Work Text:
There was holy light shining out of the gap beneath Aziraphale’s bedroom door.
This was, in and of itself, not alarming; Aziraphale had a habit of exuding light without meaning to, usually when he was eating particularly good sashimi or getting spectacularly drunk and watching Sunset Boulevard for the two hundredth time. Crowley was used to it, and after all it wasn’t often a problem. Sometimes it would happen when they were out in public, and then it might get a bit embarrassing if humans started to stare. Humans were pretty inept at actually seeing the light, but they could sense that something was weird about Aziraphale, like maybe his smile was a little too wide or there was a strange glow to his skin.
Here, though, in the privacy of Aziraphale’s rooms above the bookshop, letting out some holy light wouldn’t normally be anything to be concerned about. Everyone needs to let loose once in a while, after all. Except: Well, Crowley thought as he hovered awkwardly outside of Aziraphale’s door, that’s quite a lot of holy light, isn’t it.
Crowley wasn’t entirely sure what effect holy light would have on him in large doses, but he wasn’t keen on finding out on a cloudless, mild Sunday afternoon in the middle of August. It was too nice of a day out to get discorporated inside, and besides, he had dinner plans. He hesitated for another moment, and then rapped his knuckles on the door.
“ ’Ziraphale? You almost ready to go?”
The voice that came through the door wasn’t muffled, as a voice coming through a wooden door should be muffled. It also echoed strangely, as though in a building with obnoxiously high ceilings. “Just another moment, my dear!” it said. “I’m still putting myself together.”
Crowley squinted at the door. “Is that a figure of speech?”
“. . . In this case, I don’t believe it is, Crowley, no.”
“You all right in there?”
“Yes, yes, perfectly all right. I’ll just be a few more minutes.” There was a pause, and then, “Why don’t you come in? Nothing you haven’t seen before, after all.” There was a sound which could have been a laugh, but sounded more like the clanging of bells.
Crowley shifted his feet and eyed the gap under the door again. “I don’t think I should, Angel. Been a while since I bore witness to—you know. Could be dangerous to my occult . . . uh, ness.”
The voice tutted, which oddly enough just sounded like ordinary tutting. “Really, Crowley, have some fai—erm. Some trust in me. Would I even offer if I thought it could possibly hurt you in the slightest?”
“I suppose not.”
“Good, that’s settled. Oh, did you bring the champagne? I want to chill it for a bit before we head over to the restaurant.”
Crowley snapped his fingers and the champagne bottle he’d forgotten at his flat appeared in his hand. “Present and accounted for.”
“Bring it in, then, my dear, don’t be shy!”
Crowley tried not to feel too much like a fresh-faced protagonist from an adventure novel as he slowly opened the door and peeked inside. For a moment, the light was blinding, but in an ordinary way, as though he was stepping out from a dark room into direct sunlight. It wasn’t painful, and as his eyes adjusted, Crowley saw that he was staring at the argyle-patterned wallpaper of Aziraphale’s bedroom wall. (It was a style Azirphale had picked up on in the early twentieth century, and to Crowley’s dismay, he had obstinately refused to let it stay there.) Steeling himself, Crowley opened the door the rest of the way and entered the room.
Plenty of literature, mosaics, pottery, graffiti, paintings, poetry, lithographs, films, stained-glass windows, and, on one occasion, a burnt cheese sandwich, have sought to depict the visage of angels for the benefit of human perception. Most of them haven’t even come close. Humans can hardly be blamed for this, because angels exist far beyond a mere three dimensions, and as any resident of Flatland will tell you, working beyond your own dimension as an artist is pretty bloody difficult. Those that have come close are still way off, but in the way that a caricature is way off; the basic elements are there, and you can sort of look at it and say, “Why yes, I suppose that does look a little bit like a funhouse-mirror version of Madonna.” Funnily enough, the cheese sandwich had gotten it the closest, but it was tossed out by its maker before anyone could get a good look at it. If someone had bothered to look at the burnt pattern on that cheese sandwich, they would have seen something a little bit like what Crowley saw when he entered Aziraphale’s bedroom.
Try to imagine that you’ve spent your entire life believing that a very unflattering caricature of Madonna was what Madonna actually looked like, and then one day you see the real Madonna walk by on the street. It would be, to say the least, a lot to take in. Even Crowley, who was used to seeing in more than three dimensions, and moreover understood how angels’ forms behaved, had trouble parsing Aziraphale as he saw him, standing in front of an ornate mirror on the far side of the large, if cluttered, bedroom. Well. Standing was hardly the word for it; in order to stand, one must have legs, and perhaps feet to balance on. At the moment, Aziraphale had no legs or feet to speak of. There was a suggestion of arms, or at least hands. There was definitely a torso, or something to which all other parts were centrally attached, or at least clustered around. Every piece of Aziraphale sort of . . . hovered, for the moment, as though tied together into a singular space by sheer force of will, or maybe just by sheer loyalty to their host. There were several spinning rings which resembled haloes, and the one actual halo, which framed Aziraphale’s upper half in a glowing white spiked circle. There were many, many wings, and innumerable eyes. The eyes and the wings, in particular, were ubiquitous; Crowley could see them in every dimension he knew of, in sizes varying from a dewdrop to an ocean. There were a couple of mouths thrown in for variety, but those were mostly situated in the third dimension and of average size for a human—though the teeth they contained were decidedly inhuman. It was difficult to tell what color or colors Aziraphale was; he seemed to be all of them at once, within the rainbow and without, shifting and changing at every moment. And, of course, there was that too-bright holy light, which was a sort of rich golden color, and in and of itself was not terribly interesting.
(This description, of course, is as inaccurate and unhelpful as most others, but it’s a start, at least. If you want something more concrete, take it up with the cheese sandwich.)
Crowley had seen angels in their true forms before, but it had been a while, and he had to let his being adjust to seeing Aziraphale like this, all at once. The mirror Aziraphale was looking into (though really, at the moment he was looking Everywhere) was having just as much trouble reflecting back an angelic visage, and had instead decided to dye its surface as black as ink and pretend it wasn’t home. This had put Aziraphale out a bit, and he said to it, in a voice which belonged to more than one mouth, “Oh, bother you, then.”
Crowley, quite relieved by the fact that he had not been discorporated, held up the bottle for Aziraphale to see (again, a pointless action, but some habits are hard to break). “Where d’you want it, Angel?” he said.
Aziraphale’s visible eyes swung around to look at Crowley with excitement. It was only mildly horrifying. “Ah, lovely! The ice bucket is on the armchair in the corner, there’s a dear.” Aziraphale waved a couple hundred wings in its vague direction. “Oh, what kind is it?”
Crowley stuck the bottle in the ice bucket and turned the label out. “A Veuve Clicquot rosé. Should go well with a heavy dinner.”
“Marvelous.” Aziraphale’s whole being glowed even brighter for a moment, before he resumed fussing with the mirror. “Oh, come off it, silly old thing, it’s only an angel.” But the mirror remained obstinately dark.
“Why d’you need a mirror in that form anyway?” Crowley said, scooting the bucket to the side and draping himself over the armchair. “ ’S not like you’re supposed to look a certain way, in a form like that. There’s a reason vanity’s our business, Angel.”
Aziraphale gave off a greyish air that might have translated to a pout. “I have standards, Crowley,” he said. “Just because Heaven isn’t checking up on me anymore doesn’t mean I can just let this form go.”
Crowley raised an eyebrow. “Go?”
“You know how it is. One minute you’re at tip-top shape, fighting alongside Heaven’s armies, getting regular fencing practice—the next, you’ve been on Earth for six thousand years and barely remember to transform once a millennia to put the fear of the Almighty into some poor chap.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Crowley said, not unkindly.
“Oh no, I suppose not,” Aziraphale said, embarrassed. “I do apologize, Crowley.”
Crowley waved it off. “Anyway, I don’t know what you’re so worried about. I think you look fine.” Fine , in this case, meant terrifying and beautiful, as most angelic forms are, but in a particular kind of way that is unique to you, Aziraphale, and which I, Crowley, think is altogether wonderful and perhaps a little dashing, considering that your eyes are one of your best features and there are quite a lot of them at the moment, but Crowley didn’t really have the gumption to elaborate.
Aziraphale’s rings spun anxiously. “It’s just that—well, lately I’ve been feeling a bit . . . scattered.” He paused. “In the literal sense.”
“All those pesky wings keep flying off on you?”
Aziraphale cast a sideways look at him, which would have been subtle if not for the fact that “subtlety” and “true angelic forms” go together about as well as water and angry cats. “They’re just not as well-behaved as they used to be, I think,” said Aziraphale. “I don’t know. It’s a bit silly, but I just feel less . . . coherent.” That wasn’t the right word, and both of them knew it, but simultaneously they both understood what Aziraphale meant, so it was apples and pears, really.
Crowley’s eyes narrowed behind his glasses, which he didn’t want to take off because of the light. “You don’t think it has anything to do with—?” He waved his hand in a gesture which meant something like You know, the business of us tricking Yours and Mine, and how Yours might be catching on, and even if they haven’t yet you’re still not exactly the model angel, haven’t been for a while now, and I hate to say it but maybe it’s slowly catching up to you.
Aziraphale had gotten the gist of this, at least. “I don’t think so,” he said carefully. “I think I would be able to tell if I was Falling. This just feels—oh, how did that Englishman put it in those charming fantasy novels of his? Like butter spread over too much bread. I do believe that’s how I feel, Crowley.”
“If it helps,” Crowley said, “you don’t look any different from the last time I saw you.”
“And how long ago was that, now?”
Crowley had to think about that one. He remembered, very distantly, a chance meeting they’d had, long before they’d stopped pretending not to be friends, before the Arrangement was even a twinkle in Crowley’s slitted eye. He snapped his fingers at Aziraphale. “Bethlehem. 452 A.D.”
Aziraphale’s eyes stared at him. Many of them blinked. “You remember the date?”
“ ’Course I do, I’ve got a great memory. Besides, you know the saying about the devil being in the details.”
“Yes, but you didn’t make that one up, Crowley—I believe the humans can be blamed for that one. It certainly wasn’t my lot.”
“Ah, but who do you think they were talking about, Angel?” Crowley said with a cocky grin.
Aziraphale did not look amused; all five of his mouths were pursed.
Crowley cleared his throat. “Anyway. Bethlehem. You were, as you say, putting the fear of the Almighty into some poor chap, and I was busy tempting some rabbis.” (This was really only a lie by omission, as Crowley had been tempting them to join him in a local bar for a game of dice because he was horribly bored, rather than with any of the usual sins, as he was supposed to be doing.) “Well, I turned a street corner” (leaving the unmoved rabbis behind in a huff) “and there you were, in some filthy back alleyway, showing off to some unfortunate unbeliever.”
They had made eye contact (well, Crowley had made eye contact with a random pair of eyes on one of Aziraphale’s many wings, but the result was just as awkward) and then, more out of instinct than anything else, Crowley had waved his hand in a kind of uncertain half-greeting. Aziraphale, just as surprised to see him and caught off-guard, did his own little wave. At the time, it was such an unusual interaction for an angel and a demon to have that neither of them really wanted to think about it too thoroughly. Crowley wasn’t in the city to thwart any miracles of Aziraphale’s, so he didn’t feel the need to interrupt, and went on his way, thinking of large, hazel eyes.
“I was not showing off,” Aziraphale said, wings fluttering defensively. Across the world, in a Mongolian forest, there was a particularly strong gust of wind. No one was around to hear it, but it definitely made a sound. “I was . . . educating him. He was a bit of a scoundrel, some sort of dealer I believe. I was supposed to stop him taking money from innocents, or some-such. At the time, you know, I was keen on actually doing my job, Crowley.”
Crowley pointed a dark, painted nail at him. “I know you, Angel, don’t pretend you didn’t get a little thrill out of scaring the daylights out of a little weasel like that.”
Aziraphale’s eyes all lowered sheepishly. “Well. Perhaps a bit. I never would have admitted to it at the time, though.”
“Regardless,” Crowley said. “You looked just the same then as you do now. I literally can’t forget the sight, so you really ought to trust me on this one.”
Aziraphale’s entire being hummed for a moment as he considered this. “That’s very kind of you to say, Crowley,” he said slowly, “but I feel how I feel, I’m afraid.” He could see that Crowley was frowning, and quickly went on, “Don’t worry yourself over it, my dear. As I said, I’m quite all right. I just wanted to try to sort myself out before we went to dinner. It doesn’t bode well to dress up for a nice meal out with your best friend and feel out of sorts on several other dimensions.” Aziraphale tried to survey himself with his own eyes, without much success; there are some things you can really only do with a working mirror handy.
In that moment, there were several things Crowley wanted to say to Aziraphale. He wanted to say You look wonderful, and I do remember what it’s like to have an angelic form, you know, it’s not the sort of thing you easily forget, so believe it or not I do have some idea of what you’re going through, and I could help you with it if you’d let me, Angel, and You’re built like the rest of them but you aren’t the rest of them, can’t you see that, even if you’re not Falling you don’t have to be like them anymore, you can be as scattered as you like, you can take up the whole Universe if you felt like it because if you really wanted to, none of them could stop you, not the Armies of Heaven or Hell or anywhere in between, and I love you, and You’re terrifying, and You’re being ridiculous, and You absolutely were showing off in Bethlehem, but you earned it, and you should show off more often, because they all deserve to see you like this, the way I get to see you. Instead, what Crowley said was, “By the way, what’s the bread?”
“Hm? What?” said Aziraphale, wings twitching in confusion.
“The toast thing you were going on about earlier. With the butter and all. If you’re the butter, what’s the bread?”
Aziraphale had to think for a moment. “The Universe, I suppose.”
“Bloody big piece of bread, Angel.”
“Well that’s just the point, isn’t it?”
Now Crowley was confused. “What is the point?”
“The point is—all this talk of bread has made me hungry, and we best head off before they give away our reservation.”
Crowley scoffed. “They wouldn’t dare.”
“Nevertheless. Mind your eyes, my dear.” As Crowley shielded his eyes, the light around Aziraphale grew brighter and brighter, until there was a strange kind of crackling sound of the Universe rearranging itself. The process of a massive, multi-dimensional celestial being stuffing itself back into a relatively tiny three-dimensional space was not an easy task for Reality to handle, but it managed it eventually (not without some otherworldly groaning). When Crowley moved his hand away, Aziraphale was back in human form, genteel as you please, straightening his waistcoat in the mirror (which had reluctantly decided to reflect its surroundings again).
Crowley noticed a flash of bright silver and gold at Aziraphale’s neck. “That a new bow-tie?” Crowley said, retrieving the champagne bottle, now sweaty with condensation.
Aziraphale turned to smile at him. “It is, dear boy, thank you for noticing.”
“You look very nice,” Crowley said sincerely.
“Oh, I’m well aware. But thank you for saying so.”
“I mean in every dimension, Angel.”
Aziraphale looked at him, this time only with two eyes, but they were still hazel and they were still his. He smiled with only one mouth, small and hopeful. “Crowley.”
“Aziraphale.”
With the smallest of sighs, Aziraphale stepped forward and placed a single, prim kiss on Crowley’s mouth. He tasted of ozone. It was divine, Crowley thought, in the most human sense of the word. “You’re a dear, have I ever told you that?” Aziraphale said, and kissed him again, for much longer this time.
When they separated, Crowley said, “You tell me all the time. It’s annoying, really.”
Aziraphale laughed, very loud and very long. Crowley almost dropped the champagne. “Oh, dearest,” Aziraphale said when he was done, eyes shining with mirth, “now I’m never going to stop.”
As they descended the front steps of the bookshop, where the Bentley was parked illegally on the curb, waiting for them, Crowley said, “You know, Angel, I rather like my butter spread thin.”
“Do you now?” said Aziraphale, as Crowley opened the passenger door for him.
“Oh yes. Best to cover most of the bread, isn’t it?”
“Ah, well,” Aziraphale said as he climbed in, with a tight-lipped smile that meant he was really pleased. “I suppose it is.”
“And,” Crowley said once he’d come round the car and climbed into the driver’s seat, “I like plenty of butter.” Crowley did not brandish any kind of key, but the Bentley’s engine roared to life anyway, and began ferrying them towards central London.
“My dear, I do believe this metaphor has gotten away from you.”
“Oh, you know what I mean,” Crowley said. He paused for only a moment, then went on. “I like you, Angel. Plenty. In any form.”
“I know, Crowley,” Aziraphale said kindly.
“I didn’t know how else to say it.”
Aziraphale reached across the dashboard to take Crowley’s hand in his. “You said it wonderfully, my dear,” he said, and as he stretched his wings to their limit in ten other dimensions at once, Aziraphale settled in for the ride.