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There is a great deal Crowley has forgotten about Heaven; or perhaps, more accurately, a great deal he has chosen to forget. Hell is no place to go around remembering things, like some sentimental blessed angel; no place to gather round the water cooler with your friends and reminisce about the good old days when everyone wore white.
For a start, demons don't have water coolers. Nor, on the whole, do they have friends.
If you asked him to summarise his memories of Heaven in one word – and you really twisted his arm (or any available limb) – the one word Crowley might grudgingly concede was 'dull'.
Of course, Crowley's life did include water coolers sometimes and at least one friend all of the time. If Aziraphale twisted his arm – or, more likely, plied him with a really nice Shiraz (or, G- somebody forbid, threatened to never talk to him again) – and if they both were drunk enough, Crowley would perhaps admit the word was 'loved'.
Maybe Crowley really was just that different – the kind of difference borne of 6,000 years of bad, i.e., angelic influence – or maybe every demon holds the same secret knowledge deep down, the grit around which the pearl of malice forms, never to be divulged under threat of torture or holy water or Sound of Music singalongs: She had loved them.
They had been loved.
*
The bus is half an hour past Reading, its driver looking more and more confused, when the giddiness that has kept Crowley alive and more or less kicking for the past couple of days finally begins to slip away. Giddy excitement, giddy panic, giddy relief; no amount or variety of giddiness can be sustained for long on public transport. The sheer knee-trembling, pants-wetting terror of having faced down Satan Himself – bigger, angrier and with more horns than Crowley had ever seen him before – lurks on the horizon, far too giant to even be considered just yet, especially not on a village bus that smells faintly, inexplicably, of prawn cocktail crisps.
(Neither of them had had a hand in prawn cocktail; that one was purely the fault of humanity.)
And especially not with Aziraphale squashed into the uncomfortable plastic seat beside him, their bodies pressed together shoulder to ankle. Beneath the prawnish tang, the oh-so-eternally familiar scent of leather polish and dusty pages. Crowley feels himself begin to relax in millimetre increments.
“Did you mean what you said back there?” he asks, waving a hand to encompass – everything.
Aziraphale turns to look at him, looking faintly startled. His hands are neatly folded in his lap, his back so straight you could use it as a ruler.
“That I wouldn't speak to you again?”
“No – well, actually, yes, that too. But mainly that you wouldn't put it past, you know,” Crowley twirls a finger at the ceiling. “Her.”
“She does move in some very mysterious ways.”
“Bollocks to mysterious ways. She's the Almighty, not a – a synchronised swimming team. Is a little coherency too much to ask for? A bullet pointed list?”
“I fear it might be.”
“Mysterious ways,” Crowley scoffs, turning to glare out the window. Outside, there is nothing but shadows and night, and the occasional orange blur of street lights; he watches the reflection of Aziraphale's face in the glass, looking back at him.
*
Crowley had picked his flat in Mayfair (not bought, of course, or even rented; Crowley tended to assume things like that didn't apply to him – and so they didn't) because there had been a swamp roughly in the same spot that he had been quite fond of for a few millennia, followed by a rather good tavern for much of the 1600s. The area now is richer, cleaner and far less prone to drunken (or sober) fist-fights than ever before; this took some of the fun out of it, of course, but there was still a good view of a street crossing where lost tourists and harried motorists get into frequent verbal altercations.
It's where Crowley plots, and sleeps, and terrorises plants, but it isn't a place where he lives. It isn't a home like Aziraphale's bookshop has become over several centuries of steeping in angelic fussiness, moulding around the angel in the same way that Crowley's ludicrously expensive memory foam mattress has learnt his own shape.
Hastur and Ligur were the first guests Crowley ever had. Aziraphale is the first that counts.
“Ah,” he sighs, breathing in deeply, as Crowley ushers him in with a hand gesture that is only slightly sarcastic. There's a wide-eyed look of fascination on his face as he strokes the marble walls, rubs a waxy leaf between finger and thumb, lingers in front of the wrestling statue with a small smile. Crowley follows after him, silent as a shadow.
He's so focussed on not focussing on Aziraphale – the prospect still too huge to contemplate, like Satan and his many horns – that he almost walks right into him when Aziraphale comes to an abrupt stop in the doorway to the office.
“Oh my,”says Aziraphale.
Crowley peers around his shoulder; there was the puddle of Ligur, still fizzing gently, giving off a pungent aroma like stagnant puddles mixed with car air freshener. Aziraphale nudges the puddle with his toes and they both stand and watch it ooze back off his shoe. It bubbles.
“I told you,” Crowley says. “Insurance.”
“Even then, you knew...?”
“What, that Ligur would look better in liquid form? Sure. You ever meet him? Lizard on his head.”
“A lizard - ?”
“Quite a nice lizard, actually. Colour-changing whatsit. Shame about who it sat on.”
“Oh dear,” Aziraphale says, looking a little sad for the lost lizard, before he frowns and shakes his head. “No, not Ligur, or – or his unfortunate lizard hat. I meant, even then – all this time, you... you knew you were going to have to choose a...”
He coughs, still staring down at what remains of Ligur. “A side.”
“Our side, angel.”
“Yes.”
Crowley doesn't know quite what his face does in response to that – simple, quiet agreement with the thing Crowley has known for 500 years – but he can feel it happening, and he watches Aziraphale's own face crumple in response, for just a fraction of a second. Then Aziraphale draws in a breath, pulls up a smile and reaches out his hands.
“I'm terribly sorry it's taken me such a long time, my dear,” he says, clasping Crowley's hands. “Now, you'd better stand back whilst I take care of this dreadful mess, and then we can work out what we're going to do.”
With Heaven and Hell, and then with each other.
*
Returning to Heaven for the first time in six thousand years is exactly like returning to the beloved childhood house you grew up in, after said house has been bulldozed and rebuilt several hundred times over, until all that is recognisable is the view through the window and the angry expressions on your relatives' faces.
It is also exactly like entering an airy, sun-drenched room immediately after an old, old friend has exited, the scent of her perfume still hanging in the air.
*
After facing down head office, and then facing down a few lovely bottles of bubbly at the Ritz, they wind up back at Crowley's place, where there are infinite bottles of whatever they fancy. No miracle too frivolous, no higher ups breathing down their necks. Halfway through a flagon of mead that hasn't technically existed since the second century, Crowley is lying face down on a Persian rug he's almost certain didn't exist when he left the flat in Aziraphale's Crowley-hands this morning; a little to the left and up a bit, Aziraphale is spilled over the the sofa like a Dali timepiece in a tartan bow-tie.
“Thought nobody was watching us,” Crowley mumbles around a mouthful of rug. “Not really. Thought we were just, just farting around, not doing anything important enough to be watching.”
“Oh.”
Aziraphale sounds a little hurt at that, and Crowley lifts his head out of the rug just enough to turn in roughly the direction of the angel's voice and catch his eye. Aziraphale squints back at him, the side of his face smushed into the cushions, one arm trailing over the edge. His bow-tie is undone, Crowley notices, and the top button of his usually hermetically sealed shirt.
Crowley clears his throat.
“Okay, okay, important to us. All the, the tempting and the thwarting and the, er...”
“Ducks?”
“Ducks!” Crowley waves a hand, lets it thud back down to the floor again. “Important ducks to us, but not to them, above or below. Definitely not to Her.”
“All ducks're important to Her.”
“Ducks, maybe. Not me. Didn't think She was watching me.”
The sofa creaks dangerously as Aziraphale lifts himself up on one elbow to peer down at Crowley – a touch unsteadily, but no less intently. “Whyever not?”
“Demon?”
“First rate demon. Absotut- asbolute - very good demon.”
“'M bloody well not. That's what we're drinking about, isn't it? Celebrating our incompetence.”
Crowley rolls – slowly and with excruciating care – onto his back, propping himself up on his elbows so that their heads are roughly level, all the better to glower back at Aziraphale's steady gaze. Aziraphale reaches out an only slightly wobbly hand in response, hooking a finger under the bridge of Crowley's sunglasses and easing them up into his hair.
“That's better,” he says cheerfully, patting the side of Crowley's face. His hand lingers, cupping Crowley's cheek, until Crowley shifts and mutters,
“Gerroff.”
Aziraphale beams. “Shan't.”
But he lowers his arm anyway, his fingers coming to rest on the edge of the rug, where wool meets cold marble. Close enough to touch, if one chose to. He could choose to. Crowley is all about choice.
He chooses to drain the mead instead.
“If this was all Her Plan,” Aziraphale says, “then this was how She wanted us to be. Could have had someone like Michael and Ligur stationed down here, smiting away and whatnot.”
“Bleurgh.”
“Yes! But Earth got us instead. Terrible angel, terrible demon, both terribly useless at our jobs. But ever so good at ... well, at loving the world.”
Crowley blows a raspberry, and Aziraphale shoots him a reproachful look. I'm not angry, it says, just disappointed.
“Oh, you know what I mean. Not loving it in a, a heavenly way. Not all be not afraid, mortals and blasted harps. But loving it properly, like humans love it. Loving park benches and snails and David Attenborough and sandcastles with little flags on top and, ooh, ice cream. We should get some ice cream.”
Lying back down on the rug, Crowley lets out a long breath. He lets his hand reach out and, seemingly of its own accord, twine their fingers together. He squeezes Aziraphale's hand.
“I do like ice cream,” he says.
*
Demons don't dream, of course, but Crowley has had far more practice at sleeping than any other demon. His napping alone could give Sloth a run for its money. He used to dream of Heaven, maybe, and then he dreamt of Hell. And then he dreamt of apples.
But for the last few millennia, most of his dreams have been Earthly in nature. After watching Dr. No for the first time, he slept away a whole year, having some really fantastic dreams about spies and explosions.
Tonight, snoring into the Persian rug, he dreams of an airy, sun-drenched room, and the taste of honey.
*
The very best ice cream in all the world is sold by a little cafe on a busy beach in Cornwall. Miraculously, the beach isn't too busy today, and the few people ahead of them in the cafe queue all remember they left their ovens on and run home. Aziraphale orders two scoops of rum and raisin and immediately sets about taking off his shoes and socks, rolling up his trousers. The hairs on his legs are as golden as the rest of him.
“If you miracle up a tartan swimming costume, I'm going home. Double chocolate, thanks.” Crowley lowers his sunglasses and grins at the cashier, who decides to close up early for the day. She forgets to take payment, which is convenient, as Crowley forgets to pay.
“I'm going paddling!”
Aziraphale skips and hops down to the shore, wincing as he treads on pebbles, and Crowley saunters slowly after him with an ice cream cone in either hand. Beach balls bounce in the opposite direction and the sun disappears behind a cloud, making all sunbathers in their vicinity decide it's time to go home.
Aziraphale is standing up to his ankles in the waves when Crowley catches up with him, smiling up at the clouds.
“Forgot your cone.”
“Oh yes. How lovely.” Aziraphale licks, closes his eyes and hums happily. Somehow, there is already ice cream on the end of his nose. He looks at Crowley out of the corner of his eyes and asks, “How are you feeling today?”
“Tickety-boo.”
“Crowley.”
With a sigh, Crowley slips his sunglasses off and glares out at the horizon. It's a perfect British summer's day at the seaside: which is to say, overcast and a bit nippy, with rain clouds gathering out at sea. He eats his ice cream quickly, wincing at the brain-freeze all the while; he helped invent it and he's still quite proud.
“Don't want to see any rainbows either,” he tells the sky. “You're not out my bad books yet.”
He kicks a pebble into the waves, and the water splashes back all over his shoes. Next to him, he hears Aziraphale very softly swear as his cone starts to crack, melting ice cream leaking through the gap.
“I never meant to Fall. Spent six bloody millennia thinking I was in the wrong bloody place at the wrong bloody time. She could have sent a note – hey, Crowley, sorry about the eternal damnation, all part of the Ineffable bloody Plan.”
“I'm so sorry you Fell, my dear,” Aziraphale says, ice cream dripping all over his fingers, “and I'm so dreadfully sorry that I'm so glad you Fell. Because I, well – oh bugger.” A piece of cone falls off and Aziraphale lifts his hand higher, licking up the trail of melted ice cream.
“I know, angel.”
“I simply can't imagine how dreadful existence would have been without you.”
Aziraphale is smiling up at him, sweeter than any ice cream cone, his eyes the colour of the sky overhead. Crowley's socks are soaking wet. He takes holds of Aziraphale by the lapels of his coat and takes a step closer and kisses him as hard as he dares. Closing his eyes, he feels Aziraphale sigh against his mouth, feels his free hand fluttering before it lands on Crowley's chest and latches on tight. Lips sticky with rum and raisin, warmer than the sun.
Crowley breathes in the scent of an old, old friend.
“Oh no,” Aziraphale whispers.
Crowley freezes, hardens, begins to pull away, but Aziraphale's hand tightens in shirt and draws him in even closer.
“Not you, my dear,” he says. “It's just – I dropped my ice cream.”
“I'll get you another one,” Crowley promises, and Aziraphale beams up at him so brightly Crowley has to kiss the smile right back off his face again.
After the ice cream, they get fish and chips.
And they saw that it was good.