Chapter Text
Chapter One: The Laudanum
Aziraphale saw what Crowley was about to do and rushed forward to grab the laudanum bottle. He had waited too long to save Wee Morag and didn’t want to make that mistake again. There was a struggle, and Aziraphale wrestled it just far enough to keep the bottle from Crowley’s reaching grasp. The demon may have had the benefit of his spry long limbs but Aziraphale had a Principality’s strength. A Principality who carried big stacks of books around every day. Once the bottle was safely in his hands he held the bottle as firm as he could.
He knew he could spend all day debating the best course of action, or he could make a quick decision to save Crowley and Elspeth at once.
So he drank the bottle himself.
“Why would you do that??” Elspeth screeched. “Just throw the bottle, why is everyone here competing to drink it?”
“Oh, quite. Yes, I do rather think that would have been a better idea,” Aziraphale said, staggering.
Elspeth sighed. “I should have bought two more. We could have had a party.”
“Angel?” Crowley asked, as one eyebrow arched high.
“Si, de tes lèvres avancées, tu prépares pour l’apaiser, à l’habitant de mes pensées. La nourriture d’un baiser,” Aziraphale stumbled toward Crowley and put a delicate manicured finger on his lips. “Ne hâte pas cet acte tendre, douceur d’être et de n’être pas, car j’ai vécu de vous attendre, et mon coeur n’était que vos pas.”[1]
Crowley arched both eyebrows as far as they would possibly go. “Your French is so terrible. I can't understand a word you’re saying.”
He guided the suddenly flirty angel to a respectable distance, knowing he wasn’t thinking straight, carefully redirecting Aziraphale’s hands that kept trying to pet his face.
Aziraphale took a deep breath and sang with a gusto, “Gwlad, gwlad, pleidiol wyf i'm gwlad, tra haul y nen uwchben ein, O! bydded i'r Wladfa barhau,”[2] as he grabbed Crowley’s arms and lead him in a waltz.
“Ok that one I understood,” Crowley said, stopping the angel from all the spinning and offering an arm for him to regain his balance. “Steady on, Angel!”
“Let me try again. Am I speaking English now? Everything feels so jumbled in my head,” Aziraphale pressed a palm to his temple, staggering away from Crowley in the small crypt. “All these words! Words, words, words! Past and present and future tense and all the verb conjugations... Replaying scenes in my mind. Grave mistakes! Looping eternal.” He put his arms out theatrically and recited, “To heal that young girl or not to heal? Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous reprimands, or to take arms against strongly worded notes from Gabriel, and by opposing end them? There's the respect that makes calamity of so long life; about 6000 years give or take. Thus conscience does make cowards of us all!” [3]
Crowley took another step toward him. “I think I see what you’re getting on about. If you’re quoting Shakespeare, ‘What’s done is done.’[4] Best to leave it be? Focus on this moment now? I don’t think you’re quite in the right frame of mind. Let’s just sit a spell, yeah?”
“Everything seemed so simple before!” Aziraphale said, exasperated, turning away from Crowley and stomping to the corner. “I had a firm grip on what’s Right and Wrong. And now it all feels different. I feel different. I’m not even sure what I’m supposed to be. Oof, I feel a bit woozy,” Aziraphale said, taking a few short steps before suddenly disappearing.
“Angel?” Crowley asked, panicked, and ran toward where Aziraphale’s hat was in the corner on the ground. Lifting it gently, underneath he saw a very small angel.
“Get back Crowley and Elspeth!” Aziraphale yelled, in a very high and tiny pitch, “I’m a Guardian and I’ll defend you against this giant shoe that just appeared out of nowhere!”
Crowley watched in quiet amusement for a moment as the small angel attacked his shoe, running back and running up to it repeatedly, punching and kicking and gnawing at it, barely making a dent.
“Up here, Angel,” Crowley said, delicately.
Aziraphale looked up, and stumbled backward. “Oh my. I’ve somehow gotten very small, haven’t I? I suppose I’ve lost my sense of proportion along with my moral compass. Well that won’t do at all. Here, give me just a moment, I’ll make it right again.”
The small angel started puffing out his cheeks, and making small grunts, marching about taking exaggerated steps, waving his arms around and doing everything in his power to convince himself to be bigger.
After a few moments, Aziraphale looked up at Crowley, still so much bigger than him, and sat down in a huff. “Oh that’s not working, is it? I deserve to be small.”
“Oh, Angel,” Crowley said, scooping up the tiny Aziraphale in his hand. “Maybe some fresh air will help?”
“Did he just shrink?” Elspeth screeched.
“One problem at a time, hen,” Crowley said, stepping past the gaping girl to carry Aziraphale outside.
The angel held tightly to his thumb to keep from falling off, and started giggling. “I guess you could say I’m performing Sleight of Hand!” He looked at Crowley’s large thumb and laughed even harder.
Crowley refused to dignify that pun with any comment. “Alright, Angel, we’re outside. Think you can try to grow again?”
“Tom Thumbe is dumbe, until the pudding creepe, in which he was intomb'd, then out doth peepe!” [5] Aziraphale said with enthusiasm to Crowley’s thumb, still giggling.
“Look at me, Angel,” Crowley said, holding the small Aziraphale in his palm up so he could see him better. “Think big thoughts.”
“Yes. You’re right, my dear. Think big thoughts… think big thoughts…” Aziraphale closed his eyes, concentrating.
There was a startled gasp from the demon, followed by a rush of wind and a heavy creaking sound. Within moments a giant Aziraphale towered over the small figures of Crowley and Elspeth in the graveyard.
“This is madness!” Elspeth squeaked.
“Oh, I’ve got it wrong again, haven’t I? I’m always getting it wrong!” Aziraphale sighed heavily, making several trees around them bend with the sudden gust of breath.
“Angel,” Crowley called up to him. “Are you feeling alright?”
“Oh, suddenly I am quite tired,” Aziraphale said as he started swaying.
“That’s a bad idea, Angel,” Crowley yelled up to him. “If you fall here, you might take out a section of this graveyard.”
“You are quite right, of course. Well, maybe I should head upstairs then, have a bit of a lie down there.” Aziraphale said as he looked up.
“Wot, like Heaven?” Crowley asked, incredulous. “You’re really in no state to-”
“I will manage just fine, my dear. I just can’t quite remember how to get there. Oh well, I will figure it out…” he said, pulling out giant wings that make Crowley and Elspeth step back.
“That’s not how we go to Heaven, Angel,” Crowley yelled, covering his head.
“Yes, I do quite remember it’s up. I just need to go up,” Aziraphale said.
“Duck!” Crowley said, pulling Elspeth down to avoid the giant angel’s wingspan.
“Duck?” Aziraphale asked, confused. “Oh, if you insist.”
Aziraphale reached down and plucked a duck from the nearby pond in the graveyard, much to the duck’s confusion as well as Crowley’s, which he put carefully in his pocket before he flew away.
Crowley watched him, mouth agape, as the giant figure disappeared into the clouds.
Footnotes
1. “If, with your lips advancing / You are preparing to appease / The inhabitant of my thoughts / With the sustenance of a kiss, / Do not hurry this tender act, / Bliss of being and not being, / For I have lived for waiting for you, / And my heart was only your footsteps.” - Les Pas by Paul Valéry↩
2. from “Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau,” the Welsh national anthem↩
3. An adapted version of Hamlet’s soliloquy↩
4. From Macbeth↩
5. from the first mention of Tom Thumb in Coryat’s Crudities in 1611 by James Field↩