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The end of the world is today, and Aziraphale has run out of options. For the past twenty-four hours or so, he found where the antichrist is, and hid it from Crowley, who he thought was the opposition. After talking with everyone he can – Gabriel, Sandalphon, Michael, Uriel; he even tried to speak to God directly, but he received the Metatron instead, who told him to hurry up and get to heaven before the war starts. Aziraphale cannot take this any longer – Crowley seems to be his only ally if they want to even try to prevent the war, though he would never admit it out loud.
Leaving the powered up portal, he beelines right for the telephone and dials Crowley's number – is it terrible he has the number memorized? After it rings he gets sent to voicemail, but he's used to this. Crowley doesn't like to answer the phone sometimes, but he knows Crowley will hear him. "I know where the antichrist is," he says after the tone.
"Yeah, it's not a good time, got an old friend here," Crowley answers immediately before hanging up.
"But –" Aziraphale is cut off by the loud banging of the bookshop's door opening, even though he had locked it.
"You foul fiend!" a familiar voice rings out, and Aziraphale needs only to take a few steps so that his view of the front door is clear to see Sergeant Shadwell is the one who picked the lock.
"Sergeant Shadwell?" he says, surprised.
"Don't talk to me, you witch! You're possessed, I must exorcise you with bell book and candle."
"That really isn't necessary," Aziraphale starts, but Shadwell spotted the bell on his desk and hits it.
"Bell," he says at it rings out.
"Oh alright, if you must, just don't step in the circle, it's still powered up!"
"Book," Shadwell continues, picking a random book from Aziraphale's stock and waving it around.
Aziraphale realizes he's not getting out of this, so he lets Shadwell use the lighter for a candle and say his little speech about casting the demon who possessed him out. He takes a step backward in the process but remembers the circle, so he stands his ground – Shadwell isn't really that intimidating now that he thinks about it, just extremely persistent.
"Oh, yes, I feel much better now," he says quickly after Shadwell's finished. To make his act more believable, he looks to the circle and says, "Oh no, is that magic? We must leave the store at once and get away from the, er, evil?" He quickly ushers Shadwell out and the door slams shut behind them. He hails a cab down to head straight for Crowley's place – he has a feeling the old friend he mentioned isn't being friendly.
Unbeknownst to all parties, when the store door slammed behind them, it slammed with enough force to bump one of the candles, disrupting the portal and shutting it off as it rolls over and catches The Sound of Music on fire.
~~~
While Aziraphale was busy with Shadwell, Crowley was facing his own demons – quite literally, in fact. He had just melted Ligur into a pile of goo with the Holy water and was now trying to get rid of Hastur as well. The plant mister definitely only had water in it, but he had hoped it would work – now he has to think of something else on the fly. He looks to the phone and answering machine where he just hung up on Aziraphale and his idea forms. A few minutes later, he's trapped Hastur in his answering machine, on an endless loop with Aziraphale's last message.
Speaking of Aziraphale's last message, he should see what the angel wanted if he wants to help stop Armageddon, which isn't much longer now. The pile of goo that used to be Ligur will have to wait – he hopes it won’t stain. In his rush out, the door doesn’t properly close behind him.
Crowley tosses his phone into the passenger seat as he climbs into the Bentley, stepping on the gas to get to the bookstore as quickly as possible.
He realizes on his way there that he should probably call Aziraphale, since he did hang up on him earlier. He taps his phone to turn it on and says, "Call Aziraphale," as he weaves around traffic at ninety miles per hour.
"Calling Aziraphale," his phone repeats to him and starts to ring.
Crowley gets worried after the fourth ring – Aziraphale usually answers the phone straight away when it rings. When Aziraphale doesn't answer at all, he grows even more worried. "Where the heavens are you, angel?" He mutters to himself, pushing the pedal a little more and risking ninety-five.
The bookshop is aflame when he arrives and his heart hammers in his chest – the last time he saw a fire like this was in hell.
He steps out of the Bentley and walks right into the shop, ignoring the firefighters. "Where are you, angel?" he urgently yells into the store, looking around at the damage and destruction. "Aziraphale!" he shouts louder, but there's still no response. The water streaming out of a firefighters hose hits him suddenly, and the pressure knocks him over to the floor.
He can't find Aziraphale anywhere, so his mind goes to the one place he never wanted it to. "Somebody's killed my best friend!" he cries out in agony, looking up to the ceiling in a silent plea to God. What was he going to do without his angel; his Aziraphale?
There's a book sitting next to him partially damaged from the fire, but the hose already put that fire out, so he picks it up and holds it tightly to his chest as he heads straight for his Bentley, driving to the nearest bar to mourn.
~~~
Aziraphale finds himself anxiously fiddling his thumbs in the back of the cab, knowing full well if Crowley were the one driving they would have reached their destination already. Traffic is piling up, the end of the world grows closer with each passing second, and Aziraphale is stuck with a driver barely doing the speed limit. As much as he complains that Crowley drives too fast, he would welcome it now with the urgency he feels.
Finally, the cab stops, and after he miracles some money to pay the man, he hurries out and over to the building. He rings the doorbell because it's polite before noticing the door is already open. "Crowley?" he calls in through the halls, cautiously stepping into the flat. He would have thought there would be more noise if Crowley were in danger, but the place is eerily silent.
"Crowley?" He says a little louder, slowly walking down the hall and looking around. He knew where Crowley lived, but this is his first time actually inside. If heaven knew – no, heaven doesn’t care anymore. Crowley is what matters.
Aziraphale notices a door open at the end of the hall with a light on. He straightens up and smiles, losing his cautiousness as he walks straight for the door, saying, "There you are, Crowley, why didn't you say –" he gasps, having pushed the door the rest of the way open only to be met with a puddle of demon remnants.
"Crowley?" he asks as he crouches down, afraid to touch the pile of goo. There are still clothes amid the mess, hard to identify, but Aziraphale assumes they are Crowley's. He looks up at the table and sees a familiar thermos open.
Aziraphale falls back, landing hard on his bottom, tears escaping his eyes. "What have I done," he says to himself, forcing his eyes down to the pile of goo again. Crowley was his only hope – he could not save the world without him. He should have gotten in the blasted car with him earlier; then he could have talked him into staying and helping. He could have helped Crowley fight against the demons after him, instead of leaving him to resort to – this. But no, Aziraphale had to do it right and had to be blinded by the idea that heaven would help if he found everything, and never noticed his only true ally was Crowley until it was far too late. Crowley was not just somewhere down in hell, temporarily discorporated, either looking for a body or dealing with the other demons – he was permanently gone. Forever.
It's only now when Aziraphale thinks back on his old friend – he's willing to call him a friend now that heaven hates him – that he realizes, maybe they were more than friends. Crowley was always showing up – but Aziraphale never forced him to leave, and sometimes he quite welcomed it. He loved Crowley, has for some couple thousand years now, and only after he found that the heavens are not with him has he realized this. Now that he's not here anymore.
He stands abruptly and wipes the tears from his face before readjusting his bowtie. He can't stay here, and there's no point of stopping Armageddon without Crowley. He certainly isn’t going to heaven to join in the fight either, so the only place he can think of to spend the rest of the world is Saint James Park. The familiar place might help ease his consciousness and remind him of his lost love before the world ends.
~~~
Crowley would like to say he's a heavyweight when it comes to alcohol. He'd like to say that it takes hours for him to get drunk, or that heavy liquors are all that can do it for him. People would expect that from a demon, right?
He is not a heavyweight in any case. But, he has never had so much alcohol that he blacked out, so right now, he is trying to find that limit. He has already downed two bottles of scotch and almost all of the third, his vision blurring around the edges. If he blacks out, maybe he will forget. Maybe he will forget how he was always there for Aziraphale, but the one time he wasn't was the time Aziraphale needed him the most. Maybe he will forget about the angel he has been in love with since the Beginning, torn out of his life before he can say this to the one so important to him.
Rolling his eyes, he takes another drink. Even with all this alcohol, he still can’t stop thinking about Aziraphale. He sets the bottle back down, empty now, and starts seeing things. Someone walks in with a cream suit, awfully similar to the color Aziraphale used to wear. He looks away and his eyes land on a framed picture of angel wings, complete with a little yellow halo on top. He sneers when the next thing his eyes land on is a woman whose hair color is very close to Aziraphale’s; and stands abruptly when the next thing just so happens to be an angel tattoo on someone’s arm.
He pays for another bottle of scotch and leaves the building, walking past the Bentley as he is way too intoxicated to drive. He’s still clutching the book to his chest – he had brought it into the bar with him.
His feet lead the way through the messy streets as his brain is too foggy to take anything in. He registers a few angry horns as he stumbles around, but frankly, the world was going to end and his angel was gone, so he couldn’t care less. All he knows at this point is he couldn’t stay in the bar, with all those reminders of Aziraphale, so he needs to find someplace else to spend the last hours of the Earth.
He wanders around for what feels like hours but has barely been minutes, finding himself in Saint James Park. Even his feet were still thinking about Aziraphale. That last bottle of scotch was starting to get to him, and he wipes at his forehead with the back of his hand, stumbling off of the sidewalk into the softer grass. The last bottle of scotch remains unopened, but he has plans for that soon.
Some shouting from somewhere interrupts his thoughts, but he can’t hear properly, he can’t do anything properly, so he ignores it. That is; until he's nearly barrelled over by a blur of white.
“Crowley!” Aziraphale’s muffled voice yells in joy as he wraps his arms tightly around the demon. He doesn’t know how Crowley is here, but that doesn’t matter right now. He can figure out the reasons later.
Crowley is still very much drunk, so it takes him a few seconds to realize the warm thing constricting his airways is Aziraphale, here and whole and not dead. The scotch falls from his hand into the grass, and the book is sandwiched somewhere between himself and Aziraphale, but he doesn’t pay attention to it as he wraps his arms around the angel and starts crying into his shoulder.
“Shhh, shhh,” Aziraphale comforts, rubbing Crowley's back soothingly and ignoring his own tears. “I’m here; we’re both still here.”
“But– but the fire, and– and you…” Crowley tries to get out, his crying causing him to hiccup and trip over his words.
“Shhh,” Aziraphale repeats. “We can figure this out later.”
Once they’ve both had their fill of hugging and they release each other, Aziraphale looks up at Crowley, his glasses slightly askew and his cheeks wet. The book fell to the ground already, but it can wait a few seconds longer as Aziraphale reaches a hand up and brushes the tears away from Crowley’s face with his thumb, using this hand to pull Crowley’s face to his and, after a moment's hesitation, briefly pressing their lips together.
“I must be hallucinating,” Crowley manages after they separate – he’s still drunk, after all.
“I can do it again then, if you’d like,” Aziraphale answers with a small smirk, leaning in close and kissing him again. “Would a hallucination kiss you twice?”
“... No,” Crowley decides, going for the kiss himself this time.
Aziraphale lets him, but breaks it off all too soon for the demon who’s waited thousands of years for this. Upon seeing the sad look on Crowley’s face, Aziraphale straightens out his suit and says, “Well we can snog all we want but the worlds going to end soon, so sober up so we can stop Armageddon. Then we will have all the time in the world to ourselves.”
Crowley smiles, a painfully happy smile, as he watches Aziraphale pick the book up out of the grass and dust it off. Nothing in heaven or hell could have given him this happiness; this only comes from Earth. He loved his angel and his angel loved him, and he’d do anything to spend more time with the love of his life.