Chapter Text
I.
It doesn’t seem strange, at first, that he’s dreaming of Aziraphale again. He usually does. Something something, Aziraphale is his one constant in an ever-changing world, always present, fixed like a star he can always feel if Crowley just reaches out and searches for it.
Except for when he’s not. Like for example, when he’s been discorporated in a raging bookshop inferno. Or when he’s fucked off back to Heaven, where everything is just wonderful, even nicer than on Earth. He hopes Aziraphale misses it. Misses him. He hopes Aziraphale’s miserable up there, without his sushi and his Châteauneuf-du-Pape and his tiramisu. Hopes he misses his books, the way the sun shines in the bookshop in the mornings, the musty old smell of it. He knows that’s unkind of him, knows that if he was someone else, someone better, he wouldn’t wish that for the being he - for his very best friend in the whole of the universe to be miserable - but Crowley’s not kind, not better, not someone else. He’s not an angel, not even an aardvark. Not anything other than a demon. And sometimes thinking these thoughts help fill the giant Aziraphale-sized hole left inside him. The hole that takes the shape of when he picks up the phone and there’s no one to call, or when the night stretches long and endless in front of him with no dinner plans, no drinks after in the bookshop, no chess games, no nothing.
So he fucks off to America. Hasn’t been there since the 80s, figures he’ll see what the humans have gotten up to since then. Lots more highways, lots less shopping malls. He spends a lot of time doing things like ruining tourist’s selfies, and hiding the most common names on the personalized keychains in the gift shops1, and standing, resolutely, right in front of the short people at every monument. He’s glad he came. The Bentley likes America, likes the roads, long and open, likes the mountains in the northeast and the long flat plains stretching on into forever in the midwest and the vast empty deserts in the southwest where there is no one but Crowley and the Bentley, no other tourists, no angels, no nothing.
And he sleeps a lot, too. He pulls the Bentley off the side of whatever highway he’s on and sleeps, folding his arms across his chest and slouching down in the seat, and he sleeps.
He doesn’t know what humans dream of, but he knows this demon dreams of many things. Sometimes memories of Hell, a few scattered, broken, refracted dreams of Heaven. Dreams of the Fall. Lots and lots and lots of dreams of Earth, some of them memories and some of them ridiculous scenarios that even as he’s dreaming he half-disbelieves, dreams of places and people long gone, forgotten longer than they’d ever been alive, or even remembered.
And Aziraphale. He’s dreamed of Aziraphale thousands of times over the years. The Aziraphales in his dreams vary. Sometimes they are stern and cruel, sometimes they are giddy and giggling. Once, Crowley had to sit through an entire magic act of the Marvelous Mr. Fell as Aziraphale slowly and torturously sawed him in half, staring at him with those ridiculous pleading eyes the entire time. “Your grace,” dream-Aziraphale had said to him. “I know it’s still in there. I just have to get to it.” And Crowley even in the dream was incapable of disappointing him, had grit his teeth and held in a scream until he couldn’t anymore, until the pain was unbearable, and he had to shout himself awake. He’d avoided Aziraphale for a week after that one, made up an assignment in Spain just to have an excuse to escape.
There are plenty of sex dreams, of course, ones that Crowley feels guilty for having without Aziraphale’s permission - and how stupid is that, really - more dreams he has to avoid Aziraphale after having. He’s had them ever since he’d seen humans having sex the first time, ever since he’d known what it was. There are so many dreams where he tells Aziraphale how he feels - and how does he feel? He doesn’t know, really, even now, just knows he wants to be around Aziraphale always, wants to spend - well. He should’ve known better.
But these dreams, these new dreams, now that Aziraphale’s left and Crowley is left down on Earth all alone - not that he cares, really, let Aziraphale go, let him try to make a difference - are different. Feel different, somehow. It takes him a little while to see it. The Aziraphale in these dreams is always a little tense, wringing his hands, sometimes literally looking over his shoulder, as if he’s being hunted. His face looks haunted, almost gaunt. It’s not a good look on him. His eyes are always the same. If Crowley didn’t know any better, he’d say they were wistful, that look Aziraphale gets when there’s something that he wants that’s just out of his grasp.
The first dream 2, two months after Aziraphale leaves, goes like this:
They’re in Rome, back in the villa Aziraphale’s been staying in. They’d gone there after oysters. He’d had one and Aziraphale’d had the rest. “Well, if you’re sure,” he’d said to Crowley, his eyes already lighting up as he reached across the table. And Crowley was sure. He was always sure.
They’d gone back to the villa and were drinking steadily, just straight wine, no more mixing it with water. Crowley looks around at the statues, the mosaics on the walls, the untidy pile of scrolls and a large book on one of the marble tables, Aziraphale’s presence everywhere. It feels - lived-in. Well-inhabited. Warm. Aziraphale’s chattering on about some new bath he’d discovered and Crowley relaxes, lets Aziraphale’s voice wash over him. After the week he’s had in Nero’s palace, it’s nice to talk to someone without an ulterior motive, without a knife held behind their back. Crowley’s glasses are off, thrown on the table between them, and every so often Aziraphale meets his eyes warmly.
Aziraphale gestures broadly, demonstrating something that had happened to him in the market, his hands flung wide, and he knocks over his cup of wine. It floods across the smooth surface of the table and into Crowley’s lap. “Oh dear,” he says, and sinks to his knees in front of Crowley, blotting at the spreading stain with a napkin. Crowley swallows. The lamps shine on Aziraphale’s curls like pearls, fair and lustrous. Aziraphale wrings out the napkin into a bowl that’s appeared beside him, then, lifting the edges of Crowley’s robes, wrings those out, too. Dumbstruck, cup forgotten in his hand, Crowley lets him. Maybe if he stays perfectly still, Aziraphale won’t spook. Won’t run away.
“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, looking down. “I know you’re angry with me. I thought I was doing the right thing. I still am, I think. Only it’s all become such a mess. Please, forgive me.” And he looks up.
And then Crowley remembers: the bookshop, the cutting light, the cruel twist of Aziraphale’s mouth as he’d forgiven him, his trembling lips, lips Crowley had just finally, desperately kissed, the look in Aziraphale’s eyes as he’d done it.
It feels like Crowley’s swallowed a ball of lead. “No,” he snaps. “You are not forgiven.”
Aziraphale lets out a choked sound. A sob cut off. His lips tremble a little and then he nods, twice, quickly, presses them together, looks away. He pulls his hands away as if burned, rises to his feet. “Right,” he says. “Well, that’s you all done now.”
Crowley hates the raw sound in his voice. “S’fine,” he says. It’s not this Aziraphale’s fault, after all. This is just a dream, just a stupid dream. “Just a bad year,” he says to Aziraphale now.
“Ah,” says Aziraphale. “Yes. Of course.” But he hasn’t turned around. He goes over to the cabinet to get more wine and Crowley’s ruined it like he ruins everything, can’t even have what he wants in dreams, should’ve kept his stupid mouth shut, kept Aziraphale on his knees before him, lamplight in his hair.
A movement from across the room catches his eye. Aziraphale, half-turned away from him, shaking hand pressed to his mouth.
≠≠.
Demons can get lost in dreams just as much as humans can - it’s just easier to realize what’s happening, to break the spell. The next time he dreams of Aziraphale, Crowley doesn’t realize at first that it’s not real. They’re in the theatre for a play Aziraphale had taken Crowley to see. It’s 1986. Crowley takes a moment to look at Aziraphale’s profile: the cherubic face, the delicately retroussé nose, the play of a smile just around his mouth.
Then he turns to Crowley. “Oh, good, you’re here,” he says.
“Anywhere else for me to be?” Crowley says.
Aziraphale smiles at him. Then the lights go down. “Shh,” he says, hand on Crowley’s arm on the shared arm rest between them, although Crowley’s not talking. He watches Aziraphale, who watches the play - which is why it’s somewhere in the third act before Crowley realizes somehow he’s predicting it all before it happens: the plot points, the dialogue, even a certain actor’s dramatic gesture at a pivotal point.
It’s a dream. Just a dream. That’s all that’s left to him, it seems.
So he reaches out, takes Aziraphale’s hand in the almost-dark, like he remembers wanting to at the time. Aziraphale holds his hand back, almost clings, a steady, firm pressure. They sit for the whole play like that, Crowley’s heart in his throat the whole time, even though it’s just a stupid dream. He’s pathetic. When the lights come up, Crowley ushers Aziraphale out of his seat. In the lobby, which is strangely empty of other people, Aziraphale reaches out for Crowley’s coat. Crowley holds his breath. Aziraphale carefully, slowly, tucks the theatre program he’s holding into Crowley’s inside coat pocket. He adjust his lapels, smooths his hands down Crowley’s chest. His touch lingers. “Better keep this safe,” he says. He always was a packrat, ever since the beginning of time. There’s something searching in his eyes. Crowley wants so badly to reach out and take him into his arms. But he knows how that goes, now. So he doesn’t.
The dreams are an escape for awhile. In the dreams, they go to the Ritz, to the coffee shop, they go for walks in St. James Park. They spend endless hours in the bookshop. Crowley almost forgets what’s happened…but a part of his brain is always aware that it’s not real, so he’s bold, reaches out more - an arm along the back of the couch, his knee bumping into Aziraphale’s on the top of a bus. Aziraphale presses back, firm and so warm. Crowley wants to curl up there and stay forever.
He hates himself for it. He can’t stay away. He begins spending more and more time asleep: in seedy motels on the side of the highway, at tiny bed-and-breakfasts, overstuffed with junk, that he just knows Aziraphale would’ve loved. He stays in lofty bleak white hotel rooms sixty stories above the city, and he sleeps through all of it.
The twentieth or twenty-fourth dream - he’ll be twice-damned if he’s going to count them like a lovesick child, like he might count the number of times Aziraphale’s touched him on purpose 3, on accident 4, the number of times he’d called Crowley “dear,” or “my dear,” or “my dear boy.” 5 - the twentieth, or twenty-fourth dream is in the graveyard in Edinburgh, the one with the great big wanking statue of Gabriel. It’s a damp fall night, and Aziraphale is just ahead of him, unlocking the mausoleum looming before them with a a decided twist of his hand. The lantern in his other hand swings. Crowley catches up to Aziraphale, grabbing his voluminous sleeve. Another dream, he knows it from the first. But something’s wrong, it’s screaming at him from all sides. “Aziraphale,” he says, “we have to get out of here. Something’s not right.” He scents the air and there it is, underneath the smells of Aziraphale and himself, the smell of the graveyard and the mausoleum, cold wet stone and moldering old remains - something false.
“Don’t be silly,” Aziraphale says, but his eyes are darting, nervous. “I thought you liked spooky. Anyway, we have to get you in here. That was an awful large amount of laudanum you drank, Crowley. That was very silly of you.”
And all of a sudden Crowley feels it pouring through him: a sudden rush, and he stumbles. He’s off his rocker, just like that. High as a kite. Dream logic. He bounds past Aziraphale through the door into the mausoleum. It’s dark, and dank, and the stone slab is heaped with a hunk of old junk: a glimmering lantern, the bottle of laudanum, a glass, a heap of old scrolls, a leather briefcase.
“My,” Aziraphale says, looking around. “It’s been some time since you’ve been here, I imagine.”
“Bout the same as you,” Crowley says.
“Mmm,” says Aziraphale, like he wants to disagree with him, but won’t. He fiddles with his hands, sways this way and that - there’s something he wants to say or do, Crowley realizes, but Crowley doesn’t have the faintest clue what it might be. Maybe he would, if his head were clearer. He leans back on the stone slab to support himself. It’s cold and firm against his back, a little damp.
“Crowley,” Aziraphale says. There’s a warmth to his voice Crowley can’t quite place. “How’s the bookshop?”
“What? It’s - it’s fine. S’right where you left it.” Which is technically true for both real-Aziraphale and dream-Aziraphale.
“Oh,” says Aziraphale. “Good.”
A pause, a silence. Aziraphale’s eying Crowley up, almost nervously. “You feeling alright? No sudden - growth spurts or anything?”
Crowley bites back an inappropriate comment. “M’fine, angel. Aziraphale.” It’s getting hard to think. He doesn’t know where this dream is going. He hopes he doesn’t end up in Hell again.
As if he’s reading his thoughts, Aziraphale says, “My dear boy.” 6 His face is soft. “That was such a kind thing you did for that girl. Did Hell - did Hell make you suffer much for it?”
Crowley frowns, briefly. Aziraphale shouldn’t know that, not yet, that doesn’t come until they leave the mausoleum, until after Aziraphale’s hand was wrapped, warm and secure, around his waist. Still. Dream logic. “Stoppit,” Crowley says. “M’not nice. M-”
“Off your head on laudanum, yes. Not responsible for your actions.”
“Mmm. Yeah.” Aziraphale is very close. When did he get so close? He is less than a foot away from Crowley. His eyes are very soft. He raises a hand and places it on Crowley’s cheek, his jaw. It’s shaking very slightly. He leans in, in, one hand braced lightly on the stone slab just to the side of Crowley. Crowley lets it happen. Lets Aziraphale lean in. Lets his eyes fall closed; he’s tired, he’s so tired. Aziraphale’s so close his lips are a hair’s breadth away when he whispers, “I can’t. Crowley, I can’t, not like this, it’s not right.” Crowley can swear he feels Aziraphale’s lips brush his own as he speaks, a ghost of a sensation. Crowley shivers, a full body thing. He reels back. Aziraphale’s eyes are pained and terrible.
“Right,” he says, “No, you’ve made that clear,” and Aziraphale’s face twists, again, he looks like he’s nearly about to cry, so Crowley stumbles to the door - and how many times does he have to walk away from Aziraphale, how many times does he have to relive it, is it all he’ll ever do - ?
“Crowley!” cries Aziraphale, as Crowley wrenches open the door and falls out into blackness, into nothing. It feels like Falling, and he begins to panic, it’s the gap between things, it’s the gap where love and light and life aren’t, and even as he falls, he twists, calls out to Aziraphale to warn him, but Aziraphale’s not in the mausoleum anymore, the lantern’s tipped over but the mausoleum’s empty, and Crowley starts to shout his name and -
He’s in Uz. He takes a minute to adjust to the light, brighter than the mausoleum, heart still pounding in his body’s chest. Outside, the storm rages out, a long moan of wind. Aziraphale is there, his back to him. Crowley is tired, and upset, and beginning to become a little afraid. He’s reclining on Job’s sacks of grain with a cup in his hand. At first he just watches Aziraphale, the light flickering off Aziraphale’s white, white hair, dozens of tiny scorpion tails fluffed around his head, the set of his broad shoulders under his neat white robes, the ravenous movements of his shoulders as he eats, as he devours - so different from his tentative, fluttering hands when Crowley had kissed him. It hurts Crowley’s chest, an almost physical pain. He finds the cup pleasantly full and downs it. “You know,” he says to Aziraphale as he pours himself more wine. “I thought you would take better to kissing.”
Aziraphale jumps, a twitch to his shoulders, and turns around so fast Crowley’s surprised he doesn’t break his neck. The meat in his hand falls to the floor. Crowley frowns.
“Crowley,” he says. “Is that really you?”
“Course it’s me,” he says. “Who’d’you think it is, God?”
Aziraphale wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand.
“You know,” Crowley continues, not to be dissuaded. He’s free to talk in his dreams as he likes. This isn’t the bookshop, he will keep talking until he’s had his say.
“You love the pleasures of the body,” Crowley says. “I never met anyone took to having a body as much as you. I would’ve thought you’d loved kissing. Sure you’ve done plenty of it. Maybe not with a demon, of course,” he says, and tops up again. Can you get drunk in dreams? He sure feels like he is. Maybe it’s the lingering laudanum. Strange.
Something twists on Aziraphale’s face.
“What?” He asks dream-Aziraphale. “That your first one?”
“Yes,” Aziraphale says, simply.
Crowley snorts. He doesn’t believe him.
“It wasn’t like it should have been,” Aziraphale insists.
“What, you wanted roses? Chocolates? A serenade?” Crowley’s interested in what his subconscious has to say for itself. What does it think Aziraphale would want? If that desperate, raw, ugly openness wasn’t enough to keep him, what did it think would have worked?
Aziraphale says, “It was cruel.” He sounds hurt. “You know how badly I - and you tempted - ” He sounds like he did when Crowley had asked for the holy water.
“I thought we both know that angels can’t be tempted?” Crowley says.
Aziraphale looks at him. His lips are swollen with eating, shiny, his jaw and cheek slathered and greasy. He raises a hand to his lips - he’s trembling - he swallows. Crowley wants to kiss him, hungrily, to lick all that grease, smoked and heavy, off him. Lick him clean, see if he still tastes the same underneath.
Now that Crowley knows what he tastes like. Now that he’ll never forget.
“And I thought we were both perfectly clear that they can,” Aziraphale says, his eyes, wide and open, on Crowley’s.
When Crowley wakes up, he has a wank, then he goes out and brings a three-day system of heavy rains to the Florida beaches, completely ruining everyone’s spring break. It makes him feel a little better, but only a little.
≠≠.
He goes back to the continent. He might as well. He’s had enough of America, and he figures he better check in on the plants, and Muriel. The plants are perfect, pristine, and terrified: none have dared to so much as wilt in his absence. He spends a few days systematically eradicating every trace of Shax from his flat: a strange pile of pillows and - is that straw? in a corner, a lingering, sulfurous odor, an unspeakable gelatinous mess in the shower.
He doesn’t sleep at all, doesn’t let himself, even slips into Give Me Coffee or Give Me Death when the coffee human’s at her busiest to order ten shots of espresso in a big cup. Her eyes widen when she sees him, and she points an accusatory finger at him. “You!” she says, starting to come around the counter. “Stay right there!” Alarmed, he pulls up, lightly, and one customer drops a rather full tray of drinks on an older woman 7, who immediately yells, and Crowley grabs his coffee - miraculously ready - and slips out the door.
He can see the bookshop from here and wow, okay, that hurts. The sun’s shining on it, reflecting off the windows. He can’t see through them, but it looks well and thoroughly closed. He’d given Muriel specific instructions not to sell any of the books while he was gone. He’d go and see them tomorrow, see how they were making out. He can’t do it today.
He goes out and causes some mischief, and then he drives around London, and finally, finally, he goes back to his flat. Which is where he’s lounging on his couch around midnight watching reruns of The Bachelor, 8 resolutely not sleeping, when Shax materializes suddenly in his flat.
He jumps, spilling his whiskey all down himself. “Crowley,” she says, and her eyes dart all around the flat.
“Shax,” Crowley says. He’d just gotten the stink out. “What is this, some kind of - some kind of sub-let? How’s Hell, anyway?”
Her eyes snap back to him. “Fine,” she says. “Well not - you know how Hell is. Where is he? The angel.”
“Gabriel? Again? Still?” Crowley’s getting tired of this.
“No,” she says, and she takes one swaying step, and another, and she’s in his face. “Your angel.”
Crowley feels his stomach sink, sink, like he’s falling, like that time Aziraphale had made him go on a rollercoaster and he’d hated it. He’d actually stopped time after the drop and clambered out, he and Aziraphale arguing the whole time. He’d flown down and restarted time, waiting for Aziraphale who he could fucking see sitting up there, even upside down, with his arms crossed, pouting. He was ridiculous. Something pulled in him, spoiling the angel’s good time, wasting a chance to be close to him, their thighs brushing, legs tangling, but he couldn’t go up there and finish it with him.
It felt too much like Falling.
But Shax is watching him now, eyes roving over his face, and how had he ever forgotten how hungry she was, how ravenous? He makes himself pour another glass casually - he pointedly doesn’t offer her any - recrosses his legs. “Don’t have an angel,” he says to her. He’s not lying, not really. He doesn’t have an angel anymore.
She narrows her eyes.
“Supreme Archangel Aziraphale’s gone missing. So’s the Book of Life.” She snarls the words like she relishes every one. And there it is. Crowley’s stomach swoops and stays somewhere about his knees. He’s been waiting for this ever since Aziraphale said he was leaving, ever since he’d seen the Metratron - hadn’t he. Had known something was wrong, had known something was going to happen, why did he let the angel go, why didn’t he stop him, what else could he have said?
“Sounds like they have a real problem up there,” Crowley says as his mind races. “Angels going missing left and right.”
Shax stares at him, then goes to the kitchen. “Wine’s on the left,” he says. He rotates his head, watches her without getting up, trying to look cool, unbothered, relaxed. She doesn’t drink any wine. She’s on the hunt. She looks all over, even inside the fridge, as if Crowley would be keeping him there. “Satisfied?” he says, when she comes back into the living room.
“No,” she says. “I know you have something to do with this.”
“I know I don’t.”
“Your little angel would come running to you. He always has.”
No, thinks Crowley. I always come running to him. “Mmm,” he says out loud.
“You don’t know anything about this?”
He holds up his hand: demon’s honor. She studies him, nods.
“First thing he’ll do is come here,” she says.
“Mmyeah, I really, really doubt that,” Crowley says.
“He doesn’t have anywhere else to go,” she says.
“Lots of places he can go. Alpha Centauri. Betelgeuse. Spain.” Inside, he’s panicking.
Something’s wrong, something’s very, very wrong, because even if Aziraphale had been wiped, if all his memories had been erased like Gabriel’s, he still would’ve made it back to Crowley. Crowley knows this like he knows anything: the taste of apples. Which stars are his. Every one of Aziraphale’s moods and inflections.
“He will come here,” she says. “And we will find him. You can’t hide him forever, Crowley.”
“I’m not-HIDING HIM-” he trails off. She’s disappeared again. He drains his glass. He waits until he’s sure she’s really gone, then he springs into action, running down the stairs, almost falling into the Bentley, and racing over to the bookshop. He uses no fewer than five minor miracles on the way there.
He hammers on the door until Muriel comes to it. They’re holding a book in one hand. “The demon Crowley!” They greet him in their usual mood: half trepidatious, half-pleased.
“Where is he," he growls, pushing past them into the bookshop. No better than Shax. Demon is as demon does: he looks all around, even flicks his tongue out, scenting the air. Aziraphale’s scent is here, it’s everywhere, at this point it’s in every page of every book, every block of stone, every dust mote. But the smell is old. Nearly four months old, he’d wager.
He spins back around to Muriel. Their face falls, free hand flutters. “I thought you knew!” They cried. "I thought he was with you!”
Crowley curses. Muriel’s eyes widen. He can see their fingers twitching for their notebook, like he’d used a few words they didn’t know yet. Maybe he had. “Don’t - just - stay here!” He barks, already running for the door.
“For how long?”
“Until I come back!”
≠≠.
Crowley goes back to his flat, wards the door, then six feet inside the door, then another six feet, overlapping concentric circles until he’s practically pinned to the bed by all the wards. He lays flat on his back and tries to fall asleep.
…a half hour later he growls, sits up. It’s taking too long. He miracles up a bottle of whisky and some sleeping pills and goes to town. Finally he can feel it taking hold of him, feels himself slipping off, and he focuses his muzzy thoughts on one word: Aziraphale…
…he’s back in the mausoleum. “This one again?” He mutters, circling the small stone enclosure. There’s the same pile of detritus that was there before, the same heap of junk: the lantern, the bottle, the briefcase, and how Aziraphale can clutter up even Crowley’s dreams he really doesn’t know.
“I’m afraid so,” Aziraphale says from behind him. Crowley whirls around, tries to snap on his sunglasses, but he can’t. Nothing happens. So he leans against the slab, crosses his arms across his chest, tries to look unbothered. This time he’s laudanum free, apparently; it’s easier for him to think.
“This is real, isn’t it,” he says.
“Yes, I’m afraid so.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? You let me just - think it was just another dream!”
“I rather thought you would figure it out on your own!”
“I did!”
“Oh, yes, well done. Bravo. It only took you four months,” and there it is, Aziraphale’s glorious bitchiness. Crowley’s knees almost give out on him. This is real, this is real, Aziraphale is alive somewhere, he’s okay.
Aziraphale’s got his figuring-stuff-out face on. “How often do you dream of me, anyway?”
“Nnng,” Crowley says. This was real. This was all real. And that means - oh, bollocks, that means that stupid fucking question he asked in Uz, that means that time Aziraphale almost kissed him but couldn’t, it wasn’t right, he was tempted sure but clearly nothing had changed - but then what about Rome, what about the dream where he’d cleaned the wine from Crowley’s robes, Crowley would swear his hands lingered on Crowley’s thighs -
it was all real.
“Aziraphale,” he says. Aziraphale’s eyes snap to his. “Where are you?” His voice is a low growl, he can hear it. “Tell me. I’ll come find you.”
Aziraphale’s shoulders slump and he makes as if to reach out to Crowley, but when Crowley moves back, his hands flutter. He straightens his cravat instead. “Oh thank- anyway.” He looks to the side. “I couldn’t talk about it until you broached the subject. Dream rules, you know.”
“Mmm. Not one of mine,” says Crowley.
Aziraphale takes a step closer, then blinks, then sniffs, leaning in towards Crowley, who leans back as far as he can, trapped between Aziraphale and the table. “My dear, how did you get here? Really, how much did you drink?”
“Not your dear,” he snarls, and oh, that hurts Aziraphale. He can see it in his face. Crowley almost feels bad. He feels terrible. "And I had to, didn’t I, to play your little games.”
“I’m not playing games, Crowley,” Aziraphale bursts out. “I needed to - get out of Heaven. This was the only place they couldn’t find me. Look, I’m sorry I can’t tell you where I am, but I can’t. That’s one of the conditions - where I’m at.”
“Right. Okay. Right.” Crowley sidles out past Aziraphale, careful not to brush up against him. He starts to pace, running a hand through his hair. “So you’re - what. You’re appearing to me in my dreams, from wherever you’re at? And where are you, anyway? I can’t feel you anywhere.” He’s talking to himself, knows Aziraphale can’t answer.
“Mmm,” says Aziraphale.
“You’re - somewhere. Somewhere safe?”
Aziraphale nods, hesitantly.
“Why is Heaven after you? Didn’t like your new procedures on filing?” Aziraphale’s mouth tightens. “It’s, wait, no-” it keeps sliding away from him. He throws himself on the thought like a snake trying to catch a rat. Grabs ahold of it. “The Book. You stole the Book?”
Aziraphale nods. “And are you - where’s the Book?” Aziraphale just looks at him. “Right, is it where you are? Can you tell me that?”
Aziraphale frowns, then nods, then shakes his head. He clears his throat. “No, it’s not where I am. Crowley - you have to find it and destroy it.”
“The Book of Life? You’re joking.”
“I’m not joking. That’s what I was trying to do when I - had to leave. Abruptly. Turns out it was guarded quite well, actually.” Aziraphale tries a smile.
“You’re not hurt, are you? Wherever you are?” Crowley starts pacing around him. He doesn’t know if he’s seeing the real Aziraphale or just a projection of him or even just as he’d looked in the dream.
“I’m not - no, I’m not hurt. I’m fine. Crowley, it really is frightfully important that you find the Book and destroy it.”
“But what if it destroys life on earth? All those names in it, just going to be wiped out. What happens then?”
“I don’t think that’s how it works.”
“You don’t think?”
“No, I don’t. Look, Crowley, the Book of Life has tremendous power. It’s being used as a weapon, as, as - a bargaining chip. A threat.”
“Are you being threatened?” Crowley steps closer, voice going low and dangerous.
“Oh, I don’t care about me.” Aziraphale flaps a hand as if at a particularly annoying insect. “If we destroy the Book, that evens out the playing field a little.”
Crowley growls. “I need to get you from wherever you are.”
“No,” Aziraphale says. “Don’t you see? Book first. Then that’s one less weapon they have.”
They. “Whose side are you on, Aziraphale?”
Aziraphale smiles. It’s tired, and sad, and his eyes are a little haunted. “I rather thought I was on our side.”
1. Those children with uncommon names are already used to disappointment in that arena. No real victory there. return to text
2. Crowley’d been drinking himself into such a stupor before this that if he’d dreamed, he hadn’t remembered it. return to text
3. Seventeen. return to text
4. Two hundred and fifty-three. return to text
5. Two, eighty-two, and a hundred and twenty-three times, respectively. return to text
6. Twenty-four, if dreams count.
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7. Who’d just stiffed coffee human out of a tip.
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8. One of his. He’d caught Aziraphale watching it once.
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