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There is a naked Supreme Archangel in the bookshop.
Aziraphale would pedantically point out that there is a formerly naked Supreme Archangel in the bookshop, as he had very quickly wrapped him in a nice tartan blanket, and Crowley is willing to bet that Gabriel is also formerly a Supreme Archangel. Assuming he isn’t lying about not remembering anything.
The primary rule of the new Arrangement (which Crowley is working his way up to calling what it is - a Relationship) is that the two of them will talk things out, or at least try to talk about why they can’t talk about it. The second rule is that when even that isn’t possible, they (usually Crowley) can take whatever time and space they need until they can. Which is why Crowley had stormed (literally; lightning was involved) out of the bookshop and is now driving the Bentley through London at speeds only possible if reality bends to your will.
Crowley realizes he’s very nearly back to Soho and pulls over to park. The panic has been burned off by the drive, but he still needs to think. This would have been easier if he’d actually told Aziraphale about the last time he’d seen Gabriel, but technically that had happened before the rules went into operation, and had been rather thoroughly overshadowed by what had happened to Aziraphale-as-Crowley in Hell.
Finding out the most important person in your existence has made a literal deal with the Devil to get you out of his clutches has a way of doing that.
He’s distracted by a fly buzzing around his face. He tries to swat it away, only for it to be followed by an entire swarm, which then consolidates into Beelzebub. As if the day couldn’t get any worse.
“Don’t worry, you’re still untouchable,” Beelzebub says.
“Tell that to your flies. In my car! Really?”
“Don’t be so mean to them, then they won’t bother you.”
Crowley turns a withering look on the Prince of Hell. “Right. Why are you here?”
Beelzebub actually looks flustered. Crowley would’ve been pleased that someone else was having as bad a day as he is, except that can’t actually be possible.
“The Archangel Gabriel has vanished. We know he isn't in Heaven. What we don't know is where he is.”
“Oh, how mysterious,” he says, as disinterestedly as possible.
“I've got all the hosts of Hell hunting for him, and we will find him, but you, Crowley, you know Earth better than anyone. If you found him…”
Crowley looks at them with utter disbelief. There was no way that sentence could end with anything he could possibly care about, and Beelzebub knew it. “I am having flashbacks to the second worst day of my entire existence, I do not have time for this. You know what I am. You can’t threaten me, you can’t reward me, why should I tell you anything?” He’s Lucifer’s favorite; he already gets his pick of assignments, and nobody else is allowed to touch him.
Beelzebub looks at him long enough for it to be worrying. “Gabriel’s in the bookshop.”
“What? What makes you think that?”
“You told me.”
“I did not.”
“You did. Take me to him.”
“Why? Why do you want him so badly that you’d risk coming to me, knowing that I can make your life exponentially more Hell?”
“Because I know you aren’t going to play that card, and because you... look, you’re living with your angel, right? What does Heaven think about that?”
“We haven’t asked. Why? … Wait — you?”
“And Gabriel. Yes. If you’re going to mock me, drive while you’re doing it.”
~~~
Nina and Maggie watch as Crowley - who Maggie knows by name, as her landlord’s indefinable significant other, and Nina as “three to six shots of espresso, depending” (but then Nina only knew Maggie as “skinny latte” until a lightning strike that came out of the blue locked them in her shop for hours) - apologizes (for what?) and snaps his fingers.
The lights come on.
His goth companion had not stopped, but does now, looking back impatiently. They both continue on to the bookshop, waiting for Mr Fell to come to the door before entering.
Nina’s phone chimes with an unending stream of delayed text messages. “That’s Lindsay”, she says.
Maggie considers that today has been weird even by Soho standards.
~~~
Aziraphale has trusted Crowley enough to invite Beelzebub into the bookshop, but doesn’t completely lose his suspicious look until Beelzebub spots Gabriel and gives him the softest look Crowley has ever seen on the demon’s face. It’s rather unnerving.
“Gabriel! You’re alive!”
“See? Someone else calls me Gabriel!” He smiles and hugs the demon, and adds conspiratorially, “But some people also call me Jim!”
Beelzebub had started to return the hug, but freezes at Gabriel’s words. Their face goes through a truly impressive array of emotions, ending with a glare at Aziraphale. “What have you done to him?”
Aziraphale bounces nervously. “I haven’t done anything! He turned up this way. Said something about ‘something terrible’ happening, and that he had to give me something.”
“You? Why you? And what did he have?”
“I don’t know!” Aziraphale practically wails, hands fluttering in distress. “He doesn’t know!”
Gabriel smiles and shrugs. “Yes. You see, apparently I once had something called ‘memories’? And now I don’t. But it can’t be that important, because I have a friend, and a blanket, and hot chocolate.”
“Mind wipe,” Crowley says, nodding. “Prep for Falling. Bet they’re seriously pissed that he managed to get away before the big drop.”
Beelzebub gives him the strangest look. “No it isn’t.”
“Yes it is.” Crowley remembers that quite clearly. Well, remembers not being able to remember, anyway.
“No, it really isn’t.”
He frowns. “Well, not the soldiers,” and hadn’t that been a load of fun, crawling out of a lake of boiling sulphur to find a very large number of newly created demons who blamed him for their situation, “but the rest of us?”
“Ohhhh…” Beelzebub says, with a look of sudden enlightenment. “No, just you, because you knew how to make stars explode. Even Heaven’s not stupid enough to hand over that kind of skill to the other side.”
Crowley just stares, trying to process what they’d said, and then starts to pace. “What? Nnngh, no, what the fuck, how did I not know this? And, argh, they took it all. I thought it was a rush job, a mistake, with so many of us to, y’know…”
“Seriously, just you. Who did you piss off?”
“How would I know,” Crowley snarls, “when they erased my mind?”
Aziraphale raises his hand tentatively. “Excuse me, could we get back to the, ah, rather more immediate problem of Gabriel?”
“Yeah, what was your plan if you got caught?” Crowley asks, not quite successfully reining in his emotions. “Shack up with an archangel in Hell? Yeah, that’ll go over well.”
Beelzebub shakes their head. “Well, no. We didn’t expect anything if we got caught. I mean, look at you two idiots. If you can get away with it…”
“Gee, thanks.”
“I think that we,” Aziraphale nods at Crowley, as if it isn’t obvious who he's talking about, “managed it because we’re, well, not that important. In the bigger picture, as it were.”
“You helped cancel the Apocalypse, though. That was, ah, rather… inspirational.”
Crowley and Aziraphale both stare. Crowley gathers his thoughts first. “You mean the two of you cancelled another Apocalypse?”
“No, of course not.” Before either of them can react, the demon continues. “But if another one comes up, well…” They frown thoughtfully. “But it can’t be that, if there were plans for a second attempt I’d have been told.”
Crowley turned to Gabriel and snarls “Gabriel, what the Hell did you do? Try to remember.”
“It hurts.”
“I know. Do it anyway.”
Gabriel eyes start glowing. “If it happens again, it will make it seem like it's an institutional problem,” he says, his voice echoing.
Everyone watches, waiting for him to continue. When nothing happens, Crowley snaps, “Anything else?”
Gabriel looks at him blankly. Aziraphale tuts at Crowley. “My dear, why are you being like this? Especially if you know how hard it is.”
“Because he’s responsible for the worst day of my life that doesn’t include a lake of boiling sulphur, OK?”
Aziraphale looks utterly perplexed. Crowley whirls towards him and snarls, “He told you to shut your stupid mouth and die. You think I’m going to be sympathetic now?” He can feel sparks starting to rise.
Multiple things happen at once. Aziraphale snaps “Not in the bookshop!”, Beelzebub shouts “Gabriel, stop!”, and Crowley feels arms wrap around his waist from behind as an unexpected weight - Gabriel’s head, he notes distantly - lands on his shoulder. He freezes, sparks fizzling out.
“I think you need a hug,” Gabriel says innocently.
Crowley’s mind short-circuits. angel/not Aziraphale/not allowed/it’s Gabriel, smite him!/no he doesn’t know/still not allowed/make it stop! He catches Aziraphale’s eyes and pleads soundlessly, Angel, help!
Aziraphale holds his hand out cautiously in their direction, as if trying to lure an oblivious child off the edge of a cliff without startling them, and in an unnaturally calm voice says “Yes, Gabriel…Jim, hugs are nice, but you shouldn’t surprise people with them. Please let Crowley go, he doesn’t like it, and you’re worrying Beelzebub. Also could somebody please explain to me why this is worrying Beelzebub?”
Gabriel releases Crowley and moves back, still too close but at least not touching him.
Beelzebub is still looking at Gabriel as if he was in extreme danger. “Becauszz he’sz literally untouchable in Hell. By anyone. On pain of tormentsz you cannot imagine.”
Aziraphale looks back and forth between the two demons. Crowley shivers. “I did mention it. And it’s not like hugs are a big thing down there.”
Aziraphale gives him a painfully sympathetic look. “Yes, but … nobody has ever touched you? Except me? And… him? Since… since you Fell?”
Crowley scowls. He knows what touch-starved means, and it hadn’t been that bad. At times, rather the opposite. “Humans…” He waves his hands vaguely. There’d been times throughout history when even casual greetings involved more body contact than Gabriel had inflicted.
Beelzebub supplies his missing words. “…are allowed. They aren’t important enough to be a threat.”
Aziraphale frowns, his angelic demeanor starting to fray. “I can only handle so many problems at a time. Talk to yours, and I’ll talk to mine.”
~~~
“Crowley.” Aziraphale crosses his arms, in the fussy way that means they are not leaving the back room until he gets a full explanation. “What happened at my trial?”
Crowley would almost rather talk about the hug. “Ergh, yeah… there wasn’t a trial. Just an execution. When I came to, I was tied up, and then they brought in the Hellfire and expected me - you - to just accept your utter destruction like a good little angel.”
“And Gabriel told you - me - to ‘shut my mouth’.”
“Stupid mouth. And die already. Yes. And you were in my place in Hell. I was terrified. Second worst day of my life.”
Aziraphale’s face crinkles adorably. “Well, of course I had to be, for the trial, but the prophecy—”
“No. I mean my place. With him.”
“Ah. Yes, you did leave me slightly underprepared for that. There’s rather a big difference between ‘had been under Lucifer’s protection up until the Apocalypse raised the stakes’ and…”
“His personal property.” Lucifer’s trickster. Lucifer’s… pet. “I’m sorry.”
“I know,” he says gently. “It’s all right. We’ve been over this part. But the trial, and Gabriel…”
“Never meant to hide it,” Crowley says, looking away with a distant stare, before forcing himself to meet Aziraphale’s eyes. “Just… didn’t know how to tell you. You still thought Heaven was good.”
“My dear, you know we can’t keep things like this from each other.”
“I know, sorry. Habit.”
“A very hard one to break, as we both know quite well. But…”
This is familiar territory; they have to remind each other of it often. “It’s the only way we’ll survive.”
“And… may I hug you?”
Crowley frowns, briefly - the idea that consent needs renewal still trips him up, which was why Aziraphale did it. But an Aziraphale hug is one of the few perfect things in existence, as far as Crowley is concerned, and he’d convinced the angel that open arms were all the ask he needed. So why? ”Oh. Because of, ngk, all that? I’m good. Yes.” He opens his arms. “C’mere, angel.”
They join together, Aziraphale wrapping his arms around Crowley, and, a moment later, his wings as well. And yeah, this is exactly what Crowley needs to sooth away the shock of what Gabriel had, all innocently, done.
Oh, fuck, I just had to think about him, didn’t I. Reluctantly, he pulls back. “We still need to deal with Gabriel.”
Aziraphale glances at the door to the rest of the bookshop. “Now that Beelzebub is here, I’m almost considering your idea of sending them both very far away.”
“Yeah? Because I’m coming around to your idea that we need to keep him here and safe, at least until we know what he meant by ‘something terrible’.”
~~~
Gabriel looks like an excited puppy. Beelzebub looks exactly as happy as Crowley would expect from a demonic puppy-sitter.
The demon glares at Crowley. “He can’t remember. But he’s going to try. Crowley… you’ve done this. You could… contribute.”
Crowley gives them a sarcastic grin. “Can’t say ‘help’, can you?”
They cross their arms and begrudgingly say, “Fine. Help.”
“You have no idea how much you’re asking of me.”
“I really think I do.”
Gabriel sits down in Aziraphale’s favorite chair - right, not getting anywhere if I’m distracted by things like that. Start over. Gabriel sits like an attentive schoolchild, and Crowley paces in front of him. “OK. Fine. I mean, I don’t even know why I’m telling you this, since you won’t even understand it, but the thing to realize is that our memory is pure information, quantum and ethereal, not the fragile little electrochemical, um, stuff that comes with our corporations and keeps track of, well, corporeal things. And information like that can’t be destroyed, just rearranged.”
“Really? Because I feel like mine is very small. Like, even when I remember something, I can’t keep it. It just won’t fit.”
Crowley frowns. “Right, that’s odd. Someone make a note of that.” He hadn’t really meant that literally, but he hears Aziraphale mutter A clue! and scramble for a piece of paper. “Where was I - yeah. Scrambling it takes a lot of power. Unscrambling anything beyond the trivial - well, that’s unsolvable.” He was never going to be a starmaker again. “But cutting the connections is a lot easier, and also easier to repair.” Which was how he’d gotten more of it back than he’d admit. “Or if you can’t repair it, rebuild it. Like, if I destroyed all your maps of London, it wouldn’t go away, you just wouldn’t know how to get to any place you didn’t know well. But with enough effort, you could find those other places, start remaking the maps.”
Gabriel looks thoughtful. It’s rather startlingly out of place compared to his current lost look, or his former smug one.
“So, yeah. That’s really all I can tell you. You’re doing high-level physics on your own memories, modifying your own essence. It doesn’t like that, it wasn’t meant for that. You have to work at it, push past the pain.”
Gabriel sits up straight, his eyes glowing. “There will come a tempest, and darkness, and great storms. And the dead will leave their graves and walk the earth once more. And there will be great lamentations.”
OK, so he has been listening. And found a memory that seemed a bit more useful than usual.
“Every day it's getting closer,” he continues. And then the glow fades, and he’s looking around in confusion again.
Crowley suppresses a shiver. “OK, I think we can pretty much rule out everything except Apocalypse 2.0.”
Beelzebub is still staring intently at Gabriel, who is now smiling at them sunnily. “But why didn’t I know?” they murmur, then turn to look at Aziraphale. “I need to get back. Which means I need to trust you to protect him.”
Aziraphale nods. “We can hide him. Well, Crowley can, right? It would look too suspicious if I did any significant miracles while my own people are on high alert.”
Crowley nods, and then another problem occurs to him. He turns to Beelzebub. “Wait. You said all of Hell is searching for him.”
“Yeah? Oh, Hellfire, I forgot. I need to call that off too.” They glare at Crowley and Aziraphale, adding “Don’t make me regret this” before vanishing in a cloud of flies.
Crowley looks at Aziraphale. “So we should hide him from Hell, too. Just in case the word doesn’t get around fast enough. Or somebody decides that if he’d been worth something to Beelzebub, he’s worth it to someone else too.”
Aziraphale has been thinking. “Crowley, what if we each did half a miracle? I could hide him from Hell, and you could hide him from Heaven. It would barely move the dials.”
~~~
It moved the dials.
Heaven comes knocking, looking for Gabriel, and also for the source of a 25 Lazarii miracle, which strikes Crowley as a rather morbid way of measuring things. Crowley blames Beelzebub, because he’s faster on his feet than Aziraphale, who had been far too close to accidentally claiming credit for it. “You sure it wasn’t Gabriel? Or the Prince of Hell, maybe? Because we had them here, asking about him too. Can’t imagine why anyone would want him. If it was up to me, I’d dump him as far away from me as I could.”
Crowley is immensely amused that Gabriel is in plain sight of the angels during the entire conversation.
Several hours later, a very under-prepared junior angel shows up, claiming to be a human police officer (named Inspector Constable, because Crowley’s skills at flustering angels are still in fine tune), there to protect them after a report of an “unsavory dangerous human lurking about. Well, of course a human, we’re all humans here.” To their credit, they’d researched enough to have gotten the right uniform for the place, if not the time. Still Heavenly white, though.
Crowley and Aziraphale watch the angel watch a cup of tea like it’s a test they’re totally unprepared for in a language they don’t speak. It’s adorable.
~~~
Nina looks up at her next customer. Mr “three to six shots, depending.” Today is a six shot day, which doesn’t surprise her. The week isn’t even half over and already it’s setting new standards for weird, almost entirely centered around his partner’s bookshop.
“You’re looking pretty well, for someone who got struck by lightning yesterday,” she says.
“Oh, yeah, sorry about all that. How’d you end up being locked in, anyway?”
“Security system, locks everything down in a power outage, and our phones were dead. But what do you have to apologize for?” She knows, in a sense: he was involved, somehow, in both the beginning and end of the outage. What she’s not sure she wants to know is how.
“Ah, well, um…” He looks around, like someone trying to find a way to change the subject. She takes pity on him and hands him his drink without pushing for any answers.
He finds a seat outdoors and downs his six shots in one gulp, faster than anyone ought to drink that much caffeine, and then stays there. After a while Nina goes over to collect the cup and ask if he’d like anything else. The shop isn’t busy, so she doesn’t really care if he’s just going to take up the seat.
“Just watching for, well, a former colleague. You might have seen them, they were with me when I came back last night. Don’t have their number, and it’s really important that I catch them before they get to the shop.”
“The impatient goth? I’ll let you know if I spot them.”
Nina’s phone chimes. She looks at the text and sighs. “Well, that’s it, then. Lindsay is now my former partner. Apparently ‘trapped by a power outage’ is code for ‘cheating’.”
“Oof. I owe you a night of getting drunk and trading toxic ex stories.”
“Lindsay’s not…”
He just raises his eyebrows, expressively.
Nina drags up a chair and drops into it. “Fine. I know. I put up with it too long because I didn’t see myself as the sort of person who’d get into a relationship like that. I thought, there aren’t toxic partners, there are just couples who don’t know how to communicate.”
“Nah. I’ve been in both, they don’t have to overlap at all. It can happen to anyone. It’s not you, it’s them.”
“Yeah? So what’s your toxic ex story?” Once, she might have said you don’t look like the type to have a toxic ex. She’s learned better.
He doesn’t immediately answer. She can’t quite tell, what with the ever-present sunglasses, but he looks pensive, as if the answer is far harder than he expected. Nina can relate. She catches a line from the song that just started playing - “a little discipline for my pet genius”. She’s close to giving up on getting the streaming service to generate a consistent playlist for the shop; whenever she thinks she has it the way she wants it, it throws a wildcard at her. (It hasn’t happened often enough for her to connect the dots.)
“Family kicked me out, ended up, ah, on the streets in the, um, worst part of town. He took me in, said he’d protect me. Turned out that meant controlling me.”
“Ouch.”
The song is still playing. “You're perfect, yes, it's true/But without me you're only you.” It cuts in and out, then goes on to the next song - instrumental, like it’s supposed to be.
“Right, well. You want more details than that, it’ll take copious amounts of alcohol.”
“Yeah, I think I’ll take you up on that offer. Right now, I feel like I’d need that just to get started.”
Something blurs at the edge of her vision. She blinks, and it’s the impatient goth. She points them out, and he dashes off with a quick thanks.
Just another day in Soho.
~~~
Crowley catches up with Beelzebub just as they reach the other side of the street. “You can’t go in there. Heaven has sent an observer, and you aren’t protected by the miracle.” He points in the window, where the anachronistic achromatic constable is reading a book.
“There are no rumors about a new Armageddon in Hell. Whatever they’ve planned was meant to blindside all of us. I need to get him out of there.”
“He’s safe, look, you can see him.” Gabriel is behind the angel, rearranging books. Crowley could not even begin to guess why, but it should certainly be evidence that the miracle had been a success.
Beelzebub doesn’t see it that way. “That angel is right next to him. If you weren’t untouchable I would go right through you!”
“Yeah, why do you think I’m the one out here talking to you?”
“Get that angel away from my beloved. Or there will be smiting.”
Crowley pauses, as an idea comes to him, fully formed. With the advantage of solving multiple problems. “OK. Fine. Listen up, I have a plan.”
~~~
Crowley throws open the door to the shop, pausing just inside the threshold. “Help! Police!” When that doesn’t disturb the angel, he adds “Oi! Inspector Constable!”
The angel drops their book. “Me? Oh! Yes, me! Ah, um, ‘what’s all this then?’”
Beelzebub comes in on cue, charging up the steps of the bookshop. “Crowley! Get out here! Tell me where Gabriel is, or else!”
And then misses their cue entirely - Crowley needs to be dragged out of the bookshop to lure the angel out, and it looks like he’ll have to do it himself. He steps back and falls dramatically, prompting a startled cry of “Mr Crowley! Are you all right?” from the angel, who comes running out to join the fray.
Crowley and Beelzebub put on a good show of shouting at each other and attempting to “smite” each other with flashy, though harmless, lightning effects, while the angel hovers between them trying to calm things down. Beelzebub finally vanishes in a cloud of flies, and Crowley turns to the angel.
“Arrest me. Take me into protective custody.”
They look flustered. “Um, actually, I’m not a human police officer.”
“I know. You’re an angel, I’m a demon, and that was the Prince of Hell. You held them off - good job, by the way - but they’ll be back. I demand that you arrest me, we don't have much time.”
The angel looks decidedly uncomfortable at the idea that they’d just stepped between Hell’s second in command and their prey. “Back?” they say uncertainly.
“Yes. We’d both be far safer in Heaven. Come on, put on the cuffs, I’ll go quietly.”
“Um…” The angel looks at where Beelzebub had been, and visibly comes to a decision. “Right. Heaven. Come along, you!”
~~~
The Inspector Constable turns out to be more useful than Crowley had expected - they’re actually Muriel, 37th class scrivener, which means they know how to work the angelic archives to find what Crowley is looking for. Fortunately Heaven doesn’t change the passwords. Gabriel, it turns out, is guilty of saying “nah” to destroying the Earth. Crowley wouldn’t have thought he had it in him.
Even got a trial, which is more than Aziraphale did.
Michael, Uriel, and Saraqael show up in time for the good stuff - Gabriel escaping just before his sentence is carried out. Muriel lets out a gasp when a matchbox falls to the floor, but it’s the other box that catches Crowley’s interest - he’s seen it before…
Crowley only realizes that the Metatron’s floaty head has switched from archive footage to livestream when he says “Are you satisfied, demon? Because your curiosity has gotten yourself in a great deal of trouble. Breaking into Heaven, reading classified documents, tempting a junior angel into disobedience… And as we can’t exactly make you Fall twice — could one of you do me the favor of smiting him?”
Crowley sneers. “Touch me, and you start a war.”
The Metatron frowns. “I’m sorry?” he says, in a tone that is ever so politely disbelieving that anyone might contradict him.
Michael answers him. “No, he’s right. It’s in the Accords. Lucifer's favorite."
He frowns, like he’s smelled something unpleasant. “Then what can we do with him?”
Michael shrugs. “Nothing. Send him back.”
Saraqael looks at him and frowns. “Wait - why would you, of all beings, be looking at Gabriel’s records when we’re all hunting him? You’ve got absolutely nothing to gain from either side…”
Uriel has realized the same thing. “…you know where he is.”
Michael nods. “Of course, the bookshop. Where else?”
“We looked in the bookshop,” Uriel argues.
Saraqael has a disgusted look on their face, but it’s self-directed. “The same bookshop that was the source of a 25 Lazarii miracle? Right. Take us there.”
Crowley shrugs. “Fine. I was just going there myself.”
~~~
Beelzebub is in the bookshop when they arrive, which sets the archangels off until Aziraphale points out that Beelzebub is a guest and the Heavenly Host are definitely not.
Once all the pieces are together, the puzzle is easily solved, and the unlikely couple head off to Alpha Centauri, all heart eyes and singing together in a way that would be adorable if it had involved literally anyone else.
This prompts an argument over which archangel is going to replace him, and who is going to do what to Aziraphale — Crowley could put a stop to it, but he’s not telling Heaven that Aziraphale is covered by his deal with Lucifer unless he has to — which only ends when the Metatron shows up in person, sending the archangels home like naughty children, and inviting Aziraphale outside for coffee and a private conversation.
Crowley waves his angel on. The day can’t get any weirder.
The Metatron pauses at the door, looks back.
“Crowley.”
“Remember me now, do you?”
“Oh yes. Always asking damn fool questions, always getting above yourself. Tell me, do you enjoy your privileges in Hell?”
Crowley is certain that’s a threat, but isn’t sure how. If he wanted to send Crowley back there, he could have had it done while they were in Heaven. “It has its moments,” he says, affectedly as cool and casual as he’s ever been.
“I’m sure it does,” he says, and follows Aziraphale out onto the street.
~~~
Crowley knows something is wrong the moment Aziraphale walks back into the shop. Nearly every single one of the tells Crowley has spent millennia learning is on display: the fluttering hands, the nervous smile, the eyes that can’t stop darting around.
“I have great news! The Metatron offered me the position of Supreme Archangel!” he says over-excitedly, and there’s the last one.
“Him?! He wanted to smite me.”
“He’s waiting for me. And…” Aziraphale shoots a quick glance outside, and then visibly puts on an excited mask. “And… he said I could appoint you to be an angel. You could come back to Heaven and... and everything, like the old times. You’d be safe! We could be together!”
We are together. “Tell me you said no!” That can’t even work, and Aziraphale knows it. Their very fragile existence together depends entirely on Lucifer’s whim, the deal Aziraphale had made to get Crowley a limited bit of freedom. Freedom that depends on them being together.
The realization cuts through his rising panic. They’d spent six thousand years talking in a code they were making up as they went along, and a mere handful learning how to properly communicate - but they have promised to always try. Aziraphale would never leave him for Heaven - but the angel might join Heaven for him, if the threat was serious enough… For the first time since the Fall, Crowley considers whether there might be limits to his immunity, other than Lucifer himself revoking it. If the Voice of God destroys him, it really won’t matter if it starts a celestial war: he won’t be around to notice. And if the war is going to start anyway, he won’t even be a speed bump.
Aziraphale glances out the window again, so quickly it could be mistaken for a twitch. “It’s a very great honor, very big plans are in the works, and they need me. Me!” But his eyes are pleading, work with me!
“It’s a trap! Heaven's toxic, you don't want to go there!” It isn’t the best comeback, but it has the advantage of being true and being what he’d say regardless of whether they were talking in code or being honest.
“Of course you’d say something like that.” His tone is snippy, his eyes - very briefly - relieved. “It’s Heaven... Well, it's the side of Truth, of Light. Of Good.”
It’s an act. Make it look good. Make him look good. Make him safe. “You don’t want me there. Heaven won’t accept me. They’ll think I’m just your... pet.”
Aziraphale gasps. That was Lucifer’s name for him, and one they absolutely never used. “You don’t understand!” Coded: you understand perfectly.
“I think I do. Good luck.” His tone is bitter, but he’d never meant anything more sincerely. He turns to leave. Have to make it look good.
“Crowley!” Aziraphale cries, distressed, and there is no acting in that.
Crowley doesn’t think. Doesn’t calculate how it would look to any observers. He isn’t leaving his angel like this, not if it might be ages before they see each other again. He crosses the space between them and grabs Aziraphale by the lapels, pulling him into a kiss. He can feel Aziraphale’s hands flutter against his shoulders, starting to pull him in and then backing off. Good. Make it look ambiguous, so they think Aziraphale’s a good little angel, so he’s safe. Crowley is very good at this game. But Aziraphale is returning the kiss itself as enthusiastically as he could have desired, and Crowley realizes that he’ll have to be the one to break it off. Have to break his heart while looking like his was being broken. Fuck.
As he pulls away, Aziraphale whispers “I’m sorry.”
“I forgive you.” Crowley doesn’t want to look away, but he knows he has to. It doesn’t matter how good the con is if you can’t stick the landing, and Aziraphale looks like he’s about to fall apart. Right. This isn’t the angel’s skill set, he’s far too honest. Crowley has to be the one to leave first, leaving Aziraphale alone to handle the next act in the performance.
He leaves the shop quietly, projecting bad breakup, too unhappy even to react as hard as he can. Now what? Can’t stay near the bookshop - ah. The Bentley is across the street. A good drive always settles him, and would be in character. And he’d be able to watch Aziraphale for as long as possible.
Once they’ve vanished into the lift, Crowley makes a show of looking at the Bentley and then sighing, as if even his beloved car isn’t enough to shake his mood. A long drive actually does appeal to him, but there is one more conversation that he knows is going to happen and he doesn’t want to be distracted when it comes.
Back in the bookshop he pours a glass of wine and slouches down in his favorite chair, positioning it at an angle that lets him see where the lift had been. And waits.
The gramophone crackles, despite there being no record on the spindle, and Lucifer’s voice comes through. “Hello, darling. Looks like you’re all alone now. But don’t be sad. Changes are coming, and I’ll need my precious trickster…”