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Crowley isn’t worth anything, and he’s made his peace with that. When he Fell, after getting over the terrifying void left in his soul, he found he was actually rather relieved. Being a servant of a mysterious all-powerful being proved stressful, which is probably why Aziraphale seems so anxious all the time.
It wasn’t quite like freedom, what with the new boss and all, but it was kind of close. After all, Hell couldn’t expect its employees not to serve themselves first, so that’s exactly what Crowley did. He half-assed his job, drank loads, reveled in perverse pleasures, satisfied all his whims, and genuinely numbed himself to a new existence out of the light. Darkness suited him. God was no longer watching him. God no longer cared about him at all.
But Aziraphale did.
And that—that—was hard to swallow.
For approximately two minutes, all Aziraphale was to Crowley was an angel to tempt for fun. Not because he necessarily thought he’d get anywhere with tempting him, but because he was bored and wanted to muck things up a bit.
And then the angel admitted he gave away his sword.
Crowley knew then no temptation of his would fuck things up more than this angel could manage on his own.
Aziraphale watched with the world with such an aching openness. There was nothing he could hide. Crowley could question everything Aziraphale believed, break it all down into component parts that no one could piece back together again, and Aziraphale refused to concede. But he’d give the humans his flaming fucking sword. He’d slide his way carelessly into the worst mess humanity could make and shift the design just so in their favor. To give them a chance. That could not at all, be in God’s Plan. Definitely not Michael’s.
A Satanic nun, with all her innocence, exclaimed over the Antichrist baby’s toes, and Aziraphale’s smile was so soft, so lovely, Crowley could barely swallow around the pain of it.
Aziraphale implored Crowley, with lines of worry etched so sincerely in his brilliant face, not to touch the holy water, because he did not want to lose what was left of Crowley’s soul.
As if he cared.
As if Crowley mattered.
Crowley could rescue Aziraphale from any number of stupid messes the idiot angel got himself into, but he could never think up a gesture large enough to make certain he had earned the love Aziraphale so easily gave him. He did not know how to keep it. He couldn’t keep God’s, after all. All he could do was not care, and that was easier said than done with a beautiful angel sitting next to him in his Bentley, gently handing him a thermos of holy water as if it literally pained him to do so.
You know that all this holy water will do is kill another demon or myself, Crowley wanted to say. What is it to an angel if a demon dies?
Instead, he could only plead, “I’ll take you anywhere you want to go. Anywhere.”
I’ll go anywhere with you.
You go too fast for me, Crowley.
The closest Aziraphale came to falling never dropped a white feather from his wing. Which was interesting, considering Gabriel tried to fry him in Hellfire. Crowley considered what God meant by that, but there wasn’t anything to be had from that line of thought.
Sitting across from Aziraphale now, drinking at the Ritz, he didn’t know when the angel had gone from those words, “May you be forgiven” to “I forgive you,” didn’t know when Aziraphale had become his new religion, but that didn’t matter either.
“We have no sides now,” Crowley had told the angel. “It’s just us against them,” but turned away from the soft smile when it seemed to show a bit too much sympathy. Aziraphale was never very good at hiding. Not like God.
So he came home to his plants, examined the leaves of each carefully, poured a glass of scotch, and sank into his chair, staring at the blank wall ahead.
When a knock came, and a bell-like voice on the other side called his name.
Aziraphale had never, ever been to Crowley’s place. Never taken him up on it. He could see why it might have been a mistake to have ever invited him in the first place when the angel took in the surroundings with a furrowed brow.
“Aziraphale,” Crowley said, unnecessarily.
The angel turned to him as he closed the door. “Crowley. I—well, I know this must come as a surprise, but I felt that I had perhaps left things undone. Unsaid. With this being our first day, ‘The Beginning, Take Two’ as it were, I understand that neither of us have perhaps figured out exactly what—”
Crowley couldn’t think of a thing to say to any of Aziraphale’s ramblings, because it seemed that his presence alone had lit up the front hallway of what should normally be a fairly dim abode. That was no metaphor, either; the mere light of him contrasted against Crowley’s darkness in a way he had known was there, but had not seen before. It would have been like if God had deigned to lower Herself to his level, just to see how he was. Make sure things were all right down here, in his empty hole.
Aziraphale noticed he was not listening and stopped mid-sentence. Simply let his mouth close. Then opened again to say in a hushed whisper, “Oh, sweetheart.”
Crowley’s heart was breaking and he couldn’t figure out why.
Aziraphale lifted his hands up, cupping Crowley’s cheeks, wiping the tears from his eyes. “I am so sorry.”
“How can you be sorry, Angel?” he snapped. “What have you to possibly be sorry for?”
“I was blind,” Aziraphale answered, nonplussed at Crowley’s misplaced anger. “I didn’t see what it was to feel alone, all these years. To be without Her.”
“Oh, bollocks,” Crowley said, pulling away. “I’ve had 6000 years to get used to my nature. What about you, Angel? Your existential crisis is fairly new, yeah?”
He nodded. “Yes, I admit, but I feel that while Heaven’s understanding of matters differs from my own, we are both not quite to understanding God’s Plan.”
“Hence, the wings.”
Aziraphale nearly looked shamed. Or no—sympathetic, again. Crowley groaned.
“I do not wish to debate matters of theology with you, Crowley. I only mean to give you some comfort. You are not alone. I would—well, I could—”
Crowley let out a snort at that. “If only you knew, Angel.”
“If I only I knew what?” He paused, taking a step as Crowley turned to the side. “Crowley. What is it? What should I know?”
Crowley took a few steps to his chair and slumped into it, all bones, and rested his forehead on his fingers. As Aziraphale stepped into the room, he almost winced at the light of him.
“You have it all wrong. I don’t give a flip what She thinks of me. Not anymore. If She doesn’t want me, that’s fine.”
Aziraphale settled next to him, leaning against the desk, hands clasped in front of his well-tailored suit. He gazed at a plant to his side and sighed.
“I want you, Crowley,” he said.
It was a simple statement. Very plain. Not whispered. Not adorned with his flared language. Crowley looked up.
“I cannot speak for Her.” He chuckled bitterly to himself, still looking at the plant. “Obviously. But I love you, Crowley. I love you deeply.”
Don’t hand me a flaming sword, Angel. But he could say nothing. His mouth was too dry.
“And I find you—well, I find you to be a beautiful creation.” Aziraphale reached out to smooth a finger over a leaf. Crowley wished it were him, with an ache that terrified him. “I know you resent your decency.” He turned his eyes to Crowley now, letting the leaf drop from between his fingers. “I do hope you will not take offense when I say that I think your soul is worth saving.” And then the angel leaned forward, cupping his hands around his chin, and kissed him lightly.
Crowley gritted his teeth against the wave of hurt, unresponding. When Aziraphale drew back, a finger still on his chin, his mouth formed in a small frown, Crowley could only manage to hiss, “You stupid angel.”
“Why, Crowley,” Aziraphale said, with a note of hurt in his own voice.
He ripped back from the table, standing, placing distance between them. “I am Fallen, Aziraphale. I am not worthy. I can only claw and teeth my way through some semblance of an existence for myself, either by not caring or by tearing myself apart. Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”
When Aziraphale studied him, it wasn’t without a certain amount of alarm in those wide, transparent eyes, but his demeanor was calm all the same, juxtaposing Crowley’s embarrassing outbursts. As usual. Crowley shuffled back towards the narrow window, a red sky overshadowing the city below. He gazed at it so intently he didn’t realize the angel had followed him once again until a warm and solid hand took his.
“You are good, Crowley.” Aziraphale lifted Crowley’s hands to his lips and kissed the knuckles. “You are worthy.” He unfolded his hand and kissed the palm. “You are wanted.” He shifted his grip and kissed the inside of his wrist. “You are mine.”
Crowley stared agape for several seconds before he realized his chest was heaving and his knees were trembling. He allowed himself to fold to the floor, sliding the angelic-kissed hand with him to clutch at Aziraphale’s trousers. He covered his face with his other and sobbed.
“My dear,” Aziraphale reached to touch his hair, raking fingers through the locks softly. “Oh, my dear.”
“I’d do away with the whole lot of them,” Crowley sniffed, admittedly a bit undignified, “if I could just keep you. But I don’t know how. I lost my way once and never knew why. Maybe I question too much, stray too far from the paths set for me. I could lose you now, as I lost Her. So easily.”
“Don’t be silly. You could never. I walked into Hell for you. Where could you go that I could not follow?”
Crowley leaned his face into Aziraphale’s leg and heaved a deep sigh, calming himself. “I don’t deserve you,” he muttered. “I’ll give you anything you want. Anything.”
Aziraphale knelt next to him and lifted his face in his hands. “Kiss me, then, Crowley.”
And so Crowley obliged. He grasped the back of Aziraphale’s head and pulled him in close, far too close, smashing lips and chin and nose in his desperation. Aziraphale let him, but more gently held Crowley’s face on either side with his big, warm hands until Crowley eased up finally.
“Really don’t deserve this,” Crowley gasped. “I’m sullying an angel. This is sacrilege.”
Aziraphale smiled, and he was brilliant. “I think we’ll be fine.” He always believed that.
Later, in Crowley’s bed, night had fallen but he could still see Aziraphale’s soft glow, his hair damp on his chest, his shoulder underneath Crowley’s hand. Crowley thought a bit about that, about religion and all the shapes and forms of it. What it meant to be holding such faith in his bed, close to his heart, to the core of his being. To be affirmed by a perfect creature that you were worthy of him and his laughter, his kindness, that soft smile that found the goodness in everything, even a worthless demon like him.
***
Aziraphale could contain the multitudes that made up Crowley. The distance, the biting humor, the anger, the shouting—it was all folded up within his wings, against his soft chest, thin fingers clutching at his stomach to find some relief there.
He could help to save the world from the apocalypse, and he could be a god to this one black angel.
A friend, however—well, that was an entirely different matter.
Crowley held the door open to the bookshop and Aziraphale gave a pleasant smile of thanks as he walked in. The demon followed, a lanky black presence behind him, shifting through the shadows of the shelves as Aziraphale made his way into the back apartment and put on the tea.
“You all right, Angel?” The voice behind him was dense, but lilting, as if trying too hard to be casual.
Aziraphale looked down at his hand and noticed the trembling. Damn demon was too perceptive for his own good. He took a breath, practiced a smile, and turned to face Crowley, who was sitting slumped at the small wooden table with one leg propped up on the other knee.
“Of course. Why would you think otherwise?”
A question. Damn the questions. Crowley knew what questions meant, and he conveyed this by staring, the black lenses focused so intently Aziraphale could feel the snake eyes beneath them. Finally, “No reason.” He moved his arm over the back of the chair, leaned back a more impossible amount, taking up as much space as he could in Aziraphale’s quaint life. When Aziraphale nearly dismissed the conversation to go back to his tea duties, Crowley spoke again. “Just that you perished a couple of days ago.”
“Oh, dear, that was another dimension entirely from where we are. I can hardly feel it happened.”
Crowley nodded, looked thoughtful, drummed his fingers upon the table. “You said I could not lose you. You will always come back. But this is it for us. You won’t get another body; Adam hasn’t got the power and whatever you say about the Almighty, I don’t think the forces of Heaven are about to issue you anything to make your life more convenient.” He paused. “And I’ve got no place to go either.”
“Look at us, a mortal pair of immortals.” Aziraphale tried for a smile. Crowley’s glasses were impenetrable but he never looked away.
“There are places you cannot go, Angel.”
Aziraphale paused for a moment, his thoughts far from there. He felt his lips slacken and he turned back to the tea, grabbed a couple of biscuits from a pack. He poured two cups and brought them to the table. He laid a single white feather next to Crowley’s saucer and sat across from him.
Crowley frowned.
“Take it,” Aziraphale insisted.
The demon shook his head and refused to touch, instead choosing the tea to sip. “I won’t blacken a single part of you.”
Later, as Crowley napped in front of the TV on the couch, Aziraphale laid the feather in his open palm. It remained singular and white and Crowley never spoke of it when he woke.
***
Crowley had nightmares. All the time now. Not the abrupt ones that he was used to, the ones that woke him harshly, but lingering ones that kept his nerves afire all morning and part of the afternoons.
He dreamt of the fire meant for Aziraphale, and knew why it took Aziraphale a century before he conceded to give Crowley the holy water. He dreamt of a bookshop empty. He dreamt of a black night without the light from Aziraphale’s warm smile meant only for him. He woke with tears in his eyes and wiped them hurriedly before Aziraphale could see.
Fingering a white feather he held underneath his pillow, refusing to see if it had darkened yet.
Aziraphale held him every morning when Crowley came into the kitchen for his tea and toast, already made as if Aziraphale knew the moment he woke and began to prepare it. But it would still go chilled when Crowley found it difficult to let go of the embrace. He liked to fold his head down on the angel’s soft shoulder and inhale the scent of him and sigh several times before he could bear to unclench his fists from Aziraphale’s coat.
Every night Crowley would worship the angel in bed, the only way he knew how, with everything in him open and given for Aziraphale to take what he would. And Aziraphale knew just how much to take to leave Crowley satisfied for just the moment that he had appeased the angel enough to be allowed one more day by his side.
Aziraphale, for his part, did not appear oblivious to Crowley’s new devotion. He didn’t doubt it, anyway. But he did crease his brow at times with Crowley sprawled in his lap, eyes shining wetly as he stroked Crowley’s cheek and assured him he was worth the space love took up.
And then one day the angel was gone.
***
When Crowley Fell, it was as if all the parts inside him were lifted up and out of his body and remained suspended in the air for quite some time above him. That’s how it felt when he walked into the kitchen one morning and the white-haired angel was missing.
He thought it was the dream at first. But it wasn’t black enough. The morning sun still faded into the window, spilling its beam across the stove with a kettle shoved off to the side, still cold. No cup in the sink to show Aziraphale had even had his morning tea yet.
Crowley called the witch once he had searched the bookshop over for a note or any sign. He breathed deeply before dialing the number, willing himself to be calm and careless as he asked Anathema when she’d heard from Aziraphale last.
Anathema didn’t pick up on his distress, but the boy did. Newt. He promised he would call Shadwell and look into it himself. It was 10 in the morning, however, and didn’t he think Aziraphale might just be out to the store?
The tilt to his stomach, far above him, told him no.
Crowley spent the next three days sleepless, searching the city over, but he knew Aziraphale’s aura, knew that there was no presence to be found.
Then, Newt called back. “Anathema found him.”
***
At first, Crowley thought he had Fallen. He had wrapped his wings around himself so that Crowley couldn’t see Aziraphale’s body, and the wings were singed black at the tips. But when Crowley fell to his knees, shaking hands touching the feathers to roll him over, the soot fell away to reveal the dirtied white underneath.
“Angel,” he whispered, turning him. “Angel, God, please.”
Aziraphale’s face was marked with tear streaks, his eyes clenched shut, his hands in fists held tight against him. Crowley rocked back on his heels, bringing his own fist to his teeth and biting the knuckles to stifle a desperate noise.
A gentle hand fell to his shoulder. Newt. Anathema stood behind him, a frown deep on her face. “It doesn’t make sense,” she said. “I tracked his aura, but it was everywhere. So I called him—”
“Prayed—” Newt corrected.
“And I heard him, and he came.”
“You heard his voice?” Crowley asked. “What did he say?”
“It was like music,” Newt said unhelpfully.
Crowley turned back to the angel, took a hapless fist from the face, and kissed his knuckles. Then he opened the hand, and kissed the palm. Then the wrist. He leaned down and kissed his lips, light and deep, and breathed.
Singed feathers rustled, some working loose and falling like rain around them. The tears tracks were wet again, and Aziraphale opened his eyes, his face softened, and he breathed, “Crowley,” in such a way that Crowley thought he might as well have stabbed him straight in the gut.
“What did you do, Angel?” Crowley hissed desperately, rubbing the soot from his cheek. “Where have you been? How could you leave me?” His voice broke on the last note, his selfishness realized, and he could barely whisper after, “I’m sorry,” because the angel owed him no explanation for that.
Newt moved away from behind him, and Crowley bowed his head.
“I walked through the Hellfires,” Aziraphale told him. “I saw everything.”
“What?” Crowley’s voice was hoarse, and raised his head again. Aziraphale’s tears were so clear upon his cheeks, they nearly reflected his own.
“I can follow you anywhere.” He unfolded his other fist to show a feather, white with brushstroke blacks, and Crowley looked and realized the angel’s wings were not just covered with soot, after all. “I walked through the Hellfires,” Aziraphale repeated, his eyes falling shut again. “I did it. I survived.”
“You could have—Aziraphale, you should have died.”
“No. I couldn’t have.” His whisper was hazy now. “I love you too much to die.”
***
Aziraphale had dreams, not nightmares, of the Hellfires. He had seen a lot in his multi-millennium, naïve as he knew he sometimes appeared, but what he saw there, in the pits—well, it didn’t bear remembering during his waking life.
He stood in bare feet, looking around the still-dark bedroom where he must have been deposited by a certain demon that was nowhere to be found. He clutched his arms to himself and shuddered, padding through the quiet, cool apartment until he found Crowley awake in front of a mindless TV program.
“Why?” Crowley didn’t even look up. Didn’t even appear to register Aziraphale’s presence, save for the question.
“I love you, Crowley.”
Crowley said nothing for several long moments as the screen flickered past his glasses, unregistered.
“All because of what I said,” he managed, a bit strangled. “You dumb, stupid angel. All because of some idiot thing I said, you went and threw yourself into the Hellfires just to see if you could without so much as a goodbye.”
“I didn’t say goodbye because I knew it wouldn’t be.”
“Oh, that is utter horseshit, Angel.” Crowley turned to him now, anger lighting his face. “You didn’t know anything. Has it ever happened before? Has an angel ever managed it without Falling? How could you know?” He didn’t bother asking how; he knew any demon with any sense down there would be more than happy to help an angel to its destruction, one way or the other.
“I am no angel, obviously,” Aziraphale answered.
“Well, you aren’t a demon,” Crowley snapped back. “So what are you?”
Aziraphale stepped carefully to the couch. Crowley begrudgingly moved his legs to give him room and the angel placed a hand on his knee gratefully, but his head bent at an awkward angle, a soft sad smile playing on his lips when he looked to the floor thoughtfully. “I don’t know anymore, my dear.”
Crowley moved to sit up. “Hey. I’m sorry. Are you all right? I haven’t—”
“Yes, yes. Please don’t worry.”
Crowley rolled his eyes. “That’s bullshit, Angel. The soot, I can clean off, but I know what the Hellfires are. They forge you into something hard.”
Aziraphale looked at him then, the smile fuller now. “Oh, Crowley. You are not hard.”
Crowley’s expression dropped into concern and he folded forward in that boneless way of his, on his knees, leaning close to Aziraphale. “Angel,” he whispered, thumbing the liquid from the corner of Aziraphale’s eye. “Don’t cry. Please don’t—”
“It’s a funny thing,” Aziraphale tried, chuckling a bit. “I’ve seen genocides and plagues and heavenly punishments, but I couldn’t think in there—I couldn’t make it go together. And I knew then.” He sniffed, pushed back from Crowley’s touch. “I knew that I had been such a—well, such a fool to think any of this could ever make sense. I just wanted to believe there was something that pulled it all together. But there isn’t, really. There’s no reason for Nazi spies or abused children. There’s just us. Here. Now. Nothing so much as a Plan, just a small assignment on a planet no one seems to care all too much about.”
He was aware his voice was cracking under the weight of it and stood up before Crowley with his horrified face could reach for him again. He made his way out of the room, very stiffly. Once inside the bathroom, he locked the door and sat on the tub and sobbed.
The child covered in boils, the woman dying before she saw her baby, the man shot before his lover, the irradiated animals, the piles of corpses so deep—and none of it, none of it could be fixed. None of it could be reasoned. Crowley, well, he was right all along, wasn’t he? Eat an apple and learn to suffer. Eat an apple and learn to fear.
There was banging on the door, but it was far off somewhere he couldn’t quite touch. Through the crackling flames, on the other side, someone was trying to help him, but Aziraphale was already so broken there was no chance at piecing him back.
***
“Aziraphale, for all that is unholy, open the damn door!”
The sounds he was emitting from within were ones Crowley hadn’t heard in so long, a deep and raw ache the scraped the stomach like a dulled scalpel.
“Aziraphale. You need help. Please, don’t make me break your door.” Even as he said it, he pushed his foot into the frame and shoved it in. Aziraphale didn’t even flinch at it, didn’t glance Crowley’s way, a sure sign of trouble.
Crowley knelt down in front of the angel sitting precariously at the edge of his tub. “I’m sorry, Angel. I was selfish and I didn’t think—I didn’t understand what traps I had laid for you until it was too late. But my God, Aziraphale, please don’t lose yourself here.”
Aziraphale shook his head slowly, but Crowley couldn’t be sure it was an answer or simply a motion. He shivered violently, clutching his arms tightly around himself, and Crowley could see the realizations slamming through his eyes, an open door to himself and everything he was, and now the horrors that had become a part of him as well.
“This is mad, Angel,” Crowley murmured. “Sheer madness, to have—to have become this thing, to have lowered yourself here.” For me. But he could not say that. Something squeezed his heart, made his stomach turn at the thought.
For Crowley, the Hellfires had started in his heart so long ago he could no longer imagine himself without them. But he knew that for something as gentle, as soft, and as utterly and ridiculously oblivious as the angel Aziraphale, the Hellfires could twist a soul as ugly as anything.
And Crowley could not abide by that.
So he leaned forward on his knees and took Aziraphale by the chin, pressed forehead to his, and said, “I love you too, Aziraphale. Come back to me. You promised to come back to me, always, and I’m not sorry for being selfish about it; that’s who I am.”
A tiny smile escaped the angel’s lips, though he could not look yet.
“Why do this?” Crowley asked desperately. “Why hurt yourself for me?”
“My darling,” Aziraphale whispered, unfolding his trembling hands so Crowley could grasp at them. “Because you are worth it.”
Crowley moved to lay his head on Aziraphale’s lap, wrapping his arms around the angel’s waist as if he could anchor him here. “I am not worth anything,” he said. “Especially not this. You know that. God knows that. I know that.”
Aziraphale still shuddered helplessly. It wasn’t like Falling. Crowley knew that Fall intimately. Instead, it was like leaning over a precipice, seeing the great void of helplessness below, screaming for you to make your choice. For Crowley, it was very easy to let go and saunter downwards into that heaping nothingness, feel embraced by the knowledge he could no longer go back and try anymore. This was who he was. That was his choice.
But not his angel’s.
***
“You broke my door,” the angel said as the light of day broke the next morning. At some point, he had fallen, but only into the bathtub, with Crowley stretched like a cat on top of him.
“Had to,” Crowley mumbled sleepily. “You were going mad.”
Aziraphale groaned and pushed upwards until Crowley took the hint and leaped up, helping the angel to his feet as well.
“The less said about the Dark Night of the Soul, the better,” Aziraphale mumbled, fruitlessly attempting to smooth creases from his coat.
“Hey, I invented that one,” Crowley protested.
Aziraphale wrinkled his nose. “Of course you did,” he said mildly, stepping forward out of the bathroom for all the world as if it were perfectly normal.
Crowley moved after him, watched him make the tea and toast, sat down when he indicated, half-listened to the aimless chatter, all with eyes open and disbelieving.
“You’re okay?” he managed to choke at last, through a bite of toast and jam.
Aziraphale smiled. He always smiled like that, like he was falling, but only a little. “Yes, dear. I feel okay.”
Crowley cleared his throat. “Well, I suppose now you think I should try my hand at bathing in holy water,” he said.
“Of course not. You’d perish.”
“You arrogant bastard.”
Aziraphale’s smile was playful now, and admittedly a bit smug. But he’d earned it, Crowley supposed. And later that day, Aziraphale did a bit of his own worshipping to make up for it.
“I’d give you the world,” Crowley hissed as he snaked up the length of the angel’s body. “I’d sacrifice everything on your bloody altar, you insufferable angel.”
Aziraphale wrapped his arms around Crowley, smile wide. “The whole world is just a bit dramatic, darling. How about we start with a bottle of du Pape?”
Crowley rolled his eyes and moved Aziraphale’s side, pouring another healthy serving into the angel’s glass at their bedside table. But he would have to admit (under duress) that the taste of the bitter wine on a lover’s lips was a kind of delicious sacrament he was getting well-used to.
There was a bowl of apples on his bedside table as well, and Aziraphale reached up past him to grab one.
“Never did understand that,” Crowley mused.
“I confess, I didn’t until now,” Aziraphale answered, then took a bite.