Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The last thing Raphael remembers is talking with Lucifer and some of the guys.

He can't quite recollect what about, though. And then the next thing he knows he's waking up in an unfamiliar part of Heaven, dressed in strange raiment, and looking into the face of an angel who is definitely not Lucifer and the guys.

The angel in question is also wearing strange raiment. He looks... hmm, actually Raphael is not sure he knows how to describe the emotion on this angel's face. It's not happy, or curious, or determined... well, maybe a little determined? Rushed? It seems he was rushing from somewhere to somewhere else. When he looks at Raphael, he looks relieved for a moment. But then he freezes, as if he just realized something, but not a good something.

The other angel doesn't completely consume Raphael's attention, however. There's something else that takes precedence for a moment. Something is wrong, but he can't put his finger on it entirely. The state of the universe has changed. If he didn't know better he would say it had changed a lot, but how could the universe change so much and so quickly?

And not just the universe... something else is different. Time?

"...Crowley?" the angel asks.

Raphael blinks at him.

"Sorry?" he replies. "What's a Crowley?"

The angel's expression falls and twists, still stuck in unnameable sentiments. God warned them that they would begin to experience more feelings over time, and they have done. Though somehow it seems to Raphael that this particular angel is speed running his way through a lot of them all at once. For some reason? This is fascinating to witness, but it also seems unpleasant to experience, so Raphael moves a hand over and pats the angel on the shoulder.

"Are you alright?" he checks.

The angel stops and starts a few times. Is he damaged? Raphael is aware that they can hypothetically be damaged, and he had heard about some angels being damaged after the first wave of Creation by way of something called an 'accident', which had been fascinating news and drawn a lot of attention. He'd been swiftly rebuked for expressing an interest, however, and the topic was still widely taboo.

Just as Raphael is debating the merits of examining this angel's grace and perhaps attempting some sort of repair work, or even going to find God, the trouble seems to resolve itself. Or at least settle down to more manageable levels.

"I'm... do you know me?" the angel asks.

Raphael smiles.

"Of course I do," he says. This makes the angel slump in a recognizable emotion called 'relief', so Raphael wracks his memory. He's never been great with names, but this one comes to him. Thank goodness. "You are Aziraphale."

"Oh thank goodness," Aziraphale says. "For a moment I thought-"

"Yes, you're the chap who held my scroll for me while I started up the celestial forge," Raphael continues, pleased with his own recollection, and with the positive effect it seems to be having. Unfortunately, it seems the effect was only temporary. Aziraphale stills and goes over all strange again.

"Y-yes, I... that's... but, you remember other things as well? Surely you remember...?"

"Of course I remember other things! What a question. I remember the creation of the universe, the mustering of the heavenly host, I remember maybe a few too many meetings on the nature of astro-physics and the timeline of existence... was there a particular memory of interest to you?"

Aziraphale seems to be having some difficulties emoting at all, now. His expression looks ashen, like something is leeching the colour from him.

Raphael hesitates, then sits up. The room he is in looks a little different from his expectations, but, it's still plainly Heaven. He briefly examines his strange raiment. It's not at all familiar, and frankly he didn't even know raiment could look that different. But it's not unpleasant, just sort of fitted, and dark. It would be more difficult to spot him in the cosmic depths with this sort of attire. Maybe that's the point of it? To not distract other angels from their work by looking too flashy?

Of greater concern, he doesn't remember how he came to be in it. Or how he came to be in this room.

For the first time, it occurs to Raphael that perhaps he was damaged in some way. Along with it comes another idea. He moves to test it, but Aziraphale jolts to action and gets in his way.

"Where do you think you're going?!" he demands.

Raphael blinks, and puts a little more distance between them. He's not accustomed to other angels coming quite so close.

"Does the universe feel strange to you?" he asks. Then he wiggles a finger at Aziraphale's torso. "Do you know where your weird raiment came from? I can't remember putting mine on, or even receiving it. Or how I got here. I think time has moved around weirdly, or the universe got shifted considerably to the left somehow. but I won't know unless I check. Do you mind? It's sort of my job to make sure universe production goes smoothly, so, if something went awry I should probably have a look. System's still just warming up, after all. Bound to be a few bugs!"

Aziraphale looks away from him.

"You noticed already? Yes, of course you did. You'd be nothing if not sharp."

Raphael doesn't mind the compliment. If it is a compliment. He's not certain, though he also doesn't know what else it would be, so after a moment he shrugs it off. He doesn't remember this specific angel being quite so odd, but there must be a reason. There's a reason for everything.

But Aziraphale doesn't move out of his way.

"It's... it's not, um, there's no bugs in the system. Nothing... nothing you caused, anyway. It's not your fault. It's... never been."

"How do you know that? I didn't think you worked in celestial mechanics," Raphael says.

"I, I don't. I just know what's caused the, um, the feeling you're having. Of wrongness. Very, very... wrongness."

"Oh good. Phew! That's a relief. So, what is it?"

Aziraphale looks at him. Raphael has decided that whatever emotions he's experiencing here, he doesn't particularly like them. Perhaps poor Aziraphale has been chosen to test a few out? If so, Raphael will back him up if he decides to report that they're all utter bollocks and someone needs to go back to the drawing board.

Definitely a flaw somewhere in this system, he thinks. Especially when poor Aziraphale's eyes start to leak.

"Forgive me," Aziraphale says, horribly.

"Sure!" Raphael agrees at once, and gives in to the strange compulsion to touch him again. He settles a hand on his shoulder once more. "I can do that, that's no problem. Just one more question though, sorry, I know they say I ask too many, it's just... what's a 'forgive'?"

The leaking problem becomes significantly worse.

Chapter Text

Raphael, it seems, has been out of commission for about six thousand years.

On the one hand, six thousand years is an awfully long time for a nap. But on a cosmic scale it's still barely anything. And it's given his universe system some time to get running, at least, which he's excited about. He wants to rush out and test everything, make sure it's operating as intended, but Aziraphale stops him before he can pop out for even a quick look at the cosmos.

"You don't work in celestial mechanics any longer, you've a new posting now," Aziraphale tells him. He seems to have reigned himself in somewhat, but he still looks sort of... unsteady. Raphael's not sure what to make of the news that he's replaced Gabriel as Supreme Archangel. Then again, six thousand years ago there wasn't a 'supreme' archangel. Heaven's structural changes have left him feeling even more wrong-footed than the time shift, especially since everyone keeps insisting that Heaven hasn't changed and does not change. Ever.

Raphael remembers what it used to be like, though. It hasn't changed in the way the ever-shifting matter of the universe inspires clashes and creation and destruction, it's not like Heaven is a rotating planet or a combusting star or a shifting nebula. But it's definitely different than what he remembers. There are angels missing, the raiment has changed, the structural spaces (such as they exist in Heaven) are oriented differently, and the hierarchy is not the same. Neither in composition, nor in conduct.

Everything is a lot harsher. He's not sure what to make of it, but he's noticed that the other angels do not seem pleased to see him or eager to speak with him.

"What's my new posting, then?" he asks. At least Aziraphale, strange though he is, doesn't radiate that queer coldness at him. 

"You're to be my second-in-command," Aziraphale says.

Raphael judders to a stop in the heavenly corridors, taken aback.

"What? Why?" he asks. "I've been gone for six thousand years, how could I possibly be an appropriate choice for a job like that? I've never even worked in personnel management before...?"

Aziraphale turns towards him.

Another voice interrupts before he can offer a reply.

"Yes indeed," the Metatron says, manifesting as if summoned. He wears a friendly smile as he approaches. Raphael's a bit surprised to see him using a full form, instead of just doing the whole giant head thing. Well. He never saw the appeal of the whole giant head thing before, so, perhaps it wore thin for Metatron too?

"Metratron," Aziraphale acknowledges, and there is that coldness that every other angel has been projecting lately. Only in this case it's not being aimed at Raphael.

Interesting.

"You said that I could work with whomever I wished," Aziraphale carries on. Raphael raises an eyebrow at him, but neither he nor Metatron seem to be paying him much mind anymore. They're far too focused on one another.

"And I meant it. You are of course more than encouraged to work with Raphael, in an appropriate capacity. But we never agreed to appoint him to any specific posting, especially not without due consultation of the matter. Given the circumstances-"

"The circums-! Just who created those circumstances?! If I had known-!"

"Aziraphale, calm yourself. If we're to continue this discussion, perhaps it would be better done in private?"

Metatron glances meaningfully in his direction. Raphael takes the hint and moves back, but Aziraphale doesn't seem convinced yet. He hesitates. His expressions once again do several interesting things, before finally he points at Raphael.

"Wait right here," he insists. "Do not run off."

"Sure," Raphael agrees.

Aziraphale nods, then accompanies Metatron further through the corridors until their presence becomes muffled.

A conflict ignites within Raphael.

Now he has an opportunity to sneak off and go examine the universe. He has been ordered to stay put, of course, but if he goes and comes back fast enough then his absence might not even be noticed. Time still seems to mostly work how he helped design it, so he could even squeeze some extra out and he doesn't think Aziraphale would notice. Metatron might notice, but Raphael gets the impression that he probably wouldn't care if all Raphael did was leave. Kind of seems like a lot of angels think that would be just the thing for him to do, though no one has said anything directly to him about it.

On the other hand, he's noticed that there are things that he's not being told. It's very likely that some of these things are what Metatron and Aziraphale are currently discussing without him. Raphael has gotten fairly good at a skill he likes to call 'listening in to conversations that he's not supposed to hear'. The name needs some work, he's still hashing it out, but anyway the point is that he's fairly certain he could go do that and no one would catch him at it either.

Decisions, decisions.

The universe can probably wait. It's lasted six thousand years, and even if the scheduled end of times is still happening, they probably have a few hundred years still before that point. 'Roughly six thousand' still leaves some healthy wiggle room. But Aziraphale's conversation with Metatron might not happen again.

Raphael proceeds through the corridors himself, locates a small gap in the weaving of Heaven's firmament, and sticks his ear to it.

"-actually a kindness," Metatron is saying.

"Oh, don't spit in my face and tell me it's raining! A kindness?! This? Are you mad?!" Aziraphale snaps back. Raphael's eyebrows go up.

Metatron sighs, like he's being very patient with something utterly insufferable. It's a sound Raphael is already well-acquainted with. He gets at least three of those sighs during any given status report. Or rather he used to.

"I am only asking you to put aside your feelings for a moment and think realistically about the situation," the Voice of God says. "What do you believe would happen if he was reinstated as he used to be? With the memory of hellfire and damnation, the weight of sin still hanging off of him? It wouldn't even be possible."

"Suffering is meant to bring growth. You cannot simply rob a soul of their journey, of all the hard-won knowledge and progress made against it, and call it forgiveness!" Aziraphale says, with such heat that Raphael finds himself impressed. He doesn't know many angels who would ever speak to the Metatron like that. Possibly none, not even Gabriel.

"If he was human then I would agree," Metatron replies, steady and unruffled. "But you must know it's different for us."

"Not as different as you would think!"

"Aziraphale. What the fallen endure is not something an angel can live with. It is why they change."

"Well of course people change when you do terrible things to them! Suffering doesn't make anyone evil, if it did then no human would ever be good, and God would have no reason to ever inflict it or tolerate it! There's barely enough reason as it is! Is it so difficult to believe that a demon could be good, could deserve to ascend back to the celestial host on his own terms?"

"While I would be willing to debate with you, and even interested to hear your insights on this topic, what we have here is not a matter of ideologies. It is a matter of divine mechanics. Why do you think hellfire destroys us and barely bothers them? Why does holy water burn them while we can bathe in it? The difference between an angel and a demon is not simply rooted in opinions. It is an alchemy of the soul, a fundamental change of being wrought by certain experiences. To reverse it, those experiences must also be undone."

"Then reverse it back again!"

There's a pause. Raphael thinks he can hear the sound of deep, ragged breaths. Aziraphale, he thinks, is having unpleasant feelings again. The ones that look like they might be damaging him.

Metatron doesn't seem to share his trouble.

"You'd have him suffer the agonies of the damned just to restore something you want?" he asks, voice quiet and low. Scolding, but also there's that thread of coldness again. Like he doesn't actually care, even though they're discussing suffering and 'agonies'?

"No! Of course I wouldn't! But Crowley wouldn't want this," Aziraphale says. His voice is also low. Different from Metatron's tone, though. There's something almost molten in it. Something that sounds the way that a strange, twisting feeling in Raphael's chest also feels. It puts him in mind of a big flaming sword.

And there's that word again! Or name, it seems. Who is 'Crowley'? Raphael's never heard a name even structured like that before. And what's a 'demon'? What is 'hellfire'? He just seems to be accumulating more questions than answers here, but he still gets the strong impression that they're discussing him, somehow. It almost makes him wish he'd gone to investigate the cosmos instead. The fabric of the universe is complex, but not secretive. He's pretty sure he could figure out a lot from examining the impact that the past six thousand years have had on it all.

For some reason he's got an itch to head for Alpha Centauri in particular. It did turn out very nicely when he first set things up...

Metatron's speaking again.

"I'll leave the ultimate decision to you," he says. "If you wish to cast him down into the fires of Hell again, then as Supreme Archangel no one will gainsay you."

"That's not at all what I-!"

"But in the meanwhile, as you mull the matter over, I simply think that it would be inappropriate to appoint Raphael to a post he is neither suited to nor prepared for. It would not be fair to the rest of the host, nor to Raphael himself. You may assign him to something close to you of course, I will support you in whatever way I can, but without any knowledge of the Earth's current state or humanity's inner workings, I fail to see his qualifications for this 'second-in-command' position you've created."

There is another pause. Then Aziraphale, low and terribly stern:

"You just leave worrying about his qualifications to me."

The conversation, bewildering and unsettling though it has been, is clearly coming to its end. Raphael hurries back to the place where he'd been told to wait, mind racing and chest still feeling uncomfortably clenched on the inside. He didn't want to get caught disobeying before, but now he definitely doesn't. Whatever they had been discussing possibly doing to him (and he's still pretty sure they were discussing him the whole while there), it didn't sound good.

At least he doesn't have to slow down time to beat Aziraphale back to the corridor.

Chapter Text

"So, what do you think?!" Aziraphale asks.

He's gone from looking droopy to looking determined, and now his energy seems almost exuberant, but somehow in a kind of alarming way?

It's fascination, but Raphael can't spare his whole attention because what he 'thinks' of his first visit to Earth is that it's very very loud. And a lot. There is... a lot, yes, that's all he can process at first. Noises and smells and things moving, as many colours as are in his canvas of eternity (or were in it, all of his tools seem to have been misplaced), and 'people'.

The people distinctly aren't angels. He can tell without even looking at them. But they're something, and there's a lot of them. Moving around and around, in between things, inside of things, over top of things and underneath things. Almost as complex as universes, in their own way, but layered strangely and all contained in a completely different sort of package. Raphael stares and stares, finding it difficult to let his gaze rest on one thing when there are so many other things to look at as well. It's a little overwhelming.

Possibly too overwhelming. He doesn't think he's ever experienced anything like it. Meeting one person would have been much, he thinks, and now he's observing a world full. Or at least part of a world full.

Aziraphale grabs him, which is shocking in its own way. He reflexively pulls back, but the other angel's grip is tight, and his gaze is focused on something in the distance. He doesn't even seem to register the resistance.

"Here," he says. "Come this way, come and see. You'll like it, I promise. No, wait, you won't just like it, you'll love it!"

He draws Raphael along, still carrying that scary-exuberance and determination. Once the reflex wears off, Raphael decides to just let him. He's curious as to the purpose of it, and maybe moving will help with the overwhelming input of the... everything, going on.

His covered feet make a sound that's not unpleasant and that changes as Aziraphale tugs him across different kinds of ground. The touch of people passing them on the narrow pathways is shocking, the different textures of material and odour of their bodies unique, but after the first couple of times there doesn't seem to be harm in it. They don't go very far before Aziraphale stops again and gestures forward.

"There! Look!" he says. "Bet you like it, right?"

Raphael has no idea which of the many things in front of them Aziraphale is gesturing towards.

"Oh. Um, yes? Splendid," he offers vaguely. But then something does catch his gaze and hold it.

Aziraphale says something. Raphael misses it. He looks at what is actually very directly in front of them, and a rush of awe passes over him.

Slowly, he crouches down. There, in the hard, flat ground in front of them, a green shoot is sticking up from a crack between the grey slats. It's a living thing, but not like the people. The form of it is long and slender, with many smaller limbs opening wide up towards the heavens. The green of it is lovely. The fundamental composition of it is as well. Raphael stares closer, taking in the cells and organic structure, the little threads of life that hum and struggle as they seek out light and sustenance.

"-phael? Raphael!"

He blinks. Swallows. Aziraphale is staring at him strangely. As he looks up, Raphael realizes that his face feels odd. Damp? He lifts a hand to check, and confirms it. The emotional updates must have been approved! Or actually were probably approved sometime in the past six thousand years?

His face is leaking.

Aziraphale is gawking at him. He offers a smile.

"I do like it!" he confirms, and gestures towards the marvel. Looking at it again he's nearly spellbound for a second time. "It's beautiful."

"...Oh," Aziraphale replies. "Oh. I... of course you do. I'm sorry. I quite got ahead of myself, didn't I?"

Then he clears his throat. A hand comes down at Raphael's shoulder. It nudges him upwards, more gently than the initial pulling and direction had been. When he checks again, he's relieved to see that Aziraphale has lost some of that frightening energy. His expression has gentled, though now he looks exhausted rather than energetic.

His eyes close and he shakes his head.

"You'll like this too," he says, and leads Raphael over to a strange, large black box, which is clearly mechanical in some way. There are other, similar such things moving around all over the place. He's sure they're interesting, but there are just too many to focus on.

"This is the Bentley," Aziraphale tells him, running a hand over the shiny exterior of it.

Raphael doesn't know how he's supposed to react. But then, through the windows, he sees more green.

"Oh wow!" he exclaims.

Aziraphale beams a him.

Raphael moves closer to the window, pressing his face against it to see better. "There's more of those things! The not-people-things! They're inside!"

Silence ensues.

When he glances back, he can't be totally sure, but he thinks Aziraphale looks disappointed.

"Plants," he says.

"Huh?"

"They're called plants. They grow all over the place." Clearing his throat again, he moves closer and does something, and opens up the mechanism on the door in the black mechanical box. "But these ones are special."

Raphael eagerly moves to examine them. They are very lush, they it seems they've been having to do more work to reach some of the light they need, and their roots are dry. He frowns as he notices that.

"Why are they special?" he asks.

Aziraphale hesitates.

"Oh. Just... because," he says. "Muriel - ah, the angel who's been watching some things here on Earth for me - has been looking after them for... me."

"I think Muriel needs to do a better job then," Raphael finds himself saying, before he can even think twice about it. "Look at them, they aren't operating at optimal capacity. Even I can tell they need more access to light and water, and I've never seen this kind of composition before. It's a fascinating design."

Aziraphale doesn't meet his gaze.

"It's more than a design, Raphael. It's a living thing," he says, a little flatly.

"Well of course it's living," Raphael agrees. "That's obvious. Wouldn't be in trouble if it wasn't living, now would it? Rocks and things don't need to consume energy to hold their states." He's unsure what he's done wrong now.

A sense of awkwardness persists. He has the sudden urge to climb inside this 'bent-lee' and shut out the external world a little, an impression that the outer shell would probably be good for dulling the onslaught of information which all of his senses are still being subjected to. It must take some pretty strong angels to reside permanently on Earth.

He doesn't do it, because he doesn't want to upset Aziraphale any further.

After a moment the other angel reaches past him and picks up the plants.

"In that case, let's take them inside," he says.

"Inside where?" Raphael wonders.

"You'll see!"

Aziraphale puts some spring in his step, but while it's less... manic? Hmm, yeah, seems like that'd be the word. While it's less manic, it feels more forced instead. Raphael's not sure if it's any better. He wonders if he's been asking too many questions again. More and more senior angels have been getting on him for that, but he just doesn't see the problem. If a question can't be answered, now, isn't that a problem?

They move down the path again, passing more people while Aziraphale carries the plants, and Raphael tries not to get distracted by looking at the plants. They're breathing. It's incredible.

After a short while they get to the exterior of a fairly large structure. Aziraphale opens the door and motions Raphael through by moving the plants, and then the door swings shut behind them and blessedly seals off a lot of the light, sounds, and smells of the world outside.

New smells come, though. Distinct and not unpleasant, but strong in their own way. Kind of... musty? Raphael's not even sure what 'musty' means but alright. The building beyond is busy in its own way as well, populated largely by inanimate things but still so many of them that his eyes still don't know where to land.

He keeps them on the plants, in the end. He likes the plants. He examines their DNA while Aziraphale sets them down by a window.

"Muriel?" he calls.

No one answers.

Aziraphale sighs.

"They're probably at the coffee shop," he says.

"What's a coffee shop?" Raphael asks.

"It's... never mind. You've enough to be going on for now. Come on, have a look around," Aziraphale encourages him. "See if anything strikes you in a noteworthy way!"

Raphael still isn't sure he's ready to look at something other than the plants, but at the urging he reluctantly forces himself to part with them, and instead lets his attention and focus wander across the 'book shop'. He doesn't entirely understand what he's looking at. The last time he got an update on the plans for Earth, it didn't include anything like this, but there were some additions about the human ability to create their own devices, structures, records, and other things like that. He's supposes this is probably the result of a few thousand years of letting that capacity run its course.

It's not a galaxy, and yet it kind of is a galaxy, too. A version of one he wouldn't have conceived of in a million years of his own time. He doesn't really know how everything here has been made, especially without the divine light of creation or the tools that God said wouldn't be made available to humans, despite ostensibly creating them to 'create'. Humans had to create their own tools as well. Pretty intense if you ask him.

Aziraphale watches him as he moves around the space. As he hesitantly touches one of the books, prodding it with a finger, and then touches some of the structural adornments as well. He moves in slow circles, and finds he's gradually adjusting to the smell. The lower light is pleasant in its own way too, though he thinks he likes the feeling of sunlight on his shoulders.

"Here, you can sit in this chair. If you, well, only if you want to, of course. But you should. If you like!" Aziraphale suggests, being weird again as he proffers an odd piece of furnishing and pats it with his hands.

Raphael considers it for a moment, and then himself. Then he settles onto it.

It's not unpleasant, though he's not sure he'd recommend the experience as particularly interesting, either.

Aziraphale twists his fingers against the edges of her raiment as he observes him.

"I don't suppose anything feels familiar...?"

Raphael digests the implications of this question.

"Should it?" he wonders in return.

Aziraphale replies with a tight smile.

"Perhaps not," he says, which is certainly an interesting sort of comment to make. Hmm.

Raphael is developing a theory. He's not sure that he can say he likes the implications of it very much, though. And he definitely needs more information before he can really entertain it. Maybe he's wrong? Probably he's wrong. There are still a lot of holes in the idea.

He gets distracted by the molecular composition of the chair. Oh, it's made out of dead plant matter! Now that's interesting...

Before he can get too involved, though, Aziraphale looks out of one of the windows and jumps. Then he starts urging him back up and out of the chair again.

"I have an idea. I know where we should go. The duck pond at the park! You'll love it, you really will. There are more plants there. And ducks! Oh you really must see the ducks, terribly splendid things, ducks."

"But we just got here...?" He glances back at the chair, and the plants, and the book shop all while Aziraphale ushers him towards the door. This time without grabbing him, but while making a lot of flurried hand motions.

"And now we're leaving! That's how it work on good old Earth, always coming and going, coming and going-"

The door opens before they can get to it. A people stands there. She's dark-skinned, a little stern looking, and has some very interesting attire. She looks at Raphael and narrows her eyes, then looks at Aziraphale while pointing at both of them.

"Alright," she says. "Where the heck have you two been?"

Aziraphale hesitates.

"Ah. Nina," he says. "This isn't a good time-"

Another odd name. Raphael wonders if this means that the mysterious 'Crowley' is a human too?

"It's been six months since anyone's seen you! We've been worried out of our minds, so you'll have to make some time, Mr. Fell. Crowley," Nina replies, with a nod of acknowledgement towards him as she says the mystery name.

Aha.

Hmm.

That's... not a promising sign for debunking his far-fetched theory, is it?

Aziraphale presses his face against his hand and makes a negative sort of sound.

Chapter Text

The coffee shop smells extremely different from the book shop, but in a way that seems almost complimentary to the book shop smell.

Raphael is commanded to sit at a table off to the side with the angel Muriel, while Aziraphale has some pretty strong looking emotions at some of the people in the coffee shop. Specifically Nina and another one called Maggie. Even though the distance isn't so great that it should matter, Aziraphale has done something to make it so that Raphael has trouble hearing their actual words.

The mechanism of the minor miracle is very interesting, but he can't spare a lot of attention for it. It's just too difficult. He can't spare the focus to try and read lips either, even though that's a language he speaks perfectly well. Nina had put something down in front of him, and then Aziraphale had picked it up hurriedly again, and now there's something else in front of him in a different cup and he had been advised that he would probably like it. It's called 'coffee, black'.

Raphael really wants to try it, but he can't help feeling hesitant either. He thinks he understands the general mechanism of making the attempt. But it's a little intimidating when he's utterly unsure of all the potential consequences.

"I like looking at drinks too," Muriel tells him.

Muriel has a certain quality that reminds him of Aziraphale. He's not sure if it's the colour and style of their attire, which is more similar to Aziraphale's than to that of the other angels he's met since 'waking up', or if it's because they're only the second angel he's met since 'waking up' who doesn't look at him coldly.

Muriel lifts up a tea cup and saucer and motions at him with them before putting them down. The teacup is made out of some kind of clay that's been hardened by heat, somehow worked very thin and marked with beautiful designs.

Raphael doesn't have that. His 'drink' is some type of plant matter that's been treated with wax. Equally interesting, but less pretty. For some reason the glaring deep blue of the cup is vaguely unsettling.

He puts these observations aside.

"If I were to ask you some questions, do you think you would mind answering them?" he asks instead. While he's not happy that he can't listen to Aziraphale's conversation with the people, he does want to figure some things out without Aziraphale listening in either, if he has the chance. And the Supreme Archangel seems distracted, which is perhaps the best chance he's going to get. He's barely been left alone since all this began.

"Oh I love answering questions! It used to be my job," Muriel tells him. Then hesitates. "Although, I don't think I can tell you some things. I wouldn't want to be seen as helping you again. But, I suppose, since you're not... I mean, you're an angel, so actually it probably doesn't matter anymore."

"You helped me before?" Raphael asks.

"Yes! I thought I'd get in trouble for it, but instead I got reassigned to Earth. I like this job much better than my old one," they confide, smiling at him.

"Ah. Good for you, then," he agrees, smiling back. "Congratulations on the transfer. So let's start with some basic questions, in that case. Just to make sure we don't overstep."

Muriel takes on a more dutiful expression and nods in agreement, straightening as though prepared to give a report.

"What's a demon?" Raphael asks. If he can only get one question in before Aziraphale realizes and comes over to put a stop to it, this one seems the most crucial.

"Oh! Well, that's easy. Although it's also a little bit complicated. A demon's the Enemy. When an angel goes against the will of Heaven and is cast out into the fiery pits of Hell, they become a demon instead. Though I've heard that there's some other ways it can happen too, but I don't have clearance to verify if that's just erroneous reporting or not," Muriel explains, uncannily chipper given the subject matter.

"Yes, I see, that sounds consistent with what I've heard," Raphael agrees. The junior angel's smile widens.

"Moving on," he continues. "What's Hell?"

At this one, Muriel hesitates.

"Hell is... well, it's Hell," they say. "Um, let me think. I don't think anyone's ever asked me that! Though I haven't been asked what a demon is before either. Gosh, it never occurred to me to have an explanation for it. Okay. So, Hell is the kingdom of the Enemy, where all the demons reside. It's the pit of damnation, the uh... layered onion of... evil? No, that's doesn't sound right..."

It doesn't sound right, no, but now that Muriel's given him a direction to look at, he thinks he can almost feel what they're talking about. That would explain one of those big shifts in the universe that he hasn't time to examine yet. There's an entirely new celestial plane. Not part of Heaven and not part of the cosmos, but connected.

"Good enough. And, to confirm, bad things happen in Hell? To the ones who 'fall'?" he checks.

"Oh yes! Just awful!" Muriel confirms. "I mean it's Hell, so. Pretty bad to everyone I think. You'd know better than I, of course."

"Of course."

The junior scrivener waits. Raphael's twisting, unpleasant feeling is back, and very intense. He looks at his drink. It's supposed to be ingested, right? Perhaps it will help with the feeling if there's more fluid inside of him. A body is largely fluid. And the plants weren't operating optimally because they didn't have enough water.

Carefully, he lifts it up and brings it to his lips. Then he pours a small amount into his mouth.

He nearly spits it back out again. The warmth isn't bad, but the sensation of the much liquid in his mouth is bizarre. Worse, it's... bitter? Yes, that's it. Strong and bitter and overwhelming. He managed through dint of effort to swallow the mouthful, and feels it begin to move through his system.

The taste remains even after the liquid is gone. He must be making an interesting expression, because Muriel covers their mouth and laughs in surprise.

"Is it bad?" they ask.

"I... yes? I think so?" Raphael responds. He's meant to like this? He can't see why.

It must be that the demon he's spent the past six thousand years being likes such things. The one he thinks was probably called 'Crowley'. He's not sure how to take it, that Aziraphale has been giving him things that the demon version of himself would like. That he thinks Raphael is... the same?

Is he? He doesn't like the coffee, so, probably not?

Muriel stares with a fascinated curiosity. Then they look at their own cup.

"I've been trying to work up the nerve," they explain.

Raphael watches with his own fascination as they set their shoulders, and lift the clay-fire-artwork cup from its matching disc, and finally bring it to their lips.

They sip.

There's a moment of tension, the pause before the realization of the fruits of one's toil.

Then Muriel smiles.

"Oh! Mine's not bad at all," they say. "It's like... flowers? And sweetness. It's creamy, too!"

Raphael would not describe the composition of his beverage in any way similarly. If he really thinks about it, the only answer he can come up with is beans full of disdain. But they've got different chemical compositions, so that probably explains it.

Muriel takes another sip, smiling happily.

Raphael experiences a new emotion. He doesn't know how to name it yet, but seems rooted strongly in the idea that he'd like it better if the contents of his cup were more like the contents of hers. He contemplates it for a moment, then changes the composition of materials in his own cup until it's identical to hers instead.

He lifts it up and braves another attempt.

Hmm, yes. Sweetness. Flowers. Creamy.

Much less offensive, though he's still unsure if he actually likes it. Except for the warmth. That is, he decides, irrefutably pleasant.

"Right," he says after a moment, putting the somewhat emptier cup back down on the table. "One more question."

Muriel nods and looks at him expectantly.

Raphael points at himself.

"Am I the demon 'Crowley'?"

"Oh! No, of course not," Muriel replies. He feels a rush of intense relief, so profound it almost disorients him. It's also short-lived, as it happens. "Not anymore, obviously. Now you're back to being Raphael. I didn't even guess that was who you used to be, you know! Not that we ever met before the... um, before. But I saw you from a distance one time, while you were dropping off some reports. And of course the higher ups always knew. I wonder why they didn't say? We always thought the only Archangel who fell was Lucifer. Now it turns out that there was you the whole time too. And Gabriel, later, though I'm not sure if he counts...?"

"Hmm," Raphael replies. There's a sort of strange ringing in his head now, and the twisting sensation is much worse. It feels like something terrible is rising up inside of him.

Makes sense, though. Horrible, awful, deeply unpleasant sense. He'd already guessed, but apparently direct confirmation is much more potent than even a very likely theory.

He leans over as the rising feeling reaches a kind of eruption, and the liquids he'd swallowed come back out via the same route that they went in.

Chapter Text

Raphael leaves the coffee shop.

He knows that he's probably not supposed to, but Aziraphale is still distracted with the people there, and he can't stay put. He discorporates the liquid from the floor and slides out of the chair, and passes through the queue of humans to reach the door and go out of it again. Back onto the noisy street, with its chaos of lights and sounds.

Muriel follows him.

"I think the Supreme Archangel expects us to stay in the shop!" they call after him, hurrying to keep up with his longer strides.

"Probably," Raphael agrees. "But I need... I have to go. Somewhere else. Sorry."

"Um, well. I'll come with you then! Probably someone should! I had a job observing things once, for a while. So I'll just observe you? Or is this more escorting? I think you have to have a destination to do an escorting though..."

He doesn't particularly want that, but he can't think of a good objection, either. He can't really think, which might be the problem. He doesn't know how to process this, especially not with the noise of Earth still clamouring all around him. He wants to escape it, but somehow it seems wrong to go back to Heaven, too.

So he just walks instead. Walks and walk, until the sounds and the noises become less, until there are fewer people in the street, and fewer buildings cluttered around the space immediately around him. Fewer things moving everywhere too, though 'fewer' is still very many.

What's suffering like? He's only ever heard of it in the hypothetical, and yet he feels, deep down, like he has some idea of the nature of it anyway. Which should have probably tipped him off even further, but he hadn't thought to consider it before. Maybe it's not that some part of him recollects it, though. Maybe God just built it in there, knowing that eventually there would a come a time when the understanding would be relevant? God builds a lot of things that way. Raphael would know, he's helped put more than enough of them together.

He wonders what he did to deserve it. The suffering. It must have been something really bad, but... what? He's not bad. Or, he doesn't think he is? He doesn't want to do anything harmful. Does he?

He must.

Lucifer and the guys. The ones who Muriel said also 'fell'. They'd been talking with him a lot lately. Questioning the Almighty, talking about the Plan. They'd had a lot of thoughts on it, though they'd talked around a lot of thoughts too, not quite saying the point directly. He got the gist, though. Lucifer wasn't pleased about humanity and the whole Earth idea. Didn't think that it would actually turn out the way God wanted it to, at least not if they did it the way they'd been instructed to. 

It was controversial stuff, sure, but... but the thing is, so far as Raphael can remember, he hadn't agreed with Lucifer? Not beyond thinking that if there were disagreements, then they ought to be voiced anyway. That they should ask questions if they weren't convinced of the plan's merits.

He's not a big fan of the idea that the whole universe exists as a backdrop to some other project with a six-thousand year time limit, but he doesn't think the humans are the problem. Maybe something changed his mind?

But even if it did, he... he still can't imagine... he doesn't even know what. Trying to destroy Earth? Destroy humanity? He must've. Whatever he did must've been so terrible that God forsook him, that he became some other being, something so evil that as an angel he cannot endure the very knowledge of it. That was what Metatron and Aziraphale were really talking about when he listened in, that somehow the demon Crowley had gotten... what? A reprieve? Redemption? But then had also forgotten the last six thousand years of wickedness and - and - whatever it all entailed?

And Aziraphale didn't know he would forget and doesn't approve of it. Why disapprove, though? He must have had information that Heaven needed. Something vital to their ends that he forgot along with the rest of it.

Crowley wouldn't want this, he'd said, though. But why should that matter?

He supposes he should at least be relieved that he was 'forgiven', as it seems, but more than that he wants to know what it was he did.

What if he does it again? If he can't remember, how can he be sure he won't...?

Muriel dogs his footsteps, saying nervous-sounding things that he can't bring himself to pay attention to, and trying to get him to turn back towards the coffee shop.

It takes him a long while to realize that the scrivener's not the only thing following him.

Raphael pauses. The road is emptier now, so it's more apparent that one of the things on it isn't just yet another vehicle full of humans. In fact, this one's empty of all passengers, since Aziraphale took the plants out of it as well. The long, sleek shape of it is moving slowly compared to the rest, trundling along the street just a few steps behind and to the side of Raphael himself.

The 'bent-lee'. Or, no. Bentley, his linguistic knowledge clarifies, now that he's not too overwhelmed to let it.

It's... following him?

Why?

He stops. The Bentley stops as well.

"What is it doing?" he asks Muriel, nodding towards it.

Muriel follows his gaze and frowns.

"I don't know," they admit. "I don't think they're supposed to move around without anyone in them? But I'm not sure. I haven't really learned motor vehicles yet. I rode on the train once! Maggie took me. That's a bit different, though, and the Supreme Archangel said I was to only open the Bentley to water the plants."

"They need more watering," Raphael informs Muriel. "And sun."

"Oh! Of course. I wasn't sure how much to do. I'll find a book about it? Maybe? I probably should have done that sooner, but there are so many and I keep getting distracted just reading more and more..."

Raphael walks over to the Bentley. Then he hesitates, not certain of how to proceed.

"What's the matter?" he asks it.

There's no answer. Right. It doesn't talk, probably?

He considers a moment more, then recollects how Aziraphale had opened the door. Reaching out he does the same, and finds it's quite easy. The interior of the Bentley is cool and dark, and again, oddly compelling. The seats inside are different from and yet similar to the chair in the book shop. Clearly, one is supposed to sit in them in much the same way.

Raphael hesitates for a breath more, before he gives an internal shrug and goes inside. Figuring out where to put his limbs takes a little more doing than expected, but he works it out after a minute of awkward struggle.

"Um! Archangel Raphael?! Sir?!" Muriel calls after him. Their voice is muted by the sound of the door closing.

As if by some unknown reflex, Raphael settles his hands on the wheel in front of him. The Bentley moves, going much faster this time. It doesn't seem to require his input on the matter, but with far greater swiftness than had been available when he'd just been using his legs, he finds that the traffic and the clusters of activity decrease around him. More green comes in sight, not just the colour but the plants, and outside something begins to fall from the sky. Water. It plonks onto the exterior in fat droplets.

The universe shifts around him. Raphael blinks, then glances over to where a figure has manifested in the other seat.

The figure is not an angel, but definitely not a human. Not an embodiment of a concept, either, which just leaves one other option. They do feel... dark, in a way. Ominous. Like the promise of, or echo of, pain.

"Hello, Crow..." the demon begins to say, and then chokes. Her eyes go wide as she looks at him.

She shrieks.

Raphael stares warily back.

"What in Satan's name happened to you?!" she then demands. It's different from Aziraphale's emotional displays. She doesn't seem at all droopy about it, more like... alarmed? Urgent? And unpleasant. Raphael regards her while the environs continue to zip by around them.

"I think I was restored to divine grace," he offers after a moment. Probably, he should also be alarmed, but the demon doesn't really have that effect on him.

She gapes. Opens her mouth, shuts it again. Pales.

Then disappears once more.

Chapter Text

Earth is easier to take in from inside the Bentley.

Raphael is certain that the Bentley is actually impeding some of his ability to take it in, but in this case it’s a benefit. Before it felt like he was standing in the middle of a cosmic explosion, not just triggering the birth of a nebula but sitting in it while it happened. Not a recommended course of action in any of the celestial engineering manuals. Earth is a somewhat mature world now, and humanity has developed a lot, along with all the other life on the planet. Even though he actually has had six thousand years to adjust, he doesn’t remember it, and taking everything in at once with little previous exposure to build off of and a lot of others to consider was probably not the best way to do it.

But inside the Bentley, he can ease himself into it a bit better. Take in the sights! The roads change, the scenery changes, and the planet shifts along on its course. The moon seems to be working right, which is good. Earth’s moon is fairly unique, not like unique- unique, but non-standard. Had to be, to get the tides to happen as God wanted. Among other things of course. There were a couple meetings about it. He didn’t do the job himself, but it’s fine work.

Sun’s doing well too, near as he can tell from this distance. He’d like to take a closer look but he doesn’t want to leave the Bentley now either, and anyway the living planet, for all its complexities, is definitely even more interesting than a star.

Even just watching the landscape change is fascinating. Then eventually the road runs out, and the Bentley starts driving over water.

They keep going until they lose sight of the land. Past the shore it’s just vast stretches of sea and sky, waves chopping around, and water still falling from above. Raphael peers through the floor of the vehicle and focuses down into the depths, and confirms that the sea life is definitely an idea that went through. Not surprising, really. God was pretty chuffed about those big not-fish, that what’s-its. Whales. There was a brief period where rumour even had it that God was going to scrap the humans and focus on them instead, though it never got beyond a rumour.

The dolphins did get a few suspicious upgrades though...

A large construction, a submarine, goes by in the near-distance, which is almost as fascinating to witness as the sea life.

Raphael watches until his head starts to ache, then abandons his observations of a few deep sea sharks for watching the weather worsen outside the windows. The Bentley passes through the crest of a wave and shudders, then changes directions, moving along with the water instead of driving against it.

Of more interest is the sky. The clouds thicken and darken, and drop water even more heavily. Raphael wonders if it won’t all be sunken soon. But then it stops, and the clouds disperse. The sun comes out only for a little bit. Then it sinks below the horizon, and the sky changes colours before darkening altogether, and he finds that he can see the stars.

It’s not even all the stars.

That’s the thing, really. If the whole universe exists just for one little part of it, why can’t he even see the whole of it from here? If it’s just to inspire wonder in humans, wouldn’t they do better to have scaled it down, moved it closer, and left off the bits too distant or mundane to matter? They didn’t even put Earth in the middle!

But it’s... it’s something, he will concede, to see it from here. Maybe he can understand building a whole universe just for people. For the love of them. God’s all about love, after all.

Raphael’s never felt love, he doesn’t think. And yet part of him feels like he knows it innately anyway. Just like suffering.

Isn’t that another oddity, though? If God made everything for humans, then why should it matter if angels suffer or love?

Maybe it's one of those physical engineering conundrums. Like gravity. In order to make things work you need to design the rules, and every design choices has consequences, sometimes unintended or detrimental ones that need further compensation along the way. More decisions, more solutions, and more complications that exist as a result of the solutions to other problems. Raphael knows he isn’t God, he doesn’t truly understand the universe, even though he helped put it all together. But he wants to understand. He's not against the plan necessarily, he just wants the answers to his questions, so that he can know why the problems he sees as problems might not truly be such.

In fact, it may well be that he needs to know if he’s going to avoid cocking it all up again.

Eventually, the lights in the sky are not the only ones he can see. More extend in front of his path, shimmering at the edges of what must be a shoreline. The Bentley drives off of the ocean and onto a beach, and then along several cliffs before trundling up and finding a road again. The sky threatens to disappear or rather become less visible, drowned out by the man-made lights and the shadow of their buildings.

“Stop, stop!” he requests.

The Bentley stops.

Raphael gets out.

It’s not, thankfully, all that much more loud on the outside than it had been inside. There are of course myriad noises if he cares to listen, from the chirping of insects to the distant crashing of waves, and further still the human noises of the city, but he musters himself and finds it’s not actually all that hard to stop listening to it. Block it out. The same for all the smells and sights. He works on it until he can only smell the salt of the sea air, only the hear the whoosh of the wind, and only see what’s on the surface of things.

He walks back onto the beach. Lets more time pass as he stands beneath the stars.

Not a lot of it goes before he’s interrupted by another shifting of space. This one’s further away, though, and it takes a while for whomever has arrived to get to him. He thinks that they must have come down in the city. Perhaps in an elevator, like the one he and Aziraphale used. It's ingenious, modelled after human inventions. But if there's an elevator that way then it's only close by in a geographical sense.

He waits and time shifts.

Eventually an angel makes his way down past the Bentley.

Not Aziraphale, who he might have expected. Well, the man’s a busy archangel. Supreme, even. He can’t be expected to spend all of his time babysitting Raphael.

Though this is still a ranking angel. The Metatron looks distinctly out-of-place as he walks down a beach at night. Raphael suspects he looks a little bit out-of-place in any place that’s not Heaven, and even in Heaven he’s a bit weird. Not that he’d say so out loud.

“It’s a lovely night out,” the Metatron observes, following the direction of Raphael’s gaze up towards the stars.

“Is it?” Raphael counters, resisting an inexplicable urge to go back to the Bentley. It’s weird. Why does he find Metatron more threatening than a demon? “I haven’t seen a lot of nights yet.”

“Admittedly, neither have I. I don’t come down here often. Too much work to do up above,” Metatron replies. Then he lets out a heavy breath as he comes to a stop next to Raphael. Despite the levity of his tone, his mouth is curled downwards with displeasure. “However, I have heard that it’s preferable when the sky is clear and the moon is out. Beaches are supposed to be a point of appeal as well. I have troubles seeing it. Too much grit.”

Raphael can’t say he minds. Since he started focusing correctly, he hasn’t particularly noticed. He thinks to mention that, but then he decides against it. Metatron probably already knows. Most angels probably already know how to handle themselves on Earth. He’s the odd man out here.

“I’ve heard from Muriel that you took off on Aziraphale,” Metratron mentions.

“Suppose I did,” Raphael murmurs in confirmation.

“They admitted, also, that you know the truth now. Of what you’ve been for these past six thousand years.”

“Oh. Yeah. Well, don’t blame them. It seems no one told them to keep it to themself, and anyway I’d already guessed. Just wanted confirmation.”

Metatron doesn’t look at him. He’s stiff and tense, but it seems he’s trying not to let it show.

Raphael supposes there’s no need to wonder at the cause of all the cold shoulders he’s been getting now. The whole host must know what he used to be. Possibly what he could still become again, too.

“The object of secrecy was not to harm you, I hope you realize. Aziraphale feared that the truth might be difficult to process. He was trying to work out a way to ‘ease you into it’, so as not to cause you undue distress,” Metatron tells him.

Raphael had assumed as much. That was probably part of, if not the whole reason for, this trip down to Earth. To start showing him humanity and the good works of Heaven and such before revealing the truth, bit by bit, so as ease it or whatever. And probably also to discourage him from doing any demon-y things about it again? Like going on a destructive rampage or something?

He lets out a gusty sigh.

“Would you tell me how it happened?” he requests. “The whole... falling thing?”

He gestures vaguely, miming a fall from the sky with with his arm. He thinks about the rain drops, and how they'd splattered on the roof of the Bentley. How they'd slipped into the swell of the ocean, and disappeared in the mixing waters below.

Metatron’s silent for a moment. Long enough that Raphael wonders if he’ll actually get an answer, or even just a plain refusal. The stars reflect heavily in the eyes of the Voice of God.

“You, like Lucifer, disapproved of God’s plan,” Metatron tells him. “A rebellion broke out. Sides were taken. Those who refused to take the side of Heaven were actors against the will of God, and were cast out along with Lucifer to be punished for their transgressions against the Almighty.”

Raphael contemplates this.

“Those who refused to take the side of Heaven, hm? So, no neutral parties?” he surmises.

Metatron gives him an affronted look.

“How can anyone claim neutrality in such a conflict?” he demands. “It was the will of God!”

Raphael hesitates.

“But what did I do?” he presses.

“You rebelled!”

“Yes, I got that, thanks. Rebelling, very bad. But what actions did I take that constituted rebellion? Who, or what, did I harm?”

Metatron scoffs.

“It was long ago,” he says. “The days were dark and terrible. I cannot bring myself to recount them to you. You stood withe legions of demons and Hell's forces and did battle against us. But do you doubt it? Would you question the will of God again, and suppose yourself unworthy of a punishment mandated by divine will?”

Raphael feels cold.

“...Suppose not,” he manages in reply.

More silence falls between them. He needs these answers, but he finds he takes no comfort in the Metatron’s presence. Confusing and at times distressing though he could be, he thinks that Aziraphale probably would have at least been nicer when he answered his questions. Or declined to.

“Always asking damn fool questions,” The Metatron mutters. Then he sighs. “What does it matter now anyway? You have been granted a reprieve no other demon has ever known. Heaven has forgiven your past, and restored you to yourself.”

“Yes. Erm. Thank you, for that,” he offers.

That, at least, seems to go over well. The Metatron nods, and turns away. Raphael is a bit relieved honestly. He can go back to his stargazing and process everything that has been said.

But then the senior angel motions towards him.

“Come with me,” he commands. “There’s something you have to see. I’ve put it off long enough, but now that you know the truth, you should also know why you’ve been forgiven.”

The chill comes back, all the colder than before.

Raphael finds himself reluctant.

But the Metatron stops, and stares at him. As if he can see it. The expression on his face holds something like a warning. If he hesitates, Raphael thinks, there will be consequences. He doesn’t know what consequences, or even if they’ll be all that bad. But the vague awareness of suffering looms large in his mind.

He turns and follows.

Chapter Text

The first time any beings ever divided into separate factions, it was shortly after God created the angels. The fist two factions were God and Heaven.

Raphael knows most don't consider it that way, and instead have it that the angels were just an extension of God's will. Angels are definitely more of an extension of God's will than anything else God has ever created (except possibly demons, now, he's not sure on that front), and God and Heaven certainly weren't at odds, but if they were truly indistinguishable then they probably wouldn't have needed to have so many boardroom meetings.

Plus, y'know, this is the whole entire point of the Metatron. The Voice of God. The go-between. 

Raphael has always known that there's a bridge to cross between his ideas and God's, that he's not just a tool in some other being's hands. Not even a being as omniscient and powerful as the Almighty. He's overseen a lot of the creating of things, and even when creating goes according to plan, it never really does? Even chemicals and elemental forces don't always work as anticipated. The things you make become their own things just as soon as they are made.

Why would angels be an exception?

Raphael's not really shocked to learn that they really truly aren't, that they can cock up badly enough to even change the nature of their beings, even though it's not exactly pleasant knowledge either. It frightens him, but not in the way he thinks it probably disturbs somebody like the Metatron.

Metatron, Raphael is aware, either doesn't know that he's not just an extension of God or dislikes the idea of it so much that it amounts to the same thing. The first time Raphael came to know disapproval was because Raphael wanted to ask God a question, and didn't think that just asking Metatron instead was the same thing. It wasn't a great day at the workplace, and Raphael doesn't think the whole business of being a demon has improved their interactions much.

But, Metatron's still a colleague. And not all that difficult to fall into the workplace routine when Metatron takes him out to the edge of the cosmos, to behold the fabric of creation.

Raphael lets out a breath as he manifests his divine essence within the voice. He carefully packs his living body away, so that it doesn't get damaged, and then lets his wings spread with a feeling of pronounced relief. Oh yes, this is familiar! He knows what he's about out here, with the stars spread before him like a sparkling, beautiful sea of light and shadow, and the interstellar winds winding beyond the edges of his wings.

The Metatron seems less comfortable. He takes on his giant head form, and there's something sort of... tired? A little bit tired about him. Raphael adds it to a list of other things he's been noticing, about how everything has changed in his absence. Or... whatever he's supposed to call his time spent as a demon.

"Forgive me. It's been a while since I've been out this far," Metatron says, drawing a few laboured breaths.

"'Course, no problem. Take your time," Raphael replies. He opts to listen to the music of the spheres for a while instead. It's changed, and it's fascinating, and beautiful. His gaze drifts over everything, lingering on the place where Earth is, and in the general direction of Alpha Centauri.

He's not sure why the Metatron wanted to come out here, but he's grateful for it anyway. He hadn't realized how untethered he'd felt before. But now it's like he's finally got his bearings back.

At length, Metatron regains his own equilibrium.

"It's really beautiful, isn't it?" Raphael beams. He's never going to get over this, he thinks. "Looks even better than the last time I saw it. Few more black holes than I expected, though. Did someone else make some adjustments?"

"Yes. About that," Metatron replies. "Our works here are innumerable and great. A testament to the glory of the Almighty. But they are only a fleeting part of the tapestry of eternity."

Some of Raphael's enthusiasm dims.

"Still going on about that," he mutters.

"What was that?"

"Nothing, nothing. Just talking to myself."

Metatron scowls at him.

"Raphael. Work has its place. Particularly the work of the divine. But it is only when the work ends that true rest can be found. The time of the culmination of the great plan is upon us, in fact it is well past being upon us. And you have a critical role to play in ending that which you also, critically, helped begin."

Oh, he doesn't think he likes where this is headed.

He gestures out towards the glorious expanse of the universe.

"Look, I'm not saying has to last forever," he declares. "But just six thousand years is ridiculous!"

"Raphael! The designs of the Almighty are not 'ridiculous'!"

"I'm not saying they are! Necessarily! I just think, you know, we need some clarification. Maybe someone misplaced a decimal somewhere or something. Six thousand years? Even sixty thousand years is barely a blink! And if it's all just for Earth, and the people, can't we at least let it run until Sol eats itself? It just seems like a more reasonable timeline-"

"RAPHAEL!"

He moves back a little as the Metatron's big head expands in a fit of righteous disapproval, and the Metatron's eyes flame like they're stars themselves.

"You wished to know what had caused your Fall. I had thought to take mercy upon you and let the matter be, but I see now that it was folly. The same flaws that destroyed you once persist in you yet. So know this: this is what caused you to Fall. This exact resistance to the divine plan, this willful insubordination, this rebellion. The will of God is that creation shall come to an end! And unless you wish to know eternity only as suffering, you will help end it!"

Raphael gapes.

His mind stumbles over this new revelation.

He... then, so, wait. He didn't destroy anything after all?

And that was the problem? He was sent to suffer not because he went off the rails and tried to hurt creation, but because he went off the rails and refused?

That... actually that fits a lot better with what he knows of himself. That... hmm. Well. Yeah, okay. Makes a lot more sense now.

Metatron must take his silence for a degree of capitulation, because he tempers his big flaming display of righteous disapproval.

"Understand, it is not too late to avoid repeating your fate," Metatron tells him. "You have been given the greatest of gifts, the rarest of opportunities. Even Lucifer himself, whom God loved above all other angels, will never know this benevolence. All you need to do to remain an angel, to remain yourself for the rest of eternity in paradise, is give me the passkey to detonate the stars."

His whole being stiffens in alarm.

Raphael raises an eyebrow. He blows out a breath and forces himself to ease his posture, glances at the universe, and then lifts a hand to scratch at his curls.

"Sorry?" he replies. "The what?"

Metratron goes back to the whole flaming-eyeballs look.

"THE PASSKEY TO DETONATE THE STARS!" he bellows.

Yeah, figures that's what they'd want him for. He thinks he's really starting to put it together now, the whole picture. Shutting down an entire universe is nearly as difficult as making it in the first place.

"But I thought we were doing the divine plan?" he says, folding his arms. "That's what you said, that it's crucial to follow the plan and a betrayal of God's will to not do that."

Metatron calms down just a little. Enough to look irritated rather than all fiery, but he's still huge.

"This is the divine plan."

"No! No it isn't!" Raphael counters, waggling a finger. "I was in the meetings, and I haven't forgotten any of them. Even if God's changed a load of things in six thousand years, accounting for variables and such, blowing up all of the stars at once was never part of the plan. Definitely not prematurely detonating Sol. God had a whole procession of events in mind, not just 'kaboom'!"

"The sequence of events was not made known until after you Fell," Metatron tells him. "And events transpired such that it had to be changed, regardless. Now this is the way that the universe will end."

"Can't be."

"It is! You stupid, obnoxious wretch! I am the Voice of God! NOW GIVE ME THE BLOODY PASSKEY!"

"No."

The flaming head gets uncomfortably close, forcing Raphael to lean back. Honestly the intended effect is kind of ruined, because at this range it just means he's looking up the Metatron's nose.

"If you won't cooperate, you won't be cast down to Hell again. You'll haven proven yourself too vile even for that, even for endless torment. Heaven will not suffer you to persist as a demon twice-over."

"I thought you said that was what you'd do to me if I didn't cooperate, though? Pretty much exactly that thing?"

Cosmic wind kicks up around them. Something's coming, he thinks.

Metatron doesn't seem to care or maybe even doesn't seem to notice.

"You'll be utterly destroyed. Erased from existence as if you have never been. In the name of God I will unmake you!"

Raphael laughs.

"You can't do that," he points out, unperturbed by all the posturing. Poor Metatron, what's happened to him that's got him so... he doesn't even know the word for this. Miserable? It comes to him but he's not certain he entirely understands it, though thinking about how he felt when he found out about the demon thing seems close. "I implemented the design of creation. If you unmake me, you unmake it, and that is very definitely not part of the plan."

Metatron's big head sparks and flashes.

Raphael delivers the killing blow.

"Besides, there's one other being that knows how to detonate the stars, and She certainly doesn't need me or my passkeys for it. If this is how it's supposed to go, God would do it."

It all makes perfect sense, and is only a reasonable rebuttal to an unreasonable demand. Raphael's brow furrows, however, as he gets a sudden strong impression that the Metatron is not listening. Or rather, that what he's saying hasn't had the intended effect of disarming him, and instead he is actually working up the might to try and obliterate him.

That's going to be troublesome. Raphael braces himself.

Metatron lets out an incoherent yell, glowing a concerning shade of deep red and overflowing with dangerous amounts of energy.

And then the Bentley crashes into the Voice of God's big head and sends it careening into the cosmos.

Chapter Text

Raphael beholds the Bentley, impressed.

"I didn't know you could do that," he says.

The door opens and Aziraphale rushes out.

"Crowley! Are you hurt!?" he calls, hurrying over, wings fluttering anxiously.

"No, I'm pretty sure that I'm not either of those!" Raphael assures him, feeling unexpectedly giddy. He probably shouldn't enjoy seeing Metatron's big head ping around between some stars like a particularly ill-thought astronomical feature, but it's amusing nonetheless. "Did you tell the Bentley to do that? Hit him, I mean?"

Aziraphale straightens up, eyes darting over to the Metatron and then back again. His mouth is a tight, tense line.

"Certainly not! I didn't have to," he primly declares.

"That's amazing. Can all motor vehicles do that?"

Human engineering's even more impressive than he thought.

"Not even a little bit. Now come on, we need to get out of here."

"Oh? Yeah, alright."

Raphael lets himself be steered back towards the Bentley. He gets in on the other side this time, while Aziraphale settles behind the wheel. In the distance, the Metatron is yelling, but once the doors close they can't hear him anymore. The engine rumbles to life, sounding distinctly cosmic in the environs of space, and then space moves past them so quickly that it's all a blur of lights and colour and whirling, profound darkness.

With a jolt they stop again in a new destination. By the looks of things they're not back on Earth, nor are they in Heaven. It takes Raphael a few moments to pinpoint their location, because he's never actually been here before. Not that he recollects anyway.

"Are we in Alpha Centauri?" he asks, intrigued.

Aziraphale doesn't answer him right away. He is instead leaning his head against the wheel in front of him, whilst holding it in a distinctly white-knuckled grip. Raphael regards him for a moment.

He reaches out a hand and offers a tentative pat to the shoulder.

Aziraphale squeezes his eyes shut.

He lets out a gusty breath, then straightens back up.

"Right then," he says, and opens to the door to the Bentley.

Raphael follows him outside.

"Why did you bring me here?"

No response, but he gets the impression that it's because the other angel is distracted with his focus elsewhere, rather than because he's being deliberately ignored.

"What are we doing in Alpha Centauri?" he tries again.

"Calling in a favour," Aziraphale tells him.

The landscape around them is very beautiful, and a lot more quiet than Earth. Purple skies stretch overhead, while shimmering blue mountains break up the view of the twilit horizon. There's a structure not too far off. It looks like something that would belong on Earth. Sort of like the coffee shop, in fact, but also not. It wasn't made by humans, Raphael doesn't think, but it was made in the fashion of humans.

Rhythmic sounds drift from the structure, and disperse in tinny, lyrical tunes across the expanse.

Before they reach the building, Aziraphale turns and faces Raphael. His posture is tense again, though it seems he's fighting it. He clasps his hands in front of himself.

"I understand if you're angry with me," he says.

Raphael halts.

"Angry?"

"Yes, angry. Upset. Intensely disapproving. Possibly even inclined to do violence with sufficient provocation. Angry."

"Oh. No, I'm not angry."

"It would be a perfectly reasonable anger. I hid some important information from you. You would be well within your rights to distrust me now."

"Nah, it's fine. I mean it's not ideal but I can understand why you'd do it."

"Can you really?"

Somehow, Raphael gets the impression that it might be Aziraphale who is, in fact, angry.

He hesitates.

Metatron's disapproval was very loud, but in and of itself it didn't really bother him. Metatron has always disapproved of him. With Aziraphale, somehow, it's different. Maybe because he and Muriel are the only other angels who seem even somewhat friendly towards him now.

Aziraphale's mouth wobbles.

"You've lost six thousand years worth of memories. What can you possibly understand about the situation now? Even putting aside the situation, you don't know me, either," he insists, balling a fist. "Even when you're like this, why are you always so-! You don't know everything!"

It seems he's being scolded again.

"When did I say I knew everything?" he wonders. His chest is twisting up again.

"You don't say it. You just, you act like it," Aziraphale accuses.

Raphael blinks, and considers this. Does he? He'd never have thought so. Would someone who knew everything ask so many questions that they developed a bad reputation for it?

Aziraphale isn't finished, though.

"You should get angry at me. You should be furious with me! Everything that has happened to you has been my fault. Didn't figure that out yet, did you? Of course not. But it's true. It's my fault you've lost yourself, that you're like this now, that you don't know what's going on and just walked blithely into danger. It's even my fault that I lost track of you on Earth! I dragged you into this, let Heaven harm you, lost you, and now Hell is hunting you and the Metatron's apparently trying to destroy you! And that still doesn't even cover the half of it! Yes, you should be very angry with me indeed!"

Raphael nods in understanding.

"Well, I'm still not angry at you," he decides.

Aziraphale makes an unappealing sound. Like something unseen is paining him.

"Are you alright?" Raphael checks, still mulling over some of the new information he's been given. More and more of it, it seems. He'd thought he'd figured out the important bits, but Aziraphale himself is still much of a mystery to him. The Supreme Archangel of Heaven, and yet, he doesn't seem to be at all on the same page as the Metatron. Nor has he been banished to face punishment and turned into a demon for the crime of dissent. Apparently his brand of dissent is more to God's tastes.

"No I'm not alright!" Aziraphale tells him. His face scrunches up horribly, and he makes a sharp, cutting sort of gesture with one arm. "I'm a fool, and I've ruined everything!"

More bad, twisting feelings are provoked by this.

Stop it, he thinks. Stop being... sad.

"That's not true," Raphael assures him.

When he seems like he might disagree, Raphael raises a forestalling hand.

"No, listen to me," he says. "Everything is not ruined. Look around yourself. The universe is still working. You're here, and I'm here, and somewhere in that general direction the Earth is still turning, and all around everywhere the stars are still burning. You haven't ruined it. Honestly, you probably can't, at least not without a lot of help and very deliberate concerted effort."

Aziraphale snorts. He closes his eyes, heaves a very heavy breath, and then rubs a hand across his forehead.

"Yes," he says. "I suppose I was overstating matters a tiny bit."

Raphael offers him a smile. It occurs to him, then, that it could have been that Aziraphale was upset because the universe still existed. That he might also be in favour of the destroy-everything plan, seeing as how he is part of Heaven, and working with Metatron. But somehow he just doesn't think that's the case. It doesn't fit.

He feels his own expression shift towards severity at the tenor of his thoughts.

"I need to ask you something. Did you know that Metatron wanted my passkey?"

Aziraphale looks confused.

"Passkey? What passkey?"

"You don't know?"

"I really have no idea. What passkey do you mean?"

Raphael regards him for a moment more, and decides he's telling the truth.

"Well to be honest, I'm not even supposed to mention its existence to anyone who doesn't already know about it," he admits.

Aziraphale straightens a little.

"On who's authority?" he asks.

"God's," Raphael admits. It wasn't a conversation so much as a command, and was one of the few times the Almighty ever spoke to him directly. It happened shortly before he undertook his first task. Of course, it was extremely memorable even though it was one-sided and only lasted the length of a couple authoritative sentences.

Aziraphale's face falls. He nods.

"Well, in that case, I suppose you had better not tell me."

Raphael nods back in agreement.

They make it a few more steps towards the building before Aziraphale stops again.

"Though," the other angel says. "If it's important to what's going on, perhaps you should tell me anyway. After all, I am the Supreme Archangel. The only reason I probably don't know about it as a matter of course is because I wasn't back when the Almighty was deciding who ought to know about it."

Raphael makes an unconvinced hum.

"I think if God expected you would need to know one day, then you would have been told about it even back then," he reasons.

"Not necessarily!" Aziraphale argues. "It could have been that it would have had unwanted consequences if it I knew about it back then, but would have completely different consequences if I knew about it now. There's a possibility that it is part of the divine plan for you to tell me now as opposed to back then, and that could be how I'm intended to know about it."

"Mmm... I think if that was the case, then I think God would also have told me that someday I might need to tell someone about it later on," Raphael muses.

"And there was... nothing like that? From God? No ambiguous statements open to multiple interpretations?"

"Nope. It was pretty straightforward."

"I see."

Aziraphale gives him a tight smile.

"Well then. I suppose that settles it. You ought to keep it yourself."

"Right."

"Under no circumstances should you tell me about it."

"My lips are sealed."

They make it a few more steps.

"It's just-" Aziraphale starts again.

Raphael sighs.

"No, hear me out. It's just, if it's relevant to what's going on, if it's something that might put you in danger, then... I think you should tell me."

"You think I should defy the will of God?" Raphael asks in plain terms, raising an eyebrow. He's actually a little curious at the answer here. Even more curious at will he'll do if Aziraphale says 'yes'.

"Of course not!" Azirphale hastily replies instead. He visibly thinks for a moment, then squares his shoulders. "No, of course not. You're right, you're absolutely right. Do not tell me! I shouldn't have even suggested it."

He begins walking towards the building again at once, taking brisk, determined strides.

Raphael thinks that maybe the reason he keeps bringing it up is because he's desperately curious. He can sympathize with that. It's hard to just let it go, especially when there doesn't seem to be any reason for it. Of course, 'because God says so' is a reason, and in this case it's actually true and there's no middleman or alternate interpretations to muddy the waters. God directly said so. Raphael's an angel, he can't tell anyone about it.

But he doesn't have to leave Aziraphale completely in the dark, either.

"It's something to do with how the universe works," he says as he catches up to the other.

Aziraphale raises his hands in alarm.

"What are you doing? I said don't tell me!" 

"I won't," Raphael promises. "And I'm not! I'm just giving you a little hint."

"You probably shouldn't even do that much!"

"God didn't say anything against hinting or letting people work things out on their own. Anyway, I think you're right, and it is important. You should know this much."

Aziraphale glances at him sideways. Then he looks ahead. Then he stops, turns, and folds his arms.

"Alright then, tell me. But carefully. Ambiguously. Don't say too much."

"Got it. So, it's to do with the universe. The Metatron wants something from me that will help him destroy it," he explains. "He says it's part of the plan."

"It certainly is not!"

Raphael grins in relief at the fervency of Aziraphale's reply.

"Of course it isn't. If it worked like that, God wouldn't even need angels to do it. Don't worry, I won't give it to him."

Far from seeming reassured, however, Aziraphale just looks more concerned.

"Let me just... let's just be as clear as possible here, you're telling me that you have something that could help destroy the universe? And Metatron is one of the people who knows about it?"

Raphael mentally reviews the statement.

"Yes," he confirms.

Aziraphale's furrowed brow eases some, but Raphael doesn't get the impression that he's been reassured. It looks sort of like he's quietly alchemizing his body's bones to steel in preparation of something.

"Why in heaven's name do you have something like...? No, don't answer that. Who else knows about it? Can you tell me that?"

He has to think, but he's fairly sure that he can. Insofar as he can tell him what he already has. But no lightning has struck him down and the skies haven't opened up to booming disapproval, so he thinks they're still in the clear.

"Well there's me, obviously. Metatron, also obviously. Then there's the other senior angels who were a part of the relevant projects at the time: Lucifer and Gabriel. Possibly some of the other archangels know, but I doubt it."

"Gabriel knows about this?" Aziraphale confirms.

Raphael nods. They start walking again then, with slightly less frantic energy, but still at a quick pace. There are no more questions, at least for now. Privately Raphael's a little disappointed. He kind of wants to talk more. Ask more things, too. But Aziraphale actually does seem very determined to reach their destination now, and the beauty of Alpha Centauri is distracting, too. His attention keeps wandering to their surroundings, and to the sky above them.

When they reach the building, Aziraphale raps his knuckles pointedly against the door.

"Who goes there?" an unfamiliar voice calls out.

"It's Aziraphale, and... a friend," he answers.

Oh, they're friends? That's nice actually.

There's the muffled sound of voices, surprisingly too indistinct to make out the actual words. Raphael doesn't think they're too far away, so it must be something about the building that's obscuring the details. He takes a step back, looking to see if he can pinpoint what's creating the effect. Before he can, the door opens.

He is definitely not expecting the individual who opens the door.

The archangel Gabriel offers Aziraphale a polite smile, before glancing towards Raphael.

He moves as if to say something. Pauses. Then his violet eyes widen at Raphael as he visibly startles. His head whips back towards Aziraphale, who raises a forestalling hand.

"It's a long story. Might we come in?"

Chapter Text

A little over six months ago...

The sight of a familiar hand stopping the elevator feels like a miracle. Aziraphale holds Crowley's name in his mouth like a silent prayer, and suddenly hope surges in him again. He almost can't believe it. Part of him expects Crowley to look into the elevator, offer a pithy, parting shot, and then let him proceed up to Heaven with the Metatron. Alone again.

This isn't what happens.

While the Metatron watches in stony silence, conspicuously bereft of comment or even an encouraging twinkle in his eye, Crowley pushes his way into the elevator.

"That was close! Lucky I caught up to you in time," he says.

Aziraphale can't hold it in anymore.

"Crowley," he breathes, so relieved that he could cry.

He won't, because they're in the celestial elevator and because the Metatron is right beside them, but he knows that he utterly fails to keep all of the emotion out of his voice.

Crowley doesn't smile at him. Doesn't even look at him, which is not... ideal. But they aren't alone. They can't talk. Aziraphale can't ask him what changed his mind and expect to get an honest answer, or possibly any answer at all. He glances at the Metatron and holds his tongue, while Crowley glibly claims to have just had a few errands to run before he caught up with them.

It is, perhaps, the longest elevator ride of Aziraphale's life. He can feel his lips still tingling, almost bruised despite that the... the gesture, the temptation, or... or whatever it was meant to be, back at the bookshop, the contact, wasn't nearly so rough as to bruise an angel's lips. He fights the urge to touch them again, too distracted with reigning himself in to pay attention to the invisible sparks of discontent passing between Crowley and Metatron.

Before the doors open again, it's the Metatron who speaks.

"I'm not surprised you changed your mind. It's an unprecedented opportunity that Aziraphale here has won for you, after all," he says to Crowley. His tone is remote. High-handed. He sounds like the Voice of God, standing in judgment over all of the rest of them.

He hadn't sounded that way before, but Aziraphale supposes that he can't expect all of Heaven to trust Crowley overnight. They don't know him. For most of his time on Earth, Crowley has played the part of a demon. He couldn't be anything else, every good deed attributed to him would be another punishment that Hell heaped onto his shoulders. Metatron doesn't know that Crowley is the most deserving fallen angel who could have ever been chosen to regain his grace. But he'll learn. Aziraphale won't tolerate this current culture of... of, intolerance! And in time it will become as obvious to everyone else as it already is to him, because when he doesn't have to hide it, Crowley shines.

Even now, right now, he's doing it. Shining in his own way. Here in this elevator, with Aziraphale. Coming with him to Heaven, even though he has so many reservations. Because it's the right thing to do after all.

It must be.

Crowley smiles sardonically at Metatron, but doesn't answer him. The lights passing over them make him look washed out, sinister, and Aziraphale recognizes the tension in his jaw, the deliberate insouciance of his body language.

He's still angry.

Aziraphale will make it up to him. He isn't unaware of the cause of Crowley's reservations, nor is he blind to the fact that he's probably turned up at this last second more because he distrusts Heaven with Aziraphale than because he has faith in Aziraphale's plan. But he must have at least a little faith in it, and in Heaven too. Lingering somewhere in the recesses of his soul, buried beneath thousands of years of conflict and struggle.

If Crowley can preserve a little faith in Heaven, all the more reason for Aziraphale to prove that it's not unfounded.

When they arrive, the Metatron tries to put him to work straight away. He has to dig in his heels, to reiterate that it's been a long while since he was up here, that he needs re-familiarize himself with everything before he can possibly 'jump right in' at a leadership position.

"It's not usually how it's done," the Metatron says.

"It's an unprecedented case. You said it yourself. So how can there be a 'usual way' for it to be done?" Crowley replies, smiling with a lot of teeth.

The Metatron returns him a cold stare.

"I didn't miss that questioning habit of yours," he declares.

"Break my heart why don't you," Crowley sneers.

"If this is going to work, you two can't be at one another's throats over nothing!" Aziraphale insists.

It's not an ideal start to his new posting, but it does finally get Metatron to give them a little time and space to catch their breaths. Aziraphale feels an anxious anticipation threatening to overwhelm him. He's not sure if the feeling counts as good or bad. He tries to tell himself that it's excitement for the good works ahead of him, for this opportunity to fix things and get Heaven back on the right track, but it feels perilously close to the kind of fear he used experience during the Great War instead.

"You changed your mind," he blurts to Crowley instead, focusing on the one unambiguously good thing.

Crowely walks in circles across from him, fast but directionless, like an animal that's just heard the cage door shut.

"Yeah, about that," he replies. It doesn't sound like he's going to apologize for anything he had said before, but Aziraphale decides he doesn't need to. It was a lot to spring on him, after all, and the things said... no, it was his own fault for not being more mindful of how he presented it. He got swept up, too enthusiastic. Possibly a little bit too frightened that if he wasn't enthusiastic, he wouldn't be able to convince...

Well.

It's all behind them now!

He wants to touch Crowley. It's a little overwhelming, and not at all appropriate for Heaven. And anyway, he'd have to catch him and stop him first, and Crowley has not stopped moving since he began.

"No one is here. You can calm down, we're perfectly safe," Aziraphale says. The last part falls flat, he knows even as he's saying it. He's still trying too hard to convince himself of it. I'll keep you safe, is what he actually means, but he's not sure if Crowley's ego would accept that.

"This isn't a sealed chamber. We need one," Crowley only replies, and then he takes off. Moving through the corridors as if he knows where he's going.

With a jolt of alarm Aziraphale hurries after him. Even finds himself struggling to keep up with the brisk pace he sets.

"Where are we going? What do we need a sealed chamber for?" he asks. "Crowley, slow down a little would you!"

"Can't."

Fortunately, they reach what seems to be their destination. It looks mostly like the rest of Heaven, of course, but as they enter the chamber the metaphysical differences of the space become clear. The distant echoes of the heavenly chorus become more of a background vibration, and though the difference is minute, the gleaming light of divinity is less all-encompassing in the space.

As soon as they're in, Crowley turns to face him.

"There's not a lot of time, so. I have to go do a few things. I need you to handle the records. Make it seem like you've assigned me somewhere already, and then don't answer any questions about what for. When I get back, we'll set it up so it looks like I've been reinstated. I'll handle the appearances, don't worry, no one will be able to tell it's fake. It's not so hard to make a demon pass for an angel, actually, but I can't do it with nothing. Then we'll go from there."

Aziraphale stares at him in bewilderment.

"Why would...? Don't you want to be an angel again?" he asks.

"Of course I don't bloody-!" Crowley takes in a breath, then lets it out again. "I can't be an angel again, angel. That's not how it works."

He's finally standing still enough that Aziraphale can reach for him. He does, nearly touching. But then the recollection of what happened in the book shop, before, crashes into him, and he hesitates. He needs Crowley. He wants him by his side. They're a team! But as to the rest of it, he... it's what Heaven kicked Gabriel out for, isn't it? Fraternizing. Loving, but with the wrong kind of love. He doesn't want to reject it, but he's not sure if he can accept it yet either. He's not even sure how much of it Crowley means, whether that last gesture was for its own sake, or just another effort to tempt him with a human experience he hadn't yet succumbed to. Something to try and draw him away from Heaven's offer, possibly they only sort of pleasure Crowley had left in his arsenal that he hadn't already given.

He knows he can't start out his new position as Supreme Archangel by indulging in lust for a demon, though.

He stops short of touching Crowley. They both watch his hand as it withdraws.

He clears his throat.

"I don't see why it can't work that way. All we have to do is reinstate you, and then you really will be an angel again. It couldn't possibly change you that much, Crowley. You're already... well I know you don't like to hear it, but I think you're already more than good enough for it," he argues.

Crowley doesn't protest. Instead he lets out a long breath, and then he takes off his glasses.

His eyes are red-rimmed.

It roots Aziraphale to the spot in distress. He can't help the little sound of it that escapes him.

"I don't have time to explain. The longer we're here, the more time they have to work out their own response," Crowley tells him. "We've surprised them by my 'accepting' at the last minute, but every second that passes, we lose the advantage. The only way this works is if we handle my end of it the way I say. I'll disguise myself, I'll be really convincing, I'll even let all the rest of Heaven and Hell deadname me, but I'm not putting the halo back on. That's the deal. Take it or leave it, angel."

Aziraphale isn't sure if he feels more disappointment or relief. Of course it's got be another scheme. It probably wouldn't be Crowley if it wasn't.

But this way they'll still be together. And he'll have more opportunities, perhaps, to work Crowley up to the idea of simply coming back. He's spent centuries complaining that Crowley moves too fast for him. How callous of him not to consider before that with something like this, he might be doing the same. So many things have changed even since just this morning! Aziraphale himself can barely keep up with it, with the things he himself is proposing without pause, jumping from one issue to another. Last night he was fighting demons with fire extinguishers, and now he's being appointed Supreme Archangel and Crowley is in Heaven with him and there's a 37th class recording angel minding his book shop and the Metatron brought him coffee.

He just wants a minute to actually breathe.

"Alright," he agrees with a sigh. "If it makes you feel better, we'll do it your way. For now!"

"Brilliant. Spectacular. Cover for me," Crowley bids, and the he's gone. Taking off at a run, of all things, so that Aziraphale has to swallow back the urge to shout after him.

Even so, it's reassuring in a way. Crowley clearly has a plan.

At least that makes one of them.

Chapter Text

Aziraphale thinks, at first, that everything has gone off without a hitch. He doesn't even need to start working on a cover story, because no one asks him where Crowley is at all. He arrives with the demon in company, they have their hurried conversation, Crowley leaves, and then just a short while later Michael turns up with a sour expression and a massive stack of files (being transported by a lower ranking angel from the records rooms), and a list of administrative issues that have gone to seed during Gabriel's absence. No questions, no concerns, not even a snide "and where is your little friend?"

It's all bureaucratic matters, of course, organization patrols and schedules and assignments, duty rosters, observation outposts, and the like. Aziraphale feels a shudder of dismay as he's left to deal with the mountain of paperwork. He doesn't recollect Gabriel doing paperwork. He's fairly sure that Gabriel never even had a desk, but... well. It's been a while. Duties do shift, and the nature of the Supreme Archangel's duties have always been rather vague and all-encompassing in possible scope.

And if it's a test, if Heaven wants to see whether he can handle the mundane as well as the extraordinary in terms of situations, it's one he's eager to pass!

It's just that, Heaven is very... magnificent of course but also... Heaven. There's no music to listen to while he sorts through reports, no cup of tea to pour himself, no windows to open out to the bustle of the street, or any other such tiny appeasements to help him keep his focus on the task at hand. No unsolicited interruptions. He knows that it's supposed to be a good thing to work without 'frivolous distractions', it's just that it somehow makes it all the more difficult, his focus drifting towards the blank spaces around him and lingering overlong on the disquietingly pristine rather than sticking to the job.

He shakes his head at himself. No, he mustn't get discouraged. If he does this, it'll be all the more reasonable when he slips in his cover for Crowley's absence, for whenever anyone actually decides to care about it. So far it's been utterly irrelevant, though, and he's starting to think that Crowley might have a point when he goes on about Heaven and bees. Not that he's right! But perhaps not entirely off-base either. The comparison is crude, but... well anyway. They should probably take a closer look at the security systems at some point, to prevent these kinds of lapses. But later. When they're not working out so well in Aziraphale's favour.

He manages to get through a fair number of the assignments before he can take no more, and decides to stretch his legs. It's Heaven, so there will be very little to actually see and nowhere worth going at the moment, but it still strikes him as a better prospect than staying put and carrying on endlessly right now.

He barely gets out of the chamber when the alarm goes off. A familiar feeling, strange yet not unpleasant, passes over him. It takes him a moment to place it.

Someone has tried to stop time.

Someone in Heaven has tried to stop time.

The implications strike him and he is hurrying before he can even finish his own realization. Aziraphale has never met an angel who could stop time before. Possibly some of the higher ranking ones can and he has just never had the occasion to witness it, that would make more sense than not. However, he does know one being who possesses such an ability.

One being not on the side of the angels. Not completely. Not yet.

But trying to stop time in Heaven wouldn't work. Time doesn't even totally exist in Heaven, it's an entirely different plane, though that's not to say that there isn't a form of time nonetheless in operation. Crowley knows that. He wouldn't do something as foolish as attempting the trick here unless he was either deliberately trying to set off an alarm, or...

Or, it was a last resort. The only thing he could think to do to try and get out of some trouble or prevent some disaster.

As his thoughts catch up with him, Aziraphale ceases running and instead manifests himself directly at the source of the alarm. Rather, he tries to, but instead he bounces off of something and lands closely adjacent to the point he'd been aiming for.

"What in Heaven's name is going on?!" he demands.

There is a group of angels already present at his destination. Lower ranking members of various battle orders, so, individuals quite directly under his command now. At least, they ought to be. They lower their heads deferentially.

"Supreme Archangel, sir, we heard the alert and responded, but the situation is unclear," one of them tells him.

"Oh? Oh! Yes, well. Erm. Best we'd clarify it, then," Aziraphale decides, and moves towards the barrier that's blocking him from manifesting at the actual source of the disturbance. He considers sending his new subordinates away. After all, if this is Crowley's doing and is some kind of mistake, then the fewer witnesses the better. But he can't think of a good reason and he doesn't know enough to be certain he won't need them, either, so in the end he lets them linger while he works on dismantling the blockage in his path.

It's a heavenly seal. Not something Crowley himself could have put up.

At first it seems nearly impassable. But then all at once it comes down, almost too easily by contrast, and Aziraphale finds himself barging into an empty chamber.

He whirls in place, disquiet increasing. After deliberating for a moment, he motions at the lower order angels.

"Take a look around. Don't harm anyone if you come across them! Just bring them to me. Report anything suspicious, but if you encounter anything strange, don't touch it," he commands.

They do as they're told, no questions asked. Of course they don't ask questions. They're angels, and he's the Supreme Archangel now. Why would they question his commands? And yet, he still braces himself for it. Expects it. He's too accustomed to dealing with humans, he supposes.

They don't find anything.

No trace of trouble, or hint of what might have set off the alarms. A cheerful officer from the 147th host tells him that the alarms have been misfiring a bit since Gabriel left, as Heaven went onto high alert to try and find him, and the increased sensitivity has troubles accounting for some - and here Aziraphale gets a pointed look - chaotic variables. By Heaven's standard, even a stray scrap of paper is a chaotic variable. Aziraphale only arrived with the clothes on his back, but that's still more than enough to make an over-tuned security system flinch, even without the undoubtedly extreme variable of Crowley.

If he was less acquainted with Crowley's miracles, he might believe it really was just a malfunction. Might.

Instead he worries, uncertain of what to do. No one asks him about Crowley's absence, still. It's like they don't even know that he came up. The lack of need for any excuses becomes its own source of unease.

I hope you know what you're doing, he thinks, and what's taking you so long?

All the while he keeps doing the work he's given, wondering when Metatron or one of the other archangels will bring up the matter of the End Times again. Wondering when he'll get his chance to intervene, to start redirecting Heaven's course. He suggests a few meetings to discuss current projects, but Metatron puts him off, and then tells him about some troubles that Muriel's been having in the book shop. Suggests, tactfully, that he might wish to go and direct her for a short while, before coming back to resume his new duties.

Aziraphale seizes the chance to go back to Earth, to see if he can find where Crowley has gotten to and what he's actually doing. They'll be freer to talk down there as well.

He doesn't find Crowley at any of their usual haunts. Nor at the unusual haunts. Doesn't even find any messages hidden or waiting for him, not even at the old drop off point in Rome, which they haven't used in centuries. He doesn't think Crowley would go so far as to use the one in Siberia, but it's one no one else ever found out about, so on that basis he checks it too.

Nothing.

As if he never even got out of Heaven to begin with.

It's still only when he gets back to Heaven and Metatron greets him with a paternalistic smile that he understands how badly things must have gone wrong.

"I have an excellent update for you, Aziraphale!" the Voice of God says, gesturing towards a path that leads to several unfamiliar heavenly chambers. "The reinstatement has been a total success. Haniel tells me that the Archangel Raphael has been restored, and that the demon Crowley is no more. Do you know, I actually think morale will be greatly improved by the restoration of another archangel to our ranks! Plucked from the legions of the Enemy, no less! Well, well, well. Quite the development. I had my doubts that you would be able to convince him. But I can see now that I made the right decision when I extended my offer to you."

The Metatron smiles.

Aziraphale breaks out into a run.

Chapter Text

A little more than six months later...

The inside of the building on the third planet of Alpha Centauri looks... strange.

Raphael is admittedly not an expert on building interiors, having only seen two so far, but he's pretty sure this is weird just because it strikes him as such. The middle part of the central chamber is occupied by a likeness of Gabriel, which he's pretty sure actually was made by humans and which is comprised largely of stone. It's a good likeness.

Off to one side from it is a brightly coloured box that is producing the strange sounds he'd heard from outside. A mechanical device. Very interesting mechanisms, too, even at a glance. The disembodied voice emerging from it isn't 'speaking' as such, it's an echo, an imprint that's been preserved for replication. It keeps going on about something get closer.

For some reason it inspires the faintest twinge of irritation in him. Like the sound equivalent of a mildly toxic chemical.

There are other things inside. Tables and shelves covered in myriad objects. Some from Earth, some from Alpha Centauri, and a few that look to have origins in Heaven. Some have an origin he can't guess at without closer inspection. There are tapestries hanging from the ceiling, mostly also depicting likenesses of Gabriel, and painted onto a far wall is a map of Alpha Centauri. The stars move in accordance with the current alignment of the universe. Opposite the map, there is another wall covered in plants, and another plant-like life form that is also fundamentally different. Raphael regards it in fascination.

He thinks he remembers the notes for that one. 'Fungus'.

Myriad small life forms crawl and fly around the plants and fungus, stretching up to a second floor of the structure, where an unfamiliar figure comprised of a swarm of smaller entities is lounging around. As Raphael observes, the smaller entities reconfigure their density until they almost seem indistinguishable from a singular organism.

This one's a demon, he thinks. Like the one that showed up briefly in the Bentley.

Aziraphale smiles awkwardly at Gabriel.

"Well. Gabriel. I suppose you remember Raphael?" he asks, motioning towards him.

Gabriel looks over.

"Yup," he confirms. He's adorned himself extremely colourfully, compared to what Raphael is accustomed to seeing him wear in the past and also compared to the other angels he saw in Heaven recently. But it's not at all like Aziraphale either. Gabriel is wearing blues, purples, pinks and pinks along with his bright and pure whites.

Raphael offers him a small wave of acknowledgement.

"Mmhm," Gabriel repeats his confirmation, before looking back at Aziraphale and squinting at him in confusion. "That's Raphael alright. Never thought I'd see him again. Except for, you know, the shadow of him lingering in the face of the demon he became. Didn't think you could reverse that."

Aziraphale makes a sound of distress.

"I didn't mean to!" he protests. "The Metatron said we could reinstate him. If I'd known..."

"Ohhh! Yeah. I guess Metatron maybe could do that," Gabriel muses, tilting his head. "That'd take a lot of juice, though. The Fall's not really a decision Heaven can gainsay, but if you took part of space-time by the tender parts and got an angel like Haniel or Uriel to help... yeah. Wow. I would not have signed off on that. Well, not to get Raphael back anyway. No offence."

"I didn't sign off on it either! At least, not intentionally," Aziraphale says, to Raphael's interest. "It was a miscommunication."

The demon on the landing swarms closer.

"That's fucking horrifying," they say.

Raphael doesn't realize at first that they're directing the comment towards him, but then, they don't seem to be looking anywhere else. Not until they turn to Aziraphale instead, and gesture.

"You let them do that to him? But I thought you and Crowley were... you know. Like me and Gabriel."

What does that mean? What's this demon to Gabriel?

"That's not your business!" Aziraphale snaps. The words are clipped, but he sounds resigned. He looks at Raphael for a moment, and then at the building around them. "And for your information it wasn't a matter of 'letting' at all!"

"Wait hang on. What do they mean you and... Crowley were like them? What are they 'like'? And what are the two of them doing out here?" Raphael asks.

Aziraphale gives him a strained look that at least one question is very unwelcome somewhere in there. Possibly all of them are.

"Oh yeah!" Gabriel says. "Raphael fell during the Great War! Before the Garden was even finished. So he doesn't know anything! Like, not anything, not even the fraternal camaraderie of fellow soldiers on the battlefield. The only concept of love is God's, right? Wow. That must suck for you, Aziraphale. Like torture levels of sucking. Just wildly unpleasant, huh?"

The strained look on Aziraphale's face worsens.

Raphael remembers now that he's always found Gabriel kind of annoying.

"I have my own concept of love," he asserts. "We're supposed to love humans too, and the rest of creation. It was in the meetings. Got Lucifer all pissy."

He's not sure what this topic has to do with Gabriel and the demon here, and perhaps he ought to have figured that out before he spoke up, because Aziraphale doesn't look any happier.

Gabriel's expression softens somewhat, though.

"Oh yeah... I remember. That was a long time ago." A chuckle escapes him. "I was just sitting there listening to this stuff about loving humanity coming out of the Metatron's fat mouth, thinking wow, I know God's wisdom is all-encompassing but it's going to take some doing to love these weird upgraded monkeys. Like was the monkey design itself even that good in the first place? With all the bodily excretions? Not worth getting into it over though, or at least that's what I thought, but Lucifer was always the guy who had to say what everyone was else was just thinking. He just didn't get it. You think it, you don't say it."

Aziraphale looks vaguely nauseated now. He opens his mouth, closes it, then opens again, making disbelieving sounds.

"You...! Gabriel! What for Heaven's sake do you mean?"

Gabriel blinks and shrugs.

"Lucifer's whole problem? Back in the day. Well, you wouldn't know I guess, you and the other principalities just got reports. But yeah he just wouldn't let it go. Like yeah man, we get it, nobody's keen on like ninety percent of this design, but you just gotta shut your mouth and follow orders. And then one day the whole thing will be finished anyway, and we can all move on. God's plan takes priority blah blah blah maybe the next project will be better. But Lucifer always thought he could change God's mind. Well I guess if anybody could have it would have been him, but, nope! Wasn't gonna happen."

Aziraphale looks aghast at Gabriel. Then he looks at Raphael.

Raphael raises his hands.

"I didn't agree with Lucifer," he says. "The only bit I didn't like was the time scale. The universe can run for a really long time, I don't see why it shouldn't be allowed to. The human thing's a little weird but God's obviously going somewhere with it."

"Oh this is nostalgic," Gabriel says, making a face which strongly implies he means that in a negative sense.

Aziraphale reaches some sort of breaking point around the same time.

"You can't agree with Satan!" he exclaims, shrill and outraged. "You're an angel!"

"I just told you I didn't agree with Lucifer," Gabriel retorts. "I thought he should have shut his mouth and done his job. Duh."

"I think he means about humans being unlovable," Raphael reasons.

Gabriel shrugs.

"Why? They pretty much are. I guess they weren't so bad when I lost my memories, but when I lost my memories, I forgot what a pain in the ass having to run around doing things for them for centuries was. And God was always like 'oh this is the main event, humans are the most important thing', as if that's not at all hurtful for the rest of us to hear, but then even God almost just killed them all a bunch of times. Wish I'd figured out sooner that I could just tap out of the entire project, if I'd met Beelzebub some time before The Flood we could have run off and I wouldn't have ever been conscripted into processing souls due to some teased non-apocalypse that put every single angel in Heaven to work on overflow for like sixty years. You'd think if God decided humanity was evil enough to merit mass culling then the souls would also default to Hell, but then I guess Hell already had too much on their plate anyway, so, lose-lose."

Aziraphale gapes.

Raphael tilts his head.

"There was a flood?" he asks.

"Flood is kind of understating it, but yes," Gabriel tells him. Then he turns back to Aziraphale and motions at him. "This is sort of what I was like when I lost my memory, isn't it? Huh. I think I get why you guys didn't actually just throw me out the window. It's weirdly endearing."

Aziraphale sinks down into one of the seats next to a textile nude likeness of Gabriel, made of plant fibers. The demon - Beelzebub? - comes down from the landing in a buzzing swarm, then regains coherence as a singular being. Though actually, Crowley's not certain they are a singular being even when they superficially resemble one. Though they're still recognizable as a demon, there's a lot more variation of nature between them and the demon he briefly met in the Bentley, than there is between any two angels he's met.

"Aw, babe, you'd have run away with me before the flood?" they ask Gabriel in an odd tone of voice.

Gabriel smiles widely at them.

"I would run away with you even before. If I'd known you better during the war, I would have defected."

Beelzebub hums. Gabriel sighs.

It's really weird.

Then they seem to remember that they aren't the only two people still in the room.

"Well. Fascinating as this all is, you're interrupting couple time," Beelzebub says, and leans against Gabriel. He doesn't seem to have a problem with this proximity. In fact, he seems to be enjoying it, even going so far as to interlace their fingers together.

Aziraphale appears to be too distracted with his emotions to comment on this bizarre interaction, or on the implication of unwelcome.

"Sorry for interrupting?" Raphael offers in his stead.

Beelzebub scrutinizes him more from this closer vantage.

"I guess it's not your fault. For once," they determine. Then they shake their head, and afterwards don't seem quite able to look at him again. Gabriel hums and shares a look. Some kind of silent communication. Raphael can't determine the frequency it might be on though, and it doesn't last long before Gabriel addresses himself and Aziraphale again.

"So, what brings you to our little love nest anyway?"

Chapter Text

"Gabriel. Raphael has something that can destroy the universe, that God told him not to disclose to anyone who didn't already know about it, but Metatron knows about it and apparently you also know about it. So I want you to tell me what it actually is, so that Raphael doesn't have to defy God to do it," Aziraphale says.

He says it very sternly.

Gabriel opens his mouth, but Beelzebub replies first.

"What makes you think Gabriel's not going to get into trouble for talking about it?" the demon demands, still holding on to the archangel in question.

Is this... usual? For demon and angel relations? Raphael had the strong impression that it was meant to be a lot more hostile than this.

Though, Gabriel did leave Heaven and somehow lose his job to Aziraphale. On the other hand, Gabriel isn't a demon, he's still an angel. That begs a lot of questions about how this whole situation with Hell works, or how God determines which transgressions merit some transmutation into another being and which ones don't.

"It probably depends on whether or not God told Gabriel not to talk about it," Aziraphale reason.

Gabriel ponders this for a moment.

"Hm... yeah. No, I'm not supposed to talk about it either," he determines. "Though, if that's what Metatron's going for, I'm not in favour."

"Oh I didn't give it to him," Raphael agrees.

"He asked you for it?"

"Yeah, he turned into his big head form and yelled at me until Aziraphale hit him with the Bentley. Then he went careening off into space and we left."

Gabriel barks out a laugh. Beelzebub also looks amused, while Aziraphale is standing quite rigidly to one side, his own expression uncommonly severe.

"I don't see what's so amusing about this," Aziraphale interjects.

"You don't see what's amusing about hitting the Metatron with a car? I barely lived on Earth for long at all and even I know that's funny," Gabriel replies, shaking his head at him. "I'm doing that thing where I'm envisioning it happening and the only downside is that I don't know enough about cars or space to probably get it right. Does the car do that thing where it records whatever's in front of it? Is there a recording? Can we watch it?"

"No, the Bentley does not have a dashboard camera."

"I think I can recreate it for you if you like," Raphael offers.

"We are getting off track!" Aziraphale protests, but it's not like it will take long, so Raphael heads over to an open patch of floor anyway.

"I can do it quickly," he asserts, then sets about manipulating the concepts of light, shadow, and colour, recalling the scene from memory. Gabriel and Beelzebub move closer to see, and despite his protests, so does Aziraphale. Raphael feels a touch briefly settle against his back, before it's swiftly retracted again.

He shoots Aziraphale a curious glance, but the other is looking at the floor, and he does need to focus. So he sets the odd moment aside, and rubs his hands together. A little tweaking, the right amount of energy, the floor isn't an ideal canvas but it will be suitable, and then...

"Ta-da!" he whispers.

The scene erupts anew onto the floor. It's inevitably more crude than actually watching it had been. He can't recreate all of the details, so the distant stars are just tiny dots, and looking too hard wouldn't reveal the material composition of the Bentley or the divine energies coursing through the Metatron. But on a superficial level, it suffices. The Metatron's big angry head rages so close as to be nearly incomprehensible, before the Bentley smacks into it and sends it spinning off.

Beelzebub cackles, clapping their hands. Aziraphale sighs but offers him a tiny smile.

Gabriel is quiet for a long moment.

"Hm," he says. Then he shakes his head. "Might have actually been funnier when I was envisioning it. But good job! Oh hey Aziraphale. Let's talk. Outside."

Aziraphale glances at Raphael, but doesn't argue as he lets Gabriel take him outside for some reason.

Raphael frowns after them.

He gets distracted by Beelzebub nudging his elbow.

"Can this be permanent?" they ask, pointing down to the recreated scene.

"You want to keep a permanent replay of the Metatron getting hit by a motor vehicle running on your floor?" he asks.

"Yeah," they say.

Raphael considers the matter.

"I think I can only get it to last for about five hundred years," he admits. "Anything more than that and I'd need my toolkit, and I haven't found that yet."

"Five hundred years is fine," Beelzebub says with a breezy wave.

"It's not really permanent though..."

"Eh, close enough for how things run now, Starshine."

"Really? You think five hundred years is close to permanent?" he can't help but check again, shaking his head and wrinkling his nose. "It really isn't."

"Yes it is. Just depends on the scale," Beelzebub tells him. "You're still thinking on a cosmic level. But five hundred years is longer than a human lives for. Longer than several generations of humans would live for. We do a lot more measuring of concepts by humanity's yardstick now, so, yeah. Close enough to permanent."

Raphael mulls this over, while Beelzebub goes and drags a chair towards the recreated scene, and then plops down into it.

"Hey, can you make the car be different things? Like sometimes a train or an ox or a big swarm of insects?" they ask him. "Or Gabriel doing a kick?"

"Hmm... maybe?"

Raphael doesn't think he could do a 'train' or an 'ox', because he's not actually seen those yet, but he could probably make the image shift sometimes to look like Gabriel or the swarming composition that is Beelzebub's demonic being. He shucks his sleeves up and gets to work trying, and manages to pass some surprisingly not-unpleasant time with the demon, tweaking the image of Metatron getting smacked into space until it's playing on a loop that changes what's doing the smacking every time it starts over.

It's funny, he used to only use this craft to demonstrate what he was engineering for some of the lower order angels who were working on other parts of the cosmos and needed to know how to tell if the project was going to plan or if something had gone awry. He'd learned the skill for Lucifer, who was created knowing the true nature of light and hadn't needed to learn it at all.

He glances at Beelzebub, who's cackling and clapping at the display.

He doesn't recognize them at all. But they must have been an angel once too, right? Probably.

Someone he used to know?

The door to the building makes a loud sound as it opens again. Gabriel and Aziraphale come back inside, neither of them looking very pleased. Beelzebub sits up straighter, frowning.

"-remember is that Lucifer was God's favourite," Gabriel is saying. "Okay, not even ambiguously, out of all the angels God liked Lucifer the most and everyone knew it, and when Lucifer disobeyed God slam-dunked him into a furnace. Raphael over there made the stars and probably could have placed a respectable third if Heaven ran popularity contests, and he got drop-kicked in right after Lucifer. Heaven fired me just because I wouldn't vote with the majority, and I wasn't surprised, I just figured they'd send me to Hell too. You can't change Heaven. Everybody who's tried just isn't part of Heaven anymore."

Aziraphale comes up short.

"You weren't kicked out Heaven for disagreeing. You were consorting with Beelzebub!" he says.

Gabriel laughs.

"You think that's why I got kicked out? Heaven didn't learn about that until you did! Nope, they fired me because I wouldn't go along with another apocalypse."

"What do you mean-"

"It wasn't a furnace."

Beelzebub's interjection startles the angels out of their argument. Raphael looks over, and is a little bit surprised to see that the demon is staring at him for some reason.

"What?" he asks.

They regard him for a moment, then look at Gabriel instead.

"The pit. When God slam-dunked Lucifer, it wasn't a furnace. I know because I was there."

Gabriel's expression softens.

"I was just being hyperbolic, Bees," he says.

"Yeah, I know," Beelzebub affirms, with a smile that doesn't reach their eyes. "But even being hyperbolic, it wasn't a furnace. Not when God cast us down into it. The Pit was dark, and it was cold. It was the coldest thing any of us had ever felt. A lot of Hell's still cold, the kind of cold an angel can actually feel, that comes only out of the deepest nothingness. And there was no way out. Lucifer tried, we all did, I don't know how long we spent down there trying to dig or blast or beg our way out, but it was a long while. Eventually Lucifer got the idea to burn through the coldness. But the problem was, there was nothing to burn."

Beelzebub lets out a sigh that hums with the edge of a buzz.

"Well, there was something to burn, actually. It just wasn't viable until there were more of us. The only thing in the pit. Angels. First our group, then others. You arrived," they nod at Raphael. "More came. Some were ones we knew had been sympathetic to our stance. Others, who knew? It didn't matter at that point. At first we were horrified, and held each other and cried for God's mercy. Then we started to think, there are so many of us, surely God won't leave so many of us here in the dark and the cold? And then, well then it was too many of us, the crush of wings and bodies so tight in some places that it was difficult to move."

"Good lord," Aziraphale says with a quiet sort of horrified realization. Raphael thinks he might also be connecting some unpleasant dots. Hellfire, everyone talked about.

Beelzebub scoffs at him.

"You always knew we burned. Everyone knows it. You lot just try not to think about the nasty particulars, so happily convinced it'd never be you, that we all deserved it. One moment we were struggling together in the dark, and the next, Lucifer was burning angels. It was fire like I'd never seen. I once flew into a star, and it barely singed me. But Lucifer moved to the bottom of the pit, and I think I thought he was going to try digging again, except he raised his arms and pushed us back and then called out the flames. It was beautiful. It was horrible. The fire began at the bottom of the pit, so the only way to escape was to try and climb to the top. Futile anyway. Eventually it was consuming everything, burning us, all of us, just constantly using us as fuel to attack the walls of the Pit."

They shake their head. Raphael's covered his mouth with his hand at some point. He doesn't even remember doing it.

Lucifer always was so good with light...

"And then what happened?" he asks quietly.

Beelzebub gives him a sardonic smile.

"What happened was it worked! Holes started crumbling open. The first ones were small, but we were so desperate to get away by then that we crawled, squirmed, wriggled, and poured our way through them. Nobody got out unchanged, because you had to change to get out. Then we started digging for the others."

They laugh, and then finally look at Aziraphale.

"Bet you didn't expect that! Demons will turn on one another for a laugh, but not a one of us didn't turn back around and start digging once we were out, either. Do you know what I was thinking, when I finally saw the sky again?" they ask.

"I can't imagine," Aziraphale quietly replies.

Beelzebub looks down at their hands, and the strange coverings on them. There are no burns anywhere to be seen. They flex their fingers.

"I thought to myself, no matter what else happens, one day, I'm going to put God at the bottom of that Pit," they confess. "But wouldn't God need tinder, too? So better put all of Heaven in there with Her as well, or maybe all Her precious human souls. Burn them all together. And that's what Hell's all about, Starshine." Their gaze slides over to Raphael. "But in a way that's what Heaven's all about, too. After all it was Heaven started putting people in the Pit first."

Raphael shivers, and deeply feels the phantom of suffering.

Gabriel walks over to Beelzebub. Despite the demon's recent words about wanting to burn angels who hadn't burned before, they don't look at him with ire. Instead they lean towards him. Gabriel puts his head down and whispers something against their hair, and Beelzebub turns into a swarm and covers the archangel, crawling across him like living raiment before settling down.

Gabriel seems utterly at ease with it, despite being head-to-toe in flies.

"So. That was a downer! Anybody want some hot chocolate?" he asks.

Chapter Text

Hot chocolate feels like it's trying to invade his mouth and coat everything in a thick residue before clogging its way down to the core of his being to sit there like a rock. It tastes like a lie coated in sweetness and cream.

Raphael does not think he cares for it. So far his experiences with beverages have been mixed at best.

Aziraphale sighs over his own mug.

"I suppose we should get to the point of this visit," he says. "Before there's any more side-tracking." He looks heavy and somber, and he's been awfully quiet since Beelzebub described the first punishment.

Raphael can't spare too much thought for it, though it seems to draw some of his focus nonetheless. But he's busy trying to reconcile everything he's been hearing lately from Metatron and now from Gabriel and Beelzebub with what he recollects from his own experiences. Trying to dig in to see if there's anything more in him.

There's got to be something, doesn't there? Even if it's hard to find. If Beelzebub remembers being an angel, then surely an angel can remember being a demon?

"I thought the point of your visit was to ask me to disclose top secret information," Gabriel observes. He's still covered in flies that are actually a demon, but he's acting as if it's perfectly normal, so maybe it is.

"No, I didn't know about that until after we arrived here," Aziraphale replies, and sets down his hot mug. Empty. One of his fingers taps against the side. He glances at Raphael, and then sighs.

Gabriel motions expectantly.

"Well? What then?"

"I need you to look after Raphael," Aziraphale says.

Raphael blinks. Gabriel scoffs.

"And... why would I do that?"

"Because you owe me! I helped you when you were alone and vulnerable and required assistance. I helped you because it was the right thing to do. And Crowley helped you too!"

"He did?" Raphael asks.

"Yes he did! It wasn't easy for him either. He went to quite a lot of trouble!" Aziraphale insists.

"Not to help me. To help you," Gabriel retorts, with a distinct look of condescension as he sips more of his own hot chocolate. "He hated me. Told me to jump out of a window. I mean... he stopped me before I actually did it, though."

His gaze slides over to Raphael.

"I guess you've got a point," Gabriel concludes. His demon fly mantle buzzes distractingly.

Aziraphale nods.

"I do. So you're going to help Raphael hide out here. Keep him safe. While I deal with... this horrendous problem that I've made."

Gabriel puffs his cheeks and lets out a gusty, unenthusiastic breath.

"Yeah okay. This is really going to cut in to couples time though."

"Don't you dare corrupt him with any... fornicating you and Beelzebub get up to!" Aziraphale insists.

Gabriel looks disgusted at the suggested.

"Fornicating? You think we do that? Like humans? Ew. No!" Something seems to occur to him then, and his expression of disgust intensifies. "Wait, did you and Crowley fornicate?"

Aziraphale reddens noticeably.

"Certainly not! Not that it would be any of your business if we did!" he snaps.

"Well it's just, you suggested that we were doing it-"

"I don't know the particulars of your relations with Beelzebub! And I don't care to! It's quite beside the point!"

Aziraphale's getting kind of shrill now. Raphael thinks this might be a good time to interject. He's not sure what might happen if the octaves keep going up, but when objects undergoing extreme pressure do that kind of thing there's usually explosions at the end.

"Uh, are you implying I should stay here while you... go?" he checks.

The question successfully deflates some of the tension. Huh. Neat. His questions don't normally do that.

"You'll be safe here," Aziraphale tells him. "No one knows it's where you are. And you can have a nice time! Take in the sights!"

Gabriel interrupts with a noise and a skeptical expression.

"I mean if I was going to guess where he'd hide, I'd definitely guess here? Like maybe not first but top ten guesses for sure," he says. "Even before the whole demon thing he was always going on about this place. 'Oh I made the prettiest triple star system in the constellation of Centauri, oh it came out so nice, this angel who was passing by complimented me on it' and on and on."

"It did come out nice," Raphael reasons, and then nods at Aziraphale. "And you were right to point out that it was pretty."

Aziraphale looks shocked. Then pained again.

Why, he wonders?

Maybe he forgot about the compliment.

Gabriel makes an odd noise.

"That was you?" he asks Aziraphale. "You were the passing principality? You two have been doing this since then?"

Doing what?

"Gabriel. Shut up," Aziraphale commands.

Then he turns and faces Raphael.

"Regardless of... other factors, this is a remote place and if anyone comes, you'll be able to tell straightaway. Unlike on Earth, where it's much more difficult. You should stay here and lay low with Gabriel and Beelzebub. Run away to some other corner of the galaxy if any trouble comes. No matter what, you have to keep safe."

Raphael considers this.

"Because you're afraid I'll help Metatron destroy the universe?" he asks.

"No! I mean... yes. Yes, that's why. Not that you'd do it on purpose, I don't think you would. But you have to keep safe to keep the whole universe safe as well. Do you understand, Raphael? Right now with the way things are, there's nothing more important. You have to treat your own safety as if the universe depends on it."

"Sounds a bit extreme," he argues. "And anyway, I won't give Metatron what he wants. He can bluster all he likes. He's not God. He can't actually make me."

"We shouldn't give him the chance to try!" Aziraphale insists.

"Alright then. If you think it's best."

For a moment Aziraphale looks surprised. It's as if he was gearing up to make more points, or have to answer more questions. But then after a moment he subsides, and a conflicted quality of relief overtakes him instead. Across from them Gabriel glances between them and sips his hot chocolate. Some of Beelzebub crawls onto the mug and drinks a sip from the rim as well.

"I do," Aziraphale tells him. "With you safe here, I can focus exclusively on handling the issues without... worrying."

"About the universe?"

"...Yes."

Raphael thinks he would like to help Aziraphale recover some peace, so he nods and opts to leave it at that. Help Aziraphale to not suffer apprehensions. Sounds good.

He keeps quiet as Gabriel finishes his coffee, and then he walks with Aziraphale back to the Bentley.

"I still have a lot of questions," he warns.

For some reason, that makes Aziraphale sigh.

"I know you do. I can only imagine! This has been so much for you, and I've done a really terrible job of taking care of you. But I promise, when we're together again, I'll answer any questions you have. Provided I know the answers, naturally."

Raphael smiles.

"I'll look forward to it," he says.

Aziraphale takes a while to go into the Bentley. He seems like he wants to say something, or maybe ask a question of his own, but then thinks the better of it. At length he finally does get into the car, and then he even manages to shut the door. For a while he just sits there, staring into Raphael's eyes. It's like he's looking for something inside of him. Probably the same thing Raphael's started looking for as well.

Crowley.

At last the Bentley starts, and Aziraphale drives off into the starry sky. Back in the general direction of Earth.

Raphael waits until he's left the trinary system.

Then he goes back to the 'love nest' of Gabriel and Beelzebub. The door's still open, so he just knocks on the frame next to it.

"Right!" he calls. "Thank you for the beverage and especially the information! I'll be going back to Earth by myself now."

Chapter Text

The first part of Earth which Raphael had visited had been distinctly damp.

The part he's in now is distinctly dry instead, despite being located along a very large river system. In the scant plans he'd seen for Earth's geography (mostly just the important bits), this place had been called Havilah, but it's not called that anymore. Raphael's pretty sure that the flooding Gabriel had referenced changed a lot of things, either that or the plans changed more between his last recollection and the actual implementation. But Earth's not that big, despite its importance, so it's not all that hard to work out the relevant locations anyway.

Unfortunately, Raphael doesn't find much. There's no sign of the Garden, though there are plenty of gardens in general to be found. Along with verdant lakes, lush green hills, highlands, and steppes, and the second lowest point of elevation on the planet. Just to be sure Raphael visits Eritrea and some other nearby countries in the Horn of Africa as well, but though there are a lot of places and things he thinks might be interesting and merit investigation, he doesn't find what he's looking for.

Where would Crowley have put it, if he put it anywhere? That's the question. If Heaven has it then that'll probably be more difficult, especially since the Metatron's almost certainly back by now, but Raphael is by nature an optimist.

He wracks his mind for other points of relevance mentioned about Earth, standing at the peak of Kirinyaga. The brightness of the sun hurts his eyes. He tries to lift his wings, then recollects that he put them away, and uses his hand to shield his gaze instead. Clouds drift past.

Wait a minute.

The sun.

Raphael alters his focus, and moves his hands so that rather than shielding his face, he's framing the yellow bright orb of it instead. He narrows his eyes, shifts his stance, and then really and truly for the first time looks directly at Sol.

There's something there.

Nothing bad. Not enough to cause problems. Not even enough to be noticeable, in fact, unless one already knew what they were looking for. But Raphael does, and so he sees it. With a soft hum he extends himself further, still not leaving the mountain top but also reaching past it as well, out across the space that is both immense and immediate. He settles one hand below the sun and one above it, gently pinches his fingers, and lifts.

When he pulls back, a golden trumpet is settled into his arms.

"Ha!" he exclaims in exhilaration. He had thought... he's not sure what, actually. But it seems he does know this Crowley at least a little bit as well as he knows himself.

His trumpet is more or less exactly as he recollects. Beautifully crafted, not too large, and very shiny. He turns it over in his hands, however, and raises his eyebrows at the characters carved in an unfamiliar along the opposite side.

Those are new.

It takes him a moment to parse them. Some intuition tells him that this is not a language that is spoken any longer by living humans.

Do NOT Blow.

It looks like his own script, so he's fairly certain that it's Crowley's, in fact.

"Well, obviously," he murmurs.

But having it might buy him some time, should anything else go awry. Metatron for one will definitely recognize it and know what it means. What it can do. It's nothing so desire as the passkey, but given the general direction of his interests, he'll probably want it. Most importantly however it is a crucial piece of evidence against Heaven's conduct.

After all, how could anyone have started the End Times without this? Maybe the sequence of events was not entirely hashed out, but Raphael began life with this trumpet in his hands, with a single instruction for its use: He will blow the trumpet when the day comes to the end.

But there were no days back then. Just the barest, distant concept of an 'end'.

He used to stuff it into celestial bodies all the time, actually. It's a wonder he didn't think to look there first of all.

Raphael considers putting it back in the sun for a moment. No one else has found it so far, it seems, and there's a certain danger in having it with him.

He looks up.

Thinks long and hard.

Then he ties the trumpet to his belt, and gets down off of the mountain instead.

That task done, he goes back to wet and rainy western Europe. Specifically to the part thereabouts where he had his first encounter with a demon. He steers somewhat clear of the book shop and the adjacent environs so that Aziraphale won't catch him, just in case, even though he finds himself a little curious to go back now. Aziraphale's probably in Heaven, but that angel Muriel might still be around, along with the humans that Aziraphale knows.

He wanders around for a while, trying to parse how one finds demons. There are some dark and dank places with unpleasant atmospheres. Raphael pokes around them, but only discovers humans who seem to be suffering various ailments and degrees of poisoning. It's not difficult to fix, at least, and he loses some time repairing human physiology to the best of his abilities, marvelling at the complexity and even chaos of it. It really can't be called an efficient design, but it's a compelling one nonetheless.

Still, there's pain, and suffering, and no reason that he knows of to ignore it.

It seems helping people is one to gain the attention of demons. The one he had seen before, the first time he got into the Bentley, approaches him after he's finished repairing a passing human's heart murmur.

"Just what do you think you are doing?" she demands.

"Oh, hello again! I was just... fixing some problems with the local operating systems?" he replies, with a shrug and gesture in the general direction of the populace.

"You were healing those people," the demon retorts, saying it like it's a bad thing. "That degree of interference requires sanctioning. You've done more than two hundred now! It's completely skewed the projected lifespans of nearly all of the affected humans, which means it's also skewed the metrics for anticipating which side will claim their souls!"

"How d'you mean?" Raphael wonders. He wiggles a hand and fixes a cancerous growth just beginning the breast tissue of human across the street.

"Stop it this instant!" the demon insists, though he notices that she's keeping a healthy amount of distance between them.

"You're awfully bossy, considering the last time we met you screamed and left again," he notes. "I'm Raphael, by the way."

"I know who you are, traitor," the demon says. She glances around, as if expecting something to come at her from some other direction. Raphael also looks around, but he doesn't see or sense anything, other than the overwhelming crush of mortal life and its attendant energies. Near as he can tell, it's just the two of them, at least within earshot.

"Who are you, then?" he asks.

The demon hesitates.

Then she straightens her shoulders and lifts her head.

"I'm Shax. Acting Duke of Hell, soon to be... non-Acting Duke of Hell. By which I mean I'll just be a Duke of Hell, not that I won't be doing the job altogether anymore. It's a probationary role but I'm going to land it in an official sense, this is just a formality," she tells him.

"Hm. Good on you?" he guesses. She seems proud of it, anyway. Reminds him of the lower order angels any time they get an important task.

"No, it's Bad. I mean it's good but in a Bad way. It's evil. I'm evil, an evil demon," Shax... explains? He's going to be generous and tentatively call that 'explaining'. Something. He thinks.

"So it's... good for you, but not for the souls of the humans you want to stuff into Hell, then?" he hazards, guessing based on what Beelzebub had told him as well.

"Yes! Precisely!"

Shax glances around some more.

"Where's the other one? Aziraphale? He's the one who did this to you, right? Transformed you back into..."

She makes a circular gesture at his figure.

"Ah, no. Actually. Wasn't him," he corrects. "And he's not here. But I am! And I was hoping to speak with you anyway."

"With me? Why?"

Shax takes a step back.

Raphael revitalizes a motorcyclist's rather overspent liver.

"I said to stop that!" Shax hisses, moving a little closer again in her irritation. She's really very strange.

"Alright. I'll stop. But in exchange, I want you to answer some questions."

She purses her lips unhappily.

"That's not how it works. You're in violation. You stop, or I report you to our - my superiors. And then they'll take it up with yours, and there'll be trouble. And paperwork."

"Well, see - Shax? Duke Shax?"

"Duke Shax!"

"Duke Shax then, the problem is, I'm a very clueless angel. I really don't have the foggiest idea what's going on with all of this. The last thing I remember, demons didn't even exist. I was just busy forging some stars, minding my own business, taking in the glories of creation. Heaven isn't much like I remember it, and Hell's a total mystery. So you could report me, but I doubt much will come of it. I'm not even fit to do paperwork right now, I'm pretty sure they've moved all the filing systems."

Shax considers him and his claim.

Raphael waits, not overly concerned. After all, he's not exactly lying.

He fixes a nearby bird's bloated stomach.

The demon hisses again.

"Alright! Fine! Stop doing that! What do you want me to tell you? I won't betray Hell's secrets!"

"I don't really want secrets, I don't think," Raphael agrees, bouncing on the balls of his feet and offering a sunny smile. "I just thought that maybe you could tell me some general things about demons. And about one demon in particular."

Shax narrows her eyes.

"Which?" she asks.

"Crowley."

"...You want to know about... you?"

"I guess we can say I'm on a journey of self-discovery."

Chapter Text

Shax had insisted that they needed to go somewhere 'more discreet' to have their discussion, which is how Raphael finds himself in a place called St. James Park. Raphael's not sure how it qualifies as being more discreet than the last place that they'd been, as there are still a lot of people, but then he notices that there's a certain quality of secrecy that imbues the place. As if it has been reshaped by countless clandestine meetings to the point where it has come into the atmosphere itself. Fascinating. There are also a lot of plants, and small round animals called ducks.

This is the duck pond Aziraphale brought up before, he suspects. He wonders what they might have discussed if they'd actually made it here. He does like it. He ends up sitting cross-legged on the grass while several of the ducks mill about him and prod curiously at his legs. A few of them have bloated stomachs. He agreed not to do any further healing, but with a covert glance at Shax he fixes the problem, and she doesn't even seem to notice. She's too busy looking bewildered and aghast.

"What are you doing?" she asks him.

"Sitting?" Raphael suggests. A particularly large duck waddles into his lap and settles down to rest. Biological existence is very tiring, but rest seems so peaceful. He looks at the ducks wings with interest as well. He was very interested in the mechanics of biological flight, the first time anyone mentioned the topic to him. Not his department, but once again, someone did a good job.

Shax looks around, lets out an unhappy breath, then perches awkwardly onto the edge of a nearby bench.

"There's a butterfly on your hair," she snaps.

"I know," Raphael replies. "It seems to have mistaken my hair for a flower."

"I should rip the wretched thing's wings off," Shax says.

"And what would be the point of that?"

"You could take it as a rebuke for your poor conduct," she tells him. But, she doesn't actually move against the butterfly either. Raphael gets the distinct impression that she doesn't want to get close enough to touch him.

"I fail to see how anything I do would be the butterfly's fault."

He frowns.

"No one cares about the butterfly's part of it. Certainly not a demon like me," Shax explains.

"Is that often how it works? Punishment by proxy?"

Shax looks confused.

"In Hell," he clarifies. "Is it often done like that, harming something innocent to punish someone guilty?"

"...Sometimes," Shax says. "Not really. Not always. No one in Heaven or Hell cares about killing a few insects, they die all the time. But the souls of the righteous go to Heaven, and the souls of the wicked go to Hell, so harming the righteous to punish the wicked only really happens on Earth. And you need permits for a lot of those things."

Raphael nods, considering.

"So there are a lot of contractual arrangements between Heaven and Hell. Who organizes them?" he wonders.

Shax narrows her eyes.

"How do you mean?"

"Isn't it obvious? Contracts require agreements. Agreements require meetings. So who is in the meetings? Who seals the agreements?"

Shax looks distinctly uncomfortable with this line of questioning.

"I'm not divulging political secrets," she tells him. "The Dark Council handles most of the upper management of Hell, and we all answer to Satan, our dread and terrible master."

"Your master? So this 'Satan', that would be what became of Lucifer?" he guesses.

"We don't speak of such things," Shax tells him, sharply. Her eyes narrow. "You really don't recollect any of it, do you? It's like you're... back to the beginning. To before."

"Pretty much."

She leans a little closer. For a moment there's a strange, raw look to her gaze, one which Raphael has difficulty placing. It's gone again in an instant, but it leaves an impression behind.

"What's it like? Going backwards?" she wonders. "I can't even recollect..."

Before Raphael can think of how to answer, she visibly closes back off again. Her gaze shutters and her back straightens. But the question lingers.

"I don't remember being a demon," Raphael admits. "So for me, it's just been like waking up to find that time has moved without me. But I think there's... fragments? Like when something moves so quickly that it leaves a blurred impression behind. It's not there anymore, but you can tell that it passed through."

He shakes his head.

"That's one of the reasons why I want to know about Crowley."

"I see," Shax says, in a tone that somehow succinctly conveys that she doesn't.

They linger in silence for a while. The ducks quack.

Eventually, Raphael turns and looks back at Shax.

"So?"

"So what?" she returns.

"What do you know about him? Crowley?"

"Oh. Right. Him."

More silence, broken only by the quacks and the distant murmuring of humans having conversations at the other park benches.

"He used to get a lot of mail from some telecommunications company," Shax says.

Raphael blinks.

"I'm not sure what that means," he admits.

"Neither am I," Shax says, looking put-out. "But he was interested in those kinds of things. Telephone lines and internet machine networks and other such human inventions. Nobody downstairs understood it either but you couldn't argue with the numbers."

"Numbers? Numbers of what?"

"Souls, of course. That's what a demon on Earth does, or is supposed to do when they're not a traitor. Lead souls to Hell instead of Heaven, and thwart the Heavenly agenda on Earth. Bring out the worst in humans. Tempt them, trick them, impede their virtues, put doubt in their hearts and set them onto the path of corruption."

"So that they can burn in Hell with God eventually?" he reasons.

Shax blinks rapidly a few times.

"So you recollect that much?"

"Not really. Beelzebub told me."

For some reason this comment provokes Shax into standing all the way up.

"You know where the defector duke is?! I knew it! I knew you'd be helping them hide away somewhere!"

"So, Crowley would have helped Beelzebub?"

Shax moves to crouch in front of him. One of the really big ducks honks in protest, but is ignored.

"Satan's put quite a bounty on them, for anyone with the means to actually catch them. If you tell me where they are, I'll answer as many questions as you like. I'll even put in a good word for you downstairs, if you should slip and suffer another fall again in the future. Don't rule it out - after all, it happened before."

"That's kind of you."

"No it isn't!"

"But I don't think I should say. They asked me not to when I left, said they were very keen on not being found and interrupted all the time."

"Well of course they don't want to be found, don't be stupid! Satan will probably torture them for centuries over this! Consorting with Gabriel, of all things. But what has that to do with you? When did Beelzebub ever do you any favours? Or that revolting archangel? Tell me where they are!"

"I won't," Raphael declines, firmly. His gaze meets the demon's eyes. He's resolute.

A moment later, Shax has retreated almost halfway across the park.

He raises an eyebrow.

"What did you go all the way over there for?" he calls. Then he raises a hand and motions them back. Are most demons this skittish? Beelzebub hadn't seemed to be, but then again, they had some sort of affinity with Gabriel. Maybe they were used to being around angels in a way other demons weren't?

With obvious wariness, Shax makes her way back to the bench.

"You're not going to... smite me, are you?" she asks.

"No. I don't know how," Raphael assures her. "I've never done any smiting before. You don't have to be afraid."

"I'm not afraid!"

"Oh good! Then come sit with me and the ducks and tell me more about Crowley. What was he like, apart from being adept at, um, condemning souls?"

He's not sure how he feels about being talented at such a grim task. Did Crowley hate humans after all? Why did he go along with condemning them? Did he believe in Hell's vengeance, or was something else going on in his mind? Just how much did Raphael really change when he fell? Enough to be considered a different person, it seems.

Shax starts looking around again, however, plainly agitated.

"I don't know," she finally spits. "No one knew Crowley except for that blasted angel of his. There were rumours about them consorting, but never enough to convince anyone it was more than some ambitious lower demons trying to rise through the ranks by dragging someone else down. It was unconscionable. Dangerous, with no perceivable payoff. After all, Heaven would never take one of us back. Or so we all thought."

"Consorting? Like, working together?" Raphael wonders. Beelzebub had said that he and Crowley were like themselves and Gabriel.

"Turns out you two were very intimate with one another," Shax sneers.

Gabriel had brought up the concept of love when he'd seen Raphael and Aziraphale together, and found out that Raphael didn't remember anything before the 'Great War'. Not even the fraternal bonds of soldiers on the battlefield, he'd said, or something like that. It had seemed like an odd swerve in topic at the time, and Raphael had been more concerned that it made Aziraphale upset, but...

"Did Crowley love Aziraphale?" he wonders. 

More than the normal amount? Like how God wanted them to love things? As much as they loved God, if not somehow more than that?

Shax makes a face.

"Disgusting," she grumbles.

"But did he?"

"How should I know? Something was going on, but Crowley was a demon. Demons don't love. We hate."

Raphael thinks about Beelzebub leaning against Gabriel, is not certain that Shax is correct. But it's clear that she doesn't want to discuss this, or that if she does, she's not going to be very kind about it. He considers asking anyway, before discarding the idea.

He has a feeling there's only one place where he can go to really find some solid information on Crowley, now.

"Let's go back to discussing demons in general, then. You said something about a Dark Council...?"

Chapter Text

It's incredibly easy to get back to the book shop again.

If Raphael didn't know better, and actually he doesn't know better, he would say there's almost a kind of spiritual gravity to the place. As if it is, very very softly, calling to him, and wants him to find it. Perhaps it is a quality of its role as an outpost of Heaven. Or maybe it's a consequence of Crowley's love for Aziraphale. Love might be like gravity.

God's love is, a bit. God's love is vast and consuming, addictive, illuminating, and fathomless in a way that not even the universe can compare to. Being subjected to the full brunt of it was a bit like watching a nebula ignite, and a bit like losing direction in the deepest fathoms of the void, and also nothing like either of those things. It's one of the reasons why Raphael is fascinated by the challenge presented by loving. He doesn't know what it would be like to evoke a similar feeling in another being.

The concept of loving the stars is easier, at least. Stars aren't capable of loving, or even being aware of love, and Raphael knows that how he feels about them is similar to - but different from - his love for God. Simpler.

The book shop has a sign in the window that says 'closed' and the lights are off inside. The door doesn't open at first, but then Raphael triggers a mechanism inside of it, and it works.

He's in luck. No one's around inside, just like last time. The musty smell now strikes him as one faintly of disuse, a lack of people moving through the space or attending to it. But it's not untidy. The books are on shelves, and everything looks far more neatly organized than it had at Gabriel and Beelzebub's love nest, even though it's just as cluttered. He wanders around, looking at it more carefully now that he's not distracted by all of the Earth's everything.

It hadn't occurred to him before he came here, but books are a sort of record, aren't they? Mainly he'd come here after Shax resisted telling him anything more about demons because if Aziraphale was the only one who knew Crowley, and Aziraphale brought him to the book shop, then the book shop would probably have the best chance of telling him something about himself. Other self. Future self? Past self? Demon self?

So many strange concepts to work out, and they never stop coming!

But the books themselves might actually be just the thing he needs. He stops at a random shelf and plucks one off of it. She Who Became the Sun. Celestial transmutation? He's sure humans can't do that yet, he would have noticed it by now, but are they speculating on it? The book shop is dim, so he raises a hand.

"Let there be light."

A glimmering orb dutifully appears at his side, and illuminates the pages of the book as he opens it. He smiles to himself, tilting his head a bit as he remembers the pride and joy that had filled him the last time he had completed a nebula.

It's not about celestial transmutation.

Instead it's a story. Not entirely factual. It comes to him - fiction? Fictional? The result of human imagination, perhaps melding with elements of their own history, current day predicaments, and past stories. Or speculation into future events.

Raphael would find that alone fascinating, considering that such inventiveness is a trait of God's as well, but as he quickly reads over the words and flips through the pages, he finds himself further arrested by the actual content itself. The story is about a Chinese girl who is starving, whose father and brother die having not loved her much in life, and who believes she has no destiny of her own. But her brother does, so she adopts his identity in order to try and claim it herself.

There is a lot of suffering in the book. It seems well-acquainted with concepts that are new or even alien to Raphael. Hunger, death, fear, humiliation, ambition, greed, war... and a mingled desire to avert fate with a strong conviction of its immutability. Or perhaps a more conflicted sentiment would better describe it, both that fate is inescapable and also that it doesn't exist. It's as if the humans aren't certain which outcome is worse.

Raphael picks up another book.

Surprisingly, the first sentence in this one also begins with the letter 'Z'. But otherwise it's contents are completely different, being what seems to be the compiled knowledge of a zoological expert on the matter of wild herbivores in Africa.

Some time passes as Raphael simply reads every book he can get his hands on. However, even going fairly quickly, it would take him days at least to read all that's in the book shop. And he's not sure he could cope with it. There's so much in the books. Part of him wants to take his time, to digest the information and feelings, and find out more still about all of it. Part of him wants to go do something else, anywhere else, until the twisting feeling in his chest goes away again.

It does give him some insights to further concepts, though. Like love, and fraternal camaraderie, and fornication.

Raphael puts the latest book down and resolves to be more discerning. He has a task. It may be a self-appointed task, but nonetheless, he has it. Books are records (sometimes) and contain information. There has to be something here about Crowley.

He follows the traces of divinity to find a summoning circle drawn onto the shop's floor, and covered with a circular rug. He finds a table with a book about book repair, intriguingly, and several damaged encyclopedias, settled next to an odd white hat and a few paperback novels about people who murder other people and people who try to find out who did the murdering so that the murderer can be punished. There is a half-full mug of cold tea with the words 'Muriel's Mug' on it.

Eventually he goes upstairs, and then he finds yet more evidence of Muriel's presence in a room with a small bed, and further in, a larger room with a larger bed that makes him hesitate for unknown reasons to cross the threshold.

But it's in this room that Raphael detects a minor miracle.

The miracle is to make something unnoticeable. But it's not strong enough to deter him. He brushes gently past it, not undoing it, but rather ignoring it as he reaches onto a shelf next to the bed and pulls out a large, flat, yellowed paper box.

Written on the box is:

'Crowley' and then beneath that '1975- 2025'.

He doesn't know what the numbers are for, but obviously, they aren't what catches his attention most anyway. Raphael opens the box with a triumphant feeling of discovery, only to frown again in confused disappointment a moment later.

There are no books in the box.

But, there are papers.

Reaching in, he carefully pulls them out. Paper is very flimsy, and some of these papers are quite thin and aged by decades. Raphael has to set the box down on the desk in the room in order to properly get a look at them, without risk of crinkling or tearing them just with his hands.

They're images. Likenesses. Akin to the images of Gabriel in the love nest, but rather than carved or woven, these ones have been drawn. All sort of materials have been used, from graphite to ink to paint in some cases. The first few pages are all of a dark, giant snake. The same snake, he thinks. Coiled onto a chair with depictions of a sunbeam passing through a nearby window, settled onto the top of a bookcase, and simply drawn in a few cases for itself, with focus on the scales, eyes, and widely stretched mouth punctuated by sharp fangs.

There are only a few of those, however, and underneath...

Underneath, it's him.

Or rather, as it must be, Crowley.

Raphael regards the likenesses with interest. His own dark, fitted clothes are repeated in general style if not in actual form, many times over. The length and composition of his hair changes a lot, too. In the box's pages he is depicted in many forms, and yet always the same base form, a body unaltered even as all the accumulated details shift. There are sketches of reptilian eyes, more like the snake's than anything like his own, and detailed drawings of hands, a smiling mouth, a face contorted in the roar of a shout. A symbol drawn onto the skin of Crowley's face, that of a snake, and then repeated in more detail in the margins of the some of the other drawings.

Despite the images focusing on the eyes, in many of the drawings Crowley as them covered.

Raphael raises a hand towards his own face. He doesn't have eye coverings. Glasses, he grasps. Sunglasses.

To make it easier to see in broad sunlight.

His hand drifts down to the reclaimed trumpet, still tied to his belt.

As interesting as the drawings are, they still don't tell him all that much about Crowley, though. Raphael already knows his own image, and apart from a few distinct details (like the eyes) they aren't much different. He feels some interest towards the different attire depicted, but that just poses more questions.

Did Crowley like clothes? Did he care about his appearance? Or did changing it so often serve another purpose?

Raphael puts the box of drawings back and keeps on looking.

His next victory comes when he heads back downstairs. There are still no books about Crowley, but there are books about crows, and he had wondered if they might be related concepts in some way. Couldn't hurt to check. He goes back to where he saw at least one of them, but along the way passes something even more promising.

A pair of sunglasses.

They are resting on a statue of a horse. It makes it look as if the horse's idol is wearing comically oversized glasses.

Raphael thinks of the drawings, and picks the sunglasses up.

There is a fine layer of dust on them, but not as much as accumulated in some other parts of the book shop. He blows it off, then lifts them up to stare into them. As if Crowley, wearing them, might be standing directly across from him.

His own eyes are reflected back.

Raphael turns them and puts them on, cautiously, taking a little bit of figuring to get the hooks to comfortably rest atop his ears.

There's a reflective surface not too far away, the glass of a case that's been kept neatly polished. Raphael passes by and sees himself.

He looks like Crowley.

Experimentally he arranges his hands at his hips and slouches backwards a little, the way he'd seen posed in one of the drawings. His attire is slightly different, but otherwise, closely the same. On a strictly visual level, he wouldn't be able to spot the difference.

Raphael walks around for a little while, peering at the even-darker bookshop through the lenses. If Crowley is an after image, maybe there is some way, in a sense, to catch up to him. To call pieces of him back, so that Raphael can understand what he's missing. Because he knows he's missing it, six thousand years, even though it feels like he just blinked and was thrown out of his place.

His steps take him back towards the plants. They're doing much better. He smiles a little, absently, and reaches a hand out to brush one of the glossy green fronds.

The book shop door opens.

There is the sound of something clattering to the floor.

Raphael looks to where Aziraphale is standing, thinking to himself whoops. Too distracted. Careless. But as he takes in the sight of Aziraphale standing in the door, haloed in the light from outside, with sword dropped for some reason at his feet, a feeling crashes terribly into him.

It's the worst feeling, the worst he has ever felt in all the life he can remember.

Raphael's eyes widen behind the glasses as the emotion cuts his legs out from underneath him, and with a startled cry, he loses all sense of the world beyond it.

Chapter Text

Raphael doesn't know how to describe the emotion, at first, except that it is a match for his vague overall concept of suffering. It feels so visceral, strong, thicker than the coating of hot chocolate on his tongue, heavier even than the burden of simply knowing he had been condemned and fallen from God's grace. It might have hurt less if he had been stabbed with the sword on the floor.

"Crowley?! Crowley!" Aziraphale cries. "What's happened? How are you here?"

Hands flutter around him, as if uncertain where to touch. Raphael has a vague notion that this is, indeed, something to do with Crowley, and without further thought he reaches up and takes off the sunglasses.

The feeling vanishes.

In its wake he finds himself breathing heavily. His face is damp. The twisting feeling remains, worse than it's ever been before, and even though the emotion is gone the weight of it lingers.

"...Raphael..." Aziraphale murmurs.

For a moment, his face looks almost like the same emotion which Raphael had just felt.

Then he closes his eyes, and finally reaches over. His hands are gentle as he helps him up from where he had fallen to his knees. His throat bobs, and his voice, when he speaks again, sounds shaky and querulous.

"You're still... of course you are, I should've... drat it! Drat it all! what in heavens are you doing here? You're meant to be in Alpha Centauri! I told you to stay there! And just where are Gabriel and Beelzebub?"

Raphael swallows heavily.

"Back on Alpha Centauri, I imagine," he says. He doesn't think his voice has ever sounded like that before, ragged, like he did something bad to it.

Aziraphale's grip on him tightens briefly.

"Well I will be having words with them," he mutters, and steers Raphael over to a nearby chair. "Now what is the matter with you? Why did you collapse like that? You scared the life out of me, I thought, well, never mind what I thought."

"I... I don't know what happened," Raphael admits, brows furrowing. "It felt awful. I just..."

His eyes are stinging and his throat feels thick just recollecting it.

Aziraphale regards him with a worried expression. He reaches over and gently takes the sunglasses from Raphael.

"Where did you find these?" he asks.

Raphael, not confident in his voice, points towards the horse statue.

Aziraphale's frown deepens.

"Crowley must have left these... but, no, he was wearing them when he came after me...? Perhaps his spare pair... was he wearing his spares...?"

As he murmurs, Raphael wrestles with the shape of the emotion he's still recovering from. Part of him wants to shy away from it completely. Forget it even happened, possibly even literally forget it. Gabriel's the only angel he knows with the gift of excising his own memories at will, the better to serve in his capacity as a vessel for messages one day, but Raphael's pretty sure some judicious use of miracles or a few of his tools could at least dampen the effect. He could possible record the memory onto something and then toss it into a supernova somewhere. Then he could go back to not knowing it.

But, he doesn't like not knowing things very much either. As terrible as that was, now that he's calming down, he's curious about it as well.

It had felt like...

"God stopped loving me," he says.

Aziraphale's head whips around to look at him.

"No!" he exclaims. "Certainly not! God's done no such thing!"

"But that's what it felt like," Raphael explains. "I think? Like... I wasn't enough. I was tainted. I wanted so badly for... something. But I was losing it, because I was wicked, and I couldn't change it. It was as if I wanted to stop being me, but also I couldn't, because what am I if I'm not me? Can't I be loved for myself? Aren't I enough? I wasn't, I felt it, I wasn't. There's something wrong me and it goes so deep that there will never be any way around it. But God's making a mistake too, even if I'm not enough, I still love... all I'm doing, it's because I love... it's just that the plan is wrong, it won't work, and we'll get hurt...!"

"Shhh," Aziraphale hisses, but in a strangely comforting way. He reaches over and places a hand on Raphael's cheek. The touch actually helps. It feels grounding, like a tether in the deep darkness of sorrow.

Raphael leans into it. A thumb brushes his cheek, wipes away some of the moisture there. Then the hand is replaced with a smooth and cool piece of cloth. It works better for wiping the leaking - the tears - up, and yet Raphael finds that he preferred the hand.

"None of that's true. But you let it out if you need to. I'm sure it must have been a shock to feel some of that," Aziraphale tells him.

Some? Raphael thinks in horror. But then he realizes, yes, it was probably only some of a feeling like that. It hadn't lasted much actual time at all, and taking off the sunglasses had resolved most of it. He looks at them cautiously, where Aziraphale set them down on the nearby table.

Aziraphale follows the line of his gaze, and then picks the sunglasses back up. He handles them as if they are precious.

"When Gabriel lost his memories, he put them into a fly," he says. "I wonder if...?"

His expression is hopeful.

"What?" Raphael asks. Was it on purpose? Why would he put them in a fly?

He supposes that must have had something to do with Beelzebub.

Aziraphale tilts the sunglasses into the light, and narrows his own gaze. The air around them visibly distorts under the scrutiny of divine examination, so intent that light reflects off of the lenses. But if the investigation is meant to reveal something, it does not.

Still, Aziraphale doesn't look discouraged. He lowers the glasses but keeps hold of them.

"It may be that Crowley has put some fragment of himself in them," he muses. "I'm so sorry, my dear. If that's the case, it could have triggered a memory, or perhaps returned one to you. Maybe of... well. Of the Fall. That would be among some of the earlier ones you're missing, I suspect. I..."

Raphael swallows, and contemplates the glasses. He doesn't think they're miraculous, but then again, what does he know of a demon's abilities?

"Should I put them back on?" he asks.

He feels an urge to resist the idea even as he voices it. He doesn't want to feel that again. If that was something Crowley felt...

But.

If that was something Crowley felt, Raphael wants to know, too. To understand.

What if it turns him back into a demon though?

He's not sure how to take that possibility. It's bad, he knows. He's just not sure if he understands it well enough to let it deter him.

"No," Aziraphale tells him, radiating compassion. He reaches, hesitates, and then brushes a stray curl away from Raphael's eyes before settling a hand onto his shoulder. "We can investigate the matter further some other time. There's no need to be reckless or risk doing you harm."

Raphael slumps in relief.

"I know you want me to remember," he says.

Aziraphale looks surprised.

"I..."

"Did you love Crowley?"

The surprised expression freezes, turns stricken. Aziraphale's hand moves to his own mouth and hovers briefly over his lips, before dropping down to his lap. He doesn't reply for a while, instead taking a moment to clear his throat and shift around in place, before finally he levels Raphael with a look that still seems too wobbly to be stern. His voice is a little more than a whisper when it comes out.

"Why would you ask me that?"

"Shax told me," he explains.

"Shax!" Aziraphale exclaims, standing up straight and walking a few steps away. He keeps hold of the sunglasses, and then moves back closer again. "What were you doing with that creature? What did she do? Did she hurt you? Did she threaten you?"

Raphael blinks.

"No?"

"You can't believe demons! They lie, they say all kinds of terrible things, it's what they do," Aziraphale tells him.

He considers this.

Was that what Crowley was like?

"I think she might have lied a bit, but not very much."

"You don't know demons. They're tricky. And it's not safe to be around them! Especially for you!"

"Why not?"

Aziraphale pinches the bridge of his nose.

"I don't have time to explain it all," he says. "The situation is, regrettably, quite complicated. But ever since Hell found out about you, there's been a bounty on your head. You're lucky Shax didn't try to collect it. I'm sure Satan himself wants to know how you were regressed back to this form."

Regressed. That was a new one. Like Raphael was some old, shed skin that Crowley had left behind, had grown beyond.

He blinks at himself.

Snakes shed skin. Where did he gain that knowledge from...?

Probably one of the books he read. He'd read a lot of them today, and some of the information has already blurred together.

"Shax didn't do anything to me. She just answered some questions, and told me to stop healing people," Raphael explains, putting the unsettling thought he's just had aside. "But I healed some ducks anyway. She didn't even notice, I don't think, she was too busy worrying that I was going to smite her? I don't know any smiting though. She seemed apprehensive."

Aziraphale moves around in front of him, and looks at Crowley's sunglasses again.

"Does she know you're here?" he asks.

"I don't know? Probably."

"Well... well. Alright. That's not ideal, but it's not the end of the world. You're safe in here," Aziraphale says, and offers a tight smile. "If it was only Hell that knew that might be fine, but it seems some information moves both ways. If Heaven finds out... that's another problem."

Raphael nods in understanding.

"Metatron's furious, I take it?"

Aziraphale gives him a look that succinctly answers his obvious question.

"I told him you were busy exploring several distant star systems and couldn't be contacted at the moment, but I'm not sure he believed me. Thank goodness he didn't see what hit him!"

"I don't think you have to worry so much. Like I said, even if he gets very angry he can't make me do anything," Raphael assures him.

For some reason this prompts a roundabout lecture on naivety. He shifts in place. Now that the emotions are wearing off, he's not entirely comfortable. His trumpet's digging into his hip.

Aziraphale suddenly stills in his anxious fluttering and roundabout metaphors about scorpions and frogs. He stares at the trumpet.

Slowly, almost warily, Aziraphale nods at it. He smiles at Raphael, but it doesn't reach his eyes. A tension falls over him.

"Erm, Raphael," he says. "What... what is that?"

"It's my trumpet," Raphael answers, and holds it up in offering. Aziraphale looks at it as if it might bite him. "I found it. I was bringing it to show you, actually, once I finished some other things. I still haven't found my toolkit, but that can still wait. I suppose there's not much cosmos to build now that the project's finished, but it's still useful to have those kinds of things, just for maintenance and general repairs. Especially if Metatron starts trying to mess with my work."

Aziraphale nods, still smiling, and points at the trumpet.

"That's your trumpet? The one God gave you? Not just one you found somewhere?"

"My trumpet," he confirms. For what that's worth. He's never really understood it before, but now, with his new grasp of situations and a variety of emotions, he thinks he can say with confidence that he doesn't like it. Even though God gave it to him. He wishes not just a little bit that it had burned and melted to nothing in the crush and heat of Sol's atmosphere.

Aziraphale closes his eyes, and breathes in deeply through his nose before letting it out again.

"I thought it was destroyed," he then says. "I believe most of Heaven is under that impression."

Raphael snorts.

"Destroyed? How?" he counters. "You could toss this into a black hole and it wouldn't even dent it. I know, I've done it a couple of times. Convenient spot to hold things when you need your hands free. I have no idea how Crowley even managed to put some words on it, though obviously he must have. Did he use some unique demon skill? Do you think a demon could destroy it? Maybe not though, if he didn't..."

"Words?" Aziraphale's gaze sharpens. "What words did he put?"

"Only the obvious," Raphael admits, but Aziraphale finally reaches over to take the instrument. When he sees the engraving, he sighs.

"He must have done that ages ago," he reasons. "No one's seen this since... well not since the Great War, let's say."

"It was in the sun," Raphael helpfully explains.

Aziraphale almost hands him the trumpet back, but then hesitates.

"Why did you go looking for it?" he asks instead, and moves so that he's holding the trumpet and the sunglasses closer to his body, rather than extending either.

Raphael feels suddenly scrutinized.

He frowns.

"Shouldn't it be obvious?" he says. "Metatron keeps trying to start the End. But the End starts with the Archangel Raphiel blowing his trumpet. For six thousand years there's apparently been no Archangel Raphiel, me, to blow his trumpet, and also no trumpet. That means that Heaven has been going against the plan. The trumpet proves it."

Aziraphale looks down at the instrument as if he's suddenly seeing it in a new light.

"Heaven said it was destroyed," he muses. "So the plan had to be altered, just slightly, to account for that. And for you not... not being able to use it."

"Did God say to change the plan?"

"I... no, no it wasn't God. It was Heaven's decree," Aziraphale admits. "They put out an announcement with the records of losses tallied from the end of the war."

"Well then, that settles it. Heaven's been violating God's own mandates. So why didn't God punish them?" he wonders.

Aziraphale is quiet for a long moment. His gaze moves between the glasses and the trumpet, unsettled, while Raphiel finds himself uncertain of what else to say now. It had seemed like an important revelation when he'd decided to go looking for his trumpet. But now, for reasons he can't entirely articulate it, he suddenly feels as if it might not matter at all.

Because actually, why hasn't God punished the Metatron? If that's the cost of disobedience, to be thrown into Hell, why hasn't he gone down?

Does the fact that he hasn't mean that he actually is still upholding God's will, even if it's not as told to the rest of Heaven?

At length, Aziraphale makes an anxious, pained sound, and lowers both the sunglasses and the trumpet against his knees.

"Putting all that aside, it's far too dangerous for you to have this," he says, presumably meaning the trumpet, but maybe also the glasses. "I need to find a safe place to hide it again. If you should blow it, I don't know how we'll stop things from getting out of hand."

"I won't blow it," Raphael promises.

"You know, this is a very serious and dangerous situation! You could do with being a little less confident!" Aziraphale snaps at him.

Raphael thinks back to the terrible feeling that overtook him, the crawling self-loathing that he can still feel squeezing with phantom fingers inside of his chest, and isn't sure he wants to.

Chapter Text

Aziraphale takes his trumpet away and refuses to give it back.

Which is fine, or at least not a problem worth kicking up a fuss about. Raphael figures that Aziraphale probably has a better idea of how to use it to register an objection than he does, or at least the kind of objection that won't get him damned and turned into a demon, given their respective experiences. But it also makes him inexplicably anxious. The trumpet is his problem. Not Aziraphale's. If he's done the wrong thing, which he previously didn't even know was possible and now thinks might be inevitable, he doesn't want Aziraphale to pay for it.

His protests fall on deaf ears, though, so after a while he just goes away. He stays up on the stairs until Aziraphale leaves again.

Aziraphale doesn't go before making him swear on God not to leave the book shop without telling him, so after Raphael climbs onto the book shop's roof instead of going back to the duck pond like he wishes to. Muriel comes back and starts doing things inside. Which isn't a problem, it's just that it's kind of distracting, and he needs to think.

Despite that resolution, though, he finds it difficult to focus on anything important once he's alone.

There are a lot of lights around the book shop. Lamps and glows extending from windows, the gleaming of motor vehicles, the multicoloured shine of electric signs. Clouds pass overhead, and so the sky looks dark. Raphael has to squint past it all to see any stars. Can the humans even see any of them like this? Or would they just look up and see the dark?

Michael told him once that he was too proud of his work. This is God's creation and a testament to God's glory, you're just the employee sent to put in the framework!

Raphael knows that. He does. He didn't design the cosmos; couldn't have, at least not at the start. He wouldn't have known where to even begin. But surely it matters to be the one who 'put in the framework' too? Don't other angels care about the things they've made?

Sometimes Raphael thinks that might even be part of the point. God could have blinked it all up in an instant, he knows She could have. But She didn't. Instead She gave them orders and had the angels do it. And She told them to love what they made like they loved Her, and that can't just be unrelated.

But is he wrong?

After all, if he's adding everything up together correctly, love seems to be what gets angels into trouble.

Maybe it's beside the point, though. Maybe pride's the real issue. He thinks he would understand better if he knew whether or not Aziraphale loved Crowley, but trying to ask after it seems to not being getting him anywhere.

A shrill whistle interrupts his thoughts.

"Hey, up there! It's going to rain!"

Raphael tilts his head at the sound of the voice, and then leans over the edge of the roof to see a human calling up to him.

It's one of the people Aziraphale knows. Not Nina. The other one. She's standing outside the book shop on the sidewalk, with one hand on her hip and the other next to her mouth.

She's also right. The clouds are heavily burdened with precipitation.

"I know," he assures her.

"You shouldn't be up there, you'll get wet!" she calls.

Raphael considers this, and then hops down off of the roof.

It seems to startle the human, even though he doesn't come anywhere close to physical contact. He supposes it's normal for a fragile human to be exceedingly cautious of impacting things, though.

"Sorry?" he says.

She makes a sound stuck between amusement and concern.

"Most people can't just hop off of two storey buildings, Mr. Crowley. Erm, I mean, it's 'Raphael' now, isn't it? Mr. Fell told us you're having some identity troubles."

"Oh? Yes. I am. Um, thanks for the tip?" he says. "I wouldn't want to upset anyone."

The human smiles. It's a bit like Aziraphale's tight smile, the one that only seems to happen because otherwise it will be a frown.

"If you're bored, why don't you come over to the records shop? Mr. Fell's mentioned that you like Queen..."

"I don't know any queens," Raphael admits.

It makes her laugh for some reason.

He sighs. He thinks he would like to go to a record shop, if only to see how it was different from a book shop, but that would definitely require leaving.

"Aziraphale made me promise not to leave the book shop without telling him, and he's out."

"He's very worried about you."

"I know. He thinks I might help Metatron destroy the universe. I mean he says he doesn't, but if he didn't, why would he worry?"

"He... what?"

The human - Maggie, that's what she's called - looks worried now as well, so Raphael tries to explain. He's not sure he does a good job of it, because Maggie's worried look just increases. But she nods and hums and makes sympathetic noises, and then after a while suggests that she bring some records over to the book shop instead.

Aziraphale didn't say anything about not letting other people into the shop, so Raphael agrees.

He goes back inside and tells Muriel, who declares excitedly that they know where the record player is, and fetches it. Maggie returns along with Nina and 'Queen's Greatest Hits I, Vinyl, 2016', in addition to an arm full of other records.

"Just in case you're not hot on Queen after all," she says.

Raphael's still not entire sure what she means, but it turns out he does like the music after all. It sounds not at all like the music of the spheres, but somehow it nevertheless sounds cosmic, like he would enjoy having it play while he strung up the stars. He likes the second disc better than the first one. The recording methodology is fascinating. Sound was always more Gabriel's dominion, and he seemed to abandon interest in it the moment he finished creating it, but Raphael's always liked it. It's probably the best thing Gabriel ever contributed to.

"The archangel Gabriel created sound?" Nina asks, after Maggie has shown Raphael to start Disc Two over again. "Rubbish. I don't believe it."

"Why not?" Raphael asks.

"Well for one thing I met him while he was going by Jim, and you couldn't convince me he made those canapes he was handing out at the Whickber Street Traders and Shopkeepers monthly meeting, let alone an entire physical concept of the universe," she replies, which certainly seems like a coherent assortment of words. "For another thing, it just doesn't make any sense! The universe works the way it does because of reactions and physical laws and things, matter interacting and all that, nobody parceled out bits of it to winged contractors and said 'get physics done by lunch and you'll have a hefty bonus waiting for you'."

"There weren't any bonuses," Raphael confirms.

Nina points at him.

"You know what I've been thinking? Just because you're definitely supernatural entities, that doesn't mean you're telling the truth about what sort you are. You could make up any number of things, and we'd just have to believe it because what else are we to believe? Who else could we verify anything with? We've no choice but to take you at your word."

He blinks.

"But... you don't?" he counters.

"What?"

"You don't believe it? That's what you said. Look, I don't know a lot about how this whole humanity project actually went when it made it to the implementation stage, because I was a demon by then and I don't remember being a demon. But I know free will came up often, and it must have been pretty non-negotiable considering what happened to Lucifer. So. You don't have to believe anything," he assures her. "You can be as disbelieving as you like. Totally up to you."

"That's not the point," she tells him. "I'm not talking about belief in general, I'm talking about the things you say."

Raphael frowns.

Why's he being singled out?

Is it because of Crowley?

"Did I do something wrong?" he wonders. For some reason he's more anxious about the prospect now than he was before. It makes his chest do a little more twisting, makes his corporeal form's skin prickle unpleasantly.

"No, no, of course you didn't," Maggie tells him, soothingly. She pats his knee. "It's actually not you in particular. It's just that when you think the world works a certain way, and then find out that it doesn't, or even that it might not, it can be easy to grow distrustful."

The discomfort eases.

That's less unpleasant to contemplate.

"I think I understand. This isn't how I expected it would go either," he agrees. The voice from the record sings rhythmically about love, and about how it's hard to handle and somehow akin to a jellyfish. 

Nina snorts.

"You didn't think you'd get all jumbled into some kind of supernatural amnesia, forget most of your life, and start calling yourself an angel?" she asks.

"That's getting way further ahead of anything I thought about! Nah, I just thought we could implement a suggestion box, or that God would say 'that's a good point Raphael, maybe we shouldn't be so hasty to destroy all of creation'. Or maybe that Metatron would say it on Her behalf. And then I'd go back to designing star systems and nebulas and wouldn't have to feel sad about them all dying in barely any time at all."

There's a moment of silence. Nina doesn't seem to have a response to that.

"God's a woman?" Maggie asks with polite interest, clearing her throat.

"God's an ineffable being too vast for even angels to comprehend, with no categorical gender as a such, but She prefers She/Her pronouns most of the time," Raphael explains.

"I guess the suggestion box thing didn't work out then," Nina finally settles on replying, narrowing her eyes at him. "How would you even think of a suggestion box, though? If it was before all of creation. That's a very human concept for an 'angel' to pull out of his wings."

Raphael perks up in relief at a simple question.

"Oh! Well, God knows everything, and imparted a certain knowing to angels too, but without also imparting full understanding or experience. So we kind of know everything as well, but we also don't," he cheerfully explains. "It wasn't a suggestion box, that I wanted to suggest, it was just a very similar concept. One day there would be suggestion boxes. So I knew about them. But I also didn't know anything at all about them because they didn't exist yet, and the knowledge of them only came to me once I thought of a general notion in the same neighbourhood, and even then I didn't entirely understand except that I knew a 'suggestion box' was a thing that could exist. But now they do exist, so now I've always known about them, which means that even back at the beginning of creation I could make a reference to them and the other angels would know what I meant, even though none of us knew the eventual provenance of the suggestion box. Does that make sense?"

"No."

"Kind of," Maggie tells him.

"Makes sense to me!" Muriel chimes in. Raphael offers her a smile, and the record plays on.

Chapter Text

The next morning, someone tries to destroy the book shop.

Raphael notices this when the summoning circle activates and a celestial bomb gets dropped through, burning the rug and singing some of the nearby books before he can catch it, fold space time into a portal, and toss it off into an empty little pocket of void near Canis Major. It disperses in relative harmlessness out there, and the fixtures in the book shop stop rattling ominously.

The summoning circle survives the incident, but Raphael dismantles it himself. Seems prudent. He can always put it back and in the meanwhile, whoever sent the first bomb can't send another one the same way.

The last time he dealt with those kinds of elements in play it was a matter of dispersing extraneous planetary bodies from a botched star system, but that one had been small, and probably wouldn't have obliterated an area much bigger than Soho. It definitely would have killed everything within that range, though, and probably would have hurt Raphael and Muriel as well.

"How... how did you do that...?" Muriel asks, staring wide-eyed at the space where the summoning circle used to be.

"Which part?" Raphael wonders. Dismantling a summoning circle wasn't hard, it was a pretty standard communication array, he put them together and took them apart all the time in his old work.

Muriel looks at him, then back at the floor, then at him again.

"Any of it?" they ask. "That was... that was a holy invocation, of destruction, and you just picked it up! I didn't know anyone could do that!"

"It was pretty hot," Raphael concedes. "I wouldn't try doing the same if I was you. I'm an archangel, after all."

Muriel shakes their head, then nods. Looks like they're going to say more, then seem to decide against it.

"Heaven made that summoning circle," they then add instead of whatever else they were going to say.

"Huh. I figured Aziraphale made it?"

"No. It was installed here under Archangel Gabriel's orders, I filed the record," Muriel explains. "It was recreated by the antichrist when he restored a bunch of things, and that was very complicated to file, especially because the Supreme Archangel wouldn't let anyone in to examine it at the time. But I took the liberty when I got this posting, and everything was up to spec."

Raphael nods, not sure why any of this should matter, apart from feeling vaguely curious at what an antichrist is supposed to be. The opposition of a christ, one might assume.

"Don't worry, I'll put it back later if Aziraphale likes," he assures the junior scrivener. "I'm pretty good with arrays. Won't take more than a moment."

Muriel still seems unsettled, but nods, and then goes about miracle-ing the scorch marks off of the shelves and gathering up all the damaged books. Raphael restores the rug, and wrestles with the impulse to go and investigate just who tried to destroy the book shop (someone in Heaven, obviously?) with the mandate that he not break his sworn oath and leave without telling Aziraphale.

Luckily, his dilemma is solved, at least in part, when Aziraphale himself turns up a few minutes later.

"Out of the shop! Quickly, quickly, no time to explain!" he bellows, rushing in, carrying a sword again.

Raphael and Muriel let themselves be shepherded away from the building. Aziraphale firmly orders them to the coffee shop and tells Raphael to put a barrier up around the other structures on the street, and not lower it until 'the danger has passed', then closes himself inside of the book shop with a severe expression on his face.

So, they head over to the coffee shop. Raphael puts up a barrier with a pleasing rainbow hue, and Muriel tries to explain to the humans, who come over and watch at the coffee shop window.

Nothing happens, though.

"What do you think he's doing?" Raphael wonders. He can't detect anything going on. Just a sort of all-encompassing tension. Waiting, but for what?

Muriel shakes their head.

They wait.

Eventually Nina tells them that if they're going to hang about they should sit down and buy drinks. This prompts a lesson from Muriel on the art of fiscal transactions, which they themselves are quite new to, but explain with a beginner's enthusiasm.

"Normally it's about four pounds for a coffee, but if you pay with miracle money it's a hundred," Muriel explains.

Raphael nods in understanding and obligingly does the miracle. It's fairly straightforward, he thinks. Two hundred pound notes, two beverages. Nina gives Muriel another creamy floral tea, and when Raphael expresses inexperience with the particulars of other drinks but admits that he hasn't liked any so far, she gives him an 'iced latte'.

It's cold rather than hot. A little bitter. Creamy.

He still doesn't think he likes it, but it's better than the hot chocolate or the black coffee. Raphael takes two sips this time, before leaving it to sit and accumulate condensation.

Finally, Aziraphale comes back out of the book shop. He looks rattled and is still carrying the sword, which the humans around them double-take at, as he settles down at Raphael and Muriel's table.

"Forgive me. Raphael, I believe you can take the barrier down now. I had thought we'd be under attack, but it seems whoever was put in charge of it was so incompetent that they just accidentally discorporated my communication array instead."

"Oh, no, that was me," Raphael explains. "I'm sorry if it's inconvenient. I'll fix it whenever you like. But it seemed necessary at the time."

Aziraphale gives him a puzzled look.

"That must have taken some doing. Whatever led you to think it was necessary?" he asks.

"Probably the holy invocation of destruction that came through," Muriel interjects, still sounding a bit faint about it.

"The - it came through?!" Aziraphale exclaims. Some of the nearby humans in the shop look over, and Nina sends them a quelling glare. "How - why - are you hurt?!"

"No, no one got hurt!" Raphael assures him. "I sent it away again, so it was fine. Well, not fine, obviously, since someone sent it in the first place. It would have been very bad if I hadn't been there. Is that one of the reasons you wanted me to stay?"

Aziraphale takes a moment to respond. He looks pale and aghast. Then he takes a deep breath.

"No, Raphael, I did not tell you to stay in the shop so that you would be there in case a bomb arrived. Though it seems it was very good that you were there when it did arrive, just the same. Oh, God..."

He slumps against the table. Raphael pats his shoulder in what he hopes is a comforting fashion.

Muriel clears their throat. They shift in place, start to speak, stop to think, and then start to speak again.

"Just... to be clear, I know I'm not supposed to ask after top secret information, or if this even is or if I'm just not knowing something I'm supposed to already know, but, I didn't think... I mean, I'm not sure how he did that? Without even discorporating his physical form? Is there some trick to it?"

"How do you mean?" Raphael replies. He has settled his hand a little more firmly onto Aziraphale's shoulder now that he's not been shrugged off, and is even venturing to move it in small circles. It's hard to tell, but he thinks it's helping. Some of the tension is coming out of Aziraphale's shoulder muscles, though he's still got his eyes closed.

Muriel ponders their response again, then nods to themselves.

"That was a lot of energy," they say. "Like a sixty halo unit explosion, probably? And it wasn't just holy energy, I've seen the schematics for those invocations and I saw one used in the War once, there are elements of fire and acid, and, and everything else, too. Why didn't it blow you up?"

Raphael's surprised at the question.

"I contained it. Obviously. Don't they teach how to contain massive amounts of energy anymore? It's kind of necessary if you're doing interstellar engineering."

Beneath his touch, Aziraphale twitches.

"It's still fairly well known, though most angels have little reason to hone the skill these days," he says, and straightens back it. Reaching down he fixes his crooked shirt. "It's just that most angels don't have enough power for it to matter on that scale."

Raphael's furrowed brows relax a fraction.

"But I'm an archangel," he reminds everyone, again.

Muriel doesn't look reassured, and Aziraphale gives him a conflicted stare. Then another sigh.

"I'm afraid, my dear, that you've got a bit more... more than even the other archangels around these days," Aziraphale tells him.

"I do? More what?"

"More..." Aziraphale waves ambiguously. "Everything! Divinity. It's like you've been imbued with the first light of creation again, but that's impossible, restoring you shouldn't have done that. Gabriel noticed it first on Alpha Centauri, when you did that display with the light projection. I never would have caught it, I don't know enough about the mechanics of those kinds of miracles, you see. But he apparently does, and he told me... well. He mentioned it might be... pertinent. I wasn't sure if he was just having me on or not at the time."

"...Oh."

Raphael isn't sure what to make of that. He doesn't feel any stronger than he ever did. But maybe that's the point, it's not that he's stronger, it's that somehow everyone else has gotten weaker...?

Why should that have happened?

"Is this... bad?" he checks.

Aziraphale frowns, but also pats him reassuringly.

"Complicated. But not bad, and you haven't done anything wrong. Certainly not when you saved everything! Thank you, by the way. I shudder to think... well. Anyway. Best not to fixate on it."

He looks like he's fixating on it anyway.

Muriel shakes their head, now wearing a more distantly thoughtful expression. Uncharacteristically solemn.

"The paperwork upstairs on this one is going to take years," they conclude.

Chapter Text

They get into the Bentley, to head to a place called 'Tadfield' that's still in the same general geographic region as Soho.

"I have some friends who still owe me a favour or two there," Aziraphale says as the Bentley drives along, much slower than it had done with Raphael behind the wheel. "They'll put you up for a while. But you have to promise not to leave!"

Raphael contemplates this prospect.

"I don't think I will," he decides.

Aziraphale whips around to look at him.

"You don't think you'll what?"

"Promise not to leave. I don't want to promise that again. I didn't like doing it last time."

Aziraphale glances back at the road, then towards him again.

"Oh, but, by not leaving before you saved the book shop! You liked that didn't you? It was splendidly brave, and you were very gallant."

"It wasn't brave. I wasn't afraid," Raphael dismisses. "I read about bravery, and I know you only feel it when you're actually afraid. Anyway, you keep trying to put me in places and then leave me there. I'm not a big fan of it to be honest."

Aziraphale makes a slightly distressed sound. His face is very expressive, really. Raphael likes it, but there's always so much going on, and he still feels like he's missing a lot of it. It's frustrating.

"I'm only trying to keep you safe. I just... if anything more happened to you..."

"But you said yourself, I've got more power than most other angels right now," he points out.

"Well, yes, you do, but power isn't everything! Six thousand years is a lot of time to lose, and you don't really know the situation. You could be hurt, or confused, or deceived by evil forces, or whisked off somewhere and, and, harmed. There are all sorts of ways to get around even powerful beings, when someone weaker is nevertheless smarter or at least more informed," Aziraphale explains.

"Then why don't you keep me with you?" Raphael reasons.

"Because!"

Aziraphale sighs, and flexes his hands against the steering wheel.

"I need to be on my top game. No margin for errors. The situation is tense, and I can't be distracted. And you... distract me."

"Oh, well, sorry for that," Raphael grumbles.

"I don't mean it badly!"

"Is it the questions? Because I can ask fewer questions. Believe it or not, I managed to hold a lot of them in for a long time until I finally started asking. I can figure things out for myself, if that makes it easier."

"It's not the questions!" Aziraphale insists. "I just, can't always... I, I have a lot of... that is to say, there is a lot of things to sort out, with the state of you, and I don't want to get any of it wrong. The stakes are too high."

"The universe?"

"...No. The other stakes. The ones for you, and for me as well."

Raphael supposes he means Crowley then. He thinks back to the first conversation he overheard between Aziraphale and Metatron, the one he hadn't understood very much at first. About tossing him into Hell to basically hit a reset button and get Crowley back. It had been alarming at the time, and he can't say it seems like a nice idea now, either. But there's more of a decision to be made than he had first recognized, he will concede.

Especially if Aziraphale did indeed love Crowley.

And if Crowley loved Aziraphale. If the demon version of Raphael loved this angel, what does that mean for him?

He looks over to where the sunglasses are visible in Aziraphale's front jacket pocket.

"Stop," he says to the Bentley.

It rolls to a stop.

Aziraphale makes a sound of protest.

"No, what? Why are we stopping? Bentley, keep going!"

The Bentley doesn't. Before Aziraphale can respond, Raphael plucks the sunglasses from his pocket, then opens the door and gets out.

"Wait!"

Aziraphale cries out in such visceral distress that Raphael pauses by the side of the road.

"What are you doing? Don't destroy them, please, you can't...!"

"Why would I destroy them?" Raphael asks, baffled.

Aziraphale hesitates. Slowly, he comes around the side of the car. He's moving like Shax had around him now, almost, like he's afraid of what Raphael can do. He swallows a breath, looking at the glasses as if God made them, and made them fragile.

"I think, if you just give them back to me... I know you don't want to risk Falling again, but there's nothing... nothing bad about who Crowley was, as a person. There really isn't any reason at all to be afraid of his memories, and they're, they're important..."

Raphael looks into the lenses of the sunglasses again. The light reflects off of them, and makes them look all the darker for it.

"I'm not afraid," he says. He keeps having to explain that. Was Crowley afraid a lot? Maybe he was. After being condemned and burned and crawling back out, it would be difficult to be brave again. Humans experience a lot of pain and suffering, and their stories reflect pretty well that it leaves an impression. Sometimes literal marks. Scars.

"I know you aren't. Just, please, give me the glasses..."

Though, Raphael does have some fear, he supposes. That feeling he had before. He really doesn't want to feel it again. But he probably will, won't he? If he puts the sunglasses back on. If he finds more of Crowley in himself.

Maybe it's better not to.

He could get back in the Bentley and go to wherever Aziraphale is taking him next, and just wait there, as told, until something else happened again.

Would Crowley do that?

Raphael sighs. Now this, this is going to require some actual bravery, probably.

"I'll give them right back," he says, and then puts them on for the second time.

At first, nothing happens. Just like before, when he had safely wandered around the book shop without any trouble. He stares at the road, and the sky, and the grassy knoll they'd been driving past. There are some apple orchards in the distance. Honey bees and ants and aphids, flowers blooming by the road, sunlight beating against the Bentley's dark hood.

Bracing himself, he looks at Aziraphale. Prepared for the worst.

It doesn't come.

But something changes.

It coils up inside of him, like the twisting feeling, but more pleasant. Warm. Aziraphale looks golden by the side of the road. Soft and worried, wrapped in sunshine, with a bumble bee bumping against his shin and his hands stilled in front of him. There is nothing particularly exceptional about looking at him, or rather there shouldn't be, and yet there is. Raphael feels... happy. Happier than happy. He feels the peace of doing a job he understands, and the wonder of tackling something unknown, a twinge of excitement along with a steady and not-wholly-pleasant, but not bad sentiment either.

Yearning, he thinks. He thinks that's what it is. Wanting, a want of the soul.

He has no recourse against it, so without warning he walks back towards Aziraphale and puts his arms around him.

Aziraphale tenses and stills at first.

Then slowly but surely, his arms move until they're wrapped around Raphael as well. It's amazing. The opposite of what he felt before, almost. He wants to bask in it, wants to bottle the feeling and keep it with him, it's not like anything he's felt before but he thinks maybe it also is, that he knows what kind of feeling lies underneath it and that he's gotten at least one answer.

Loving someone else really is a different sort of love from loving God.

But there is a familiar downside, a note of it that he knows too well.

"Don't leave me," he asks. "Please."

Aziraphale, after a long and helpless moment, nods his assent.

When Raphael finally lets him pull back, he once again takes the sunglasses off for him. Raphael lets him, and doesn't protest when they go back into Aziraphale's pocket. His face is wet again. That's a little surprising. Does it always leak for strong emotions? That's just inconvenient.

"Look at you," Aziraphale tuts. "That was a terribly risky thing to do. What if you had collapsed at the side of the road again? Must you always be so dramatic? If it really means that much to you, I'd have let you win the argument eventually, you needn't carve my heart out with a knife every time. Are you alright?"

Reaching into his other pocket, he produces a soft square of fabric again. Raphael just nods and lets himself be mopped up and then gently pushed back into the Bentley.

When Aziraphale gets back in, he doesn't start the car straight away again, although he keeps his gaze fixed on the road for a moment. He clears his throat. His own eyes look red-rimmed, but his face is comparatively a lot dryer, even after the handkerchief.

"So... did you remember something?" he asks.

Raphael thinks.

"No," he says. "It was just a feeling again."

This gets him a worried look.

"Like before?" Aziraphale wonders.

Raphael shakes his head.

"Well? Then what was it? You were upset, you needed a hug..."

"No. I just wanted to hold you," he admits. "That was the feeling. I wanted to be closer to you. It was just very strong, and I'm not... not used to that."

Silence descends between them.

For Raphael's part it's mostly contemplative, but he's not sure if Aziraphale is happy or upset.

Eventually a hand reaches over. Settles on his arm. Squeezes, then retracts to gently brush the pocket with the sunglasses.

"Crowley was very lonely at times," Aziraphale says, with a complicated look. "I'm sure he... that is, especially after he fell, I'm sure he missed the kinship of other angels. It was probably a long time before he knew a friendly touch again."

That doesn't sound quite right. But Raphael remembers how Aziraphale hadn't answered his question about loving Crowley before, so after a moment, he decides not to say anything more yet.

It's enough, for now, that the Bentley turns around and stops heading for Tadfield.

Chapter Text

Aziraphale gets the sword, and Raphael's trumpet as well, and takes them up the elevator to Heaven. Aziraphale puts on a beaded broach, and gives Raphael a similar one to wear as well. It's got some very interesting arrays in it.

"Haniel made them for me," Aziraphale explains. "Just a little insurance against some heavy-handed activity on the part of Metatron. Don't take it off, or else they may be able to meddle with your memories."

"Haniel's on our side?" Raphael asks.

Aziraphale gives him an odd look.

"...No," he eventually says. "But she agreed to help and to stay out of it. Several others did as well."

Raphael accepts the explanation, and on a whim turns the broach black to match the rest of his outfit before he pins it on.

It feels like an eternity since Raphael's been back, even though it's barely been any real time at all. It's just that a lot has happened in that relatively small amount of it. Strange to think on it, when he's more accustomed to long stretches of timeless infinity with nothing to interrupt the silence except his own work, and the distant choirs of the other angels.

When the elevator 'dings' and the doors open, they're greeted by a half dozen angels wielding gleaming white spears.

"Oh, really?" Aziraphale says. "Just what do you think you all think are doing? Who's your unit superior?"

The angels don't answer, staring stone-faced and radiating disdain.

"You're under arrest," one of them says.

"Under whose authority?" Aziraphale replies.

"Metatron's."

"Well, that's quite interesting, considering that I am here to use my authority to arrest him," Aziraphale counters.

The talkative angel with the spear sneers.

"You don't have any authority. You've been removed from your position, traitor."

"That's quite enough!" Arizaphale scolds. "It seems we've run into some administrative cross purposes. I think it would be best to resolve this with a meeting of the relevant superiors, not at... spear point, like a pack of barbarians."

"Our orders are to arrest you," spear angel says, not giving an inch. "Either come quietly or be silenced."

"I was hoping it wouldn't come to this," Aziraphale says, and raises his sword.

Raphael raises his eyebrows.

What follows is very interesting to watch. Aziraphale knocks the spear out of the first angel's hands, then twists his sword, and it bursts into flames. One of the spear-wielding guards jumps back, but the others try to move forward, immune to the holy fire. Aziraphale disarms another one and bashes a third with the pommel, before the number of angels arrayed against him becomes too much, and a spear makes it past the sword and connects with his chest.

Aziraphale does not displace or disintegrate the spare, so Raphael does it with a small motion of his hand, turning the gleaming blessed silver into dust.

The attackers pause.

Aziraphale does too, touching his chest frantically where the spear would have wounded him, before clearing his throat and squaring his shoulders.

"As I said, that is quite enough," he repeats.

The other angels move back warily, now. They look to one another, as if hoping some other angel has guidance, but all of them now seem to lack it.

Aziraphale takes the opening to step out of the elevator. He motions Raphael along with him, then silently mouths the words 'thank you' as they proceed away from the entry point and into the chambers of the celestial kingdom itself. Which look very... empty, now that Raphael has spent some time on Earth instead.

Once they're out of sight of the other angels, Aziraphale takes a moment to lean against a column and press a hand to his chest. Right where the spear wound would have been.

"It would have been so very inconvenient to be discorporated right now," he says. "I mean I knew it was a possibility, and we could have still worked around it, but what a mess!"

"I'll just do that again if anyone else tries to stab you, you don't have to fight," Raphael promises.

"Would you? Oh that's extremely helpful!"

"See? Aren't you glad you brought me now?"

Aziraphale smiles ruefully at that.

"I really was just trying to protect you," he insists.

"But I like being extremely helpful," Raphael counters.

The other angel's expression soften further, twisting almost sorrowfully.

"I suppose I can't be surprised."

Once Aziraphale has finished resting against the pillar, they set out again. Heading for the central chambers, not bothering to hide their movements, which is fine by Raphael. Some other angels approach them, these ones carrying flaming whips. At Aziraphale's nod, Raphael sends them to the Andromeda galaxy, which is far enough away that it should take them a while to get back on their own.

"This is fun," he admits. He didn't like how those angels looked at him when he first arrived, and there's a sort of dark little corner of him that really enjoys the opportunity to inconvenience them. He's never had a reason to send other angels careening into space so often before, and especially not when they haven't expressly requested it of him.

Aziraphale looks anxious over this comment.

"Yes, well, let's not get too indulgent. This may end up being the easy part, after all."

They make to the main chambers, which of course look mostly like all the other parts of Heaven in a purely visual way, but are large and glorious and rife with blessed energy in a metaphysical sense. A large portion of the host has congregated, probably having worked out the general direction that their path was taking them to and it's likely destination. Or they've just interrupted a meeting. Could be either.

As they move forwards they pass by a pillar with something attached to it.

Raphael stops.

It's a box.

A white and gold box, with a heavy blessing laid onto it. There's a slot on the top, and on the front is written the word 'Suggestions' in the same script that had been on the box of drawings labelled 'Crowley 1975-2025'.

His lips part in wordless astonishment.

But Aziraphale is still moving, so he abandons the box to catch up.

"Aziraphale," Michael says, in a tone of voice that makes Raphael want to open up another deep space portal. "You have been stripped of your rank, and hereby sentenced to be erased from the book of life, as penance for your multitude of sins and innumerable crimes against Heaven and God."

"Well, that's one idea," Aziraphale counters, his expression hard. "Another is that I remove the Metatron from his rank and office and revoke all memories of his role as the Voice of God on the grounds of rampant misconduct, misrepresenting the mandates of the Almighty and trespassing against creation."

"You don't have the authority to do that," Uriel tells him.

Aziraphale straightens. He looks very small and very brave to Raphael, standing in front of the entire host with only Raphael himself beside him.

"I have the authority of the only first class archangel in the universe right now," he says.

"You have been stripped of your rank-"

"I'm not talking about myself."

Bewildered silence greets this assertion.

Raphael thinks he's caught on already, so he offers a little wave, even as Aziraphael gestures towards him.

"Raphael is an archangel. He was never granted an official rank or title when he was restored, which means that we must default to the previous rank appointed to him by the Almighty Herself when the heavens were born. Which I believe you will find to be archangel, first class," he explains.

Michael and Uriel pause, obviously thrown by this. They both look at him.

He shrugs.

"I mean, I am," he reminds them. They're both archangels as well, but not among the first, though that never seemed all that terribly important before. It just meant that they arrived a little later in the span of creation. But as he had noticed before, despite frequent refutations, Heaven has changed, so being first is apparently more meaningful.

Michael looks at Uriel, and then turns more urgently angry towards them.

"That's what you're resting all of this on? Some - some abomination that's only proven why damnation ought to be eternal ever since we granted him the merciful grace of absolution?"

Aziraphale's expression grows colder and harder.

"I don't need your permission," he declares, and then turns towards the assembled host. Michael summons a sword.

Raphael can't turn this one to dust, it's actually too powerful. Nor can he put it back. But Michael isn't moving, so he just watches for now.

Aziraphale lifts up the trumpet.

"I'm sure you all recognize this!" he declares. "It is the trumpet of Raphael! It is meant to be blown to signal the End Times! This was written in the Great Plan, which Heaven has now twice attempted to implement under the direction of the Metatron, and which twice now has been thwarted."

"By your insubordination," Uriel blandly accuses.

"Yes, by us. Which is as it should be! This trumpet was said to be destroyed. And yet here it is! A divine tool, irreplaceable, not something that can just be knocked off or faked. You all see the glory of it, the blessings upon it! It was not destroyed."

Aziraphale rounds on Michael, Uriel, and the other prominent members of the host that are present for this.

"If it was not destroyed, it would not be, could not be, removed from God's plan. Which means that neither Armageddon nor the Second Coming have even remotely obeyed the will of the Almighty, for they were set in motion in absence of the necessary signal. I put it before you, then, that it is the Metatron who has gone rogue!"

An echo resounds through the heavenly chamber as Aziraphale smacks the trumpet down on the main conference table's surface.

A low, slow clapping follows it.

Raphael looks over as the Metatron strides into the council chamber.

He's got his legs on for this, and is wearing a pure white suit, and carrying a pure white walking stick. More angels follow in his wake. Saraqael, Sandalphon, Ariel, and some more who he doesn't know well.

"And yet, it is through these false comings and goings that the true End has been delivered to us," he says, with a warm smile that doesn't reach his eyes. His gaze slides from Aziraphale to Raphael. "For it is only through such events that Heaven has been restored both the necessary components of God's true plan, which as the Voice of God, is the also the only course I could ever follow."

"The instrument, and its player."

Chapter Text

The chamber seals itself.

Raphael shifts so that he is partly between Aziraphale and Metatron, but he still isn't too worried, despite the fact that he can't open them any escape routes now. There's nothing Metatron can do to him that will make him blow that trumpet, he already knows this.

Metatron looks at him with patience, tolerance, and ice in his eyes. The barest hint of a smile curls his lips.

He looks like he thinks he's won something.

Raphael doesn't understand how - there's still an argument to be made here, he's pretty sure - until he feels the barricade go up behind him.

Go up between him and Aziraphale.

With Michael and Michael's sword still on Aziraphale's side.

He tries to take it down, but it doesn't work. The heavens themselves have shifted to place a shimmering semi-white wall between them, muting their sense of one another, leaving them with only a barricade to look through. Aziraphale hurries right up to it and presses his hands against it.

"Can you get it down?!" he asks urgently.

"Trying," Raphael replies, and goes so far as to touch it himself. But it's harder than catching light. The main chamber is older than the angels themselves, and he doesn't know how to move Heaven. It's a completely different sort of engineering from birthing stars or creating time.

He understands that things are probably even more troublesome than he knows when Haniel emerges from the bank of the throng of angels, and goes to stand behind the Metatron. Raphael reaches for the broach, but just a moment too slow. Chains wreath around him, golden and heavy and on fire, and drag him downwards.

He sees Aziraphale hit the floor on the other side of the barricade, though his chains at least don't burn.

It hurts.

He's making sounds and he's not even certain they make sense.

"I know it does, I'm sorry, everything will be alright. Just think about... think about the stars," Aziraphale tells him, expression pained, before he managed get to his knees and calls out to Metatron.

"Stop it! He doesn't even understand what's going on!"

Metatron makes an unconvinced sound.

"He understands well enough to be here, tossing his brethren into the void and leaving a trail of mayhem and chaos in his wake," he says, voice booming, dripping with contempt.

"I've led him astray!" Aziraphale claims.

"And as ever, he was eager to let himself be led," Metatron counters. The pain doesn't stop. Raphael's not even on fire himself, it's just the chains, but it's still terrible. He can barely think, can't figure out how to get them off even though he so desperately wants nothing else right now. Is this what hellfire is like? It can't be, hellfire must still be worse, because the fire here is still on the outside.

The Voice of God sighs.

Then he motions, and the chains, at least, stop burning.

Raphael sucks in ragged breaths.

"A punishment ought to fit the crime. But, Heaven has an obligation towards mercy. We weep at the suffering of every weak and contemptible demon, every condemned mortal soul, every conflicted soldier, struggling with the burdens of serving God," Metatron claims.

Raphael looks, but no one is weeping. Only his own face is wet. Even Aziraphale, visibly distressed, isn't crying as such.

"Oh yes, I can see that," he rasps. "Not a dry eye in the house."

Metatron scoffs.

"That mouth of yours. Always getting you into trouble." He walks over and peers downwards, and so Raphael also struggles to try and get back up, if only so he won't have to deal with being glowered at from above.

They still have an audience. There are angels in Heaven who are not Metatron. They can't all agree with him, with this kind of a thing.

Can they?

"Do you know, Raphael, the biggest worry in getting you back was how little time it might take for you to fall all over again?" Metatron tells him, as he moves away and walks over to the table. Raphael feels a frisson of deep discomfort when he reaches over and picks up the trumpet. His gaze narrows, lips pursing in displeasure at the words along the side, before he comes back and stands in front of him again.

"Were you any other angel I could have simply you told you to follow your purpose from the start, and we would have avoided all of these dramatics, the suffering, the damned inconvenience of it all," he continues. "Instead it was you, you who found your grace restored only to go right back to dangling your feet over the darkness again."

Raphael looks over at Aziraphale.

He thinks of stars.

"I did my best work in the dark," he says. "All of creation begins in the dark."

The Metatron leans down and looks at him. Waits until he turns and looks back, and sees the unyielding hardness in his gaze.

Oh, Raphael thinks, staring back. He really... hates me.

"I know you love the universe, Raphael," he says, in a way that somehow conveys that he doesn't understand it at all, and doesn't even want to try. "We are all bound to love it. But we are not its true maker. We do not determine the course of its fate, we simply help direct events down the path of God's will. It is not for us to decide things."

"Seems an awful lot like you decided to wrap me in flaming chains, though," Raphael feels compelled to point out.

"Because you so adamantly refuse your own purpose," Metatron counters.

He sets the trumpet down next to Raphael.

"I know you don't want to. I understand, it is a struggle. I don't know why God burdened you with it, but I have faith that you are meant to overcome," he continues. "You are still an angel, Raphael. You may weep for the End after it is has passed, and we will embrace you as our brother, and weep alongside you. Aziraphale perhaps most fervently at all. But as an angel, when the end comes, you will still be with us. You will not grieve alone."

The trumpet looks more like a construct of light than a golden object in Heaven. The surface of it shifts and moves, and the interior gleams an ominous crimson.

"Don't listen to him," Aziraphale calls.

"It doesn't matter if I listen to him or not," Raphael assures him. "He can't convince me that this is truly God's plan. Only God Herself can do that." Even if She did, he thinks, would I do it? Even then? Could I bring myself to?

Metatron shakes his head.

"So arrogant, even now, with this second chance in your grasp," he laments.

"Who's arrogant?" Raphael counters. "At least I know I'm not God. You've always had troubles with that."

The accusation doesn't seem to make an impression at all. The Metatron barely pays attention to it, where once it would have had him extremely upset. That's kind of weird. Raphael discreetly tests the chains, but still finds no exploitable weakness. He's never encountered the likes of them before.

"You're a selfish one. Much like our poor Aziraphale. You know, for all he's trying to take the blame on your behalf here, it was you who spent six thousand years corrupting him. Dragging him further and further from the light, towards his doom. What an odd way to treat someone you purport to care about. I believe it was what you once called, what was it? Ah yes. Shades of grey. But there is no shade of grey in Heaven. There are only those who stand in the light of God, and those who fall."

The Metatron gestures, and to Raphael's shock, Michael cuts a gash along Aziraphale's leg. Fabric and skin both split. Red blood dribbles onto the chains around his legs. A surprised cry of pain escapes Aziraphale before he grits his teeth and cuts it off.

Oh no, Raphael thinks, with terrible comprehension. His eyes go wide. It's going to be like Shax and the butterfly!

They're going to hurt Aziraphale in order to punish him. They're going to threaten to rip Aziraphale's wings off unless he plays the trumpet.

"You - how dare you?" Aziraphale calls out to Metatron. "You've got it completely wrong!"

"Do I now?" Metatron responds.

"You do. It wasn't like that! I know... it can seem that way. When you're up here, it all seems so straightforward! But Heaven was never supposed to be the ultimate point of it all. There is so much more to it than simply following a script."

"And so you admit that you have strayed from the path, that you have 'gone off script'?"

"It's not a bad thing!"

Raphael has a terrible, sinking feeling. He feels like he's caught in an echo of an experience long buried, and yet to be had. I just have a few questions about the plan, nothing bad...

"You've lost sight of your purpose. Free will is for humans. Not. Angels," Metatron rebukes, voice reverberating throughout the chamber. He nods, and Michael cuts Aziraphale's other leg this time.

"Stop it!" Raphael calls.

"It's a kinder punishment for his disobedience than simply tossing him down to Hell," Metatron tells him.

He is still, very faintly, smiling.

Raphael feels hot and cold at once. The twisting sensation is in his chest again, but now it's sharp, like a blade hidden inside of him that wants to come out and cut. There's no blade inside of him, though. Raphael was never bestowed any weapons, no swords nor spears, no flaming whip, or gleaming mace. He remembers Lucifer holding that mace in front of the burning glory of the first star, remembers all the other angels agreeing that it was very pretty, very nice, even if they didn't know what it was for.

For some reason the memory overlays the image of the Metatron smiling down at him.

Something clicks into place.

"You sound like Lucifer," he realizes. His gaze sweeps over the chamber, over all the other angels assembled and watching. They are now so silent, so still. No one expected him to say such a thing, it's so startling that they haven't even found outrage yet.

Raphael marvels.

"You all sound like Lucifer. Why did you kick him out if you were just going to agree with him in the end?"

The Metatron's gaze flashes, this accusation hitting home where the other hadn't.

"What a weak attempt to question Heaven's authority," he declares. "It was God who punished Lucifer for rebelling. It is Heaven which obeys the will of God."

"But-"

"Enough!"

The light in the heavenly chamber shifts from golden-bright to deep red. On the other side of the barricade, something opens up in the middle of the floor. The portal is deep and dark. Cries of agony drift up, like a macabre kind of music.

The Metatron folds his hands behind his back.

"The angel Aziraphale shall hereby be condemned to Fall into the fires of Hell, to be banished from God's grace, and suffer in eternity for his sins."

Once again, his gaze locks onto Raphael. Then the trumpet.

"Unless, of course, the situation were to meaningfully change before we cast him out."

Chapter Text

Raphael watches, wretched and defeated, as two angels begin to drag Aziraphale towards the open pit. He doesn't want this. He doesn't want it at all, but he can't figure out how to stop it. The thing Metatron is asking him for is not something he can give, not even to save Aziraphale. He struggles against the chains, feeling them bite into his wings, dig deeper into both of his forms as he fights against them. His burns agonize him with the movement, and he doesn't know how to cope, but he doesn't stop struggling either.

The Metatron's gaze bores into him.

When they're halfway to dragging Aziraphale to be thrown down, Metatron raises a forestalling hand.

"Ah, in all the fuss, I almost forgot," he says. Then he looks to Michael. "Bring me the glasses."

Michael hesitates. Aziraphale's eyes widen in horror, and he twists himself, struggling to try and keep his coat pocket away.

"The glasses," the Metatron reiterates.

At Michael's blank look, he visibly bites back frustration.

"The material object in his front coat pocket! Spectacle! Lenses! The godforsaken glasses."

There's nothing either of them can do to prevent it as Michael nods in comprehension, goes over to Aziraphale, and takes Crowley's sunglasses from his pocket. Aziraphale shakes his head.

"What do you want with them? Don't break them, please don't break them there's no reason-!"

Metatron scoffs.

"Calm down. You're making a fool of yourself," he says. "Why should we break them? We made them."

Michael approaches the barricade, and so does Metatron. He reaches a hand through, passing as if reaching into water, and accepts the offering. Raphael flings himself against the barricade at the same time, trying to disrupt it via the brief opening, but it closes without a trace and leaves no discernible weakness behind.

The Metatron acts as if he hadn't even moved at all.

"Sentiment. Such a tricky thing," he declares. "Even if Heaven were to erase your memory, Raphael, you would still be yourself, which seems to be the crux of the problem. When you were reinstated there was some concern that you would be utterly intractable. Fortunately, it didn't take too much effort to preserve some of Crowley's more, oh let's give him credit and call them noble traits, for future use."

Raphael reels.

The Metatron motions, and Ariel and Haniel come forward to restrain him.

"You're so keen on love. It's to your credit. God would approve, so I'll grant you back a little of what you've lost in your return to the fold."

The glasses slide into place. Raphael feels bewildered. Why are they...? Why give this back to him, and why now? He doesn't understand. Why would they make the glasses, keep something of a demon in them? What's the purpose? He feels sick, disoriented, and like the answer is lingering just beyond his reach. Shax and the butterfly. If Shax had tried to rip its wings off, Raphael would have tried to stop her, of course, because that was just pointless cruelty. But he didn't weep for every butterfly that died, and inevitably a lot of them did, even he knew that. He wouldn't have been too heartbroken over that one specific butterfly either, despite that he was fond of it landing on his hair.

The butterfly was abstract.

Despite his growing fondness, so too is Aziraphale. At least to some degree. Raphael likes him, wants to help, is fascinated by him.

But he knows he doesn't love him yet, or else he's beginning to understand that it wouldn't feel so different with the glasses on.

Insight comes to him as Ariel and Haniel turn him to face the pit. The Aziraphale, wrapped in chains, threatened at the edge of it. The only leverage that they have on him. But it's leverage on Crowley, really. Raphael wouldn't let the universe End for Aziraphale.

It seems that they think Crowley might.

It's painful again. The blood, the chains, the look of anguish on Aziraphale's face. The menace of the open pit is so much worse. He can't take it. He'd rather be the one on that side of the barricade, he'd rather Aziraphale be anywhere else, it's like the chains are burning again but this time it's a terrible sort of fury that's building up inside of him.

"Signal the End," Metatron tells him. "And we'll forgive you both. You can be together. All the pain will be over."

"No! No, don't listen to him!" Aziraphale's trembling. At first Raphael thinks it's with fear, and that's awful. But then he understands - it's not fear. It's fury. Even dragged down and threatened as he is, Aziraphale stares at the arrayed forces of Heaven as if he is a conduit for God's own disappointment. There is not a shred of repentance or guilt in his bearing.

"Raphael," he says. His voice wavers, but is still strong. "No matter what they do, do not blow that trumpet. Do you understand? I don't want you do it. I'll accept my punishment instead."

Raphael's hands curl impotently against his knees. He feels a frayed, dangerous, overwhelming sensation overtake him. Caught between two intolerable outcomes. He's never been trapped before. He hates it. Hates it, hates it, let him go, let him out, let him go! The feeling builds and builds until it overflows, and he thinks he might be breaking apart. Scattering into light and darkness, like a dying star.

He roars. The chains around him glow. Haniel and Ariel leap backwards as bolts of lighting breach the top of the celestial chamber and crash, gold and blue, into the gleaming floors around them. They hit the barricade, strike the chains, and even rain down against the Metatron, who shields himself with his wings in order to deflect them.

Tears pour down his face. They pool in the inside rim of Crowley's sunglasses. His shoulders shake.

Despite it all, he's still trapped.

"Let him go," he begs.

The golden trumpet is moved into his line of sight.

"When the Archangel Raphael has done his part, all will be forgiven," the Metatron says.

Raphael looks to Aziraphale. The angel is visibly struggling with his own composure. But he gives him a reassuring nod.

I'll accept my punishment instead.

He doesn't know if he can withstand it. Doesn't know if he can watch them finish dragging Aziraphale all the way to that opening, like this, and watch them throw him in. It's too much for him to feel. He'll break apart again, even worse somehow. He's terrified now. He's the Archangel Raphael, and that the very last thing he should be; this as-yet unfallen angel who walked right into a trap without the faintest idea that he wouldn't be able to walk back out again. He can't bear the burden of Crowley's love and his own weakness at the same time.

He's all wrong for this. Resignation feels heavy.

Slowly, he nods.

There are no good choices. But there's one that he might be able to actually make.

The Metatron sighs.

"Oh well. I suppose we'll have to find something else to compel you." He nods at Michael. "Toss him in."

"Wait."

The other angels have barely even moved to comply, but at Metatron's nod, they stop again.

"Raphael, no," Aziraphale says.

"Unbind my hand, if you would," he requests. His voice sounds remote even to himself. He can't think too hard about this, or else he might not be able to get through it. He has to get through it. Even if it's the wrong thing to do.

With a motion of Metatron's hand, one of the chains loosens. The rest do not.

A shame, but more or less what he expected.

Raphael picks up the trumpet.

"No! Don't do it, you can't do it! You don't understand, it'd be worse than you already think. The people, Raphael, the world, it's so beautiful, and you've barely seen any of it to know-"

"Aziraphale."

The angel quiets. Then he surges forward. The others don't stop him, even as he presses close to the barricade again.

Raphael looks into his eyes. It still hurts. But there's something else now too. Something firm and unyielding, more like his usual self. He's made up his mind.

"Let's get on with it!" Michael calls.

"I just have one thing I must say," Raphael insists. He presses the hand holding the trumpet against the barricade.

"Don't, just let them cast me out. It won't be so bad. I'll be... I'll be like Crowley was. I can live with that," Aziraphale pleads.

Raphael smiles at him.

"Do you know, if I wanted to destroy creation, I wouldn't even need this stupid blowhorn?" he says. Out of the corner of his eye he sees the Metatron tense in realization. Too late. "God granted me the ability to destroy all the stars in the universe. I mean that'd do it, right? I don't know why God granted me that, because I'll never use it and I was ordered not to even tell anyone about it. Seems overkill, giving one angel two apocalypse buttons."

Realization overtakes Aziraphale's features with dull horror.

"I wasn't supposed to say," he adds.

Raphael's still smiling as the divine retribution hits.

Chapter Text

A little over six months ago...

Were the angel Haniel even slightly less serene, she might express a certain degree of frustration with the recent goings-on and dealings of several of her superiors. If pressed, she might even allude out loud to a sentiment as unworthy as resentment, particularly in the direction of the Archangel Michael, concerning the subject of extreme sanctions and the mechanics of an object that has been entrusted to her guardianship since the Great War. She might also express a degree of purely professional distaste for the reassignment of one of her junior recording angels to an Earth outpost without so much as a by-your-leave, and some annoyance with the temporary posting becoming a semi-permanent reassignment.

Heaven does not increase its ranks. They've had a staffing issue for centuries, since the number of angels is, barring extraordinary circumstances, only ever capable of going down. Rank is irrelevant at this point; it's a question of pure manpower. One less scrivener means Muriel's work must be redistributed among the rest of them, and they already have a backlog. At this point doomsday can't come quick enough, if only to finally put at stop to the universe's goings-on and permit her department a chance to catch up without new work flooding in and cancelling their efforts out.

But the main thing is the Book of Life. One of the few records in Heaven actually written by God.

As such, the book is in fact, ineffable.

Which means it is not to be meddled with as a method of bleeding disciplinary action.

Since Sodom and Gomorrah, Haniel has kept the book under strict lock and key in the upper echelons of the archival chambers, which only herself and the highest of angels have access to. Prior to Sodom and Gomorrah she kept it in the main records room for angels to ooh and aah at, but afterwards it was unfashionable to be too showy, so she relocated it to somewhere more sensible and secure. Now that there's been a management shift, she's probably going to have to grant whoever gets promoted to the new Supreme Archangel position clearance, which will take up even more of her valuable time. But the upshot of it is, she's pretty sure that the Metatron won't promote Michael, so she can sneak in a covert revocation that will keep Michael out of the records room, and stop that idiot from staring hungrily at the book like at any moment God will someday grant the opportunity to muck around with it.

God won't, and nor will Haniel. It's holy. It's sacred. It's... actually she's not entirely sure what else it is, truth be told.

She doesn't even know how to actually edit it! The script is self-writing in a language that's mostly incomprehensible even to angels. There are pages where it is unclear whether the brush strokes are intended to be words or illustrations. The only thing that can be discerned from it are names. Names of angels, specifically. Even then there's no actual context for what they're doing there or why, and despite rampant theorizing, no concrete evidence that erasing them will have any particular effect or even be viable. Haniel has never tried, and if poor Azrael did back when the book was in his care (before the War), no one has never mentioned it to her. She has no idea if the idea of erasing names comes from any actual case of it being done, or from pure poppycock some bored mid-tier recording angel started on a whim and let get out of hand.

She has no intention of finding out, either. But she's been checking on the book more often lately. She will not say that she distrusts Michael, who is of course a Prince of Heaven and divine reflection of God's glory, but should the mighty archangel be caught sniffing around one more time it may be that Haniel will have to redistribute some celestial energy up a nearby jacksy just to make a point about jurisdictions.

No alarms have gone off today, which is why it is especially disconcerting when Haniel enters the sealed the chamber on a routine check and finds the book stand empty.

Her first, rather unangelic thought is:

That cunt's done it now!

Her second is:

To piss if I'm going to be disciplined for this! I haven't the time to waste on bleeding sanctions!

So, Haniel does not immediately set off an alarm, but rather activates an alert already placed on the chamber to show traces of whoever had passed through recently, and then chases after them in a righteous fury. A quiet righteous fury, which means a significant number of records angels leap from her path like pedestrians evading a runaway bus in an action movie, but none of the angels from other departments particularly notice.

Most demons, in Haniel's experience, are not recognizable as having once been angels at all. They are distorted. Their wings are ashen, their skin sallow, their bodies defamed by parasites, mutilation, or markings they've adopted for reasons known only to their own twisted minds. They defile themselves, and even the ones who look nearly human tend to change faces and forms at least once, which makes it very easy to distinguish them from the concept of the angels they used to be.

But some are different. The demon Crowley is one such uncommon case. He's a demon, yes, but if Haniel didn't know better, she might mistake him for... someone else.

This causes a problem when she nearly crashes into him hurrying through the heavenly corridors, taking the back ways like he knows them as well as any recording angel, cutting through the light of the celestial kingdom like an arrow of darkness. When the first light shone and Heaven was new, Haniel recollects a kind hand steadying her own wobbling, and showing her to take her first flight.

That angel is gone, but his name is still written in the book that the foul creature leftover is currently trying to steal.

So far as Haniel knows, all the names of all the angels who ever were still are written in the book, even though the angels themselves are long forsaken. There aren't any names of any demons. 

The moment of disorientation and confused impulses, caused by the sheer shock of discovering the actual thief, costs her. The demon turns and takes note of her presence. He immediately tries to evade. Haniel, in a fit of panic, summons her spear and hurls it after him. It cuts him off as it strikes a nearby pillar, barely missing the demon's throat, and he makes an undignified 'hrk' sound as he fails to stop his momentum in time and crashes into it. But he keeps going, and Haniel has to trigger an emergency cut-off to stop him.

He whirls as he's trapped and raises the Book of Life like a shield between them.

"Stop! You don't want to-"

But Haniel's reflexes are still in motion, and whatever she was expecting a demon to do it wasn't that. She's already called back her spear, and the spear is already flying again. It gleams with celestial brightness, a blue flame at its tip. Her eyes widen in horror as it heads directly for the book.

The demon seems to realize it in the same fraction of a moment, that the spear has already flown, that the divine weapon and the Book of Life are going to collide. Haniel has no idea what will happen if they do. If her spear will break (bad), if the book will (worse), or if they will both be destroyed in a cataclysmic eruption of divine entities that will also obliterate herself and the demon and possibly all of creation (worst).

An alarm blares as the demon does... something. Haniel's not sure what. He starts to lower the book again, too slow, and then it feels like something happens to time. But time also resists, or perhaps rather Heaven does, thwarting the manipulations of a fallen creature.

The collision of forces is too terrible to behold.

Haniel cries out in dismay and shields herself, praying for deliverance. She thinks she sees, briefly, the demon moving the book, and not moving the book. Catching the spear and stopping the spear and being run through by the spear. She sees the demon's hand pass through the book, and the book pass into the demon as the spear carries it into him, but also she sees nothing, nothing but light and darkness. The torn edge of a page, and a flash of the cosmos.

For a moment she almost thinks she hears the voice of God. Not the Metatron. The real deal. A single note, like someone absently leafing through a record and thoughtfully going hrm.

The moment passes.

The energies fade. Or perhaps 'resolve' would be a better description. Haniel lingers a while in the sheer relief of still existing. Thank God.

Then she hurries to pick herself up, to take stock of the damage. Her spear's broken, and she would lament, but there's too much else to focus on. As to the rest of it...

She lets out a mournful cry of bewildered dismay. The demon is there, but he's not a demon anymore. Or is he? The wings are white, the body prone, the signs of darkness and defilement gone. A holy light lingers about him now. It fills her with a great sense of wonder, and a terrible hope. Could this help solve the staffing issue?

No, she realizes, to further dismay. There's no chance it's easily replicated. They won't be turning demons back into angels on a regular basis any time soon, because no matter how she looks she can't see the most important thing.

The Book of Life is gone.

And now she's going to have to report this.

Chapter Text

A little more than six months later...

Raphael feels awful again. Worse than awful, maybe. There's so much pain, and he feels so heavy, burdened as if by his own form. Even more unsettling, he feels a lack that is difficult to describe. An absence of... something. Something he can't identify, because he'd never really thought about having it before, and doesn't know how to articulate the absence. He thinks of dying stars being crushed into black holes, of lights snuffing out, of fires burning themselves to extinction.

Gradually he becomes aware of his immediate surroundings.

They are dark, and they are cold.

But there's something warm, too. Pressed against his chest, contributing to the feeling of being weighed down, but less horribly than the broken chains still wrapped around his limbs.

Aziraphale is a tuft of fair hair and snowy white wings, spread out over top of him, as if trying to shield him from the invasive cold. Raphael feels a rush of agony, and musters the strength to reach up and take Crowley's sunglasses off. It makes things a little easier. And a little less dark, too.

He looks around, wincing as his neck sends sharp, unpleasant sensations up and down his body at every move. Shadows, rock, and in the distance he sees pools of fire. He can hear the faint echo of screams and wailing, crackling sound and distant hisses.

Memory didn't abandon him, but it comes back more clearly as he struggles to roll Aziraphale off of him enough to sit up. He tries to be gentle, but everything hurts so much that he's not sure if he succeeds.

He defied God. The shock of it almost makes his limbs tremble as much as the pain. He broke God's mandate, and the retribution had fallen down on them, shaking through the chamber and shattering the barrier, along with - it seemed - the walls, floor, and ceiling. Raphael's not sure what happened to the other angels present, but he can't see any of them nearby. The sensations involved had been too painful, worse even than Metatron's fiery chains.

He remembers Aziraphale grabbing him, trying to catch him. Remembers the two of them tumbling down the gateway to the Pit that Metatron had opened up.

Raphael's breath catches. He looks at himself, but if he's a demon now, he can't properly tell. Aziraphale's wings are still white... so are his, for that matter. Is that normal? He doesn't know. Crowley's wings in the drawings were black, but contrary to his expectations, it seems that he isn't Crowley restored.

His trembling worsens. His vision blurs.

He's made a mess of it.

He had hoped... he doesn't know what he'd hoped, actually. Foolish of him. He's never seen anyone defy God before, he didn't know what it would be like. Somehow he'd thought it was just going to be like changing, or being cast down alone, like teleporting. Maybe God would smite him, maybe he'd smash through all the floors of Heaven like a stone cast through thin glass panes, maybe the fires of Hell would rise up and grab him, maybe it would just hurt a lot and then he'd be transformed. He didn't even know if it would be like Beelzebub's case, since that was the first instance.

Even now, he's not sure if they fell to Hell because that's where God put them, or because the divine retribution turned to the chamber around them to holy detritus and knocked them over to where the gateway to Hell was already open.

But either way, here they are. Aziraphale's fallen anyway, and Raphael along with him.

He feels weak.

Aziraphale shifts with a soft groan. Raphael struggles and helps him sit up, and watches him take in their situation and suffer a similar anguish. Everything about him seems to sink.

"No, oh no," Aziraphale breathes, his pain all the more apparent for how quiet it is. He moves to stand up, then winces and grasps his head. His wings flutter anxiously, the shattered chains clank, and the stupid evil awful trumpet that God never should have given to Raphael if She actually loved him rolls down off of a bit of rock and makes a soft 'tink' when it lands. Aziraphale sucks in a pained hiss.

Raphael reaches out a shaky finger and presses it to his temple, and tries to heal whatever must be hurting him.

It doesn't work.

He lets his arm drop, but Aziraphale looks back up again and catches it. He holds his hand tightly.

"Crowley..." he begins.

He stops when he sees Raphael's eyes. His face falls all over again, somehow even worse than before.

"'M sorry," Raphael rasps, lowering his head in shame. "It's still just me."

A heavy silence follows.

Then Aziraphale squeezes his hand reassuringly. For some reason the gesture almost has him bursting into tears.

"Don't apologize. I didn't mean to... well. It's alright." Aziraphale looks devastated, despite his words. However, some of his countenance changes when Raphael shifts his wings. Then he seems to notice that there are only white feathers all around them.

Aziraphale twists in place, despite his obvious discomfort, like he needs to verify that the wings are still attached to both of them. Then he lets out a breath, closes his eyes, and mouths a soft 'thank you' up towards the ceiling of the Pit.

"It seems we've been spared some grace. We haven't Fallen after all," he declares.

Raphael has a dubious feeling about that.

"But I feel awful," he says.

Aziraphale makes a sympathetic noise, and reaches over to help pull the mangled chains away, focusing first on the painful links weighing down his wings.

"Of course you feel awful, you were just struck down by God, if you were any less - well, if you weren't so strong you'd probably be a scorch mark instead. Divine retribution is nothing to sneeze at! What were you thinking, telling me about that business with the stars in the midst of all that?! Oh no, and the chamber blew up! That was the main council chamber! It's even holier than most of Heaven already is!"

Raphael swallows.

"I thought..." he struggles, fighting to speak past the thickness of his throat. "I thought, if I became a demon again, they couldn't make me use the trumpet. And they'd have no reason to harm you, and Crowley would be back, and would probably know how to destroy it and fix things better than I could. I didn't know it would happen like that. I've never defied God before."

Aziraphale is quiet for a while. Raphael wonders if he thinks it's foolish, if it was the wrong choice and only he, in his ignorance, couldn't see it. He's never felt like this before, like he's suddenly so uncertain of his own ability to think or act.

Quietly, Aziraphale picks up Crowley's sunglasses. He checks them for damage before tucking them into one of the inside pockets of his coat, which is now singed and battered. His wings brush against Raphael's. It ought to feel too close, but if didn't hurt, Raphael thinks he'd press even closer.

"Weren't you afraid of the prospect at all?" Aziraphale finally asks him. He looks... lost, and suddenly small.

"I was," Raphael admits. "But I was more afraid that they'd push you down, or make me use the trumpet."

"But why would you be so concerned for me?" Aziraphale protests. "You should have just let them cast me down! I told you to let them! Was it the glasses? Just what do they really do? How could Metatron have made them? I just... I don't understand! I thought they were Crowley's memories..."

Raphael finds that he can only shrug.

"They're lenses, aren't they? I think they probably just show me how Crowley looked at things. How he saw them, and so how he felt about them as well. He felt a lot about you." Raphael wonders what that says about the other things he's looked at with them. Did Crowley not feel for them?

Or... did he feel more or less the same as Raphael?

His answer just seems to make things even worse, despite his hopes. He doesn't like that this outcome keeps on happening. Aziraphale looks wounded and stricken, dealt another cruel blow even while he's already so pained. The angel closes his eyes and begins to shudder. Then he lifts a hand up to cover his mouth. It's probably a good idea, since they're talking earlier seems to have echoed somewhat, and now a kind of ominous silence has begun to settle around them. The distant screams seem quieter.

Raphael's not sure why, but it puts him on edge. He wishes he could tell, but it's like all his senses have been dulled near to spiritual deafness in this place.

Something dark moves in the corner of his gaze. Or seems to. When Raphael looks, he can't actually see anything. Just more rocks and flames, and shadows dancing up the endlessly dark walls of the Pit around them. Even when he cranes his neck, he can only see the barest pinpricks of distant light in the cavern roof that must be far above them.

He remembers Beelzebub's story, and shivers.

At length Aziraphale removes his hand from his mouth and composes himself again. He clears his throat, quietly, and then starts to stand up. Raphael goes to his feet too, rather shakily.

"This isn't so bad," Aziraphale says, in a high and light voice that sounds like it's veering towards a scream. "We're not really Fallen, so as long as we can get out of here, we should be fine. And we... well, maybe we'll find a way to destroy the trumpet while we're here. That would put a fly in the Metraton's ointment! I'm sure we'll manage. It's only Hell, after all. I've been in parts of Hell before. Admittedly not... not this part, but... we'll manage."

His eyes are a little wild.

Raphael nods in comprehension. For his own part, his emotions are settling down again. Yes, he feels awful, but at least they're out of Heaven now. And they're together. Once this weakness wears off then he'll be able to help Aziraphale's pains, but he has a sinking feeling that they might need to get out of here in order for that to happen. The more time passes, the more aware he becomes of a terrible, oppressive atmosphere. There's smoke in this place, hot and darker than the shadows, and it seems to want to stick to every pore of his being. The cold is pervasive, despite the visible pools of magma, and though he isn't sure it's not just a trick of the light, it almost seems like the impossible dark walls are breathing.

Aziraphale leans over to collect the trumpet from where it had rolled to a stop against the rocks.

Out of the shadows, something leaps directly at him.

Chapter Text

Before Raphael can even begin to react, Aziraphale wields the trumpet like a cudgel and reflexively thwacks the charging creature away. It hisses and reels off to the side, staring at them with gleaming yellow-green eyes and a mouth full of sharp teeth. Otherwise it resembles nothing so much as a monkey that's been put through a meat grinder a few times.

The imp circles around them. Raphael feels a swell of pity in his chest. It looks painful in its nature, as if the suffering is constant.

"Hello," he ventures.

"Raphael, get behind me," Aziraphale insists, keeping his gaze locked on the imp and still holding the trumpet as if to ward it off.

Raphael shifts so that he's a little bit behind the other angel, but also keeps his own gaze on the creature. It lets out another low hiss. Spittle leaks from between needle-like teeth and sizzles against the cold, black floor of the Pit.

"Can you not speak?" Raphael wonders.

"Don't try and communicate with it. It's a demon, a very low order one," Aziraphale tells him, quietly. "A creature like this only knows misery and spite."

"That's awful."

"We can't fix it," Aziraphale adds, as if anticipating his thoughts.

Raphael feels his own pain in the burns and scars that blister the imp's form. They're not just wounds of a physical nature, they're injuries of its very being. It's one thing to hear of a concept, and another to truly see it. His chest aches.

"Was it an angel, once?" he wonders.

Aziraphale hesitates.

"Possibly," he concedes. "But probably not. There are all sorts of things that manifest in Hell. Sometimes the very embodiments of the pain and suffering inflicted by the place, sometimes mangled human souls that have been tormented for centuries, and other such tragic abominations. 'Demon' is a fairly broad term."

The imp, apparently not impressed with their conversation, lets out another hiss that escalates to a warbling cry and then charges. Aziraphale thwacks it with the trumpet again.

"Back, foul fiend! Return to the pit from whence... oh, um. I suppose we're already here, aren't we? Then... erm, go back to the... the other part of the pit! From whence you came! Shoo!"

Said 'foul fiend' doesn't seem to like getting hit with the trumpet, though it's really its own fault for trying to bite them, or whatever it's angling to do. It seems to decide that it's not going to manage it, and at Aziraphale's shooing, turns and rushes off into the deepening darkness of Hell.

Unfortunately, it kicks up a huge racket as it goes, wailing and shrieking what sounds suspiciously like some kind of alarm.

"That's not good," Raphael notes.

"No, it isn't. We should move. We can't be found here," Aziraphale confirms.

They both look around, but Raphael has little idea of where to go, and it doesn't seem as if Aziraphale knows much better. Mustering a confidence that seems like bravado even to Raphael's inexperienced eye, Aziraphale finally picks a direction. It... seems almost like he picked the first spot he could spot to at random.

"We'll head that way. There's more light, so it probably leads out eventually."

A blast of smoke threatens to choke them, so Raphael nods rather than answering. Part of him wonders if he should ask for the sunglasses back. Maybe Crowley has feelings about Hell that would help them navigate it. 

Then again... if Crowley has feelings about Hell, they're almost certainly not good, and Raphael's probably more useful if it's not weeping in a ball on the ground. He decides against it, though he keeps it in mind in case they can't figure anything else out.

They make it out of the chamber where they landed to find that the Pit is plagued by alternating pockets of ice cold and terrible heat. They stumble onto them without any apparent warning, one moment shivering across the black rock, the next sweating through an oppressive swelter that makes it feel as though the air is filled with invisible fire.

After a while Raphael begins to notice more details, all of which make everything worse.

The floor is mostly black rock, so dark it looks like the Pit must continue even further down that it does. But some of it is lighter, broken up and craggy, and in those parts he can see outlines of... things. Bones. Wings. Faces stuck in expressions of agony, hands reaching with the fingers broken off and crumbled into chunks of onyx that rattle and slide if he accidentally steps on them.

The walls are moving. It's a subtle rhythm, indeed very like breathing. Or maybe swelling would be a better description. If the Pit is alive, it's not alive in any way that Raphael can recognize, but it's not inert either. After a while he begins to notice that some of the screaming and wailing sounds seem to come from the dark substance of their surroundings.

Echoes, he thinks, though he's not sure why. There's a terrible sort of sympathy in him that he thinks it would be dangerous to examine in the light of day.

Even the fire and magma isn't normal. It almost looks that way at a distance, but get closer and the illusion sloughs off like a shed skin. The burning pools of liquid are viscous, more like blood than molten stone, and the first time he passes one Raphael freezes in terrible recognition of the warped divinity residing there. As if one had taken an angel and burned them so hot that part of their being literally melted into a puddle.

Aziraphale grasps his elbow and hurries him along.

"Best not to linger. Don't look too closely," the other angel advises. But his expression looks entirely as horrified as Raphael feels.

How could God let this happen? he wonders.

He really... he had no idea. He thought he understood, but he didn't, did he? Probably he still doesn't. After all, what he's looking at here are only echoes of terrible things that have happened. They can look away if they want to, or need to.

It's quiet again. Is the place always so empty? Raphael can't imagine any of the demons lingering here would ever want to come back, and the space is very large, but he can't shake the feeling of being watched.

Eventually they come to a chamber that is even quieter than the others. A wide, dark, terrible space surrounding by a moat of burning angel blood. Every surface around it is smooth and black, almost as if polished.

In the middle of the chamber floor are the dark scorch marks of two huge wings.

Raphael only ever knew one angel with wings like those.

"I guess we're at the bottom of the pit," he murmurs.

Aziraphale glances at him.

"What makes you say that? Did you... remember something?"

Raphael is sad to disappoint him again. Nevertheless, he shakes his head, and points to the scorch marks.

"Beelzebub said Lucifer went to the bottom when he lit everything on fire," he reasons. "I don't think his wings survived it."

Aziraphale hesitates.

"Are you quite sure?" he asks. "Those... those could just be decorative, erm, symbols. Couldn't they?"

As if triggered by cue to refute any or all hope where it might crop up, the light from the flaming moat shifts. It fans into the main chamber, carried by a sickly green miasma, and reveals a figure chained to the ceiling. Massive, and horned. Raphael has to tilt backwards to see the angles of the face, to confirm that the skin is molten red, and that the chest rises and falls.

It's a body. A physical form. Huge, and tethered to the space, but not currently in use. Black bat wings, much larger than the scorch marks which would still be considered huge for an angel's wings, trail down the walls of the chamber.

A slight tapping sound, like heels on stone, begins at the other end.

"Hide!" Aziraphale whispers, and pulls them back, only to find that the way behind them has sealed over with more black rock.

A figure strolls into view. Tall and skinny, clad in a smart black suit and heels with a crimson dress shirt. Dark red hair and catlike emerald eyes. They look gaunt, the face hollow around a neatly trimmed goatee. A pair of horns curl up the sides of the head. But despite the unfamiliarity, there's still enough for Raphael to recognize.

Some part of him had been wondering if they'd ever meet again.

"Lucifer," he murmurs.

Aziraphale grasps his arm tightly. His fear is palpable.

"Satan," he corrects. There's a waver in his voice. He is really, truly afraid, so Raphael probably should be too, but it's not coming to him naturally at the moment. He remembers Lucifer, and never found him frightening. Sometimes the intensity was a bit much, and his opinions were questionable if not outright baffling, but Lucifer was light and laughter, a flashy peacock with a silver tongue and a knack for bossing other angels around. The brightest sort of star.

He knows that this isn't the case anymore, probably. It's all the more apparent when those catlike eyes take them in, utterly devoid of surprise, and he realizes that their passage has been known this entire time. That the only reason nothing stopped them before was because they were allowed to get this far.

Here. To this chamber.

To where the devil looks at him with the same cold hatred he'd seen in the Metatron, too.

Chapter Text

Lucifer, or Satan rather, strides into the central point of the chamber and stands between the scorched shadows of his wings.

For a moment there's only silence.

Then a twitch of the fallen angel's lips.

"Fear not," he calls, softly. His voice echoes, whispers of it passing through the fires along the moat in sympathetic harmony.

Raphael moves almost on reflex to go meet him, but Aziraphale's painfully tight grip on his arm holds him back.

Satan's gaze slides from his to the angel beside him. Then back again, dismissive.

"Ah. Aziraphale," he says. "We've been anticipating your arrival for a while now. You can go ahead to processing and finish your Fall."

Aziraphale doesn't move. But he does glare, which is impressive, since the hand gripping Raphael is still trembling.

This is going to go badly. Raphael can already tell. He wants to try and talk with Satan, but they've never exactly been close pals even before all this, and talking did not turn out so well in Heaven. On the one hand, maybe Heaven's problems are a sign that this Hell business isn't as wicked as it's made out to be. Maybe it's more complicated than that, and Satan's side of it has only been struggling against something that has gone intrinsically wrong in the celestial kingdom.

On the other hand... Raphael once again takes in the chamber with the big red demon on the ceiling and the moat of burning angel blood and the walls sunken with the petrified remains of what seem to be thousands of cremated angels.

...Maybe not.

Still. What else can he do?

"I'd rather he stays with me, if it's all the same to you," Raphael suggests, and pulls against Aziraphale's hold, drawing him forwards along with him as he determinedly goes to meet Satan halfway.

"It isn't," Satan replies. He makes a dismissive gesture with his hand, and the floor opens up beneath Aziraphale's feet. Raphael has to whirl around, teeth clenched, to try keep him from being dragged down and away through the portal. The strain of the movement reminds him that he's still disconcertingly weak, and it's not enough. They are, for a moment, a spinning pair of bright white wings in the dark.

Then it's just Raphael, alone. The trumpet clatters to the stone at this feet.

"What did you do with him?!" he demands.

Satan tilts his head.

"What I do with every angel Heaven gives me. He's not special, of course."

Raphael clenches and unclenches a fist. Satan's eyes don't follow the motion, but something about his expression implies that he notices anyway.

"Ah, brother. It's been so long. Come here, and let me look at you."

The ground beneath his feet pitches him forward, and Raphael loses his footing entirely. A pained hiss escapes him as his wings smack against the floor. He scrambles to find a hold, but the smooth surface has no mercy for him, and sends him rolling until he's more or less at Satan's feet. He grabs the trumpet to keep it from smacking into him.

One of his hands ends up pressed against the scarred marks of Lucifer's wings.

Satan looks him over sharply again. Scrutinizing. Raphael feels a real kinship with scholarly descriptions of bugs pinned under microscopes.

After a few long, agonizing seconds of this, Raphael clears his throat and decides to try.

"So. I heard you go by 'Satan' now? That's. Different. Did you pick it yourself, or...?"

His question is ignored as Satan leans down and hooks a single finger around his trumpet. A small plume of smoke rises as he lifts it up, and a red mark spreads across the finger in question. If it hurts, he gives no sign. His expression barely changes as he stares.

Raphael gets up. Tentatively, he reaches over to take the trumpet away, and stop the needless burning.

"You don't have to hurt yourself. I can just show you," he says. He holds it demonstratively, but Satan isn't looking at the trumpet anymore.

It feels all wrong.

Raphael forces himself to meet his gaze steadily anyway.

"Would you help me destroy it?" he asks.

For a moment, he lets himself hope. There's so much pain in this place, so much suffering happening. Surely Lucifer - Satan - doesn't want more of it? He rebelled against God before, didn't he? Maybe he'll want to again. If not for whatever admittedly meagre fondness they once knew before, then possibly just for the chance to defy fate again.

"Why would I do that?" Satan replies.

Raphael's hopes plummet down, down, down.

"For old times sake?" he tries.

Not even a twitch.

A heavy sigh escapes him.

"You want me to play it, too, then," he surmises.

Satan reaches over and pats his cheek. It's a cold, patronizing gesture the makes his incorporeal being crawl, and he's glad when it's over.

"Play it for me," Satan tells him. "You've always been on my side, even with our disagreements. You turned against the world just like the rest of us. Brought us souls, showed the true ugliness of humanity, spent so many years tempting that angel to damnation. We need your help, Raphael. We're all suffering in the absence of your unmatched compassion."

He lays a hand over the trumpet. Once again it burns him, so hot and bright that Raphael can see the light of it gleaning through the back of his hand. He hastily lowers it down and away again.

"And if you struggle to believe me, then yourself this: why else would God restore you, of all demons, if not to grant us the mercy of an End?"

A glimmer cracks the façade. Not the hatred, which has been disconcertingly present all along. But the anger. The ugly, twisty, petty meanness of someone on the edge of an outburst, like Michael's pinched look of frustration, or Metatron's blustering big head. Raphael is suddenly reminded of a time when he was praised for his work on the engine of time, and later found that all of his tools had been scattered across an unfinished star system.

He remembers that Lucifer never got as heated over anything as he got over not being the most special angel in the room.

The refusal makes its way to his mouth. He's not going to do it, not for Heaven, not for Hell, not for any threat or lie or even this plea, which might actually be the most compelling reason to signal the end that he's heard yet. He doesn't think Hell should exist. It's all wrong. But the words stop short of his lips, halted by a premonition of how it will actually go if he's honest again.

He hesitates.

So far, just refusing hasn't seemed to work very well. Satan's taken Aziraphale, and he... he wants Raphael to play the trumpet too. He won't help destroy it, and he probably won't take being refused very well either. But he can't really force Raphael, no more than the Metatron could, so the only thing they're on course for is more suffering.

He's not sure he's strong enough to take it. Especially not right now.

"I don't want anyone to suffer," he finally says instead, because that's not a lie. He's never wished anything worse on anyone than some annoying inconveniences.

"You always were soft," Satan replies. Raphael thinks it's meant to sound fond, but instead it just comes out disdainful. Or maybe that's the point. There's a strange dynamic here that Raphael doesn't really recognize, and he's afraid that if he thinks too hard about it, it's going to remind him of God the way that Metatron reminded him of Lucifer.

Even brushing up against that thought, he doesn't know what to make of it.

"I heard you make bargains sometimes," he ventures, casting that aside and moving the trumpet pointedly back to his belt.

Satan regards him a moment longer.

Then he takes a bare step backwards, and finally looks away. It's a relief to have that gaze lifted off of him.

"Did you want to make a bargain? Over something as important as this? I'm surprised at you, Raphael. You used to leap at any chance to help."

He tries to adopt one of the nonchalant postures from the drawings in the book shop. Crowley, he thinks. Crowley would know what to say and do. He'd know how to deal with this version of Lucifer. He'd save Aziraphale, first of everything.

"Well I'm not exactly all angel, now am I?" he counters.

The devil hums, and circles him like a cat. His heels tap against the smooth floors.

"So you do remember," Satan surmises.

He holds fast to the image of Crowley in his mind.

"A little."

"Then I can guess what you want."

"Let Aziraphale go," he says.

Satan's gaze turns half-lidded in something almost like satisfaction.

"Are you sure that's it?" he counters. "He might be better off here. Hell demands a heavy price, but once it's paid, he'll be on our side. Heaven won't take him back regardless. You don't think he'll fair better as one in our fold than off on his own, struggling between both sides of a war?"

"He doesn't like it here," Raphael says.

Satan laughs. It's not at all like Lucifer's laugh, which used to sing like bells. There's no joy in the sound at all.

"But you do? You'll give up your restored grace to rejoin us again, hm? How very loyal of you," the devil needles, crackling with intensity. And more of that petty rage.

He's jealous, Raphael realizes. He wants to go back. He wants God to forgive him and restore Her grace to him.

It's almost a pity. Lucifer wouldn't be so out of place with Heaven as it is now. And he'd probably like it better, what with there being less... horribleness. Sort of.

"I don't think I like it very much here either," he admits. "But if you let Aziraphale go, I'll consider playing the trumpet for you."

Satan's pacing around him stops.

"Consider?" 

"You can try and convince me," Raphael allows. "It's more of a shot than I gave the Metatron. I didn't even let him try at all. And I'm sure you're much better at convincing people of things, since you've gotten such a reputation for it."

For some reason, this provokes a laugh that almost - almost - sounds the tiniest bit like bells.

"I forgot you used to think you were funny back in the day," Satan says.

Then, with a negligent flick of his wrist, he sets Raphael's wings ablaze.

Chapter Text

In Raphael's shock, he doesn't even brace for the pain. If pressed he would expect hellfire to hurt at least as much as the burning chains Heaven had used on him, if not more.

Strangely, it doesn't.

In fact it doesn't really seem to hurt him at all. The flames lick up his wings and cast grotesque, dancing shadows around the chamber. The polished floors reflect images of it back upwards, curling around the brightness of his feathers, but nothing burns.

It just tickles a bit.

Then it kind of flickers out.

Satan stares at Raphael.

Raphael, unsure whether that was supposed to happen or not, stares back.

The flaming moat of angel blood makes some disturbing noises into the silence. Something faintly cries for deliverance. 

"Did you-" he starts, but then Satan lights his wings on fire again.

This time it's taller and bigger. Raphael feels very warm, like he's flown too close to a neutron star, but even his hair doesn't get singed. The tips of the fire turn green and the smoke billows like a phantom caught in a mad dance, full of crackle and gusty noises.

This, too, eventually just goes out. He stretches his wings and finds they feel, if anything, a tiny bit better. Like pressing a warm compress to a strained muscle.

Satan looks extremely unsatisfied, so Raphael doesn't think he's supposed to be getting off this lightly.

"Would-"

Foom. Wings on fire again.

They do it four more times before Satan finally gives up. Raphael would have tried to stop it after the third attempt, honestly, except that it had been vaguely pleasant. He thinks it's helped with some of his lingering strain, although he's still nowhere near one hundred percent again.

"Well," Satan finally says, dripping contempt. "Clearly God is protecting you."

"Do you think so?"

It doesn't feel like God is protecting him, but then again, if God didn't want it to then it wouldn't. And he doesn't have a better explanation.

"You do know that if you turn me into a demon, I can't actually play the trumpet?" he mentions.

"Fuck you," Satan replies succinctly, stalking off and then turning back again. He has never looked more like Lucifer. Raphael can almost imagine his big wings twitching in agitation, chin up, limbs wavering with wounded pride. After a minute he wheels back around and gets in Raphael's face, pressing the height advantage.

"I don't need you to play the signal. I'm the devil himself. Hell can try to end the world whenever we like, it is part of our role as the enemy agitator," he insists. "And Hell answers to no master but me."

"Well. And the Dark Council, right?" Raphael mentions.

"They answer to me!"

He raises both of his hands.

"Alright, fair enough. You're the big boss of your horrible trauma pit. Love what you've done with the place. Very... striking compositions of elements. Hot and cold, light and shadow. Are the walls breathing though? That's been bothering me, walls aren't supposed to do that I don't think..."

"There are other ways I can torture you," Satan threatens through clenched, pointed teeth.

He means it.

Raphael sighs. He twirls his trumpet, fighting the intense wave of anxiety that is still threatening to drown him.

"You do still want me to play the trumpet though, right? It would make things easier. Official."

For a moment he thinks that Satan is going to another round of pointlessly lighting him on fire, or else take up one of those alternate torture methods. Instead he turns on his heel and heads towards the far end of the cavern. A door, which had previously not been discernible to Raphael, appears.

"Fine," Satan spits. "Since God likes to play favourites, lets test how far your luck runs. I'll give you a challenge. If you do it, you can take Aziraphale and go. No one will stop you from leaving. But if you fail, you signal the End. And then as the first act of war between Heaven and Hell, I'll cut you into pieces and hang them from the audience chamber walls."

"Is this the audience chamber?" Raphael asks, taking another look at the wing scorch marks. "You turned the site of your horrible suffering into a meeting room? Did you not already suffer enough?"

Satan growls.

It's not a normal sound.

"It's fine, you can do whatever you like with your space," Raphael allows.

"You can take my deal or I can seal you in there to see how long it takes you lose your mind," the devil suggests.

"Well, that's not much of a choice. I guess we have a deal?"

Raphael catches up and then falls into step with Satan. The big dark door apparently leads out of the Pit, or at least the parts of it that still look like something one would call 'a pit', and into a network of hallways. Similar to Heaven, but much more physically pressing and cluttered, with flickering lights and grimy walls, and odd grates that make unpleasant wheezing noises. The sounds of screaming and cries of agony persist, possibly even getting a bit louder.

Demons are everywhere. Unlike Heaven, where the corridors are broad and airy, Hell is close quarters. Cramped. There seem to be odd corners jutting out exactly where a hip or elbow or the corner of a wing might jam into them by mistake, and the floor, everywhere, is sticky.

At least every single demon they come across clears out of their way as if their existence depends on it. Satan's heels leave behind little crescents of flame with every step he takes, and his gaze is fixed ahead and full of malice.

"Do I get to pick the challenge?" Raphael wonders. For some reason he has a mental image of a fiddle contest.

"No," Satan says, finally going back to that low, haunting voice instead of the incredibly furious one.

"Then I want Aziraphale back. I'm pretty sure you're not going to pick something I'm good at, and he knows more than me."

"You can have him back if you win," Satan declares, obviously trying for smooth and falling a little short of it. They pass through a doorway labelled Games & Challenges, and into a space that smells damp and stale at the same time. Numerous desks are lined up just closely together that it's impossible to walk between them without turning or hitting one's knees, with demons filling out paperwork and even a few wide-eyed human souls milling in the margins.

Satan carries on into an office at the back of the room, one with crooked blinds and a carpet covered in suspiciously rusty stains. The demon already in the office hurries out, bowing and scraping, but Satan barely seems to register their presence before reaching into the top drawer of a black filing cabinet.

He rifles through until he pulls out what looks to be some kind of a contract.

"Don't you have your own office?" Raphael wonders.

"For the past decade or so it's been dedicated to planning Armageddon. Which should have been underway years ago," Satan tells him, pointedly.

He has no idea why that should be his fault, though apparently it's going to be aimed at him anyway.

The contract is smacked down onto the office's desk. It's made of human skin and written in blood, both of which seem impractical and unsuitable, in addition to being kind of disgusting. Raphael's not sure why it should be more disgusting than any of the other materials made of animal parts that he's come across so far, but it is. Maybe because he's talked to several humans by now. Maybe because there's no good reason for it other than that Satan still doesn't like the idea of humans.

Funny, then, that he's got a lot more of them just kind of free-range milling around Hell than would ever be seen outside the pearly gates of paradise in Heaven. But then again, Raphael gets the impression he's deliberately trying to make this place unpleasant.

"Sign here," Satan tells him, handing him a black raven's feather pen, filled with more human blood.

Raphael raises his eyebrows.

"I did not sit through eighty million meetings in Heaven just to sign any old thing put in front of me," he counters. "I'm at least going to read it."

Satan glares. Then he lets out a breath, and with deliberate nonchalance, shrugs.

"Suit yourself. You're going to have to accept it anyway. And the longer you delay, the further Aziraphale progresses through his initiation."

Raphael pales, and reads quickly.

Chapter Text

Satan selects a combat challenge.

Raphael, having largely theoretical knowledge of combat which he only recently acquired, plus the times he’s seen Aziraphale hit things with other things, is kind of expecting the blatant unfairness. But he still finds the wherewithal to object.

“You were a soldier, once. It will all come back to you,” Satan tells him, smugly furious now but still mostly furious. Raphael wonders if he’s ever not furious in these days.

“Was I good soldier?” Raphael asks. He can do a lot of things, he knows that, but those things are not ‘fighting’. Disintegrating a spear before it touches you is very different from actually hitting it with a sword or a shield or... something. He knows about guns, in that he knows they exist and seem like they might be a sort of very lethal beginner’s weapon, but he doubts that Heaven and Hell used them during the Great War so probably even Crowley didn’t know how to wield one. And he definitely doesn't have one.

So far his overall impression of Hell is very bad. He would like to go away and never come back, and he doesn’t think anyone else should come back either.

Satan’s eyes gleam as he answers Raphael’s question.

“No.”

Lucifer was probably a great soldier. Seems like the kind of thing he’d be into. Gabriel too.

A thought occurs to him.

“Was Aziraphale a good soldier?” he wonders, distracted.

Satan snorts.

“As if I cared to pay attention to some fussy principality destined to be a glorified door guard,” he says. "He never distinguished himself."

Raphael thinks Aziraphale was probably pretty good actually, but also probably didn’t like it. He didn’t like the fighting he'd done earlier, and it didn’t suit him very well outside of the determined and steely expression that sometimes overtook him while he was doing that. And there were other times the determined and steely expression overtook him.

He sighs.

This is going to be bad again, he predicts. He’ll probably lose his fight if he tries to fight it himself. Then he’ll find out what the consequences are when he still won’t blow the trumpet. Nothing good, obviously, but at least if it features his total obliteration, that will finally settle this matter. He’d still prefer not to be totally obliterated though.

He wishes he had Crowley’s sunglasses. Maybe they could impart something useful to him, like show him an opponent’s weak spots or... something.

As it is, he's going to have to exploit the fine print.

"I want to select a champion," he says.

Satan gives him a narrow look.

"They have to accept," he mentions. Like he doesn't think Raphael knows any people who would agree to fight in Hell for him.

He's... not wrong. No one in Heaven would fight for him at this point, and he doesn't know any humans very well. Even if he did, they're notoriously squishy and mortal, and probably can't fight well. He knows Aziraphale, and Aziraphale probably would fight for him, but Raphael doesn't think that would go well. If Aziraphale lost it would just make everything worse. Satan probably also expects him to pick Aziraphale, if he's going to pick anyone.

It's still kind of tempting, if only because it would get Aziraphale here rather than wherever else he is.

However.

He does know someone who might be willing.

Strong emphasis on 'might'.

Satan can't say much about it, given that he's picked his own champion. Adrammelech, Chancellor of Hell, who is shorter than Crowley but much bigger, and has a face like a mule, and peacock feathers that sort of lurch out of his skin in what looks like a painful configuration. He walks into Hell's arena (which looks like an office with all the cubicles pushed to the walls) carrying a big dark whip and a serrated cleaver, and a lot of generally unpleasant energy.

"You don't want to fight me yourself?" Raphael asks Satan.

"They wouldn't be sporting," Satan says.

"Is it because of the fire thing? Performance issue?"

He can't help but needle, for some reason, even though it probably isn't doing him any favours. Satan glances at him, a muscle in his jaw clenching.

"Adrammalech is enough to put you in your place."

That's probably true, especially since Raphael still feels barely better than death warmed-over, and a lot of things he could normally do don't seem to work in Hell. Like opening portals or changing the molecular composition of objects, or flying. His corporeal form got blasted to smithereens in Heaven, too, so even just physically leaving this realm would be a challenge. It's far more confining in its physical composition than Heaven. Probably comes of being a prison built by God.

He sighs.

"How does summoning champions work, if they individual in question is not in Hell?" he asks.

Satan's quiet for a moment, like he's thinking about not answering. But it would probably risk voiding the contract if he didn't provide an adequate answer. So he does.

"Infernal summons."

"Is that like a divine summons with the name changed?"

"No. But it works by the same principles."

So yes, actually.

Thank goodness. That means he doesn't have to say where it's going, only who it's going to.

"Okay. Archangel Gabriel," he picks.

Satan snorts.

"You think he'll agree?"

"He might?"

"Very well," the devil agrees, and produces a small piece of paper. Raphael writes the invitation slash request, and then watches it burn as it's sent away. Satan doesn't lose his smugness. "After all, it's only drawing out the amount of time your Aziraphale has to gain a whole new perspective, while we wait for Gabriel to turn you down."

Raphael feels time pass keenly. Adrammalech paces in front of them, swinging his big whip for reasons that elude Raphael. Maybe it's fun? The surrounding demons jeer and get worked up at the sight, like they're all extremely keen to see him get beaten into a pulp.

It seems he's unpopular in Hell as well as Heaven. The only place where people actually seem to like him is Earth.

Finally, a message is returned. A slightly singed slip of paper, bright white, flutters in front of Raphael. He plucks it up before it can reach the ground, and lets out a long breath.

It just says:

NAH.

"Really, Gabriel?" he mutters. He shouldn't be surprised, probably, after everything that's already happened. But he still kind of is.

Satan looks at him.

"Would you like to request anyone else? I'm perfectly willing to take the time," he says.

"No," Raphael decides. He stretches out his limbs and sighs in resignation. "I'll-"

A loud banging sound cuts him off. The attention of everyone in the room turns as one of the overly large ventilation ducts, of unclear purpose and dubious odour, trembles and shakes. Off in the crowd one of the demons can be heard wondering if the Oppressive Heat System is going to implode again, shortly before the vent splits along a huge rusted seam and an angel pops out.

Aziraphale tumbles onto a cluster of the pushed-aside cubicles. He coughs and shakes out his wings, and staggers, while the nearby demons move back in a disconcerted semi-circle.

"What in hell's name?" Satan asks. He turns and glowers at his underlings, who jolt back again, creating yet another ripple of frightened demons. "That one's meant to be in processing! How did he escape?"

Aziraphale moves to speak, coughs some concerning fumes, and then staggers over.

"The cage wasn't locked," he rasps. "And your door guards do a very poor job, if I do say so myself!"

He straightens his waistcoat and moves to stand with Raphael. Despite his worries, Aziraphale actually looks no worse off than he had when they'd been in the Pit, apart from some ruffling and stains, and an unfortunate transfer of odours that's probably due to crawling through Hell's ventilation system.

"I really must insist upon summoning Gabriel again," he says.

"He already refused," Satan scoffs.

Aziraphale visibly musters himself against the Prince of Darkness, moving a little closer to Raphael in the process.

"One more time," he says. "After all, you've already agreed to grant us the time, in your... erm, dark and terrible generosity."

Satan glares, then shrugs, then snaps a hand and summons up more paper. The gathered demons quail in the atmosphere of overwhelming administrative disapproval. Raphael almost feels bad for whoever was supposed to be watching 'processing'. From what he's seen, he would guess that it's been a while since an angel actually fell and needed to be held captive. They might not have even known Aziraphale was there.

After a few minutes the second summons is complete. Satan sends it off.

They wait again. It's less awful this time, though Raphael still feels the tension thrumming in his being.

The reply doesn't seem much longer than it did last time.

Aziraphale catches it, but Raphael reads over his shoulder:

NAH. SORRY.

There's a beat of silence.

With a sternly displeased expression, Aziraphale tucks the reply into one of his pockets.

"Fine, then," he declares. "I'll champion him myself."

Chapter Text

"No."

"Yes."

"I don't accept."

"You will simply have to, because you've never fought anything before in your life."

"I'll pick it up as I go."

"You'll-! No you won't 'pick it up as you go', because you're not going to go at all!"

"That's not up to you. Contract says I pick my champion."

"Stop being unreasonable. I'm a soldier, I know how to handle myself."

"You used to be a soldier, and you didn't like it."

"How would you know that I didn't like it?"

"Because I've spent more than five minutes with you!"

"Well you've got it wrong. I like fighting! I'm very - very pro-fighting in fact! And team sports, and... et cetera!"

"Was that supposed to convince me?"

Aziraphale radiates anxiety at him. He turns and looks back at Adrammalech, who like most of the other demons assembled are just sort of watching them now in dumbfounded fascination, and then subjects Raphael to a stern look and points at him.

"You haven't the first clue of how to fight. You've never done it before. I'll struggle, but you... you'll lose."

Raphael hesitates, brow furrowed, chest twisting. He doesn't know why he so resistant, actually, he just knows that he is. If he loses that's bad, and he'll have to deal with it, and obviously thinks won't go cheerfully for Aziraphale either. But if Aziraphale loses, then he'll get hurt first. Adrammalech might even destroy him, because Hell doesn't seem to care very much what happens to him at all, not even enough to hold a grudge against him.

"...Give me the sunglasses," he says.

Aziraphale looks around, as if afraid that even mentioning them will suddenly launch a pack of demons at them to rip the object apart.

But the demons don't even seem to know what they mean. Even Satan looks just kind of bored, checking his long black nails and pointedly tapping a foot.

Raphael extends a hand expectantly. He makes a 'gimme' motion.

After resisting for an awkwardly long minute, Aziraphale finally nods and hands them over.

"Keep them safe," he bids.

Raphael puts them on.

"What are you doing?! You can't - not here!" Aziraphale insists, reaching to grab them off of his face, but Raphael moves out of his immediate reach.

He understands the concern, really. There's every chance that some sentiment is going to hit him like a truck and knock him off of his feet, but if he isn't the one fighting, that's not really a huge issue at the moment. And he needs something, some insight as to whether he should be letting Aziraphale do this or not, something more than just his own confused jumble of feelings.

He doesn't look at Satan. He thinks that would probably be a bad idea. And he tries not to look at the other demons, either. Even so, the reaction is swift and unpleasant. A heavy anxiety unfurls in him, rigid and tense like he's suddenly aware that an attack could come at any moment. Pain, too, though it's not physical and it's difficult to describe. He feels a strong urge to get away, to be almost anywhere else instead. But there's a kind of nauseating familiarity too.

It's not any less of a confused jumble of feelings, in fact.

Focusing on Aziraphale doesn't make a huge difference either. The resistance is still there, except now it's tinged with even more fear.

But there's something else. Something so simple and sublime that it's a terrible relief to recognize it.

Faith.

Oh.

Crowley had faith in Aziraphale.

Raphael hadn't known that. He hadn't known the opposite either, but... still. It's beautiful.

Aziraphale stares back at him anxiously.

"Well?" he asks.

Raphael looks around again, quickly, and picks up the trumpet. He hates it just as much as ever, but it did burn Satan. It's a divine instrument. And Adrammalech has a big whip and a cleaver, whereas Aziraphale's not even got his sword anymore.

"Take this," he says, and somehow even manages a reassuring smile. "Knock 'em dead, angel."

Aziraphale doesn't exactly lose his anxiety, but a relieved smile overtakes at least a little bit of it. He accepts the trumpet, then stops, freezing in place.

"...What did you call me?" he asks.

"Hm?" Raphael is trying to decide if he should take the sunglasses off now or not. He's got the strong impression that weeping here would be a bad idea, and he tends to weep a lot when he wears these things, but he also doesn't feel like that's a risk right now. They could still be helpful too, so he thinks he's going to keep them on, at least until he's got a reason to take them off again.

"Just now," Aziraphale insists. "You called me..."

"Enough pissing around! Let's get on with it!" Adrammalech calls, which inspires a few more previously-uncertain demons to get into the spirit of jeering again. Aziraphale goes quiet, and glares in their direction. A few of the jeers actually taper off.

Raphael grins.

"So, officially, you're letting him fight for you?" Satan confirms.

"Yes. Aziraphale's my champion."

Despite everything, he thinks he likes saying that a lot more than he would have liked declaring that Gabriel was.

"Then let it begin," Satan declares, and kicks - kicks! - Aziraphale into the cleared central office space slash 'fighting ring'. Raphael gives him a dark look for that. Which means he does in fact look at him, with the glasses on, which he'd been trying to avoid.

The icy fear coiling in him increases. His apprehension ratchets up several notches. A coppery taste fills his mouth, and the environs become, somehow, even less tolerable than they'd been a minute ago. It takes him a few moments to identify the coiling sensation in his gut as fear. A really terrible, deep fear, of a kind that prompts him to freeze in place rather than run or hide.

He tears his gaze away.

No more looking at Satan, he decides.

Watching Aziraphale is more important anyway.

Adrammalech is a lot bigger, meaner, and uglier. Aziraphale, in his scuffed up clothes, with spots of paleness peeking through and one hand gripped around Raphael's stupid trumpet, seems woefully soft and outmatched by comparison.

Raphael regrets sending him in almost straightaway. The twisting feeling gets so much worse, it feels like something's trying to climb out of his chest and go after him.

Adrammalech swings his big ugly whip, and Aziraphale declares that 'very uncalled-for!' as he barely manages to get out of the way. It's horrible. Like watching a train wreck, even though Raphael's never actually done that. Adrammalech wings his huge weapons, muscles rippling, mulish face caught in a hungry expression of violent delight, and Aziraphale just sort of dances around and tries to avoid getting hit. The demon audience hiss and boo and mock him.

"Adrammalech used to devour children," Satan says, casually, like it's a normal thing to say. "Your little principality's a large meal for him, but it's been a while. He's hungry."

Raphael sticks to his resolution not to look at him, but he can't hide how aghast that idea makes him.

"I'm sorry, he devoured children?" he repeats.

"Well, child sacrifices, technically."

Looking around at the demon audience, Raphael raises his hands to his mouth.

"Come on, angel, you can do it! Kick his ass!" he calls. "He's absolutely wretched! Eats babies! Smite him! Or however it works!"

The other demons boo him, but it seems to have an effect. Aziraphale stops dodging around and instead uses Raphael's trumpet to knock the next slash of Adrammalech's cleaver aside. Then he darts forward and jabs the holy object against the demon's armour. It burns it, setting it ablaze with a searing light, but there's no actual fire.

Adrammalech tries to grab Aziraphale, then. The angel, still slippery from being in the vents, manages to get out of his grasp. When the whip arcs towards him, he grabs it and catches it. Ribbons of golden blood pour from his arm. Raphael winces, appalled, but Aziraphale only grits his teeth and yanks Adrammalech forward, then smashes their skulls together.

Something gleams golden on Aziraphale's brow right before he does.

His halo?

It definitely gives him the advantage in the headbutt, as Adrammalech howls and his eyes burn.

Fighting really is just awful. They couldn't have just played chess or taken turns transforming into increasingly esoteric concepts or something?

Aziraphale manages to get Adrammalech's whip out of his hands and starts using it instead, which is really impressive despite also being terrible to witness. There's a dark, foreboding expression on the angel's face as he gets the whip's length around Adrammalech's neck and tightens it.

For a moment Raphael thinks he's going to pop the demon's head clean off.

Then a bell rings. The devil snaps his hand.

"First third done. Time out," Satan declares, and the two combatants are ungently flung apart. Raphael reaches over to catch Aziraphale as he's sent stumbling in his direction. He feels a moment of confusion, and then a moment of dread as he recollects the contract.

The 'time out'. The first third.

Satan's going to heal his champion, and make them start another round fresh again.

Chapter Text

"It's fine, I can take him," Aziraphale assures Raphael. "To call that lummox a lumbering ox would be an insult to lumbering oxen."

He manages a weak smile.

Satan motions negligently and Adrammalech lets out a roar of pain, but his injuries all heal and his armour starts to burn with very worrying black fire. Despite the roaring he seems significantly more powerful now.

No, Raphael thinks. The sentiment doesn't offer a lot of alternatives or insights. It's just very strong. No, definitely not.

He helps Aziraphale to his feet. Then he settles two fingers against the middle of the other angel's brow, and flares his own wings a little as he musters up his reserves to summon a healing miracle. It's much harder than fixing the humans or the ducks had been, and probably made harder by the fact that Raphael has little experience with this kind of damage, but he knows what an angel's divine energies are supposed to be like and he knows where Aziraphale's don't match up.

He does his best, and though it's not enough, it at least seals the wounds on Aziraphale's arm and brightens him up a bit.

"You don't have to keep fighting if you don't want to," Raphael says. He doesn't know what he'll do if Aziraphale stops, but he'll figure it out.

"You'd forfeit?" Satan asks, intrigued.

Aziraphale and Raphael both ignore him.

"Of course I'm not finished yet. Barely even gotten warmed up!" Aziraphale insists. He pats Raphael's arm and squares his shoulders, and determinedly heads back towards his opponent.

It's ridiculous, or it should be, with him still just carrying Raphael's trumpet while that big demon has actual weapons on him, and now infernal armour too, but there's something about it... somehow, Raphael thinks, Aziraphale still has the advantage. Because he's going out there with nothing but a trumpet and a prayer. Adrammalech wouldn't do that, he thinks. Wouldn't fight any battles he wasn't certain of winning.

A bell rings again.

This time Aziraphale goes on the offensive from the beginning. He gets in under Adrammalech's guard, to where the whip is useless, and fends off the cleaver while striking burning blows with the trumpet. It's messy and there's not much finesse, not much to even make in interesting to watch, really, just a violent, concerted effort to win.

But there are problems. The infernal armour chokes Aziraphale and burns at him any time he gets too close, too, leaving singe marks and crumpling his sleeves to black ash. It forces him back. It also seems like Aziraphale keeps forgetting he even has his wings, for some reason, and this results in then being caught by the whip and dragged a couple of times.

Raphael finds himself leaning forward as far as he can, fists clenched, twisting feeling renewed and redoubled as he burns in sympathy with every landed blow.

When the bell finally rings again, Aziraphale is struggling. A split second after, Adrammalech's cleaver slices a huge cut across his left wing.

"Hey! Time's out! That's not allowed!" Raphael insists, so upset that he forgets not to look at Satan again. But he's so angry, it barely even matters.

"Whoops," Satan drawls, unperturbed. Adrammalech even moves to attack again, and Aziraphale has to scramble back, before the devil finally and slowly calls the second third of the match done.

Raphael goes and pulls Aziraphale away from Satan's champion himself.

"It's alright. I've got him on the ropes, just... just need a breather..." the angel insists.

Meanwhile, Adrammalech lets out another roar as he gets healed and somehow gets even bigger, too, muscles bulging, cleaver dripping with acid, and big horns erupting from the middle of his head. Raphael gapes at the horror of it for a moment, while Aziraphale increasingly tries to insist that it'll be fine, it's fine, not to worry at all...

Raphael meets his gaze.

Aziraphale's protests taper off.

A sad, resigned sort of look replaces them.

"I'm so sorry, my dear," he murmurs softly.

No.

"No," Raphael says.

He needs something... something old. Powerful. Something written into his being from the long before. He needs God, but whether She is with him or not, he can't tell, and he won't ask another question just to get the silence ringing back at him. But still, he needs, so he reaches inwards for the part of him that remembers being created, and somehow also grasps the equally fundamental yet alien part of him that knows loving, and he settles a hand on Aziraphale's chest to heal.

Aziraphale, to his complete surprise, folds a hand over top of his own and sends a miracle back.

It's like a bomb going off. Like if the bomb had gone off back in the book shop, perhaps, but also completely different, so Raphael's not even sure why he'd make the comparison except that one moment they're grasping each other on the dirty floor in Hell's office-slash-coliseum, and the next it's as if the dark rigging of a nebula has been set off. Like black iron bars being consumed in the bright light of creation. Heal, Raphael thinks, and the healing goes and spirals down and around, straining and struggling against a wound too great to patch over. But neither it nor he understands such a thing, not entirely. Wounds should be healed. Hurts should be mended. Wrongs put to right. The universe should make sense, or if it can't, it should at least be open to constructive criticism. To fixing.

Faintly, unheard by anyone, there is a sound almost like the rustling of a book's pages. Or perhaps the slithered of a snake across smooth, sandy ground.

Aziraphale staggers into him with a gasp. Raphael enfolds his wings around him, sheltering, while the demons cry out.

It all takes just a moment, but of course it really takes a lot longer. Time is obliging to him, though, even in Hell. Between a couple of blinks it enfolds the event so that outwardly, all that seemed to happen was a sudden flashing rainbow of lights and what would appear to be a thorough make-over. The walls and floor are cleaned, the broken ventilation system fixed to a tasteful gleam, old blood stains whisked away, cold ground replaced with soft carpet and broken firecoolers repaired and filled with tasty and luxurious starlight. Surrounding demons suddenly find old pains released and lingering wounds fixed, though no material change occurs to their beings otherwise.

Even the devil himself, in fact, gapes.

Adrammalech stares in astonished consternation at the large flower and swiss army knife he is now wielding. The dark fire is gone from his armour, but so are the cracks and dents, and his muscles - though still bulging - no longer strain with such intensity that it would threaten to split his skin. It's overall an improvement, though Raphael thinks that had he actually been directing... all of 'that'... well, the guy would probably just be a new stain on the freshly-cleaned floors.

Aziraphale, by contrast, is wearing the same sort of clothes he seemed to favour around the book shop. Cream-colour pants, a smart jacket, tartan vest, and bow tie. His pale curls are glossy and there's not so much as a smudge on his feathers.

Satan speaks first.

"That's not allowed!" he declares.

Raphael glances over at him, and raises his eyebrows.

"Whoops?"

Chapter Text

Things honestly get a little anticlimactic after that.

Raphael doesn’t mean. He hasn’t accumulated this much excitement in all the years he spent before the official start of creation (which are difficult to measure, since time only existed partway through, and days were rather difficult to assess before the Earth), and despite the marginal improvement to the atmosphere he’s still not keen on Hell.

What happens is, Aziraphale punches Satan’s infernal champion in the nose, Adrammalech goes down like a ton of bricks, and they are very quickly shown the door.

Which in practical terms actually means that Satan immediately banishes them from his domain while the contract goes up in flames of actualization, and Raphael re-constitutes alongside of Aziraphale in an incorporeal form on the corner of Berwick and Noel. Within walking distance of the book shop, though, without bodies they can’t actually walk.

But Raphael is feeling much better, so he miracles them up some new ones. They look exactly like the old ones, because why mess with a good thing?

Though as he thinks about it, he thinks he might like to try some different shapes out. That used to be pretty popular in Heaven back-in-the-day, and that was before corporeal forms even were a thing. There was a brief period where looking like a flaming wheel of eyes was all the rage.

Aziraphale, despite being physically fine now, looks a bit faint.

“I think I need to sit down now,” he says. “With a cup of tea, if you please.”

Raphael is working out whether or not he should try to bend time to get them into the book shop, or if they should go into one of the other buildings nearby, when the Bentley obligingly pulls up onto the street.

“Oh, thank you,” Aziraphale tells it.

Raphael escorts him over and opens the door for him, and appreciates the experience. The air is slightly damp and cool and clammy, and there are some questionable smells emerging from a pile of animal feces on the other side of the road, but it’s not Hell. Or Heaven. It’s far too complicated to be either.

He gets into the driver’s side, and the Bentley turns to head in the direction of the book shop.

Aziraphale presses a hand to his chest and sags in visible relief. Then he reaches a hand over and grasps Raphael’s shoulder.

“Are you alright?” he checks. “I should have asked sooner.”

Raphael shrugs.

“Just fine,” he says. He still has Crowley’s sunglasses on, but it’s not bad. He decides to leave them there as Aziraphale nods, then hesitantly dithers, but finally just nods again.

The Bentley drives rather slowly as it takes them back, as if giving them some time to adjust. Raphael doesn’t really need it. He thinks that what they just did was probably the most reasonable thing to have happened since they set out for Heaven. If he ever does go back to Hell, he’d want to do it again. Just keep casting miracles until the place is no longer awful. He gets the impression that Satan prefers it to be awful, however, so they probably won’t be welcome back soon, and he’s not exactly disappointed in that prospect either.

Aziraphale, though, looks a little disoriented and distinctly distressed.

“Are you alright?” Raphael wonders.

“Of course,” he replies, with a little laugh and a dismissive gesture. “Quite... quite fine. Really. Why not?”

A passing building casts a dark shadow over the barely-perceivable edge of one of his wings, which don’t have a body to embody but which are still gleaming so that they’re difficult to ignore. Aziraphale jumps at the darkening feathers, and then presses a hand to his brow.

Raphael decides it might be best to be quiet for a little while. He has a lot to think about too.

Pain is really awful and suffering is even worse and he thinks he might be... mad , at God. Not just bewildered or irritated, but very, truly angry.

One of the nice things about time, though, is how it steadily takes one further away from the visceral nature of an experience. In this case, the time it takes Raphael to get from the Bentley to the book shop allows him a moment to look the anger in the eye, and conclude that he’s fine with it. He’s pretty sure that he’s only angry because God deserves it, so it’s not like he’s in danger of taking up Satan’s thoroughly rotten disposition.

By the time they’re inside and the rain is starting to hit the book shop windows, enough time has passed for Raphael to come to terms with nearly all of his startling revelations, whereas Aziraphale seems to only now be sinking his teeth into them.

The book shop is dark and quiet. The plants at the window are straining towards the sunlight, whilst the books remain comfortably ensconced in their preserving shadows.

“Oh! You’re back!” Muriel calls. They bustle over, carrying a box of colourful paperbacks. “How did it go?”

Aziraphale makes a pained sound and veers in the direction of the stairs.

Muriel frowns in confusion, so Raphael fills in.

“We blew up the main conference chamber in Heaven, then I think fixed the offices in Hell?” he recounts. “Also I broke a promise to God, and we still haven’t figured out how to get rid of the trumpet, and everyone’s furious at us.”

Muriel’s eyes are wide.

They hesitate, then venture tentatively:

“Is that a ‘joke’?”

Aziraphale, distantly, lets loose a vaguely hysterical sound that was maybe intended to be a laugh?

Raphael bops Muriel.

“Do you know how to make tea?” he asks.

They brighten, somewhat, at the prospect of a task.

“I can nip round to the coffee shop and get some,” they suggest.

“Better do it quick, I think we’ll need some.”

He sees them off, then heads up after Aziraphale, who he finds standing in one of the empty rooms on the second floor and staring rather blankly out of the windows. The rain is really starting to kick up now, running rivulets down the pains and pouring in abundance from leaky gutters across the street. Raphael wonders what it would be like to stand in it, and decides he’ll probably give it a try sometime. Through the sunglasses, the sight of the rain gives him an odd and distantly fond feeling.

“Angel?” he calls.

Aziraphale whips around fast.

“There!” he exclaims. “You just did it again!”

“Did what again?”

“You call me... you called me angel,” Aziraphale tells him.

Did he?

He even think about it. Well, Aziraphale is an angel, obviously, but so is Raphael.

“Why would you call me that?”

Aziraphale looks fragile as he asks that question. Like there’s a lot riding on the answer. Raphael understands the feeling, even though he doesn’t understand why it’s here right now.

“I don’t know,” he admits. “It just came out.”

Aziraphale moves closer, peering into the lenses of the sunglasses. Searching. Raphael lets him, though he has a strange urge to move back this time, to evade the scrutiny. He is developing a slight wariness of being perceived, which he never had before. But then again, no one had ever used an awareness of him to try and destroy or coerce him before, either.

He doesn’t know why it should make him nervous for Aziraphale to do it, though.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says then, and it’s disconcerting because it’s not like he’s making a mistake. “If you’re in there, if you’re... if you’re even partly still you, I just... I don’t know if I’ll ever get the chance to apologize. But I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean... if my offer, if it seemed... I didn’t want to change you. I wanted to change Heaven. Can you understand?”

The searching gaze gets more desperate.

Raphael clears his throat.

“I don’t understand,” he admits.

Aziraphale deflates. A rush of empathy pushes through him, spurred on by a hundred project ideas discarded, by the firm refutation of the concept of a ‘suggestion box’, by the feeling of waking up six thousand years short of a lifetime and struggling in the subsequent storm.

He reaches out and takes Aziraphale’s hand before he can move away.

“But you can explain it me until I do,” he suggests.

“Ah...” Aziraphale says. He casts his gaze downwards, and tugs his hand gently away until Raphael lets go of it again. “I’m not sure that I can, actually.”

“Why not?”

“Because...”

“Start at the beginning,” he suggests.

Aziraphale hesitates. He looks uncertain, wobbly, not at all like the angel preparing to fight and even to lose not all that long ago.

Then he slumps in defeat. Raphael is surprised that the defeat comes with acquiescence; as if the problem is not whether he truly thinks he can explain himself, but that some part of him couldn’t bear the challenge, only now he’s given up and is bracing for pain instead. It’s on the tip of his tongue to say that he doesn’t have to after all, not if it hurts.

But he thinks he really does want to understand. It’s about Crowley, and also about Aziraphale, and the only knowledge he wants more is the means of destroying his trumpet forever.

“I suppose it begins in a garden...” Aziraphale says.

Chapter Text

It begins, as it will end, in a garden.

The inevitability of this comes of course from the reality that Earth itself is a garden. A meticulously crafted oasis of life and people in a universe that, though filled with its own wonders, is also extremely hostile to the vast majority of people in the vast majority of its spaces. While there are other worlds where other people may live, these too are gardens, and should the End come through one of them instead of Earth it will not make much difference to the metaphor.

God likes that kind of flexibility in a metaphor, because while theological debates may rage as whether or not she can ever be wrong, general consensus holds that she absolutely cannot be strictly incorrect.

The garden of most beginnings is of course Eden.

But when employing metaphorical flexibility, one might apply the definition of a garden to things created even before the beginning. Such as a glorious conflagration of stars, arranged particular so to populate the wonders of a vast universe, or the bright, white chambers of a celestial kingdom, built to house creation's administrators and labourers.

In this way, a beginning that began at the edge of a nebula, and a beginning that began on the walls Eden, might still be the same beginning happening in the same place, just so long as it happened between the same people.

Muriel comes back with the tea, and after proudly presenting it to Crowley and Aziraphale, they go off to practice a new skill that they have begun to teach themselves. They call it 'listening in to conversations that they are not supposed to hear', though that seems a bit wordy, and if they search for it they will probably discover the more concise term of 'eavesdropping'.

Aziraphale stops and begins his recounting several times, which is only thematically appropriate to the particular story he's telling. Eventually he goes and retrieves his journals, which grants him enough reference material and potential distance from the process of recounting to actually begin to get through it. Nevertheless, this too prompts another stop and start.

"I wish I'd found those when I was looking for things about Crowley," Raphael admits. "I only found the drawings, and the glasses. Do you think Heaven planted the glasses here? I suppose they could have just asked Muriel to do it..."

"I'm sorry," Aziraphale interrupts. "Drawings? You found my... which drawings do you mean?"

"The ones of Crowley," Raphael gestures in the general direction of the master bedroom.

Aziraphale flusters.

"You're not supposed to go into other people's bedrooms!" he says. "It's very rude!"

Raphael murmurs an apology, but even though he feels badly about being rude, he can't see the trouble and doesn't truly regret it. If he hadn't seen the drawings then he probably wouldn't have found the glasses, and even if the glasses were supposed to create trouble and make him easier to coerce, he doesn't think they have actually done either of those things. It never occurs to him that there might be something embarrassing about a man having a box full of lovingly rendered likenesses of someone, even less someone he cares deeply about.

Aziraphale abruptly declares that he's going to make them a fresh pot of tea, since the tea Muriel brought is, according to him, not going to be enough. He mentions something about wine as well, but then looks at Raphael and seems to decide the better of it.

Raphael takes the opportunity to taste his tea. It's a new variety. Kind of... fruity?

It's the closest he's come to enjoying a beverage so far, and he drinks several more mouthfuls before Aziraphale comes back.

"Right," Aziraphale says, still a little red but apparently composed again. "In the garden. I'm sure you'll recollect it from the plans? Well, after the war, some of the plans changed. Or rather they didn't change, they were revealed to have been there the whole time but simply not made apparent due to us not being able to know about the Great War or what would come of it."

"Why couldn't we know about the Great War or what would come of it?" Raphael wonders.

"Well..." Aziraphale begins, then stops again. "Look, if we get caught up in those kinds of questions we'll be all day about it, and I'll never get through this. So perhaps we ought to address that part later?"

"Fair enough. No questions from me."

"No, no, you can ask questions! Just, erm, not ones I don't know the answers to. Or I'll tell you when you ask one of those, that's probably easier, you don't have to guess..."

"Fair enough. Some questions from me."

"Right! So. The garden. Garden of Eden. I had just been given my first proper posting, I mean from God not from Heaven, which was the posting I was meant to have all along which was Guardian of the Eastern Gate. God granted me a flaming sword, and charged me with keeping out demons and protecting the garden from Satan's efforts to besiege it. But! There was an exception to that order, which was to not interfere with the presence of a single demon, one taking on the guise of a beautiful and wily serpent..."

Raphael listens with rapt interest to the story. It's his favourite so far. He doesn't know it, or if he does he doesn't recognize it in a way that means he can guess at all the events or always tell where it's going, but if that inspires any disappointment in him it's soon washed away by the progress of events. Aziraphale settles as he gets into it as well, somewhat glossing over a few earlier bits, lingering here and there before moving on with assertions that 'nothing much else happened that century' or 'well they were interesting times, but Crowley wasn't there', until prevaricating over the fourteenth century before diving into the more recent stretch of time which Aziraphale's journals recount.

"I had kept some that would be older than this, but a lot of them didn't survive this far," Aziraphale admits. "I used to worry about Heaven finding them, you see, so every fifty or so years I would burn them all. It was a wrench to do it, but only because I liked them. At the time I didn't worry about forgetting anything, especially not anything important."

He sighs.

Raphael nods. The concept is new to him too. He moves closer as they go over the journals, and Aziraphale takes a break to 'rest his voice' and drink some tea.

Eventually they run out of daytime, and have to put the lamps on. Then the sun comes back up, and the lamps go out again. The little sign on the door remains turned to 'closed', which is not remarkable to anyone familiar with the area or Fell and Co. books. Muriel's existence is, if not forgotten, not entirely recollected either. Though there are plenty of interesting and colourful characters in Aziraphale's story, the crux of it only ever truly revolves around the interactions of two.

Raphael finds that he likes the Crowley of Aziraphale's stories. He also likes the Aziraphale of Aziraphale's stories, but that he already knew. Aziraphale is brave and silly and funny and kind. He struggles to understand people but deeply wishes to, and he goes against Heaven to help others even though it's difficult for him, and he falls in love with Earth and humanity so thoroughly that he can't keep it out of his recitations. He bristles in recollected indignation at Heaven's ignorance. He huffs and laments at the cruel and stupid transgressions of humans against one another. He prevaricates, visibly embarrassed, over his own most excessive indulgences.

Raphael regards Aziraphale and his journal with his chin in his hands, and thinks, I should have gone to find you again, back then. After their first meeting. He should have sought him out, but there'd been things to do, and no reasonable excuse for it. He wonders if Crowley remembered their meeting before Eden. Aziraphale doesn't seem sure, but Raphael thinks he would have at least tried to. Especially after Aziraphale mentioned it. Even if it wasn't important enough to hold onto, it would have become important enough to go looking for.

Crowley would have found it important too. Raphael feels he can say that, both from what he knows of himself, but also from the person Aziraphale describes.

Crowley is clever and sneaky, full of pretenses and misdirection, but underneath it all he is constantly questioning and constantly kind. He turns goats into birds so that he won't have to destroy them, hides children as lizards, smuggles unicorns away from floods and rescues children from the crashing rubble of Babylon, he tricks Hell into accepting minor acts of mischief as major sins and temptations, takes credit for atrocities thought up by humans themselves, he makes "his own side" that is neither Heaven nor Hell and he invites Aziraphale into it.

Good, Raphael finds himself thinking a lot, and that's exactly what I would have done.

But there are parts of Crowley he doesn't understand so easily, or that he only sees in the abstract. The long years spent allegedly 'sleeping', as if he simply lost the ability to do things for a while. The bristling, the eruptions of temper or possibly fear, the snapping and snarling and bristling, running away, hiding. Aziraphale speaks of these incidents only sometimes with annoyance or shared bewilderment; otherwise, his voice goes soft and his distant, as if he knows some of the reasons, even though Raphael doesn't.

It takes a long time to recount all of it, and even then it's not really all of it. Just the story of it. Like a long book with a sad ending.

By the end of it Raphael has begun to feel like an interloper in his own life. He shouldn't be here. He was here, back in the past of it, at the beginning, and then he got to live the rest of it. He suffered, yes, but he also got to do and see incredible things, to know Aziraphale and the Earth and all of its ages, as complex as any galaxy in ways Raphael knows he'll never truly catch up to understanding. Especially not if it ends.

And then Aziraphale, struggling again, gets through the rest of it. Gabriel's arrival. Crowley's help. The mystery. The ball. The revelations. The Metatron's offer, and Aziraphale's response, and Crowley's response to his response.

Raphael holds a cup of cold tea as he thinks about it all. He likes this kind, actually likes it, he thinks. Aziraphale tells him it's 'green' with an extra scoop of honey. The angel sits in silence, awaiting judgment now that the story has run its course.

"...I don't understand a lot of it, still," Raphael decides.

"I suppose that's to be expected," Aziraphale agrees.

He nods.

"I love you," he says.

Aziraphale looks flabbergasted. Absolutely floored. As if this was the last possible response to his story that he would have expected. Raphael thinks he has some better insights as to why than he would have had before they started, but he also thinks it should be even more obvious now. Perhaps because he's the one saying it?

"You... you, why did you...?"

"Because I do," he says, with a shrug. Reaching up he taps the slide of his glasses. "I'm still getting used to feeling things more strongly, but there's less and less difference when I look at you with or without these on now. It hasn't gone away, it's just me. It's becoming the same."

Aziraphale stares at him with what he thinks might be best described as heartbreak.

"I don't love you as much as Crowley did yet. But obviously I'm missing six thousand years of practice. Anyway, you seem to have troubles saying it, and from what you told me Crowley never put it plainly either. I'm sorry for that. But I don't have that problem. I love you. Unless there's a reason I shouldn't say it?"

Still stricken, Aziraphale shakes his head.

Raphael smiles. He feels a lot steadier with all of this knowledge, now. Crowley really was him. The only shame of it is that this means he'll never meet him. But he does get to be him, so, that's even better.

He has more questions, but he thinks Aziraphale needs a break. They've been going over all of this for at least a couple of days now. The table's covered and there are discarded tea cups stacked onto the floor, and even though angels don't get sore muscles, he thinks he would like to go somewhere else and do something different for a while. Maybe visit the ducks again?

There's a knocking at the door.

Elsewhere in the building, Recording Angel Muriel (37th class) lets out their first proper curse word at the untimely interruption of what, to everyone except Raphael, might have seemed a tense moment likely to give way to further emotional resolutions.

Aziraphale blinks as if waking up from himself, and then motions at him to stay.

"Probably just a would-be customer. I'll go shoo them off," he says. Raphael nods and leans back in his chair, and with the touch of a finger reheats his tea.

Chapter Text

It's not a customer at the door.

It is also not Nina or Maggie, not even the Metatron or Satan, which Raphael briefly considers when he hears Aziraphale's shocked exclamation and goes to check.

It is in fact Gabriel, and Beelzebub, and a human he hasn't met before.

The human is very tiny and is being carried in a small chair with a handle on it. They are wrapped in an off-white blanket with very stylized depictions of bugs on it, and wearing a small green hat made of soft material with a golden cross on the middle.

"Surprise!" Gabriel says. "We stole a baby. Can we come in?"

Aziraphale doesn't respond right away. Raphael decides to follow his cue and leans against a nearby bookshelf, arms folded, one leg crossed in front of the other. He has a feeling this is going to be interesting to watch.

"You-!" Aziraphale begins. "You can't keep turning up on my doorstep like-! With! And, and! Where did you even get that?! Where are its parents?!"

"Her parents. Well, parent, I suppose. Virgin birth and all. But also she's God's, so, I guess it is 'parents' after all."

"What are you doing? No, I'm not going to let either of you in! You refused to help us when we were fighting the forces of evil in Hell itself!"

"I said sorry? We were busy! With very important universe-saving stuff I might add," Gabriel protests.

Beelzebub nods, equally as unapologetic.

"Besides, it's not like either of us could just show up in Hell. What do you think would happen after the challenge was over? Upstairs and Downstairs have got it out for both of us. If you'd asked for something reasonable we would have helped."

"It was an emergency!" Aziraphale insists, and then levels a stern finger at Gabriel. "And none of the favours I did for you were even remotely reasonable! We risked extreme sanctions for you!"

"Okay, okay, I understand that you're mad, and this is going to be a whole thing, and you'll feel better if you get to hold it over my head for a while, but can we just skip ahead to the part where you help anyway? It's kind of a rush thing and we both know you're gonna do it eventually anyway. Also, you should be thanking us. It was not easy to track down the Second Coming and grab her out from under Heaven's nose. They were pretty determined not to have another lost-baby-antichrist fiasco," Gabriel says, holding up the carrier seat with the little person in it and waggling it back and forth, like it's a tempting bag of scones.

Aziraphale looks briefly panicked. He turns back to Raphael, who frowns and straightens from the bookshelf, and walks closer.

Just as he gets beside him, though, Aziraphale's gaze hardens.

"No," he says to Gabriel and Beelzebub.

"No?" Gabriel repeats, disbelieving. Beelzebub scoffs and folds their arms.

Aziraphale straightens his spine and shoots back an angry glare.

"No," he repeats. "Not this time. I have my own problems to sort out. I don't regret helping you last time, but there are limits. It's... risky, and costly, and I've spent too much time trying to solve everyone else's problems and getting other people involved too, which is dangerous for them as well. I don't have all the answers and I can't fix all of Heaven's mistakes, and it's not my job to do so. I approve of you two meddling, and won't say a word if anyone comes asking, but that's as far as it goes."

Gabriel glances at Beelzebub, who looks disgruntled but not surprised. Gabriel, on the other hand, has his entire face scrunched up like he's the recipient of an untoward joke.

"But you have to help," he insists. "We don't know what to do and we don't have anyone else to ask!"

Aziraphale wavers, briefly. Then he straightens again.

"Work it out for yourselves! It's what we did!" he declares, and then slams the door shut.

Raphael gives him a questioning look.

Aziraphale misreads it.

"Don't worry, they can't come in without permission. Technically not even Muriel can, I have to renew their permission every month."

"You don't want to help them? You didn't even ask what they wanted help for," Raphael wonders.

At him asking, Aziraphale falters.

"I've learned my lesson. I can't go sticking my neck out for every issue that comes to my door, and like I told them, we've got enough to be dealing with. We still have to work out what to do with the trumpet, and your... situation, and Heaven and Hell will get over being startled and go back to being furious with us eventually," he reasons. "Besides, they didn't help us when we asked last time."

"Alright," Raphael accepts. "I want to ask them what they need help for, though."

He turns and opens the door, and is out through the front before Gabriel and Beelzebub and their small human - baby, infant, the youngest form of human - have moved entirely away. The pair stop and turn at the sound of the door opening, and probably also the sound of Aziraphale calling out after him. Raphael motions that he'll be right back and then approaches.

"What did you need help with?" he asks. His hands settle at his sides, and he discovers at this moment the pockets of his pants, and the convenience of putting his hands in them instead.

Gabriel and Beelzebub share another glance. The baby doesn't talk. Raphael offers a wave of greeting and gets only a big brown-eyed blink in return.

"We don't know shit about human babies," Beelzebub admits. "She's kind of stupid? Doesn't speak at all or respond to sign language, but she's not blind or deaf, and we know she needs to eat but she wouldn't touch the food we got from the pub. Heaven's not looking for us yet, and we did a miracle to make her hard to find, so it's not likely they'll catch onto us soon. We just don't know anything about humans, really. Well we do but not... erm, this stuff?"

"Birth has changed a lot since Eden," Gabriel adds. "Not a fan of the new system. The rib thing was less weird."

"Right," Raphael says, and thinks. "I don't know if Aziraphale knows about very small humans? I don't. But there are some humans who are friends with us. If you go to the coffee shop, they might be able to help?"

He points out the relevant building.

Again, Gabriel and Beelzebub look at one another and come to some kind of silent agreement.

"Suppose it couldn't hurt to ask," Beelzebub says. "They know about the Up and the Down?"

Raphael nods.

The pair head off in the suggested direction. He watches for a moment, just to make sure they've got the right building, and then he heads back to the book shop. Aziraphale is waiting with a vague disapproval that's undercut by his obvious interest.

"Well? What did they say?" he asks. "You didn't volunteer to help them with anything dangerous, did you?"

"No, nothing like that. They just wanted to know what small humans eat, and why theirs is mute. I suggested they ask some humans for help," Raphael explains.

Aziraphale deflates a little. He looks guilty now.

"Oh. They... oh. Well, um. They should be careful. If that really is... trouble, then Heaven will come looking for it. Hell probably will too."

"They know."

"You sent them to the coffee shop?"

Raphael nods.

"Was that wrong?"

"No, no, I know you don't know many people yet, that wasn't a bad idea. It's just, I suppose we ought to go investigate a bit more. It wouldn't do to send trouble to Nina's doorstep and not follow it up, Gabriel might be an ingrate but Nina certainly isn't, and we've caused them enough problems already..."

Raphael is relieved. He didn't like it when Aziraphale turned Gabriel and Beelzebub away before. It just didn't seem right, or like the kind of thing he would do. And even though he hadn't said so, Raphael has a suspicion that he was actually the reason why, not the trumpet or Heaven or Hell. He knows Crowley was in favour of running away, but that's one of those things he doesn't understand, and for his own part he doesn't want to be the reason Aziraphale stops helping people.

"If it's too much trouble we can always leave," he suggests.

Aziraphale nods, like this is sensible and true, and doesn't mention that so far neither of them had demonstrated a keen understanding of what might constitute 'too much' trouble, and according to his life story probably never have.

Chapter Text

Sometime before the beginning...

When Crawly first gets out of the Pit, and after they've gotten everyone else they're ever going to get out of it, too, Satan appoints him to the first Dark Council. Crawly doesn't know why he gets appointed, since his memories are holier than swiss cheese, and he's still pretty sure that he wasn't in Satan's inner circle even before they all got cast down, but it's not like he's going to say no either. Sitting in on meetings has a vague familiarity to it that at least makes him think he's acquainted with the mechanics of his appointed position, if not the motives behind giving it to him.

It, of course, doesn't last. Crawly is a Duke of Hell for all of one meeting. He listens to Satan outline the plan to wage a war on Heaven and take revenge on God, and he says:

"If I can sssuggessst? Why don't we jussst leave? We don't have to ssstay in the Pit. It'sss awful here. We could jussst go away, wash our handsss of ssstupid bloody Heaven and God'sss fucking awful plan. I know sssome nice planetsss, totally uninhabited, sssome perfectly sssuitable nebulasss...?"

This is how Crawly learns that Hell will also not be implementing a suggestion box any time soon (at least, not until he explains how to make the concept fruitless and cruel), because Satan responds to this input by picking him up and tossing him back into the fire. It makes an effective point to the rest of the Dark Council, though Crawly himself doesn't really learn anything except that he'd rather keep as far away from Satan as possible going forwards.

When he manages to get out of the flames again, there's a war on. They stick him in the lowest rung of the most miserable cannon fodder demons, where he utterly fails to distinguish himself as any kind of worthwhile fighter, but manages to rise through some of the ranks simply by virtue of not dying among his fellows every time Satan decides to just throw wave after wave of bodies at the Enemy. Eventually he gets command of his own battalion, which he approaches as a kind of a puzzle where Satan or the Dark Council will tell them to do things that will definitely get them obliterated by Heaven's forces, and Crawly tries to figure out how to not actually do those things or get obliterated without also being caught out and punished by Hell.

They promote him some more, until he says the wrong thing and gets demoted back to the bottom again. In this way Crawly learns that there is a trick to getting ahead. Beneath a certain point, evading attention (and therefore punishment) is still a viable option, whilst getting above a certain point lowers the odds of meeting a grisly end. Get too high and they start keeping too close of an eye on him and expecting him to do things he'd rather not, and noticing if he doesn't, so it's better not to reach that point. But stay too low and it doesn't matter if they're noticing him or not, they'll just throw him directly into trouble as an expendable body. It takes finesse to succeed enough to not be on the front lines while failing enough to not be immediately promoted to a command position either, and one of the most useful things he discovers is how many other demons will just lie and take credit for his accomplishments if he doesn't step in and stop them. Then they get the promotions and Crawly stays under the radar, and everyone wins.

Well, no, actually everyone suffers and it's awful and miserable and he hates every single moment of it. But he manages.

Battles are the worst. Battles, Crawly finds, are a lose-lose situation. A single angel of middling rank can take out a hundred lesser demons in one shot, whilst killing and fending off angels itself necessitates a lot of unpleasantness. Capturing them is even worse. Capturing them means Satan sends them to burn and turn, and for all that they're the Enemy, Crawly thinks losing a fight is possibly an even worse reason to be pulled from God's grace than asking questions. But the ones who don't turn and renounce God just end up completely destroyed by the fire instead.

Any time they ask him to go search for survivors, Crawly just covers them up with debris and pretends he didn't see them.

Eventually, though, someone notices that he's a little smarter than the average foot soldier, and he gets transferred to the unit for subterfuge. Specifically, for trying to rob and corrupt holy artifacts out of the celestial kingdom. Satan wants to build an armoury comparable to Heaven's, and while some demons are doing interesting things with forging and hellfire, Satan wants things made by God. So begins Crawly's career as a thief, which is a massive improvement on soldiering. He doesn't actually care much for the stealing itself, but no one's asking him to fight and in fact he gets extra points if he can avoid being detected at all. It's also ludicrously far-fetched enough work that he fails sometimes without even trying, so the threat of promotion or accolades is low.

He steals the trumpet (his trumpet) back at some point in the midst of other, far more high-profile missions. Recognizes it at once and slips it away out of a heavenly vault, and then pretends the entire job was a bust. It burns his hands to touch it, and he kind of hates it, but it's one of the first things he's seen that feels like it's his. Hell's not yet big on the idea of material possessions, and Heaven never was and never will be, so Crawly's only vaguely acquainted with the feeling. But despite it all, he feels it strongly.

He should probably just destroy it. But it's hard to destroy the only thing you own, even if you hate it. So Crawly just scrawls a warning, in case he forgets even more of his life somehow at some point, and then hides it instead. He abuses military resources and does a cover-up to handle the necessary travel expenses, which ends up being good practice for later in his life too.

When the war ends, he's a mid-tier demon of relatively little repute, not unknown but not really important either.

The downside to the war ending is, of course, that Satan drags everyone back to Hell. Crawly wouldn't go back at all, except that he's not strong enough to leave. He can no longer traverse through space or stop time without significant effort, and if any of Heaven's people caught him out in the wider universe alone, he'd be up a creek without a paddle.

So when the Garden job opens up, Crawly makes sure he's the only sensible choice in a position to take it. He doesn't care about causing trouble, or about interfering with God's plan, or especially about 'interfering' with God's plan in a way that is indistinguishable from abiding by it if you think about it for more than a minute, but the Garden of Eden is not Hell. So obviously he really wants to go there. Going to places that aren't Hell is the singular passion of Crawly the Demon.

They send him up to Earth with a lot of threats and insistence that if he doesn't make good, it'll be the last time he sees the outside of the Pit, even to visit the less-unpleasant parts of Hell.

Even with the threat, though, Crawly spends his first two days in Eden simply slithering around, blinking at the sunlight and gawking at the plants, and the mushrooms, and the animals. He curls up on warm rocks, drinks from pristine waterfalls, and watches as a fuzzily familiar angel stands guard at the gate. Normally angels make him want to run in the opposite direction, and this one has a flaming sword, so. He probably ought to keep his distance. But he finds he can't quite muster up the usual fear.

Sometimes he has troubles with doing that overall. He forgets why continuing to exist matters, and then he gets himself into situations by not really trying very hard at self-preservation. But he's not sure this is that.

Whatever it is, he's still not stupid enough to reveal his presence to the Enemy. Once or twice he thinks the angel notices him lurking around the Eastern Gate anyway, but then he always seems to look in the opposite direction while loudly declaring 'oh what a pretty bird!' or 'my the clouds are lovely today!' or similar such things to himself. Either this angel is a complete buffoon or he's... alright. Possibly he's both.

Before the week is out, Crawly manages his first temptation of a mortal. It is in fact the first temptation of any mortal, ever, but it's not that great of a thing because it isn't exactly hard. God points out the tree and says 'don't touch', and Crawly goes 'that's half my job done for me then' and whispers in Eve's ear, and honestly he's not even totally sure his presence was necessary? It probably would have taken longer otherwise, but even without knowing much about humans yet he is solidly convinced that the apples were not going uneaten indefinitely.

Hell doesn't know that. Crawly doesn't bother to tell them. He secures his posting on Earth, and starts saving up energy and accoutrements to run away to some relatively comfortable corner of space instead at the soonest available opportunity.

Obviously, though... plans change.

He tells himself that it's because Earth is interesting. Earth is, so there's no need to dig any deeper than that. It raises his standards. Random corners of space don't have orchards and wine, don't have music and dancing, don't have quaint little animals, or humans doing human-y things, or angelic 'adversaries' who give their flaming swords away. Watching the elemental forces of the universe dance is definitely up there in terms of entertainment, but without people, Crawly thinks, it runs the risk of getting a bit... well. Bit dull.

Besides, there are no guarantees that when the End comes it won't take everything with it. All things being equal, he'd rather go out drinking and lamenting with the humans in the final act than just suddenly watch everything snuff out with no warning in the far reaches of the cosmos somewhere.

So, since he doesn't necessarily need to keep hoarding up things for an escape plan, he starts using them instead.

For emergencies.

Like the flood.

The flood's a good cover for experimenting, because everything's chaos, both sides are already up to their ears in paperwork, and he tries to catch that runaway unicorn but it's no good and then he thinks to himself, balls on this idea. God's a real piece of work sometimes. He gets that the big humans are all kind of jackasses right now, but the little ones are definitely still in the question mark stage, and Crawly is pretty firmly convinced that the question mark stage is not a fair point to be judging anyone at.

So he turns them into fish. The children, he means.

It's not all of them, because he frankly can't get to all of them, but it's as many as he can find. As the waters rise he goes around cursing the little ones until they turn into silvery palm-sized fish of ambiguous salt or freshwater distinction, and plops them into the water. But then, well. Kids can't look after themselves, so, he does some of the less-awful adults too. Just a few! Not so many that either side will actually notice the tally discrepancies with a soul harvest this big. And then he sees the actual kids, i.e. goats, and oxen, and little lizards and snakes and mice with watery eyes and wiggly noses, and God's just going to drown them all too isn't She? When they haven't even done anything. Just because they're not lucky enough to be on the Ark. Not much of a breeding population is it, always starting off with just two? What about biodiversity?

So Crawly turns them into fish too. You're a fish, you're a fish, and hey you're a fish as well, why not? He burns through his reserves and then his backup reserves and then exhausts himself until he can't even keep up his humanoid shape, and turns into a snake again. All Hell knows is that he's cursing the heck out of a lot of things right before they're scheduled to die, and that their projected tallies for soul harvesting are huge, so even though he spends every day jumping at shadows and half-expecting some other demon to come tell him he's being dragged back for discipline, it doesn't happen.

Of course, it's not a perfect solution. Fish get eaten. Crawly can't stick around for the whole flood if he doesn't want to drown either, and finding them all again afterwards isn't easy. And Heaven and God too would probably notice if a bunch of supposed-to-be-dead humans and animals just reappeared all at once after the flood, so he has to pace things, be discreet about it.

But he gets away with it, is the thing. No one ever figures it out.

He gets cocky. Starts doing it again. Working his way around the orders. Finessing, like he did in the war.

Then the angel catches him at it in Uz.

Chapter Text

The angel's not going to be a problem, or at least not right way. Crawly doesn't get that impression from him, and anyway he has roughly the same amount of leverage on the angel's disobedience as the angel has on his. It'd be mutually assured destruction right now if one of them turned on the other, and he's willing to bet on Aziraphale not being the murder-suicide type.

But it's close. If the angel chose differently, Job's children would be dead for keeps and Crawly would be back in Hell, most likely stripped of his post and enjoying all of the hospitality of Satan's best torturers.

He needs something to hold against it. Insurance. Something Hell will forgive him any 'failures' for if he brandishes it in their faces like a shiny bauble in front of tantruming child. It worked a few times during the war, so he knows it's useful. The real question is what should he try and get his hands on.

Most of the easier pickings to get have already been gotten, as it were.

There's one thing he knows Satan would do pretty much anything to get his hands on, and Heaven likewise would be desperate to keep away from him. But he's got little enough chance of nabbing the Book of Life.

Right?

That would be a pretty foolhardy heist to attempt, especially solo.

He'd have to get into Heaven, undetected, pass through security, find the thing, grab it without setting off any alarms, get back to Earth, and hide it without anyone even guessing he did it before it's discovered missing.

Sheer madness.

But the thing is... the thing is, he keeps thinking about it. Working at it. Like a logic puzzle or an engineering problem, though Crawly's never engineered anything in his life, and mechanical engineering isn't much of a field yet. So more like a logic puzzle. It's not the only one he works on either, as he lingers in Uz and enjoys some local hospitality as Bildad the Shuhite. He's getting tired of going by 'Crawly', but the other more demon-y names don't appeal either, so lately he's just been letting the humans refer to him however they please. It's funny, though he often doesn't respond right when whatever random name he's got gets called. He's contemplating going by 'Ashtoreth' in the long term but it still feels not very... him-ish. More like a special occasions frock than everyday wear.

He knows what his old name used to be. That angel, the one the other angel referenced meeting. He doesn't want that name back. That angel is dead, and Crawly doesn't even know if he's allowed to mourn him. But his mind sticks on the idea of them knowing each other before, too. Wondering.

When did they meet?

What was it like?

Were they... friends?

How did he make a good enough impression that Aziraphale was convinced almost on nothing to go off that Crawly wouldn't hurt Job's children?

Would anyone else in Heaven make that sort of guess about him? Or Hell? Is he sitting on a ticking time bomb of angels from his past, just waiting to turn up out of the woodwork to give his game away, or is Aziraphale the only one?

Crawly tries to make himself remember but it's like rubbing grit into an open wound. He thinks he gets... light?

Oh very helpful that. Light in Heaven. Revolutionary concept.

They do say, though, that the Book of Life is tied to memories. They don't say how, so it might not even be true, but wouldn't it be convenient if it was? Sort of a two birds and one stone situation. Get his hands on a powerful artifact, clear up the blank spots in his memory, and then just sit on it until such a time as Hell or Heaven threaten him badly enough that he can whip it out all 'ta-da!' and toss it as far as he can with a 'go fetch', so they all go careening after it while he runs away.

Well, that's a terrible idea in fact, but he'll work out the particulars when it comes to it. No plan survives first contact with enemy anyway.

The more he thinks about it, the more Crawly must concede that he really is planning it.

There's an array he helped design back during the war. Not complicated, but some of the required materials are a little tricky to get. It can mask a demon as an angel for a period of time. The best part about it is that it can be embroidered into leather. Hell was keen on using human skin leather, but honestly any kind will do, and then it's just a matter of keeping the patch on his person in a place where it won't be easily removed. Sewn on his undies or something.

He doesn't have access to a war chest these days, so he has to make deals to get what he needs. Luckily, Earth is full of contraband, and demons are always in need of distractions.

The array is actually the easy part, since once he has the materials he can make it himself. The tricky bit is getting into Heaven.

He needs either an angel to willingly take him, or to steal a divine door token off of one and then find an entry part. The last bit's easy, since Heaven and Hell tend to use the same areas for coming and going. There's a tunnel next to an ancient tree just a few miles south that he uses to drop bribes and send reports, and with a door token from Upstairs he's almost certain it will become a ladder instead.

The first part's the tricky issue. There's only one angel Crawly knows for certain is on Earth, and taking him hostage would be a bad idea. Might provoke him into revealing sensitive information out of a misguided fit of faction loyalty, or get him removed from his post and replaced with someone much more insufferable. No, it doesn't bear even considering that route.

Crawly's going to have to nick his door token without him noticing instead.

He tracks the angel down to the village of Buzeyir, where he's - so far as Crawly can discern - blessing some guy with a double lifespan as a reward for his faith, and liberally sampling the local mutton skewers and candied fruits. He's just as Crawly recollects, cheerful and rosy-cheeked, and apparently he's still embracing the sin of gluttony with enthusiastic chagrin. Though he seems a little more inclined to take his time and savour every bite now, rather than devouring his way through an entire roasted ox. He nibbles.

It's adorable.

Crawly of course only means that in the most sarcastic and demonic of ways.

Unfortunately the angel is also perceptive, and keeps pausing and looking around like he's trying to spot the source of the attention on him. Crawly takes his time, urging the locals into the idea of a festival. He has to miracle up an inexplicably bountiful harvest to get things going, but with an angel in town there's a handy scapegoat for any questions Hell might send him, and Aziraphale takes the bait of staying to enjoy the festivities. He still doesn't touch the wine, but he gets distracted enough by everything else that Crawly plucks the door token from his robes whilst briefly possessing a local drunk, and doesn't get caught.

He makes his way to the tunnel. Triple-checks his array, puts on his best 'angelic douchebag' persona, and makes his way up the ladder.

Seeing white wings in the corner of his vision is weird. Even if it's only an illusion, it makes him feel strangely exposed. Like naked bone in the open air. The gleaming, oh-so-luminous lights don't help.

But it's all about attitude. Act like you're supposed to be there. Crawly braces himself every time he passes a cluster of angels moving through the corridors, but none give him so much as a second glance. No one even checks. It's like he didn't even need the array at all, he could have just miracled up a slight change in colour palette and saved himself the trouble.

He files that knowledge away while he tries to figure out what other security passports he might need to seal to get into the records rooms.

Turns out the answer is 'none'.

Doors open for Crawly. Boxes as well. Sealed chambers, files, reliquaries. He could rob Heaven blind, but he's pretty sure the alarms would sound at some point, and besides most of the holy objects still burn him. That, he thinks, would get noticed; some unfamiliar angel waddling to the exit while his arms catch fire from all the loot he's carting around.

He finds the Book of Life on a plinth in the middle of the fucking records room. Just sitting there, bold as day. Not even a little velvet rope around it or anything.

Crawly goes over and takes a look at it.

It's weird. Beautiful, but most of Heaven's shit is, of course. It looks different from most other things though. Less... shiny, more... profound? Eh, he doesn't know how to describe it. It looks like the kind of thing that would just sort of melt a human's brain if they beheld it. Anything with a direct link to God tends to do that. Even angels and demons have to be careful sometimes.

Throwing caution to the wing, he flips the cover open.

The interior is even more difficult to describe than the exterior had been. He tries to take it in but ends up just sort of slipping and skating around in his awareness of it. It's beautiful, and terrible, and fills him with wariness of the divine. He almost expects to get struck down, like God's gotta be winding up to smack his jammy hands away from Her ineffable book.

Just when he's about to give up and close it again, his eyes catch on a familiar name.

Raphael.

He hesitates.

That's... still there? A dead angel's name?

Flipping ahead doesn't seem to reveal the name 'Crawly' anywhere. Nor 'Ashtoreth'.

Conflicted anger wells up in him. It feels like God Herself is calling to him with something she has also denied him. It also feels like someone gently, lovingly, reaching into his chest and crushing his heart. It shouldn't. Demons don't have hearts. Even angels don't, except for the metaphorical kind (ostensibly - jury's still out for most of them demonstrating it). But that's what it feels like. Cruelty. Mockery. Just seeing the name...

Crawly closes the book shut again. He should take it now, he really should. It's leverage. Insurance. Possibly the best he'll ever be able to get, better than any holy weapon or shield, because it's more important to those in power than he could ever be.

He looks around.

But what would he do with it? Just cart it to Earth and hope no hapless mortals trip over it and burn their brains out? Shove it in a cellar or stick it on the moon somewhere?

No, he decides. That's stupid. Heaven hasn't even upgraded their security system since before the beginning, he's pretty sure. Now that they're not at war, they think they're invulnerable. It's the only thing Crawly can think of to explain why he can come and go so easily. He wasn't always a demon. This place, and every non-angel thing in it, still thinks he belongs to that dead name too.

So he might as well leave it. He can come back if he needs to, now that he knows.

He turns away. But before he leaves the main records room his gaze catches on a long, glowing golden box with the words 'Celestial Engineering Tools' etched onto the top.

Hell-o.

Just because he's leaving without the book, he doesn't suppose he has to leave completely empty-handed after all. He's familiar with that kind of equipment, though he couldn't say where he learned about it. It's the kind of stuff that helps warp space, stop time, even create and dismantle celestial bodies. Though Crawly wouldn't ever be strong enough to do that.

He does a quick check around. There are some records angels moving about, but no one is paying attention to him. They hadn't even looked when he'd gone flipping through their most valuable artifact.

Amateur hour, really. If only thievery had been this easy during the war.

Crawly waves a hand and the chest opens like it's almost eager for him. He tentatively touches one of the tools. It doesn't burn.

With another quick look and a grin, he piles them into his arms, shuts the box, and heads for the exit. His thoughts at first would be best described as a variation on 'all mine, tee hee hee', but gradually they begin to shift. He blinks, still moving, but something niggles at the back of his mind. Something about the tools is familiar, and...

Light.

Let... let there be light...?

And matter. And gravity. And a smiling face with pale curls and bright eyes, for some reason looking at him even though there are stars right there to look at instead...

Crawly's steps falter. He shakes his head.

Later, he tells himself, and keeps on going until he's gotten clear and away.

Chapter Text

Around four thousand, five hundred years later...

Nina is rubbing her head and looking at them in a way that implies she is not adequately compensated for the trouble they just sent her way. Raphael's not totally sure why this is what does it, when it's just a small human and a request for what should surely be general human-y knowledge of things, but then she looks at the baby and sighs.

"Yeah, I'm... not really familiar with infant care," she admits.

"We can handle most of it," Gabriel assures her. "The cleaning and basic maintenance is straightforward, and of course we're familiar with a variety of human enrichment activities, but the issue right now is sustenance. And you are a purveyor of sustenance, aren't you?"

He's handed the baby carrier off to Beelzebub. Mrs. Sandwich raises an eyebrow at them as she collects her coffee order, but pauses to coo at the Second Coming. The baby blinks solemnly back, and all of the coffees turn into doves.

Mrs. Sandwich lets out a startled squawk.

"Sorry, sorry! She's at that age, you know how it is," Gabriel says. Aziraphale tuts and motions, and most of the humans in the coffee shop gain blank expressions and walk back out. The doves fly out after them.

Nina huffs and motions demonstratively with her arms, before settling them on her hips.

"You can't keep doing that! I'm trying to make a living here!" she protests.

"Right, yes. My sincerest apologies. For your trouble," Aziraphale says, and hands her several hundred pound notes.

Nina sighs again, but also accepts them and puts them in the till.

"Go sit down then," she says. "Stop... letting her do that sort of thing. I'll nip over to the shop and get some baby formula, and... a bottle? Suppose I should ask Maggie, she's got nieces and nephews at least..."

"I believe it's also possible for humans to use their breasts to feed infants," Aziraphale volunteers, helpfully.

"Mn-mn, nope. No. Just... formula. We'll do it that way, no clever ideas needed from you lot," Nina tells him, rubbing her forehead again and leaving.

Since the shop is basically empty, the five of them settle down at one of the tables. The Second Coming has her own seat, which is good, because otherwise they probably wouldn't be able to fit around the relatively small tables.

"We've been thinking of names," Gabriel tells them.

Aziraphale gawks.

"You can't mean to actually keep her? The two of you?"

Gabriel gives him another squinty look in his own style of bafflement.

"Of course we do. We can't just give her to some humans to take care of. After what happened last time? Disaster," he says.

"Well I'm... surprised you'd put it that way, considering it was the divine plan and all," Aziraphale replies, still taken aback.

Gabriel shrugs.

"I've had a lot of time to reflect on things since I left Heaven. And the Jesus thing? Completely unhinged. I was the one who told Mary she was going to carry the Son of God, you know. I was complicit," he says. "Saw that on Perry Mason. Good show. Excellent clothes."

"What's he talking about?" Raphael wonders.

Aziraphale pats his hand.

"I'll explain it all later," he says. He doesn't particularly seem like he's looking forward to it. Then he turns back to Gabriel.

"Fine, yes. You've got a point, I just didn't expect you to be the one making it. But some of the Almighty's plans would benefit from more constructive criticism," he agrees. Raphael's eyebrows go up. He turns towards Aziraphale and settles his chin in one of his hands, inexplicably proud of him, while Aziraphale pointedly doesn't meet anyone's gaze.

"Well hey," Beelzebub notes. "That's a new tune for you. Nice job."

The Second Coming gurgles in what might be agreement, or a small amount of gas.

Gabriel shrugs.

"Anyway, even if we were planning on giving her up, it'd be a bad idea. Once Heaven realizes she's gone, they're going to move the timeline up, and that means they'll get a lot more aggressive about finding her," he says.

Aziraphale straightens, frowning.

"What do you mean?"

"Don't you know already?"

"Should I?"

"They gave you my old job. I assumed you'd know things by now. But I guess they probably didn't exactly fill you in on all the details."

"Ah, no," Aziraphale concedes, expression closing off. "They didn't. It took me far too long to realize they were only ever planning to shunt busy work onto me and keep me out of they way. I didn't even know the mother had already been selected for..."

He gives the Second Coming a meaningful look.

Gabriel and Beelzebub share another glance. Beelzebub nods. Gabriel taps the table with one hand.

"Heaven and Hell are running out of juice," he says.

It's Raphael's turn to frown now.

"How do you mean?"

"I mean, the celestial kingdom and its eternal foe have been slowly but steadily losing power since the Great War," Gabriel clarifies. "It's not something we're supposed to talk about. But you two must have noticed the difference? Especially Raphael, since you're not a boiled frog."

"I'm not a what?"

"Boiled frog," Beelzebub repeats. "If you take a frog and put it in a pot of boiling water, it'll try to jump out. If you take a frog and put in a pot of room temperature water and slowly heat it up to boiling, it'll die before it realizes it's in danger."

"Good lord, that's atrocious," Aziraphale says. "Whyever would you do that to a frog?"

Beelzebub shrugs.

"In Hell we usually didn't do it to frogs." They look over at Raphael as if this is some sort of inside joke, then seem to remember he's not Crowley, and look back at Gabriel instead.

"You're so good at saying vaguely menacing things," Gabriel tells Beelzebub adoringly, before carrying on. "Anyway, the point is that there's... hmm. Not an infinite number of attempts to get Armageddon right? It's not like Heaven or Hell are immediately going to run out of power or even as if 'running out of power' is comparable to the kind of weakness mortals have to deal with. But a war takes energy, and so does getting one started, and both sides have already wasted a lot on the last failed attempt. If they think this one won't work?"

He makes an expression that implies it won't go well, and shakes his head.

"They don't want to think about another failure. A sloppy ending is better than none, at least in their books, and they're starting to worry about things getting to a point where they logistically can't manage to pull it off. Destruction is easier than creation, but killing everything still takes effort."

Aziraphale looks thoughtful. Raphael feels much the same. Another time and he would have been horrified at the prospect of Heaven losing power, but now...

"Do you know why they're running out of juice?" he asks. "Only it shouldn't be possible. At least not for Heaven, s'far as I know? It's not like it runs on electricity or nuclear fission or even cosmic energy, it's grace. It's infinite."

"Yeah, I'm not really a nerd. Never wrapped my head around it," Gabriel replies, patronizingly. "Near as I understood it was just part of God's testing us or something?"

Aziraphale presses a hand to his chest.

"The souls," he says.

"Hm?"

"The souls. The souls in Heaven and Hell. What happens to them if they run out of, of energy?"

"Y'know, I never asked?"

Beelzebub also shrugs.

"What do you mean you didn't even... oh never mind. I don't know why I'm surprised at this point."

The Second Coming chooses this moment to burp, which draws everyone's attention. Not because it's particularly remarkable, but because it's distracting. Raphael supposes, given what Aziraphale told him about the last attempt to end the world, that this must be some other kind of antichrist? The last one worked out, so he's a bit more concerned with the Heaven and Hell issue right now.

Surprisingly cute things, though. Small humans. Sort of like ducks, what with being... round?

"Anyway, names!" Gabriel declares. "Obviously 'Jesus' is a little too obvious."

Aziraphale shakes his head and clears his throat.

"Not generally given to girls, either," he mentions.

"Who cares about that? She can pick an official gender later. That's how humans do it, right? You give them a starting one and then later they decide if they want it or a different one?"

"Erm... well... more or less...?"

Beelzebub smiles at the baby.

"Gabrielle," they suggest.

Aziraphale looks pained.

"Perhaps Mary would be suitable?" he counters. "Considering, well. She did rather get the short end of the stick last time?"

"Mn... nah. Too church-y," Gabriel declares.

"Too church-y?! For the Second Coming?!" Aziraphale retorts, even more pained. Raphael nudges their shoulders together and he takes a calming breath.

"Oh, I know!" Gabriel declares, snapping his fingers. "What about Jim? That was a good one."

"Absolutely not-"

"Gah."

The argument pauses at the exuberant note of agreement from the small human in their midst. Gabriel beams, while Aziraphale looks betrayed.

"See? She likes it! Jim it is!"

Chapter Text

Raphael is in the Bentley and going to a place called Tadfield again.

But this time it's not to be dropped off. Aziraphale thinks that they ought to introduce Adam and Jim to one another, so Gabriel and Beelzebub are packed into the back of the Bentley with Jim and her tiny personal seat, and Raphael is driving whilst Aziraphale tries to explain Jesus to him in more detail than he'd bothered with the first time.

Raphael is not so sure about this plan. He doesn't know much about christs and antichrists, but he does know matter and antimatter, and... well. But he gets distracted pretty quickly by the Jesus story.

"Oh. I think I get it," he says, after.

Aziraphale blinks at him.

"So quickly?" he asks. "You... that is, Crowley wasn't precisely enchanted with it when it happened...?"

"Well, no, it's awful," Raphael agrees. "But it's meant to be? Probably? Like, God makes an extension of Herself and sends it to go suffer, and now God has a whole new perspective on how human suffering works. Unlucky for Jesus though."

"I'm not entirely sure that was the motivation," Aziraphale replies, but he sounds less insistent and more considering than usual when this sort of thing comes up. "The Almighty has felt every instance of suffering in creation alongside with all of the rest of us, even before the business with the cross. It's part of being omniscient."

"What, even the suffering in Hell?" Raphael considers. "Like, God actually already was burning in the bottom of the pit with Lucifer and Beelzebub and me? You really think that?"

Aziraphale's quiet for a long moment.

"I suppose I don't really know if I'm convinced on that point anymore or not," he eventually decides.

"That's alright," Raphael assures him. "I don't understand God either. Never did."

"Same," Gabriel agrees.

Beelzebub makes a wobbly hand gesture and an 'ehhh' noise.

"I always figured God was just sat back with a load of popcorn," they suggest. "Throwing rocks at a hornet's nest to see what comes out. That kind of thing. Only option that made any sense to me, really."

"I suppose that would make sense to a demon," Aziraphale diplomatically allows, though he looks perturbed.

Jim gurgles in what seems to be neither denial nor confirmation. Back at the coffee shop, Maggie had done them the courtesy of showing how to feed and infant, and had explained that talking and language comprehension skills generally took a while to kick in for small humans. Raphael is surprised, but when he thinks about it then it makes perfect sense. He was overwhelmed the first time he came to Earth too. Would stand to reason that humans also get a chance to ease into it, normally.

The silence gets a little awkward, but then the radio starts playing some music. Raphael attempts to hum along and finds it to be a pleasant experience.

Aziraphale 'navigates' the rest of the trip for them (which mostly consists of him pointing at interesting landmarks and going 'oh yes, this is the right way'), while Raphael 'drives' (which mostly consists of sitting behind the wheel while the Bentley moves itself swiftly and efficiently along the road). Gabriel and Beelzebub start whispering together in the back seat, but they're not saying anything worrying, just being affectionate and a little weird. Normal for them, or so he's gathered.

Tadfield is very green and very... Raphael searches for a word and finds 'quaint'. The roads are quiet, but when they get into the village itself there's a cheerful bustle of activity. Just humans going about the business of being human. The atmosphere is pleasant. Soothing and soft. It reminds him of Aziraphale, and Crowley's glasses, but in a strictly good way. Though there's a bit of crackle in the atmosphere as well.

The Bentley pulls up to particular house, and the five of them get out. Gabriel carries Jim while Aziraphale straightens himself out and takes the lead towards the door. Raphael saunters after him, curiously observing the slouched bike by the fence, the flowering bushes by the path, and the lazy dog lying by the front door, watching their approach with a single eye open.

"Oh, that's the hellhound?" Raphael guesses.

"No. That's Dog."

The group turns and finds themselves being regarded curiously by a young human. He's a lot bigger than Jim, but Raphael doesn't think he's finished growing yet, either. Medium-sized, maybe? Tousled brown hair, scuffed jeans, and an even more scuffed backpack. The dog gets up at his approach with a happy whine and scampers over, and the boy scratches at his ears.

"Adam!" Aziraphale greets. "Just the person we're looking for!"

Adam nods at him, but gives a wary look to Gabriel and Beelzebub. He frowns at Raphael, and then looks perplexed by Jim.

"Did something happen?" Adam guesses.

"Erm... well..."

The boy turns, looks almost regretfully back up the path, and then sighs.

"Okay, fine, we'll talk or whatever. But don't come in. Tuesday's the day Mum cleans the floors, she doesn't like visitors traipsing all through it, and I can't explain you and have time for homework. We'll go to the library."

Adam picks up the bike, on that note, and waits for them all to pile back into the Bentley. Then he goes peddling down the lane, with Dog eagerly racing alongside him.

The Bentley follows.

Raphael watches the gears and mechanisms on the bicycle move with interest. When they arrive at their destination, Dog veers off to chase a squirrel, and Adam waits for them by the door.

The Tadfield Public Library is a small, humble brown building with neat hedges and a front sign advertising the school reading program. Inside it is considerably bigger, filled the brim with shelves and squashy armchairs and brightly-lit tables. It looks a bit like the book shop, but much more airy and organized.

Adam leads them to an empty table which he drops his pack onto, and then slumps into one of the chairs with a sigh.

Then he points at Raphael.

"You're wrong," he states.

"I didn't even say anything," Raphael defends, only to be waved off.

"Not like that. I mean you're... you-ness. It's like you've gone backwards. No, that's not right. It's like you've gone forwards, but the version of you was from the back. Oh. Did you time travel?"

"Generally we're all travelling through time," Raphael replies, uncertain.

Aziraphale saves him.

"Crowley was restored to being an angel by Heaven, but his lost his memories of his time as a demon in the process," he says.

Adam wrinkles his nose, then shakes his head.

"No, that's not what happened."

Aziraphale hesitates. He glances at Gabriel for some reason.

"It is, though...?"

"No," Adam insists again, drumming his fingers on the table. "That would be like going backwards all the way, not forwards even a little. You didn't change. You got moved from where you were supposed to be."

Raphael narrows his eyes and considers this assessment seriously, folding his arms and lowering his head. He knows how to meddle with time, but usually only stop it, rewinding it a little bit, or speeding it forwards. Even then, rewinding is by far the trickiest and the most limited. Minutes, maybe hours, would be the extent of it. He doesn't know how anyone would turn back time enough to pluck someone from their place in it and drop them ahead elsewhere, and even if they did, where would Crowley have gone?

"How would that be possible?" he asks.

Adam shrugs.

"Dunno. But if you wanted me to fix it, I'm not sure I can. There's something holding you in place, like an anchor or something. It's really weird."

Aziraphale deflates and sends him an agitated look.

Raphael nods in acceptance.

"Do you think you could help me remember being Crowley?" he asks instead. He hears Aziraphale suck in a breath beside him.

But Adam only scrunches his face a moment, then shakes his head again.

"You can't remember stuff that you never did. You didn't forget; you haven't done it yet. It's like you've got to flip forward... wait. It's not an anchor. It's a book...? Why's it a book...?"

He tilts his head.

Raphael feels suddenly even more lost and uncertain of his situation than he did before they spoke.

"What, what book?" Aziraphale asks.

Adam shrugs again and gestures to Raphael. Reflexively, everyone looks at him, but there's nothing more to see than there usually is.

"Okay then. What about this?" Gabriel interjects, striding forward and holding Jim out in front of him.

Adam, obligingly, looks at the baby.

"She's not human, but she is too. She's a bit like me?" he guesses. "But it's hard to tell. Did you do something to hide it?"

"Beelzebub and I cast a miracle together," Gabriel proudly declares. "Her name's Jim. She's the Second Coming."

"Second Coming of what?"

"Christ."

"I thought Jesus was supposed to come back like an adult," Adam says. "In a terrycloth robe and with a beard and everything?"

Gabriel shrugs.

"Plans change. There were a few different contingencies that had to be enacted when you declined to kick off Armageddon."

"I'm not sorry. That was a stupid idea, and you were a huge jerk. Them too," Adam replies sternly, with a nod of acknowledgement at Beelzebub as well.

Obviously uncertain of how to respond, Gabriel withdraws Jim, who simply stares back at Adam as if he is a particularly twinkly set of keys. Beelzebub, nonplussed, examines their nails.

After a moment of drawn out and uncertain silence, Adam unzips his backpack.

"I've got maths," he says. "And I'm going to get in trouble if I don't get my grade up. If you think of more questions you can ask, but otherwise you have to be quiet."

Aziraphale clears his throat.

"Well. Then. Ah, thank you, Adam. Give us a moment?"

"Sure. Library's a good place to work out anything to do with books," the boy advises, and then sighs heavily at his sums.

Chapter Text

"I can't believe I never considered that Heaven might have lied about what they did to you," Aziraphale mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers. He grasps Raphael insistently by the wrist and leads him off between the stacks.

"Why would you?" Raphael asks. "They said they were going to turn Crowley into an angel, and then there I was."

"Yes, but... I just accepted it! Even when Gabriel mentioned how difficult it would have been, I only assumed that they had wanted you to play your trumpet and decided it was worth the effort, that they still did precisely what they claimed they did just for worse reasons than they told me. The right questions to be asking never even occurred to me. What an idiot!"

"You're not. It's alright, angel. We'll figure it out," Raphael assures him, with full confidence that they will. It might take a while, but unless God Herself did it, there must be answers to find somewhere out there. He give in to the urge to touch Aziraphale and settles a hand onto his shoulder.

Aziraphale's determination visibly bolsters, which is nice to see.

"Crowley must be somewhere. There are parts of him in you."

"Of course there are. It's like I was telling Nina about the suggestion box," Raphael reasons.

"...I'm sorry? You've lost me. The what?"

"Right, the suggestion box!" he declares, snapping his fingers. "I didn't get a chance to commend you for that. I saw it in Heaven before everything went disastrously wrong. You really installed one in Heaven? That was you, wasn't it?"

There's no keeping the warmth from his tone nor the stars from his eyes, and even if he could he doesn't think he would want to, because Aziraphale blushes and flusters at the praise.

"It was a good idea. Ought to have been done ages ago," the other angel insists, and oh, that's killer. That almost does Raphael in, too, the knowledge that even though he fell from grace for it, and the rest of Heaven would still condemn him, Aziraphale thought it was Heaven in the wrong. It makes him want to do something, but he's not sure what.

He settles for smiling.

"We should build our own Heaven," he says. "We can have a suggestion box and do... I don't know. Voting? And have trade unions and things." Raphael had read about trade unions in one of Aziraphale's books, and approved of the idea. "All the angels and demons who don't like the current system can be in ours, and we'll let human souls come along too, it'll be great."

Aziraphale shakes his head at him.

"How could we ever build our own Heaven?" he counters.

"I have no idea. But it'd be nice, wouldn't it?" Raphael insists. 

"You're teasing me."

He is, maybe. Teasing and indulging in pure fantasy. After all he's the celestial engineer in the library and he doesn't even have his tools, and even if he did, he could only use them to make mundane things like planets or stars, not entire divine realms. But it's such a pleasant thing to imagine, some idyllic place where everything could work out for them.

His enthusiasm dims somewhat with the knowledge of how different their current situation is.

Raphael looks down at himself, examining closely to try and see any traces of whatever 'book' Adam apparently perceived. He's not sure if the antichrist was being metaphorical or if he misunderstood that, but no matter how he looks he can't see anything that would fit that kind of description.

"Can you see it? Whatever's holding me here?" he asks Aziraphale.

Aziraphale responds by scrutinizing him as well, his eyes gleaming a little with the intensity of his attempt, and his hands even moving to pat at Raphael's chest. They draw an odd look from a human passerby, but the woman quickly moves on to other bookshelves. The sign above them reads: 'Romance Paperbacks'.

After a minute Aziraphale sadly shakes his head.

"I don't even know if we're looking in the right place," he says. He's so close. Raphael wants to be closer. He finds himself wishing that his wings were out, so that he could feel their feathers press against one another's again too. Without thinking about it he leans in even more.

Aziraphale's eyes widen, and he moves back instead. He clears his throat.

"Ah, I should go and, and make sure Gabriel and Beelzebub aren't, erm, causing trouble," he insists, and is gone before Raphael has much chance to react.

"Oh..." Raphael sighs to the bookshelves around him, and packs away his disappointment. He's not even sure what he was trying to do, so he can hardly get upset that Aziraphale didn't let him do it. A hug would have been nice, he thinks, but maybe those are only for special occasions? He straightens out his jacket and shirt, and fiddles a moment with his grey silk scarf, before letting his gaze wander to some of the nearby books.

They look different from the ones in the book shop. Flimsier, with cracked spines and boldly written titles, nonetheless still barely legible from the number of wrinkles and folds in most of them. A lot of the humans on the covers are embracing. Lucky them.

With a countenance that the outside observer might describe as sulky, Raphael wanders for a few minutes, until his equilibrium returns. Then he finds himself thinking about what Aziraphale had said before he made an excuse and left.

'I don't even know if we're looking in the right place.'

Raphael blinks and furrows his brow, taking off his sunglasses for a moment to peer at them curiously.

If Heaven didn't do what they said they did, then what about these?

Metatron knew about them, and claimed to have made them. Not an improbable claim at the time. It would have been easy to plant them in the bookstore, he could have just given them to Muriel and told Muriel to put them somewhere they could be found. Though if he did do that, how could he know Raphael would got there and get them?

Or was he expecting Aziraphale to find them first?

But if he didn't restore Raphael's angelic status, and something else happened, how would he know about the glasses? Maybe he just knew that there was something of Crowley that ended up in them? Something that could be useful? So maybe he did plant them, or at least know about them, but didn't actually make them. Which means that whatever he thought of them could be wrong.

Raphael has looked at and through the glasses, but he realizes he hasn't really examined them on every level. He slides into a chair at one of the tables and sets them on top of it, folds his arms and rests his head on top of them, and looks as hard as he can.

They're just glasses.

Actually, that's strange in and of itself, because he knows that they're not.

It reminds him of Jim and of Gabriel and Beelzebub's miracle to disguise her. Narrowing his eyes further, he prods at the glasses with a little bit of energy. It's risky, because it could damage them. But when he does they resist.

Raphael's lips curl in victory.

"Gotcha," he says. Definitely not a normal object, not even materially. Are they even really glasses?

He taps a finger against them. Now he feels it a little more plainly even just at a touch. An echo that rings of sentiment.

If something was happening to him, something which threatened to undo everything he had learned in the past while, and reset him to some other state, what would he do?

Obviously he would try and put his memories someplace else, so that he could find them again. That was what Gabriel had also done under similar threat. It was the most reasonable course of action, really; even if you can't remember enough to reclaim your, well, memories, it's still a better chance than letting them be destroyed. If he was Metatron, and he found something like this, wouldn't he assume that to be the case also? The wily demon tried to save himself by putting a piece elsewhere.

But the sunglasses aren't memories, he doesn't think. And maybe they aren't just a container or lens for sentiments either. Or they are, but not in any usual sense.

If Raphael's got something like a book in him, in that case, the glasses might almost be like a kind of index? Helping to find the bits of Crowley in the firmament of the angel he used to be. The parts connected to Raphael through dint of Raphael's connection to his own future. A who, but also a when.

Oh.

Oh.

He could kick himself! Of course. It was there in one of the first weird things Adam said when he looked at him. 'Did you time travel?'

He's been looking at material things, energies, hidden states, but all in the context of the here-and-now. It's the wrong layer of existence.

He needs to take a proper look at time.

But in order to do that, he needs to find his tools.

Chapter Text

When Raphael rejoins the group, it's to find Adam locked in a staring contest with Jim.

The baby's seat is on the table across from the boy's math books. The air between the two of them is wavering from the pressure of the extranormal energies being relayed by their unblinking regard, while Gabriel and Beelzebub and Aziraphale all supervise. Or just watch. Raphael's not sure.

He goes over to Aziraphale.

"Do you know where Crowley kept his tools?" he asks.

Aziraphale, distracted, waves vaguely.

"I'm not sure, my dear. Perhaps in the Bentley?" he suggests.

Raphael nods in thanks and heads back out of the library, since the others seem to have whatever it is they're doing well in hand. He heads over to where the Bentley is parked past the hedges, waiting patiently for them to their finish their affairs.

"Hello, Bentley. Do you know where my tools are?" he asks, even though the Bentley can't speak. It might still be able to indicate a direction.

There's no response. Oh well, he didn't entirely expect an easy answer anyway.

It's starting to rain. Raphael glances up and sees a thick, dark line of clouds on the horizon. The ground is still wet and littered with puddles from the last rainfall. He circles the Bentley, wondering where it might hide a kit of celestial tools. He would have sensed them, he felt, but then again, if Crowley had such things he'd probably take measures to hide them. Slip them into a pocket dimension, or change their shape or size, disguise them as something else...

Raphael pauses at the boot of the car, and the spare tire there behind the license plate. But it's just a tire.

His gaze drifts down to the plate itself.

'NIAT RUC'?

'CURTAIN' backwards.

What's behind the curtain?

Raphael reaches forward and grins as the letters gleam beneath his touch.

"Oh, there you are... hello, my darlings!"

With a careful hand he reaches into the license plate, grasps something, and tugs it free. When he straightens up he finds himself holding a large black tool box, with the name 'A.J. Crowley' embossed in gold on one corner. He nearly opens it on the spot, but then his fingers slip against the lock in the rain, and he thinks the better of it. He climbs into the Bentley instead and opens it there.

A giddy laugh escapes him as he confirms, with delight, that this is exactly what he's looking for. Scroll, crank, manual, diagnostic tools, brush, wrench, hammer, measuring bowls... they're all here! Everything's accounted for! He almost pulls out his crank and his diagnostic tools on the spot.

But then it occurs to him that something might go wrong. He doesn't know what could go wrong, but lots of things have been going wrong, and he also isn't even completely sure what he's looking for or what might happen if he finds it. Something go awry if he's reckless, so he should probably at least talk with Aziraphale before he does anything.

So he contents himself with running his hands over them for now. Then he considers, and puts the trumpet in the book box as well, for safe-keeping, before he closes the whole thing shut and gets back out of the Bentley.

His foot immediately lands in a puddle, and he grimaces as the water soaks into his sock and up the leg of his trousers.

Thunder rumbles in the distance.

That's a lot of atmospheric activity. He frowns, squinting at the sky. Lightning flashes on the horizon. No matter how far he looks he can only see rain clouds. He hadn't looked before, but it occurs to him that the planet shouldn't be doing that. If he squints right Raphael can see clear around the curvature of the earth, and it's... it's all storm...?

Still looking up, he sets his toolkit onto the hood of the Bentley, snaps it open again, and takes out two of his diagnostic tools. He tosses the sphere up, letting it levitate in front of him, and then taps it with the rod. A low chime sounds and the sphere whirls and whirls, gathering up samples with enough intensity to produce a small vacuum effect. Raindrops vanish into it. Raphael lifts the rod and frowns as it glows an ominous red.

He's starting to develop a suspicion. He doesn't like it. He hasn't like most suspicions he's developed lately, and has liked most of their outcomes even less.

The sphere stops whirling and also turns red. Raphael grabs them both then checks his manual, to where the results are scrawling themselves across a crisp off-white page. The rain slides harmlessly from it, but pools in the bottom of the tool box, so he absently pulls the lid over without clasping it shut.

When he's finished he puts the rod and the orb back away again and lets out a long breath, before looking disapprovingly at the sky.

Someone's trying to flood everything.

Not just here, but everything. The whole planet. One great big storm, with far more precipitation than the biosphere ought to normally produce. The planet has been suffering from a damaged atmosphere and increasing climate change for a long while now, according to the diagnostics. It's in dire need of maintenance and a concerted effort to rectify several imbalances, but with a little work it's still got loads of time left in it and no reason for this kind of planetary scale climate event. This is something else. If anything the planet's been dryer overall than it's supposed to be.

Which means that this is the result of divine - or infernal - intervention.

When Aziraphale told him the flood story, he mentioned that God had promised not to do it again afterwards. Raphael has stopped being surprised by a lot of Heaven's actions, but he doesn't think it would fit for them to renege on something so clearly stated by the Almighty Herself.

Which means the other side's probably doing it, since Satan almost certainly never promised not to do a big flood sometime.

Heaven must have noticed it, and they're not stopping it either.

So Gabriel's probably right. They've probably realized that Jim has gone missing, and now they're starting to force things. It doesn't matter if it's even feasibly in the Great Plan or not, since Heaven and Hell both can use the same argument which Crowley and Aziraphale once did, which is that it's part of the Ineffable Plan instead. Hadn't Metatron done basically that in Heaven, when he'd argued that the events of the failed apocalypse and Gabriel's defection ultimately led to Raphael's return, and his ability to sound the trumpet?

It's anything goes.

He shouldn't be surprised, and he isn't, but he's something still like surprised. Appalled? Appalled.

Well if they think he's just going to do nothing and let them...

Raphael rummages through his toolkit until he finds the pump. He marches over to an empty patch of field near the library and sets the pump up, stretching it up and up until it towers in a thin line over Tadfield before rooting it securely in the ground and turning it on.

He nods with satisfaction as it starts to move, and then he sets up the exit point. It can't be too far away, but that's fine, there are plenty of nearby options. He wishes he had another. This one won't be able to catch everything, he used to only use it to remove water which got displaced onto planetary bodies that weren't supposed to have any at all.

Still. See them have an easy time trying to flood the Earth while he sends more than half the water to Mars...

Chapter Text

Raphael is still congratulating himself on his quick thinking when he gets tackled by Gabriel.

He isn’t expecting it all. The archangel comes rushing out of the library and knocks him flat, then draws a gleaming silver sword and holds it to his throat. His eyes gleam purple, and his expression is hard.

“What are you doing? Are you in league with them?!” Gabriel demands.

“Who?” Raphael asks. His heart’s thudding and his back hurts and he doesn’t like this at all. That sword if very sharp, and whatever has been said about Heaven and Hell losing power, their tools still seem to work just fine.

“Heaven!” Gabriel snarls.

“Good lord! Gabriel, get off of him this instant!” Aziraphale shouts at them.

“No I’m not in league with-” Raphael starts to reply at the same time, but Gabriel apparently loses patience. He twists around, swings his gleaming-bright blade so that it cuts through the very firmament of reality just a little bit, and strikes it against the pump.

The clamour of the impact makes everyone wince. Car alarms go off. Dogs begin to howl (Dog included) while inside of houses, electrical appliances flicker and babies start to cry (Jim doesn’t, but Jim is only half of a normal baby). Lightning cracks and thunder rumbles, and Raphael stares in horror as the pump wavers under the force of a divine weapon and then begins to fall towards the library.

He tries to catch it, but something else gets there first, stopping the pole a few feet from the library roof. The water pours down on them, a deluge where before it had depleted to a soft drizzle.

Adam Young, standing in the library doorway, looks unimpressed.

“Why is it raining so hard?” he asks. “It’s not even the right month for it.”

“Ask him,” Gabriel retorts, aiming the sword at Raphael again.

“What do you mean, ‘ask him’? Ask me what? I was trying to stop it! You just wrecked my pump, you huge idiot!” Raphael retorts, feeling an awful wrench at the state of his poor tool. How’s he supposed to fix it? He’s never broken one before, and he can’t exactly go to the quartermaster now can he?

There is a long, uncomfortably wet, deeply uncomfortable pause as everyone takes in everything.

“...Huh,” Gabriel says.

Aziraphale comes over and shoves him.

“Get off of him! How dare you?”

The shove isn’t actually enough to displace Gabriel, but Raphael’s knee moving sharply upwards in addition to it gets him moving, and he winces and backs off. He raises both of his hands defensively.

“I thought he put up the thing and was trying to start a flood! That’s what it looked like!”

“How would a pump start a flood?”

“It was a divine tool! I didn’t know what kind it was!”

“So you just decided I had to be a traitor and was making it flood on purpose? Why would I do that? Why didn’t you ask first?”

“I don’t think you realize how bad it looked from the outside,” Gabriel insists. “And you have a long history of betrayals!”

“He most certainly does not!” Aziraphale snaps, incensed. Raphael personally might have conceded the point, if only because Crowley at least definitely betrayed Hell, and arguably also Heaven or God depending on how one wanted to quantify loyalty in the first place, but Aziraphale looks so outraged on their behalf that he doesn’t dare.

“Look, I’m sorry. But why else would it just suddenly be flooding right now? Those clouds go way further than they ought to!” Gabriel insists.

Aziraphale looks, and frowns, but he still helps Raphael up and fusses over his clothes before it seems he’s even willing to address the matter. Raphael looks mournfully at his tilted pump, and then towards Adam.

“Can you fix it?” he wonders. It’s all he can think of.

Adam squints at it.

“It won’t be the same if I do it.”

“Right now we just need it to work,” Raphael assures him.

He shrugs.

“Okay. It’s a big pump, right? Give me a minute, this stuff’s not as easy as it was during the apocalypse.”

A dam stands stock still under the rain and closes his eyes. Under the library awning, Beelzebub comes out carrying Jim, whose focus zeroes in on Adam again with laser sharp interest. Several passersby, hurrying to try and get out of the rain, nevertheless pause to watch as the precariously tilted pump beings to steadily right itself, and then to change shape. It becomes considerably smaller, shifting around until it has more or less the same size and qualities of a blue pool pump. A long rubber hose stretches off into space, while a nozzle at the front somehow sucks water out of the atmosphere as a whole, rather than just locally.

It’s a much less efficient design, and Raphael can already tell it’s redistributing a lot less than half the water now. But it’s still doing something, which is better than the ‘nothing’ they’d have gotten from the broken one.

“There,” Adam nods, satisfied. “But it’s still going to flood, it’ll just take longer at this rate. Suppose we better get building arks or something...”

“It can’t come to that. God promised there wouldn’t be another flood,” Aziraphale says. His grip on Raphael’s arm is too tight.

“God’s not the only one who can make floods,” Raphael sadly reminds him.

“It doesn’t matter! If God says She won’t drown everyone in a flood again, it should apply across the board! Heaven has to stop it...” even as he argues, Aziraphale looks tired. The rain is bedraggling him.

Raphael wishes for his wings. Instead he summons up an umbrella and holds it over the both of them, while Gabriel hurries over to Beelzebub.

Apparently, finding out that another apocalypse has been triggered is their cue to leave. Without even so much as a wave farewell, the pair take Jim and miracle themselves away. More thunder and lightning flashes, as if the forces behind the storm have registered the interference, and are also registering their dislike of it.

Raphael puts a ward on the pump and then pulls Aziraphale back towards the library. He miracles both them and his toolkit dry and ignores the humans peering out of the windows and exclaiming about a ‘collapsing power line’, heading for a table where he can set everything out.

Aziraphale emerges from his dismay when he sees the crank. Recognition alights in his gaze.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“I have an idea,” Raphael explains. “I’m pretty sure that we’ve been looking at this the wrong way. Whatever happened, it’s a what, but where it’s happened may actually be more of a when. I want to take a close look at time and see if I can find Crowley or his memories stuck in ‘when’, since we haven’t been able to find them any ‘where’.”

Aziraphale looks over the shining diagnostic set.

“This is...? Where did you get these?” he asks.

“The Bentley. You said they’d be there.”

“I had no idea! Crowley... kept these all along...?”

“Shouldn’t he have done? They’re my tools,” Raphael reasons.

“Well. Yes, but, Heaven wouldn’t have permitted it, and Hell probably would have taken them away at the first opportunity as well.”

He shrugs.

“Then Crowley got them back. As he should.”

Aziraphale doesn’t seem upset for him to have the tools, though he looks a little inexplicably hurt about it.

“Why wouldn’t he tell me?” he wonders.

Raphael doesn’t have an answer for that. He rifles around until he finds a blank scroll and begins drawing a local map of the general state of time instead, using it as the basis for the array he’s going to need if he wants to delve in deep without accidentally breaking anything in the process. He works quickly, wishing he had an angel pinion to draw with but making do with the sleek black pen he’d found among Crowley’s belongings instead. It works well, though instead of leaving behind gleaming traces of light, it burns little motes of flame and flickering darkness in its wake.

When he glances over at Aziraphale, the other is watching him with slightly flushed cheeks, but he doesn’t seem quite so upset anymore.

“I’m going to give you the end of my tether,” Raphael says. “If anything goes wrong, you can just pull it to call me back.”

“Is this dangerous?” Aziraphale asks, with due seriousness.

“Yes,” he admits. Meddling too much with time always is.

“Then, are you quite sure you have to go? Could I do it instead?”

He shakes his head.

Maybe he could, but Raphael’s not going to let him. Instead he picks up his spool and ties a silver thread to himself, and gives the other end to Aziraphale.

“Hardly any time at all should pass here while I’m working,” he explains. “If I don’t see any signs, I’ll come right back, less than a blink. If I’m gone for more than a few hours, however, you can safely assume that I’m in trouble and pull the tether to draw me back. If that doesn’t work and I’m really stuck, you’ll need to destroy the array.”

Aziraphale nods in understanding.

“And destroying the array will bring you back?” he asks.

“Destroying the array will make it like I never went in the first place,” Raphael explains. “Which isn’t ideal, because if I don’t notice the signs then we could get stuck in an infinite loop of failed attempts, and eventually damage time enough to create a rift that erases Tadfield and everything in it. But that only ever almost happened to me once and it was back when time was still pretty new, it's a very remote possibility.”

“I... I see...”

Aziraphale’s grip tightens on the tether. Raphael smiles reassuringly, then presses the array face-down onto the library table. The symbols burn into the wood surface, which is a fairly good material for this sort of thing. Trees, as long-lived plants, have a strong link to the firmament of time.

“Wish me luck?” he requests, lowering his sunglasses to offer a wink before lifting up the crank.

Aziraphale grabs his arm.

“Wait!” he says.

Raphael lowers the crank back down a bit, and waits.

It takes a few moments. Time actually feels like it’s slowing down a little bit already, even though it can’t be. Aziraphale’s hand slides down his arm and his wrist, until it settles against Raphael’s own. Their palms meet. Aziraphale’s shoulders heave as he takes in a bolstering breath, and then links their fingers together.

“If you find Crowley... what will happen? Will it be like regaining lost memories, or...?”

“I don’t know,” Raphael admits.

Aziraphale nods, like he was expecting that answer but still hoped for a different one anyway.

“I should have said something to him a long time ago. It’s just that, when you live in the knowledge that how you feel is dangerous, when you spend so much time talking around it, even talking yourself out of looking at it, it becomes so difficult to... to change. How you do things. Even how you think about them. But I... for a long time, a very long time... I have...

He looks up with aching tenderness.

"I have loved Crowley.”

Raphael stills.

Aziraphale immediately averts his gaze and squeezes his hand tight. He lets out a shaky breath, which becomes an almost relieved laugh.

“I love Crowley,” he repeats softly. “You asked me before, but I couldn't say it right then. But I'm tired of not saying it, of being afraid to. I love him. So much. Even if you can’t bring him back, even if I don’t know what I’ll do if that happens. Break, I suppose. That’s not important right now. I love you, all of you, being with you is the best thing in my life. Every time we part I feel bereft and every time we're reunited, it's like fresh colour infuses all the world again. I don't care if... no, no, that's not right. I fell in love with you as a demon. And it was hard to acknowledge that, because it was the pinnacle of everything I was not supposed to do. But I would do it again. Every time. If I live a thousand times over, I would rather fall in love with you than be a model angel. I would rather fall."

The angel clings to him.

Wearing the sunglasses was a mistake.

Raphael doesn't know how he's supposed to go and inspect time when he can't even see past the tears.

Chapter Text

If Crowley had thought the damn idiot angel would actually throw her spear at the Book of Life, he would have rather just taken it in the shoulder. He never would have tried to hold it up as a shield, because actually attempting that was beyond stupid, and the moment he realizes he does the only thing he can think to: he tries to stop time.

Or he tries to stop the spear instead. Or just drops the book straight down, and takes a holy weapon right in the chest. Or he attempts a short teleportation, trying to brute force his way through Heaven's restrictions. He does everything. He does nothing. The universe narrows to a point, and for the briefest of instants, Crowley feels its eye fall upon him.

Then he hits the floor.

It feels, for some reason, like a million billion infinitesimally small rubber bands have just released every molecule of his being all at once. The Book of Life clatters down next to him, but it's immediately apparent that something's off. The floor he hits isn't the polished gleaming white of Heaven's over-exposed holy linoleum, but some kind of polished wood, his sense tell him at once that he's on Earth, and there's a silver tether tied to one of his arms.

He groans and struggles upwards, checking the book. Looks intact from here, and it hasn't immediately exploded or anything, so he downgrades the concern to slightly below getting a handle on his sudden pounding headache. He can feel it in the back of his teeth. Nausea, too, like the sort that comes from suddenly transitioning through too many metaphysical spaces at once.

"What happened? Are you alright?" Aziraphale says.

Crowley blinks and looks over. Sure enough, there he is, holding the other end of the tether for some reason. It looks like they're... in a library...?

"I have no idea what happened," he admits. "Why are you here? Shouldn't you be setting up shop in your new office or something?"

He's expecting Aziraphale to explain. To huff in relief, probably, and then primly inform him that he figured out that Crowley was getting into trouble, and... something. Tied a string to him like an angelic child leash and dragged him back to Earth when he sensed a split second of disaster? It doesn't quite fit the scene but then again, nothing else does, and it sounds like something Aziraphale might do.

This is not what happens.

Instead Aziraphale stills in place and gives him the kind of wide, vulnerable look normally reserved for situations where he's almost gotten violently discorporated - and possibly not even those - and says, in the smallest of voices:

"...Crowley?"

"Yeah?" Crowley replies.

Aziraphale doesn't answer him right away. He frowns and gets up.

"What? What is it? Did they try and do something to you?" He knew it, he knew Heaven would be pushing at him the minute Crowley turned his back, it was inevitable, bunch of lying fucking tyrants and Metatron was always the worst of them-

Aziraphale hugs him.

Crowley short circuits a little bit. They don't usually do... hugging?

His concern escalates considerably as he also takes note of the trembling.

He puts his arms around Aziraphale, taking a swift look around them for signs of threats or other strangeness. It's weird, but he's pretty sure they're in a library on Earth somewhere. There's an oppressive aura of whimsy and environmental weirdness, so, Tadfield?

The question of what they are doing in a library in Tadfield and how they got there can wait. With no signs of any wrathful angels or conniving demons bearing down on them, Crowley turns his attention back to Aziraphale and whatever the hell's wrong with him. He can't detect anything physical, at least. Whatever Heaven did to make him this upset, he doesn't care to imagine, but he files it away to add to the long list of transgressions. He's a demon, after all. Demons are all about retribution.

"You want to tell me what this is about? 'Cause I could try and guess but I've no idea what's going on," he asks, when Aziraphale's thoroughly soaked the front of his shirt.

"Oh Crowley," Aziraphale says again, in a tone that makes his heart twinge. He finally unlatches his death grip a little bit, though, pulling back and making a token effort to smooth a hand across the wet patch of fabric on his chest. Crowley swallows, tries to repress a shiver at the way contact over thin, damp fabric is barely removed from contact against skin.

He waits. He'd really like a better handle on what's going on, but there's nobody else to ask except some random humans who are assiduously not noticing the whatever-is-going-on, so he makes himself wait instead while Aziraphale collects himself enough to talk.

"You don't... you don't remember? Being...? You don't... know what's been going on lately?"

Crowley's first impulse is to assert that he remembers perfectly what's been going on lately. Gabriel ran off with Beelzebub, the Metatron came and gave Aziraphale a job offer, Crowley ripped his own heart out of his chest and tried to give it to him, Aziraphale stomped it into dust and then went back to Heaven, and Crowley chased after him because demons aren't even supposed to have hearts anyway and damned if he's going to let Heaven just have Aziraphale without a fight.

But he takes the question in, properly, and then starts paying to other details around. The silver tether, for one. He recognizes it. It's one of the celestial tools he stole from Heaven, one of the ones he's never been able to parse out the proper use of. And there's more, loads of tools he hid in the Bentley, plus one of the most complex angelic arrays he's seen in his life carved into a wobbly oak library table as if it's always been there and is not, in fact, an incredibly weird thing to see. Even in Tadfield.

Then his internal clock catches up with him.

Earth time's moved a lot more than it should have.

"Oh. I think I've lost the past six months," he admits. He takes another baffled look around. "What in anyone's name were we doing?"

Aziraphale raises a hand to his mouth as he tears up again. He shakes his head, indicating he needs another minute, and Crowley's still worried and still doesn't know what's going on and still has to be patient.

It's a nightmare.

"Angel?" he prods, carefully, because Aziraphale's not truly fragile except in the ways that he is.

"Then, you don't remember..."

He trails off, and fear frays the edge of Crowley's patience too thin.

"What don't I remember?"

"Raphael."

Crowley doesn't have a grave, obviously, but if he did then that would be the name on it, dead and buried so far beneath the Earth as to be rooted in Hell's own crust. Hearing it out of Aziraphale's mouth makes him cold all through. He knew he would have to get used to it, if he wasn't going to pretend to be... 'reinstated', but he might've overestimated his ability to tolerate it. To just have it suddenly come out of the last person he'd ever want to hear it from... Crowley has a lot of terrible experiences to build a comparison by, and many which far outstrip this, but it's nails on the chalkboard of his soul.

So it takes him a while to put together the implications.

"Right. I was going to pretend to be... right."

Aziraphale swallows and looks down.

"You didn't pretend," he admits. "Something happened. We're still... we were still trying to work out what, but... you were. Changed back."

"Changed. Back?"

Oh he does not like where this is going.

"You didn't remember being Crowley," Aziraphale continues. "I wasn't sure you'd ever be able to... I mean, you were trying, so hard, but it... but then, we came to Tadfield, and..."

The jumbled attempt at an explanation isn't exactly clarifying anything, but Crowley, horribly, thinks he can put the picture together. He got changed, not just pretending but for real. Of course he lost his memories of being a demon. He'd lost most of his memories of being an angel when he fell, so why wouldn't it work the same the other way around?

Some pre-fall angel wouldn't have been able to help Aziraphale much, not with all the machinations of Heaven. He was probably on the cusp of asking too many questions and falling all over again at any give moment. Or else he wasn't, and Crowley doesn't know which option is worse. He knows that doomed angel of his past was a curious type, but he must have been horrified, as all angels were, at the prospect of falling.

But maybe they'd needed him to know things. Best of both worlds then, really, an angel with all of Crowley's ability to help and none of the baggage of being an evil demon.

Aziraphale must be devastated that whatever they did, it just turned him back to this instead.

"You really don't remember anything at all?" Aziraphale asks. He looks stricken.

Of course he does. He'd finally gotten the angel he's been chasing all this time back, only to lose him again.

Crowley shakes his head.

"What was he like?" he asks, because apparently he likes tormenting himself.

"He was... oh, my dear. He was, he was just you. You but..."

Better, Crowley's mind supplies.

"Younger," Aziraphale says.

How tactful of him.

Chapter Text

He can't deal with this, so Crowley deals with what he can, which for the moment is aggressively shoving his things back into his toolbox and getting angry at the presumption of some angel touching them and mucking around with his things, and presumably also getting his stupid angel handprints onto the Bentley. The overly complex array in the library table glares at him like an indictment, mocking his ignorance of how to make something like that himself, along with the implication of several tools he's still never figured out the real use of laid out all neatly and with perfect confidence.

He's reckless enough that he doesn't even notice the blessed awful trumpet in his toolbox until his hand brushes against it.

Crowley recoils in shock, expending the familiar burn of a blessed holy object against his flesh, rejecting him, and still trying to process what it's even doing here. He pitched that thing into the sun! It took a lot of effort on his part!

His hand doesn't burn.

A jolt of profound alarm hits him. Crowley pulls his sunglasses off.

"What do my eyes look like?!" he demands.

Aziraphale smiles weakly at him.

"Beautiful," he says.

With a growl of frustration and mounting fear, Crowley grabs one of the shinier celestial engineering tools and checks for himself.

But they're still his eyes. Demon eyes. Yellow with the slit pupils and everything.

He gets ahold of himself and checks a few more things. Manifests the shadow of his wings and checks his internal equilibrium, and confirms he's still fully himself. Only then does he let himself remember to breathe.

Okay.

Maybe he only imagined touching the trumpet...?

"Crowley, I really think... I think we ought to talk..." Aziraphale tells him.

Talk. Right. Because it went so very well the last time they tried that. Crowley can tell by his tone that he's not angling to fill him in on current events, as such, and he's got no interest in hearing how Aziraphale cares about him and wants to be with him but still thinks he's better off as an angel, and oh can't they find a way to turn him back again?

Thanks but no thanks.

"Later," he says, and because he's already in pain so it won't make as much difference for outside to match the in, he reaches out and grabs the trumpet.

It doesn't burn him.

It should burn him. It did burn him in the past. Unlike some more benign or complex heavenly and demonic objects, the trumpet is aggressively blessed. It's some kind of a weapon, or something, and like most of Heaven's favourite little goodies it's linked with massive amounts of destruction. Well, by implication. So it should definitely burn, unlike a Heavenly file folder or one of his tools.

Still doesn't actually burn at all, though.

Crowley frowns.

Maybe it's run out of... holiness? Can that happen?

"Ah, yes. That," Aziraphale acknowledges, sighing heavily. "You must have a lot of questions."

He does, but also doesn't want to ask them right now for fear of hearing Aziraphale utter that name again.

"Angel," is what he ends up saying, a little exasperated.

"Yes?"

Crowley motions at his hand on the trumpet, but it doesn't seem to click.

"Why is this holy object not burning me?" he points out.

Comprehension finally dawns. Aziraphale stares a little more intently, and then, painfully, something like hope comes into his eyes.

He shouldn't have asked.

Sourly, he shoves the trumpet back into the toolbox.

"Perhaps it's something Raphael did when he-"

"Yeah, got it, never mind."

"Crowley!"

"I'm assuming a lot more has happened during all of this than just me losing my head and flittering around the clouds singing choirs, or whatever it was he got up to," Crowley insists, shutting the toolbox as violently as possible.

Aziraphale looks... hurt. It's almost enough to make him regret the outburst, but he doesn't, he can't, so he just avoids looking at him as he considers the library table. Probably better not to just leave it. He doesn't think he can dismantle it either. He miracles it to pocket six, shoves it into his jacket, grabs the Book of Life and then starts heading for the doors.

"Crowley! Stop! Where are you even going?" Aziraphale protests, hurrying after him. "At least slow down!"

His chest is starting to constrict, to his horror. He can't do this, he really cannot, but he knows they'll have to have a conversation and if he has to listen to Aziraphale tell him to his face again that he wants him to be an angel, he... he doesn't know what. He'll have a panic attack, probably, and he's gone six thousand years managing to not ever have one in front of Aziraphale, and it's not a streak he wants to break. Demons don't have panic attacks, you endure the agonies of Hell you're supposed to be impervious to little things like 'emotional upsets', but there it is anyway. Crowley doesn't just deviate from the norm when he wants to, more's the pity.

Aziraphale catches him just outside the library doors. His stride is interrupted by a firm hand closing around his elbow.

It is absolutely pissing down rain.

He's not going to make it out of this.

Crowley closes his eyes and bites back the distressed sound that threatens to escape him.

"Let me go," he says instead.

Aziraphale takes in a sharp breath.

"No," he says.

Crowley looks at him. He means for it to be an incredulous glare, but somehow it just comes out sideways and furtive. Frightened.

Aziraphale softens. Under the rain it makes him look absolutely miserable, like a drowned cat. One of the fluffy ones.

"You can't ask me to let you go when I just got you back," he says. Absolutely playing unfair.

"Angel," Crowley replies, and it sounds pathetically like the plea for mercy that it is.

"You can be furious with me, Crowley. I wish you would be. I've earned it. But you have to let me apologize," Aziraphale insists.

It's an act of self-preservation to latch onto the one thing he can actually get angry at.

"I don't have to do anything!" he snarls, and turns, looking fully at the angel and his stupid drenched curls and his pale, wounded gaze. He drops everything and crowds in close. Since it seems he can't run away to goes on the offensive, grasping the lapels of Aziraphale's coat and moving so close that the rain drops spattering on one of them splash against the other. "I'm not going to-"

Aziraphale's hands close over the tops of his own. He leans up, and their lips barely brush together.

Crowley drops his hold like it's a holy object that ought to burn him, and skids backwards, nearly tripping over the Book of Life that he's dropped on the Tadfield library walkway like it's a piece of litter.

"I love you," Aziraphale says.

The pained sound he'd escaped earlier punches its way out of him.

No no no.

"You can't do this to me," he replies, weakly.

"Crowley-"

"I can't listen to you ask me to be an angel again!"

The rain drowns out the ragged sound of his breaths. Aziraphale shakes his head, raises a hand to his lips, looks like he's just been speared right through the heart. It's too much like last time, but also like it's mocking last time, because they're in the rain. Get humans wet and staring into their eyes, alright. Crowley didn't even see it in a movie. He saw it in a garden, roughly six thousand years ago.

"I can't," he begs.

"I don't want you to be an angel," Aziraphale tells him. For all that he's so visibly upset, his voice is steady. Confident.

"You don't want me to be a demon," Crowley counters.

"I do."

It's the last response he could have expected. The firmness, the eye contact. It shocks through him like lightning, and he's sure he must have misheard. Trick of the rain. There's no chance Aziraphale just said that he wanted him to be a demon, said it like he means it, unambiguously and just like that. Aziraphale hates demons. Crowley's an exception, but not his demon-ness.

"...What?"

Is that his voice? Sounding so small?

"I want you to be a demon!" Aziraphale exclaims, loudly enough to probably confuse or worry some of the locals, except that they probably can't hear over the storm. "I love you as a demon! I'll still love you even if you stop being one, just to be clear, but... but I've spent the past six months wishing to God I'd never asked you to come to Heaven with me! I missed you every day. Raph... the angel version of you, I loved him too because he was still a version of you, but it was agony looking into his eyes. They were the wrong eyes. They weren't yours."

Crowley is too stunned to respond.

Aziraphale moves over and settles his hands onto his cheeks.

"I'm so sorry I ever made you think I didn't love you as you are," he says. "I didn't want Heaven to make you good enough for me, Crowley. But you never should have been punished. You didn't deserve to suffer. And I thought that righting things would mean undoing that. I'm sorry."

He lilts towards a sing-song tone, echoing that stupid apology dance.

"You were right, I was wrong, you were right."

Crowley still can't believe it. Maybe he's hallucinating. Maybe it's a trick?

It's not a trick. Somehow, impossibly, that's definitely Aziraphale in front of him.

He doesn't trust himself to speak. But the look on the angel's face is getting increasingly desperate, so after a moment he leans forward. He doesn't have a lot of intention behind it, and somehow the gesture ends with his forehead resting against Aziraphale's, while the rain soaks in and his sunglasses slide down his nose.

A hand rubs his back up and down. It's a soothing gesture. Crowley can't remember the last time anyone offered it to him, and it's embarrassing how deeply he feels it now.

"You don't have to forgive me," Aziraphale whispers.

As if there's anything else Crowley can do after hearing all of that.

Chapter Text

At some point, after Crowley and Aziraphale have scraped themselves and their things up enough to function again (and climb into the Bentley to escape the weather), Crowley thinks to ask:

"Is it just me or is this a lot of rain?"

To which Aziraphale responds:

"Erm, yes, about that..."

And while Aziraphale is in the midst of explaining what has actually happened for the past six months (in generalized terms), he pauses mid-sentenced and finally notices what Crowley has negligently tossed onto the back seat. If pressed he would have to admit that he had not even noticed a thing beyond Crowley himself after he returned, not even a book, so it takes him an embarrassingly long while to point and go:

"Is that the Book of Life?! Crowley, why do you have the Book of Life?!"

To which Crowley responds:

"Oh. Right. About that..."

"What do you mean you went to steal the Book of Life from Heaven?!" Aziraphale demands, aghast.

Crowley raises his hands defensively.

"Well I couldn't very well just leave it be, could I? For one thing, how was I going to pretend to be an angel without all my memories of being an angel? Dead giveaway for faking, that! For another thing, they kept threatening to use it to destroy you. Clearly, angel, they'd abused the privilege and deserved to have it stolen out from under their noses."

"It's the most sacred book of all time! You can't just steal it!" Aziraphale insists, though the hunger of a collector of rare books has started to come into his gaze as he looks at it now. He shakes his head. "What if God punishes you?"

"Eh."

"Crowley!"

"God's not going to punish me, angel. God never told me I couldn't touch it, God never even told Heaven to put it in a room and lock the door in the first place, or if She did it wasn't a general announcement. None of Her rules were broken, just Heaven's. And we're a bit late on me not breaking Heaven's rules," Crowley reasons.

Aziraphale still looks anxiously fascinated, so Crowley reaches onto the back seat and picks up the Book of Life, and then tosses it into the angel's lap.

"There. You can have it."

Aziraphale makes several interesting noises. Crowley smirks. He keeps feeling all warm and fuzzy, it's making it hideously difficult to keep up appearances. 'I want you to be a demon', Aziraphale had said. 'I love you', he'd said. Just said it out loud, like it wasn't even difficult. Fuck me, Crowley thinks. I'm not going to make it to the apocalypse again even if this one sticks. This'll do me in first.

Finally Aziraphale seems to work out a response to being presented with the most valuable single-edition book in the universe.

"You don't own the Book of Life, Crowley! You cannot gift it to me!"

"I stole it fair and square, and now you can't say it's in irresponsible hands. Anyway, where are we even driving to...?"

It's probably a testament to how out-of-sorts they both are that Crowley has been 'driving' by letting the Bentley circle Tadfield for the better part of three hours while he and Aziraphale just attempt to get a grip. He shakes his head at himself and takes the wheel properly in hand, veering towards London for lack of any better destination. Apparently they've got a tempest to deal with. They'd better get their shit together, insofar as they ever do have it together.

Aziraphale's quiet for a while. When Crowley glances over he's looking intently at the book, but hasn't opened it yet.

"This must be what Adam was talking about," the angel eventually reasons. "The Book of Life was the book he saw."

"He what now?"

"It's what changed you, Crowley. And kept you like that until... until the 'angel-you' went and fixed it." Aziraphale's brows furrow. "Oh, I wonder what happened to the two of you. I hope he wasn't frightened."

Crowley doesn't know what to say to that, but it doesn't seem like a response is expected from him anyway. The knowledge of that other version of him still fills him with tense disquiet. He thinks he'd almost prefer it if Aziraphale hadn't liked him, if he described him as some noxious airhead whom Crowley was better off forgetting. The alternative is just filling him up with a wretched mix of jealousy and loss, neither of which have any available outlets.

He clears his throat while the Bentley swerves around some massive puddles.

"At least Heaven doesn't have the book now. They can't threaten to erase anyone from it if they don't even have it."

"They can still threaten," Aziraphale says, with uncommon coldness, suddenly radiating disapproval. "They simply can't actually do it, but there's nothing to stop them from lying about it. Just as they've been lying about everything else."

Crowley takes his eyes off the road to glance at him.

"Alright there, angel?" he checks.

"Mn," Aziraphale affirms, which is not exactly convincing. But that's his Guardian of the Eastern Gate face, not his woe-is-me one, so Crowley decides to accept the 'mn' and leave be for now.

He changes the subject.

"Look, if Hell's really trying to make a flood, that's gonna be costing them a lot of miracles," he reasons. "They won't do it just anywhere, they'll need to make the most of the demonic energy they're spending. So there's only a few places they could be doing it from, and considering their staffing issues I don't think they have the manpower to have set up a camp in all of them. Probably one or two camps per continent, that's the sort of over-extension of labour and resources they get into Downstairs. If we can find and disrupt some of them, we might be able to whittle the rain down to where Adam's pump handles the rest."

Aziraphale is quiet. He's lifted the cover of the Book of Life and is peeking at the contents.

Crowley decides to leave him to it. Considering how he gets about completely mundane first editions, this is probably a lot to take in. He starts mentally mapping out where Hell would position flood-makers instead. Once they get to the book shop he'll need to make a list.

"Crowley," Aziraphale says after a little while. His tone is odd. "Have you actually looked inside of this book?"

"Uh. Yes? Why?"

Please don't ask when he looked in the book.

"What... did it say?"

"Oh, it's totally incomprehensible," Crowley assures him, in case he's worried he's losing his mind. "Only the names make any sense, and that's being pretty generous on what qualifies as 'making sense'."

Aziraphale is quiet again for a while. When he speaks up, he's definitely anxious.

"See, the thing is..."

"Hm?"

"The thing is... I'd heard that. That none of it is really readable, even to angels. Not a single line."

Crowley shrugs.

"I couldn't make sense of any of it."

Aziraphale looks up at him, brow furrowed.

"It's written very... I mean, there's a lot in it, in a lot more dimensions than in any mortal book of course, but..."

"What?"

"...The first line says 'I am God, the Creator and Destroyer, the Beginning and the End, and in me resides all things, and in all things shall I reside'. And then there's a translation key, which is a shape or possibly an equation tied to every word, but they aren't truly words at all, except that they are, and it really is rather complex but I think I could sort it out with a paper and pencil and a few hours to chip away at it. After that is a list of all the angels, but it's arranged so that every instance of an angel's name that repeats throughout the text is really just the one instance written in the index. But they're not just names, they're records. The name is comprised of a formula that has been written in with all possible pasts and futures of the angel it represents. Every bit of space in this book has been written on, I mean I don't think it has mundane molecules as such but if it did it would go down to that level, but it's still preserving as much space as it can by folding in on itself. I can see that it makes no sense, and it's giving me such a headache even looking at it right now, but I also... I can... understand it?"

Aziraphale gives a bewildered shake of his head.

"Crowley. No one can read this book. Why can I read this book?"

Chapter Text

Crowley is almost expecting to find the book shop in flames again when they get back to it. But it isn't.

What it is, surprisingly, is full of people.

It almost seems like another gathering of the Whickber Street Traders and Shopkeepers, except rather than sparkling lights and the trappings of an ad hoc 'Jane Austen' ball there's just a lot of frightened locals and their families, sheltering from the rain and watching news broadcasts on their phones. Muriel is nowhere to be found but seems to have distributed teas and hot chocolates at some point, though Mr. Arnold and some of his associates have also acquired a bottle of the 2018 roman road chardonnay.

Crowley glares at them, but this seems to have next to no effect. He's losing his touch. He gives up and tosses his arms into the air.

"Sure, fine, make yourselves at home why don't you," he says.

"'Bout time you got here," Nina replies, like he hasn't even protested. "What's going on? This is something to do with your people again, isn't it?"

"Erm, well..." Aziraphale hedges.

Maggie comes over to join them, though it seems everyone is hanging on the verdict from the angel.

"The news says the storm's encompassed the entire world," she explains.

"Yes, it's... that's... obviously an issue of some concern. Not to worry though, we've got a plan!" Aziraphale assures them, raising a fist in an attempt at bravado, and hugging the Book of Life to his chest in an effort to keep most of it out of sight. Crowley doesn't think the cover alone would be enough to melt anyone's brains, but he's been wrong before.

With the deep sigh of someone who knows he is by default going to have to take on a job he doesn't particularly like, he steps forward.

"Look everyone should just go home, clean out your basements or cellars or whatever, and try to keep to higher ground. Hopefully we'll have it sorted before it escalates to a full Noah situation," he declares. "And don't let the doors hit you on the way out."

Nina and Maggie both look at him and then each other.

"Are you back to normal then?" Nina asks.

He frowns.

"More or less."

"Happy to hear it," she says, and he raises an eyebrow. Well, perhaps the grumpy one wouldn't be expected to prefer the angel version, at any rate.

"If it's all the same I think we'd like to stay here," Maggie interjects, addressing Aziraphale more than him. "It feels... safer."

"Safer? In the book shop that got attacked by a mob of demons a few months ago?" Crowley points out, incredulous.

"Well, it's sort of where the action is, isn't it? Like being at ground zero, if anything happens then it'll probably happen here?"

"You don't want to be at ground zero, ground zero's where the bomb hits... oh, forget it," he can already tell that he's not going to get anywhere with this. "Fine. Stay. Do what you like. But if we tell you to run then you'd better be ready to do it."

Maggie nods. Aziraphale nods too and begins hurrying his new mystery book over towards his desk.

"Crowley, be a dear and keep an eye on things while I review our, um, discovery?" he asks.

He's gone before Crowley can properly answer, but all things considered, Crowley doesn't hold it against him. He wouldn't be Aziraphale if he didn't drop everything to rush off with a discovery like that in his hands.

Snapping his fingers, Crowley appropriates the bottle of chardonnay and a glass, and saunters over to where the main group has clustered. They've even brought their families by the looks of things. It's giving him some really unpleasant flashbacks to the last big flood.

I don't know if I can turn them all into fish, he thinks. Even if he can, that wouldn't be the end of it. When God flooded everyone the last time it was to make a point. Not a very good point in Crowley's estimation, or at least not one that couldn't probably be made with fewer drownings, but a point nonetheless. This is different. This is a concerted effort that won't end until either the world is destroyed or Heaven and Hell are stopped.

Sinking down into a chair, he takes a long drink of the wine, then starts making his list of places to disrupt.

The first time someone moves in the general direction of Aziraphale, he stops them.

"Leave him be," he says. "He's translating a book written by God. You probably can't look at it without exploding."

This works pretty well as a deterrent, though Crowley, knowing humans and their general tendency to weigh a mystery against their sense of self-preservation, still keeps one eye out.

Maggie settles down beside him.

Crowley eyes her warily.

"I'm glad you're feeling more yourself again. He was very worried about you, you know," she starts. "Mr. Fell."

He lets out a long breath and drinks his wine.

"I know," he says, because he does, but he also doesn't want to have another conversation about it. He's still not completely recovered from the first one.

"Pretty much beside himself the entire time," she emphasizes.

"I heard you the first time."

"Did you really? Because the rest of us were worried as well, but we had no idea where to even begin. You were missed," she adds, which does surprise him a little bit. Generally he just sort of skates through the lives of nearby humans, and if he lingers enough to draw some kind of regard it's not often the good kind. "Are you back to going by Mr. Crowley, then?"

"Definitely. Do not use that other name."

Maggie nods, and despite it all he feels a rush of appreciation when she says:

"I'll let everyone know."

A little of his wariness returns when Nina shows up, stands next to Maggie, and folds her arms at him.

"Right then, just what is going on?" she asks.

Crowley considers hedging around, but honestly he doesn't see the point of it. Secrecy was a requirement when Hell was his employer and discretion was easier than drawing attention once they weren't, but if Downstairs and Upstairs are going to be this blatant, he doesn't see the virtue in keeping humans fumbling around in the dark.

Well, truly, he never has.

"It's not all confirmed but we think Hell's trying to flood the world and kill a lot of people in one big sound-off to the next End Times, because Heaven's lost the Second Coming and are panicking, because both sides have been losing power since before the Earth began and now they're worried about not being able to kill everyone at some point in the distant future. Which doesn't seem terribly distant to celestial beings because of cosmic scale and immortality and all that," he explains. "The former antichrist has set up a big magic pump to help. He declined to cause the scheduled apocalypse a few years ago, which is the source of all this agitation, but also the only reason we're all still here."

The explanation buys him a few moments of silence, in which he drinks more wine and fleshes out his list.

Maggie moves to look at it, and Nina sinks down into a crouch on the other side of him.

"And what are you doing, then?" Nina asks. They're remarkably steady. Point for Aziraphale, Crowley supposes; Crowley always bets on humans panicking when faced with cosmic forces that are angling for their destruction. Wailing and beating their chests and cursing God and so forth. Aziraphale always insists that trials are the time when humans shine. Crowley doesn't necessarily disagree with that assessment, but he prefers the kind of shining that comes of figuring out how to make pens that write underwater to the kind that comes with staring down the barrel of oblivion.

"I am charting out all the places where Hell might have sent infernal forces to create the necessary miracles to change the whole planet's weather long enough to attempt this," Crowley explains. "If we can disrupt enough of them then the pump should be able to handle the deluge."

Maggie tilts her head.

"I knew the M25 was evil," she says.

"Such a thing as being too good at a job sometimes," Crowley mutters. "What would really help was if I could get my hands on a demon. One of the underlings, I mean. Hell's staffing issues are so bad they'll all have to know where some of the others are going-"

The sound of the book shop door swinging open interrupts him.

Everyone tenses and looks up. Despite the obvious fact that the current threat is a weather phenomenon, there are some instincts which even angels and demons pick up on in a group, and humans are still largely geared more for the primal fear of very large tigers than the primal fear of celestial assassination.

Outside the storm lashes the windows. Thunder rumbles.

Junior Recording Angel Muriel (37th class) walks into the book shop dragging Probationary Acting Duke of Hell Shax.

Crowley's eyebrows go up as Muriel pushes Shax ahead of them and firmly shuts the door at their back.

"I've arrested a demon! For real this time!" Muriel announces to the shop at large. Shax, of course, does not look pleased.

"Well, well, well! So you have. Inspector Constable indeed," Crowley drawls, and gets up out of his chair. He heads over.

Muriel gasps.

"Mr. Crowley! You're back?"

"How'd you guess?" he asks with a sarcastic drawl that goes right over their head.

"You called me Inspector Constable!" they say.

"Oh fuck," Shax grumbles.

"Shax," he scolds, waggling a finger at her. "I'm surprised you're not in the thick of this. They'd need the whole Dark Council for this sort of arrangement. So how did Muriel catch you? Don't tell me you were getting up to good."

"Not a chance!" she insists, but there's definitely something furtive in there. Ah, yes. The double-edged knife of spending most of your time on Earth. It's all fun and games and doing bad deeds, but then it starts to rub off. It doesn't even take that long, not really. Crowley and Aziraphale had a long time, of course, but they didn't need six thousand years to start caring. Especially not Crowley. The trouble with your side being the literal pit of despair is that's really difficult to keep up morale.

"No? Not even a single, questionable little mercy? Well then, maybe you'd like a chance to foment some major discord instead then."

Shax hesitates.

Crowley grins.

Chapter Text

Aziraphale's desk does not seem, at all, an appropriate place to put something like the Book of Life.

And yet somehow it looks more suited to resting there than it had on any plinth in Heaven. The Book of Life is busy, a conglomeration of moving yet still parts, the sort of thing where looking at a glance it seems detailed and looking at the details reveals impossibility. Just pulling back the cover is like opening the face of myriad celestial watches, gears and shapes churning in ineffable, remarkable design.

And Aziraphale is fairly certain that this book, like most, contains a comparatively blank first page. There is nothing written in it, it is just revealing some of the workings of the book itself, and those he cannot even begin to fathom beyond the barest guess.

But in the environs of the book shop, while the Book of Life looks to be no less divine of an object, the inherent clutter and chaos of Earth provides closer kinship than the remote austerity of Heaven.

He's not sure if that means anything, but he decides to take it as a promising sign.

In lieu of there being much precedent for handling the personal texts of God, Aziraphale defaults to standard practice for handling very ancient and potentially hazardous books. He thoroughly cleanses his hands, puts on his vinyl gloves, and wears the magnification glasses he first got custom made sixty years ago and has been steadily improving through the judicious application of small miracles ever since then, and focuses first on the translation key. Then he takes off the magnification glasses because they were a terrible idea, and uses his true senses to focus more clearly on the contents instead.

Aziraphale is fluent in all of the languages of the world, except for French. All the dead languages, too. The first language of the angels, and the regional dialects of demons. But knowing is not learning, and that is why he un-learned French, though at the time he had no idea that grasping the difference would do anything more than improve his understanding of humanity.

It's not surprising that God's language is intricate. It's a little surprising that he takes to it better than he did French, but no one needs to know that. Although he'll probably still tell Crowley someday, just so Crowley can enjoy poking fun at his expense.

Time disappears into the task of deciphering God's translation key to the point where Aziraphale can start making rudimentary sense of the first segment of the book he's selected for translation. He was going to start with Raphael's name, or rather the contents of Raphael's name, but he quickly realizes that it's too complex. So he goes to the first line. ' I am God, the Creator and Destroyer, the Beginning and the End, and in me resides all things, and in all things shall I reside .'

He understands it the way he understands most languages, which is to say, intuitively. But that means the translation is rooted more in conveyance of sentiment; there are others to be made, each word connected to more throughout the book. God. That's the only word that is linked to nothing, despite the inference of the line linking it to everything.

God is always apart.

There are few interruptions to his attention. At some point Aziraphale becomes aware of Muriel bringing him a mug of hot chocolate, which is left to go cold. Crowley comes, and Aziraphale blinks his way out of the haze of focus at the brush of a hand on his shoulder.

"Eyes are glowing, angel," Crowley tells him.

"They are?"

A nod.

Well. That's not usual for him, but then again none of this is.

"I feel fine," he says, because he does. "And I think I'm making progress."

"Right. Well, I'm off to go thwart the will of Satan."

"Oh do be careful! Perhaps I should come along?" he asks, even though the thought of stopping now is almost intolerable.

"I can handle this. Be back in time for lunch," Crowley says.

Lunch?

That should be well past... unless it's the next day?

Aziraphale knows he's ensnared, but then again, what else could he be? He nods in understanding and lets Crowley go, trusting him to keep to his limits. He's been thwarting the will of Satan for millennia, after all.

Just as Aziraphale, despite everything, has been thwarting the will of God.

And now he's got God's diary more or less, and he's looking through it for a way to keep on thwarting. But it hasn't escaped his notice that there's no chance of this being an accident.

Despite it all, it gives him hope. He simply cannot believe, deep down, that there's no way out. That the sole purpose of creation is to just serve as some massive scale measuring good and evil, and meting out rewards and punishment. There has to be more to it. Even if God has prepared an End, he won't believe She didn't allow for the possibility of anything else.

" Alright, Lord," he murmurs to the gleaming pages. "I suppose this is what I get for asking You to give me something to work with all those times..."

The word 'things' in the first sentence becomes his next jumping off point, because he can find so many other concepts contained within it. Including basic elements of the universe, and thence substances, which leads him to water , and oh now he's getting somewhere relevant to current events. Or at least he hopes so. He doesn't dare tamper with anything. If the rumours about the book's properties are even remotely true, then accidentally deleting all existence of water from creation would... well. Materially worsen everything by a lot.

Aziraphale's hands tremble a bit, and his eyes ache. He should probably take a break.

He comes out of his reading to find a fresh steaming mug of cocoa sitting on his desk, and Crowley lounging against the leg of it, reading a map.

"Crowley? How long have you been back for?" he asks.

"Not long. Just stopped in before we hop across the pond," he says. "What would you say is the most cursed place in the United States?"

"Oh I don't know, my dear, there are a lot of options."

"Yeah, it is a bit challenging in that regard."

"Well I suppose the effort is weather based. Florida?" he suggests.

Crowley nods. Then he motions at the cocoa.

"You should drink that. You're glowing a bit."

Aziraphale is about to be flattered when he realizes that Crowley's not being metaphorical. There's a faint glow emitting from him, brightening his clothes and lingering at the tips of his fingers. It's brightest where he's been touching the book to flip through its pages.

Clearing his throat, he concentrates on turning the bulb off, as it were, and picks up the hot chocolate. The grounding effect of drinking it is almost immediate. He lets his eyes slide closed, and sags back into his seat. Crowley's eyes are on him, but he doesn't mind.

"So how's it coming along?"

He sighs.

"Slowly," he admits. "But I think I'm making progress, for all that I'm unsure what to do with it yet."

Crowley nods, then gets up to peer at the pages of the book as well.

"It still doesn't make any sense to me," he confirms.

"And I still have no idea why it should make any sense to me," Aziraphale replies. Now that he's started he finds he's all but clinging to the mundane simplicity of his warm mug.

"You're the book angel," Crowley says. "Angel of books. If I were to bet on any angel understanding any book, it'd be you."

Warmth fills him for an entirely different reason. He'd missed this, missed Crowley, so much. He can't feel sorry for it, even though the warmth comes with a wave of terrible guilt. That's twice now he's been responsible for Raphael's destruction. The first time when he prompted all those questions and objections which caused him to fall, and now again, with the part he's played in restoring Crowley only for him to not even remember. ..

He pushes the thought away. He can't wrestle with it now.

"I'm not a record's angel," he says instead. "The Book of Life was entrusted to Haniel, who is, and before that to Azrael."

" Death?" Crowley asks skeptically, raising his eyebrows. "Heaven entrusted a thing called the Book of Life to Death?"

"Azrael wasn't Death yet," Aziraphale protests. "Anyway, it must have been God who did the entrusting, not Heaven."

"Yeah? Then why didn't Azrael read it?" Crowley asks.

Aziraphale hesitates.

"Well... possibly he did," he reasons. "After all, no one's entirely clear on how he went from... you know, and then to... well, you know. It's not like he Fell. Heaven's official stance on it was always that it was part of the Great Plan and no one should ask questions."

As one, the two of them look at the book again.

Crowley speaks first.

"You don't have to keep reading it," he says.

Aziraphale thinks about the end of the world, and the destruction and suffering, and he thinks about Raphael, and all the memories Crowley has lost. But he knows that his motives aren't entirely altruistic either. Even without them, he doesn't think he could stop now. Already he feels a strong urge to go back to it, to dig in deeper, to understand the whispering parts of it all that seem so tantalizingly just beyond reach.

"Don't worry. If it seems to be having a detrimental effect, I'll stop," he promises.

Crowley nods, but does not in fact look any less worried.

"You'd better get to Florida," Aziraphale encourages.

He makes sure to keep sipping his hot chocolate and leaning back in his chair, not glowing at all, until Crowley has reluctantly headed off again. The he quickly puts the mug down and gets back to it, suddenly afraid that what little comprehension he's managed to accumulate will slip through his fingers if he stops for too long.

Chapter Text

Crowley gives the demonic alligator one last kick in the nose as he stumbles through the portal into an abandoned Hell office in Croydon, Shax not far behind him. The last few mobs were easier to manage thanks to their willingness to believe that Crowley was still an incredibly over-powered archangel; all he'd had to do was disguise his wings and keep his glasses on, make some vague allusions to smiting them all while Shax backed him up, and they'd scattered.

Some would come back, but most probably wouldn't, for fear of retribution for defection. That was a trouble with an intensely punishment-oriented system; no one ever wanted to report a failure. So most of them would lay low and wait until the whole project failed, then try to figure out the most self-serving target to blame the whole collapse on.

Unfortunately the Florida branch were rather more skeptical, and also carnivorous. Shax closes the portal and staggers, pale and dishevelled, to a lone wobbly chair left in the office building.

"How do you even get the idea to load a bunch of water pistols with holy water?" she asks.

Crowley shrugs, then winces, and pops a few dislocations back into place. The bite wounds are going to take a bit longer to heal on their own.

"Necessity is the mother of invention," he replies. "Don't tell Aziraphale."

"Why not?"

"Because I'll use one on you if you do."

Shax lets it go, attempting to fix her scorched pantsuit before giving up.

"Fine, you keep your secrets. I've had enough of this anyway, that's the last one I'm helping you with."

"Oh come on. We make such a great team! And if we kill enough of the higher-ups, that only opens up more job opportunities for you! Every cluster we take out is like yanking another body off of the career ladder above."

"Not if I get caught doing it!" she hisses at him.

He shrugs.

"I dunno about that. I got caught, and they still tried to promote me."

That puts a thoughtful look on her face.

"Think about it," he advises. "We need to go back to the book shop and figure out our next target anyway."

They head out of the abandoned office. Then they stop to watch the massive bolts of lightning crashing against the horizon and cracking the earth open like drills through tinfoil, causing everything to tremble as flames and shadow leap up to meet the tribulation. The vibrations are nearly enough to knock Crowley off of his feet. They send Shax pinwheeling sideways, trying to keep balance.

"That's a new development," he notes.

"You're on your own," Shax says, and takes off the with fearful determination of someone who has seen the grim spectre of retribution on the horizon and decided valour is a sucker's game.

Crowley can't blame her, entirely, but he also thinks he'd never be stupid enough to try and go on foot when there was a second seat in the Bentley that could have been ridden at least to Soho. He's not going to waste valuable time tracking her down, though, so he gets in alone and floors it all the way back.

It's not good. The lightning is crashing down with obvious violent intent, and even the world biggest optimist would not expect people to get out of unscathed. Buildings are being hit. Roads and bridges giving way. The thunder roars and Crowley snarls obscenities in an upwards direction while the Bentley passes obstacles like it's only truly been able to ever since Adam reset things.

And maybe he should give Shax a little more credit, because the closer he gets to the book shop the worse things look. There's less rain, yeah, but lightning pouring down instead isn't exactly an improvement, and then the windshield of the Bentley starts to smear with red and oh come one? Really? It's raining blood now? That's Moses, not armaggeddon! And they didn't even stagger one plague to the other! This is all mixed up!

Crowley's heart sinks as the Bentley turns onto Whickber and the road's just... gone. A fathomless pit where the street should be. He can barely see past the smears on the windshield, and a cry escapes him as he gets the door open and looks...

The book shop's still there.

It's completely cut off in all directions, but the lightning's not hitting it. It's bouncing off, smashing up into the atmosphere again, and while the coffee shop, records store, and most of the rest seem to have fallen into oblivion, the book shop is still there.

Crowley grits his teeth, gets back in, and reverses as far as he can manage a straight line for.

"Alright. Come on then," he says, and floors it.

The Bentley roars down the straightaway and in sheer defiance of physics sails across the chasm, dripping blood and gleaming darkly. Heaven's wrath crashes around them, lightning bending and warping around the frame, making Crowley's teeth itch and reflecting through every mirror and headlight.

They land on the barest lip of pavement preserved at the front of the book shop.

"Well done," Crowley praises, giving his car a pat before he runs inside.

The only thing staving off the awful deja vu is that the place isn't on fire.

"Aziraphale!" he calls.

"Where's Shax?" Muriel asks him.

"Ran off," he says. "Where's Aziraphale?"

"He went upstairs. It wasn't safe to be at the desk anymore. He said, no more interruptions."

Oh, he doesn't like the sound of that one bit. Crowley takes the steps three at a time, all but launching himself up to the second floor, and he should have noticed sooner the amount of light pouring down from the landing.

"Aziraphale!"

"Crowley! Keep back, it could hurt you!"

Crowley shields his face from the light, but it's not burning him, so after a moment of hesitation he opts to keep pressing forward. He can't really see anything, but he's still familiar enough with the layout to manage on memory alone.

"What could? What are you doing?"

"I don't know! I just copied something down and it - oh it's too complicated to explain! It's protecting the shop I think but I don't know how to control it!"

"Can you erase it?"

"I already tried! Besides, I think if I do then it will stop working and the whole place will come down around us!"

"Aziraphale, the storm's worse-"

"I know!"

"Just leave it there and you come here to me, then!"

"I can't! I have to figure out how to stop it all before it gets even worse! I'm so close, I just need a little more time!"

Okay. Right. Time. Crowley can... Crowley can do time, in a pinch.

"Alright! I'll try and figure something out! Just - just don't do anything reckless!"

"I'm afraid we've past the point of conservative options, my dear!"

He's so reluctant to leave that he has to all but leap back downstairs just to make sure he does it. Spots dance across his vision, and even from that much proximity, his ears are ringing.

"Can't you do something?!" Maggie calls out to him.

"Trying! Obviously!" Crowley snarls back, and before he can talk himself out of it he reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out the miniature library table that he'd grabbed in Tadfield.

He really cannot think about Tadfield right now or he's going to run back up those stairs, and fat lot of good it will do anyone. But the table. The one with the array that angel made. This, he can let himself think about, even though he also doesn't want to do that.