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"It's not that I'm not grateful, you know," Aziraphale informed Crowley in what he told himself was an extremely reasonable tone.
Crowley made a vague noise, which Aziraphale took as permission to continue. To be frank, he would have taken anything short of a herd of rampaging elephants as permission, since this particular issue had been niggling at his mind for ages.
"Everything is exactly the same, but I know it's been changed, you see? And some things are different. Like--like this." He picked up a small tuckbox with a gilt design of a well-endowed woman on the front and--well, he didn't precisely scowl, but he did pout.
"Like what?" Crowley's tone was indistinguishable from a yawn. He lounged in one of Aziraphale's myriad squashy armchairs, though lounging was a generous term. Melting was more accurate.
"If you'd look over here instead of becoming one with my upholstery, you'd see." Aziraphale couldn't manage proper sharpness. Crowley had arranged the armchair to take advantage of the golden light beaming in from the window, and it shone in his short red hair and his single open yellow eye. His sunglasses rested on the side table, utterly forgotten.
Crowley looked, though looking was a generous term, since he gave it no more attention than he had any of Aziraphale's other comments that morning. "Cards? D'you want to play bridge or something? Because I, for one, am not in the mood for so much math."
"It's a tarot deck." On the last two words, Aziraphale dropped his voice to a low whisper, though he managed not to peek over his shoulder for any errant observers. No one was interested in what they were doing any longer. But erasing that ever-present worry of being watched would take more than a year and some change.
"What, you mean that silly game Venetian nobles used to play?" Crowley rallied--at the thought of wickedness afoot perhaps, or more likely because the sunlight had shifted and he needed to adjust his. "Dunno if I remember the rules. It was so long ago, and they were so stupid..." His eyes brightened at the obscene cover art, and he seized the deck, shaking out the cards and snickering at the illustrations. "Just when I think I've seen everything humans can do with a penis."
Aziraphale pretended not to hear his comment, nor did he glance at the cards, since he had no interest in whatever details were making Crowley giggle. "The card game has long since been out of fashion. No, these days, tarot is strictly a tool of the occult." Aziraphale bit his lip. "Still... if it's here, I might as well catalog it. I might be able to foist it off on some tourist."
"You? Selling something?" Of course this was what truly amused Crowley, his half-awake laughter transforming into honest mirth. "Does that cash register even work? Do you have modern change in there? Or do you still expect people to pay you in ha'pennies?"
Aziraphale bristled, though he couldn't manage a proper strop when Crowley looked so at ease. "I'll have you know that is a top of the line machine. I've simply never needed to upgrade."
"Yes, because you've simply never needed to make a sale." Crowley gestured at the chair, and it scooted over, into a better angle for the sunbeam.
Aziraphale tutted, though he was glad for a change of subject. "Really, Crowley, it's bad enough having everything replaced without you moving things. Don't tell me you're still tired after that nap you took."
"After the events of the last eleven years, I believe I will be tired for the rest of the century." Crowley's voice turned uninterested, but he shifted his weight in the chair in a way that had nothing to do with the angle of the sun and everything to do with the topic.
Aziraphale studied him. Crowley was still relaxed, ready, as ever, to slip into a nap wherever he was, but something was off, exactly like the arrangement of the bookstore.
It was no fun to complain if Crowley wasn't immediately rushing to fix everything, even as he pretended he wasn't. Aziraphale drummed his fingers on the box, then clucked. "Well, if you're still tired, let me freshen up the spare bedroom. I ought to see if anything's changed there anyway."
Crowley opened his eyes, though the relaxation of before was still missing. "You have a guest bedroom? For what?" He snorted. "For extra book storage, obviously."
Aziraphale huffed, though Crowley was entirely correct. If things were as he had left them before the failed apocalypse, then he would have to shift boxes of books off the mattress. He didn't want to miracle them away, since that would interfere with his investigation. "I have a system," he said instead. He could not entirely resist the urge to glance askance at Crowley, who did not offer any retort, only rested his head on his arm. It could have been his usual lethargy, but Aziraphale knew the truth.
Well. Odds were good Crowley would be asleep for a while. He would have a chance to consider how to fix things.
"Come upstairs in five minutes," he said in that firm tone that always made Crowley perk up, no matter how black his mood. "I'll make up the bed."
***
Crowley liked dreams. All looped back to that wonderful human quality of imagination, didn't it? In dreams, anything was possible.
Normally, he didn't need anything to be possible. He quite liked his life, and now that both sides were sweeping Armageddon under the rug with an embarrassed shrug and some fingers pointed vaguely in the wrong directions, like a truly disgusting mess hacked up onto the carpet by a cat before a dinner party, he couldn't think of much more he desired.
Well. Maybe, curled into sheets that had never been used and still somehow smelled of Aziraphale, he could. But he tried not to.
Still, it was no wonder his mind drifted where it did.
In his dream, they were alone on the edge of a cliff, looking out toward the sea. Crowley glanced down at his outfit. Ah. Bildad the Shuhite. Good times.
Remembering these little moments came easier now. No time limit hanging over his head. He could admire the scenery, pick goat hair from his robes, and take deep breaths of the salt air, all without wondering when it was going to end. If it was going to vanish in the next hour, or if he would have another few centuries to settle in.
Aziraphale sat beside him, but Crowley did not look at him, the same way he didn't look at the sun without his tinted lenses. He couldn't remember precisely how long they sat together in silence after their conversation, where the angel sobbed and moaned at the idea of being a demon, as if that were the worst possible thing that could happen to a being, and Crowley, very graciously, did not take offense.
(Since, after all, when he woke up face-down on the crooked tiles of hell, he would have liked someone to sit beside him and say everything was going to be all right, even if it would never be the same.)
(No one did, of course. It was hell, for Lucifer's sake, not a day spa.)
But Crowley liked this memory. If all he dreamed about, here in Aziraphale's bed, was one of the many companionable silences they had shared over the centuries, then he wouldn't complain.
Only Aziraphale did not remain silent. He sighed, deeply and more seriously than Crowley was used to. Sighing like that would mean something was amiss, and, if you asked Aziraphale, everything was always perfect in the light of God's creation. (Crowley made a habit of not asking Aziraphale, but Aziraphale told him so regardless.)
"You know this isn't honestly the end of it."Aziraphale's voice wasn't his. Crowley couldn't quite place it. It might have been Adam's, but not the grating tones of a tween, caught between the sweetness of a child and the boredom of a teenager. No, this was a grown man, with a grown man's weariness. "You would like it to be--nothing but glasses clinking and dinners at the Ritz and the one place in the world you will always be taken care of."
Crowley wanted to scold them, but the sight was too confusing to spit anything out. Aziraphale knew heaven was rotten at the core; it was forever in his eyes, as constant and reliable as the fires of hell. But he didn't consciously show he knew it. He forever devoted some part of his mind to keeping his knowledge a secret, one he guarded vociferously.
The figure in Crowley's dream did not bother, and so, even though he wore Aziraphale's clothes and Aziraphale's face, he was not the angel. "Don't frown. I'm only telling you what you already believe."
Crowley scowled, but he was too off balance to answer. He wanted to stand up and thunder. He wanted to storm off in a huff. He wanted his--
He wanted to wake up. But he could only seem to remain sitting, staring at this stranger who dared to come to him in the guise of his one remaining ally.
"I just don't want you to forget." The figure leaned toward him. The gesture was Aziraphale's, the way he smiled when he possessed a particularly delicious secret, as if he thought he was being so careful and clever, when everyone--when Crowley--could see his happiness spilling over like water from a fountain. "You need to tread carefully. There's no relaxing, not really. This won't last forever."
Crowley would have liked to call the stranger a bad name, or deliver a lecture, or at least produce some colorful swear words he learned in several centuries' acquaintance with humanity, but he could only sit, staring out at the sea, with the figure who wasn't Aziraphale. Every attempt to compose an appropriately venomous rejoinder faded away, subsumed by the truth of the stranger's statements.
And, just like that, all the weight Crowley thought he had put aside settled over his shoulders once more.
Aziraphale honestly didn't intend to disturb Crowley. At most, he expected to need to peek in once or twice a week and dust, since Crowley displayed all the signs of settling in for another century if he was allowed. However, the moment he settled downstairs, he realized he had left a book he wanted in the guest bedroom. That was the solereason he needed to creep upstairs and open the door.
The book he needed was in the pile right next to the entrance, but instead of seeking it out, his eyes fell on the figure in the bed. Crowley was loose-limbed languid, angled toward the sun like one of his plants. His sunglasses sat on the table beside him, and his hair, instead of the close crop of a short while ago, was a loose tangle of red across the pillow.
Aziraphale was halfway across the room before he caught himself, one hand outstretched to--to what?
To trail through that glorious fall of red hair? To adjust the cover over his shoulders? To pull shut the blinds?
Ridiculous. Aziraphale turned and picked up the book he sought, though with all that red hair still blinding him, he could hardly recall what he wanted it for.
Then, as he was closing the door slowly--to avoid making any noise, of course, not because he wanted to remain--Crowley made a soft noise in his sleep: "Aziraphale."
He froze with his hand on the knob, and everything struck him at once.
One wrong turn, one bad decision, and this might have been gone. Not merely his bookshop and every precious volume within. But this--the afternoon sunlight, the lazy figure in the bed, even the ridiculous box of cards downstairs.
The knowledge was as enormous and awful as the void before the beginning of creation, and it left Aziraphale motionless so long he almost didn't notice that Crowley had clearly begun to have a nightmare. His thin lips had creased in a frown, and his hand had fisted in the quilt, so tightly it seemed he wanted to rip the color out by the roots.
Well. That wouldn't do, any more than Aziraphale's earlier bad attitude. Time to fix things.
***
Crowley might have remained in his dream forever, drowning on land, but then--someone shook him awake.
For a moment, he didn't remember where he was, partly because he wasn't terribly familiar with this narrow room and this narrow bed. But he knew the stacks of books and the quality of the light slanting in through the window, and, most of all, he knew the figure sitting on the edge of the bed, peering at him.
"I didn't mean to wake you." Aziraphale twisted his hands together in his lap. He had drawn away so quickly he might never have touched Crowley.
Maybe he hadn't. Crowley had been dreaming.
"But you--" Aziraphale touched his own cheek.
Unconsciously, Crowley did the same, entirely unsurprised to feel dampness. And to feel the weight of long hair around his shoulders. He turned his face away, fumbling for the tie around his wrist--it had not been there when he went to sleep, but neither had the coiffure, so neither gave him trouble. He pulled his hair back into a loose tail, fully intending to brush off the matter.
Yet, when he glanced back to Aziraphale, part of him still expected that horrible figure. The truth of his angel--the particular way he pouted when he was worried, somehow simultaneously requesting reassurance and reminding everyone in the room how well he could wield a sword; the softness to his cheeks and his belly; the faded, familiar sweater--erased whatever he was going to say. Instead, he felt such relief he might have started weeping again.
Aziraphale studied him, something Crowley didn't recognize in his eyes. "Come downstairs in a few minutes. We'll have tea."
"Might be more than a few." Crowley gestured at the new haircut. "Need to--pull myself together."
"Don't. You always look so fine with long hair." Before Crowley could reply, Aziraphale touched the end of his ponytail--no lingering, simply the lightest brush of his fingertips. Then he bustled off.
Crowley did not bother changing, but he took his sweet time coming downstairs, if only because his fingers kept drifting up to his hair, recalling the ghost of a touch.
***
When Crowley joined Aziraphale by the front window of the shop, the tea was already made and steaming in two cups, identical to the ones Crowley remembered. There were biscuits, of course, and a vase of fresh flowers which should not have been blooming this time of year. A spread so familiar Crowley could have conjured it himself.
But there was one surprise: the tarot box sat open beside the tray, with three cards already laid out in front.
"Didn't the back of those feature a lady in much less clothing?" Crowley reached for them.
He had wanted to avoid discussing the scene upstairs, but Aziraphale's firm expression put paid to that. "There's nothing wrong with a little more discretion. And, after all, none of this is really magic. I decided to have a look while you were--resting."
He tried to catch Crowley's eye. Resolutely, Crowley sat down across from him and claimed a biscuit. "Mm, that's how we get you. Dip one toe into the sea of the arcane and you'll be lost forever and all that."
Aziraphale did not look even the tiniest bit guilty, which gave Crowley pause. Normally, he would scold Crowley for such a comment. Instead, he shrugged. "Well. What's done is done. Don't you want to see which cards I drew?"
Before Crowley could demur, he turned the first over, revealing the nine of cups. A woman lay in bed, and a number of hands surrounded her, offering her ice cream cones. Crowley remembered this card. The hands hadn't been holding sweets. Before he could say as much, Aziraphale said, "This one symbolizes abundance and joy." He turned over the six of cups, revealing two women, also in bed, sharing an ice cream cone.
"That was absolutely not an ice cream cone," Crowley commented.
Aziraphale ignored him. This might have annoyed Crowley, but the distraction cleared away the remnants of his dream. "And this one highlights cooperation and--fellow feeling." His eyes flicked up to Crowley's, then away.
Crowley, idling twisting the end of his ponytail around his finger, offered no more commentary. Suddenly, he had nothing to say.
Without speaking, Aziraphale turned over the third card. A woman alone lounged in bed, streaked with a mysterious white substance. Only the empty cone in her right hand indicated it was not, in fact, nefarious.
Still, Crowley quirked a brow. "What about this one, eh? Not sure what it symbolizes, being covered in--"
"Completion. Satisfaction," said Aziraphale archly, drowning out Crowley's last word. Still, a little smile tugged at his lips as he glanced down at the spread. "When I drew these three cards, I realized I had forgotten a simple truth."
"Oh, don't give me that old claptrap--works in mysterious ways, blah blah blah." Something about Aziraphale's smile kept him from truly getting worked up, even though this would have been an excellent chance to vent his remaining spleen from the dream. "They're cards, Aziraphale. You said so yourself."
"They are. I don't need this to be a message from anyone important, or for these to be anything magical. And I certainly don't need to poke my nose around, trying to find flaws in a freely given gift." With surprising reverence, he gathered up the cards and tucked them, one by one, back into the box. "I already have everything I need right here."
He did not look around at the bookshop, at the amber glow of the setting sun through the front window, the to-and-fro of the people on the sidewalk, or even the bookshelves surrounding them, groaning with their contents.
He looked at Crowley.
Crowley opened his mouth, but whatever flip thing he might have said died on his tongue as he looked into Aziraphale's eyes. The steady weight of them was like a hand massaging the soreness out of a muscle.
"Cheers." He lifted his teacup. "I'll drink to that."