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Crowley was walking through the rose gardens, waiting for Aziraphale to return with the kid. The late-morning sun was beaming down, but very little of it reached her through the wide-brimmed black sun hat, glasses, high-collared silk blouse, wool skirt and panty hose.
She stopped to admire some lovely red roses, each one of them lush with an abundance of petals. Even without threats of violence, Aziraphale somehow encouraged the flowers to bloom beautifully. Caring for things came naturally to the angel, while Crowley had to use whatever leverage she could get, to make living things listen to her. She bent down to smell one of the roses and was rewarded with a head full of the intoxicating scent.
Approaching voices drew her out of her thoughts.
Nanny Astoreth looked up to see Warlock and the angel coming across the lawn. The demon smiled with that calculated expression that didn’t reach her lips. Her eyes crinkled with gentle fondness, but those eyes were completely covered, so the world would never know.
Brother Francis noticed Nanny Astoreth immediately as she straightened up from beside the rose bush. The gardener’s eyes glowed with a similar, if comparatively naked, expression. After the faintest hesitation, Brother Francis continued speaking to Warlock.
“And every one of those bulbs and seeds holds the potential of new life inside it. They just need our help to find out what they are going to be! Their beauty, their goodness, their unique color is hidden at first, but as they grow…” Francis sighed and genuine reverence was clear in his voice. “Oh, they are going to be so beautiful.”
Warlock waved at his Nanny across the lawn, and she tipped her chin in acknowledgement.
The gardener knelt beside the boy, making sure he had his full attention. “And it’s the same with you, lad. There is a seed in here.” He tapped the center of the boy’s chest. “Full of potential. And we must take good care of it because I, for one, want to see what it’s going to become. Now…” Francis dusted his hands off on his trousers. “Will you do me a favor, and take this wagon over to the tool shed? And as you go, I want you to think about what color flower you’re going to be when you grow up.”
Warlock looked skeptical. There was a little tilt of the head, a little frown, as if he wasn’t sure about this hair-brained, hypothetical conversation. Ah, thought Francis, that’s a familiar expression! The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. But in this particular situation, he was about four times size of this little skeptic, so Francis just clapped him on the bottom and scooted him along.
It was impossible to tell who headed first toward whom, but the nanny and the gardener immediately drifted together. Drawn as if by gravity, they met in the middle of the lawn, just as Warlock went round the corner with the wagon.
“Good morning.” The gardener said pleasantly.
“Is he behaving himself this morning?” Nanny Astoreth asked.
“Aye, fairly well today.”
Nanny pursed her lips, looking disappointed.
“We were just planting bulbs,” he continued. “You should have seen how he treated them with such care. We discussed next year’s flowers. I’d say it was a success, overall.”
“Well,” she replied crisply, “Don’t go getting too pleased with yourself, Francis. I’ve been racking up the points left and right! The other day he decapitated all of his dolls. Every last toy! I came in, looked around - I haven’t seen that kind of carnage since the reign of terror!” She sounded both disturbed and pleased, at once.
“I know.” Francis said, reaching into the pockets of his apron.
“What?”
“Couldn’t find any of the heads, could you?”
“Um. No.”
Francis pull several grubby little pieces of plastic out of his pockets and opened his hands to show what he’d collected. Barbie and Ken were easily recognizable, their hair matted with dirt. There was a head from a toy soldier, several Lego men, and a couple of heads from TV cartoon characters. Piling these in one hand, Francis dug back down into his pocket to withdraw the piéce de résistance, a baby doll head the size of a soft ball. The baby’s sweet, pouty face was positively gruesome, exhumed as it was from the mud. One blinky eye was open and the other was caked with soil.
Completely flummoxed, Crowley waggled her head in multiple directions at once. It wasn’t an expression suited to Nanny Astoreth, who would never allow herself to be flustered. “He buried them?”
“Well, planted them, shall we say.” Brother Francis explained. “Carefully planted these poor heads in the earth with a gardener’s tender touch.”
This was too much for them both, and they fell into spasms of laughter. Both of their personas fully cracked as they stared down at the bizarre results of their conflicting training. It was absurd. Crowley shook her head and laughed out loud. “Oh, Satan! Man, he’s such a weird kid!”
“I’m not sure whether he’s evil or not, but he certainly getting weirder by the day. By the way, do you want these?” Aziraphale offered the pile of heads.
Crowley looked pointedly down at her narrow skirt and indicated the bright red nail polish on her hands. “What do you expect me to do with those?”
Aziraphale shrugged and dumped them back into his already filthy apron.
Warlock came back into sight, his attention focused on the branches of a tree above his head. He had spotted a squirrel and was aiming an acorn at it. His first throw didn’t even reach the tree’s lowest branches. Scowling, he grabbed a couple more acorns from the ground, determined to try again.
Glancing down at a very modern watch, Nanny Astoreth declared that it was almost lunch time.
“Time to go in now!” she called out in a high voice that carried.
“No!” shouted Warlock.
“You and I must go in for lunch now.” She repeated.
“I hate you!” he shouted, and threw the next acorn angrily at his Nanny. It only went a few feet in her direction, but it was the vehemence of the gesture that counted.
“You aren’t hungry?”
“No! I can do whatever I want!” he shrieked.
“Certainly, you can.” Nanny agreed calmly, and with a polite nod to Brother Francis, she turned and began walking back toward the house. Her shoes clicked on the concrete steps.
“What’s for lunch?” Warlock demanded, petulantly.
Nanny Astoreth stopped, and half-turned her head back. Her profile was positively sinister as she answered, “Oh, the usual souls for you to devour, sweetling.”
With a toothy grin and a tiny wink at the gardener, she continued down the steps. There was no need to look back, she had absolute confidence that the child would follow.
Warlock immediately dropped the remaining acorns and headed in her direction. As he passed, Brother Francis tipped his hat. Warlock slowed and regarded him. “Black.” He announced definitively.
“What’s that, young master?”
“That’s what kind of flower I’m gong to be. A black flower.”
“Really? How interesting! I can’t say that I’ve ever seen a black flower before, but I imagine it’d be-“
“Course you have!” Warlock insisted. “Like Nanny. She’s a black flower.”
Swallowing hard, Francis turned to watch Nanny Astoreth retreating down the path; determined, elegant, over-dressed and, from head to toe, black as a demon’s wing. “Well…” he breathed. “I think you might be right.” He had difficulty drawing his eyes away.
Warlock assumed the conversation was over, shrugged, and began trotting away.
“Wait!” Brother Francis snagged the back of the boy’s shirt. “Remember when we talked about random acts of kindness?” The boy nodded. “Well, I think I see a golden opportunity, right now. Will you give me a hand?”
The boy looked dubious again. He certainly had perfected that look, even without the use of dark glasses.
Lowering his voice conspiratorially, Francis asked again. “It’s very important, and secret. Will you help me?”
“Ok.” Warlock agreed.
“For today’s random act of kindness… we need to pick one of these roses for your Nanny.”
“Oh, I get it. Because she’s a flower!” Warlock seemed delighted, and it was suddenly very obvious just how much he loved his Nanny.
“Exactly. And I think she likes the ones on this bush, over here.” He indicated the roses that Crowley had been smelling when they’d first walked up.
Warlock considered for a minute, then picked out the biggest, darkest red rose he could find. Brother Francis pulled out his clippers, quickly cut it and nipped off a few of the thorns before putting it in the boy’s hand.
“Will it make her happy?” Warlock asked eagerly.
That was a tough one. “Who knows. Maybe most of all if it’s from you, and you just don’t mention me. But whatever she thinks about it, it’ll make us happy, won’t it?” Warlock nodded. “You can give it to her over lunch.”
The boy grinned from ear to ear. “We’re having souls!” he said gleefully and ran off toward the house with the rose clutched in his chubby hand.
That night, Aziraphale was holed-up in his little shack, reading Jane Eyre. The gardener’s cottage was a good a distance from the main house, close enough to see the lights in the windows but far enough away that he was not bothered by Warlock’s frequently ear-splitting tantrums. If anyone visited the gardener’s quarters, they might have thought it odd that the tables and shelves were covered with books instead of gardening tools, and there was not a speck of dirt on the premises, not even on his shoes.
He heard something outside, or perhaps almost felt something, and went to the cottage’s only window. In the dimness, he could just make out a figure walking near the tree-line. Crowley’s silhouette was unmistakable as he ambled along, his slinking gate a little truncated by the pencil skirt. Aziraphale watched for a moment, long enough to see Crowley turn and then pace idlily back the other direction.
“What are you doing out there?” the angel called. Crowley stopped, shoulders hunched slightly as if embarrassed to have been noticed. “I mean…” Aziraphale’s voice was teasing, “what’s a lady doing wandering the grounds alone at night?”
Crowley lifted his chin haughtily and began walking deliberately back toward the sound of the angel’s voice.
Aziraphale headed to the door himself, and pulling it open, he stood face to face with Nanny Astoreth’s imposing form. Crowley gave a prim little smile, filling the part perfectly, as always. “Brother Francis.”
Aziraphale forgot to answer. He was noticing how pale Crowley’s neck looked above the collar of his blouse. Maybe it was the moonlight.
“So, are you going to invite me in?” When he put on the elegance, Crowley was… a powerful force.
Aziraphale looked back over his shoulder into his tiny room. An alarm bell went off in his mind, clanging out: Too much. Too fast. Too close. Too tight of quarters. He instinctively pulled the door closed a fraction.
Crowley shrugged, as though he couldn’t care less. Then he noticed the copy of Jane Eyre in Aziraphale’s hand. “Protecting my virtue, are you?” Crowley turned and started to walk away. Over his shoulder, he said darkly, “Well go ahead; leave me out here in the cold to be ravished by wolves.”
Aziraphale sputtered and grabbed his coat, following quickly out into the night. “Ah, I think you’re mistaken about the wolves.” He fell into step beside Crowley. “Ravishing you, I mean.”
“Maybe you’re right… Maybe I’ll ravish them.”
Aziraphale smiled at that, but it was hard to judge Crowley’s mood. It was a nice night for a walk anyway, and the angel didn’t much mind whether the company was an icy cold nanny or a wily serpent. They walked side by side.
“So, is our little hellion asleep?” Aziraphale asked.
“It’s 10:30 at night. He sure as shit better be!” Then, considering, Crowley added, “Unless, of course, he’s laying awake plotting Machiavellian schemes to get back at me. In that case, I’d have to let the bed-time slide.”
Aziraphale thought, for the millionth time, that Crowley had gotten the harder job, taking care of (and putting up with) Warlock. “Has he been going down easier these days? You seem a little less tired.”
“Two books!” Crowley said severely. And then in his best Nanny voice, “We read two books and two books, only. There will be no discussion. Then, lights out.”
“One has to have boundaries.”
Crowley’s chin bobbed once. “Quite right.”
“What are you reading him these days?”
“We started IT by Steven King.”
Aziraphale stopped walking and gaped. “You’re kidding me?!”
Crowley stared him down from behind his glasses, and not a hint of a smile could be detected as he answered finally, “Yes.” Aziraphale blew out the air from his cheeks and began walking again, shaking his head. Crowley continued, “Mostly Hop on Pop. Always Hop on Pop. He loves rhymes.”
“Then, what’s the second feature?”
“It depends. Sometimes we do Edgar Allan Poe… quoth the raven ‘nevermore’. Or the Cremation of Sam Mcgee, or the Wreck of the Hesperus.”
“Oh, Crowley!” Aziraphale exclaimed, reprovingly.
“What? I’m instilling a love of the classics! You, of all people, should appreciate that.”
“I guess I’ll need to start reading to him when we’re out in the garden together. Just to counter-balance your grizzly poetry.” Aziraphale rubbed his hands together, excitedly. “What an excellent thought! Maybe Winnie the Pooh.”
“Good luck with that!” Crowley scoffed. “Not if it doesn’t rhyme.”
Aziraphale thought for a moment, then brightened, “The Lorax!”
“Yeah, that one’s not depressing at all.” Crowley seemed determined to scuttle every one of his ideas.
Quoting to himself, the angel murmured, “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot-”
Out of nowhere, Crowley finished the next line with him, in unison, “Then nothing is going to get better, it’s not.” The demon suddenly pulled his glasses off, letting them hang around his neck on their little silver chain. He looked up at the stars. “Is that why? Huh?” The stars didn’t answer.
Aziraphale looked over at Crowley’s severe countenance, all lines and angles, and realized that only his demon could have somehow quoted Dr. Seuss and Questioned God at the same time. Aziraphale could almost have hugged Crowley, then. He lived for moments when he could feel the warmth of that unexpected kinship. Caring was one thing the two of them had in common. “Funny, I never realized how that poem was about us!”
“Speak for yourself.” Crowley snapped. “I’m a demon. I don’t go around caring awfully lots.” He looked as if he wanted to say more, but then thought better of it and changed the subject. “I told my people that Warlock was fantastically evil.”
“Well, that’s right, isn’t it?” They had reached the steps that led down toward the main house and agreed, silently, not to get any closer. Aziraphale found a spot to sit down on the low brick wall, and Crowley leaned against the curved iron railing at the top of the stairs. “It’s what they want to hear, after all. That he’s taking after his father.”
“But he’s not evil. For all that he’s a little shithead!” Crowley tossed his up hands, exasperated. “A spoiled little brat… the way his parents give him everything he wants, but then completely ignore him. They don’t even know their own kid! Did you know that he’s scared there’s a shark under his bed? Really! A shark. And it isn’t my fault, because I never said anything about sharks! So, I told him that he could take on that shark, and just bite it right back. Make sushi out of ‘em.”
“Did it help?”
“Well, now he pretends he’s a shark. He gnashes his teeth and bites all his stuffed animals. But still, I have to remember to tell him to make shark sushi, before I can leave the room.”
“Maybe it’s working, then. Maybe we’re canceling each other out, and he’ll just turn out as normal as… as… peas.”
“Either that, or when the whole thing starts, there’ll be a rain of live sharks instead of fish.”
“Or, it will rain sushi,” Aziraphale suggested. “Which, I mean…. I guess there’s worse things.”
This made Crowley laugh. “Trust you to look on the bright side, angel.”
Aziraphale wasn’t usually one to make jokes intentionally, preferring instead to feign earnestness. When he was funny it was usually accidentally/on-purpose, but Crowley’s laugh was so familiar and genuine that Aziraphale wanted it to continue. “Don’t forget to bring your pickled ginger to the apocalypse, in order to enjoy it properly!”
“I’ll bring the chopsticks.” Crowley agreed, gamely.
“Two sets!” Aziraphale reminded him with a little shake of his forefinger.
“Yeah. For… the two of us.” Crowley’s voice was suddenly thick with emotion. The weight of the world came back down upon them both. Would they be together at the end, eating sushi one last time? Or, if it came to that, would they be forced on to opposite sides? Would the two of them be lost somewhere among the ranks of the opposing hosts, getting ready to face off as enemies?
Crowley reached up and pulled a few bobby pins out of his hair, letting the severe up-do fall apart. He shook his head, pressing his fingers on his temples as if pained. “Fuck.”
“It still might not happen. Maybe we can stop it.” Aziraphale tried to sound encouraging, but he knew how ridiculously futile it sounded. “Anyway, the anti-Christ isn’t evil or good, he’s just weird. So, there’s that.”
“It was always a long shot at best. I feel bad about getting our hopes up, when there’s no guarantee we can do anything at all to stop it.”
“Don’t think like that.” Aziraphale begged. “You really were right, after all; we had to try.”
“You know, the worst part?” Crowley was staring intently at him. “Things have actually never been better! That’s the holy irony of it!”
Aziraphale fidgeted under the gaze. “So, you’re really enjoying being a nanny, then?”
“Not exactly. I mean, I like kids just fine, but…”
“What?”
Crowley pivoted, turning away from the angel. He leaned on the railing and did a couple of little relevés in his sensible pumps. “Haven’t you noticed anything different in the last six years? Aside from the constant gnawing anxiety? Aside from the hungry pull of nihilism on our souls?”
“But, I thought you said things had never been better?”
“You’re not getting it. Think back to the beginning. How long did you go between conversations? I mean actual conversations, ones that mattered?”
“Well, I’ve always liked humans…” Aziraphale replied uncertainly.
“Me too. Sure. But there’s taking an interest, and then there’s actually giving a real shit!”
“I know. Sometimes it seems like the closer we get to the end, the more we care.”
“Such a refined form of punishment, really.” For a demon, Crowley certainly spoke directly to the sky a lot. “For me anyway, it used to be hundreds of years between real conversations.” There was no use pretending that Crowley wasn’t referring to their own infrequent meetings. What had been an accidental once-in-a-millennia occurrence, had become a standing lunch date every decade or so, and finally the daily intimacy of co-parenting. “Nowadays, I’m just… I guess I’m not so lonely.”
Aziraphale felt his heart break a little. In truth, he felt exactly the same way, but he didn’t trust himself to comment. He couldn’t admit out loud that Crowley was the only thing keeping the loneliness and terror at bay. If he said something like that, it could all be taken away from him. It would be just his luck. Heaven would probably make him fight his demon hand-to-hand at the end of the world, just to spite him for fraternizing with the other side. Heaven excelled in refined forms of punishment.
So, Aziraphale said nothing in response to Crowley’s millennia of loneliness, and the word just hung there. They were so close, and yet so far. The moment stretched. The moment passed.
“Crowley,” he said in a small voice.
The demon turned back around and made a show of straightening his skirt and the lace at his cuffs. “Yes, Brother Francis?”
“I um… I think you’re doing a good- I mean, a very conscientious job of raising that infernal kid.”
“And your gardens are heavenly. I’m sure they’re a source of solace… for him. Oh, by the way, Warlock gave me a rose from your garden today.”
Aziraphale froze like a deer in headlights. “Really?”
“Yeah. It was damn sweet of him.” Then in a much quieter voice, “I…uh…Thank you.”
Aziraphale squirmed. There were some things that they each struggled to admit out loud. “Well, I guess one thing’s for sure: we both seem to care a whole awful lot more than we let on.”
“Ok. Fine. Yes. Just don’t tell Warlock.”