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There had been a time, when Aziraphale was discorporated by his call on Metatron, when he felt his way back to heaven again.
Without a body, one is hardly part of the human realm, and he had inhabited his usual form, soft and pliant, for all of Earth’s life; it had been extraordinarily odd, floating around London as an amorphous being of pure light and energy in search of Crowley. He had experienced complete transcendence again, and it had felt just like it had been before Aziraphale had been appointed the role of Earth’s principality. Now, back in the body he was so accustomed to, he felt that inhabiting a human form was probably the best, if also worst, thing to happen to him, ever. He was closer than any other angel to the beings impacted by their heavenly work and therefore felt solely responsible for the ill humans had to endure on Heaven’s account. On the other hand, there were all the little joys of Earth no other angel was prone to appreciate; the food of course, as well as drinks, alcohol; orange days of autumn in the park, early summer mornings by the duck pond, the sun just peeking over the high hedges; the stories written by people, the way he could hold onto them by storing their books in his shop (by now only technically a ‘shop’, as he really didn’t plan on selling anything, not the Austen, not the Chaucer); the warmth of good company, the warmth of shared time; everything he knew and had experienced worth nothing in the Heaven he’d come from.
Of course, a body also afforded him a certain amount of mobility and agency which other angels didn’t have. He could go about by himself, without so much as a watchful eye over his shoulder. Though God the Omnicogniscent must see everything he did (the thought often made him shudder), She had done little to actively discourage his choice of passing time lounging and enjoying Earth’s goods, while also actively participating in Evil by way of his Arrangement with Crowley. In the end, he doubted She minded much at all – after all, sooner or later an apocalypse would come and he would inevitably be forced to join Heaven’s ranks in a Final Battle against Evil, against Hell.
The whole business often gave him a headache. Frequently, when the streets went eerily quiet during an otherwise busy afternoon, when the only sound Aziraphale could hear was the ticking of myriads of clocks, when he thought he could feel the blood rush through his ears, he feared for the worst – the parting of clouds accompanied by a fanfare of angelic trumpets, glorious splotches of gold and red, the booming voice proclaiming End of Days. And all the people of Earth, standing and looking above each other’s heads, beyond their own daily ailments, comprehending or not – that this was it. It would be Noah’s Arc all over, only Aziraphale could hardly justify it happening now, could never even articulate the sounds around the word ‘ineffable’ ever again, he thought. Not after all that had happened and all he had learned about the occasional, oddly human cruelty of Heaven’s executive decisions.
Then again, he thought, he was undoubtedly still an angel, agent of all that was good, which he naturally had known intellectually but which his accidental and temporary discorporation had made him realize emotionally – Aziraphale was not of the Earth, merely on it, as long as it would have him. As long as the Higher Powers were content in having him here, granting him a form to inhabit. His body was merely borrowed time.
Aziraphale thought of Crowley; seemingly every second thought was decidedly dedicated to him nowadays. The two of them had saved the world, against the wishes of the actual beings in power, which they were supposedly working for. Now the future gaped like an open mouth, raw at the edges. The flesh so fragile, only moments from tearing. He had been well aware that not every day would be a dinner for two at the Ritz, a line well said and smiles exchanged. But now, every time Crowley pulled up in the car they were both trying to ignore he lived in, Aziraphale tried to build up courage to do something, anything, to make things shift and kick into gear, but he only saw his fallen-angel friend, hounded by his former coworkers, desperate for another exchange of words, and could only think of how they were bound to fail.
Nothing lasts forever, he had realized one night, sitting at his desk in the shop, trying to mend a beyond ruined copy of The Last Man. The words echoed in the skull that wasn’t really his, made the fingers attached to this body tremble. Am I real? Am I a part of any story? How devastating it was, trying to hold on to anything material. Once his most peculiar joys as a visitor on Earth, objects now disappointed him from time to time; empty toothpaste tubes stacking on a sink, his favourite breakfast jam gone bad. There was no consolation behind their used, dirty, corporate shells. He wondered what sort of being there was behind their surfaces, if it was like his. What may his death look like when Heaven decided to come for him? How does a story live on without its book, without its storyteller? What happened after the ultimate abandonment?
Aziraphale scoffed, abandoning the broken clothbound spine, chucking his scalpel into its toolbox. How ridiculous, an angel with a toolbox! Maybe he should get a funny hat to top it all off! The absurdity of it all was hammering at his skull, which, judging by the pain, was unmistakeably his skull. Somewhere the mind had to have its throne, after all. But really, how much of this body belonged to him? He crossed his arms, felt the muscles flex and the linen of his previously neatly pressed, now very ruffled, shirt crease at his elbows. The skin against fabric was hot, irritated. The sensations were heavy, too meaningful; his shoulders tensing, fear rising from his back to his neck, tingling. What had the cells in this body been doing while he had been up there, panicking about the War between Heaven and Hell?
Did the cells of this body miss me, Aziraphale thought in a last attempt to fry his (HIS?) brain, before realising the mistake of staying up too late and making himself pass out on the spot.
Of course, in the light of morning, everything was calm and correct, crisis averted. It now struck Aziraphale how much distrust he must have against God to shun Her like this, even just using his thoughts. Surely, this body only existed as an extension of him, there was hardly anything real about it. Or it just came into existence when called. Or, since ordinary human bodily processes could be easily manipulated by minor scale miracles, it really was just a shell, as lifeless as hair or fingernails. He glanced at his arm, white with hair, and then to a sharp letter opener. Would he bleed?
In that moment, saving him from an act he feared he wouldn’t have been able to ever come back from – maybe the crisis of the previous night he had just proclaimed averted hadn’t been averted after all –, the door to the shop was opened, accompanied by its usual jingle of bells, and Aziraphale heard Maggie, the record shop owner from across the street, calling for him. "Mr. Fell, I’m on break!" Uneasy, he emerged from his study, nevertheless smiling at her, kindly, when he saw her lively eyes and red face. He liked her a lot, mainly because he treasured having company that wasn’t caught up with all of the Heaven-Hell business. They would talk, gossip and Maggie, knowing his love for pastry, would often come and share with him a freshly baked patch of something or other she had made. She was really extraordinarily kind, and jolly, and they got on well, better than Aziraphale did with most humans. Usually, he didn’t know how to hide what he was without becoming someone else entirely – a magician, perhaps – and then he didn’t know what to say. He really was more of a listener. Also, humans were always erratic, talked much too fast and their brains came to such wildly different conclusions in a much shorter span of seconds than his did. Crowley was similar, having never lost his nervous energy in all the thousands of years of knowing each other, of being on Earth.
Maggie was different. She was one of the slower ones, not unintelligent, pray, just gentle and hardly shaken by the pulls and pushes of everyday life. That was why he had told her more than should be proper for him, without revealing his nature entirely, mainly of Crowley. Though he wasn’t sure why she was putting up with an old fool like him.
“Care for a cup of tea?” Aziraphale rounded the shop counter to stand before her, hands unsure whether to hug or not. Heaven knew, he needed a hug. As soon as Maggie seemed to sense this, she hugged him immediately, short and sweet. Aziraphale released a breath of relief. It really was quite comforting to be visited by a friend from time to time.
“Sure,” Maggie smiled, “I have things to tell you, about Nina, if you don’t mind me blabbering away your peaceful morning.” “Oh, blabber away,” he said in an amused tone. Her eyes twinkling, she followed Aziraphale back into the study where he started preparing tea in the kitchenette. Maggie started relaying the story of how she had accidentally spilled hot coffee over Nina’s apron when it was served, and how Nina had been so incredibly nice about it. “Oh, Maggie, that’d be so sweet,” he mumbled delightedly, when she wondered if she should gift Nina something, as a sorry/thank you/I like you. He liked the idea of such a gesture. Soon, Maggie remembered her shop, which was probably as sought after by customers as Aziraphale’s, which was to say pretty much empty at all times. Still, she went. When she was gone, Aziraphale poured away his tea, a stale taste on his tongue.
Crowley needed something to happen. Desperately.
The happy ending he had envisioned for Aziraphale and him hadn’t set in. The last month he had spent his days driving around London, sometimes out in the countryside, looking on at the passing people as he always had, with a mixture of jealousy and benevolence. Before the Apocalypse That Wasn’t, he’d have never called any of his actions ‘benevolent’, but he couldn’t go around pretending to be evil anymore when the only reason he had thought of himself as evil in the first place were the people who had tried to end him and his best friend. Still, being what he was without chastising himself and without fearing repercussions from Downstairs and forgiveness from Upstairs – which was what they called pity, or worse, vaguely polite dismissal before the passing of a death sentence – he still struggled with it.
Now, driving down a pretty country road somewhere south of London – he had his windows down, his right hand leisurely resting there, flicking away ash from an unsmoked, ever burning cigarette –, Crowley’s hands itched to turn the Bentley around and make his way to a certain small street in Soho. It was a nice day, the 32nd nice day of the new world, the world after the Apocalypse That Wasn’t. Aziraphale thought he was on a vacation somewhere by the seaside, as always staying close to the pulse of life that followed places along the coast; the towns and streets between them forming a web of illumination at night, populated by young and old. One month ago, when the whole deal between Heaven and Hell had really gained momentum and he had been fighting with Aziraphale about running away, humans had inevitably started to feel the world ending all around them. Now, they were keen to enjoy what they shouldn’t have been able to.
Crowley could neither blame nor join them, as it turned out. He still felt Aziraphale’s words in his bones. His own words to him, too. Of course, everything was different now, but were they on the same page? Crowley longed for the angel’s company, like always, and he never did say how proud of them he was. He looked at his sleek, black smartphone, checked his location. It wouldn’t be a long drive; for him it never was, what with the speed and blatant ignorance of vehicular safety and all. He breezed past the creeks, the fields of yellow wheat. He’d be with Aziraphale in approximately a quarter of an hour. Crowley scratched his weirdly stubbly chin, checked out his sunglassed self in the rear-view mirror, and the decision was made. Fuck going to Brighton alone. And if the U-turn nearly rammed into the street’s sole light pole and his hands started shaking, well that was par for the course.
“Hello, angel,” Crowley called out into the dust of the bookshop, a quarter of an hour later, sauntering towards the counter. It smelled of tea, the air comfortably warmer than outside. It really was comfortable, like an eternally lit fireplace. He took off his sunglasses, discarded them on a pile of books clothed in rich leather. Aziraphale emerged from his study, acknowledging the arrival of his friend with a kind nod, then started to remove stray pages from various surfaces, cleaning the space up. He was in his fluffy tartan slippers, a handsome linen shirt and… sweatpants. “Hello, stranger. How was Brighton?”
It took Crowley a while to answer. Sweatpants! Creme-coloured sweatpants. “Oh, you know. Didn’t go.” At Aziraphale’s raised brow, Crowley conceded, “Lost interest. Made a decision, so I’m back early. How much is a city really going to change in two or three centuries, anyway?”
They had been in Brighton, together, for a short period of time in 1786. Aziraphale had cured the illness of a mother of three, then, per their Arrangement, had made the rations of a resort go bad. (Doing each other’s jobs had always been a favourite of Crowley’s activities, especially before they became proper friends and started going out for dinners and drinks together.) After the deeds had been done, he had surprised the angel with his presence (of course counterproductive, as Aziraphale was supposed to ensure his presence wasn’t needed in Brighton), then reassured him that good had been done to balance out the evil, that it just was for convenience’s sake, before Aziraphale got miffy and once again fled the scene, a hounded look in his eyes. Crowley had promptly regretted making the angel feel unsafe, when he very well knew they were treading on thin ice as it was.
Aziraphale seemed to recall their conversation and its effects on him as well, abandoning his farce of a task, as he gave one of his sad smiles that very obviously didn’t reach his eyes, leaving the crinkles around them go up without real joy. Crowley felt an old well of curiosity begin to bubble. “What did you think, then,” he asked, a spark of wanting-to-console-Aziraphale-yet-also-test-his-angelic-limits in his chest, “when I made you soil that food which would have fed hundreds of people?”
Aziraphale’s expression clouded, lips pursed, seemingly misunderstanding, or perfectly understanding, his intention. “If you want to gloat at me for making me perform such a horrendous act, then I–”
“No, no, no, Aziraphale, I just want to know: what did you think then? Of me, of yourself?” Crowley turned to find a comfy chair to sit down on. (The food had belonged to a resort run by a scammer who had, in his wickedness, been truly ahead of his time. The spoiled food made officials focus on the resort. Crowley pretended the ensuing chaos of complaining families, court actions, abandonment of the estate and negative effects on the environment by its renovation half a century later were the evil he had been after. In reality, he had just wanted to see that bastard of a rich man go home to his family and try to explain what he’d been doing in the resort’s private chambers.)
“Yes, ‘just wanting to know’, only the first human sin,” Aziraphale said in a sour tone. After a moment’s contemplation, he softened and got a chair as well, dragging it gingerly near where Crowley’s legs had been meticulously placed into a nonchalant sprawl. Now, close up, Crowley thought he could see serious worry dancing in the angel’s eyes. Something tired, somehow wary. Aziraphale folded his hands neatly, as Crowley realised his counterpart was deeply worried about something he could not know about unless the angel decided to tell him.
“I was uncomfortable with doing so, nevertheless persuaded by your reasoning. Like the other times,” Aziraphale looked at him as if waiting for an unkind reaction, “You’d have done it anyway, and I sort of liked when it was the other way around, with you doing my deeds.” He took a breath. “I’ve always felt you just needed any excuse to do good, so I let you.”
“Oh,” Crowley said eloquently, unblinking (just serpent things), trying to digest this admittance. At first the familiar old heat of being called something nice flared up, the need to prove himself, to make everyone know he deserved his fall; it subsided just as quickly, like most of these past thirty-two days. The warmth stayed, however, as he started feeling something not unlike gratitude, or fondness, for the angel who, once they had gotten to collaborate more and more, had trusted him, had looked on him with an eye of benevolence, of wanting him to feel good, do good. To get back a bit of his nature from before the Fall. He thought of a gun, and the moustached angel’s face through the scope, shaking with anxiety, steady eyes meeting his own.
Aziraphale continued, “Now I’m unsure if I hadn’t wanted to do the bad thing myself. Either to shield you, or just because I could.” Now the worry came to the surface, taking over Aziraphale’s expression.
Crowley let out a frankly embarrassing noise, taking hold of the arm of the angel’s chair with his right hand, leaning in, “You’re not bad. You’re not good. Not inherently. We need to learn this, imprint it into our hearts. We are not the side we used to be on, neither are we the deviance they told us we were.” Something hot flared in his chest again, a different kind of passion. He knew Aziraphale, knew how he never fully got how much Heaven had fucked with his mind, with his compliance, only seeing Crowley’s fall as a bureaucratic misjudgement rather than an undeserved banishment from one cruel side to another. How he’d wanted to restore Crowley to being an angel rather than accept him as he was, faith misplaced in an uncaring Heaven. Crowley had hoped one day Aziraphale would come to this conclusion himself, but even now he feared what would happen if he didn’t, in time.
Aziraphale, however, at least in that moment, seemed to start to understand. He nodded slowly, looking at his hands again, scratching skin with fingernails, pressured skin changing from white to red. He seemed on the cusp of saying something, but when he eventually opened his mouth and met Crowley’s unclothed eyes once more, he merely breathed, “I’m tired, Crowley.”
Crowley thought for a moment, caught up by their closeness. If he was a human, the question of what to do wouldn’t even have crossed his mind, he’d have closed the distance in a single, mortal heartbeat. But since he wasn’t human, he stored away these thoughts neatly into the Aziraphale-shaped drawer in his mind and composed himself. One moment against 6000 years wasn’t a light load to bear.
“What is it, angel?” he simply asked, angling his face upwards to counter Aziraphale’s downturned one. He took it all in: white eyelashes downcast, almost touching high, round cheeks; white hair lit up by the sun coming through a yellowed shop window; angelic eyes trained on angelic fingers.
“We were made from God. We were made with purpose, a thought behind our existences,” Aziraphale mumbled at Crowley, “I don’t know if I can think of myself as… apart from Heaven.” Yet. Crowley craved the unsaid word echoing in his mind, leaning in, his hands on the arms of Aziraphale’s chair tensing. After a moment, he resolved to let it be, to not touch him, to wait it out; if Aziraphale hadn’t yet understood how much they had distanced themselves from their respective sides with every single word exchanged between them, not to mention standing up to them openly, being almost ended by them, well, he’d have no choice but to wait it out. No point in trying to convince the stubborn bastard. He’d clamp up, banish him from his life again. So, Crowley nodded solemnly and stood, feeling vaguely optimistic fondness. Aziraphale would understand, sooner or later.
“Look,” Crowley said with a tone that, he hoped, suggested reluctance in some way or another. Not meeting the angel’s eyes, he continued, “Do you want to go to Brighton? With me, I mean. In the – in the Bentley, with me. Driving.” He led out a nervous breath, scratching at his eyebrow. That proposition had been a trainwreck. “It’s only a two-hour drive. We’ll stay two nights.”
The angel was suspiciously quiet. Crowley finally looked at him. He had his hands placed on his thighs in anticipation, fidgeting with the fabric of the sweatpants. Probably proper soft ones, if Crowley knew anything about Aziraphale’s preferences in clothing. His belly grew warm again. “Angel?” he prompted, not sure if the request was made too soon. Aziraphale was shook up quite thoroughly, Crowley realized. “You don’t have to, just say so.”
“No,” Aziraphale looked up, confusion in his eyes. “I would like to accompany you, terribly, just…” Crowley shook his head, “You really don’t have to if you don’t feel up for it. Take your time to think about whatever’s troubling you, it’s really no problem. Though I probably won’t go if you don’t come with…” The more he thought about it, the less he could stomach the idea of going anywhere without the angel. But he didn’t know how to say this without being overbearing, or being misunderstood, or getting confused about it himself. And really, anything he was saying right now was the product of wanting to accommodate the angel the best way he could, helping him, consoling him, and, finally, ensuring he’d have reason to continue talking to him. Simply put, his motives were mixing terribly.
He was nearly out the door, shame colouring his cheeks an unusual lively shade for a serpent, when Aziraphale spoke up. “I’ll go with you, Crowley.” When Crowley turned, the angel was smiling tentatively. “Oh, don’t make such a fuss. I’ll be ready tomorrow morning.”
When Crowley went home (the parked Bentley a few roads over), he couldn't help wondering what the hell the angel had to take until tomorrow for.
“Maggie! I’m going to Brighton!”, an angel with a tartan hat and a camera around his neck piped from the record shop’s entrance. It was open; it was a rather warm 33rd day after the Apocalypse That Wasn’t. Before Maggie could fully blink her eyes awake and maybe respond, the same angel chirped amorously, “With Crowley!” and vanished.
“No, I just had to pack, you impatient serpent. And, if you haven’t noticed, I was in quite a mood yesterday,” Aziraphale conceded, facing the road. Crowley was mainly facing the angel. “I don’t think I will be a pleasant travel companion at the moment.”
“Ah, don’t be ridiculous,” Crowley said, infuriatingly still watching Aziraphale instead of the road. He didn’t say much more, but Aziraphale got the feeling he was more than welcome in the passenger seat. Oddly reassuring. Two hours in the Bentley; the drive was a blink in their conjoined existences. Still, the only way Aziraphale could describe it was ‘oddly reassuring’. After the bout of overthinking alone in his most beloved bookshop, it was surprisingly the death trap of a vehicle that was the Bentley providing comfort. Things were as they should be: Crowley at the steering wheel, Aziraphale anxiously gripping the sides of his seat, but excited for the destination. The radio hopping from this to that, not anything Aziraphale ever hoped to recognize, all to the demon’s liking. Though today it was more or less the angel’s speed. (“Tusk, Fleetwood Mac,” Crowley had answered perplexedly when Aziraphale had asked about the ‘delighting ditties’ that were playing. Aziraphale then proceeded to be moved close to tears by Sara.)
They were staying at a little Bed and Breakfast down the coast, which miraculously had one single room vacant. Crowley helped Aziraphale bring his two suitcases into the tiny elevator, cramming into the little space beside the angel. They shared amused smiles. Their room had two separate beds, walls lined with flowery wallpapers, photographs of idyllic English villages and adorable kittens, each with its own quirky, thrifted frame. Crowley had to persuade Aziraphale to stop cooing at the inanimate objects to still catch the tail-end of the breakfast buffet, lovingly prepared by the house’s owner, Billy; over breakfast there was a little row over who got to safekeep the keys until Crowley, gallantly, conceded and presented them to the angel in a celebratory flourish, making Aziraphale giggle. Crowley then went on a post-breakfast nap (though he hadn’t eaten any breakfast), while Aziraphale had a browse through the bookcases of the tiny living room by the entrance. There were mainly tattered paperbacks, some classics, some contemporary fluff; not normally Aziraphale’s style, but he couldn’t help sitting down with some of them, showering himself with the blatant love and attention stored in them from being held by so many human hands, his now included. He shuddered at the thought. This was how books normally felt, he realised, when you don’t lock them away in a fake bookshop.
Billy, the owner, came in after a while, tea and newspaper in hand, greeting him and sitting down on the worn couch. Suddenly, he turned and said, “Oh, Mr. Fell! I wanted to apologize about the beds in your room.” “Why, what about them?” “It isn’t a double bed, I mean. Although you and your partner are welcome to push them together - if you need help with that, just give me a ring.” He turned his grey head and started reading the paper, not paying much attention to Aziraphale’s reaction.
A smile crept up the angel’s face. Partner, he thought, quite right. “Of course! Thank you, Billy.”
All afternoon, Crowley insisted on watching Aziraphale sift through mountains of old paperbacks, books with broken spines, annotated and torn pages, and missing covers in the dusty mazes of Brighton's antique stores. With every done in book, however, that same feeling of love rushed through the angel, reflected and strengthened by antique mirrors and the sellers’ spectacles, and, of course, by the sunglassed demon hovering over his shoulders at all times. Crowley made comments betraying an unsettlingly encyclopaedic knowledge of romance and pulp novel tropes, making the angel blush and laugh into antique air of floating dust. They made a short stop by a Gelato shop (Aziraphale chose vanilla, chocolate and hazelnut; Crowley reluctantly got one scoop of pistachio ice cream), then continued down the The Lanes. Crowley soon got lost in the gems of a thrift store, taking piece of clothing after piece of clothing into the changing room, each more elegant, more wittily subversive than the one before, making Aziraphale rate his outfits, grinning at his uneducated yet well meant critiques.
Aziraphale's eyes danced over Crowley's figure each time he emerged from the flowery curtains of the changing room. Crowley’s human form was so different from his, it was long and bendy, where Aziraphale’s was mostly round but strong. Clothes fit him amazingly; jackets falling over his shoulders in a slightly oversized, fashionable manner; trousers clinging to his spindly legs. He seemed to take pleasure in the act of clothing, of transforming the way he looked. Aziraphale himself feared the whole ordeal, not only the possibility of choosing the wrong things and seeming out of touch, but also touching the unseen, unimportant skin under his arms and on his upper legs. It made him feel fragile and think of the nature of his human form, his body, again. He sat through the fashion show, an uneven feeling in his shoulders, drinking in every look Crowley presented with curious, hungry eyes, fingers twitching; eager to learn. By the end he was convinced he himself could be capable of this amount of bodily awareness.
Leaving the store with a few bags worth of clothes, Aziraphale remained silent, thinking of how he felt when he spent time with Crowley. It was wildly different than when he was alone, or with strangers; his body both didn’t matter and mattered much more; it reacted naturally and without feeling so artificial. Whatever he knew when he was with Crowley, he had to teach himself to remember when he was alone. Aziraphale knew how this would lead to the ability to let go of Heaven; having anchors that kept him close to Earth would help him move away from transcendence. One of these anchors was his own body; another was Crowley.
They entered another antiquarian bookshop. Aziraphale browsed the shelves for a few minutes, mainly distracted by the thoughts which had been brimming inside him for weeks, threatening to transform his view of the world, himself, and what it meant to have a demon by his side permanently. Then he came across a four-volume collection of German translations of Shakespeare’s plays. He checked the edition and stared, open-mouthed. It was first edition from 1833, ‘Shakespeare's dramatische Werke, übersetzt von August Wilhelm Schlegel, ergänzt und erläutert von Ludwig Tieck’, the original translations of Tieck, Schlegel and Tieck's daughter; on the first page was a written dedication to Anthony Panizzi, head librarian at the British Museum in the 19th century, unsigned, but presumably, if his memory served correctly (it usually did) and judging by the cursive, nearly illegible ‘My dear Sir’ that sat at the top of the dedication, it must have been by Adolf Asher, Panizzi’s Berlin correspondent. Aziraphale had read a book about their many travels across Europe; Panizzi was reportedly a sour, cold fellow to converse with, often demeaning and indignant to his peers. But Asher, a socialite and reputed windbag, had managed to form a friendship with him, wormed a way into the librarian’s heart. Much more of the nature of their relationship wasn’t know, apart from their constant correspondence across the Channel, most of which was lost to the fires of following wars.
Aziraphale clutched the four volumes, ready to beam at Crowley beside him and begin telling him of the implications of this momentous find, when he noticed Crowley’s absence. He found him soon enough, standing in the art’s section, looking at a rather large painting. Crowley’s face was unreadable, shades darker in the bad light of the shop. Aziraphale turned to the painting once more. It depicted the view from a cliff overlooking the glorious sea, painted in complex combinations of colours, blue, yellow, green, red; meeting in the middle in a visual crescendo, there was the blazing, setting sun. Almost Turner-esque. It reminded Aziraphale of something, a few millennia ago. “Oh,” he sighed, understanding. He shot Crowley a look, who had made a startled grunt of a noise. “This was after the business with Job, wasn’t it?”
“Certainly looks like it.” Crowley sounded winded. He lifted a finger, pointing out two spaces, left and right, on the cliff. “There we sat, talking. Do you know how I felt then?” Aziraphale stayed silent, clutching his books close to his heavily beating heart. It was an entirely new thing, to talk about their respective recollections of various times and places past. He burned to know what Crowley had to say each time. Crowley continued, “I was going mad with hope. Finally, someone who resembled me, at least a little. I have never been demon enough for Hell; I was happy to find you, who had just realized he may not be angel enough for Heaven.”
There was a horrible lump in Aziraphale’s throat. You’re just an angel who goes along with Heaven as far as you can. Ancient words, spoken in ancient tongues, yet clear in his head. They had been like a death sentence to him, and the first words by Crowley to truly stay lodged between the cornerstones of his immortal mind. He remembered the early days; how lost he had been in trying to follow orders but growing more and more accustomed to evading being the type of angel they expected him to be. It was such a long time ago. How many things he had seen come and go since then; people, fashions, climates changing. Nothing lasts forever.
He looked to the painting, then to Crowley, still transfixed by the mirage of their two figures, sitting apart one another on the cliff. “Let’s take it with us,” Aziraphale said and immediately turned to go in search of the seller, price be damned. Blessed. Whatever. The Shakespeare plays were going with him, too.
“Aziraphale,” Crowley said when they were standing outside in the shade, properly laden with goods and ready to go back to the B&B. He still seemed affected by the memory. “Where are we, well, where are you going to hang it?” Here we go, Aziraphale thought, time to ask him. “Let’s get a drink, won’t we?”
After stuffing their things (carefully; many very meaningful things, material and immaterial, had come into their possession that afternoon) into the back of the Bentley, they made their way to the coastline in search of a restaurant with a nice patio and view of the ocean. When they settled at a table, they sat on the same side, as always, angled towards the sea, candle illuminating their extraordinarily expensive wine and Aziraphale’s dessert.
After he had finished his piece of pie, Crowley watching him with his arms crossed on the table the whole time, Aziraphale sighed in contentment and looked at his companion. Partner. He smiled giddily. “Crowley, I want to thank you for taking me with you.” Crowley looked down, abashedly, murmuring something. Aziraphale, however, continued, “I want to ask you something. I should have asked you a month ago, but I was confused. About myself, about us. But you do not stop making me realize things. Look at me.” Aziraphale laid his hand close to Crowley’s, making the latter raise his head. He was shaking.
“My dear,” he nearly cooed. “This new world was laid out by us. You, and me. Well, and an adolescent Antichrist, but let’s not think about that too long. Anyways,” he sought the right words. “I can’t stand it, you living in your car, visiting me only when you can think of something to say. Who knows what may happen in the future? I just know, we have to hold onto each other. Please, come live with me.”
Crowley was still silent, but Aziraphale could see a trembling lip. Oh, bless him. The angel could hardly bear sitting still while his companion was unravelling before him. Love dripped from his fingers, as they found their way to Crowley’s, intertwining for the first time. Both their hands were clammy. “That’s where we’ll hang it?” Crowley finally asked quietly, holding onto Aziraphale’s hand like a lifeline. Aziraphale nodded, smiling happily. He felt brimming with light, nearly tipping over into something he wasn’t familiar with. But he wasn’t afraid, he just felt alive.
They drunkenly walked to their room, holding hands. No one batted an eye. Neither Heaven nor Hell could touch them anymore, Earth was their domain. They had made it known in front of God, Satan, the legions of Heaven and Hell, 33 days ago.
Crowley would never stop counting the days following it.
In the night, Crowley unwillingly awoke (unprecedented) to quiet, quick sobs; the dark room was dappled with a streetlamp’s light breaking through the patterned curtains. Outside, there was merry shouting on the streets, friends bringing each other home, leaning on each other to stay upright, holiness in the words on their tongues, bodies hot.
Aziraphale was curled up against the headboard of his bed, staring at his hands, crying. “Crowley,” he said when he saw the other was awake. “I can’t do this, I can’t…”
Crowley was sitting on the angel’s bed in a heartbeat, timidly moving closer. “Aziraphale, what is it?” The angel had been blindingly happy just a few hours ago, glowing with his newfound pride in their alliance - but realizations came in waves of certainty; Aziraphale needed time to get used to the new world. They had talked, until Crowley had begun feeling his usual desire to sleep; he cursed himself now for giving into the pull, he should have stayed up – he knew the angel disliked sleep. Aziraphale was still holding back, shallow breaths worsening his state. Crowley moved closer and tried to get him to breathe regularly again, but the angel was too shaken.
“Angel,” he said, in a low, helpless tone.
The usual, accidental term of endearment seemed to break Aziraphale’s rigour. He let out a heartbreaking sob, meeting Crowley’s eyes for the first time since he’d woken. “I don’t know exactly, I keep having these thoughts about bodies and bloodstreams and cells, and it’s scaring me. I don’t know how to be what I am, or what I even am in the first place.” His speech was fast, desperate; his head sank into his hands, shoulders trembling. Crowley hesitated, watching Aziraphale’s hair standing from his nape, unsure whether to touch or not. “Angel, I think this isn’t something anyone could give you instructions in.” Lightly, he let his hand touch a shoulder clothed in soft flannel pyjamas. “Like you said, this really is a new world. Uncharted territory. It’s up to us to navigate it.”
Aziraphale took another shaky breath. “What if they find us? What if they try to end us, again?” “We’ll make it. No matter what, we’ll make it. Come, angel, lay down. You really need to try some sleep. You’ll feel amazing tomorrow.”
Aziraphale complied, moving his body down, beneath the covers. Crowley, too tired to perform a safe miracle, stood up and pushed his bed closer, so they could lay comfortably side by side. Aziraphale watched him, a hand under his cheek, a contemplative look in his eyes. “Promise?”, Aziraphale whispered into the dark, quiet room, the sound of passing cars coming from the barely open window, their headlights illuminating the awful, awful wallpaper.
“Yes, I promise,” Crowley, knowing in his heart he'd rather die than give up anything they'd built up; laying down himself, face turned towards the ceiling. “Now go to sleep, or I’ll miracle you a nightcap.” He felt his eyes drooping, listening to the evened-out breath of Aziraphale beside him.
“What would I need a cap for when I sleep?”, the angel mumbled vaguely, before both entered the land of dreams.
On the evening before their departure, Aziraphale and Crowley attended an Open-Air performance of Sondheim’s Company, the overflowing crowd collapsing in laughter at the actor’s antics, then turning solemn, sniffling, at the closing number Being Alive. Hundreds of shining eyes were directed toward the grassy stage, breathing in unison.
Aziraphale turned to his companion, who had his long limbs, clad in black, stretched out, arms across the backs of their seats. The light reflected in Crowley’s sunglasses, but he always could make out the lovely yellow of his eyes beneath them. “Somebody crowd me with love, somebody force me to care, somebody make me come through, …” It was probably too soon, after the tentative hand holding the day before, but Aziraphale wanted so badly to reach out and touch the hand that rested near his own shoulder. He saw it flex, then looked up to meet Crowley’s eyes on him, waiting. Aziraphale realised Crowley had been ready for a while now. “I’ll always be there, as frightened as you, to help us survive, being alive, being alive, …” On the nose, surely – he had to smile. Crowley smiled back, no amount of sarcasm or reluctance left in him. Aziraphale took the hand, cradling it with his. He turned back to the performance with bated breath, barely noticing the lead actor belting out his last words.
Two yellow eyes burnt their usual mark into the angel’s profile. One look back, and Aziraphale couldn’t resist anymore, reaching up a hand to remove sunglasses; the crowd stood with applause, but between the countless bodies of humans celebrating the night, an angel kissed a demon.