Archive of Our Own

“And where are we going to go?" Crowley asks for the third time, sweeping their hair back into a high ponytail as they reach for a bag of potting soil. "You know as well as I do there’s nowhere they won’t find us."

“And you know, dear, that they’ll give up in two or three days anyway. Honestly, it wasn’t even that significant a temptation. All you did was help that young man give into the urge to steal a few bricks from the brickyard. He probably would have done it anyway, you know."

“You don’t know. How can you know? We didn’t give him the chance. And now a whole church isn’t being built!" They add a base level of soil to the flat of peat pots in front of them. "The local diocese has decided that the area isn’t safe enough to invest in, and they’ve cancelled sale of the property and everything. It was going to be a very significant church, you know. Someone in the congregation was set to be sainted in a few decades."

Aziraphale rolls his eyes. "Really, modern churches don’t have all that much to do with your lot anymore, do they? Besides, by the time those few decades had passed, either you or I would likely have disrupted the events some other way. Like always."

Like always. Their particular Situation is some 3000 years old by this point, give or take a couple of centuries. 800 BC or something, Crowley thinks, was about when they realized that no one had any intention of recalling them to Heaven. They were so tired by then—at least, they’re pretty sure tired is the right feeling—that they couldn’t be bothered to keep pretending that they weren’t at least a little relieved to keep running into Aziraphale. Demon though he is, Aziraphale has ever been the only familiar presence on the entire surface of the earth.

Well, usually. When one of them causes a little too much trouble (or in Aziraphale’s case, not quite enough trouble), Heaven and Hell do send the occasional ambassador.

It’s annoying, more than anything. Heaven’s envoys mostly just make jeering remarks about Crowley going native and about how, if they’d wanted to keep a garden so badly, they might have kept a closer eye on that apple tree. They’re a little afraid of Aziraphale now after the thing with the gold flake,¹ so Crowley’s found it easier just to keep the demon around. Less lonely, too, but they're not about to admit that.

Hell’s, when they come for Aziraphale, don’t usually accomplish much aside from getting things slimy and smelly. They never have figured out what to do with the fact that Aziraphale won’t trade out his feathers and talons for the new fashion, and they’re typically inclined to keep their distance.

Still. Crowley doesn’t want representatives of either side in the shop right now. The orchids are at far too critical a point in their growth cycle for any disturbance, and the sweet peas are just the tenderest little sprouts, and they’re only now getting around to trying the new hybrid calycanthus seeds, and—

“Crowley," Aziraphale croons, leaning back against the counter with his elbows up in a way that makes his waistcoat tighten across his chest just so. It calls attention to the fine fabric of it as much as the cut; one more thing Aziraphale has refused to change with the times. It’s ridiculously indulgent, preferring clothing that has to be hand-washed and manually repaired, but that’s Aziraphale all over. Crowley's done more than a bit of work mending his jacket over the years, and their attempts haven't always been graceful, but Aziraphale wears every visible seam with the kind of pride only a demon could muster.

“What?" Crowley snaps, not looking up from where they’re making wells in the soil.

“You’re thinking too much."

“Nope. Wrong. I am focusing on my work, you fiend. Not something you’d know much about."

“I resent that very much."

“Oh? Am I ruffling your feathers? Maybe you should just leave me to my work, then."

“You could just miracle them into position. You could even germinate them right away," Aziraphale points out as if they haven’t had this discussion dozens of times since Crowley opened the shop nearly a hundred years ago.

“And then they wouldn’t be natural, Aziraphale. And I wouldn’t get to observe them properly."

“Heaven must be missing a records keeper."

“Oh, buzz off." Crowley sends a few bees his way—illusory ones; they wouldn’t waste the real thing—and Aziraphale manifests a massive, sharp beak to snatch them out of the air.

“Angel, please. Just this once, hm? For me?"

“Doing something for you is the whole reason Heaven’s out to bother me in the first place."

“And wouldn’t it be fun to send them on a little chase?" Aziraphale’s pale eyes sparkle.

Crowley plants their palms on the table, dropping their head with a groan. They’re going to give in. They already know it. Aziraphale has a way of digging in his talons and flying off with Crowley’s good sense, and this doesn’t feel like it’s going to be an exception.

They heave a massive sigh, looking around at all the work to be done, all the orders to be filled, all the buds to nurture. "I’m busy, Aziraphale."

“You can put it in stasis, Crowley."

“It might stunt their growth. It might affect them in ways that aren’t obvious until they’re in bloom. It’s—it’s bad science. It’s bad gardening."

The slow smile that spreads across Aziraphale’s face tells Crowley they’re done for. "Would it be bad gardening if, for example, someone else put it all in stasis and you came along in, oh, let’s say three days, give or take, to repair the damage?"

“Three—three days? Can you even do that?"

“Well, provided no one opens the door to disrupt the circle I plan to set, yes." Aziraphale blinks and cocks his head in a distinctly birdlike manner, adjusting his coat as he straightens."Now. Are you going to help me move all your plants to the center of the room, dear, or shall I do it for you?"

“Don’t you dare touch a single one, you wretched creature. You scare them."

“Oh, pish," he scoffs, waving one clawed hand dismissively. "That's your imagination talking."

“It is not! They misbehave when you get around them. You’ve seen it. That whole shipment of bindweed grew in black after you watered them. Black! They don’t even have the capacity for that!"

“Were they or were they not exactly what that woman wanted for her husband’s funeral?" Aziraphale tilts his head the other way, lightning-quick, always watching beady-eyed for a weak point. He's exhausting. Crowley's life would be exceptionally dull without him.

“That is not the point." Crowley decides it’s best to make the point entirely moot, so they start pulling tables and displays toward the shop’s center. "How much room do you need?"

— — —

“I still hate this. For the record," Crowley says a few hours later, slipping awkwardly into the pathetically small sidecar attached to Aziraphale’s very old bicycle. It’s a hulking chrome beast of a thing despite its spindly frame, and Crowley has never stopped being afraid that they’ll get discorporated on it, but Aziraphale says it’s the closest thing there is to flying, and, well. Crowley can hardly deny him that.

“You can’t hate anything, dearest, you’re an angel. Now settle in, would you? This will be a bumpy ride."

Crowley grumbles and shifts their legs around. "This thing is too small. I keep telling you. And I feel like an idiot."

“Nonsense! I built it just for you!"

“I built it!"

“Well, I designed it."

“I designed it, too! I thought you were going to help me deliver orders with it. It’s meant for cargo, Aziraphale, not florists!"

“Lucky for us that you’re not just any old florist, then. You’re an angel, and you know as well as I do that you can fit in perfectly if you just decide to."

"I don’t even know where we’re going."

They grip the edges of the car when Aziraphale confesses, "Neither do I. But wherever we end up, I can rest easy knowing that my extremely fragile cargo will arrive safely alongside me."

“I’ll show you fragile," Crowley mutters, slipping on their helmet, and then they try very, very hard to avoid watching the absolutely unnatural pace of Aziraphale’s strong legs as he begins to pedal.

— — —

Crowley would go crawling back to Heaven before they admitted it, but they’re a little disappointed when their unsafely rapid departure from Soho leads them through a dozen close calls with pedestrians, a malfunctioning traffic signal, and then… right back to the same block.

“Weeeellll. They’ll really never find us here," they say, rolling their eyes and hurrying to extricate themself from their seat the moment the bike clunks to a stop.

Except.

There’s no As the Crow Flies on the corner where there ought to be. There is, instead, A.Z. Fell and Co.: Antiquarian and Unusual Books.

Crowley narrows their eyes. "Didn’t you go by Fell for a bit?"

“If by ‘a bit,’ you mean several centuries, including this one, then yes," Aziraphale says dryly.

“Right… don’t think you ever owned a bookshop, though. Or any kind of shop." Crowley’s not all that sure what antiquarian means in this context.

“Goodness, no. Can you imagine letting people buy my things? After all that time I took to find them?" He takes off his helmet—it’s a testament to how unsettled Crowley’s been today, really, that they didn’t take the time to tease Aziraphale about being a safety-conscious demon—revealing a wondering expression on his broad, handsome face. He runs a hand through his whiskers, stroking through the thick, wiry beard he’s maintained since sometime in the late 19th century. That, at least, is back in style. (In Crowley’s personal opinion, it never really went out, at least not as it pertains to this particular occult being. There’s something compelling about the way it grows out just so, neatly maintained like garden rows, that makes them think Aziraphale just might have it in him to learn about plants after all. Someday.)

“So we’re not in the past," Crowley surmises, though the appearance of the street itself and the people on it is enough to tell them that. "Not, I’d wager, in the future, either."

“I should hope not," Aziraphale says, distaste dripping from him at the very thought. He adjusts his coat in the bookshop window, looking at his reflection just a bit longer than strictly necessary.

He’s a vain thing. Crowley shouldn’t be surprised that they’ve ended up somewhere that has something to do with him. "So where are we?"

“Well, my dear, I think we’re… somewhere else," he says mysteriously, eyes gone wide and excited when he turns to look at Crowley, and oh, no, Aziraphale thinks they’re on an adventure.

Crowley hates adventures. Inevitably, they end up in stupid situations and Aziraphale gets to swoop in to save them from—to name a few—ancient curses, bear cubs, actual real bees who are very angry and pointedly not inclined to listen to Crowley, and adoring fans who get them confused for some singer or other. "Yeah, but it’s not somewhere else, is it? I mean, it’s the same building and all—ugh. Oh, Aziraphale, you didn’t," they gripe, wilting even further.

“It’s as you said, angel. No one will even imagine to come looking for us here. Now, shall we go inside?"

“Oh, absolutely not," Crowley says. "You do what you like. Me, I’ll be—I’ll be at the park." At least there are trees there. They might even, if asked nicely, be willing to let Crowley sleep in their branches undetected. Three days. They’re not talking to Azirphale after this for at least three weeks.

They step to the side, using the bookshop’s other window to fix their hair where it’s fallen yet again, little fiery wisps of it escaping in all directions, and they freeze.

Aziraphale is staring back at them—they’d know those eyes anywhere—but everything about him is all wrong. Never mind the fact that Crowley’s Aziraphale is still preening in the little round mirror of the bicycle just a few feet away, annoyingly certain that Crowley won’t actually leave him to go find a park.

The very wrong Aziraphale inside the shop drops the book he’s holding and walks hurriedly out of sight.

Crowley’s certain that they’re home free; not-Aziraphale will lock the door and bar their entry, and actual-Aziraphale will pout about his fun being ruined, and then they’ll just… go somewhere else. Home, if they’re lucky.

Except that Aziraphale is apparently an awful, bloody-minded thing in every single universe, because A.Z. Fell himself opens the door wide and pops out cheerfully. "Crowley! I didn’t expect you back until—what are you weari—oh. Oh dear, you are not Crowley. You’re—" Fell gasps, both hands clapped over his mouth in a way that perfectly frames a ridiculous tartan bowtie. "Why, my dear, you’re an angel."

Crowley, who has just come to the same conclusion in the opposite direction, only gapes, mouth attempting to form words that don’t quite follow through.

And then, from off to the left, a voice that’s so familiar but the slightest bit wrong, like the recording of their voice dictating the shop's phone tree:² "Sorry, angel, they were out of—oh, absolutely not. No. Nope. Begone, foul demon, and all that."

“Crowley!" Fell says, placing his hands on his hips. "There’s no need to be rude to our guests. Besides, can’t you see? They’re not a demon at all."

Without shaking loose his very dark sunglasses, the other Crowley jerks his head toward Aziraphale. "Yeah, that one is, though." He’s giving off such an aura of fear that Crowley takes a reflexive soothing step toward him, which only results in the shorter-haired, taller—taller?— copy of them jerking the boxes he’s carrying sharply in the other direction. When the demon manages to drag his gaze away from Aziraphale, it settles on Crowley's exposed forearms, and he grows more alarmed if anything.

Crowley is equally startled by the fact that the only visible tattoo on their demonic counterpart appears to be a tiny little slip of a snake. Their skin hasn't been blank like that in ages. It's unsettling, like all their time getting them done the human way could just be undone simple as anything. Just to make sure, they look down and find everything near their hands still in place, the celestial bodies and fruits of the earth alike. They almost relax, but the situation is still too weird.

“Oh," Aziraphale says, finally straightening up and looking supremely unbothered by the whole thing. "Are those pastries? They smell divine."

— — —

Crowley does not want to go into the bookshop, but they have even less of an inclination to make a fuss in the street. The only thing worse than having Heaven after them in one universe is getting an entirely different Heaven involved—or would it be the same one? Couldn’t be, could it? Two Crowleys. Two Aziraphales. Very, very different trajectories, so far as they can tell. So there must be two Heavens.

…Ugh. "Two Gabriels," they grind out, taking the last step through the door.

The other Crowley shudders just as they do, and they give each other a good staredown until the other Crowley takes off his sunglasses. At that point, he very firmly wins the contest, and Crowley looks away from those slit pupils, blinking enough for the both of them.

Something starts squirming deep in their chest. A snake. They’d have been a snake if they’d Fallen. They’ve always wondered. Mortal enemies, weren’t they, birds and snakes? Always out to get each other.

“So," Fell says grandly, returning from the back with four kitschy mismatched plates and doling out little cream puffs onto each. "What brings you to my shop?"

“Vacation," Aziraphale lies smoothly, testing the cream with one gloved finger before beginning to devour the pastry with small, quick bites.

The other Crowley looks horrified; when Crowley looks at Fell, they see that he has simply placed the whole thing in his mouth and is now sitting with eyes closed, savoring.

Their Aziraphale doesn’t savor. Their Aziraphale consumes, pecks away until every bit of it is his. Crowley has always been just a bit fond of the frantic nature of it, like a manifestation of Aziraphale’s old method of peppering the Almighty with questions and analysis and suggestions until She got so tired of him that She cast him out.

Well. They’re not so fond of that part.

Still, this Fell character, the angelic one—he has none of Aziraphale’s relentless energy, only a lassitude that seems, quite frankly, alarmingly close to sloth. He is not, Crowley surmises, very good at being an angel.

Given that they’ve just run off with a demon to an alternate universe, they suppose that makes two of them, really.

The other Crowley scoffs. "Oh, see, angel? They can do it. Just pick up and go."

It hits Crowley somewhere very deep and very, very wrong to hear the endearment roll off this other Crowley’s tongue—and it is, undoubtedly, an endearment, not just a statement of fact like when Aziraphale says it to them.

“Crowley," Fell says sadly, and they both look at him. "Oh—well, this won’t do. Tell me, dear, do you have another name I might use?"

Crowley blinks. It had been hard enough picking Crowley, frankly, and finding new ways to explain it away every time another angel (or Aziraphale) started up with the questions. "Er. No? I mean, I have an initial, but it doesn’t really stand for anything. S’just a J."

The other Crowley emits a fine mist of steam.

“Well." Fell brightens, looking to his own Crowley. "I suppose it’s about time I learn to get used to ‘Anthony,’ isn’t it?"

Crowley chokes on their tea. "All the names in the world and you picked Anthony?"

“You didn’t pick one at all!" Anthony snaps from where he’s pacing behind Fell’s chair.

“Oh, settle down, both of you." Aziraphale is enjoying himself far too much, in Crowley’s opinion. Then again, that’s more or less their whole thing. Crowley hasn’t yet found a way to get him to back down from something that amuses him.

When Anthony’s face twitches into the same smile Crowley knows is on their own face—Aziraphale trying to sound commanding is never anything short of hilarious, even when it works—it’s just too much. They get up, handing their plate (complete with untouched pastry) to Aziraphale. "Mind if I…?" they ask, waving a hand at the shelves, and Fell’s face lights up the way Aziraphale’s always does when Crowley consents to a trip by bicycle. It’s unsettling, the way they’re so similar and so different.

“Go right ahead, my dear. Mind the floorboard toward the back. Someone thought it would be funny to give it a bit of agency, and now it has a tendency to trip anyone unfamiliar."

“Aahh, angel, don’t call them that. S’weird," Anthony complains—whines, really. "And anyhow, keeps people from coming back trying to buy things, doesn’t it?"

“Oh! So you don’t sell them!" Aziraphale exclaims, sounding suddenly even more invested.

“Goodness, no. Of course not. Terribly hard to come by, most of them. Do you know that I have…"

Crowley lets their chatter fade out until it’s only background noise: two voices nearly identical in timbre and enthusiasm, with the exception that one of them is a bit more hoarse and hollow and a great deal dearer to them. They keep an ear tuned to it as they browse just in case something should go wrong—Aziraphale can get a little covetous of fine things, and there are plenty of those to be found here—but they lose track a bit when they spot a shelf of historical botany journals, gardening tips, and floral encyclopedias. One shelf is populated with little potted plants: pothos, monstera, and sansevieria. Basic. On-the-nose, in the case of the last one. They’d scoff at the display except that the plants look as if a cruel word might send them shrinking right back into the soil.

“You’re doing the best you can with what you’ve been given," they assure them. "I know. It isn’t ideal. I mean, you, look at the size of you! It’ll be ages before you need a pot that big. Probably not even getting all the water you’re given. And you," they continue, dropping to one knee and sticking a finger into the soil. They do scoff now. "Bone dry. You ought to have been watered yesterday, look, it’s flaking right off."

The plants, oddly enough, begin to tremble.

“Well, it isn’t your fault. Here, I’ll get you—"

“Get out," Anthony directs, arms crossed and foot tapping. He looks as though he barely knows how to stand, now that Crowley’s looking at him, much less how to stand sternly. It isn’t actually that he’s any taller; it’s just that his entire body doesn’t quite seem to know how to be. "Listen, you might be—might not be—you’re like that," he says with disgust, gesturing up and down Crowley’s body, "but that doesn’t mean you can be nice to them. They’ll start expecting it."

“Shouldn’t they?"

“No!" Anthony is apparently properly outraged, as his protest is loud enough to make the Aziraphales go quiet. "And how d—" He pauses, cracking his neck to either side and swallowing hard like someone trying to gain composure.

It's… frankly, it's bizarre, seeing such a near-match of their own face go through some kind of emotional turmoil right in front of them. Do they look like that when they're arguing with Aziraphale? The thought is immediately unpleasant, and they resolve then and there to take care never to put on such a flagrant display of distress.

Anthony figures himself out with another few shuffling steps and another moment of clenched fists. "How dare you let him be the one to Fall."

Crowley falls right over from their half-crouch. "Let him? He—excuse me. Have you ever tried to stop him doing anything?"

Anthony looks—haunted, briefly, gone all pale and shocked, and he backs down, swallowing hard again. He shouldn't need to do that. Crowley doesn't need to do that. Is it a snake thing? "Don't," is all he says, and Crowley raises both hands. They haven't been afraid of demons since something like the 8th century, and they're not really afraid of this one now, given that Aziraphale is just a hop away, but it's a very near thing.

"How?" Anthony croaks.

Crowley shrugs, getting to their feet and not bothering to dust off their knees. Lucky that they always travel in work clothes; new scuffs and tears will hardly be noticeable, if there are any. "He just. Asked a lot of questions, as I recall. Very loudly and very directly. Had a lot to say about the arts, in particular. Seemed to think it was a waste, the whole Armageddon thing. There may have been a—a suggestion box." Which Crowley may have designed. As a joke! As an attempt to make Aziraphale feel better! And Aziraphale had just gone off with it and made the absolute worst kind of history. It strikes them as a very terrible idea to voice that part, given how stricken Anthony already looks.

"And you, how did you…" He only gestures again, like he doesn't have the words.

Crowley guesses at them. Shrugs again. "Did a couple millennia in design. When it came time to open the thing, I just forgot to try harder to stay in an armed squad. They put me in charge of cataloging. You know. What the humans interacted with and what they avoided. Said something like, 'Well, someone has to keep an eye on things, and you're not really gate guardian material. Just get down there and try not to get in the way.'"

Anthony gapes.

Crowley tries very hard not to shrug a third time and ends up sort of awkwardly hugging themself instead. "Might be I got a little distracted. There were," they swallow this time, trying to mirror Anthony in the way Aziraphale always tells him is important for empathetic communication. "Well, there were a lot of plants, is all. Fascinating down to their cellular structure, they are. I only got to work on a few, but seeing them up close, doing what they were meant to do? Nothing like that in Heaven," they say dreamily, remembering. There had been so many more plants then.

"So I might not have noticed. As such. When one odd bird started causing some trouble," they say, peeking around the nearest bookshelf where Aziraphale is eagerly leaning in to chat with a much more properly postured version of himself.

"Cause you a lot of trouble, does he?" Anthony murmurs, apparently settled somewhat. The look lingering on Fell is so soft as to be fond, and that's—Crowley didn't know that demons could do fond aside from being fond of shiny little trinkets and upsettingly rich desserts and cozy flower shop window seats secretly optimized just for them.

"You can't imagine," is all Crowley says, and Anthony snorts rudely in return.

"Don't need to."

Watching Fell lean in conspiratorially, snatching up what is at least his fifth cream puff, Crowley sort of believes him.

They start to wander back toward the front, but a set of framed photos on a low table catches their eye, and they approach that instead. They're all perfectly bizarre photographs—there's a picture of a grinning Fell with a drawn-on mustache and Anthony in a sharp suit looking like he's about to keel over, a headshot of Anthony in dated women's attire looking like an immovable object and an unstoppable force all rolled into one, and a wide shot showing Fell with some truly out-of-control facial hair digging in a very nice garden.

"Oh, what is that," they groan, bending down to look more closely. "Terrible idea, I mean really. Do you have any idea what happens to my garden when he pokes about in it?"

Anthony turns a funny shade of pink and coughs out, "Nope. No idea what you mean," in a clipped tone that only leaves Crowley more confused.

"That creature," they say, pointing at Aziraphale, "is a menace. Absolutely not allowed to touch the merchandise."

"Right," Anthony rasps, looking around wildly. "Listen. What are we talking about."

"Plants. The flower shop? Do you—you don't run a florist's, do you? Of course not. Basic houseplants. Awful conduct. You'd never turn a profit."

Before Anthony can form a response, their attention is simultaneously caught from off to the side when Aziraphale laughs loudly and says, "You'd make a fine demon if you ever chose it, you know. You already have all the basic building blocks!"

"Oh! Do you really think I'd be any good? It's just—oh, hello, dear! We were just discussing—"

"Oh, I heard what you were discussing, angel," Anthony says, yellow eyes burning now as he looks at Aziraphale. "Right. Well. Been lovely having guests, ta very much for dropping by, time to go."

"Oh, but Crowley… er, Anthony, we haven't even treated them to dinner! It would only be right, don't you think?"

As Anthony goes on a barely restrained ramble about how absolutely nothing about this visit is right, Crowley returns to their seat beside Aziraphale.

"Good time, petal?"

"Ugh. Don't," Crowley complains, shaking off both the arm around their shoulders and the annoying pet name Aziraphale only pulls out when he's showing off. "Maybe we ought to go. At least somewhere else around here." They look over to where Anthony is making less and less frantic pleas while sitting very casually on the arm of Fell's chair.

"But they're so interesting," Aziraphale counters, gaze sharp on the interaction taking place nearby. "Did you know they've done two apocalypses already? Anthony is retired. I didn't know that was an option."

Crowley blinks, their own eyes stuck on Aziraphale's expression, which has turned wistful. "What, would you—would you want that? Thought you liked your job."

"If I retired, you'd never need to run another temptation for me. You could just—do good."

"Yeahhh, but then I'd have to do all the good, wouldn't I? And run the shop. And deal with making up for whatever evil your replacement got up to. Fine deal for you, though." They're not going to say that they don't mind—have never really minded—doing a little mischief alongside a batch of blessings. Temptations tend to come with a lot more room for creativity and interpretation.

"You wouldn't make a half-bad demon either, lazy old thing," Aziraphale says.

"You take that back. I am an Angel of the Lord." Whatever that means these days. It's been a long while since they've had a clear idea.

Fell makes a high-pitched sound. "Oh, you really must stay for dinner. I have so many questions for you."

Wide-eyed, Crowley turns to Aziraphale who, as usual, is no help at all, too busy using his tea saucer as a makeshift mirror—no, the look he's giving it is a different admiring look than the one he gives himself. He's going to try to pocket the thing. "Put that down," Crowley directs, and Aziraphale's pout absolutely does not sway them in the slightest. "Don't take us anywhere you want to go back to. He'll walk off with something or other. Can't help it."

Aziraphale pulls a face, but he doesn't deny it.

"Fascinating," Fell murmurs.

"Ugh," says Anthony.

— — —

Because no one ever listens to Crowley, Fell and Anthony take them to their favorite place for dinner.

They ride in the back of Anthony's car—our car, Fell calls it, but Anthony is the one who drives. He drives, in fact, just about as quickly and recklessly as Aziraphale, and Crowley can't help but ask, "Is the speed thing really just because you can't fly anymore?"

Everything screeches to a halt, including: the very genre-confused music, the low-level chatter, the car itself, and Crowley's heart, though that's mostly because they're so baffled by the rest that they forget to remind it to beat.

"I can fly just fine," Anthony says stiffly, turning around to let the full force of his unblinking yellow gaze settle on Crowley's face.

"He really can," Fell puts in. "Quite acrobatic, he is, and has some of the loveliest kept wings. Why would you think—oh."

Fell and Anthony are both staring at Aziraphale now, and Crowley sucks in a breath in hopes that it will jumpstart their brain into having something useful to say to fix this.

"Well," Aziraphale says mildly, "I can't." He makes it sound so simple, but Crowley knows what a sore spot it really is.

They sneak one of their hands into his to squeeze. It's not much of an apology, but it's all they can think of. They don't mind at all when the sharp points of his talons dig in. They mind so little, in fact, that they consider what a nice addition those pinpricks might be to the inked designs already running up and down their arms. The tattoos depict a great many of their favorite things—many of which they'd designed in the first place, back Before—but they've never worked out a good way to reference Aziraphale directly without being too obvious. And, in a way (a way they don't much like to think about), they're a little bit responsible for designing Aziraphale, too. It would only be right. They flex their fingers, letting the points settle closer against their skin, mentally marking out the places where they come to rest.

"For a time, I could fly when I took my animal form, but I'm afraid that's all only aesthetic now. Someone in Hell saw fit to—clip my wings, as it were. The secondary ones, that is. The primary ones were quite well done for after the Fall. Now, it doesn't matter what appearance I take on; if there are wings, they simply don't work."

Anthony makes an agonized sound and throws the car back into full speed.

"Anthony, you didn't, er, encounter that problem?" Aziraphale asks, sounding small, and that's all wrong.

"Had help," Anthony spits. "Lucky for me my angel was halfway competent and wasn't just lying about, counting flowers."

Crowley flinches. They hadn't known they could help. They would have been too afraid, probably, even if they had known.

"Oh, I was on Earth long before Crowley," Aziraphale lies—lies! For them!—while squeezing Crowley's hand again. "Anyway, it hardly matters now. Wings are really just a formality for travel, aren't they? It's not as if I'm prevented from being where I'm needed. I’ve got a very reliable velocipede."

Crowley doesn’t have the energy to beg him to call it a bicycle the way they normally would. The car appears to be willing to do this for them, as it begins playing a song that, to the best of their understanding, might be composed entirely of the phrase I want to ride my bicycle.³

The mood remains as smooth as shattered glass for the rest of the quiet ride and for the walk up to their table for four.

"Well now," Fell says, folding his napkin neatly in his lap and trying for a magnanimous smile. It trembles at the corners, giving away his discomfort. "We'll have a lovely dinner and talk about nicer things, shall we? We'll start with drinks."

Crowley stares at him. "Drinks. Alcoholic drinks?"

"Yes? Oh—oh dear, don't tell me you made it through your Armageddon entirely sober!"

"We haven't—I mean, is it a sure thing, Armageddon?"

"Must be. Right? You really… none of it? No… murmurings about an antichrist, no horsepeople, no celestial armies readying themselves?" Anthony asks, the bored drawl failing entirely to cover his envy.

"Not a whisper," Aziraphale confirms. "At least not any more than the age-old taunting. 'We will win and there will be Heaven on Earth.' Spare me."

Anthony toasts Aziraphale with his glass of water.

Fell looks at Crowley instead. "And you're sure you're not keeping any information quiet? It doesn't do any good whatsoever. I should know."

Crowley shakes their head, watching Anthony knock his shoulder against Fell's.

Aziraphale chuckles beside them. "Honestly doubt they've ever tried keeping a secret from me," he boasts. He's wrong, but Crowley's not inclined to correct him. "I'm practically a walking confession booth."

"Oh! Is that the purpose of the…" Fell trails off, gesturing at his own face.

Aziraphale sits back, clearly offended. "Absolutely not. The purpose of—" he mimics the gesture at a slightly higher speed and choppier pace— "this is that it's very dashing. My barber recommended it."

"A hundred and fifty years ago," Crowley mutters under their breath.

"You don't like it?"

"I didn't say that."

Aziraphale beams, and for a moment or two, everything is right again.

And then Fell opens his mouth, which Crowley is beginning to think was the whole reason this universe bothered with apocalypses.⁴

"I've been waiting ever so patiently, but I am desperately curious. How is it that we've ended up with the same names? There was never any angel I knew with a name like Crowley, and Hell certainly didn't let anyone keep the names they started with. At the very least, here, you'd be Azirapalala⁵ or some such."

This makes Fell and Anthony snicker for some reason as if sharing the world's most inane inside joke.

"Well," Aziraphale sniffs, "I wasn't much for doing as I was told Upstairs. I hardly saw the point in starting after getting—permanently reassigned."

All eyes ease over to Crowley, who has up to this point managed to squirm away from this particular conversation. Maybe they have been snakelike all along, just a bit. "I just. Picked it. Angel name was a little too weird after the whole Babel thing, new dominant language, what have you." Weird is the polite kind of understatement that makes the problem safely about someone else. They still haven't worked out how to say it was just wrong for me in a way that makes sense to anyone. Babel had been a convenient cover for a centuries-old dilemma.

"Well, you can't have been Crowley all those centuries. That wouldn't have fit conventions until much later," Fell needles, speaking hurriedly to the wait staff before turning his attention back to Crowley.

"Nah, it's. Adapted. Over time."

"From Crawly, by any chance?" Anthony drawls.

"Er—Crawley, yeah," they confirm, barely noticing the difference in spelling⁶ in their gratitude for the out. The gratitude fades when an extremely evil smirk takes up residence on Anthony's face.

"Derived from the Old English for—"

"Not necessarily!" Crowley rushes to cut him off, wincing when a few people at surrounding tables turn to look at them.

"Oh? Know many Raghallachs,⁷ then, did you?"

Aziraphale frowns. "Did you?"

"Can't remember," Crowley wheezes, caught.

Fell is the one to verbalize the conclusion, and Crowley once again thinks decidedly uncharitable thoughts about their fellow angel. "Oh! Oh, well isn't that just darling."

"Is not," Crowley grits.

Aziraphale is wearing an expression that gives the impression of someone doing complicated mental math.⁸ "And before Crawley, it was—oh. From… well, they've all been… they've all been derived from some contemporary word for blackbird or crow," he determines, looking altogether too surprised for someone so very clever. He sounds like his heart is breaking. Broken. Not well in some form. Crowley did that. They hate doing that. "Oh, angel. You could have said."

"Thought it was pretty obvious. Literally in the name. God forgive me for my subtlety."

Anthony snorts, and the look he and Fell exchange slots something into place in Crowley's mind. They are already—whatever it is Crowley and Aziraphale are dancing around.

Our car. Pictures of them both in the bookshop. Anthony's fierce defense of Fell. Angel.

Well. Maybe not that one.

(But also, maybe that one.)

Dinner arrives without any of them having ordered properly, and Crowley wonders which of them is responsible until Anthony raises a glass in their direction. "Do better," he hisses, the words lost to everyone else under the exuberant chatter of Aziraphale having finally met a conversational match.

Crowley can—well, they can certainly try. They raise their glass in return, just in time to see an especially shiny napkin ring make its way into Aziraphale's chest pocket. "If you put that back," they murmur, leaning over into his space, "we can go somewhere else tomorrow. Another adventure."

The napkin ring returns immediately to its place on the table,⁹ and its sparkle is only half as bright as Aziraphale's eyes.

— — — — — —

Much later that night, back in the bookshop, only one pair of supernatural entities remains.

The Principality Aziraphale sinks gratefully into his favorite chair, still overall pleased with the day's events but quite glad to return to his usual state of affairs.

The demon Crowley, far too exhausted by it all to bother with anything so complicated as maintaining a properly shaped human spine, slumps just as gratefully at Aziraphale's feet, leaning back heavily against the front of the chair and tilting his head back to rest on Aziraphale's knee.

"That can't be comfortable, Anthony, darling," Aziraphale worries, stroking through the short strands of his red hair just the same.

"Ugh. Crowley. Please."

"Are you quite sure? I always felt rather bad, you know, never trying it out."

"S'fine."

"Hmm."

"Like the way you say it. All these years… be weird now. Changing it."

Aziraphale doesn't bother to point out that they've changed things far more significant than names over the past several years.

"I didn't like that," Crowley puts forth, straightforward as he can be. "Meeting them. Ought to put a lock on the… universe. Can we do that? We could probably do that."

Aziraphale hums again. "I thought it was a nice diversion, all things considered."

"Mm. Diverted you right away from that inventory update."

"It certainly did." Aziraphale pauses, fingers stopping their movement briefly. "Crowley?"

"Mm?"

"Do you think I should grow a beard?"

Crowley chokes, lurching forward so he can turn his upper body around and stare at Aziraphale. "No. Absolutely not."

"Oh. I thought it might be—dashing."

"No," Crowley insists. "Like me asking if you think I should…" he trails off, apparently unable to find an appropriate equivalent.

"Well, I think you ought to stay exactly as you are," Aziraphale says firmly, laying his hand alongside that dear face. "It was a shock, seeing them without this." He strokes a thumb over the snake marking. "Without your beautiful eyes. Oh, Crowley, it was the most uncanny thing. I would have loved to find out more about them, but, well. It was much easier to look at a strange version of myself."

It had been alarmingly easy, actually, almost just like a reflection, aside from the beard and the scaly skin and dark talons that had emerged when he'd grown comfortable enough to remove his gloves, but Aziraphale isn't inclined to share that information. He's even less inclined to share that, for a moment or two, he'd considered that it might be comforting to wear proof of his rebellion in such a visible way.

That other Aziraphale was twice the tempter Crowley had ever been, that's all, and he'd been greedy for Aziraphale's attention. That, or Aziraphale is simply much more vain overall than he's comfortable with. Given that it's over and their new acquaintances are gone, he doesn't think it bears examining.

"Would've. Would've thought you preferred it," Crowley stammers, and then he backpedals almost instantly. "Few years ago, I mean. You know."

"And years before that, I might have thought you'd prefer a version of me with no attachment left to Heaven," Aziraphale responds crisply. "And we would both have been wrong, because you've always been right, my dear. We were never meant to be on either side. Only our own."

Crowley gives a little half-nod, and Aziraphale knows it means he's out of words for the moment, which, if he's honest, suits him just fine. He has a lot to report, after all.

"Did you know," he starts, leaning in and lowering his voice for dramatic effect, "they don't even have an Arrangement? They have a Situation. Sounds positively messy, doesn't it? Though I'll give them this, they got that part worked out far earlier than we did. They were already sharing the workload nearly a millennium B.C.! I think it's because—and don't take this the wrong way, love—you're probably just a bit inclined toward low effort in any universe, and it was very demanding being an angel in those years. And I… well, if nothing else, I think I'd be quite lonely without you in any universe. I think it's—"

Crowley lets out an irritated hiss and slips his way back into standing, cornering Aziraphale with a hand on each arm of the chair and kissing him firmly before he can say ineffable.

On the nearest bookcase, the spine of a large, inky-black plume—a little souvenir from the demon Aziraphale—catches the streetlight just right, and in the split second before he's pulled to his feet, Aziraphale sees it all: every universe in which he Fell, every one in which Crowley did, and everything in between, and for one moment across all of the infinite possibilities of time and space, every possible iteration of them is joined at the hands and full of the kind of enduring mutual regard humans can only dream of achieving.

"I was going to say," he lies, huffing, "that I think it's lovely to consider that maybe we'll always find each other, you and I. I think it's—I think it's wonderful."

"And I think I'm ready to sleep this day off, angel. Let's go home." He doesn't need to say the rest; the soft look in his eyes and the way he can't seem to let go of Aziraphale's hand do all of the work: he thinks it's wonderful, too.

There's a new plant in the backseat of the Bentley when they get inside: a neatly potted, polite-looking little sapling. Driven into its soil is a small sign with care instructions on one side (including some emphatic underlining that feels extremely pointed) and a note in two different penmanships on the other.

Thanks, says the neater hand.
Hope you like apples ;), reads the second.