Chapter Text
Crowley loved ordering in. It was third on his list of Best Things Ever. Only the polio vaccine and indoor plumbing ranked higher.
Aziraphale had wanted thai for dinner and ordering in allowed him to stay on the old coach in the bookshop, an angelic lap pillowing his head, a soft angelic hand carding through his hair and an angelic voice reading out loud while still providing the owner of these angelic delights with the Tom yam boran he was craving.
He didn’t deserve this. These long soft evenings just being with his angel, being allowed to think of Aziraphale as his angel, being read to, being warm and content.
He was a demon, fallen, unwanted, unforgivable, unlovable and incapable of love. Only, he did love Aziraphale with every shred of his damned being and Aziraphale loved him. Aziraphale forgave him and wanted him and he couldn’t understand it.
“You’re brooding again.” Aziraphale said from above him.
Crowley huffed “Not brooding just… Thinking”
“That's not very good for you either dear.” Aziraphale said mildly and doubled his efforts on Crowley’s scalp, scratching lightly in a way he knew would chase any and every thought right out of that head.
Crowley sighed and melted a little deeper into the coach. His eyes fluttered closed and the next thing he knew, his head was being lowered gently onto a pillow and Aziraphale was getting to his feet.
“Mffngk?” He asked blearily. That earned him a smile.
“I’m going to write a dictionary one day.” Aziraphale promised and then explained that the food is here.
Crowley climbed up to a position that resembled sitting. Ugg, he had basically invited a human over to knock at the bookshop door and disturb them.
He hated ordering in.
They ate mostly in silence, trading only a few words over the spicy dishes. Crowley should have realised that wasn’t good but he was too busy basking in Aziraphale’s warmth to realise the silence meant that now it was the angel that was thinking.
“Crowley, what was it you were thinking about?” Aziraphale asked once they were done with the food and seated together sharing a nice red.
“Hmm? Oh” Crowley took a sip of his wine. “Just the usual existential angst and self flagellation. Nothing to worry about, angel.”
Aziraphale frowned. “It’s only, we didn’t really talk about… What happened.”
“Angel, we haven’t talked about anything that has happened in the past six thousand years. Death, taxes and us not talking. Isn’t that how it goes?”
“It doesn’t have to go that way.” Aziraphale said cautiously.
Crowley took a deeper sip of his wine. He wasn’t nearly drunk enough for this.
“What… What do you want to talk about exactly?”
Aziraphale laid his glass down and started fidgeting with the ring on his finger. Crowley wondered if the only reason the angel got that ring was so that he had something to fidget with and what would he do if Crowley grabbed those hands and pulled the blessed ring right off.
“Are you angry darling?”
Crowley sputtered. He didn’t really know what to expect but that was not the question he was expecting. “What are you talking about?”
Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “You know what I’m talking about”
“Angel, I really really don’t. Who exactly am I supposed to be mad at?”
“Crowley, for the past month we’ve been thinking I was dying. Then it turns out I wasn’t dying, I was just Falling, slowly and not to Hell but to Earth and then She shows up and gives me an official post as the guardian of Earth and we don’t even really know what that means and we’re just supposed to, what? Carry on?”
That of course was all true. After Armageddon didn’t happen they had only six months of peace before strange things started happening to Aziraphale. His feathers fell slowly one by one, he suffered aches and pains in different parts of his corporation, he grew weaker and lost control of his miracles. It was easy to dismiss at first but after three weeks he was ill enough to have to stay in bed. He was feverish and trembling and Crowley had already tried everything they could think of. He had even spoken to Heaven and Hell but they were no help.
Aziraphale was slipping in and out of consciousness and Crowley was lying besides him on their bed. He didn’t have any tricks left. He didn’t see any way out.
The prayer came trickling out of him like the last few drops of water in a sponge. It was a weak hopeless prayer. Nothing like the dramatic yelling he had done over the years. Just a choked sob and a plea to please please don’t let him die. Not now when they finally have the rest of eternity. He will never know if his prayer did anything or if that is how it was supposed to happen all along but Aziraphale’s fever broke, he woke up and grew stronger and just a couple of days later he was strong enough to take a walk outside so they went to a small coffee shop.
Crowley had a double espresso. Aziraphale had tea and a slice of cheesecake.
It was nice and peaceful and then She showed up and sat at their table like she owned the place. Granted, she technically owns everything but still.
Truth be told, Crowley didn’t care. He had his Angel back, that's all that mattered. So when she gave the angel his new post Crowley was okay with it and when she reached inside of him and opened a valve on a long rusted pipe of healing power he was okay with it, and when she whispered to him “keep him safe my little serpent” he most definitely was okay with it because keeping Aziraphale safe was the only thing he was planning on doing for the next millenia.
“Angel, are you angry?” He asked.
This time it was Aziraphale’s turn to sputter. “I think I rather am.” He admitted at last. “It just seems so unfair. You’re finally free of Hell and now you have to follow me around on some mission we don’t even really understand. She shouldn’t have asked you that”
Crowley’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “That’s what you’re angry about, Angel? You almost died, you were forced to Fall and your angry cause She told me to keep you safe?”
“Well, you know I don’t belong in Heaven Crowley. Being an Angel of Earth is perfect for me.”
Crowley smiled. “It’s like she knew what you needed and gave it to you”
“Yes”
Crowley slipped off the coach, took Aziraphale’s fidgeting hands in his own and looked up at the angel. “She knew what I needed too.” He said.
Aziraphale looked at him, at their conjoined hands in his lap. “Oh” He said when it finally sunk in. “You’re alright with this? With me? You know?”
“Yes, Aziraphale. I am one hundred percent alright with you not dying and not Falling. I am one hundred percent alright with God herself telling us to stay together.
Aziraphale,” He swallowed hard. “I don’t know how long it has been since I saw Her because last time I saw Her time wasn’t a thing. I didn’t think I’d ever get to see Her again, let alone have Her speak to me and She sat with us and we had an actual conversation. That’s…” He closed his eyes against the tears that gathered there. “I don’t deserve that…”
“You do, Crowley you’re... “
Crowley shook his head and ignored Aziraphale’s protests “The only reason that happened was because of you Aziraphale. You know that. Even if you’re right and I do merit to see the face of God now, that too is because of you. You… Doing the right thing doesn’t just happen to you... You showed me…” He leaned his head down into Aziraphale’s lap, unable to continue. “Fuck.” He mumbled against the cream clad thighs.
Aziraphale smoothed down Crowley’s red hair and rubbed gently at his scalp until he was able to take a steadying breath and look up. He smiled through glossy eyes.
“See why we shouldn’t talk about things?”
Aziraphale huffed a laugh. “Come here, love” He pulled Crowley up to the sofa and they sat there wrapped up in each other, Crowley marveling at how quickly he got used to being called love by an angel .
“I’m glad you're okay with everything that has happened” Aziraphale said after a while “and I know you won’t believe me but, you deserve to talk to God if that’s what you want.”
The ‘you deserve me, and this and everything good in this world’ went unsaid but somehow, maybe for the first time in his existence Crowley did hear it and Crowley also knew that Aziraphale is planning to say it over and over until Crowley finally does believe it.
At some point they untangled themselves from each other and retrieved their wine glasses. They then went on to drink quite extraordinary amounts of alcohol and talk about things like honey bees and tree frogs and Pluto losing its planetary status.
Then they stumbled up to bed together deciding they’ll deal with the hangover tomorrow. This lovely drunken haze was just too lovely to give up. Of course this decision was actually due to the lovely dronken haze and there is no guarantee it was the right one. It probably wasn’t.
An angel and a demon were safe and warm in each other's arms. They didn’t see the tropical storm coming. It was May, there shouldn’t be a tropical storm coming.
***
The doors closed behind the president of the United States and he was alone in the National Cathedral.
“You’re a son of a bitch, you know that?” He said, looking up unflinching. Then his words caught up with him and he swallowed thickly but it was all too much and he carried on stepping forward down the aisle.
“She bought her first car and you hit her with a drunk driver. What? Is that supposed to be funny?”
He continued walking forward “‘You can't conceive, nor can I, the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God,’” says Graham Greene.”
His hands swung at his side, stride widing as he gained momentum “I don't know whose ass he was kissin' there, 'cause I think you're just vindictive. What was Josh Lyman, a warning shot? That was my son.” His voice broke a little on the confession but it did nothing to quelch the anger.
“What did I ever do to yours but praise his glory and praise his name? There's a tropical storm that's gaining speed and power. They say we haven't had a storm this bad since you took out that Tender ship of mine in the North Atlantic last year. Sixty-eight crew.”
His voice, low in deference to the location till now raised just a bit
“You know what a Tender ship does? Fixes the other ships. It doesn't even carry guns, it just goes around, fixes the other ships and delivers the mail. That's all it can do.”
He looked up at the cross “gratias tibi ago, domine. Yes, I lied. It was a sin. I've committed many sins. Have I displeased you, you feckless thug?”
It all came out in a rush. “Three point eight million new jobs, that wasn't good? Bailed out Mexico, increased foreign trade, thirty million new acres of land for conservation, put Mendoza on the bench, we're not fighting a war, I've raised three children…”
He reached the dais now and made his way up the steps “that's not enough to buy me out of the dog house?” His hands spread wide in an aching demand “haec credam a deo pio, a deo justo, a deo scito? cruciatus in crucem”
He stood there between the pillars and he should have been dwarfed by them. By the sheer magnitude of the stone and the marble but nothing in creation was larger than his denouncement right then. “tuus in terra servus, nuntius fui; officium perfeci.”
He grew tired of yelling into the void “cruciatus in crucem” There was nothing here for him, he dismissed it all and turned his back. “eas in crucem”.
***
It might have gone unnoticed. It should have gone unnoticed. Do you know how many people denounce God on a daily basis? And sure Jed Bartlet was strong for a human, clever, brave with a bright soul, but he didn’t have any occult powers nor devine ones. So it would have been just another voice amongst thousands if it wasn’t for one Gabriel the Fucking Archangel.
Angels as a general rule were being of divine love. They were created for three things.
To worship the Almighty, to obey their superiors and to love creation. Gabriel had no problem with the first two. Worship was sort of a given when faced with something omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent that created you out of the void, gave you a name and consciousness and a reason for being.
Obedience was easy to demand of his underlings and seeing that he hadn’t actually received any orders since Adam and Eve left the garden that was his only close encounter with obedience in six thousand years.
The third however was exceedingly difficult for Gabriel to come to terms with. Especially once he spent time in actual creation. It was so… dirty and messy and smelly. Not that he questioned the divine will of course. Never that. It was just that She couldn’t possibly have meant he had to love those creatures as they were. Crawling all over their little rock. Drowning in carnal sin and forbidden desires and... Ugg gross matter.
No it had very quickly become clear to him that his love, true divine love was to love what they could be. They were created in Her image for Heaven’s sake. They had the potential to be so close to the Almighty. Instead they spent their very limited time on earth pursuing things like Sushi and orgazms and comic books. He truly loved what they could be, remorseful, meak, plagued with guilt. But when they were not those things, and mostly they were not those things he was more than happy to love them to destruction.
Take this human for example. He was in a church. In the presence of holy divinity and he had the audacity to yell at God. To demand answers. To curse Her to Hell.
How did that even happen? And did he fall dead at the feet of the cross? Did the earth open its mouth to swallow him down to Hell like he deserved?
Of course not. He was Human. Nothing lurked just at the edge of a question to pull him away from grace. His blessed soul still shone as bright as a bloody supernova. Ready to blow all of creation to kingdom… Oh, Gabriel gasped audibly. this was… A smirk played at the edge of lips. This was truly divine.
He pulled his cell phone out hurriedly calling for the Post Master. There were some quick deliveries to be made.
***
Crowley was now almost used to waking up wrapped around a warm angel, spending that hazy time between sleep and wakefulness with soft touches and lingering kisses but the space besides him was empty and cold. A muffled thump from below got him out of bed, into a pear of jeans and to the top of the stair in a single breath.
“Angel?” He called out hurrying down to the main floor.
“Here dear” The angel called from somewhere deep in the stacks. “I’m sorry, Did that wake you?”
“Yah, s’fine. What are you doing?”
He knew better than to venture into the stacks looking for Aziraphale. The bookshop had very little spatial awareness and even less understanding of the laws of physics. It wasn’t only bigger on the inside, that he could probably navigate it also had little nooks and crannies that appeared and disappeared at will (Whose will was the wrong question to ask here) and it had shelves upon shelves of books that wound around each other in a madman's idea of a labyrinth.
The only reason Crowley had never gotten lost in the bookshop was that he never actually looked for a book in the bookshop. He left that to Aziraphale who knew every bit of it, how and why it existed and what it was hiding.
Thankfully he didn’t have to wait long before the angel came out and smiled at him.
“What’s wrong?” Crowley demanded. Aziraphale was… disheveled. His bowtie was untied, his jacket was missing and his sleeves were rolled up. There was a fine coating of gray dust on his trousers and in his hair which had curls sticking up every which way.
“I don’t know.” Aziraphale said distractedly. His eyes roamed the room never staying in one place for long and not looking at Crowley at all. “There’s something missing I have to find.”
“What is it?” Crowley asked
“Huh?” Aziraphale finally looked at him but his eyes were still unfocused.
“What is it you’re looking for, Angel? I’ll help you look.”
“Oh, I…” Aziraphale moved to the back to sit down on the high backed winged chair. “I assumed it was a book. That’s why I was in the stacks but when you asked me just then I didn’t actually know what to say.”
“How long have you been looking for it?”
Aziraphale shrugged. “Sometime during the night? I’m not sure. I think I just… Misplaced...” He stood up again “If I just look over there maybe…” He started off toward his desk.
Crowley caught him with a hand on his arm. “Aziraphale wait. Take a breath.”
“We don’t need to breathe dear” Aziraphale said, but stood with him, silent nonetheless. “This is a thing isn’t it?” He asked at last.
“Seems so” Crowley said with a grimace. He pulled Aziraphale back down to the coach. “Can I Look?”
Aziraphale nodded his agreement and Crowley Looked. He saw the Principality Aziraphale, Angel of the third Emanation, Guardian of Earth. His four faces, the lion, the eagle, the shark and the man all distinct and melded together, his wings huge, light blue and perfect. His whole being was glowing softly in a warm sonlit brilliance. God he was beautiful. Crowley could stay like this all day just looking at the radiance that was Aziraphale’s true form on the physical realm.
Aziraphale cleared his throat. Right, right Crowley blinked. He’ll be able to gaze lovingly at his angel after he makes sure nothing nefarious is going on. Nothing seemed wrong on the surface but he’ll have to take a closer look to make sure. He snaked out a tenderill of himself, a scaly black mist that wound it’s way over the faces and the wings and into the warm glowing core. There were no dim patches, no wisps of suggestion, no ropes of compulsion. Nothing to explain why Aziraphale had spent hours looking for something he can’t even name.
Suddenly Crowley felt something pulling on him. Aziraphale was drawing his energy, his will.
“Angel, what?”
“If we look together we might be able to…” Aziraphale trailed off. The need to start moving making him strum in a high pitch, impatient cord.
“Alright.” Crowley said and Aziraphale was off. In hindsight the fact that Aziraphale was able to resist long enough to get Crowley’s consent was a testament to just how strong the angel was and maybe to how devoted he was as well but Crowley won’t dwell on that.
Their corporations remained in the shop, it was an invisible four faced principality and a huge coiling snake in black and red that made their way down the streets of London.
At a crossroad Aziraphale paused and Crowley pushed some more of his own willpower into the angel.
Aziraphale turned left.
They continued like that for a while twisting and turning through the streets until they stopped at a busy motorway. There had been a head on collision the delivery man died on impact.
“Oh,” Aziraphale sighed when he saw the scene. All the tension rushing out of him in a breath.
Crowley seemed to absorb all that tension and then some because there on the road stood Death.
The delivery man who had just died got to his feet.
“A MESSAGE FOR ME AGAIN?” Death thundered at the delivery man. Because death either whispers or thunders and either way it’s in all caps.
“Yes sir,” The delivery man said. “Message reads ‘Come and see’ but also,” he indicated the opened boot of his truck. “I was told this is a rush job and that you can accept the rest of the packages as well?”
“ALL RIGHT” Death agreed.
Aziraphale stepped up. “Excuse me,” He said and then because no one took notice “EXCUSE ME”
Crowley shivered a little at the angelic voice.
Death looked up from the clipboard he was signing and surveyed the angel and demon before him. Crowley had encountered Death before of course. You don’t live on earth for six thousand years without becoming well acquainted. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t fighting the impulse to coil around the angel and drag him back to the bookshop. He was coiling around the angel just a little. Aziraphale gave him a loving glance before focusing again.
“Did you call me here?” He asked Death.
Death just looked at him silently. “Suppose not” Aziraphale conceded. “But something has and I wonder. Do you have to?”
“SORRY?”
“Do you have to ‘go and see’ I mean you already went once and nothing came of it wasn’t that enough?”
Death looked at Aziraphale. Crowley allowed some more of himself to coil around the angel.
“I'VE HEARD ABOUT THE NEW POSTING, AZIRAPHALE. CONGRATULATIONS”
Crowley didn’t know what to think about Death and Aziraphale being on a first name basis.
“Oh, th… thank you” Aziraphale said.
“SO YOU PLAN ON TRAVELING TO WASHINGTON?” Death asked.
Aziraphale’s lion face ruffled it’s main, his shark one snapped his jaws. “Yes. Washington. Most definitely going to travel there.” He said with just one beat lost. “That’s Washington DC in the States right?”
“I HAVE GONE AND SEEN ALREADY” death mused, Crowley tightened his coils just a little. Fucking Hell, the angel is doing it again. “VERY WELL GUARDIAN. I WILL LET YOU HANDLE THIS. SEND MY REGARDS TO HEAVEN AND HELL. WE WILL MEET EVENTUALLY” With that he stretched his wings black as night and disappeared.
Now that was not ominous at all. Crowley started breathing again.
“Darling,” Aziraphale said. “Would you let up a bit? I appreciate your concern only it’s getting hard to breath”
“You don’t need to breathe, Angel.” Crowley pointed out.
“Yes but since you started to breath again. Shouldn’t I get to as well?”
Crowley huffed and uncoiled himself.
The delivery man who found himself not dead for the second time in less then a year pushed by the couple. “Excuse me gents, but I would really like to get going.”
“If you don’t mind,” Aziraphale said, picking up a long wooden box. “I’ll sign for this”
The delivery man checked his invoice. “Looks like that’s not gonna be a problem sir.”
Aziraphale handed the box to Crowley, who quickly hid it in his coils, and signed the invoice.
“Thanks you sir” The delivery man said, went back to his truck and drove off.
“He’s gonna have some stories for the grandkids” Crowley said watching him go.