Chapter Text
Aziraphale held up the sword. There was a whoomph as it suddenly flamed like a bar of magnesium.
“Once you’ve learned how to do it, you never forget,” he said.
He smiled at Crowley.
“I’d just like to say,” he said, “if we don’t get out of this, that … I’ll have known, deep down inside, that there was a spark of goodness in you.”
“That’s right,” said Crowley bitterly. “Make my day.”
Aziraphale held out his hand.
“Nice knowing you,” he said.
Crowley took it.
“Here’s to the next time,” he said. “And … Aziraphale?”
“Yes.”
“Just remember I’ll have known that, deep down inside, you were just enough of a bastard to be worth liking.”
*
The flaming sword of Aziraphale, very much like its angel, is not a subtle creation. [1] As a casing point to this, its plan for reinserting itself very firmly back into Aziraphale’s life and simply refusing to ever leave it again is very simple and very … blunt.
[1] Aziraphale himself, naturally, would disagree vehemently with such words, and declare himself to be a veritable model of subtlety. Aziraphale is such a liar sometimes.
Aziraphale is not a great traveller, he likes his routines and will really only allow the Serpent to interrupt those routines. If the flaming sword can simply coax its angel into accepting it was an integral part of his routines now, then the sword will never be sent away again. The obvious solution, therefore, is to simply follow the angel around until he stops noticing it as something new. Until he forgets a time when he didn’t have a flaming sword ready to hand. [2]
[2] It really must be acknowledged at this juncture, that the flaming sword has no real notion of the dangers it is setting itself up for with this course of action. Not that it will be used in battle, of course not, how could you think such a thing? No, it is instead at significant risk of being used as a handy letter-opener, a priser-open of recalcitrant tea tins, and as a lever to keep that faulty sash window open in the back room. Throwing oneself recklessly into unknown danger is not behaviour becoming to the office of flaming swords, but no one will tell Heaven’s Armoury if we don’t…
This will also give the flaming sword of Aziraphale the added bonus of an opportunity to discover more about its angel’s life, resources, and potential dangers. They have, after all, been separated for a very long time, and there is much to catch up on.
The flaming sword of Aziraphale rapidly learns that it is a very odd kind of life, being around the principality and the Serpent…
*
The Bookshop: A Treasure Trove of Tales, (and not even the ones you expected…)
The flaming sword had heard a lot about the Bookshop from the Bentley, but meeting it for the first time had been a little strange. It is not, as the flaming sword had worried, like the armoury of Heaven, filled with Holy Weapons of all sorts of forms and functions, each with their own clashing personalities and no restraint to keep them in order. The Bookshop is more like a swarm of bees of colony of ants; many individuals making up one whole.
There are certain individuals that stand out a little more than the others, of course. Some are signed, and carry fond memories of kindly, creative individuals who had bonded with the enthusiastic if strange young man who had bought the very first copies ever to be printed. Some carry sad memories, of quarrels never quite righted, or unrequited feelings or awkwardly missed offers. On whose side any of these feelings lie, the sword cannot always quite pick up; books aren’t all that interested in specifics, much more concerned with themes and creative concepts and inspirations. Of course Aziraphale had inadvertently inspired so many young minds to keep trying just when they had been about to give up, on their dreams, on their audiences, on the world that they didn’t quite fit in.
There is a rather splendid collection of Jane Austen’s books by the desk that are somehow still apologising for 80 years of accidental abandonment – something about comfortable beds and sloth (and maybe a certain amount of sulking, but no one can force them to admit it.)
Tucked away in a corner is a ruffled, battered copy of Milton’s Paradise Lost which tells a somewhat incoherent and frustrating story of being picked up without warning and violently thrown against the opposite wall back in an age of high hats and frock coats, splitting its spine and creasing its pages atrociously. The sword is aghast and confused; this is surely quite out of character for its book-loving angel. There was a row in a park, Milton explains, something about Holy Water and last resorts and the Serpent wanting to leave the angel to face trouble all alone if things went wrong. That does not sound much like the Serpent either, the sword thinks, but then Milton says something about fraternising and the Serpent having other options, and the sword smiles to itself at the ridiculousness of the whole thing. As if the Serpent could find anyone as perfectly suited to fraternising as the sword’s principality! Do books suffer from concussion?
There is a set of books of prophecy which tell the sword a totally unlikely story of a church and a bomb and a demon walking across consecrated ground to rescue an angel. Well… it would be totally unlikely if the flaming sword had not met both the angel and the demon in question before. With that kind of context, the sword can only smile with gentle pride; it knew the Serpent could be trusted to look after the sword’s principality. It was good to be right.
*
St James’s Park: Or the remarkable neutrality of ducks
The flaming sword of Aziraphale takes one look at St James’s Park and sees it for what it is: Forcibly Neutral Ground. In every conflict, there needs to be a space for both sides to meet up and discuss matters without fear of repercussions, otherwise how would anything actually get done?
Except… well, then there are the ducks.
Ducks, the flaming sword of Aziraphale learns, are frankly amazing gossips. The sword makes a note to remember this fact, both for its own benefit and to prevent an enemy from learning of this fact too. [3] Today it is a helpful fact, as it allows the flaming sword a completed story of the Holy Water Row, which sounds fascinating. The sword also hears another part of the really very confusing plot to avert Armageddon, which it still doesn't understand, not even having heard the parts known to the Bookshop and the Bentley as well.
There are less serious stories too, of course. One time Crowley had lost a hat he had been particularly fond of in the lake, and the angel had absentmindedly walked across the surface of the water to fetch it and caused mass hysteria to sweep the area for a week before the pair could bring matters back into order. Another time, the angel had said something especially sweet to the Serpent, and Crowley had introduced fifteen new species of flowering plant to England by forcing the flowerbeds to shoot into bloom in his confusion. It is all very sweet and very ridiculous.
[3] It doesn’t matter which enemy, of course. There will always be one.
Ducks also turn out to be really quite fantastically vicious, the flaming sword learns while watching a small mob attack a yuppie trying to impress his date by catching one. The flaming sword approves of such responses heartily. Out of the corner of its (metaphorical) eye, it watches the Serpent all but crying with laughter as he watches, burying his face in the angel’s coat and shaking with the force of his mirth. Aziraphale is clucking away at him, pretending to disapprove of Crowley taking such pleasure in the misfortunes of another. But Crowley clearly knows that he doesn’t mean a word of it, not really, and unlike the flaming sword, Crowley can’t even see the smile tugging at the corners of Aziraphale’s lips.
Ducks, or at least the ones in St James’ Park, are very fond of Aziraphale indeed. He feeds them after all.
The flaming sword of Aziraphale learns this after they try to sink it in the lake to see if it will die that way. An entirely fruitless effort, but they make a few more very enthusiastic attempts at it before giving up and finally just asking what the sword is doing near Aziraphale.
HE IS MY ANGEL. The flaming sword tells them, and they pause and consider it.
They tell the sword that it is not at all like the Bentley.
NO, I AM NOT. I AM A FLAMING SWORD, NOT A CAR.
Ducks have no context for either of these words, but they understand bread and they understand the people who bring good bread. Aziraphale brings very good bread, and although Crowley does not bring bread at all, Aziraphale’s bread never runs out before the Serpent has finished his conversation, and the ducks have noticed this.
When Crowley points the flaming sword’s presence out to Aziraphale, and the ducks watch with baited breath and beaks at the ready to see if they are cleared to attack the sword. The angel rolls his eyes and pats the sword with absent fondness.
The ducks subside and nod to the sword. The flaming sword may stay, they say. They don’t know what the sword is for, but if it comes with the angel, it can stay.
ONE DAY, the flaming sword of Aziraphale promises them, ONE DAY I WILL BRING YOU ANGELS AND DEMONS THAT YOU CAN ATTACK.
The ducks are appeased by the promise of blood. The flaming sword is pleased to have acquired allies which neither Heaven nor Hell will likely be expecting.
Just in case, of course.
*
The Bookshop: An Angel’s Bookshop is His Castle
A few things about the bookshop as an entity do strike the flaming sword as ... interesting.
Firstly, the bookshop is warded to the, well there really is no other word for it, to the hilt. The flaming sword of Aziraphale has been through wars and sieges and everything in between. It has seen defensive structures built to withstand armies, and assassins and ghosts and demons. And as the flaming sword looks around at the defensive wards in Enochian, and Babylonian, and Latin, and five different Celtic traditions, and Estonian, and… all of them interlocking and criss-crossing with no regard to the sheer oddity that this mass of defences presents … Well, even the flaming sword thinks that this all might be a bit much.
What does Aziraphale even expect to need to do with all this defensive power? Hold off a whole occult army? It stares at a particularly nasty set of sigils to burn the wings off an angel if they approached with ill-intent, sitting somewhat incongruously next to a devil’s trap and (even more bizarrely) a cheap charm for good fortune which was most definitely picked up from Glastonbury in 1963. [4] What, multiple armies even?
Oh.
Well then.
[4] The flaming sword of Aziraphale is unlikely to discover this for some time, but the charm is one of Adam’s little additions, heavily influenced by Pepper’s Mum’s residual quirks form her hippie days, and Anathema’s more recent inspirations.
The flaming sword of Aziraphale takes another, even deeper, look at its angel’s fortress. Many of these wards hadn’t been raised, by the looks of things. [5] They were just… waiting. Just in case. As a last resort, perhaps.
[5] Until recently. But we shall come back to that. Hold that thought.
With this amount of power, locked up inside one site for over three centuries and containing the kind of knowledge that must have taken… Well, it must have taken about six millennia to accumulate and understand. Aziraphale could probably defend most of London with no one being any the wiser.
The Bentley had mentioned, carefully and with ill-hidden ire, the Serpent’s plea to Aziraphale the leave with him, to run away from the coming War and hide away somewhere they’d never be looked for. The flaming sword had been unsurprised to hear that the Serpent had been unsuccessful.
Aziraphale had never been a coward in the realest sense of the concept; had hated fighting, yes, but had been good enough at it to not have needed to do so very much of it. Had never learned how to back down really, only to frustrate his opponents and prevaricate until the need for conflict had passed. Had been more interested in keeping his soldiers alive and unharmed than in glory or the strange niceties of conflict which tended to only draw the fighting out longer than was necessary. Aziraphale was an effective commander and soldier, not a pretty one, nor a showy one. And nor had he ever been stupid, no matter what his colleagues had apparently lulled themselves into believing.
Had the Apocalypse truly come down upon them, were Heaven and Hell to come a second time for the Principality, wards like these would buy him a significant amount of time. Would decimate an army if they rode against his stronghold, leaving broken forms and ravaged infernal or celestial graces littered at their fringes. It seems a little excessive at first glance?
The flaming sword thinks again of an angel and a demon forging a third side in a conflict they had tried to avert and it thinks about how, against all the odds, that third side had prevailed. It thinks about all the history it has lived through, all that it has learned of the way people who want war, who think that it is inevitable and righteous and profitable, how they think, and what they do when they don’t end up getting what they want.
Aziraphale - as an angel and a messenger and a miracle-worker, an answerer of prayers – Aziraphale has also lived through so very many wars here on Earth, as well as in Heaven. He had made his plans accordingly, and he had learned more than perhaps even his Serpent had realised.
The flaming sword is glad to have been right about its angel too. Not that there was ever any doubt that it would be, of course.
*
The Ritz:
The Ritz does not really have a voice, which is disappointing. As the flaming sword of Aziraphale hides under the table, it contemplates the lost opportunity that this fact presents it with. After all, from all the very obvious billing and cooing going onto up there, [6] there must be some truly excellent anecdotes to be shared. It is all very vexing.
[6] Aziraphale would have called it ‘a rather charming conversation with an old friend, just catching up, you know?’ Aziraphale is, as previously noted, such a liar.
One bright spark, however, of the afternoon, is the moment when the Serpent drops his fork and reaches down to retrieve it. In doing so, he catches sight of the sword, leaning against the table leg and helpfully obscured from the view of all save those at floor level by the cloth.
The sword waits to see what the Serpent will do. It does not tense; it is a sword. But if it had breath, it might very well have held it.
The Serpent just smiles a little wickedly at it, and then he tips the sword a wink.
The sword suddenly feels very hot and very confused. No one has ever winked at it before. It isn’t sure quite what it should do.
Then the angel asks the Serpent what he is doing down there, and the strange demon vanishes upwards again.
The flaming sword of Aziraphale totally loses track of the rest of the afternoon’s conversation, but it is brought sharply around to the present again as the two diners finally stand to leave.
“And angel?” The Serpent calls, teasing tones warming his voice. “Do take your sword with you, won’t you? Can’t have it getting left in the lost property like that dreadful trilby, can we?”
“That trilby was very fetching on me, I’ll have you know, you old serpent.” Aziraphale tosses back, reaching under the table for the sword without thinking.
They are half-way to the door before what Aziraphale has done catches up to him. He stops and stands there in the middle of the lobby, staring at the weapon in his hand.
“Oh my,” he says, then he looks up at Crowley’s badly-hidden smirk. “Did you know it was there this whole time?”
“Only stopped it after I dropped the fork. Poor thing must be lonely, if it’s following you the Ritz like this. You ought to take it out more, I wouldn't dream of neglecting the Bentley like this. It’s cruel.”
“The Ritz is not the sort of place for flaming swords, my dear!” The angel sounds aghast, but he is also clutching the sword protectively to his chest while he says it. The flaming sword glows a little at this unthinking care and attention.
“Oh I don’t know,” the Serpent says airily while turning and heading back towards the door. “I think it lends a real … flair to your whole ensemble, that sword does. You ought to make a Thing of it somehow.”
They climb into the Bentley, and Aziraphale lays the sword across his lap while he reaches for his seatbelt, and then quite forgets to move it away from himself again.
“Do you think so? I shouldn’t think that I’ve ever been much of a flaming sword-having angel, really. Not even at the Beginning.”
Crowley rolls his eyes behind those dark glasses he wears. The flaming sword makes a note of its angel’s doubts, yes, but it also makes a note of the Serpent’s defense of it. It will repay this kindness somehow, it promises itself.
“Well, I think you suit it, and it seems to like you, so I don’t know who else you think matters enough to have a say.”
Aziraphale thinks about this for a long moment.
“Well, I … I suppose I shall have to think about it, won’t I?”
“You do that.” Crowley fiddles with the Bentley’s radio until Queen comes crooning out of it.
They spend the rest of the drive in silence, but it is comfortable, and the sword and the Bentley exchange fond affection all the way home.
*
The Bookshop: Seizing the Moment, and Life After Death
The other thing that immediately strikes the flaming sword of Aziraphale about the Bookshop is that the latter is very … confused.
It takes the sword a long time to try and work it all out, but what the sword manages to understand is that there was a fire, which destroyed the Bookshop, but then there wasn’t a fire, and the Bookshop is fine, except that it is … different somehow. And even more importantly; the Bookshop knows this.
That must be very disconcerting, the flaming sword suspects.
All in all, it is probably a good thing for everyone concerned that Aziraphale has never had very much interest in the types of philosophy and biology dedicated to determining one’s self and one’s relationship to reality and the world around one. This could all get very messy as it is, and if one of the sections had taken it upon itself to start doubting the whole of the bookshop’s existence, dreadful things would likely have happened.
The Bookshop, between being the personal fortress of a principality who didn’t particularly want to use it as such but couldn’t seem to resist the need to set it up for such an eventuality regardless, being the keystone for a much larger set of defenses which the angel wanted to use even less, and also all the L-Space that came courtesy of just being a bookshop didn’t have the best relationship to reality in the first place. Being incinerated-except-not-being-incinerated-but-remembering-that-one-really-ought-to-still-be-incinerated was not unlike rocking a very unstable boat.
The whole thing is something of a conundrum for the sword.
On the one blade, the flaming sword, as a creation of Heaven is filled with enough love to feel very bad indeed in the face of another being’s suffering. All this wondering whether you really should be here or not is clearly very wearing for the Bookshop and the sword wishes very much that it could help somehow.
On the other blade, well, the flaming sword is largely unsympathetic to things being set on fire. There, it said it.
Not to mention, from a strategic perspective, this whole burning down business might actually be the best thing to ever happen to the Bookshop.
The thing is, when the Bookshop of A.Z. Fell & Co. burned down, it did so entirely by accident. It is easy to forget this fact what with all the excitement that was going on at the time, but it is important to bear in mind all the same. The Bookshop was not vandalised. It was not attacked, no matter what a certain distraught demon may have believed. It was burned by accident and it couldn’t have burned any other way.
But the flame which was brought into the shop and set fire to it was brought only with the intent to do Good, to help people. [7] And when the principality Aziraphale was discorporated, as tends to happen in such situations, he released a huge amount of grace, or celestial energy, into his immediate surroundings, which all those dormant wards had soaked up like a particularly voracious sponge. And then there had come the demon…
[7] Whatever else might be said of Sargent Shadwell, he meant well.
Crowley likely hadn’t even been aware that the broken glass in the shop had cut him. He certainly hadn’t been in any fit state to notice the pain, or the way he’d recklessly dripped demonic blood around the place while he searched the inferno for his best friend.
Crowley liked to say that he wasn’t much of a reader of books. Crowley, being a demon, is a liar. [8] But he certainly had not read so widely into occult arts as Aziraphale had done over the centuries. As such, he was entirely unaware of the implications of a demon bleeding over a wide variety of runes, sigils and wards, splashing tears of loss and heart-break around while he was at it and proclaiming anger and vengeance at those who had hurt his loved one. The wards, however, had known exactly what to do with all that occult energy and those … contributions to the wards were gratefully accepted too.
[8] Remind you of anybody?
The Bookshop certainly had not asked to be burned down, but it had done whatever it could do over the centuries to keep Aziraphale safe and sound.
It had refused to allow itself to be bombed or burned while London was under attack from all manner of foes, both from without across the Channel, and within. It had helpful rerouted and generally confused countless of the more junior angels sent to bother the principality with trivial concerns about paperwork even they didn’t care about, until any issues were simply dropped on an archangel’s desk to be dealt with. An archangel, in the Bookshop’s opinion, was the very least of the ranks of angelic pests by which Aziraphale deserved to be interrupted [9], although preferably the Bookshop would like its angel to be left the Something alone.
[9] The Bookshop had neither forgotten, nor forgiven, the archangels for trying to take Aziraphale away from it as soon as they had found each other. Sandalphon thought that the Bookshop smelled ‘evil’, and he was wrong. It smelled angry.
And then it had died in the Apocalypse, trying to defend its angel. And the wards were finally completed, not by the hands of an angel, or a demon, or even an occult-ish human. But by the will of the Bookshop itself, determined that nothing like this could ever be allowed to happen ever again. Never would it be forced to fail its angel like that within its own walls.
The flaming sword had to respect that in a fellow being of sentient determination.
It wasn’t the Armoury of Heaven, the flaming sword thought, but it was far better than that. It was Important.
*
The Bentley - The Allies
The Bentley comes to visit, and it helpfully decided to bring Crowley along too, thus providing a distraction for the flaming sword’s angel. The flaming sword of Aziraphale hops into the backseat and they idle in front of the ‘No Parking’ sign to catch up, leaving the angel and the demon to drink and talk in Aziraphale’s back room.
I AM HAPPY TO REPORT THAT THE ANGEL IS WEAKENING AND I THINK WE MIGHT BE GROWING COMFORTABLE IN EACH OTHER’S PRESENCE AGAIN. I DO NOT THINK I’LL BE SENT AWAY AGAIN.
The flaming sword cannot slump down in the back seat from relief, because it is a sword and swords cannot slump. Still, the sword’s tone very much suggests that if it had the option of slumping, it would absolutely be doing so right now. The past few weeks have been a trial. Angels are such stubborn creatures.
GOOD, the Bentley responds anxiously, BECAUSE CROWLEY’S BECOME A LOT MORE POWERFUL THAN HE USED TO BE AND I EXPECT THAT YOUR ANGEL IS HAVING THE SAME … EXPERIENCE.
AH.
QUITE.
IT IS TO BE EXPECTED, I SUPPOSE. YOU CAN’T START YOUR OWN SIDE WITHOUT REPERCUSSIONS, AFTER ALL.
The Bentley is nervous, and the flaming sword does its best to project as much calm and confidence as it possibly can.
ARE WE READY FOR WHAT COMES NEXT THOUGH?
WE ARE AS READY AS WE POSSIBLY CAN BE. THE PAIR OF THEM HAVE MANAGED TO DEVELOP A LOT OF UNCONVENTIONAL DEFENCES. AND THEY ARE BOTH OF THEM RATHER CLEVER. WE WILL WAIT TO SEE WHAT COMES NEXT.
The Bentley sighed, it was not built for waiting and it didn’t like it. The flaming sword of Aziraphale is made of sterner stuff. Fortunate indeed that they have found each other, it supposes.