Chapter Text
Crowley propped himself up on his elbows and twisted his neck, glaring at the sky over his shoulder. The one cloud over the entire city, and of course it would pick right here to set up shop. He unspooled and flopped back down on his belly, chin digging into his stacked forearms. It had been such a wonderful half-hour--the pavement warm against his belly and the sun beating down on his wings, the heavy lunch he’d shared with Aziraphale leading to equally heavy eyelids. He’d been ready for a blessed nap, and so relaxed that he could almost forget he was trespassing. The cloud was probably a warning from the universe against getting too comfortable.
He sighed irritably, breath moving the leaves on the cowslip in front of him. He’d gotten better lately, at telling when Aziraphale had had enough of him. No more questioning looks, no more fidgeting with his cufflinks, no more fluttering about, fussing at the time. Aziraphale started to grow restive, and Crowley made his excuses, and it went like clockwork. Aziraphale had only had to ask him to leave a half-dozen times since the Ritz, and even then it hadn’t been a direct sort of thing. It was nice, being able to pretend he belonged here.
Of course, it was all that much easier when he could show himself out, bid the angel a good day, and then loop back to sun himself in the courtyard behind the shop. Gone but not gone, unbanished because his continued presence had been overlooked. It was cheating, but then, Crowley was still a demon. A little cheating had to be expected somewhere, didn’t it? And it wasn’t like he was hurting anything with a quick sunbath or three in any given week. Aziraphale had moved into the place and then promptly forgot that the courtyard attached to it was his, and maybe Crowley had the absolutely wretched weather that first few years to thank for it.
Whatever Aziraphale’s reasons for overlooking a quarter of his property, it let Crowley hover a little longer at the threshold. He was close enough to keep an eye on things, make sure nobody was trying to pull one over on the angel. Close enough too to breathe easy, knowing he was right there if something did go wrong. Close enough to feel that sacred aura bleeding out around the edges no matter how Aziraphale tried not to be quite so blessed obvious. Close enough to close his eyes and pretend he was welcome, that Aziraphale would smile and laugh if he found a demon basking on his pavers.
Crowley pursed his lips and glanced around, eyes narrowing. Stray wrappers and dead leaves had built up in the corners again, and he could probably get away with miracling half of them gone. The mortar should have been mildewed and crumbling, but Aziraphale would never notice that it hadn’t, not unless Crowley got too stupid by half about it. The weeds…
Crowley favored the cowslip with a sympathetic look. The ones that sprouted where there wasn’t any hope at all, he put out of their misery. Not out of any sort of fellow-feeling--nothing like that. But Aziraphale wouldn’t have wanted his inattention to result in suffering, and if Crowley was going to avail himself of Aziraphale’s courtyard without asking Aziraphale’s permission, it was the least he could do, wasn’t it? There were plenty of places were the pavers had eroded a bit, though, or that hadn’t been joined quite right in the first place. If a plant sprouted there, and it was lucky and hardy, it could auger its taproot just deep enough to hit pay dirt. Not enough to do well on, but enough to survive.
The ones that could just cling to life, he couldn’t help but feel a bit sorry for. So close to either being cared for by a creature who’d have loved them or not knowing the difference one way or another. Instead they’d missed the mark and gone blundering into this sort of twilight realm. Existence, certainly, but nothing more. There weren’t many pollinators, and even if there were, any fertile seeds would be wasted on unforgiving brick. They hung on because life was just that little bit sweeter than the relief of letting go, or out of unfounded hope, or sheer bloody-minded stubbornness. Crowley never told them what they could have had instead.
He’d been tempted, once or twice, to bring over some containers and make a go of it. If the plants were cooperative and he was careful, enough of their root system would likely make it out intact that he could pot them up and see what they did. But keeping the place relatively clean and in relatively good repair was one thing; Aziraphale wouldn’t expect a moldering wreck if he ever poked his head out the back door. Installing patio furniture and a fucking raised bed was several bridges too far.
Even Aziraphale would be certain that he hadn’t gone and done that on accident, and Crowley had never been able to hide his fingerprints well enough to fool the angel when he was really investigating something.
“Look at you,” Crowley said quietly, lifting the cowslip’s flower with the tip of one finger. It had even managed a bit of nectar, the hopeless thing. He’d wondered before if it was proximity to Aziraphale that did it, kept them going when they should have shriveled and died long since. “Bet you’ve sunk your roots all the way down into actual soil, haven’t you?”
He miracled himself a bottle of water and splashed a bit down the crack. The plant soaked it up readily, and Crowley gave it a bit more. Who knew? Maybe a bumblebee would find its way into the courtyard and nose around for a moment or two before finding its way back out. Maybe the blossoms wouldn’t be in vain, after all.
He stretched his wings and laid his cheek on his arms, one eye on the bookshop’s back door, just in case. It was certainly that angelic proximity that had kept him coming back around. It had been months and months since he’d had anything to do, really. He should have been bored out of his skull, itching for something to keep himself occupied with. He should have been all but salivating at the thought of being turned loose on the Earth, no more petty or short-sighted orders from Downstairs penning him in.
And yet, somehow he’d been content to do little more than meander around London whenever he wasn’t taking up Aziraphale’s time or lurking on his back porch. There was always something going on, some bright new thing all the borderline prophets were sure was going to revolutionize the industry and save the world and whiten everyone’s teeth whether they wanted it to or not. At least a few of them had to be right, purely from a statistical perspective.
Crowley should probably have been finding the most likely ones and puffing up their egos, or encouraging their greed, or tempting them into sloth, or… something. Just to keep a hand in. There were appearances to think of, after all, and it couldn’t be terribly good for a demon to just completely lay off the wiles and go cold-turkey. Not to mention that it made Aziraphale feel so holy to thwart him, and he got so adorably smug when Crowley let him. There had to be something Crowley could pull off with a minimum of time and effort diverted from mooning around the bookshop.
It didn’t even have to be something he actually did, really, just something he was in the proximity of for long enough to say he had. The tech sector was ticking along quick enough to turn out the next worst idea in the history of the world once a week, now--no more waiting for some charlatan to sell a king on the idea so the whole rest of the court would run with it. Heaven, if Crowley’s attempt to turn his flat into a smart-home was anything to go by, he could get himself a quiet and thorough pardon by claiming credit once it took off enough to be inescapable but not quite enough to ever work right.
Somehow, though, none of it was quite as appealing as loitering on Aziraphale’s sofa until the angel started up with his pointed invitations to dinner or a nightcap or, on one particularly humiliating occasion, a night spent on the sofa.
Crowley’s lip twisted at the thought. It had been late, Crowley would give the angel that. But still, the hamfisted acting Aziraphale had indulged in when he’d looked at the clock and yawned and said, “Surely you can’t be thinking of driving home at this hour?”
As if Crowley couldn’t have taken a detour to Paddington and still been in bed by one. As if either one of them could get physically tired. As if there had been a single time in the last six thousand years when he’d been allowed to sleep on Aziraphale’s couch.
He’d been more careful, after that. He’d stopped pushing his luck quite so hard. Aziraphale had finally agreed that they were on their own side, sure, but Crowley wasn’t fool enough to think that meant a real change in the status quo.
Aziraphale had always gone about his business and left Crowley to his own devices unless he needed something. Crowley had always been the one chasing after Aziraphale, scrounging for just a few more minutes with him. It had been the lesser of two evils, putting up with a demon. Aziraphale had gotten used to it, over the years, but not so much that Crowley could afford to make him stop and take stock of things now.
They kept one another company a great deal more, certainly, and they didn’t have to look over their shoulders while they were doing it. Aziraphale’s smiles had grown twice as content and roughly five thousand percent less furtive. But in terms of joint ventures? He’d only ever talked Aziraphale into anything with the looming demands of Heaven lending weight to his arguments, and that had vanished like so much chaff in the wind.
Crowley wasn’t going to get him going anywhere or doing anything that he didn’t already want to do, and Crowley hadn’t kept a few steps ahead of the combined suspicion and envy and paranoia of Hell for six thousand years by letting what he wanted blind him to what was. He wasn’t charming enough to seduce an angel out of his nest on his own merits, and Aziraphale was about as likely to continue entertaining Crowley’s blunter overtures as the angel was to take up extreme sports. It was probably a small miracle Crowley was still welcome in the bookshop on a drop-in basis. Aziraphale wouldn’t be coming round to his place for tea or taking little trips with him to Wales or Scotland, never mind summering in Greece and going halfsies on a timeshare in Spain.
Aziraphale absolutely wouldn’t smile at him and take his jacket and tell him that being on their own side suited him. There would be no moment where Crowley paused at the end of the afternoon, and Aziraphale reached up and cupped his jaw before leaning in to kiss him. Aziraphale wasn’t going to hold him, or whisper loving blandishments in his ear, or tell him that it was wonderful that they were free to be together at last.
Crowley grunted and pushed himself up onto his knees, spreading his wings for balance. Couldn’t even blame the Fall for that one--angels might have gone in for a good cuddle the same way they went in for a rousing square dance, but none of the other demons had taken it into their heads to go falling in love with anyone either. He’d booked this gig as a one-being band.
It at least had the questionable benefit of security through obscurity; Aziraphale wouldn’t suspect any more than Beelzebub ever had. Crowley would never have to sit through a compassionate but firm explanation of why the very thought of it was revolting or field mortifying questions about whether or not he could, if it wasn’t too much trouble, simply stop.
Like he hadn’t tried, once he’d realized. Like he hadn’t done his damnedest, once he’d finished running the absolute best-case scenarios.
Aziraphale had seemed so needy sometimes, so lonely. It hadn’t been so far-fetched to think that Aziraphale might, in the extremity of it, love him back if Crowley staged a slick enough courtship. It had been so tempting sometimes, to try. They could love each other, take pleasure in each other. They could live in fear of losing one another. They could get each other killed. He could give Aziraphale a reason to fall. Aziraphale could give him a reason to despair.
It would have been better for everyone concerned if he’d just been able to stop, and so naturally it had thwarted his every effort, growing stronger with every attempt to smother it or uproot it or cut it back. Eventually he’d given up on ridding himself of it, but he’d never let himself get so comfortable with loving an angel that he could trick himself into thinking it might be welcome.
Crowley got to his feet, then glanced back up at the lone cloud. It wouldn’t rain for days, by the looks of it. He rubbed his chin, running the odds on the plants surviving the heat without it. Not great, really. Aziraphale would do something, if he knew.
Crowley splashed a bit of water on the other flowers, then stooped to pluck a seedling that had found a crack too small for it to live. It might make it a week or two, but then it would choke on its own roots and wither away over the course of days, the sum total of half its life spent in misery. He shook his head and crushed it quickly, snuffing it out before it could feel much of anything. It was a pity Aziraphale had never taken an interest in gardening. Then again, if he had, Crowley wouldn’t have an empty courtyard to creep into.
He cracked his back and flexed his wings. At least he hadn’t done anything wrong by getting Aziraphale kicked out of Heaven.
He’d always been so afraid of it. There was nothing Crowley could do to cost Aziraphale his grace or make him fall; only Aziraphale’s own actions could damn him. But exile? Shunning? The eternal denial of those hallowed halls Aziraphale never seemed to stop missing? That would have been cake. A few slip-ups here, one too many mistakes there. Crowley could have literally done it in his sleep, and then what? Aziraphale miserable and hating him but still dependent on him for safety, the both of them living in terror of the moment when Hell discovered an Earth-bound principality there’d be no reprisal for tormenting in any way they could think of.
If Crowley had for a moment thought that Heaven had turned into that in the eons since the War, he’d have come up with a solid contingency plan and bless the consequences. He’d never for a moment have pictured the lifeless, blasted halls he’d been dragged through in Aziraphale’s corporation. It was like they’d been so shaken by the War that they’d been afraid to let any shadow linger, like they’d been so horrified by the bloodstains that they’d drowned themselves in bleach.
It stood to reason, in retrospect. Hell had gone just as hard in the other direction, refusing any lingering virtue or beauty out of spite. Heaven had gone overboard trying to prove they weren’t demons, that they deserved Her love and their place in Her halls, and Hell had denied itself in an obsessive performance of opposition to a place that had turned into the spiritual equivalent of staring into an interrogator’s lamp while nursing a concussion. If he’d known that was what Aziraphale was dealing with…
Crowley gritted his teeth. If he’d known that was what Aziraphale was picking over him, more like. He hadn’t exactly borne up under loving an angel who couldn’t love him back with a surfeit of grace, once he’d realized he wouldn’t be able to shake it. Though, really, who could have expected him to?
If he was going to go around falling in love with things, it had seemed grossly unfair that it couldn’t at least have been with mortals. Beautiful, corruptible mortals, destined to wink out after barely a century or two and land in Hell with him. He could have built himself a cozy little cocoon and stowed up everything he’d loved, if he’d done that.
Or even another demon, really. He’d had fucking eternity--even the thickest of his colleagues could probably have wrapped their head around the concept after literally infinite explanations. He could have started a whole new paradigm, called it a morale booster, cobbled together some paperwork for preferential assignments based on personal affinity. He couldn’t have called it ‘love’ if he’d gone with another demon, but the world was full of new words for new ideas and focus-groups of grudging coworkers to test them out on.
But no, it had been with Aziraphale. Untouchable, perfect, lovely Aziraphale. Crowley shook his head and grimaced. He should probably be grateful for whatever improbable crack the angel’s affection for him had found to grow in, even if it could never thrive there. Getting looked at with that sort of tolerant fondness was certainly better than the alternative, as a half-dozen archangels had only been too happy to demonstrate.
Crowley doused the weeds with the rest of the water. Aziraphale would never be his, not like he wanted, but at least Aziraphale was safe now in his cozy little bookshop, free to make things just as he needed them to be. He would never have to go back to that Godforsaken clusterfuck that passed for Heaven. It might be just the two of them here, but it was miles better than that must have been, wasn’t it? Had to be--practically anything was better than that.
Crowley looked around the courtyard. Bare and a bit grotty but still loads better than Hell, and that was even before he considered the company. And Aziraphale liked him, liked having him around. It was just that it was a small-doses kind of thing. Given time, he’d probably become habituated, too, stop noticing when Crowley’d been hanging around for an hour or so more than he’d have gotten away with right after the Apocalypse had fallen apart like a bad souffle.
He just had to be patient, that was all. Not his strong suit, unfortunately, but this was too important to let his normal pedal to the metal approach fuck everything up. Crowley shook his head, suddenly resenting the closeness and press of the city. He beat his wings and took to the sky, leaving the little courtyard behind for the day.
Aziraphale blotted the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief and leaned on his broom. He almost regretted not simply taking care of everything with a quick miracle, but all the same, there was value in taking the time to do something by hand. He’d been neglecting the courtyard behind the bookshop since the Blitz; if he wanted Crowley to understand it as something deserving of consideration, he needed it not to look like a backhanded afterthought.
He fanned himself and looked around, trying to imagine it not as a stale and barren patch that had earned the leaves and litter he’d spent half the afternoon sweeping up, but as something full of…
Well, Crowley would have some ideas, surely. It had potential, and that was what mattered.
Crowley would want something sterile and bright and modern, with a plant or two here and there just to highlight everything else he’d done. A place that imagined the city as what it could be, with all the grime and decay scrubbed away. Somewhere Crowley could go when the clutter of the bookshop got to be a bit much and he needed a breather. Somewhere that wasn’t his flawless, spartan flat, where the demon inevitably found something more interesting or less fraught to occupy his time, and it was days before Aziraphale would see him again.
Once the courtyard was clean, Aziraphale could get the ball rolling with a bench or a little cafe table and some chairs. He could suggest they adjourn to the courtyard, pretend to be very pleased with himself for broadening the scope of his leisure, and watch the gears ticking away in Crowley’s head, all the ideas and opinions Crowley wouldn’t hesitate to offer on a blank canvas tumbling away in that infernal brain.
And then he could suggest that Crowley make it however he thought best, and assure Crowley that whatever he wanted would be perfectly splendid, and Crowley would take it as the invitation it was.
Aziraphale could say, “No, please--suit yourself. Your interior decorating is always so clever.” and Crowley would hear, “Please, I want you to be comfortable here.”
He’d cleaned out the little room above the shop, but that was… Aziraphale flushed pink, even alone, here, in the privacy of a disused courtyard where no one could see him but Her.
No, showing Crowley the bedsit above the shop was very much getting ahead of himself. He’d had to steel himself before so much as putting an armchair right next to the queen-sized bed, practically blushed himself dizzy imagining Crowley napping away under the covers, him reading a book in that chair, their hands entwined. It might have been one thing if it was still buried in the dross of the last two hundred years, if the importance of it could be camouflaged somehow, but that was all gone.
It was nothing more and nothing less than a modestly decorated bedroom meant for two creatures--one who slept, and one who didn’t but still wanted to be close. If he showed it to Crowley now, Crowley would look from that bed and that chair to Aziraphale’s crimson cheeks, and Crowley would gently suggest that perhaps it was a bit too fast for Aziraphale to be entirely comfortable with, and then She only knew how long it would be before Crowley could face him again.
But this, this would be perfect. Crowley could do with it as he liked, and Aziraphale could take as long as he needed to bring a bit of order back to the shop. By the time Crowley stopped getting that hunted look from too much clutter and too much disarray and too little open space, they’d have met in the middle, and Aziraphale would be able to say “I have something to show you.” as cool as he pleased. He’d be able to sweep Crowley off his feet properly, have the demon saying yes with that delighted smile tempering those sharp features, have him properly moved in before it occurred to Crowley to stop and look for all the reasons why he shouldn’t.
Aziraphale chewed his lip. If he did it slowly enough, Crowley wouldn’t narrow those lovely eyes and look around and ask who it was that Aziraphale was tidying up for.
He hadn’t meant to be so obvious about it, right afterwards, when them being at loose ends had been so new. It had only been that he’d finally really looked around the shop and seen how it must feel to someone who preferred to keep their home the way Crowley kept his. Not a sty, no--the shop was clean, and Aziraphale knew where everything was. But it was still a mess. It couldn’t really be comfortable for someone who wanted everything neat as a pin and unencumbered. It was easy to see why Crowley kept slinking off, even when Aziraphale was at liberty to let him stay.
Aziraphale had gone on a bit of a binge, and Crowley had homed in on it as soon as he’d walked through the door.
“Don’t tell me you finally met your match and found a customer who talked you out of actual inventory, angel.”
The explanation that the clutter certainly wasn’t to everyone’s tastes had gone over like the proverbial lead balloon.
“This is your shop, angel.” Crowley’s eyes had been bright enough to burn, and his shoulders had had that motionless tightness to them they got when he was trying to keep himself in check. “You should do as you like in here, and bugger anyone who says different.”
Except that Aziraphale hadn’t minded at all, had he? Everything he’d let go of because of an archangel’s pointed comment about him getting too attached had felt like a punishment, and everything he’d piled up just to see Gabriel’s face go tight and his visits to the shop dwindle had felt like a bitter victory. Everything he’d reordered and reorganized and dusted off and put away and moved onto the shelves he’d actually let someone buy from for Crowley’s sake had left him feeling almost giddy.
It had been strange, feeling that urge to cling to everything like a limpet all but evaporate practically overnight. Pamphlets and circulars and manuscripts he’d have fought tooth and nail for barely a year ago had suddenly seemed unimportant. He’d checked a few and found that copies were housed in several archives, in addition to having been scanned and uploaded to a public repository online, and then he’d felt absolutely nothing about letting them go to an auction house.
He’d used the money to hire a tailor to make him a new waistcoat and a cobbler to make him some smart new shoes, and he’d been pleased as punch with the results. There had been a bit left over, and he’d seen a pair of cunning wrought iron lamps that were made to look like winding vines with leaves on them. They’d reminded him of Crowley, and he hadn’t thought twice about buying them.
Aziraphale blushed again to think of the lamps now, adorning the end tables on either side of the bed and the armchair, respectively. It had been such a ridiculous purchase, and still, he didn’t regret either the purchase or what he’d done for the money. It had been wonderful--almost exciting--to take such a bold move.
Crowley wouldn’t likely be such an easy sell, though. He’d always been so protective; Aziraphale had always had to work so hard not to acknowledge it. It had been like standing at the Gates and looking down, down into that fathomless drop his wings wouldn’t save him from--the hideous risks Crowley would take for him, if he ever slipped up and let the demon know what he needed.
Crowley had been skimming off what he owed Hell on Aziraphale’s account for centuries, flirting with utter destruction every time they met. Aziraphale was quite certain he knew the precise outcome of it if he ever said “Stay with me, move in with me, never leave me again.”
Crowley would stay, no matter how uncomfortable it made him, and Crowley would even count himself happy, no matter how much he had to contort himself to fit the definition of it. It was unbearable, what Crowley would give up to please him. It was unbearable, what so long in Hell had taught Crowley he deserved.
Aziraphale shook his head. He didn’t want Crowley putting up with things for him. He wanted Crowley to be comfortable enough to stay for himself, first. Measured against Hell, anything could be a paradise, but Crowley wouldn’t be measuring things against Hell for much longer if Aziraphale had his way.
The trouble was, of course, that Aziraphale had made sure over those same centuries Crowley had spent flouting Hell’s dictates on his account that the demon would never ask him for such petty consideration as affection or indulgence or a warm welcome. It had been necessary, drawing all those lines in the sand that kept Crowley at a safe distance and kept Aziraphale from reaching for things he couldn’t keep, but it had been necessary in the way of a suppression fire--the lesser of two evils, and destructive in its own right.
Keeping Crowley alive and whole and free had been such a difficult balancing act that Aziraphale hadn’t had the luxury of worrying about what lessons he was imparting with his methods. They were free, now. Free, whole, and alive--and still Crowley remembered with that same awful clarity that he brought to everything else what it was to ask for even the smallest things and be denied.
Aziraphale couldn’t help a pang of pointless regret at that. There hadn’t been anything else for it; he was sure of that much. He’d have found it, if there was. He’d certainly looked hard enough over the years, tortured himself with the false hope of finding a way for them to have everything they wanted at once, without paying an unthinkable price for it. He’d never really believed the day would come, but he’d had to trust that if it did, Crowley would turn that same blind eye to Aziraphale’s denial of him that he’d turned to Aziraphale’s acts as Heaven’s agent.
If Crowley could speak to him again after he’d confused humanity’s language after the tower fell at Babel, then surely Crowley could pretend Aziraphale had never said they weren’t friends.
And really, Aziraphale had only ever pushed him away because he couldn’t bear a world from which Crowley had been expunged. There was a sweetness to life when Crowley was absent that he could still savor, but Aziraphale shuddered to think of a life where Crowley’s presence was an impossibility. How many things had he done, and been, and tried, and learned not just for his own sake but because he’d wanted Crowley to be impressed with him and admire him? How many things had he suffered with a better spirit for imagining how Crowley would comfort him afterwards? How many things had he loved for Crowley’s sake and preserved because Crowley would be delighted with them?
He’d needed Crowley for so long, and he’d spent just as long making sure Crowley never once truly felt it. Small wonder the demon held back now, didn’t dare make with the strategic forgetting that had gotten them through the Flood and Golgotha and the Crusades and the Counter-Reformation. Crowley had barely dared ask for an apology, after all the awful things Aziraphale had said once Armageddon had reached the point of no return. He’d simply stood at the door, after the Ritz, and not come in until Aziraphale had told him unmistakably and clearly that he wanted the demon there. That he was welcome.
Now here they were, months later and Aziraphale still with no idea how to say what he meant in a way that wouldn’t send Crowley bolting back to a safe distance. Crowley would do anything he asked, and it was terrifying, having so much power. Crowley would do anything he asked, and there were times when Aziraphale could see how terrifying it was for the demon, someone having so much power over him. It wasn’t as if Aziraphale had been a particularly benevolent tyrant, over the years. It wasn’t as if Aziraphale didn’t know precisely who was to blame for Crowley’s caution, now.
No--the only safe approach was from the periphery, those tokens and small, meaningful gestures that would ask without asking and tell without telling. The things that would let Crowley interpret them as he would, that would give Crowley the security of picking through them as he chose. Such a delicate thing, luring a demon.
Aziraphale sighed and picked up the dustpan. There would be no cafe table and chairs until the place was swept and scrubbed and presentable, which meant there would be absolutely no hope of a demon taking possession until he’d finished his chores. He brushed the leaves into the pan, then stopped, staring.
He flicked a few leaves aside to reveal, tangled in the debris, a black feather the length of his thumb.
Aziraphale frowned at it, then picked it up. He glanced at the edges of the roof, lips pursing. It was a small feather off a large bird, swan-sized at least. There weren’t even ravens frequenting his roof at this time of year, and he hadn’t seen a swan outside of the park in decades. Perhaps a goose? It was pretty even after its rough treatment, with a gloss to its barbs that Aziraphale couldn’t remember seeing in even the most well-tended geese. He ventured into the small patch of sun left and held the feather up, smiling to himself at the iridescent sheen. A starling, then. He’d been too quick in identifying it--it would be the largest feather off the wing of a smaller bird.
And they did get everywhere, really. Crowley would have his work cut out for him, once he started installing plants and furniture. Nothing but a swift was liable to find the courtyard inviting at the moment, but Aziraphale could imagine it laid out like one of the little plazas that had been so popular in Paris before the revolution, with Crowley grumbling about wrens and sparrows mucking up his topiary and trying to nest in his furniture.
“Such a pretty bird you must have come from,” Aziraphale murmured to himself, reluctantly consigning the feather to the dustbin. “Back to work, though, or I’ll never be finished.”
The courtyard hadn’t really been so bad, for all the time he’d let it go. He supposed it hadn’t escaped the watchful eye of the various women he’d taken on as housekeepers over the years, when circumstances had left them in need of unquestioning employers and flexible hours. They wouldn’t have ventured to make anything of it, but they wouldn’t have let it go to complete wrack and ruin, either. Aziraphale swept up the last of the leaves and emptied them into the bin, then looked around.
The courtyard wasn’t without its charms, even empty and unused. The lines were clean and open, almost to the point of exposure, but it would be perfect for someone looking to escape a shop that had grown too cramped. It got plenty of sun most of the day, and there was a decent enough cross breeze to keep it from being too stuffy even during the worst of the summer. It was still a tad hot for his tastes, but then Crowley ran cool and always seized on whatever patches of sunlight were to be had, whatever the time of year.
Aziraphale thought of the fetid, crushing dimness of Hell and closed his eyes. It had, perhaps, nothing at all to do with Crowley being cold-blooded. He took a deep breath and made himself relax. Even if Crowley was never his to keep, Crowley was at least free of that awful place now. Forever and ever, amen--he’d been able to do that much for the demon, been able to make up for the hurts he’d caused by breaking Hell’s claim.
But Aziraphale didn’t think it was quite so dire as all that. Crowley wouldn’t visit so often if he wasn’t willing to overlook at least some of Aziraphale’s highhanded treatment.
Aziraphale didn’t even have to invite him, most times. No--the courtyard would be everything Crowley needed to stay with him for more than an afternoon, to keep the demon occupied while Aziraphale got himself sorted. Even the weeds that had sprung up through the cracks here and there seemed lush and vital, thriving where they should have been tatty and ragged. It would be lovely to watch Crowley make the space his own.
Aziraphale knelt next to the closest of the weeds and ran a fingertip over the petals of one buttery yellow flower. He felt almost sorry to have to pull them all up, given how hard they were clearly trying to stay alive. It wasn’t even precisely a weed, not really--only out of place.
Mostly cowslip, he thought, with maybe some stunted yarrow thrown in for good measure. No spring meadow complete without a stand or two of either, but a paved courtyard in Soho was a different story.
Crowley would know for certain what they were; he’d always been so fascinated with plants and what people did with them.
Aziraphale beamed at the little flower, and its color seemed to deepen as he watched. That would be the perfect excuse, wouldn’t it? Once Aziraphale had gotten the pavers scrubbed and the whitewash freshened, he could ask Crowley back here to tell him what the plants were, then segue naturally into what to do with the space.
“I can’t store any books out here, obviously,” he’d say, pretending not to see the way Crowley’s measuring gaze took in the way the light fell and breeze eddied and the din from the street seemed so far away, “but I’ve been thinking I really should do something with it. What do you suggest?”
“You’re the most darling excuse I think I’ve ever had,” Aziraphale told the flower.
It perked up at that--he wasn’t imagining it--and Aziraphale smiled. He could feel it in his bones, how pleased Crowley would be with the place.