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"The only thing wrong with immortality is that it tends to go on forever."
Herb Caen
At first, the concept of the calendar year had seemed like hubris. In the Garden, there had been days, but only in the sense of “let there be light” and “let the light go away for a while until there is light again.” The light always came back, and Crowley didn’t have any doubt that it always would. Forever. Until the end.
Seasons came later. At first, they were called “take cover from the rain” and “optimal time to hunt” and then they became known as summer, autumn, winter, and spring. Crowley liked spring. It was a time for new things, new plants especially, and Crowley had decided early on that agriculture was a good thing. It made time for other good things, like eating and drinking, which he had discovered in the first year and never quite gotten over.
It wasn’t the first year but it wasn’t much after, that Crowley discovered death. He decided rather quickly that he liked new things much better, even if he was supposed to like death, even if they told him in his trainings that death was a necessary part of how they ran things Down There. As far as Crowley was concerned, they had enough people mucking up the joint. Earth was still stabilizing between periods of heatwave, famine, and plague. It came with severe growing pains that made Crowley appreciate eating and drinking more than ever.
He wasn’t alone. Despite all hereditary compulsions, the Principality Aziraphale had sought him out to talk. It was so early on and both angel and demon were so devastatingly lonely.
“I’m thinking of registering a complaint, you know,” said the angel, “No matter how many times they assure me it’s necessary, I can’t see how it’s Good.”
“Infant mortality?” Crowley’s head was already growing fuzzy from the wine, and he couldn’t quite keep track of the conversation, “or the bit about -- the bit about’a...dinosaurs?”
“What are you talking about?” Aziraphale’s face fell and Crowley swallowed. “What’s gotten into you? You used to be quite conversational. For a demon.”
Crowley leaned all the way back against the olive tree, jerking his wine bottle towards Aziraphale.
“S’the wine,” he explained, “Makes your head all bubbly. Tastes sweet.”
Aziraphale looked at him sideways.
“To a famished man, any bitter thing is sweet. Proverbs .”
Crowley wiggled the bottle.
“Maybe I ‘mfamished. Famished of any kind of purpose. World’s so bad…” he paused as he tried to remember the right word. Or any word, really. “World’s so bad, I’ve never got anything to do anymore.”
“That’s just my point,” the angel’s tone was righteous, “The world is so bad. More bad than good. I really think this is a case of good old fashioned mismanagement.”
Crowley took another deep swig, letting the sweet and bitter dance on his tongue before shoving the bottle over to Aziraphale again.
“Eh?” he managed, “Takes the edge off, I can promise you that.”
To his surprise, Aziraphale took it.
“I think you’ve had enough, Crowley.”
“Finish it then.”
“It isn’t right for an angel to be...in the wrong state of mind.”
“S’good deed. It’s tempting me.”
“You’re tempting me,” said Aziraphale.
“You can sober up after. Quick as you can say...quick as you can say...dinosaur bones.”
Aziraphale sighed, shaking his head.
“I suppose just once wouldn’t hurt. If only to get rid of it.”
***
It wasn’t, of course, just once. At first, Aziraphale had planned to ask permission but had settled on asking forgiveness. Heaven was very good at forgiveness, he had heard. Fortunately, it hadn’t come up yet. It wasn’t as though he was drinking on the job. It was strictly celebratory, or recreational -- in between miracles -- and it was completely under control.
Aziraphale had always been good at self-control. That was why he was given the Eastern gate, as opposed to some lesser angel who might disobey and peer beyond, sticking his nose where it didn’t belong.
It was this keenly-honed level of self control that allowed Aziraphale to spend so much time with a demon without even considering being tempted. It wasn’t like there was much else to do yet and Aziraphale was getting quite bogged down with the weight of the world, the weight of plague and all these bodies that flashed before his eyes, day and night, boils the size of cats crawling out of flesh in all manner of grotesque shapes.
“It’s not...time yet, is it?” Crowley sat across from him, sipping slowly on his tankard of piwo. Even the most diabolical demon would not dare touch wine in Poland.
“You tell me.”
The angel himself had ordered a small glass of krupnik, honey vodka, that was stiffer than any drink he had ever had before. He dipped his tongue into the glass gingerly. It was deceptive, more sweet than bitter.
Crowley shook his head. “Come on, you know I’d tell you if I heard anything.”
“You’ve been sleeping,” Aziraphale said, “You don’t suppose you might have missed the announcement?”
“I think I’d know if it was bloody Armageddon already.”
Crowley’s huge cup slammed against the table and the angel’s eyes dropped.
“S--sorry,” he said, “That wasn’t polite.”
“No,” Crowley said, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry you have to see me like this.”
Aziraphale studied him. In the past few months, this human body of his had grown a rugged beard, his hair curling loosely around his ears. He looked gaunt and reptilian -- more so than normal -- as if even holding this shape together was getting tiresome.
“You could...you could always stay here with me,” Aziraphale offered, “I can promise you the plague wont touch Poland. I’ve made sure of that. They’ve got delightful little dumplings and all the beer you could want.”
“How are they going to explain that one? The plague stopping right at the Polish border?”
“They’ll probably call it a miracle,” said Aziraphale, puffing up a bit with pride.
“How are you doing it, anyway? It must be tiring to keep that up all the time.”
“You don’t even know.”
Aziraphale cracked a smile, an empty smile, that didn’t quite reach his eyes. Mostly, because for all the men and beasts suffering on the face of this planet, Crowley was the only other entity who knew. Aziraphale was sure he knew entirely.
“Angel --”
“Hm?”
“What if I, ya know, took a shift for a while? Protecting Poland? You could try sleeping.”
Aziraphale narrowed his brow. “You would do that? You’ve never done me such a huge favor.”
“It’s not a favor. It’s a quid pro quo. You’ve never tried sleeping before. You’d like it.”
Aziraphale thought about it. He was exhausted. Keeping up a nation-sized miracle day after day was the hardest thing he’d ever done.
“You promise this isn’t one of your wiles?”
Crowley shook his head.
“And Poland won’t be partitioned off to the highest bidder when I wake up?”
Crowley winked. “Don’t oversleep.”
***
Crowley could not outrun his immortality. It was impossible, on a planet like this, to not form meaningful connections all the time. Every several decades another human would come around so smart and innovative and interesting that they seemed hardly human at all, and Crowley would feel just a bit more human as he learned to love and lose and grieve and mourn all over again.
He was beginning to realize that the Roman calendar wasn’t hubris at all, but was in fact, quite inevitable. That was how humanity was, always cyclical, new into old, alive into dead, and on and on and on. Trends cycled through into obscurity, empires arose just to shift and crumble. From close up, it was life -- something temporary and fleeting. Crowley realized rather early on that he was living a parody of a human life and had to live with the consequences. Fortunately, he wasn’t alone in that.
The demon had become quite flighty in recent years. Staying in one place for too long made him attached and every attachment -- every attachment but one -- caused him eventual pain. Instead, he’d float from coast to coast, sprinkling enough ill-fortune to please Head Office but not enough to leave behind an actual travesty. He preferred it that way, even if it meant he was becoming more and more alone.
He wasn’t actually alone. There was always Aziraphale. They always found their way back to one another eventually.
Today, it was on a bamboo mat in the center of a dimly lit room, a private room, in the back of his favorite restaurant in Japan. The slow trickle of water from a fountain reminded him of Rome, and going further back, the first rain. He always found more things to remind him of those first few days, before days were called days. He had such mixed feelings about it all, but took comfort that there were bits of paradise sprinkled all around them.
Aziraphale smiled back at him across the low table.
“Oh!” he exclaimed softly, “This is rather pleasant, isn’t it? I was expecting something, I don’t know...busier, coming from you.”
It was true that Crowley had adapted well to a busier world. Anything, he thought, to take him farther from the black death.
“I thought you’d like it,” He heaved himself back on his knees, “If you look into fountain outside, you can see the fish.”
Aziraphale hesitated. “Not...the fish we’re eating?”
“The very same.”
“That doesn’t seem wrong to you?”
Crowley shrugged. “Better to admire them alive and then again a few moments after.”
A puzzled expression played across Aziraphale’s face. Crowley watched intently. As it so happened, he had gotten quite attached to that face and had made work of learning the nuance in every one of its expressions. It was the one constant that he could count on, after all, even after all these years.
Their sushi came, delicately arranged on a painted platter. Soft, fragrant cuts of fish made a gradient from white to pale pink, deepening still to a dark burgundy. Crowley could feel his mouth watering, a trick he had learned that made food taste even better.
Aziraphale looked torn.
“I think,” he cleared his throat, “it can’t be right, can it? Raw flesh, just moments after life has been ripped from its grasp.”
“It’s fresh, all right,” Crowley winked, “Go on, angel, you’ll like it.”
“I had better not. I think that some time ago Her Holiness forbade the consumption of raw meat and I'm not sure if that is still a thing, but I'd prefer not to take any chances, thank you."
“Come on! Just one piece. For me.”
“Just one.”
Aziraphale’s eyes had not wandered from the platter of sushi, the grave expression of determination fading by the second. He was unable to look Crowley in the eyes as he lifted a single piece into his mouth. Fortunately for Crowley, he was also unable to mask the expression of sheer nirvana playing out across his face as he chewed.
“Good?”
“ Divine. I rather think now and again wouldn't be problematic, would it?” Aziraphale finally met Crowley’s eyes, searching for approval, “It can hardly be any more of a sin than shellfish."
Crowley clasped his hand adoringly.
“I think you should be safe.”
***
It was Wilde who had introduced him to it. After his friend’s death, Aziraphale figured he would certainly stop but one thing led to another and he hadn’t. If the Divine had intended him to stop dancing, she would have made her Will known, Aziraphale assured himself.
If she had wanted him to stop dancing, she would have made the Earth a better place. Dancing, like eating or drinking or sleeping, was something humans did because they had to. It was something humans did in excess to make the world less rotten.
Aziraphale had come to terms with it. The world, for all of its beauty and virtue, was terrible and awful and cold. Dancing made it warmer. Humans made it warmer.
Crowley had picked up dancing quite a few centuries earlier when it was still considered sacrilegious. It figured, Aziraphale thought. He should have liked to have been the one to teach the demon a thing or two about having a good time, for a change. For all accusations of stuffiness, Aziraphale was rather good at dance. He had picked it up quickly.
It was only a matter of time before they were dancing at the same gentleman’s club, at the same time. Crowley had been making quite the scene in the past few decades. Allegations of spycraft, witchcraft, and probably all other kinds of craft had been following him like hounds. He was known as the wickedest man in England, and later, the wickedest man in the world. Wicked men ran rampant at these kinds of places.
Aziraphale picked up the demon’s presence as soon as he walked through the door. Not for a sense of wickedness, but instead for a warm tingling, the feeling that he was no longer alone.
“Anthony Crowley!” He greeted the demon, beckoning him over to the side of the dance floor, where a large spread of breads, cheeses, and meats were arranged ever-so-temptingly, “If it isn’t my old friend!”
“Aleister,” Crowley corrected, “but I suppose it doesn’t matter. This persona’s about run dry.”
“Run dry? It’s all you’ve ever dreamed. You’re famous!” Aziraphale exclaimed, “for being wicked!”
“As are you for selling rare books.”
Crowley embraced him tightly, lingering by his ear for a moment. Aziraphale shivered.
“New cologne?” the demon asked, “Smells expensive.”
“You know, selling books is quite profitable, my dear boy.”
They shared a long look before bursting into laughter. It wasn’t Aziraphale’s fault, he reckoned. He was all tipsy on wine and had a belly full of cheese and had absolutely no intention of changing either of those things. It wasn’t hedonism, he had reasoned, if each bite was meaningful . Over the past several centuries, he’d worked out quite the argument for himself.
“Come, come,” he tittered, “from the balcony, you can see all of London.”
He grabbed Crowley’s hand and pulled him along the wall, where bodies in dark overcoats and top hats were intermingling, up the sprawling stair. They had emerged over the banister on the second floor when Aziraphale finally let go. The demon smiled, flicking his sunglasses back over his eyes.
“Correct me if I’m wrong but you seem like you missed me.”
“Nonsense. You’re a demon, Crowley, I couldn’t possibly.”
Aziraphale budged the outward door, holding it open as the cool night air fell over him all at once. It felt heavenly.
The view, for what it was worth, was impressive. Rain-slicked roads were lit by street lamps, offering reflections of the sky back up at them. Adjusting his waistcoat, Aziraphale leaned over the balcony, following the road with his eyes.
“Well?”
“Beats Poland, I’ll tell you that.”
The angel chuckled.
They stood there in silence for a time as Crowley lit his pipe, blowing soft rings of smoke over the London sky like little round stars.
At last, the demon spoke.
“You’ve really hit your stride this last century, yeah?”
Aziraphale thought about it -- the literature, the art, the dancing -- brimming over Victorian stuffiness like a hand in an ill-fitting glove.
“I rather think I have. And I like being British. Don’t you?”
“It’s not a bad gig, I suppose, wickedest man in the world. Keeps me human.”
“But you’re not human.”
“And you’re not British.”
Aziraphale couldn’t argue with that, although many times he’d found himself wishing he was both.
Crowley nudged him with his pipe hand. “Fancy a smoke?”
Aziraphale accepted the pipe without hesitation, because it seemed the gentlemanly thing to do. Holding the contraption just so in his hand, he breathed the sweet musk of tobacco deep into the back of his throat, held it just as he had seen Crowley do, and exhaled a huge puff that rippled artlessly into the air around them.
If this body had lungs -- actual, functional, necessary lungs -- Aziraphale was sure he would have been sent into a coughing frenzy. Instead, he just smiled proudly.
“I’m not...making this too easy, am I?”
Crowley put an arm around his shoulder.
“Nah,” he said, “You’re perfect.”
***
The 1970s were kind to a demon for reasons that Hell wouldn’t even think about. Hell, Crowley thought, would focus on the big picture. The geopolitical landscape of the thing -- the Cold War, Vietnam. They kept urging Crowley to relocate to America -- saying he’d be of more use there.
Crowley, however, knew that the Devil was in the details.
The M-25 was a resounding success, even if mid-management wouldn’t hear it and on top of that, as a side project, Crowley had been a major factor in the invention of Disco. Disco alone had to have tempted just as many people into violence as the bloody war. The skin tight clothing! The moustaches! The pornos! The drugs! It was terrible and Crowley relished every minute of it.
He had also become quite attached to marijuana last decade, ever since he had heard someone call it the Devil’s lettuce. The best part wasn’t even the high. It was the taste of food while high, the intense need to consume food of all kinds, all at once. Crowley had spent much of the ‘60s experimenting with different strains, developing and growing his own that most amplified that affects he desired.
It was 1974 when he had finally perfected it, and there was only one other person who the demon had even considered to take part in its debut.
Aziraphale sat across from him at the modest kitchen table in his small quarters behind the bookshop. He was looking less than pleased.
“Drugs, Aleister? Really?”
“It’s Anthony again,” corrected Crowley, “But I’m really just using the initials A.J. now. Crowley works too.”
“Oh good. I always liked the J,” Aziraphale gave him a small, dreamy smile before his face dropped again, “Anyway, absolutely not. I will not be partaking in the use of any illicit drugs.”
He had to have had that coat and hat since the 1800s. There was no doubt in Crowley’s mind that that had been the angel’s preferred century. It was a shame, really. To Crowley, the world just kept getting better and better.
“Why not? Why is tobacco okay but this isn’t? It’s just a plant! I’ve put a lot of work into it!”
“Why can’t you put work into a different plant?” Aziraphale sighed, “Any other plant, Crowley, at all.”
“I have a lot of plants and, I’m telling you, this one is my favorite. I’ve spent a decade on it! It’ll have you on your ass in a minute.”
“Why would I want to be on my…” Aziraphale trailed off, clearing his throat, “Regardless -- I wont take part in any plant, vegetable or otherwise, that belongs to the devil.”
“It’s just a name! If it was called, I dunno, angel dust , would you try it?”
“Perhaps,” Aziraphale shrugged, “I really can’t say.”
“Fine,” snapped Crowley.
“Fine,” said Aziraphale, looking away, “Off you go, then. Lickety split.”
Crowley stood, pushing in his chair.
“I guess you’ll never get to try sushi while high. You’ll never know the supreme satisfaction of dipping asparagus in hollandaise sauce and just...I ‘unno, eating it. And every bite tastes like a kaleidoscope. It’s like fireworks. I named the strain Aziraphale because it’s the closest I’ll ever get to experiencing the joy I see on your face when you eat something delicious. Because that shit’s so pure, angel, purer than the goodest good in Heaven.”
Despite himself, Crowley felt his cheeks flush. This damned body, after being down here for so long, was replicating these simple human functions on its own. Humiliated, he turned towards the door.
“Wait,” Aziraphale said softly, “You named it...after me?”
“Yeah. Stupid idea. I thought you’d like it.”
Aziraphale’s hand burned against the demon’s back as it gently turned him back towards the table. It lingered there, climbing up until it hit Crowley’s shoulder and then his chin, and then suddenly, before he knew what was going on, the hands was pulling his face in towards an expression that he had never seen the angel wear before -- not in all of these centuries. Their lips met in a soft, warm intermingling of breath and, human body guiding him, Crowley let himself kiss back.
When they broke apart, Aziraphale gave a satisfied little groan.
“Well,” he said, and Crowley’s heart must have skipped as he tried to make sense of it, “Let’s get on with it. It would be rude to refuse a gift in my namesake.”
***
Rain was sprinkling by the time the bus reached their stop. It was a gentle rain, a summer rain. The sort of gentle patter that promised change instead of threatening destruction. It was fitting, Aziraphale thought, that it should rain tonight. It was like God clearing her tear ducts after a plan she had pent up since the beginning had finally reached its fruition. The end of an era and the start of something.
For all the time that they had spent together at his bookshop, Aziraphale had yet to see the inside of Crowley’s flat. This flat, at least. There had been many others through the ages, estates and apartments and on one particularly short-lived occasion, a cave.
“Top floor?” The angel wiped his feet on the carpeted hallway, where the interior dropped back into a door and a stairwell.
“Yeah,” said Crowley, “I like the view.”
Aziraphale followed him. The carpeting gave way at the base of the staircase, dark mahogany. It creaked slightly under their weight. The building was old, but well maintained, probably renovated every decade or so to remain tip-top. There was a door there, at the top, and Crowley twisted his key into it, and held it open for Aziraphale to go through first.
The angel eyed him suspiciously. “That was nice.”
“Nice, mean, bad, good,” Crowley said, “What does any of it even mean?”
Inside, the flat was sparse. Sparse in a way that even Aziraphale could recognize was fashionable as opposed to wanting. Crowley had a flat screen, an intricate-looking couch, some choice pieces of artwork and, of course, his houseplants. They were drooping slightly for lack of daily attention. Aziraphale made sure to spring life into them as he passed.
“So,” he removed his damp overcoat and hung it in Crowley’s closet. “So. You’re being a bit...post-modern.”
“Something to drink?” Crowley said, “I can make it anything you want. I don’t think anyone’s keeping score anymore.”
Aziraphale nodded a bit too quickly.
“Château Cheval Blanc,” he looked away, “If it isn’t too much of a trouble.”
“Consider it done.”
Crowley disappeared for a moment into the kitchen, where Aziraphale heard him turn on the faucet. He emerged a moment later with two overfull glasses balanced precariously in his fingertips.
“Water to wine. My dear boy, can you do that kind of thing?”
“‘Course I can,” said Crowley, taking a seat beside him on the couch, “I’m of angel stock, same as you. Telly?”
He gestured to the flat-screen with his wine glass hand, the rich burgundy liquid sloshing dangerously to its rim.
“I think not.”
“Rather just talk?”
“There’s a lot to talk about,” Aziraphale took a deep sip from his glass and closed his eyes. It took him right back to the turn of the century, a rather favorite memory of the two of them, discussing poetry in the loft of an unnamed coffee shop. Crowley had been going by Aleister, then.
“What does it mean, angel?” Crowley looked directly at him, “Choose your faces wisely? We haven’t been offered a choice in -- what -- since the beginning, I reckon.”
“We chose earth.”
“No,” said Crowley, “I chose you. And now we’re both out of employ and probably going to be carted off to eternal damnation. But at least the bloody earth is saved!”
“It was part of the Ineffable plan,” Aziraphale chewed on his lip, “Besides, I’m not so convinced that this is the end.”
“I poured holy water on a bloody demon.”
“Oh. That is bad.”
Or good, Aziraphale thought to himself, but he was not so sure of which was what anymore. Six thousand years of tightly regimented moral doctrine had been slowly unwinding in his mind to lead to this moment. Post-modernity indeed.
When he thought about it, it was inevitable. As the world had grown bigger, both in the geographical sense and the sense of human reach -- and more complicated -- there had only been one constant. Everything else was one big funeral followed by rebirth. If he had been alone through it all, Aziraphale thought, time would have turned him into a true creature of heaven: cold, impassable. That or he would have Fallen. There is only so much heartache one entity can withstand alone.
But he wasn’t alone, was he? They had been put here by their respective sides to neutralize each other and after the end, they were still here, together, keeping each other human.
“Crowley,” Aziraphale started, “Have you ever thought about what happens to the earth when the end is over?”
“Blown to smithereens,” said the demon, “I assume. Or just retired.”
“What about us? I mean, if I could figure out a way to save us, where do we go?”
Crowley shrugged. “I assume we’d just go about things the way we always have.”
“Apart, rather?”
“Yeah,” said Crowley, “sure. Let’s focus on the saving us part and then we’ll talk.”
Aziraphale swirled the wine round and round in his glass and chewed on his lip. Everything he loved about earth, he reckoned, was Crowley’s doing.
“What about, instead, together? Go off together like you said?”
Crowley furrowed his brow, looking up at him. “Isn’t that sort of thing a bit, I dunno, fast, for you?”
“The world spins very fast,” said Aziraphale, “the aftershocks of immortality come faster than I thought.”
Crowley blushed.
“Says Mr. I haven’t Changed Coats Since The 19th Century.”
“I have an idea, my dear, where we get to retire,” Aziraphale gave him an earnest smile, “but first I have to warn you that it does involve you wearing this coat, among other things on my person.”
“You’re not suggesting --”
“Well, really, my person in its entirety.”
A devious smile spread across the demon’s face.
“Oh,” he said, “that is wicked.”
fin