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All people were made in pairs. People have long since theorized about why this was the case; the realists believed that it was more efficient that way, while the romantics believed that every person had another part of their soul, and that one day, you would find the other half of you and be complete. It was a theory that largely excluded those without soulmarks, and those who had them but didn’t want them, and those who had soulmarks that matched more than one person. But the romantics are often only concerned about themselves. Then there are the pessimists, who believed that because we were made like that, we shall never be whole again. Lots of people have lots of different ideas about why.
The truth is -- well, the truth is God just made it that way. Whenever people can’t understand something, they always say that God works in mysterious ways, and to be fair, they’re right. The thing most people don’t know is that most of the time God doesn’t understand, either. Not everything has a deeper meaning, you know. Everyone was created in pairs, except when they weren’t, and sometimes people were created in a group, and there’s no bigger meaning to it than that. Just because you have unlimited power and knowledge doesn’t mean you always have to use it.
All people were made in pairs, and angels were no different. And between the shoulderblades of every angel was a mark; a completely unique mark that existed nowhere else in the universe except for between the shoulderblades of their soulmate. Of course, soulmates for angels are much different than soulmates for humans; an angelic soulmate did, quite literally, complete you, make you whole; two heads, four wings, four arms, four legs. The true angelic form.
Crowley knows this. All the demons, at one point, did, although most of them had embraced their fallen identities and had willingly forgotten what it had meant to be an angel. But Crowley, who was never very good at following rules, did not forget. And neither did the scar in the middle of his back.
It was where his soulmark had been, before he Fell. He couldn’t remember what it was or who he was meant for. That had all been burned from his brain, just as the mark had been burned from his back. Sometimes Crowley wondered about what it had been, who had been his, but there was no use in wondering. He would never know.
Go up there and make some trouble, they tell him. So he does.
The angel gave away his sword, and Crowley falls again.
Aziraphale does not look at his soulmark if he can avoid it, and he very easily can, given its location. He couldn’t forget it’s shape, of course, anymore than he could forget the shape of his wings. It was part of him, and had been since before time existed. But he doesn’t think about it, and he doesn’t picture it.
The memory has been taken from him, which means the other part of his soul has Fallen.
But he doesn’t think about it. He has bigger things to think about, such as Eve and her swollen belly, and then the Almighty instructs him to stay on Earth and… foment peace. So he sets up with the humans, and he keeps his wings away, and if the mark stays on his back he firmly does not think about it.
He doesn’t feel incomplete. Sure, if (when, he supposes, but he doesn’t like to think about it) they have to go to war, he won’t be as powerful as those who have bonded with their soulmates (a horribly human word, but it was the best way to describe it, really). But that was -- hopefully -- a long way off, and other than battle there really wasn’t a need for a soulmate. Besides, if his other half hadn’t Fallen, Aziraphale likely wouldn’t have been chosen to stay on Earth.
So he ignores the mark, and he ignores what it means, and for thousands of years he refuses to think about what the mark on Crowley’s back might have been. And then they meet in a church in London, and suddenly it’s all he can think about.
The first time they even acknowledge it they are drunk in Rome. Crowley is still feeling a low level of irritation about Caligula, and his stomach is filled with oysters and wine, and Aziraphale’s smile is bright, and without thinking he reaches out. Aziraphale does not flinch away from him, which Crowley will think about often, later, about how the angel doesn’t seem to fear him.
Crowley’s hand lands on Aziraphale’s shoulder and then moves along to his back; Aziraphale stays very still as Crowley traces the spot between his wings.
He could pull the toga down, so easily. Could bare the tantalizing skin on Aziraphale’s back and see the mark there. He could run his fingers over it, memorize its shape. The same shape that existed on the back of some other angel. Somewhere out there was the being that could complete Aziraphale, could restore him to his true, proper form.
Crowley feels an emotion stirring in his heart that he will identify, several centuries worth of introspection later, as jealousy. For now he doesn’t know what it is, only that the idea of another being out there being bonded to Aziraphale makes him feel vaguely ill.
He pulls his hand away. Aziraphale does not mention it.
For 1600 years they don’t talk about it again. They firm up the Arrangement, and they grow closer while pretending they aren’t, and then Crowley -- who has had ample time to examine his feelings and has discovered that he is incapable of saying no to Aziraphale when he looks at Crowley like That -- turns Hamlet into a hit.
(He might, he reflected a couple hundred years later, have overdone it a bit.)
Aziraphale is incredibly happy at the premiere, bouncing on the balls of his feet and grabbing Crowley’s arm whenever something dramatic happens, and Crowley finds himself thinking that maybe he doesn’t prefer the funny ones, after all.
Aziraphale does not stop talking after the play, rambling on and on about Hamlet, and Crowley listens to every word he says until Aziraphale suddenly stops in the street and grabs his hand.
“I cannot thank you enough, Crowley,” he says quietly. Crowley thanks the lucky stars that it is too dark for Aziraphale to see the blush on Crowley’s traitorously human cheeks.
“Yes, well,” he says eloquently. Aziraphale gives him a distressingly soft smile and releases his hand, and Crowley finds himself speaking before his brain catches up.
“Do you see them often?” He asks, and then contemplates turning into a snake and devouring himself, ouroboros style. Aziraphale casts a confused look at him.
“William?”
“I -- no, not Shakespeare. Never mind.”
Aziraphale’s eyebrows crinkle together, but he lets it drop. Aziraphale is good like that.
He lets it drop, at least, until a couple of hours later, when there is significantly more alcohol running through their veins. “Who did you mean?” He asks, staring at Crowley unblinkingly. Crowley drinks the rest of his glass down.
“Your other half,” he says thickly. “Your soulmate.”
Aziraphale studies his glass. “Always hated that word,” he says. “Very human.”
“Doesn’t answer my question,” Crowley says, hating himself more and more. Aziraphale sighs.
“I don’t,” he says simply. “They’re… well. They Fell. All memory of them has been purged from my mind.”
Crowley sits up straight. “What do you mean, been purged from you?”
Aziraphale refills his glass. “If your other half has Fallen, they’re erased from your mind. I suppose… well. I suppose maybe She’s being kind. So you can’t remember who you’ve lost.”
Crowley’s grip tightens on his glass. Just when he thinks Heaven can’t get any crueler. “So you lose them in every way,” he says hoarsely. “They take your memory too.”
“Too?”
Crowley, who is far past three sheets to the wind, and is hovering somewhere around six or seven sheets, begins to undo his doublet. Aziraphale watches him as he shrugs it off his shoulders, stands up, and turns around.
He hears Aziraphale gasp, and then the rustle of him getting up. Crowley feels breath on the back of his neck seconds before he feels fingertips press to the spot between his wings.
It’s like lightning passing through him; a full body shiver rocks him and he sucks in air as Aziraphale traces over the scar. “Oh my dear,” he says, voice filled with… something, and Crowley is laid out and vulnerable and he feels like he might break apart under Aziraphale’s gentle touch. “Crowley,” he says, and then he leans his head against Crowley’s shoulder blade, wrapping an arm around him in a kind of deconstructed hug. Crowley feels lightheaded and stays stock still, afraid that if he moves at all he will spook Aziraphale away.
“I’m sorry,” he says softly, breath ghosting across the space where Crowley’s wings should start, and it feels like, like -- Crowley doesn’t even know, can’t even put into words the way it feels to have Aziraphale this close, his warm fingers pressed firmly against the scar on his back, his breath… Crowley thinks he might explode.
“I guess we’re alike in that way,” he says, because he needs to say something or he might choke on all the words he can’t say. “Neither of us will ever be complete.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” Aziraphale says, and his fingers caress his back, and Crowley can feel it in his wings, and he knows Aziraphale is doing it on purpose, knows that the angel is aware where his wings start, knows how good it feels. Crowley bites back a very embarrassing moan and thinks that Aziraphale might be trying to kill him.
He is grateful that he is drunk. He cannot imagine surviving this sober.
“What do you mean?” Crowley says, not quite up for a philosophical discussion in this state but unable to stop himself from asking. “It's a fact, angel. We can’t achieve the form we will built for. We can’t find the other half of our soul.”
“Do you know there are humans who completely ignore their marks?” Aziraphale says. “They never search out their soulmates, they just… they make their own decisions. Fall in love with people that they choose. Do you think they feel incomplete? Do you think… do you think they can ignore Her plan and still be happy?”
Crowley swallows. “I think humans will always find ways to be happy, no matter what is working against them.”
“Do you ever envy them?”
No, he thinks. I would take eternity with you over anything.
Before he can figure out what to say -- because he sure as hell can’t say that -- there is a drunken yell from outside the inn, and Aziraphale jerks away from him.
Crowley dresses with shaking hands, clears his throat, and turns back around to where Aziraphale is fidgeting and firmly not looking at him. “I think I shall sober up,” he says carefully. “I’m meant to be in Scotland, actually, just popped in for the premiere.” He scratches his nose. “Thank you again, Crowley.”
“Don’t mention it,” Crowley says, and he means more than the premiere. Aziraphale gives him a final, sad sort of smile.
“Well. Until the next time, I suppose,” he says, and Crowley can do nothing but nod.
They meet in fits and bursts, and they don’t mention it. He gets himself into trouble in Paris and Crowley comes to his rescue, and they get crepes and Crowley laughs at him and Aziraphale decides not to mention that he had known Crowley was in the area. He hadn’t meant to be arrested, of course, but -- well. He would be lying if he said he hadn’t known, sitting in the Bastille, that Crowely would show up.
And then they meet up in St. James Park, and everything goes -- well, pear-shaped. Aziraphale storms away feeling sick and angry, and the idea crosses his mind that maybe Crowley doesn’t care about him the way he had thought. Aziraphale had thought… well, he wouldn’t say friends. They couldn’t be friends. They were an angel and a demon. But they had always existed as almost friends, and here Crowley was asking for a suicide pill, and so Aziraphale throws the word fraternizing in Crowley’s face, as if to say: leave me if you want; you mean nothing to me.
It is the biggest lie he’s ever told. Crowley meant something close to everything to him.
They do not speak for eighty years, and then Aziraphale is staring down a gun, and Crowley is dancing down a church aisle, and Crowley saves him. It isn’t the first time Crowley saves him, but as Aziraphale stands in the ruins with a bag of books in his hand, for the first time he allows himself to think, both of our soulmates have been purged from our minds; could it be you?
And then Crowley goes and ruins it.
Here’s the truth: he says it to be mean. You go too fast for me, Crowley, he says, and he gets out of the car, and he hopes it hurts. He hopes it hurts in the same way he is hurting, as he hands over a tartan thermos, as he realizes that Crowley will leave him one day. He says you go too fast for me and he means I cannot hold your hand while you hold your death in the other. If this is what you mean to do, I need to slow down.
He leaves the car and watches Crowley drive away; the mark on his back burns.
The world tries to end, and then it doesn’t, and then a whole bunch of things change while a large amount of things stay the same, too. It feels a little like whiplash. And at the end of it, once he has firmly changed his collar back to red and Aziraphale has three courses from the Ritz under his belt, they return to the bookshop and drink. As Crowley is getting the wine Aziraphale walks through the shop, touching his books with soft reverence, and Crowley has the forbidden thought that he wishes Aziraphale would touch him like that.
He hands Aziraphale a glass and then drapes himself across the couch, watching as Aziraphale perches himself on his armchair. They drink, and they talk, and they drink more, and then, many hours later, Aziraphale says, “I wonder if I could ask you something rather embarrassing.”
Crowley lowers his glass and studies Aziraphale. “‘Course.”
“Well… it is. Well --”
“Aziraphale. I promise I won’t mock you. You can tell me.”
Aziraphale drains his drink and then says, “I know the odds are… low. But I must ask.”
“Then ask, angel.”
“Could it -- is there any possible way that my soulmark and yours… well. Surely you know where I’m going with this,” he finishes, almost snappy in his discomfort.
Crowley shifts. He has a lot of feelings that he can’t quite sort through, but leading all of them is the intoxicating knowledge that Aziraphale has thought about this, has thought about them. And he doesn’t know if Aziraphale is asking because he hoped it was so, or if he just wanted to know, but whatever his feelings he was still considering the possibility that maybe, just maybe, they had been created for each other.
Crowley thinks about six thousand long years, and he thinks about Aziraphale’s smile, and he thinks about the scar on his back, and he wishes he had a different answer.
“No,” he says, soft but firm. Aziraphale clearly had not been anticipating such a rigid answer.
“You sound certain.” His voice lacks any inflection. Crowley longs to know what he’s thinking.
“I am certain,” Crowley says. “It’s just not possible.”
“Why?” Aziraphale asks. A simple word, and for some reason Crowley cannot meet his eyes.
“My wings -- they weren’t burned, you know. When I Fell. It’s not that they were white like yours and then they burned to ash. They’ve always been like this. The first batch of angels She created, see, were made before everything else. Our wings were cut from the chaos that existed before She made the light. The angels that came after She crafted the universe had wings made of light, like yours. I am much older than you, insomuch as one can be older if they are created before time exists. So we can’t… it’s impossible.”
Aziraphale looks down at his drink and nods. “I suppose it might have been a bit. Convenient. But I had been wondering.”
“For how long?”
“Hmm?”
“How long have you been wondering?” How long had he been thinking about it? How long had Aziraphale been sitting on this, how long had he been considering the possibility that him and Crowley had been created to exist as one being? Would it be better, if that was true? If it was even a possibility? Would it be better to never know but to have the possibility that maybe it was Aziraphale, to have that option dangled temptingly in his face? What was worse, to go through life knowing it couldn’t be Aziraphale, or to go through life never knowing if it was?
He could have pretended. If his wings were white as snow he could have pretended that him and Aziraphale were crafted as one, were made together, were meant to complete the other. Maybe it would have settled the feeling in his stomach that never really went away, the feeling that kicked up into high gear the moment he saw Aziraphale, the want and the desire and the craving to belong. To fold himself into Aziraphale and not feel broken.
“Quite a while, I suppose,” Aziraphale says. He still has not looked at Crowley.
“Quite a while like centuries or quite a while like millennia?”
“Does it matter?”
“No,” Crowley says truthfully. “But I would like to know.”
Aziraphale finally looks at him, a soft smile on his face. “I think I’ve always wondered, even if I didn’t want to admit it.”
This is strange, dangerous territory that Crowley doesn’t have a roadmap for. He could let it drop, now, if he wanted, change the subject to something else, get them back to what they know. But he doesn’t want to let it drop. He is teetering on the edge of a cliff, and he doesn’t know if he’s going to fall or jump.
“What did you want the answer to be?” He asks slowly. “When you thought about it?”
Aziraphale makes a lot of small facial movements and then takes another drink of his wine. “I didn’t really think about that,” he says.
“Angels don’t lie,” Crowley says. Aziraphale could be a good liar if he let himself, but his conscience always got the better of him, giving him rather large tells that Crowley had long since memorized. Aziraphale looks at Crowley in a way that is almost annoyed, and Crowley feels his heart swell.
“What do you want from me, Crowley?”
“I want you to tell me if you wanted us to be soulmates.”
Aziraphale doesn’t answer for a bit. Instead his glass refills on it’s own, and then he says, seemingly out of nowhere, “Do you remember what I said? About the humans who ignore their marks?”
“About how they’re stupid bastards?”
“About whether they were happy.”
“I suppose,” Crowley says, which is a lie, because he remembers every single thing Aziraphale has ever said to him. It’s rather pathetic, actually. Crowley doesn’t like to think about it.
“I think -- well, I think they are, Crowley. I think you were right when you said humans will always find a way to be happy. Despite everything, they choose happiness.”
“I don’t know where you’re going with this, Aziraphale.”
“Do you think it’s possible for us? To choose happiness?”
Crowley swallows. He doesn’t have to, strictly speaking, it just gives him something to do. “I don’t know,” he says truthfully. Wasn’t that the point of Falling? That you weren’t allowed to choose? Crowley could almost hate humans for their freedom if he didn’t love them so much (not that he would ever admit it).
But he had already Fallen, hadn’t he? So what did that mean, then?
“I think I might be scared,” he says, brutally honest and vulnerable and hating every second of it. Aziraphale gives him the kind of smile that feels like flowers blooming in his chest.
“I think it would be silly not to be.”
“Did you want us to be soulmates?” He asks again.
“It doesn’t matter,” Aziraphale says. “We’re not. But I -- well. Does that mean it’s over?”
“I didn’t even know it had started,” Crowley says. Aziraphale stifles a laugh.
“Oh, Crowley,” he says, endlessly fond.
“Well, what was I supposed to think?” He says, feeling the need to stand up for himself.
“I know, dear,” Aziraphale says. “I’ve been scared, too.”
Crowley’s mouth is dry, which was odd, since his mouth wasn’t technically supposed to get dry. It’s incredibly irritating. “So then where does that leave us?”
“Wherever you want it to.”
“It’s not too fast for you?” He says, and winces. He had asked it genuinely, but instead it sounds like he’s throwing Aziraphale’s words back in his face.
“I’m sorry --”
“No, no, I didn’t mean it like that. I just… I want you to be sure.”
“I am,” Aziraphale says firmly. “Are you?”
Crowley takes a long drink of his wine and then says, before he can chicken out, “Aziraphale, I have always been sure about you.”
Aziraphale does that face where he tries not to smile, looking down and then back up at Crowley and then down again.
“Surely not always,” Aziraphale starts, but Crowley has already bared every part of him, and Aziraphale will not be cruel to him. He will hold Crowley’s heart gently.
“From the fucking beginning,” he says. “From the minute you gave away that sword.”
Aziraphale’s entire face softens. Without a word he puts aside his glass and stands, and Crowley is worried, for a few horrible seconds, that it is too much for Aziraphale. That he had expected something light and instead Crowley had poured six thousand years of devotion into his lap.
But that fear doesn’t last, because Aziraphale plucks the glass out of Crowley’s hand and then leans down to kiss him.
It’s a good thing Aziraphale had taken his glass, or Crowley would have dropped it. Aziraphale’s lips are soft, and his perfectly manicured hands frames Crowley’s face as he proceeds to murder Crowley on the spot. It was both nothing like Crowley had thought and everything like Crowley had thought; there were no words to describe what it felt like to be kissing Aziraphale, and yet it was something he had dreamed about for six millennia. It was something new, and it wasn’t.
It was everything.
Crowley makes a very embarrassing noise that is ripped from the back of his throat as Aziraphale kisses him deeper, mouth opening as desperate need and desire set him on fire. It’s almost too much, the emotions crashing through him, but he wouldn’t pull away, not even if the world was ending (again).
Aziraphale pulls away, which Crowley thinks is rather cruel of him. He chases him but Aziraphale laughs, picking up Crowley’s wine glass and finishing it off. He smiles down at Crowley, seemingly unaware that Crowley is trying to put himself back together after Aziraphale had broken him down cell by cell. Demons didn’t really have cells, technically, but his corporation does, probably. Crowley isn’t bothered by the science; he’s more concerned with getting Aziraphale to kiss him again, so he drags the angel back down by the front of his jacket and attaches their lips firmly together.
“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, but Crowley swallows the word, kisses him hungrily, swallows him whole (not actually -- normally it’s a figure of speech, but Crowley actually can swallow things whole, so the distinction is important).
Aziraphale indulges him for -- minutes, hours, years, maybe -- before pulling away and stepping out of reach. He stares at Crowley, who is panting, for reasons that probably boil down to the aesthetic of the whole thing, if he’s being honest. His lips are a shade of red Crowley has never seen. He looks…
He looks incredibly, undeniably tempting.
Crowley smiles and stands up. This time, when he pulls Aziraphale to him, Aziraphale hauls him forward, falls into his chair and pulls Crowley onto his lap.
Crowley is asleep on his stomach. Or at least he looks asleep; his eyes are closed and he looks peaceful in a way he never does when he’s awake. Aziraphale runs his hand over Crowley’s back, caressing the spot where his wings start, before coming to rest on the scar between his shoulder blades. He leans forward and presses a kiss to it.
Crowley opens his eyes and smiles at Aziraphale, who feels something come to life in his stomach. Crowley tries to turn over, but Aziraphale keeps a hand on his back. Crowley looks at him.
“Do you trust me?” Aziraphale asks, and Crowley nods so quickly that Aziraphale heart lurches. Crowley trusts him completely; it feels like a blessing, so tender and fragile in his hands. He vows never to break that trust.
Aziraphale moves, straddling Crowley’s back. Crowley rocks his hips a little, and Aziraphale pinches his side.
“Behave,” he says. He miracles a marker into his hand, uncaps it, and presses it to Crowley’s back.
He does not need a reference. The image is burned into his brain just as it is burned into his back. He moves the marker along Crowley’s back, the lines coming easily, and Crowley stays still, stopping his breath to ensure Aziraphale’s hand does not falter.
“There,” he says when he is done, feeling far more foolish than when he started. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. “The mark of my choice. Taken from my skin and given to yours.” He leans forward and kisses the new mark.
“Make it permanent,” Crowley says. Aziraphale blanches.
“Crowley --”
Crowley turns over, jostling Aziraphale off of him, switching their positions so he is perched over the angel. He presses his lips to Aziraphale’s jaw. “They took mine away,” he says softly. “Give me yours.”
“You might grow tired of me,” Aziraphale says, a weak protest. Crowley laughs against his skin.
“Not likely, angel.”
Aziraphale rests his hand on Crowley’s back and pauses. Crowley nods once and then kisses him, and Aziraphale summons a miracle into his hand.
“I hope it doesn’t burn you,” he says. “A miracle from Heaven.”
“Let it,” Crowley says, and so Aziraphale presses the miracle into his skin, and Crowley hisses as it takes.
“Does it hurt?” He asks, and Crowley bites at his lip.
“No more than Falling.”
Aziraphale has no words for that, so he kisses Crowley instead, wondering if he will ever be able to make up for six thousand years with his lips alone. Crowley unleashes his wings, and then rolls onto his back. Aziraphale rolls on top of him and lets his wings free, too, and together they exist, two faces, four limbs, four wings wrapped around them. And Aziraphale understands what he never had before: the power that they hold, the true form they are meant to take. It courses through him, electrifies him; he is burning from the inside out.
Power, he thinks, as he kisses Crowley again.
Or perhaps love.