Work Text:
STAY HOME
Pestilence Just Received The Highest Commendation In Hell
People were still knocking on her door. The city outside her bookshop was so loud before the mandatory stay home order. The streets were a little bare, visitors scarce as they went to get food or supplies, their faces hidden to protect others in any way they could in this helpless situation. There was something almost special in this moment, though. Something kind. The extent of which she hadn’t really expected, not truly. The rallying of humans to commit to limiting contact, despite the inconvenience. The residents of Denmark singing to one another from their balconies, the waters in the canals of Italy now clear enough to see fish swimming below. Pollution levels were falling throughout (despite Pollution’s best attempts, bless him.) A full rainbow appearing over the Hudson River. The second solved case of HIV, along with remarkable recoveries from patients over a hundred years old. So many lovers were able to stay inside together. To live together, survive together-- love flooding the streets with so few visitors. Even the men who attempted to take off with her favorite copy of Malleus Maleficarum hadn’t returned. There was a pause in her Ethel Waters record and the bookshop fell almost blissfully quiet. She wiped away dust from her Sappho display and found herself thinking she was truly happy at that moment.
The year is 2020-- the first day of June; and Aziraphale hasn’t heard from Crowley in four weeks.
Aziraphale is used to this lapsed contact, but the familiarity doesn’t make it any easier. The phone rang briefly behind her and for a moment hope rose in her chest, wondering if Crowley had woken up early from her nap thinking of her. She nearly slammed down her phone when it was a man she didn’t know on the other side calling a wrong number, cursing for the first time in a year. It is one thing to enjoy being alone. There is a difference in being able to leave when one is able to do so at their leisure verses being prevented by cultural understanding. Aziraphale looked around her bookshop, looking at her cakes, her crepes, her whipped coffee, and paused. Baking only does so good until you have more food to eat than you can eat on your own. Realization sinking in that, well, it was a little lonely, if she were to be honest. Rising memories of how much more pleasant life is when you break bread with someone. There becomes a certain point when you can’t run from yourself anymore, not really. If nothing else, quarantine forces you to sit with your emotions. She can understand why she tried her best to hide from things, but realization makes it harder to fall back into that blissful sort of forgetfulness. A couple down the street is making love, and she realized how truly alone she has felt, those failed burglars being the last bit of contact she had in the last two weeks.
Putting Ethel Waters on her gramophone was a mistake. So was her last serving of Yvette liqueur (or three.) A separate couple in the building behind her were climaxing together. Even though Crowley was on the opposite side… No, stop. There were no more sides anymore. Why was it so hard for her to believe that? They were on their own side, even though Aziraphale had been almost too stubborn to admit there was something lying underneath her hesitancy. Crowley was the only immortal who truly knew what it was like to live among the Humans. How she could observe and participate, but only by limiting degrees of contact. How human culture is overwhelming and easy to get caught up in, the pleasure of human interaction and customs too fun to not slip into and enjoy, even if pain follows. Like how lovers die (and you can’t save them,) that time passes (regardless if you want them to or not,) that humans can be sincerely nasty (but oh so wonderful.) Heaven never anticipated her lying to continue living down on Earth. No one understood. Except Crowley.
How I would love to sit and gaze in/ to the eyes of Dinah Lee!
Aziraphale kept finding herself drawn to her writing desk. Well, truly, the bottom drawer of her writing desk. More truthfully, the locked drawer of her writing desk. When was the last time she had looked inside? Not since the sixties, she concludes. She hadn’t added to the unsent letters within the locked drawer, as well. Not since the church bombing during World War I, where Crowley had saved her books from destruction. Not since Crowley had been sacrificial, genuine in her intent to make her happy.
Aziraphale tightened the shawl around her shoulders. She loved languages since the beginning, even if she was rather awful at speaking them with extended periods of disuse. Writing was more her forte. Her past lovers’ letters publicly displayed near the gramophone, a pretty antique ribbon loosely wrapped around them, as not to crush, the edges frayed from nostalgic rereadings, preserved from the heat and decay that might otherwise destroy the paper without some Angelic intervention. But her own handwritten love letters? Well. She could visualize them perfectly, wrapped very tightly in a dyed ribbon in the locked drawer, as if to remind her not to open that pain locked inside her chest.
If something were to happen, it would have by now, Aziraphale thinks. She sits down at her writing desk despite herself. She won’t open that drawer, she bargains, as she opens her latest acquisition, a bible misprint that unquestionably states David and Jacob were lovers. She most definitely won’t pull the key from underneath her “lost” Sappho fragment on display. She most positively wouldn’t unlock the drawer. She more certainly wouldn’t struggle with the rusty hardware, the universe giving its’ last ditch effort to prevent her.
Antique paper has this sweet musty quality about them, something Aziraphale had always really loved about used books. The bundle is so heavy in her hands she’s genuinely surprised. There were so many of them. Had there always been so many of them? The thin paper at the bottom of the bundle crumbled a little at her anticipation.
Antónia J. Crowley Esq.
Her handwriting was careful. She had rewritten this last letter, she remembers, as she brushes her fingertip over the acute accent mark. First she had messed up the curl of her y, her hesitance playing out on paper. The physical manifestation of her thoughts was too vulnerable by half. Then she had hesitated with her own pen before writing Crowley’s name, an ugly ink splot ruining the paper. Of course she had to rewrite it then, because a love letter shouldn’t be ugly, she reasoned, shouldn’t seem rushed nor hesitant, nor messy. The third attempt was in her hand. Her ink wax seal is still intact. She had somehow convinced herself she was going to hand deliver this one. That was always the intent until she finished and held the weighty paper in her hands. She had really tried this time, though.
She scolded herself before undoing the knot, letting the letters pool themselves over the antique wood of her desk.
It hadn’t started as a bundle of love letters. There were reports at first. Then little daily pleasures she had to share with someone started slipping in. How wonderful the Gutenberg Bible had felt in her hands. How hard of a time she was trying to grasp Old English. How she laughed for a week straight thinking of how Crowley tried and failed magnificently at riding her first horse.
It’s not like all of them were coherent confessions, nor the long languishing mutterings of an Angel hopelessly in love and frightened about it. She once wanted to send a recipe card so long ago that a few of the key ingredients were no longer available anywhere on Earth. She once had carefully plucked a crane flower when she visited the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew during 1773. She had taken care to press the flower between one of Shakespeare’s comedies, tucked carefully away within her collection, the plan being she would present it to Crowley one night when she was brave enough.
Sometimes she had nothing to say, nothing at all, except wishing Crowley was right there next to her, but unable to gather the courage to call for her. Roland Barthes had said it best, after all: “I have nothing to tell you, save that it is you that I tell this nothing.” There was so much she wanted to experience with Crowley. Even in silence. Participation or recognition on Crowley’s part unneeded. Just Crowley’s presence; her freckles mapping constellations on her warm smooth skin like fine sand. Just her. It had always been just her.
Over time, their acquaintance had become something more. More meaningful, less work related. The Arrangement fell away bit by bit without her realizing. She remembers how Crowley brought her violet creams at her bookshop opening. She thinks again, perhaps for the first time, her decision to settle in London, convincing herself that the Arrangement would go more smoothly if she were to live in the same city as Crowley, and not thinking on the matter any further since. Why else would she send Crowley something as insignificant as a handpicked sand dollar on a beach near South Downs? She didn’t have to spend the time finding a whole one, nore a pure white one. There was no need, then to hand wrap the creature in tissue paper and bubble wrap, as if it were a priceless thing. Crowley probably doesn’t even remember, which is fine. It really is. Maybe the package was crumbled upon delivery, a confused Crowley pinching fine sand between her fingertips. Little material gifts easier to send than handwritten letters. But these small meaningless things build into something else, something more important, something more concrete. Aziraphale didn’t have to think of Crowley outside of their arrangement, but she always found she did, even going so far as wanting to tell Crowley she had found where the Antichrist was before she told Heaven. Wasn’t there significance in that?
Despite how she pushed her feelings away, the truth was before her. She couldn’t deny the letters unsent, the various postcards wishing Crowley could have experienced the location with her, the midnight musings, the drunken ramblings, the vulnerable confessions that came afterwards, the holes in the letters where Aziraphale couldn’t stand to reread what she had written. She felt like a historian, crafting the path of their relationship through sentences that made no sense out of context and half blurred cross writings that she was surprised she could even read. There was little coherency to be found in some of her more drunken writing, and less, true, in her last unopened one, the rewriting making the language stiff and disingenuous. She was almost surprised how many love letters were penned to Crowley with wine stained fingertips, heavy ink flows, various sized ink spots covering up words she wasn’t ready to admit the following morning.
There was so much hesitancy at first.
Oh, how you would laugh!
And
I’m not sure how to word this. How much I care for you.
Became
I’m not sure what I’m feeling for you, this type of kinship, this sort of friendship and intimacy borne out of proximity. No, out of mutual understanding. No, out of...
Tender and gentle writing building until she wrote:
Perhaps, Crowley if things were different. If there was no impending cosmic war. If there was no supervision from either side, you and I could be free to
The letter ends with a large rip diagonally down the paper, too raw to imagine, too tender to touch upon further in the morning.
The last note, crumbled and smoothed multiple times over the last fifty three years. A reminder to pause. It has haunted her since: There will always be a War, won’t there? We’ll never be free, you and I. I never truly realized how lonely a thought that is until this very moment.
Aziraphale sat back in her chair, a section of her hair unrolling down her back. She clutched the note from 1967 in her soft hands.
The streetlamps were shining through the windows above her desk. Has a day passed? Two? Dust was settling on her shoulders. Quarantine made days blend together more than they usually do for her. Her corset digging into her lungs a little from inactivity. She stretched her numb legs and immediately dug through her desk to find her button hook, taking care to undo the buttons on her leather boots, enjoying the feeling of freedom as they clicked pleasantly on the solid floor as they gently fell away.
Crowley’s desire to be with her became more clear after that church bombing. The love she had always sensed wasn’t the background noise of the universe, of the lives of the Humans around them, happily alive, blissfully unaware of the impending apocalypse. Perhaps, she remembers thinking, as Crowley’s soft hands met hers, the weight of the book satchel nearly toppling her over in surprise, Earth didn’t feel overcome with love by default. That maybe Crowley loved her, too. At that time she thought of how Crowley must be fighting her feelings, too, until she remembers their encounters through history. How Crowley asking her to dance all night during a Regency ball, blast the rumors. How Crowley made Hamlet a hit, and even sat through her predecessor's attempt to match her success as he bumbled Hamlet’s famous lines, how dinner was on her afterwards. How Crowley wanted to run away with her, begged her to, so they could continue on exploring the universe, together. Crowley. Patient Crowley. Crowley who understood when to leave when Aziraphale hinted, who cleaned Aziraphale’s antique blouse at the old Satanic church to preserve her modesty, who saved her from danger countless times, who met her for long operas despite Crowley’s fidgety nature. Who, rather than eat herself, watched Azriaphale enjoy the last perfect bite, with no more than a complaint (or two.) Who Aziraphale loved to spend time with on Earth when they were really supposed to be doing a great number of their assignments from Head Office.
The books Crowley stole back from the Nazis were on display near her desk, watching over her. The two of them had tried so hard. No, she physically shook her head before pushing herself away from her desk, reaching around to loosen the corset underneath her camisole as she made her way towards her soft couch in the back room. It was her. She had tried so hard, for so long. And it was exhausting. Had she always been this tired? Was her shaky handwriting down to fear of her feelings or fatigue over knowing she couldn’t do anything about them, and what was the point of voicing them if the two of them knew they couldn’t be acted on?
Only… there is no War now. So what was she waiting for?
She paused just as she made her way to her back room. Alcohol burned her system as it left her body, the lingering liquer too sweet on her tongue. For the first time she realized how pleasant the carpet felt under her stockinged feet. It was her, then. Her denying, averting, diverting. Burying her feelings deep down, locking them in a drawer, to be the best Angel she could possibly be, as if not under humans’ influences, knowing one day she may face Crowley on the battlefield, and doing her damnedest to prevent the possibility of Crowley being destroyed forever. It was purely for protection, she had always reasoned. Crowley’s protection, she adds quickly to herself, pulling the pins from her hair and letting them fall to the floor as she starts walking again. Crowley’s protection against Hell’s wrath. Love is sacrificial, isn’t it?
She’s a coward, she thinks as she plops down rather unladylike on her couch. Utterly cowardly. And alone. She watched as the bright June day turned to dusk. She counted the beatings of her heart and knew herself in that moment.
Yes, she was afraid. There’s exhilaration in that, too. Fear has a purpose. Feelings always do. She wanted to protect Crowley, protect herself, protect the friendship blooming out of a single meeting on the Eden wall. That was reason enough to keep Crowley and her love away before the War. She had given Crowley the hint that she felt the same way when she agreed to try to pull the Antichrist back from her true nature. That, if they stepped in before Eve found the hellhound, maybe they could enjoy Earth without fear making their back straight and stiff at any given moment, together. That’s freedom, Aziraphale thinks. And it’s the freedom that they have now.
Why should she worry then? That Heaven would look through her Earthly possessions and punish her retroactively? That Heaven and Hell hadn’t forgotten about her and Crowley’s involvement in the Apocalypse that failed to launch from the onset? That they were still opposites even if they were made from the same stock after all? Why were there still lingering anxieties when Heaven and Hell had held up their side and left them alone? Light from the stained glass behind her made a beautiful silhouette along her ceiling. Her and Crowley were never really on their supposed sides. They hadn’t been for a rather long time.
Sometimes it just takes a single moment of bravery. Angels shouldn’t be cowardly, there was no reason to, but all the time spent amongst humans had influenced her. Ink stained the top edge after she stared down at the page for a long moment after writing the date (so formal! why!) She stained her gloves by trying to wipe away the excess ink before deciding to discard the ruined leather rather than the paper. Her handwriting normally so careful and even when writing Heavenly Reports now shaky and nervous. Smaller but more personable. Less inhibited without the pressure of making a beautiful letter, realizing she no longer had to cross write because of a shortage of paper. The small charm of doing so lost if her writing was illegible.
In the end, her letter had so many lines crossed out that she wondered if Crowley would even be able to read most of it.
I had once thought that perhaps if there was no war…
Heaven and Hell were a real threat but our continued fight to continue our friendship despite the consequences prove the significance of it. Why would we fight for something to continue, even against this hanging threat? Especially against this hanging threat, if it were not important to us?
That is to say
I mean to say
Please let me say
There was no War, there is no one watching over us, and I am not afraid anymore. I have loved you and have desired you for longer than I have been willing to admit, even to myself. I should have accepted your ride home in 1941. I should have danced with you longer at that Regency ball. I should have comforted you more when you cried during Handel’s Messiah. I should have sent you these letters as soon as I wrote them. I should have, should have, should have--
My life is full of shoulds. Is yours? I don’t want to look back fifty years from now and see this letter on top of the others. I don’t want to lock them away in my drawer, try to forget what I wrote and how I felt for another hundred.
I know my feelings and have felt yours for a millenia. Come to me now, if ever before, and let me show you.
She shook the writer’s cramps out for a long moment before squeezing her signature at the bottom corner. Dark green sealing wax pooled carefully over the folded edges of the small letter. Aziraphale placed her signet ring in the wax, happy with herself when the violet flower pulled back clearly. It was the only point she wanted to get absolutely right.
It was dawn again when she finished. A nightingale sang outside her window and, touched, she leaned over to prop the glass open to listen to the melody uninhibited. They weren’t supposed to leave, not really. She felt she must set an example, even if she wondered if she could convince Crowley to break lockdown to stay with her from the beginning before chickening out. If Crowley was awake at all.
She placed this last letter at the beginning, rearranging the others so Crowley could read them chronologically, viewing her in order, to see her progress. Before she became afraid once more, she reached for the frayed ribbon to tie lightly around the thick bundle of letters. The ribbon is barely long enough to form a knot at all.
Aziraphale had never seen the inside of Crowley’s apartment, never allowed herself to ask to visit, never allowed herself to want to, until the night after they avoided the apocalypse. It was the only time, too, and regret flooded her being. (Another should. We should have done this sooner. I should have visited. I should have expressed myself sooner. I should have kissed you out of relief. I should have slept in your bed. I should have…)
Miracles are easy. Crowley may protest that she rarely reads, but Aziraphale has caught her peering inside misprints of Twelfth Night to know better. The letters may stay on Crowley’s pillow, forming dust as Crowley sleeps the summer away. Maybe they would never mention the letters at all. Crowley convincing herself this was an action borne out of bored loneliness rather than true genuine realization. At least it’s out in the universe now, Aziraphale thinks, smiling as the warm sunshine hits her skin. She could miracle the letters back at any moment, of course, but she prevented herself. It was nice to allow herself this moment. Aziraphale wouldn’t look back at this moment as another should. No matter the outcome, at least she presented herself, vulnerable, to Crowley to act at her discretion.
Crowley found Aziraphale two days later, resting comfortably on her too warm couch, with her fake reading glasses on the shelf, her curly hair falling down her back, her ruined gloves laying on her writing desk. In the end, all it took was a single glance, Crowley kneeling so she could look up at Aziraphale’s nervous eyes, Crowley’s soft hand burying itself in the soft curls at the nape of Aziraphale’s neck. Her name sounded so tender in Crowley’s mouth.
Crowley smiled and Aziraphale wondered why she had ever been so cautious at all.