Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

1946, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

“Why the hell do we live in England, again?” Crowley muttered to herself as she lounged back in her chair, sun on her face, toes digging in to bake in the sand. The beach was crowded, but her spot up nearer the path was comparatively quiet. She’d been out there all morning, beating out everyone crowding into the cafes for coffees and breakfasts so she could claim her place, and bask in the sun for as long as she liked.

She’d worked up a great track record so far. A whole day, nothing to do, no interruptions. Every so often she’d pick up a silly little paperback book she’d found in her flat, forgotten by some previous traveler, and skim through a few pages, but mostly she dozed pleasantly in and out of naps, and watched the people walking along the beach or playing in the surf in between.

She was just rousing from one such excellent nap, when her perfect day was cut abruptly short.

“Crowley?”

Crowley squinted behind her sunglasses, but didn’t open her eyes. That couldn’t be right. Nobody knew she was here. And the people she’d met here didn’t call her Crowley.

“Crowley! Oh, it is you, there.”

Forced to acknowledge the presence starting to cast a shadow over her perfect basking spot, Crowley hooked her sunglasses far enough down her nose to give whatever idiot it was a little taste of terror, when she opened her eyes. It took a moment for them to adjust and turn the silhouette rudely blocking the sun into a person, but—

“Oh.”

It was Aziraphale.

“Yes. Hello.” She smiled. Politely, mostly, with a little tremble of something else.

Crowley couldn’t quite manage to return the favor. But she gestured, and a second lounge chair appeared next to hers.

Aziraphale looked... well, Crowley wasn’t an impartial judge, but she looked good, even on that scale. She was up to date, fashionwise—in one of those rotating periods where she’d try out the latest fashion sense with full gusto for a decade or two, find a few items that would be treasured for another couple centuries, and then return to her joltingly updated comfort zone—and it suited her painfully well. She wore light brown trousers, flatteringly tapered at the ankle, and a sand colored linen sport coat cut to very effectively show off her shoulders. Her hair, short as always, was just long enough for her to have styled the curls forward and to the side with a bit of pomade. There was almost certainly a hat around somewhere.

It should have looked hot and sweaty and uncomfortable on a bloody beach in bloody Brazil, but unlike the other more masculine tourists about, Aziraphale’s suit only made her seem perfectly at home. Long pants and jacket be damned, the sun and sand and humidity wouldn’t dare touch her movie-star perfection.

Aziraphale sat in the offered beach chair, though she did not lounge like Crowley did, but perched straight-backed and wide-stanced, leaning forward toward her. “So, ah. What’s brought you to Rio, then?”

Crowley looked around at the beach, then down at herself, clad in a devastatingly stylish black linen cover-up dress. The swimsuit underneath was even more stunning, but she had been enjoying the sun more than the sea. “What’s it look like? I’m on holiday.”

One of Aziraphale’s eyebrows jumped up. “‘Holiday?’”

“A trip. A vacation. A holiday, angel, keep up.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale’s expression did something complicated. “Then... you aren’t here for work?”

“If work tries to touch me with a ten foot pole right now, I will bite its head clean off.” She snapped her fingers, and a wooden folding table was added to their little arrangement of furniture, complete with two icy lemonades. She took a heavy swig of one. “They’re swamped down there, anyway. Lot to clean up.”

“I... imagine so. Yes.” Aziraphale settled more comfortably in her chair, looking out over the field of beachgoers. “My head office, as well. Everyone’s quite tied up.”

“Mhm. What’d you get sent out here for, then? Couple blessings? Bit of do-gooding? Just keep it on the other end of the beach, angel, let me relax in peace.”

Aziraphale chuckled, looking down at her clasped hands, hanging down between her knees. Crowley allowed herself half a smile at her companion. It had been a long time since they’d seen each other. Not the longest, but...

She hadn’t actually been sure they’d ever speak again. Hadn’t even known, until a moment before, if she’d ever want to speak to her again.

Stupid thought, that. She’d never been able to get herself out of Aziraphale’s gravity.

“As it happens, I wasn’t sent, actually,” Aziraphale said. “I came on personal business.”

“Getting some hobbies squared away while head office is scrambling?”

“Ah,” Aziraphale made another odd face. “Well... that’s not entirely incorrect, I suppose. Personal business, though, not a hobby. I’m doing some work for the shop.”

Crowley’s smile cracked wider. “Definitely not a hobby, that.”

Aziraphale’s cheeks flushed. It broke the Hollywood-star spell she’d been casting, which only made Crowley’s heart skip harder.

“It’s of professional interest. There was a, ah... incident. A few years back. During the Blitz.” She sighed, dropped her head into her hand, and finally took her own drink. “If I’m being honest, my dear, I got myself into an absolute disaster. Tried to do something clever, got stuck when it all went pear-shaped, and nearly got discorporated three different ways before the bomb fell. Got myself out, in the end, but completely forgot about the books I’d brought along as bait until it was over. Since things have calmed down, I’ve been trying to piece my collection back together.”

“You... oh.”

Aziraphale looked up, and gave her an embarrassed smile. “I’m afraid it only sounds worse with more detail, dear girl. You’ll have to get me quite drunk before you’ll hear any more. But, anyway, that’s what’s brought me to Rio. I have some contacts with a lead on a book of prophecy somewhere around here—not a first edition, probably, but I’ll take what I can get for now—but there has been... something else that’s come up.”

“Got a lead on another book?”

“No.” Aziraphale glanced around the beach. “Crowley—something’s going on here. I’ve heard things. Something evil is—”

Crowley put her empty glass down on its coaster with a sharp click. “I don’t want to know.”

Aziraphale looked at her, startled. “What?”

“I am on holiday. I’m not doing any work for Hell right now, I’m not doing anything for the other guys, either.”

“But that’s exactly—”

“I think I’m starting to burn. I’ll see you around, angel.”  Crowley gathered herself up too quickly for Aziraphale to react, and was off down the beach before she could think twice.

She wasn’t getting involved. She had come to Rio because it was the furthest place she had been able to think of, in the hazy days after peace was declared, when she’d been unable to get any damn sleep and just wanted a long nap. A change of scene, a little trip to the seaside, was supposed to be able to fix that.

She was not getting involved in whatever shenanigans Aziraphale was about to get herself into. It would only end in chaos and a lot of work.

Aziraphale could take care of herself. And had made it very clear, a century or so ago, that she expected Crowley to take care of herself, too.

Unfortunately, she did, in fact, see Aziraphale around.

The next time she popped up was at a bar, where Crowley was already several drinks in and enjoying guessing which of the honeymooning couples around were going to make it through the decade. Aziraphale had stepped in, hands casually tucked into her pockets, and beelined for Crowley as soon as she noticed her.

“Hello, my dear.”

“Hiya. Drink?”

“Yes, please.” She had ordered, and slipped into the stool beside Crowley’s. “How are you doing?”

Crowley grinned, a little too drunk to remember whether she was currently pretending not to be fond of Aziraphale. “Can’t complain. Haven’t gotten this much sun in a few millenia. Might not ever want to go back, at this rate.”

Aziraphale nodded, and leaned in close. “Crowley, I really don’t mean to interrupt your holiday. But there’s something suspic—”

“No.”

“Can I please—”

Crowley put her glass down and stood. “Bye, angel.”

And she walked out before Aziraphale could rope her into anything.

This happened four or five more times before Aziraphale finally cornered her successfully. Crowley didn’t think she was actually trying to find her at first; it was just sort of inevitable that an angel on the lookout for demonic wiles was going to stumble upon a demon in the area periodically, even if it wasn’t the one she was looking for. But she did get progressively more insistent that Crowley listen to her. What had begun as their familiar mutual temptation—help me out here, I’ll help you out there, no one will ever know—was becoming something a little too intense for Crowley’s comfort.

They were at a party that Crowley knew for a fact Aziraphale had not been invited to. The hostess, a slightly frilly young woman Crowley had befriended on a whim on one of her more bored days in Rio, had led Aziraphale straight over to her to be introduced.

“Antonia! Look! A.Z.’s from England, too!”

Crowley, perched in the middle of a loveseat, quirked an eyebrow over a cocktail glass. “Isn’t that lovely.”

Aziraphale smiled pleasantly. “So nice to find a fellow countrywoman out here. May I sit with you? It’s been quite a while since I’ve heard anything from home.”

Crowley stood, which had the double benefit of showing off her height and her bare midriff for a moment before she sat back down on the left side of the sofa. She knew she’d caught their hostess’s eye—she’d been admiring Crowley’s outfit all night—but it was a particular spike of pride to see Aziraphale’s eyes drift down before jumping back up to her face.

Crowley had always been the one of them more likely to ride the waves of current fashion, but she was finding this particular era particularly flattering. At least in Rio, where the styles were dominated by beaches and boating, and while she was still getting a kick out of proper sun on her skin, she’d taken to the style with gusto. Tonight’s outfit featured a short black blouse and a high waisted, deep charcoal gray skirt. It came all the way up past her navel, leaving just an inch or two of skin bared in between, but it was more skin that she would ever have shown back at home. It had been a long time since the old Roman baths.

She sat down on half of the loveseat, elbow leaning rakishly against the armrest, and calmly crossed her legs. “Sure,” she said plainly.

Aziraphale recovered before anyone but Crowley would even have noticed anything, and sat suavely down next to her. Their hostess wandered away, off to find some other pair to introduce or someone to begin a flirtation of her own with. Crowley and Aziraphale sat in silence for a moment, watching the partiers and feeling each other out.

“So,” Crowley finally said. “‘A.Z.?’”

“Oh, don’t even start. Where did ‘Antonia’ come from, anyway?”

Crowley pouted. “You don’t like it?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“At least mine’s a name.”

“Mine is a name! Listen, dear, I really must speak with you, and you really mustn’t run away this time.”

“What’s the Z even stand for?”

“It’s just a Z.” Crowley made a face. “Oh, hush. You’ll get used to it.”

“Right. Well, Miss A.Z., it’s been lovely to meet you, but I have pressing matters I really must attend to.”

She went to stand, but Aziraphale caught her wrist. Crowley turned to tell her off, but Aziraphale only grabbed her other hand as well.

She’d always liked Aziraphale’s eyes, but they were too intense for her liking now, staring her down without a way to escape.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale implored. “Please, listen. There’s something very bad going on here.”

Crowley swallowed. “Don’t care,” she croaked. “Bad’s my middle name.”

“Not that kind of bad. Not... not like…” Aziraphale looked away, down towards their shoes; Crowley’s chic black sandals, and her neat tan brogues. The hand holding her wrist slipped down to grasp her hand, instead. When Aziraphale looked back up, her gaze was softer, but no less ardent. “My dear, someone’s pulling strings behind the scenes, and neither of our offices knows about it. I’ve checked. There’s nothing authorized going on, but there are things going on.” She nodded at the partygoers. “Crowley, they’ve only just gotten through the war. I don’t think they can take another hit right now.”

Crowley resisted looking over her shoulder, but it was harder than it should have been. She didn’t want to be looking at Aziraphale, either, but the alternative was giving in. “There’s always something going on,” she croaked. “There’s always somebody trying to destroy the bloody world, and someday someone’s going to actually manage it, and that’s just how it is. Not my job to get in the way.” She tried to yank her hands out of Aziraphale’s, but the angel held tight.

Her eyes had gone disconcertingly soft. “Crowley,” she said, “My dear. I know you. I know you don’t believe that.”

“Don’t you go telling me—”

“Just look at you! Look at everything you’ve done. Look at what… oh, Crowley, don’t try to start lying to me now. We’ve been together too long. If you really didn’t care, you wouldn’t still be here. How many times have they tried to promote you back to a desk job?”

Crowley tugged her hands again, and got them free this time. They immediately crossed over her chest, embarrassingly defensive. “None of your business,” she muttered.

“You do—Crowley, they’re all too busy, there’s no one listening right now. It does matter to you. Earth. The humans. I know. And there’s a rogue demon running around doing who knows what, and neither of our sides are paying attention, and I can’t find them by myself.”

Crowley closed her eyes. They didn’t talk like this. Even if—oh, someone, even if Crowley wanted to sometimes, Aziraphale was always too careful to let her. Had always been so, so cautious, to the point of paranoia if Crowley hadn’t intimately known how high the stakes were for her; how scared she was of being doubted.

She’d been simmering in anger and loneliness and terror for close to a century, since Aziraphale told her to go on protecting herself alone. She’d slept for a while, too pissed off to manage anything else productive, and then woken up in the midst of the war to end all wars. And then before anyone could even catch their breath, they’d gone and had another one.

It was enough to make anyone unbearably cynical, and Crowley had always been predisposed to such dark moods. She’d come to Rio exhausted by it. She just wanted a second where she wouldn’t have to care. Where she could go off alone and do what she wanted, because there was no one she knew around and nothing riding on her choices except her own days.

Not to be, apparently.

“Angel…” she trailed off before she could get started. How was she supposed to explain any of that? To Aziraphale? Aziraphale, who trusted and hoped and believed on the outside and kept a knife-sharp lance of candor tucked away beneath it all, for Crowley’s eyes only. Aziraphale, who loved the humans because it was her job, and liked them because she’d taken the time to get to know them. Aziraphale, who…

“Darling.” Warmth ghosted over Crowley’s bare waist, hovering falteringly for a long breath before Aziraphale’s hand settled lightly on her side. Crowley opened her eyes, only realizing how tightly she’d squeezed them shut when Aziraphale’s voice made them open again. Aziraphale was still seated, looking up at her full of optimism that they could do something—that a demon, an enemy, would agree to try and do something—and an underlying steel that told Crowley exactly how bad she expected things to be if they didn’t. Aziraphale believed in people easily. She did not trust lightly. She believed in all the awful things that they could do as well as the good.

And Crowley really would be upset if her holiday got ruined by an apocalypse.

She wasn’t really aware of nodding until she’d already done it, either. The little falter in Aziraphale’s breath right before she broke out in a heart-ruining smile clued her in that she must have agreed to what she wanted, because Aziraphale was putting down her weapons, and in the mood she’d been in that was only going to happen after one result.

“Fuck you,” Crowley whispered heatlessly as Aziraphale stood, hand still steadying Crowley’s waist.

“Yes, well, fuck you too, for running off for so long and scaring me terribly. I don’t imagine you have a coat, do you, dear?”

“It’s Brazil.”

Aziraphale looked upward for strength. Her hand left her waist, and Crowley, still feeling dazed from her evening’s sudden change of course, wobbled for a moment before Aziraphale was abruptly behind her and stabilizing her again.

“Careful, dear. I’m not going to ask you to sober yourself up if you don’t want to. Honestly, I’m tempted to find a drink myself and catch up with you.”

“Be my guest.”

Aziraphale huffed a laugh. She let go of Crowley again for a moment, before laying a sand-colored jacket over her shoulders. “It’ll be chilly out by now, and it’s a bit of a walk down the beach to my flat,” she said gently. She came back around to the front to offer Crowley her arm. “I have wine at home. And some very good wards on the building. That seems like a better place to catch up than here, if you’ll be my guest for the rest of the evening.”

Crowley sighed. She wasn’t actually even properly tipsy yet. Aziraphale just always made her feel like she was. She took the angel’s arm with one hand and pulled her jacket tighter with the other. “Fine. I’ve had worse company.” Aziraphale folded her hand over Crowley’s, smiling softly at her. Oh, Crowley was going to regret this later, but she couldn’t say no to her now. Not when she’d been missing her for so many years. “Lead the way, angel. What fresh Hell are we getting into this time?”

Chapter Text

Aziraphale’s flat wasn’t nearly as cluttered as the shop back in London, but it was clear she’d been there long enough to make a start. What had doubtlessly begun as tastefully modern decor on open wooden shelves when the place was looking for renters was now packed around with books and notepads and trinkets. There were an awful lot of seashells.

There was also a beautiful view of the ocean. A balcony with brightly painted columns and a set of wrought iron patio furniture looked out over a curve of sandy coastline, almost entirely abandoned at this time of night. They had walked down a stretch of that beach to get here. The moon had already long since set, and they had made their way by distant streetlights and inhuman eyesight alone. Aziraphale had held her arm the whole way, and they had each pointed out landmarks they had come to know around the city as they went—cafes Crowley liked, antiques stores Aziraphale had become friendly with the owners of, a few shops they had both been into.

Crowley had had to bite her tongue not to complain when Aziraphale slipped her jacket off of her shoulders to hang neatly over a chair when they arrived at the flat. It had, in fact, been a bit chilly out by the time they made it to Aziraphale’s building. And it was a lovely coat.

“Here, my dear.” Aziraphale shuffled back into the sitting room with two coffee mugs in her hands and a throw blanket draped over her shoulder. Crowley drifted over from the window and let herself be guided towards a couch that doubtlessly had not had so many throw pillows when Aziraphale first rented the place. Aziraphale set the mugs on an end table and then came around to settle the blanket around Crowley’s shoulders.

“Angel, honestly. It’s hardly cold in here.” Crowley rolled her eyes and pulled the blanket down across her lap. She kept it on her, though.

“You were shivering on the way over. All the time you’ve been spending in the sun, you may have reactivated some of your reptilian features. I know how much you love basking, but you have to remember how sluggish you used to get at night when we were out in the desert.”

“That was centuries ago. A couple dozen.”

“Well I won’t have you falling asleep on me now. Or catching cold. Sugar?”

Crowley rolled her eyes. It was a blatant ploy to change topics.

“Fine, angel. Let’s get the business chat over with so we can bring the wine out as soon as possible.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

Aziraphale put a pair of lovely china cups on the table next to Crowley, one nearly as much cream as coffee, and the other, she knew, with a perfect scoop and a half of sugar in it. Aziraphale perched in the armchair catty-corner to the sofa. It was placed a perfectly polite distance away, but as soon as she sat down, Crowley was too aware of how close their knees were.

Foolish thought. Maybe she had been spending too much time in the sun. She’d hardly had anything to drink, and she still felt addled.

“Now, I’ll admit, my dear, I don’t know much concretely yet. That’s the problem, honestly. All I’ve been able to find are hints.”

Crowley took a sip of coffee to refocus herself before engaging in the conversation. “Hints of what, exactly?”

“I don’t know. There’s a demon running around here somewhere, I’m sure of that—other than you, of course, darling, though you did have me a bit worried when I first ran into you—and there’s some kind of scheme afoot, but all I’m finding are traces. Places a hellish miracle has happened, that sort of thing. But always long afterwards.”

“You sure it’s not just someone else taking advantage of the recent drop in supervision?”

Aziraphale nodded. “There’s a pattern. I can see it sometimes, but it keeps slipping away, or changing, right before I can catch onto it properly. Which I think is itself a clue—”

“Whoever it is knows you’re here.”

“I believe so, yes.”

“Well no wonder you’re not getting anywhere.” Crowley raised an eyebrow over her coffee. “Any demon worth their salt hears you’re in the area, snooping around, of course they’re going to scramble things up.”

Aziraphale blinked, looking oddly startled. “You think it’s me, specifically? Not just the presence of an angel?”

Crowley took a sip. “Had to explain away all my thwarted wiles through the years, didn’t I? Especially before we got really good at our arrangement. If someone was foolish enough to come up here and not have looked you up first, you would have caught them already.”

“Hm. Interesting.”

“You said something about checking up with head office.”

“Yes. I went up to see if anyone else had noticed anything. I figured someone must have, given my human contacts let me onto it first, however occult minded they may be, but there was nothing. No records of any demons or temptations or anything anywhere on the continent for the past year.”

Crowley’s knee had started to bounce lightly under her skirt as she thought. “Yeah, that’s... I mean, there shouldn’t be anything. Everybody—truly everybody but me and a few of the disposables, and they don’t even really register properly—got called back downstairs after the war ended. All hands on deck down there. Whoever else is up here shouldn’t be.”

“That’s what I found, too, in the records,” Aziraphale nodded.

Crowley’s eyebrow quirked. She couldn’t quite help her lips from following into a sly little smile. “And how did a nice angel like yourself find herself looking at unholy records?”

“Oh, well…” Aziraphale hadn’t blushed or started to stutter, which made Crowley grin wider. She loved it when Aziraphale got confident about her justifications. “You know, the interlibrary loan system was really an excellent addition to the archives upstairs. It’s such a good way to check up on what the humans are writing about, especially for those angels stationed perpetually upstairs.”

Crowley hummed, leaning back on the sofa. “Right, right, the interlibrary loan. Tell me, did they ever clear up that cataloging issue? I seem to remember a few files from upstairs accidentally winding up in our archive when they first set that up.”

Aziraphale was impassive. “I’m sure I wouldn’t know.”

“And you wouldn’t know how to slip in a request for something from a little farther down than Earth, either, would you?”

“If, perhaps, a file did make its way up to Heaven accidentally, in the midst of a number of records I had requested from our own and the Earth’s archive, I could hardly be blamed for not noticing it right away. And I did return it as soon as I had noticed.”

“And read it.”

Aziraphale blew right past that accusation and back to the point. “So there is someone up here, and they are definitely not authorized to be. And given the patterns I’ve been picking up on, and a few whispers from my contacts here, I don’t think it’s someone enjoying a nice quiet holiday like you, my dear.”

“Definitely not.” Crowley didn’t like this news one bit. There were very few reasons for a demon to come up to Earth. She’d pretty much cornered the market up here, except for a few lowlies and disposables who came up every now and again to pull off a temptation or two. Mostly, those demons did their job, left, and either got sent back up to do it again every few years if they’d done well enough, or got sent back down into the pit to rot if they fucked it up, never to be seen topside again.

A very, very rare few, though, never came back because they’d done too well. There had been a few demons whose field work had been so impressive they’d been promoted, and given a much-coveted managerial position downstairs.

Crowley had been narrowly walking that line for millenia. She’d nearly ruined it a few times, mostly by claiming wiles that turned out just a little too horrifically, but she’d always been able to wiggle her way back into a field position on Earth. Being the original temptress gave her some leeway there.

But she knew the stink of ambition too well for comfort. The odds this rogue demon was acting without a plan were slim to none; they wouldn’t have been clever enough to be avoiding Aziraphale if they weren’t clever enough to have a scheme in the works.

The kind of scheme a promotion-hungry demon might try to pull off in the immediate wake of a world war was enough to sober Crowley fully out of her punch-drunkness.

“It’s not good, is it, darling?”

Crowley took a long drink. “Nope.”

“Will you help me, then? I’m running out of ideas. But no one upstairs is going to take this seriously, with everything they’re trying to catch up on.”

“Downstairs, either. I mean, whoever it is would be in a universe of trouble if they got ratted out for still being here, but…”

“Don’t do that.” Aziraphale’s firmness startled her a little. “I know Hell isn’t fond of a rat, either.”

“No,” Crowley said, a little softly. Aziraphale smiled gently at her over her cup.

There was something different here. Something a little looser about Aziraphale than she’d seen in private in a very long time.

Outside, among the humans and especially when she had a specific role or character to play, Aziraphale usually showed no fear. She was confident, sly, a little bitchy, bold... all the things that made Crowley’s heart start to beat faster when she got the privilege of watching her angel in action.

Alone, she had always been more subdued. It had been shyness at first; a little suspicion, a lot of uncertainty, a definite boundary between her and the demon she happened to share a jobsite with. They’d both been slowly chipping away at that wall across the centuries. By now Crowley was used to a relaxed, friendly, brilliant, but still well contained companion.

The boundary wall had, abruptly, been put fully to the side. It was all the more startling for the fact they hadn’t spoken to each other, out of anger, for nearly a hundred years.

“Come outside with me, will you, dear?” Aziraphale asked, still smiling that softer-than-usual smile. “May I show you something?”

“Sure,” Crowley murmured. She took the offered hand, and allowed Aziraphale to help her to her feet and then guide her onto the balcony with a hand on the small of her back.

“It’ll be another few minutes, but it’s quite worth it,” Aziraphale explained as they stepped outside. Crowley caught on quickly; the wide open, expansive view of the beach made it impossible not to notice how the sky was beginning to lighten.

“Look at us. Jabbering the night away again. Like old times.”

Aziraphale leaned against the railing, facing south towards the bay and the ocean. It was too dim for Crowley to read her expression clearly. “Not so old. Right?”

Crowley didn’t respond. She didn’t know the answer to that. Her fingers tapped against the top of one of the concrete posts supporting the railing.

Aziraphale turned to her, with too much apology in her eyes. “Crowley—”

“Don’t. I’m not... don’t.”

Aziraphale didn’t. She looked back towards the water.

They stood in silence for a long time. The sky lightened to purple, to navy, slowly but steadily towards cerulean. Behind Aziraphale, to the east, a flare of gold caught both of their attention.

“There it is,” Aziraphale said quietly, almost to herself.

Crowley took a step closer, still looking at the sky past Aziraphale’s shoulder. “Better be worth it,” she said, taking the place at Aziraphale’s side. “You still haven’t ponied up on the wine I was promised.”

Aziraphale turned to her, a spark of quiet hope in her eyes, quickly softened back into familiar fondness. “Quiet, you silly thing,” she said, straightening up and smiling as she turned back toward the sunrise. “Humor me today.”

“Fine,” Crowley began to drawl, but was cut off when another flash of light broke over the cliffs. “Oh.”

“Yes. I’ve spent a lot of mornings out here. It’s quite stunning.”

Crowley leaned over the railing toward the sunrise, her arm brushing Aziraphale’s. “I can see why.”

“You’re welcome to come over and watch too, if you’d like. I have a spare key. I expect we’ll be spending quite a bit of time together, trying to solve this.”

Crowley’s heart fluttered in her chest. This whole mess might even be worth it, if it meant time together again.

Aziraphale nearly forgot her hat on the way out the door.

It startled her so much she stopped dead in the hallway, surprised still for a moment before she made her befuddled way back to her door and leaned into the flat to take the hat off its hook.

She quickly checked her pockets for her keys and notebook. They were there. It seemed there had only been one lapse in focus as she had prepared to leave.

It was still more than there had been in quite some time.

Aziraphale shook it off, donned the hat, and continued on her way out of the building. There was a lot going on. As air tight as her memory was, she was as prone as anyone to distraction in times of stress. Her poor lost collection of prophecy books was proof enough of that.

Still, she couldn’t quite let it go. Anything and everything felt like a clue right now, as she grew more and more frustrated in her search for the demon at work in Rio.

The bright sunshine of the day helped her refocus, at least. She took a deep, slow breath of humid air, smelling of coffee and incoming rain, and felt her mind settle. That was always easier when she had a task at hand, so she set about this one. She and Crowley were going to meet at a park in one of the neighborhoods Aziraphale had come back to a few times in tracking the demon. She hailed a cab, and began to make her way inland.

Crowley was already there when she arrived at the park, settled across the left half of a bench in a way that made it immediately clear the other half was not available. Aziraphale slipped happily  into that space, casually pulling a newspaper into existence as though she were just about to start the crossword.

“Hello, my dear.”

Crowley raised an eyebrow. “Really, angel? The newspaper trick? Now? Haven’t we established there’s no one paying attention?”

Aziraphale paused. “Ah. Force of habit, I suppose.” She folded it away into a jacket pocket.

Crowley nodded, and stretched her legs out, crossed at the ankles. “Weird, isn’t it? Not being... you know. Did you know I got recruited by three different intelligence agencies during the war? We’re that good at the spy shit by now.”

“I sometimes like the spy shit,” Aziraphale said softly. “It’s... I don’t know. Reassuring isn’t quite the right word. Possibly just... familiar.”

Crowley’s face went a little softer. “You can keep the newspaper out, angel. I was just teasing you. Still want to be a little careful, don’t we.”

“Yes. Can’t be too cautious.” But she didn’t bring the paper out again.

Crowley noticed, she knew, but moved on to the practical reason they were meeting. “I didn’t find anything around here on a first scan. Granted, I don’t know what I’m looking for as clearly as you do, but I’m not picking up on any latent miracles hanging around.”

“No, me either. They may not have come back here for a while now.”

“Mm.” Crowley thought for a moment. “Maybe the spy shit’s not such a bad idea, actually. Keep you undercover a little bit more.”

“I don’t know how much that will help.”

“Well, I don’t think they’ve noticed me yet. Not that I’ve been doing anything worth noticing. I might actually make you less conspicuous. Cancel each other’s auras out, or something.”

“That’s not the worst idea,” Aziraphale mused. It would only work if whoever it was wasn’t actively looking, but it had been a while since she’d caught a lead. They might have dropped their guard a little since.

“‘Not the worst,’” Crowley repeated, rolling her eyes. “I know I’m not that much of a hardship to spend time with. Come on, angel, take me for a walk around the park.”

Aziraphale couldn’t say no. “You’re only a hardship to spend time with when you’re doing it on purpose,” she said, standing and offering an arm to help Crowley up.

“You still like it, even then.” Aziraphale didn’t grace that with a reply. There was a glint of mischief in Crowley’s eye she was wary of and impossibly drawn to in equal measure. She seemed to have noticed that Aziraphale’s hand had lingered a little too long after helping her up. “It’s alright, angel. You can hold my hand if you like. I won’t blackmail you for it afterwards.”

Aziraphale’s heart stopped. “Crowley—”

“A walk, angel,” Crowley pressed on, wrapping her own arm around Aziraphale’s to begin pulling her forward. “There might be clues somewhere else in the park.”

Aziraphale could only follow, and try to get her corporation to start breathing again.

They didn’t find anything at the park. Or the cafe they went to for lunch. There was a hint of something around the race track when they went the next day, which put them both in a more focused mood.

Or, it put Crowley in a more focused mood. Aziraphale was doing her best, but there was only so much she could do when Crowley kept sitting so close, or brushing against her arm, or winking at her.

There had been one moment, while they sat in the stands and watched the horses race by, when she had leaned so far over Aziraphale to keep her eyes on the horse she’d bet on that they were abruptly bare inches away, Crowley’s smooth, sun-warmed cheek so temptingly close to Azirpahale’s lips. It would have been so god forsakenly easy to lean forward and kiss it.

She didn’t. There may not be eyes on them, at least from above or below, but there were still lines not to be carelessly crossed between them.

She resisted successfully, and then spent the next week unable to get the image out of her head.

The problem was, Crowley seemed to notice. Not every particular instance—she hadn’t seemed aware at all of what she was doing at the races—but of the whole damning picture of Aziraphale’s attention. They had played this game before, a few times, but it had always been about tempting her into something specific. A meal, a show, a job.

Now, Crowley had finally been given a chance to tease at Aziraphale’s desire for her. And she seemed to be getting one hell of a kick out of it.

At lunches, she would nudge Aziraphale’s knee with her foot under the table. During strolls around the city, she deliberately brushed the back of her hand against Aziraphale’s at every turn, until Aziraphale would shove her hands into her pockets for safekeeping, her scolding glare returned by a toothy, knowing grin. At a party thrown by one of Aziraphale’s human contacts, she did that thing where she crossed her legs just so, and winked at her from across the room. At a party thrown by no one either of them knew, she implied, with decreasing subtlety as the night wore on, that they had already been romantically entangled for some time.

“What on Earth do you think you’re playing at?” she had gasped when she could finally get her alone during that particular trial. “You’re making us far more conspicuous than we need to be.”

“I was getting intel. Gossips are so much faster to get talking if you give them something juicy first. They won’t remember we were here, anyway.”

Aziraphale had huffed, unable to manage the lingering embarrassment and the ever-simmering hope and Crowley’s damnable bared midriff again without flushing terribly. She didn’t have to look at Crowley to know she was grinning at her. Heavens above, how did Crowley’s penchant for riling her up still make her knees feel like jelly?

“Don’t worry, angel,” she said, nudging her ankle with the toe of her sandal. “I implied we’re on the rocks, for now. I won’t make you play the attentive partner tonight.”

“And why not?”

“You’d be shit at it,” Crowley said plainly, cheerfully. “You’d break character immediately.”

“I’ve played more roles than either of us can count. I’m a perfectly competent actor.”

“Not for this role. You’d be too distant. Not on purpose. But you couldn’t do it convincingly.” She grinned over her wine glass at something going on in the other room, distracted and devastating. “You’re too scared you’ll fall in love with me.”

Aziraphale watched her for a moment, then looked away. “That wouldn’t be hard,” she said quietly. She wasn’t sure if Crowley heard her or not. She teased her as usual for the rest of the night, regardless.

And then when they were alone, usually in Aziraphale’s rented flat, she would slouch across half the sofa, or sprawl fully on the floor, skirt pooled around her or trousers rucked up carelessly, and think up the most brilliant ideas. Aziraphale had been circling the same clues for weeks now, but the moment Crowley joined in, the patterns that had been eluding her started to appear. It wasn’t just Crowley’s deeper understanding of their quarry, even if they didn’t know exactly which demon they were chasing. She had such a deep understanding of people. It often left her cynical and sharp, but Aziraphale was just as fond of her then as when she was waxing poetic about art, or Shakespeare (the funny ones only) or any of the billions of little things the humans had invented that she couldn’t help but marvel at.

Aziraphale didn’t have a hope of getting out of this unscathed. She’d never had a hope, not with Crowley. The lifted supervision and sudden close proximity had only shortened the inevitable timeline of her demise.

Chapter Text

Three weeks in, they finally found something.

Crowley was starting to lose her mind a little by then. A combination of frustration with the fleeting clues and the dizzying dance she and Aziraphale were doing. It was so familiar by now that the steps required almost no thought. But they had abruptly gone from a creeping, subtle thing, so slow as to be nearly invisible to anyone watching, to an allegro she would never have been able to keep up with if she hadn’t spent so many eras in endless rehearsal. Crowley felt like by rights she should have fallen on her face as soon as she dared to raise the tempo.

Instead, she couldn’t seem to stop. It was fun. Intoxicating. And Aziraphale kept up.

They hadn’t yet stepped on the others’ toes, despite still looking over their shoulders for any change in circumstance at every turn.

Crowley’s favorite move had become the hand placed lightly on top of Aziraphale’s arm while she was leaning against something, then trailed slowly across to rest briefly on top of her hand. She was frequently retaliated against with a coat draped over her shoulders or precisely arched eyebrow, but Satan was it worth it.

She was just pondering whether she’d rather approach Aziraphale’s seat in the theater from the front, where she would be seen right away, or from behind, where she could lean over her shoulder by surprise and watch her fight back goosebumps, when a burn surged briefly through the air. It felt like the tickle of flame without heat, a sizzle along all of her exposed skin that sent her hackles up and her eyes whipping around the room.

The demon was here.

She raced as discretely as she could over to Aziraphale’s seat near the back, indecision discarded, and found her already standing, eyes wide. Aziraphale took her arm and pulled her hurriedly out into the corridor, but there was as much of a crowd there as in the theater. Spotting a shadowy staircase blocked off with a velvet rope, Crowley pulled Aziraphale away, up into the mezzanine. They nearly tripped over paint cans and an abandoned ladder on the way up, but the maintenance meant there had been no tickets sold on the balcony, which meant once they were there, they were alone.

“They’re here.”

Aziraphale nodded, keeping back against the wall. “I’ve never gotten this close before. I’ve only ever found traces of a miracle afterward, not felt it. We need to—Crowley!”

She nearly fell as Aziraphale yanked her back away from the railing. She hissed. “Angel, we need to find them!”

“You’ll be seen!” Aziraphale hissed back.

“There’s nobody up here! I can—”

Aziraphale pulled her back again as she went to look down over the audience for their quarry. “That only makes you more noticeable if somebody looks up. We’ll find them during the entr'acte, it’ll be easier to mingle with the humans then—”

“Aziraphale, what if they leave? There’s nothing keeping them here through intermission, they’ve already done their bloody miracle, what if they’ve finished their business here and walk out before— shit.”

The lights began to dim.

Below them, the last of the audience milled around into their seats. A violin note rose up from the stage, and as the rest of the orchestra joined in to tune their instruments, the curtain rose.

Crowley sat down heavily. There would be no subtle searching now.

“Fuck, angel,” she whispered. “I could’ve found them.”

Aziraphale took the seat next to her. Her program was crumpled in her lap. “You would have been seen,” she repeated stubbornly.

“I’m better at this than that, and you know it.” She leaned back in the velvet-cushioned seat, head falling back as the first movement began. She couldn’t stop herself from feeling out for some other hint, a scent or spark or a flash of aura she’d be able to recognize as demonic, even though she knew she wouldn’t find anything. Their quarry had been meticulously careful to keep themself hidden. Surrounding themself with humans, probably. Get enough of them around and it would mask an occult presence even better than an ethereal one.

Aziraphale still stared straight ahead, to where the conductor was stepping out onto the stage. “It was too much of a risk.”

“No,” Crowley said to the ceiling. “You just don’t trust me to be careful. It’s just the holy water again.” They had been too open with each other for too long. Even things she had decided to keep to herself were slipping out. “Why won’t you believe in me, Angel? Just a little?”

The lights were out. The mezzanine, not intended to be occupied, was pitch dark. She didn’t bother adjusting her eyes to the dark to get a look at Aziraphale’s face.

The music began—a series of new compositions in old, familiar styles. She’d still press Aziraphale’s buttons by calling it Classical music later, get her riled up about whether she meant the era or the style. Or maybe she’d go with Romantic. There was something Fauré-like in the melodies. And she’d get to see that new, captivating shade of blush she was becoming all too fond of seeing on Aziraphale’s cheeks.

They’d be fine. They were always fine, apparently. A little gloominess wouldn’t shake Aziraphale’s stride.

The moment the lights came up for a brief intermission a few concertos in, Crowley was on her feet, leaning casually against the railing and scanning the crowd below for anyone suspicious. Aziraphale stayed seated, but she didn’t try to stop Crowley this time.

“Nothing,” Crowley said after a minute. All she could see or sense below was a lot of well-dressed people pretending they knew more about music than they did to sound impressive in their conversations with each other.

Aziraphale blinked, then finally stood. She kept well back from the visibility of the banister. “We should go out to the lobby. There could be something there.”

“Stale peanuts and overpriced wine, most likely.” Crowley stepped back to let Aziraphale into the aisle. When Aziraphale didn’t offer her arm, looking distractedly over her shoulder toward the stage, Crowley tucked her hand into her elbow herself. “Come on, angel. Buy me a drink. We found a clue. That’s more than we’ve had to celebrate for a while.”

Aziraphale followed, still looking over their shoulders, still looking a little bit shaken.

Aziraphale was distracted the next week. The abrupt sight of their quarry had shaken her into a mercurial focus; they couldn’t so much as go out to lunch without her looking over their shoulders and closely monitoring their surroundings for any more clues.

She found them, too. It almost made Crowley feel bad for having apparently distracted her for so long.

Almost. It was fairly impossible to regret the time they’d been spending together.

Crowley wasn’t useless in their sudden burst of productivity; it was her sharp eyes that started to notice repeated faces at particular parties, and her understanding of the stakes this demon was operating under that kept them out of danger more than once. But Aziraphale was an angel possessed. It took much longer now for Crowley to coax her away from the puzzle and into a cozy glass of wine.

But they were closing in. That was certain—the latest clues were beginning to form a picture that made the next hints even easier to find, and it was spiraling towards an answer.

A few weeks after the night at the concert, Crowley was alone in Aziraphale’s flat, poking at the pile of invitations and programs and marked-up maps that had taken over the kitchen table, trying to make another clue fall into place. The patio door was open, letting in a salt-tinged breeze that had made her tie her hair up to keep it out of her face and raid Aziraphale’s knick knacks for paperweights, but the sun was going to set soon, and even on the wrong side of the continent the clouds always went beautiful shades of blue and purple just before it got dark.

Aziraphale had gone out a few hours ago for a walk to clear her head, with a promise to bring back something for dinner when she returned. Crowley wasn’t surprised she had taken so long. Either she’d found a clue to track down, or had gotten distracted by something on her walk—another little hidden shop, maybe, or a park they’d only walked through once or twice that she’d gotten absorbed in exploring more thoroughly. Crowley couldn’t suppress a humiliatingly sappy smile thinking about her out there finding something to delight in. She needed it. She’d been too intent on the mystery lately.

Crowley perked up as soon as the latch turned, and went to lean in the doorway to the sitting room. She had become too absorbed in trying to map out the addresses of all the parties they’d found clues at to even notice that the sun had fully set, and she’d missed the show. She couldn’t really notice it now, though, either, with Aziraphale coming in the door.

Empty handed.

Crowley rolled her eyes, grinning. “Fuck, angel, you really got sucked into something, didn’t you? Not even a bottle of—”

“I found him.”

Crowley stopped. “You what?”

“I found him.” Aziraphale began to take her jacket off, precise motions, just a little bit rushed. “The demon. He was in a restaurant by the park. I overheard something, and tracked down a miracle—he forgot to make a reservation, thank our lucky stars, and I spotted him inside.”

“You followed him?”

“He was right there.”

“Aziraphale!” Crowley’s heart had jumped into a fast, uneven pace. She hadn’t—heaven, she’d worried about Aziraphale’s overcaution and wondered about when their offices might start paying attention again, but she’d never worried that Aziraphale would leap to tail their quarry without her. “What if he’d seen you? There’s nobody watching, angel, he could’ve—”

“He didn’t see me. It was busy, and he had quite a group around him. No one noticed me.”

“Angel—”

“I know it’s abrupt, Crowley, I know, but I couldn’t leave it when he was right there.”

“You could’ve gotten me.”

Aziraphale’s face did one of its complicated maneuvers—a series of expressions so layered it was nigh impossible to tell which came first and which were trying to mask the others. “There wasn’t time, Crowley. I’m sorry. But I have a plan now. I went in and overheard most of his meeting; I have an idea for how to find out what he’s working on and how to stop it.”

Crowley barely had time to move out of the way before Aziraphale stepped past her into the kitchen, beelining for the pile of letters and notes on the table. She dug through them, searching for something specific. “He’s not working alone. We knew that—you found all those clues in the invitations, dear, you were dead on—but it’s definitely a set group of humans he’s teamed up with. I don’t think he’s the leader, interestingly, but he’s at least footing the bill for parts of it. There seemed to be some complicated politics going on. This wasn’t enough to get a full grasp of it, that will take more time, but I did recognize two of the humans from a few years ago. Our quarry seems to have found himself a ring of lingering Nazis to team up with, which I don’t like one bit.”

“What?” Crowley couldn’t keep up. She followed behind Aziraphale to hover over her shoulder, and nearly fell when Aziraphale turned abruptly with a particular letter in her hand. Aziraphale caught her arm for a moment to stabilize her, and then rushed straight over to the calendar on the wall. Too quick. Too hurried.

“We won’t be able to get very much information about it from the outside,” Aziraphale continued, speeding through the train of thought she’d apparently spent all afternoon developing. “He’s been so careful, there’s no chance we’ll luck into enough public meetings like this one to figure it out. They were definitely using code for parts of the conversation as it was, but I did overhear a bit about how they’re managing the work, even if we don’t know what the work is yet. Our demon—the humans were calling him Ferdinand, but that doesn’t strike me as a demon’s given name—is apparently feeling spread a bit thin. Whatever tasks he’s doing for them are probably supernatural, and I suspect not entirely in line with what the others think they’re working towards, but obviously he can’t involve any of them in it; there would be a very different dynamic playing out were they aware that their partner is not human.”

“Okay.” Crowley held onto the back of a chair while she tried to keep up. “So he’s got a weakness. If he’s not getting as much done as he’s supposed to?”

“Exactly, or at least not as much as the others want him too. He can’t keep up with it all by himself.” Finally, she turned to look at Crowley again. “He needs someone to help him.”

Crowley stared.

Aziraphale’s face began to shift, but she turned back to the calendar before Crowley could see. “One of the humans mentioned a party coming up as an opportunity for them to do some of their covert work. Ferdinand will be there. It would be an excellent chance to have him run into someone who could give him a hand with the work he’s struggling to finish.”

Crowley’s grip on the chair had gone white-knuckled. “The demonic work.”

“Yes.”

“You mean me.”

“Crowley, you’re an excellent actress. You can trick him—make him think you’re there to help, to, to get back at Hell yourself, or impress them, or whatever he’s trying to do—and then we’ll be able to find out what he’s doing and stop it.”

Aziraphale still had her eyes on the calendar. Crowley looked past her, to the shelves covered in disarrayed books and knickknacks and far more shells than there had been the first time she came to visit.

There wouldn’t be any more beach walks if they did this. No more afternoons in the park; no more wine-soaked evenings. The demon was cautious to the point of paranoia; Crowley didn’t even know how Aziraphale thought they’d manage to pass information without him suspecting her immediately.

It was a plan that would get them the information they needed, certainly. As long as she didn’t fuck it up. And as long as she stayed far away from Aziraphale.

Her hands tightened impossibly on the back of the chair. “When’s the party?”

She saw Aziraphale swallow. “Three days.”

“Right.” She shoved the chair away, and swept towards the door. “I’ll need to get a dress, then.”

Chapter Text

The party had been Aziraphale’s idea. “A real soiree,” she had said, waggling eyebrows over the newspaper that was supposed to be keeping her inconspicuous. “A bash.”

Crowley had wanted to strangle her. Or tear the newspaper away and just cling to her until she stopped feeling so unmoored.

Instead, she had set her jaw, and nodded stiffly, and ignored Aziraphale’s pout as she went about imagining what sort of gala she was going to have to put on to make this gimmick of theirs work. Big, certainly. Flashy, too obvious to be worth mentioning. A lot of damn work, mostly without miracles and entirely without her interest, was what it was going to be. Her head already hurt thinking about it.

But it might be the best shot they had to find something actually incriminating. She didn’t have Aziraphale’s keen eyes or genuine angelic charm. She had scoured nearly every bit of Furfur’s house she could get to without backup. And there would be no way to get Aziraphale in to help without a massive production, so a massive production there would be.

Anything to get her out of that blessed house a little faster.

It had taken almost no time to get her in. The demon calling himself “Ferdinand” for the humans had been suspicious of her at first, of course—demons didn’t exactly go around trusting each other at first sight—but it hadn’t been hard to spin a tale he wanted to hear. He didn’t seem to comprehend how any demon could want to be on Earth, so it had been easy to convince him she was looking for a ticket out as well. She was pretty sure he was planning to betray her right at the end, to take all the credit and promotional rewards for himself, but they didn’t intend to let him get that far.

That was if they could figure out what the hell he was actually up to first. As quickly as he’d been willing to incorporate her into the plan, going so far as to fake a marriage certificate and to slightly smudge his conspirator’s memories to include a fiancee living abroad so that she could move into the house inconspicuously, he wouldn’t tell her everything. And what they had wasn’t enough to work off of yet.

The morning of the party, she sat at the vanity in her half of the bedroom and pretended to be considering earrings while Furfur meandered about. He had been cheerful all week, chatting incessantly about the party and how good it would be to establish themselves more firmly among the Rio elite. Crowley had hoped his good mood might make it easier to get something out of him, but no dice. He was still steadfast that they should keep to their own sides of the ‘project’ until it was complete. That was when he would really need her. Nobody could sell an atrocity to Hell the way she could. But until then, it was her job to help sell the cover story, and keep any nosy angels at bay, and his to scheme with the Nazis behind closed doors.

Maybe if they got him drunk, she thought. Not that he couldn’t sober himself up if he wanted, but at a party, with all the humans around getting a little tipsy as well….

It was a better plan than anything else she’d been able to come up with yet. At least it was a goal. She was starting to go mad without anything to do or anyone worth talking to.

On the other side of the bedroom, Furfur began to hum to himself. Crowley barely resisted the urge to grab a pillow off her bed and scream into it.

The party preparations took nearly all day—had taken all week, actually, what with all the catering and staffing—but while Crowley, as the lady of the house, was technically in charge, she was cavalier in delegating. Most of the staff seemed acutely relieved to be left alone to do their own jobs, instead of being bossed around by someone who didn’t know what they were talking about and would only change their mind an hour later anyway. All she had to do was hand people lists or give vague instructions about checking on the rose bushes in the garden. Which meant she was able to make herself a stretch of time in the afternoon where everyone was quite busy and no one, by sheer chance, was anywhere near the wine cellar.

She’d been meaning to get around to it eventually. She didn’t have the key. Neither did Joseph, their butler. Drinks were, for some reason, purely Furfur’s domain. She didn’t have a clue why, when everything else about entertaining seemed to fall on the wife’s shoulders, but apparently that was how it was done in this time and place. Joseph hadn’t acted like her not being given a key to the wine cellar was at all odd, and frankly she’d been in no mood to do any drinking anyway. She had made a few attempts to go down and snoop herself, with a little demonic assistance, but had never had a chance. There had always been someone nearby, or sharp footsteps ringing on the hall tiles just as she reached for the lock.

But she needed to know if getting Furfur drunk was a valid plan or not. He would be drinking at the party, certainly, they’d all have a glass in hand, but a measly champagne flute wasn’t going to do it. What they needed was good, proper wine. That stuff would go right to any demon or angel’s head. If there would be wine flowing at the party, they had a shot. If not, she was going to have to bide her time until Aziraphale arrived and hope she could come up with something better.

She listened carefully for footsteps as she wandered apparently listlessly towards the unassuming door to the basement. She knew, despite her apparent carelessness, where each of the staff were: all outside, in the kitchen, or upstairs and engaged in tasks that wouldn’t bring them down for quite a while. Furfur was a wild card, but he was locked up in his office, and she could see the door from here. The mission could be aborted at any moment if she thought he might see her.

As certain as she could be that she wouldn’t be seen, she slipped through the hall door and closed it silently behind her. The locked door was in a vestibule at the bottom of the stairs, and she hurried down to it. She should be able to excuse being down there as taking a shortcut to the back garden if she was caught. Once she was in the wine cellar it would be another issue, but surely she could hide. If things went completely pear-shaped she could shuffle her corporation around a bit and slither under a shelf until the coast was—

“Shit!”

Crowley yanked her hand back and hissed. She stared at her fingertips, reddened and burning like she’d touched a hot stove.

The cellar door’s lock, so unassuming and plain, sparked gently where she had touched it. Her own miracle—or what hadn’t bounced back and shocked her—pinged around inside the mechanism for another moment before fizzling altogether.

Crowley stared. That was not a simple ward to pull off. She knew that very well; a few of the dozens of protections on Aziraphale’s bookshop had been her work. It took a lot of complicated, time consuming spell-work to prevent another supernatural being’s power from touching something.

Furfur very much did not want anyone else of their sort getting into the wine cellar.

That was much more promising than any wine that might be down there.

The Ferdinand house was bustling even from the entrance, chatter and laughter and a lovely waltz drifting out to the road. Aziraphale recognized many of the faces swirling around the front terraces. There had been a lot of time spent shoring up her identity as an eccentric expat. She had needed to keep herself busy, while Crowley established herself in Furfur’s circle.

There was only one face she was looking for, though.

Crowley was speaking with Furfur when Aziraphale saw her. She took a moment for that sharp, aching relief that hit each time they met, then went to slip around the side and wait until she could catch Crowley alone. Furfur was suspicious of her enough as it was; the less he saw of them together, the better.

It didn’t take long for another guest—the French ambassador, if Aziraphale remembered correctly—to come and pull Ferdinand away from his ‘wife.’ Aziraphale abandoned her feigned search for the champagne and slipped right into his place at Crowley’s side. “Hello, there.”

As poised and relaxed as Crowley’s posture was, she had known her for far too long to miss how her shoulders eased when she heard her. “Oh.” Crowley turned to face her. She still looked strung tight, a bow string ready to snap under a blasé veneer. She was clutching her closed fan very tightly. “Good evening.”

Aziraphale couldn’t help it. “You look… absolutely stunning, my dear.” She did. A black gown that swept the floor and left a long stretch of bare skin down her back, her brilliant hair up in precise curls, and a pair of glimmering silver earrings Aziraphale recognized intimately from all the time she’d stared at them through a jewelry store case. She was too beautiful to go unnoticed.

Crowley’s eyes immediately snapped around to see who might be in earshot, but Aziraphale had been careful. She watched Crowley’s cheeks go the very faintest shade pinker than they usually were, but she was already on to the real matter at hand. “There’s something in the wine cellar,” she murmured.

Aziraphale’s eyebrows attempted to shoot up, but she kept them contained to a faintly interested quirk. Eyes all around, after all. “You found something?”

“No. Still haven’t gotten down there.”

“You—Crowley, you said you were going to scope it out weeks ago.”

“Well I didn’t get to it, did I?” Crowley’s sparkling smile didn’t twitch. “Wouldn’t’ve mattered, though. There’s a ward on the lock.”

“What sort of ward?”

“The sort I can’t get through.”

This time there was nothing stopping the slow crawl upward of Aziraphale’s eyebrows. “Goodness.”

“Yeah. Must’ve been in place before I got here, too, there’s no way I would’ve missed him setting something like that up. Almost singed my fingernails.”

“Oh, my dear, are you alright?”

“Fine, angel. Kiss my hand.”

Crowley was looking past her shoulder when she said it, which meant she didn’t see the flash of panic on Aziraphale’s face. “I—what?”

Crowley’s gaze had only intensified. “Now, angel!” she hissed.

Aziraphale could only do as she was asked. Feeling she must be fumbling even as she watched her hand smoothly sweep Crowley’s up to her lips, she noticed in a mirror on the wall what Crowley had noticed before her: Furfur, locked on and heading towards them like a missile.

So much for not being seen together. But Crowley had to have a plan in mind, so Aziraphale played her part to perfection. And as she skimmed her lips across the back of Crowley’s fingers, slipping precisely into the space between polite etiquette and tearing her own heart open, she felt something smooth drop into her palm.

“Oh—Ferdinand, darling,” Crowley smiled as her ‘partner’ arrived, taking her hand back without the barest hint of anything amiss. “I was just saying hello to Ms. Fell, here.”

“So I saw.” Furfur gave her a nod and the least trusting smile Aziraphale had ever seen, even on a demon. “So lovely to have you here, Ms. Fell.”

“An absolute pleasure,” Aziraphale smiled with the unfamiliar coldness of an angel encountering a demon. “You have such a lovely home here, Mr. Ferdinand.”

“I’m so glad you think so. Darling, I’m going to go check on Joseph. Do you need anything?”

“No, I’m alright. I’ll join you in a moment.”

Furfur’s smile tightened, but he only nodded and headed back into the party. Crowley watched him the whole way.

“He doesn’t trust me with you,” she said. “I’ve told him the best way to keep you from getting wind of anything is to play nice, since we’ve been sharing space politely forever, but there’s only so many times I can play the serpent card before he’s going to start to doubt my experience.”

“Lout,” Aziraphale murmured. “You’ve been up here for centuries, and he’s barely had a decade. What should he know about foiling angels?”

“You don’t have to defend me from him if we get this bloody operation over and done with.” Crowley snapped her fan open and scanned the room again. “We need to get down to the wine cellar and back before he notices his key is missing.”

“Oh, you beauty,” Aziraphale breathed, as the slip of metal clutched safely in her hand became a recognizable shape. “How did you get it?”

“Took it off his key ring earlier. He left it on the dresser. I’ve had the damn thing in my hand all afternoon, he kept popping up every two minutes and I don’t have fucking pockets in this gown.”

“Happily, I do.” Aziraphale tucked a hand casually into her trouser pocket, keeping the key within her fingers just in case but no longer needing to keep it narrowly hidden. “How long do you think we have?”

“Until the champagne runs out. We can buy a little more time if we miracle a few extra bottles in throughout the night, but someone’s going to notice that before long.”

“Best get this done quickly, then. Where’s the door?”

“Downstairs. There’s an entrance from the outside, I can let you in from there in a few minutes. Less suspicious than if we go off together.”

Aziraphale nodded. “It’s a plan. I’ll go for a stroll ‘round the patio. Come down and meet me whenever you get a good moment.”

Crowley nodded tightly, though her charming smile had never dimmed throughout the conversation. It was a masterful performance. Aziraphale had known she could do it. She had argued with herself for hours before she could suggest that she do something so dangerous as going in as a double agent, but Crowley had been right, when Aziraphale had held her back at the concert months ago. Aziraphale needed to trust her to be careful when she needed to be, and not step over her out of protectiveness. As much as she desperately wanted to keep her safe always, Crowley was a masterful agent.

They parted ways with overhearable comments on getting some fresh air and going to check on the guests. Aziraphale took her time meandering out of the house, saying hello to everyone she recognized and smiling cheerfully at those she didn’t. Even if they did find a good lead tonight, the caper might still be afoot for a while yet, and it wouldn’t do to jeopardize her cover. She did make sure to walk past Crowley’s line of sight a few times, though. She couldn’t risk her going down too soon and getting stuck waiting for her.

The patio at the rear of the house was lovely, decorated with fragrant bouquets and garlands and softly lit by candle and lantern light. There were a few pairs seated at tables near the door, but the decorators’ intentions had clearly been for the guests to remain near the house. Past the flagstones, the back terraces disappeared into shadow, with only the start of a narrow stone path visible curving around the side of the villa.

Luckily, in the time Crowley had been with Furfur, Aziraphale had cultivated a persona for herself that wouldn’t be remotely out of character wandering beyond the space marked out for her. She was well known for her oddly-timed, rambling strolls. And she had no trouble seeing in the dark.

She made her way casually down the path, careful to stop frequently to enjoy the flowerbeds and what little could be seen of the view in the moonlight. Before long she reached a tree-screened second patio. This one was much smaller than the main outdoor space, just a few square feet of stone flooring outside a well made but simple exterior door. It was quite obviously a minor side entrance, and most of the other party guests would have hardly noticed it, had they come this far, knowing that it wasn’t a door meant for them.

Aziraphale stationed herself outside it, pacing near the door with an ease that belied the knot in her chest. She could excuse her own presence there. It would be easy enough to point out the lovely full moon up above and begin waxing poetic to whoever found her about it until they were desperate to return her to the party and be rid of her. Crowley, on the other hand….

Crowley had no good reason to be downstairs, loitering near a door her demonic partner in crime had locked and warded against her. Even if she could talk her way through needing a moment alone and wandering outside, anything she could say would be moot in the face of Aziraphale’s presence. They were going to have to be fast. Trying to talk their way out of this situation wasn’t going to be as easy as it usually was for them.

Aziraphale leaned against the wall by the door, shielded by the shadow of a small potted tree. All she could do now was wait, and hope Crowley could make it out safely.

It wasn’t as hard to slip away as Crowley had feared, but that didn’t mean it was easy. Furfur, thankfully, had mellowed as soon as he noticed Aziraphale had gone outside and Crowley had not, so at least she didn’t have that pair of eyes glued to her, but she was still irritatingly conspicuous. She wasn’t just another guest; she couldn’t wander off aimlessly the way Aziraphale could. But any lie more detailed than “just going to check on something” threatened to give up the ghost if anyone bothered to check up on it.

She finally got away by mentioning to the latest party guest to corner her that she was going to ask the band to play some different music. It wasn’t just yet another offhand excuse; she did go and ask the band to cut out the waltzes already and play something more upbeat, and then slipped away down the side hallway leading to the basement before anyone could see. Her story was corroborated the moment the next song began, and by that point she was already speeding down the stairs.

She didn’t have time to savor the relief she felt when she saw Aziraphale’s silhouette through the glass on the exterior door. It wasn’t just that she wouldn’t have to wait precariously for her to arrive. Their meetings were beginning to feel more and more precarious as time went on.

“That door,” she whispered as soon as Aziraphale slipped inside. Crowley left the outer door open. Just in case.

By the time she’d done a paranoid scan to make sure nobody was outside, Aziraphale had already gotten the wine cellar door unlocked and open. She flicked on the light, one hand tucked into her pocket in a devastatingly casual way as she walked straight into the lion’s den.

She looked around and hummed consideringly. “Not a bad selection, actually.”

“Angel,” Crowley hissed. “Focus!”

Aziraphale shot her a look, unimpressed and confoundingly fond, and beckoned her over. “My dear, we have no idea what we’re looking for. Perusing the wine is, for once, possibly the most responsible choice we could make.”

Crowley gave the dark garden one last look before abandoning her post at the door and following Aziraphale in. If they were caught now, they were caught. There wasn’t much hope of talking their way out of this one, even if they did have a few extra seconds’ warning.

The cellar was cool after the near-constant Rio humidity. It was all smooth stone and elegant pale-wood racks, neat and bare but for the necessities. It was an odd sort of comfortable. The opulent decor and elegant grandeur of the villa had been wearing on her, Crowley realized. She liked a good bit of flash as much as anybody, but on every surface, in every room, it had been slowly exhausting her. This was a little more her speed; clean, organized, straightforward. No opulence. No clutter. No knickknacks.

Aziraphale was already searching, her slow rambling walk and the hands in her pockets nearly covering the precision and thoroughness of her gaze. She flipped briefly through an inventory clipboard hung on the wall. “Crowley, come and look at this.”

“Something off?”

“I don’t know, but it’s a good place to check. Maybe there was a shipment that doesn’t make sense. Something Furfur signed for when you know he was out of town, or something of that sort.”

Crowley nodded, and took Aziraphale’s place in front of the inventory sheets. Aziraphale was a master of paperwork—she’d been doing the bookshop’s taxes and bookkeeping by hand for a century and a half now, on top of Heaven’s scrupulous requirements—but Crowley was a master of faking paperwork. She knew just how to lie in ways that a bureaucrat wouldn’t notice or care about. If there was something fishy in the inventory, she was the one to sniff it out.

While she began to dig through the papers, Aziraphale moved on to inspecting the shelves and walls. The smooth stone didn’t seem promising for concealing a secret room or door, but there were plenty of shadowy corners; nearly all of the shelves were full, each slot occupied by a slightly dusty wine bottle, but a few had gaps, and those could be excellent hiding places.

Only if Joseph were in on it, though, Crowley thought to herself as she squinted at delivery dates and wine vintages. Only Furfur had the key, but she’d seen Joseph follow him down once or twice during previous dinner parties when they’d run out of whatever they were drinking that night. Furfur wasn’t exactly about to carry the bottles up himself. And someone had to come down and clean periodically; even if the bottles themselves were a little dusty, there was no sign of cobwebs or the general dusty mess a place acquired after a long time untended.

And that didn’t fit together quite right. Furfur was too careful. Whatever was down here, it wouldn’t be hidden somewhere someone could just stumble across it by chance. It wouldn’t be somewhere the staff would clean, or Joseph would find it by accident, or a guest being given a tour of the place might—

A crash of shattering glass made Crowley whip around, nearly tearing an inventory sheet off the board. She turned to the door first—empty, thank someone—before looking around to find Aziraphale, a few rows over, standing over a smashed wine bottle broken on the floor.

“Angel! What did you—”

“Crowley.” Aziraphale’s intense hiss was almost as good as hers. It pulled Crowley over before Aziraphale could even say anything else.

Crowley immediately saw what had garnered such a reaction. Aziraphale wasn’t standing over a spreading puddle. Interspersed among the shards of broken glass were piles of fine, slightly shimmery black powder.

“What is it?”

“Not Chateauneuf-du-Pape,” Aziraphale said grimly.

Crowley glanced around, checking the door again, before hiking her skirt up to crouch down and rub some of the dust between her fingers.

“Careful, Crowley.”

“I’m not going to do any miracles on it,” she said, less snappishly than she would have expected. “Probably set off an alarm even if it didn’t blow up the building.”

“Is it an explosive?” Aziraphale had stooped down on the other side of the mess, and was carefully rifling through the shards of the broken bottle.

“Dunno. Looks a bit like gunpowder, but… I couldn’t keep up with everything during the war. Might just be something new I don’t know as well yet.”

“I doubt there would be this much fuss over standard gunpowder,” Aziraphale mused. “But you’re right. And we can’t very well examine it here.”

“That’s on you, then. Have you got—?”

“Yes. I have contacts who can test this for us. Probably best not to touch it with our power too much until we know what it is, but I don’t know how long it will take.”

There was some small part of Crowley’s heart that had skipped, without her say-so, from fear at hearing the bottle break straight to hope. Hope that they’d found what she came for.

That part of her heart sank neatly back into the depths.

“Just keep me updated.” She stood abruptly, and went to dig around the nearby shelves for an unbroken wine bottle with the same label as the one shattered on the floor. “As long as we get out of this blasted party in one piece, I’ll keep playing housewife without a fuss.”

Aziraphale, when she glanced back, looked unaccountably upset. “Crowley…”

“Get the sample. We need to clean this up before anyone comes down.” She turned her back before she could see any other confounding, frustrating emotions on Aziraphale's face.

She found another bottle without too much trouble; another 1934 Pommard crowded at the back of the next shelf over. This one was, on inspection, filled with actual wine. They had been lucky, it seemed, to find a suspect bottle.

That also meant the broken one was more likely to be missed.

She wasn't getting out of the Ferdinand house any time soon; now was not the time for a shoddy cover up. If Furfur suspected she wasn't telling him everything, that was one thing; they were demons, after all. But if he realized she knew what he was up to—that she had gone off-script and started investigating herself—that only spelled bad news. He was keeping secrets for a reason. He would not react well if he found out some of them had been uncovered.

They cleaned up the scene efficiently, if slowed somewhat by both of their constant need to check the door. The replacement bottle's contents were poured down the sink—a waste of good wine, maybe, but the temptation of chugging the whole bottle was tempered by the fact that if she tried to sober up later she’d be dumping a load of wine into a bottle now full of whatever mystery powder they’d replaced it with. Aziraphale carefully tossed the broken shards of the other bottle as far under the shelf as they would go, along with what dust they couldn’t funnel into the new bottle. They replaced the cork, and the precisely removed foil cover, to make a fairly convincing replica.

So long as nobody looked too closely.

“You have the sample?” Crowley triple checked, leaning out the door to see as far up the interior steps as she could.

Aziraphale pressed a hand over her jacket lapel, where the paper packet sat securely in an inside pocket. “I have it. Here—take the key back.” She held it out, but hesitated when Crowley went to grab it. “Should—do you think you can get it back to him safely?”

“If they don’t run out of champagne tonight, I can get it back no problem. If they do, I’ll throw it somewhere. Make it look like it fell off the ring. Hurry up, angel, I don’t want to be here anymore.”

With a last scan to make sure the cellar looked as they had found it, they hurried out. Crowley locked the door behind them, then dropped the key unceremoniously into her brassiere. She wasn’t spending the rest of the night with the damn thing in her hand again.

They were almost at the door—so, so close to the door—when the light on the basement stairs flicked on. Crowley’s heart, unnecessary as it was, stopped dead, and she froze in her tracks, staring at the two silhouettes starting down towards them.

She probably would have been found there, standing like a terrified fool, if Aziraphale hadn’t taken her arm in a strong hand and hauled her firmly to the door.

They made it to the patio—got outside, got the door closed, but Crowley’s eyes were locked on the silhouettes on the stairs, and she knew they hadn’t been fast enough. The figure in the lead had stopped right as he got far enough down to see through the window in the door.

They were caught.

“Shit, shit—angel, he saw, he knows—” She moved away from the door, trying to get further into the shadows, but Aziraphale pulled her back.

“Shh—wait, Crowley. I’m going to hold you.”

“What are—he’ll think—”

“I want him to.”

And just like that, Aziraphale had her wrapped up in her arms. Crowley held her back instinctively at first, and then found she desperately needed to hold on. Aziraphale was perfect in this as in everything; warm enough to comfort her, short enough that Crowley could tuck her chin over her shoulder, strong enough that she felt maybe the safest she ever had, in what had a second before been one of the scarier moments in her long life. This close, she felt surrounded by the cologne she’d been catching tantalizing wisps of for months.

Crowley pressed her forehead into Aziraphale’s shoulder and clutched her tightly enough to surely rumple her suit. “Angel…”

“Darling,” Aziraphale breathed. Her head turned minutely towards the door, blocking Crowley partially from view, but not enough. “I need you to push me away, now, love. Gently, but—now.”

Crowley clung tighter. “He’ll know.”

“No. You’re brilliant, Crowley, you can convince him you’re still just using me.” She held her momentarily tighter. “And if you can’t, better he know that we’re friends than realize we’re onto him.”

Crowley pressed her face into Aziraphale’s shoulder, breathed in as much of her as she could. Then she did as Aziraphale said, and pushed her away, just a moment before Furfur opened the patio door.

“I’m sorry to intrude on a tender moment,” he said, standing in the open door, letting all the light from inside spill across the two of them. He said “tender” like it was a disgusting word, despite a polite smile.

That was good, Crowley thought, still feeling out of breath and trying to center herself again. He hadn’t come out ready to start a fight right away. That meant he might be persuadable.

Aziraphale took the lead to start, thank someone. “Good evening. Lovely night, isn’t it?” She was returning the same polite smile. There was no hint that they had been caught in anything—just a chance meeting outside with another partygoer. “I’m sorry to have stolen our dear hostess from you. I’m afraid I have to leave a little earlier than planned tonight; I only wanted to say goodbye before I left. Crowley.” Aziraphale gave her a little nod in parting, and when Crowley returned it, turned and walked back up the path towards the main doors, hands in her pockets, whistling quietly to herself. Like there was nothing amiss. Nothing to be upset about.

“Well, now,” Furfur said, watching her go. “And here I thought you’d invited her to keep the peace, not to get handsy in the garden.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Crowley snapped. “What do you want me to do, start a war with her? I don’t want to hear it. You’re not the one who smells like angel now.”

“You will forgive me for wondering—”

“I won’t, actually, no,” Crowley cut him off. The anger was wonderfully easy to draw on. Not just from the interruption, but from being left behind all over again, good reason or no. She tore her glasses off to glare at Furfur properly. “Do you want the angel of the Eastern Gate breathing down your neck? Do you want to go back to sneaking around like a rat hoping she doesn’t notice? I don’t think your human friends would be particularly happy if you had to slow down the timeline again, would they?”

He flinched minutely. There it was—as much shit as he’d be in with Hell if he fucked up his scheme and got caught before he pulled it off, the Nazis he’d cozied up with were just as dangerous to him. If he fucked up with them, or if they so much as suspected he posed a threat to their plan, they wouldn’t hesitate to kill him, and that would send him right into Hell’s hands anyway. He was almost as trapped as she was, when it came down to it, and that meant she knew just how to wiggle in and tempt him out of his assumptions.

“And what part of keeping her off our tail involves taking her outside for an intimate moment?” He tried to rally, but she already had an ace up her sleeve for that.

“She was drinking. She gets disgustingly touchy-feely when she’s like that. I brought her out here so she wouldn’t make a scene. I thought you’d prefer that to your friends seeing your ‘wife’ being overly friendly with a British do-gooder.”

Furfur went slightly pale. “Fine. Fine. But—”

“She’s a fool,” Crowley said. The linchpin. The little truth to ground the enormous lie. “But it’s easier to manipulate her if she thinks I’m her friend. Fuck off and let me do my job here, Furfur. If you’d let me help with yours we’d have been done already and I wouldn’t have to humor her like this.”

Furfur didn’t reply. His face was tight, but he stepped back to let her through the door.

“Nobody saw,” she said as she strode past him, heading towards the steps back to the party upstairs. “No one noticed anything, and nobody will unless you make a fuss. And if you do, it’s not me who’s going to be in trouble first.”

She went upstairs and closed the door behind her before he could respond. He would need to stew for a while to let the mild humiliation settle back into reason. She wasn’t going to poke the bear any more until that stage was behind them.

Upstairs, the party had continued without them unbothered. The band was playing a fun, jazzy tune that had a lot of the guests paired up and dancing, and the rest of them were still gathered around chatting, though there were conspicuously fewer full champagne flutes around than there had been earlier in the night.

Crowley mingled through the crowd, throwing smiles, making sure no one would suspect anything had gone on under their noses. It was a while before she wandered out towards the front of the house again, walking with an air-headed young man talking her ear off about the music. As they wandered into one of the parlors, set up for partygoers to sit and rest in a quieter room for a while, she noticed a little bit of movement through one of the windows. It took another few maneuvers to get herself free of the music critic and near enough to the glass to see, but the figure standing in the shadows was still there.

It was Aziraphale. She was tucked back into the foliage across the road, far out of human eyesight from the house. Crowley watched her head move slowly, scanning across the house, searching the windows until, with a smile, she found Crowley looking out at her. She lifted a hand to wave once, then turned and disappeared down the road, heading back into the city.

Crowley stayed at the window as long as she could manage without causing suspicion.

Chapter Text

Furfur closed his office door quietly, and locked it behind him. Crowley was outside in the garden, but you could never be too careful.

He fingered the keyring in his pocket. No. Never too careful.

He’d been stupid, really. All his own fault. Too strung out to look an apparent gift horse in the mouth, and now he’d been fucking bit.

But the issue at hand was what to do about it now that he’d come to his senses.

He couldn’t kill her outright. He might not even be able to; Crowley had survived on Earth for millenia with only a handful of discorporations on her record. And he still didn’t fully have a grasp on the whole breathing thing.

Not to mention that getting rid of her too obviously would send her angelic guard dog running for revenge. Her, he knew he couldn’t kill. Of all the terrible fates awaiting him, being smote was not at the top of his list.

So whatever he did, it couldn’t be something the angel would notice. Not until it was done and he had a chance to finish the plan, anyway. If the plan didn’t get finished, he was screwed any way things played out. He was in direct violation of orders from Hell; if he was forced to go back down before the plan could be enacted, he was done for.

And if Crowley went back down and ratted him out, he was damned, too. Or if she’d found out enough and decided her best option was to let on to his human compatriots that he’d been had by his own ‘wife.’ They’d kill him themselves, and there he was back in Hell again.

No one could notice anything. His human partners, the angel, the double crossing demon. If he kept her around, he was utterly fucked. If he did anything to get rid of her, he was fucked as well.

It would have to be something very quiet. Something she wouldn’t notice until she was too weak to do anything—something slow enough that he would have time to push the project forward and be done or very close by the time she actually discorporated. Ideally, something so embarrassing for a demon of her caliber that she’d keep mum once she was back in Hell, too.

He went around to his chair, dropped the key ring on the desk, and sat down to write a letter.

The key to the wine cellar stared innocently up at him. It was exactly where it should be, between the key to his office and the one to the garden door.

Too bad it had been conspicuously missing last night, when he and Joseph went to get more champagne for the party.

Aziraphale scanned the social page, skimming through wedding announcements and other well-polished personal news of the Rio elite. There had been a very encouraging write up of the Ferdinands’ party a few weeks ago, raving about the villa and the hosts with no sign the writer or the other guests had noticed anything afoot. Crowley had been nonplussed about the whole thing, even if Aziraphale saw her preen a little when the journalist gushed for a full paragraph about her gown.

Her companion was nowhere to be seen now, though. Aziraphale flipped to the crossword, settled comfortably on the park bench and keeping a keen ear out for Crowley’s arrival.

The folded packet of papers in her breast pocket felt heavier than it was. She had finally gotten back some preliminary results from the sample they had gathered at the party, and though she had scanned the first page far enough to know the results were very worrying indeed, she had held off reading it through until her meeting with Crowley, surreptitiously planned for that afternoon in the park.

But Crowley still hadn’t arrived.

Aziraphale had been there early, because she had the luxury of arriving whenever she pleased, and Crowley did not. This wouldn’t be the first time Crowley failed to come to one of their meetings. She had to be careful, afterall; they had had a narrow escape only a few weeks ago, and she couldn’t do anything to raise Furfur’s suspicions further. Aziraphale had nearly collapsed in relief when Crowley was right on time for their first rendezvous after the party; she had known to her core that Crowley could pull off the desperate maneuver the embrace had been, but Furfur was still a somewhat unpredictable character, and until she had seen Crowley again Aziraphale had been unable to stop fretting about whether she’d done the wrong thing and put her in terrible danger.

So if Crowley didn’t show up today, she would trust that it was for a good reason. Maybe she had been invited to a social event that would have been conspicuous for her to decline; maybe Furfur had decided they should go on her planned excuse of a shopping trip together, and she hadn’t been able to get away discretely.

It didn’t matter. Aziraphale would wait a while longer, in case Crowley managed to slip away a little late. It was Crowley’s job to get any information from the inside that she could; it was Aziraphale’s job to be there, predictable and patient, whenever Crowley could smuggle it out.

She waited until the sun began to set, and their arranged meeting time had passed by hours. It had been a decently challenging crossword page, anyway.

The track was crowded. Aziraphale was able to slip through the bustle with a minimum of knocked elbows or crushed toes only by grace of a little miracle, but it was worth it so she could keep her eyes on the stands instead of the path.

Ordinarily, when they met at the racetrack, Crowley would come down from Furfur’s box to get a better view or place a bet, and they would stumble upon each other near the fence on the east side of the track. If they were lucky, and Crowley had come alone, they didn’t even need that much precaution.

This time, however, Aziraphale hadn’t gone to their usual spot. She was circling, scanning the stands and boxes as she went.

She hadn’t seen Crowley in two weeks.

That wasn’t an immediately concerning amount of time; it was absolutely possible, especially given Furfur’s increasing caution as his plan progressed, that she simply hadn’t been able to get away safely a few times in a row, and was only being careful. She hadn’t called or sent any notes to tell Aziraphale she was in distress. She simply hadn’t been able to make it to their rendezvous.

Aziraphale was beginning to worry all the same.

When she’d circled the track twice and hadn’t seen or felt any sign of Crowley or Furfur, she took a risk. She went up to the ticketing booth, putting on a particularly angelic smile, and asked one of the clerks there whether the Ferdinands would be making use of their usual box that day.

They wouldn’t, she was told. Mr. Ferdinand had called ahead to cancel their reservation. He hadn’t said why, just that they wouldn’t be available that afternoon.

Aziraphale left shortly after. If Crowley was already finding it difficult to sneak away, the worst thing she could do was to go someplace Furfur had explicitly said they wouldn’t be. Conspicuous. Suspicious.

They were going to have to discuss their arrangement the next time they met, Aziraphale thought as she left the track and began a slow walk home. If it was becoming this dangerous for Crowley to slip away, they needed a different system. Aziraphale hated thinking about her getting caught on her way out.

The front door hit the wall hard enough to send a glass full of seashells tumbling to the floor. Aziraphale didn’t spare a miracle to save it, already racing into her bedroom to shed her suit jacket and starched shirt and hastily replace them with her usual linen shirt and sports coat. Those were less conspicuous than a tuxedo. More flexible, as well.

Crowley hadn’t shown up to the opera.

She was still doing up the buttons on her shirt as she ran back through the flat, crushing a shell underfoot as she went. There had been an audience member behind her in the theater, a shameless gossip they had made very good use of in the information gathering stage of the mission. Seated just behind the empty seat on Aziraphale’s left, she had made a comment to her husband on what a shame it was that the Ferdinands, such a lovely couple, hadn’t been able to make it to a party they had thrown the night before.

“Not a surprise, just a shame,” she had sighed. “Poor Antonia’s been ill for such a while now. I heard she’s hardly able to get out of bed anymore.”

Aziraphale had run the entire way home. She dashed out the door again, clothing rumpled but much better suited to a rescue, and hailed a cab as soon as she was outside.

She forgot her hat on the way out the door.

Crowley was going to discorporate.

It had come on so slowly, the aching heaviness and utter exhaustion. She stared up at the ceiling, tucked neatly away into her bed to wait for the poison in her system to finally finish its work. Where the hell a demon of Furfur’s lowly caliber had gotten his hands on a miracle dampening agent, she had no idea, and was usually too tired to think about it very much.

Not that he hadn’t added to the performance himself. She wouldn’t have been caught out if she’d done any decent sized miracles in the earlier stages, when the poison hadn’t settled in so deep. A failure at that level would have been obvious. But the staff had been almost suspiciously on top of her needs and wants since the party. Almost. Furfur had played it off as an apology for his reaction in the basement the night of the gala. Crowley, tired of the game and not in the mood to have a fight over why the house was abruptly always as warm as she liked it, had opted to ignore it.

Stupid. If Joseph hadn’t forgotten to put sugar in her coffee a few days before, she might not even have known what was happening. As it was, it had already been too far along for her to do anything about it. The abrupt sickening lack of power where there should have been had sent her crashing to the floor, and sapped most of her remaining strength.

That was when she had learned the other crucial element of Furfur’s plan to get rid of her quietly: all of the social engagements he had be canceling or postponing since the party had not, as she had assumed, been him being busy with his project and wanting to keep her from running into Aziraphale again. As she realized when two of Furfur’s partners ran over to her, exclaiming that her illness must have gotten worse, he had been setting the stage for her eventual, quiet death. His bases were covered; she was powerless and weak, his friends wouldn’t suspect he had been tricked if she seemed to die of natural causes, and by the time her corporation failed and she was sent back to Hell, his project would likely be done.

And Aziraphale wouldn’t know until it was too late.

She had been carried up to the bedroom, still too dazed from the failed miracle to resist. When she came back to herself someone knew how long later, the door seemed impossibly far away. The phone on the desk had been removed.

She was alone, and she was exhausted, and she couldn’t so much as summon her sunglasses from across the room to ease her headache. The miracle dampener had started to chip away at all the little bits of magic keeping her body running. All she could do was wait, and hope Aziraphale had gotten enough information from the wine bottle sample to stop Furfur by herself.

She was considering whether she would feel more or less exhausted if she took a nap when the door opened, and what remaining energy she had went to a few words of speech instead.

“Go fuck yourself, Fleabag.”

There was a pause, a momentary intake of breath, and Crowley took a moment to enjoy causing Furfur some frustration before a too-soft voice replied.

“Oh, my dear.”

Crowley’s eyes flew open. Her head fell to the side on the pillow, and there, in the doorway—

“Angel.”

Aziraphale moved to her bedside, quick, but footsteps carefully light on the carpet. She sat next to her, leaning close. Her fingers shook as she brushed a stray lock of Crowley’s hair out of her eyes when she realized Crowley couldn’t herself. “Darling… I heard you were ill, but—Crowley, you’re—” Her hands fluttered over her exhausted form, distress coloring her tone. “What’s happened to you?”

“Poisoned,” Crowley eked out. “Furfur didn’t buy it at the party.” She couldn’t stop staring at Aziraphale’s face, so close to hers. “How’d you…?”

“You—I—” Aziraphale stumbled for a moment before her fluttering hands found Crowley’s, resting limp on her stomach over the bedspread. “Oh, you, fiend, I’ve been so worried about you. And then I heard you were ill, which…” She eased off, took a breath, squeezed Crowley’s hands firmly. “But I’m here now. And I won’t have you in this damnable house a moment longer. Do you think you can walk?”

“Dunno.” A minute ago, she would have cackled weakly at the very thought. But with Aziraphale there, warm and strong and promising a way out she’d stopped hoping for, it felt like it might be possible. “I can try. With help.”

“Of course, dear.” Aziraphale lifted one of Crowley’s arms over her shoulders, easing her upright in the bed. Crowley had to clutch at her shirt with the other hand to ride out the wave of dizziness that ensued, but Aziraphale had her wrapped up close and secure with one arm around her waist and the other straightening out her pillow-mussed hair, soothing and thoughtful all at once. “Alright?” she asked once Crowley could lift her head again.

“Better. Gonna need help getting this out of my system.”

“As soon as we’re home. Hold tight, darling, we’re going to try standing up.”

Luckily Aziraphale was able to do most of the standing. Crowley only held on and tried to breathe through the change in position, but the dizziness wasn’t as bad this time. Aziraphale was holding most of her weight, and as long as she was leaning against her, Crowley could balance alright. They tried a few slow, shuffling steps, and by the time they reached the bedroom door, they had found an awkward but manageable rhythm.

“Are you alright like this?”

“Yeah. Just don’t let go and I’ll be fine.”

“Don’t you ever worry about that.” Aziraphale resecured her hold and eased them out onto the landing. “I’ll carry you if we have to, but I’d like to have a hand free in case we’re caught. I don’t think Furfur would be too pleased with us.”

“He can’t do anything,” Crowley realized aloud, the realization dawning in her and bubbling up into a dizzy laugh. “Angel, he’s stuck. His friends are here. If he makes a scene they’ll hear.” She managed a smile. “I don’t think they’d be too pleased with him, having a do-gooder like you whisking his wife away.”

She lifted her head enough to see Aziraphale’s blooming grin. “Oh, you clever thing. Of course.” They had reached the staircase, and Crowley gripped Aziraphale’s shirt harder in anticipation of the descent. “Still,” Aziraphale continued as she lifted her gingerly down the first step. “If possible, I’ll save sweeping you off your feet for when we’re in less immediate danger.”

“Romantic,” Crowley teased, face pressed into her shirt.

“What else, darling?”

“Well as they go, this is a very strange romantic gesture.”

“Why is that?”

“Maybe the fact that you don’t love me.”

Aziraphale slowed for a moment. The grip on her waist shifted. “My dear.” She pulled her a little closer, making the next step down take less of her weight. “When I don’t love you, I’ll let you know.”

It was less of a revelation than a reassurance—something unsaid, always covered up and hidden away, but….

Crowley’s breath didn’t hitch, because she didn’t let it, but she turned her face into Aziraphale’s neck. “You love me.” She’d never thought she would say it out loud.

“Oh, Crowley. All the time. Since the beginning.”

She clung on, and let her ease them slowly down the steps.

They almost made it to the door without a confrontation. For the very first time Crowley was grateful for the grand staircase’s ostentatiously shallow stairs. Usually they were a nightmare for her long legs, but they were very convenient for the slow, controlled falling motions her steps were now. Still, it took too long. By the time they reached the entryway, Furfur was coming out of his office, Joseph standing and watching off to the side. It would have been too much to ask for Aziraphale to have made it into the house unnoticed, she supposed.

As soon as he saw them, Furfur began to hurriedly shut his office door, but Aziraphale, wonder that she was, spoke up loudly before he could cut them off from his conspirators’ earshot. “No need to bother with pleasantries, Mr. Ferdinand, I’ll be right out of your hair. I’m taking Antonia to the hospital.”

Furfur flinched, and through the ajar office door, Crowley saw a couple of the men around the table sit up and peer back at them, trying to see what was going on. She turned her face back towards Aziraphale to hide her grin.

“Ms. Fell,” Furfur said, noticeably quieter than Aziraphale and glancing over his shoulder toward his office. “What’s going on?”

“Your wife is terribly ill, sir,” Aziraphale said loudly, ignoring Furfur’s attempts to go unheard. “I had heard she was sick and came to visit, and found her in this state. She should have seen a doctor days ago. And let me be very clear,” she added, suddenly much too quiet to be overheard, “that if you make any attempt to stop us leaving, or if we hear the slightest whiff of a rumor about this, that we will each make our own version of the story known. And I can’t help but wonder who, of the three of us, is the least likely to be taken seriously by their respective head office.”

“Not to mention when Hell finds out you’re still here,” Crowley tacked on. “Not going to be happy with you, are they?”

Furfur, already greyish in complexion, tipped toward truly white. Before he could say another word, Aziraphale was sweeping them away toward the front door, leaving him behind in the hallway.

“Could probably pick me up now,” Crowley mumbled into Aziraphale’s collar as they reached the door, and without a word, she was lifted off her feet.

“Alright, darling?”

“Tired.” She was using up what was left of her energy quickly with all of the sudden movement. It was getting difficult to keep her eyes from fluttering shut.

“Stay with me, love. We’re almost out. You can have as long a nap as you like as soon as we’ve gotten the poison out of your system.”

Crowley pressed her forehead into Aziraphale’s shirt. “Say it again. It keeps me awake.”

She felt a press of lips against her hair. “I love you.”

There was a car outside. Behind them in the foyer, they could hear Furfur attempting to make excuses, explaining that Antonia was ill and being taken to the hospital, but she would be fine, everything would all be fine. When Crowley turned her head enough to see over Aziraphale’s shoulder, she saw several other figures silhouetted in the doorway. She turned back towards the car. That was Furfur’s mess to deal with. And it would either keep him quiet or send him back downstairs. Either of which meant she’d never have to set foot in that horrible house again.

Aziraphale carried her briskly down the front steps, careful not to jostle her but getting them to the car as quickly as possible. It was a plain looking car, shiny and black, the engine already running. “Is she yours?” Crowley asked.

“Hm?”

“The car.”

“Oh, no, darling. It’s only a cab. I haven’t learned to drive these things myself yet.”

“I have a car,” Crowley mumbled, feeling herself fading out again.

“Tell me about it,” Aziraphale insisted, giving her a little squeeze, pulling her back. Crowley blinked away the creeping exhaustion.

“‘s a Bentley. She’s beautiful. Not new anymore, but I got her right out of the factory.”

“I’m sure you’ve kept her in perfect condition.”

“Course I have. She wouldn’t think to be anything else. She’s perfect.”

“I would very much like to meet her.”

“She’s back in London. Didn’t bring her with me on holiday.”

“Soon, then. We’ll get you back on your feet, and then go back home.”

Crowley nodded, burying her face again. Right then, the only home she could call to mind was Aziraphale’s flat down in the city, with its balcony and its view and its many collected seashells. Or maybe the bookshop. It had been so long since she’d been there. Close to a century, now, since she’d scared Aziraphale off and gone back to being alone.

Not now, though. As Aziraphale bundled her into the back seat of the cab and slipped in next to her, she knew that down to her aching, tired bones. She wasn’t alone anymore.

The thought gave her enough wherewithal to notice, through the window past Aziraphale’s shoulder as she gave the driver directions, a figure walking hurriedly up to the car. She lunged across Aziraphale, more of a fall than a leap, and locked the door just as Furfur reached for the handle.

“Please,” he whispered through the partially open window, voice harsh with fear. “Take me with you. I won’t do anything—they’ll kill me.”

Aziraphale, beautiful, wonderful bastard that she was, turned away from him and repeated the directions to the driver. Furfur clung onto the door.

“Just leave me on earth, then,” he pleaded. “I won’t follow you, I won’t tell anyone—”

“Go,” Crowley said, and Aziraphale nodded. With a yelp, Furfur let go of the door and jumped back, the sizzle of a contained but furious miracle fading away behind them as the cab turned and began to make its way back down towards the city. Crowley slumped against Aziraphale’s side, and was immediately wrapped up and tucked close. She let her eyes flutter closed. She knew Aziraphale would take care of her as soon as they were back in her flat.

A tisk and a sigh above her brought her attention briefly back. “Oh, my dear, look at you. I didn’t even fetch your coat, what was I thinking?” She was gently pushed around for a few moments while Aziraphale extricated her arms from her own jacket, and then she was being wrapped up again in warm, familiar smelling linen. She tucked her head against Aziraphale’s shoulder, face turned into her shirt again.

“I love you, too, angel,” she murmured. A kiss pressed to her forehead was the last thing she felt before she drifted into an insistent sleep.