Chapter Text
Aziraphale hadn’t really meant to run away with Crowley, really. It had all just sort of happened. He liked to think it was the tempter soul beneath that snakeskin of his, twisting the angel to his will even now. Secretly, though, Crowley didn’t really need to tempt much of anything: He just needed to offer, to suggest, and after a playful little display of false loyalty to the folks upstairs Aziraphale would cave in like a badly made cake.
There had been lots of planets, on offer. Some were uninhabited, some were peaceful. The constructs of his and Crowley’s bodies, whilst not being able to endure a decapitation, or a vicious explosion by a bomber plane that Aziraphale thought he probably shouldn’t have been around for in the first place if he was just a little less trusting, the angel and demon could do more than enough miracles to keep them alive in the harsh expanses of space without disincorporating. So now they just had to choose.
The moon, and the solar system by extension had felt a little too close for comfort, so Crowley had printed out little fact files that were absolutely brilliant and they lay on the floor of the bookshop as they wafted around them, like an explosion of planets in the back room. Logically they should have gone with a quiet, uninhabited little planet no would find, but Crowley had managed to do something he’d never managed to do before.
He’d managed to get Aziraphale to drink Vodka.
It’d started out as usual, the tempter tempting, the angel refusing with a shocked and scandaled “absolutely not, Crowley!” And of course the demon couldn’t let things go. He’d tried different methods of persuasion all night, including just elongating one long “pleeeeeeeeeeaseeeeeee?” For over two hours, which had almost brought the tired angel to his knees. Eventually Crowley had hit the mark, the following morning.
“You’re never going to get to try them again, you know angel. All those things you’ve never tried on earth, they aren’t going to be on those planets up there.”
“Well... I could miracle them up.”
“Yes, but they wouldn’t be the same.”
Aziraphale was silent. He had long since considered himself a connoisseur of food on earth, having tried dishes and drinks that nobody alive and NOT immortal had ever even seen or heard of. The idea of there being more, delicacies that even he couldn’t try, seemed inherently wrong to him. He had this shuddering moment when he realised all of earth was going to be gone, soon, and there would be no more lunches and snacks and restaurants at all, just rubble and dust, lorded over by militant angels or despicable demons that didn’t had such familiar and reassuring eyes. Crowley watched his thoughts silently, letting him come to his decision.
“Okay.” Aziraphale whispered, “but I’m putting a few extra things to try, on the list. I never have had cake pops.” He said those last words with as much whimsy as he could muster, and Crowley smiled. Aziraphale had the distinct feeling that this would be a very, very bad idea.
And so it had begun, the grandest and most peculiar feast at the start of the end of the world. The angel had brought about every food he had not yet attempted to eat, and the demon had acquired every alcohol he had not yet managed to get the angel to drink. Aziraphale had never done shots before, but now they were lined up in rows. He tried to taste them, at first, but that had been a regret and at some point he just started knocking them back as fast as possible to get them over with, and whilst there had been stronger and worse drinks on the table and floor in front of him, nothing had hit him so peculiarly as the vodka. It had made him more than a little... mischievous. Mischievous enough to match a demon of hell who had decided to go out with a bang as they left the bookshop for one last ‘night on the town’ or planet, anyway. They popped in on old friends, reminisced over a few hundred lifetimes of memories, Aziraphale decided to pop over to Rome to freak the heaven out the pope by summoning out his wings and telling him, as seriously as his drunk self could muster (which wasn’t very) that God thought he was doing ever such a good job, if he could just be a little nicer to the gays. They’d flown through the skies on their wings without shrinking themselves down to the size of an atom, and it’d been wonderful. When they got back to the bookshop Crowley took what he believed was a much deserved nap, and Aziraphale span the pieces of paper through the air with childish delight, refusing to sober up. There were so many! And they were all so different and brilliant and weird. Eventually he’d found a planet he’d liked, though process of completely illogical elimination (too green, too many letter r’s in the name), picking it out of the chaos and then ordering the rest onto a neat stack on his desk, sorted in no particular order at all. He’d miss his bookshop, he thought. He liked his books very much, and he wasn’t particularly open to donating them somewhere where they might get touched, and read, and damaged by stupid little people who didn’t know any better. He didn’t want them to get burned, or bombed, either, but shrinking them all down and carrying the bookshop in his pocket was a terribly big miracle to sustain, and the other angels might notice. He decided to do it anyway, though, just before they left. Maybe when they’d settled down with the nice people on the planet he’d chosen he could release the shrinkage and open up a bookshop there. Nobody would never buy books in a language they couldn’t read, not unless they were really pretentious. It’d be brilliant.
Crowley woke up to see a slightly more sober angel, clutching his head with agony, and it brought a smile to his lips. Aziraphale didn’t even have the concentration to miracle his headache away, so he threw simpering looks at Crowley in order to get the demon to do it for him. The snake in question simply threw his head to the side and looked at that one piece of paper, floating around the shop like a magical post-it note.
“Gallifrey.” He muttered, trying to remember something about the place and failing miserably. The text below the planet’s picture didn’t say much, something about it being in some sort of time lock (easy to bypass for them, but good for hiding in) and having wonderful technology. He supposed it wasn’t a bad choice, and it seemed pleasant enough. It was even inhabited, which could be nice. A new race of people to tempt. Crowley dispelled his angel’s headache and dragged him to his feet from the floor where he lay, only for him to fall over again, but once Aziraphale got his balance back he pulled himself up alone with a glare.
“That was horrible, Crowley! I’ve not felt that badly since the humans invented alcohol in the first place!”
“Yes... the huuuumans....”
Aziraphale decided to ignore that comment and glanced at the piece of paper in the air.
“Gallifrey? So is that where you’ve chosen to go, Crowley? I hope it’s nice.”
“Angel...?”
“Yes, foul fiend?”
“How much do you remember of last night?”
“Well I don’t know what you’re talking about, dear, I remember e-... oh. Oh dear. I... I don’t suppose I didn’t do anything too bad?” The angel floundered.
“You spoke to the pope, very obviously drunk, showed him your wings and flew away.” Now the angel was miserable.
“Oh, God Crowley! She’ll be so mad! My superiors will be livid! Though... though I suppose that doesn’t matter, now.”
“Not really.”
Aziraphale paused.
“My head is pounding.” This one drew Crowley’s ire.
“That’s because...” he began, his voice beginning low and gentle but quickly rising to be angry and terse, but also very amused. “YOU ANSWERED EVERY SINGLE PRAYER ON THE PLANET! FOR A WHOLE HOUR!!!” Crowley wouldn’t admit it, but most of his anger was out of worry for his angel, not that he’d ever say so. Answering that many prayers long distance could burn you out, even if it was funny. At least Aziraphale had the good grace to look sheepish.
“Ah... well then I suppose we should better go.”
“Idiotic angels first” Crowley grumbled
“Not before the foul demon.”
Sigh “on three then. 1..2..”
A few people that day remarked upon the sudden disappearance of the worlds most unprofitable bookshop, as the owner seemed most sincere in his efforts not to sell a single tome, and a few others remarked on the quite beautiful sight of two birds in the air, one pitch black and the other shining white, flying around each other as if in dance before disappearing with a blink of the eye, never to be seen on earth, or at least the earth at this time, again.