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The trouble begins when Crowley is in line at the bakery, picking up scones for his angel. He passes his credit card to the cashier who glances at it and snickers a little before running it through.
“Tough luck, mate. At least your name isn’t Khaleesi.”
Only half-paying attention, Crowley squints at the human. “Excuse me?”
The cashier’s smile turns sheepish. “Er… you know. Your name’s the same as that demon in Averting Apocalypse. That book everyone’s reading?”
Crowley continues to squint behind his sunglasses, now adding a scowl to his expression. This isn’t the first time someone associated his name with the occult, but never so disturbingly on the nose. “Never heard of it,” he says flatly, holding his hand out for the card.
The cashier, whose smile had long since made a run for the hills, passes it over and goes to collect Crowley’s order. He throws in an extra scone as apology, but Crowley doesn’t even notice, already searching for the book on his phone.
Averting Apocalypse by Edward Irving. Quickly, he downloads it one-handed. snatching the bag of treats with the other.
“Have a nice day!” the cashier calls out anxiously, but Crowley is already out the door.
And about to have a day as far from nice as possible.
~*~
Contrary to popular belief (and his own posturing), Crowley does like to read books. But as he finishes the final chapter of Averting Apocalypse, he’s starting to rethink his opinion.
It’s terrible. Absolute garbage. He’s nearly smashed his phone onto the concrete a dozen times over in disgust. It’s trashy, it’s gaudy, it’s written as if begging to be made into a Hollywood blockbuster. The plot makes no sense and the characterization is ridiculous. What did Adam or the Them do to deserve this? Or book girl? Or Madame Tracy?
The second-to-worst thing about it is his namesake. Anthony J. Crowley, a slimy nightclub-owning demon who couldn’t wait to abandon Earth and its inhabitants. Which… okay, he was ready to abandon Earth, too, but only once he thought it was a lost cause, and not unless Aziraphale came with him —
…oh, and that’s the worst, the absolute deep down dread of this stinking pile of refuse disguised as a book. Crowley is so mean to Aziraphale. Cruel and sarcastic and dismissive. His counterpart’s dialogue haunts him. Even though he knows that it’s not himself saying such mean things, it still stings.
He gets to the end and promptly deletes it. He wishes he could delete every single copy, but that’s a tall order for a demon trying to stay off the radar.
So long as Aziraphale doesn’t ever find out about it, that’ll be good enough for him.
He steps into the bookshop and there’s his angel, reading a hardback with Averting Apocalypse blazoned on the cover.
Fuck.
Aziraphale looks up over his little round reading glasses and hurriedly tucks the book underneath the counter. “Oh, hello, dear,” he says brightly — too brightly — and rushes around the counter to greet Crowley with a kiss on the cheek. “Scones? That’s lovely, so thoughtful of you. I’ll go ahead and put the kettle on, and —“
“Angel.” Crowley half-smiles at his partner’s guilty babbling despite himself. “I read it, too.”
Aziraphale’s entire corporation seems to deflate, his blue eyes taking on a look of tender sympathy. “My dear boy. I’m so sorry.”
“S’fine,” Crowley mumbles, immediately brushing off his concern. “Just a stupid bit of nonsense, nothing to get worked up about.”
“It’s character assassination,” the angel counters, taking his reading glasses off in a huff and tucking them away. “Like one of those tabloids at the newsstand. I feel all the dirtier for having read it.”
“Got a solution for that,” Crowley teases, but it’s half-hearted at best. The truth is, he feels dirty, too, or sullied somehow. He drops the bag of scones onto the counter and shoves his hands into his pockets, frustrated at how he can’t brush it aside. Worse yet, now Aziraphale is looking at him with his worried puppy eyes. Great, he managed to kill the mood before it even got started. “Whatever. I’m fine.”
“He isn’t you.” Despite the pinch of his eyebrows, Aziraphale’s voice is calm and reassuring. “Anyone who knows you would say the same.”
“But it’s my name!” Crowley blurts out, frustration boiling over. “It’s my name, down to the J in the middle! They took all the worst bits of me and slapped my name on it, like some shitty knockoff of a designer brand, and now that’s what people are going to think of whenever they hear it!”
His voice catches at the end and he turns away, for once embarrassed by one of his dramatic outbursts. Didn’t he just say that he was fine? But he’s not, he’s not. Anthony J. Crowley is a name he chose for himself. It isn’t Crawly, the name forced upon him when he pulled himself out of the sulphur pit. And it isn’t whatever name he had when She made him, either. It was his own, and this Edward Irving motherfucker stole it and gave it to some asshole who tells his best friend that he’s too stupid to live, and it hurts. How does he explain any of that to Aziraphale?
It turns out that he doesn’t need to. Strong, comforting arms wrap around him from behind and a soft body presses against his back. “If they know the truth,” his angel says quietly, “They’ll know you as a demon who loves the Earth so much that he stood between it and Satan with nothing but a tire iron.” He squeezes gently. “Otherwise, they’ll think it’s an unfortunate coincidence. It happens to humans all the time.”
The tight knot of hurt and indignation in Crowley’s core loosens and unwinds. He slips off his sunglasses, turning in Aziraphale’s arms so that he can look him in the eyes. “That so?”
“Of course. No one would judge a George Wickham or Uriah Heep, except perhaps for unfortunate luck.”
Crowley raises an eyebrow. “All those Uriah’s out there, huh?”
“I’m sure there are more contemporary examples that will come to me later,” Aziraphale continues, undaunted. “My point is, no one will judge you for it, either.”
The angel’s gaze is so open and loving that even if Crowley wanted to hold onto his anger, it’d slide out of his grasp anyway. He cups the angel’s cheeks with his hands and presses their foreheads together, the last bit of tension draining from his slender frame. “Still wish that bloody book didn’t exist.”
“So do I,” Aziraphale agrees wearily. “We should talk about that, actually, I’m concerned that someone knows that much about the Apocalypse nearly happening, despite getting so many of the details wrong.”
“Let’s have that tea first, angel.” Crowley gives him a proper kiss. “Or better yet, a stiff drink.”
G — Sa — Somebody knows he could use one.
~*~
A round of tea (with whiskey) and scones later, Crowley sprawls on the couch in the back room, head pillowed in Aziraphale’s lap. The angel is venting his concerns while running his fingers through Crowley’s hair, making it damn near impossible to pay attention despite his best efforts.
“…not any of our human friends who wrote it. Anathema was the one who contacted me about it, in fact. She’s as happy about it as we are, although she’s relieved that Agnes Nutter’s prophecies were left out of it. I thought perhaps that Shadwell might get it in his head to write a story, but you know he would have made himself the protagonist. And Adam made certain that no one else remembered the events from that day, so I can’t see how —“
“Why don’t we find Mister Irving and ask him?” Crowley interrupts, finally catching up to speed.
“I already checked, it’s a pseudonym.” Aziraphale sighs. “Probably named after that Scottish minister. You know the one, he was the figure behind the church that calls its bishops angels.”
The wheels begin to turn in Crowley’s mind. Metaphorical wheels, of course. Wonderful human invention, wheels, great for all sorts of metaphors. “Angels,” he repeats. “They certainly stand to gain from this version of Armageddon, don’t they?”
“Hmm? Oh, I suppose so.” Aziraphale absently scratches Crowley’s scalp while he muses, setting the demon’s nerves alight with pleasure. “There’s no mention of how badly they wanted another war, is there?”
“Mmm… go on…”
Crowley means the head scratching, but Aziraphale continues voicing his line of thought while he’s at it “And there’s the fact that everything is so simple. Everyone is a caricature of themselves. It’s as if whomever wrote this book has no idea how anyone’s mind actually operates…”
His hands still in Crowley’s hair. Crowley opens his eyes and finds the angel looking down at him. Without saying a word, they both suddenly know who to blame.
“Gabriel.” Crowley hisses it like a swear. He hoists himself out of Aziraphale’s lap, teeth bared. “I’m going to kill him.”
“Crowley, please, take it easy —“
“It has to be him.” His rage returns, but it feel good this time, now that it has a target. “No one else could be that self-righteous and petty at the same time.”
“I suppose it does make sense for him to be behind this,” Aziraphale agrees, twisting his hands together. “He’d never bother to get any of the details right, and he would naturally want to paint our relationship in the most negative light possible.”
“Checkers,” Crowley spits out. “He thinks we get together to — when’s the last time you and I played checkers?”
“It might be the only human game he knows. He has it on his phone.”
Crowley groans and flops back into Aziraphale’s lap. “That smarmy little wanker. He can’t destroy you, so he sets you up to look like the most gullible being in all of creation, and me as the ultimate sleaze ball.” He looks up into his angel’s eyes, and to his sudden horror, sees them shimmer. “Shit, angel, I’m sorry, I only meant the you in the book, and even he didn’t deserve to be treated like that.“
Aziraphale chuckles wryly, bringing an arm around Crowley’s shoulders to pull him up into a proper cuddle. “Nothing I hadn’t heard before, dear boy, and never from you.”
“If I ever said anything to make you feel that way, I didn’t mean it.”
“I know.” Aziraphale kisses the top of his head. “And the same goes for me. Gabriel can take his stupid book and stuff it.”
Crowley snorts at the invective. “Stuff it? That was almost a proper insult.”
“I didn’t say where he ought to stuff it,” Aziraphale replies primly, and Crowley barks out a laugh. It brings a small smile to the angel’s lips before he once again turns pensive. “There’s not much we can do much about it, unfortunately. The book is very popular and it would take a large-scale miracle to erase it. I’d rather not risk our peace and quiet, so we’ll have to let Gabriel win this one.”
“Or…” A wicked grin spreads across Crowley’s face as a brilliant idea takes hold of him. “We disappear the book in a different way. Angel, sweetheart. Fancy a trip to Hollywood?”
~*~
It doesn’t take much to turn Averting Apocalypse into big-budget action film, bloated to the gills with explosions, special effects, and an A-list cast.
The film is a critical and financial flop.
“Worse than Cats (2019),” one reviewer laments. “Was hoping the actual Apocalypse would happen so I wouldn’t have to watch the rest of the movie,” another critic complains. Everyone agrees that it’s rubbish, and not even in a ‘so bad it’s good’ sort of way. The head of the movie studio blames the director, and the director blames Crowley’s actor, but as it turns out, all three men are colossal douchebags, and nobody minds that the film has ruined their careers.
The flaws of the movie get people talking about the flaws of the book, and although there remain a few staunch defenders, its popularity wanes to the point of obscurity. The physical copies end up gathering dust in libraries and secondhand shops, and the electronic copies languish in cyberspace, never to be clicked on again.
Crowley gleefully shares all of this information with Aziraphale, who stays almost entirely off the internet. That’s why it’s no small surprise when Crowley finds him on his ancient computer one day, scrolling through what appears to be some sort of online database. “Angel? What’re you up to?”
Aziraphale swivels in his seat and beams up at Crowley. “Hello, dear. Curiosity got the better of me and I wanted to check on our little pet project. It turns out that Averted Apocalypse hasn’t been entirely forgotten. Look.”
Crowley peers at the screen, trying to make sense of what he’s looking at. “Is that a — what the Heaven are you doing on a fanfiction site?”
“Oh, is that what it’s called? I was just following some highlighted links. Anyway, isn’t it lovely? People writing little stories about the book.”
Crowley tips his head back and groaned. “No no no no, it’s not lovely at all, the whole point of getting that movie made was so that people would stop paying attention to the book.”
“Yes, I know, but look.” Aziraphale taps the screen. “That label there. All the stories have it, every single one.”
Crowley reads the text. And laughs.
Fix-it.