Archive of Our Own ^beta

A warm, broad back lay under Crowley’s palm. Curled on his side, he touched the living, breathing form in front of him. In his bed. Inside his new apartment. Gentle rising and falling of breath had his fingers bobbing like slow buoys in the ocean. Resting his forehead alongside his open palm, he let out a stuttered breath of his own.

Never did he think another body would be in this bed with him. This was his bed, with his smell blanketing them, but he couldn’t reconcile the faint foreign scent coming from the body in front of him. It wasn’t his own. It wasn’t familiar. And it sure as anything wasn’t who he wanted it to be.

The body stirred at Crowley’s sigh, lifting a head of distinctly un-white hair. Slate black locks fell over his face as he turned towards Crowley in bed.

“Hey,” his partner said.

The wrongness of it was what pushed Crowley over the edge. Wrong smell. Wrong feeling in his gut. Wrong person.

Gritting his teeth hard as shifting slabs of arctic ice, he let his eyes fill with wetness, resisting the urge to fall alongside them as they dripped into his pillow. Resisting the pull of the black hole of sadness. Keeping himself barely afloat like the weighted buoy.

His companion took one look at his silent, wet face and drowned him in a tight hug. It was just like he imagined Aziraphale would feel, soft and real and radiating good will and comfort. But it wasn’t Aziraphale. This body belonged to his professional cuddler.

Air shuddered out of Crowley's lungs. He shook with it, unable to control the earthquake vibrating from his chest.

“That’s it, Mr. Crowley. You’re doing so well.”

Curse his cuddler for saying exactly what he longed to hear. He hated his blasted hugs and he despised his therapist for recommending him. Most of all, he loathed himself for needing this.

He was supposed to be a demon–or at least something adjacent to it since he chose to live life the way he wanted. Regardless, this was the corporation of an immortal being, not one that was meant to have needs like touch.

Life had been strange since he watched Aziraphale walk away. His body refused to be consoled with his usual bandaids:

Alcohol made him sick to death. It filled his veins and made the hole in his chest wider, heavier. Too heavy to carry. Waking up on his cold floor in a puddle of drool without the will to get up was what he would call a good binge day these days.

Driving with the voracity of Tarzan swinging from vines and the rage of a hornet failed to calm his nerves. He even tried to hit a few mailboxes. Nothing. None of the peace it used to bring when he had emotions too big to handle.

Yelling at plants reminded him of Aziraphale’s gentleness.

Getting dressed up in shades of suave black made him think of Aziraphale’s unchangingly soft creams.

Music left him dripping from every facial orifice. Every lyric was about Aziraphale.

Pestering humans…well that didn’t make him feel better, but it didn’t make him feel worse.

The point was, nothing was sacred…or rather preciously cursed. This corporation was not responding correctly.

What was wrong with him?

He had been in this body for too long, that’s what was wrong. It had looked at humans for thousands of years and started to think maybe it should act more like one, like a dog raised by cats.

He didn’t need breath or food or clear non-alcoholic liquid, but he did need something. What his body needed, he had to find out. Soon. He was desperate to stop feeling as if his chest was blown out with a forty-pound cannonball lodged between ribs and spine.

So Crowley cried.

Crying didn’t feel good, it felt like sinking. Like Falling without the fear and fire.

His cuddler held him tight, rubbing circles over his arms. When his body stopped shaking and his tears began to dry on the cuddler’s shirt, his cuddler asked, “How’s therapy going?”

Crowley scoffed. With a phlegmy throat, it sounded like a weak gurgle. Not suave. Not cool and sexy, like his usual brand of angst. He shrugged to get the point across. “As well as it can.”

The cuddler hummed. “And your plants? Are they holding up?”

Clever cuddler. Crowley was attached to his plants, that was true. What he had not taken into account was how terrified Crowley was of going near them and being reminded of Aziraphale. Which was idiotic. He couldn’t avoid reminders of the pain, no matter how hard he tried. Every street corner, every bit of food, every golden ring in shop windows. And the plants themselves were moping at the loss of a kind voice. So they suffered drought.

“Probably. If they know what’s good for them, they’ll hold.”

The answer satisfied the unsuspecting human. “Would you like me to brush your hair again before I go?”

The past few years, Crowley had let his hair grow out, long and curly as the first days on Earth, but tied up more often than not. Secretly, he had always hoped Aziraphale would like it like this. Would run his fingers through it, wash it, brush or play idly with it. In the end, it was a dead mop on his head. Useless. A reminder of the millennia he wasted.

He shook his head. The cuddler smoothed back a few stray strands anyway and sat up to fetch his trainers by the door. Crowley followed him out of the bedroom and back to the front door, swaying like a man drunk on emptiness.

“Tomorrow’s our night cuddle, don’t forget.”

How could he? If all went well, cuddling would lull him into a long and numbing sleep. Feeling things hurt like hell. Worse than hell. It consumed him like moth wings going up in flames. Sleep was the best option.

The problem was, it hadn’t worked so far–not longer than a few hours at a time, no more than a particularly unproductive human–but he held on to hope.

He slithered onto the couch and under a furry blanket while the cuddler finished tying his laces.

“Try to open up to a friend, Mr. Crowley. It really does do wonders, confiding in others.”

From under the black fluff, Crowley grumbled particularly sharply, “Friends? If I had friendsss,” he let his mood loosen his tongue, “I wouldn’t need you now, would I?”

The cuddler left and Crowley didn’t bother getting up to switch on the lights when the sun set.

***

He had to attempt the impossible. (Haven’t you been tempting the impossible every day? his brain reminded him. What’s one more tiny, unattainable feat?) Popping his head under the blanket to create a semblance of privacy from the potential omnipresent eyes of God, Crowley willed his mobile to suddenly call a number of someone he knew. The dialing was up to chance. He fervently hoped whoever his mobile decided to connect to was not already dead. He’d had enough of the undead for a lifetime.

Ringing once, twice, Crowley took a breath of humid second-hand air. Carbon dioxide in, twice-drenched carbon dioxide out.

A light, cheery voice picked up and Crowley immediately identified her. And knew why his mobile chose someone who looked so much like the one person he couldn’t be with right now.

“Small Back Room, Maggie speaking! How may I help you?”

Crowley didn’t speak. Worse than, he accidentally positioned his speaker far too close to his mouth, which was struggling to breathe in the oxygen-less air under his comforter. Poor Maggie recieved an earful of heavy breathing and silence.

With a scandalizing assumption, she hung up immediately.

For the best. What would he share in common with an optomist like her? (Besides his taste in heart-wrenching music, ill-fated partners, and staring disaster in the face with displaced confidence.)

One more try, and this time he sent out a specific vibe.

The phone rang barely once before a bold, clear voice answered from the other end.

“Hello, Crowley,” Anathema said frankly, not wasting any time but not unhappy to hear from him.

“How did you…?”

“An out of country phone number popped up on my screen. I met few people in London during my End of the World trip and even fewer with the power to call a number they couldn’t possibly know.”

“I could have been Adam. Weren’t you friends with his posse?”

Anathema sighed. “But you aren’t. You’re Crowley. And I’m very good at tarot readings. I was told an occult being would make contact and I was dearly hoping for run-in with a banshee to check one off my bucket list.”

“But not a demon.”

“I’ve already crossed ‘demon’ off my list.”

“Fair enough.”

There was silence while Anathema waited patiently. Too patiently.

Crowley asked, “Why did you pick up? If you knew I’d call? We’re not even friends.”

“Something happened, didn’t it?” Crowley opened his mouth to falsely deny, but Anathema cut him off, “And don’t try to convince me otherwise, I already read the cards this morning, remember. So what is it? Another doomsday?”

Traitorous as always, Crowley’s mouth refused to cooperate. A few aborted noises came through his nose from his vocal cords, but they were just short of answers. “Weeeellll…”

Not an apocalypse, but maybe an entire collapse of self. Maybe.

“That’s not the issue then. Is the angel in danger?”

The sudden realization flooded his veins that he got onto a call with a practical stranger with the intent of spilling his guts about feelings he’s kept pent up for thousands of years. He couldn’t do this. Not to her, not to anyone. Everyone else on this planet was human, barely able to understand themselves let alone a rogue demon and his Big Feelings. No one’s felt like this, not quite. He was alone, like always. He had to do this on his own. It was his punishment.

“Oh, Crowley, I’m so sorry.”

He looked at his mobile in his hand and then put it back to his ear. There was a 16% chance he had made his inner thoughts into his outer thoughts by mistake, but he was pretty sure that was not the case. “What for?”

“He’s left, hasn’t he?”

You know what? He actually didn’t like Anathema. Yeah! That was it. She was crazy; absolutely off her rocker, everyone knew. This was a bad idea from the start.

“Where’s he gone? Paris? Is he here in America, nearby maybe?”

If only she knew. The red string around his heart snapped all over again at the distance between them.

Through the line, a gasp rang out so loud that he had to hold the speaker from his ear.

“Crowley no! How could he go back to them, after all they did.”

And really, there was no stopping the roller coaster after that, even if he wanted to. A truth serum in her own right, she pulled the last few years out of him in that single call. From there, she decided for herself that he was going to stay in contact with her any time his thoughts clawed at him. He could count on both hands the number of living humans who knew about his lineage; that to say, he was not going to find someone who understood him easily. She booked a flight to London straight away and forced him into a long hug upon her arrival, which he found himself sinking into without his usual resistance to attachment.

Thank Someone for Anathema.

***

Dusk descended outside, but he was closer to the remote than a light switch. Creeping a bony hand out from under a throw blanket, his phalanges sniffed out the controller. Several favorites were cued up, comedies only. Anything else would skewer him. No more feelings.

The Good Place was out, for obvious reasons.

Unfortunately, so was Parks and Recreation and Golden Girls. (Feathery blond protagonist.)

The Office was no good, unless he skipped the abusive relationship parts that reminded him of the tight grip Heaven had on Aziraphale.

It was down to Fraiser or Brooklyn Nine-Nine. He flipped on the latter. Good relationship dynamics were severely needed.

Three episodes in and he lost himself in the stories, smiling on occasion. It was a light feeling. So different from his nearly permanent state of painful nostalgia.

The second he felt his cheeks pull, guilt flooded his chest. Why should he smile. He had nothing to smile about. The temporary numbness crumbled into a wave of fresh sadness.

These days, he kept his mobile on him at all times. Going out to eat, getting gas, especially at home. Venturing from room to room, making a quick trip to the kitchen for a glass of wine, even sulking to the bathroom was a threat to his sanity. Nowhere was safe from crippling sadness. Any moment was a moment that could spiral into a debilitating depressive episode, and he needed his therapist at his fingertips.

Now was one of those moments. He typed:

Crowley:
I don’t think I can ever be happy again.

Barb-wire:
Is happy the goal?

Crowley:
…guess not.

Barb-wire:
What are you doing?

Crowley:
Are you flirting with me, Barb? We’ve talked about this; I’m morosexual. Not interested in your smarty pants.

Barb-wire:
…

Crowley:
Watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

Barb-wire:
You’re allowed to laugh, Crowley. The human body can hold more than one emotion at once and one does not disqualify the other. You’re allowed to be happy and you’re allowed to feel sad.

Giving permission to laugh only made Crowley want to cry. He took deep, shaky breaths and rubbed the bit of nose between his eyes. Breathe. Before, he hadn’t needed to breathe, but now it was a necessity, a lifeline. Both tears and breathing balanced him. But tears were more likely to send him into a spiral than breathing.

Barb-wire:
Are you at a place you can hug yourself and squeeze one side then the other, like we practiced?

Crowley:
Sure.

Barb-wire:
Does the phrase ‘I deserve to be happy’ resonate with you most right now? Or perhaps ‘I am safe to feel my emotions?’

Crowley:
Dunno…can you say a couple more? Feels like nothing this big has happened before. I don’t think I can handle it.

Barb-wire:
How about ‘I can learn to take care of myself?’

That felt right.

Crowley crossed his arms over his chest and grasped either forearm. He recited the phrase in his head while squeezing first his left arm, then his right, repeating the motion over and over. The meditation brought out a gentle sway that rocked his body back and forth.

I can learn to take care of myself.
I can learn to take care of myself.
I can learn to take care of myself.

He threw in the others for good measure at the end. At this point, there were too many negative beliefs arm wrestling for the reigning championship in his head.

A little part of him felt better. Still pretty fucked. Not spiral-ly, at least. Calm, but depressed.

Crowley:
Done. Still shitty. But better.

Barb-wire:
Well done, Crowley. I’m proud of you.

Crowley:
Curb your excitement, Barb. Haven’t survived the rest of the night yet.

Barb-wire:
Doesn’t matter. Still proud. Have you thought of other comforting activities? Exercising, cooking or art, taking a nice hot shower?

Crowley hissed at the idea of a shower. After Aziraphale told him about the bathtub of holy water, he had a distinct distaste for that particular ritual.

He grimaced at the idea of a quick run too, or whatever other styles of movement that might count as suitable exercise in Barb’s book. Runner’s high, smunner’s high.

Worse than those, he looked longingly at the open kitchen. Not that he had ever tried cooking, nor had he cared to. Except for a tiny piece of his mind that thought maybe, one day…it was a stupid thought. An indulgence. He just thought maybe he would have liked to try his hand at cooking alongside Aziraphale. His traitorously domestic mind might have played out a scenario or two of them in the kitchen, measuring out ingredients, reading labels wrong, substituting salt for sugar on accident. The two really do look the same, in his defense, he would say.

That was the worst part of taking care of himself. How could he separate Aziraphale from himself if they had grown like a lanky pole bean winding up a sunflower? Companions, they were. Without the sunflower, the pole bean flopped uselessly on the ground away from the sunlight.

What sounded fun to him if all he ever wanted to do was stuff that Aziraphale liked?

Barb called it co-dependency.

Crowley called it ‘discovering you’ve been fucked up for way longer than you preciously surmised and hoping you get it relatively right this time.’ He would settle for vaguely sauntering in the direction of right, if he could feel less like a rotting bean.

Crowley:
Fine. You win. I’ll exercise tomorrow. I’m gonna try sleeping now.

Barb seemed satisfied with that. Crowley heaved himself off of the couch, swaddled in the fuzzy black blanket, and shuffled his slippered feet to his stupidly picturesque wrought iron bed.

Most days went like that. The cuddler came three or four times a week, Crowley met with Barb twice a week with supplemental texting and calling, and he dragged his feet to what bare minimum of exercising he thought he could get away with.

Not running. Running was a young man’s game. Or at least an absolutely mental being’s game. Crowley was only partially mental. No, he preferred variety over consistency (against Barb’s wishes). Racquetball was a hoot. Turns out, you can demolish human opponents on the court by hitting the wall perfectly right to send the ball into their bare faces and they wouldn’t look at you like you were demonic. Would congratulate you even! Good match, Crowley; next time let me introduce you to my friend, George. George would be worse of a dick than the last guy, which felt ten times better, then he would introduce you to his frenemy too, and the cycle continued. Endless stream of competitors.

Yoga was a fair choice too. He did pop a few joints, but all he got for his unnatural contorting was a concerned talk from the instructor and pamphlets on POTS and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.

What was he supposed to get out of this anyway? Endorphins? In a demonic vessel? That was where he was struggling, because for some forsaken reason, it was actually working. It didn’t make sense, but it worked. Because he wasn’t a demon anymore, was he. He was his own creature now, an agent of Crowley. And this agent apparently believed it should have a more humanoid body. New discoveries daily.

Sweating was new. After a couple hours of swing dancing with strangers, he was a puddle of egg yolks. Egg yolks that dried into a stinky, glossy film. Miracling himself clean was an option, but this particular day, he wanted a bath.

Here’s the thing: if the bath turned out to be plain ol’ regular water, he could soak his pleasantly sore muscles and switch on funky erratic jazz to unwind.

If the liquid filling his tub was miraculously holy water sent through his pipes by some plotting supernatural being, the worst that could possibly happen was oozing, sizzling, excruciating death. Really, how bad was that, compared to his current state? Based on Ligur’s display, it looked a bit screamy and melty, but not for long. It was a risk he felt pretty okay taking. Or at least okay with in this moment right here. Try him later and the answer would definitively be no.

Cranking the heat, Crowley ran the damn bath.

Whimsically, he tipped in a Galaxy Swirl bath bomb that Anathema had given him alongside a generous dollop of oil. Purple and blue streams bubbled to the surface in a witch’s brew of therapeutic aromas. A stream of glitter tinted the water. He privately hoped it would stick to his scalp for a good month or two.

The best way to confront that tiny prickling fear of holy water was to dive right in. Disrobing in record time, he splashed into the tub without a second thought. Nothing happened. Bits of glitter clung to his bare calves. So he lowered himself the rest of the way, slower and less chaotic this time.

When his sharp shoulders were safely under the surface, he breathed a sigh. Grief came in waves, he knew. It happened to him all through these last two years. Hell, even this past day it had come on and off. Light one second, sour the next. Moment to moment was a surprise of “will Crowley survive this season of Floor is Lava-like Depression? Stay tuned for the next few hours and see if he gets slimed!”

Barb said it would be like this. Might be like this for a long while. Crowley didn’t know how long “a while” was, but he reckoned he would stick to his treatment plan for now. Barb said it would feel less debilitating, with more good days than bad. One day.

Bathed and dressed in mostly black–he was trying out a pop of green, sue him–he walked to the park where Anathema was set to meet him.

“We’re going to the bookshop,” she split out in place of a civilized greeting.

Spinning on his well-kept heels, he turned right around and walked away.

“Wait!” she called after him. “He’s not there. You know he never goes there anymore. Don’t you want to see how it’s doing? How your other angel friend is doing?”

Crowley hissed at the idea that he had a second angel friend, let alone a first. No, no angel friends. It was Anathema now, and that was all. No angels, no non-sensitive humans.

And absolutely no places he’s visited with the angel before. He tried that once. It was horrendous. Flashback central.

Anathema snuck up on him when he froze on the sidewalk in thought. She slipped a hand around his elbow and gave an encouraging squeeze. “It’s time, Crowley.”

Barb had told him to trust himself. Trust when he was ready for things, trust his judgment. It was a vastly opposite instruction than what both heaven and hell had said in the past. The indoctrination was hard to unlearn.

Now that he chose each and every one of his own decisions, he rolled the idea of venturing back to the bookshop in his head, down through his hollow chest. Last time he went, he nearly burst his clothes off with a furious burst of steam. A quick emergency call to Barb taught him how to bilaterally stomp through his feelings. Channeling them put his body in a relieved state. By the end, he felt significantly better than when he let them rip unnaturally from him in sizzling, unpredictable heat.

The idea did not make him angry, though. It made him sad.

“I need to find a dog,” he said.

“To adopt?”

“To pet. Petting feels good. After this, you’ll take me to pet a dog.” It wasn’t a question.

“Deal,” she squeezed again for good measure. Surely there was a dog cafe within driving distance.

They marched to the bookshop together, boots in time with one another, a mission with strong backup to pull him out of this warzone if he took too many blows to the chest.

When they came to the entrance, his hand hovered in front of the metal panel. Rarely had he ever pushed the door open by hand, but it felt appropriate in the moment. It was a monumental thing. Barb would be so proud. He pushed.

Inside, an angel in a practical skirt and jumper stood staring at the spines of books on a bookshelf with a crease between their eyes. Muriel turned to see Crowley and Anathema entering, lighting up like a cinephile after a delightful movie who now had plenty of things to analyze.

“Mr. Crowley! What a perfect day it is to see you! I’ve made tea and I need someone to test it on.”

Crowley ducked his head in greeting. “Evening, Muriel. This is my human friend.”

Muriel’s smile took on impossibly more width and they invited the two to sit, shoving cups of tea in their hands. The cups felt cool to the touch. Anathema failed to test the warmth of hers. Distinctly room-temperature tea filled her mouth and Crowley watched from his peripheral as she re-opened her lips and let the liquid fall back into the cup. Politely, she set it back in the saucer and scooted it as far away as possible.

“How old would you say this pot of tea was?” Crowley eyed the patterns gathered in the topmost layer of his tea.

“Not that old,” Muriel assured. “I’m getting the hang of human customs and the temporary nature of sustenance. A week or two is when groceries go bad, and I made this pot only four days ago.” Anathema choked on the last drops clinging to her molars. “So, what do you think? Is it better than last time?”

Seeing as though he was spiraling in a panic attack last time, he lacked a comparison in his memory bank. Not quite lying, considering the state he was in, he went with, “Leagues better.”

Despite their obvious rejection of the tea, Muriel looked to be in high spirits.

“Sold any books lately,” Anathema asked, looking around at the shop which had not changed an iota since Crowley last visited.

“Not a one! Just like Mr. Crowley told me.”

“Good on you,” Crowley lounged a little further into his chair.

“And I haven’t touched anything either, except to remove dust that settles on things. Book-selling is such a rewarding profession.”

Anathema did a noble job of keeping a flood of questions behind a mild cringe.

Crowley took in the look of the place. He missed it. The familiar sour smell of books. The way light softened after it hit the windows, falling in warm shafts. The sound of his footfalls on overlapping carpets. More than anything had ever been in the past, this felt like home. A home that was never his. A home with too many memories.

He needed that dog right about now.

Instead, two pet projects walked through the door.

Maggie and Nina popped over when their snooping eyes caught Crowley and Anathema enter the bookshop. Introductions were made, small talk was attempted, and Maggie went straight for the kill with a, “Have you had word from Mr. Fell yet, by chance?”

Underneath dark glasses, Crowley’s trademark micro-pout turned watery. “Wouldn’t have heard it even if he tried.”

Crowley failed to elaborate, the businesswomen taking a hint. But Anathema was a force to be reckoned with. She gave Crowley a look that rivaled Adam’s stubbornness and forced him to admit to the events of their decayed relationship. It was a long story that required a miracle of strong tea for every mouth and a hankie for Maggie who had been secretly rooting for them since she set up shop. She was oh-so-brave when needed, and oh-so-tender in the moments in between.

There was unwanted sympathy, an anecdote from Nina’s past experiences, and an offer to take him to the Barbie movie. Through it all, he held it together.

(He did take them up on the Barbie offer later, much to his disaster. Due to his excessive sobbing–Barbie breaking free from expectations to find her own path was far too relatable–they were shushed no less than four times. Feeling horrid for failing to cheer him up, the four of them bought as much liquor as they could carry and made it up to Crowley by getting properly sloshed at Nina’s cafe. Which was, miraculously, where they decided to form the Disaster Puppy Book Club. That part of their budding friendship was a resounding success.

Sometimes happily ever after means you find new friends, get up on your own two feet, and decide for yourself what you want to do in life.)

***

Before him, on the kitchen table of his rented flat, was a piece of scratchy watercolor paper and a black marker. As instructed by Barb–his new art teacher for this week, apparently–he drew squiggly lines at random, making sure to cross over them and cover the entire sheet.

“I’m angrier than a hungry hippo,” Crowley grumbled as his marker squeaked in protest from the excessive pressure.

From his laptop, Barb asked, “Because Aziraphale went back to the cult?”

That was the easiest way to describe their tumultuous history to Barb. Barb knew cults. Supernatural descent? Not so much. “That and he asked me to come along. Me! After knowing how they abused us, knowing how I feel about them.”

He stewed in the emotions as Barb studied him. She could tell he was not quite done ranting (his tell being the unnaturally high arch of his eyebrows).

“Can’t say I’m much better,” he lamented, releasing a bit of pressure from the marker so it glided satisfyingly. “The first cult kicked me out and I just slipped right into the next one.”

“If I recall, your involvement with the second one was not exactly voluntary. They used significant force to intimidate you, Crowley. I wouldn’t say that was a similar situation at all.”

As much as he was inclined to give Aziraphale more credit, Barb never let him lie to himself. She would probably reach through the screen and slap the lies right out of him if that was a thing humans were capable of doing.

When the wavy lines were done, he softened the hard edges that the intersections created, rounding them out.

Barb drove in the nail, “And despite that, you left them too, didn’t you. For your part, I see you breaking cycles of trauma over and over.”

Maybe. Maybe he simply didn’t fit in anywhere. Not heaven, not hell. Not anywhere. He translated it into ‘cult’ language for Barb.

“Do you want to fit into what you described as toxic communities?”

“No,” he pouted.

“Or would you rather like to be accepted for who you are in a setting that you feel safe in?”

While he did not have much of a nervous system to disrupt (to the best of his knowledge), it was painfully spot-on. Still, Crowley was not ready to relent. He shrugged, “I like a bit of drama.”

Barb rolled her eyes behind her prescription glasses. “Don’t be a fucking idiot.” Making Barb curse gave him a wicked thrill.

She instructed him to choose warm or cool colors and to pick quadrants at random to fill in. Swirling his paintbrush in a cup of water, he then dabbed a sky blue palette square and loaded his bristles with pigment.

“Barb?”

Barb tilted her nose down, looking at him from above the line of her glasses, a sign of rapt attention.

“What if I listen to myself and leave all that cult shit behind–what if I go off in search of people who don’t want to hurt me–but I’m still not good enough for them. I’m not enough for them and they don’t…stay.”

“Well,” she pushed her glasses up, a sign that she had a significant amount to say on the matter, but that she would try to condense it for the sake of the limited time left in their session. “Ignoring that you’ve already found your Book Club, I would say that if you’re ever faced with a scenario where people leave you again, you’re much stronger than you think. You’ve done it before and you have more tools now to survive it again. You’ll keep looking, forming new friendships, seeing how they morph and grow. Then, when they inevitably end–because all things change and all things one day end–you’ll have everything you need to do it again. Friendships aren’t made to last forever. It’s not how that works.”

Friends weren’t meant to last forever. Nothing was. Wasn’t that what Aziraphale said too? But why did the change have to be so painful?

The artwork in front of him was half full of stained glass indigos and seafoams, splashed with a raindrop from his own eyes.

Barb noticed. Her voice softened. “It can be sad, and it can be special. Friends are worth cherishing and enjoying when we have them. Things that are temporary are no less important for being temporary. Would you stop enjoying your book club? Knowing it will one day end?”

He had to think carefully, through the storm of thoughts and years of trying to avoid disappointment by sleeping it off or hiding, or reserving his friendship for one particular angel who never seemed to change all that much. The alternative of holing up in a faraway solar system and weathering the rest of eternity alone looked like a plate of gourmet flies in a lovely petrol sauce. Being alone was nice, sure, but it lacked a great deal. He would miss it, the little things. The little people, with their little lives and big problems.

He shook his head. “I’ll let myself enjoy them,” he promised.

He did his best to live up to that promise.

***

Book Club was a thing of beauty. For one, going to the bookshop got easier and easier. The ache was smaller behind Crowley’s heart. Ever present, but manageable.

Secondly, they agreed to read 50 Shades of Grey at Crowley’s persuasion.

Thirdly, no one besides Anathema actually read the weekly assignment: Muriel had not yet learned to read at that level, Nina and Maggie were swept up in business matters, and Crowley’s eyes ached if he attempted more than a page a day.

Anathema had flown back home, but she chimed in every week with various forms of technology. Webcam was this week’s poison of choice.

“What about audiobooks,” Anathema suggested fairly.

Crowley pursed his lips. “And scandalize my new neighbors? Rude, Anathema. Thoughtless.” He knew very well that the nearest neighbor was a whole plot away from his secluded cottage, but he was grasping at straws wherever he could.

“Use headphones.”

There were no more excuses up his sleeve besides noting that headphones gave him a slight headache. The thing was, he had no more excuses because he had already read the books, ages ago, before the movies even came out. Hated them. Bad BDSM etiquette, poor relationship overall, just as weak as the source material, if not worse. So why suggest the club read it? Simple. No one else would logically read through that chunky monkey, except for Anathema. He needed someone to hate it with him. He needed her wrath and her strongly worded letters and her fearless habit of sharing any bit of her love life to anyone who asked or didn’t ask in order to point them in a healthier direction. Already, she had pioneered an anti-Grey movement to right the wrongs of the infamous series. She wouldn’t admit to it yet, but he thought she was at least halfway through writing a series of her own in response. Maybe he could inspire her to publish it without a proofreader. Even better. But he fanned the flames every time he indicated he did not know what she was talking about in her rampaging rants.

So Book Club was less of a club that discussed merits surrounding literature and more about entertaining themselves with whatever the hell they wanted to talk about. For a handful of hours every week he felt sane.

They had finished tonight’s meeting, the laptop closed and tucked in the computer bag thrown over Crowley’s shoulder, the ladies waving goodbye to Muriel as they walked to their respective shops, Crowley walking with them. He could pretend he was being gentlemanly, but it was more that he was hoping for a midnight catcaller to hex in demented ways. A cherry on top of a sweet day.

An unwelcome presence did appear, a few yards behind Crowley.

But he was no cherry.

Crowley felt a rotting bile churn beneath his heart, scorching holes in his stomach. He knew that presence; could sense it anywhere on Earth if he wanted. And when he didn’t want. His body reflexively knew this was the first time he had been back to Earth since his promotion. There was no way to prepare for this flood of feelings.

Anger, predominantly. But…the anger was masking other feelings, wasn’t it. Pain, abandonment, disappointment, sadness. Memory.

He had no control of his own hand as it flew out to clutch Maggie’s arm. Was it to stop himself from collapsing on the unforgiving street? Or was it a wordless plea to keep him sane when he felt the threads of his consciousness unravel? Whatever the reason, they both froze there in the street.

Maybe Aziraphale would go away if they didn’t acknowledge him. Maggie coldn’t sense him, so maybe he wouldn’t have to think about what he was going to do next. If Crowley didn’t move a muscle, maybe that meant time had stopped again, this time with very little effort, and no one would have to make the decision. They would stay there like gray statues perfectly in their image, a living graveyard where they buried their relationship a long time ago.

Time didn’t stop.

Time refused his plea for sanctuary. He made a mental note to find time and give it a piece of his mind.

Maggie looked at his nauseous face and then at Nina. On either side of him, they turned around. To them, this was a reunion of their long lost angelic matchmaker, bright glowing glory and all, materialized in the middle of the empty street far too late at night. To Crowley, it was the manifestation of years of fear and pain. The resurgence of a wound he worked day in and day out with Barb to heal.

Before either of the women could convince him otherwise, Crowley gritted out, “There. is. nothing. he can say to make me turn around.”

A peculiar warning pinged in his head. Neither Nina nor Maggie tried to convince him to turn, like he thought. And Aziraphale uttered no sound behind him.

Nothing vocal, that is.

Crowley’s ears twitched as he picked up an altogether different sound. The sound of a limp mass hitting an immovable road. The thud rang too softly through the night air.

It happened so quickly. The noise that caught Crowley’s breath. The women registering a look of fright on their faces one instant, then disappearing from Crowley’s side the next. The tugging need to see for himself.

Crowley’s shoes slid slowly, pivoting around to put vision to audio. Anger that was built in several layers of solid brick wall shattered like glass in that one instant. Raging louder than fury, dread branched out in icy tendrils down to his fingers, through his empty chest, circling his heart like a bear trap.

In the middle of the road, Aziraphale laid face down, unmoving. A white stain on this dark planet. He wasn’t white, though. Not anymore.

Wings stretched out to either side of him in limp rolling hills, tipped in deep gray. Not white anymore.

Crowley’s stupidly human-like lungs froze like death.

He knew this was a possibility. All along. Of course he did. They both knew. It had been a possibility since…well since the beginning. Since Eden. Yet it had never happened. If it hadn’t happened before, through all that they’d done, why now? Why actualize Aziraphale’s worst nightmare now?

This was not the reunification Crowley imagined. They were not pitted against each other, he did not get to refuse mercy, either way. There was no satisfaction in immediate defeat.

While time ran in streams around him, Crowley’s imagined graveyard of statues crystalized him from head to toe.

Maggie and Nina put valiant effort into lifting the ang– into lifting Aziraphale from the puddle of tire water he had slumped into, taking either arm and failing to twist him onto his back, drag him to his feet, or even to pull him into a seated position. He held more than the weight of a man. Aziraphale was cheesecake, merlot, the immeasurable weight of love, strong will, and the sting of bastard. He was heaven and hell and earth, wrapped in corporation.

Crowley dropped it. Dropped the dread and all that crystalized his feet to the gravel, left it behind. Left his stubbornness in that frozen time and rushed straight to Aziraphale’s side.

Where the women struggled to lift Aziraphale’s weight between the two of them, Crowley summoned otherworldly strength and scooped him up behind his knees, gently around his back, careful not to crumple his changed wings. When Aziraphale’s weightless head lolled onto Crowley’s shoulder, Crowley forced his wet fear to dam up with a couple of well placed blinks. Taking a deep breath, he headed for the bookshop.

The doors burst open at his command, startling Muriel into spilling a pile of blankets they were carrying aimlessly from their book club corner to a place more out of the way.

“Bring those blankets here,” Crowley ordered.

At the sound of his voice, Aziraphale whispered through clay dry lips, “Crow–”

Unable to finish, unable to pry his swollen eyes open, Crowley hushed him with a clear and concise, “Don’t.” With the brush of his thumb against Aziraphale’s arm, he willed Aziraphale’s broken breath to sooth into a steadier rhythm. “Rest now. That can wait. Can’t have you discorporating out of range before we get to really have it out, can we?”

What would happen if he did? If Aziraphale could die from these wounds, what would happen to his celestial form? Heaven clearly wasn’t in the mood to take him back. Hell could have him over Crowley’s dead body. So, if he died, he was out of Crowley’s hands.

There was only one option. He had to stabilize.

Crowley set Aziraphale petal-soft onto the ground, a blanket from Muriel over his numb icy limbs and a comfortable velvet chaise miracled up from the floor.

God only knew how bad it was underneath Aziraphale’s prim long sleeves and trousers–and if God truly knew, Crowley was going to pay her a long overdue visit. These weren’t his usual clothes, they were heavenly and so, so wrong on a creature who always tried to be good. They were starched and evil, like the whole empyrean system.

None of that mattered now. The only thing that mattered was how bad it was and if he could come back from it.

That and who dared to do this.

Out of the corner of his eye, Crowley saw Nina pull Maggie away and out the door. Muriel watched them too, following their lead by slowly backing their way upstairs, out of the way. Crowley spared none of his attention for them.

“I’m ever…ever so sorry, my–” Aziraphale omitting parts of words was akin to him cutting up the pages of a book. He would not do it if his life did not depend on it.

Crowley needed an apology. But not like this. Not when Aziraphale’s ethereal body was splashed in yellow and green bruises like a violent painting. Not when Aziraphale’s body was behaving less like a powerful supernatural corporation and more like a frail human…Like Crowley’s body had been doing for the past few years.

“Every time…an apocalypse–” Aziraphale sucked in short breaths to stammer out a handful of words at a time, “I wish I had…more time…”

Apocalypse? Was there another? Since leaving hell, Crowley’s had no word of their goings on. Crowley put a hand on Aziraphale’s chest to keep him from struggling to sit up. Aziraphale lacked the strength to fight the pressure on his chest and eased into the pillows cradling his back.

“...time to tell you…what being next to you feels like…”

“Stop that. I mean it.”

Aziraphale covered Crowley’s hand on his chest. Moisture gathered at his swollen eyes. Crowley had never seen Aziraphale cry before, not in his whole life. “...I wish I had spent…the last of it with you.”

“How dare you,” Crowley growled without force behind it. How could he be angry with his angel crying in front of him, because of him. “Nu-uh. None of that. I’m worth more than a lousy, rattled-off apology on your deathbed. Fuck that. You can shove those words right up your ghostly ass, if that’s where you’re heading, and try again properly while you haunt me in your spirit form. Then, you can take your time with a real apology; a nice long one. Maybe after a century or so, I’ll think about listening to a couple stanzas.”

Aziraphale attempted to laugh, but it sounded more like a motorcycle in need of immediate repairs. “Not dying,” he said. “I’ve only just now…gotten an audience with the…” his words fell into a fit of painful coughs, by the wincing look of it. “With God. She is letting her son complete his earthly visit…as he sees fit.”

Crowley would have wrapped both hands over Aziraphale’s mouth if he thought it would stop Aziraphale from mumbling out what he was determined to mumble. So, Aziraphale continued in his broken way. “There will be no end to the Second Coming.”

“And she punished you for simply asking, anyway. Typical.”

“Hm?”

“She cast you out. Made your wings…” Crowley couldn’t bear to say Fall.

“No, no,” Aziraphale stopped to cough, but patted Crowley’s hand assuringly. “No, this was me, I’m afraid. The Almighty was perfectly pleasant…Groggy, but pleasant. I handed in my resignation, stamped and final. Changed my wings too…something different, to make it official. Do you think…are they terribly dowdy?”

Yellow eyes flitted across the new silver gray feathers primly smoothed into place. Not charred. Not forcibly and permanently altered. He changed them himself. The thought looped over and over. Aziraphale chose. Not heaven’s will, not hell’s. He chose for himself.

Mesmerized, Crowley said, “They’re gleaming, like light off the ocean.”

Aziraphale’s puffy face afforded him a small smile. “Yes, I did quite think it reminded me…of when we first met. Shining space dust.”

How was Crowley supposed to keep stony at that? Barb was going to have to talk some sense into him later–to remind him that there was an entire landfill on fire that was filled with feelings, broken promises, and bridges that would have to be rebuilt–but he still held onto that shard of love. It never was thrown into the landfill. He put his head down against Aziraphale’s.

One thought sobered him, though. Moving several inches back from Aziraphale’s face, he said, “Then who did this? If not God, who?”

“It happened on my way out…the Metatron. Furious at me. I went around him…to plead with God. Didn’t like that one,” he coughed, but Crowley filled in the blank. “We fought. I got away.”

Crowley found his arm in a tight snare of Aziraphale’s urgent grip. “It’s still coming. I couldn’t stop it. Jesus is…”

He was weak, so weak. Such a harrowing fight after what Crowley could only imagine was years of psychological torture made Aziraphale look like wet newspaper on the bookshop’s floor.

“That’s enough. Save the rest for later.”

Only, Aziraphale’s will was stronger than Crowley’s on this matter. “I am afraid,” he admitted without needing to. Crowley could feel it in the grip on his arm. “But I’m determined to live…like there’s nothing to be afraid of. Even when there is. I want to be myself. Even when others disapprove.”

Crowley patted his hand. “Is that all? Got your whole speech out of your system? Because you need to either find a way to fall asleep or stay silent as a gargoyle if you’re expected to give yourself a chance to heal without miracles. Or am I going to have to fight you some more?”

“Will there be more?”

“More what?”

Beneath puffed flesh, Aziraphale’s soft blue eyes looked into Crowley’s. “Fights. Arguments. I can’t say I cared for our last one. Spent the last–how long has it been–well, I spent it all thinking of how to make it up to you.”

Crowley scuffed Aziraphale’s chin with a soft knuckle. “You betcha. Loads of them. Always have fought, always will. That’s what happens when two different minds come together.”

Aziraphale deflated.

“It needn’t be nasty, though.”

Aziraphale threaded his fingers into Crowley’s hand. It felt so strange and so familiar at the same time. Crowley did not know what to think of it.

Instead, he said, “The important thing is that we work things out together from now on. Starting with stopping Apocalypse 2.0.”

At the assurance, tension left Aziraphale’s body and floated back into the chaise supporting him. By the fluttering of his eyelids, Crowley guessed he chose sleep rather than wakeful silence.

Aziraphale offered graciously, “You can stay mad at me–”

“I’m not mad, I’m furious, and I’ll stay furious with or without your permission, however long I choose, thank you very much.”

Crowley was politely ignored. “–but I made you something. While we were apart.”

Crowley looked around, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Aziraphale went on, “I remember your radiant star systems, those breathtaking nebulas. I wanted that for you. Wanted to create something with a fraction of your beauty, Crowley.”

Crowley blinked. No one made things for him. He was an ex-hellion, a grumbling, groaning bug buzzing around the planet with few friends and even fewer who thought he would want anything made for him. Despite the sentiment, nothing appeared and Aziraphale did not indicate anything was in his pockets. Aziraphale might have been at the rambling stage of unconsciousness. Crowley waited by his side, Aziraphale’s hand threaded loosely through his own.

“I made it for you.”

“Made what, angel.”

With a sleepy sigh, Aziraphale said, “I’ll tell you when we’ve saved the world.”

***

The not-angel and the not-demon did not end up saving the world. Not quite.

With immense power, not granted to them but created of their own volition, they were able to remake what was broken. (Barb’s mindfulness exercises came in handy when emotions threatened to reach nuclear dimensions.) Stronger than even Adam’s reset after the last apocalypse, they restored life on Earth. Relatively. If life was 10% better for humans, no one mentioned it.

And if Crowley and Aziraphale were 50% more human than before, they did not care.

***

In the end, the pair did not decide to remain on Alpha Centauri after their much-deserved vacation came to a close. They did, however, move into Crowley’s cozy, rustic cottage in South Downs with an abundant garden, converting the detached guest house into a library that was somehow bigger than the cottage itself.

The book club continued every week. Friends were important to Crowley, now that he saw the threads of reality outside of Planet Aziraphale.

Keeping up with his mental health became top priority as well. Those deeply clawed feelings of worthlessness, along with the old and new traumatic canon events of abandonment, did not flutter away on love’s butterfly wings when Aziraphale came back into his life. It was, however, nice to have someone who cared alongside him to encourage him while he looked after himself. Aziraphale was his number one supporter.

At the local farmer’s market, Aziraphale hmmed and hawed over fresh, fragrant peaches and Crowley filled a basket with eggs. They returned to the cottage and attempted a late brunch (which Crowley argued was just lunch disguised in a breakfast menu).

A half hour into frying, they had one pan of smoldering ashy lumps on an unused back burner, toast cooling untimely on a plate, and perfectly made cocoa they had refused to wait to drink while they butchered the meal. On the current skillet were half a dozen congealed eggs, warmed by a much lower heat this time.

When Aziraphale turned his back to the stove, Crowley inched the skillet to the right, trying to center it over the flame. Aziraphale turned in time to catch him, swatting his hand away and shifting the pan to the left. Correcting and bothering each other, grinning the whole time, they wasted a total of one dozen eggs before coming up with something vaguely edible.

Cooking was finicky. And fun. A human thing full of frustration and laughter they should have tried together a long time ago.

“So about my present…” Crowley waved his empty fork in the air between them at the table. Straight after he said the word ‘present,’ Aziraphale perked up, dabbed the sides of his mouth with his napkin. He gave an excited wiggle. So he did remember promising Crowley a gift after thwarting the apocalypse. “Assuming there’s some time between the last war and the next, I just thought I should like to see it before you forget entirely that you owe me a big whopping present.”

These days, he rarely wore glasses, but managed to keep a cool look on his face when he wanted.

“Now, it’s a theoretical gift, so do try to contain your disappointment if you don’t want it. I simply got it started for us–mustered up the tricky formula after an obscene amount of tinkering–if you decide you do like it. I stored it in a small slice of eternity, so there is no limit on when we can use it.”

“Provided Armageddon 3.0 is not nearby.”

“Presuming so, yes.”

“What is it, a forever coupon to the theater? Show me already. I’m on the edge of my seat.”

With a gentle wave of his hand, Aziraphale pulled from an interdimensional pocket a tiny ball of light. The light was infinitesimally small, a pin prick, if that, surrounded by glittering, swirling, pulsing clouds. Crowley leaned in. Squinting, he saw faint colors, like space debris floating in front of stars. With all the memory on Earth and the enlightenment of immortality–paired with the clues that Aziraphale had given–he could not decipher what in the world it was.

Breaking Crowley’s concentration, Aziraphale explained, “If you wanted to…It’s just that.” He looked suddenly terribly nervous.

“Well, I know how you adore kids.”