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Armaggedon is officially averted, the Earth is saved, the Antichrist and his real dad have been reunited, yadda yadda, but that doesn’t mean everything is back to normal. No, for one particular angel and one particular demon, everything is decidedly abnormal.
Tomorrow, on the very first day of the rest of their lives, the humans will wake remembering nightmarish scenarios. They’ll have a collective sense of feeling like it’s Saturday even though it’s Sunday and they’ll all have suffered from a bout of amnesia and, the newspapers will proclaim, mass hallucinations. The humans will have a tomorrow; a ragtag group of celestial beings, witchfinders, children and women with varying degrees of occult powers made sure of that.
Aziraphale and Crowley may not have a tomorrow. If they do, they will, unlike the humans, recall Saturday’s events with perfect accuracy, because they’re not human and because you don’t just forget all the rules of the universe being broken in all ways possible. In fact, some of them are being broken as we speak because there - in a bus that’s supposed to go to Oxford but that’ll go to London anyway - two minds pulsing with love six millenia in the making connect and a tentative, glowing thread joins the tapestry of all their shared memories.
In short: Aziraphale and Crowley are holding hands, and somehow it’s not like anything Crowley’s felt before.
On any other day, Crowley might reflect on all the instances they’ve touched before, wonder why now it feels so special, and subsequently act incredibly cool because Aziraphale isn’t at all doing strange things with his metaphorical heart and never has, no sir. Today, however, is the most peculiar Saturday either of them has ever experienced and, well, it’s a day for breaking both rules and expectations and feeling like they were never there in the first place.
Neither of them has a side anymore; another rule that’s been broken. Then again, hasn’t it always been like this? Touching never felt so special, but still their tapestry contained extraordinary experience upon extraordinary experience. Shelter under a wing as bright as sunlight, Crowley’s first time eating oysters and watching Aziraphale do the same, a bag of books and Aziraphale inviting him in for the first time in eighty years.
What it boils down to, really, is that they’ve always loved each other more than their respective sides. History is a collection of continuity and change, the keeping and breaking of habits; today offers both. Even though they’ve touched and loved before, holding hands in the bus is new. Even though they’ve rejected their sides before, being fully rejected by them is new.
They don’t talk on the bus. Aziraphale is probably still processing the loss of his beloved bookshop, unconsciously but gently playing with Crowley’s hand and fingers like they’re some sort of fidget toy. Crowley considers miracling him one, but quickly dismisses the notion; the angel’s lost one thing he loved today, no need to increase that number to two. Meanwhile, Crowley ponders the prophecy until his head hurts. ‘Until his head hurts’ is also ‘until the bus stops’, and Aziraphale disentangles their hands.
“I need a nap,” Crowley decides impulsively after they get in his flat. For a few seconds, Aziraphale looks torn, undoubtedly asking millions of questions in his head. Should he allow this? What about the prophecy? Surely their bosses will come for them? Crowley knows that the angel is tired, though, at least emotionally if not physically, and he won’t protest. As always, he’s right, and he tells Aziraphale to wake him in about an hour and leaves the room.
-
Crowley is awoken not by his good and kind and bastard angel, but by a distinct sense of wrongness. “Aziraphale?” he calls out, even though that’s probably really stupid because if he’s feeling so wrong, Heaven or Hell or both must be here and in that case the last thing he should do is make himself known.
When he hears no answer, he all but jumps out of bed, prepares to breathe hellfire like he’s a dragon protecting the most treasured of beings and bolts into the living room. What he’s met with is almost worse than his or Aziraphale’s superiors, but at least now there’s no need for the hellfire. Never very fun to do that in a human corporation.
The scene in front of him is as follows: Aziraphale is crying quietly on the couch and hugging his knees in fetal position with his eyes closed. For the first time, Crowley understands why Aziraphale always wants to be so nice and comforting to everyone around him, because Somebody, this is heart-breaking. Maybe not the worst thing he’s ever seen, he’s seen too much to be able to make that claim, but it’s in the top fifteen at least.
“Aziraphale,” he says again, throwing away his sunglasses so that he can see the angel better. No effect; after going thousands of years without any sleep, the first nap has got to be intense. He tries saying his name again but louder, shaking, even attempts to miracle him awake, but it’s all of no use. Aziraphale is having a very bad dream, and there’s nothing Crowley can do to help.
Or maybe there is.
He pulls Aziraphale upright, positioning himself next to him so that the angel won’t fall and with a small miracle gives him pyjamas, his suit folded on a chair. It takes a few minutes and quite some too-caring touches that Crowley will never admit to, but finally, the angel tightens his arms around Crowley, wakes and opens his eyes. If the tears weren’t there this would feel as strangely normal-and-at-the-same-time-special as holding hands in the bus, Crowley thinks.
Aziraphale starts crying again and Crowley doesn’t have time to think any further. For the next few minutes or perhaps hours, he knows, every cell of his being will be focused on calming Aziraphale. Thinking’s out of the question until after that.
“Easy, angel,” he says, trying to be soothing and feeling very uncomfortable. Not because of Aziraphale still holding him, mind you, but because it’s been a while since he last tried to comfort someone so vulnerable. And Aziraphale is vulnerable right now, that much is clear, but Crowley won’t hurt him like he should. They’ve always been on their own side.
“Crowley,” Aziraphale manages when he’s crying less. Crowley pats his back, really not knowing what to do. Just being there seems enough, honestly, and that he can do. Will always do.
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry I fell asleep, my dear. I suppose after such a day, even I would be tired,” Aziraphale sniffles. Crowley realises that his shirt is getting very wet and miracles it dry.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“And…and I’m sorry about a lot of other things, too. What I said to you…oh, I’m just so glad you forgave me.”
Truth be told, it hurt what Aziraphale said. He’d always denied their friendship for their own protection and Crowley was fine with that, he really was. It was fun to tease him about it sometimes when they were both in a good mood and he’d long ago learned that Aziraphale’s actions spoke louder than his words. Ironic for a book fanatic, but true nonetheless.
But there in the bandstand it was the end of the world, and they were both already in more trouble than ever and couldn’t Aziraphale work with him just this once? The whole encounter reminded Crowley of the holy water debacle. Two fights in six thousand years isn’t bad, certainly, but those two hurt like Hell and Heaven combined.
“I’d never not forgive you,” Crowley says to Aziraphale, and not a word of it is untrue despite all the hurt. They’ve known each other for so long and Crowley doesn’t think he wants to live in a world without the angel. Besides, he’s hurt Aziraphale, too. He’s jabbed at him and Heaven and God and sometimes went too far, he asked for holy water and snapped at Aziraphale when he reacted in the exact way that he’d been expecting and preparing for. And Aziraphale’s forgiven him, too.
Wait. Aziraphale was having a nightmare. Maybe talk about that. Somebody, Crowley sucks at this.
“Angel, ‘s that what your dream was about?” Aziraphale visibly tenses up and somehow burrows himself even deeper than before in Crowley’s chest and shakes his head. Crowley vaguely wonders if he’s using a miracle to stay in place, then realises that the angel is not floating in the air but sitting on his lap. Explains the weight he’d been absent-mindedly feeling. It’s nice, really.
Back to the topic at hand.
“Do you. Do you want to talk about it?”
“Oh, I suppose I ought to.” If Crowley hadn’t heard Aziraphale speaking when drunk as many times as he had, he wouldn’t understand him now that both his body and Aziraphale’s crying muffle his speech.
“You don’t have to, you know.”
“I really should.” Aziraphale pulls back a little and his eyes are red. Crowley miracles him a handkerchief, makes it tartan after a few seconds of thinking and after offering it to the angel is met with a small smile and a shake of the head.
“Okay,” Crowley says, feeling more awkward than ever. “Go ahead.”
It is after minutes of dancing around the topic, nervous babbling and Aziraphale finally realising that he’s sitting on Crowley and Crowley reassuring him that it’s fine, he doesn’t mind, not like they can get in more trouble than they already are, that Aziraphale finally gets to the point. “It’s just,” he says, playing with Crowley’s hand again. “I almost Fell.”
Crowley was not expecting that.
“And I dreamt about it,” Aziraphale continues, his voice wobbly and his eyes watery. “About actually Falling, that is. I’ve…I’ve always tried so hard to prove that I’m a good angel so I wouldn’t Fall, and now we’ve gone directly against the will of the archangels and well, I suppose it all got a little much.”
Crowley desperately wants to ask what he means by almost Falling because you don’t just almost Fall, during the First War either you were an angel or you’d Fallen and you were a demon, but suspects that this may not be the moment to do so.
And when he assumes that there’s a reasonable explanation somewhere, it actually makes sense. If all those other angels had not-Fallen with flying colours, they’d feel free to be as rude and evil and unangelic as they wanted. Poor Aziraphale, he thought. He’d done his best, and for what?
“That’s, uh, that’s okay,” he says when he realises the silence has been going on for a while. “You can cry, ‘f you want.”
“Thank you, Crowley,” and the look in his eyes and the tone of his voice knock Crowley away. “I…I hope this clears some things up for you. Why I said all those awful things, for instance.”
We are an angel and a demon. We have nothing whatsoever in common. Of course. He’d been emphasising with so much force that he is not Fallen, that he is an angel, almost as though trying to convince himself. Not so almost, apparently.
“It does, actually,” Crowley says. “Thanks for telling me.” He cringes internally at thanking someone, but Aziraphale’s entire body and face relaxing in relief is more than worth it.
“I do hope, my dear, that you realise that I care much more about you than the other angels. I was just…scared, I suppose.”
“Scared of what?” Crowley’s almost afraid to ask it, afraid of Aziraphale’s reaction. They’ve come so far together tonight, and he doesn’t want to push the angel back away from this natural, loving feeling. This desire, however, is pushed to the background by concern and the burning question: what is Aziraphale scared of? Heaven did something to his beloved angel and Crowley needs to know exactly what.
Aziraphale tenses up again and this time doesn’t nuzzle closer to Crowley like before, but rolls off of him entirely. Stupid, Crowley berates himself. Stupid. He isn’t supposed to go too fast, and look what he did.
Against his expectations, however, Aziraphale talks, his hands folded neatly over his belly. “During the First War,” he says, resolutely looking anywhere but Crowley - he gets it, really, Falling’s not an easy thing to talk about, but he just wishes he could see the angel’s face - “I rather foolishly thought that…that there was still hope. Certainly, we had our differences, but I didn’t think that had to mean a war. I thought we could still live together, in peace.”
Kindness. Of course it’s the damn kindness that was very nearly the end of Aziraphale, like curiosity was Crowley’s. All of his favourite treats in humans are evil, according to Heaven. The wankers.
A hand tentatively touches his own, and Crowley reaches back.
“Long story short, Gabriel pulled me aside and told me that there was no room for, how did he put it, excess sympathy.” Aziraphale’s voice is pure disdain and though it’s very much deserved, it’s unsettling to hear him like this. Crowley’s grown so used to Aziraphale’s sweet my dears and smiles and sunshine happiness that he almost forgets that he, too, is from Heaven.
“I grabbed my sword and got back to work. I-Crowley, I almost killed a demon once.” It’s a whisper, and he leans into Crowley again and he wraps an arm around him. “And after the War I thought that I was safe but Gabriel told me that I wasn’t, that they were keeping an eye on me. So Crowley, I couldn’t- I couldn’t fraternise, or protect you. I had to be a good, proper angel or I’d Fall even though the time for Falling was over. You were just…well, you were just so nice, and lovely, and I couldn’t resist talking to you.”
“You’re safe now, angel,” is all Crowley can think to say, squeezing Aziraphale’s hand. He even ignores the nice and lovely and the implication that he’s irresistible; more important things are at hand.
“I promise I’ll keep you safe. And even if you do Fall, I’m going to protect you. No one is going to hurt you, not while I’m here. Understand?” He remembers the bookshop, though, burning, and knows that he couldn’t protect Aziraphale then. He’ll just have to stay close to him, then, he supposes. Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t mind the thought at all.
Aziraphale nods quietly. “I trust you,” he says, and it feels like Crowley’s in a movie on TV right before the ad break. He’s not, of course, so the ads don’t come, and he’s not granted any time to process it all. He’s got to improvise.
Crowley clears his throat. “You think we should get to work?”
Aziraphale gives him a small smile, sits up straight again, but doesn’t let go of Crowley’s hand. “I rather think we should.”