Chapter Text
Very little happened to Aziraphale when, quite suddenly, his powers went out. A powercut , he thought, thrilling at the wordplay even as he reeled at the loss of his heavenly powers. It felt a bit like vertigo; overwhelming for the first few seconds, but quickly fading into numbness. The only damage done was the sad, dusty death-rattle of Aziraphale's ancient computer, which at this point was held together by faith and a lot of absent minded miracles.
Crowley wasn't anywhere near as lucky.
Aziraphale wheeled around at the sound of a loud "Fuck!" from the front of the shop, accompanied by a high-pitched scream.
Panic rising, he abandoned his brief vigil for the computer and dashed to the front of the shop, just in time to see a red-faced woman leaving in a hurry. Crowley was nowhere to be seen.
"Crowley, dear?" He called, "Everything alright?"
There was a groan from the shelves at the side of the shop, over by the self-help books he kept to fob off overenthusiastic customers with.
"No, everything is not bloody alright. Don't come back here!"
Aziraphale paused mid-step.
"Erm...why not?"
He was pretty sure he knew the answer. Crowley's wardrobe changed from week to week, an eternal shuffle of different pieces in black and grey and charcoal depending on his mood. It was all so fashionable, buying it all for real would've cost a fortune. Crowley didn't have access to a fortune. For big purchases there was the company credit card, which was the only one in existence that was paid off in souls. Crowley hadn't tested it since the failed apocalypse, as far as Aziraphale knew, and it was a safe bet that his line of credit was as frozen as the polar ice caps. Most of the time, for little things like dinners or coffee, he just made people forget that they needed paying.
Designer clothes were too big to forget about, even for very large shops, which meant...
... Crowley had miracled them into existence.
Blushing, Aziraphale retrieved his coat from the coat rack.
"You bloody know why," Crowley muttered.
"Yes, I rather think I do. Can I offer you my coat, dear boy?"
A pale, skinny arm emerged from behind a bookcase and beckoned impatiently. Aziraphale handed over the coat, trying not to laugh as it was whisked away.
the powercut had evidently got Crowley too, leaving him unexpectedly completely naked in Aziraphale's bookshop.
It was no wonder the customer had left in such a hurry. A traitorous part of Aziraphale's brain, the part that had replayed every time he'd touched Crowley over the last eighty years in glorious technicolour whenever he was trying to do his accounts, wished he could've seen it. Crowley had always looked rather dashing in anything he chose to wear, but Aziraphale wasn't sure he'd ever seen him naked.
Not even in Rome, when clothing had been optional a surprising percentage of the time.
Even if he had, it wouldn't have meant the same thing as it would nowadays. Now that he and Crowley were on their own side, they were still figuring out what that meant.
They had held hands on the night they thought their own personal world was about to end; hands clasped desperately all the way back to London.
That had been months ago, and it hadn't happened again.
"Don't you dare laugh," Crowley said, shuffling out from behind the bookshelves.
Aziraphale's coat was far too big, hanging off him and making him seem even thinner, and since Crowley was taller than Aziraphale it ended mid-thigh. The sleeves were too short, and the colour was all wrong, and his hair was starting to droop without the magical equivalent of hair product. Even worse, his sunglasses were gone. Without them, Crowley was stuck attempting to give Aziraphale a death-glare while also squinting in the daylight. All in all, it was a rather pitiful picture.
Much as he had every day since the end of the world failed to come, Aziraphale wanted to wrap him up in something soft and warm and keep him safe forever. He wondered if a powerless Crowley might actually let him.
"Socks?" He said, instead.
"What?"
"You've got socks on. Real ones. But presumably not...um. Underwear?"
Crowley was beginning to flush with embarrassment. Normally, Aziraphale supposed, he would miracle it away.
"Can never seem to get the heels right, they always come out lumpy," Crowley grumbled, "anyway, who cares about my fucking socks, angel! My powers're gone!"
"Yes, mine too, I'm afraid. Isn't it the oddest sensation? Like when your foot goes to sleep and you can't feel it anymore."
Crowley looked at him as if he'd just remarked on an unexpected rain of fish as being rather good for the plants.
"And? It doesn't occur to you to be a little bit worried about the sudden loss of all your unearthly abilities?"
Aziraphale sighed.
"Not really, no," he said, testily, "I can still feel my connection to Heaven and it's not as if this hasn't happened to me before. Really, I should be surprised it took them this long to think of it."
Crowley padded past him into the back room, out of view of the windows, and flopped down onto the sofa. After a second or two he snarled and remembered to close his legs. Sitting like that was clearly uncomfortable, but Aziraphale supposed Crowley had probably had enough of feeling exposed.
"Eugh, this coat smells like you," he muttered, while wrapping it even tighter around himself.
"I wasn't aware that I smelled quite so repellent," Aziraphale said dryly. He busied himself with the kettle and the teabags, trying to hide how much the remark had stung. Yes, the coat was old and probably a bit musty, but it was his favourite. He'd had it for almost two hundred years and had spent many an evening sewing it back together.
Crowley made a strangled noise and buried his head in his hands.
"No, no, angel, I didn't mean it like that! You smell nice , is all. Like sunshine...or daisies or something." He cleared his throat and tried again. "Just. Y'know. Angelic."
"Oh. Erm. Thank you."
"S'fine. You're an angel. I'm not, though, and it's just a bit much ."
Crowley took one hand from his face long to accept a mug of tea, but Aziraphale could tell it would be a while before the other one was going anywhere. The demon had a tendency to sulk when he was embarrassed, and this was the most embarrassing thing that had happened since Aziraphale accidentally walked in on him trying to teach himself to play guitar back in the seventies. It hadn't been going well, and the guitar had hit the wall with enough force to turn it into matchsticks. Aziraphale had made sure to knock extra loud on his front door after that.
"Well, I must say you did a bang up job of chasing that woman out of the shop," he said, smiling cheekily as he sat down in his armchair, "I can't imagine she'll be back any time soon, either. However shall I repay the favour, my dear?"
Crowley's face started to turn pink again, which Aziraphale couldn't help but notice started with the tips of his ears.
"I imagine she'll stay away for a good while, too, so I really am in your debt. Not that I should be condoning such a wicked act of temptation."
"Please stop talking, angel," Crowley grumbled. His heart wasn't in it, though, and Aziraphale could see the shadow of a smile between the demon's fingers.
"I shall have to pray most fervently for her soul, my dear. We wouldn't want her to get a one way ticket to the Second Circle, now would we?" Aziraphale said, voice dripping with mock offense.
"Alright, alright, enough."
Crowley finally cracked a smile. Aziraphale suppressed a happy wiggle as the demon lowered his other hand and began sipping his tea.
"It was a bit funny. A bit. She certainly stared a lot longer than I would've expected for someone who screamed that loud. Hard to look properly affronted when you're glancing back over your shoulder on the way out."
"Oh dear," Aziraphale laughed, "maybe she'll come back after all!"
Crowley grinned, finally relaxing. He made to slouch back onto the sofa and then grimaced when he remembered he couldn't.
"Can I get you some other clothes, dear?" Aziraphale asked, "I don't have many and they're probably frightfully unfashionable, but even sartorial suicide has to be better than wearing just my coat."
The expression on Crowley's face was difficult to read, but Aziraphale was fairly certain it wasn't disgust.
"Yeah. Thanks. Where." Crowley swallowed. "Uh. Where should I change?"
Aziraphale pointed to the rickety staircase and told Crowley to feel free to take anything he wanted from the wardrobe and chest of drawers. He resisted the temptation to watch him climb the stairs, which were steep enough that the coat probably wouldn't have done much to preserve his modesty. His book wasn't nearly as interesting as it had been that morning, and completely failed to be a distraction from the sounds of Crowley rifling through his things and periodically swearing.
He came back down dressed in the only clothes Aziraphale owned that weren't tan, cream or tartan: his black magician shoes, a pair of grey trousers he'd bought when Gabriel had forced him to accompany him to his tailor, a shirt, open at the collar, that was just too daring a shade of blue for Aziraphale to ever actually wear, and…
Oh dear, he thought. He'd forgotten about that.
It was a waistcoat in rich midnight blue, embroidered with a pattern of silver snakes. Aziraphale had seen it in a shop window in the 1890s and bought it purely because it was so beautiful. He'd never worn it, but had spent longer than he would admit tracing the lines of the little snakes and thinking things that he absolutely shouldn't.
Somehow, despite all the clothes being either too large or too short, Crowley looked rather dashing. Admittedly he looked a little like an usher at a wedding but that just added to the sweet, faintly disheveled charm of it. It had been at least a thousand years since Aziraphale had seen him in anything that wasn't sinfully form-fitting, and seeing him looking almost scruffy was almost too intimate.
"Alright, I've got three questions," he said, frowning, "firstly, why the hell does everything you own have buttons, including the underwear . Secondly, what in heaven did belts ever do to offend you?"
Crowley hissed and rolled his shoulders, trying to get used to the sensation of a pair of braces resting on them.
"And third, what d'you mean this has happened to you before? Too many magical marshmallows in your cocoa and the bastards upstairs cut you off?"
Aziraphale sighed. It was embarrassing, really.
"Not...exactly. It wasn't for frivolous miracles."
He fiddled with the ring and remembered the tears, the pain, the whistle and thump of shells hitting wet mud. He closed his eyes. Best not to think about it.
"When was this, angel?" Crowley asked, so softly that Aziraphale knew he'd let it show anyway.
"Nineteen sixteen. I just wanted to save as many as I could, you understand. Humans start to get ideas if it's too many, unfortunately."
"How many?"
Crowley didn't really blink, but he did normally breathe. Right now he wasn't doing either.
"A few hundred, I think. I'm not exactly sure. It was all a bit of a blur."
He'd wandered through the trenches touching those who could be saved with a gentle hand. Those that couldn't be healed passed without pain. Star shells had lit the way like falling angels, and Aziraphale remembered wondering distantly if he would join them. He didn't care. It was all too much to bear.
The next thing he remembered was Gabriel slapping him hard across the face and telling him he was in "time out" for the next twenty-four hours.
"Shit. Angel, I..."
"Don't look at me like that, dear. It wasn't your fault, you couldn't have known the whole world was going to fall apart while you were asleep."
"Still, though." Crowley remembered to breathe again, running an anxious hand through his hair. "Should've been there. Shouldn't have let you go through that alone."
Aziraphale smiled weakly and reached out to touch Crowley's hand where it rested on the arm of the sofa. Crowley took it, gripping it as if he never wanted to let go.
"It's alright, Crowley. You're here now, my dear, that's all that matters."
"Nngh," Crowley said intelligently.
Aziraphale squeezed his hand and felt his heart flutter when Crowley squeezed back.
They sat for a while, Aziraphale quietly sipping his tea while he waited for Crowley to process things. He was just starting to wonder whether any of his books would have time to fall apart without heavenly maintenance when Crowley cleared his throat and carefully extracted his hand to adjust his braces again.
"So you were cut off? No miracles, no powers? How long did it last?"
*About a day. Long enough for me to come to my senses, I suppose. Honestly, I've never been sure if it was standard procedure for disobedience or if Gabriel was just at the end of his rope."
It had been long enough to find himself stuck on the front lines, covered in mud and blood and other unspeakable things. He'd only avoided discorporation because a kind lieutenant had manhandled him to the infirmary, shaking and shivering, when he didn't respond to his shouts to get below before someone blew his head clean off.
If Aziraphale trembled as he got up to make more tea, Crowley was polite enough not to mention it. Instead, he followed Aziraphale into the little kitchenette and hopped up onto the counter.
The position hiked his trousers up far enough to display his socks, which were the novelty pair Crowley had bought him one Christmas, which was very odd indeed since Crowley's socks had been the only part of his own clothes that were actually real. They had a pattern of little angel wings on them.
"I don't think this is Heaven or Hell's doing, angel," he said thoughtfully, "Too coordinated. Those idiots couldn't put together a piss-up in a brewery, there's no way they'd be organised enough to cut us both off at exactly the same time. Even if they did somehow manage it, d'you really think they wouldn't pop by and gloat about it?"
Aziraphale thought about it as the kettle boiled. It was certainly true that Gabriel enjoyed a good gloat.
"You saw Hell, angel. Everyone there hates my guts. If word got out that I was up here defenseless it'd be open season, no hunting license required."
"You are not defenseless , Crowley. Anyone trying to hurt you would have to go through me ."
For a second, Crowley just stared, open mouthed. Then he reached over and took the twisted, warped remains of the teaspoon from Aziraphale's hand.
"Yeah. Good. Uh, thanks," he slithered off the counter in one fluid movement and carefully moved the mugs out of range of Aziraphale's hands, "Why don't I do the rest of that?"
"Yes, I think that would be best. Thank you, dear."
Watching Crowley attempt to make tea was calming. He seemed to think it involved taking the lids off of various containers and poking at the contents with a spoon.
"You need to put the little bag into the water, dear boy."
"I'm over six thousand years old, Aziraphale. I know how to make tea."
The evidence -- specifically the half-gallon of milk Crowley was now adding to the mugs -- pointed to the contrary. The teabags were now floating pitifully in liquid that looked more like dishwater than Darjeeling.
"And then you need to take it out again," he said, helpfully.
"Only if you're a coward," Crowley grumbled, "some of us prefer proper tea, not your wishy-washy bullshit."
Aziraphale rolled his eyes and fished his teabag out.
He followed Crowley out into the backroom. Instead of sitting in his usual chair, Aziraphale settled next to Crowley on the sofa and ignored the raised eyebrow it earned him.
"So not Heaven or Hell, then." He said.
"Nope. Too competent."
"Well, that leaves two possibilities," Aziraphale said, trying valiantly not to make a face as he tasted his horrible tea, "It could be earthly magic, some kind of curse or spell. Not very likely in my opinion, since we are both still connected to our respective sources of power, we just can't draw from them. I believe human rituals typically cut the cursed individual off entirely."
"If you say so, angel."
Crowley was looking at him as if he knew exactly where this was going.
"Which just leaves…"
"The former antichrist," Crowley said grimly, "who I thought was on our side ."
Aziraphale looked at him, dressed in clothes that didn't fit him and holding a mug with a picture of a kitten on it. Before he really realised what he was doing, Aziraphale was reaching over and patting him comfortingly on the knee.
"I'm sure there's a rational explanation for everything if Adam's involved. And besides, we're on our side , dearest. We don't need anyone else. We have each other."
Crowley made a funny little sound in the back of his throat, which he tried to hide by sipping from his mug. Rather predictably, he choked on some of the disgusting liquid and had to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being smacked on the back until he stopped coughing.
"You can't just say stuff like that, angel," he spluttered.
"Why not? It's true. I'm not going to censor myself, Crowley."
The "anymore" went unsaid, along with a mountain of other, more difficult words. It wasn't that Aziraphale didn't want to say them, or that he was afraid Crowley would push him away; it was just that after six thousand years he had a serious backlog of feelings to process and no clue how to adequately articulate them. On top of that, Crowley seemed to shrink from his affection like a wounded animal trying to protect itself.
And in truth, that was what he was. Whether he admitted it or not, Crowley had been hurt deeply by every time Aziraphale treated him as unworthy and unlovable and lesser, and had never really healed.
There was nothing Aziraphale wouldn't do to take that pain away if only Crowley would let him get close enough to try.
"So," he said calmly, ignoring the unreadable expression on Crowley's face, "It sounds like we need to give our young friend in Tadfield a call. Luckily, I still have his number."
The notes Aziraphale had made on the penultimate day of Earth's history (volume one, at least) were still in his rolltop desk, filed neatly in a drawer for posterity. Adam's phone number was on the final page; the last note he got a chance to make before everything in his personal universe went sideways.
"Here we are," Aziraphale said, and picked up the handset of his ancient telephone.
Rather predictably, the line was dead.
"Oh. Oh dear."
"Let me guess," Crowley said, "someone's been using miracles instead of paying their phone bill. I'm shocked, angel! Shocked and appalled."
He pressed a hand to his chest in mock-horror.
"Do shut up, dear boy," Aziraphale huffed, settling back onto the sofa, "I paid good, real money to have it installed when it was new, and I used to give the chap who collected the fees an extra few pennies every month. One day they just...stopped coming, that's all. I simply thought that meant I didn't need to pay any more."
Crowley rolled his eyes, having forgotten that without his sunglasses Aziraphale could see him doing it.
"They probably cut you off over fifty years ago. Can't pay by direct debit if you haven't got a bloody bank account, can you? Let me guess, you only ever call me on it, right?"
"Well, yes." he admitted, "who else would I be calling? Gabriel doesn't exactly have a landline, and even if he did, I wouldn't have called him."
The admission made a smug little smile appear on Crowley's face, and Aziraphale had to admit it was rather infectious.
"You daft old fool," Crowley said, laughing, "it's a good job they never actually checked your miracle records, although I'd have loved to watch you try to explain away three calls a week to an Anthony J. Crowley."
"An angel would never look at another angel's records," Aziraphale said, aghast, "it would be a monstrous invasion of privacy!"
"Sure they wouldn't. Especially if it was a rogue angel we were talking about. Oh, say, one that'd ditched his heavenly duties in favour of hanging out with a demon for the rest of eternity."
Aziraphale thought back over thousands of years of little selfish miracles, sandwiched between the good deeds and occasional illicit temptations. An embarrassing amount of them had been used to further his association with Crowley. It wasn't his fault that good wine wasn't always available or that his best friend often got cold on winter's evenings. Aziraphale was surprised to find that even if Gabriel took it upon himself to pore through six thousand years of mundane miracles, he didn't regret any of them.
"Honestly, Crowley, I can't find it in me to care anymore. And besides, it's not as if there'll be any more records for Heaven to pry into if we don't sort out our current situation."
"S'pose not. Guess we'd better make tracks to Tadfield, then, if dial-an-antichrist isn't an option."
Aziraphale raised an eyebrow.
"Some mysterious problem with your mobile, is there? Not getting reception all of a sudden?" He asked, archly.
"Angel," Crowley said, grinning, "why on Earth would a demon pay phone bills?"
He rose from the sofa and sauntered out to the front of the shop. It didn't quite have the same effect in trousers that were three sizes too big, but Aziraphale was pleased to see the swagger back in his step. As he shrugged on his coat, he tried not to think about the fact that Crowley had been naked in it only an hour ago. That way madness lay, or at the very least an extremely uncomfortable afternoon.
He followed Crowley out onto the pavement, locking the shop behind him. When he turned around, Crowley was standing dejectedly next to his Bentley, grinding his teeth.
"Crowley?"
"I'm an idiot," Crowley growled in response, "a fucking idiot."
"I wouldn't go that far--"
"I'm a fucking idiot who keeps the keys to his car in a safe back at his flat. A flat which doesn't even have a fucking key. I just...miracle the door open."
"Oh. Well, in that case perhaps I would. I suppose we'll have to get the bus."
He sighed and unlocked the shop again. Crowley followed him back inside, looking almost as miserable as he had when his beloved Bentley had exploded. Aziraphale gently took his hand and led him back to the sofa. He sat down heavily, staring off into another dimension entirely. Aziraphale sat down next to him and squeezed his hand.
"It's not as bad as all that," he said, smiling softly, "I do actually have some money put away."
That got Crowley's attention.
"You mean…?"
"Sadly, yes. I've been selling some of my books."
"I don't think we'll get very far on the proceeds from your clearance box, angel."
Aziraphale glared at him. The clearance box had been Crowley's idea; a box full of dogeared paperbacks by the door that Aziraphale would happily part with for 50p a pop. It kept the customers happy (people were always happiest when they thought they'd found a bargain), and kept the casual browsers away from Aziraphale's precious folios and first editions. The plan had briefly been a roaring success, until several sneaky punters had tried to pass off valuable old books as clearance rubbish.
After a particularly devious customer had threatened to call trading standards for false advertising, the clearance box had been put away for good.
Aziraphale opened the till, which dinged cheerfully. It was deeply satisfying to see the way Crowley's eyes widened when he pulled out a wad of cash as thick as his thumb.
"Bloody hell," he said.
"Indeed."
"Uh. Angel." Crowley eyed the money and swallowed, "Can I be a pain and ask for something?"
"Anything, my dear. What is it?"
"Can we please go clothes shopping?"
"Of course." Aziraphale laughed.