Chapter Text
Aziraphale's eyes flew wide. He spun around.
And there was Crowley. Weeping.
Tears were streaming uncontrollably from those serpent eyes, carving pale tracks through the dust and blood on his face.
Ever since the Fall, Crowley could not remember ever having cried for anything. He'd assumed his tear ducts had been seared dry the moment he'd plunged into the pool of sulphur. But now he could feel the wetness on his cheeks, unmistakably real.
"Cr—Crowley—" Aziraphale said his name, softly, tenderly, about to ask if he was all right. But he never finished the sentence, because Crowley had risen to his feet and was now holding him in a grip so fierce it bordered on desperate.
The embrace was crushing. Crowley had wrapped his arms around Aziraphale with every last ounce of strength he possessed — their bodies pressed tight, collarbone to collarbone, ribcage to ribcage, one heart filling the hollow left by the other, beating together.
Crowley stood where he was, watching the two figures — no, the two beings — locked in their embrace. An angel and a demon, holding each other like that, and it made Crowley suddenly aware of something. He hadn't come here to be kept. He had come here simply to bear witness to this. Or perhaps he had always been the one destined to bring this about — the knot between Crowley and Aziraphale that had needed, at long last, to be untied.
He smiled, and turned his gaze to the sigil. It was still there, revolving quietly, like a door waiting to be pushed open. He walked towards it, calmly. The sigil seemed to recognise his essence — he does not belong to this era — and glowed a little brighter in response.
He stopped and turned back to look at the two of them, still holding each other. Aziraphale had his back to him. Crowley's face was buried deep in the crook of Aziraphale's neck, showing no inclination to look his way.
Well. He didn't mind that. Crowley found he didn't mind it at all.
He waved at the two of them (though neither could see it) and said: "Goodbye."
Just as his foot was about to cross the threshold of the sigil, he paused. He turned once more towards Aziraphale, his gaze travelling over his whole person — from the soft white hair to the cream-coloured coat to the brown leather shoes. Though Aziraphale was now pinned in Crowley's arms, only his back visible.
"I hope we'll meet again, Az—"
He didn't finish the word. He dissolved into a scatter of light, and so did the sigil.
Crowley said, his voice muffled: "He was still calling you Azi."
Aziraphale smiled. "He was trying to say my full name that time. He just didn't get to finish."
They were still holding each other tight. The only sounds left in the flat were the drip of the broken pipe, the rustle of their clothes, and their breathing.
Crowley still hadn't loosened his grip. His arms remained locked around Aziraphale with fierce intensity. Aziraphale could feel the fabric on his shoulder growing damp with something warm and wet. He patted Crowley's back, clumsily but gently, and murmured: "It's all right now, Crowley. It's all right." He repeated it several times, as though humming a lullaby to a startled creature. "It's just you and me now. It's all right."
Crowley didn't answer. His face remained buried in the angel's neck, his breathing terribly uneven. It was only now dawning on him: he had nearly died. No — he had nearly been killed by himself. No — he had nearly let himself be killed by himself. In any case, stripping away the meaningless wordplay, one fact remained: he had very nearly drawn what would have been his last breath in six thousand years.
He still wasn't sure whether he'd gone temporarily mad — what else could explain why he'd made that suggestion and then sat there waiting for death with an expression of perfect serenity? But none of that mattered now. Perhaps it had been a blessing in disguise.
"Do you really not mind, angel?" Crowley's hoarse voice emerged at last. "That I'm a demon? I mean — that angelic version of me was better in every way. If you were with him, you wouldn't have to —"
"Crowley." Aziraphale cut him off. He pushed one hand back against Crowley's chest — just enough to create a little space — then used that hand to cup Crowley's face, tilting it up so their eyes met. Crowley's serpent eyes were faintly red-rimmed, the golden irises made all the brighter by the tears, and all the more fragile. Gently, Aziraphale wiped away a tear that was still trailing from the corner of Crowley's eye. Then he looked at him, with absolute sincerity.
"The one I like is you. The you standing in front of me right now. Not the you from before." He went on: "Whatever you used to be — the one who walked through six thousand years with me is you. The serpent who spoke to me on the wall of Eden. I love that serpent. Not because he used to be an angel, or because he's a demon now — but simply because he's one of a kind. All of the past, everything that happened, forged him into who he is today."
Crowley's voice came out somewhat garbled, his face still cradled in Aziraphale's palm: "But you never said."
"I didn't say it, no. But I thought you'd know." Aziraphale's voice took on a touch of petulance. "He could see it, and you couldn't. You turning up at my bookshop with all that wine, commandeering my sofa — all those quarrels we had and somehow always made up afterwards. I thought you'd have worked it out long ago." He paused. "Though it's true I never quite dared to admit it, either. But still — you didn't see a thing. You —" He struggled for a word, fought with it, and finally landed on: "You idiot."
The word, coming from the angel's mouth, was rather comical. It conveyed his profound exasperation, certainly, but somehow it didn't sound like a real insult. Perhaps the sharp edges had been worn smooth by love.
Aziraphale lowered his hand but kept his eyes fixed on Crowley's. "I was kind to him because he was you, too." His voice had softened again, like a gentle, unhurried confession. "He'd been flung from Heaven straight into Earth — six thousand years into the future. He must have been so bewildered. The moment I opened the door, I saw those uncomprehending eyes, and there he was, standing on my doorstep in those ancient robes. I was stunned — absolutely stunned. But the instant I recovered, my first thought wasn't 'How did he get here?' It was you."
"Me?"
"Yes," said Aziraphale, his eyes curving. "He was so lost. So utterly ignorant of his situation. And so I thought — I thought —" He faltered. "Was it like that for you, too, when you'd just Fallen? You only asked a few questions, and the next moment you were standing among all that strange sulphur, not knowing what you'd done wrong, not knowing if you'd ever be all right again. No one stood beside you. No one told you what to do. But this time I had a chance. I told myself: I didn't have the chance then, but I do now. So I brought him back to the bookshop. I gave him my clothes to wear. I made him hot cocoa. I explained to him, in detail, what era this was." He sniffed, and pressed on: "I thought — if only, six thousand years ago, I could have been there with you. Then you wouldn't have —"
Crowley kissed him.
Or rather, his lips collided with Aziraphale's, more like a collision than a kiss. His hands slid up from the angel's back and into that soft white hair, pulling him closer. At the same moment, Aziraphale's arms wrapped around Crowley's waist, and he tilted his head back, receiving the kiss.
It went on for a very long time — long enough for the traumatised plants to gradually recover from their terror. The Fiddle Leaf Fig reflected, privately, that the hard times might, perhaps, finally be over.
The flat, in the aftermath of the battle, looked as though it had been struck by a small asteroid. Or rather, by two of them. One white, one black.
Aziraphale stood in the centre of the sitting room, hands on his hips, surveying the wreckage. It had taken him some time to process the scene: the refrigerator toppled in the corner, the coffee table reduced to splinters, the scorch marks on the walls, the curtains torn to ribbons, and the glass — so much glass — everywhere.
He glanced back at Crowley, who was leaning against the one wall that had remained mostly intact. There was still a faint trace of dried tears at the corner of his eye, though Crowley seemed to have forgotten about it entirely. He was surveying the apocalyptic landscape of his own flat with his most practised "this has absolutely nothing to do with me" expression.
"So. The two of you, in this flat —"
"We didn't fight," said Crowley. "We were merely engaged in a spirited discussion about the aesthetic value of my furniture. It appears they failed the assessment and opted for collective self-destruction."
Aziraphale turned away, exasperated, and miracled the broken pipe back to wholeness with a snap of his fingers.
And so Crowley set about cleaning up — even though he really, truly did not want to do this. Even if snapping one's fingers repeatedly did eventually get tiring, and besides, in order to demonstrate his diligence, he had resolved not to rely entirely on miracles.
Until he picked up what must have been the dozenth broken bottle.
All right, Crowley thought. Perhaps he needed to seriously reconsider whether this flat was worth repairing at all.
A few days later, Nina detected that something had shifted.
Perhaps the shift was a little too obvious. Because Crowley — the Crowley in black, the one with the sunglasses — ordered a latte.
Nina thought she must have misheard. She looked up at him, her finger hovering in mid-air. "...A latte?"
"That's right," said Crowley, perfectly matter-of-fact. "A latte. Hot. With the, you know, the milk foam on top. You do know what that is, yes? This is a coffee shop."
"Of course I know what a latte is," said Nina, eyeing him as though he'd sprouted an extra head. "It's just that last time you were here you wanted a six-shot espresso. Are you sure about the latte? I'm not convinced it'll suit your palate."
Crowley pushed his sunglasses down just a fraction, fixing her over the rims with a look that very clearly said could you please stop asking questions, and said: "Quite sure."
Nina shrugged. "All right. Mr Fell — the same?"
"No," said Crowley, and the corner of his mouth curled up, looking rather smug. "He'll have a hot cocoa. Same as he always does when he comes here with me."
Crowley settled into the seat by the window. Maggie was nearby, absorbed in studying one of her records. Nina let out a little whistle, and Maggie looked up, and discovered, to her amazement, that Crowley had a steaming cup of latte in front of him and appeared to be examining it with genuine concentration.
Maggie and Nina exchanged a look.
Translated into words, that look would have said: "Good Lord, we've finally got here" and "Yes, they're finally together."
Maggie got up and walked over to stand beside Nina. Something occurred to her, and she asked: "He hasn't been wearing that white suit lately?"
Nina thought about it. "No," she said. "He hasn't." She paused. "Mind you, as good as he looked in white, I still think this look suits him better. Or maybe I've just got used to it." She tilted her chin towards Crowley.
Maggie followed her gaze. Crowley was holding the latte cup by its handle, pinched between two fingers. He sniffed it. Then he raised it to his lips and took a sip. His Adam's apple bobbed once. He set the cup down.
"I don't think he'll be ordering that latte again," said Nina.
"Quite likely," said Maggie.
Crowley didn't touch the latte again. The beverage really was not to his taste, and he had no intention of forcing himself to drink it. He'd simply wanted to try it.
So he walked back up to the counter and said: "I'll have a six-shot espresso."
Nina raised an eyebrow at Maggie, with the unmistakable air of told you so.
St James's Park.
They were in their usual spot. Crowley had brought a bag of frozen peas, and Aziraphale had brought himself.
The ducks, as per established custom, descended upon them en masse. Leo III, the mallard, led the charge, his girlfriend and extended relatives close behind. Delightfully, it appeared they had produced offspring — a tiny, fuzzy duckling was paddling furiously in Leo III's wake. Aziraphale decided to name it Leo IV.
There was more than one duckling, of course. He carefully conferred a name upon every new face. Crowley, half-listening beside him, pointed out that one of the names had been used before.
Aziraphale huffed. "That doesn't count. That was during the Charles Dynasty. We're now in the Leo Dynasty, so the naming system resets."
Crowley smiled and said: "All right, angel. Your duck-nomenclature has officially surpassed human genealogy in complexity —"
"Thank you," said Aziraphale, scooping another handful of peas from the bag.
The afternoon sun sifted down through the leaves, painting shifting flecks of light across the two of them. An elderly woman pushing a cart passed by. She saw two gentlemen sitting side by side, feeding the ducks together, and found the sight so pleasing that she paused briefly to take it in before moving on.
Crowley stretched out his long legs and crossed his ankles, sprawling across the bench. Then he did something he had not done in any public place for six thousand years: he removed his sunglasses, folded them, and hooked them onto his collar. His serpent eyes filled with fine, scattered gold in the afternoon light, the slit pupils narrowed slightly, giving him the look of a feline creature basking lazily in the sun.
Aziraphale turned his head to look at him. Then he lifted his hand from his knee and placed it in the space between them, palm facing up.
Crowley didn't look down. But with the ease of long practice, he laid his own hand on top of it.
Their fingers interlaced.
Out on the lake, Leo III finished off the last pea. He flapped his wings twice with contentment, turned his head, and began gazing absently at his own reflection on the water.
It seemed that, compared to the two supernatural beings holding hands on the shore, he was far more interested in when the next pea was coming.