Chapter Text
Aziraphale had blurted out “I forgive you,” because forgiveness was the closest thing angels had to love.
Or they should, at least.
Just like a demon shouldn’t be able to love, only possess. Demons covet, they hoard, they control.
They shouldn’t be able to beg with tears in their eyes.
That ride up to Heaven was the longest Aziraphale had ever experienced. The Metatron wasn’t a chatty angel, so Aziraphale was left alone with his thoughts. What a terrible thing for an angel to experience.
Aziraphale did as he had done for centuries and compartmentalised, pushing the maelstrom of emotions behind a wall of polite vagueness. The lift doors pinged open, and he followed the Metatron into stark hallways. Aziraphale somehow always forgot it was like this. Heaven wasn’t cosy or comfortable; it was this unending blandness, with a chill to the air that was sterile and judgmental. He straightened his waistcoat.
The Metatron was talking, but Aziraphale wouldn’t have been able to recall what he said if faced with discorporation. There was a ringing in his ears, and he felt like he wasn’t quite making contact with the floor.
You’re better than that.
“You can take over Gabriel’s old desk.” The Metatron’s voice snapped Aziraphale back. He gestured at a glass desk in the middle of all the starkness. “Took us a while to find it, actually. Didn’t even know he had a desk.” The Metatron blinked and looked into the distance. “We must really start keeping a better eye on you lot,” he muttered.
“Right,” Aziraphale said. “I’ll, uh, get settled in right away. Thank you.” He gave the Metatron a jerk of the head that could be a bow or a dismissal.
The Metatron nodded, already thinking of other things. “I better see to Michael and Uriel. No doubt they’re itching to smite something.” He walked off and shimmered out of sight.
Aziraphale sat at the desk. Nothing of Gabriel’s was left, no iota of power or Grace. Now it was just a glass desk with an uncomfortable chair. His fingers drifted over the surface, afraid to leave fingerprints.
We don’t need them.
Aziraphale let a tiny thread of the maelstrom through his wall. Crowley was wrong. Well, not wrong in this instance, but it wasn’t a long-term solution. Gabriel and Beelzebub could go swanning off because they only knew Heaven and Hell. They didn’t know Earth like he and Crowley did. They didn’t know humans like he and Crowley did. If they left, who would stand with humanity?
Crowley’s preference would be to lock up Heaven and Hell and leave them to each fester in their own corruption. But boils eventually burst, and all that frustration would be unleashed a thousandfold once it did.
You couldn’t change anything from the outside, Aziraphale knew. You had to get in there and excise the rot like a surgeon. And Aziraphale would either affect real change in how things were run and inspire more compassion and patience, or he wouldn’t.
And if he failed, he could only hope Crowley was waiting.
Aziraphale laid his hands flat on the desk, fingerprints be damned. Yes, he had known Crowley’s instinctive hatred of institutional systems. But inviting Crowley to come with him was part of his vision of a Reformed Heaven. One where Crowley could be as curious and mischievous as he liked without worrying about punishment for every slight. Aziraphale sometimes found the mantle of righteousness exhausting, as he knew Crowley was likewise worn out by playing the profane. He could still be a neutral being, more or less, and not have to uphold the appearance of wickedness. Aziraphale saw it as the best of both worlds.
If Crowley hadn’t rushed to conclusions, if he hadn’t assumed the worst and decided his only course of action was to run, if he hadn’t been so desperate and ki—
The glass cracked under Aziraphale’s hands.
“Sir?”
Aziraphale looked up. A lower angel stood before him, keeping a respectful distance. He eyed the cracked glass warily.
“Yes, sorry,” Aziraphale said, fixing the glass with a sweep of his fingers. “Still getting used to the archangel strength, I suppose. And you are?”
“Cassiel,” the angel said. He had a haggard air about him. “I’m here to assist you with—” he scrunched up his face, “onboarding.”
“Not a very common thing around here, I bet. Please, sit down.”
Cassiel hesitated before easing himself into the plastic chair. Aziraphale felt sorry for him. The Metatron likely drudged him up from records or somewhere without telling him the whole story. “Do you drink?” Aziraphale asked as he miracled up two teacups.
Cassiel blinked at the delicate china. “Not as such, no.”
Aziraphale breathed in the smell of bergamot and took a sip. It was perfect, which here meant no bitter tang of tannins, no slightly-too-hot water, no need for cream or sugar.
He put the cup down.
“Pity,” he said. “Angels were created to look out for humans, and how can we do that if we cannot sympathise with their experiences? Could we bring up real tea from Earth? We should start small, I don’t want to overwhelm the others. Or could we do little daytrips down?” He looked at Cassiel expectantly.
Cassiel looked torn between confusion and reverence. But at Aziraphale’s last question, he came back to himself. “Well, it would have to be small choirs of angels, no more than a couple dozen at a time. Any more starts to unbalance reality, and angels tend to get funny ideas when they’re grouped together—” He snapped his mouth shut.
Ah, yes. Aziraphale fiddled with the now-cool teacup. There was going to be quite a lot of that now. “It’s quite alright. Please, tell me what you think.”
Cassiel gave him a long look. “It seems like the effect angels have on reality can also happen in their minds. At least, that’s my theory.” He leaned forward as he lowered his voice. “The weight of the Holy Host puts pressure on the fabric of time and space. Their powers get amplified, sort of shared amongst them, and humans in the area get swept up in it. Remember the dancing plagues in the 1500s?” Aziraphale nodded. “I think, and this is purely speculation, that the same thing happens with thought. Angels have to work together in large numbers, all with the same singular goal, otherwise it’s chaos. So one of them gets a Thought, and it spreads to the next one, and the next. Soon they all have that one Thought.” Cassiel shrugged. “Normally, that’s not a problem if the Thought is simple. ‘Praise God,’ or ‘Smite Demons.’ But…”
“But someone can get funny ideas,” Aziraphale finished with a sigh. That was going to be difficult. He wasn’t secure enough in his position to influence the entire Host at once, but it would also be tricky getting them one at a time. Angels did not like being divided.
Inwardly, he was quite pleased with Cassiel. That kind of original thought and observation was rare. “Thank you, I appreciate the insight. It has been a while since I’ve had to deal with Heaven’s…” A small voice that sounded suspiciously like Crowley said, “bullshit,” but he didn’t want to offend the other angel.
“Tediousness?” Cassiel said, and Aziraphale’s esteem of him went up several points.
“Exactly.” He clapped his hands together. “Now, I don’t want to keep you any longer. Anything else I should know? Or any questions you have for me?”
Cassiel looked around them at the empty space. “Well, sir, if it isn’t too impertinent…”
“Nonsense! What is it?”
Cassiel leaned even further forward and lowered his voice again. “Is it true, sir? That you were conspiring with a demon?”
Aziraphale’s wall broke a little more. Images of Crowley’s yellow eyes filled with pain, betrayal, and longing, his hands on Aziraphale, the burning Aziraphale felt, but not of hellfire—
“Conspiring? Is that the word they’re using? It was hardly—we were—that is, we are—” Aziraphale cleared his throat. “No, not conspiring.”
Cassiel nodded and didn’t press further. That he asked was unusual. That he didn’t condemn was unexpected. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a white business card. “Give me a ring on that if you need me. I’ve been assigned to be your personal assistant, so you won’t be taking me away from anything.”
He marched off down the hall, disappearing into the ether.
Right, then. Aziraphale stuck the card into his pocket. He had ignored the goings-on of Heaven for far too long. Time to do some research.
Research in Heaven wasn’t nearly as satisfying as it was on Earth. Humans joked that lawyers were demons and bloodsuckers, but Heaven was surely the inspiration instead. Pages and pages of orders, footnotes, indices, inserts, citations, briefings, and lineages. Updates and appeals to what criteria a soul needed to enter; whether a particular human should be influenced now for Heaven’s advantage three generations down the line; or if the latest biblical translation should be incorporated into Heaven’s bylaws.
It was maddening.
Aziraphale had carefully avoided anything to do with paperwork for two hundred years running the bookshop. (Aside from inventory, but that was just for him. It pleased him to review every book in the collection, and sometimes he got lost in rereading them for days.)
Heaven was usually so unsubtle about its big projects that Aziraphale expected to find mention of it on every other page. Instead, it was conspicuously absent. Everything Aziraphale looked at was, as humans would say, small potatoes.
So he approached it askance, like a skittish animal. What were they saying when they weren’t talking about this Second Coming? There was a lot about the theory of collecting souls wholesale, such as in natural disasters. Angels were rather morbid that way. Theses on how a sudden influx of souls would affect the Holy Host. What could happen if there suddenly were no more souls to collect.
Then there was the correspondence from Hell. It was strained, but polite. Shax was trying to weasel her way onto the Dark Council, but Asmodeus was loath to let anything lower than a Knight take a seat. They were also theorising about the effects a sudden and drastic influx of souls would have.
It painted a disturbing picture, but every time he tried to gather his thoughts and focus, another file was shoved under his nose. Being pulled in so many directions left him scattered and stressed.
He needed a break.
As Supreme Archangel, he could go to Earth any time he liked, and as his personal assistant, Cassiel got a free pass to come with him.
“Why do you need me?” Cassiel had asked.
“Because I need to see things through fresh eyes,” Aziraphale said. “And with someone who won’t automatically dismiss everything they see. I want to know what about Earth may intrigue an angel, and, if I may be so bold, you seem to have a touch of curiosity about you.”
Cassiel had glanced around with panicked eyes before Aziraphale reassured him that that was exactly what he needed.
They went to Venice. London felt too raw, and the temptation to wander into Soho would be too strong.
Aziraphale picked a small piazza away from the tourists, and they sat watching the fountain in the centre. Parents, children, pigeons, and dogs all wandered through wrapped up in their own lives. It wasn’t quite raining, but the air was heavy with water that hadn’t decided to fall yet. Rapid Italian rose and fell around them mingling with laughter, whispers, and small words of praise. It was a lovely scene of domesticity. Aziraphale instructed Cassiel to simply observe the life surrounding them. Cassiel concentrated with a seriousness more suited to generals strategizing for a battlefield.
Aziraphale, for his part, only noticed the nearby cafe that smelled delicious. He nipped off and brought back two cappuccinos. His first sip was, well, heavenly. Praise the Lord, but he missed coffee. He held the other out to Cassiel. “Want to try?”
Cassiel took the cup as if Aziraphale had handed him the Holy Grail. For a moment, he held it in his hands, then said, “The last time I imbibed anything I was in Lower Egypt during the Exodus.”
Aziraphale turned to him, startled. “You were on Earth?”
“Yes. They needed someone to help record, um,” He looked away. “First borns.”
“Ah.” Aziraphale let the moment pass as he finished off his coffee. “What was it you tried?”
Cassiel frowned. “I think it was a mix of cow’s blood and milk.”
“Good Lord,” Aziraphale coughed. “Yes, that would be enough to put anyone off drinking for quite a while. I can assure you that humans have come a long way since they discovered pasteurisation.”
Aziraphale watched as Cassiel carefully experienced his very first coffee. He let the cup warm his hands, breathed in the steam and smell of cinnamon, and finally took a small sip. “Intriguing,” he said. “Complex. Satisfying. Not deplorable.” Cassiel gave a small half-smile, and Aziraphale realised he had made a joke.
“Wonderful! Perhaps there is hope for other angels yet.”
“I’ve been told I’m not quite like other angels.”
“Well, then.” Aziraphale bumped his cup against Cassiel’s. “That makes two of us.”
And the wall cracked a bit more.