Chapter Text
The angel (for it must be an angel, with holiness crackling about him like flames) stands in the middle of the field of flowers and shrubs, hands on his hips, looking quite cross with him.
“Whyever would you pick that rose?” the angel cries. The demon, standing there with a red rose in his hands, thorns pressing against his fingertips, simply shrugs.
“It’s only a rose, angel,” he replies. “Why should one rose upset you so?”
“You see -” The angel fumbles, looks away. “It’s only that I’m supposed to be protecting the garden. And if you take a rose then anyone will think they’re free to just waltz right on in and start helping themselves to -”
“The humans are froclicking about seizing fruits and flowers and leaves off whatever they like!” the demon protests. “Don’t see them getting a talking to.”
“Yes… well, they’re humans, I suppose they’re allowed.”
“Demons sitting all alone on the out and out list, then? So damned they’re not even allowed to enjoy the flowers?”
“Well, if you were enjoying the flower… but you’re a demon, you were plucking it to mar the Garden!” The demon casts his hands about him.
“Angel, if I wished any ill to Eden, you can bet it would have happened by now.” He shrugs. “I saw the rose, liked the look of it, and plucked it from the bush.”
“What do you mean you liked the look of it?”
“It’s…” The demon struggles for the right words, trying to communicate the appeal of the spiral bloom, how it reminds him of distant galaxies he once spun like thread across the heavens. “It’s beautiful.” Yes, beautiful, that’s it! Beautiful like nebulas, like the quiet dance of binary stars, like the wisps of dust and gas he had gently mixed into planets of blue and red.
“I don’t know if - What I mean to say is that you’re all supposed to be - Now see here…” The angel seems lost, confused by the demon’s words, and his lips twist down into a frown. He does not know yet why, but the gesture causes a strange pulling sensation in the demon’s chest.
“Here.” The demon holds out the rose to the angel. He’s seen Adam do such things for Eve, watched the corners of her mouth tilt upward in what he knows is delight, and hopes it will do the same here.
It does.
“For me?” the angel takes the bloom from him, and their fingertips brush against each other.
“For you,” the demon replies, wondering why he should shiver so, with the sun beating down warm and gold upon them.
“Well - thank you… er…-”
“Crawly.”
“Crawly?”
“Thinking of changing it.” He hadn’t been, until the angel pronounced it in a strange way.
“Aziraphale,” the angel says. They stand together for a moment, awkwardly shuffling their feet.
“Have you discovered the lychees yet?” Crawly asks eventually. “Lovely fruit down by the southern gate.” Aziraphale perks up at once, twirls the rose in his hand.
“I haven’t, at that.”
“Would you like to?”
Turns out, Aziraphale would.
It is not their last meeting. There are many, in those early days of Eden They sit upon the wall sharing a pile of apples, talking about the Garden, the humans, what interesting names Eve comes up with for plants and animals and insects. It rains and Aziraphale extends his wing, they watch the downpour from the safety of a cave, pressed close together, hands almost touching.
Sometimes they watch the business that the humans get up to.
“They seem to be enjoying themselves,” Crawly remarks one afternoon, lying on the grass with his arms behind his head. Aziraphale is seated beside him, a leaf full of interesting little nibbles between them.
“I only wish I knew why they’re so fond of it,” Aziraphale says, wistfully, and when Crawly opens his eyes he sees Aziraphale staring at him with a strange look of fondness, so he picks himself off the ground and with no pretense at all presses a kiss to the corner of Aziraphale’s mouth. Aziraphale gasps and Crawly pulls back instantly.
“What was that for?” Aziraphale asks, fingertips tracing the places where Crawly’s lips had just been.
“I... I thought you might like it?” Crawly scratches the back of his head, fights the urge to dig his fingernails in.
“I’m not quite sure…”
“Oh -” It’s okay, Crawly will be okay, he’ll get up when his legs feel like working and walk away and never -
“You should try one more time.”
Crawly smiles and he does so, again and again and again. Aziraphale becomes a connoisseur of Crawly’s kisses, as he is in all pleasures available to them in Eden, and applies his knowledge in earnest to Crawly.
Afterwards, they watch the humans much less. They get up to business of their own, in the glades, beside the waterfalls, once on top of the wall itself, in the sunshine. Crawly has never known peace like this, always felt clawed at by the questions inside of him, but with Aziraphale there is no question. It is as simple as entwining his own fingers with the angel’s as their legs do some entwining of their own, the absolution found in the touch of another’s skin. It's the strange peace in his heart when Aziraphale laughs in surprise and delight over an interesting creature he’s never seen before, or when they lie back and look at the stars and Aziraphale tucks his head under Crawly’s chin. It’s belonging.
It’s home.
But one day, after encouraging Eve to eat a juicy apple off the tree of knowledge, Crawly finds Aziraphale sitting beside the river, tears running down his plump and perfect cheeks.
“What is the matter?” he asks. He wants to ask “What is the matter, my love,” but he doesn’t know the words yet, doesn’t have the syllables to fit this emotion inside of him that threatens to overwhelm, to choke him with the immensity, this feeling that makes his skin feel too tight, this body too small. Crawly does the next best thing, which is to wind Aziraphale in his arms, brush the delicate cloud of his hair, wipe the tears away or catch them on his robe.
“I’ve done a terrible thing, Crawly,” Aziraphale sobs, clinging to him.
“I don’t think you have.” Crawly knows terrible, he’s seen more than his share, and knows Aziraphale could never. There is a awful sensation though, that Crowley has. “But tell me what happened.”
“The humans! They defied Her will and I - I helped them! I let them escape!” Crowly blinks, once, twice. “I gave them my sword!”
“I can’t see how that’s so terrible, angel.” He sighs. “I'm the one who told her to eat the apple in the first place.”
“Of course you would have,” Aziraphale shakes his head. “You’re a demon, defying Her is what you do, you wouldn't understand -” Crawly buries the hurt, bites back the why are you so mean, sometimes. Aziraphale is only saying what he’s been taught. Crawly knows how he feels in the way he won’t let Crawly’s hand go, the way he presses into the side of his body as if hoping to take up physical space within the demon’s heart, to hide there from the world. “She is going to punish me,” Aziraphale says, so softly that Crawly can barely hear him.
“Punish?” Crawly sputters. She wouldn’t, would she? He shouldn’t fall, not Aziraphale, it would be -
“Nothing so bad as that,” Aziraphale replies, knowing where Crawly’s mind goes. But she’ll drag me back, up there, and who knows what will happen to me.”
“Oh.” Aziraphale was an angel, after all. Didn’t he belong there, up in heaven, with his celestial harmonies?
“I don’t want to go!” Aziraphale draws his knees up to his chest, wraps his arms around them. “I don’t want to leave you.” Crawly freezes. He thought he was alone in his feelings, that Aziraphale was - indulging, the way he indulges in a lie in the grass, a bath in the hot springs, the bite into a strawberry where the juice runs down his chin. “I know you’re a demon and I’m an angel but I - I -”
“I know,” says Crawly, “I do,” because he does, he does. “What can I do?” Aziraphale shakes his head.
“I cannot ask it of you,” he mutters.
“Yes, angel, you can.” Please ask it of me. Please let me protect you, please let me keep you safe, let me keep you.
“She -” Aziraphale’s eyes flick upward furtively, afraid that speaking her name will draw her eye, “-will come for me, and I will have to go, unless -”
“Unless?”
“If you can - if you can hold onto me, She won’t be able to take me. I’ll be grounded to you, to the Earth, to - to demonic energy.”
“Hold you?” Crawly asks. “That doesn’t seem so hard. I’m holding you now.”
“Oh but Crawly She won’t just - I’ll be transformed into terrible things! Holy things that will burn you to touch!”
“I don’t care,” Crawly says. “I can do it.” He had fallen into a boiling pit of sulphur, once, wings burned black and broken, in such pain he could not even cry. What was holding an angel, compared to that fall? “How long do we have?”
“I don’t know. Hours, days, whenever She gets around to it.”
“We best make the time count.” Aziraphale nods, reaches for him, and they forget all about Her imminent arrival for some time.
But She refuses to be ignored for long.
Her presence cuts through the night, a searing brand of white ripped into the fabric of reality. Crawly wakes, grabs hold of Aziraphale beside him. The angel is already awake, eyes steady. Brave. Crawly will do his best to match him.
What are you doing, Crawly? She asks.
“What does it look like?” he spits.
Do you think you can defy My will again?
“I know I don’t want to lose him,” he says instead.
It will hurt, She warns. Crawly looks into Aziraphale’s steadfast face and shakes his head.
“Not as bad as living without him,” he replies. Crawly feels the hand in his tighten, something almost like a gasp cuts through the night. He hadn’t told Aziraphale, had he, about this feeling within him, the one that might have matched the angel’s? Well, he will show it, however much of him it takes.
Very well.
It begins. The Aziraphale in his arms shifts, transforms a huge thing with innumerable arms and eyes. The holiness pricks at the skin on Crawly’s hands like pins, like thorns, but he holds fast. The eyes are all blue, like Aziraphale’s, and he can see himself reflected there, and it is enough.
The angel changes again, becomes an enormous lion, with long teeth and strong jaws that try to snap at his arms and throw him off, and the sacred nature deepens. The prickles on Crowley’s skin like the press of rose thorns are no longer; they are hot searing needles that seem to pierce down to the bones of this corporeal form. But the lion’s mane is the same gold as Aziraphale’s hair. Crowley remembers the sun shining through it on the wall two mornings ago, how like a halo it looked, and how Aziraphale had laughed and kissed him. It is enough.
Now Aziraphale is an eagle, with sharp talons that scape Crawly’s sides, a beak that dives for his eyes, great wings that beat against his grip and struggle for freedom. He was wrong, the demon thinks. This pain is nothing like the sulfur pits, this is something stabbing at the heart of his very nature, he feels himself coming apart at the seams, can hear himself screaming as if it is someone else, his soul being shredded into so many fragments of nothing, knows that if he holds on a moment longer -
Let go, she says, you can let go and it will stop and her voice is almost gentle, almost like the mother he remembered from above. But it’s a lie, it’s a trick, and one false move and there will be no mercy, there will be no room for error before he is cast down again, this time without Aziraphale, and he would rather be obliterated from existence than live a thousand lifetimes without him.
The eagle’s feathers are white, and Crawly remembers the first rain, how Aziraphale had lifted his wing to keep the drops off of him, thinks about the warm smile, and if these are truly his last moments in the universe then this is how they shall be spent, wrapped up in white wings that once sheltered him from the storm. It is enough.
Why won’t you let go? She asks. Crawly cannot reply, his mouth is too preoccupied with agony for sweet words, so he thinks at her instead. She won’t listen, she never listens, never did, but -
Oh. She never admits to mistakes. She is infallible, is She not? Her decisions final, never to be revoked, no appeal, just tough luck kiddo and a million year fall. But Crawly knows that the sudden sense of guilt and shame that flooded his senses could not have come from himself, proud as he is for his own actions for the first time in so long.
The oppressive sense of Her is in his eyes and his nose and his mouth but then there is nothing - nothing but the suffering she leaves behind.
The wings that flutter against him no longer strike with rage or fear, the form beneath him is flesh and fabric, the voice calling to him “Crawly Crawly Crawly” no longer the screech of a sharp beaked eagle. He mouths words at Aziraphale, but every movement grates against the bones of this corporeal form like broken glass.
He is being carried somewhere, but no one has tried to remove his hands from where they still grip Aziraphale with white knuckles, and he does not fight the pull.
“It’s alright, love, it’s alright, I’ll make it alright -” Aziraphale is babbling, but - Love - that’s the word Crawly has been searching for, that’s the word for the feeling like his heart tries to hurl itself out through his mouth whenever the angel so much as turns towards him. Cool water laps at his toes, his ankles, and he realizes that Aziraphale - for it must be Aziraphale who carries him - has taken him to the river. He cracks open an eyelid, Aziraphale smiles through a terrified expression - the first he has ever seen him wear. Crawly is slipping deeper and deeper into the river, supported by Aziraphale’s strong arms, and the angel is doing something - surely water itself could never bind up his wounds, suck the pain from his arms and his side. Aziraphale is mumbling soothing words in his ear “that’s it darling, you’ll feel better in a moment, I’m so sorry - never should have asked you - never should have-”
“Worth it,” Crawly mutters, grabbing weakly at Aziraphale’s arm. “Kept you.”
Something breaks in Aziraphale’s face. His legs go out from under him and he sits down in the river, pulls Crawly close.
“You did,” he whispers into Crawly’s hair. “I’m sorry, Crawly.”
“Not Crawly,” he mutters, not after hearing Her say it. He thinks for a moment, but the only thing he can think of is feathers, Aziraphale’s, pristine white, and his own, black as night. “Crowley.”
“Like the bird,” Aziraphale says, hands tracing gentle patterns along the demon’s arm as sensation returns to Crowley’s body. Even the soreness is fading, whatever Aziraphale is doing, whatever healing he’s done - it’s working quickly.
“Like the bird.”
They sit in the water, watching the distant glow in the east begin to warm. The sun will rise soon. The humans are gone, and they both have the very distinct impression that soon the Garden will be as well.
“What happens now, angel?”
“I’m not sure I’m quite that, anymore. Not after today.”
“I’m not sure I’m quite a demon any longer, either.” Hadn’t Aziraphale used miracles on him? Shouldn’t that have burned him, hurt him? But he felt nothing, nothing but Aziraphale, warm and gentle, a soft patch of grass on a summer’s day.
“Do you remember the world we saw beyond the wall?” Aziraphale asks.
“I do.”
“Would you like to see the rest of it?”
Turns out, Crowley would.
They leave the garden hand in hand as the new day dawns. Angel and demon, once perhaps, now something new. Crowley might learn the word for what they are someday, but for now Aziraphale’s hand is warm in his, their hearts runneth over with this new word, Love.
It is enough.