Chapter Text
“Angel? You’ve got a, uh, customer.”
The ‘customer’ was sprawled on the rug in the middle of the floor, out cold. Crowley didn’t have a great view from the sofa, but he was very sure there had been no-one there a minute ago, and he was wondering how worried he should be about it.
Aziraphale appeared from behind a bookshelf, arms full of books, and looked down at the stranger in confusion. He turned to look at the door, which he knew to be locked, then up at the skylight (intact and, as always, miraculously clean), then back to the rug, confusion rapidly moving on to indignation.
“Who are you? How did you get in? We’re closed.”
The prone figure didn’t respond. Crowley got up and walked over, Aziraphale carefully put down his books, and they converged on their guest.
“Hm, seems to be fine, just unconscious,” Aziraphale said, kneeling. “He certainly didn’t walk in. Did he just appear here? Right on my circle?”
Crowley looked at him sharply. “You haven’t rubbed that out yet?”
Aziraphale looked wretched. “It feels so final.”
“They tried to kill you. That’s pretty final.”
Aziraphale sighed and nodded. “I’ll do it soon, I promise. They can’t use it without me activating it first anyway.”
Crowley looked down at the rug’s occupant and back up again, and raised an eyebrow. Aziraphale gave him a ‘yes, alright, fair point’ scowl, then looked back down. His brow furrowed.
“That’s odd. Definitely angelic, but not one of ours…”
“Ours?” Crowley inquired.
Aziraphale looked up at him again. “Not from Heaven. Not m— this world’s Heaven, anyway. Can’t you tell? Though I don’t see how he could be from anywhere else.”
Crowley certainly could tell, now was he looking properly. This being was unquestionably divine, but with Grace that was faint and fading; a storm-felled tree torn from its roots. The familiar and bittersweet Grace of home was growing up around it like ivy, filling the space and taking the shape of the tree – making something that resembled what was lost, but was entirely different. If Crowley was willing to admit to anything being creepy, this would be it.
He thought about possible explanations for the presence of this hollow angel and concluded that the answer to ‘how worried he should be’ was ‘very’.
“It’s not possible to travel between worlds, angel,” he whispered. “They were very clear about that, back in the day.”
“I know,” Aziraphale replied, looking as uneasy as Crowley felt. “And yet.”
The visitor stirred and groaned. Crowley backed off, figuring it probably wasn’t wise to hang around near an unknown angel. Aziraphale nodded at him in agreement as he disappeared into the back room, then put a hand on the visitor’s shoulder.
“Hello?” he said nervously. “Are you alright?”
The visitor looked up at him blearily. “Who are you?”
“I’m Aziraphale. Principality.”
“I don’t know that name.”
“I’ll try not to take it personally,” Aziraphale replied, taking it personally.1 “And you are?”
“Castiel.”
Aziraphale racked his brains and came up empty. “I don’t know that name either.”
Castiel frowned. “You don’t?”
“Should I?”
“Yes.”
Aziraphale considered this. “I see,” he said. “Well, Castiel, I think you’ve come a long way. Do you know what happened?”
“No,” Castiel answered, sitting up carefully and taking in the surroundings. “I should be dead. Back in the Empty. Not... wherever this is.”
“The what?”
Castiel looked at Aziraphale as if wondering if he was created yesterday. “The void outside Creation.”
“No such thing, must be an extra bit of your world.” Crowley interjected from the back room entrance, sunglasses firmly back in place and trying to look casual. “Sort of a celestial back alley or something. Where the bins go.”
Castiel leapt to his feet with unexpected speed, making Aziraphale jump and almost lose his balance. He turned to face Crowley and bristled.
“Demon.”
Crowley gulped. Aziraphale hurriedly put himself between them and glared at Castiel.
“Leave him alone.”
Castiel stared back at Aziraphale, unimpressed. “You know this demon? You have some kind of deal?”
Aziraphale drew himself up proudly. “In fact I do.”
“Bad idea.”
“Tell me about it,” Crowley said. “I never get a moment’s peace.”
Aziraphale turned to pout at him, and Crowley grinned. Aziraphale couldn’t help but grin back. Then he turned back to Castiel and glowered. “You will not harm him.”
As the two angels glared at each other, the room began to take on a feeling like the instant before a lightning strike. Crowley realised that he had no idea what this intruder’s capabilities were, and most likely neither did Aziraphale. He thought frantically for a way to defuse this.
Then, thankfully, Castiel shrugged. “Your business is your business. But I don’t trust him.”
“That’s fine,” Crowley said with false nonchalance, hoping his relief wasn’t showing. “We don’t trust you either.” He came closer, with his best casual saunter, but stayed behind Aziraphale. “So, how did you manage to piss off someone so powerful so badly that you actually got kicked out of your universe? What did you do?”
“It’s a long story,” Castiel replied, suddenly looking very tired.
Aziraphale looked at him curiously, and a little sympathetically. The tension drained back out of the room leaving behind it an uncomfortable empty calmness, which Aziraphale filled in the customary British fashion.
“I’ll put the kettle on, shall I?”
“What a horrible place,” Crowley said, some time later, when they were sitting around a table with tea and biscuits that even Aziraphale hadn’t touched. Castiel had been very cautious about which parts of the story to tell, but what he had shared with them was quite a tale. At some point Crowley and Aziraphale had quietly linked hands, which Castiel certainly noticed but had evidently decided not to comment on.
“It is what it is,” Castiel replied, as if talking about inconvenient roadworks not a world of teeth and fire and unavoidable killing. “Wars happen. People die. Everywhere has monsters.”
“We don’t have that kind of monster,” Aziraphale said with a shudder.
“Just the human kind,” Crowley added.
“And some of our less pleasant colleagues,” Aziraphale continued, with a pained grin.
“Former colleagues,” Crowley corrected, making Aziraphale’s face go on a brief emotional safari then settle on ‘infatuated’. Crowley squeezed his hand and returned the look, then remembered they had company and self-consciously composed himself.
“There’s really no need for hunters here?” Castiel asked, staring into his cold cup of tea. “No vampires? No hellhounds?”
“Nope,” Crowley confirmed. “Well, there is a hellhound but he’s alright. Yappy. Likes chasing cats. Lives in Oxfordshire with the Antichrist.”
“Who is a lovely young man.” Aziraphale beamed paternally. “Very well brought-up. A keen environmentalist.”
Castiel looked up in surprise. “The Antichrist is on Earth?”
“Yes,” Crowley and Aziraphale said in unison.
“So the Apocalypse is coming?”
Aziraphale shook his head, still smiling. “Oh no, it’s been and gone. Averted. Cancelled. Indefinitely paused.”
“Adam said no,” Crowley said proudly. “Renounced his heritage. Gave the Devil himself a good talking-to.”
“As I said,” Aziraphale repeated. “Very well brought-up.”
Castiel looked from one to the other, very confused. “The Apocalypse was prevented? By talking?”
“Yes.”
“How?” he demanded.
Aziraphale looked at the tea and biscuits, then snapped his fingers. The teacups steamed.2 He took a sip and gave a little satisfied hum, then cleared his throat.
“I suppose we should start at the Beginning…”
Recounting the last 6000 years took a while, not least because, trials aside, Aziraphale had almost none of Castiel’s reticence about sharing details. Crowley watched him talk, chipping in occasionally and answering a few questions but generally just gazing fondly and providing the odd heckle. Sometimes he would close off a little, or gently change the subject, and sometimes he would glance at Castiel as if daring him to challenge the account. Castiel found all this as interesting as the story. This was not the sort of behaviour he expected from either divine or infernal beings, and not the sort of story he expected of a world with either.
“Your world is very different from mine,” he said, once Aziraphale finished.
“It’s a nice world,” Aziraphale agreed, reaching for a petticoat tail with a fair amount of biscuit-focused covetousness. “We’re very glad it’s still here.”
“Your superiors disagree,” Castiel said.
“They’re not our superiors any more,” Crowley said sharply. “We’re on our own side. And they’re only still around to disagree because of Aziraphale.”
Aziraphale blushed, but also wiggled. “And you dear. And Adam. And his friends. And Madame Tracy of course. And, um...”
“Book girl and whatshisface.”
“Ah yes. Miss Device and her young man.”
Castiel was clearly still having some difficulty. “You can just refuse to fight? You don’t have to?”
“It would appear so,” Aziraphale confirmed. “Heaven and Hell have left us alone. The world seems to have gone back to normal. No great evil afoot or sea monsters, um, afloat. Just humanity. Doing what they do. For better or worse.” He finished the petticoat tail and sighed happily. “They are very good at biscuits.”
“Very different.”
An awkward silence descended. Castiel stared down at the table and Aziraphale studied his fingernails. Crowley watched them both, thinking hard.
“I really don’t understand how you can be here,” he said.
“Neither do I,” Castiel mumbled.
“It must be difficult,” Aziraphale said awkwardly. “Suddenly ending up somewhere so different.”
Castiel shrugged half-heartedly. “Being stuck between worlds would be worse.”
Crowley shook his head. “That can’t happen. You can’t get stuck between universes, there’s nothing there to get stuck in. Either you shouldn’t be able to get out at all or you should just stop existing. But somehow you washed up here instead. Shouldn’t be possible.”
“There must be a way in,” Aziraphale mused. “Some kind of bridge between realities that isn’t supposed to be there.”
“Must be to do with your circle,” Crowley suggested, thinking. “What if it doesn’t connect to Heaven any more? What if they cut you off but really mucked it up, and now it’s an open channel that other worlds can find?” His thoughtfulness turned to agitation. “What else might come through?”
He looked at Aziraphale and Aziraphale looked back. Aziraphale’s eyes widened, then he stood up abruptly, strode over to the rug, pulled it up off the circle, and started to scuff out symbols with his heel. The other two got up and watched him, Crowley relaxing a little. Castiel looked horrified.
“How am I going to get back?” he demanded. “You have stranded me here.”
“That circle could never get you back,” Crowley replied quietly. “You’d need the Almighty to do it, don’t think anyone or anything else is capable.” He looked apologetic. “And you’d need something like that circle in your world to land on, and enough luck to hit it instead of just vanishing. Your odds aren’t good.”
Castiel squinted at him suspiciously. “How do you know this?”
“Know a bit about reality,” Crowley said wistfully. He was still watching Aziraphale, but he was looking somewhen else now. “Wasn’t always a demon. Built stars once.”
Castiel didn’t reply, but watched him watch Aziraphale, as if trying to decide something or work something out. Then he turned away, and they both watched Aziraphale’s efforts in awkward silence.
Eventually Castiel spoke again, quietly. “I need to get back.”
Crowley turned to Castiel and looked at him intently. He had been paying attention to the story, and not everything that stood out had done so because it was terrible.
“This... Dean?” he said carefully. “Must have made quite an impression.”
Castiel avoided his eyes. “Perceptive. For a demon.”
Crowley shrugged. “Wouldn’t be much good at temptation if I couldn’t work out what people want.”
Castiel huffed an acknowledgement and they lapsed into silence again. Aziraphale had stopped scuffing and was now on his knees, making adjustments. Crowley watched him fondly. Castiel watched impassively, with the occasional curious glance at Crowley.
“He’s brilliant, you know,” Crowley said quietly. “Aziraphale. Just brilliant. And he doesn’t give up. If there is a way of getting you back, he’ll find it.”
”You care about him,” Castiel said, still slightly disbelieving.
Crowley rolled his eyes. “Well spotted. Sharp, you are.”
“Why would a demon care about an angel? About anyone?”
Crowley laughed. “He made quite an impression.”
“You’re a strange demon.”
“He’s a strange angel,” Crowley said without looking at Castiel. “So are you, I reckon.”
“Perhaps.”
Crowley went silent again, watching Aziraphale but clearly thinking. After a while he turned to Castiel again.
“Can you do miracles here?” he inquired.
Castiel frowned. “I don’t know.”
“Have a go. Summon a coin or something.” Crowley cast a critical eye over Castiel’s attire. “Or a better tie.”
Castiel ignored the jibe. “How do I do that?”
Crowley explained, and demonstrated. Castiel made several attempts, with no success.
“Ah, hm. Maybe it’ll come later.” Crowley sighed. “But you’ll have to make do until then, I suppose.” He deliberated with himself for a bit, then slipped an impeccable matte black credit card out of a pocket it shouldn’t have fitted into, and held it out with a flourish. “Here. ’Til you find your feet, figure out the miracles, or whatever. Max it out and you’re on your own.”
Castiel looked at it suspiciously. “I am not doing a deal with you.”
“It’s not a deal,” Crowley said hastily. “It’s just… a hand.“
“I’m not owing you a favour either.”
“You won’t. Freebie. Promise.”
“You are a demon.”
“Yes. Yes I’m a demon,” Crowley snapped. “Bloody angels. Like a broken record. But you know what that means?” He locked eyes with Castiel over the top of his sunglasses, getting as close as he dared, and quietly continued. “It means I know what it’s like to lose everything. Just take the bloody card, will you. And keep it quiet. I’ve got a reputation to maintain.”
They held eye contact for an uncomfortably long time, then Castiel seemed to reach a decision. He tugged the card out of Crowley’s fingers and slipped it guiltily into his pocket. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.”
They turned back to the main room, to see Aziraphale heading back towards them, brushing dust off his hands.
“That should do for now,” he said as he reached them. “There’s definitely something funny going on with it, but I’m sure nothing else can get through. I want to take a good look at it before I remove it entirely.” Crowley made an unconvinced grimace but didn’t push it.
“Crowley thinks I would need your Almighty to send me back,” Castiel said.
“Most likely. But the Almighty doesn’t so much as talk to anyone any more, let alone provide practical assistance,” Aziraphale said. “I’m afraid you’re very likely stuck here. We’ll see what we can find, though.”
“I’m sorry,” Crowley said awkwardly. “Though if I’m honest, I think your world sounds awful and you’re better off without it.”
“I’m sure you’ll like it here,” Aziraphale added. “Once you get used to it.”
Castiel looked at his feet. Crowley looked at Aziraphale, wearing an ‘I’ll explain later’ expression. Aziraphale answered it with a ‘please do’ look.
Castiel sighed. “I should be going.”
“Any idea where you’re going?” Aziraphale inquired.
“America,” Castiel said firmly, then looked concerned. “You do have America?”
“We do, yes,” Crowley said. “There’s a lot of it.”
“I passed through briefly during the whole Apocalypse business,” Aziraphale added. “Must make a proper visit soon. Perhaps when you’ve found your feet.”
Castiel nodded. “I’d like that.”
Aziraphale smiled happily. “That’s settled then. Do you need taking anywhere? I’m sure Crowley wouldn’t mind.” Crowley smiled tightly.
“No, thank you.”
“Alright. Be sure to keep in touch. We’ll let you know if we find anything useful.”
Castiel thanked them both again, then turned away and left the shop without fuss or ceremony. Angel and demon watched him walk away.
“Well, he’s certainly an interesting fellow,” Aziraphale said, at last.
“Yeah, we’d better keep an eye on him.”
“Indeed. In case he does something inordinately foolish.”
“Like trying to pick a fight with God?” Crowley replied. “Again?”
“Quite.”
They both shared a disbelieving chuckle.
“Oh, I saw your little act of charity,” Aziraphale teased, making Crowley squirm. “You really are rather n—”
“Stopit.”
“Hmph. You are.”
“Am not. Anyway it’s not charity, it’s bribery. We’d never get rid of him otherwise.”
“If you say so.”
“I do say so.”
“Well in that case, might I congratulate you on a very well-executed evil deed? Tip-top demonic activity.”
“Yes, yes, alright, don’t push it.”
Aziraphale smirked, slipped an arm round Crowley’s waist and tugged the demon to his side. Crowley let himself be pulled in and rested his head on Aziraphale’s shoulder. After a comfortable moment, he shifted position to whisper in the angel’s ear – he needed a temptation to balance out that sickening generosity after all, and this was one of his favourites. Worked every time, too.
“Lunch?”
Aziraphale kissed his cheek and whispered back. “That would be lovely dear.”
1. It wasn’t that he particularly wanted infamy, but when one had been personally involved in both the start and the end of the Great Plan, one couldn’t help feeling a little put out not to have been heard of. [back]
2. It was fresh tea – Aziraphale might cheat at making it sometimes but he would never be such a heathen as to reheat it. The very thought!3 [back]
3. Whether it was the same fresh tea as the first time may be a question for philosophers.