Chapter Text
Parrhesia, Greek: speaking unreservedly or candidly; the obligation to speak as such.
Crowley claimed that it had been more of a saunter than a fall.
But that was a lie.
The thing was, the sauntering version of the story gave him a feeling of control. It supported his facade of being nonchalant and collected, always cool about everything. Yeah, Falling, it was no big deal, really. Just a light jaunt, you know how it is. A Sunday stroll. Not like he told the story of his fall much, but the few times he had he just used that snazzy line about sauntering or some variant thereof and ended the conversation as abruptly as he could. The truth struck a chord inside him that he didn’t like and which didn’t mesh with the version of himself he projected—the version of himself that he wanted to be for Aziraphale, because Aziraphale wouldn’t like the truth.
Crowley did suspect that Aziraphale didn’t fully believe him. But then again, Aziraphale tended to make funny faces on a regular basis, so maybe That Look paired with the story Crowley told was just a coincidence and he was being paranoid. Regardless, Aziraphale had never confronted Crowley once about it in 6,000 years. The few times it had cropped up in conversation, he accepted Crowley’s move of shutting it down without protest. No sense making a fuss over something that happened millennia ago, he supposed.
Crowley was a rarity amongst demons in that he held in his possession an artefact from his Fall. Most demons eventually embraced their new and hated nature, shedding any and all evidence of their angelic pasts. But not Anthony J. Crowley. No, those first few days—well, maybe months—well, maybe years after his Fall had hit him hard. He was not a demon; this new body did not belong to him. He bore scars from those first years, both self-inflicted and not, delineating the curvature of the muscles in his shoulders and back and chest. Some were tiny and barely noticeable; others were stare-worthy in their length and jaggedness, the way you could just tell by looking at them that they still ached in the earliest hours of the morning. The ones marring his back were from the Fall. The ones near his heart were done by his own hand. Crowley could have miracled all of them away without a problem, but something about doing so felt Wrong with a capital W. He’d come close a few times over the centuries; of course he had. But he could never build up the willpower to do it. The scars reminded him of what he was, deep down somewhere in the pit of his stomach. Getting rid of them...no matter how much the better part of him wanted to, he couldn’t toss away his past like that.
He just couldn’t.
So he resigned himself to never being shirtless around anyone with eyes (and, for good measure, anyone without eyes, too). Nothing to look at meant no questions meant his carefully-crafted image was safely preserved. It was the same reason he wore his sunglasses: he could not expose his real self to the world. Not that this (gesturing generally to Crowley, crimson-haired head to black-leather-shoe-encapsulated toe) was his real self, per se, but...it was symbolism, all elaborate wrought-iron gates he’d erected around himself for protection. Never shirtless, sunglasses everywhere, remain unaffected by his Fall as much as possible. These were the rules that Crowley set for himself and which he lived his life by, without exception. It worked; it really did.
And then he started to drop the glasses around Aziraphale, because Aziraphale had been the first to look at his eyes in a way that didn’t make him hate himself: with gentle fascination and then, rather quickly, awe and admiration. It shocked Crowley anew every time the angel ( his angel, his angel! , demons are possessive creatures but his angel , he didn’t think he’d ever get over it) made eye contact with him. Aziraphale’s eyes were hazel, a brilliant blend of browns and greens that looked different but just as stunning every day depending on the light and the angle of viewing. His eyes betrayed him: Crowley couldn’t count the number of times they had argued and then moments later he’d caught a glance from Aziraphale that told him just how much love was held for him in that heart. His eyes were what Crowley had fallen in love with first, what he’d noticed in the Garden. His eyes were him in the same way that Crowley’s were not him . But when Aziraphale looked at those sulfuric, slit-pupiled eyes, there was no revulsion or fear. There never had been, not even when they had first met. Just Aziraphale as a fixed point of love around which Crowley orbited fitfully, a planet whose surface of smooth, solid ice hid tempestuous and uncertain seas. It was because Aziraphale loved him, and he was certain of it, the first thing he’d...ever...been certain about, that he stopped wearing his sunglasses around him.
It was a perfect storm, really.
The days after Armageddidn’t stretched into weeks which uncurled into months. And they were happy months, certainly, the happiest Crowley had experienced in a very long time. He felt comfortable around Aziraphale without question, but he did not feel comfortable around himself. Nevertheless, he found himself getting careless. He discarded his glasses the second he walked in the door of A.Z. Fell & Co. and almost forgot to put them back on before he left, more than once. He started to unlock a (curated) few of the gates he’d put up, bit by bit, for Aziraphale. It was so easy to do now, with all this time on their hands, with the certainty that they were going to be all right, with his angel’s kind gaze resting upon him.
So he was shirtless. Once. Not because of physical desires or a need to show off, just because he was hot and Aziraphale would not turn the air conditioning on. It was August. It was boiling and humid. And Crowley, well aware of the irony, did not like the heat. He was only cold-blooded as a serpent, a form he hadn’t assumed in at least three thousand years. In this shape, in all-black silk and wool, he was positively miserable. So he took off his shirt. Just to cool down. A last-ditch effort, something he hadn’t even been thinking about.
Aziraphale was reclining on a couch opposite Crowley’s, thumbing through a first-edition copy of the Gutenberg Bible, when it happened. They had been sitting in companionable silence when Crowley, without warning, began wrestling with his clothing. The grunts and huffs of struggle were what made Aziraphale look up from his book, a small smile of amusement on his face. Crowley had, apparently, chosen to forego undoing buttons and to try instead to lift his ebony silk blouse over his head, an action which immediately proved to be quite futile. It exposed his torso quite brilliantly, and Aziraphale would have had no complaints about this except for the fact that Crowley’s skin was absolutely covered in some rather dramatic scars.
His smile faded when he saw them.
They were everywhere , of such an alarming variety of sizes and in such great quantity that Aziraphale was almost, morbidly, impressed. Some of them were mere centimeters in length. Others crawled like horrid vines across his flesh. Aziraphale went nearly slack-jawed as he watched, gaze transfixed on his demon’s marred chest. After a few moments of struggle, Crowley dropped his shirt back over his torso with a huff and began to fuss with the buttons.
Time yawned and stretched as Crowley, who really preferred zippers, undid the first button. Then the second, then the third. The shirt peeled away, once again revealing, bit by bit, the scars. Aziraphale had thought maybe he’d been seeing things, but no: there they were. He felt sick in a way only angels could. Fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh button. Crowley did not notice Aziraphale staring. Eighth button, and Crowley wriggled out of the sleeves as fast as he could, tossed the shirt away, and laid down on the couch with another dramatic huff, eyes shut. “Angel,” he said with a playful whine in his voice, “look what you’ve made me do . It’s not like you have to pay the bills, would it really have killed you to turn on some A/C? For me? Your favorite and only demon?”
Aziraphale did not reply. He couldn’t . He tried to, but the words just jammed in his throat. He couldn’t take his eyes off those scars. “Angel?” Crowley asked, suddenly realizing that something was wrong. “Aziraphale? What is it?”
He opened his eyes. Turned his head towards Aziraphale. And knew.
It was the first time Aziraphale had looked upon him with any emotion that could be considered at all “negative.” Well, it wasn’t really “negative,” to be fair. There was a good amount of concern in the expression that so suddenly landed upon his face. Shock, absolutely. Confusion, definitely. And not fear, really, but a feeling that approached the territory, perhaps the sudden realization that Crowley was indeed capable of inflicting lasting physical damage to something living, houseplants excluded. The scars were just there , almost obscene when placed atop the background of Crowley’s otherwise flawless skin, a Sharpie mustache drawn on a Monet.
Comedic in the sheer wrongness of it.
For a second, Crowley considered putting his shirt on as fast as he could, but that would just be stupid—Aziraphale had seen his scars already. He considered wiping Aziraphale’s memory but didn’t know if that would work on an angel and the thought of doing that to him immediately made Crowley feel awful. He almost miracled them away, after all this time, knowing that losing the scars would be infinitely preferable if it meant he wouldn’t lose Aziraphale. But after he exhausted those options, his mind went blank.
“Angel?” he tried again, weaker. Aziraphale was just...staring. There was some emotion twisting in those hazel eyes that Crowley loved so much, some emotion that Crowley had never seen before on Aziraphale’s face. Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid , Crowley thought. His world, the image of himself he had spent so much time building and maintaining, Aziraphale’s undying love for him, everything was crumbling around him now. He watched it in real-time, felt each brick fall square on his heart. Never shirtless, sunglasses everywhere . How hard was it to follow? How useless was he? He could see in Aziraphale’s face that the knowledge of what a monster Crowley was was dawning on him. Something white-hot began to burn at his eyes and lodge in the back of his throat. He felt like he was being torn apart. He was going to lose everything, all because of his own idiocy. He could see it unfurling before him: Aziraphale would assume the worst of him, or he would ask questions, and then he’d have no choice but to expose his true self and Aziraphale would leave. Simple as that. His vision went fuzzy. Without Aziraphale, he would have nothing. He couldn’t go back to Hell, not that he’d want to. He couldn’t befriend humans, not really, not in a way that mattered, because they’d just die after a few decades. He couldn’t stop himself from trembling at the prospect of being alone, truly alone, forever.
Acid dripped down his face, slowly at first, then all at once. He burned, again and again.
Not once, not in 6,000 years, had he ever cried in front of Aziraphale. In front of anyone .
The sight of those tears, inconspicuous but holding so much power, shocked Aziraphale out of his stupor. Filled with alarm, he immediately crossed the room from his couch onto Crowley’s, sitting on the small sliver of cushion Crowley had left vacant. “Crowley, dearest, no, no no no, don’t cry, please don’t cry,” he whispered, cupping Crowley’s face in his soft hands and wiping away the tears the best he could with his thumbs. He knew that crying, for demons, was incredibly painful. Their tears were holy water, the holiest of holy water, the only thing about them that didn’t become twisted after they fell. Whether it was a cruelty on God’s part or just something that could not be taken from them, Aziraphale didn’t know and didn’t have time to think about. He looked Crowley in the eyes, something that had always seemed to ground his demon, calm him down. But this time, it only seemed to make things worse.
Something was breaking inside of Crowley and Aziraphale had no idea what it was. Cautiously, he extended his empathic abilities just a bit more than usual—angels could feel emotions other than love, they just often weren’t equipped to, emotions could hurt so much —and nearly started crying himself. The pain went back: far, far back, before they had met, before Crowley was Crowley. Eons . That was the only way to explain the depth of it, the absolute soul-crushing magnitude of it. It fell upon him in horrible waves. He nearly broke, but was experienced enough in the art of empathy that he managed to get his bearings after a moment. There was so much love buried in these feelings, too—pain caused by love, fear caused by love—love for him, and for Earth, and for the stars, and for someone who he felt didn’t love him back.
“Please, Crowley, you’re scaring me,” Aziraphale said softly, cutting off the stream of emotion and focusing again on Crowley’s face, full of terror and sadness. His gaze was unfocused, far beyond the bookstore, maybe turned inward. “Crowley. Listen to me. Can you listen to me? Listen to my voice.” He kept his tone steady despite his rising panic—could demons die by their own tears? There was smoke rising from the tracks on Crowley’s face but he didn’t seem to be in danger of melting. Aziraphale didn’t want to take a chance.
Crowley’s eyes finally swam into focus at the sound of his voice and Aziraphale nearly collapsed. “I need you to stop crying,” he said, trying and failing to hide his desperation. He couldn’t lose Crowley, not so suddenly, not like this. “Breathe—in four, hold four, out four. Please. Please , Crowley. Please breathe. For me.”
Aziraphale watched with bated breath as Crowley shakily obeyed. He kept Crowley’s face cupped in his hands, wiped away the tears as thoroughly as he could until the tension began to leave Crowley’s shoulders and the flow of his tears ebbed and, at last, stopped. Weak with relief, Aziraphale wrapped his arms around his demon and pulled him into a brief, but tight, hug. “Oh, Crowley,” he murmured. “You gave me quite a fright there, you...you wily old serpent. Scared me half to discorporation.”
He was surprised to find Crowley start to push him away, gentle but firm. He sat back, confused and a little hurt. Crowley did not make eye contact with him. He drew his legs up near his chest and wrapped his arms around them. He was trembling something awful and didn’t seem to be in the mood to talk. Aziraphale was, to say the least, disquieted by the sight. He noticed his own hands were shaking and inconspicuously clasped them together in his lap to hide it.
They sat there for about a minute before Aziraphale couldn’t stand the silence anymore. “I’ll…” He grasped for something, anything, to say. “Well, I’ll...I suppose I’ll make us some tea now.” A nice warm cup of tea always settled the nerves, he figured. Tea with maybe something just a tad stronger, at least. But as he started to stand, Crowley made a tiny, strangled sound and said something too quiet for Aziraphale to hear.
“...Pardon, dear?”
“Don’t leave me,” he repeated, and the sheer rawness of his voice made Aziraphale freeze. Crowley uncurled himself and reached out a shivering hand to grab the hem of Aziraphale’s coat. “Don’t leave me, angel. I can’t be alone. I can’t .” His lower lip was trembling as much as the rest of him, and Aziraphale sat abruptly, worried Crowley would cry again. He took Crowley’s hand in both of his and squeezed gently.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he promised, voice quieter than he’d anticipated it to be.
Crowley ducked his head and looked away. The two of them sat in a heavy silence for several languid minutes, perhaps ten, perhaps twenty, perhaps sixty. And while they sat, Aziraphale tried to process what had happened. The Crowley whose hand he did not dare let go of was not the Crowley he thought he knew. The sudden collapse, the vulnerability, the fear, the reaction to Aziraphale’s expression...he did find it odd now that he’d never seen Crowley even casually shirtless after so long in his company; the demon did, after all, seem like someone who would flaunt his body rather than hide it...the whole situation was very strange and Aziraphale didn’t like not knowing what was going on.
“I meant,” Crowley said suddenly, and Aziraphale looked over at him. His eyes were shut tightly. He looked like he was in pain. “I meant, angel, don’t leave me. I can’t live without you.”
“I’d never!” Aziraphale said, shocked. “My dear, it’s not like you to think so foolishly.” He paused, brow furrowing, then took a deep breath and said, “What’s going on, Crowley? Why did you hide your scars from me?”
Crowley looked like he was about to cry again, and Aziraphale fought a new wave of panic. But then he shut his eyes tightly and hissed through his teeth in frustration. “Because I knew you would ask about them and I couldn’t...I...Aziraphale, they’re like my eyes. They raise too many questions that I don’t want to answer. And I knew that, if I did answer those questions, if I answered them honestly, you would...you might not want to be around me anymore.”
“That’s...ridiculous.” Aziraphale tried his best, but couldn’t suppress a snort of derision. “A few scars won’t make me l—”
“It’s not about the scars, angel!” Crowley snapped suddenly. His eyes flew open, his face twisting into a snarl, and Aziraphale flinched away with a gasp, caught off-guard. Crowley saw this, and abruptly pulled his hand from between Aziraphale’s, crossing his arms over his chest. The anger departed from his face as quickly as it had arrived and he was left looking terribly afraid and regretful. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry, angel. I’d never—I didn’t mean to—fuck. Fuck! ” He ducked his head, entwining his fingers in his hair and letting his shoulders fall. He looked utterly, completely, wholly defeated. Aziraphale could not help, in this moment, noticing a long, dusky-pink wound running from the center of one shoulder all the way across Crowley’s collarbone to the center of the other shoulder. It looked deliberate and heavy, like he’d tried to cut something out of himself, make a ritual sacrifice out of his own body to appease some distant and uncaring god.
Oh.
“You did this to yourself, didn’t you?” Azirphale whispered.
Crowley nodded without looking up. He made another strangled sound. “It’s not about the scars,” he said, quiet and resigned. “It’s about the story behind the scars. I didn’t want you to ask because I didn’t want you to know what I was. Am. I didn’t want you to see me in...I didn’t want you to see the real me. I don’t want to see the real me. It worked for six thousand years and now, today, I ruined everything because I’m so fucking stupid .” A self-deprecating laugh. “Can’t get myself out of this one, can I? Crawly, the serpent, the snake, the hardest animal to fucking catch, and I can’t slither my way out of this one. Fuck.”
Aziraphale did not like any part of this, but he especially did not like hearing Crowley’s old name. He did not like hearing Crowley talk about himself like this. And he did not like Crowley being so ignorant as to think that his past would preclude Aziraphale from loving him with all of his heart.
“For the record,” he began tentatively, “I find snakes rather beautiful.”
“You’re an angel,” Crowley muttered. “You’d find a garbage dump beautiful.”
Aziraphale would have retorted if it wasn’t true. He had seen a patch of daisies growing near a dump once, and they had been rather beautiful. “Don’t change the subject,” he scolded instead. “I find snakes especially beautiful.”
Crowley made a dismissive noise in the back of his throat.
“ Crowley .” Aziraphale allowed a bit of force to enter his voice. “I want to know the story. The full story. I don’t know why I didn’t ask you before what the truth was, but I have always known that it wasn’t as easy as ‘sauntering vaguely downwards’ into Hell. I’m not a fool.” Satisfied with himself, he returned to his usual softness. He wanted Crowley to know he was being wholly honest. “I love you, Crowley. And don’t give me a sarcastic line about it! I may be an angel, but my love is not, in fact, endless. And you receive the most, the very most of it. Do you understand? I will never not love you. Whatever your story is, however gruesome or terrible it may be, it will not change the way I feel about you. I’m...well, I’m terribly sorry you felt as though your whole self wasn’t...worthy of that love. I should have made it clearer that I don’t care who you were, only who you are .”
He scooted over until he was touching Crowley’s legs and leaned over until he could reach out and rest his hand on one of Crowley’s shoulders. He ran his thumb ever so gently over the scar tissue that made Crowley’s skin uneven and unique. He wished he had known sooner. He wished he had known centuries ago. “I’m sorry for my reaction,” he whispered. “I was just surprised, is all. It seemed like...a very different part of you. I’m so very sorry.”
They were both silent. Aziraphale did not withdraw his hand from Crowley’s shoulder, and Crowley didn’t move it. Aziraphale was about to speak again when Crowley suddenly said, “Raphael. That was who I was.”
Aziraphale blinked once, then twice, brow furrowing. Raphael ...it had been an important name, he remembered that much, but…
Raphael. Archangel Raphael. The healer.
Aziraphale half-chuckled, an uncertain smile playing on his lips, but it didn’t last. “Y...you?” he said, trying to order his thoughts in a way that made sense. “ You were Raphael? But he…Raphael was…”
“Different.” Crowley lifted his head. There was so much pain in his voice, in his eyes, in the set of his jaw. He looked like he might cry again, and Aziraphale’s heart snagged on a hook of fear at the thought. “A cautionary tale. The first to Fall.”
Aziraphale didn’t think about Heaven-before-Earth much. Principalities were not and had never been important, and he’d been an especially unimportant one. Back then, Archangels limited their interaction with the lower classes, but Raphael had been...had been...an exception. Strange but kind, modest when the others were proud. He’d been disliked by most, probably because they were jealous. There had been one occasion when Aziraphale and Raphael had interacted, briefly. He couldn’t remember the reason or the details but he remembered a feeling and a face. Raphael had exuded warmth and compassion, been constantly surrounded by light and love. He’d given himself raven-dark hair and gentle green eyes—and he’d been the first angel to craft himself a human form.
He’d been the first in so many things.
Crowley had the same nose, the same tendency to wear his heart on his sleeve (or in his expression). But the warmth, the light…
Aziraphale recalled the love that underlied every emotion Crowley felt, the love that permeated every room Crowley ever entered. Crowley had proven himself to be gentle. He had proven himself to be kind. Heaven’s sake, he’d fallen in love with a being made of love.
He’d held a Bentley together with nothing but his willpower. Mended dents with a stare. Picked Aziraphale up and dusted him off countless times over the centuries. He held a deep concern for children, had secretly pledged to himself never to do real harm to anyone or anything if it could ever be avoided.
Raphael. Archangel. Healer. Of course .
“Unbelievable.” There was awe in Aziraphale’s whisper.
Crowley’s expression suddenly grew complicated and forlorn. He didn’t like the way Aziraphale was looking at him, like cherubs had sprung up and were singing holy hymns around him. It wasn’t natural.
“Don’t talk to me like that,” Crowley said, allowing just a little venom to enter his voice. “You’re talking like I’m some sort of king. I’m not Raphael anymore. I don’t know exactly who I am instead , not yet, but I know—angel, I know I’m not an Archangel. So...so please, Aziraphale, don’t. Don’t ever do that again.”
Aziraphale’s eyes widened and his face grew a shade or two pinker. “Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry,” he said softly. “I didn’t even know I was doing it. I just never…” He ducked his head briefly, shame written in his expression, and it made Crowley feel very strange. Aziraphale then looked back up at him, almost cautiously, his gaze earnest and complex. “So you’ve told me your name. Your old name,” he said. “But, Crowley, I still don’t know your whole story. I want to know it. I want to know you .”
He reached out and tenderly clasped Crowley’s hands in his once again. Crowley looked down them and set about committing every detail to memory: the reassuring weight of Aziraphale’s palms in his, the warmth of his skin, the slight roughness of his knuckles, Crowley’s perfectly-manicured, black-painted nails in contrast with Aziraphale’s, cut and nothing else.
Crowley sighed. It was a long sigh, a tired sigh, directed simultaneously at nobody in particular and at the entire Universe, above and below and between.
“Okay,” he said, scarcely a whisper. “For you, angel.”
Sometimes Aziraphale would feel something so strongly that everyone within a ten-foot radius would suddenly develop mild empathic abilities. This was one of those times. I love you and that love is undying said the feeling, and Crowley had to fight hard against a new burning in his throat. He squeezed Aziraphale’s hands, to reassure himself, to ground himself. He swallowed once. And then he began.