Chapter Text
Chapter One: The Feelings Catch Up
“Another scotch, my dear?” Aziraphale offers, already anticipating the answer.
“Don’t mind if I do, Angel.” Crowley answers, polishing off the remainder of his glass and handing it over.
Aziraphale takes the glass and pours from one of his favorite bottles, one he’s saved for years and can’t think of a better occasion than saving the world to finally enjoy it with Crowley. He hands the glass back, and they fall into a comfortable silence, after hours of toasting and laughing and rehashing the last week, from dinner at the Ritz until closing time and back to the bookshop. Aziraphale starts pouring his own glass, and pauses mid-pour as recent memories from the week flood him.
*
It all happened so fast, really. Within days of the end of world, he finally discovered the Antichrist’s location, and then inconveniently discorporated just as he was about to get Crowley’s help, got pulled up to Heaven and immediately rebelled against it, returned to earth and possessed a woman. Well, he decided, demons possess, he merely shared her vessel and hitched a ride to where they needed to go, perhaps there was a better word for it that sounded less rude. And then Crowley rode in with his Bentley ablaze, stopped time, and took up arms against Satan himself with only a tire iron in his hand, ready to face the end of the world by his side.
And against all odds, it had worked. They all survived, Adam restored the world to normal and gave him his corporation back. They had celebrated and shared a wine bottle at the bus stop, and after remembering that his bookshop was gone, Crowley had offered Aziraphale a place to stay. They rode back, still side by side, no longer afraid of how their respective sides would react, but still knowing there would be Hell to pay.
It was Crowley who thought up the idea to trade places after reading the prophesy. He was always so much more clever than Aziraphale when it came to schemes, even if he did need prodded to think them up, like at the air base when Aziraphale threatened to never talk to him again unless he came up with something. Crowley was so prone to anxiety and despair, usually ready to give up, or run to the stars, or nap through the 18th century when things got tough. Aziraphale was ever the optimist, trying to hold on to hope if he had nothing else, and tried to share that with Crowley when he could. The despair part of Crowley frightened him, which is why he didn’t speak to Crowley for decades after he asked for Holy Water, knowing he didn’t fully trust him not to assume the worst.
When the bus finally arrived at Crowley’s flat, he nudged Crowley awake and they silently rode up the lift together. As Crowley fumbled for his keys, Aziraphale immediately felt the presence of Holy Water in the doorway and pushed Crowley back, holding him tightly by the shoulders. Crowley tried to explain how he had used the insurance to stop Ligur but Aziraphale kept pushing Crowley back against the wall, terrified for him and trying to identify the threat. When he saw his tartan thermos on the floor, he stopped pushing Crowley, and pulled him closer instead, tightly holding him, and couldn’t stop his body from shaking against the demon’s lean figure, all his unnamed fears suddenly brought to the forefront.
Crowley held him back, soothing him, still trying to explain. “I’m alright, Angel, I’m here. I promise it was only ever insurance against the worst, if Hell came for me. And it did, and it kept me safe. I know how hard that was for you to give it to me,” he says, pulling back and looking directly in Aziraphale’s eyes. “I promise I had no intention of ever leaving you, if I could ever help that. It would never be intentional.”
It took Aziraphale a long moment before he let go, just feeling the weight of what he could have lost. He still forced Crowley to stay back in the hall while he carefully and methodically miracled away the mess, making sure there was no drop left before he allowed Crowley to come inside.
From there, they both quickly sobered up, and sat together on the sofa. Crowley outlined his plan to change bodies, and said they should do it immediately, since they had no idea how soon Heaven or Hell would come for them, and he knew even his flat couldn’t keep them safe. Aziraphale agreed, and they shook on it, and he possessed (inhabited?) his second body for that day.
After the switch, Crowley, straightened his bowtie, sat up tall, and asked, “Do you think I could pass? As long as I’m careful not to cuss, and walk with good posture?”
“It’s eerily convincing to me,” Aziraphale admitted, very unnerved at seeing himself and also at being outside of himself yet again. “And do you think I could be convincing? If I just walk like I’m, oh how do the kids say it, too cool for school?” He stood and tried to demo his best impersonation of Crowley’s signature swagger, but he looked instead a little more like a runway model, all hips and pouty lips and over the top rotations when he changed direction.
He watched his own face laugh back at him. “No kids say that, Angel, and I think you might have to work a little harder to be convincing as me. Remember the old adage ‘Less is more.’” He stretched out on the sofa. “If there’s a secret to being cool it’s talking less and letting others assume the most. Just quietly staring into the distance and letting others think you are deep in thought, when you’re really just contemplating your next nap.”
He laughed again as Aziraphale tried again, quietly and broodily doing almost a slow-motion version of the catwalk demo he had just done.
“You still have time. Speaking of naps I’m going to have a bit of a lie down, just here on the sofa. I know you don’t sleep but still welcome to my room, or anywhere in my flat, if you want to read or practice some Crowley-isms. Anxious to see what you come up with when I wake.”
Crowley barely finished the last sentence, as he laid his head down and fell asleep in moments. It was strange to see his own corporation fall asleep as easily as that, when he hadn’t managed that in his own body over these 6,000 years. After a moment and still feeling unsettled, he got a blanket from Crowley’s room and tucked his own body in, and wasn’t sure if that counted as a good deed or not.
*
He didn’t realize how long he had been deep in thought until he felt Crowley carefully removing the bottle of scotch from his fingers, still mid-pour on his drink, back in the present in his bookshop, celebrating how they had thwarted the apocalypse together.
He looks up and makes eye contact with Crowley, whose brows are furrowed deep in concern. Aziraphale is about to say he’s fine, really, and make some excuse for drifting away like that, make some joke to keep things as lively as they had been a moment ago, but Crowley just quietly takes his hand and leads him back to the sofa, and they sit. Aziraphale notices the scotch is back, so Crowley must have sobered up while waiting for him to finish pouring the drink.
“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale says, and Crowley shakes his head.
“No need, Angel. It’s been a long week. The body remembers, even while we’re celebrating. The feelings catch up. All in due course. We can still be happy we saved the world, and also terrified at what we could have lost. In my experience, the feelings we push away have a tendency to pop back up when we least expect them.”
Aziraphale, usually bubbly and quick in his responses, takes instead a moment to reflect on the wisdom of Crowley’s words. He nods, and tries to take real stock of what he’s feeling before he answers.
“I feel numb, really. I know Adam gave me my body back, but it doesn’t feel like me, yet. Everything happened so fast. Suddenly I’m here trying to save the world and the next I’m in Heaven due to that meddling from Shadwell, then I’m back and body-less and bookshop-less, and riding inside that poor woman like a demon would, and then back to myself before I switch bodies again with you and go straight into Hell and back the next day.” Aziraphale takes a big breath, surprised at how easily that all spilled out. “Things are back to normal now, I have my body and my bookshop and you have your Bentley and we saved the world and each other and had dinner at the Ritz to celebrate, but I don’t feel normal, yet. I feel like I’m just possessing this body, watching this all through a window, instead of feeling like me. It’s unsettling.”
Crowley nods, and takes his hand again. “That’s a very normal thing to feel, Angel. That feeling might stay a while, and I don’t have advice, except to not judge yourself too hard for feeling that.”
Aziraphale nods. “Have you felt like this before? Just separate, from, everything? Watching the world like a movie unfold around you without feeling a part of it?”
“Many times. For me that feeling usually turns to despair, and that’s when I want to nap or run away or drink. But the times I can just sit with it, it helps me find my way through that easier. You’ve helped me with that more than you know.”
Aziraphale sees him, really sees him, across his long life and the many times he’s witnessed that to be true, and squeezes his hand back.
“Thanks,” he says, reflecting. He pulls his hand back to his knees, and squeezes those, grounding himself. “And I know you’ve helped me ever so much to live life in the moment over these years, helping me to let go of all the nagging thoughts of what I should be doing or not be doing. To just enjoy a drink or the taste of food or a good conversation. To just be myself, and not anyone’s version of what I should be, despite all my training and upbringing to the contrary. It’s helped me more than you can know.”
Crowley smiles a little, and says “Thanks,” in return.
This is the most they’ve ever acknowledged how much they ground each other, through all the millennia trying to navigate God’s ineffable dice game of the universe, alongside the terrified humans who walk the earth so briefly while trying to make the most of it.
“Angel, let’s pause the celebrations for now,” Crowley says, moving the scotch glasses aside. “Let’s sit a while here. Let go of how we are supposed to feel or even what body you’re supposed to feel that in. We can turn on the television for noise.”
Aziraphale takes in another deep breath and releases it. “Yes, let’s,” thrilled at the low-key suggestion. “Anything in particular you want to watch?”
“You pick,” he says, handing over the remote. “I’ll likely nod off halfway through like usual.”
Aziraphale smiles. “Touched by an Angel it is,” he says, pulling the remote out of reach of Crowley who is grasping for it back, immediately regretting his decision.