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Two months after the Season 2 Finale
Even Aziraphale had to admit, the new plans concerning the second coming were slightly concerning, however he was in charge and was determined to lead Heaven on a truly good path, better than ever before.
So when the whispers caught up to him he was unconcerned, how dangerous can an army really be if it’s being lead by someone who disagrees with the rhetoric? The answer, as our trusted angel soon grew to learn, was very; they can be very dangerous.
You see, he wasn’t really as cut throat as many of his predecessors were, and certainly not as much as some of the new up and coming angels. It was all quite scary really. Having to give orders to thousands of angels who all want him dead. Who all want his best friend dead. If you ask him, that was the worst part. Hearing the people you’re meant to trust more than anyone else talk about the only person you’ve ever truly loved like that. Not only that but to ask directly why he hasn’t gotten what’s been coming to him for so long and been killed yet. It’s not fun. He would give anything to be back in that bookshop right now.
Who knew that a man of such high position would have such little too lose.
Still, he refused to go back on his decision. No matter how bad this could get it couldn’t be worse than if anyone else was in charge. No, this decision is better for everyone. Even Crowley. Especially Crowley. He would say he was wrong and thank him for his choice. That he would gladly join him in Heaven. Soon enough. Any day now. Who would’ve thought that staring at a phone doesn’t help it ring?
His concentration on the phone was surly broken by papers falling down to his desk.
“Michael, Uriel! Good to see you both,” He says before turning his attention to the papers. “Well, what’s this then?”
“Plans.” Michael states.
“Plans? Whatever for?” Michael raises her eyebrows in respondence.
“You know what for, Aziraphale. Armageddon. It’s coming. And, for whatever reason Metatron has chosen you for, you will…You will…” She forces out as if it kills her to say it, “You will lead us into battle.”
“I will do no such thing! I am the highest form of angel and I demand you don’t go through with this!”
Michael looks over at Uriel, who nods in assent. “Every single angel has been waiting for this all their lives. You think you can overrule every single one of us, you can’t. If you take a single wrong step,” She pauses for a wry smile, “...Then we’ll just have to kill you, and your demon boyfriend.”
They both disappear in front of him before he gets the chance to respond. He knew what he had to do but, god, it hurt to do it.
He picked up the phone, dialed the number, and waited for him to pick up.
“Hello?”
That voice, that unmistakable voice. It was him, it really had been too long.
“Crowley! It’s me, Aziraphale!”
“Oh.”
“ Oh ? Didn’t you hear what I said? It’s me.”
He tried to sound as happy as he was when Crowley picked up the phone. But, it must be said, that was certainly not the reaction he expected.
“Yes, I know it’s you, Aziraphale. What is it that you want?” He must be hearing things, but he was sure that his voice sounded a little…Impatient.
“Yes, right of course… I’m sorry, Aziraphale ? You called me Aziraphale?”
“That is your name, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it’s just that I can’t remember a time, since, well before time really that you haven’t called me Angel.”
“You said it yourself, everything must come to an end.”
“Yes, but, I didn’t mean… Oh, well, we can talk about it all later. Can we talk? On Earth, in person, in the old coffee shop. Just like old times.”
“Yes, only, this isn’t like old times. We don’t talk anymore.”
“We should start again. Soon, now, maybe. Please, Crowley, people’s lives are at stake. All the lives, in fact.”
“...Fine. But I’m not meeting in the coffee shop, your bookstore, five minutes.”
“OK! I’ll see you soon, Crowley.” He hung up the phone with a smile on his face. Always nice to see an old friend, right?
~~~
Once he stepped out of the elevator from heaven the feeling of being back on Earth engulfed him. Where there where material objects everywhere, with people walking around all determined to get somewhere. There weren’t no material objects in heaven anymore, Aziraphale had insisted that he should have a phone in case any of his Earthly contacts were to call. Earthly contacts being Crowley of course. Lot of good that did.
But he was here now, the buzz of London, the sight of his old bookstore. It was intoxicating, being back there (in a good way of course). He walked back there and pushed the doors open, the smell of the old books sweeping his lungs.
Sure enough, there was Crowley, in all his glory, sitting on the chair by his old desk, gesturing for him to take a seat. He complied, barely able to contain his excitement with seeing him again. Crowley kept his blank, indifferent face.
“Crowley! Long time no see, you should’ve called.” He says with a completely genuine smile on his face. Crowley, however, felt a sharp pang in his chest at that and his face faltered for a second.
“Look, you left me for heaven. Not the other way around. What is so important for you to leave your cushy angel job to fraternize with the enemy for?”
“Crowley, it’s not like that. I have a chance to do some real good. And I’m not fraternizing with the enemy, I’m in charge now. I can do what I want.”
“So you could’ve called.”
Aziraphale’s smile dropped for a bit as he tried to find a way to respond to that. It soon reappeared when he began to talk again.
“Oh well, that’s all behind us now. We have a whole future together me and you. So much left to do together. Starting with the fact that I have heard some of heaven’s plans for—”
“Are we going to talk about what happened before you left?” His voice was soft now, missing the mask of indifference he had previously worn.
“No need. I have already forgiven you for that. Forgive and forget as humans say.” He never lost that chirpy tone, no matter what he said.
“Right, only I don’t want to do that. I don’t just want to forget about it. So just tell me.”
“Well, Crowley, it’s complicated. I can’t just tell you,” and then, quieter, “I don’t quite know myself.”
“Oh, Angel.”
“May we discuss this again later? I have important matters to share with you.” He put his business face back on again, the vulnerable one since discarded.
“Alright, what happened?”
“Well, I heard whispers around heaven that plans for Armageddon are in motion, and that it was any second now until battle. Of course I ignored them, being that they’re rumors, but now Michael and Uriel both want me to lead them into battle. I refused and they threatened to kill us both then lead Earth into destruction. So, I came here–to my only and most trustworthy friend.”
“You did the right thing, coming here. It’s obvious what we should do next.”
“Perfect! Oh, I just knew that you would know what to do!”
“We have to run.”
“What? Run? I can’t run, Crowley. They’ll destroy Earth!”
“If you go back to heaven they’ll destroy you. We go somewhere where they can’t find us, then plan for what to do next. We can’t put a stop to this whilst you’re sitting on your throne in heaven.”
“I don’t have a throne.” Aziraphale muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing. I suppose you’re right. As long as the running is temporary of course.”
“Of course. Now, where to?”
“Can we stay on Earth? I just got back and I don’t really want to run off again.”
“Of course, Angel. I think I know just the place.”
“What are we waiting for?”
~~~
The drive wasn’t too long, only a few hours. And they both quite enjoyed it, the subtle purr of the Bentley’s engine, the music playing over the speakers, and each others company of course. If you ask either of them that was the best part.
When they arrived in seemingly the middle of nowhere, there was a large hotel looking place. Massive, actually, with a valet waiting in front to take the car off them.
Contrary to Aziraphale’s belief, Crowley put up no fight to keep his car with him and gladly handed over the keys, before taking the plants out the car. Aziraphale helped him with two off the boxes, the valet shut the door behind them, waved goodbye, then drove off.
“This is a bit...Fancy, isn’t it?” Aziraphale said, with jazz hands promptly added on the word fancy, struggling to still do it whilst holding the plants. Oddly enough, Crowley ignored it with nothing more than a slight chuckle.
“I figured we deserved it, after all we’ve been through. I booked us a room whilst we were driving, so we don’t need to worry about that. It’s a good hotel, and who would ever expect us to be staying here?”
“Okay, then, fine. Let’s stay here then.” At first Aziraphale sounded reluctant but soon came around, resorting back to that optimistic voice.
“Let’s.”
~~~
The inside looked just as fancy as the outside, chandeliers hanging down from the ceiling, expensive couches on even more expensive carpets, fitted next to a water dispenser with lemon slices in it.
“Ah, Mr. Crowley! Always good to see you back here.” The receptionist greeted them with, then placed a key on her desk. “You’ll be taking room 524 on our top floor, as per your request. I assume your friend will share a room with you.”
“Yes, he will. Thank you very much.” He took the keys off her, and the receptionist responded with a quaint ‘Thank you’ herself, and they made their way to the elevators.
No one said anything on the way up, but they both never stopped looking at each other. Never broke eye contact.
The elevator pinged, and they both made an exit. After much struggle trying to unlock the door (as Crowley refused to put his plants down whilst he was unlocking it) they walked into the room.
“Crowley, I think they may have booked us the honeymoon sweet by mistake.”
“Did they? Oh well, we’re here now. Is it really so bad?” For a demon he wasn’t a very good liar.
Perhaps Aziraphale didn’t notice, or maybe he did but just ignored it. There was no sign of it on his face after all.
They both placed their plants down on the dark wooden desk that was in the room. The room they were staying in was large, to say the least—with one bed that was seemingly larger than a king’s, larger than anyone could possibly need it to be, with glorious views out the window. Aziraphale hadn’t seen the bathroom yet but he knew that it would be just as lavish as the rest of the hotel.
“Right, so, what are we going to do about heaven?” Aziraphale asked, looking at Crowley with intent.
“Heaven? Oh, we don’t need to worry about that now, do we?” Crowley sat down at the foot of the bed, and Aziraphale followed and sat next to him.
“Of course we do, they could storm this room any second now and kill us both, then there’ll be nothing stopping them from killing everyone and everything!”
“Yeah, but, right now? Do we really have to talk about this right now? Angel, this is the first I’ve seen of you in the last two months and we have to go straight to saving the world?”
“Are you trying to tempt me? Because I’ll have you know that there’s a lot of good we could be doing right now instead of just catching up, and…” As he continued to talk the more he looked at Crowley, the more he lost confidence in what he was saying, until finally, “Oh, all right then. What have you been up to since we last met?”
“Oh, you know, this and that.”
“Is that all? You insisted we talk and this is what we talk about? Surely you’ve done something of note in the past two months.”
“Not really, haven’t even left that same town. Just been…Minding the bookshop, as it were.”
“The shop? My shop? Oh, Crowley, thank you!” He leant towards him and engulfed him in a hug. It took Crowley no time at all to wrap his arms around his angel, who said demons didn’t like affection?
“So, what’s it like being the big man in heaven now?” Crowley asked once Aziraphale had pulled back.
“Oh, not much. A lot of paperwork, processing good deeds, so on.”
“Miss me?”
“Of course. Did you miss me?”
“More than anything, Angel.”
“Thank you.” His voice was soft, making sure Crowley believed it. “No really, thank you.” He grabbed his coat and pulled him in for a kiss. This one wasn’t like the last one, it was deep, romantic. He could feel the whole world slipping away until it was just the two of them, sitting there. The only people in the world.
It was always just them. Since they’d known each other: heaven, hell, they had never truly mattered as much as they mattered to each other, regardless of how much gets left unsaid.
“Can we do that again? And maybe lots of times after that?”
“Of course we can, Angel.” Crowley whispered, his mouth mere inches away from Aziraphale’s.
And they did. And they also did it a lot more times after that, for the rest of eternity they would carry on doing things like that. Don’t worry though, they’ll get to stopping Armageddon soon. They always get around to it eventually.