Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

About 6 months after the Apocadidn’t, Anthony J. Crowley decided to move on with life. And by move on with life, he meant move away from the one thing that served as a distraction: one angel named Aziraphale. There was a hope that with saving the world, being able to live a somewhat normal life, and knowing more about each other after a body swap would mean they could move forward just a bit.

‘To the world.’

After that, things went back to how they were besides reporting to their respective sides. Crowley tried to get Aziraphale to go out on a proper date, like a picnic to a new park or somewhere other than the Ritz. Even to see a good Hamlet production, despite how bored he might be!

Alas, his angel never bit. Always he had to maintain the shop or you never know who is looking. So Crowley needed to get away. He was suffocating under the disappointment. He hired someone to take care of his plants and moved to Japan.

Why Japan? To cause chaos. To be himself. To work in computers. He liked technology, working as a human in technology he could embed a whole bunch of chaos that would only unfurl in time, or if the testers were good enough, be found at the last minute to then turn into a big delay in a release. Minor chaos, but things that could be felt worldwide, you know?

So, no a year post Apocadidn’t, Crowley sat and coded for about an hour a day at some random Japanese company, spent a solid 5 to 6 hours a day total thinking about the life Aziraphale and he should be having, and the rest of the time goofing off in ways that made it look like work or socializing in ways that made work happy. It wasn’t the worst. He was not suffocated, he did not feel boxed in or cornered. Most of the work events meant going out and getting drunk anyway, so that didn’t matter.

The hardest thing to explain had been his sunglasses. He miracled the job, but forgot to add in the sunglasses. What worked was saying he had an extreme light sensitivity and the few times he took his glasses off after a night of drinking, no one remembered anyway. Apparently tonight would be one of those nights perhaps, as there was some event with foreigners coming to test some software for something. He did not particularly pay attention, alcohol was alcohol.

He pushed back from his desk, grabbed his cigarettes and swayed off to the smoking room. That was another sweet thing about Japan, most of these offices had smoking rooms just built in.

“Crowley?” The voice of his dreams said from down the hall.

Shit. Were his thoughts getting to be a bit louder than just thoughts? He shook his head and walked faster, as if running away from a spector behind him.

“Anthony J. Crowley, you and your ridiculous name will stop right this instant!”

That was new. Normally his thoughts did not make demands of him. At least not such bland ones. Said Anthony J. Crowley stopped and looked over his shoulder. There stood both the brightest item in the world to him and the darkest corners of his mind.

Aziraphale.

“Oh hey Aziraphale. On a smoke break. Nice to see you, gotta go now,” he said turning and running down the hall.

“Crowley!” Another cut to his heart, because no footsteps followed him. Maybe he would skip and go get drunk alone tonight.

Chapter Text

Crowley threw open the door to the smoking room and snapped it shut behind him, giving his fingers an extra snap to hopefully lock it against any angelic interventions.  He miracled in some extra smoke and shadows, too, just to convince some humans that it was fully occupied. He slouched against the wall and busted out his cigarettes and lighter, enjoying a moments of peace. How did that bastard get here? What interest would he have in Japan?

Wait, dumb question. Sushi.

Still, why was he at my work, the demon mentally demanded? He took a long drawl as if using it to meditate, then held it in while letting his head roll back, hair dusting his shoulder as he blew the smoke up. A hair cut. Yeah, he’d do that instead of going out with co-workers.

Before his plans could get too much further, however, the door opened up with as much of a snap as his head did forward, “Whu-”

“No, we tried doing this the nice way, and now we do it your way,” Aziraphale cut him off, snapping the door shut as he stepping in. “Hand me one if you would mind?”

Crowley dumbly slid one out of the box and the angel snagged it and put it to his lips, bending down slightly. His blue eyes glanced up and Crowley could feel his heart race and his glasses start to slip. The demon shakily reached up with the lighter and ignited it and about lost his knees when the angel closed his eyes and took his first drag. Fuck, this was supposed to be gone , Crowley thought to himself.

“Now, where were we?”

“We, angel? We weren’t anywhere!” Crowley yelled, turning his back.

“We were in a hallway. I was calling your name, you refused to talk to me,” the angel summed up.

“I was attempting the no talking to,” Crowley said, still facing away.

“But why, my dear?”

“Because...because,” the demon said with a deep sigh, “I needed to go faster, or at the same speed, or something that you weren’t going.”

“Well, you ran away!”

“You stopped answering me!”

“I was working! I was selling stock to make space! I was making sure I could pick up and move if things got, got, PEAR SHAPED!”

“PEAR SHAP- what?”

“You stupid man! I was trying to make it so you could have a space if things got worse if you wanted. If we started being chased again,” Aziraphale said with intermittent short drags and puffs. Crowely had never seen him quite so flustered.

“I’m stupid? I was trying to not hurt,” he responded lowly.

“Then talk to me,” Azirphale said, finally returning to his kind voice. Crowley turned around and looked up.

“I had been trying to. All those phone calls, all those knocks, everything,” his voice teetered on crying on yelling.

“I didn’t notice, my dear.”

“When did you notice?”

“When you stopped coming around. Then I went to see you and some strange woman was coming out of your flat. At first I thought the worst, but she was dressed for work,” he started, pausing for a reaction. When none came, the angel continued, “I asked her if she now lived there and she said that she was just given this place as an assignment.  A large greenhouse essentially.”

“I needed to get away,” Crowley repeated after releasing another long puff.

“And it took me an awful long time to find you without a miracle! And then to figure out a way to convince some humans that I would be a valuable asset to their archival scanning endeavors!”

The angel did that for me, Crowley pondered, warming up again suddenly. He took a short drag before stubbing the butt out against the wall. He made a motion to move towards the door.

“So, what now, Aziraphale?”

The angel moved to block him, taking Crowley’s arms in his hands and pinning them up by their heads, cigarette still in between his fingers. He got up close, close enough that his blue eyes could see right through the shades and recognize how wide the demon’s eyes were.

“I want to try again. I haven’t been contacted by anyone, well outside Michael who propositioned me,” he said off handedly, “but that is besides the point. I got caught up in my normal plan nonsense then I forgot to actually tell you.”

“Tell me what, Aziraphale?”

Aziraphale said nothing. Crowley grew scared. Beat three. Beat four. And then suddenly the cigarette fell down and the angel’s hands flew to his face, one removing his glasses, the other cupping his cheek, while not even a full moment behind, certainly not enough time to process, Aziraphale’s lips were on his in a rushed and hungry kiss. Over a year. He had waited over a year since the supposed end of the world. It was smokey, and sweet, and determined, and delicious, and everything Crowley wanted.

And it ended to soon.

“Stay with me forever, my dear,” Aziraphale said.

“We have a lot to talk about first, Aziraphale. Like, Michael? What the fuck?” Crowley said, trying to gain some control of the situation back and tame his brain that was screaming at him to just kiss the angel more.

“Sushi?” he responded, far more of his gentler self.

“After work. For both of us.”

“Sounds like a plan,” the angel said with a smile and a hand going through the demons dark red and rather longish hair.

“And maybe a haircut.”

“Please no, I always liked your hair longer.”

Crowley ground his teeth and snapped his fingers as he stomped on the discarded cigarette to open the door back up. The angel would recognize a few millimeters miracled on to the ends of his hair, right?

Chapter Text

Aziraphale walked back to meet up with his group. They were a group of rare book collectors and various professional archivists who had been visiting various software companies to talk about ways of digitizing works. While he didn’t understand this computer nonsense, he was considered and expert on old books and they wanted his buy in to get some of his books into the project. 

Alternatively, it may have been a slight rouse after he had spoken to Anathema about finding Crowley. He got them into Crowley’s flat and Anathema was able to pick up that he had gone oversees and that he was currently asleep. Another time, that there was a lot of electricity in the air. One time, she came to him and told the angel that Adam had apparently spoken to Crowley and he had said he was apparently actually doing computer development in Asia. 

From there, the angel plotted and schemed, trying to figure out plausible reasons he would be looking for software. Newt was the one who suggested archival of rare works. It was truly too bad the boy was bad with machines. 

So they set to plotting. A few months later, Newt and Anathema along with the help of a few Adam phone calls, narrowed down prospective phone calls and Aziraphale wiggled his way into a few boards.  He felt quite proud of himself, making his way to Japan for something other than sushi and maki rolls.  

So as he met up with the group Anathema shot him a glance. The one that was how dare you run off without your babysitter and/or leave me without a translator. Either or. He smiled meekly at her and bowed his head to the rest of the group, explaining his disappearance on running into an old friend from university. 

Which apparently, culturally, was the wrong thing to do. Their hosts asked a lot of questions that he wasn’t fully prepared to answer and Anathema did wind up stepping in to provide assistance, afterall, Newt was once again trying to learn computer coding in the UK, and at least the answers wouldn’t be terribly farfetched. He would roughly translate, as if trying to think to himself the right words to give back in Japanese and English, Anathema supplying some and him filling in others. 

By the time they reached the conference room, both the board he was sitting on and the hosts were quite smitten with on another and far more relaxed. Which was great, because he and Anathema were frazzled and exhausted. The young lady was always this interesting mix of put together and wild-child, but here, she just looked like she was jumping to avoid cars and that made her hair get messed up. 

Not to worry, Aziraphale thought to himself, this is but a simple presentation, understanding how the product works and off we go back to the hotel! Anathema can rest, get on the phone with family, and angel and demon can live happily ever after. 

He buzzed the whole presentation with excitement. Then, the head of the board, some very dull lady who didn’t even own a single first edition but acted like she knew everything, a librarian or some such, often said treasures were for the world, announced they would be going to dinner with members of the team after a demonstration, so if they could please all stick together.

Aziraphale puckered his lips at the woman when she made a very pointed please. Which was met with a very sharp elbow to his very soft side. He had thought Michael’s looks were killer, the glare that Anathema produced may have been enough to puncture the lead balloon that Crowley had joked about all those years ago. Which he could now, thanks to the board member to his right sharing with him, introduce to Crowley as a rock group known as Led Zeppelin. Adam had even helped him with putting some of their music on his phone. 

So as people started to push out and be, in a sense, courted by various business members, he and Anathema stood back. A minor miracle and they blended right in.

“Thank you,” she said in a low voice. 

“You look quite done with the day, young lady.”

“You look like you are just starting life.”

The blonde angel blushed and looked anywhere else, waiting for them all to filter away. He wasn’t expecting the demon to slink into the room in between people. Crowley’s eyebrows shot up over his sunglasses in surprise at Anathema also standing there.  As the last of the individuals walked out of the room he glided across the room. 

“Needed book girl, did you?” he bit out. 

“Well, my dear, she was quite integral to the who-”

“You know my name,” Anathema interjected as if bored. 

“Right, right. How have you been, Anathema? Adam says you have permanently taken Jasmine cottage and convinced Newt to move in with you?” Crowley said, walking past Aziraphale and enveloping the American Occultist in a hug. 

“Yes, which has been for the best. Adam still is a bit tetchy sometimes since there was never an exact off button for the antichrist it would seem,” she said, hugging Crowley back, “So while I can’t do anything major, talking and going through even the most basic meditation a 12 year old can handle does him some good. Even though his friends have no clue, Pepper and Brian will join in with him while Wenslydale reviews their maths with Newt.”

“Well, have yourself your own little coven you just keep that up,” he said stepping back. 

“I’d need 8 more,” she said with a smile.

“Oh, well, I mean,” he looked to the side, “I’m sure, well, the future…”

“Relax, Crowley, I’m not looking to form a Coven and we gave up professional descendant business, so for now, I’m enjoying my life for the first time. I intend to keep it that way.”

“Good. Right,” he said, clearing his throat. “Dinner?”

“I’m ready when you are,” Aziraphale chimed up, feeling a bit left out. How did he not know all of this living on the same damn rock as Adam and Anathema

“Anathema?” Crowley said, offering only the smallest of smiles to the angel. 

The occultist’s response was drowned out in the blood rushing to the angel’s ears. Wait. This was supposed to be him and Crowley talking. What was happening here? What had Aziraphale misunderstood here? He opened his mouth and closed it again. 

“Hm?” Crowley said. 

“Oh, I was just going to ask if sushi was still the plan.”

“Why, of course it is, Aziraphale,” the demon responded and he could tell that his eyes got softer despite the sunglasses. “After you, Anathema.”

She stepped through the open door, looking to try and remember which way she had come earlier, oblivious to the quick and soft peck that Crowley gave Aziraphale’s cheek as he ushered him out the conference room door.