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“Really,” Aziraphale frets, fiddling with the tartan fringe on the sofa that definitely didn’t have a tartan fringe prior to tonight, “switching bodies ought to be simple enough.”
They have a tenuous survival plan; now, they just need to figure out how to put it into practice. Crowley tries to make his brain function. “Would it be like… possessing each other? We can do that.”
Admittedly, Aziraphale has more recent experience, it being a couple millennia since Crowley last tried possession[1] , but…
But the angel is frowning. “I don’t know. Our bodies don’t work the same way as humans’. If they’re vacated…”
“...then we discorporate, and neither of us has any face to choose,” Crowley finishes. He sighs. “Right. Too risky.”
Human bodies anchor human souls to the physical world. For those of celestial stock, though, it’s the other way around: the occult or ethereal occupant is what keeps a corporation corporeal.[2]
Aziraphale brow is furrowed in concentration.[3] Finally, he says, “Our bodies are less… fixed than humans’. What if we… traded via essence?”
“If… oh.” The concept clicks in Crowley’s head. “Huh. Metaphysical contact. Move corporations through souls, instead of souls moving between corporations.” He considers the idea. It seems…
Smart, actually. Logical. Like it might work.
“Let’s do it,” he says.
“That… you’re sure?” Predictably, having come up with a brilliant idea, Aziraphale now looks like he’s second-guessing it. “It would mean… metaphysical contact, you said…”
“Sure,” says Crowley, unsuccessfully casual.
He extends his hand. After an instant, Aziraphale accepts it.[4]
Carefully, questingly, Crowley lets the core that is him flow up the arm that is his — bringing that arm and the rest of its attached corporation along with the core. On the other end of their clasped hands, Aziraphale mirrors the metaphysical motion.
They meet in the middle, momentarily immaterial matter[5] that would usually be bodies passing through mingling souls to emerge intact on the opposite side, moored in place by one thread extended from each essence.
It is, surprisingly, easy.
In physical time, it can’t be more than a moment. An outside observer[6] would see the figures on the sofa morphing, hand in hand — black suit fading to beige, blond hair darkening to auburn, each being shifting smoothly to resemble the other’s form.
On the inside, however, essences intertwining, cores sharing metaphysical space, joined in closeness, in trust, in mutual knowing…
This feels rather remarkable.
The thought reverberates in Crowley’s being for a long stretch, until he realizes it wasn’t his thought at all.
It is, he says or thinks or feels back to Aziraphale, a kind of communication that has nothing to do with the vocal cords of the principality-shaped corporation now re-forming on Crowley’s sofa half.
Like we’re two bodies with one soul only, Aziraphale continues — or perhaps Crowley does, or perhaps they both do, but it’s true enough that it hardly makes a difference — and though ordinarily neither could handle such overt sentimentality, they can’t very well maintain embarrassment with their very essences linked, awash in shared emotion, caught in mutual being.
And then the moment ends. Essences disengage, settle into unfamiliar corporations. Fingers loosen, slip apart.
Crowley stares at his own face, and Aziraphale stares out of it, and oh gosh, are Crowley’s eyes always that expressive?[7]
Ah, and here it is now: the itch of embarrassment. But it’s mild, and manageable, the memory of interwoven essence still resonating within Crowley’s core.
Maybe, he dares hope as chosen faces exchange an experimental smile, their plan will work.
If so, they’ll get to do this again.