Chapter Text
Crowley had driven for the past seven hours, the Bentley had long ago run out of gas and had only kept going due to miraculous willpower to not leave its owner stranded in the middle of London. Granted, Crowley could mysteriously appear anywhere he wished but he was far from being able to make conscious miracles. His hand on the wheel had not relaxed the entire time and his foot had held the gas pedal to the floor for the entire seven hours. Dried tears pulled his cheeks down and rivets of new tears cut through the dried one. His glasses had also not come off.
I forgive you. Crowley didn't want forgiveness. He was past forgiveness.
He yanks the steering wheel to the right as the Bentley came barreling towards an intersection, a car coming adjacent to him nearly slams into the Bentley but miraculously pings away unharmed. Crowley was not aware of the backup of traffic he just caused, he wasn't actually aware of any of the back-ups he's caused in the past seven hours. His mind was a haze of moments, those moments, the ones he was driving away from except he can't seem to drive faster than them.
Aziraphale had been so happy, so excited at the idea of being angels together. His eyes had just sparkled with his naivete.
Crowley slams his fist into the wheel, "Stupid stupid stupid!" The horn sounded with each pound into the wheel.
"FUCK!" He grinds his teeth together, his mind racing with the intimate moments and the pressure leading up to what happened. To the fallout. Tears start again and he yells aloud. He doesn't bother counting now. His head burns bright and hot, and his tears burn too and they don't cool as they gather at the bottom of his chin. He pulls the Bentley over and it halts heavily, the plants in the back seat lurch forward, and a couple fall, but he ignores it. "FUCK!"
The radio plays Good Old-Fashion Lover Boy by Queen, he switches it off.
"Why would you do that?" He asks his Angel, except he doesn't have an angel, "Can't you see?"
He resembles himself from years ago, begging God the same way, to have mercy on the whole world, except now it's only his world. He opens the door and falls out of the car, his hands grab at nothing as he stands with his teeth bared to the sky, grimacing towards the heavens. "CAN'T YOU SEE, ANGEL!?
***
"CAN'T YOU SEE, ANGEL!?" He yells.
Metatron has his hand on Aziraphale's shoulder, "You can see," He reassures, "you see more than us all."
Aziraphale wrings his hands together, he can see, he supposes. He knows why Heaven is wrong, he's going to fix it. Crowley will see, he will show him a Heaven he wants to be in, with him. Together, as he'd said, they would be "us". He touches his fingers to his lips, an echo of hours ago.
"Yes." Aziraphale smiles and turns from the globe from which they watch Crowley. "Yes, I suppose I do."
Metatron smiles at him, his eyes full of heavenly love. "That is why you are Supreme Archangel, my boy."
He continues to force his smile, forcing it into his eyes. He'd do great things as Supreme Archangel, and he'd speak to God, he'd do God's will as God intends.
Days, weeks, months; time isn't something Angels see linearly or process entirely except now time is something of a resounding factor for Aziraphale. His timeline had shifted, so that night was the reference point. Before and After. His after was so short compared to his before. Six thousand years versus two months, and each month was like a century, his time was all out of order and each second was agony.
He still checked the globe, tracing Crowley's completely unfocused travel across Earth. A few times he had been panicked that Crowley had disappeared from Earth and he would get lost in the possibility that he would lose track of him, never to see him again and for him never to see the Heaven he makes. Then he'd find him pinged in a large city, miles away from where he was last seen, and he'd relax and watch him awhile. Still, every day he stilled at the possibility that it was that day that Crowley would disappear into one of his Nebulae never to be seen again.
Aziraphale walks slowly around the globe now, searching for him, he'd been looking for a while now. He didn't see him, the Globe was tricky, if Crowley was anywhere too crowded he'd had to zoom in closer to even get a ping on him.
"Aziraphale?"
He swivels sharply towards the voice, "Metatron!" He pulls his lips into a smile, it doesn't reach his eyes.
"Checking in on our friend?"
He grimaces at the phrase, "Well, yes. Yes." He straightens himself, "He'll be ready to come around any day now."
Metatron also smiles a smile that doesn't reach his eyes, "That's good then." His face lights up as if he just remembered something, "The Almighty would like a word with you."
"Me?" He stumbles for a second then remembers his place, "Oh yes, of course."
"Do you see the Heaven you dream?" It was the first the Almighty has said to him for the whole time. It was all him telling of the changes, of the prosperity on Earth, and the absence of war.
"Oh yes. It's coming along quite nicely."
He doesn't mention the masses of unnecessary paperwork or the arguments of the other angels about how war is needed or any other issues. He doesn't complain about the aesthetic, the blinding white, the quite frankly ugly suits, or the vast emptiness of Heaven itself. And he certainly doesn't mention that he misses Earth, misses the food, the alcohol, and the people. That's not something the Almighty has time for.
"And the second coming," he says, "It's all so very exciting."
He thinks back to the first coming and what lead to it, which was all war as well, wars between hateful men.
"Yes, everything is on schedule." He pauses for a moment, "May I ask..."
"May you ask?" God prompts.
He meant to ask: What's the whole point of the second coming? He thought better of it though. It wasn't his place to question the almighty, even as Supreme Archangel.
"Nothing." He looks down from the light, "I... I forgot."
"Well then Aziraphale. Time to return to your duties. I look forward to speaking with you again."
"Again?" His voice stretches over the last part of his word but God doesn't hear, the light is already gone.
He hadn't meant to end up back at the bookshop. He hadn't been there since that night--6 months ago now--yet here he was, always back here, except there wasn't a place he could be anymore. The Bentley stalls in front of the building, he strains his eyes to see the top of the doorway, where it reads "A.Z. Fell and Co.".
"Looking for a book?" He starts towards the voice outside his window, "Oh, it's you!"
He scowls at the angel and drives wildly down the street then stops. He lurches out of the car. Two hours worth of alcohol courses through his body, he is unkempt and his plants in the back are beyond dead. "Hey!"
Muriel stops from where she is headed back to the bookshop, "Oh, you're coming back!"
"Heard from Heaven recently?" His voice comes louder than necessary and people are turning their way.
"Oh, no." Muriel shakes her head enthusiastically, "Although things are happening. The second coming is rumored to be soon. Things being put in place and all."
Crowley nods. "Don't care. Got alcohol? He always has alcohol in there, don't you Angel?" He speaks at the sky with that last part.
Muriel shrugs, "I don't go through his things, I was only told to watch over it."
"Ha!" Crowley chuckles, "She's letting your books collect dust, you weren't selling them anyways."
They approach the threshold and he stops suddenly. Muriel looks at him, concerned. He can't cross it, he can't be here. "Thanks for the invitation, will take you up on that later."
He turns to leave. He thinks of the time when this bookshop first went up, he'd given Aziraphale a great assortment of texts to bind into books. He'd folded notes into those texts for him to read, fun facts and jokes mostly. His heart yearns for that time, and for the time he watched Aziraphale from the window just to his left, as he had told all those angels to speak one at a time, a moment so full of hope. He smiles an echo of the smile he had then. He sits just outside the door instead.
"Just pass the alcohol out here." He says to Muriel
"Why do you drink?" Muriel's smile hasn't fallen yet. "It's the source of human drunkenness."
"Exactly!" He nods surely, he remembers having a similar conversation with Aziraphale some centuries back, "So pass it please."
Muriel enters the bookshop, he frowns at her casual passing, she has no qualms about passing into a place that causes his heart such pain. She returns a small while later with a bottle.
"Has he been in at all?" He takes the bottle and uncorks it.
"Don't you need a cup- oh!"
He takes the bottle to the head and gulps it down until half the bottle is downed, "Not necessary. Has he been in?"
"Mr. Fell?"
"Yes." His voice hitches and he takes another drink.
"No, he hasn't been in."
"Take a message." He plows on despite Muriel's apparent confusion, "Heaven can suck it, and I hope he's well."
He snaps his fingers and the remaining contents of the bottle disappear and fill his stomach. He gives Muriel a tight-lipped smile and gets up. He teeters as he heads to his car. His body with filled with enough alcohol to kill three humans and he planned on filling it with more. He was tired of remembering all that could've been.
"Oh, Angel." He whispers.
"Crowley." He doesn't even startle at the sound from the radio. He hardly reacts to the voice so full of pain that cradles his name.
"Bugger off!" He yells.
"It's me." Aziraphale's voice is so close yet so far. Crowley can hear the echoing of Heaven's halls, the echoing he so hates. Hatred comes with hearing his voice also. "I've got news."
"I don't want news." Crowley growls, "I want-"
It's endlessly quiet. He doesn't know how much time passes.
"Yeah." He doesn't finish his sentence.
"I know."
"Then why did you go?" He's whining now, "Why?"
"I-" Aziraphale's voice is hushed and hollow, there is no smile behind his verse. "I had to."
"Are you ok?" He asks out of genuine concern.
"Oh just wonderful." Aziraphale's voice lights up the tiniest bit. "You won't believe what I've accomplished! You'd-"
"Don't care." He interrupts, "Good day, Ang-ngk, good day."
He switches the radio off.
***
Heaven doesn't have anywhere to wallow, nowhere private and nowhere comfortable. Just large open spaces of white. Great bright light. Despite this, an Angel can still wallow while doing his duties and under the eye of others, not without judgment but wallowing all the same.
Don't care. Crowley still doesn’t want to come to Heaven, he doesn't want to see the Heaven he's making. It seems as if he doesn't even want to be an us either. Aziraphale is overwhelmed by hearing Crowley's voice again, actually talking to him and not at the sky in a desperate plea amidst drunkenness, even if it was clipped and short.
How could he expect anything else from a demon, even one so indoctrinated into their own gray-area ideals? He remembers Crowley going extensively into his beliefs all the time, remembers him yelling at the sky as he still watches him do occasionally (these times in a prayer directed at Aziraphale rather than God), and remembers him so livid in his disbelief. He held no belief in Heaven, any Heaven. He saw the nihilism in Crowley's eyes that day, right before he put his glasses back on, hiding glassy eyes under tinted lenses.
Crowley had no belief in Aziraphale.
He had nearly gone back that day, he was sure his legs would've just taken him to Crowley's side, in the passenger side of the Bentley, leaving Metatron in an elevator to the tremendous vast halls of a Heaven empty of a Supreme Archangel. Except Heaven needs him; he needs Heaven. He needed Crowley too.
Nothing lasts forever, he'd said that, to Crowley, how hypocritical of him to not practice what he preaches. He was so dependent on Heaven, tethered to it. Heaven lasts forever, it's his livelihood.
"Busy?"
"No, Michael." Aziraphale pulls his face into a smile so far from his own, "I'm not busy."
"Well, the Second Coming commences today."
He knows. He set the plan in motion, it was why he was here. Ineffable Plan or the Great Plan or whatever any of that meant.
"You're to return to Earth today." Michael continues, "To welcome Jesus back, and to make sure... downstairs... hasn't got a winning strategy."
He nearly smiles at returning to earth but stops, "What do you mean 'winning strategy'?"
"Well, it will be war of course." She says
"What is it with Heaven and WAR!?" He yells suddenly, Michael flinches at his volume and her smile falters, "We're the good guys! War isn't good!"
She pastes her smile on again, "It is if Heaven wins."
"People will die!" He can see the hate behind Michael's eyes but continues anyways. "I need to talk to the Almighty. Now!"
"The Second Coming will happen, and there will be war Aziraphale."
"I am Supreme Archangel." He says finally, "There will be no war."
War will come.
Aziraphale is back on Earth, he stands where the elevator from Heaven left him, the elevator had left long ago. He was outside his bookshop, across the street. He can see Muriel pacing around the shop, she's holding a teetering stack of books on one arm and appears to be counting them.
He looks around and doesn't notice he's looking for Crowley's Bentley until he sees a black car dash around the corner, he's unsure if it is the Bentley. His first instinct is always to find Crowley, as was his first instinct for over 6000 years.
The Almighty did not take his audience and here he was, on Earth, as was expected. The air is heavy like the world knows the weight of what's coming, but they don't.
***
Aziraphale's back, his return had yanked Crowley from a light sleep, a sudden resurfacing of a crucial moment. Seeing him was even more devastating, he immediately snapped the car into gear and sped around the corner.
His body was betraying him, his breaths came in shallow puffs--he doesn't even need to breathe!--and his hands shook. He grips the steering wheel tighter but he knows, he knows he'll end up where he does.
He steps into the bookshop right after Aziraphale does, he doesn't even have to grab the door, it hadn't even swung shut behind Aziraphale. Crowley moves to grab him but stops. He steps back then forward then growls in frustration. He doesn't know what he's to do.
"Crowley!"
"Agk! No." He turns on his heel and takes a few steps out then turns back, Aziraphale patiently watches his painful indecision with a look full of pain... and endearment, which makes Crowley livid. "Aziraphale." He says finally.
"Oh, Crowley..."
"Mr. Crowley! Mr. Fell!"
They ignore Muriel. Their eyes are locked, even with Crowley's glasses between their gazes, there's an endless pull that prevents all speech. Crowley's mouth hangs slightly, his jaw working to no avail. Breaths are passed between them, an exhale for the other to inhale. They are only half an arm's length apart, occupying the same space, and it'd be perfect if it weren't for the weight of everything.
Betrayal, pain, and sorrow are what courses through Aziraphale's body. He's imagined this moment for months now and still, he has no idea of what to do or how to act, or even how to feel, because it isn't just betrayal, pain, and sorrow. In truth, there was hope, yearning, and desperation too.
Aziraphale's eyes reflect Crowley back at him, they reflect all the hurt and love he emanates. His lips quiver as if they still hold the weight of being kissed by Crowley, of receiving pure unfiltered emotion with no warning or follow-up.
"Are you drunk, Crowley?" Aziraphale tilts his head as if looking for Crowley in Crowley. "Oh of course you are, you have been for six months."
He ducks his head to the side as Aziraphale makes a move to reach for his glasses. Nope. He would not let him see him like this. Aziraphale's voice doesn't betray him as Crowley's betrays him, he doesn't dare speak more than a sound "No."
He turns away from Aziraphale's gaze. The reversed roles are odd, it is Aziraphale searching for him--even as he stands in front of him--it is Aziraphale staring at him as he turns away. They're a swapped mirror of themselves half a year ago.
"You are." Aziraphale reaches again. Crowley dodges again.
"I'd feared I'd never see you again Mr. Fell." Muriel muses, oblivious, "Then I'd be left with all these books, how silly is that."
"Here on Heaven's time?" Crowley says finally, his voice straining only the slightest bit. Aziraphale's silence is all the answer. "Cool."
He turns away completely and Aziraphale grabs his arm, he nearly pulls completely away but the touch is inviting, it's right. He turns back to him partially.
"Don't go." Aziraphale's voice is so full of longing, "Please, Crowley."
He keeps saying his name.
"What is there for me to stay for?" He glances around, "Not much into books."
He dares a glance into Aziraphale eyes again, they are glassy and he can't bear it. He makes a pathetic noise at the back of his throat.
"Crowley, I've done so much-- Crowley please!"
He's angry again now. "I don't want to hear about Heaven! You're so far gone! Can't you see it's all bullshit!"
"No, you don't get it." Aziraphale's voice was akin to begging, "I'm changing Heaven, I'm making Heaven into something good."
He lowered his voice so Aziraphale had to lean in closer, "I don't want a good Heaven, I don't want Heaven at all." Aziraphale opens his mouth to speak but Crowley continues, "No Heaven is good, it's all fucked whether your there or not. You're not enough to fix it... and I'm not enough to convince you."
"No."
He yanks his arm away, "Goodbye Aziraphale."