Chapter Text
He could smell the smoke from three blocks away, even from within the car. Somehow, horribly, he could smell the leather bindings and countless yellowed pages in it, the faded carpets and rugs, the grandfather clock and the old gramophone. The back room and the wine rack.
Crowley still tried telling himself it was any other building sending up the column of smoke and ringing sirens, right until the point where he pulled up to the curb.
So that was why Aziraphale hadn’t been picking up his phone.
He leapt from the car, his entire body numb, somehow making it through the throng of firefighters and Soho onlookers, his strides somehow so sure nobody thought to stop him. “Are you the owner of this establishment?”
Crowley swung around. “Do I look like I run a bookshop?” he snarled, snapping his fingers and forcing his way into the burning building. “Aziraphale!”
There, on the floor, between burning piles of books and a suffocating haze of smoke – an abandoned phone, dropped in a hurry.
Crowley pressed an arm against his nose and mouth to stifle his unnecessary, hyperventilating breaths, stumbling deeper into the shop that’d once been a safe haven. No time to mourn it. Other things first. Satan Below, please…
There, between blazing bookcases and the steadily collapsing second floor. Two figures.
It’d once been a safe haven, but it’d been invaded by the same entity that’d desecrated Crowley’s apartment.
He should never have left a Duke of Hell in voicemail. Like any inconvenience he caused, it came back to bite him in the ass, like a particularly vindictive ouroboros. Only this time, he wasn’t the only one being bitten.
Hastur stood tall, lazily turning to the other demon tripping towards him. Aziraphale was on his knees, trembling wings folded over his head, making himself as small as possible amidst the ravenous hellfire.
“You let him go,” Crowley choked out, his glasses cracking and revealing wide yellow eyes. His voice didn’t fare much better. “You let him go right now or I’ll –”
“You’ll what?” the Duke interjected with an amused smile. “You played your trick, you’ll never get to play it again. You’re done for, Crowley, you and your best friend.”
Aziraphale slightly lifted his head, turning pleading eyes on the frozen demon. “Crowley, just – just get out –”
“Not without you.” He’d never been so certain of anything. And yet, it was impossible to move.
“He called you up,” Hastur relished. “He set me free. It’s only fair that I should thank him for it. And you, of course, Crowley, for introducing us.” A horrible, self-indulgent pause, and Crowley hated – who did he think he was, some movie villain –
“Here’s my thanks. I grant you one last look at eachother. Now, say goodbye.” He raised a hand, ready to snap his fingers.
Aziraphale pushed himself up and to his feet. Crowley leapt forward, his hand outstretched.
He was just in time to be trapped in the column of hellfire right alongside his angel as it blazed up, as Hastur erupted into maniacal laughter behind him.
The angel’s entire body went rigid in his arms. Veins of fire ate through his clothes, his wings, down to his hands, up to his face, undeterred by Crowley’s frantic hands fumbling after them as if that’d make any sort of difference. Then the satanic force pulsed through them, and Aziraphale went up into nebulizing embers, as if he’d never existed at all.
Crowley speechlessly stared at the embers as they vanished into the fire. His hands trembled uncontrollably as he dropped to his knees, feeling for all the world like his heart had just been burned out of his chest as well, leaving only a gaping pit as wide as a black hole. Tears sprung into his eyes, stinging as the fire stole them away, like acid, like holy water.
Ha. He wished.
Hastur was still laughing, shrill and horrible, like someone who’d seen a description of laughter written out somewhere once and subsequently forgotten most of it. Like someone who could never understand Earth or humanity, or bookshops run by angels, or what a demon might feel for such an angel.
With a hoarse, strangled yell, Crowley was back on his feet, and on Hastur.
At once, the higher-ranking demon’s hand shot out and lifted him by the throat. “I don’t think so, Crowley,” he spoke gravely, every trace of laughter gone. “No more games. You’re coming with me.”
And as the bookshop collapsed around them, the earth opened up to swallow them down its dark and unforgiving gullet.
When he could see again, he knew something was wrong.
Insofar as that statement even meant anything anymore, of course. He was in Hell’s bad books. The whole world was ending.
His world had already ended.
And yet. And yet. He couldn’t put his finger on it even if he’d wanted to.
His finger. There was a ring around his little finger.
He held up his hands before his face. Even in the dim light of Hell he could see they were not his own. Too short, too plump, too well-manicured – and that ring, he’d know it anywhere –
…What?
The darkness before him turned translucent, a grimy window. Beyond it, a crowd of demons and a stark white bathtub that really had no business being here. And before that, a figure that did. Or didn’t. Crowley felt dizzy as some last coherent part of him realized what he was looking at.
His own form, lanky and slender, and really supposed to be at home and at one with Hell – but the Crowley he was looking at seemed nervous, flinched into himself and fidgety, in a way he’d never let himself get away with Down Here. And he knew why. That wasn’t him. He knew who it was.
He was pounding on the glass before realizing he’d rushed towards it. “Aziraphale!” And God, his heart and voice had broken the first time, but this time the scream felt like it was drawing blood. This was too much. His mind could grasp nothing but this devouring panic, his entire body was on fire with shock, incomprehension and adrenalin. “Azira-”
“Give it a rest, Crowley.”
He tensed up, whirled around. He wasn’t alone in the dark. Hastur had followed him.
A question wrung its way to his throat, now he had someone to ask it to. “How – how is he –”
“You really think I’d keep him all to myself?” The other demon chuckled. “No. I dragged him down here first. Eric, over there, did a fine job impersonating him up there.” Hastur slung an arm across Crowley’s shoulders, toted him back to the window and pointed at a younger-looking demon in the crowd, one of the lowest rank, disposable. And currently discorporated.
“And you really thought swapping vessels would save you? Tsk, tsk.” Hastur brought his face close to Crowley’s, toad eyes unfeeling. He reeked of smoke and swampland. “Your vessel is tainted, Crowley. It could never protect him. You could never protect anyone. Watch him fizzle like any other demon.” He forced Crowley’s face to the window as Aziraphale was forced backwards towards the holy water he wouldn’t be immune to. Aziraphale, who shouldn’t be down here in the first place, should never be made to endure even a moment of this dark, dank, fetid realm, let alone those who dwelled in it. Should never have been made to wear his worthless, thrice damned body –
Crowley ground his teeth and let out a desperate, choked sound, then a scream as one of the demons stepped forward towards his angel, and shoved. He tightly shut his eyes as the bubbling started and Aziraphale’s own cry was cut off. He dropped to the filthy floor like a ragdoll as Hastur let him go, and left him alone in the dark, curled up and sobbing so desperately he couldn’t even draw breath.
A bright sound chimed before him. Soft light fell onto his face. He shielded himself from it, eyes screwing shut tighter.
“…Oh. Oh dear. We haven’t had one this bad in a while.”
Soft hands touched his face, gently framing it and wiping away his tears. Crowley shuddered, leaning into the touch thoughtlessly, clinging to any scrap of comfort after having been pushed over every edge his mind had been able to take. A wounded sound emerged from somewhere in his chest.
“Shh. Shh. Crowley. Dear, it’s alright. Open your eyes, sweetheart.”
Somehow, he managed. What he saw turned everything upside down for a third time. “Aziraphale.” His voice was a ragged whisper, wrung from a throat screamed raw. He didn’t feel the pain, however, not now his eyes feverishly roamed his angel’s smiling face, glowing softly in Hell’s dimness.
“…Are you here?” He felt like he’d spoken these words before, although in a much different voice. He was equally unsure. You never knew when Hell’s punishment was over, after all. With what he’d done, it might go on until the End itself. “Are you real? No, you can’t be,” he rambled. “You can’t be here.” If Aziraphale was in Hell, he wouldn’t be smiling. Would they make him see his angel dying forever, never sure when it’d be the real thing? “This is a trick –” His voice hitched again, curse it –
“No. No, I’m real, darling. Come here.” The angel pulled him close, folding white wings around them both, emanating a gentle aura of soothing light. An aura that couldn’t possibly be replicated by any creature or illusion of Hell. He smelled of old paper and clean linen, fine wine and candle smoke, and that was somehow even more important. “As, Summer ended, Summer birds take flight,” he murmured, with the cadence of old poetry. “In happy dreams I hold you full in night –”
Crowley let out a choked sob, and clung on.
“I’m here. I’m right here.”
“I never even got to tell you –”
“Shh. You did, you did.” Hands on his face again, and then, so softly it was barely there, a kiss to his lips.
Before he knew what he was doing, Crowley had wrapped his arms around his angel and kissed him back, feverish and desperate. His heart hadn’t stopped pounding, but the pain had gone out of it, and the panic gradually followed. Alive. Here. With me.
“I love you, Crowley,” Aziraphale murmured. The demon rested their foreheads together, forcing his trembling breath to slow. As he opened his eyes, his angel was looking back at him. “There. That’s better.”
The realization had settled in his bones like tangible warmth, somewhere along the way. “Nightmare again,” he chuckled tearfully, blinking with something like annoyance, something like overwhelmed gratitude and relief. “Blasted things.”
“They’re even worse than what actually happened, aren’t they. I’m so sorry for not picking up on it earlier, dear, you were making a right mess of the covers.” There was such pity in the angel’s eyes. Crowley shivered. “That… ngh. Bloody imagination.” Matters had gradually improved after Armageddidn’t, but the things that could’ve been would probably haunt him for at least another century.
“Well, I won’t have it trouble you on my watch. Please, allow me.” The angel sat back slightly, raised a hand. “You shall wake having had a lovely dream about whatever you like b-”
“Aziraphale, wait.”
The angel stilled. “Hmm?”
Crowley took a deep breath. He was still shivering. “Don’t go.” He only realized he’d been reaching out as Aziraphale took his hands. “Please.”
A gentle squeeze. “I won’t.” A bright, encouraging smile and twinkling eyes in the dark. “I suppose I’ll get to see what you like best right alongside you, then.”
Crowley looked around. Without him noticing, the fetid darkness of Hell had made way for something subtly, yet vastly different. They no longer knelt on a filthy floor. They no longer knelt at all. They were floating, in a velvet darkness that stretched on infinitely, and yet somehow wrapped around them like a warm blanket at the same time. A gentle wind rustled through Aziraphale’s feathers, and Crowley haltingly unfurled his own wings to feel it too. He breathed deep as it blew into him, through him, achingly familiar.
And the darkness came alive in reaction.
With Crowley’s every shaky exhale, lights bloomed in the faraway depths, distant pinpricks like motes of dust settling. With every move he made, they intensified, their colours diversified; silver and azure and gold, purple and soft orange blending into eachother in an impossibly gentle gradient. He stretched out his cramped body, and his entire dream glittered like diamond dust. He spread his wings, and the displaced aether set everything spinning like paint in water.
He was back between the stars, and he only realized he’d started grinning when his cheeks started to hurt. He only realized he’d started crying when he spun around and saw tears floating away, refracting the sparkle of a thousand constellations.
He looked back, and had an even better view of the stars sparkling in his angel’s eyes.
Aziraphale was speechless, unable to focus on any one thing as his eyes wandered in astonished wonder. “You told me what it was like,” he murmured, his words carried by the gently swirling star-wind. “But I never even dreamed…”
“Neither did I,” Crowley breathed. “Not after what happened. Never even once.” With a flick of his wings that sent galaxies into spirals behind him, he floated over to Aziraphale, framing his face like something precious, something fragile. “Thank you, angel. You don’t know how much I…” His voice trailed off as he looked around, his eyes adjusting to a way of seeing that’d been first nature once upon a time.
“I can imagine,” the angel smiled, his awe overpowering every touch of sadness there might’ve been to his voice.
Crowley’s marveling grin settled into a more thoughtful smile as he narrowed his eyes, studying the firmament. He stretched out an arm, painting broad strokes across the glittering dark. He carefully created an impression of a golden heart fading into silver at the edges, the whole of it dotted with purple and vermillion and strewn with darker clouds. He flung out his wings and blew a gale of aether at it at full force, spinning it into a tilting, spiraling disc he knew was about two hundred lightyears across. At the time, he hadn’t been the only one working on this particular galaxy, of course – it’d been the Almighty’s prime project, not to be entrusted to any one angel – but here, he could do anything. Here, he was truly free. He found he did want to replicate this one perfectly, though.
Small, precise movements of his fingers giddily dotted in specific stars; constellations, though not the way the humans had ever interpreted them, a flat array of lines against the backdrop of the sky. No, these were the real deal, freely floating in three dimensions, alive.
All the while, he was grinning in a way he rarely did on Earth. All the while, he could feel Aziraphale watching him with a smile brighter than the stars around them; captivated, enchanted by the sight.
In the end, he added in a final pair of stars right in the middle of one of the galaxy’s sprawling arms, clearly visible to him and his angel. The binary system sparkled like jewels, almost too close together to distinguish them from being one star anymore.
Crowley took Aziraphale’s hand, beholding his scintillating handiwork. “Those two were always my favourites,” he nodded.
“Tell me about them, my dear.”
The demon quirked a smile as it all came flooding back to him. “The one is just a bit larger and brighter than the sun. One of the brightest visible from Earth. It cycles between active and quiet rather slowly, rather calmly.” Crowley couldn’t help but marvel at the slow smile spreading across Aziraphale’s face as he understood. The angel still indulged the demon once more. “And the other?”
“Less bright, more orangeish in colour. It emits less visible light but more X-rays. It’s very active and prone to spitting out a stellar flare or two.”
“I think I love that one best,” Aziraphale chuckled softly, squeezing his hand.
“The, uh. The humans thought they were one star for a long time. Most still do. They’re still known best under just – just the one name.” Crowley’s heart picked up at the impossible softening of Aziraphale’s expression. “I didn’t make them for us at the time, of course, but I couldn’t stop thinking about them for the longest time, and – well, there are habitable planets there, there might even be life by now –”
Aziraphale took his hand between both of his own. “I don’t regret sticking to Earth back then,” he spoke sincerely. “We really did have matters to attend to. But if not by day, then certainly now. Yes, my dear. Let’s go to Alpha Centauri.”
They spread their wings as one, bringing the cosmos to life around them all over again. As they soared away into the glittering expanse, Crowley hoped with all his star-struck heart that morning wouldn’t find him for a good long while, yet.