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This was it. He was never going to get a better trophy than this. Eric slipped through the back hallways of Hell and skirted the Thing growing out of the disused lavatory, clutching his prize carefully, carefully all the while.
"I'm afraid I really must insist you return that."
Eric leapt and turned to see the fussy angel right behind him. Blessit, he didn't even have a proper heart, what had just jumped up and throttled him? “How the heaven did you get down here?”
“You’ve taken something of mine, dear boy, and I will have it back.” The angel held out a hand, firm but still bafflingly polite-- Hastur would have discorporated him by now, just for fun-- and just... waited.
Angelically.
In the back corridors of Hell. Right next to the Thing in the disused lavatory.
The Thing reached for the angel, who still had his hand held out patiently.
“And you don’t even consider it,” the angel said, without looking. “I’m going to have enough trouble getting the muck off these shoes as it is, and I would not be pleased.”
The Thing paused, then slumped down on the floor again.
Eric squinted. Was... was it slumped farther away from the angel than it had been? Was someone able to actually intimidate the Thing? Even Ligur hadn’t been able to intimidate the Thing!
“How are you doing this?” he finally asked.
“My resolve is strong because you have stolen my favorite bow tie, and I will have it back now,” the angel said.
He wasn’t sure how, really, but he was already moving, dropping the crumpled bowtie into the angel’s outstretched hand.
“Thank you, my boy. And oh, what have you done to it? The silk is all rumpled, and I’m quite certain that stain was not there beforehand.” The angel tsked at him. “This is my favorite one, you know, Crowley gave it to me. I wore it at our wedding.”
Eric edged slightly away.
“Oh, well. I’m sure I can clean it, and if not, Crowley will be able to.” The angel tucked the tie into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. Wiped his fingers fastidiously. “Don’t think you’re out of this,” he snapped suddenly with a sapphire glare.
Eric froze. He wasn’t sure how this terrifying angel had known he was about to bolt, but he was beginning to think that breathing hellfire had just been the beginning.
“I feel as though I clearly need to reiterate this, so I need you to listen very carefully. Crowley and I are retired. We are done now, with all of this nonsense. Literally all that we have asked of either side is that we be left, in peace, to our retirement, and I really will not countenance continued interference. I suspect you are also behind the sudden rash of disappearances among Crowley’s sunglasses?”
Eric nodded, and cursed under his breath.
“No need for that kind of language, young man. This pilfering of our belongings must stop, do you understand? We are retired. If you must indulge your kleptomaniac tendencies, there are other, better targets.”
He might prefer Hastur to this, actually. Although it was possibly a good sign that he hadn’t been discorporated even once, yet. “Y-- yeah. Got it. Off limits.”
“Excellent. I’m so glad we understand one another.” The angel finally finished wiping off his fingers and dropped the handkerchief on the floor.
The Thing retreated from where it fluttered down.
The angel reached into a different pocket. “Understand that if anyone feels they need to talk to us and cannot be dissuaded, they are free to use the mail or the telephone. Visitation will only be by extremely prior appointment, and we will be updating the wards on our residences. However,” he went on, pulling a small tan thing out of his pocket, “I also feel in this case that a certain amount of... ambition? Brashness? ...Regardless, you were in fact very clever, and as I am taking from you your last trophy--”
That blue gaze sharpened on him, again; it wasn’t completely unlike being pinned to the wall. Which he had actually had done to him once, come to think, and yep, it was a bit like this.
He was caught enough in that memory and the similarities and differences that he failed to notice that the angel was now holding something out to him. It wasn’t until there was throat-clearing that he looked down.
There, on a palm that had no business being as clean as it was in the middle of Hell, was a bow tie. Mostly tan, with bands of beige and buff.
Eric reached out to it, gingerly. From any demon, this would, of course, have been a trap, and with any demon he would, of course, have reached for it anyway, because whatever game they had planned would probably hurt less than refusing to play. But he wasn’t sure what was going to happen, not here.
The bow tie... was simply a bow tie. He turned it over, looking at both sides of the fabric, which were of course the same. Stiff and almost shiny, it was; either freshly ironed or completely unused.
Don’t ask questions, don’t ask questions, said a little voice in his head. His mouth completely ignored it in favor of asking, “What?”
“For your collection. It seems only fair I offer an item in trade, this once. That is not just a bow tie, my boy. That is my regimental bow tie in Heaven’s own battle tartan.”
Eric nearly dropped it before his fist closed on its own, probably wrinkling it but hell’s sake, Heaven’s battle tartan?! This was going to go right on top of the purple scarf!
“I’ve kept it all these years, even though I much prefer my own tartan--” The angel reached up and touched the edge of the tie he wore-- “Out of, hmm, sentimentality? Certainly with the thought that I might be called up, and have to dress the part. But I feel that now is the appropriate time to let it go. Perhaps it will send a message, if need be, that We. Are. Retired.”
The angel nodded smartly and turned. Eric watched one of the Thing’s tendrils whip out of the way.
“How are you going to get out?”
The angel stopped. Without turning around, he said, “I’m so sorry, were you thinking to try to stop me?”
An angel, Eric thought, had walked into Hell, found the halls outside his secret space where mostly even demons couldn’t find him, and now stood with his back to a demon and a horrifying Thing, and sounded totally relaxed.
“No!” he squeaked. He would consider the damage to his reputation later, but he was not going to try to stop this angel and it would be very silly to pretend that he could.
“Very good,” said the angel, and walked away. Eric would almost think he sounded pleased.
The Thing, from its position where it had pulled up next to the wall, waved at him.
Eric waved back, tentatively, the buff bow tie still clutched in his other hand. Apparently he was not so alone as he’d thought.
He watched the angel out of sight down the corridor, which seemed to grow longer as it went, and even after.
Eventually a tapping on his leg broke him out of it. He looked down to see the Thing.
“What was that?” he asked.
The Thing heaved as if to shrug.
“Too right. I won’t tell anyone if you don’t,” Eric said. “Um... should I bring you something? I don’t know what you eat.”
A mouth opened up, with teeth and a horrifyingly mobile tongue.
“I’ll get right on that,” Eric said, and went to put his strange trophy in its place.
A moment later, he came back and picked the handkerchief up off the floor as well.
“Where the bollocks have you been?” Crowley yanked the door open as Aziraphale approached the cottage. “We talked about this. Didn’t we talk about this? You do not just bugger off somewhere and not tell me what’s going on and why do you smell like Hell?!”
“Hello, dearest,” Aziraphale said to him, walking calmly past and dropping a kiss on his cheek.
“Don’t hello-dearest me! Why do you smell like Hell?”
Aziraphale shrugged his jacket off. Toed off his brogues by the door and then, with a sniff of distaste, set them just outside. “It’s going to take days for that to fade, isn’t it?”
“Angel...”
“Oh!” Aziraphale reached into a coat pocket and came back up with a length of blue fabric and handed it to him, a dark splotch displayed prominently on top. “My dear, would you be so kind? I’m not quite sure my cleaning miracles are up to a stain such as this.”
“You went to Hell for your bow tie? YOUR BOW TIE?” Crowley’s voice hit a strangled squeak at the end, and he couldn’t be arsed to care. “You are going to be the death of me! Do you have any idea-- Did you even think-- What came over you?”
“You gave me that one, love. I wasn’t about to let it be pilfered. Oh, and we shall have to update the wards; you were quite correct that it is the young Legion demon who’s been making off with your sunglasses.” Aziraphale rolled his shoulders and wandered over to his wing chair, settling down gratefully. “Though I daresay he won’t be doing that again.”
Crowley set the bow tie down on the end table. “If you think that has been happening, angel, you come to me before you go to Hell!” His jaw was so tight his teeth were going to crack at this rate. “I swear you’re going to turn my wings white.”
“Oh, that would be a shame, they’re so lovely.” Aziraphale snapped and a snifter appeared in his hand. He swirled it around for a moment and breathed in, eyes closing.
“Aziraphale,” Crowley ground out. “I need you to talk to me. This, this one-sided thing we’re doing, this is not good communication.” They’d talked a lot about the importance of good communication, by which he meant that Aziraphale had talked a lot and he’d listened impatiently, but he couldn’t deny that good communication had definitely made their lives and relationship better. They had each other, they had all this. And it might never have happened without them trying to talk to one another.
“My very, very dearest, if I had told you at the beginning what I was planning, you would have stopped me.”
“That,” Crowley said, blowing a breath out through his nose, “is the fucking point.”
“Forces of Hell-- yes, very well, a force from Hell, and not a very forceful one, but still-- forces of Hell invaded our home. Not once, but several times. If I had told you, we would have upgraded the wards, and we need to do that, yes.”
Crowley counted to ten. “....but?”
“But the mere fact that young Eric felt he was free to sneak in, however mostly-benign his attentions were, seemed to me to indicate that we had not left quite a sufficient impression. I merely thought it prudent to, ah, drive the lesson home, as it were.”
Crowley took another deep breath. That was... rrrgh. “Okay. You are correct, as far as that goes. But you’re not right. Budge over.”
The wing chair was suddenly a little wider-- not much, barely noticeably, but just enough for a very lanky demon to sit down next to and half draped over the angelic love of his life.
So he did. Took another breath. Tipped his forehead in to rest against Aziraphale’s temple.
“I need you to also think it prudent to tell me what you’re doing. I didn’t know where you’d gone, so I couldn’t make plans to bail you out if you needed. I didn’t know when you expected to be back, so I couldn’t know if you were taking longer than you expected so I knew when to come for you.”
“You’d come for me?” Aziraphale’s arm slipped around him, worming between him and the chair.
“I will always come for you. Wherever you are, I will come for you. You know that.”
“You promised me that.”
“I did.” He took another breath, let it out. Swung a leg fully over onto Aziraphale’s lap. “Now I need you to promise me.”
“Very well. Yes.” Aziraphale turned and pressed a kiss to his cheek, far less perfunctory than the one by the door. “I promise. Wherever I go, I will let you know. And I will let you know before I seriously consider setting foot in Hell again.”
“Or Heaven.”
“Oh, I didn’t tell you-- I traded young Eric for the bow tie.” Aziraphale wiggled in his arms. “I gave him the regimental tartan one. If word of that ever gets around, it should be quite a thing to watch!”
“Or Heaven, angel,” Crowley said again. “Say the words. ‘Or Heaven.’”
Aziraphale laughed and nudged his head up. Gave him a proper kiss this time. “Or Heaven, you old serpent.”