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"Then you shall call my name and you shall seek and find me and I shall listen to you. You shall find me when you search for me with all your heart."
It’s another ordinary night in this quiet, post-almost-Apocalypse world that Crowley cannot trust for an instant. Back in August, Crowley had felt he was walking on air all the way down from his sneak peek back into Heaven right through the move down to Sussex. It was all just like a pleasant daydream… hoisting an endless procession of packed books into the house while Aziraphale sat uselessly on the floor, poring through an opened box. Bickering over which shade of grey carpeting was dark (and light) enough to be acceptable to both beings for the hallway. Crowley had entertained vague, half-formed thoughts of clearing out the overgrown briars in the garden, maybe baking some bread in the charming brick and white kitchen, or dozing happily on the settee while the angel hummed and mended some cracked papyrus or something. None of those things had come to pass.
Typical of a demon to find out (late) he is physically incapable of enjoying the happiest, most peaceful dwelling of his whole worthless life. More extraordinary even than the bookshop, because this cottage was chosen for Aziraphale and Crowley to share. To live in together. Simply together, after an eternity of sliding into enemy camps in wartime, coded notes back and forth in the newspapers, leaning over backs of bus seats to hiss treacherously into a wide-shell celestial ear.
Now the last of the moving dust has settled, a hideous crocheted afghan has been spread out on the sofa, perfect for Crowley to pretend he wasn’t sneaking his feet under during a nap, and Crowley cannot sleep a wink. He has constant pins and needles in his legs telling him to go pace around somewhere but… also, he cannot summon an ounce of energy to stalk round the hedgerows or browse wine bottles in the village. Now the herculean effort has been spent to halt time, talk sense into the young Antichrist, and stop the world ending, Crowley is being helplessly battered back and forth in a slurry of leftover, stale dread, nothing at all to focus it on.
Worst of all, Aziraphale has been clasping his hands over his chest lately. Fluttering about in a mix of false cheer and transparent anxiety at Crowley’s gloomy haze, far removed from the demon’s customary indulgent sloth. Silly angel probably thinks he’s hiding it better than he is. The shame of disappointing him twists up inside Crowley’s scrawny stomach–only thing worse than having gone and let down Aziraphale is the knowledge he can’t stop doing it.
Which is why he’s out on this hill under this tree, brooding impotently in the darkest, quietest hours of this night with no moon. At the end of the year he can catch sight of a few of his stars he’s not seen since early spring. Like usual, the sense of pride in his craft is inextricable from bitter nostalgia over the end of his tenure creating wonderful, fearful things.
Once upon a time, She whispered an omen of fate into his ear and Crowley’s starmaking hands had paused forever–hearing how these delicate children of gas and flame would all burn a thousand times brighter, someday… then go cold forever. Why, Crowley had asked reflexively, why must it end at all? The intervening eons yielded no answer. His only sardonic, Fallen insight is seeing too clearly how Heaven and Hell, both bristling with legions so eager to vent their fury on each other, are truly lost before anyone wins or loses all the souls on Earth. The rage should rightly lie with the Creator who orphaned both sides unceremoniously. No, Crowley is sickeningly sure last summer will not be the end of things, no matter how neat the double sleight of hand that spared their lives. But spared for what? And for how long?
Crowley blinks slowly in the dark, and suddenly his view of the constellations is obscured by an unexpected silhouette–Aziraphale. “Hello my boy,” said the angel, only a touch more subdued than if they were feeding ducks in a park, “may I sit a while?”
Crowley clears his throat self-consciously. “S’posed to be my job innit, sneaking up to startle you?” The angel’s answering smile is wan and tense.
Crowley sighs, wishes to disappear rather than make the angel put on an act of enjoying this. Keeping company to a halfway-hibernating, all-self-pitying demon slumped on pine-littered ground. Still, Aziraphale lowers down, folds his knees primly together, clasps his hands around them and tips his curly, pale head back to let the stars bathe his eyes silver. Crowley swallows with difficulty and turns his head away.
Aziraphale patters easily between stretches of silence and Crowley grunts affirmatively at periodic intervals. Something about the holiday lights the angel saw in town yesterday, the miraculous recovery of a parrot that had got away from the local primary school a full month ago, creature somehow survived in the inhospitable weather–at this, Crowley tips an eyebrow knowingly towards Aziraphale, who purses his lips smugly and lifts his obstinate chin just a bit in self-congratulation.
Crowley lets the sound wash over him, thinking again what a crime it is that all the supposedly wise angels in Heaven couldn’t appreciate this pink-cheeked, wind tousled dramatist in the slightest. More fools them. Twice more fool Crowley, who’s still unable to bring himself to chide and poke fun ‘til Aziraphale gives a scandalized gasp or, better, laughs out loud at their well-practiced game. Crowley has missed Aziraphale’s laugh these recent weeks. His fault, like so many other evils. (“Job description,” he hears his own voice sneering in hurt and outrage. That horrific day beginning at the bandstand.)
Eventually Aziraphale trails off in his idle chatter. Minutes pass. The angel takes a deep, purposeful breath and Crowley feels a frisson of trepidation climb his flexible spine.
“Crowley… since we left London… do you regret leaving the city?”
Oh no. Crowley closes his eyes behind his shades. This is coming much sooner than he’d imagined, though with his miserable sulking it’s no surprise Aziraphale would eventually prompt him, very gently, to vacate the cottage and go… wherever.
Can’t, Crowley thinks wildly as his wrong-sized heart races, not yet, I can’t. He attempts to respond.
“Ghk.”
Nope.
Ears still buzzing, he tries again and an involuntary question pops out. “Don’t you miss going by your true name? After all these years?”
Oh no. Much worse than simply protesting or taking his leave with the shreds of his dignity intact. Ungh. Crowley’s shoulders are hunched up near the stems of his sunglasses and he sneaks a look–Aziraphale, predictably, is peering at him through the dark with some surprise.
“My name… oh Crowley, it’s been so long since we’ve last spoken about that. Not since, oh, the Beginning I think.”
And he’s right. Probably to spare Crowley discomfort more than anything, but the memory is crisp and perfect (perfectly heartwrenching) in Crowley’s mind. Another part of their meeting that never made it into official scripture.
Back in Eden, the cheerful, round-cheeked angel on apple tree duty had politely introduced himself to Crawly the Serpent, sprawled across a particularly warm rock. “Pleasure to meet you, Aziraphael,” the serpent had attempted to reply… instead, at the name, he’d found himself hacking, gagging on burning acid, writhing in utterly humiliating agony.
“Oh dear,” the angel had observed, steepling soft fingertips under his nose, “I suppose it would be difficult for, ah, you to say a celestial name.” Hence Crowley learned his lesson about attempting to pronounce any word containing Her name within it, and muttered a disoriented apology, and slithered off into the underbrush posthaste without completing the introduction. Some time later, as the first rain drifted off Eastwards and a mismatched pair of beings stood gazing out past the Wall, Crowley had sheepishly told Azir– Aziraphale his Hell-given name. The angel had beamed as if given a gift instead of a veritable cursed word. Before parting, the angel had, astoundingly, suggested Crawly choose a nickname or abbreviation for next time. “What about Aziraphale?” Crawley suggested hopefully, and was rewarded with a joyful smile that actually made him reel back a little bit. “Oh, that sounds just like me, thank you ever so Crawly. I suppose it’s still a bit of a mouthful isn’t it?” “Nnh.” “Oh, and sorry to flutter off, but suppose I’d better check in with head office to see what’s next.” “Right, sure.” “Off you go then, foul demon! Have a nice… well.”
For six thousand years that exchange has been a source of lonely pleasure and guilt at once, held close against Crowley’s breastbone. It’s now apparently bubbled to the front here in the darkness. What a stupid thing to bring up–not like a nickname from the originator of all sin could hold a candle to the Word with which God spoke an angel into being. Do you regret it–Crowley meant, you’re fed up with me, aren’t you? Haven’t you run out of pity for this particularly uncoordinated wolf wandering after you in guise of a lost lamb, throughout all of time? Why would you want to take on this shadow of losing a gift from God when you haven’t at all forgotten your name from Up There, like me?
Unbelievably, Aziraphale is smiling and reaching for Crowley’s hand. For a heart-stopping instant Crowley believes the angel is going to take his hand, but Aziraphale just rests a few centimeters away with their fingers running parallel. Crowley breathes very carefully.
“My true name… is the name you call me, darling boy.”
Crowley splutters reflexively at this. “Come off it angel, we both know She gave you a better one.”
“No,” Aziraphale goes on obstinately, “I’m not the same being I was when She made me, I’m afraid. I was made to be a soldier as well as a guardian, but instead I’ve cast off my arms, and retired from running a used bookshop. So…” he takes a deep breath that only serves to further unbalance Crowley. “I think She gave me you. To name me anew as you did in the Garden, and help me become my own person. Isn’t that what parents are supposed to do for their children, more or less? Give them what they need to learn to choose for themselves, that is, metaphorically speaking.”
How could Crowley have missed this coming in his fog of dread? He thinks about how close he felt, that day at the Ritz, to Aziraphale tipping a champagne flute with laughter and freedom sparkling in his stormy blue eyes.
Now they’re perhaps closer, unexpectedly, fingers lingering just atoms apart on the winter ground and this absurd nonsense of “God gave me you” dancing a jig all over Crowley’s nervous system like lightning. He’ll dream this conversation and wake up in a fever, he thinks wildly. The angel’s said some preposterous things before… but this is extreme.
“What about–hereditary enemies?” Crowley squeaks, feeling it deeply unfair that he should be the one wide-eyed, waving his left arm (keeping his right deadly still against Aziraphale’s solid shoulder) and sounding jittery and unreasonable in the face of this… this. The bloody angel ignores this and carries on, unbelievably.
“I know I’ve been very slow, dear. I’m sorry if I hurt you by making you wait too terribly long. I just hope,” and here are the hands wringing like an adorable schoolmarm. Crowley’s right side feels chilled again, even as his heart thuds uncomfortably. “You can find it within yourself to forgive me. Or if you’re unhappy and you want to go, at least let me say how much I regret…”
Sweet Lucifer, are those tears? Crowley considers wringing his own neck on the off chance he could do anything to stop this–
“What I’m trying to say is… I see now I was wrong to be trapped in fear for so very long. Thinking rote obedience had anything to do with goodness, or Her will, at all! Oh, I was so, so afraid for you too, Crowley! When you said your side don’t do nasty notes… I suppose I’d been naïve before, about how cautious you had to be in looking after me and keeping up appearances.”
Crowley’s mouth is wide open. He feels this whole exchange may be a hallucination. Aziraphale, afraid for him? And Crowley, cautious? That one almost makes him laugh, thinking how often he's bent spacetime a smidge and pissed off Hell just to deliver Aziraphale his weekend bagels piping hot. The extraneous infernal miracles spilled to keep the damn Angel of London safe and sound despite his best attempts at getting burned for a witch or gullotined as a French (ha) aristo.
No, there's nothing for it but to hook a trembling finger into Aziraphale’s sleeve in a desperate plea to hold the angel’s hand in case this is real, his first chance to cling to that soft, clever hand for dear life.
“Home is the home you choose, angel. ‘Course I don’t miss London.”
“But,” and here Aziraphale’s tremulous smile is threatening to break into a pout, “you’re still angry with me, aren’t you. All those terrible things I said, how could you not be…”
Crowley is bewildered at this almost as much as the clear contentment Aziraphale showed calling a demonic accommodation his true name. He shrugs awkwardly. “Nothing to forgive,” he mumbles, “it’s not… I know being around me is miserable right now, I can’t… not good at being happy I guess. Keep waiting for the other foot to fall.”
Aziraphale is teary-eyed again, turning his fingers to lace into Crowley’s bony digits like a lock fitting around a key. Crowley swallows very loudly, wishing he could grab back his stuttering, lisping words.
“Oh Crowley. Why wouldn’t you tell me? If I’ve not broken your trust forever with all my… dithering and my foolishness?”
“Dunno… Already enough of a bother to have around, aren’t I.”
“I’ll thank you to let me say for myself what’s a bother. Really!”
Now Aziraphale is indignant and wrinkling up his eyebrows, but Crowley is trying out a small, stiff smile because he’s also squeezing their entwined hands, fairly hard. Crowley listens for the creak of his bones and thinks deliriously how perfect this unexpected pressure and warmth is.
If Aziraphale wants him to prattle about his woes rather than brooding silently he’ll find the words somehow. Maybe in some of those endless stacks of books littered all over the cottage. Crowley concedes defeat, feeling light in a carved out sort of way, “Alright, point taken. Been keeping from saying the wrong thing out loud a long time, guess it’ll take a bit to get past all those habits, eh?”
Aziraphale ducks his head, glances up through his eyelashes with that odd shyness that always draws Crowley’s eyes to his mouth. “Our own side, I believe you said.”
“Our own side.”
Crowley marvels at his luck–he is sat here with this strange, lovely creature. The crisp, chilly wind is brushing their faces and waving the branches over their heads. He’s deeply reluctant to think the word blessed in relation to his occult self, but the first pink of dawn blushing over their roof below is a little bit perfect, a match to the slow thaw beginning around Crowley’s numb anxiety. He’s sure he’ll mess up over and over, but apparently he still gets to go down the hill to their cottage to do so. Stay with Aziraphale, bring him cups of tea while he reads, irritate him during the Sunday crossword, and maybe try baking some bread…
Crowley’s marveling is cut short by Aziraphale leaning up to kiss him gently on the lips.
It’s petal-soft, nearly chaste except for the soft moan from the angel. Every hair on Crowley’s body stands on end. He has memorized that sound of pleasure over and over since their first lunch in Rome–he hopes sacreligiously this might mean the angel plans to make a meal of him (Someone, please). Aziraphale withdraws, blinks soft, hazel green eyes at Crowley, and smirks in a way that can only be described as mischievous. “Too fast, sweetheart?”
Crowley palpitates quietly ‘til the count of three, still clinging doggedly to Aziraphale’s hand. “Shut up. 'm not sweet. Kissss me again?”
The angel obliges. Crowley learns how to kiss back.