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Crowley, as a rule, does not panic. He’s spent centuries building an image, and that image does not allow for panic. He is suave and he is cool and he does not panic. Even when he feels like panicking, he handles it in an extremely suave, extremely cool way.
Right now, Crowley extremely feels like panicking, which is terrible, not the least of which because he’s finally killed Ligur, something he’s dreamed of since he’s known him, and this should be an outstanding day. He should be very very happy, and the universe has taken that away from him. He should be allowed to smite things as a rule.
The Bentley is whizzing along the London streets as he races towards the bookshop. Aziraphale will have to let him in. He must want to let him in. He called him, didn’t he? He wouldn’t call him if he wouldn’t let him in.
Crowley won’t be on his own. Crowley can’t be on his own.
“Pick up,” he yells at his phone. “Pick up, pick up, pick up!”
Aziraphale doesn’t pick up. Crowley throws the phone on the dash, yells inarticulately, and hits the steering wheel, but just once. The Bentley didn’t do anything to deserve him slapping her steering wheel. The phone rings and he grapples for it, looking at the screen.
Crowley has two numbers in his phone. He has Aziraphale and he has Human, and he curses on seeing which one it is. He picks up the phone, intending to say “I’m busy” and hoping that being an asshole will be enough to put him off so he doesn’t have to say anything about what he’s up to right now.
“What,” Dirk snaps down the phone before he gets the chance. “The fuck, Crowley?”
“What?” Crowley asks, because as very cool and suave and not panicky he is, he’s also at the moment not great at thinking on his feet.
“Don’t what me.” Dirk, it sounds like, is also feeling the urge to panic, except he is following through on it, where Crowley is not. “What is going on? What is happening?”
“Oh, you know.” Crowley keeps an eye on the sidewalks, trying to see if Aziraphale is out for a walk. It wouldn’t be the oddest time he’d chose to go for a walk, even if it might be up there. “Standard life things.”
“There is a Kraken,” Dirk yells, a little shrilly. “In the sea!”
“Well, it lives there, what do you want it to do, pack up and move?”
“Was it there before?”
“How should I know? What, do I look like some, some great big bloody ancient octopus expert?”
“Crowley.” Crowley can practically hear him gesturing over the phone. “Something is wrong. I can feel it. The fabric of the universe is, is unraveling, it’s in my bones, I just- Crowley.” Dirk’s voice cracks on his name the final time he says it, and Crowley wants to curse. He wishes he’d posted up in a cave somewhere for millennia. He wishes he’d never gone to hang out with Eve and complain about Adam when he was pissing her off under the guise of sowing dissent. He wishes he’d never gone and found Dirk lying in that gutter, looking like he had after the Fall. He wishes he’d never listened to a record for the first time, wishes he’d never laid eyes on the Bentley, wishes he’d never grown his first plant, and more than anything he wishes he’d never, ever, ever asked Aziraphale what had happened to his flaming sword.
“Yeah, alright,” he says. “There’s a bit of a thing. But it’s really just a bit of a thing, not even really worth mentioning. Nothing worth getting all upset all about.”
“Crowley,” Dirk says, and Crowley wishes he hadn’t picked up that tone from Aziraphale, that vaguely reproachful one where he knows that he’s being lied to.
“It’s not. We’ve got it handled, alright? There’s a plan.”
“Then what is it? What is this magnificent plan?”
Damn, he was hoping he wouldn’t ask him that. “I can’t tell you.”
“So you don’t have a plan.” Dirk’s voice rises. “You don’t-“
“Of course I have a plan, I just can’t tell you, it’d burn out your mind, alright, it’s extremely top secret Heaven and Hell things, so lay off, there’s a plan.”
“I want to help, let me-“
“No.” There’s no time for him to get here, even if Crowley wanted him anywhere near this, and G- somebody knows he certainly doesn’t want him in the air. “No, stay where you are, there’s nothing you can do. The angel and I have it covered, I just have to go get him-“
“You’re not with him?” Dirk’s voice gets a little shrill again.
“We had to split up, it was necessary for planlike reasons. It’s going to be fine. We’re going to fix it.”
“How do you fix the end of the world?”
“It’s not the end of the world, and I can’t tell you, but trust me, it’s very good, there’s lots of… panache, and even if, even if it goes arse over teakettle here, there’s a contingency plan, alright, there’s somewhere we can go that’ll be okay.”
“Go where?”
“Somewhere safe.” Dirk would like Alpha Centuri, Crowley thinks, he’d like the colors. And the trees. Does Dirk like trees? He’ll learn to like trees.
“I can’t…” Dirk’s voice gets very small. “There’s people… I can’t leave them behind.”
He can, if Crowley has to throw him in the trunk. “We’ll talk about it later.”
Dirk’s quiet for a second, and Crowley knows he doesn’t believe him for a minute, but hopes that wanting to believe him will be enough.
“I should…” Dirk clears his throat. “There’s someone I should be with. For this. If it does indeed go… arse over teakettle. Someone I want to be with in case.” He takes a shaky breath and whispers “I want to tell you everything”, and Crowley can hear the in case I don’t get the chance implied.
“You can tell Aziraphale all about it later,” Crowley says, instead of anything else. “He feels the incessant need to give me the rundown on your life anyway, it’s practically the same thing.”
“Okay. Okay. Please…” His voice cracks on the whisper again. “Please be careful.”
“Course I’m careful. My middle name’s careful. Anthony Careful Crowley.”
Dirk laughs wetly. “Your middle name begins with a J.”
“Careful starts with a J, it’s just that the J is silent.”
“I don’t believe you.” Dirk takes a deep breath. “Be careful,” he says again, and then hangs up.
Crowley grips the phone so tight he thinks he might break it, and then dials Aziraphale again.
After, but not too much after, Crowley fiddles with his phone as he waits for Aziraphale to come out of the bookstore. He can’t believe he’s called Dirk back right after he’d gotten a moment alone after seeing the message. Or invited him back to London. Or told him that he liked him and that he’d like to see him, more or less. It’s been an extremely confusing week but this has to be the most embarrassing part of it. At least he’d gotten a little mileage out of the whole Todd thing. That’s a good card to have up his sleeve. Maybe if he makes fun of him enough for having emotions it’ll make up for the fact he’s just had them all over the place.
Aziraphale steps out of the shop, beaming.
“Everything is just so,” he says contentedly. “Some adventure books, but, well, that’s alright, I suppose I can put up with them. I was so concerned about the Chaucers, you know, I’m really very fond of them, he’d signed them for me and everything.”
Crowley suppresses the urge to smile at him fondly. “You didn’t like Chaucer, angel. You said he was a little too rude.”
“Well, yes, he was, but he’s an important milestone, you see, I couldn’t not have them. It’s not every day you find a new copy of Canterbury Tales personally autographed to you, you know, even if he was perhaps a little curt with it, you two always got along better than I did.”
“He told a good joke.”
Aziraphale peers at his phone. “Why do you have that out?”
“Oh.” Crowley slides it back into his pocket. “Call from the human. Just checking in. Says hello and hopes you’re alright and he’ll call you later and whatnot. I told him to buzz off.”
“Really.” Aziraphale’s tone gets all disapproving. “That’s not very polite at all, you know, he’s a good-“ he pauses, his forehead creasing in concern. “Wait, dear boy, did Dirk feel it-“
“Come on, angel,” Crowley interrupts, sure that Dirk will tell him all about it later but not really wanting to let the specter of it intrude now. “Let’s go and get our lunch, I’m starving. You can tell me all about the look on ol’ Beelz’s face when you didn’t dissolve, I’ve always wanted to know what it’d be like to one up zir.”
Aziraphale, for now, drops it, and as they walk to the car, Crowley thinks he can’t be blamed if he walks a little closer than normal.