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The tension only grew as the days warmed with spring and slowly began to stretch towards summer. Crowley spent most of his days in the garden, alternately sniping at and confiding in the plants, desperate for someone to talk to who wasn’t tied up in this mess. Despite this desire, he soundly eliminated Newt from the list, he wasn’t a witch but he was too close to the situation. It had never been mentioned but he was almost positive that Newt and Anathema were dating. On those grounds alone, he wasn’t a good target for venting, so Crowley kept to the plants. He had no memory of his previous gardening habits but apparently the grumbling and occasional shouts were commonplace enough, as neither Anathema nor Aziraphale ever mentioned anything.
Or maybe they were just ignoring him, waiting for him to spin himself into madness without their interference, and then they would have him for whatever nefarious plans-
No. Aziraphale and Anathema didn’t have any nefarious plans. He could trust them, he knew it. He’d known Aziraphale from the moment he had dug him from the cold earth, had known the feel of his hands, the shape of his face. He could trust Aziraphale. He had too.
There was a clatter, and then a crash, shattering glass along with a heavier impact in the kitchen. Aziraphale and Anathema made contact over the book they were studying and scrambled for the kitchen in unison.
"Crowely?" he called. "Are you- oh. Oh, goodness."
The old table they used as a kitchen island was shoved out of its usual position, crooked and angled towards the counters, there was shattered floral patterned glass all over the floor, and in the midst of it all, was Crowley, curled on his side.
“What happened,” Aziraphale asked, already stepping forward, mindful of the glass. He wrapped a careful hand around Crowley’s forearm and pulled him to his feet, already carefully dusting his clothes off.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he said, brushing Aziraphale’s hands away. “I just-”
Anathema cut him off, “did you have that pain again?”
Crowley seemed to be weighing his options as he glanced between them, but he must have realized he couldn’t hide the pain in his face under their searching gazes. “I was just trying to make tea.”
“Right,” Anathema brandished the dust pan, “sit, let us clean this up.”
Crowley slumped into a chair at the breakfast table, “when are you finally gonna tell me what you two know instead of conspiring behind my back?”
Aziraphale stopped in his process of pulling more tea cups from the cabinet. “Are you sure you want to know?”
“You wanna keep secrets, Aziraphale? Cast the spells on yourself.” He slumped over the table top, glaring at them from behind the makeshift wall formed by his arms.
Aziraphale began setting the tea cups out in a neat line on the tea tray. “I didn’t cast the curse that’s causing so much trouble. If I
did
I would know more about it. An easier way to mitigate its effects, a way to break it, even what these symptoms
are.
But I
didn’t
. My mother did.” He hesitated, fiddling with the kettle. “She was what some might call a touch fanatical.”
Anathema snorted.
“Okay, she was extremely fanatical. Are you happy?” He glared at Anthema.
“Yes,” she said, holding out the filled infuser to him.
Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “Anathema is right, really. You grew up near here, closer to town, but my mother was never particularly fond of your family. She thought you were all Satanists, and that your family sent you around to distract Anathema and I from our studies. She used to tell us wild stories about why we should avoid you, but we lived so far from town and we were already plenty odd ourselves that we didn’t really have many other friends, so we didn’t listen to her as much as she liked.
"Then, one night, we’re preparing for a coven tradition, and she pulls Anathema and I over to help her with some more, ah, gruesome preparations. And as she works, she tells us, in detail, how you turned 13 on the night of a blood moon, and that night your family took you out into the woods, in a clearing bathed in moonlight, and there they baptized you in human blood and you wrote your name in the Devil’s book. She said it was the way of things in your family, as simple as our own coming of age traditions, but clearly much much worse than anything we could ever practice. She said that your family was the worst kind, and that the Devil always marked his own.” He met Crowley’s eyes across the kitchen, watching him search desperately for any recollection of something like that happening.
“I was nine years old when she told us this story and I avoided you for weeks in terror that you could mark me too,” Anathema offered, pouring the water for the tea.
“I don’t...” Crowley began, but he just looked lost.
“I have no evidence that any of this happened,” Aziraphale continued. “I was sixteen at the time, and already well on my way to my own full initiation within the coven. We have our own traditions for the blood moon and I’ve tried to tell myself that
surely
I would’ve seen something if you had gone into the woods that night. But ultimately I have no evidence that it
didn’t
happen either.”
Anathema distributed tea cups around the room as Aziraphale gathered his thoughts.
“Her story didn’t deter anything for long, you were still one of the only people at school who was more than polite to either of us, and you looked out for Anathema when I was no longer there. One day, I had gone to walk her home from school but since you were already there you had walked together. We all met up part way and headed back here together.
"My mother trapped you in a binding spell the moment you stepped through the gate. I’ve never known how she did it, whether she used your name or had something stronger. Once she had you trapped, she changed you. She said that snakes belonged in the grass and that’s where you should be. And when it was over, she went inside, closed the door and helped Tia with dinner as though nothing had happened. It was November so when I hoped she wasn’t paying attention, I hid you in my coat pocket and took you upstairs. I did my best to keep you warm and fed and entertained until I left to study with Agnes. I hid you under my coat for the journey and Anathema and I tried everything we could until you could be a person again. We never broke the spell and it’s never been perfect, your form still slipped sometimes, but it worked for rather a long time.
"After my mother died Agnes took control of the coven, and we came home with her, but something happened once we did. One day you dropped dead, with no warning, and then five minutes later you were gasping back to life. It changed you, or something in you at least. You would play the piano for long periods of time before realizing it made no sound when you did. You would forget people’s names, even your own, or the date, the year mostly. You would lose control of your form, you would fall.” He moved from his spot by the counter to sit at the table with Crowley. “I don’t know what happened. You had been in the bathroom so long, and I came in to check on you and you had drowned. I didn’t know how long you’d been gone but you weren’t coming back so I did something stupid. I drew a summoning circle there on the tile, in my own blood, and I summoned you. But I didn’t use your name, not Anthony as your parents had named you, but Crowley, as you introduced yourself. And it worked . You took a breath, and then choked on the water still in your lungs, but you came back . Your memory crumbled after that. You got restless, antsy. It’s how you met Lucifer and his, ah, associates.”
Crowley clutched his tea cup close. “I don’t remember any of this.”
“I know,” Aziraphale offered. “But I’m going to fix it.” He held out his hand, and, tentatively, Crowley placed his own in it. Aziraphale wove their fingers together, and then pressed his opposite palm to Crowley’s wrist, where the sigils for the silver threads were written.
“This is weaker, more temporary magic, but if you still trust me to, I think I can forge a more permanent bond and snap the curse at the same time. There’s no secret plot. I haven’t bent you to my will, and I won’t. I only want you to be free again, and to be you, wholly.”
“Okay.” Crowley took a deep breath. “Where do we start?”