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It ends, as it began, with a garden.
In this case, the garden is in a small, nondescript English town somewhere near Tadfield; a garden with no walls or fences, except the one which backs on to an alleyway. The lawn blooms soft and sweet with clover, wildflowers and rose bushes growing haphazard and free on every available patch of ground. Towards the house is a vegetable patch which is, in perfect rows, well on its way to feeding half the village by harvest. And then, of course, there’s the orchard.
The garden’s solitary wall is lined with apple trees which bloom earlier and bear ripe fruit far longer than any other in the village. Each one grows perfectly round and deep red as a fairytale. Contrary to the typical growth rate of such trees, these are less than a year old, yet already the branches stretch high above and beyond the wall to form a canopy. A handful of boughs hang just low enough for an enterprising child to reach out and snag an apple or two as they pass. Watching through the kitchen window, Aziraphale tuts.
“Don’t you find it a little… I don’t know, on the nose?”
“Not at all, angel,” replies Crowley, gazing up at him from where he’s sprawled in his favourite chair. Aziraphale is proud of that purchase. “Never too young to learn their first lesson.”
“But there aren’t any rewards. Any consequences.”
He’s starting to fret. It’s one of his specialties, along with hand-wringing, blustering, and general fussing. Crowley harbours a little fondness for it, though he personally prefers pacing. Still, endearing as it may be, he does hate to see his angel worry. Crowley unfolds himself from the chair and walks over to the window, wrapping a slender hand around Aziraphale’s waist as he does so. The affection which Crowley has so recently given up on suppressing rushes over Aziraphale, makes his phantom wings flutter in contentment. There’s no real need to hide them, not in the privacy of his home – their home – and the thought is tempting, but in the small cottage he could hardly stretch. Outside of heaven’s empty expanse they tended to get in the way. He settles in against Crowley’s side instead, and savours the feeling of unnecessary breath and heartbeat.
“The reward,” Crowley says, low and tinged with irony, “is an apple. But who knows? Maybe they will get cast out from the garden.”
With a wink, he opens the window and leans out, just in time to see a tall young girl, around ten years old, stretching out her hand for a particularly sweet-looking apple.
“Hey!” bellows Crowley, layering his voice with a little demonic menace just for effect. It hisses out of him on every soft consonant. “That’s theft! What do you think you’re doing?”
For a moment the girl falters, drawing back in alarm, but there’s something determined in the set of her jaw. She looks Crowley over with the merciless gaze of the child. Something seems to be decided, then. From beneath her choppy fringe and behind his sunglasses, her bright green eyes fix on his slitted ones and don’t drop away as she reaches up to pluck the apple from the branch.
“This path is a public right of way!” she calls back. “My mum says that means you can’t put any private property over it, not even a roof made of trees.”
With a defiant lift of her chin, the girl sticks her tongue out at him and hares off down the path.
Crowley doesn’t bother hiding his laughter. When he draws back inside, Aziraphale is watching him closely, brow furrowed. It’s unsettling, how easy it is for Crowley to joke about it. Six millennia, and it still felt a little too fresh.
“And lo, she who had the gift of knowledge was banished,” he quips, proving Aziraphale’s point nicely. “Happy now, angel?”
All of a sudden the patterned dishcloth hanging over the tap becomes utterly fascinating to Aziraphale. He tries to close his eyes, focus on Crowley’s calming presence, but it’s no use; the fondness and amusement emanating from him is shifting to concern, noticing Aziraphale’s continued anxiety. His hand on Aziraphale’s waist shifts too.
“There are no more punishments,” he says softly, with a gentleness and understanding which twists deep in Aziraphale’s chest. “No more banishing or falling, Aziraphale. Think about it – when was the last time you heard from them? Because I haven’t, not since the whole business with the fire and the bathtub. Maybe we scared them off with the ‘choosing faces’ trick. Maybe they’ve just decided we’re human enough not to bother with any more.”
“But I don’t know how to be human,” Aziraphale blurts, despair in every syllable. “Look at this, Crowley, look at us. We’re back at the beginning again. For all we know they’re just preparing for the next one, the big one.”
“Oh, not quite the same again,” Crowley replies. “We’re on the same side now, for one thing.”
“That’s true, I suppose.”
It’s almost a language of their own at this point, a perfect exchange. Six millennia on it has to be. Sometimes it bothers Aziraphale knowing that Crowley has never outright said it, but then, words are imprecise. Aziraphale has seen and felt enough to know it regardless. Nonetheless, he can’t help but push.
“We are still an angel and a demon, though. I thought this kind of thing was supposed to be forbidden.”
They’ve moved, slightly, over the course of the conversation, no longer watching the alleyway but instead facing each other. Long fingers brush Aziraphale’s cheek, tilt his head upwards. Crowley’s glasses have been taken off, vanished into some pocket or other. His snake-like eyes are filled with something neither of them have been able to articulate, not once in the history of everything.
“I’ve actually been thinking about that,” Crowley replies. The nonchalance in his voice is far too rehearsed. Aziraphale wishes once more for his wings, something to shield them both from the world. “I mean… I only ever asked questions, and look where it got me. You gave away your sword and spent most of eternity fraternizing with a demon.” At the alarmed look on Aziraphale’s face he backpedals, holding up a hand. “Not that you did anything wrong! I mean, you saved the world in the end. And, well, remember what we said? About the Ineffable plan?”
“More or less. I confess I was mostly panicking at the time.”
Crowley’s lips twitch in a smile, and again Aziraphale feels that warmth, that thing they’ve never yet named, wash over him.
“What if we were right? I mean, sure, I’m a demon and you’re an angel, but I’m sure you prefer me to Beelzebub, and as I’ve been very fond of saying, Michael’s a wanker.”
Aziraphale chuckles, although he doesn’t quite follow. With a dramatic wiggle of his head, he groans.
“Oh, don’t make me say it, Aziraphale, it sounds like one of those movies.”
“What movies?”
“The kind Gabriel likes,” Crowley exclaims, and for a moment it seems he’s going to turn away but in a moment of boldness Aziraphale holds him close by the front of his shirt.
Of course Aziraphale knows what he means; he’s known for a long time, but somehow it’s always felt untouchable. Ineffable. But there’s Crowley, standing in their kitchen, chest to chest with Aziraphale and radiating something demons are traditionally supposed to be incapable of. For someone who has been reading since the invention of the word, he finds himself struggling for anything to say.
“Are you suggesting that… you mean, we… that is to say, us…”
It isn’t going well. Crowley, just inches away, quirks an eyebrow, smirks, and Aziraphale can’t quite match that casual expression up with the way his heartbeat quickens.
“Well, She hasn’t stopped us yet, has She?”
“I suppose, but to suggest that… that this is part of Her plan?”
Aziraphale tries to gesture between them but the movement only serves to pull them closer together. Impossibly near, and yet not enough, not even close. He hears Crowley inhale sharply, feels it hiss past his ear.
“Are you implying this was… is… meant?”
“With you, angel…”
Crowley bites back the words before he can finish the thought. The air around them is trembling with tension unspoken.
“Well,” says Aziraphale, considering each word carefully. “I suppose… as an angel… I should act in line with Her wishes. And.... I suppose that this could never really have gone on without Her noticing.”
“Meaning?” Crowley asks. He sounds like he’s in pain, and the last bit of uncertainty Aziraphale might have had shatters in the face of the idea he could be hurting Crowley. Not now. Not ever again.
Crowley’s knees almost buckle at the full focus of angelic devotion leaking from Aziraphale, the only thing keeping him upright Aziraphale’s fingers clutched in his shirt.
“If I may…?”
“Aziraphale-“
Crowley’s eyes are wide, pleading.
“Crowley.”
Aziraphale doesn’t really know how this is supposed to work with a human form, not in practice at any rate. It doesn’t seem to much matter. The thing they’ve been pointedly and specifically ignoring for so long has grown bigger than them both. That’s the thing about angels, or those who once were – they might be able to condense down enough to pilot a mortal vessel, but their feelings have a tendency towards spilling over. The kiss between their physical forms may be a little messy but for the first time in immortal memory an angel and a demon are touching in their true forms, and it’s indescribable. Crowley wavers, panicking, and Aziraphale can’t have that. He counters by pushing the love to the forefront; not the angelic love for all God’s creatures, but the specific love, the selfish kind which makes him want to stay like this with Crowley for the rest of eternity. Shock and desperate longing are emanating from Crowley in waves. With a jolt, Aziraphale realizes Crowley really did mean the beginning. There’s nothing preventing them from their eternity.
They break apart, emotion still brimming over. Aziraphale runs his fingers over the scales peppering Crowley’s hands and arms, and beams. Crowley is wearing a matching expression.
“If this is the beginning,” he says, looking at Crowley. “I want us to do it properly this time. Eden to Armageddon is far too long to wait.”
They’ve already done it once, after all.
And outside, another apple ripens and falls, crimson, to the ground.