Huffing at Crowley's lack of enthusiasm, Aziraphale said, “Don’t you see? This leads me to believe the terms of the Second Coming can be satisfied without the Messiah!”
Blinking slowly in confusion, Crowley said, “And how exactly do you figure that? Isn’t that, well, the whole point of the Second Coming of Christ?”
“Ah, see here’s where I come in,” Aziraphale grinned eagerly, “As Supreme Archangel, my role will be to proclaim the terms of the Second Coming fulfilled and grant the final approval to the mentioned divine presence for it to be carried out. But what if the presence of the Messiah doesn't necessarily mean He is the presence I have to pass that approval to?"
“Wait, how does that tie into Armageddon?” Crowley questioned, though some of the pieces were slowly starting to come together.
“We work around everyone's assumptions of how this is going to go,” Aziraphale explained. “Just like we did when we attempted to meddle with the Antichrist. We find someone who fits the bill so to speak, someone aligned with the divine and powerful enough to fit the terms Heaven has set but who has a vested interest in not ending humanity. If the power is passed to them rather than the Messiah-”
“-the whole thing gets derailed and the Second Coming comes to a screeching halt!” Crowley exclaimed as everything clicked.
“I admit, it’s not foolproof,” Aziraphale replied, “I don’t even know if we could find such a person, let alone one who’d be willing to defy Heaven and Hell-”
“-right now, I’d say this is the best shot we’ve got,” Crowley said without hesitation (well, much hesitation.) “You can’t hold Heaven off forever, they’ll pull the trigger eventually.”
“I know, I know,” Aziraphale sighed, though he steeled himself as he said, “So, all that’s left now is to find our proxy.”
Crowley gasped as he came out of the memory, more suddenly than he ever had before as he stammered, “W-what happened?”
“I… I don’t know… something interfered…” Anathema said anxiously.
Frowning and doing his best to shake off the disorientation of being yanked out of the trance so quickly, Crowley said, “Come on, we need to get you out of here,” rushing Anathema out of the shop once she’d gathered her things.
No sooner had they made it out onto the street than Crowley froze as he heard a quiet noise of disapproval he’d had directed his way plenty of times over the millennia to recognize instantly. Suddenly, Anathema was frozen next to him as the white figure he’d come to dread appeared.
“A shame really, Crowley. I suspected you weren’t listening to my insistence that you leave well enough alone, but I had hoped you at least wouldn’t have brought anyone else into this,” Aziraphale frowned with a shake of his head. “I did warn you to put a stop to this, and now you’ve forced my hand.”
Crowley held up his hands placatingly as he said, “Aziraphale, I know you. You’d never hurt an innocent, so let her go.”
Chuckling darkly, Aziraphale said, “Who said I need to hurt anyone? I just need to… remove a few pieces from the playing board for the time being. Consider this your final warning- Stay. Out. Of. My. Way.”
With one more cold look, Aziraphale snapped his finger, and when Crowley's vision had cleared from the blinding flash of light, the Archangel and the witch were gone.
Panic flooding his system, Crowley sprinted to give me Coffee or Give me Death, but skidded to a halt at the ‘Closed’ sign uncharacteristically displayed in the window mid day. He searched the shop after miracling the door unlocked, but his stomach dropped as he searched in vain to find the couple who usually occupied the place.
With a sickening jolt, he realized Aziraphale hadn’t said he would remove a player from the board.
He’d said he’d remove players. And that, it seemed, included Maggie and Nina too.