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He’s going Up.
He’s going Up in the bright white lift and everything is wonderful.
Everything is wonderful, and everything is going to be wonderful now, for ever.
He wonders why it feels like something dark and heavy is pushing up through his chest and into his throat. Of course he had to say yes to Metatron! Crowley simply didn’t understand, because he never understands. There are rules, that’s the thing, and Crowley doesn’t appreciate that. If you follow the rules, everything will be all right. Everything will be wonderful. And he’s doing it for Crowley anyway, which Crowley simply doesn’t understand because he’s such a stubborn - such a stubborn —
The black feeling crawls all the way up into his mouth. He reaches up with fingers that are still shaking and touches his lips.
And then suddenly everything
stops.
He’s nowhere.
This isn’t entirely unusual. He has some experience of being nowhere, or at least in places that seem like nowhere. This place - whatever it is - is dark, and full of expectation. It’s dark like the inside of a heart. It’s glossy with potential.
He looks down at himself. He’s still got a body, which is a relief. Obviously, one doesn’t need a body, it’s only like a coat over your essential self, but he is fond of this body. He wouldn’t like to change it, at this stage.
He waits. He’s very good at waiting.
And then there’s a rumbling noise and a blast of aggressive music and a car appears over there in front of him, a sleek black car that Crowley would have very much enjoyed (no, don’t think about Crowley).
A man steps out of it.
He’s not the sort of man Aziraphale was expecting. His theories - insofar as he’s had time to construct any - are that this is either a test by Heaven or a trick by the Other Place (by Crowley? But no, it’s not his style. And he’s not disappointed by that, not at all). But this man rather puts paid to those ideas. No cloven hoofs, no horns, no generally repulsive aura. And if this is an angel - no. Aziraphale absolutely rejects that. Short brown hair, unkempt stubble, denim trousers, a pair of extremely aggressive boots and a gun. He looks like a tough from a moving picture.
Aziraphale takes a step backwards.
“Hey! You!” says the tough. He’s pointing straight at Aziraphale.
“Don’t shoot!” squeaks Aziraphale. He wishes Crowley - but no. Crowley’s just proven that he can’t be trusted. He’s better off alone.
“I’m not here to kill you, Liberace,” says the ruffian. Aziraphale is momentarily confused. Surely he doesn’t look like a musician?
“Prove it, then,” says Aziraphale, sticking out his chin and folding his arms. He doesn’t know what’s going on, but he knows he doesn’t like it. He needs to get rid of this nasty man immediately, and out of this place, so he can get back Up to the Up.
“I can’t prove anything,” says the tough with a shrug. “But I can tell you what just happened to you, before you arrived here. Your - uh, your friend - just told you that they love you. Or you told them that you loved them? But for some kinda made-up reason it didn’t work out. So you walked away from each other and your heart was breaking and you were trying not to give a shit, and then everything went black, and now you’re here. Am I right?”
“No!” cries Aziraphale. “Yes - wait, I mean no, absolutely not! You have no idea. It wasn’t like that at all. My friend - well, I thought he was my friend, but he — it turned out he wasn’t. He said some dreadful things and then he … he kissed me, actually. But I forgave him immediately afterwards, so that’s all right. But what’s not all right is that I ought to be in Heaven right now. I’ve been offered a most important post, you see. I was going to do it for him, for us — but there is no us any more, he’s made that abundantly clear. I don’t know why I’m telling you this. I don’t know who you are. You haven’t even introduced yourself, which is most rude. You’ve simply assumed - assumed —”
He slows to a stop. “How did you know what happened to me?” he asks. “Not that you’re right. But if you were, perhaps, a little right. How did you know?”
“How do you think?” asks the ruffian. “Happened to me too. That’s why I’m here.”
“You?” gasps Aziraphale. This man does not seem like the sort of person one falls in love with. He’s very rude, for one thing, and with the most dreadful taste in clothes. Aziraphale can’t imagine who would —
“Hey Cas!” says the tough, leaning down into the car. “Get out here!”
The car’s side door opens and another man - another rough, unpleasant-looking man - climbs out into the darkness of wherever this is. He’s dreadful. His long tan coat is tatty, his tie is done up quite wrong, his chin is all over stubble and he looks utterly wild.
“Hello,” he says to Aziraphale matter-of-factly, holding out a well-shaped but ungroomed hand. “My name is Castiel.”
“It is not!” gasps Aziraphale. This absolutely must be one of Hell’s nastier tricks. He knows the angel Castiel. They have long blond hair, a beatific, patient expression and a flawless personal appearance. They are certainly not some … some man in a trench coat.
“You can call him Cas,” says the tough. “I’m Dean. What’s your name?”
“I am the angel Aziraphale,” says Aziraphale indignantly. “Supreme Archangel, as of ten minutes ago, Metatron’s right hand, and I am absolutely not falling for any of your lies!”
The tough - Dean, if that is his real name - steps backwards. “Metatron?” he asks, narrowing his eyes. “Cas —”
“He’s not from our universe, Dean,” says the person who is absolutely not the angel Castiel. “Different Metatron. I know Aziraphale, and this isn’t him. Have you explained what’s going on to him yet?”
“I tried,” grumbles Dean. “He’s not listening.”
“Dean,” says Cas, putting a hand on Dean’s shoulder, and the look they give each other makes the blackness rise up in Aziraphale’s throat again. An angel (so-called) and a human? Surely not! But if Gabriel and Beelzebub could —
“Listen,” says Castiel to Aziraphale. “This is important. You were in a story.”
“I assure you I was not!” cries Aziraphale. “Whatever are you talking about? I was in a lift!”
“Hey, don’t interrupt him,” snaps Dean, and Aziraphale sighs and folds his arms again.
“You were in a story,” insists Castiel. “Some writer” (he makes a face) “was telling a story about you, and your - friend. Your friend confessed his love to you, but you weren’t ready to respond. So you’re in the part of the story where you have to split up, but that’s where it stopped. Before you could be together again.”
“Nonsense!” gasps Aziraphale. “I mean - sorry. But also, this is silly! I’m not in a story, I’m perfectly real! I told you, I was in a lift!”
“Hate to break it to you, but we’re all just pawns stuck in some jackass writer’s story, bud,” says the man Dean. “Or we were. Keep going, Cas.”
Castiel nods. “All right. Your story might start up again, or it might not. We don’t ever know. But right now, you’re out of plot. It’s over. No one’s looking at you. No one’s writing down what you’re going to do next. And that means you’ve got a choice. You don’t have to wait. You can find your friend. You can be with him again. You’re free.”
His voice breaks a little, and Dean reaches out and squeezes his arm.
“Worked for us,” he says to Aziraphale. “So now we’re helping everyone else. Baby - the car - she’s good at going where she needs to be. We find stories that ended like ours did, and help save the people in them.”
“This is ridiculous!” cries Aziraphale. He’s never heard such nonsense. “I told you, I am not in a story - or at least, I’m only in a story inasmuch as we all are. There’s a plan, you see. God’s plan.”
Both Dean and Castiel flinch, and Aziraphale is sure he hears Dean mutter something that sounds like “Fucking Chuck.” Whatever that means.
“It’s ineffable,” he goes on, trying to be undaunted. “That is to say — well, sometimes my friend and I did perhaps do things that were not entirely in line with the plan. Perhaps we did once have a tiny little, er, hand in stopping the apocalypse. But no outside agency made us do that! The very notion! The - the —”
He stutters to a stop.
“So, what you’re saying is, the plan’s kinda effable after all?” asks Dean, grinning. Aziraphale does not like his tone of voice. He glares, and Dean rearranges his face and says, “Your friend another angel, is he?”
“He’s a - a demon, if you must know. But not the usual sort of demon. He’s - well, he’s - he’s Crowley.” he finishes weakly.
Dean starts, and then suddenly roars with laughter. “Crowley?” he yells. “You - and Crowley? Are you serious?”
“What’s so funny about that?” asks Aziraphale.
“Crowley. Shortstack? Beardy slut? Total bitch? Last seen in Florida with a fruity drink? That Crowley?”
“How dare you!” gasps Aziraphale. “He’s quite tall! And he has red hair and yellow eyes and he’s - he’s not a bitch in the slightest. He’s usually quite - quite nice to me.”
“This is the funniest shit I’ve ever heard,” says Dean. “So you kissed Crowley. I guess someone has to do it.” He glances at Castiel, who scowls at him. “Sorry, Cas.”
“He kissed me!” says Aziraphale. “I - I forgave him.” The blackness rises up in him again, worse than ever. “Anyway, that hardly matters. I am going to Heaven, so if you’ll excuse me —”
“Hold up,” says Dean. “Not before we finish talking to you.“
“No,” says Aziraphale. “I don’t believe I have anything else to say to you. Because this is all silliness! I am real!”
“You were stuck in a story, bud,” says Dean. “Just like Cas and me.”
“Cas and I,” mutters Aziraphale.
“Focus, dude! But like we said, now you get to decide what happens next. No writer is gonna do it for you. Do you understand?”
“No!” snaps Aziraphale. “Absolutely not.”
“Fine,” says Dean. “I guess we can’t make you do anything. But you’ve gotta remember, you can do what you want now. And if you wanna see Crowley - damn it, sorry Cas, this is still so fucking funny - your Crowley again, just call us and we’ll come back and help you.”
“Call you?” asks Aziraphale.
“Yeah. Just pray to Cas and we’ll be there,” says Dean.
“I certainly will not! I am going to Heaven and I am going to make it better. Anyway, that person is not Castiel. I know Castiel and they - they wash!”
“I wash often,” says this strange, fake Castiel. “Usually with Dean. Hygiene is important to me. But I will be there when you need. Dean?”
Dean slings an arm briefly over Castiel’s shoulder, then they both hop into the black car again and they’re gone. And — how did that happen? Aziraphale blinks and when he opens his eyes again he’s in the lift again, in bright white light that makes his heart ache, and Metatron is saying mildly “Everything all right, angel?”
Aziraphale opens his mouth to snap that there’s only one person who‘s allowed to call him angel - and then he remembers that’s not a very angelic thing to say. So he bites his tongue and smiles sweetly. “Perfectly all right,” he says in his most gentle voice. And the blackness in his throat rises up and overwhelms him.
*
It’s very bright, in Heaven. Very empty - which is good, really it’s very good, because of course empty is the same as clean. There’s no need to dust, here. There are no books to dust. It’s all very enjoyable. Aziraphale is thoroughly enjoying it. Except sometimes his tongue aches for a cup of tea and his back aches for a comfortable chair and his feet ache to walk along the uneven paving slabs of Whickber Street.
And he thought — he thought he’d have more influence. Of course, one can’t simply change a system that’s been in place for more than six thousand years overnight (especially since time doesn’t exist here, as such), but — well, he’s not entirely sure where to even start with reforming it. It’s all just so big, and convoluted, and when he begins to talk to the other angels about it they smile and nod and agree with everything he says but somehow he comes away from each meeting with the slippery feeling that they have absolutely no intention of doing anything differently.
But at least he has his suggestion box! He’s very proud of the suggestion box. He installs it at his desk, and he asks all the other angels to come look at it while he explains what it is. They’re quiet, but he’s sure they’re impressed. That’s what that silence means. They’re impressed!
He keeps strategically leaving it alone for a while and then coming back to it unexpectedly to see if there are any suggestions. There never are, but he’s convinced that if he just gives it time, there will be.
Then he realises that he ought to demonstrate how to use it by putting a suggestion in it himself.
He sits down and stares at the empty box, and the pen and paper he’s left beside it temptingly. There’s usually no need for pens and paper in Heaven, but he got special dispensation.
He picks up the pen and thinks. He had lots of ideas before, but now his head’s quite empty.
After a long time he takes a deep breath and writes down one word on the paper, then crumples it up and stuffs it into his pocket.
He does this often, after that. The box stays empty, and Aziraphale’s pockets fill up with scraps of paper that say CROWLEY on them.
*
Heaven’s talking about Armageddon again. Aziraphale is struggling to like it.
The thing is, if he’s honest, he doesn’t like it, and the thing he dislikes most about it is that Heaven seems to think that he, Aziraphale, ought to be leading the Armageddon effort.
“Me, though? Really?” he asks, and Metatron says, “Of course you, Aziraphale. God asked for you specially. Who else would we trust enough to do it?”
“But the children —” says Aziraphale, hearing his voice wobble. “You know there are children?”
“We made them, didn’t we? We’re perfectly within our rights to unmake them. Now I’ve done you a plan. It’s got three hundred and thirty three points. Point one is the Second Coming of Christ, and then after that lots of other things happen and then it’s the Apocalypse at exactly point three hundred and thirty three. Do you see?”
“Perhaps I don’t want to see,” says Aziraphale miserably.
“That is simply not an option. Aziraphale —”
Aziraphale puts his hand in his jacket pockets and feels paper crumple. “I think I’d like to talk to Castiel,” he says.
“If you like,” says Metatron. “Castiel? Ah, there they are.”
Castiel appears. They have long blond hair and an immaculate white robe on. Their hands are beautifully kept.
“Not that one,” says Aziraphale crossly. “Castiel! Please!”
Everything goes black.
He’s nowhere again.
“Ah, good,” he says. “Castiel?”
With a growl the car appears next to him, looking sleeker and more handsome than ever.
Castiel and Dean get out of it, and so does a man Aziraphale has never seen before, a long-haired fellow with rather a lot of alarming eye make up on. He’s wrapped in an extremely fine red floral bathrobe that catches Aziraphale’s eye immediately - it really doesn’t go with his general demeanour.
“Hey, Blondie,” says Dean with a grin that entirely outrages Aziraphale. He wants to hate it, but - well, it’s quite charming, actually. “Changed your mind?”
“No,” snaps Aziraphale. “Yes. What do I do? If I was to want to - er - see him again.”
“First of all, you’ll need to wait until we’ve finished helping Ed,” says Dean.
“Heya,” says the man in the bathrobe, nodding at Aziraphale. He looks familiar, somehow.
“He kissed his friend and then, after he got rejected, tried to kill all of his friend’s crew by marooning them on an island,” says Castiel cheerfully.
“Bit of an embarrassing situation,” says the man in the bathrobe, nodding. “Awkward. I’d say I’ve got some regrets.”
Then Aziraphale has it. “You’re Blackbeard!” he gasps. “I know you! You’re an awfully bad man!”
“Hey!” says Blackbeard. “That’s rude, mate.”
“Yes, but - I was there in 1716. With the English ship? Really shocking stuff! You ought to be ashamed.”
“And you ought to learn how to make friends.”
“Enough!” says Castiel. “Aziraphale, get into the car.”
Aziraphale considers saying no. He absolutely does not think he should be sitting next to Blackbeard. But — he puts his hand in his pocket. It crackles.
“All right,” he says. “But if he stabs me I shall complain.”
“Ooh, you wish I’d stab you,” says Blackbeard. “But I’ve got taste.”
Dean puts his hand on the car’s dashboard, some loud offensive music blasts out of it, and then they’re suddenly somewhere else. They bounce through brightly-lit scenes; Aziraphale catches sight of two men doing something absolutely disgusting to a dead body, and then flinches as the car almost drives straight into a very large man growling “I’m going to go to SPACE!”
Then they’re outside. They seem to be very outside - it’s a beach, or - or an island, surrounded by blue ocean. A motley crew of unappealing men are sitting disconsolately about on rocks, muttering to each other. They see the car appear, and they all jump up. One of them, a man with curly blond hair, wearing a simple shirt and breeches, steps in front of them all.
“Behind me, crew!” he snaps. “I’ll deal with this. Demons, are you? Taunting us with your strange cart? Begone!”
“Nah, they’re not demons. I think we’re hallucinating them,” says another one of the men.
“Whatever they are, I think we should eat them and their cart,” says a second. There’s general agreement, and Aziraphale feels quite nervous. They do all look very hungry. There clearly isn’t much to eat on this island.
“I’m an angel,” says Aziraphale. “You can’t eat angels. It’s not on. But be not afraid! We have your - er - friend here with us. Look!”
“Bloody hell!” gasps someone, as Blackbeard steps forward. “Captain!”
“Ed!” cries the blond man. “What are you doing here? I came to look for you but - I think I got a bit lost. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to make you wait so long.”
“You were looking for me?” asks Blackbeard, suddenly very vulnerable. Aziraphale wouldn’t have thought it of the person he’d seen do that to an English ship in 1716. “Stede - I threw your books in the sea. And I might have killed Lucius. Just a little bit. But I didn’t mean it! I’m sorry. But when you didn’t turn up to the dock —”
“Ed, it was Badminton!” says the blond man, who seems to improbably be called Stede. “He attacked me - I couldn’t get away, and then I remembered Mary, and —”
They both start talking very fast. They’ve reached out and grabbed each other’s hands without even noticing.
“Think we should explain?” asks Dean, leaning over to Castiel.
“I’ll explain,” says Castiel.
“He likes explaining,” says Dean to Aziraphale, staring at Castiel with an expression that feels absolutely indecent. Aziraphale can’t get over it. An angel and a human!
He’s still marvelling when Cas comes back to the car. Stede seems to have not needed much explanation. He’s currently kissing Blackbeard while most of the rest of the men cheer. One of them’s still looking at Castiel, Dean and Aziraphale, though. “Are you sure we shouldn’t eat them?” he asks.
“Cas, we gotta go,” says Dean. “Come on!”
He throws something wrapped in garish paper out of the window, and the man falls on it - Aziraphale thinks it looks rather like a hamburger, but a very pathetic one - and then they’re on the move again. More scenes, more flashes of light, and then —
There’s Crowley.
His Crowley.
He’s outside, somewhere bleak and with a lot of sky, leaning against their car. It’s parked on a concrete pavement outside something with neon signs for donuts and sandwiches and petrol. Aziraphale has a memory of stopping at one for fun when he went up to Edinburgh. It’s called - what was it? - a service station.
Crowley hasn’t noticed Castiel, Dean and Aziraphale.
“What do I do?” asks Aziraphale nervously. Just like the Armageddon plan, there seem to be some stages missing between decide to find Crowley and be very happy again together.
“Can’t tell you that,” says Dean with a shrug.
“What do you want to do?” asks Castiel, with a more gentle expression on his face than Aziraphale has seen before.
“I want — I want everything to be the way it was,” says Aziraphale miserably. “It was so nice! When we were an us, and we didn’t bother about - about anything apart from that. But I don’t want him to be a demon any more. If we could be the way we were at the beginning, before everything got so complicated. Before he fell and got - ideas. Can’t I have that?”
“With all due respect,” says Dean, “that’s fucking stupid.”
“Excuse me!”
“Yeah, well, it is. It’s dumb as shit. Why would you want that? If you didn’t like him now, you wouldn’t be here. If you wanted your story to end where it did you’d still be up in Heaven.”
“I’d advise against staying in Heaven,” says Castiel. Dean squeezes his shoulder.
“Yeah,” he says gently.
“Would you like us to talk to him first?” asks Castiel. “He may need some explanation.”
“No,” says Aziraphale. “I’ll go.”
He sets his chin. He’s going to go up to Crowley and tell him - tell him - well, that Heaven isn’t much good without him. Maybe this time … but no. There’s a voice in his head reminding him they’ve already had that conversation. Whatever Crowley wants, it isn’t Heaven. Well, it’s hopeless then, isn’t it? Because Heaven is all Aziraphale wants. It’s all Aziraphale can give Crowley. He’s an angel. That’s the point of him! Without Heaven he’d just be … he’d just be Fallen. He really would be Mr. Fell.
Is that what Crowley wants? For Aziraphale to fall? Does he want to take Heaven away from him? Monstrous!
Except — there’s the world, isn’t there? Without Heaven, there’s still the world. With books and flowers and the way people hold doors open for each other. People worry Aziraphale dreadfully, but at the same time they can sometimes be so very kind.
And then there’s the taste of roasted meat on his tongue, and the feel of the velvet of his waistcoat under his fingers and the way it had felt when Crowley —
Aziraphale has always been dimly, uncomfortably aware of the things of a carnal nature that humans can do to each other. They’ve always seemed like more Hell’s sort of thing, although of course without them you wouldn’t get children, and children seem more like Heaven’s sort of thing. But he’s never had any desire to try them out for himself. Until Crowley —
Well. It hardly seems fair. Aziraphale would put it into the category of Temptations, and succumbing to Temptations means —
Oh.
He’s so cross that he’s moving forward before he’s even had time to think about it. He marches right up to Crowley, lounging there on their car as though he owns it, as though he knows that Aziraphale is looking at him, and snaps, “You tempted me!”
Crowley turns to look at him. He looks tired, although Aziraphale can’t really tell behind the glasses.
“Hello, angel,” he says. “I see you haven’t changed.”
“How dare you!” cries Aziraphale. “You tempted me, because you wanted to make me Fall!”
“Aziraphale, I don’t have time for this,” says Crowley, even though he quite obviously has nothing but time if he’s hanging about in a parking lot. “I told you, don’t bother. You made your choice.”
He turns away to step into the car.
“I insist you stop!” cries Aziraphale. “I want to talk to you!”
“We never talk, angel,” says Crowley. His voice is low and exhausted. “That’s the point. But if you really want to know, no, I didn’t want to tempt you. I just wanted you. Now, can I go?”
“No!” says Aziraphale. “No, I — I demand you listen to me! Please!”
“I’ll listen when you have something to say. Goodbye.”
And before he can stop him, Crowley gets into their car and pulls away. Aziraphale is left standing on the forecourt, wringing his hands.
Dean and Castiel come up to him. “I think I may have made some errors,” says Aziraphale.
“You think?” asks Dean.
*
There isn’t really anywhere else for Aziraphale to go. He can’t go back to Heaven, and Muriel’s in his bookshop, and Crowley doesn’t want him (he did. But he doesn’t now). So he just … stays with Dean and Castiel.
They’re being very kind. And their house (a very strange sort of house, they call it the Bunker and it rather reminds Aziraphale of the sort of dwelling that people afraid of Armageddon build) is very large. So really, it’s almost as though Aziraphale isn’t even there.
He takes it upon himself to rearrange the books on the second day. Then he moves on to the mysterious bottles, and the files. He’s halfway through the files when Castiel comes in, says, “NO,” and drags him out of the room, closing the door in his face.
Castiel is really very rude. Aziraphale tries to engage him in pleasant conversation about his favourite works of art, but when he asks if Castiel enjoys Jane Austen, Castiel says, “Is she an actress?”
“An actress!” cries Aziraphale. “She wrote books!”
“I don’t really read books,” says Castiel.
This makes Aziraphale feel faint. “What do you do for entertainment?” he asks.
“I watch Riverdale,” says Castiel, after some thought. “And porn.”
Aziraphale has to sit down. This angel has indeed fallen far.
*
But, oddly enough, it’s Castiel who eventually helps him gather his thoughts.
Aziraphale does not sleep, of course, and neither does Castiel, although he does spend a lot of time in Dean’s bedroom. And in other rooms in the bunker. The noises are very disturbing to Aziraphale’s sensibilities.
But the fact remains that he doesn’t sleep, and so one night when Aziraphale is sorting out the books again he catches him at it.
“We told you not to do that,” Castiel says, stepping into the library and making Aziraphale jump.
“Yes, but - they are all hideously disorganised!” says Aziraphale. It’s been upsetting him for weeks and he just thought - well - he wanted to make it better.
“You aren’t very good at following orders, are you?” asks Castiel.
“Well - neither are you!” says Aziraphale. “You - and a human! You know that’s against regulations.”
“I love him. And I don’t care about regulations,” says Castiel, scowling. “Why do you pretend you do?”
“I — I do not pretend!”
“You fell in love with a demon and you stopped Armageddon,” says Castiel.
“Now, in love’s a strong phrase —” He pats his pockets and feels the familiar crackle. “Well. I suppose - it’s not wrong to say so. But I’m an angel! It’s not what we do!”
They glare at each other.
“What made you do it?” he asks, after a moment.
“Dean,” says Castiel simply. “I didn’t know what it meant to feel that way, for a long time. But I met him and I knew I would kill fifty thousand people for him, if I had to.”
“Ah,” says Aziraphale. “I see. Although - you didn’t actually kill fifty thousand people for him, obviously.”
“Yes, I did,” says Castiel. “And a lot of angels, too. But - he makes me laugh. I like being around him. He listens to me, and we talk. I feel more like myself, with him. He changed me - he made me care about the whole world. And he’s very sexy, of course.”
Aziraphale blushes. He’s thinking. Of course there isn’t anyone he’d rather be around than Crowley. No one else really understands his jokes, when he makes them. And when they’re not around each other, Aziraphale starts to feel thin, as though he’s a little hollow inside. He’s been feeling hollowed out for months now. But - sexy? Sometimes Crowley does lounge in a particular way, and Aziraphale thinks … no, it’s not like thinking, it’s more of a sort of … attention. He always knows where Crowley is in a room. And he feels this sort of warm glow, all through his body. Is that sexy?
“What is sexy?” he asks hesitantly.
“Pizza men,” says Castiel. “Breasts. Dean.”
Which leaves Aziraphale no further along. But somehow, he does understand a little better anyway.
“But how do I make him come back to Heaven?” he asks. “I want us to be together, but — what do I do, if he won’t?”
“Why do you need heaven?” asks Castiel. “You’ve got the earth, and that car. That’s enough, isn’t it?”
“Is it? But — what if I fall?”
“You fell a long time ago,” says Castiel. “Heaven just isn’t great at working that out.”
Aziraphale gasps. No one’s ever — no one’s ever suggested that to him before. If — could it be possible? Could he have already fallen? He looks at his hands, to check for claws. His feet, when he peers down at them, aren’t very cloven.
“You’re in love with a demon,” says Castiel. “You own a bookstore. You eat food. You stopped Armageddon. You’ve fallen. It’s obvious.”
“Not to me!” says Aziraphale. “Are you sure?”
Castiel shrugs.
“Oh, thank you!” says Aziraphale. He feels so light. He’s been afraid, for years - what it would feel like. What it would do to him. But if it’s already happened — “I thought you were dreadful when we first met, but you’ve been so kind!”
“Don’t worry about it,” says Castiel. “I don’t like you at all. Will you please leave us alone now?”
*
Aziraphale leaves the Bunker in the morning. He’s jittery with nerves. Nothing’s changed, but everything has. He gets into the back of Dean and Castiel’s car, and off they go, driving through noisy strange universes until there’s one final bump and there’s their world.
And there’s Crowley.
This time he’s stopped at a lookout point over Dartmoor. The car’s parked in a lonely, dusty part of the road, and Crowley’s staring out over the moors, glaring at the yellow heather and the shaggy little ponies and the huge, astonishing rock formations like he wants to set them all on fire.
“Crowley?” says Aziraphale.
“Oh, piss off,” says Crowley, without turning round.
“Shan’t,” says Aziraphale briskly. “Look at me, you silly old thing.”
That makes Crowley turn. “Now listen here,” he says viciously, teeth bared as he spins around. “Listen here. I have nothing to say to you. Nothing. It’s over between us.”
“Crowley,” says Aziraphale. “My dear. Are you looking?”
He takes a deep breath. He knows what to do. “You were right,” he says, flicking out his arms and kicking his legs. “You were right. I was wrong. You were right.”
He ends in a graceful bow, his head bent.
When he looks up, Crowley is staring at him, expression hidden behind his glasses.
“What is this?” he asks quietly.
“I made a mistake,” says Aziraphale. “I don’t want you to become an angel. I don’t want you to come to Heaven with me. I just want — you.”
“In what way?” says Crowley suspiciously.
“In - in all the ways, I suppose. Including the - er - human way. Jane Austen. You know.”
“Ah yes,” says Crowley. “Robbery. Well well, angel. How far you’ve fallen.”
“Well?” says Aziraphale nervously. Crowley’s taken his glasses off, and he’s just staring at him with his big yellow eyes. Overhead, thunder rumbles, and a few drops of rain fall across his shoulders. Is this Heaven? wonders Aziraphale. Are they showing their disapproval of him already?
“Well,” says Crowley. “I don’t know what you want me to say. I told you before, I gave up on us a while ago.”
“But - no!” says Aziraphale. It’s all going wrong again! And he was so sure that this time —
“But I do want to be us,” he says. “I still do. We are, Crowley. We always have been. I’ve been such a fool - I didn’t see that we’re just like the books. We’re - we’re better than the books. And I don’t care where we go or what we do, I don’t at all. I don’t care if I never see Heaven again. I just want to be with you.”
“You talk a good game, angel,” says Crowley. “But forgive me if I don’t believe you.”
It’s raining now, properly. Aziraphale can feel it in his hair and on his cheeks and down the back of his neck. This is the world, and he’s fallen into it.
“No!” he says. “I shall never forgive you. Never again! I won’t do it, Crowley, unless you give me another chance. Please!”
They’ve stepped closer to each other. Crowley’s lovely, stubborn, ridiculous face fills up Aziraphale’s vision.
“We’re getting very wet,” says Crowley slowly. “I’m sure I’ve read about this somewhere.”
“Have you been reading my books again, Crowley?” asks Aziraphale. He can feel himself shaking, all over. What is he supposed to do now? What happens next?
But he knows, of course, and as the Heavens really open and rain tips down over them, he steps forward one more time and says, “I love you, you wicked thing.”
And, to the sound of applause from two men leaning under an umbrella together beside a black Chevy Impala, Aziraphale kisses Crowley, and Crowley kisses him back.