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It’s a dark February night when Freddie Mercury asks Crowley the unthinkable question.
They’re in Freddie’s basement. The singer fiddling around on the piano, Crowley nursing a drink. It’s a common occurrence. A comfortable scene.
And Freddie has always been brash. It really shouldn’t surprise Crowley that his inquisitive nature would win out over any social restraints in the end.
But it does. Surprise him that is.
“So,” Freddie asks suddenly. “When are you going to tell me about you and Aziraphale?”
Crowley freezes. It’s been five years since he met Freddie, and in that half decade, he’s kept Aziraphale as far from conversation as possible. Clearly, he hadn’t done a good enough job. “What about me and Aziraphale?”
Freddie plays a particularly impressive riff on the piano. Then he sends a shifty glance over his shoulder. “You know,” he continues. “What’s, like, your deal? Are you shagging?”
Crowley almost spits the drink out. “What,” he growls, “on earth gave you that idea?”
Freddie looks him dead in the eyes, fingers still moving with expertise up and down the piano. “Oh don’t be daft and dumb, Crowley, you old snake,” he reprimands. He plays a particularly disharmonious chord. “I would have thought you knew me better at this point than to pull that kind of nonsense with me.”
“It’s none of your business, Freddie,” Crowley warns.
“So that’s a yes?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re not shagging.”
“Why not?”
“As I stated, not your business.”
“Oh get over yourself, Crowley,” Freddie yells, and now there is a hint of anger in the back of his voice. “If you can’t talk to me, who the hell are you going to talk to?”
“Alright, alright,” Crowley snaps defensively. He holds his hands up as he flounders for the words. “It’s. Uh. It’s a disgustingly simple issue, really. He doesn’t want me.”
“ What ?”
Crowley shrugs. “We’ve danced the dance for years, but I got a pretty explicit answer back in ‘67.” He tried to say it causally, as if he doesn’t care, as if it’s all fine and tickety-boo.
“What did he say?”
“He said,” explains Crowley, finally dipping into a sour tone. “That I go too fast for him.” And now he feels a grimace accompanying the words. Nine years later and it doesn’t hurt any less.
Freddie stops his playing, glancing over at Crowley with wide eyes. “You’re joking,” he says. “How long is it that you two have known each other?”
“Coming up on 6,000 years,” Crowley responds miserably. He takes a sip of his drink. It tastes bad, but it’s Freddie’s favorite, so he doesn’t protest.
His friend shakes his head scornfully. “Too fast my arse. Poor stupid fellow doesn’t realize what he’s missing.”
“No,” Crowley says, the urge to defend Aziraphale an ever present lump in his throat. “He’s quite clever. That’s why it’s so frustrating that he’s so…rigid.”
“Is that another word for boring?” drawls Freddie.
Crowley rolls his eyes. “I don’t even know why I’m talking to you. You wouldn’t understand-“
“Wanting to be with someone but feeling as though there are insurmountable challenges?” Freddie asks. “Try me, darling.”
Crowley stares at him, wishing he could burst the singer into flames but knowing it would only make him feel worse. After all, besides Aziraphale, Freddie is his only real friend at the moment. Probably the best human friend he’s known since Eve. A once-in-a-millenia kind of friend that he cannot waste by bursting him into flames.
“I suppose you’re right,” he concedes.
Freddie clicks his tongue. “I’m always right.”
“I just wish I knew what he wants. He says we’re simply fraternizing, says he won’t even stay the night, says I go too fucking fast for him.” With each word, Crowley thumps his hand against the arm of his chair. “But I see…what lays beneath. I see the way he looks at me. I can even sense…well….” He trails off. Shit. Why had he brought that up?
Freddie looks at him curiously. “Sense what?”
Crowleys face goes a bright red color. “Well Im a bloody demon, aren’t I? And it’s a sin…technically.”
“Oh my god,” Freddie cries. “You can tell when he’s horny.”
“Yes,” Crowley confirms miserably.
He tries so hard to turn a blind eye whenever it becomes apparent. But sometimes, the signals are too clear, the writing on the wall too apparent. It is an undeniable fact of the world that Crowley can sense when, as Freddie so delicately phrased it, Aziraphale is horny.
And most of the time, it’s directed toward him.
Freddie is still looking at Crowley incredulously. “But he’s an angel. Beyond being a paragon of purity, is it even possible for an ethereal being like him?”
“You’d be surprised,” Crowley grumbles.
Freddie purses his lips. “Oh that is wonderful, delightful information.” He chuckles with glee to himself. “Alright. So you know he wants you.”
“I suppose.”
“And you want him.”
Crowley raises a single eyebrow. “Hmm,” he grunts by way of response.
Freddie shrugs. “It sounds like,” he says, “you just need to take things at his pace.”
“But that’s the bloody issue - there is no pace. None at all. I offered to give him a ride and he turned me down. How could I ask anything else of him?”
“Well it wasn’t just about the car, you idiot,” Freddie says frankly. He lights a cigarette. “Think. He’s terrified of his sinful life being found out, so he hides behind tradition. He hasn’t changed anything about himself since the 18th century. He wears that god awful coat and reads books written before the invention of language. Your leather clothes and statements of blaspheme and fast car make him nervous. He doesn’t want to lose this life - or you - and he thinks the way about that is to follow the rules as closely as he can.” He shrugs. “Plus I think he finds a certain beauty in slow living. You’ve got to cater to his style.”
“You’ve only met him once,” Crowley retorts, though he knows deep down that Freddie is right on all accounts.”
“And yet I’ve got him down to a science, haven’t I?”
Crowley doesn’t respond.
“Anyway,” drawls Freddie. “I think you’ve got it in you. Just commit yourself to being dreadfully old fashioned. He’ll respond so well to that.”
“Satan. Don’t tell me you want me to dim the lights and play sappy songs on the record player. I’d lose all my credibility on the streets.”
Freddie snaps his fingers. “That’s exactly what Im saying. Woo him. Play on his heartstrings. Be…what was it I just said? Old fashioned?” A light comes into his eyes. “Yes. You just have to be a good old fashioned lover boy.”
Crowley covers his ears and sighs long-sufferingly.
Freddie, meanwhile, leaps from his seat and dashes back over to the piano. “That’s quite good actually,” he mutters to himself. He plays a series of banging, jaunty chords. Hums a tune alongside it. Then he scribbles something down in the notebook set atop the piano. “What else was it we said? Dimming the lights? Playing on heartstrings?”
Crowley sends him an open toothed snarl. “You are not writing another song about me,” he warns. “You have enough already.”
“What can I say? You’re my muse,” Freddie simpers. “Now. I only want you to answer five questions.”
“One.”
“Three.”
“Fine.”
“Alright,” Freddie agrees. “What is your favorite thing to do together?”
“Having dinner,” Crowley responds. It’s absolutely against his better judgement. Why can he never say no to him?
“Where?”
A flashback pushes its way into his head.
Maybe one day we can have a picnic…dine at the Ritz.
“The Ritz,” he says dully.
“Well aren’t you a couple of fancy gentlemen,” Freddie scoffs. But he writes it down nonetheless.
“You asked.”
“I know. Can you tell me the most romantic thing you’ve ever done for him?”
“I am a demon hellspawn of Satan. I don’t do romance.”
Freddie’s look is positively withering. “Oh come on, Crowley. Please try. For me. I’ll give you a cut of the royalties, not that you need them.”
What Crowley has learned the last few years is that there really is no arguing with Freddie.
He leans back in his chair. “In the days where we wouldn’t see each other for decades at a time, I would make sure to write him a letter at least once a year,” he confesses. “And when we started to see each other more often, I’d write once a month. Then telephones were popularized and now I call once a week. Sometimes more.” He lets out a breath. “It just makes me feel better. Knowing he knows Im okay.”
“You sap.”
“Shut it. I’ll leave.”
Freddie taps the pen against his chin. “No, no, I’ve got one question left and we’ve simply got to end on a good one…” he stares off for a minute before snapping his fingers. “Ah. I’ve got it.”
“Lord save me,” Crowley mutters.
Freddie ignores him. “What would you do without him?”
Oh.
The question knocks Crowley in the chest. It forces itself through the careful constructed walls that protect his fragility, his vulnerability, and blow the darkest chambers of his consciousness wide open. It unleashes a foreign, well guarded concept - a world without Aziraphale.
Since the beginning, there has never been any notion of a “without Aziraphale”. It has simply never been in the cards. He’s immortal, after all. Even if he were to be discorporated, he could come back.
But should he…be burned. Permanently retired.
God.
“I would wish he were with me,” Crowley says pitifully. “I think…I would just miss him all the time.”
His voice is hoarse. Quick, put the walls back up.
“God that’s beautiful,” sighs Freddie. “Okay. I free you. This is enough for me. I will write you a masterpiece of a song.” He gives Crowley a look. “Hey. Nothings going to happen to him. You know it won’t.”
“Sure,” agrees Crowley. But the word is clipped and his throat is tight. “Um. I’m going to head out now.”
“Oh don’t be like that,” complained Freddie, but Crowley is already out the door.
They’ll be fine by tomorrow, of course. Crowley simply had a flair for the dramatics, and Freddie understands that.
It will all be fine.
-
Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy comes out later that year, along with several other songs that feel a little too close to home to be a coincidence.
Crowley listens to it. Ponders. Cries. Listens to it again. And again. And again and again until he knows every lyric, line, flourish, and beat.
When he sees Freddie again, he gives him - for the first time in all their years of their friendship - an embrace.
“Liked it, then?” Freddie asks, squeezing him tighter.
“Thank you,” is all Crowley can reply.
He doesn’t show Aziraphale. He means to, if not explicitly than by putting it on when they’re driving around. But he can never quite bring himself to do it.
“Has your Freddie released any more music recently?” the angel asks one day.
It catches Crowley off guard. Aziraphale rarely asks about Crowley’s decidedly more human life. “He’s always putting music out,” he says indecisively. “Can’t keep track, honestly.”
Thank Satan for dark sunglasses.
“Oh,” says Aziraphale, and the conversation shifts to the latest winery he’s tried.
-
Freddie dies in 1991.
When he hears the news, Crowley doesn’t leave his room for a week. It’s Eve, its Yeshua, it’s Joan, it’s Leonardo, it’s all of the dead humans he so foolishly attached himself to all over again. The pain that never leaves him.
For what feels like the hundredth time, he wonders why he stays here. Why he doesn’t just whisk himself off to Hell where nothing ever changes and nobody ever dies. What is the point of an earth where nothing is permanent?
He gets a message from Mary a few days into the exile. Freddie’s funeral would be held on November 27th in West London, and very few were expected to be in attendance. Rodger, Brain, John, Mary, Jim, etc.
And Crowley.
He didn’t want to go. Every bone in his earthly form told him to decline, to just sit in here and rot.
But the day comes, and he finds himself in mourning attire nontheless. It’s Mary, really. How could he ever say no to her?
When he arrives, he is greeted by Jim almost immediately.
“Anthony,” he says solemnly. “Thank you for coming. Mary was so worried you wouldn’t make it.”
“Couldn’t miss it,” Crowley responds. He runs a hand through his hair. “Where is she?”
“Over talking with that blond fellow.” He points back, gesturing to where Mary is indeed sharing words with a man whose back is turned. All that is visible is a shock of white-blond hair.
Crowley would recognize it anywhere.
“You’re a good man, Jim,” he says, clapping a hand on the man’s shoulder before pushing past him and toward Mary.
She spots him, face lighting up for just a fraction of a second before melting into something a little more somber. “Mr. Crowley,” she exclaims. “Thank God you’re here.”
“Thank somebody, anyway,” he replies. He pulls her into a tight hug. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
“He’d be glad you’re here,” she murmured, pressing a kiss against his cheek.
They break apart, and Crowley turns to the man standing beside her. It is, of course, exactly who he knew it would be.
“This is Mr. Fell,” Mary says. “He owns a bookshop in Soho. One of my favorites, actually.”
Aziraphale offers him a small wave.
“Mr. Fell and I are well acquainted,” Crowley responds. He sticks a hand out anyway, and Aziraphale takes it. The touch brings a shock of warmth up Crowleys arm, fighting valiantly against the November chill. “Hello, angel. Didn’t know I would be seeing you here.”
Aziraphale gives him a soft look. “I’m sorry, my dear. I heard the news and decided I would show up. Just in case.”
Just in case you needed me is the unspoken end of his sentence.
Normally, Crowley would make a snide remark and deflect the attempt at kindness. But today…today was going to be difficult enough without having to refute Aziraphale’s gentle touch and soft words for the millionth time.
“Thank you,” he says.
Mary is looking between the two of them with an understanding on her face that is equal parts misguided and right on track. “Well,” she says. “Thank you both for being here. We’ll start shortly if you two would like to come find your seats.”
So Crowley accepts Aziraphale’s outstretched arm, taking it as if he were a victorian maiden on a stroll with her suitor. And for a moment, for the minute and a half it takes for them to reach their seats and sit down, he allows himself to quietly grieve once more, to let the mask of ice slip.
They sit through the service, and each pretend not to notice when Crowley begins to cry, or when Aziraphale reaches down to take his hand. They say nothing, keep their eyes directly forward, and promise themselves never to speak of it again.
They attend the burial as well. Standing toward the back, closer than they’ve ever stood before. It feels as though neither Heaven nor Hell can see them here, like no one would dare trespass on the sacred solemnity of the occasions.
When it’s over, Crowley is empty. Lighter. Freddie has been put to rest, and the color his life brought is wiped away in the rain. Back to how it was. Almost as if Freddie had been a blink. A glitch. A fluke.
“He was real,” Crowley mutters under his breath.
Aziraphale, who is standing beside him, pauses. “What’s that, Crowley?”
And he has to keep him alive. He has to keep him real. Has to preserve the light and life of his dear, dear friend.
He knows what he has to do.
“Aziraphale,” he says softly. “Can I please give you a ride home?”
The angel looks like he’s going to protest. Crowley can’t have that.
“Please,” he repeats, and he doesn’t know if he’s ever felt so pathetic. “I need to show you something. Something of Freddie’s. It’s important.”
“Alright,” Aziraphale agrees nervously. “If it will make you feel better.”
“It will.”
So Aziraphale nods his head, and for the first time in nearly 15 years, allows himself into the big black Bentley.
The ‘Day at the Races’ CD is sitting toward the top of the pile. Crowley listens to it the most out of any of his collections, and since Freddie’s diagnosis, Crowley has been listening to it more than ever.
He remembers one day, when he’d been driving Freddie to one of his appointments. A few months before things had gotten really bad.
“Have you played it for him?” Freddie had asked, gesturing to the CD.
Crowley had shrugged. “Not yet. I’ll get around to it.”
Freddie had clicked his tongue. “You’re not getting any younger, Anthony.”
“I’m not getting any older either. Got all the time in the world,” he’d replied.
“If you think like that, you’ll always have all the time in the world,” scoffed Freddie. “Live like me for a little. Pretend you’ve only got a few years left.”
“Don’t talk like that,” Crowley warned him, voice harsh.
“Oh, I’m not an idiot, Crowley. I know my time is limited. If not from this blasted disease then from the other tragic condition I suffer from - mortality.” He sighed. “I’m going to give you an ultimatum. Show him before I die. Please. If you don’t, I swear I will haunt you forever.”
“Not how it works,” Crowley said pointedly.
“Whatever. Do it. Please. For my sake, Aziraphale’s sake, and yours.”
Crowley had agreed to that, if only to appease his friend, and then failed. By the time he’d realized this was it, this was the end, it was too late.
He’s failed Freddie’s last wish, but there was still time.
So now, with Aziraphale by his side, he puts the CD into the car and skips the tracks until Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy comes on. He grips the steering wheel, pulls out from the parking lot, and tries his hardest not to look over at the passenger side of the car.
When the song finishes, Aziraphale is the first to breach the silence. “It’s lovely,” he says, voice wavering. “Did he-“
“Wrote it for me,” Crowley confirms. He keeps his composure as still and neutral as possible. “Apparently I have some slowing down to do.”
“I didn’t-“ whispers Aziraphale, before folding his hands and falling into another silence.
“He told me I had to play it for you before he died or else he would haunt me,” Crowley continues with a wry laugh. “But I am somewhat of a coward, and thus waited too long.”
Every word is a struggle, but he grits his teeth and forces the sentiments to come crawling out. If it’s not now, it’s never.
“You’re not a coward,” Aziraphale argues. “If anything, I-“
“Shhh,” urges Crowley. He juts his chin out. “All I need you to know is that I am trying. I don’t need a promise of an ending, I just want to know if someday….”
“Someday,” Aziraphale repeats breathlessly.
“Someday,” he confirms. “Just…someday.”
And somehow, the word someday felt a lot more like now .
Maybe there would always be an infinite number of tomorrows the way it felt there was now. Maybe setting off for tomorrow what could be done today would result in falling too short too late.
Or maybe it was just the only way to do something like this.
All they needed was a beginning. An understanding. A compromise.
As he pulled to a stop in front of the bookshop, Crowley hands the CD to Aziraphale. “Here,” he says. “Educate yourself.”
“Gladly,” Aziraphale says with a frown. “But won’t you miss it?”
“Nah. I’ve listened to it enough that I’ve got it memorized, I think. Besides. Got loads of other discs of theirs.”
Aziraphale looks down at the collection. “Good lord. Are you sure you need all of those?”
And maybe it’s the grief, but Crowley finds himself saying, “I wouldn’t mind if every other disc in this car was replaced with Queen’s greatest hits. That’s how much I loved him.”
Aziraphale glances at him thoughtfully. “Well. I do have to get back to the shop. But I will once again offer you my dearest condolences.” A light comes into his eyes. “And I will point out that you didn’t go above the speed limit once the whole ride home.”
Crowley winks. “Don’t get used to it, angel. I can do whatever I like to prove a point.”
And a warm smile comes across the angel’s face. “Goodbye, my dear,” he says fondly. “Say hello to Freddie for me when he haunts you.”
It’s an odd note to leave on, but Crowley has learned over the years that Aziraphale is the definition of the term ‘odd duck’. It’s one of the things he…well, that he loves about him.
So he allows himself the smallest of grins and drives off.
-
It isn’t until a few days later that he realizes exactly what the angel meant.
He’s out for a drive, off to do dastardly, evil deeds for Lord Satan. So naturally, he decides to listen to Abba on the way.
But when he hits play on Waterloo, the opening guitar of ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ begins to play.
Crowley raises an eyebrow. Perhaps the car was malfunctioning. He hits the skip button.
I’ve payed my dues time after time…
“Strange,” he murmurs. He presses the eject button, wondering if perhaps he was more absent-minded these days than he thought.
But the disc is Abba undeniably.
“Strange,” Crowley repeats. “Very strange.”
He takes out Abba and puts in The Grateful Dead. But when Bicycle begins to play, he begins to realize what has occurred.
Freddie has made good on his promise. Crowley did not play Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy before Freddie’s death, so now he is being haunted.
By somebody, anyway.
He cannot shake Aziraphale’s parting words, that knowing smile that tells him the angel might have more to do with the malfunctioning Bentley than he’d let on.
A nobler act than anything he’d ever done in the name of heaven.
Crowley decides then that he likes being haunted. By Freddie and by Aziraphale alike. Haunting is nothing but remembering, and remembering is nothing but the ghost of what was.
It’s like the line in his song. When I’m not with you, I’ll think of you always.
“I don’t really have a choice now, do I?” laughs Crowley. “You’ll be pestering me every time I step foot in my beloved car.”
There will be other times for demonic deeds. He will put them off for tomorrow, and there will be infinite tomorrows.
For now, he will call Aziraphale. There is food to be eaten and angels to be thanked. Merriment to be had and wine to be sipped thoughtfully. Those simple pleasures are for today.
As he turns onto Aziraphale’s street, Bicycle ends and Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy begins. The remnants of a conversation he had once with an old friend begin to play, and Crowley thinks he might finally get it . If there’s anything to get at all. Which maybe there isn’t.
But the music plays on nonetheless.