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The first time the demon Crowley kisses the High Archangel Aziraphale is also the last.
He tells him how he feels, he kisses him, and Aziraphale says no. And he leaves Crowley for heaven.
And that is the last time he sees Aziraphale for five years.
He tries to sleep through most of it. It doesn’t take. Pigs in uniforms rap on the windows of the Bentley, staring with cold, hard eyes until he reluctantly rolls down the window, asking with pseudo-concern if there’s somewhere else he should be.
He visits the bookshop more than he should and pretends he doesn’t notice how the sign has changed to Mur E. L.’s. It aches in such a visceral, lovely way to take the three steps up to the red door and swing it open. Ten seconds he’s experienced a million times before. Ten seconds where he can pretend nothing has changed. Ten seconds where he can await the sight of his angel in beige and tartan — fussing over inventory or letting his drink mold beside him as he reads ceaselessly. It doesn’t take.
Those seconds have to end, after all.
Oh, Crowley. Nothing lasts forever.
Muriel is a good kid. A part of him sincerely wishes he could be close to them, to share their bright-eyed excitement and shepherd them through all the lovely shades of gray earth has to offer, but he resists. It isn’t right, having another angel in the bookshop. He doesn’t want to take his anger over it out on them.
Still, he never lets them sell a single book.
He tries burying himself in all the little pleasures that used to number his days, before they became counted by Aziraphale’s smile, his fondly rolling eyes, his beloved and bitchy little pout. It doesn’t take. He doesn’t do too many demonic deeds where he can help it. No sense in drawing unnecessary attention to himself. (No sense making Aziraphale’s job harder than it probably already is.)
Besides, gluing coins to the side walk and tripping politicians in the street and getting roaringly, ridiculously drunk doesn’t do much without someone there to chastise him gently, to get hilariously prissy and offended at his occult sensibilities, to have a twinkle in their eye when they secretly agree with whatever vulgarity or blasphemy escapes his lips.
Well, the drinking helps a little.
At least, he thinks it will, so long as he keeps trying.
He keeps trying.
But when the alcohol numbs him, makes his head spin as he lays back in the Bentley’s reclining seats, he tries to sleep, and the cycle begins again.
He tries to go to Alpha Centauri, once, with the strange idea that he wants to see what Gabriel and Beezelbub are up to. (He hopes they crashed and burned. Hopes he’ll find them at each others throats, or even better, as far from each other as they can manage. Hopes they’re proof that it never works out for angels and demons. That it’s entirely unrelated to him. That it isn’t his fau—)
He gets lost somewhere near the horsehead nebula. These stars are his creations, everything that caused such pride and joy within him in the beginning. He hardly recognizes them from here.
“Jim– er, Gabriel? Lord Beezelbub? Anyone?”
He spends a month, perhaps, wandering through those cold and distant stars, calling out. No one ever answers. He can’t find them.
Yet, still, he can nearly swear he hears the distant sounds of Buddy Holly, of soft singing and a harp that doesn’t sound nearly as holy as it should.
Maybe he doesn’t try looking as hard as he could. No use ruining someone else’s ending with his own.
And maybe all this — the sleeping, the drinking, the denial — is why he doesn’t realize it, at first, when Aziraphale is before him at last.
He dreams of him so much that he thought — dozing off with a bottle of tannat wine on the overstuffed couch of the bookshop, Muriel off doing whatever it is they do when he isn’t paying attention — that this was simply another.
He thinks he smiles when he sees him. He can’t feel his face. He thinks it might be wet.
But, then, the apparition speaks. Speaks his name.
Crowley startles, his sunglasses falling over his hooked nose, and suddenly, he can see clearly past the holy radiance of this apparition.
The warmth of alcohol flooding his veins abandons him; no miracle required, Crowley finds himself stone cold sober.
Because never once would he have dreamt of Aziraphale like this.
His eyes are blue.
Aziraphale’s eyes were always blue, of course, but that had been a soft shade, muted and muddy. Now, his eyes radiate cold, unearthly blue — nearly neon.
Crowley drops his wine. Distantly, he hears the bottle shatter, feels lukewarm wine start to spill over his scaled feet, but it doesn’t register.
Aziraphale looks at him with those strange eyes. His skin glows, shimmering, like stardust runs through his veins. He’s radiant. His clothes, his skin, his hair — they’re all the same bleached, starch white, like all the color has been leached from him, save for his unearthly blue eyes.
Crowley feels sick.
“Angel,” he tries to say, but the word gets stuck somewhere in his throat.
Aziraphale’s face does something strange — fear? Disgust? Pity? Shame? In the beginning, he could read every minute twitch of his angel’s face. He doesn’t dare try now.
Aziraphale spreads his hands and wings, white gold-edged robes and shining pale feathers cascading in glorious rivets down to the dusty floor. Not a speck of filth dares touch him, blessed as he is.
“Be not afraid.”
His face is thinner, the lines upon it less pronounced. He looks ethereal.
“Oh, angel,” Crowley says hoarsely, dark and bitter horror flooding his mouth. “What did they do to you?”
Aziraphale inclines his head, ghostly white curls staying perfectly in place, untethered by gravity. “Hello, Crowley. It’s… it’s good to see you again.”
Crowley draws himself up, thin lip pulling up into a snarl.
“If only I could say the same.”
Aziraphale startles minutely, and Crowley laughs — low and ugly.
“You don’t just get to walk– materialize in here out of nowhere and try to pull that, an– Aziraphale. You made your thoughts on me perfectly bloody clear before.”
“Oh, what do you want, Crowley?” Aziraphale says, glowering. “An apology song? Groveling? It’s not going to happen.”
The corner of Crowley’s mouth wants to twitch up at the familiar bitchiness. He stamps it down.
“You’d need a damn apology West End Musical, full orchestra and dance line and all, after that shit you pulled, Aziraphale.”
Primordial and holy — an ancient, righteous wrath sparks behind those sanctified eyes.
“I did it for you,” Aziraphale snaps. “For us! Do you think we could have gone the rest of our days being hunted? Having to hunker down in petrified silence as the occult and the divine alike were out for our heads? I wanted us to be safe. I wanted you to be…”
There’s a million words that could fit into that space Aziraphale leaves unoccupied. Crowley can only hear the ugliest ones.
“I wasn’t going to change who I am for you, Aziraphale.” His fangs press against the backs of his pursed lips. “I’m not that angel you knew. I haven’t been for a long time now.”
Aziraphale studies the uneven stack of books leaning haphazardly against the couch. “I suppose not.”
“Great.” Crowley clenches his jaw, forcing himself to lean back. “Now, if we’re done with that little trip down memory lane…” He crosses his arms, kicking his feet up and lolling his head, as if to sleep.
“Crowley, please! I…” Aziraphale makes a helpless little gesture, brow creasing, and it aches something wonderful to see lines returned to his forehead. “I need to speak with you.”
Crowley heaves a sigh and twirls a finger. The bottle of wine reappears in his hand, and he takes a swig, ignoring Aziraphale’s petite grimace, ignoring the flicker of warmth it ignites. Prissy little thing. The thought shouldn't be so fond.
“Make it worth my time,” he hisses, drawing his sleeve against his wine-stained lips.
“Crowley, I…” Aziraphale breathes in deeply, and it looks strange, for something as high and holy as him to shake, to draw in a steadying breath. “Crowley, I think I’ve made a mistake.”
NO FUCKING SHIT, Crowley, very maturely, doesn’t say. He raises an eyebrow silently.
“Do you… do you remember that night you called me, nearly, oh— nearly twenty years ago now.”
“‘Course,” Crowley drawls, the tip of his finger tapping against the stem of the bottle. “Who doesn’t remember every idiosyncratic chit-chat they’ve ever had?”
“You called me,” he says, quietly, “to tell me that you delivered the antichrist.”
Crowley, suddenly, feels very cold.
Fidgeting with his pinky ring, Aziraphale continues: “We sat here, got drunk on wine” — Crowley snatches his hand away from his bottle as if it were suddenly consecrated — “and you told me the world was going to end.”
“Anyone ever tell you that you should be on the radio?” Crowley drawls, shoving his shaking hands behind his back. “Really got a flair for the whole dramatic storytelling bit.”
For a long, precarious moment, it looks as if Aziraphale will smile, but the expression twists into something softer than grief, more bitter than resentment. “All this to say, Crowley…” He doesn’t need to exhale, but he does anyway — long and trepidacious. “That it’s my time to return the favor.”
Silence stretches between them like taffy, thinning until it snaps.
“And what, exactly,” Crowley says, quietly, dangerously, “do you mean by that?”
Aziraphale looks down at his hands, clasped together before him as if in prayer, like they belong to someone else. “It’s called the second coming.”
Crowley swears lowly, stands, pacing back and forth in front of the couch, dragging his hands through his hair, and swears once more, twice as emphatically.
“As was my reaction,” Aziraphale says, wryly.
“You’re telling me,” Crowley hisses, taloned nails digging into the couch back until he can feel decades-old fabric start to rend apart beneath his grip, “that the thing we stopped together twenty years ago — the end of this world that I thought we both loved very much… You’re telling me, Aziraphale, that you decided you would just bloody go on with it anyway?!”
His voice rises farther than he means it to, anger suffusing it until he’s snarling, shouting, and Aziraphale…
Aziraphale flinches.
Crowley’s anger freezes. It’s hard to feel anything, suddenly.
“‘Gimme a minute, yeah?” He says through numb lips, beating a hasty retreat anywhere that isn’t here.
He finds himself in the kitchenette, hands clenching against the marble countertop. It’s cool, grounding, and does absolutely nothing to stop his pulse from roaring in his ears. He things about turning it off, but can’t quite manage the effort.
“Oh, angel,” he says again, something in his chest splintering apart, “what the hell did they do to you?”
He finds himself making a mug of hot chocolate for lack of anything else to do with his trembling hands, measuring out three scoops of the good stuff, stirring in condensed milk and cream, spending longer than strictly necessary to clean up afterwards. It’s warm in his hands, and something primal and reptilian in him tells him to curl up around it and sleep, sleep, sleep — away from best friends that leave him and come back as something new.
He forces himself through the door.
Aziraphale hasn’t moved, still standing where he first appeared, glowing and perfect and sickeningly alien, looking around at his bookshop as if he’s trying to read a long-forgotten native tongue.
“Sit down.” Crowley starts to hand him the mug before he thinks better of it, putting it on the low-slung table between them. “Drink that. And tell me everything.”
He drops back onto his couch, watching as the holy being obeys, picking up the cup. There are no lines on his face to be smoothed out, but something about the set of his mouth changes as he inhales the rich, decadent scent.
“Thank you,” he says, softly.
“Starting with,” Crowley starts, ignoring the strange things that’s doing to his internal organs, “why the somewhere you thought that ‘the second coming’ was the sort of thing you should sign off on.”
A muscle jumps in Aziraphale’s cheek, his throat bobbing.
“It wasn’t— isn’t,” he says, wretchedly. “I didn’t… oh, Crowley, you have to know I don’t want to end the world!”
“Could have fooled me.” He taps one of his fangs with his pointed tongue. “Fine. Sure. This whole Second Coming thing sounds just spiffy, you say, despite having read Revelations. Krakens and five-headed beasts and mere anarchy loosed on the world — just droll. What could possibly move you to go along with that, Aziraphale? And don’t you dare say it was your idea; I still know you better than that.”
Aziraphale’s lips twitch. He huffs out a short laugh. “You always did.”
And at that, Crowley has no idea what to say.
“You’re right. I didn’t like it at all from the moment I heard about the whole ordeal. Only, I thought I could change the plan, thought I could make things better, safer for the humans. For us.”
He stalls, picking up the mug of hot chocolate, but Crowley hardly notices, reeling with the concept that there still could even be an ‘us’.
“So, yes. I simply… kept going. Why is quite foolish, I’m afraid.” His hands flex uncertainty around the coco mug. “It’s only that…”
“Yeah?” Crowley’s voice comes out softer than he means. He’s never been able to help himself, when it comes to Aziraphale.
“I always thought that if, well, if I were to ever be in any real, true trouble, that– that you would… come rescue me. I thought you’d just… know, like you always seem- seemed to.”
Crowley stops breathing — tense and coiled as a serpent cornered.
“So no matter how bad things got, I would just remind myself ‘Buck up, old boy! Things can’t really be that bad if… if Crowley hasn’t come to save you’.”
Looking up, his hesitant smile fades. He swallows and it looks strange on his ethereal form. “See?” He says, weakly. “I told you it was foolish.”
“Don’t know if you’re noticed, but I’ve been busy.” Crowley forces himself to lean back in his chair. His hands tremble on the table. He slides them into his lap, clenching until his knuckles grind against his skin. “I’ve got other things to do then whisk you away from where you decided to be. Not a lot of time to launch unnecessary sieges. You remember how the last one went.”
“Oh, er, yes! Of course. Quite right.” Aziraphale’s smooth, perfect hands flit around his cup of coco uncertainty. “I, er, I’m rather glad to see the bookshop is in order. No books missing at all.” His voice creeps into something softer, something nearly hopeful as he speaks.
“Yeah, well, the new angel’s done a great job.” Crowley diverts his eyes, stomach twisting. “You can drink the chocolate. ‘S no good just staring.”
Obediently, Aziraphale takes a small sip, and his ethereal eyes seem to… change for a moment, their unearthly brightness fading into something nearly familiar as he goes in for a second, larger gulp with a happy little hum. His shoulders relax, or perhaps just relent under the weight of the hallowed finery suffocating them.
Within seconds, the cup is nearly halfway gone, and Crowley snorts, tapping his fingers arythmically against the couch cushions. “Easy there, an— easy there. They not feeding you up in heaven?”
“Hm? Oh!” Aziraphale stops his gulping, sheepish as he miracles a lace-edged handkerchief and dabbing delicately at his upper lip. The cloth does not stain. “Yes! Yes, of course they are. Lots of good food as a, er, perk of the job. Only… Well. It’s all miracled, you see, and there’s nothing quite so good as…” He trails off, clearing his throat, staring into the dark drink. “As homemade,” he says, so quietly a human wouldn’t have been able to hear, even standing right next to him.
Crowley swallows down a lump in his throat, busying himself with examining his talons. “So you’ve repaid the favor — one apocalypse for the both of us. And you’ve even gotten yourself a coco out of the deal. That’ll be it then, an— Aziraphale? ’M a busy demon; not exactly interested in dwindling away these last few years on Earth like this.”
“No,” Aziraphale says, and puts his cup down with a definitive thud. Crowley’s eyes shoot up, startled; there’s a steel in those heavenly blue eyes he hasn’t seen in years. “You’re forgetting what happened next.”
“Blistering hangover?” Crowley raises his bottle of wine in a mock-salute. “Got it covered.”
“Not exactly.” Aziraphale nearly smiles. “You convinced me to save the world with you.”
Crowley’s stomach swoops, as if he’s found himself standing on the edge of a precipice and quite forgotten how to fly.
“We were useless then,” he croaks out.
“Well, we’ve gotten a bit more experience working together under our belt since then.” Aziraphale’s voice is too high, too careful. He won’t look Crowley in the eye. “And I… I don’t know if I could forgive myself if I didn’t try to make this right.”
Forgiveness, Angel, Crowley wants to tell him. Can come even when you don’t ask for it.
He doesn’t. He presses his toes into the plush carpet of the bookshop and thinks of things unspoken, of things great and small, of things broken and trembling, of whales and gorillas and fish stew, of books unsold and plants unspotted. He thinks about how, if Aziraphale looked outside right now, he would see a black Bentley, with yellow hubcaps.
He thinks about standing on the edge of a cliff, looking out over something vast and unknown.
Aziraphale watches him carefully with those strange eyes. “Well?”
“Not gonna ask Michael?” He says, too casually. “Or Uriel, or any of your new angelic besssties?”
He bites his tongue, as if he can retroactively stop the hiss from coming out, but Aziraphale’s face softens, eyes starting to shine with something other than the blinding purity of Heaven.
“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, softly, leaning forward, “surely you know there’s no one but you.”
And whatever’s left of Crowley’s resistance crumbles away.
He’s fallen three times in his life. Once for asking questions, once for humanity, once for Aziraphale.
It makes sense that, for this final time, it will be for all three.
He takes a deep breath, stands, and steps forward into the unknown.
“Well then, Armageddon two: here we go again,” Crowley puts his hand out for Aziraphale to shake, but once they do, neither lets go. “The second coming, someone bless it.”
“I wouldn’t.” Aziraphale’s laugh is hushed, but he squeezes Crowley’s hand reverently. “It’s not so great, once you get used to it.”