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It had been a risk saying it. Crowley would like to call it a calculated risk, but he had pre-calculated precisely nothing when the words had slipped past his lips. The threat was just too close, too imminent.
He could not lose Aziraphale. That had been the sole certainty of the demon’s life for centuries. It had been the driving force behind many reckless rescues, the notion that even on a world full of people without his Angel, he would be completely alone.
Therefore even though he’d decided, in those minutes he’d paced the bandstand alone before their meeting, that he would not push too hard in regards to the them of it all, Crowley had slipped up.
“Even if this all ends up in a puddle of burning goo, we can go off together.”
Aziraphale looked shocked, even though he shouldn’t be. He had to know how Crowley felt, had to on some level understand how he himself felt. They’d been working towards it for so long, how could the Angel be surprised?
“Go off... together?” Aziraphale echoed, his voice had a twinge if hope too it, the temptation was there. He wanted it, that much was clear.
For brief moments Crowley felt hope. Hope was usually a four letter word to a demon, but right now he wanted to cling to it. Cling to the hope that his Angel was finally coming round to how they felt for each other. That he would come away with Crowley when the time came.
“How long have we been friends?” Crowley asked, the word 'friends’ feeling clunky in his mouth, wholly inadequate for what they were, for what the demon hoped they could be. “6000 years?”
But then Aziraphale’s jaw clenched, and though there was pain showing in his eyes, and inner conflict evident in every gesture, he’d shut the idea down, lashed out instead.
Even though Crowley knew he didn’t mean the words, they still burned worse than any amount of holy water.
“I don’t even like you!” Aziraphale finished.
“You do!”
Crowley insisted though he knew already the hope was gone. Aziraphale was still not ready.
You go too fast for me, Crowley. Those words had haunted the demon for decades, but he’d been willing to go slow, willing to let his Angel wade into their relationship as slow as he liked. They had plenty of time, after all.
But that was then, and this was now. There was no time. If they couldn’t find the anti-Christ, couldn’t stop what was coming, they had mere days left. Days until they would both be expected to fight in a war neither of them believed in.
Crowley was quite sure he was more likely to lay his life down in front of the hoards of Hell than to fight alongside them. Especially if it meant keeping Aziraphale safe. He tried to tell him this, but his words were coming out all wrong. Instead, he insisted that there was only one side for him. Earth’s side. Their side. He didn’t care about Heaven’s side or Hell’s side, just their side together.
“There is no our side, Crowley, "Aziraphale snapped, his posture as clenched as it ever was, back stiff. “Not anymore. It’s over.”
Crowley’s heart shattered. Over? This wasn’t just one of their fights. Over! He was losing his Angel before it even fully began. OVER?! It was as if all of Crowley’s most profound fears were coming to fruition back to back this week.
Part of him wanted to argue. Wanted to beg, to plead, to come forward and desperately cling to his Angel’s lapels and implore not to be pushed away. Not now. He knew this was hard for Aziraphale, it had been for ages.
Demons weren’t meant to fall in love with angels and definitely not the other way around.
He couldn’t though. Because he loved this foolish angel so damn much. Because he could see just how much this was costing him.
“Right, well then,” Crowley murmured, turning to leave. “Have a nice doomsday.”
It took every ounce of self-control that the demon had to keep walking and not to look back.
For a bit, he wandered aimlessly. London was a big place, easy to get lost in. Physically that is, he was lost enough in his own head also.
I don’t even like you.
“He didn’t mean it,” Crowley murmured out loud to himself because he can’t have meant it. For ages, one of the few things that had kept the demon going had been the fact that at least one being in the universe liked, maybe even loved him, and he couldn’t let himself lose faith in that now.
Crowley shivered, the idea of having faith in anything was against a demon’s nature, but he’d grown to have faith in his long-running time on Earth. Not in God or the Devil, but faith in humanity.
And, more importantly, faith in Aziraphale.
Usually, when Crowley was feeling this down, this depressed, he’d go straight to his Angel. Even if they just sat together in the bookshop, with Aziraphale reading and Crowley idly sipping some top-shelf alcohol his Angel had on hand, things always seemed easier to bear when they were together. Now the world was days from ending, and they may never sit together again.
As this thought crossed his mind, the sky opened up, and it began to rain.
The humans around him all ran for cover, or pulled out umbrellas, but not Crowley. He let the rain fall on him. Let the water soak his hair and roll down his face. All the better to hide the tears he was shedding at the loss of his Angel.
Later, he wouldn’t even be able to recall how he managed to pull himself together enough to make it home. He spent some time looking at possible destinations, pages of an astronomy book that Aziraphale himself had gifted to him swirling around his study.
They’d all be lonely without his Angel, but if the alternative was being dragged back to Hell for punishment, what choice did he have?
He tried to talk to God. First time in thousands of years he’d tried to do that. He knew he wouldn’t get an answer, but he tried anyway. Crowley was desperate. Desperate to keep the world safe. Desperate to keep his life the way it was. Desperate to get his Angel back, and for that, he needed time.
More time than there was to be had.
Crowley paced the flat after that. He didn’t even have the heart to tend to his plants. What good would that do? He’d be leaving them behind too.
He packed a small bag, nothing much really, a few things he wouldn’t want to part with. A program from a showing of Hamlet he’d made to sell out just to get Aziraphale to smile. A menu from a French restaurant they’d gone to the first time they’d eaten crepes together. A book the Angel had given him in the 1800s that he thought Crowley would like.
Crowley couldn’t even remember what the book was about anymore, something about a man who never ages and an enchanted portrait. He thumbed idly through it trying to refresh his memory when a photograph he’d forgotten entirely about fell from between the pages.
It had been taken not long before one of their more significant fights, in which Aziraphale had refused to acquire holy water for him, and they’d both lied and claimed they didn’t need one another. Crowley didn’t want to think about that, so he focused solely on the picture in his hand.
They both looked stuffy in the clothing of the period. Photography was new and rare then, but Aziraphale had been curious about it, so Crowley had gone out of his way to find someone to take a portrait of them.
Even the photographer had seen then that they were more than merely friends, calling them a beautiful couple. As usual, neither of them had corrected him, as he’d maneuvered them into position. In the photo Aziraphale was sitting in a chair, his posture prim as it usually was, his hands clasped in his lap. Crowley stood behind him at his shoulder, whereupon he had rested one hand, long fingers spread across the fabric of the Angel’s overcoat.
The photographer had also commented on how unusual it was, for the time, that they both chose to smile for the portrait.
Crowley couldn’t do it. He couldn’t leave.
With a snap he duplicated the picture, the copy went into the interior breast pocket of his jacket, the original back between the pages of the book which was then packed in the bag.
He would just keep the bag ready, in case. Just in case Aziraphale came around and they needed to go in a hurry.
He called the book shop. He had no idea what he might say should his Angel answer. The state he was in it was sure to be something soppy and desperate. Maybe with the right plea, he could convince his Angel the choices were limited. Stop the boy or escape before the boy stopped everything else.
Aziraphale didn’t answer. Crowley went back to pacing the flat.
The angel was probably off doing desperate things himself. Trying to talk other angels into helping avert what they didn’t want to avert. Finding out for himself that his precious side was never going to side with Earth.
Crowley tried to assure himself that once his Angel had finally realized that, he would call. Aziraphale was simply too optimistic, too trusting that Heaven was good and that there was no way the good side would stand for destroying the Earth just to win.
Fortunately for the Angel, Crowley loved him enough to forgive him this flaw. Hell, if he was honest, it was possibly one of the reasons the demon loved Aziraphale to begin with.
His optimism in the good inside, everyone had never faltered, even when it sometimes got him into trouble. Crowley stopped his pacing, looking to the stone dove statue that stood sentry down the hall that ran through the middle of his flat. He’d taken it from a church he’d had to bomb when his poor Angel had been tricked into working with the Nazis.
Aziraphale has been adorably flustered when he realized he’d been double-crossed instead of himself doing the double-crossing. If Crowley hadn’t already known he’d fallen for the Angel, that night would’ve confirmed it for him.
No, there was no way Crowley was going anywhere without his Angel. If Aziraphale didn’t call, Crowley would just have to try again to convince him to go. Try as many times as it took.
He attempted calling the bookshop again, relieved that they’d never bothered hooking up one of those antique answering machines there else he’d be leaving long embarrassingly desperate messages.
It was for the best he would have time to pull himself together instead, though he probably shouldn’t do it where he was. The flat was the first place Hastur would come looking for him, it was best he went out.
He had his mobile phone, Aziraphale could call him on that. Would call him on that.
Hopefully.
“Pull yourself together,” Crowley hissed at himself as he hung up the landline from his third or fourth attempt to call. He slid on his sunglasses and left the apartment, leaving the packed back behind. He’d lay low somewhere inconspicuous, maybe a cafe, or a movie theater. Somewhere no one would think to look for him.
He’d just lay low, and wait for his Angel to call.
It’s all Crowley could do, after all. Love wouldn’t allow him to do much else.