Chapter Text
Chapter One
It had been one month. One month in which the world turned, against all odds. A month in which people stubbed their toes and cursed loudly, babies were born to proud, anxious parents, and fussy angels got their nails done on the regular. Somewhere, in the very backs of their minds, everyone knew something was different. The world had shifted somehow, so imperceptible as to be unnoticeable. Unnoticeable to all but Crowley, and by extension, the angel he fixated on.
It hadn't always been this way, Crowley tried dutifully to convince himself. He hadn't always been so deeply concerned with the ins-and-outs of Aziraphale's day-to-day business. Certainly, he hadn't always been so interested in the colour of his eyes, or the way the warm skin around them crinkled when he laughed. Or the ways he would touch Crowley so casually that the demon wondered if Aziraphale noticed he was doing it at all. No, he decided. It had all started That Day, at the Airbase.
Crowley found himself outside Aziraphale's door, as he had so many times before, without remembering exactly how he'd got there. The Bentley stood jealously behind him. He patted the door absently.
"Well, old girl," he said. "Here goes nothing." He knocked on the door.
***
"We're closed, terribly sorry, do go away!" Aziraphale called cheerfully from the back room of the book shop.
There was a brief respite, in which Aziraphale settled back into his veritable nest of first-editions. Then the knock sounded again. The angel frowned. The three knocks were clear as day, Aziraphale could almost taste the anxiety emanating from them.
"Crowley?"
Deciding finally that it warranted further investigation, Aziraphale made his way to the dead-bolted old door. It was famously not an easy threshold to cross, Aziraphale granted, but since when had that included Crowley?
Aziraphale began to feel uneasy. He wrenched the door open and blinked at the rain-soaked demon he found before him.
"Crowley?" he said again.
"Um. Hello, I, um." Crowley groaned. "Can I come in?"
With this, Aziraphale wrapped one arm around the demons cold shoulders, ushering him into the blessedly warm book shop. "Of course, dear boy. Come in."
He rubbed Crowley's arm briskly and hugged him to his side as he swept them into the back room, clicking doors shut behind them with the power Crowley had evidently forgotten he had.
He steered Crowley into a big squashy armchair that hadn't been there a second ago and materialised an ugly woollen blanket to go over his miraculously warm and dry body.
"There now," he said, clucking motherly. "Really, my dear, you must take more care. I know we can dispel a cold easily enough but that doesn't mean we can't feel downright uncomfortable when one comes on, as you well know."
Aziraphale tittered on as he fixed them both a cup of hot cocoa by hand (miracles just didn't taste right).
Crowley took it gratefully. His heart thrummed a little as their hands brushed. It was ridiculous.
"So, my dear boy, what brings you here on this dreadful night?" Aziraphale settled into his own armchair, seemingly reassured that Crowley had suffered only a momentary lapse of judgment.
He looked at his deceptively ordinary watch (it was, Crowley knew, worth almost as much as his Bentley.) "My, and it is night time, isn't it?"
Crowley groaned again. "You don't sleep, angel."
"Yes, well, you do. I'm just concerned about you, you know," Aziraphale said into his cocoa.
Crowley winced. "Sure you are." He took a sip of the cocoa. It was good. "Mm, have you got anything stronger, by the way?"
Aziraphale stopped pouting into his drink to eye him suspiciously. "Of course. And what was that supposed to mean? Sure I am." he made a hopeless if an amusing attempt at air quotes, "I should hope you know by now that I care for you very much."
This evidently caused Aziraphale some discomfort to say, but he pushed on irregardless.
"Really, Crowley, what is all this about? Knocking on my door, and," he sniffed meaningfully, "And you've started without me!" Aziraphale got to his feet in outrage.
"Oh no, no, well not really," Crowley attempted. He looked down at his hands with interest. "A bit of Dutch courage, maybe."
Aziraphale, who was well on his way into a bottle of red, stopped dead. He put the corkscrew down on the table.
"Dutch courage? Whatever for?"
Crowley put his head in his hands and, to Aziraphale immense alarm, began to sob. He abandoned the wine completely in favour of panicking.
"Crowley! What is it? What's wrong? Are you - " he stopped the silly question before he asked it. He really was crying. Aziraphale dithered in abject pain before he managed to pat his friend uselessly on the shoulder, cringing at how cold the gesture felt. He hadn't seen Crowley cry since the 14th century.
Crowley's glasses slipped off onto the ground, and the demon kicked them aside. He wiped his eyes self-consciously, feeling wretched.
He inhaled sharply, sniffled, and made a weak attempt at laughter.
"Ah. Well." He said. "I must've drank more than I thought I did." He wiped his nose. "Note to self: leave drinking alone to the humans. I really must apologise for that one. Now, where's that Sauvignon?"
The bravado was so terrible that Aziraphale considered starting to cry himself. An old, niggling pain played in his gut. He tried to ignore it, concentrating on his friend's request. The wine he could do. Feelings...that was more difficult.
The problem was that something had happened. Something had changed. That Damn Airbase. That was the problem.
Aziraphale stole a glance at Crowley as he poured their drinks. As usual, he was struck by something like an antidote at the sight. He was just so...Crowley. Aziraphale shook himself. How unbecoming of an angel, he thought, wanting anything more than this, and from a demon, no less! Scratch that, from Crowley! The poor dear was clearly still in a state of anxiety, fearing repercussions from Hell for their actions That Day. It was downright wrong to look at him like that, that's what it was, and in this state ...Aziraphale swallowed loudly and retook his place opposite the demon in question, preparing himself to be the very epitome of a respectable friend, if not a respectable angel.
Crowley grinned at him as he took the offered glass, and chinked it against Aziraphale's. A trace of devil-may-care had returned to his ethereal features.
Wait. Ethereal? Where did that come from? Aziraphale gulped.
Mid-self-censorship, he met Crowley's perceptive, yellow eyes. They looked into him as into a mirror. Before long they looked away, laughed nervously, and continued to just drink companionably into the night.
***
So it goes, they act like nothing has changed, when everything has.
Crowley continues to show up at Aziraphale's door at all hours; the angel has stopped hinting he should leave. At a push, he would tell him not to go. As it is they content themselves with drunken half-confessions and light touches. After all, what is time to immortal beings? Apocalypse be damned, they've never rushed before, why start now? That's what they tell themselves anyway.
Then something happens to change everything, again.
***
"Whoa there," Crowley stifles a laugh as Aziraphale collides with him in the atrium of the sparsely lit bookshop. He slides his glasses down his nose and eyes him amusedly. "Miss me, angel?"
"Oh, Crowley," Aziraphale breathes. "I was on my way to see you actually, I was in rather a rush."
He pulls nervously on his collar and Crowley catches panic flitting over the familiar face. Concerned, he puts a steadying hand on the angel's shoulder, fingers curling there automatically.
"What's wrong?" He asks. "Aziraphale, have you heard from Them?"
"Not as such." Aziraphale wrings his hands between them. "My dear, I'm going to tell you two things that, if repeated, could lead to my immediate and permanent demise."
Their eyes met. A question hung unceremoniously in the air.
Crowley swallowed, then nodded resolutely. "Tell me."
"Alright," said Aziraphale. Crowley felt his face get hot momentarily.
"Firstly, there has been a security breach, Up There. Rumours have been flying, apparently, about what happened, or, more accurately, what did not happen That Day." He gave Crowley a pointed look. "Rumours of my involvement. Nothing substantial, I believe. The breach was quickly shut down, any angel unfortunate enough to hear anything they shouldn't have has been...dealt with."
He shuddered, and Crowley's fingers dug further into his shoulder.
"It appears, however, that they did not get to everyone, as evidenced by the fact that somebody has...gone AWOL, so to speak."
Crowley hummed quietly. Looking down at his companion, he considered the consequences Aziraphale faced if Heaven caught wind of his influence on a potential defector. Or, alternatively, if they simply began paying more attention to their semi-prodigal agent. Hanging around with the wrong people was no laughing matter Up There - didn't he know it, really, you didn't have to be Satan to fall- but they had been left alone for so long! And then there was Adam. Surely they were protected on that front, Crowley reasoned. As long as they steered well clear of this whole debacle.
"Ok," he said, finally. "Someone's gone rogue. What's the second thing?"
Aziraphale pinched the bridge of his nose dramatically. "Secondly, they're in my back room!"