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Chapter Text

In retrospect—not that Crowley would admit to engaging in such an activity (it was viewed by demonkind as a gateway behavior to more unsavory things like personal growth and learning one’s lesson)—he’d fallen in love with Aziraphale in the first moments that rain began to fall six thousand years ago. When Aziraphale had lifted his wing to shelter Crowley, not minding that he himself was getting soaked, it had sparked something warm deep inside his chest. A flame that had nothing to do with the hellfire flowing through his veins.

Not even when he’d been an angel in heaven, before falling, had Crowley known someone so downright considerate. And it was that consideration that set him apart, really. Plenty of angels went on and on about being kind and loving all things and blah blah blah, but would they ever hold a door open for you, or use their own wings to spare you the trouble of willing yourself dry? Not a one, aside from Aziraphale.

Over time the little flame in Crowley’s heart had grown into a bonfire, a constant ache in his chest that only lessened when he caught sight of Aziraphale’s smile. Some days he’d worried that he’d spit in the face of the Almighty herself if it meant protecting Aziraphale, so when the time came to thwart Armageddon, it wasn’t a question.

And now, in the aftermath, somehow he and Aziraphale were still whole, their lives intact. Crowley had said some pretty embarrassing things in the heat of the moment—begging Aziraphale to run away with him, asking him to stay at his flat—but as always, the angel was too gracious to mention them.

After the Ritz, Aziraphale went back to his bookshop to take inventory, and Crowley went home to his minimalist flat to sit in the throne that had seemed like a funny joke at the time, but now only felt cold and lonely. Not even half a season of The Great British Bake-Off could cheer him up, because he kept wanting Aziraphale to be there to enjoy it, too. Of course, the angel had the same attitude toward Netflix as he did cellphones and ereaders, as if they were a personal affront to his honor.

One of these days, Crowley was going to figure out how to trick Aziraphale into watching something, then he’d be hooked, and—

“Under Pressure” started chiming from his mobile. He’d set the ringtone to the default, but over time, exposure to the Bentley had changed it. Crowley stared at the glowing screen sitting on his desk, almost too glum to answer. And what right did he have to be down? They’d just saved the whole damn world yesterday, and he’d outsmarted the forces of Heaven and Hell. He should’ve been celebrating.

Instead he was alone.

Because the light was bothering him—and not, of course, because he was desperate for a friendly voice, even if it was a telemarketer or robocall—Crowley answered.

“Mister, uh, Crowley?” asked a feminine voice.

“Yes. Who’s this?”

“Anathema Device. We met—”

“Stopping the Antichrist. I remember.” Crowley sat up. This was the witch with the book of prophecies. They’d exchanged numbers after all the madness ended. Crowley figured if you saved the world with someone, might as well add them to your contacts.

“Is something wrong? Has he started backsliding already?”

“No, Adam’s fine. I was… well, just checking on you, actually. And Aziraphale, but he didn’t give me his number. Said he didn’t have a phone.”

“He has a landline.”

“People still have those?” Anathema gave an awkward laugh, then paused as if with hesitation. “He’s alright, too?”

“Was when I left him.” Crowley glanced at his watch, but decided not to mention the exact number of hours, minutes, and seconds that had passed since then.

“Good.” Another heavy pause. “You don’t sound okay. No offense.”

“Of course I’m okay,” Crowley snapped. “We just stopped the end of the world.”

“You know, I’m going to be staying in England for a while. If you ever want to get coffee and talk.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Crowley began, knowing full well his next words could only be taken one way, “but what could we possibly have to talk about?”

“You’re a demon,” Anathema said, “and you worked to stop the Antichrist. You’re dating an angel—”

“No, I’m not.” His words were sharp, and a little too rushed. “We’re best friends.”

“You’re allowed to date your best friend,” she said, matter-of-fact.

“You some sort of relationship expert as well as a witch?” Crowley asked, words stumbling between derision and hopefulness.

“Not really.” She sighed. “Maybe I’m the last person who should be weighing in. I just thought you two were together, based on my observations.”

“Right, well, take your observations elsewhere.” Crowley hung up and tossed his phone across the room. He couldn’t tell which made him angrier—that a strange human had presumed things about himself and Aziraphale, or that she was wrong.

Restless, he summoned his phone back to his hand. An hour of mindless browsing later, he was halfway through designing a t-shirt that read I Helped Prevent the Apocalypse And All I Got Was This T-Shirt until he realized that the person he was making it for (Aziraphale) was exactly the sort who’d hate it on sight. He’d always been rubbish at getting gifts. What could you even buy for a perfect being made of love? Crowley would’ve tried to find some rare book, but for Aziraphale, the hunt was most of the fun. And he knew all the best restaurants and bars and bakeries, so Crowley couldn’t ever surprise him with some new culinary treat.

And why should Crowley get Aziraphale anything at all? He admitted to himself it would just be an excuse to make the drive to his shop.

Sometime around three in the morning, as Crowley lay on the ground surrounded by his glorious, terrified houseplants, he realized perhaps he was in a little over his head with this whole love thing, and he’d better appeal to an expert if he wanted another moment of peace.
And the experts were, unfortunately, humans.

In the aftermath of the failed Armageddon, the higher-ups of Heaven and Hell gathered on neutral ground (in this case, the back parking lot of a Denny’s in the Florida panhandle—a place of chaos quite outside the usual bounds of good and evil) to do a postmortem, as it were. The forces of Hell were upset to find the postmortem didn’t involve any actual corpses, especially since no humans had died in the near miss of the previous days.

“Humanity is exactly what we’re here to discuss,” Gabriel said, straightening his suit. Not that the perfectly tailored cloth needed it, but he’d always thought it added a sense of gravitas to a situation. He smiled with a vague emptiness at the demons who stood a few meters away. Neither side trusted the other, but that didn’t matter much.

“Mere mortals aren’t worth our time. They’re meant to be ground beneath our heels—”

“Yes, yes,” Gabriel interrupted. “But things are changing. Aziraphale and Crowley changed.” He suppressed a shudder. “They both defied what we thought possible for angels and demons. And what’s the one thing they have in common?”

The demons thought for a moment, until one of them ventured a hesitant, “They wear pants?” before being shushed.

“Humanity,” Gabriel said, letting his voice boom a little. “They spent six thousand years mingling with mortals. It must’ve warped them somehow.” He’d been in meetings all day about this. Setting up research teams, delegating. Deciding.

“And?” asked a demon.

“If the Almighty never intended for Armageddon to happen the way we thought, maybe it’s something else.” He paused for emphasis. “Maybe now, we’re in charge.”

Chapter Text

Celestial and infernal beings alike were, in theory, eternal, and as such took the long view of things. Crowley hadn’t set out to befriend Aziraphale, not at first. In the beginning, he’d been following orders. Cause trouble. Tempt. Propagate evil. He just kept bumping into Aziraphale, and each time that strange little warm spot in his chest got brighter, until he started to orchestrate accidental meetings. The arrangement that arose wasn’t pure laziness on his part—though his disinclination to do busywork didn’t hurt—but a natural extension of his interest in Aziraphale.

The long game. A six-thousand-year dance toward—something. Crowley wasn’t sure what. That was why he’d called in an expert.

The door to the coffee shop opened, and Anathema strolled in, followed by summer sunlight. When she caught sight of him, she smiled, then hesitated, as if remembering he was a demon.

“Mister Crowley—” She stuck out her hand.

“Just Crowley, thanks.” He stared at her hand. “Oh, sit down.”

“Right.” She did, smoothing the skirts of her long dress. “This is a cute place—”

“What do you do when you’re in love with someone?” Crowley interrupted. He didn’t have time for small talk. He had dinner reservations with Aziraphale in a few hours, and he needed all this sorted out by then.

“Uh.” Anathema blinked, then did it again, more emphatically. “You mean me personally? Because I’ve never really—I mean—Newt and I just met, even if I knew—”

“I’m not talking about you.” He waved his hand in disgust. “I mean in general. Hypothetically.”

“Oh. Well.” She pushed up her glasses. “I need more information. Talking about something as nuanced as love in hypotheticals is—”

“You’ve got no idea, either.” Crowley made to stand up, but Anathema stopped him with an outstretched hand.

“You’re a demon,” she said, a stubborn set to her mouth.

“Yeah. And?”

“Are you even supposed to love?”

The chatter of the other patrons filled the air between them, mixing with the cloying scent of sugary coffee. Crowley could walk out, never talk to Anathema Device again, write this off as a bad and desperate idea. He didn’t owe some human answers, or specifics.

She met his stare, raising her eyebrows slowly. He leaned back in his chair, looking away first. No harm in hearing her out.

“Amazing,” Anathema whispered. “A demon, in love with an angel.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” He slouched lower, as if hiding beneath the table could save him from her words.

“I want to help.” She lifted her chin. “You must’ve asked me here for a reason.”

The white noise of the other people in the cafe changed pitch, growing restless and angry.

“No, you just happened to call—and all my other friends, of which I have many, were busy—”

“Right.” She rolled her eyes. “Maybe I should’ve kept those new prophecies, Agnes would’ve warned me to skip this meeting.”

“New prophecies?” Crowley sat up and leaned forward.

“Yes,” Anathema said, clipped. “I burned them. I don’t want to live as a descendant anymore—”

“Oh, don’t let Aziraphale catch wind you burned a book of prophecies. It might do him in.”

Someone started yelling at an innocent barista. Anathema jumped, looking around.

“All these people are furious,” she said.

“I crashed the wi-fi. Force of habit.” He gave her his best demonic smirk.

She picked up her bag. “Maybe we should talk somewhere with less collateral damage.”

Crowley took a moment to enjoy the chaos he’d wrought, then followed her out into the muggy summer heat. There were a lot nicer places a demon could hang around than London, but Aziraphale was here, along with that collection of books he pretended was a shop. Crowley couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.

Once they were a safe distance from the coffee shop, Anathema spoke up, seeming to ignore the pedestrians around them.

“I’ve decided to help you, against my better judgment.”

“Oh?” Crowley said, letting the smirk leak into his voice. “And why’s that?”

“A demon in love has to be a positive sign. And I can see you’re helpless, and even though I’m no expert, I can give some good advice. All my ancestors were very fortunate in their love lives. I’m sure I inherited something useful.”

Crowley decided not to note that what she’d inherited was a book of prophecy. Instead, he led them to a quiet little park. Not St. James, which he always thought of as belonging to him and Aziraphale, no matter how many other humans went there.

Anathema sat on a bench and stared up at Crowley. “Details.”

Slumping onto the bench, he told her a succinct version of his life as it pertained to Aziraphale. He skipped a lot of the interesting bits for the sake of brevity.

“And then we stopped Armageddon,” Crowley finished with a shrug. “I told him he could stay at my flat, since his shop burned down.”

“How did he react?” Anathema asked, something entirely too piercing about her stare.

“Little skittish. Worried about appearances, you know.”

“Uhuh. And does Aziraphale normally worry about what other people think?”

“Not people,” Crowley said. “Heaven and Hell. But we’ve got all that sorted.”

Anathema stared out into the park, where a number of people were walking or relaxing. “I see. Has he ever given any sign that he might return your feelings?”

“No. I don’t know. He’s an angel, isn’t he? They love everything.”

“Pretty sure even God plays favorites,” Anathema said with a little smile. “Maybe you’re Aziraphale’s favorite. But the only way to know for sure is to talk to him, like you’ve done with me. Be honest and open. See if he feels the same.”

Her words grated against him like a church hymn. “And what if he doesn’t feel the same? What if he’s horrified and refuses to ever speak to me again?”

“If he’s that bad a friend, you don’t need him in your life anyway.”

It was easy for Anathema to say that. Humans had such short lives, it didn’t matter what bridges they burned while on Earth. But facing an eternity with no Aziraphale in it—that was untenable.

Crowley stood. “Well, thanks for nothing.”

“What?” Anathema hurried after him as he strolled away. “You’re going to ignore my advice?”

“It’s rubbish, so, yeah.”

She stopped following him, letting out a wordless shriek. Then she called after him, “Don’t know why I bothered!”

Crowley checked his watch. He had just enough time to get to the restaurant to meet Aziraphale. Hopefully a nice high-speed drive on the way over would clear his head of all that nonsense about confessing his love.

Dining, Aziraphale had learned thousands of years ago, was always more fun with a friend. That was why he so looked forward to meals with Crowley.

Aziraphale arrived at the restaurant one minute early, just in time to see Crowley park illegally across the street. He tried to summon a little admonishment for such reckless behavior, but found he was in too good a mood to mind. No pedestrians were harmed, which was the important thing.

Crowley swaggered up to the entrance, emanating the air of someone who was at least an hour late to dinner. Despite the fact he had that perpetual look of someone who couldn’t be bothered to show up on time, Crowley was never tardy for their meetings, at least not when reservations were involved. He really wasn’t all bad, demon or not.

“What’s got you looking like the cat that got the canary?” Crowley asked once they were seated.

“Eternity,” Aziraphale answered. “We’ve got so much more time. I spent the last eleven years feeling like it was going to be the end. But here we are.”

“Right.” Crowley picked up his menu, then set it down again.

“Something wrong?”

“No. Everything’s perfect.” He tapped his hand on the table, staring off into the restaurant.

“Is there somewhere else you’d rather be?” Aziraphale asked, keeping his voice light despite the sinking feeling in his stomach. A true shame that Crowley was putting him off food before even the first course.

“Of course not. Just got something on my mind.” He shook his head as if to clear it, then ordered wine for them both.

Aziraphale didn’t want to examine too closely why his mood lifted after that. They passed a pleasant dinner chatting about mundane things, not end-of-the-world matters. He almost felt as if he were on vacation.

When the server brought him his dessert—a strawberry cake the color of which reminded him a little of Crowley’s red hair—Aziraphale let his gaze wander over the other diners. All these humans, living in happy ignorance of what nearly befell them. They’d never know what he and Crowley had done—

He paused, catching sight of a familiar bespectacled face framed with long dark curls. The witch with the book of prophecies. She was here, sitting at the bar, half-hidden behind a menu. Aziraphale waved.

She jerked behind the menu as if she hadn’t seen him. Strange.

“Oh, Christ,” Crowley swore. “What’s she doing here?”

“Let’s go say hello.” Aziraphale was done with his cake, anyway. “She looks like she can’t decide what to order. I’m sure I can be of service.”

“Angel—wait—” Crowley’s nay-saying didn’t deter him.

Aziraphale hurried over to the other side of the restaurant. “Ms. Anathema Device. How are you?”

She lowered the menu slowly, a tight smile on her face. “Mr. Aziraphale. Didn’t see you here. Oh, and you have Crowley with you. How. Nice.” Her grin was beginning to look a little reminiscent of a bleached skull’s.

“Just in the neighborhood, were you?” Crowley asked, voice a little venomous. No matter how many years separated them from the Garden, there was always something of the snake about Crowley.

“Yes, I was in London for. Business reasons.” She pushed her glasses up. “And I’d heard this place was good—”

“Oh, it is. You have to try the salmon. It’s divine. And I would know,” he added with a chuckle.

“Right. Well.” She glanced from him to Crowley. “Looks like you were leaving. Don’t want to keep you.”

“Of course. Enjoy your meal.” Aziraphale paused. “Where’s your boyfriend? Young Mr. Pulsifer?”

“Oh, he had important witchfinder business to attend to. Couldn’t make it.”

“Give him my best,” Aziraphale said, then left her to enjoy her meal.

“Drop you off at the shop?” Crowley asked.

Aziraphale hesitated only a moment. He’d gotten more used to Crowley’s driving in the past week. “If it’s not any trouble.”

“Course not.” Crowley opened the passenger door for him, then paused. “Think I left my phone at the table.”

Aziraphale huffed. “That’s the trouble with mobile phones. A pointless hassle.”

“Back in two shakes.” He hurried across the street, nearly causing a three-car collision that took a minor miracle to avoid.

He let his focus wander once again over the crowds of unknowing humans. Even if they went round inventing all sorts of unnecessary nonsense, he was glad they were still here. It was the whole point of the world. For them.

A finely dressed woman stood near a newspaper stand, pretending to shop. Aziraphale knew she was only pretending because the place was closed. She kept sending furtive glances his way.

Despite his lack of expertise in matters of espionage, he was quite certain he was being watched.

“Oh, really now,” Aziraphale said, and went to investigate.

Chapter Text

Growing up as an occultist had changed Anathema in many ways. Not as much as growing up attached to a prophecy, but still. They way she saw the world tended to be a little different from the mainstream. Ley Lines of power hovered on the edge of her awareness, distant thrums of power. Auras danced around crowds, a rainbow of emotions.

But the two in the center of the restaurant were twin suns in comparison. She wasn’t sure how she’d missed it the first night they’d met. Maybe Crowley and Aziraphale were just that much happier now that they’d helped save the world.

She’d thought an angel and a demon would be remarkably different, but together, even Crowley shone with love to rival that of Aziraphale. If only she could’ve taken a snapshot of what she’d seen and shown that stubborn demon, he might’ve believed her.

After they left, Anathema thought about sneaking out the back. Aziraphale had bought her story—bless his heart—but Crowley looked pissed. She didn’t want to be on his bad side.

Before she could make her escape, he came swaggering back inside. Alone. She tried to appear as innocent as possible, but making herself small and docile wasn’t really in her wheelhouse.

“In London on business, were you?” Crowley growled, his inscrutable eyes hidden behind dark glasses.

“If you don’t want to be followed, you should drive something a little less conspicuous. And not, oh, a classic car that gets photographed and posted all over Twitter.” She held up her phone, revealing the feed of tweets.

Crowley’s expression stalled somewhere between anger and preening at the attention. Anathema rolled her eyes.

“What are you playing at, being here? Stalking us now?” Crowley asked.

“No. I just wanted to see you two. Together. I don’t think you know what a huge deal this is, or what it could mean—”

“Why are you really here?”

Though his eyes were hidden, Anathema felt his gaze like a weight. She parted her lips to speak again, to stretch the truth.

To hide it.

But what was the point? Wasn’t like he’d judge her any more than he already did. She slouched a little, picking up the club soda she’d ordered to keep the bartender off her back. “Honestly? I’ve been feeling a little—” she hesitated, then made herself continue. “—lost without the prophecies to guide me. My whole life I’ve been working to save the world. And it’s over. We won. But now it’s all just—gone.”

“Is that all,” he said, waving a hand lackadaisically. “I can pop over to the Kremlin and arrange another nuclear threat if you’d like—”

“My life isn’t a joke.”

“Who says I was joking?”

A chill crept up Anathema’s spine. She couldn’t lose sight of who she was talking to, here. He was a demon. Even if his aura still shone with love, love, love. Of course, now it was tinged with annoyance.

“I think this is fate working again,” Anathema said. “I called you because I felt this draw, like I needed to. And you answered. What if I’m meant to help you?”

“The only thing humans are meant to do is live and die. Everything else is luck and your own choices.” He eyed her drink. “Speaking of bad choices, don’t let Aziraphale know you came all this way and didn’t even try the salmon.”

“Fine,” she snapped. “I’ll leave you alone. But you have my number if something comes up.”

“It won’t, witch. Have a nice life.” Crowley strolled out, looking like a rock star without his screaming fans.

Anathema swiveled back to face her soda. She toyed with the straw, trying to stave off the gaping emptiness inside her where the prophecies used to live. She’d talked about this with Newt, of course. And he was a good listener. But he didn’t understand. He was content with a normal life, now, because the events of the days surrounding the almost-end had been a deviation from the norm. For him it was a return to regular life.

But for Anathema it was a giant question mark. Most people were used to that by her age. But she wasn’t. And now here she was, sitting and feeling sorry for herself, cyberstalking demons and angels on the off chance they needed her for something momentous.

Crowley only wanted relationship advice, though. Essential to him, but irrelevant to humanity at large. Maybe she could organize protests, lobby for carbon emissions reform or—

“Another, miss?” the bartender asked, standoffish.

“No.” She paid her tab and, taking the hint that she wasn’t welcome, left.

Aziraphale crept down the street. Pedestrians passed here and there, but none gave him a second glance. He kept his eyes on the woman who’d been watching him. She was an angel, he was certain. He wasn’t familiar with her, but he’d been stationed on Earth for a long time. He was confident if he spoke to her, he’d clear this whole mess up.

The woman glanced at him, realized he was approaching, and fled in a flash of white light.

“Well, that could’ve gone better.” He sighed. Heaven was watching him, then. Fantastic. Was it so much to ask for a little peace and quiet? Now he had to worry about people following him around and planning who knew what—

A hand on his shoulder nearly made him jump out of his skin. He whirled to find Crowley.

“Ah, it’s only you. Good.” Aziraphale straightened his collar. “Did you collect your infernal phone?”

“What? Yeah. Why’d you come down the street?” Crowley glanced around.

“Oh, I thought I saw a friend. But it wasn’t them.” He gave a fleeting smile. Keeping secrets was the same as lying, and he’d never been particularly good at that. But he didn’t want to bother Crowley with something that didn’t even concern him. There was no point.

“Still need that ride?” Crowley asked, sounding almost bashful.

“Yes, thank you.”

During the drive, Aziraphale tried to distract himself from the horrors of Crowley’s driving by imagining possible reasons for an angel to be keeping tabs on him. He kept circling back to the punishments they’d paid for each other.

Crowley pulled the Bentley up to the curb by his shop, interrupting his thoughts.

“Excellent dinner spot,” the demon said. “As always.”

“Glad you enjoyed it. Well.” He hesitated, feeling as if he should say something else. There was an air of expectancy around Crowley, as if he were waiting for something. “Goodnight.”

Aziraphale unlocked his shop door, and was surprised to see Crowley still there, waiting. He gave another wave, then hurried inside.

He locked up for the night, taking extra care (not that it would keep out any celestial or infernal beings.) Thoughts of what might have happened had he not caught that last prophecy from Agnes plagued him as he settled in to read. The what-ifs of his death, and worse, Crowley’s, distracted him so much he couldn’t get past the first page.

This was silly. They’d won. It was over. And yet he couldn’t forget all those demons clamoring for Crowley’s death. They’d agreed to leave him alone, but for how long?

Maybe he ought to go check on the demon, just to be certain. Then he could relax.

He knew where Crowley’s flat was, though he’d never been inside it. Had to keep up appearances, after all.

He had a cab drop him off a block down, and he strolled the rest of the way, trying to blend in with the late evening crowds. Just another normal human walking down the street. Not suspicious at all.

After walking up and down the street for over an hour, Aziraphale had to admit to himself that he was being paranoid. Crowley could take care of himself. No one was after them.

“Maybe a grand gesture?” Crowley asked his house plants. They didn’t respond except by gleaming verdantly in the low light. “That way if he responded with a declaration of love, it’d all be sorted. But if he didn’t take it well, I could play it off as just something friendly that he was reading too much into.”

He misted a few more leaves. A perfect plan. He was safe no matter what.

And if Aziraphale did feel the same—

Then what? Crowley paused, frowning.

“What would it change, really? Not like we’d do the human thing and start a bloody family. Can’t grow old together. Maybe all this is pointless anyway.”

He put the plant mister away and slumped over to his chair.

A grand gesture. Nothing came to mind. And now their arrangement was over. No more meeting to discuss their clandestine swapping of miracles and temptations. It was only life from now on, whatever that meant.

For a moment he felt a pang of an unfamiliar emotion—empathy for Anathema, who didn’t know what direction her life should take now that no one was telling her what to do. He shoved it away.

Restless, he walked around his flat. A flash of white-blond hair caught his eye through the window that faced the street.

It was Aziraphale, just. Walking.

For one mad moment he thought maybe the angel was working up the courage to make some sort of move on him. But no, if Aziraphale were going to give a declaration of love, as such, there'd be food involved.

Crowley hurried downstairs.

“Angel?” he called.

Aziraphale stopped and spun, looking guilty. “Oh. Crowley. Funny meeting you here—”

“Outside my building? What’s going on?”

“I. Well.” He glanced around, then stepped closer. “I think an angel was watching us earlier. So I came by to make sure you were alright.”

Crowley was touched by the gesture, though he kept all of that sappy emotional nonsense out of his expression. “You’re sure they were watching us?”

“Mostly. Possibly. Sure it’s nothing to worry about. I’ll just leave now—”

“No. Come upstairs.” He scanned the area, but didn’t see anything amiss. “Safety in numbers.”

“Right.”

Aziraphale followed him up. As they stood in the lift, Crowley was struck with a sudden nervousness. What if Aziraphale found his flat to be too boring? Or too modern? What if he hated the houseplants? Would he take one look at the lack of bookshelves and leave in disgust?

He showed Aziraphale inside. The angel paused in the doorway, taking it all in. Thinking his own inscrutable thoughts. Crowley had the sudden urge to fling himself out a window.

“It’s very… spartan,” Aziraphale said at last. “Could use a bookshelf here and there.”

“No, you’re not turning my place into extra storage for your shop.” Crowley locked the door behind them. “We’ve got to figure out a plan.”

“For what?”

“Dealing with Heaven and Hell.” Crowley sat in his chair, then realized there was nowhere for the angel to sit.

Miraculously, the collections of air molecules near Aziraphale had arranged themselves into a very comfortable-looking armchair.

“We don’t know if they mean us any harm, or what they’re planning.”

“Exactly,” Crowley said. “We don’t have information. We’ve got to get some, before they make a move.”

“A difficult task, considering we can’t just stroll into our respective head offices and ask for updates anymore.”

Crowley pulled out a bottle of Scotch and two glasses from his desk. “Going to be a long night.”

“Think I’d prefer a nice red,” Aziraphale said.

Crowley swirled the glass, and the amber liquid bled crimson. “So long as it helps jog some ideas.”

They lapsed into silence. Crowley tried to think of the matter at hand, he really did. But his thoughts kept circling to a grand gesture to test the waters with Aziraphale. It wasn’t particularly helpful.

“Perhaps Ms. Device can help us?” Aziraphale suggested, after a full half hour of drinking and contemplative silence.

Crowley glanced at the window, wondering how much it would hurt to really defenestrate himself after all. “Why her?”

“She’s an occultist. Perhaps she has some contacts in the demon realm who might be able to shed some light on what’s going on.”

“Who’s to say she doesn’t have angelic contacts?” Crowley countered. “I’m fairly certain she’s not one of ours. Theirs,” he amended with a grimace.

Kicked out of heaven, kicked out of hell. If he didn’t belong with Aziraphale, where did he belong?

Aziraphale fixed him with a pleading look. Damn puppy-dog eyes. They shouldn’t have worked on him.

“Fine, I’ll call her. But she’s useless. Mark my words.” He tapped her name on his recent call list and set it to speaker-phone, only because he knew it would annoy Aziraphale.

“Really?” Anathema said, sounding terse. “You didn’t even wait twenty-four hours to come crawling back. I don’t care about your boy troubles—”

“I’ve got you on speaker phone,” Crowley said, talking over the worst of it. “With Aziraphale.”

“Oh. Hi.”

In the background somewhere Newt was asking what the devil was going on.

Anathema continued, “I’ve got you on with me and Newt now. We were sleeping.”

“No time for that,” Crowley said, barreling through. Once he proved they’d be useless, he could move on to figuring out a real plan. “Do you have a line on any angelic—”

“Or demonic!” Aziraphale added.

“—information?”

“Why do you ask?” said Anathema.

“Because we think the forces of Heaven and Hell aren’t quite done with us yet,” the angel supplied. “Any help you could provide would be greatly appreciated.”

“Fuck,” Anathema spat. “I, uh, might have. But I possibly, er, burned it all?”

Crowley eyed Aziraphale, then said, “Call you back.” He ended the connection.

“Burned?” Aziraphale looked at Crowley, as if he couldn’t quite comprehend the word.

Crowley sighed and stood. “I’ll make us some tea.”

Chapter Text

Of all the many roles Crowley had played in his life, he’d never expected to have to be the one keeping the peace. But as he pulled up in front of Jasmine Cottage the next morning, he paused before shutting off the car.

Aziraphale still looked irate, which for the angel was as good as a screaming tantrum.

“She didn’t know what she was doing,” Crowley said. “She’s just a human, remember. They can’t help it.”

“Burning books is morally repugnant.” Aziraphale stuck his nose in the air. “But I’ll speak to her.”

“Let’s get this over with,” Crowley grumbled, stepping out of the car.

The weather here was perfect as usual. Crowley wondered if it would ever wear off, what Aziraphale had described as an aura of love. He didn’t intend to hang round long enough to find out. Once Anathema proved to be useless, they could move onto a real plan.

Newt answered the door, looking extremely intimidated to have both an angel and a demon on his doorstep.

“The witch in?” Crowley drawled.

“She has a name.” His intimidation vanished. “Show some respect.”

Crowley muscled past him, which wasn’t hard. “Anathema?” he called.

“Here,” she puffed, carrying a stack of books into the room.

“You have a lovely home,” Aziraphale said. They probably didn’t notice the edge to his voice, which was as rude as the angel got.

“Thank you,” Newt said.

“It’s just a rental.” Anathema laid out the many books. Aziraphale eyed them, and her, like he was worried he’d have to jump bodily between them to prevent anymore book-burning mishaps. If there’d been a fire going in the grate, he’d probably have grabbed the books and run for it.

“I’ll put on some tea.” Newt bustled around the kitchen, while the rest of them sat at the table.

“I really feel, before we begin,” Aziraphale said, “we should sort out the business with the second set of prophecies.”

Anathema stared at the tabletop. “I’m not going to apologize for it.”

“Is there anything left? Maybe even the ash—”

“No.” She shook her head, then pushed her glasses up.

“Who cares about the prophecies?” Newt said as he set cups on a tray.

“They might have helped,” Aziraphale said. “And it’s the principle of the matter. Burning an original manuscript—”

“It’s done, angel,” Crowley said, hoping to dull some of Aziraphale’s suffering. “No use beating a dead horse.”

“We’re left with no leads.” Aziraphale shook his head. “I admit to being a little worried.”

“Maybe Agnes knew I’d burn them,” Anathema said. “She predicted all the rest.”

“But that was before the end of the world,” Newt said. “Er. Sorry to interrupt.”

“You’re not interrupting, you’re part of this, too.” Anathema gave him a warm smile as he set down the tea tray beside her stack of books.

The love that passed between them made Crowley look away. Discomfort wedged in his chest, though he didn’t know why. Humans loved each other, he’d seen it ten thousand times in ten thousand ways. This was no different, only it made him think of how he looked at Aziraphale.

“What do you mean?” Aziraphale asked Newt.

“Agnes’s prophecies were for her descendants. They mostly concerned the descendants, too. And before we got the second set, we assumed they ended at Armageddon because that’s when the world was supposed to end.”

“Of course,” Aziraphale said. “If we’d failed, there’d have been no more history for her to warn her descendants about.”

“Stands to reason Adam’s choices were so chaotic not even she could predict them. But if so, why write a second set?”

Crowley frowned. He saw the problem, now. “You’re saying if she couldn’t tell what the Antichrist would choose—and it was up to him, at the end, to stop Satan from rising and starting the war anyway—then how could she see past it?”

“Right. I’m guessing it’s some kind of Murphy’s Law problem—”

Anathema snorted. “Isn’t that where everything goes wrong?”

“No.” Newt sounded a little defensive. “The full Murphy’s Law states that anything that can happen, will happen. Depending on if multiverse theory is correct, that means even mutually exclusive things all happen.”

“That’s very interesting,” said Aziraphale. “But what’s it got to do with book burning?”

“Maybe nothing, but maybe Agnes’s predictions became less accurate after Adam’s decision. She might’ve been seeing into the future of another universe, one where Anathema made a different choice.”

“But all her other predictions were spot on,” Anathema said.

“Because once she made the predictions, she changed all her descendant’s choices.”

The kettle began to sing. A strangely tense silence filled the room as Newt poured water into the teapot.

“What about free will?” Anathema asked. “All her predictions came true, but that doesn’t mean we acted on every one of them the right way.”

“Free will is sort of a matter of perspective when it comes to true prophecies,” Newt said, voice soft.

“What makes you such an expert?” Crowley asked.

“I’ve always wanted to be a computer engineer. Transistors, logic gates, microchips, they all rely on quantum mechanics. Thought maybe reading up on the basics would help. It didn’t.” He pulled a blank piece of notebook paper from a stack and rummaged until he found a pen. “I’ll draw a diagram.”

Newt made one straight line. “This is everything that Agnes saw. Maybe the prophecies came true because her descendants believed in them, making them true, or maybe her seeing it predetermined reality. Doesn’t matter. All that’s over.”

He branched the line out in ten directions, like the bristles on a spindly broom.

“After Adam stopped the end of the world, Agnes’s visions could’ve gotten less accurate.”

“And less nice,” Aziraphale added.

“So we ended up in one of these lines where Anathema decides to burn the pages instead of reading them.”

Anathema stared at the simple illustration. “You’re saying I made the wrong choice?”

“No, of course not, you just made a different choice than Agnes saw—”

She stood abruptly, her palms resting on the table. “I—need some air.” She rushed out of the cottage. Newt hesitated a moment, then hurried after her.

Crowley sat back, crossing his arms. “Don’t know why she had to run off like that. Plenty of air in here.”

Aziraphale sighed and began pouring the tea. “I do feel sorry for her.” He tipped the spout of the teapot into Crowley’s cup. Espresso came out. Funny, that. He’d been thinking maybe all this required a little more caffeine than tea could provide.

“It’s not her we need to be worried about.” Crowley drank the scalding espresso in one shot. “We still haven’t got a plan to speak of.”

“I was thinking about that,” Aziraphale began, voice hesitant. He stirred sugar into his tea for longer than strictly necessary. “Perhaps Agnes’s last prophecy isn’t done with us yet.”

“How d’you mean?”

“The only reliable way to get information about what Heaven and Hell are planning is to be on the inside.”

“Too bad we can’t get anywhere near the head offices.”

“Not as ourselves.” Aziraphale finally set his teaspoon down. “But if we were disguised as other angels or demons…” He looked up at Crowley, eyes clouded with fear.

The expression sent a surge of protectiveness through Crowley. “Too dangerous. What if you get caught?”

“I can handle myself.”

“Like you did with those Nazi spies?” It was a low blow, but Crowley couldn’t let him put himself in danger. Not when complete destruction was on the line.

Aziraphale stared into his tea, not drinking it. A bad sign. “I can’t just sit here while our sides plan something awful.”

“They aren’t our sides anymore.” Crowley glanced out the window into the garden, where he was sure Newt was consoling Anathema. “I believe we’re on the humans’ side now. Satan help us.”

“I don’t suppose we’ll be getting any help from God or Satan on this one.” Aziraphale finally sipped his tea.

“I’ll switch places with some demon,” Crowley said. “Won’t be gone long. Just enough to get information.”

“How will we find a demon for you to swap with?” Aziraphale frowned. “I only know how to create portals to Heaven.”

Crowley leaned back, assuming a posture that was far more relaxed than he actually felt. “I never bothered with portals like that. Just popped down, you know. Can’t remember how to make a summoning circle. Never paid much attention.”

“Summoning circle?” Anathema said from the doorway. Her eyes were red and her face was a little puffy. “Why would you need one of those?”

“So Crowley can disguise himself as another demon to gather information on what they’re planning.” Aziraphale seemed to be over his anger about the book-burning now.

“Oh. Well, if it’s a simple demon summoning, I can help.” She wiped her eyes, then went to her stack of books and pulled one out. “Let’s get started.”

Aziraphale felt awful about being so rude to Anathema. She’d been doing what she thought was right for herself in the moment. He could empathize with that. To make up for his atrociously rude behavior, he helped her draw her circle. He’d always been rather good at that sort of thing.

They’d cleared furniture out of one of the cottage’s back rooms, making a large enough space. When the chalk lines were down, Anathema inspected them.

“Perfect. Thank you.” She studied her book. “Now, we’ll need some candles, salt, and,” she scrunched her nose up. “Blood of an innocent to lure it in.”

“Your blood will work,” Crowley said from where he leaned on the doorframe, keeping well away from the circle.

“But I’m not a virgin,” she said, very matter-of-fact.

“That’s not what innocent means. Your soul is heaven-bound, at least for now.” Crowley stepped a little closer, still avoiding the circle. “Some idiot will want to tempt you to our—their side.”

“Oh. That just leaves five white candles, and a lot of salt.”

“I’ll get them,” Aziraphale said. “You can double-check the symbols.”

“I’ll come with.” Crowley started to follow him out the room.

“No need. Be back in a tick.” He didn’t meet Crowley’s eye, but noticed the way the demon’s face fell, as if in disappointment. Something in his chest wrenched. He hated keeping things from Crowley. But it was necessary.

Once he’d gathered everything he needed from the local shops, he adopted his most unassuming expression and returned to Jasmine Cottage. By that time, Anathema had finished her inspection of the circle and declared the symbols flawless.

“Course they are,” Crowley said, swaggering out of the back room. “He never half-asses anything. It’s obnoxious.”

Aziraphale stood a little straighter, beaming. “I’ve gotten the candles and salt.”

The rest of his purchases were in his coat pocket, hidden from view.

Anathema took the last ingredients and hurried to the back room. Aziraphale peeked in long enough to be certain she was placing the candles in the right spots, then drifted away.

Crowley eyed him. “Where you off to?”

“Oh, I shouldn’t be here for this part. The demon might sense my angelic presence and get scared.”

Crowley looked very much like he was trying not to laugh. “Scared of you. Right.”

“So I think I’ll just go upstairs and read some of these fascinating books, if it’s alright with you, Ms. Device?”

“Sure.” She stared at him, then Crowley, strange expression on her face. “I guess we should get started.”

Aziraphale grabbed a few books at random, then hurried upstairs. He found a large enough empty space on the floor of a room that looked like a half-furnished study. He set the books aside, guilty about another lie, and began drawing.

Six thousand years of experience had taught Crowley when to step back and let humans do the hard work. This was one of those times. He hovered just outside the room, watching with mild interest as Anathema smeared blood from her pricked finger in the middle of the circle, then made a careful pass with the salt.

Demon-summoning wasn’t that interesting to watch, really. Crowley let his mind wander, and as it had done all too often lately, it wandered to Aziraphale. To the uncomfortable ache in his chest that was his love for the angel.

For a moment he considered following Anathema’s advice and telling Aziraphale everything. But he brushed it away. That sort of thing was for humans. The more Crowley came to terms with no longer belonging with the demons of Hell, the more fear crept around his heart. If he blew things with Aziraphale, his only friend, he’d have nothing left, aside from the fight to save humanity, which would feel hollow without anyone around he actually liked.

Anathema and Newt began to chant in Latin. There wasn’t anything particularly special about the language, but most demons loved the drama of it all.

Maybe a grand gesture wouldn’t work. Maybe Crowley needed to start smaller. Work his way up. That was the safe bet. He’d seen enough rom-coms to make this work.

The floor of the back room began to tremble and warp within the circle. A demon crawled out, staring around in confusion.

“Oh, for hell’s sake,” Crowley swore. “Hastur. You would be the only one stupid enough to fall for this old trick.”

“What’s the meaning of this?” he said, black eyes wide. “Crowley?” He tried to step out of the circle, but the force of holy magic and the purity of salt kept him from escaping.

“I suppose you’ll do. Right, Anathema, Newt, keep him here. Don’t listen to his lies, et cetera, et cetera.” Crowley shifted his body around, changing his shape until he looked like Hastur. Ugh. At least it was temporary. This was a lot less fun than pretending to be Aziraphale. “Be back soon.”

“Good luck,” Anathema said with a nervous little smile.

Before Crowley could slip down to Hell, a low rumble came from upstairs, where Aziraphale was supposedly reading.

“Is that a normal thing little cottages do?” Crowley asked.

“Not usually,” Newt answered. “Guess we have to go investigate.”

Anathema led the way upstairs. She paused in the doorway to a small room, her expression shocked. Crowley had an increasingly bad feeling as he hurried to see.

Aziraphale stood outside another chalk circle, this one filled with different symbols, the lines more rigid, the design elegant. Inside the circle stood an angel Crowley recognized from his time in Heaven when he’d stood in for Aziraphale’s punishment.

“Oh, hello Gabriel,” Aziraphale said, voice trembling ever so slightly. “Wasn’t, ah, expecting you to stumble into my trap.”

Gabriel stared at each of them in turn, his expression flat, fists clenched. “When I’m free from this circle, I’m going to smite all of you—”

“Yeah, yeah.” Crowley grabbed Aziraphale by the arm and yanked him out of the room, shutting the door on Gabriel’s speech. “What the bloody hell are you doing?” he hissed at Aziraphale.

“I couldn’t very well let you go undercover alone. I had to help.”

“That,” Crowley pointed at the door. “Doesn’t look like help. You can’t impersonate an archangel .”

“He has to do something,” Anathema said. “Because that guy saw all of us. We can’t let him go.”

Crowley moved to push his sunglasses up, then remembered he was wearing Hastur’s form. “Fine. But Aziraphale, this is going to be dangerous.”

The angel brightened, giving Crowley a beaming smile that made his insides warm. “I won’t fail.”

This was going to be a disaster.

Chapter Text

The realization that she might have doomed all of humanity by burning the prophecies had hung like a fog in Anathema’s mind, but now she pushed aside her own doubts and grabbed Crowley’s arm.

“We need to talk. In private.”

He stared at her hand on his jacket sleeve. Somehow the empty black eyes of this demon’s form were worse than sunglasses indoors. And the fabric beneath her fingers didn’t feel particularly clean. She let go.

Crowley followed her down the hall to another room. Anathema shut the door behind them.

“That angel we have trapped,” she hesitated, staring up at him, knowing her fear was plain on her face. “That’s Gabriel. I’ve heard of him. He was at the airbase—”

“What else are we supposed to do, then? Let him go?”

“No.” Anathema pushed her glasses up. “We obviously can’t do that. But is it a good idea to let Aziraphale pretend to be an archangel? Won’t someone notice?”

“Course it’s not a good idea. Neither is this,” he gestured to his body. “It’s our only plan.”

“Thanks to me.” She dipped her head, staring at the old wooden floor. Anathema had promised herself she wouldn’t wallow in self-pity. But wallowing was looking more appealing by the second.

“Er, there, there,” Crowley said, awkwardly patting her on the head. “No use crying over spilled milk and all.”

Crowley’s inept attempt to comfort her knocked her out of her haze of pity, at least. “Are we really going to let Aziraphale go through with this?”

He looked away from her, and though his shape was different, he was Crowley all over, from the languid angles of his limbs to the concern creasing his brow. “Gabriel will open doors a lower ranking angel can’t.”

“As long as you can handle it,” she said.

“Me? I’ll be fine. Hastur doesn’t exactly contain multitudes.”

“I mean handle the stress of knowing he’s out there, risking everything.” Anathema couldn’t imagine going undercover with someone she cared about like that.

“If we sit around doing nothing, we’re all dead, more likely than not.” He didn’t meet her eye. “You done?”

Anathema let out a long breath. “Fine. Go. Break a leg.”

Crowley sauntered out. A moment later, Newt sidled into the room.

“Everything okay?”

“Not really.” She gave him her best attempt at a smile. “Because of me, our only hope is a love-sick demon and an oblivious angel.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong.” Newt took her hand, looking at her with the same gentle expression that he’d used earlier, when he’d followed her into the garden. “Who knows, those prophecies could’ve been completely useless anyway.”

“Then why bother writing them?”

“So we’d have an excuse for a romantic fire outdoors?”

She rolled her eyes, but couldn’t help but smile. Once again, the world teetered on the edge of destruction, but they’d see it through.

Somehow.

When Crowley went back to the room where the archangel Gabriel was imprisoned, he found Aziraphale already changed.

“How do I look?” the angel asked, nerves fluttering in his voice.

“Like someone in advertising.” Crowley replied disdainfully. “Spot on.” He found himself missing the stuffy, outdated suit. Gabriel’s might have been sharp, but it was all wrong.

“Oh, good.” Aziraphale let out a long breath. “Well—”

In the room behind them, the real Gabriel began yelling again about killing them all with the righteous power of Heaven.

“Let’s talk in the garden.”

The sun shone through gaps in a partly cloudy sky. Birds sang, bees buzzed. The perfect summer experience. Crowley found himself missing the simple inconveniences of the city. Traffic. Smog. People walking round staring at their phones, running into other pedestrians.

He and Aziraphale sat on the bench in front of the cottage.

“This is going to be difficult,” Aziraphale said.

“Oh, it won’t be so bad. Just pop in, ask a couple questions, make an excuse to leave. We’ll be done in half an hour.”

“Right.” He turned to face Crowley. “Suppose we better be off, then.”

“Yeah.” Crowley stood, trying to mimic how the real Hastur moved. “Those circles won’t hold forever.”

Neither of them left. Crowley knew he should. Important things were afoot, the fate of humanity was at stake. Yet he couldn’t seem to look away from the stranger’s face that Aziraphale wore, because deep beneath those flat eyes of Gabriel shone everything that made Aziraphale worth knowing: love, trepidation, a brave hopefulness—and just a touch of ruthlessness.

“Aziraphale, I—” Crowley balked. He wanted to say the rest, that he loved the angel and had for so long he hardly remembered what not loving him felt like. He wanted to say that no matter what happened once they departed, it was all worth it, and Crowley wouldn’t take a moment of it back, not for humanity or the world itself. That he was glad he’d fallen because it meant knowing Aziraphale, and being known by him. That even now he had half a mind to hang Heaven and Hell and the world and run off to some distant planet where none of this mattered, so long as Aziraphale ran with him—only the angel never would, because there’d be no old books to hoard and no chef specials and vintage wines.

Instead what he said was, “Be careful.”

“You as well.” Aziraphale looked away, then started to walk out of the garden.

“Wait.”

The angel turned, something hopeful in his borrowed eyes. “Yes?”

“Don’t forget to act like a tool, else they’ll realize you aren’t Gabriel.”

Aziraphale nodded briskly, then disappeared behind the hedge.

Anathema’s words came back to Crowley. As long as you can handle it. He could. Taking a deep breath, Crowley returned to Hell.

Heaven was as Aziraphale remembered, not that it should be any different after only a few days away. He was the one who had changed.

Five steps through the main entrance and an angel flagged him down, someone Aziraphale didn’t recognize.

“Gabriel,” she said, eyes wide. “I thought you’d be down on Earth already. Did the meeting get canceled?”

“Oh, um,” Aziraphale cleared his throat, trying to sound as impressive and confident as Gabriel. “No. I just—came back to double-check the location.”

“It’s at the Graceland All-Night Wedding Chapel and Casino in Las Vegas. You chose it—”

“Yes, of course. That was a test.” Aziraphale turned on his heel. “Carry on.”

Before the angel could say anything else, he strode down the hall, heading for the Las Vegas exit to Earth. A few people passed him, giving him deferential nods. All the attention was odd. Normally, no one really noticed Aziraphale. He’d spent so much time stationed on Earth that he’d lost touch with his old acquaintances. None of them had ever been as close to Aziraphale as Crowley was.

Thinking about Crowley sent a wave of fear through him. Was the demon alright? Had he been found out? Killed—?

No. That sort of worrying was only going to distract him. He had to stay focused, or he’d be proving Crowley right about not being able to go undercover.

The chapel was easy enough to find, lit with garish lights and decorated in kitchy Elvis-themed decor. Aziraphale was surprised to find, upon stepping inside, that it wasn’t consecrated grounds. Just a building shaped like a church. Drunk couples waited in line to be married by an Elvis impersonator.

“There you are,” said someone by the door. An angel. “We’ve been waiting. Everyone else is here.”

“Right.” Aziraphale tried to walk like he belonged here, like he knew precisely what was going on. The angel led him to a back room.

He nearly gasped when he saw who waited inside. A small group of demons and other angels, each of them eyeing the other group suspiciously.

Crowley, wearing Hastur’s form, was among them. Relief flooded Aziraphale. He was safe and sound, blending right in.

Everyone in the room watched Aziraphale, waiting. He cleared his throat.

“Should we get started?” he asked.

The angel who’d led him here look confused. “You called the meeting, sir. What’s the latest update on the plan?”

“The Plan—? Er, right. The plan.” He looked around at them as imperiously as he could. “Everything’s on schedule. No delays so far.”

His gaze lingered for a moment too long on Crowley, who was making a strange face at him. Aziraphale had no idea why angels and demons would be meeting like this, but it wasn’t good. And he’d stumbled into a situation where he was supposed to have all the answers, not ask questions.

“What did Metatron say?” a demon asked.

“He said—everything’s great!”

“So God supports our plan?” the angel beside him said.

“Yes. One-hundred percent.”

Crowley’s eyes got wide, and he looked a little like he was choking on something sour. A strangled little noise left his throat, and everyone turned to stare at him instead of Aziraphale, which was a bit of a relief.

“Er, sorry,” Crowley said, “just, forgot some of the elements of the plan. Can you remind me, Beelzebub?”

She gave Crowley a strange look, but said, “We’re planning to wipe out humanity the old fashioned way. No messing around with Horsepeople of the Apocalypse. Just the twenty million of us against them. And since their side has the green light,” she nodded to Aziraphale, “all that’s left is to figure out the logistics.”

Cold dread filled him, keeping him from speaking. They were going to just—murder all of humanity? But why? It didn’t make any sense. Demons weren’t supposed to go round killing people en masse, they were only supposed to corrupt their souls. And angels participating in something like this? It was unthinkable.

Across the room, Crowley met Aziraphale’s eye and shook his head slightly. Aziraphale schooled his expression, keeping it as neutral as he could.

“We should be going,” Beelzebub said. “Lots to plan.”

“Wait—” Aziraphale paused, trying to figure out how to phrase his question. “I need to be sure you’re fully committed to this plan. That your motives are, er, as pure as they can be.”

“We know you don’t trust us,” Beelzebub said. “The feeling is mutual. But we can’t let humanity corrupt anymore of us. The last thing we need is another Crowley stirring up trouble in Hell.”

“You’re saying you want to destroy humanity because of Crowley?”

Beelzebub gave him a shrewd look. “Same reason you want to. We’ve been over this before, Gabriel. A demon that can’t be affected by holy water and an angel that can’t be affected by hellfire are too dangerous to risk. We’re lucky they only seem to want to hang around London instead of conquering Heaven and Hell.”

“This meeting is over,” Aziraphale said, turning away to hide his face from them. “Lots to do, like you said.”

This was all their fault. He’d thought the plan had been so clever—swap places, trick Heaven and Hell, walk away unscathed and free—but he hadn’t considered how everyone else might react to their supposed new invulnerability. He’d been thinking only of himself, and of Crowley.

And now the whole of humanity was going to pay.

“Angel, wait—”

The voice might’ve been Hastur’s, but the way it curled around the word angel, a gentle caress, filled with so much tenderness it made Aziraphale’s chest ache, was unmistakably Crowley.

He turned, unable to stop himself, and met Crowley’s eyes. For a moment the wide black pupils of Hastur’s flickered to a snake’s.

“Hang on—” Beelzebub moved to block Crowley.

Aziraphale acted without thinking, shoving Beelzebub aside. He grabbed Crowley’s hand, then pulled him to the door. Followed by a number of shouts, they ran.

Chapter Text

Heaven was just as bland as Crowley remembered, though at least this time it was a little more interesting, what with all the shouting, scandalized angels diving out of their way as he and Aziraphale sprinted through hallways. They both dropped their disguises.

Crowley hadn’t used Hell as a shortcut to getting around on Earth in a long time, but he supposed Heaven was the same. They were both connected to every part of the Earth, and could function as tesseracts for celestial and infernal beings.

Aziraphale, still holding his hand, led him to an exit to Tadfield. They made it through, landing in buttery late-afternoon sunlight, standing in the middle of the street. An old man walking a little dog glared at them, then hurried off, muttering about youngsters these days and their pranks.

“Well,” Crowley said, trying to keep the tone light, “that went over like a lead balloon.”

“What?” Aziraphale looked down at their hands, which were still clasped. He let go. “Sorry, didn’t mean to grab you like that—”

“It’s fine.” Crowley flexed his fingers, missing the warmth of the angel’s touch.

“Nothing is fine!” Aziraphale stared around the street, as if expecting the full forces of Heaven and Hell to descend upon them that moment. “We’re responsible for this!”

“Let’s go back to Jasmine Cottage,” Crowley said. “We can talk things over there—”

“Talking won’t fix it, Crowley.” The panic faded from his expression, replaced with horror. “What if we can’t fix this at all?”

“Course we’ll fix it,” he said, though he wasn’t sure of any such thing. “You probably shouldn’t have said Metatron agreed to the plan, though.”

Aziraphale clenched his fists. “I didn’t know what else to say! You’re the one who broke cover for no reason. I might’ve been able to talk them down if I didn’t have to save you.”

“I didn’t need saving. And I didn’t break cover for no reason. You were about to blow your own disguise with your reaction. I could tell—” that you needed someone to comfort you. Crowley bit off the words. It wasn’t his job to make an angel feel better about his mistakes.

In truth, Crowley knew he’d messed up, but he hadn’t been able to stop himself. Aziraphale had looked so lost, so heartbroken, he hadn’t been able to—

Handle it. Just like Anathema predicted.

“I could tell you were going to ruin it all,” Crowley finished, filling his voice with venom because it was easier to be mad at Aziraphale than with himself.

Outraged, the angel began to say something, but cut himself off, looking behind Crowley.

“Oh, hello,” Aziraphale said. “Lovely day, isn’t it?”

Crowley spun to see Adam Young and his friends, along with the hellhound that was now more or less just a normal dog. The children had ice cream cones and were watching him and Aziraphale with open curiosity.

Adam turned to his little gang. “You lot go on ahead. I’ll catch up with you later.”

The girl considered for a moment. “Alright. Mum’s making vegan biscuits today. We’ll save you some.”

“What’s vegan mean?” one of the other boys asked. He had chocolate ice cream over half his face.

“No meat or animal by-products,” the extremely serious-looking boy answered as they departed.

“What’s a by-product?”

Once they were out of earshot, Crowley eyed the ex-Antichrist. “Alright, then?”

“Yeah.” He nodded toward Jasmine Cottage. “Been meaning to go see Anathema. I saw your car earlier.”

The three of them—four, counting Dog—walked that way.

“Erm,” Aziraphale began. “I never did apologize for my behavior that day, when I...” he trailed off.

“I understand,” Adam said gamely, shrugging “You were doing what you thought was right. Can’t blame you for trying to save the world.”

Dog barked and wagged his tail.

“Still, I’m terribly sorry.”

“What kind of person would I be if I can’t forgive a literal angel?” Adam said. “I’ve done loads of bad things, but my parents always forgive me.”

“That’s a very mature way to think about it,” Aziraphale replied.

“Sounds like you’ve got a pretty low bar for maturity.”

Crowley snickered, but didn’t have a chance to make a joke before Jasmine Cottage came into view. The Bentley was safe and sound where he’d parked it that morning. At least that much was going for him.

He glanced at Aziraphale. So many words tumbled around in his chest, like butterflies with razor-blades for wings, but he couldn’t exactly say them with Adam hanging around.

Dog stopped, growling, hackles raised. He was looking up at the cottage.

“Dog?” Adam tugged on his leash. “Come on, you know Anathema—”

A crash boomed from the cottage, accompanied by a brilliant flash of white light.

“Five minutes,” Crowley grumbled. “Can we not have five minutes of peace?”

The front door of the cottage banged open, and Newt and Anathema sprinted out. She saw them first.

“Run!” she shouted. “Gabriel’s getting through the barrier—”

Another crack split the air, followed by a rumble like thunder. Red flame flickered in the windows of the cottage.

Anathema and Newt nearly barreled into them.

“Why aren’t you running—we have to go!”

Crowley blinked, trying to ignore the surge of evil energy filling the cottage. “Right. I’ll drive.” He opened both doors to the Bentley with a snap.

Adam stood in the street, ice cream cone forgotten. Dog still stood his ground, poised as if he’d take on Gabriel and Hastur himself.

“Adam, what are you doing?” Anathema said as she climbed into the Bentley. “Run!”

“What are they doing to Jasmine Cottage?”

Crowley stood beside his car, staring at the house, which was rapidly burning down. “Destroying it.”

“That’s not right.” He frowned. “Why are they doing that?”

“Er,” Crowley decided to be honest. “They’re very mad at us and want to kill us. Which is why you really should get out of here.”

“Won’t they just follow us?” Newt asked, wisely buckling up.

“I—I can use a spell to hide us,” Anathema said. “But the amount of power it would take—we’ll need to go somewhere the ley lines intersect. Somewhere with extreme magical significance.” She stuck her head out of the window. “Adam! Please, go!”

“They’re going to kill you all,” Adam said, voice surprisingly soft. “It’s not right. I think—I can help you.”

Crowley finally got in the car. Hopefully both Gabriel and Hastur would ignore Adam in favor of following them. “Appreciate the sentiment, but you can’t help us.”

“You need to go somewhere magical.” His brow creased in thought, then he grinned. “I know the perfect place.”

Jasmine Cottage exploded, and time seemed to slow. Reality warped, folded in on itself, changed.

The Bentley winked out of Tadfield.

Crowley blinked. Then he blinked again. Unfortunately, he’d seen it right the first time. The Bentley was surrounded by a meandering crowd of pedestrians. A few of them were taking pictures of the four of them in the car.

The pleasant, breezy summer was gone, replaced by muggy heat. The scent of churros, fried turkey, and sunscreen mixed in the air.

“Oh, no. No, no, no.” Crowley got out of the Bentley, staring around in horror.

A castle rose in front of him, or what passed for a castle in this cursed place. It was white and blue, more confectionery than fortification.

“Wow,” said a voice on the other side of the car. “It’s just like Wensleydale’s cousin said!”

A dog barked in agreement.

Crowley sagged against the side of the Bentley, thinking perhaps it would’ve been better had he just let an archangel murder him.

“Where are we?” Newt asked.

“Disney World,” Anathema replied, stepping out of the car. “Adam sent us…to the most magical place he could think of.” She started to laugh the sort of laugh that usually ended in screams.

“I’m not entirely sure,” began Aziraphale, “that we’re allowed to be parked here.”

More pedestrians had gathered, most of them with their phones out, ready to record whatever was about to happen.

“Why are they staring?” Newt asked, helplessly.

“They think this is a show,” Anathema whispered back.

A little girl ran up to her. “Which princess are you?” the child asked.

“I’m not a princess,” Anathema answered, kneeling to talk to her at eye level. “I’m a witch.”

The girl’s parents took pictures of her with Anathema.

In the commotion, Adam Young began to sidle away. Crowley caught up with him.

“Where are you going?”

“I want to ride a roller coaster—”

“Did you forget about the people trying to kill us?” Crowley glanced around the crowd. Just a bunch of tourists, and one very confused park employee. “We should probably get out of here.”

Aziraphale, Anathema, and Newt were drifting vaguely away from the Bentley. This was really not how he’d seen his day going. Wrangling a bunch of people in Disney World while all the angels and demons of the universe tried to kill them.

“This is absolutely fascinating,” Aziraphale said. “He brought us all this way. But his powers shouldn’t still exist—”

“Alright, everyone, back in the car.”

“But I want a churro—”

Several people were queuing up to pet Dog. Crowley’s eye twitched, and several nearby phones began to smoke in people’s hands.

“Show’s over,” he shouted. “Get in the car, or I’m leaving you here.”

Ten seconds later, the Bentley was full, and Crowley started the engine. He was glad no one had called his bluff about leaving them behind. Especially Aziraphale.

“Don’t drive too fast, Crowley, this is a pedestrian area—”

“I’m sure they’ll get out of the way.”

Leaving the Magic Kingdom in a car wasn’t particularly easy, but Crowley managed it with minimal fuss and no loss of life, though you wouldn’t know it from the screams of horror coming from the back seat. Or the way Aziraphale cringed each time he shifted gears.

Once they were on a real road, Crowley began to relax. But his relief was short-lived. Gabriel and Hastur had no doubt gone back to their respective head offices to organize a search for them. They needed Anathema’s concealment spell, sooner rather than later.

“Can you please pull over?” Newt begged from behind Crowley. “Before the police arrest us all for reckless driving!”

“And drive on the right side of the road!” Anathema added. At least Adam seemed to be enjoying himself, if his gleeful laughter was any indication.

Once they were out of the park, Crowley pulled into a gas station.

“Happy now?” he asked the group.

“Not at all, thanks,” Newt answered. “We have to get back to England.”

“Come on, we can stay here for just one day,” Adam said. “My parents never want to come here on holiday. It’s my only chance.”

Dog barked in agreement. The sycophant.

“Adam, you have to go home,” Anathema said. “Your parents are going to be really worried if you aren’t there for dinner.”

“I was supposed to eat at Pepper’s anyway. They won’t miss me for hours.”

Crowley turned to scrutinize the ex-Antichrist. He looked completely innocent. “It’s too dangerous to stay with us. Go home.”

“But I can’t. Not anymore.” His face fell. “I think it’s gone. The power. I used the last of it up.”

“Oh, dear,” Aziraphale said.

Crowley glanced at him, then back at Adam. “Then I guess we’ll get you a plane ticket. You can be home by morning.”

“With what money?” Anathema interjected. “We can’t use my credit cards, and I don’t have the cash to get him all the way to England.”

“No credit cards?” Newt asked. “Why not?”

“They can track us. In fact, you two,” she pointed at Crowley and Aziraphale, “better not use your powers. No miracles, no trolling.”

“Excuse you,” Crowley said, “What I do is not trolling. It’s an art, the masterful manipulation of people’s emotions to make them angry and upset and—alright, I hear it now.”

“So, no powers. No money, other than what we have already,” Aziraphale said. “I don’t have any contacts in Orlando.” He said the name with a hint of disapproval. “And we still have to find a place to hide.”

“I have enough for a few nights at a motel,” Anathema said. “And after, well. If we don’t solve the whole angels-and-demons-killing-everyone problem by then,” Anathema took a deep breath, “we’ll have to get money the old-fashioned way.”

“Bank heist?” Crowley guessed, hopeful.

“No.” She gave him a look. “By getting jobs.”

Chapter Text

Years ago, Anathema and her mother had come to Orlando, Florida, on vacation. They’d gone to Disney and Universal, bought too many souvenirs, and stayed in the nicest resort suites. The entire memory was a sugar-fueled dreamscape of costumed characters and rides and magic.

Her current visit to Orlando was failing to live up to standards. She stared around the motel room. With two queens and a cot, it was crowded. She tried to reframe it as cozy, but failed. At least they didn’t have any luggage to store. That silver lining was a little tarnished, though, because it also meant they had no luggage.

Anathema took a deep breath, then turned to face everyone else. “Let’s get started.”

Perhaps the only good thing to come out of Adam’s rash decision to teleport them all to central Florida was the fact this place was on an intersection of several ley lines. Anathema had studied a map in the motel office, and suspected the exact intersection was indeed in Disney World. She was close enough to tap into that power, here.

As she worked, Adam watched her with open fascination, but was wise enough to hold his questions until she was done.

“Real magic, that’s brilliant.” He stared at his hands. “I don’t feel different. How does it work?”

“It keeps other people from being able to track us. Even angels and demons.” Anathema gave a pointed stare at Crowley and Aziraphale. “But it’s very fragile. If you do any miracles, it could break.”

“Good thing I don’t have any powers, right, Dog?”

Dog barked in agreement.

Adam wasn’t lying, as far as Anathema could tell. He had a normal aura now, glowing with amusement. He probably thought this was a grand adventure. Newt’s aura, on the other hand, was an extremely worried shade.

She turned to Crowley and Aziraphale, but had to drop her concentration when their auras hurt her eyes with their brightness. Still so much love. And were the auras bigger, this time?

Under the current circumstances, it hardly mattered. They had a place to sleep, at least, and enough money for cheap food and necessities. She checked items off her mental to-do list. Oh, right.

“What happened with you two?” Anathema asked, sitting on one of the beds. Adam had already claimed the cot, saying it was by far the superior spot, since it made him feel like he was camping.

Crowley shrugged, leaning against the wall near the TV. He still had those stupid sunglasses on. “We found out their plan, but it went a little pear-shaped at the end, so we had to run for it.”

“What is it, then?” Newt asked, leaning forward.

“Ah, perhaps Adam shouldn’t be here for this,” Aziraphale said.

“If you make me go outside, who knows what sort of trouble me and Dog could get into,” Adam replied easily.

He had a point.

Neither the angel nor demon seemed to want to start talking. Aziraphale stared at a stain on the motel carpet.

“No miracles,” she reminded him.

“Perhaps, just a little one—”

“It’ll break the spell.” A headache pounded behind one eye. Could you get a migraine from repeating the same concept too many times? “No miracles. No cell phones, either,” she added, berating herself for forgetting until now.

“Oh, left mine back in England,” Crowley said, not looking at her.

“Really?” She took her own out and dialed his number. “Under Pressure” started chiming from his jacket. Anathema darted forward and grabbed it from him. “Hey, why am I listed as Meddling Witch in your contacts?”

“Didn’t feel like googling how to spell anathema.”

She turned both their phones off and removed the batteries. Newt had already done the same for his, somehow frying the phone’s circuitry in the process, and Adam didn’t have one.

“Start talking any time,” Anathema said. “What are Heaven and Hell planning?”

“It is a bit upsetting,” Aziraphale answered. “Perhaps you should sit down again.”

“They want to kill all of humanity,” Crowley drawled. “On their own, instead of making humans destroy each other.”

A wave of shock made Anathema’s head a little light. “But—why? There’s no Antichrist, there’s no Armageddon—”

“It’s our fault.” Aziraphale’s voice was small, ashamed. “Crowley and I convinced them humanity was a threat.”

“What, on purpose?” Newt asked.

“No,” Crowley snapped. “It was an accident. But it’s done. Now we have to figure out how to stop them.”

“Shouldn’t God tell them not to wipe out humanity?” Anathema said. She’d thought they’d only have to figure out how to keep Gabriel and Hastur from exacting revenge for trapping them. But this was so much worse.

“The Almighty is, er, not particularly communicative,” Aziraphale said. “Also, I might have accidentally told them Metatron gave the go-ahead on their plan.”

“What’s a Metatron? Sounds like a giant robot from space!” Adam didn’t seem bothered by the news two massive armies of immortals wanted all humanity gone from the Earth.

“Metatron is most certainly not a robot. They’re the mouthpiece of the Almighty.”

“So Heaven and Hell think God is okay with them killing everyone. Great. Perfect. Easy to fix.” Anathema wanted nothing more than to curl up into a ball and sleep until next week. “Let’s put a pin in that.”

There was still one more hugely important item on her to-do list.

“We need to call Mr. and Mrs. Young,” she said. “And figure out how to explain that Adam is in Florida instead of with his friends.”

“That’s easy,” Adam said. “I’ve already worked out a nice cover story. We’re like spies on an undercover mission!”

“The office had an international pay-phone.” Anathema stood, feeling ten years older than she’d been yesterday. “Come on, let’s go call them. Otherwise we’ll all be arrested by the FBI for kidnapping a minor.”

She should’ve been horrified at the prospect, but at this point she was numb to mundane horrors like prison. If only she hadn’t burned the prophecies, all this could’ve been avoided.

“Well,” Crowley said, staring around at the motel room that was now empty but for him and Aziraphale. “Still better than the 14th Century.”

“I don’t know how you can joke at a time like this.”

“What am I meant to be doing, then?” Crowley snapped. They were alone, for the first time since standing in the street in Tadfield. And now things were exponentially worse for them. This was an unmitigated disaster, even by their standards.

“I was thinking,” Aziraphale looked down at his hands, which were clasped in his lap. He’d taken a seat on the edge of the bed nearest to Crowley. “And I have a solution.”

“What? Out with it then. But I will say, if it involves murdering Gabriel, I’m on board.”

“I’m not going to kill anyone, Crowley.” The gentle admonishment in his voice was almost a relief to Crowley. It meant he wasn’t angry anymore. Aziraphale was always quick to forgive.

Crowley couldn’t extend the same to himself, though. He’d ruined things at the meeting, and he’d been cruel to the angel for no reason. There were days when Crowley thought the punishment of Falling was unjust, disproportionate to his crimes, that he’d never deserved it at all.

Today wasn’t one of those days.

“This is our fault,” Aziraphale said softly. “We convinced Heaven and Hell that humans are the threat. The only way to stop it now is to come clean about switching places and standing trial for each other.”

“Now who’s making inappropriately timed jokes?”

“I assure you, I’m being serious.” Aziraphale looked up at him.

Crowley took his sunglasses off and tucked them into his jacket. “If we tell them the truth, they’ll kill us.”

“But it’s the right thing to do—”

“Says who? They might kill us and decide to go on and snuff out humanity anyway.”

“There’d be no reason—” Aziraphale began.

“Did anyone at that meeting seem particularly reasonable to you? They’re afraid, angel. The ineffable plan went off the rails, no one has any instructions to point to anymore. To them, no one’s in charge.”

“There’s still the Almighty—”

“She doesn’t talk to us these days, though, does She?” Crowley couldn’t help sounding bitter. “Is it any wonder the angels are running around causing trouble? Demons, I get, that’s our whole shtick. But angels should know better.”

“Can you blame them?” Aziraphale said, glaring up at Crowley. “They’ve spent their whole existences following orders, only to realize those orders weren’t correct, and nothing they believed in is—real.” His voice broke.

Crowley hesitated, then sat beside Aziraphale. “It’s alright, that you’re afraid. Uncharted territory and all.”

For a moment he considered taking the angel’s hand, but wasn’t sure if it would be to comfort him, or to see how Aziraphale reacted. He shouldn’t have been thinking about his foolish one-sided crush at a time like this. Too much was at stake.

“I don’t want to die,” Aziraphale said, his voice soft.

An ache spread through Crowley’s chest. “You’re not going to. That plan is out of the question. It’ll never work, anyway. They’re too afraid. But…” He stared at Aziraphale. “Maybe we can use that fear to our advantage.”

Crowley, of course, had no plan at all. But it sounded impressive enough to derail Aziraphale’s mad desire to come clean and get himself erased from creation. There was nothing Crowley wouldn’t do to protect him, even if it meant muddling through and stopping the end of all human life on his own.

Seemed he was back to the grand gesture plan, after all.

“What are you smiling about?” Aziraphale asked.

“Oh, you know,” Crowley slouched a little for good measure, “this could be fun.”

The lie was worth it to see relief spread across the angel’s features. Crowley didn’t mind the writhing anxiety in his own chest, so long as Aziraphale was happy.

“What are you proposing we do?” Aziraphale asked.

“I’ll explain it all when everyone else gets back. Don’t want to have to repeat myself.”

“Right.” He turned away from Crowley, something hesitant about his posture. “Well. No miracles. Shouldn’t be too terribly difficult.”

“Easy as pie.”

“I already miss pie.” Aziraphale took off his coat and carefully folded it over the back of the single chair in the room. “And my books.”

“Check the nightstand, ought to be some light reading in there.” Crowley very pointedly didn’t smile.

“Ah—” His hopeful exhalation turned sour. “It’s just the Bible. Practically got it memorized by now.”

Aziraphale began reading Genesis anyway, tutting about all the factual errors. Crowley sprawled on the bed, hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling, trying desperately to think of a plan that wouldn’t get them all killed.

Chapter Text

Sitting in companionable silence with Crowley was strangely relaxing. Aziraphale, using the cheap pen provided by their current lodgings, had been correcting the mistakes in Genesis for a while, and he’d even forgotten to be miserable about being stuck in central Florida with no way to check up on his shop. Somehow, as long as he and Crowley were in it together, he knew they’d make it out alright.

Anathema, Newt, and Adam returned, the latter looking extremely pleased with himself. Poor Anathema, however, looked wrung out.

“Well, that problem’s solved, at least for a week.” She collapsed onto the other bed. “Told the Youngs that Adam is camping with his friends.”

“Called Pepper and told her the story, too,” Adam added. “So The Them won’t run into my parents accidentally. They’re all so jealous of me getting to go to Disney World.”

“We just have to stop the end of the world by next week.” Anathema groaned, covering her face with both hands.

“As it so happens,” Aziraphale said, putting his improved copy of the Bible back in the nightstand, “Crowley has a plan.”

“It’s more of an outline, but it should work. Mostly.” Crowley was still lying on the bed, in a posture shockingly similar to Anathema’s.

“When are we getting dinner?” Adam interrupted. “Dog’s hungry. Aren’t you, boy?”

Dog barked in answer.

Anathema sat back up. “Let’s get some food. We can talk over your ideas on the way.”

Aziraphale fetched his coat and followed everyone outside the motel room. Crowley’s car was conveniently parked right in front of their door.

“Better obey all the traffic laws,” Aziraphale reminded the demon. “No miracles means no getting out of tickets.” And no saving any collateral damage from harm.

“Fine,” Crowley grumbled, but in the way that Aziraphale knew had no real anger behind it.

He tried to start the car, but nothing happened other than a sad clicking. Crowley tried again.

“Sounds like the battery’s dead,” Newt said from the back seat.

“Oh. Right.” Crowley leaned back, tipping his head up in defeat. “Been keeping it running mostly through force of will. All the parts are original.”

“Are you serious?” Anathema said. “Now we have no car. At least there’s a bus stop not too far from here.”

Less than two minutes after leaving, everyone returned to the room. Anathema made noises about going out to get food herself, but Newt stepped in.

“You’re exhausted,” he said. “I’ll go. There’s a McDonald’s not far.”

“We can’t support that corporation, they buy beef grown where rainforests used to be, not to mention the disposable products made by prisoners who make a few cents an hour—”

“Er, we can’t really afford to buy organic responsibly sourced meals.” Newt kissed her on the cheek. “But I’m sure we’ll be back home soon.”

“You’re right.” She took off her glasses. “We all have to make sacrifices.”

“At least you didn’t have to give up your car,” Crowley added.

“The house I was renting burned down,” she shot back. “With a lot of my stuff inside. I can’t even call my mother to tell her I’m okay, because evil angels might be watching her to get to me.”

“Evil angels?” Aziraphale said. “Oh, you mean demons.”

“No, I don’t. I know angels are supposed to be good, but I don’t trust any of them, other than you,” she said. “No offense.”

“They’ve lost their way,” Aziraphale admitted. “But we’re going to make all of this right. I promise.” He stood. “Starting with dinner.”

“You’re on your own with that,” Crowley said. “I’m still banned from all McDonald’s locations, remember?”

“That was in the 1980s.”

“It was a lifetime ban.” Crowley had put his sunglasses on again, but Aziraphale could tell he had his eyes closed. He probably wanted a nap.

Aziraphale didn’t blame him. Being so out of his element was extremely taxing, and not being able to improve anything with a little miracle here and there was agony.

“I’ll come with you, Mr. Pulsifer. We might be under a protection spell, but something could still happen.”

“And I need to walk Dog. He has to get his exercise.” Adam hurried back outside.

The afternoon was fading into evening, but the air was still hot and humid. Aziraphale knew he might look a little out of place in his coat, but he didn’t see the need to sacrifice proper dress for weather.

“Why’d they have to put so many tourist traps in a place like this?” Newt asked as they walked the few kilometers to the McDonald’s.

“I think this place is brilliant.” Adam hurried ahead with Dog.

“Don’t go too far,” Aziraphale called after them. “Children. So energetic.”

“At least one of us is keeping their spirits up.” Newt stared at the sidewalk. “Anathema puts on a brave face, but I can tell how worried she is about all this.”

“It’s going to be alright. Crowley’s plan will work.” He hadn’t heard it yet, of course, but he had absolute faith in the demon.

An ironic thought, but true.

“I hope it doesn’t involve Anathema,” Newt said. “She spent her whole life feeling like the fate of the entire world was on her shoulders. She doesn’t deserve that much pressure or responsibility.”

“You really care for her.” Aziraphale smiled, feeling a warmth in his chest that made him think of Crowley, for some reason.

“Yes.” He blushed. “She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I should’ve been able to protect her from all this.”

“You’re only human. There’s nothing you could’ve done.”

“Sometimes I think—I mean,” Newt hesitated, glancing at Aziraphale, then away. “Did she really choose me? If it was in the prophecy, is she only with me because she has to be?”

“That’s silly,” Aziraphale said. “The prophecies are over, as far as we know, and she still seems rather taken with you. And didn’t you argue earlier this morning that all of Agnes Nutter’s descendants made the choices to believe in the prophecies?”

“Yes, but—”

“She chose to meet you. It’s the whole point of being a human, the decisions you make every day.” He patted Newt’s arm. “Trust her.”

He sighed, shoulders slumping. “You’re right. Of course you are, you’re an angel. Bet you’ve got lots of wisdom to dispense.”

“Thank you.” Aziraphale lifted his chin a little, preening. “I’ve seen so many humans make the same mistakes, millennium after millennium. And who better to ask about love than an angel?”

“What, you’re all relationship experts?”

“No, but we’re reflections of the Almighty’s love for every living creature. Or we’re supposed to be,” he added darkly, thinking of Gabriel, and the angels who’d accosted him back in London.

“Have you ever been in love, though? Not that what you and Crowley get up to is any of my business—”

“What’s Crowley got to do with me being in love?” Aziraphale asked, feeling strangely flustered. “We’re hardly even friends. Angels and demons don’t fall in love like humans, anyway.”

“And, er, you’re quite certain about that?” Newton asked with a very dubious expression.

“It’s like I’ve been saying about Ms. Device. Love requires free will, and angels don’t have it.”

“Sorry, I’m not a religious scholar, but didn’t a whole bunch of angels start a rebellion and fall? Were they pre-ordained to do that? And if they were, that’s awfully cruel of God, don’t you think?”

“I—” Aziraphale hesitated, his smile faltering. “I’ve never thought of it like that.”

“And you and Crowley went against orders to try to stop the end of the world—”

“But, I mean, that was possibly part of the ineffable plan—”

“Seems to me you do have free will, else God would smite you the moment you stepped out of line.”

“Oh, look, a crossing signal. Such a lovely invention. There were a lot more accidents with horses trampling people before these came along.” Aziraphale pressed the button to cross.

“As obvious changes of subjects go, that was the worst I’ve ever heard.”

Aziraphale refused to look at Newt. Adam saved him from the rest of the conversation by running back down a side street.

“Mr. Aziraphale, I’ve got a question.”

Dog barked and dashed around Newton’s legs, nearly tripping him with the leash.

“Yes?”

“Why does Mr. Crowley always wear those sunglasses, even inside?” Adam reined Dog in. “Is it because his eyes are super sensitive to light? Can he see in the dark like a vampire?”

“He’s a demon, not a vampire,” Aziraphale said, affronted on Crowley’s behalf. “He wears the glasses so humans aren’t startled.”

That was most of the truth. Once, a few centuries ago, Crowley had drunkenly confessed that he didn’t like people seeing the only visible marker of his demonic nature, not because it might upset them, but because Crowley himself was sometimes self-conscious about it.

It filled him with a strange, pleasant warmth to know Crowley never worried about taking his sunglasses off around him. He’d always meant to tell Crowley his eyes were beautiful in their strangeness, but had never worked up the nerve.

The light changed, and Aziraphale crossed the street, putting all that love nonsense out of his mind.

Anathema had put the TV on some channel running sit-com reruns and hadn’t spoken a word to Crowley. After a few minutes, her soft snores explained why.

Crowley himself was still brainstorming a way out of this mess. He’d gotten a pad of paper and pen out to write notes, but so far had only doodled Hastur being hit by a lorry.

He kept coming back to how afraid they were of him and Aziraphale, and how they were happy neither of them seemed to want to invade Heaven or Hell.

What would be the point of that? Crowley had never really cared for power or responsibility. It was what made his post on Earth so great. Cause a little mischief here and there, have a bit of fun, write a few memos, then slack off for the rest of the decade. Ruling Hell would be all paperwork and decision-making.

Beelzebub and the others didn’t know that, though. From their perspectives, he probably seemed like an over-achiever.

Crowley sat up. Of course. He jotted a few notes down, beneath his drawing. By the time everyone got back from their McDonald’s run, he had a decent presentation prepared, though it would’ve been nicer with the addition of a PowerPoint with some visual aids.

Anathema woke from her nap and ate a cheap hamburger with the air of someone forced to resort to cannibalism.

Crowley stood in front of the dark TV, preparing to wow them all. Especially Aziraphale, who he had to convince to drop the notion that they should come clean.

“What’s the one thing the higher-ups of Heaven and Hell are most afraid of?” he said.

“By their own admission, humans turning more angels and demons—”

“No. It’s losing their positions of power. They said themselves they’d worried we’d stage a coup of Heaven or Hell. And since they believe we won’t, they’ve moved on to solving what they see as the problem by killing a bunch of people.”

Crowley paused a moment to let that sink in, then pressed on. “But if we convince them that I’m trying to take over Hell, using their own invasion of Earth as an opening, they’ll be more wary about fielding ten million demons. Same with Aziraphale.”

“Um, not to nitpick, but how will we convince them we’re planning that without also giving away our locations?” Aziraphale asked.

“All part of my plan.” Crowley grinned, and began to explain.

Full darkness came late this time of year, and Anathema, Newt, and Adam fell asleep early, hardly five minutes from when Crowley finished outlining the new plan.

Sleep seemed like as good a pastime as any. He kicked off his shoes and tossed his jacket over the TV.

Aziraphale glared at the mess, as if his own book shop were any neater. “I’ll keep watch,” he whispered.

“Why bother?” Crowley slid into bed. It wasn’t very comfortable, but he’d slept worse places. “Waste of time, if you ask me.”

“But what if someone finds us?”

“They won’t. Stay awake if you want, but it’ll be boring.”

A few moments of silence passed, then the angel sighed.

“You’re right. Here I am, getting into bed with the enemy. Literally.” Aziraphale’s voice was full of wry humor.

“We’ve never really been enemies, though, have we?” Crowley kept his voice low, though he knew everyone else was sleeping, even Dog.

“No. I suppose not.”

The bed shifted, and Aziraphale pulled the covers over himself. There was a good foot of space between them, but Crowley still felt a blush creep up his neck, and he couldn’t will it away. It would’ve taken a miracle.

Aziraphale’s cologne—something with sandalwood and citrus, which was indeed new—filled the air, along with the underlying scents of old books, baked goods, and a summer breeze, which the angel had always smelled like, even before books had been invented.

To Crowley, it was the olfactory equivalent of sinking into a hot bath. He relaxed, letting his worry about what tomorrow would bring melt away. Even though they were both thousands of miles from home, on the brink of disaster, he was right where he wanted to be.

Beside Aziraphale.

Chapter Text

The faint sound of birdsong woke Aziraphale. He had the vague suspicion he was supposed to be miserable, but couldn’t remember why. At the moment he was warm and comfortable, despite the low thread-count sheets and scratchy duvet.

Someone’s arm was around his waist. He froze, then remembered. Orlando. Heaven and Hell plotting against humanity.

Everything in shambles in the course of one day.

And Crowley asleep beside Aziraphale, now apparently with his arm wrapped around him and his chest pressed against his back. A strange, blank panic stole over him, one he couldn’t understand. Crowley was, after all, still snakelike, and snakes were attracted to warmth. He’d just cuddled up to Aziraphale in the middle of the night out of instinct. Nothing more.

Aziraphale closed his eyes and tried to breathe normally. This was fine. The comfort he felt was merely the result of—of—

His attempts to rationalize fritzed. He was enjoying the feel of Crowley so close because—

No. It was only his physical body responding as bodies did to touch. Anything deeper was for humans. Being held simply made one feel safe. And this just happened to be the first time, in six thousand years, that someone had embraced him like this.

He’d always kept humans at a distance, as was proper. Aziraphale was meant to encourage them to do good and thwart evil, but not to get close, physically or emotionally.

And after a while, of course, it made things easier. Seeing so many of them live and die and be forgotten. Distance made the pain a little easier to bear.

The world had changed so much, and was still changing, and the only constant for Aziraphale had been Crowley.

Someone who should’ve been an enemy but never had been, because Crowley really was kind, deep down, however much he pretended not to be. Aziraphale had known it for thousands of years, but he’d never known the depths of it until that one unfortunate night with the Nazi spies, when Crowley had not only used his powers to orchestrate a rescue, he’d come onto consecrated ground at great personal risk, and had saved Aziraphale’s books.

The memory should’ve been awful and embarrassing, but it wasn’t. He didn’t think much about the way it had felt to have a gun pointed in his face by someone he’d trusted, or the ridicule and scorn they’d given him. He remembered instead Crowley’s dramatic arrival, and the way their fingers had brushed when he’d handed Aziraphale the bag full of his precious books.

A strange and warm feeling had filled him in those moments, something familiar and new at once. And, Aziraphale realized with a start, he felt the same way now. Like he’d taken on a new burden that somehow made him both lighter and heavier.

It defied all reason or logic, but—

He didn’t want to let it go. He didn’t want to move away from Crowley’s embrace, just as he hadn’t wanted to move from that moment, standing in the ruins of a church with someone who should’ve been his enemy. Just as he’d never wanted to walk away from Crowley, even when he forced himself to because that wanting terrified him.

Six thousand years of justifications for spending time together, all gone now that Armageddon was over. Yet here they were again, trying to stop something so much larger than themselves.

But Aziraphale knew that even if Heaven and Hell had decided to mind their own business after the botched apocalypse, he and Crowley would still be spending time together.

All his excuses for not seeing Crowley were gone, now. And so were all the careful walls he’d constructed to protect himself from the truth: he was in love with a demon. One who couldn’t possibly return his feelings.

Crowley was a demon, and demons didn’t fall in love.

And even if they did, Crowley had said so many times that they were friends. He’d made his opinions on the matter clear. And there was nothing wrong with them being best friends, anyway. Aziraphale cherished his company and always had.

These foolish feelings were his own fault, and his own problem to deal with.

Aziraphale took a deep breath, bracing himself to slip from Crowley’s unconscious embrace. The scent of woodsmoke, cloves, and hot cinnamon filled the air. The demon’s unmistakable scent.

Ignoring the wrenching pain in his chest, Aziraphale slipped out of bed without disturbing Crowley.

Admitting his feelings to himself didn’t change anything. He was still an angel, still not meant for any of this. He’d deal with the issue.

Alone.

Crowley woke feeling cold, but hardly had time to wonder why before Aziraphale returned to the room with breakfast for the mortals. Then everyone was up and discussing Phase One of the plan.

“Remember,” Crowley said as everyone but him and Aziraphale ate stale mini-muffins and sad little apple danishes. “The key to all of this is them thinking we’re smarter than we are. So, get out there, get jobs, make it look like we planned to end up in central Florida.”

“You’re including yourself in this little pep talk, right?” Anathema asked.

“I don’t really have any marketable skills,” Crowley replied. “Right, Aziraphale?”

“Hm?” The angel had been distracted and quiet all morning. The situation must’ve really been getting to him. “Yes, of course.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Anathema said, with a tight smile. “I’m sure we’ll find you both something.”

“What about me and Dog?” Adam asked. “Can we find a circus to join?”

“No, Newt will babysit you today, then we’ll all take shifts until Phase Two.”

Adam wilted. “But I don’t need a babysitter—“

“We’re not risking you getting hurt,” Anathema cut him off. “End of discussion.”

Three hours later, Crowley found himself filling out paperwork for a job as a server in a cheesy tourist-trap restaurant. Anathema had gotten a job as a bartender in the same place.

“Try to keep it together for a few days,” she’d told him. “We get cash tips here, which means we’ll still have a place to sleep and food to eat.”

Crowley was an ancient creature formed before the creation of the Earth. He’d been on this planet since the beginning. He could handle waiting tables.

By the end of his shift, Crowley was beginning to wonder if saving humanity was worth all the trouble. Tempting people to evil had been his job for an awfully long time, but he’d never had to let people yell at him so much before. Seemed to him that all the trouble demons went through was pointless. Humans would turn to evil on their own, so long as there were such things as coupon expiration dates and happy hour restrictions.

At least the mind-numbing boredom had let him plan the perfect romantic gesture for Aziraphale. He’d seemed so down this morning, Crowley wanted to cheer him up. He’d seen a brochure at the front of the restaurant advertising a symphony performance that night. The compositions were mostly video game music, but it was very likely Aziraphale wouldn’t even notice. Crowley could take some of his tip money and buy dessert. It wouldn’t be perfect, but it was something.

Anathema met him by the back door, and together they walked to the bus stop.

“Not bad for my first day of a conventional job,” she said, sounding tired. “Though my face hurts from pretending to laugh at men’s unfunny jokes.”

“A child threw a plate of chicken nuggets at me because they weren’t shaped like dinosaurs, and the girl training me kept asking why I was wearing sunglasses.”

“What did you say?” Anathema asked, laughter edging her words.

“That I have snake eyes that might disturb the guests.” He shrugged. “Listen, I know money is a scarce resource for us, but I wanted to take Aziraphale out tonight.”

Anathema’s face lit up. “Oh?”

“Won’t be too much money, really. Just going to sneak into a symphony and buy a reasonably nice dessert for him.”

“You finally took my advice.”

“What? No I didn’t. Do I look like the sort of person who takes advice?” Crowley glanced down the street. That damn bus was late.

“But you’re taking him on a date—”

“Am not. Just a night out. As friends. We’ve done similar things before.”

“It’ll be the perfect chance to talk to him, then. It’s the right thing to do.”

“Don’t lecture me about right and wrong. Your species had to learn all that from fruit.” Crowley relaxed as the bus came into view. They’d be able to make the concert. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

“What?” Anathema stared up at him.

“For tempting Eve. Can you imagine how boring Earth would be otherwise?”

“About like your love life?”

“I’m never confiding in another human. You’re all awful.”

“One of these days,” Anathema said as the bus pulled up to the stop, “you’re going to regret not taking my advice from the start.”

Her words haunted Crowley the rest of the night, though he tried his best to ignore them. Sneaking into the concert went well enough, even without using their powers. Crowley had picked up enough tricks over the years to manage fast-talking his way through with Aziraphale. It didn’t hurt that the angel looked so utterly respectable that he seemed to belong anywhere he was. They took seats near the back, in an empty row.

As the house lights dimmed, Crowley handed Aziraphale a small box of chocolate truffles.

“It’s not much, but I thought you might like them.”

“Thank you.” Aziraphale’s expression of delight was short-lived. He turned away from Crowley, staring at the orchestra.

“Long day at the new job?” Crowley joked.

“It was fun, actually. The temp agency sent me to a theme park where I played an English fellow who gives magical wands to children. I can’t do miracles for a while, but it was nice to pretend.”

“Hang on, did you get a job in the Harry Potter theme park?”

“Yes, that’s the one.”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know what that is, they’re books!”

“Modern ones, I expect. My backlog for reading is fairly long, you know.” He chuckled. “So many books, it’d take eternity to read them all.”

The music began, and they fell quiet. When the lights rose for intermission, all the chocolate truffles were gone, and Aziraphale looked in better spirits.

“I’ve never heard of this composer,” the angel said. “I didn’t think they still made quality music.”

Crowley was definitely not mentioning the video game thing. “Yeah, well, it can’t all be bebop, now can it?”

“Thank you,” Aziraphale said quietly. “For doing this.”

“No trouble. You know how I like to see concerts without paying.” Crowley looked away, slouching in his seat. Maybe Anathema was right. This would be a good time to just get it all out in the open. It wouldn’t ruin their friendship. It couldn’t, not if six thousand years of being on opposite sides didn’t stop them. Aziraphale was so kind and good and considerate, if he didn’t feel the same, he’d let Crowley down easy and be gracious enough to pretend any confessions of love had never happened.

“I—need to tell you something,” Aziraphale said.

Crowley glanced at him without moving his head, eyes hidden behind sunglasses. “Yeah?” His heart was suddenly beating entirely too fast.

“Back in London, when we were still trying to stop Adam. At the bandstand.”

“I remember.” Anxiety crept around Crowley’s chest. He had no idea where this was going.

“I’m sorry, for what I said. That we aren’t friends. It wasn’t true. You are my friend, Crowley. My best friend. And I shouldn’t have hurt you.”

“I—” Crowley swallowed, mouth suddenly dry. “I forgive you, obviously. Knew you were only overreacting.” He managed to keep his voice light.

Friends. Best friends. Aziraphale had made himself clear, and now Crowley could move on, finally. After so many thousands of years of keeping the sad little bonfire alive in his heart.

“A demon, forgiving me,” Aziraphale said with a soft little laugh. “What a world.”

Intermission ended, and the darkness hid Crowley’s face, which was just as well, because his sunglasses couldn’t entirely disguise the tears that gathered in his eyes.

He had no right to mourn, but it still felt like a kind of death. It was better this way, knowing. Now he could take the love in his heart and smother it until there wasn’t a trace left.

Chapter Text

It should’ve been a perfect evening, but Aziraphale couldn’t help but notice how subdued Crowley seemed as they returned to their sad little motel room. The plan the demon had made was complicated, and relied on more than a little bit of luck. He’d always cared so much about humans, even if he pretended not to. He must’ve been worried, was all, Aziraphale reasoned. That had to have been the cause of his uncharacteristic quiet.

For Aziraphale’s part, he didn’t mind the silence. He wasn’t in a talkative mood himself. Being with Crowley filled him with a strange ache, a want he’d been living with for decades but had never fully acknowledged. Getting past it would be difficult, but he’d taken the first steps. One day—assuming they weren’t all killed by a combined army of demons and angels—he’d look back on all this love nonsense and laugh.

Not feeling particularly amused by it was a temporary state, one that he was sure would be improved once things got back to normal, and he returned home to his book shop.

It was late when they got to the room. Everyone else was already asleep. As Aziraphale began to get ready for bed, Crowley hesitated.

“Think I’ll keep watch, after all,” he said softly. “Just in case. Don’t want to risk spoiling the plan so soon.”

“Oh. Right.” Aziraphale forced a smile. “I’ll do it, then. You enjoy sleeping more than me.”

“You’re sure?”

“Of course. What are friends for?”

Crowley turned away, and Aziraphale’s smile faltered. Perhaps he’d feel better in the morning.

As quietly as he could, Aziraphale slipped outside. The night wasn’t much cooler than it had been that day, the humidity still heavy in the air. The drone of insects and passing cars was almost calming, and though the stars were obscured by orange street lights, Aziraphale could still see the brightest few.

A long time ago, Crowley had pointed out which stars he’d help make. None of them were visible now.

Returning his attention a little closer to earth, Aziraphale sat in the back of the Bentley to keep watch. A few other people came and went from their rooms, but no one suspicious. This was awfully boring, but if it let Crowley rest easier, it was worth it.

Aziraphale wrapped his arms around himself, unable to keep the memories of Crowley’s embrace away. He wanted very much to sleep near him again, just to end up in the same circumstances. But that was out of the question, now. He couldn’t take advantage like that.

It was time he started acting like a proper friend. He should do something to return the gesture Crowley had made by bringing him to the symphony. But he didn’t know what to do. Kindness had always come easily to him, but with Crowley, he doubted himself. What if his actions missed the mark and ended up hurting the demon more than he already had?

Aziraphale leaned back, sighing. Being in love was awful. He hoped it would pass soon. Preferably before they had to get to the more complex parts of the plan.

He happily turned his thoughts to more pleasant things, like saving the entire human species from annihilation. Getting around would be the most cumbersome part of it all, now that the Bentley was little more than a fancy paperweight.

Hang on. He sat up. Perhaps that was the perfect way to repay Crowley’s kindness. He could fix up the car, so it wouldn’t need a miracle to run.

Aziraphale knew very little about these newfangled machines, but he could learn.

A nightmare chased Anathema into wakefulness. The curtains covering the windows at the front of the room were still shrouded in shadow. She began reaching for her phone to check the time before remembering it didn’t have a battery. The clock on the nightstand proclaimed it wasn’t quite four yet.

For a few moments she just breathed, trying to settle her nerves. She’d dreamed of slaughter, streets running with rivers of blood, the screams of dying children. Crowley and Aziraphale destroyed completely, Newton cut down, Adam, The Them, even Dog. All gone.

But it hadn’t been real. Just a dream. Just too much time spent worrying about angels and demons. Nothing more.

No matter how real it had seemed.

She got out of bed and slipped outside. Maybe a walk would clear her head.

“Ms. Device?”

She jumped, but it was only Aziraphale. Whole, alive, not burned to ash. “What are you doing out here?”

He got out of the Bentley. “Keeping watch. Just in case.” Something about the way he wouldn’t look at her made Anathema suspect he was lying.

“You don’t have to do that,” she said softly. “It’s okay to sleep. I know you don’t need it—”

“Exactly. There’s no point. And Crowley—hogs the covers, anyway.” He seemed awfully flustered.

Ah. It was that, then. At least relationship drama was more relaxing than the end of the world.

But before she could press her luck, Aziraphale rushed on, “I actually could use your help with something. If you have time.”

“Sure.” She wasn’t getting back to sleep for hours yet.

“What do you know about internal combustion engines?”

She glanced at the Bentley, then at Aziraphale. “I’m going to need some coffee for this.”

Half an hour later, she stood outside a mechanic’s shop, armed with nothing more than the caffeine-and-sleep-deprivation buzz of bad decision-making, her only partner in crime a literal angel who had nothing even approaching the concept of street smarts.

She didn’t want to go back and rope anyone else into this madness, though, so she took a deep breath and crept forward.

“No miracles,” she hissed at Aziraphale. “I’ll pick the locks.”

It took her five minutes, but eventually she got a side door open. No alarm sounded, but that didn’t mean one hadn’t been triggered. She rushed in.

“We’re only borrowing these, right?” Aziraphale asked as she grabbed a tool box.

It was almost too heavy for her to carry. “Yeah. Grab a case of oil. And we’ll need gas. Get that empty can.”

Despite the lack of actual miracles, they made it out with everything Anathema thought they might need. The walk back to the motel was stressful, since any passing cop might look askance at the sight of them hurrying down the street, laden with half the contents of a mechanic’s shop.

By the time they got back to the Bentley, the darkness of night was giving way to gray pre-dawn. Sweat trickled down her neck. Now time for the actual hard work.

She’d bought a burner phone, and now she connected it to the motel’s free wifi.

“What are you doing?” Aziraphale asked. “This is no time for texting.”

“I’m googling how to fix an antique car engine.” She shot him a look. “It’s pretty useful to have a portable computer, you know. Using a cellphone won’t destroy that old-timey aesthetic thing you have going on.”

Aziraphale didn’t take her bait. He seemed subdued, almost mournful. And distracted, not that Anathema expected him to be that great an assistant.

They worked in relative silence, only speaking about the business at hand. It wasn’t helping Anathema forget about her dream, which seemed to linger in an unnatural way. Only her anxiety, the stress of it all.

By the time the sun rose, they’d made decent progress. A few of the other motel guests stopped and stared at them—a young woman in a long skirt, hair back in a messy bun, glasses smudged with old engine oil, with a middle-aged man in a waistcoat, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, both of them working on a car worth more than the property it sat on. She knew they made quite a sight. But the other guests didn’t linger long, at least.

“Brilliant,” Adam said. “Didn’t know you were car mechanics, too!” Dog barked.

Anathema wiped sweat off her brow with the back of her hand. She felt grease smear across her skin. Ugh. “We’re trying.”

“I’m going to walk Dog.”

“Don’t go far,” she reminded him.

“Want me to wake Newt up so he can help?” Adam asked.

“No. Better not risk it.” She didn’t consider a ninety-year-old car to be technologically advanced, but he still might break it somehow. If that happened, Anathema wouldn’t have to worry about the armies of Heaven and Hell. Crowley would kill them all before anyone else got the chance.

When Adam was gone from sight, Aziraphale chuckled. “He really didn’t turn out all that bad, did he?”

“He’s a good kid,” Anathema agreed. “Him and The Them give me hope for the future. Assuming we have one.”

The echos of her dream made her shiver despite the rising morning heat.

“That’s the wonderful thing about you humans,” Aziraphale said, finally seeming to snap out of his bad mood. “So much depends on your own choices, and the circumstances of your lives. You can make the generations after you better just by improving your present world.”

“An optimistic way of looking at it.” Anathema carefully tightened a bolt. “Do angels have families?”

“No.”

She’d said the wrong thing. Aziraphale’s expression shuttered, and he turned back to the engine.

“Why not?” she pressed, unable to stop her curiosity.

“We don’t reproduce like humans. So why would we need them? Angels have a hierarchy, everyone in their place. Demons are a little more chaotic, but it’s the same principle.”

“Family is more than just raising a kid.”

“I’m not like you,” Aziraphale said, voice breaking. “Please. Let’s focus on the task at hand.”

“Sorry, yeah.”  She felt a little like she’d kicked a puppy. As stubborn as Crowley was about his feelings for Aziraphale, he’d at least admitted them to himself a long time ago. Whatever Aziraphale felt for the demon in return, he seemed intent on ignoring it.

It wasn’t really her place to pry. Ignoring the grime beneath her nails and the sweat gathering on her hairline, she got back to work.

The deep and familiar rumble of a loud car engine woke Crowley. He slipped on his sunglasses and sprinted for the door.

Outside Anathema stood, looking exhausted but proud, beside the Bentley. Aziraphale was in the driver’s seat, grinning.

Both of them broke into cheers. Tools and empty bottles of oil littered the sidewalk and in adjacent parking spaces.

“What in Satan’s name is going on here?” he shouted over the noise.

“We fixed your car!” Anathema pulled him into a hug. “It was Aziraphale’s idea.”

“Ah, get off me, you’re covered in oil.”

Aziraphale stepped out of the car. He was similarly smudged with dark grease, his hair more tousled than usual, sleeves rolled up.

Crowley’s heart stuttered. The messy mechanic look was a lot more interesting on him than Anathema. “It works?”

“Yes. Now we won’t be stuck waiting on buses while the fate of humanity hangs in the balance.” Aziraphale grinned.

Crowley couldn’t help but return the expression. “Thanks.”

He was overcome with the desire to pull Aziraphale into an embrace, to kiss the smudge near the corner of his mouth. Crowley’s good mood vanished. He’d never have that. And it was alright. Because his best friend spent half the night fixing up his car, and that was enough.

Aziraphale had always been enough.

“Take it for a spin,” Anathema said, bouncing on her heels. “But obey all the laws. Please. And remember, right side of the road, not left.”

“Don’t have to remind me,” Crowley snapped. “Who do you think made people decide to do it different in different countries?” He slid into the driver’s seat. “Coming, angel?”

“Ah, no. We have to return the tools we borrowed.” Aziraphale looked away.

“Right. Best I do this part of the plan alone, anyway. In case something goes wrong.” There was no reason he should feel like this—as if he were Falling all over again, burning from the inside out.

He drove north, leaving Orlando behind. It took longer than he’d have liked, because of all that speed limit nonsense, but eventually he reached the ocean. He parked at a public access beach and walked to where the waves lapped the sand a few feet from his shoes. Then he put the battery back in his phone and tapped out a message to Anathema that read: Plan’s going perfectly. Those stupid demons are going to leave Hell unguarded. Then we’ll strike.

He sent it, then took the battery out again. Back in his car, he hesitated before leaving. Angels or demons might be swarming this beach soon. He couldn’t stay here. But the thought of returning to Aziraphale carved lines of white hot pain through him. He’d have to smile and pretend everything was fine, when it felt like his organs were being processed into sausage whenever he thought about how foolish he’d been. He’d convinced himself Aziraphale might return his feelings. That false hope made it even worse now that he had to let it go.

Crowley cranked the Bentley and sped out of the parking lot, heading back to Orlando, trying to leave his heart behind.

Chapter Text

Everything was supposed to be getting better. The plan was on schedule. Crowley could drive his car again. There was light at the end of this mad tunnel of celestial drama.

So why did Crowley feel like, instead of returning to the others, slinking off to a bar to drown himself in cheap whiskey? This was all Anathema’s fault. She’d encouraged him. He’d been doing fine for six thousand years, after all. Perfectly happy. It was only after her advice that he’d become so miserable about Aziraphale.

For the entire drive back, he refused to think of it, and instead focused on blasting Queen as loud as his eardrums would allow, all the while shoving his feelings into a box, then locking that box deep inside himself.

Funny, the mental exercise almost worked.

Three days. Three days of awful heat, humidity, and working as a server for cheap tourists who gave ten percent tips. In his idle moments, Crowley considered joining the demons in their quest to destroy humanity. Fortunately, his idle moments were few and far between.

“Don’t forget to smile,” said Mackenzie, the girl who was training him.

He made an expression that was technically a smile, in the same sense that a shark is technically a fish.

Her face paled. “Um, you know what? Never mind about the smile.”

Being miserable about work was at least a distraction from being miserable about love. It wasn’t getting any easier, being so near Aziraphale but feeling worlds away from him at the same time. They’d all been working long hours, hustling to get enough money to keep them afloat. Crowley hadn’t spent much time with the angel, a sort of blessing, because pretending everything was normal (for them) was getting harder every day.

Last night he’d woken around three to find that Aziraphale, sound asleep, had curled himself around Crowley, holding him as if he feared letting go.

It had only been the innocent action of a sleeping angel, but it still hurt Crowley like a knife to his gut. He wanted so badly for it to mean something else.

“Come on,” Mackenzie said, bumping his shoulder. “No time for spacing out.”

When his shift was finally over, he went to the bar to wait on Anathema. She was staying later than him, but he’d driven them both here. Now he was stuck waiting on her.

It’d serve her right for him to leave her to catch the bus. Instead, he ordered a drink. He was alone at the end of the bar, lingering in shadow.

Anathema grinned as she poured him a nice Scotch without bothering to start him a tab. “I have good news!”

“We’re finally getting out of this miserable place?” Crowley drawled.

“No. But soon, right?”

“Assuming they took the bait, yeah.” He sipped his drink. The soft fire of it burned into his chest, but it didn’t lessen the ache there.

“Anyway, someone gave me free tickets to Disney World earlier.” Her smile faltered. “He was kind of a creep, but the tickets are real.” She pulled something out of her pocket and flashed it at him. Three paper tickets emblazoned with the Disney logo.

“Fantastic.” He drained the Scotch and motioned for her to pour more.

“The thing is, the tickets are for tomorrow, but Newton and I have to work.”

“How’s that good news, then?” Crowley pushed his glass toward her, impatient.

She rolled her eyes, but gave him another free drink. “You’re off tomorrow. And so is Aziraphale. You can take Adam, he’s been dying to go.”

“We were at Disney World already,” Crowley grumbled. “Don’t see why he needs to go back.”

“It’ll be fun. And good for you, to get your mind off things.”

Yesterday, in a moment of weakness, he’d told Anathema about what Aziraphale had said, that he wanted to be friends instead of anything more. Crowley regretting sharing that fact immensely, but it was done, now.

“My mind’s plenty occupied, thanks.” He sipped this glass more slowly, determined to make it last.

“Fine, don’t enjoy it. But take Adam. He did save all our lives, after all. Twice.”

“If it’ll get you to stop talking, I’ll do it.”

Anathema leaned forward and slipped the tickets into his breast pocket. “Fantastic. Thanks.” She wandered off to help another customer.

Crowley stared into his glass, wishing he could drown himself in it.

Adam woke everyone up before dawn, but Aziraphale didn’t mind. The amount of time he spent sleeping didn’t really matter, after all. And seeing such exuberant joy was a delight, especially after so many days trapped here without the use of his powers.

At Adam’s insistence, they got to the Magic Kingdom as soon as it opened. Crowley seemed terse and had hardly spoken two words to either of them. Adam was entirely too excited to notice, however.

“Too bad I couldn’t bring Dog,” he said as they waited in line to enter. “He’d love it here.”

Aziraphale made a noncommittal noise, watching Crowley, who refused to look at either of them. He couldn’t help but wonder if he’d done something to the demon to upset him. Crowley had been distant for days now, as if he were deliberately pulling away from Aziraphale.

Or maybe he was only reading too much into things, now that he’d finally come to terms with his own feelings.

Aziraphale hardly had time to ponder that, though, before Adam was pulling them through the park, talking about which rides he wanted to go on first. Aziraphale didn’t get the appeal of the place, but he was content to go along with it.

“No, absolutely not,” Crowley said, when they came to the teacup ride. “You get in line. I’ll see you after.”

Aziraphale watched the spinning seats. “Perhaps you have a point.”

“I’ll ride it myself, then,” Adam said. “Since you’re both too scared.”

“I’m not afraid,” Aziraphale huffed under his breath as Adam ran to get in line. “Just doesn’t seem at all enjoyable.”

“This whole place is a giant waste of time,” Crowley said. “Want to go get a churro or something? He’ll be in line for ages.”

The idea of sweets perked him up a little. “Certainly.”

There was a line for churros, of course, but Aziraphale didn’t mind. Spending time with Crowley was always worth it. Even if he was being a little dour.

“How did Ms. Device get these tickets, again?” Aziraphale asked, hoping to break him out of his bad mood.

“Some man gave them to her. She has that effect on a lot of people. You should see her tips.”

“I’m sure you get plenty as well,” Aziraphale said hopefully.

“Not really.” Crowley turned away, staring off into the crowds that surged around them.

The sun was high above them, the heat rising. Everyone else was in shorts and t-shirts, covered in sunscreen and sweat. He and Crowley wore coats. More than a few people gave them second glances as they passed.

“Worried about being spotted?” Aziraphale asked.

“No.” Crowley shuffled forward as the line moved.

Aziraphale gave up trying, until they got his churro and they sat on a nearby bench. If Aziraphale ignored their surroundings, they could almost be back home in St. James’ Park.

But there were no more miracles and temptations to swap, no more clandestine meetings. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe for Crowley, this had all really just been about the arrangement.

Not even fried dough and cinnamon-sugar could lift Aziraphale’s spirits at that thought.

He loved Crowley, and he refused to regret that. There was nothing more divine and holy than love, after all, and if it hurt, then the pain was holy, too.

Aziraphale would never be in a romantic relationship with Crowley. But he would be the best friend to Crowley that he could be, because the demon deserved nothing less.

“Is everything all right?” Aziraphale asked.

“Course. Why wouldn’t it be?” Again, Crowley spoke without looking at Aziraphale.

“You’ve just seemed…a little off these past few days. I was wondering—was it something I did?”

“You’re not the one who brought us to Disney World ,” Crowley said with a considerable amount of venom. “So, no. It’s not you, angel.”

Even the way he said angel was stiff. Too formal. Distant.

Before Aziraphale could respond, Crowley stood. “Look, we should go back to the ride. Adam should be done soon.”

“Of course.” Aziraphale paused before following Crowley and threw the rest of his churro away. He didn’t have an appetite any longer.

Crowley supposed the trip to Disney World could’ve gone worse. Someone could’ve tried to kill them. Instead it was a litany of costumed characters, all of which Adam wanted to meet and get his picture taken with (fortunately, Anathema had gotten Crowley a new burner phone, so they didn’t have to pay for official photos.) And of course he wanted every snack they passed, and armfuls of souvenirs. Crowley insisted on none, but Aziraphale used those damn puppy dog eyes on him, so Crowley shelled out his own hard-earned tip money to buy Adam trinkets he didn’t need.

Despite his best efforts to be miserable, Crowley begrudgingly began to enjoy himself. After all, he’d planned for him and Aziraphale to be Adam’s godfathers, of a sort, and now they could finally fill the role. He only wished he could use his powers to make the day a little more interesting.

And, turns out, it was impossible to be completely unhappy on a roller coaster, and the fact you had to wait hours to spend less than a minute on each ride was a stroke of pure genius, one he wished he could take credit for.

“We’re staying for the fireworks show, right?” Adam asked as they stood in line to buy him an extremely unhealthy dinner.

“Don’t see why not,” Aziraphale said. His smile faltered as he glanced at Crowley.

“Sure,” Crowley agreed. Aziraphale had been strange all day. Hesitant. Crowley probably wasn’t helping matters, being so short with him all the time now. But each time he wanted to grin at the angel and joke like they’d done before, the joy got stuck in his throat and threatened to choke him.

It didn’t make sense. All the love should’ve been burned out of him when he fell.

Night closed in around them, lazy and heavy with heat and filled with the building excitement of the crowds.

Adam practically bounced on his heels. “Can I get closer?”

“Stay within sight of us,” Aziraphale answered. “And don’t talk to strangers!”

Miraculously, Adam listened, and only went a few dozen yards closer to the show.

“I do worry about him,” Aziraphale said to Crowley.

“Oh, I wouldn’t,” he replied. “He might not be the Antichrist, but he’s still the sort of person who happens to the world, not the other way round.”

Crowley eyed a nearby spot on a low stone wall. He led Aziraphale there, and they both sat down. Chasing Adam around the park all day had been exhausting. He was looking forward to sleep a little more than normal.

The fireworks began, filling the sky with waves of color and sound. Beside him, Aziraphale sighed contentedly.

“Humans do invent the loveliest things, don’t they?”

They had nothing on the Almighty, who’d made Aziraphale, Crowley thought, but didn’t say. Instead he watched the reflections of fireworks in the angel’s eyes, and the way the shadows played across his grinning face.

Aziraphale turned to him. “You know, they’d look better to you without those sunglasses on.”

Crowley glanced away. “Too many humans around. They’ll notice.”

“No one is looking at you.” Aziraphale’s voice was soft and full of gentle knowing. He never should’ve admitted to how he sometimes hated his own eyes. “No one but me, at least. And I—” the angel hesitated. “I find your eyes to be beautiful.”

Crowley was suddenly filled with the desire to both laugh and scream at once. What bubbled out of his chest was an incredulous noise somewhere in between. “Beautiful? I’m a demon, I’m not—”

“You’re one of God’s creatures, don’t be silly. Everything in creation is beautiful, in its own way.”

“I don’t belong to God. Not anymore.” He didn’t want to have this conversation. Not now. Not ever, and certainly not with Aziraphale.

“Oh, Crowley.” Something about the angel’s voice made it impossible for Crowley to look anywhere but at him. Aziraphale’s eyes brimmed with unshed tears. “I refuse to believe there’s no path for your redemption.” He placed his hand over Crowley’s, skin soft and warm. The ring he wore skimmed Crowley’s knuckles.

Despite the heat of the evening, a shiver raced up Crowley’s back. Slowly, using the hand Aziraphale wasn’t touching, he removed his sunglasses. “This is what I am, angel. Sorry to disappoint.”

“How could you ever think you’re disappointing me?” Aziraphale gently squeezed his hand. “You never really have, not in six thousand years. There’s always been good inside you. It’s why I care for you so much.”

The fireworks show transitioned to its grand finale. The crowd exclaimed in delight, but Crowley couldn’t tear his eyes from Aziraphale.

“You—care for me?” Crowley’s mouth was dry. He licked his lips, absent-minded.

Aziraphale’s gaze followed the motion of his tongue. His heart stuttered at the sight.

We’re friends , he reminded himself. Best friends . But was Aziraphale leaning forward, a little? Crowley was somewhat terrified to find he was doing the same.

Cheers erupted around them, and the sky burst with flowers made of light and fire.

Crowley had never kissed anyone. Not like how he wanted to kiss Aziraphale in that moment. Centuries of polite cheek-kisses, kissing the backs of hands and rings, but never anything that crossed the line from platonic to romantic.

He’d been crossing lines his whole existence, and he found he very much wanted to cross this one, too. Only Aziraphale had said plainly, not half a week prior, that he didn’t want this—

Then why were his eyes on Crowley’s mouth as if they were a freshly sliced piece of cake?

Fuck it , he thought. He was going to go for it—just a kiss, after all, nothing he couldn’t play off as just fun between friends.

The phone in his coat vibrated. He would’ve ignored it if it had been his usual line, but only one other person had this number, and she’d specifically told him to use it only for emergencies.

Crowley sat back from Aziraphale, face hot, hands fumbling as he pulled the phone out.

“What?” he barked when the call connected.

“It’s Anathema,” she said, sounding panicked. “We have a problem.”

Chapter Text

The fireworks ended, and the crowds began to disperse. But Aziraphale only had eyes for Crowley, whose expression had gone from something strange and inscrutable—that had almost, almost seemed to mirror Aziraphale’s heart—to closed off as soon as he’d answered the phone.

“Right,” Crowley said. “Be there as soon as we can.” He put his phone away and slipped his sunglasses back on. “Stay here, I’ll get Adam. We have to go.”

“What’s happened?” Aziraphale asked, but Crowley was already gone, disappearing into the crowd.

He clasped his hands in his lap to keep from fidgeting. The sudden shift from—whatever had been happening between them—to this was more than jarring.

It was a mistake to forget even for a moment what they were doing here in this place. Angels and demons wanted them dead, along with all of humanity. It was no time for—for mooning over someone who certainly didn’t feel the same. Aziraphale had allowed himself to get entirely too carried away in the moment, thinking perhaps Crowley felt the same, and that his mind had also strayed to idle thoughts of what a simple kiss between them might be like—

Aziraphale stood up, trying to flee the thoughts. No time for that. He needed to put this behind him, or at least put off dealing with it until the fate of the world was settled.

Crowley reappeared with Adam, and they left the park. The whole time Crowley stayed tersely silent, ignoring even Adam’s persistent questions about what was happening. He didn’t answer until they were in the Bentley, speeding away.

“Anathema called. The angels know she’s involved with me, now, and instead of coming after her, they went for her mother.”

“Oh, dear.” Fear shortened his breath. “Is she—?”

“Still alive. But Gabriel ,” Crowley said the name with a sneer, “sent Anathema a picture of her mother sitting in her house out in California. It was a warning.”

“Well, we have to do something—”

“I know, angel. That’s why we left.” Crowley stared at the road, which was a little uncharacteristic of him. His attention was unwavering. Probably because of the dire situation rather than any desire to not look at Aziraphale.

“They better not hurt Anathema’s mum,” Adam said from the back seat. “That’s not fair. She’s not a part of this.”

“Neither are you,” Crowley said. “Quiet, all of you, I’m trying to think.”

Aziraphale stared out the window at the passing world, filled with alternating shadows and light. They’d figure out a way to prevent anything bad happening to Anathema’s mother. He was certain of it.

With chagrin, he chastised himself for being caught up in something so silly as thinking about kissing Crowley. From now on, he wouldn’t let his focus waver again. Too much was at stake.

By the time they got back to the motel, Crowley had a plan. It wasn’t a particularly good one, but when had that stopped him before? A very small, persistent voice in the back of his mind brought up the fact that all his plans seemed to be making things worse rather than better in the long run, but he silenced it like always. This was no time for second-guessing himself.

He’d already been doing enough of that with Aziraphale. But whatever that moment had been, it was gone, and probably hadn’t really existed to begin with, not for anyone but himself.

Inside the motel room, Anathema was pacing, Newt sitting on the bed with his head in his hands.

“How do we fix this?” Anathema demanded as soon as Crowley walked in.

“We knew this might happen, I talked about it during my presentation, remember?”

She gave him a look that implied she’d find a way around his immortality to kill him. Possibly with her bare hands.

“Right, anyway, I’ve got a plan. But it involves a bit of risk on your part. And how well can you pickpocket something?”

“Pickpocket?” That halted her steps. “I’ve never tried.”

“Sleight of hand?” Aziraphale said, voice bright with excitement. “Crowley—”

“No, absolutely not.”

“Why?” the angel asked.

“Because it’s embarrassing.” A lie, but good enough. He refused to look at Aziraphale. “And this isn’t pulling coins from behind people’s ears. This will be stealing from an angel.”

The truth was, Crowley couldn’t handle any more of Aziraphale being in the field, putting himself at risk. The angel wasn’t made for it, and Crowley wasn’t made to worry so much. His poor nerves could only take so much abuse. There were too many ways for this to go wrong.

“Exactly,” Aziraphale said, voice firm. Crowley glanced at him. He was standing straight, shoulders back, head high. He looked the perfect picture of confidence. “If something goes wrong, I’ll have a much better chance of making it out alive.”

“What are you talking about?” Anathema said. “What are we planning?”

Crowley sighed. There was no time to perfect his presentation. He’d have to wing it. And Aziraphale was right, and possibly he was also the only one who could pull off elements of the plan.

Against his better judgment, Crowley nodded to Aziraphale, then explained.

Airports always reminded Aziraphale of Heaven. Though very few of them were anything approaching the definition of clean or orderly, they all shared that same hollowness, a sense of transient displacement. Heaven had never felt like home to Aziraphale, not in the same way Earth did. It was silly, the thought, because he’d spent most of his existence in Heaven. Earth was so new in comparison. And his bookshop was only a few hundred years old.

But it was more his home than Heaven was, especially now, even if when Aziraphale thought of home he pictured Crowley there beside him, which was a mistake. For him, home could never be a person.

Anathema glanced at the signs. “I’ll go buy the ticket. You two wait here, and try not to get into trouble.”

“I can’t promise anything,” Adam said, and Dog barked in agreement.

Aziraphale huffed a sigh. “This is serious, you know.”

“Exactly. That’s why jokes are so important.” Adam stared around the dingey airport with open wonder. “Never been on a plane before. What if it crashes on a deserted island? Dog and I will have to learn to hunt wild pigs—”

“That’s unlikely,” Aziraphale said uneasily. “If you did get stranded somewhere, Crowley and I would come find you.”

Adam frowned. “That’s not as fun.”

Anathema returned. Though she was putting on a brave face, the stress of the situation showed in the circles beneath her eyes and the paleness of her face. “I used my credit card. They’ll be here soon. Come on.”

She led them to a less populated spot, then met Aziraphale’s gaze. “You sure you can handle this?”

“Of course,” he replied, affronted. “I’ve been practicing sleight of hand for—”

“Right, I believe you. Let’s get this over with.”

Aziraphale closed his eyes, relishing embracing his power. It hadn’t even been a full week, but he was meant to do miracles, to ripple reality, create a better world. Not doing that for so long had been harder than he expected. Now the power coursed through him, lazy and slow, like a cat stretching in a sunbeam.

He changed his form to a perfect copy of Anathema’s, right down to the fear-paled skin and crinkle of worry in her brow. He felt the protection spell fall away, but Anathema quickly replaced it with a few whispered words and the prepared ingredients she’d brought.

“So weird,” Anathema said, staring at him. “Seeing myself outside a mirror or picture.”

“Wait here.” He clasped her hands, giving them what he hoped was a bracing squeeze. “I’ll find you once they’ve gone.”

Adam stared between them. “Can’t tell you apart at all. Wicked. Bet you could rob a bank like that, and no one would even notice.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale said, not even surprised. “But I would never do such a thing. Stealing is wrong.” He glanced at Anathema one more time, giving her a soft smile.

She returned it, then hurried to the restrooms, to hide out of sight.

It was up to him, now. He’d been responsible for keeping humans alive before, of course, but it had never weighed on him quite like the possibility of Anathema’s mother’s death. Probably because her being in danger was entirely his fault.

He led Adam to the security checkpoint. He didn’t have any luggage, so it wouldn’t be trouble for him. Aziraphale wished he could go with Adam the entire way to the gate, but that would just put him in more danger.

“Remember, go directly home to Tadfield. No adventures,” Aziraphale reminded Adam. “And don’t waste the money we gave you. Only necessities.”

“I know. Mum and Dad will be worried if I don’t get home soon.” Adam stared at the ground. “You better come back, after it’s all sorted, and tell us everything. The whole story, no editing for kids.”

“Of course.” And Aziraphale very much wanted to be able to do that. To go to a sleepy English village and regale four children with the tale of how he and Crowley had saved the world again. He wanted it to work out, and for everything to be all right again.

Adam stared up at him. “It’s strange, hearing your voice in hers. Get better at pretending to be her, or they’ll notice.”

“Excellent advice.” He glanced at the line for TSA. “Better go, or you’ll miss your flight. If you get lost, just ask an airline employee. I’m certain they’re all very helpful.”

“Bye, Aziraphale,” Adam said. “And good luck. You have my phone number for home, so call if you need help.”

Adam got in the queue, Dog waiting patiently by his side.

That was one thing sorted. He turned and walked away, trying to hold himself like Anathema. He stopped in the lobby, and waited.

Ten minutes later, Gabriel appeared, wearing a charcoal suit and a deep frown.

“Ms. Anathema Device,” he said, voice icy. “We need to talk.”

Chapter Text

The disapproval in Gabriel’s voice was nothing new to Aziraphale, but it still made him go rigid with instinctive fear. Fortunately, the real Anathema had more than enough reason to fear the Archangel.

Pretending to be Crowley had been easy, almost fun. But now the fate of an innocent woman hinged on his performance. Anathema was counting on him.

“Well, talk.” Aziraphale said, keeping his chin high. Anathema struck him as the kind of person who wouldn’t back down from a bully. “That’s why I brought you here.”

“You brought me?” Gabriel smirked. “Clever human. Must be so proud of yourself. Bet your mother is proud, too.”

“If you hurt her—”

Gabriel raised a hand, and Aziraphale went silent on reflex. “She’s fine. For now. But unless you tell us what Crowley’s planning, that will change.”

Aziraphale forced himself to meet Gabriel’s eye, made himself step forward boldly. “Threatening me isn’t a good idea.”

Gabriel laughed. “You’re just a human. I’m the Archangel Gabriel. If I showed you my true form, instead of this human costume, you’d be weeping at my feet.”

Aziraphale very much wanted to challenge him, to force Gabriel to reveal himself, so he could stand, unwavering, impassive, in the guise of a young woman who was unafraid. But they didn’t have time for that. “I have information you need. If you hurt my mother, you won’t get it. But,” he smiled Anathema’s most charming smile. “I think we might be able to help each other.”

“You misunderstand the situation,” Gabriel said. “You’re going to tell me everything, and in exchange you get to live a little longer. That’s it.”

“No.” It felt good to defy him. After so many thousands of years taking orders from the bastard, suffering his passive-aggressive memos and PowerPoint presentations on the proper application of miracles, and the way he’d always looked at Aziraphale as if he were beneath him.

It struck him, then, that he was truly out from under Heaven’s rule. He was a rogue agent, outside the bureaucratic hierarchy of the angels.

He was free, of everything but the core of his being, which commanded him to serve the Almighty, protect humanity, and do good above all else. In the old days, doing this sort of thing would’ve meant he was Fallen. But now, Aziraphale thought, it was Heaven that was rotten, not him.

He probably should’ve realized it earlier. But as with his feelings for Crowley, sometimes it was hard to accept a truth so close to his heart.

“No?” Gabriel gave him an incredulous look. “Well, I tried. Your mother will be dead in a few minutes,” he pulled out his angelic phone, “have fun mourning her until all this,” he gestured to the human world around them, “is gone.”

“I wouldn’t send that message if I were you.”

“What are you going to do?” Gabriel sneered. “Pray for help?” But he didn’t send the message. Probably because he didn’t want to.

Call his bluff. That was all Aziraphale had to do. Gabriel wouldn’t have come here if he didn’t need something from Anathema. They’d gone through all the trouble of sending Anathema those threatening pictures. Crowley had been right.

Well, he was a demon. Of course his mind was devious and twisty.

“Agree to my terms, or you can say goodbye to your alliance with the demons.”

Doubt flickered over Gabriel’s features. “How did—Crowley. He shouldn’t be sharing that sort of information with your kind.” He put his phone away. Aziraphale noted the pocket.

“We’re partners.” It felt good to say that out loud, even if Aziraphale wasn’t wearing his own body or speaking with his own voice. It was true. He and Crowley had been partners for longer than he cared to admit. “I know everything.”

“There’s no way you can break the alliance between Heaven and Hell.”

“I can’t, no,” Aziraphale agreed. “But Crowley can.”

Gabriel fell silent. Around them, crowds of people surged, carrying suitcases and bags, wearing souvenir t-shirts and suits, smiling or sullen. They parted around Aziraphale and Gabriel as if they were rocks in a river. The whole world hung suspended over the abyss, but everyone still had a plane to catch.

“What are your terms?” Gabriel said at last.

“I want my mother safe. And me as well, and my boyfriend—” the words felt strange to say to Aziraphale, but also almost delightful, “—Newton Pulsifer. You can’t kill us, ever.”

“Turning against all your own kind, and the demon who trusts you?”

“I’m doing what needs to be done.”

“Humans, always so concerned with their families ,” Gabriel said the word like it was something unclean. “We have a deal, provided you give us all the information you have on what Crowley’s planning.”

Aziraphale held out his hand. Gabriel looked at it for a moment, then shook. Aziraphale pulled him forward, until their noses were almost touching. Shoving down his fear, he tried to be Anathema, bold, confident, unaware of just exactly how dangerous Gabriel could be. “If you double-cross me, it won’t end well for you.”

He let go of Gabriel’s hand and brushed past him, checking his shoulder. “We should talk somewhere more private.”

The feeling of reality rippling washed over him, and he and Gabriel were standing in an office.

Heaven. Gabriel had taken Anathema here, where she couldn’t escape. The bastard. Aziraphale was extremely happy he’d made Crowley let him take the young woman’s place.

Gabriel motioned to a chair. “Sit. And start talking.”

He did, arranging his skirts, which reminded him of outdated fashions like togas and robes. He’d missed the fun way they’d swished around his ankles. “Well,” Aziraphale began. “The first thing you need to know is Crowley’s been playing Hell from the start.”

“Do you think they’re all right?” Newton asked for the tenth time.

Crowley suppressed the desire to shake him. “I don’t know. I’m not psychic.”

“But you’re a demon. Couldn’t you be?”

They were sitting in the Bentley, in long-term airport parking. Somewhere inside the international terminal, Aziraphale was risking his life. And Crowley was sitting around waiting, useless.

“What, as if I could just decide to be psychic?”

“Possibly? How should I know how it works?”

Crowley glared at him from behind his sunglasses, then turned the music up, hoping to drown out his own worry.

His phone vibrated in his pocket. Moving so quickly he nearly fumbled it, Crowley answered.

“Something might have gone wrong,” Anathema said, voice echoing strangely. “Don’t panic.”

“Don’t panic?” Crowley sat up and shut the music off. “What sort of thing is that to say? Should I be panicking?”

“No. I don’t think Gabriel knew it wasn’t me. But he and Aziraphale are gone. They were standing in the lobby one minute, then just, poof.”

“Are you sure they didn’t walk away?”

“Yes. I didn’t even blink.”

Crowley got out of the car, pacing, restless. “Could’ve taken him anywhere.”

“I don’t think this is reason to worry, necessarily,” Anathema said. Of course she didn’t think it mattered. She wasn’t the one who might lose their best friend.

“Why not?” Crowley snapped.

“Because this is what we wanted. He probably took Aziraphale somewhere less hectic to interrogate him. He’ll be fine.”

“He better be.” But the threat wasn’t for her, or even Gabriel. If this went wrong, it was Crowley’s own fault.

“Stay put,” Anathema said. “Gabriel will probably return him here. We just have to wait, and have faith.”

“Not exactly my strong suit,” Crowley said, then ended the call.

He leaned against the Bentley, slouching, wanting to scream.

But instead, he waited.

Gabriel seemed to take everything Aziraphale said as truth. And it was close enough to be believable, at least.

The main point of Crowley’s plan had been what the demon called the soul of the con.

“It’s all about confidence, isn’t it? That’s why it’s called a con,” Crowley had said that first night in Orlando. “We have to convince everyone that we’re more competent than we are. We have to make them believe, with complete confidence, that we’re giving them the runaround. As long as they think we’re ten steps ahead, this will work.”

Aziraphale sat with his back straight, chin high, and sold the lies with what he hoped was a convincing Anathema impersonation. Gabriel made notes, nodded along. But he’d always been a bit inscrutable. He could’ve been thinking anything behind those flat eyes of his.

“And why,” Gabriel asked, sitting back, “did he need a human’s help with all this?”

Aziraphale hesitated, swallowing. “Well, I am a witch—”

“Crowley’s a demon. He’s more powerful than you can imagine.”

“But he needed my spell to hide him from your people.”

Gabriel’s eyebrows inched up. “That was you? I’m almost impressed.”

“Orlando is a place of power,” Aziraphale said. “It’s why Crowley chose it.”

“Well,” Gabriel tapped his fingers across his desk for a moment. “Thanks for the intel.”

He snapped his fingers.

Aziraphale found himself in the airport lobby again, blessedly alone. Gabriel had believed him. It had worked. He hurried to the restroom where he’d left Anathema.

A few humans gave them open stares as Aziraphale approached her where she stood near the sinks. She grinned and pulled him into a hug.

“Everything go okay? My mom—”

“She’s fine. And it all went to plan.” He took the phone he’d stolen from Gabriel out, showing her, before tucking it back into a pocket. “You’ll let Crowley know?”

“Otherwise he might have an aneurysm from worrying about you.” Anathema tapped out a text. How people managed to be so fast with those infernal devices, Aziraphale had no idea. “Let’s get out of here.”

Crowley read the text from Anathema’s burner phone again. It was probably her. She probably hadn’t been murdered, her phone taken in order to trick him into letting his guard down. Aziraphale was also almost certainly still alive.

He paced beside the Bentley, ignoring Newton’s question about why he was doing that.

Two sets of boots clacked on the concrete floor of the parking deck. Crowley snapped his attention in their direction, and sagged with relief when two brunettes wearing identical long coats came into view. He adopted an uncaring pose, leaning against the Bentley.

“All right, then?” he asked Aziraphale.

“It went splendidly. Gabriel didn’t suspect a thing.”

Crowley wanted to hug him, to touch him to make sure he was real and unharmed. Instead he nodded. “Let’s go, then.”

“How did you know which one of us is which?” Anathema asked as she climbed into the back of the car.

“I can always tell when it’s Aziraphale,” Crowley answered. “Known him long enough to recognize him, haven’t I?”

In the rear-view mirror, Newt and Anathema exchanged a loaded look. Crowley studiously ignored it. He didn’t need two humans’ opinions on his relationship with the angel.

They made it to a new motel, this one across town from the original, since Aziraphale had given away it’s location so his story would check out.

Aziraphale, back in his usual body with a freshly applied protection spell, sat at the little desk, nervous. Crowley didn’t blame him.

The phone he’d stolen was valuable, but they’d be able to track it, so Crowley had to act fast.

“Why’d they put passwords on their phones?” Crowley grumbled. “Seems a bit paranoid for celestial beings.”

“I don’t know.” Aziraphale stared at the wall, frowning.

“You all right?”

Anathema and Newt had gone for lunch. They were alone, but Crowley still kept his voice light, as if he didn’t care so deeply about the answer that it made his hands tremble.

“Yes, of course. It was only one conversation with Gabriel.”

“Exactly, you had to talk to that bastard. After all he’s done to you—”

“I’m not made of glass, Crowley.” There was more heat in his response than Crowley expected.

He turned his attention back to the angelic phone, trying new passwords. “I still worry. I’m allowed to worry about my best friend, aren’t I?”

“Of course you are.” Aziraphale’s voice softened. “But you should also trust me.”

“Would I be here if I didn’t trust you absolutely?” Crowley stabbed the number pad, spelling out as many swears as he could think of. None of them worked, not that he’d really thought they would.

“That’s not the sort of trust I mean.”

On a whim, Crowley entered the date of the failed apocalypse. The phone unlocked. His response to Aziraphale vanished from his tongue. “I’ve got it.”

He found Gabriel’s calendar and scrolled to the upcoming meetings. There were dozens, but one was marked important. It was a summit with all the demonic higher-ups, in two days, taking place at Stonehenge, of all the ridiculous things.

Now that he had that information, though, he could ditch this phone. He tried to snap it in half, but it didn’t even bend.

“They’re indestructible, don’t bother,” Aziraphale said.

“Nothing's indestructible,” Crowley shot back, then tossed the phone in the microwave, setting the timer for five minutes. He stepped back to watch the sparks.

Aziraphale joined him, standing close, but not so close that they touched. The tray inside rotated, and blue electricity began to arc.

“Well,” said the angel, “I suppose that’s one way to do it. Though this is hardly within the parameters of intended use.”

“Where’s the fun in keeping to intended uses?” Crowley grinned at him.

Aziraphale smiled, but then a strange expression crossed his face, and he looked away. “I think it’s for the best, doing things as we’re meant to.”

The phone caught fire, and the scent of smoke quickly permeated the air. Crowley watched the flames dance over what had once been a part of Heaven.

The door opened, and Anathema began to cough. “What’s going on in here?”

Crowley stopped the microwave, then threw the ruined phone in the sink. “Got the information we needed. Time to go.”

The fire alarm went off, but they were already outside, leaving the smoking ruins of Gabriel’s phone behind. A message Crowley hoped he received.

Chapter Text

Crowley glared up at the cargo plane. “You can’t be serious.”

“Even private planes have a passenger manifest,” Anathema said. At least she had the good grace to sound apologetic about this. “They’ll know you were flying with us.”

“Come on, can’t we just lie on the forms—”

“And risk the pilot losing her license? This won’t be that bad. It’ll only take a few hours—”

“Nine hours. In the hold of a cargo plane. Hiding in my own car like a stowaway.” Crowley glared at her, but she seemed immune.

“Oh, well, if you’re not interested in trying to save the whole human race, stay here. In Orlando. I’ll do it all myself.” Anathema turned and stalked away.

Crowley glanced at the Bentley, then at Aziraphale, who looked as unsure about this part of the plan as he himself felt.

“If this is the only way we can get to Stonehenge in time, without doing any major miracles, I suppose we must.” Aziraphale began to take off his coat, neatly folding it. He tucked it into the front seat.

Anathema’s money was useful, now that she could spend it again. She’d chartered a private plane for her and Newt—after all, the angels could hardly look askance at her getting the hell out of Dodge now that she’d supposedly double-crossed Crowley. She’d bought cargo space on a much less illustrious plane for the Bentley, and she wanted him and Aziraphale hiding in it the whole journey.

“It’ll be pressurized, don’t worry,” she’d told him airily. “And you two won’t get cold, not if you huddle for warmth.”

“Is this punishment for something?” Crowley had asked.

“Nope.”

So here they stood, by the car that was about to be packaged for transport. They had to make a decision soon. Anathema’s bribe money would only make the officials look away for so long.

“Fine,” Crowley grumbled. This was the last time he tried to save the world. After this, humanity was on its own. He crawled into the back seat, carrying a large, heavy blanket that Anathema had been so kind to provide them. Aziraphale came in after him, sitting primly.

Crowley covered them both with the blanket.

“Well,” Aziraphale quipped, “This is certainly not the worst way I’ve had to travel over the years.”

“At least we’re not on horseback, right?” Crowley curled up in the floorboard, trying to be still. Voices came from outside, and soon the car was moving.

After an hour of awkward silence, in which his muscles began to cramp from not moving, the sounds of workers loading cargo faded. Then the plane’s engines started up.

Crowley pulled the blanket away, scowling despite how refreshing the cold air felt on his skin. Aziraphale’s pale hair and impassive face appeared across from him.

“I didn’t bring any snacks,” he said with a sigh. “This sort of thing is always more fun with snacks.”

“Bet Anathema and Newt are eating caviar and drinking champagne.” Crowley moved to sit in the back seat. The car was dark, but he could still see. There was no getting out of the car, though, not until they landed.

A swooping sensation in his stomach let him know they were taking off.

“At least this is cozy,” Aziraphale said, then fell silent.

The quiet between them was almost awkward. Crowley didn’t know what to say, or what to do. There was only the cold darkness seeping into everything, and the memory of how Aziraphale had been pulling away from him since this madness began.

“Wish it were a bit brighter, though,” Aziraphale said. “Ms. Device gave me a book from the airport shop, but I can hardly read it now, can I?”

Crowley pulled out his burner phone. “Here. Battery won’t last the whole trip, but it’s better than nothing.”

“What am I meant to do with that?” Aziraphale asked, glaring at the piece of technology.

“It has a light on it. I keep telling you, these aren’t just phones. They’re rather clever.” Crowley turned the light on, then handed it to Aziraphale.

The beam illuminated the cover of the book he was holding. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone .

“Finally joining us in the Twenty-First Century, I see.”

“It’s the only book I have, so it’ll have to do.”

They settled into a silence that was warmer, now, despite how quickly the air was growing colder. The plane had leveled off. Now they only had an entire ocean to traverse before Crowley could stretch his legs.

The soft sound of Aziraphale flipping pages as he read joined Crowley’s spinning thoughts. He was anxious about the meeting, obviously. They were headed right into danger.

And yet, what consumed him most was how near he was to Aziraphale, how easy it would be for him to confess everything, finally, just like Anathema kept suggesting he do.

I love you . Hardly a breath’s worth of words. But they were stuck in his throat, just as they’d been for the past six thousand years. How many languages, how many places, had he tried to get the sentiment out in?

There were less romantic places to confess one’s feelings than the hold of a cargo plane, but the list was awfully short.

And really, the location didn’t matter. What mattered was how Aziraphale felt. He’d only just made peace with the fact they were best friends. Crowley shoving his—his romantic feelings—or whatever this was, since he wasn’t quite certain, being a demon and all—at Aziraphale would be cruel. And it would only serve to make Crowley feel better, but it would hurt the angel. Ultimately a selfish thing to do, and Crowley didn’t mind being selfish on principle, except where Aziraphale was concerned.

But that’s what love was, wasn’t it? The asterisk at the end of his philosophy of living life for himself.

Aziraphale was happy with how things were. That was all that mattered. Crowley wouldn’t ruin things for him, no matter how the words burned in his chest like a breath he’d been holding since they met.

He slipped his sunglasses off and tucked them into his pocket. There was no need to hide, here, and he preferred being able to see Aziraphale as clearly as possible. The way his eyebrows drew together just a bit when he read something concerning, the smooth way he flipped pages, and how his concentration never wavered.

Crowley pulled the blanket over himself, trying not to sprawl too much into Aziraphale’s personal space.

Aziraphale glanced up at the motion. “What are you smiling about?”

“Just eager to get back home. You know, stop the combined forces of Heaven and Hell on the way.”

Aziraphale closed the book, keeping his place with a finger. “I’m worried about home. It might not be there when we get back. My bookshop wasn’t exactly a secret from Heaven.”

“It’ll be fine.” And if not, Crowley would personally strangle whoever had harmed it. “I’m sure they’re too busy to go round destroying our property just to get back at us.”

“I suppose you’re right.” A little tension went out of him, and he went back to reading.

Crowley tried to school his expression better after that.

“Well,” Aziraphale said after he’d finished the last line of the book, “It was an engaging read, but hardly worth a theme park.”

“Yeah, don’t say that to any Millennials,” Crowley said. He’d been mostly quiet the whole trip, and had the blanket pulled up so far it almost obscured his words.

Aziraphale shivered. It was colder here than he’d anticipated. He was about to reach for his coat in the front seat, but Crowley tossed the blanket over him.

“There’s plenty for both of us.”

“Right. Of course.” Aziraphale put his book away and got as comfortable as he could. The blanket was radiant with Crowley’s warmth and scent. It relaxed him more than he cared to admit to himself.

He was supposed to be getting over this silly love nonsense. But being trapped in a small space with the demon for hours and hours wasn’t helping. He wanted nothing more than to curl up beside Crowley and drift off to sleep, but he couldn’t. Could he?

Was that the sort of things friends normally did? It seemed a little on the side of romance, but maybe not.

Didn’t matter, anyway. Aziraphale wasn’t feeling particularly bold, certainly not enough to try to—to make a move on Crowley. If that’s even what you could call it—

“All right over there?” Crowley asked, sounding like he was on the edge of falling asleep, or perhaps just very bored.

“Yes. Of course. Just trying to plan for what we might find at Stonehenge.”

“Whatever it is, we’ll handle it.” Crowley’s eyes were closed, but he looked troubled despite his aloof words.

“Right.” Aziraphale felt he should say something more, but he couldn’t think of what.

The truth pressed against the back of his tongue, but he couldn’t speak it. And what good would it do even if he did? Crowley was a demon. He was always going to be a demon.

“You’re still shivering,” Crowley observed. He raised his arm, beckoning Aziraphale to move closer. “Come on. Suppose we should huddle for warmth, like people from some survival film.”

Aziraphale moved closer, his face warming inconveniently. Crowley could probably see his blush, even in the low light.

“I won’t bite, you know,” Crowley said.

“I’m hardly worried about that,” Aziraphale said, then wished he hadn’t spoken.

But Crowley didn’t respond, just wrapped his arm around Aziraphale’s shoulders and tucked the blanket around them. Sitting like this, it was almost pleasant. He could almost forget the entire universe outside the car.

Slowly, unsure of himself, Aziraphale rested his head against Crowley’s chest. He was half afraid Crowley would tell him to move. But he didn’t.

The gentle rise and fall of Crowley’s chest, and the demon’s heartbeat, lulled Aziraphale to sleep.

Sleep was better than a lot of things, in Crowley’s opinion. But there were a few things here and there that he wouldn’t have missed for anything.

Sitting with Aziraphale pressed against his side, warm and happy despite the circumstances, was one of those things. Crowley made himself stay awake to enjoy every moment.

This sort of thing wouldn’t happen again, most likely. Once things were settled, they’d either both be dead, or Aziraphale would continue to pull away from him until their relationship returned to how it had been centuries ago.

But for now they were together, and Crowley could enjoy it. As long as he ignored the guilt churning in his gut, and the voice that said he was taking advantage of Azirphale’s friendship.

Guilt and regret were old friends of his, however. So Crowley watched Aziraphale sleep, and tried not to think about the future.

Chapter Text

Inside the cargo plane, the Bentley was securely stored, lashed down so it couldn’t move.

Crowley and Aziraphale, however, weren’t. Crowley woke from sleep he never intended to succumb to as the plane banked, and he and Aziraphale went tumbling to the other side of the back seat. He ended up on top of the angel, their legs tangled together.

“Sorry,” Crowley said, scrambling to extricate himself from Aziraphale’s limbs and the blanket.

“Quite all right,” Aziraphale answered gamely, straightening his waistcoat. “This is hardly a comfortable way to fly.”

The plane landed soon after, and they went back to hiding beneath the blanket, staying silent. It was dull, but Crowley appreciated the time to get his heart rate back under control, and for his furious blush to fade.

An hour later, Anathema’s voice called out.

“You can stop hiding now. We’re alone.”

Crowley put his sunglasses back on before uncovering his head. “Finally. Have a nice flight, did you?”

“It was extremely comfortable, though not if I stopped to think about the environmental impact of chartering a plane to fly two people instead of a couple hundred.”

“How awful.”

When he was outside the car, he stretched, happy to be able to stand and walk around. The summer heat felt nice, too, compared to the cold interior of the plane.

Though he’d give nearly anything to be wrapped in Aziraphale’s warmth again. Not that he’d ever admit such a thing out loud.

“And how was your flight?” she asked him, a knowing gleam in her eye, as if she could hear his thoughts.

“Cramped,” Crowley said.

“Cozy,” said Aziraphale at the same time. “Thank you for the book.”

“Figured you’d like some context,” Anathema said. “Come on. Let’s go.”

Getting out of London took an eternity, as usual, but the drive wasn’t so bad. Possibly it was the company, though Crowley was also never going to admit that to Anathema or Newt. They were both growing on him. Even if Newt had awful taste in music.

“Taylor Swift?” Crowley said incredulously as Newt took over music choices.

“She’s popular for a reason, you know.”

“Bebop,” Aziraphale muttered under his breath. Crowley had to fight not to laugh.

“Don’t know why I’m even letting any of you pick. It’s my car. And I’m driving.”

“That’s not a very nice team spirit,” Anathema said over the sound of Taylor Swift waxing poetic about falling in love or some drivel. “We’re in this together.”

“Yes, well, perhaps I should’ve made you take a cab. You can afford it.”

Maybe it was a sort of musical Stockholm syndrome, but after a few songs, Crowley found himself not as miserable as he could be with the soundtrack of his particular adventure.

But without the music to fight about, his thoughts returned to what waited for them at Stonehenge near sunset. That’s when the meeting was going to take place. They had to find a way to eavesdrop without being noticed, so they could determine if their plans were working.

When they got near Stonehenge, Crowley left his Bentley in a parking lot, and they hiked the rest of the way. Normally, this place would be swarming with tourists, but it was eerily empty. Heaven intervening, no doubt. Or Hell.

It felt strange to be apart from both of them, now. He couldn’t help being a little pessimistic about the fact that he was now on the side of the group with the least supernatural power. But humans had their own strengths.

He glanced at Newt and Anathema. They were who he had to work with. Too late to recruit anyone else now. At least he had Aziraphale, though he’d do whatever it took to keep the angel safe and out of harm’s way.

“Wow,” Anathema said as the stone pillars came into sight. “It’s beautiful. Almost as bright as you two.”

“I’m sorry?” Aziraphale asked.

Crowley had been fine with ignoring the witch’s bizarre statement, but he listened to the answer all the same.

“Stonehenge is a nexus of ley lines. There’s so much power here.”

“You said it was brighter than us?” Aziraphale motioned to himself and Crowley.

“Um.” Anathema looked embarrassed. “Your auras are really strong. Not sure why.”

“We’re angels,” Aziraphale answered easily. “Of course we have more innate power than the average human.”

“Yeah. Sure.”

Crowley could tell she didn’t accept that explanation, but now was hardly the time to go prying about something as silly as auras.

It was hours before the meeting, so they settled in behind a stone, in the shade, and began their wait. Anathema got bored almost immediately, and dragged Newt away to examine some of the rocks on the other side of the circle. Crowley wondered if they just wanted to be alone.

Then he had a darker suspicion that Anathema wanted him and Aziraphale to be alone. Meddling witch indeed.

“Do you think this will work?” Aziraphale asked in a small voice.

“Course it will. Absolutely.”

“You don’t have to lie to spare my feelings.”

Crowley almost laughed at the phrasing. He was lying all the time now to do just that. “It could turn out fine. Possibly. Who knows.”

“It’s not like we have another choice,” the angel said. “We can’t sit this one out. Not if there’s even a small chance of us saving them.”

“Would be nice if the Almighty would step in and solve this, though, wouldn’t it? Her ineffable plan is getting a little annoying.”

“Not our place to question,” Aziraphale said, though by now it had the feeling of something said by rote. “The Almighty has more important things to do than micromanage one planet. That’s why we’re here.”

“If you say she works in mysterious ways, I’m going to leave and never come back,” Crowley said, but it had no heat behind it. He loved bantering about the Almighty with Aziraphale.

His company made all this worth it.

“Listen,” Crowley began slowly. “I think it would be best if you go back to the Bentley with Anathema and Newt before the meeting starts. It’s too dangerous.”

“I can handle myself. How many times must I say that before you trust me?”

“It’s not a matter of trust,” Crowley replied. “If we’re caught, we’re dead, and so are the humans. We shouldn’t risk all of us. It makes no sense.”

“Then you go back with them.”

He hesitated, unable to think of a plausible reason why that was a bad idea other than the fact Aziraphale was too precious a life to waste. And he himself wasn’t.

“That’s what I thought,” Aziraphale said, snappish. “You’ve been doing this for centuries, you know. Swooping in and saving me. But I don’t need saving. Not this time.”

“Of course you need saving. We all do—”

“Yet you’re better prepared to spy on this meeting than me? Why?”

Crowley couldn’t answer. The words were too tangled in the confession he could never make. How could he explain it to Aziraphale without also telling him how he really felt?

Aziraphale looked away, expression hurt. “You think I’m a—a joke.”

“I don’t. I never—”

“All this time, you’ve thought I’m too naive to be useful. That’s why you always kept tabs on me, always came to my rescue. But I’m not naive. I just happen to believe the best in people because I choose to. I choose to believe that people are decent and kind and deserving of God’s love and forgiveness.” Aziraphale stood. “I won’t sit here and let you talk down to me.”

“Oh, yes,” Crowley stood too, hurrying after him. “People are so wonderful. That’s why this planet is a mess. And it’s why the angels who are supposed to be good are planning a slaughter. Believing the best in people is a great way to get hurt.”

After all, he’d trusted Lucifer, once. It hadn’t worked out well for him.

“Thinking so little of them will get you hurt, too.” Aziraphale turned away. “I suppose this is for the best.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’ll go back with them. Make sure they’re safe.” He wouldn’t meet Crowley’s eye. “Goodbye, Crowley.”

Though it was only for a few hours, he couldn’t help but feel the angel’s parting words had too much finality about them.

“You really think we should wait here?” Anathema asked, frowning at Aziraphale. He looked normal—though a quick check showed her his aura was even more blinding now than it had been a few days ago—but there was something about his eyes and the set of his mouth that made her worry.

“Just in case we’re found. Crowley agreed it was too dangerous for humans.”

They were back at the Bentley. The sun was nearing the horizon.

“We came all this way,” she pressed. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.” He took her hands, smiling. “In case something happens, I want you to know that it was lovely getting to spend time with you. I wish you both long, happy lives.”

“It’s going to be fine,” Anathema said, trying to reassure him.

“Of course. Wait here for us.” He let go, then turned away.

When he’d gone from their sight, Newt faced her. “That was odd, don’t you think?”

“Extremely. They’re up to something. But I don’t know what.”

“Well, they’re, er, professionals, aren’t they? Maybe they know best.”

Based on her previous experiences with them, she doubted it. But there wasn’t much she could do now, other than wait.

She thought about Aziraphale’s aura, and the colors that had shone beneath that overwhelming love. He’d been resigned but resolved. A combination she couldn’t understand. Unless—

“Fuck,” Anathema said. “That idiot!”

“What?” Newt asked, startled.

“He’s going to do something stupid and reckless.”

“How do we stop him?”

For the hundredth time since Crowley had called her in the middle of the night to ask for her help in dealing with Heaven and Hell, Anathema regretted burning the prophecies. They could’ve shown her the right path through all this. In the moment burning them had felt like setting herself free. But now the whole world would suffer.

And the first two to die were going to be Crowley and Aziraphale. Two beings who, though imperfect, were her friends.

The memory of her dream hit her. Both of them, gone forever, followed by everyone else she loved.

Anathema clenched her fists. “We fix this. For good.”

As soon as Aziraphale and the humans were gone, Crowley spread his wings, shaking off the hiding spell. He walked to the center of Stonehenge, waiting.

When the sun was nearly on the horizon, flashes of white light surrounded him as the area filled with angels. He flexed his wings, admiring from the corner of his eye how they gleamed in the warm golden light of sunset.

“Crowley,” Gabriel said. “How kind of you to save us the trouble of setting a trap for you.”

“What can I say?” He shrugged. “Didn’t see the point.”

“You could’ve come forward sooner, you know,” Gabriel said. “We went through all the trouble to lure you here with that fake meeting notice. As if you could pick my pocket without me knowing. Your human impression was good, though. Almost had me fooled.”

“Had a few things to settle before I came to you.” Crowley tried very hard not to count the number of angels that surrounded him. Enough to take him without much of a fight, unfortunately. Heaven wasn’t taking any chances.

That was fine. This was all fine. He knew he’d end up here eventually. And now Aziraphale was safe. Anathema, Newt, and Adam, too. All safely squared away.

“But now I’m here to confess. So let’s get this over with.” He closed his eyes. Hands closed around his arms, and he was pulled into Heaven.

Chapter Text

Aziraphale knew how to get to Hell, of course. The entrances weren’t secrets. It simply hadn’t been polite for any angel to use them in the six-thousand-year lead-up to the would-be apocalypse. They were all supposed to wait for the final battle. The war to decide it all.

Now that all that was over, he figured it couldn’t hurt to break protocol. Just this once. He found the closest portal to Hell and walked through.

All the demons in the crowded, dirty hallway froze and stared at him. He’d taken out his wings, and they shone with celestial light. If he had to do this, he’d do it as himself.

No more hiding. No more running. Not from this, and not from his feelings for Crowley.

The demon might never know them, and he might curse Aziraphale for doing this, but at least he’d be alive to curse him. Crowley had been saving him for too long. It was time to return the favor.

Aziraphale walked forward, remembering the way from when he’d pretended to be Crowley. When they’d saved each other but doomed the world. Now he was going to set things right.

Beelzebub and their minions didn’t let Aziraphale get that far into Hell before they surrounded him. He didn’t fight, just let himself be led into the same chamber where he’d stood trial before.

As he walked, surrounded by openly hostile demons, he wondered what it would be like to be destroyed. Being discorporated wasn’t pleasant, but the pain was brief, and it was more like taking off a suit than anything close to what was going to happen to him here.

He hoped, whatever happened, it would be brief. Despite his resolve, his hands trembled. He was afraid. Of course he was afraid.

But he’d never let that stop him before. Not when he and Crowley had first formed the arrangement. Not when he’d given Crowley the holy water he wanted. Not when he’d betrayed everything he’d ever believed in to try to stop Adam Young from ending the world.

And what was a little permanent death compared to all that? Easy as falling asleep. Maybe he’d dream of Crowley, in the end, even for a moment.

When they reached the trial room, someone kicked the back of his legs, forcing him to his knees. He spared a thought for his poor trousers, which would be filthy now. Not that it mattered, but still. They could’ve been a little more civil about this whole thing.

“What have you got to say for yourself?” Beelzebub sneered, sitting on a throne before him.

“I came here to confess.”

The huge audience of demons jeered, but Beelzebub’s face remained impassive.

“Confess to what? Being an angel? I suppose you’re worse than the rest, but hardly our concern.” They leaned forward. “Except that we can kill you without repercussions, since Heaven doesn’t give a damn for you any more.”

“The war you’re about to wage against humans is pointless,” Aziraphale said, feeling the weight of his guilt finally lift. “And I can prove it.”

Anathema began to regret her choice of footwear as she and Newt raced across the countryside. Stonehenge came into view. She focused, and could feel it’s pulsing power. An aura shone amid it, the color of pure, selfless love, tinged with fear. Black feathered wings—

More figures appeared, surrounding Crowley. Angels.

Then they were gone.

She puffed to a stop, heart racing. Too late. She’d been too late. And now it was all going to happen—the death, the destruction. Though Agnes’s prophecies had burned away, Anathema knew that if Crowley and Aziraphale died, the world was doomed.

“Where’ve they gone?” Newt asked between panting breaths.

“Heaven. Where we can’t follow.” She screamed, wishing she had something to throw or punch. They’d been so close. But Crowley had gone and done something foolish, just like Aziraphale.

“Suppose we’ll end up there sooner rather than later, though.” Newt gave her a smile, a poor mask for his fear. “Since all the angels and demons want us dead.”

“Crowley did say my soul was Heaven-bound,” she said wryly. Then she paused, a chill racing up her spine. “Oh.”

“What?”

“My notebook. I left it in the Bentley.” She turned to him. “There’s a spell—but I can’t remember all the words. I can start preparing, if you go get it.”

“Oh, good, more running.” But he was smiling for real this time. He had hope, because he trusted her.

Anathema pulled him in, giving him a lingering kiss. “Thanks.”

Newt gave her one of those looks, like he wasn’t sure how something so wonderful could’ve happened to him. “Be right back.”

The sound of his footfalls faded to nothing. Now Anathema was alone with the wind and the stones, beneath a sky purpling with night.

She took one deep breath, then another. This was hardly better or wiser than what Crowley and Aziraphale had done, but her dream had been clear. She’d been the last one alive, standing in the ashes. Her plan wasn’t a good one, but it was all she had, and there was no time for anything else.

With trembling hands, she removed her little journal from her coat pocket, along with a pen. She wrote a short note to Newt that read I’m sorry for lying, but this was the only way. And hey, I was going to end up dead soon anyway, right? I’m going to try to save them. Thank you, for everything. There’s no one else I’d rather have saved the world with.

Tear drops spattered the paper. She marked the page, then closed the journal and set it by her feet. Then she sat down.

“Does suicide still count as a mortal sin if it’s for a good cause?” she wondered aloud. If she ended up in Hell for this, she’d just have to make the best of it. Aziraphale had probably gone there. She doubted either of them had consulted the other before surrendering.

Love-sick fools, the both of them. Anathema was hardly different.

“This better work,” she said, and prepared herself for death.

Crowley kept his sunglasses on, and was happy for them. Heaven was too bright. It was like being trapped inside a fluorescent light. No wonder all the angels were wankers. He’d be cross, too, if he had to live here for any length of time. He didn’t know how he’d stood it before Falling.

Gabriel waved all but a few angels away once they got to his office. They’d put cuffs on him, as if he were going to try anything.

The game was up. It had been a long shot to begin with, and Crowley had always been planning to turn himself in if things started to get too out of control. Still, he’d stolen a few more days with Aziraphale. That had to count for something. And now the angel was safe with Anathema and Newton. Soon they’d all be able to go back to their normal lives.

Without him. Which was fine. Everything was fine.

Gabriel circled him slowly. It was probably supposed to be intimidating, but Crowley just rolled his eyes.

“Can we get on with it? Haven’t got all day.”

“Why did you surrender yourself?” Gabriel asked, his voice obnoxiously detached.

“So I could confess to everything. Hate for you to go through the trouble of murdering all the humans for no reason.”

“More lies.” Gabriel puffed out an exaggerated sigh. “But what’s your endgame?”

“This is it!” He tried to gesture with his arms, but his hands were cuffed. “Me, here, telling all.” He settled for wiggling his fingers dramatically.

Gabriel tilted his head a little, as if he were talking to a particularly clever dog. “We already know everything. You’re whole little plan.”

“Yeah, well, that’s what you think. There’s layers to it. Layers and layers.”

“We know all the layers!” Gabriel shouted.

“You don’t know the truth, though, do you? Else you wouldn’t be bothering with humanity. I tricked you.”

“Go on then. Tell us.” Gabriel looked at his fellow angels, smirking.

“When you burned Aziraphale with hellfire—” He hesitated. There was no going back from this. Crowley closed his eyes, pressing forward, “that was me, pretending to be him.”

“What?” Gabriel gave him another incredulous look, like he was a dolphin doing calculus. “That’s not possible. We’re angels. We can smell evil.”

“Not well enough, apparently,” Crowley replied, shrugging. “The whole thing was my idea. I forced Aziraphale into it. He’s innocent in all this.”

He’d managed to say the angel’s name without his voice breaking. Good. Everything was fine, amazing even. Whatever happened here, it probably wouldn’t hurt as much as Falling had, anyway.

“You forced a Principality into something?” Gabriel scoffed. “I don’t think so.”

“Well, forced is the wrong word. More like tricked. You know Aziraphale—” his breath caught, “—he’s so gullible.”

Shame filled him, even though Aziraphale would never know what he’d said. It still felt wrong to speak ill of him. Like a betrayal, one worse than Crowley doing what he was doing now. Confessing alone, knowing what it meant.

Gabriel gave him another suspicious glare, then walked away, pulling out a phone. Crowley amused himself for a moment by remembering destroying the old one in a microwave.

“What do you mean, yours turned himself in?” Gabriel asked in a low voice. But sounds had a habit of carrying in large, empty spaces. “We have the demon Crowley here—that’s what ours said! They can’t both be telling the truth.” Gabriel glanced back at Crowley, then away. “Ours is probably the one lying, but then again, if yours is telling the truth, it means he’s capable of lying, so—”

As he listened, Crowley felt a sinking sensation steal over him. No. It couldn’t be. Aziraphale wouldn’t—

Then again, of course he would. Of course he’d been planning the very same thing as Crowley.

“Bring him up here,” Gabriel said. “Why? Because Hell is gross. We’ll figure it out up here.” He ended the call.

“No—you can’t—it was all me—”

Gabriel flickered up to him, not bothering with all that walking nonsense. He grabbed Crowley’s face, cutting off his stammering protests. “You’re a lying snake.” With his free hand, Gabriel tore Crowley’s sunglasses away, tossing them across the room. “Why should I believe you?”

His eyes exposed, far more snake than human, Crowley felt as if his last piece of armor had been stripped away. He was exposed.

“Because I’m a liar?” he ventured, trying to sound casual. “Who’s more likely to mastermind something like this? A silly angel, or a wily demon?”

Aziraphale couldn’t pay for this. He had to be safe. That was the only way any of this was worth it—if Crowley paid the price alone.

No matter what, he had to talk them down from punishing the angel alongside him.

Anathema stood, leaving her body behind. She didn’t look at it. She didn’t want to.

Plus, there was a pretty impressive figure standing in front of her. Death himself. Theirself? Not that pronouns mattered for an entity that existed outside life itself.

Death’s cloak billowed in a wind she couldn’t feel. He reached out a hand.

“ANATHEMA DEVICE. YOU’RE EARLY. BY A FEW DAYS, AT LEAST.”

She straightened her back, channeling every white suburban soccer mom she’d ever witnessed, and said, “I need to speak to your supervisor.”

Chapter Text

When Crowley saw Aziraphale, his legs nearly gave out on him. He hadn’t planned to be in the same room as the angel ever again, yet here they were. Together, with only a few dozen demons and angels between them.

The forces of Hell hadn’t been kind to Aziraphale. Blood and dirt spattered his clothes, and a bruise purpled his cheek. His wings were out. They seemed the only whole part about him, now.

All Crowley’s fear turned to rage. He wanted to burn Heaven and Hell to their foundations for what they’d done to Aziraphale.

This wasn’t how things were supposed to have happened. Now Crowley’s hands were tied—literally—and he couldn’t save him. He couldn’t fix this.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, unable to keep the desperation from his voice.

“The demons brought me, obviously,” Aziraphale tried to stand up straight and right his waistcoat, but Beelzebub forced him to his knees. “Why are you here?”

“I’m sorry, the demons brought you? That’s your answer? You’re meant to be safe on Earth—”

“People, please,” Gabriel said, raising his hands and motioning for quiet. “We’re trying to work all this out, so your silence would be—”

“No one on Earth is safe, that’s the entire point of all this,” Aziraphale shot back, ignoring Gabriel. “You were supposed to be hiding while you spied on the meeting. Did they catch you?”

“Of course they didn’t catch me. I turned myself in. Just like you, apparently.” Crowley rolled his eyes, then remembered everyone could see them.

“You lied to me, then?” Beneath Aziraphale’s outrage was an ocean of hurt. His eyes sparkled with unshed tears.

Crowley looked away, unable to stand the sight. “Not as such—”

“You did. Because you don’t think I’m strong enough to handle the truth.”

“Quiet!” Beelzebub shouted, voice buzzing through the huge room. “You two are on trial here—”

“I knew if I told you my plan, you’d insist on doing something stupid like confessing, too. And here we are!” Crowley stared at him again, forcing himself to look. To watch the words land like blows. “Why couldn’t you do what I told you to? Aren’t angels supposed to be good at following orders?”

One chance, one tiny chance.

“I don’t take orders from you! We’re friends. Or I thought we were supposed to be.” Aziraphale’s voice broke over the words.

“Of course we’re not really friends,” Crowley spat, forcing the anger he felt at Heaven and Hell and God herself into the words. “It’s been a con all along. A long game. I was the one who started it all, remember? Tempting you into going against the Great Plan.”

So let me take the fall for it, alone. Please, please, please.

Aziraphale’s face fell from anger to horror. “But—”

“Excuse me!” Gabriel shouted, voice accompanied by a thunderclap. “If you two don’t stop talking, I’m going to throw you both in a pit for all eternity.”

“We might do that anyway,” said Beelzebub. “Since we can’t kill them.”

“We can kill them, we just have to figure out how.” Gabriel glared at Crowley, then Aziraphale. “Would either of you care to tell the truth about all this?”

“I’ve been telling the truth you fucking overgrown chicken—”

“If you’re not going to believe a word I say, I think it’s rather pointless to keep trying—”

“One at a time!”

Crowley kept barreling on. “I told you, I convinced Aziraphale to stop Armageddon. Everything that’s gone wrong since is my fault.”

He had to take all the blame. If he gave Aziraphale an out, he’d take it, now. The angel’s face was still a mask of horror at what Crowley had said. He could hardly blame him.

Saying those things had filled him with a gasping, breathless kind of pain, and it hurt twice as badly to see Aziraphale absorb the words. At least Crowley wouldn’t have to suffer long.

Aziraphale looked away from Gabriel and Beelzebub, though they both loomed over him. He stared at Crowley. “You said we were best friends.”

“I lied, angel. It’s what I do. But I’m finally telling the truth.”

Funny how he started all this madness by wanting to find a way to convince Aziraphale he was in love with him. Funny how now here he was, doing the opposite, but unable to stop, because stopping meant the angel’s death, and that was the one thing Crowley couldn’t allow.

“Hmm.” Gabriel looked thoughtful. “If you’re really telling the truth, that means Aziraphale is innocent.”

“Course he is. Have you met him? He doesn’t have a nefarious bone in his body.” Crowley kept his posture loose, apathetic. “He was just a mark.”

“But—I—we—” Aziraphale’s eyes filled with tears that slipped down to join the blood on his face. “All this time?”

His expression begged Crowley to take it back, to tell him that six thousand years of friendship hadn’t been a lie, a nasty trick.

Crowley smirked. It was one of the hardest things he’d ever done. “Since the Garden. Don’t you recall who lured you away from the Tree in the first place?”

“If you don’t care about him,” Beelzebub asked, “why are you confessing and taking all the blame?”

“Yes, why?” Gabriel stared at him with his empty, terrible eyes.

Crowley shrugged. “The game was up. I knew there was no avoiding this any longer. But when they tell the story of how I stopped Armageddon and ruined God’s plans, I don’t want to share the credit with some gullible fool.”

He didn’t look at Aziraphale, because he knew he’d break if he did. He just kept smirking at Gabriel and Beelzebub, standing—despite the cuffs on his wrists—like he owned the whole pointless universe.

All of Creation was folding in on itself—or maybe it was only Aziraphale’s lungs, which refused to work. He felt as if a vice were tightening around his chest. His body was cold and too warm at the same time, and tears burned his eyes and the cuts on his face.

Everything had been a lie. Every traded miracle and temptation, every laugh, every stolen moment. Every roguish smile Crowley had given him.

Oysters in Rome, crepes in Paris, champagne at the Ritz—all of it because Crowley had been using him.

A cascade of memories flooded Aziraphale. The crinkle of paper in his hands, with holy water written in Crowley’s untidy scrawl. Their fingers brushing as Crowley handed him a bag filled with precious books of prophecy. Crowley pushing him against a wall, snarling that he wasn’t nice, never nice.

Maybe Aziraphale should’ve seen this coming.

Played for a sucker.

Crowley wouldn’t look at him, as if he were beneath the demon’s notice. Not that it mattered. Aziraphale stared at the ground, reeling, feeling completely untethered.

He supposed this was what one got when one trusted a demon.

And yet, despite the pain, despite the wrenching in his chest that gave truth to the phrase broken heart, Aziraphale found he didn’t regret a moment of it. Because they’d saved the world together, no matter Crowley’s motivations.

And after six thousand years, Aziraphale was confident he knew the real Crowley, even if he’d been lying about his reasons for spending time together.

His love was real, even if Crowley had been false, and Aziraphale refused to regret it. He refused to feel ashamed of having loved someone so deeply that it ached, that it filled him with an indefinable need he didn’t know how to fill and wasn’t sure he wanted to.

Slowly, he looked up at Crowley. The demon’s orange eyes flicked down, then seemed to catch on his gaze. For a moment his impassive nonchalance wavered.

“I forgive you,” Aziraphale said, in a small, soft voice. But it carried.

“What?” A tremble lurked beneath the bravado in his tone. “I don’t need your forgiveness, angel.”

“You have it anyway,” Aziraphale replied, and continued before he could talk himself out of it, “because despite everything, especially my better judgment, and what I even thought was possible for someone like me, I love you. I’m in love with you.”

His words fell onto heavy silence. No one moved or breathed, and the statement seemed to echo through the air.

I’m in love with you, I’m in love with you, I’m in love with you.

In response to Anathema’s demand, Death laughed, and it sounded like the rattling of dry bones and blackened flower petals falling from stems. Anathema kept her head high and her gaze imperious.

“I DON’T HAVE A SUPERVISOR. I AM CREATION’S—”

“Look, yeah, I know the spiel. There’s no time.” Anathema put her hands on her hips. “I need to talk to God. It’s important.”

“I KNOW YOU KNOW HOW THIS WORKS, ANATHEMA. YOU’RE DEAD. I’M HERE TO BRING YOU TO YOUR AFTERLIFE. THERE’S NOT REALLY A NEGOTIATION ELEMENT INVOLVED.”

“These are extenuating circumstances,” she argued. “If I don’t stop two idiots from ruining everything, you’ll be out of a job.”

“AS LONG AS THINGS LIVE, I’LL BE HERE—”

“Okay, but is reaping the souls of plants and animals as fun as reaping humans? I mean, are dogs good conversationalists? And,” Anathema added, “If all their human owners die, a lot of dogs are going to die as well. Do you want that on your conscience?”

“DEATHS DON’T WEIGH ON ME. IT’S WHAT I AM—”

“You like playing chess, right? Who’s going to play with you after all the humans are gone? Goldfish? Cats?” The mist around them thickened. Anathema could feel the pull of whatever came after. Time was running out.

“WELL, I’M SURE SOME OTHER SPECIES WILL RISE ENOUGH—”

“I’m not asking for an exemption. I just need five minutes. I know what I did was permanent.” Her eyes strayed to the form behind her, but it was gone now, replaced with mist. “Five minutes with the angels of Heaven. Then I’ll be on my way.”

It hit her then in a way it hadn’t before. This was it. She was dead, for keeps. And Newt—

No. She had to keep looking forward. Whatever happened to Newton Pulsifer, he was better off this way, because at least if she succeeded he wouldn’t end up dead at the hands of angels or demons.

“I’M NOT REALLY AUTHORIZED TO—”

“I thought you were your own boss?” she asked innocently.

“OF COURSE I AM. I’M NOT OF HEAVEN OR HELL. I DON’T EVEN ANSWER TO THE ALMIGHTY.”

“So do what’s best for you. Five minutes. Then I won’t be any more trouble.”

Death hesitated, then said, “FINE. BUT DON’T GO TELLING ANYONE ABOUT THIS. WOULDN’T WANT THE LIVING TO GET ANY IDEAS.”

“Our secret.” Anathema winked at him, because how often did you get the chance to wink at Death?

The mist melted away, and though she felt no sensation of motion, her soul swirled away, landing in the middle of an extremely white room. Diffuse light came from everywhere and nowhere. Beyond the huge windows rose buildings, some of their shapes familiar.

“FIVE MINUTES,” said Death, his voice ringing through her mind.

She spun. Across the room stood a number of unfamiliar angels and demons, Gabriel, Aziraphale, and Crowley.

Five minutes to save her friends and save humanity. No pressure.

Chapter Text

Ruining things was what demons did best.

Crowley stared, wide-eyed, lips parted in shock, at Aziraphale, letting the confession sink in.

In love. With him. All this time, and Crowley had never really allowed himself to hope for it, or to believe it was possible. A part of him had always seen his quixotic quest to find the perfect way to show his love to Aziraphale for what it was: another way to self-sabotage. A punishment for wanting things he shouldn’t.

And now it seemed he could’ve just been honest with Aziraphale a long time ago. Instead he’d ruined everything.

Then again, he wasn’t sure how they’d have done things differently and ended up somewhere other than here, in this moment, at the end.

The worst of it was he couldn’t say it back. He couldn’t tell Aziraphale about those moments on the eastern wall of Eden, when they’d laughed together and Crowley’s heart had ignited with something so long forgotten it had taken him centuries to name it.

The truth would get the angel killed.

And so Crowley did the only thing he could in those moments, as Aziraphale’s sweet, earnest words faded to nothing.

He laughed. He laughed so hard tears formed in his eyes, and he dropped to his knees, unable to keep standing under the onslaught.

God certainly had a sick sense of humor.

He turned his laughter cruel at the end, and wished he still had his sunglasses on. He looked up at Aziraphale when he’d gotten himself under control. It took all his concentration to keep the act up. He knew his eyes had gone completely snakelike from the effort.

“I really am good, aren’t I? Fooled all of you.” He gave the room his most pleasant smile, the one with only a hint of an edge.

Gabriel was furious, but Beelzebub almost looked impressed. Head office had told him to come up here and make trouble, after all. They could hardly blame him for following their instructions.

“You—you corrupted an angel of Heaven,” Gabriel said, voice ice. “You warped him into something—unnatural. Angels don’t fall in love.”

Crowley shrugged. “Can’t help being so magnetic. Anyway, let the poor thing go. He’s suffered enough, don’t you think?”

“No.” Gabriel shook his head in disgust. “You’re still both a problem. We’ll have to destroy you, then we can put all this behind us, and kill all of humanity, so nothing like this ever happens again.”

“Haven’t you listened to anything I’ve said?” Crowley asked, desperate. “I’m not immune to holy water. I tricked you. Humans have nothing to do with this. It’s me you want.”

“Of course humans have everything to do with this. If Aziraphale hadn’t been on Earth so long, he wouldn’t have gotten all these strange ideas.” Gabriel gestured to Crowley in general. “And there’s no way you could’ve swapped places. You think I can’t smell a demon in my presence? I’m an Archangel.”

“Really? I hadn’t heard,” Crowley shot back.

This wasn’t going at all to plan. Of course, his plan was hardly minutes old, and he could barely keep himself together. Aziraphale was still kneeling a few feet away, softly sobbing.

Well, Crowley would pay for each tear, soon. He almost welcomed it.

“Holy water and hellfire aren’t strong enough, but we can always throw you into a black hole or something. Might not kill you, but it’ll trap you there forever.” Gabriel nodded to himself. “Yes, I think that’ll do.”

“Leave him out of it,” Crowley said, trying not to think about what being chucked into a singularity would feel like. “Listen, just pour some holy water on me—then you’ll see it was a trick. You don’t have to hurt him at all.”

“Crowley—don’t,” Aziraphale said, pleading. “We—we can talk this out. There’s no need for anyone to get hurt—”

“Still defending him after all this?” Beelzebub asked. “Angels. So hopeless.”

“Do it!” Crowley shouted, so loud it quieted the murmuring of all the assembled angels and demons. “Kill me, get it over with. It’ll prove everything I’ve said is true.”

He didn’t want to die. He never had. Not even in the worst of it, right after he’d Fallen. Right after he’d lost the hope of ever feeling love or happiness or anything good in his life again, he’d still clung to life without ever wanting it to stop.

But it was either this, now, or watch Aziraphale die with him.

“If it will shut you up,” Gabriel said, “Fine. I’ll pour some holy water on you or whatever.” He snapped his fingers, and a pitcher of it appeared in his hand.

Aziraphale struggled to his feet, coming between them. “You can’t. Please. He’s—he’s a demon, he’s lost his way. You can’t destroy him for that.”

“Of course I can. Smiting evil is our job. He’s made a mess of everything. And so have you.”

With a nod from Gabriel, a few demons grabbed Aziraphale by the arms and dragged him away. Gabriel lifted the pitcher, looking bored, like he expected nothing to come of it.

Too bad Crowley wouldn’t get to see the look on his face after he melted into nothing.

“Wait!”

Huh. That voice was awfully familiar, in an irritating way.

Anathema Device sprinted into the crowd, knocking a few demons out of the way. “Don’t kill him!”

“Uh. Who are you?” Gabriel asked, eyeing her with distaste.

“I’m Anathema Device, and I’ve come to stop you from making a terrible mistake. You can’t kill Crowley, or Aziraphale.”

“Oh, dear,” Aziraphale said. “Ms. Device. You—you’re just a soul. I left you safe and sound back on Earth—”

“Yeah, uh. Couldn’t think of another way to get to Heaven. Sorry.” She gave him an apologetic smile. “But I knew if I didn’t save you, everyone on Earth would be killed. I don’t have time for small talk.”

Crowley stared up at her, surprised he could still feel shock. Anathema was dead, then. A strange, yawning sadness filled him. She’d been such a young human, full of fire, with a long life ahead.

Just another person he’d let down.

“Gabriel, there’s an obvious solution to all this. One that doesn’t require anyone die.” She looked around at them. “Crowley and Aziraphale aren’t immune to anything. They switched places—”

“How many times do I have to say that’s impossible?” Gabriel scoffed. “Angels can sense demons! They reek of evil.”

“Not that one, I’m guessing,” Anathema said, pointing at Crowley. “Go on. Get close and see.”

“That’s not really necessary,” Crowley said, but an angel pulled him to his feet, and Gabriel leaned in, sniffing delicately.

“Huh. Well, this must be some sort of trick—”

“It isn’t. Crowley and Aziraphale are different now. They’re changing, but not because of humans. It’s because they fell in love, which means they have free will, and that changed them. It made them both less good and evil and just—normal.”

“I can buy Aziraphale falling for Crowley, but demons can’t love anything, not even themselves,” Beelzebub said with a cruel twist of their mouth. “All the love got torn out of us when we Fell.” They spat. “Good riddance, I say.”

“Beelzebub is right, I’m afraid,” Aziraphale said gently, his voice picking apart Crowley atom by atom. “Crowley doesn’t love me, dear. He never cared about me at all.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Anathema dragged both hands through her hair, pulling it. “I’m going to throw myself into the sun if you don’t be honest, Crowley! For the love of God! Literally for all humanity’s sake!”

Crowley stared at her. Love had changed him? He didn’t feel different. Then again, after the failed Armageddon, things had changed. He’d finally allowed himself to entertain making a move on Aziraphale, even if he’d never really intended to go through with it. And those last few days before the air base, being with Aziraphale, working so closely with him—

Everyone was staring at him. Everything was hanging in the balance, waiting for his words.

The universe had conspired to present the perfect chance for him to finally confess, like he’d wanted to do for thousands of years. But he found himself—

Afraid.

He’d hurt Aziraphale, badly. And now he was going to immediately turn around and say that all those awful things had been the lie, that he’d only said them in some failed attempt at taking all the blame.

“Crowley,” Anathema said. “It’s okay.”

Then she glanced to the left, staring at something he couldn’t see.

“Hurry. I only had five minutes.”

“Fine, you meddling witch. Aziraphale,” Crowley knelt, leaned toward him, meeting his eye, letting all his walls down. Letting all the false bravado he wore like a mask melt away. “I—what I said earlier, about it all being a con. I was lying then, to try to save you. Our friendship is real. It always has been. You really think I’m clever enough to plan something six thousand years out like this?”

Aziraphale, his hands still bound, brushed tears from his eyes. “I’m afraid I don’t know what to believe. Please don’t toy with my feelings any longer.”

“Please, angel—”

“Don’t—don’t speak to me. Ever again.”

What little control Crowley had left snapped, and he let himself break.

“Okay, that’s unfortunate,” Anathema said, staring between Crowley and Aziraphale. “Guess I missed a lot while I was dying. But—wait. Hang on.” She stared around at the assembled angels.

There was something on the edge of her thoughts, something just out of reach. She took a deep breath, or mimicked the action. She wasn’t sure how this being-a-soul thing worked.

Heaven and Hell thought Crowley and Aziraphale had somehow gained superpowers from being around humans. They were afraid of it happening to someone else, and them having a leg up on everyone and using their power to take over.

Another breath. In and out. She tried her best to ignore the tableau of misery that was Crowley and Aziraphale, kneeling not far off, both of them absolute wrecks, each of them crying and looking like they wanted to curl into a ball and stay in bed for a week, doing nothing but eating chocolate and watching sad movies.

Crowley probably would, if they made it out of this. He seemed to go in for more modern human things than Aziraphale.

Her head snapped up. “Gabriel, uh, everyone else,” she gave them all a little wave. “If being around humans and living in the mortal world changes you, why don’t you all just…go live on Earth. That way none of you become more powerful than anyone else?”

“We can’t just—” Gabriel hesitated. “I mean. Can we?” He glanced around at his compatriots. “One moment, we need to confer.”

“You can give it a rest, Anathema,” Crowley said mournfully. “What does it matter, now? You’re dead. Everything’s ruined. They’re going to kill us, and I don’t even care anymore, really.”

“You don’t mean that.” She grabbed him by his lapels and pulled him up. “Get a grip! I don’t know what happened between you and Aziraphale—” she shot him a look, but he was staring at the ground, clearly in shock. “—but you can’t fix it if you both end up dead, okay? So help me fix this.”

“ONE MINUTE,” Death said. He was here, now, waiting, unseen. She could feel his coldness, and mist was starting to creep around the edges of her vision.

“Could you let go? You’re messing up my jacket.” Crowley stepped away from her. He still looked awful, but at least he wasn’t moping around on the floor. Aziraphale looked a little beyond her reach, at least in the time she had left.

“Tell them about Earth,” she told him, taking his hands. “Talk it up. Sell the dream. Whatever it takes to save humanity.”

To his credit, he seemed to feel her urgency. He didn’t pull away from her touch. Instead he gave her a look that was achingly sad and kind, one that seemed genuinely full of regret for what happened to her.

“It’s been great knowing you. And I mean that,” Anathema said. “If you see Newt again, make sure he knows how sorry I am about leaving like I did.”

“You’re not so bad, for a witch,” He said softly. “I hope you find happiness, in what comes next.”

“TIME’S UP.”

Anathema turned to face Death. He reached his hand out, and she took it, then was enveloped by a blinding white light.

Chapter Text

If this was heaven, it was extremely boring.

Anathema floated in a white light. It was warm, almost cozy, except for how it also seemed to stretch into infinity.

“Uh,” she said. “Hello?”

“Hi Anathema,” said a feminine voice. “I’m God. Hang on a moment while I sort out some paperwork here—”

“Did you just say you’re God?” She turned around, searching for the source of the words. They had come from everywhere.

“Yes. Hmm. Okay, there we go. Sorry about all this. You know how bureaucracies are, right?”

“Is this Heaven?”

“No. This is a waiting room I made for you. You’re not going to Heaven. At least not yet. Like Death told you, your death was unscheduled.”

“But you’re God. Can’t you change the schedule?” She better not be stuck here for fifty years or something.

“Sure, but do you really want me to?”

Papers appeared in front of Anathema, ones she recognized. Agnes’s second manuscript, the prophecies she’d burned.

“Why are you showing me this?” she snapped. “To rub it in how much I fucked up? Er, I mean fudged up. Sorry.”

“You can swear, it’s not like I haven’t heard it all. Just read the prophecies. I figured I owed you that much, for what you’ve been through.”

Hesitantly, Anathema reached out and took the papers. They felt surprisingly real, just as they had when she’d burned them back on Earth.

With tentative fingers, she flipped beyond the first page. No matter what God said, she didn’t want to read them, not really. She didn’t want to face how badly she’d let Agnes down. Burning such a valuable tool just so she could feel free. But what use was freedom when it meant turning your back on responsibility and destiny?

The second page had a single prophecy, numbered one. Anathema read it.

1. To mine deareft Anathema, who faved the world. I know you’re going to burn thif without reading, but I thought I’d write fomething anyway. For myfelf. I hope you enjoy the romantic outdoor fire with your new fellow.

She read the prophecy again. Agnes had known what she’d do.

“Why bother?” Anathema said softly. “Why go through the trouble of delivering a whole new stack of papers to me if she knew I wouldn’t want them?”

“Well, there are two possibilities here,” God said, sounding contemplative. “Perhaps Agnes knew the toll being a professional descendant with such a heavy burden on her shoulders would be for you. Maybe she knew after it all you’d need some defiant act to prove to yourself that your life was your own.”

“Oh.” She stared at the single prophecy. “What’s the other possibility?”

“She wanted you to have a romantic fire with your boyfriend.”

Anathema, despite everything, began to laugh.

“All right, thanks for waiting,” God said. “I’ve got it all sorted now. You’ll be waking up soon.”

“Waking up?”

“In your body. I thought I owed you one more favor. And it’s less paperwork like this, honestly. You have no idea what a stickler Death is for paperwork. The spreadsheets alone—”

God’s voice vanished, and so did the light.

Anathema blinked. A night sky shone above her, and she heard crying. She sat up, expecting to feel sore, or headachey. She’d been dead, after all. But she felt just fine. Like she’d woken from a night of perfect sleep.

“Newt?” she said.

He gasped. He’d been sitting beside her, crying for a while from the look of it. “Anathema—but you were—I checked for a pulse—”

“Must’ve missed it,” she said faintly. “I—I’m so sorry. I was trying to stop them from killing Crowley and Aziraphale.”

He pulled her into a hug. “Next time you have a mad idea like that, run it by me?”

“Yeah.” Anathema returned his hug, sinking into his warmth.

“Did it work, at least? Did you save them?”

“I don’t know.” She closed her eyes, breathing in the summer night air. “It’s up to them, now.”

Anathema was gone. Crowley was left only with the ashes of his life, and one last request to fulfill. Convince twenty million demons and angels to go live on Earth. He’d probably pulled bigger cons, but he couldn’t think of any at the moment.

Aziraphale stood, stepping beside Crowley.

“Anathema died for this,” the angel said. “This doesn’t fix things between us, but we should work together.”

Gabriel and Beelzebub were still in conference with the rest of the higher-ups. They were arguing.

“All right.” He didn’t press the issue, even though it felt like swallowing knives. “For Anathema. For all of them.”

Crowley puffed a breath at Aziraphale, healing all his wounds and cleaning his clothes. The angel turned away, not even thanking him.

“Are you lot really going to pass up this chance?” Crowley said loudly, adopting his best salesman persona. “Life on Earth is so much better than Heaven, and especially Hell. Blue skies, lots of oceans. Too many, almost.”

“And there are bookshops, and restaurants. Once you try eating food, you won’t want to go back,” Aziraphale added, voice over-bright. Better than Crowley expected, since Aziraphale only ever managed to sell books accidentally.

“The human world is lovely. So much to do. Lots of drugs, too, if that’s what you’re into.”

“Who will run Hell, then?” Beelzebub asked, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“I mean, does anyone really need to?” Crowley asked, a sly edge of temptation in his voice. “The souls are all squared away. All the paperwork is about coordinating evil. But you can do that better topside. Rent office space. Get proper phones and email addresses and everything.”

“We can’t let the forces of Hell run rampant across the Earth,” Gabriel said. “This won’t work—”

“You’ll be right there, stopping them. I mean, when all the accounting’s done, you’ll probably have a net zero effect, but that’s the whole point isn’t it? Heaven and Hell locked in an eternal struggle. Good at war with evil.”

“Heaven would win. We’re better organized.” Gabriel crossed his arms.

“Oh, naturally, I’m sure. But this seems better than a boring old war, doesn’t it? A battle with real stakes. Souls.”

“You can reach so many humans,” Aziraphale said. “And you can learn from them, too.”

“Maybe that’s what the Almighty wants,” Crowley added. “Who knows?”

“But…” Gabriel suddenly looked a little out of his depth. “Won’t living among humans without being discovered be a little difficult? Staying there all the time…”

“Are you suggesting defending good and making sure souls get to Heaven is too hard?” Aziraphale asked, affronted. “It’s what we’re meant to do. And maybe we’re meant to do this, too. Experience Earth like they do.”

Crowley stared at the angel, a lump in his throat he couldn’t seem to swallow. Maybe Aziraphale wasn’t just bullshitting to get out of being executed. They’d changed each other, but the world had changed them, too. It was all of it together, working in concert. Crowley could never have fallen in love anywhere but on Earth, among so many humans for so many years. He’d watched them do it so many times, and he’d learned from it, even though he hadn’t meant to.

Everything that had come together to put him and Aziraphale in each other’s paths so often—when it wasn’t Crowley’s machinations, at least—so many moments where it could’ve fallen apart. Yet here they were, even if what they had was broken.

An infinite universe of possibilities, yet something ineffable had drawn them together, again and again.

“I chose you,” Crowley said, voice too soft for anyone but Aziraphale. “I chose you six thousand years ago without even realizing, and I’ve chosen you again and again, every day since. That’s what love is, I think. And it means we have free will. It means we were never meant to be mindless servants of the Almighty.”

Aziraphale looked at him, finally, but his expression was guarded. Crowley could hardly blame him for being cautious. “What would you know about love and free will?”

“I made a choice a long time ago, and it ended with me Falling. But when I met you, I think I started to crawl back up.”

Their exchange was lost to the rest of the room, which had fallen into murmurs and speculation.

Gabriel raised his hands. “All right, everyone, calm down. We need to have some meetings about this.”

“What about the prisoners?” Michael asked.

“Just—let them go,” Gabriel looked at them warily. “I don’t have time to go gallivanting off to a black hole to throw them into. They aren’t really a threat anymore.”

He snapped his fingers, and the restraints vanished from both their wrists. Crowley moved his arms, happy to be free.

“Give you a lift home?” he asked Aziraphale.

The angel turned away. “I can make my own way.” He walked to the nearest exit to London, then vanished.

Crowley stared after him, then sighed and took a new pair of sunglasses out of his jacket, slipping them on.

Then he followed the angel to Earth, but it didn’t feel triumphant, no matter that they’d managed to stop the slaughter of humanity.

Everything felt hollow without friends to share the victory with.

A day later, Crowley was three bottles of whiskey into his afternoon plans when Anathema called. At first he didn’t think anything of it. Then he got angry. Someone had gotten her phone and was prank calling him. The bastards.

He answered. “This isn’t funny, and when I find you—”

“Calm down, Crowley,” Anathema said. “I need an update. How did it go?”

He stared at his phone, wondering if he’d somehow dialed Heaven. “You—you’re—”

“Alive. Yes. It’s a long story. Start talking. Can I expect angels to come murder me any second?”

So Crowley told her, all of it. Even the uncomfortable bits where he hurt Aziraphale so badly the angel would never speak to him again. He’d tried calling, but he never answered, and when Crowley had gone to the shop, it had been locked up tight and warded against demons.

Against him.

Anathema listened, making the odd shocked or appreciative sound here and there. Or in the case of his plan to save Aziraphale by claiming their friendship had been a lie, extreme disapproval.

When he was done, Anathema let out a long sigh. “When will we know for sure if they’re going to come to Earth?”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll see some familiar faces around if they take your bait. Ridiculous plan.”

“It was the only thing that made sense.” She sounded proud. Happy.

Crowley found himself intensely jealous of that. Not jealousy in the way that meant he wanted to have it instead of her, just as well as her. To be happy and with the person he loved.

He’d blown it before it had even really begun. Aziraphale had loved him, and Crowley had crushed his heart.

“You’re not going to give up, are you?” Anathema said.

“There’s no point. He hates me now. I don’t blame him. How is he supposed to know that I was lying about lying? I’m a demon. It’s all I’ll ever be.”

“We both know that’s not true. You’re something else, now. Something better, I think. Aziraphale is, too.”

“If you say so.” He eyed his next unopened bottle of whiskey. “Listen, I’ve got a lot going on, I should let you go—”

“Don’t you want your car back?”

Crowley sat up. In all the turmoil, he’d forgotten. “Where—?”

“Come downstairs.” Anathema ended the call.

He took the stairs two at a time, and burst onto the street in a panic. If she’d so much as scratched it—

But now he could just fix it without a second thought. They weren’t hiding anymore.

The Bentley was parked on the street in its usual spot. Crowley relaxed. It looked fine, even if it had a meddling witch leaning up against the side of it.

“Careful, you’ll scratch the paint,” he said, walking up to her.

She rolled her eyes. “Nice to see you, too.”

He eyed her. She was really alive and well. He suspected the Almighty had something to do with that, though he wouldn’t go questioning it. Looking gift horses in the mouth and all that.

“Did you need something else?” he asked, unsure of what to do. Were they even still friends, now that the world didn’t need saving?

“Yes. For you to go talk to Aziraphale. Tell him the whole story. Tell him how you fell in love with him from the shadow of an apple tree, or whatever.”

“It was on top of the wall, actually,” Crowley said, though he wasn’t sure why it mattered. “Aziraphale doesn’t want to see me.”

“Then,” she smiled. It was bright and free and full of joy. “Make a grand gesture, something he can’t ignore.”

Chapter Text

Books had never failed to sooth Aziraphale before, but he supposed a great deal of things were different, now.

He sat in his little flat above the shop, in the coziest chair he owned, cocoa on an end table by his elbow. But still the story failed to draw him in, despite it being one of his favorites.

Each beat of silence in his flat seemed to echo with Crowley’s cruel laughter—laughter at his expense.

How could he have been so easily fooled? But he’d said it himself to Crowley: he chose to believe the best in people.

Now Ms. Device was gone, and the fate of the world was uncertain. He hadn’t seen or heard from any angels. They were probably all still deciding. There was nothing he could do about it now. They’d done their best, but it was over.

Outside, the street was quiet. It was very late, and most humans were asleep now. He’d bought them another day, at least, and he supposed suffering was a small price to pay for that.

As his eyes skimmed over the same page for the tenth time, music drifted into his awareness. None of his neighbors usually played it so loud.

He recognized the song. It was “O Fortuna,” from the Carmina Burana. Aziraphale put his book away and walked to his window, looking out.

A large black Bentley sat on the curb outside his shop, and in front of it stood Crowley. He was holding what looked like one of those obnoxiously loud music-playing devices that kids had loved to carry around a few decades ago. What had they been called? Loom boxes? No, that didn’t sound right.

Whatever it was called, it was playing the song very loudly. Aziraphale pushed his window up, leaning out.

“What in heaven are you doing?” he shouted down to the demon. His voice was a little sharp, but he didn’t mind. Crowley had come to torment him, now. He wasn’t going to stand here and be tortured without fighting back.

“I’m—making a gesture!” Crowley shouted back. “Though, now that I think about it—” The rest of his words were lost in the chorus of the song.

“Can you turn that down? Or better yet, leave!” Aziraphale made to close the window.

“Wait!” Crowley shut the song off. The silence seemed louder than before, somehow. “Please. Just listen. One minute. Then I’ll leave you alone forever.”

Aziraphale hesitated. If he ignored Crowley, he’d only keep coming around and calling at all hours. “Fine.”

“Sorry, I know the Carmina Burana is one of your favorites, but I didn’t really think it through all the way. Took me long enough to find a pawn shop with a boombox for sale, then it was so late, and Anathema—”

“Anathema?” Aziraphale leaned forward. “Is she—?”

“Alive, yes. Perfectly healthy. So is Newt. They’re back in Tadfield by now.”

Aziraphale sagged against the windowsill, relieved. She was all right.

“Anyway, that’s not what I came here to tell you.” Crowley tossed the boombox into the back of the Bentley. “Can you come downstairs? Or let me up? Please, I have to explain what happened. I’m begging you.”

“Why would you show up here, bothering me with loud music, and expect it would make me forget what you’ve done?” Aziraphale asked.

“It’s—you know. In all the movies. A grand gesture to win you back.”

“This isn’t a film! This is real life, and one song won’t make me forget what you said, and how you—made me feel—like I was a fool.” Aziraphale turned away, shame heating his face.

“Please, angel. I don’t want to shout it all.”

“Fine. Wait there.”

Aziraphale went downstairs and unlocked the front door to his shop. He stood in the doorway, not completely opening it, and waited.

Crowley wished it were raining. That would make this suitably dramatic. Also, Taylor Swift had been very specific in her instructions on how to win someone back after ruining things.

But though the night sky was cloudy, it was dry, and Aziraphale was looking at him with suspicion from behind a half-closed door.

“Get on with it,” the angel said. “I haven’t got all night.”

Crowley should’ve brought something. A gift. But Anathema had insisted only the truth would do. He still felt strange standing here empty-handed

“I was lying to Gabriel and Beelzebub when I said I’d been playing you. I was trying to keep them from killing you.”

“And how am I supposed to believe what you say? You’re a demon, no matter what Anathema said about us changing.” Aziraphale looked away, biting his lower lip. “You hurt me, Crowley. I told you I was in love with you, and you laughed in my face. That tells me all I need to know.”

“It wasn’t—it wasn’t like that. I swear. I laughed because of how absurd it was that I spent six thousand years loving you but never thinking you’d feel the same, only to find out the truth when our lives were on the line and I couldn’t be honest with you.”

The words came out in a tangled mess, his voice breaking, but he didn’t care. He stared at Aziraphale, eyes uncovered, sunglasses tucked away in his pocket.

Aziraphale met his gaze, faltering. “But what about all the temptations? You lured me away from the Tree. You convinced me to stop Adam.”

“I just wanted to spend time with you, angel. When I saw you guarding the Tree, you looked so serious with that flaming sword, but then I saw a butterfly flit past you and—the way your eyes lit up, watching it. Watching something so alive and free and beautiful. And you were beautiful, the only beautiful thing I’d seen in so long.”

Crowley stepped forward. He wanted to touch Aziraphale, but it terrified him, too.

Instead, he kept going. “I wanted to talk to you. That’s why I drew you away. Then, when I realized it left an opening for some mischief, well. You know the rest.”

“And convincing me to stop the apocalypse?” Aziraphale’s eyes were less icy now, more open, and a blush reddened his cheeks.

“The end of the world meant the end of our arrangement. The end of getting to spend time with you. And if you’d died in the war—I couldn’t let that happen.” He took another step, until they were only a foot apart. “What I said after Anathema showed up in heaven is true. I love you, Aziraphale. I’ve loved you since the Garden, but I was too afraid to admit it.”

Aziraphale raised his hand, clasping the collar of his waistcoat as if he were having trouble breathing. “You—but—that was so long ago. You’d have mentioned it—”

“I couldn’t. Me, a demon, loving you.” Crowley took Aziraphale’s hand, motions slow and gentle. The angel didn’t resist. He pulled Aziraphale’s knuckles to his lips, kissing them. “Someone so amazing, so good. I couldn’t risk it.”

“I—come inside, please. I’ve lowered the wards.” Aziraphale took his hand back and disappeared into the dark shop.

Crowley followed, locking the door behind them. The last thing he wanted was some customer showing up and ruining his apology.

He found Aziraphale in the back room. He was stirring a cup of cocoa, brows knitted in distress.

“Surely, if you’ve loved me so long, someone would’ve noticed. The Almighty—”

“You think she’d try to stop me? Seems more like something she’d encourage, being a fan of love in all its many varieties.”

“Yes, well.” Aziraphale sipped his cocoa. “If—if what you say is true. What does it even mean?”

“Mean? Why’s it got to mean anything?”

“We aren’t human. They’ve got lots of labels and structures and institutions and whole holidays devoted to all types of love. But we’re not them.”

“And why should their holidays mean anything to us?”

“Exactly. I love you, but I’m not even sure what that means. Perhaps it’s not even love, as such—”

“How do you feel about me?”

“Are you just fishing for compliments?” Aziraphale asked, but he said it with a little smile that made Crowley’s heart ache.

“No. Call it a philosophical inquiry.”

“I—I’m not sure I know how to say it precisely,” Aziraphale began, words measured and thoughtful. He watched Crowley with a strange openness, as if he were trying to take the entire demon into consideration at once. “By all accounts I shouldn’t care for you so much. But you’re kind, even if you constantly cause headaches for humans. But none of your evil has any real malice behind it. You love them. Humans, I mean. You love all their clever inventions and the world they’ve built. When I look at you, sometimes I can almost see the angel you must’ve been, before. And sometimes, the way you smile at me—it hurts me, physically, but it isn’t an unpleasant pain. Which makes no sense, I’m sorry.” He stared into his drink, shaking his head ruefully.

“Love isn’t easy to define, even for humans. It’s why they’ve got so many qualifiers, so many words for it, so many types. But.” He touched Aziraphale’s chin, tipping his head up slowly, until their gazes met again. “We can make our own type, if you want. Or we can keep things platonic. I don’t care. Just please, don’t cut me out of your life. I love you. I love this awful book shop and all the restaurants you drag me to and your old-fashioned clothes and the way you’ve had basically the same hair style for six thousand years. I love the way you smile at beautiful things you see in the world, and I love how much you enjoy being here, living, experiencing things, taking pleasure in so much. But most of all, I love how you see the good in everyone, even me.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said, “I’m not entirely certain what I want from this. From us. But I think, perhaps, I’d very much like to kiss you now.”

Crowley leaned forward slowly, trying not to rush, as if any wrong move he made would shatter this moment and drive Aziraphale away forever. His lips brushed the angel’s, barely a touch, but it was like feeling the sun on his skin for the first time after he’d Fallen.

A shivery warmth raced through him, and then the moment shattered into a dozen different sensations. The feather-soft brush of Aziraphale’s hair as he threaded his fingers through it. The way Aziraphale gripped his jacket, as if needing to steady himself. The ephemeral taste of something holy, intimate, and for him alone.

He couldn’t press six thousand years of adoration between his lips and breathe it into Aziraphale. He couldn’t trace the words he’d said in his heart over and over onto the angel’s skin with his fingertips. He couldn’t bring their bodies close enough to undo all the hurt they’d caused each other over the years.

But he tried anyway.

Aziraphale trembled beneath his hands, and gasped in a soft, almost needy way as Crowley pulled back.

“Too fast?” Crowley asked, ready to step away, to give him whatever he wanted.

“No,” Aziraphale answered, “I think you’ve just about got it right this time.”

So Crowley kissed him again and stopped worrying about definitions and labels. Because they had time, and they had each other, and that was all they’d ever needed.

“So, there we were, facing down all the highest ranking angels and demons,” Crowley said, “Gabriel had a pitcher of holy water, ready to throw it on me. But I stared him down—”

“And Anathema showed up,” Aziraphale cut in. “And saved him.”

“Will you let me tell it?” Crowley grumbled.

They were in Hogback Wood, in The Them’s hideout. They’d been invited special, despite being adults.

“Well, you’re not really grown-ups, technically,” Adam had said, “because you were born like that. So it doesn’t count, I don’t think.”

All four of them, five counting Dog, had listened with rapt attention as Crowley and Aziraphale told the whole story of what had happened after Adam returned home to Tadfield. But now they were reaching the embarrassing bits, the ones Crowley didn’t really want to tell.

So he let Aziraphale do it, and tried not to blush too much when he talked about their confessions of love.

“Do you mean to tell us,” said Pepper, “that your love literally saved the world?”

Aziraphale faltered. “I—suppose, if you look at it from a certain angle—”

“Actually,” Wensleydale cut in, “Anathema saved the world, by convincing all the angels and demons to come to Earth permanently.”

Crowley grinned. That was also correct, from a certain perspective. Over the past few weeks, he’d seen angels and demons around London, and more than a few on TV. They were still getting their feet under themselves, still adapting. All of them seemed angry at what they’d done, but none had been outright hostile. They’d just made it clear Crowley and Aziraphale were on the outs. As far as they could tell, though, the plan had worked.

He’d heard Gabriel had even gotten a job at an advertising firm, writing ad copy. Served him right.

The world was safe, at least from Heaven and Hell. Crowley wasn’t sure what would happen in the future, but it would all be because of humans and their choices.

As it was probably supposed to be. But then again, the plan was ineffable still. So who knew?

All that mattered to him was he and Aziraphale were still here, still by each others’ sides. And the boy who should’ve been their godchild was here, with his friends, discussing the finer points of their story. Anathema and Newt were in the village, after their burned down cottage miraculously got fixed overnight.

Crowley didn’t think about families much, or the prospect of having one. But he realized with a little shock that he was with his family now, odd though it was, consisting of an angel, a demon, four kids, two twenty-somethings doing their best, and an ex-hell-hound.

The family he’d chosen.

As The Them’s discussion turned to bickering, Crowley reached over and took Aziraphale’s hand, marveling that he got to do such a thing, after all this time.

Rain began to fall. The sky had been gloomy all day, threatening it, and the clouds finally broke.

Before Crowley could react, Aziraphale had taken out his wings, spreading them over The Them and Crowley himself, so that not a drop hit anyone.