Chapter Text
Aziraphale and Crowley sat in a room alone together, side by side in an otherwise empty room.
The Angel and Demon had just played a (mostly insignificant) part in the undoing of the apocalypse - and Heaven and Hell were far from pleased with their actions. Thus, here they were, waiting and stewing in the silence while the authorities of Heaven and Hell were in the other room, devising a suitable punishment for the two deviants.
"What do you think they'll do to us?" Aziraphale asked, breaking the silence.
"Wellllll, most likely they'll want to kill us, and I don't just mean discorporation," said the demon, "so my first thoughts would be holy water for me, hellfire for you?"
The angel huffed and stared up at the ceiling. "If only there was something we could do to get out of this....Oh!"
Aziraphale's eyes widened and he straightened up as he turned towards his friend. Crowley couldn't help the feeling of endearment, even in a situation like this when all he should be feeling is fear and existential dread, at Aziraphale's display of excitement.
"Yuh? You got a plan?"
The angel possitively beamed -and i daresay did a little wiggle - "What if we switched forms! That way, if they should try and kill you with holy water, it would be I in your place and I would not be harmed! And the same would take place should they try kill you with hellfire!"
What was left of Crowley's hope vanished into thin air. He felt bad, letting his face fall in disappointment, for his angel looked so proud and full of hope with his idea.
Aziraphale's smile faltered at Crowley's change of expression, but he kept it firmly in place.
"My dear boy, something the matter with my plan?"
Crowley sighed and made a concious effort to soften his voice.
"Angel... that would have been good idea had we thought of it beforehand but... We're both tied down to our seats. You don't think they'd notice that we miraculously switched places?"
And there it was, exactly what Crowley had hoped would not happen. Aziraphale's face fell and he slumped (or did the Aziraphale version of slumping, which was just how the average person sat). Oh, how he hated to be the cause of his Angel's unhappiness. Maybe he should have played along for a bit, but...oh, it wouldn't have mattered. They'll be dead soon. There was no changing that.
"Oh. I suppose you're right."
"Angel-"
"No it's okay. Well, it's not really. But if you're right, and I daresay you are," Aziraphale almost whispered, "I do think... it would be most unfortunate if we were killed and I never told you."
Crowley's curiosity piqued.
"Never told me what??"
Aziraphale looked away, unable to meet his eyes. But Crowley was relentless and stared at him, unblinking.
"About.... how I feel. Towards you."
"And how do you feel?" Crowley's lack of hope came back, but this time it was a whole different kind of hope for a whole different thing.
Aziraphale turned to finally meet his counterpart's eyes. The two stared at each other with so much feeling and passion, for what could have been milliseconds to whole centuries. Realistically speaking though, it was for a few mere seconds.
"Crowley, my dear... I-"
And at that precise moment, the door opened and both beings quickly turned their heads toward it.
The demon Beelzebub and Archangel Fucking Gabriel walked in the room with poise and the door shut dramatically behind them.
There was a long stretch of silence as the enemies stared at each other, each waiting for the other to say something first.
In the end, it was Gabriel who spoke.
"So I'm sure the two of you know already, but you royally screwed up. We had been planning this Apocalypse for millenia and your truant actions have just... fucked everything up. It's all fucked up now, and it's your fault."
"Well put, Gabriel," Beelzebub said, taking a brief moment away from staring daggers at our two protagonists to nod at the archangel.
"Get the point, what are you going to do with us?" Crowley said with venom in his tone (pun only half intended).
"Well, my new-found associate here wanted to destroy you with hellfire and holy water-"
Crowley raised his eyebrows at them in such a way to communicate "oh wow what a surprising idea that I could have never seen coming" in a very sarcastic way. It didn't work though as neither of the two even noticed, as Beelzebub continued.
"-to put an end to your miserable and frankly inconvenient existance, but I offered a better alternative. One much more of our style".
Beelzebub took the time in-between that last sentence and their next one to make a pointed look at Crowley.
"Something that lasted longer. Something fun. Something more... demonic."
Gabriel clapped his hands together and smiled. Everything about him made it seem like he was doing a presentation at a board meeting rather than deciding the fate of two traitorous subordinates.
"I did like this idea actually. They suggested that we devise a situation where you both suffer for the rest of your lives! It's fantastic! And we've really put our heads together to give you the perfect punishment to fit the crime."
"And... er, what would that be?" Aziraphale asked timidly.
"So," said Beelzebub, "Crowley is infatuated with humanity, so we thought what better than turning him into a human! The whole package too - the pain, the limitations....the mortality. Having to slowly grow old and wither away, knowing there's nothing you can do to stop it."
Crowley's eyes widened and his brows furrowed with confusion.
"I mean, this is good because instead of dying quickly this one is more of.... a slow burn," they finished.
Somewhere on Earth, on the opposite side to wherever they were, a young part time artist and parter-time fanfic writer winked and did finger guns to the sky and said "haha. get it? because it's a... no, you get it. I dont need to explain. This bit has gone on too long I'm sorry".
"O...kay?" Aziraphale said, unsure how to feel about that. Being mortal wasn't ideal, but being humans together for however long they had left, well.... Well that certainly didn't sound so bad at all!
Gabriel gave a sinister laugh. "And your punishment? He won't have his memories. All the six thousand years you've known each other, conspired against us, /fraternised/? He won't remember a single moment of it. You'll just be a weird old man he wont want to know, and you'll just have to watch him grow old. And then you will have to live out the rest of your life without him."
Beelzebub snickered. "We know the devotion you have to him, so don't bother trying to act like this wont devistate you and make you suffer at every moment."
Aziraphale looked completely and utterly destroyed at just the thought.
Crowley opened his mouth to say something but was interupted by the consorting demon and Archangel raising their hands simultaneously and bringing their fingers into a
snap.