Chapter Text
Crowley woke with his Mother’s voice still echoing in his head, reverberating through time, an old memory resurfacing after having been hidden away for six thousand years. You left me. Crowley groaned, drawing his knees towards his chest, manifesting his black wings and draping them around his folded body. For millennia he had believed they were the symbol of his sins, burned and scorched by the fire of Hell. Instead, they had been his since the Beginning. He had chosen them, had prided himself on their beauty and strength.
He had fallen, but not like the others. The rebellious angels, he realised, had come after him. Hell had come later. They had joined him in his punishment at a time when time itself was still a fuzzy concept. With no memories and the gaping hole where Her love had been, with only the vaguest notion of having made a terrible mistake, he had assumed he must have been one of the fallen angels. He wasn’t. He was Her original creation, Her most beloved child. The first who betrayed Her. But he hadn’t meant to do it. He had not meant to abandon Her. She knew everything, She should have understood that he had not meant to hurt Her, nor to replace Her. And She should have known that he would love that clumsy, goofy creature that had looked so much like him, and had seemed so alone, and had welcomed him with a radiant smile on the first day they had met, back when the world was still unfinished. She should have known that Her own child, born out of love, could not help but experience it. She should have known that he could love Her and his angel both.
His own words, long forgotten, came back to him of a sudden.
Mother, he yearns for a companion. Will you make him one, a peer? Not a copy, perhaps, but close enough? He seems scared of difference.
He had begged for the first human’s sake. He had been too young—and wasn’t that a sobering concept—to recognise that She had heard his plea for what it was: nothing but mirroring, and a whispered prayer. She had given Adam his Eve, and Crowley, well, he, too had been given a companion. Not a copy, but close enough.
Crowley’s heart, that silly little organ he had thought to have no use for, contracted painfully. Did Aziraphale know? Did he remember their time together? Oh, but he simply couldn’t. He would not have kept something like that from him, he didn’t have it in himself to be so cruel.
And didn’t their entire histories start making much more sense now? Crowley felt bile in his throat. They had been created to be together, and yet, She had forbidden him to go to Aziraphale back when he was a newborn angel, the first of his breed. Why, why would She do that? Why torture him so, why punish him for behaving the only possible way? Why punish him for loving?
Crowley tightened his wings around himself, shivering. He had built his whole existence on a lie. He was a demon, but not like the others. She had cast him out, but not like he’d thought. Even his corporeal look was not a loan from hell, but a mere earthly distortion of his true essence.
In six thousand years of roaming the earth, Crowley had always thought that he must have deserved his punishment. He had hated God for placing him in hell, for condemning him to a life of temptation and damnation, but deep down he believed She had had a good reason to do so. He knew better now, and the revelation crushed him.
All this time, he had not seen his punishment for what it had really been. She had taken away Her love, and She had taken away his companion. Six thousand years roaming the earth, moving a step closer each time they met, keeping their distance because they were supposed to be mortal enemies, not allowed to be seen together, let alone be together. Crowley had resolved to love Aziraphale from afar, had done so for as long as he could remember, certain he could never have what he really wanted. She had kept them apart for millennia, and why?
Why?
Crowley believed She was listening. Somehow, he knew She was.
He waited for the longest time for an answer that did not come.
And then, he cried.
☆★☆
Aziraphale was having a perfectly acceptable afternoon. He had been cataloguing his books in an attempt to track down all the additions Adam had made to his bookstore, only stopping to refill his mug with peppermint tea and nibble at the pastries he had grabbed on his morning walk. Perfectly acceptable, indeed, until there came a knock on his locked door. Aziraphale huffed and ignored it. He was in no mood to welcome a customer he would inevitably have to chase away. The knocking stopped for a few seconds, only to resume more insistently. Rolling his eyes, he made his way to the door. Behind it stood a vaguely familiar delivery man, looking relieved.
“I was already dreading the paperwork if I didn’t get this delivered, sir,” he said as he handed a small package to Aziraphale and got him to sign the receipt.
Aziraphale nodded distractedly, waving him goodbye as he assessed the small box resting in his hand.
He could feel this was no earthly delivery. Warily, he placed it on his desk and cut the strings keeping the lid firmly attached to the box, letting it slide off. Inside the small box, there was a perfect red apple.
Aziraphale felt his stomach drop. He knew exactly where that had come from, and he could think of only one celestial creature that could have sent it, what with Eden having long disappeared from all planes of reality.
Dread cursing through his weary bones, not wasting time with silly human transportation, he grabbed the box and snapped his fingers, disappearing.
☆★☆
Aziraphale wobbled a bit as he landed in Crowley’s kitchen, trying to regain his balance. He took in the empty room and moved down the hall with quick steps, hand clutching the small box, calling out for Crowley.
He stopped dead on his tracks when he reached the bedroom, air leaving his lungs in a gust as his eyes fell on the black cocoon of feathers curled on the bed.
“What have they done to you?” he whispered, dread in his voice. The box in his hand seemed to be pulsing with holy energy.
He took a hesitant step towards the bed.
“Crowley?” he murmured, reaching out with one hand, stopping short from touching his wings. “Crowley, are you alright?” Then he noticed the quiver in the feathers. He heard the soft, broken inhale of a creature that had been crying for so long that he had no more tears to shed, and yet could not stop.
Aziraphale’s heart broke. He left the box on the first flat surface he found, all but forgotten, and knelt awkwardly on the bed, white wings unfurling. In any other situation, he would not have risked such intimate contact. But there, with Crowley crying, crying for the first time in their existence, he simply saw no alternative. He did not even entertain the thought of doing anything else. He put his arms around Crowley, and his wings too, embracing him in a cloud of white feathers layered on top of the black ones.
They stayed like that for what felt like centuries, Crowley shaking with unrestrainable grief, Aziraphale holding him, rocking him softly, whispering empty reassurances into the black feathers.
“Shh, my darling, shh,” he kept saying. “I’m here, you’re here with me. You’re safe. Crowley, you’re safe.” The words didn’t seem to get through, didn’t seem to have any effect, but Aziraphale kept muttering them, let them flow from his lips, too afraid to stop, unable to cope with the possibility that he might not be able to help his only friend in the universe, his most beloved creature. “Shh, my dear, shh. All is well, all is well. They cannot touch you, they will have to walk past me before they lay a finger on you, I will face down the Almighty herself if I have to. Crowley, dear, come back to me. Dearest, come back to me.”
There was a gasp from within the black cocoon, a horrible, painful gasp, as if Crowley had sucked in a lungful of air he was not ready to take in, and Aziraphale winced, tightening his hold around him, praying he wasn’t making things worse by being here, holding him, touching him.
“What have you just called me?” The words were barely audible, but Aziraphale heard them all the same. They felt like a punch to his ribcage, they left him breathless for a few seconds.
He forced some air into his own lungs, swallowing the lump that had formed in his throat.
“Dearest. I have called you dearest. My dearest friend, my dearest everything.”
The sound that Crowley let out would forever be etched into Aziraphale’s memory. Half a wail, half a sorrowful laugh, an atrocious lament that seemed to contain multitudes of pain and disbelief. Aziraphale wanted to forget it, wanted to purge it from existence, wanted to chase down whatever caused Crowley to suffer enough to produce it and pulverise it. He could do nothing of the sort, could not even continue on that train of thought, because Crowley unravelled his wings, pushing himself out of Aziraphale’s embrace, raising his head to meet his gaze with eyes that should not have had the physical ability to cry, and yet were wet and puffy with tears.
“She said that I would know, one day,” he said brokenly.
“Know what, Crowley?” Aziraphale had no need to ask who She was.
“My name.”
“Your name?”
Crowley half-nodded, half-shook his head. “I—I didn’t know my name, in the Beginning, before Eden, before— before you. I did not realise. She called me Dearest, but I—I didn’t understand until—until you…”
“Until I said it.”
Crowley nodded, seemingly at a loss for words, or perhaps filled with too many of them, all fighting to leave him at once.
“I—I remember, Angel. I remember everything. I remember being with Her, creating the stars. I remember you, before we knew each other in this life.”
Aziraphale felt the same anguish he could see in Crowley’s eyes, the same brimming desperation. He was starting to realise that he had been missing a part of his existence, that something dreadful must have happened, and that he had been punished for it. That Crowley had been punished for it.
“What happened?” he whispered, hands reaching out of their own volition, latching onto Crowley’s forearms, fingers digging in. “What happened, Crowley? Why can’t I remember?”
Crowley closed his eyes, shaking his head. He seemed to be trying to physically push the words back.
“Please, tell me, tell me everything.”
“You don’t want to know, Aziraphale. You won’t believe me, you will resent me for telling you.”
“I won’t, I promise I won’t. I could never resent you for this. Please, Crowley, it’s tearing you apart and I need to know, I need to learn how to make it better.”
“It hurts, Aziraphale. I can’t do this to you. It will hurt you, too. Or you won’t believe me, and it’ll just hurt me even more.”
“I am willing to hurt if it means I can share your pain. Please, tell me. Tell me what we did that made us deserve such punishment.”
Crowley whimpered, tearing his arms free from Aziraphale’s hold, hiding his face in his hands.
“I loved you. I loved you so much I put you before Her, and She made me fall for it, and punished you, too.”
Aziraphale felt gutted. “No…” he whispered, barely aware that the word had left his mouth. It could not be, she could not have punished Crowley for loving, She could not have punished them for sharing the purest feeling She had ever created.
And share it they must have, he was certain of it. Aziraphale could not imagine a time when he would not love Crowley. Still... “I loved you back, didn’t I?”
Crowley let out a soft sob, nodding into his hands.
“But why, why would She do that? Crowley, why would She punish us for loving each other? Certainly She would approve—”
“She had forbidden me to talk to you, and I disobeyed. I came to you in the Garden, I talked to you, and I loved you, and She resented that. I don’t know why, Aziraphale. I don’t know why She wanted me to stay away from my companion, but She had ordered it, and I didn’t listen, and we both got punished for it, and I’m so sorry, so sorry, Angel. I didn’t mean for it to happen, I didn’t mean to make you suffer for this, I’m— I’m—”
“No, no Crowley, stop this, don’t apologize for this, don’t apologize for loving me. She— She must have had a reason, one we might not understand, but look where we are now, Crowley. We stood together at the end of the world, and we defied destiny, and we are free, as free as we’ll ever be. We are free to be together, at last. We are allowed now. Perhaps that’s the reason She made you remember, perhaps that’s why She gave your memories back.”
Crowley, at last, lifted his head from his hands. “Would you even want that?” he whispered, visibly forcing the words out. “Be with me? Be together?”
Aziraphale had to fight back tears of his own. How badly he’d hurt his friend, his most beloved friend. How cowardly he’d behaved throughout the millennia. “I have never wanted anything else. I have never wanted anything more than being able to be with you without having to fear the repercussions.”
“But—but you don’t remember, you don’t remember loving me, you don’t remember what happened…”
“No, but I don’t need to. Crowley, Dearest, I have loved you for as long as I can remember, and I will continue to do so until the end of time. Until you’ll let me. We have made new lives for ourselves, we have shared six millennia together. They are more than enough. If I never remember before, I will still have this to remind me of how much I love you.”
Crowley swallowed visibly, eyes searching Aziraphale’s face, silence stretching between them, reverberating with Aziraphale’s last words. His expression, so vulnerable and naked, finally morphed into something sombre, settled into what Aziraphale hoped was certainty. “I love you, too, Angel. If She had to put us through hell for us to be together, then I accept it. I don’t care why She did it, or if it was unfair. I don’t care as long as I get to have you.”
Their first kiss was not as Crowley had imagined, nor how Aziraphale had. It was an odd combination of tears, sobs, and caresses, of hands reaching out to grasp, of fingers wrapping around flesh and not letting go, of lips brushing against lips, of tongues finally touching. It was passion and desperation in equal parts, and it was as terrible as it was beautiful, for the pain that had resurfaced was there alongside the elation. It was not a perfect kiss, but it was the one they needed. It sealed the past even as it came back to them, it marked the moment in which their lives changed irremediably and they both went willingly with the flow.
They stayed in each other’s arms till light broke past the dark curtains covering the windows, painting the room in streaks of gold, falling on a small, forgotten box lying on the nightstand.
Crowley looked at it with a frown, twisting in Aziraphale’s embrace. He could feel the wave of holiness coming from it.
“Angel, what’s that?”
Aziraphale lifted his head to see what Crowley was talking about. He let out a soft gasp as he realised he had completely forgotten about the box, the very reason he had turned up at Crowley’s flat the previous day.
He reached past Crowley and picked it up, sitting up against the headboard to move more freely. Crowley followed suit, peaking warily into the box as Aziraphale lifted the lid.
The apple was still there, shiny and ripe, pulsing with Her power, with all the knowledge She had originally infused in a long lost tree in the middle of a mythical garden.
Crowley inhaled sharply. He stared into Aziraphale’s eyes, searching for the same awareness that had pervaded him and finding it mirrored in them.
“Is She giving us permission?”
Aziraphale took a long moment to answer. “I don’t need Her permission, not anymore, but I will take it if this is what it is.” He lifted the apple from the box, assessing it. He lifted it to his lips. His eyes met Crowley’s. He bit into it.
Aziraphale, at last, remembered.