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They stay drinking at the table for a long time. The candles don't have any intention of burning out anytime soon. They flicker cheerily, casting light and shadow over the two supernatural entities nursing glasses of the finest red wine. It feels significant, the lighting, after their talk of shades of (very, very light, Aziraphale will sustain) grey.
Crowley still has his sunglasses on. They reflect the tiny flames in mirror images. The satined black hat, angled over his head just-so, hides the red strands of hair slicked back with, Aziraphale suspects, industrial amounts of hair-gel and one or two demonic miracles to keep everything in its place. The suit, so blue under the lights of the West End, has taken on a darker, midnight-ish undertone in this setting. It’s a seamless fit on him, as are all of Crowley's clothes. Tailored to perfection by the demon’s sheer force of will. Aziraphale doesn't know why he's noticing it now. He doesn't much care.
It's been a lonely century. Oh, he's seen Crowley now and then, exchanged a passing 'how do you do' every few decades, but after that… that preposterous request of his in 1862, nothing's been quite the same. They haven’t been able to share a drink and a meal like this in nearly eighty years. The moment feels precious, something to be coveted with his most priceless books in the shop's backrooms. Ever since Crowley made his daring rescue- of Aziraphale and his books- the evening has had a pleasant, soft, warm haze to it. Like the light of a candle.
And also like a fickle flame, it won't last. Not if Crowley is determined to ask again.
Please, Lord, don't let him ask again.
The angel takes the silence that has fallen as an opportunity to further study his companion. Crowley's attire is the most colourful he’s ever seen him in; Aziraphale understands the reason behind it, the need to distance himself from any association with the Axis. It only serves to endear Crowley to him even more.
The demon is sharply dressed, the very picture of a gentleman (Not gentle, Crowley would protest. Nor a man.) As Aziraphale watches, he slowly swirls the wine in his glass and takes a small sip. They've been at the table for about an hour now, yet neither of them are drunk. That feels significant, too.
Crowley turns his face towards him.
“Something on your mind, angel?” There's a smirk growing at the corner of his lips, and his voice is- for lack of a more appropriately demonic word- tender, the words soft as the caress of a feather.
It would be easy to steer the conversation to pleasant topics, but, in a flash, Aziraphale remembers a note burning over the duck pond at St. James' park. He thinks of an Earth without the feeling of Crowley in it. No one to encourage Aziraphale's magic tricks, to swoop in and save his books from burning, to chat and think and drink with.
And his heart constricts in his chest. The words are out before he can stop them.
“I was… thinking. About our- our spat, you could say, a few years back-“
“Aziraphale.” The glasses are lowered for a moment. Well-known slit pupils stare back at him from two amber eyes. There's absolutely no malice or threat in them- just a deep weariness. “Not tonight?”
It's mild in a way his voice wasn't before. Hesitant, almost vulnerable. And who's Aziraphale to deny someone comfort when they need it, even if it comes from denial?
After all, he, too, wants to pretend that conversation never happened.
“Very well.” He refills their wine glasses. “Tell me what you have been up to these past years.”
There's relief in Crowley's eyes, words he can't ever say to him. Thank you.
Don't, Aziraphale thinks despairingly. We'll argue about this again, sooner or later.
“Oh, you know, nothing much,” Crowley says aloud, righting his sunglasses and sprawling in his chair in an uncomfortable looking manner that wouldn't fit anyone else but his serpentine associate. “Been here and there for the past couple of months. Downstairs has commended me for the war effort.” His lips curl. “Not that I have done anything to encourage all this. It's madness, 's what it is. They're killing each other like… like… don't know, but it's bonkers.” He takes a big gulp of wine. “What about you? Have you been to the front?”
Aziraphale looks down to his entwined hands.
“Heaven forbid me to pitch in, actually.”
Crowley’s brow furrows.
“Really? Huh. You'd think they'd send you in for the side they want to win. Soldier of Heaven and all.” Crowley's tone takes on an undercurrent of mischief. He leans forwards. “Unless… did they finally find out about the sword?”
If his wings were out in this plane, Aziraphale thinks, his feathers would have ruffled. Heaven didn’t find out about the sword, thank you very much, because Aziraphale is a clever being, and it will stay that way unless Crowley continues blabbering about it.
“I’m more of a guardian, really,” the angel corrects instead. “I was never much for violence. Besides, you know we can’t interfere with the Horsemen.”
“Ooo, they’re having a blast, I’m sure.” Crowley shudders. “The four of them, with the state things are in.”
There’s a sudden rumbling in the distance, their glasses tinkling on the table, the flames of the candles trembling violently for a moment. Dust falls from a nearby shelf and settles on Crowley’s pristine suit.
“Precisely my point,” the demon says, toasting the silence the bomb had left in its wake.
“Apparently it’s War’s star endeavour,” Aziraphale mutters to the rim of his glass. “It is the biggest one yet.”
“Not for us, though,” Crowley says, and there is something in his demeanour as he knocks down the wine that has Aziraphale’s nape hair standing on end. He knows what the next words will be. Thousands of years of knowing someone tend to come with that side effect. The angel busies himself with vanishing the dust from Crowley’s shoulders with a quick flicker of his wrist- barely a miracle, surely no one in Head Office will pay it any notice-, hoping that the demon gets hung up on the gesture and forgets his still unuttered words. Alas, Aziraphale isn’t that lucky. Crowley barrels on, “D’you remember it? The first one?”
The angel adjusts in his seat. The rebellion on Heaven’s grounds is a prickly subject for both of them to breach. Maybe Crowley is more intoxicated than he lets on. With the intention to remedy his own sobriety, Aziraphale pours himself another glass of red and swallows down at least half of it before answering.
“I do.”
“Hmm. Me, too. Well, parts of it, before the… Nngk. The sulphur and stuff.”
He doesn’t have to wonder if the Fall hurt Crowley. He knows it did. Even if Aziraphale hadn’t been instructed by Gabriel on what, exactly, falling from grace entailed, it would be evident in moments like this, when his friend’s eyes go glassy, his lips curling in unpleasant recollection. Not for the first time, he wonders what was so bad that it got Crowley evicted from Heaven. He has suspicions, of course, something to do with a red-headed angel’s curiosity-driven dissent, but Crowley’s never told, and he’s never asked. And so, also not for the first time, Aziraphale tells himself that it doesn’t matter whatever it was, what matters is that the Almighty had passed judgement and Crowley had failed- and it’s not for Aziraphale to understand why. It’s ineffable.
The usually comforting refrain doesn’t hold that same feeling tonight, Aziraphale notices. He tops up his glass.
“The thing is,” Crowley continues, “I don’t recall really doing much back then. It wasn’t the glorious rebellion that they preach it was, Down There, that’s for sure. And now it will happen again in fifty years, give or take…”
Aziraphale’s stomach swoops down. He feels as if the bomb Crowley had redirected earlier that night had fallen down straight on his head, after all.
“What did you say?”
Crowley stops his slightly alcoholised rambling to look at him.
“Yeah,” he says. His voice has gone mellow again. It’s the way he’d offered a lift home, the way he’d spoken before their venture to the West End and after they’d exited the stage, all too relieved at the prospect of no paperwork and a trick well done. “We’re nearing 6,000 years, now. I don’t know when it will happen exactly, but...” He grunts something unintelligible, drinks. “Crazy how time flies by.”
Aziraphale’s heart lodges itself in his throat. Fifty years, give or take. That’s all they have. Five more decades of this- of lending each other help as per the Arrangement deems it, of quiet nightcaps at the bookshop, of plays and restaurants and concerts and walks in the park. He swallows the sudden bitter aftertaste of his heretofore excellent wine.
It gets worse when he remembers what else is coming at the end of those fifty years. Not just the destruction of Earth, with its wonderful humans and their culinary masterpieces and the poor ducks at St. James. War. And not only the War who is currently running around somewhere in Germany in a blood red dress- no, it will be true warfare, unlike any seen before. The final battle between Heaven and Hell. The dispute for eternity. In which he and Crowley will be on opposite sides, with no angel or demon spared by the winning army.
The mere thought of holding a holy blade anywhere near Crowley is enough to make Aziraphale’s stomach threaten to expel his meal. He shuts his eyes and takes a deep, shaky breath.
When he opens them again, Crowley is staring at him. (At least, Aziraphale thinks he’s staring at him. He can’t see anything past the opaque sunglasses and the fire dancing in them). Almost six thousand years of association mean that one glance at his expression is all the demon needs to follow Aziraphale’s train of thought.
“That’s how it went for me, too.” Crowley averts his gaze. His fingers trace the frame of the Polaroid picture on the table.
Two sets of eyes fix on their faces in the photograph. Aziraphale, smiling. Crowley, curiously staring in the camera’s direction. To an outside party, the image would depict a calm and collected professional magician and his smug, surprised helper. But Aziraphale can see the strain on the lines of his face and the fright in Crowley’s raised eyebrows. Most importantly, Aziraphale knows the significance of the gun nestled in Crowley’s hands. He brushes a finger over it.
Crowley swiftly moves his hand off the Polaroid as if he had been burned. He makes a rumbling sound in his throat as he does so. “Hmrrrghhh.”
The ever-so-eloquent string of growled consonants brings Aziraphale’s attention back to the demon. Crowley’s face is turned entirely away now. The sunglasses don’t cover his eyes on the side- Aziraphale sees the harsh glint of yellow, the slit pupil fixed on a distant bookshelf.
“I don’t think I can do it,” Crowley tells the uninterested books. His mouth is set in a grim line. He would be the picture of nonchalance, were it not for the way his throat bobs up and down as he swallows. “If it really comes down to it.”
Aziraphale sets down his glass, shifts a little so he’s facing Crowley entirely. He doesn’t urge Crowley to explain. He knows he’ll do it in his own time.
And soon enough… Crowley rips the sunglasses off his face and throws them on the table. The candles flicker dangerously with the sudden movement. Crowley rubs at his eyes, huffing. He sounds so very tired when he adds, “I couldn’t hurt you.”
Aziraphale can tell right away that this is not an attempt at temptation, a demon’s whispers of come on, trust me so I can plunge a sword into your back later. It’s a promise, raw and honest.
The part of him that the angel has just started to come to terms with tonight screams in agony at the injustice of it all.
He studies the picture again, this proof of their consorting that almost cost Crowley everything, before answering tactfully.
“I'm afraid we won't have a choice in the matter.”
Crowley's incensed gaze is finally pulled towards him, golden irises wide.
“I don’t care! You can’t expect me- not because Beelzebub told me to.”
“It’s our purpose…”
“And who decided that? ‘Cause I didn’t!” Crowley growls, leaning back in his chair as if wanting to get away from something. “I don’t want to have to kill my best friend over a stupid rivalry!”
“It’s not a rivalry,” Aziraphale chastises. It won’t be until much later that he will realise Crowley’s words- my best friend- and find his heart doing cartwheels inside his chest. “It’s the Divine-“
“Ohhhh, don’t you start with that, angel.” Crowley sneers.
Aziraphale tries again. “It’s our duty-“
“Duty.” The demon barks a laugh. It’s an ugly, jagged sound, and it makes Aziraphale’s heart stutter like the lights on the candle wicks. “That’s what the humans are saying, too, and how’s it going for them?”
“That’s not fair.”
“I’m a demon. I’m not fair.” Crowley crosses his legs at the ankle. “Go on, then. Tell me that you want to do this. That you long to destroy me.”
Look me in the eye and tell me that you want to do this.
It stings, the reminder of Aziraphale’s words from four thousand years ago. Crowley’s voice drips of vitriol, his eyes fixed on the high ceiling. Aziraphale looks straight at him instead. He doesn’t think he manages quite the same unreadable expression Crowley had mustered back in Uz, but it’s as close as he can make it.
“You know I don’t,” he says. His voice is calm, but firm. He will not have this questioned. Not when he’s gone decades without contacting Crowley because of Aziraphale’s refusal to do something that could end up harming him.
The fight seeps out of the demon immediately. He sags in his chair, groaning an unintelligible stream of letters that means assent in Crowley-speech. His head lolls around a few moments before looking back at him.
“What would happen, if we don’t go through with it?”
“Pardon?”
Crowley leans forward, elbows on his knees. “We can have a… a truce. You don’t smite me, and I don’t smite you.”
“But we are expected to!”
“Come on, angel! You’re telling me you would whack me just because Gabriel told you to?” He pouts. This is more like the Crowley he knows- tempting away and being terribly obvious in doing so. “There’s plenty of other angels who can wipe me out of existence. It doesn’t have to be you.”
Aziraphale frowns.
“I don’t like the idea of any one of us being smitten, honestly.”
Crowley waves a hand around dismissively. “Me neither, but we can figure that part out later. The important thing here is that we aren’t the ones doing the smiting.” He leans back in his chair. Sniffs. “I’m sure it would go against the Arrangement, too.”
Wily serpent. Still… he has a point. A very good point, that serves as a metaphorical handhold for Aziraphale to dig his fingers in.
“If you’re certain-” he starts, with pretend reluctance.
“Absolutely,” Crowley cuts in. “Running me through with a sword is as far from ‘keeping out of my business’ as you can get.”
Aziraphale has to take a moment to erase that vivid image from his head. When he opens his eyes, Crowley has already thrust out his hand, palm open, in the space between them.
“No killing each other?”
“No killing each other.” Aziraphale clasps Crowley’s hand in his. It’s warm, but not clammy. “An armistice.”
Crowley smirks.
They shake on it. Nothing happens. Like when they’d reached the Arrangement in 1020, the world keeps on spinning with nothing altering the natural order of things. The bombs keep on falling over London (but never around the bookshop’s vicinity), the wind keeps blowing, the flames keep on dancing on the candle wicks.
It feels monumental nonetheless.
They both let go at the same time. The grandfather clock ticks in the corner, and Aziraphale startles at the hour marked there.
“Oh, dear me. Midnight already?”
“Hmm?” Crowley follows his gaze. “Oh, would you look at that. Well.” He goes to get up. Years of practice have ensured that they both know this routine by heart by now- Aziraphale will imply that it’s getting awfully late, and Crowley will take the hint, bid his goodbyes, and leave. A well-rehearsed dance to which Aziraphale would like to introduce a few extra steps tonight. Really, there’s no reason to cut the evening short, is there?
Not with only fifty years left.
“Why don’t you stay awhile more?” he proposes before Crowley is fully out of his chair. “You can’t go back to yours in this state.”
Crowley blinks confusedly at him.
“I’m not that drunk. I’ve driven the Bentley far less sober.”
Aziraphale knows. He’s seen him do it. (He’s never opposed because Crowley is already a speed demon without a drop of alcohol in his blood; his driving couldn’t get much worse, really. And he knows the demon would pluck his own feathers out before he ever so much as scratched his beloved car’s paint, let alone crashed it.)
“I mean the blitz. It’s not safe to be out there at the moment.” Never mind that they’d done exactly that a few hours before. “You can stay until the all-clear.”
“That could be all night, angel. Are you sure?”
“I wouldn’t be offering you if it was a bother, Crowley.”
“S’ppose not.” He lets himself fall back on the couch. “Alright, then. Pass me that red.”
They clink their glasses again. And again. To the Arrangement. To avoiding paperwork. To not blowing your caps off with that rifle. To tricking Furfur right under his ugly nose. To feathered boas, those look nice on you, angel. To your kindn- oh, don’t look at me like that, Crowley.
To an armistice, they save for last. Neither of them is certain whether they’re talking about the humans or not.
“A.Z. Fell & Co. I’m afraid we’re clo-“
“Not a customer. Did you hear the news?”
“News?”
“Have you been holed up in a book the past few hours? Turn on your radio.”
“Crowley, this is-“
“Radio. Now.”
“You’re a ridiculous creature, you know th- Oh. Oh! Really?”
A laugh. The brightest Aziraphale had heard from the demon ever since… well, forever. “Really! Took ‘em four years but they finally figured it out, eh? Hah! War must be positively livid...”
“Could you come over, Crowley?”
Silence.
Then, “You sure?”
“Certain.”
“I’ll be there in five with a case of wine.”
“I’ll have the glasses ready.” Aziraphale hangs up the phone with trembling hands. Relief courses through him, so strong that he has to sit down for a moment. It’s over. It’s finally, blessedly over. He laughs, taking his reading glasses off and setting them on his desk. He can hear the people hollering outside, the effusive cries of mothers and siblings and young men alike. With a smile that refuses to wipe off his face, he slides open a drawer on his desk, glancing at the clock. He has three minutes until Crowley’s arrival.
A black and white photograph sits there, underneath old notebooks and ancient knicknacks. Aziraphale hasn’t looked at it in four years, but he remembers precisely where it is. What he doesn’t remember is the handwriting on the back. It’s not pen. The words, in Crowley’s signature scrawl, seem to have been burned into the paper, branded there.
- Only time I’ll ever point a weapon at you. -C.
Aziraphale gently puts the picture back in its place and closes the drawer. He supposes it was already damning evidence (damning for him, twice-damning for his associate), even without Crowley doubling down like that. It still makes him uneasy. The same feeling he got when Crowley mentioned the Arrangement out in the open, those first centuries.
Still, he appreciates the sentiment. It’s as much a reminder as it’s a promise, and today, of all days, Aziraphale feels uncharacteristic hope that the promise won’t be broken.
A minute remains for Crowley to pop by. The angel goes to bring out the fine wine glasses. Along the way, he lights a candle to set on the table. If someone saw him from outside, they would think him praying, from the reverent way he stares at the flame.
He is. Just not the way humans do.
See? They can do it, Aziraphale thinks. Let us do the same.