Chapter Text
The storm must have been what finally caused Crowley to come to. Lighting lit the sky as rain beat against the windows, thunder crashing just far enough away to not be an immediate concern.
Speaking of immediate concerns…
Now that Crowley was slowly regaining awareness, he shot to his feet from his current position on the floor. Not his floor, mind you, his flat strewn with bottles as it had been for months. Not even the floor of one of the hotels of questionable quality he vaguely recalled bolting to the numerous times he couldn’t bear being anywhere near Soho since…
Since he’d last been here in the bookshop.
Tensed and alert, Crowley fled from the back room. He was fully set on outrunning the memories ready and waiting to spring like arrows notched and ready to fly, before freezing at the sight of another figure slumped near the register.
“What the…” the flash of panic and concern that struck Crowley seemed out of place (at least in its intensity), considering how comparatively little he’d had to do with the small Scrivener to warrant such a reaction on their behalf. “Muriel?”
Apparently his words did what the storm had not, Muriel shifting weakly as Crowley crossed the room and bent to help lift them from the ground.
“M-Mister Crowley?” Muriel groaned, eyes still unfocused and leaning against Crowley for support. “W-when did you come back? I- I thought you’d driven off after Archangel Az-”
“How many times have I gotta tell you to drop the Mister? I’m ancient, not old,” Crowley cut them off with a huff, and where the Heaven did that come from? As if it was a long standing argument? He very pointedly shoved aside acknowledging that his interruption also served to prevent Murial from saying his name (He included himself in the list of people he was very good at lying to.)
Frowning Muriel questioned again, “When did you get here? How did you get here?”
Having no answers, Crowley could only shrug noncommittally. His eyes darted around the room, taking in every inch as he’d done when assessing the bookshop after the Armageddon that wasn’t. He failed to find even the smallest of changes this time around, but that didn’t stop his hands from twitching uneasily as he felt the air faintly stir with an energy he could only describe as wrong.
Both beings jolted at the sound of the front door’s bell ringing, Maggie and Nina stumbling their way into the shop looking as if they were in a similar state of disorientation.
“What the hell have you gotten us into this time?” Nina snapped, marching up to Crowley and crossing her arms with a pointed glare.
“Does it look like I have any clue what’s going on here?” Crowley retaliated, only stopped from advancing on Nina when he saw Maggie place a calming but firmly restraining arm on Nina’s arm.
“She’s just tense and jumping to conclusions. Can’t blame her really. Both of us woke up in Nina’s shop with no idea how we got there, on top of it being the first time in months we’ve seen your car hanging around rather than just passing through…” Maggie paused her explanation, brows furrowing before she continued questioningly, “It.. it is the first time you’ve been back… right?”
“Course it is, what kind of question…” Crowley trailed off, matching Maggie’s state of confusion.
Now that he paid attention, he had that feeling of an unexplainably increased sense of familiarity, eerily identical to what he’d felt with Muriel and equally as uncountable. Not only that, but how was he so much more unaffected than he should have been by being back in the place he’d had his heart obliterated? He hadn’t expected his first time back (assuming he ever did come back), to feel anything less than agonizing, yet here he stood, heart still unmistakably raw and scarred over far more than he expected but not actively bleeding out.
“See, not as far of a stretch to link you to whatever's going on as you thought, wouldn’t be the first time you’ve meddled in something and caused a right mess,” Nina grumbled, still visibly on edge but less openly hostile.
“Excuse you, but if you recall, you know very well the main meddler last time was…” Crowley swallowed, flinching at coming even close to mentioning him.
“What’s that lovely human expression? Oh yes- guilty as charged,” a posh voice replied from the shadows near the front door as they all whirled to face the intruder. Crowley shivered at the familiar cadence he’d know anywhere, though not from pain as would be assumed, but from the unfamiliar iciness he’d never heard from that voice.
“Aziraphale?” Crowley breathed, frozen to the spot as he took in the figure walking into the dim lighting the storm had brought on.
“Speak of the devil as they say,” Aziraphale smirked, stopping just shy of the group clustered in the middle of the shop. The sterile white of the new suit was less surprising than the harsh, sharp angles of the design that contrasted so severely with the soft lines and curves of the Angels usual ensemble. It was nowhere near what Crowley would have imagined from the new Archangel, had he been in any state of mind to ponder such things, anymore than the flecks of dark gray mixed in with the halo of blond curls that had never changed until now.
Unsettling as all of that was, what caused Crowley's blood to freeze in his corporation was when he finally met Aziraphale’s eyes. Gone was the ocean blue Crowley had gotten lost in far more times than his sunglasses would have allowed anyone to know.
The gaze that met his eyes now was not the lavender he wasn’t sure if he would have recoiled from due to its association with a certain former Archangel, or embraced despite everything because it still would have been his Angel gazing back regardless of the hue of his irises.
What Crowley saw now was a twisted shadow of that same flowers vibrant shade, if left uncared for to grow dark, decayed, and withered, long since abandoned to rot.
“W-what are you doing here?” Crowley stammered, breathing erratic as Aziraphale slowly continued his progress towards the group, “You’ve been plenty content to piss off to Heaven without a backward glance until now, don’t let trivial little connections like ours hold you back now Archangel,” Crowley spat, doing his best not to shrink away every step closer Aziraphale advanced.
Chuckling darkly, Aziraphale lifted his hand to caress Crowley’s cheek, smirking at the shiver his touch was able to cause in the Demon even now.
“Ah, you see, therein lies the problem. I admit that you were right in one respect. My newly appointed position wasn’t exactly as I expected. Some… Changes were required,” Aziraphale paused with a curl of his lips. “However, I suppose you could say that leaves us even, considering I was also right.”
“In what way?” Crowley barely managed to choke out, stomach dropping as the Archangel snickered sinisterly.
“That you had no idea what I was offering you,” Aziraphale sneered. One of his hands fisted into Crowley’s lapels as the other rested on his face, a lovers embrace that should have been warm and tender but was instead forceful and possessive. Breaths mingling for only a moment, Aziraphale hissed quietly enough only Crowley could have heard it, “And I’m going to ensure you regret turning me down, that you beg me for another chance. And don’t worry, when you’re ready, I’ll be waiting.”
Breaking the embrace, there was a flash of blinding light, and the Archangel was gone.