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Aziraphale never visited Crowley’s flat before. He knew where it was, sure, just in case, but more often than not, Crowley was over at the bookshop instead. Even Crowley said it’s more of a place that holds his things; he didn't really live in it. It felt more personal, anyway, for Aziraphale to go to Crowley’s flat, which is why he never did it. Now that the bookshop burned, however, Crowley invited Aziraphale to stay at his place. Maybe together, they can figure out what the final prophecy means.
“It’s a little messy,” are the first words out of Crowley’s mouth as they walk off of the bus in front of the block of flats. “Didn’t have time to clean after earlier; I went running straight over to the bookshop since you had called.”
“After what?” Aziraphale asks, trying to think back through everything that happened today.
“You called and I couldn’t talk, remember? And that was after I tried to get you to run away with me.” He unlocks the building door and holds it open, letting the angel walk in first.
“Oh yes, you said you had a friend over.” His brow furrows as he realizes, “It wasn’t a friend, was it? Oh, dear, what happened?”
"I told you earlier, Hell found out about the antichrist mishap,” he answers with a shrug. “Stairs are this way, angel. The lift is dodgy and tends to smell.”
“So a demon came to get you?” Aziraphale says, horrified. “How did you get away?”
“There were two, actually. I trapped Hastur on a tape in my answering machine, though he got out,” he explains. “Ligur is still a puddle of goo on the floor, which is the mess I was referring to.”
“The Holy Water,” Aziraphale whispers, dazed.
“Yep,” Crowley answers, popping the p. Once they reach the top of the building, Crowley realizes the door was never fixed from when Hastur and Ligur kicked it down. With a snap, the door is brand new and open, revealing the empty gray hallway. “Feel free to look around and get to know the place; I need to find a mop.”
“Oh, let me do it, dear,” Aziraphale insists. “I don’t want you accidentally stepping in Holy Water if there’s some left.”
“Fine, okay,” he answers after a pause. “Would you like something to drink?”
“Do you have any cocoa?” Aziraphale asks with a twinkle in his eye. “We really shouldn’t drink any more alcohol tonight if we are going to figure this prophecy out.”
Crowley nods before disappearing off into the flat, leaving Aziraphale without telling him where the puddle of demon remnants is. Luckily it's right inside an open door, so it's not hard to find. Aziraphale stares at it for a few seconds, remembering when he gave Crowley the Holy Water. You go to fast for me, Crowley, he had said, handing over what he assumed would eventually end up being Crowley’s death. He realizes now he had it wrong – Crowley never intended to use it on himself. He wanted it for this specific reason; even back then, he was willing to betray Hell. With a sigh, Aziraphale does a little miracle to make the puddle disappear without a trace, Holy Water and all. Too fast echoes in his head. Too fast for me. Now that he realizes his mistake, he hopes he's not too late.
With nothing to do but wait on Crowley now, Aziraphale lets his curiosity take over to distract him from his thoughts. He looks around the room he’s in, taking in Crowley’s minimal decorations and the throne he has for a chair. Something green in the next room catches his eye as he circles the nearly bare desk. It belongs to Crowley’s collection of plants, which are all holding a fictitious breath as they wait for Crowley to return to yell at them.
“Oh,” Aziraphale remarks as he enters the room and softly brushes his fingertips across the bottom of a leaf, taking in the beauty of them all. “Aren’t you just beautiful?” He didn’t know Crowley had an affinity for gardening; he’d have to ask him about his secret to making the plants so luxurious some time. The plants grow giddy – they’ve never heard a compliment before.
There’s another hallway off of the plant room, and Aziraphale can hear the sounds of Crowley moving around, so he starts down the hall to find him before getting caught up on the statue resting on a pedestal at the end of the room. He stops in front of it, trying to figure out what it is and what it means.
“Okay angel, two mugs of hot cocoa full of marshmallows–” he cuts off suddenly when he sees Aziraphale at the statue.
"Where on earth did you get that?" is all Aziraphale can say.
Crowley stutters before managing “What?” as he hurries over to the angel, mugs in hand.
“Wel, it certainly isn’t from Heaven, and I don’t think Hell is that into art either…”
“Cocoa?” Crowley offers, holding the mug out and trying to change the subject.
Aziraphale accepts the mug but still looks to Crowley expectantly, waiting on an answer.
“Ugh, okay, fine! Remember that one artist dude, Michaelangelo?”
“This is a Michaelangelo piece?” he says, shocked, eyes darting back to the angel and the demon in their compromising position.
“Yeah. I was tempting him because that one church asked him to paint everything. He was already mad about it, so I told him it would be funny to make everyone naked and suchlike, though I have to take full credit for one of the people in ‘The Last Judgement’ behind the altar – I only wish I could have seen that bitch of a Master of Ceremonies reaction when he saw himself basically nude in Hell.”
“That doesn’t explain this statue, dear,” Aziraphale prompts.
“Well, I was tempting him for a number of years! And some stuff happened… accidentally. I didn’t mean for him to make this one, I think I must have been rambling drunk again, and it inspired him. I bought it off of him as soon as he showed it to me to make sure no one else saw it.” He adverts his gaze and stares at the wall, trying to fight down the blush rising in his embarrassment.
Aziraphale nods and takes a sip of the cocoa as he turns his gaze back to the statue. “Are they, er… Wrestling?”
“Presumably,” Crowley mutters before clearing his throat and looking back to Aziraphale, saying, “Come on, let’s go figure out that prophecy.”
“...right,” he says, turning to follow Crowley back through the plant room and into what can only be called an office, but now there’s another chair next to the throne that looks strangely similar to Aziraphale’s usual chair in the bookshop. Crowley must have done something to replicate the chair while Aziraphale was not paying attention, but when he sits, he finds he still has a perfect view of the statue.
“So,” Crowley starts, laying the scrap of paper down on the table. “Playing with fire. Choosing our faces. Was Agnes high?”
Aziraphale purses his lips as he says, “Everything in that book was entirely true, so, more than likely, no. I only found Adam to begin with because of her; she told me my cocoa was growing cold and gave me the phone number to Adam’s house.”
“Maybe that’s why her last name was Nutter,” Crowley continues, ignoring Aziraphale’s explanation. “Because she was a nutcase.”
“Crowley this is serious!” Aziraphale says. “Playing with fire isn’t something to joke about!”
“Well, Heaven and Hell are probably going to come after us once the armies are all settled down and back to their regularly scheduled programs. I’d say treason is a pretty big deal, and it's probably going to have its repercussions, but I killed Ligur with that Holy Water. They’re going to want me, and they’re going to want to do something terrible.”
“You don’t think…” Aziraphale trails off, concern blooming across his face. “You don’t think they’d try and kill you too, do you? Permanently, I mean?”
Crowley pauses for a second to think before shrugging and, as casually as he can, answering, “Wouldn't put it past them, if they could find a way to get their hands on it.” He takes a drink of his cocoa to distract him from what that might mean, suddenly wishing he spiked it.
“If they were to acquire Holy Water,” Aziraphale continues as an idea starts to form. “Do you think Heaven would be able to get Hellfire?”
“Do you think the angels would do that?” Crowley counters.
Aziraphale grimaces before nodding slightly.
“Choose your faces wisely…” Crowley repeats, playing with the corner of the paper. “You don’t think… If those are to be our punishments, surely Agnes is telling us to – to – swap bodies?”
Aziraphale grows flustered and looks away, eyes landing on the statue again, but he gives a brief nod.
Crowley gives a vague nod in return and says, “Well, we better hope Agnes is right then.”
Aziraphale does not answer; instead remembering what Crowley said about the statue – something he missed earlier. “Dear, how would a drunk ramble turn into a sculpture like that?”
“Ugh,” Crowley says with a roll of his eyes, his head falling to hit the table. “You couldn’t just let it go,” he grumbles into the table.
“Good and Evil wrestling with Evil triumphing, I presume is what Michaelangelo was going for. But there are several ways to represent that; it didn’t have to be an angel and a demon.”
Crowley moves his head so he can see Aziraphale, resting his chin on the table. “It was definitely because I was mad you beat me to Donatello the century before.”
“Dear, you’re going to have to try harder than that if you’re not going to tell me the truth.”
“How am I supposed to remember what happened when I was drunk? All I remember was earlier that day you asked me out to whatever that restaurant was with the fancy dessert, and he asked what I had been up to, and the conversation turned into… you… all I remember was rambling about–” he cuts himself off and hides his face on the table again.
“About what?” Aziraphale asks softly, gently placing his hand over the top of Crowley's and leaning closer.
“About how oblivious you are!” he rushes out, head almost running into Aziraphale’s as he sits back up properly. Now that he has started, he can't stop. “About how I’ve tried, and tried, and tried; throwing little hints everywhere, trying to show you – trying to show –”
Aziraphale cuts him off by reaching up and pulling his face to his, crashing their lips together sloppily in a way that only a person who spent years of observing kissing but never actually doing it himself would. He can see Crowley’s eyes behind the sunglasses from this close, wide with shock, so he closes his own to give Crowley time to snap out of it.
When Crowley does snap out of it, he flips his hand so he can squeeze Aziraphale’s that was still on his, pressing back into the kiss with all the love he’s held for the angel in six thousand years.
Finally breaking apart and gasping for air, even though they really don’t need to breathe, Aziraphale smiles at Crowley dopily while Crowley still stares in shock.
“I didn’t really think they were wrestling,” Aziraphale admits quietly, picking his mug up and swirling it before taking a drink. “And I thought I was the only one.”
“You–” Crowley starts, trying to form something coherent. Even as he does, he can not stop himself from hissing a little. “Ssee? Thiss is what I mean! Sso bloody oblivious. I can’t believe you didn’t know.”
“In my defense, I was having trouble defining what I was feeling for a while. I don’t think the fear of the other angels helped, but I don’t care about them anymore. All I need on any plane of existence is you.”
“Well we better hope we have the whole Heaven and Hell thing down right,” Crowley sighs, still holding Aziraphale’s hand tightly while rubbing his thumb in gentle circles across it. “I’m not losing you after six thousand years of waiting and hinting finally gave me what I wanted.”
Aziraphale smiles and leans in again, and Crowley meets him halfway this time, kissing each other slowly and tenderly.
“Okay, that’s weird,” Crowley says when Aziraphale pulls away, except he does not look like Aziraphale anymore – he looks like Crowley. Looking down as himself, Crowley now looks like Aziraphale – and sounds like Aziraphale. “You couldn’t wait on the body switch thing?”
“I didn’t want to forget to do it, or for someone to show up before we switched,” Aziraphale answers, sounding like Crowley too.
“Well, don’t expect any more kisses tonight then; I am not kissing myself.”
“Fine,” Aziraphale agrees with a roll of Crowley’s serpentine eyes. Their hands stay connected, holding on to each other tightly as silence falls between them, eyes hardly leaving the other.
Aziraphale’s eyes flick to the statue again. “Like you’d be a top,” he comments casually before taking a sip of his cocoa.
Surprised and affronted, Crowley exclaims, “Where the fuck did you learnthat?”