Chapter Text
Reviews with Gabriel, are (to put it delicately) challenging. It is all Aziraphale can do to smile politely as Gabriel points out all the ways he could do more, train harder, work harder, think harder about ways to advance the Divine Plan.
“You could have more initiative,” Gabriel muses, as though independent ideas are not viciously snuffed out if they even hint at disrupting the order in Heaven. Aziraphale fixes his smile harder on his face and nods.
“But, all that considering, you’ve been one of our most consistent performers over the past few years, and we think the upper ranks could benefit from your presence,” Gabriel continues.
Aziraphale blinks. “Oh,” he says, reaching out and taking the captain’s ring Gabriel holds out. It’s such a little thing, nothing like the thick gold armbands and circlets that signifies someone in the uppermost levels of management. It’s gorgeous nonetheless, the noble wings of Heaven picked out in delicate lines. “Such an honor,” he says, honestly. “Thank you, I’ll - I’ll do my very best.”
“Of course you will, champ,” Gabriel grins, slapping Aziraphale on the back with rather more force than necessary. Aziraphale doesn’t feel it, twisting the ring around where it sits on his finger. “I know you’ve been eager about this opportunity forever.”
Gabriel is correct, though it’s less about the work and more about the private room, the larger rations, the freedom to keep some spoils for himself. Nothing too extravagant, of course, while he’s still in the lower echelons. Aziraphale only has aspirations for more comfortable clothing to wear in his off-duty hours. It wouldn’t do to dwell on the richer trifles reserved for those above him. There are even ranks that permit officers to share such luxuries with their lovers - lovers! Aziraphale strokes his fingers over the delicate faceting on the ring and shivers.
Aziraphale nods, not really listening to Gabriel’s orders, the description of the group of insurgents that Aziraphale will be expected to quell in a few days time. His thoughts are already spinning out ahead of him, to the lower levels of the ship, where things are damp and dark.
***
Crowley is Aziraphale’s dearest friend, though he shouldn’t be any longer. They spent their childhoods together with the rest of the orphans, until it became obvious that Crowley would never grow into a soldier. He went down to the lower decks, to keep the engines running, while Aziraphale continued learning to fight. They see each other far less often now, though Aziraphale wishes things could be different. Crowley always sabotaged himself during assessments - if he’d felt a real pull to rise through the ranks in engineering that would be one thing, but it was all apathy on his part, and Aziraphale often feels a bit sour that Crowley never applied himself properly in effort to keep them together.
Nevertheless, he cannot keep a smile from his face at the prospect of sharing his news. “Crowley!” He calls, delighted, when he finally spots him among a group of his fellows. He sports the same close cropped hairstyle as the rest of those who work below decks, to keep it out of his eyes and out of the machinery. Aziraphale can’t deny that it’s far more practical than the messy locks he favored when they were children, but it makes it more difficult to pick his scarlet head out of a crowd.
Crowley's mouth ticks up when he sees him, like it always does, and he comes sauntering over to where Aziraphale stands. “Hello, Aziraphale. To what do I owe this pleasure?”
“Not here,” Aziraphale says. “Let’s go up to the observation deck.”
He grabs Crowley by the wrist and begins to tug him away. Crowley goes along with him happily enough for a few steps before drawing them both to a halt.
“Hang on,” he says, turning Aziraphale’s hand over, bringing it close to his face.
“Oh,” Aziraphale frets, put out. He was anticipating this as a moment played out against the background of stars, of far off worlds, against the gorgeous dark of the universe. Not in this dingy hallway, with Crowley peering at his hand askance.
“You’ve been promoted?”
Ah well. What is important is not the scenery but the news itself. “Yes,” Aziraphale breathes, searching Crowley’s face for the delight that is sure to come.
It doesn’t. Crowley drops Aziraphale’s hand, bites at his lips. Curls his hands around his arms.
“Aren’t you going to congratulate me?” Aziraphale demands.
“Congratulations,” Crowley says flatly.
Aziraphale sighs. “Crowley. What is wrong?”
Crowley shakes his head, kicks at a stray screw on the floor. “Just don’t see what I have to be happy about.”
“I just thought -”
“‘Spect I’ll be seeing less of you.” Crowley won’t look at him. “Now that you’re - all proper. Though I shouldn’t be surprised. You always did love following the rules.”
Something in Aziraphale’s stomach clenches. It’s true - Gabriel will take notice of even this interaction, it’s sure to come up in a review, him fraternizing with a wrench-wrangler - and an indolent one at that. It can be explained by their shared youth, but - only to a certain point. There will be far less tolerance of this type of indiscretion, now that Aziraphale is expected to set an example. “I don’t always follow the rules,” Aziraphale grouches.
Some of the tension in Crowley’s shoulders dissipates. He’s always been stingy with his smiles, but there’s no hiding when his eyes glow with mirth. They’re a strange set - Heaven welcomes all sorts into his ranks, but even with their wide reach they’ve never come across a people with eyes like Crowley’s, yellow and with slits in place of pupils. It must be some kind of mutation, one that their compatriots were eager to exploit to make him feel small. Aziraphale has never thought of them as anything but delightfully Crowley, so expressive even as he keeps the rest of himself carefully guarded. “You’ve never stepped a toe out of line in your life,” Crowley says.
That is blatantly untrue, even if most of the time Aziraphale’s toe only crossed the line while he was trying to wrangle Crowley back after he hurtled over it. “Let’s go up to the observation deck, Aziraphale pleads. “One last time before things change.”
Crowley shakes his head. “I can’t. Got another shift. Congratulations, though. Really. I know you - you care about that.”
“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, desperate to have one more day with him, before things become more complicated than they already are. “What if - I have access to the groundships now. What if we took one down?”
Crowley turns back towards him, eyes alight with interest. “You wouldn’t.”
Aziraphale reaches out, takes Crowley’s elbow and tugs him towards the elevators. “You underestimate me. Let’s go visit Earth.”
***
Crowley shrieks with unseemly delight through the entirety of entry into Earth’s atmosphere, cackling the entire way down. Aziraphale is glad one of them is enjoying themselves - he finds the pressure and heat and speed unbearable.
“Oh,” Crowley breaths, when they step out of the ship together. “Oh, it’s beautiful. Are all planets like this?”
“I don’t know,” Aziraphale says, following Crowley’s frenetic movements at a more sedate pace. “Probably not.”
It is quite lovely, all green rolling hills and sweet smelling grass. It’s afternoon in this region, and the fading light plays across Crowley’s face, painting it in gentle colors.
“It’s so quiet ,” Crowley muses.
Aziraphale flushes. He had been thinking that it was unbearably loud, the wind rustling through the nearby trees and the sounds of wildlife all around. But of course, Aziraphale has spent the last few years on the upper half of the ship, where the thrum of the engines is relatively subdued. Not like Crowley, in among the excessive groan of the engines. “Shall we explore? No time to waste.” He gestures to the ship.
“Let’s walk,” Crowley counters quickly.
Azirapahle frowns. He hasn’t spent any time on the ground - what combat experience he has is purely virtual, no sense in wasting soldiers when drones will do just as well. He’d picked this region as their first stop for it’s relative simplicity, but it’s far from the most striking. One of the continents has a stretch of rocky desert that reminds Aziraphale of the color of Crowley’s hair. “I had thought -”
Crowley leaps up the gangway, reaches out with both hands like he used to when they were children, to take Aziraphale by the shoulders. He’d spin them around before gripping Aziraphale’s hand and dragging him along on whatever mad scheme he concocted in the last thirty seconds. Now, Crowley course-corrects at the last minute, only using one of his hands to pluck at Aziraphale’s sleeve. “Let’s do it like this. No walls, no engines, no people. Just the two of us.”
“Oh, very well,” Aziraphale smiles, and is rewarded when Crowley grins.
It is nice, this way. Aziraphale follows Crowley’s lead through the trees, watching fondly as he turns over rocks to marvel over the impressions they make in the soil, the little creatures that are unearthed, before abandoning them and scrambling ahead towards the next thing that attracts his attention. Through his eyes, the relatively pedestrian forest is transformed into a wealth of riches, and Aziraphale finds himself looking around with more appreciation. It is spring in this part of the world, and the ground is littered with flowers of all colors and shapes. One specimen catches Aziraphale’s eye, and he kneels down and plucks it, stripping away the stem until only the bud remains. The basic scientific equipment Aziraphale’s uniform comes standard with is meant for preserving samples, but it works just as well to freeze the flower in a bubble of stasis, so that it’s delicate petals will remain forever perfect.
“What are you doing?” Crowley asks.
Aziraphale holds out the flower in answer.
Crowley reacts to it the same way he has to the other things on this planet, poking at it with one thin finger, turning it over in Aziraphale’s palm.
It’s the giddiness that came with his promotion, or something about this planet, the way the wind shifts through the trees, the soft sound of birds singing, their wings beating through the air. Maybe it’s the way the air smells, promising sweetness and new beginnings. Maybe it’s that the light is so much gentler than the bright ones above on the ship, making Aziraphale feel more hopeful than he has in years. Aziraphale has never felt so secure, so sure in his path. He tips the flower into one of Crowley’s hands. “For you.”
“Hmm?” Crowley says, distracted in his contemplation of the petals.
Aziraphale takes a step towards him, reaches out and creates a loose ring around Crowley’s wrist with his own fingers. Crowley shifts to accommodate him, still turning the bud this way and that. “Nice color,” he observes.
“Beautiful,” Aziraphale murmurs. “It matches your eyes.”
Crowley freezes beneath Aziraphale’s fingers. Aziraphale watches his throat bob as he swallows, over and over, watches as his gaze darts around, down at their hands, at the flower, out over the forest floor. When he finally lifts his head to look at Aziraphale, his eyes are wide, that particular shade that drew Aziraphale to this flower in a field full of others. Crowley draws it close to his chest even as he shakes his head. “You know I’m not allowed to keep this.”
“I’ll keep it for you,” Aziraphale states. “In my room.”
Crowley sucks in a startled breath. Something cracks in his expression, and he ducks his head. His wrist twitches in Aziraphale’s hold, but he doesn’t pull away. When he meets Aziraphale’s gaze once more his expression is neutral but his eyes, as always, give him away. There’s a hopeful hesitancy there, a vulnerability that Azirpahale hasn’t seen for quite some time. “You will?” he manages, voice cracked.
“Yes,” Aziraphale says simply. “Of course.”
“Aziraphale,” Crowley breathes, reaching out, and -
Aziraphale inhales sharply, drops Crowley’s wrist and turns his head away before Crowley’s hand has a chance to reach him.
Crowley remembers himself too, pulling his hand back. He stares at the ground for a moment, before palming the flower into Aziraphale’s hand, squeezing once before letting go.
***
“Well, I don’t like this.” Crowley grouses.
“It’s not too much farther now,” Aziraphale says, squinting down at his wrist and wiping the water away from his trackerpad.
“Why is rain so wet?”
Aziraphale rolls his eyes, though he cannot deny that it is inconvenient and uncomfortable. He hadn’t planned on staying in one place for more than a few minutes, and hadn’t bothered to look at the weather projections. They had a lovely rest of the day ambling beneath the forest canopy, and are paying for it now, after the skies opened up a deluge without warning.
The wind is picking up as well, and Aziraphale is starting to feel a bit nervous about being caught out in what is shaping up to be a terrific storm. But he didn’t lie to Crowley, and after only a few minutes of trudging through the ever thickening mud they arrive at the clearing where they left the ship.
“Hold on,” Aziraphale says, frowning down at his equipment. There’s a way to call the ship across short distances, if he can only remember the proper steps.
There’s a sudden crack of thunder just as the night sky is illuminated by a flash of lightning. Aziraphale staggers forward, smelling the sudden metallic sharpness that comes from something incinerating, and looks behind him. He can see the tree that was struck, a great hulking thing that Crowley had tried and failed to stretch his arms around in the afternoon, now reduced to a smoking stump.
“Oh my,” Aziraphale says. “Crowley -”
He turns back and sees Crowley bolting forward into the clearing - he always hated sudden noises, Aziraphale suddenly remembers, and his heart leaps into his throat. “Crowley, come back!” he shouts.
Crowley pauses, turns around, and a second crack of lightning forks down from the sky. The air thrums with power, so much of it that it’s unclear whether Aziraphale hears it or feels it in his bones. He’s thrown backwards from the force of it, every hair on his body tingling as he sails through the air. The last thing Aziraphale sees before his head strikes the ground is Crowley engulfed by the vivid blue light, lifted off his feet, his skin aglow.
***
Aziraphale wakes to the steady patter of rain on his face. It takes some effort to pull himself to his feet and stagger in the direction of the clearing.
He collapses to his knees at Crowley’s side. “Crowley?” He takes his pulse, nearly bursting into tears at the feel of a steady heartbeat beneath his fingertips. There are no burns, and Crowley’s clothes are whole, and Crowley is breathing.
Aziraphale manages to stand with Crowley’s limp body in his arms and carry him to the safety of the ship. He straps Crowley into a seat, trying not to worry about the coolness of Crowley’s skin, and pilots them out of Earth’s infernal atmosphere. Crowley begins to rouse as they’re nearing the ship. “Aziraphale?” he calls, groggily. He looks around, dazed, and jerks against the restraints.
“Just hold still,” Aziraphale directs, reaching out and nudging him to sit back in his seat.
“I had - “ Crowley begins. “I had a - a weird dream.”
“Rest, please, we’re almost back home.”
“I was - I was in a cave. I was - I was different.”
Aziraphale frowns. Crowley is twisting his hands in his uniform, holding them out in front of him, staring at the way they flex. “Different how?”
“I was in a cave, and there was a voice talking to me, and - you weren’t there.”
“Just a dream,” Aziraphale soothes. “You hit your head.”
“I was different,” Crowley insists.
“Just rest,” Aziraphale urges. “You’ve had a shock.”
When they dock, Crowley wanders out of the groundship in a daze, brushing his hand along the familiar walls of the ship and staring down at his fingers. He reaches up, drags one fingernail along the ceiling. Shivers, even though the docking bay is as hot and steamy as it gets on the ship.
“Crowley,” Aziraphale begins cautiously. “You should go to medical.”
Crowley startles at that, whirling around. “No!” he shouts.
Aziraphale bristles, thrown by the snap in Crowley’s tone. “You were struck by lightning!”
Crowley stares at him. “I can’t have been, though. Right?”
“Well no,” Aziraphale allows. “Of course not, obviously. That would be - impossible yes, of course.” It must have been some awful trick of the light. The lightning must have struck the ship, and what Aziraphale saw was Crowley silhouetted against it.
Crowley nods, staring down at his hands again. “That’s what I thought,” he murmurs.
Unease starts to creep up the space between Aziraphale’s shoulders, though he can’t understand why. “Crowley -”
“I’ll see you,” Crowley murmurs. “I’ll - I’ll see you.” And he turns and walks away, back towards the elevators that will take him to the bottom of the ship. An unnerving end to a day that began so perfectly. Aziraphale turns and goes to his own room, his new, private one, a single bed inside, a drawer for off duty clothes, a shelf for a few trinkets. He digs their flower out of his pocket, sets it on the shelf, a bright flare of yellow against the pale grey that makes up the rest of the room.
Sleep, when it finally comes, is a series of visions of Crowley hovering in the air, shining with white and blue light, and Aziraphale reaching for him as he’s dragged farther and farther away.
He startles awake, a strangled cry caught in his throat, and realizes that Crowley is in the room with him, a dim shape at the end of his bed, only his eyes visible in the dim light. “Crowley,” he pants, clutching his sweat soaked blanket to his heart. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Aziraphale,” Crowley clambers onto the bed, bony knees pressing indents into the mattress. Aziraphale yanks his feet up, away from Crowley’s questing hands. “Do you ever think about getting away from here?”
Aziraphale tries to rub the sleep out of his eyes. “Away from here?” he asks, squinting at the shape of Crowley in the darkness. At least he sounds more like himself, just a hint of that strange undercurrent that was beneath his voice on the ship.
“Yes,” Crowley says urgently.
“You mean a different ship?” Aziraphale asks. “I hadn’t considered it, no.”
“Not a different ship.”
“I don’t understand.”
“We could run away. Take one of the ships down to Earth.”
All the blood in Aziraphale’s body turns to ice. “No,” he states. “Absolutely not.”
Crowley recoils. Even in the dark, Aziraphale can see it. And then he reaches out again, wraps a hand around one of Aziraphale’s ankles, thumb rubbing circles through the blanket. “Aziraphale,” he murmurs. “There’d be nothing keeping us apart, down there.”
“Stop it,” Aziraphale snaps. Of course the flower was a mistake. Aziraphale was a fool for forgetting how reckless Crowley is, how the smallest concessions from Aziraphale never fail to be met by Crowley overstepping, putting them both in danger. “You’re being ridiculous.”
Crowley lets go of his ankle, stands. For a long moment, they simply stare at each other, across the length of the bed. Aziraphale can’t see his face, but Crowley has always had the better eyesight in the dark, so he makes sure to keep his face set, and sure, and unmovable. He doesn't move until Crowley slips out the door.
***
Aziraphale spends the rest of the night tossing and turning until he falls into an uneasy slumber, oversleeps, and has to bolt out of his room in order to be in time (or in his case, ten minutes early) for his briefing.
Gabriel nods, impressed enough with his prompt arrival to overlook Aziraphale’s rumpled uniform. “Azirapahle! Nice to see you bringing a go-getter’s attitude.”
“Yes, well,” Aziraphale chuckles nervously.
“Pretty straightforward,” Gabriel says, handing him his briefing papers. “It’ll have to be a ground assault.”
“Really? Why?” Aziraphale asks.
“The woods are too dense, around Thaymore,” Gabriel says. “Our drones can’t penetrate the trees. But it should be simple enough, get in, knock out the rebels, get out.”
Azirpahale hums, flipping through the personnel files, noting with satisfaction that this squadron has experience on Earth-ground already. “There are,” he begins, wondering how to put this delicately, “Rumors. Of - the soldiers are calling it Magic.”
“Just rumors,” Gabriel assures him. “There’s also this -” he shoves a second smaller file into Aziraphale’s hands. “One of our escape pods malfunctioned last night. It landed near Thaymore, so we want you to make retrieving it your secondary mission.”
“Strange,” Aziraphale remarks.
Gabriel shrugs. “It happens every once in a while.”
The rest of the day passes in a blur. He has to report to administration for a new captain’s uniform, upgraded weapons, and from there he goes directly to meet his new squad. They don’t look very impressed with him, but nobody ever does. Aziraphale doesn’t let it bother him, they’ll find out what he’s capable of soon enough. And then it’s time to launch, and the flight down to the planet is the only time Aziraphale has to himself to think.
He hates when he and Crowley fight. It happens more and more often now, and truth be told, it worries him. They have so little time to spend together, and their moments are going to be fewer and farther between the higher Aziraphale rises in the ranks. He’ll keep climbing, and Crowley will keep skulking about in the underbelly of the ship.
Aziraphale will go to him after this mission. Crowley won’t be expecting that so soon, and - maybe he will be heartened by it. That Aziraphale is willing to draw the eye of his superiors to see him again so soon after their day together.
He looks down at the ring on his finger. Perhaps - perhaps he should spell things out more clearly. He never has, sure that Crowley would be able to understand, and equally sure that there was little point in laying out a fantasy for the future when the machinations of Heaven are constantly in flux. Promises are for children, people who are naive enough to think that saying something out loud is enough to affect the future. But now that things are set into motion, things are less tenuous. Perhaps Aziraphale can afford to be a little more frank about his intentions.
They land in the woods near Thaymore. Geographically speaking, it’s nowhere near where he and Crowley spent their little furlough, but the terrain is eerily similar, a clearing in the middle of thickly wooded terrain. Aziraphale directs the bulk of his troops to set up camp, and takes a small group with him to find the missing pod.
“Odd,” one of the men remarks, as the pod comes into view.
“How so?” Aziraphale asks, as he steps off the speeder and begins to key in the code that will take it back to the ship.
“Doors open. Usually, they’re closed.”
Aziraphale straightens. “You mean - that it can only open from the inside?”
The soldiers on the speeder look at each other uneasily. “You’d have to ask engineering, sir.”
Aziraphale frowns as he keys in the final numbers to send it back. It wouldn’t be much of an escape pod if the door opened up on reentry. But that is a problem for engineering, or personnel, and he has a group of insurgents to deal with. He steps back and lets it blast off.
It’s another restless night, and Aziraphale is eager to have this mission over and done with. Sleeping on an alien planet does not prove to be helpful in dealing with nightmares brought on by time spent on said alien planet, so he sends scouts out ahead to pinpoint the precise location of Thaymore as soon as the sun rises. They report back with the coordinates, and Aziraphale is in the middle of a strategy session that’s going swimmingly when the camp erupts into chaos.
Aziraphale stumbles out of the tent into a madhouse. Tents are aflame, his squad is holding a line but looks ready to bolt. He grabs one of the soldiers by the arm. “What’s happening?” He demands.
“It’s the rebels,” she says. “They’re using magic.”
Aziraphale blinks. “Magic? What?”
“No one listens to us,” she spits at him. “Look -”
Aziraphale looks, and gapes as one of his speeders is hoisted into the air by a black, crackling cloud, laced through with red streaks. It’s thrown through the air with a vengeance. “What on earth?”
“We can handle it,” she grits out. “We know how to handle that - in the end she’s just a person, and she has to be close to use her magic. So we just have to bombard the area.”
Aziraphale nods. “Do it then,” he directs, and she runs off.
A moment or two later, the trees begin to quake under the force of Heaven’s sonic machines. Several more speeders are trashed before the dark cloud tossing them about suddenly winks out. There’s a collective sigh of relief from them all, before something shoots out from the forest, laying into those closest to the trees.
“What is that?” Aziraphale yells. Someone near him shakes their head, shouts back that they’ve never seen it before, and turns to bolt off. Aziraphale catches them by the elbow. “Oh no you don’t,” he mutters. Although he can hardly blame the poor fellow. The abomination slicing a line clean through his squadron is a monstrous snake, black as the cloud that came before it, with red accents all along it’s back and along it’s belly, a yawning mouth full of fangs that sink into whomever is in front of it. It’s clearly unnatural, thick as a man and twenty feet long at least, though it’s hard to judge with how fast it moves, coiling and striking with lightning speed. Aziraphale lets go of the elbow beneath his grip, donning his helmet and using his equipment to manifest what he needs. His first mission may be shaping up to be a complete disaster, but he's not going to let some ghastly serpent make things worse for him.
If whoever was using a crackling cloud to bat his speeders around like they were models is just a person, then this snake is just a snake. Aziraphale strides forward, out past his squad, and waits for the snake to notice him. When it strikes, he raises his arms and captures it’s head in the plastic bag he called up.
All creatures need to breathe, and the snake is no exception. It thrashes in Aziraphale’s grip, whips its tail at his head, forcing Aziraphale to grunt as he struggles to hang on. It begins to grow sluggish, and Aziraphale allows himself a brief, grim moment of satisfaction - and then it begins to glow and writhe beneath his hands.
No, not writhe - change. The scales are melting away, and the body beneath him is growing extra limbs at nauseating speeds, and there are hands, human hands, coming up to tear away the plastic bag that Aziraphale is too startled to keep a grip on. Underneath it there is just a man, red-faced and gasping and -
“Crowley.”
He’s still heaving in desperate breaths, there’s no way that he can see through the mask, but he still clutches at Aziraphale’s wrists, above where they’re fisted into his uniform. “Aziraphale,” he gasps.
“What are you -” Aziraphale starts, and then twists, pressing Crowley’s body into the ground, kneeling over him so that the soldiers behind him can’t get a good look. “It’s fine, I’ll - I’ll let you go, you can stay in the woods until you can sneak onto my ship, no one will notice you’re gone.”
Crowley shakes his head. “No.”
“I’ll find a way to get you back safely, I will,” Aziraphale insists.
“Aziraphale,” Crowley croaks. “I’m not going back.”
Aziraphale blinks, and the world shifts, sharpens, expands outward. He is suddenly aware of the carnage that surrounds them, carnage that Crowley caused. Crowley, who always said he hated violence, who never performed as well as he could have. Aziraphale begged him once, pleaded, laid things out as clearly as he ever had. They’ll reassign you if you keep this up, he’d said. Just try a little harder and stay here with me. Crowley hadn’t tried. But he fought here, tore into people without hesitation.
“Come with me,” Crowley is saying. “Come with me, you can meet my new friends, they’re -”
“ Friends,” Aziraphale snarls. He glances up, to see a young man and a young woman skulking at the edge of the forest, watching them. The young lady holds up her hands, sparkling with dark energy.
“Aziraphale, please -”
The sword comes standard with a captain’s field uniform. Upper management loves to tout how intuitive it is, how it instantly responds to the intentions of the wearer. Aziraphale didn’t have time to go to the recommended training on using it before he came down for this mission. It slides into his hand easily, naturally, flaring with the energy that will slice through just about anything.
Crowley’s eyes widen, and he raises his hands, a vain attempt at shielding himself. “Angel -"
Crowley hasn't called him that in years. The sound of that cherished, rarely used nickname is the final straw. Aziraphale roars as he brings the sword down, driving it deep into the ground beside Crowley’s head.
Crowley pants, staring up at him. Aziraphale has never seen him look frightened before, and some ugly, vicious part of him is glad to see it, here, now, on his familiar face, half of it cast into shadow by the light thrown off of Aziraphale’s blade.
Crowley squeezes his eyes shut, turns his head to the side, lets out a shaky breath. And then he transforms, scales erupting out of his skin, limbs melting back into one long line of muscle. He slithers out from beneath Azirapahle and off towards the trees. When he reaches the two waiting at the edge of the forest all three of them disappear with a crack that reminds Aziraphale of thunder.
***
Aziraphale gives the briefest of reports to Gabriel, visits the people under his command who wound up in the infirmary, with blunt trauma or snake bites. They’re all far more impressed with him after he took on an infernal serpent singlehanded, even though he did let said serpent escape.
He tries to feel gratified in that, that he’s earned their respect. He’s been working towards the ring on his finger for his entire life, and now he has it, and finally has an opportunity to prove himself and his worth.
He walks into his room, lets his helmet slip from his fingers to clatter onto the floor. He doesn’t want to look, but he must.
The shelf is empty. Crowley took their flower with him.