Work Text:
And out of the ground made the Lord to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
It is a nice day. All the days have been nice.
This one, however, is different.
The red-haired stranger appears between the rows of apple trees, the setting sun stretching his shadow impossibly long, reaching Aziraphale before he’s even aware of the intrusion. He’s fully occupied, admiring the soft feathers on the bird in his palms.
The nightingale takes off with a noise of surprise, and Aziraphale turns to locate whatever had startled it.
He knows every piece of Eden, from the forests to the hills, the waterfalls and rivers, every flower, every tree, even the leaves growing on them. The birds respond to his whistles, the tiger will rest its head in his lap next to the lamb. He has watched the sun rise and fall, he can see the pattern of stars on the lid of his eyes, this is his home, and though the thought feels almost forbidden, he takes pride in the fact that he feels like a part of Eden, this sacred wonder.
How can he miss Heaven when surrounded by paradise?
There have been no other angels here. This is Aziraphale’s territory, and though a part of him longs to show off every discovery he’s made, from the flowery hills to the choir of frogs emerging from the lake, the intruder has him blinking in alarm.
He marches towards Aziraphale with fast, long strides, and Aziraphale barely has the time to push himself up from the ground before yellow eyes pierce him.
“What are you doing?” the stranger demands, and Aziraphale tries not to gawk, curious about the dark attire that wouldn’t be allowed in Heaven. At least, not from what he can recall. But perhaps Heaven has changed since he left it.
It’s been a long while since Aziraphale has had a proper conversation - though it hasn’t stopped him from talking to the animals, even the plants - but he does remember his manners. “Hello,” he says, with a smile that begins to fade as he sees the anger in the stranger’s tight expression.
“Hello,” he repeats dully, in a mocking snarl, and Aziraphale flinches, unsure of what he’s done wrong but fully aware that he’s made some kind of mistake to earn this ire.
Although he does not know how he has offended this angel, his apology is genuine. “I’m sorry,” he says, which just causes the intruder’s yellow eyes to widen. There’s something in them, something softer than anger, something more jagged than curiosity, that Aziraphale cannot quite name.
“Aziraphale,” he breathes, and it feels so terribly shameful, for the stranger to know Aziraphale’s name, when Aziraphale cannot say the same.
He blushes and straightens his back, figuring him to be some sort of superior here for inspection, one that Aziraphale is already failing. “Yes! I, uhm - To answer your question, I am guarding Eden. I was entrusted with this task, and I am proud to serve. It is - Eden is as lovely as we were told. And the job hasn’t been that challenging so far. I’m the only one here. I wasn’t told there would be any -”
It’s crude, to think of his fellow angel as an intruder, but Aziraphale cannot help but think of him as so. He should ask for his name, but that would reveal his lack of preparation, and then the fear is clawing at his insides, the thought of leaving Eden.
How lucky Aziraphale is, to live in perfection. It should be shared, he knows, but still, his being protests against the thought. Eden is his, and no one else has set foot in this guarded haven.
Until now.
Aziraphale looks up, another apology ready at the tip of his tongue, but the red-haired stranger has disappeared without a trace, like he’d never even been there.
“Hello?” Aziraphale calls out tentatively, and the nightingales sing in return.
No one else answers him.
And the Lord said, It is not good that the man should be alone.
“You came back!”
The stranger returns when Aziraphale has just accepted the solitude. He has searched through all of Eden for him, wondering if he had become lost somehow, before deciding that the stranger must have left. Aziraphale had pouted about it, for a bit, but had quickly settled back into the comfort of paradise.
Still, excitement swelled inside his chest at the sight of the red-haired angel approaching him once more. It’s a bit of a disappointment, the frown on the stranger’s face, as though the joy is not quite shared. He looks troubled, wary, his steps slow and careful.
“I was looking for you,” Aziraphale admits, heat creeping into his cheeks. He cannot help but bask in the stranger’s attention. The very gaze of those lovely yellow eyes feels like a physical stroke against his needy skin.
“And I was looking for you.”
Aziraphale’s smile is so wide, the edges of his lips hurt. “I was right here,” he says breathlessly. “I never left.”
The stranger’s smile is soft, small. It doesn’t seem happy. It feels… Aziraphale cannot find the right word for it. He is not quite sure he has ever experienced such an emotion himself.
“I know,” the other angel says. “Did you wait long?”
“I wasn’t sure you’d come back,” Aziraphale shares with no hesitation, so grateful for the fact that he did.
There’s a beat where the stranger says nothing, his gaze turning east, toward the towering wall in the distance. “It’s not easy for me,” he says quietly. “Coming back.”
Aziraphale doesn’t understand - his sudden departures and returns, wherever he might go on the other side of the wall, why this Paradise is not enough for him - but if he lingers in his confusion, it settles as an uncomfortable weight in his stomach, threatening to drag him down, down, down into a void of unenlightenment.
But despite this, he cannot help but ask, “Why did you leave?”
He isn’t sure what answer he hopes for, or the one he dreads.
He doesn’t get one, either way.
The stranger’s head tilts, the yellow eyes looking at him from the top of Aziraphale’s curls to his bare feet. The gaze is soft, yet piercing, and Aziraphale adjusts his white robes, trying to keep his cheeks from burning visibly.
“Do you… remember me?” the red-haired angel finally asks, his tone so heartbreakingly sincere, even when the question itself is rather foolish.
“Of course!” Aziraphale exclaims. How could he not? “I thought I was the only one here. But then you appeared out of nowhere - and disappeared just as quickly.” He smiles, unwilling to let his own confusion ruin his manners - or his current joy. “You must have been in a hurry.”
The stranger doesn’t look convinced. “Do you remember my name?”
“You didn’t tell me,” Aziraphale says right away, wishing feverishly for the stranger to become something more, someone known. “I’m sorry. Have we met before? Well, before last time -”
The yellow eyes scrunch up. “Yeah.”
Aziraphale shifts, uncomfortable and confused. Ashamed too, because there is something he doesn’t understand, something he doesn’t remember. It makes the whole conversation feel awfully lopsided, and he keeps saying the wrong things, apparently.
“Did we work together?” he tries carefully. He doesn’t have a memory of such a partnership back in Heaven, but he cannot deny the growing sensation of familiarity the longer he stares at the sharp face framed by crimson.
The stranger swallows, and Aziraphale watches with morbid interest how his Adam’s apple moves the action; he tries to remember every detail so he has something to imagine when left alone once more.
“You could say that.”
“I’m Aziraphale,” he says, the name stumbling eagerly past his lips. Only then does he recall how the stranger has already called him by his name, and that should be no surprise: all angels know each other, and yet - and yet Aziraphale doesn’t know the angel in front of him.
“...Crowley.”
That’s not a very angelic name. Aziraphale thinks that, but he doesn’t say it. That would be rude.
The thought alone is enough. Aziraphale blinks, only for a split second, a glimpse of darkness, and when his eyes open, he is alone.
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
“You could say goodbye,” Aziraphale says when Crowley finally reappears, a silhouette against the still sun. “When you have to leave.”
He doesn’t know how long it’s been. Time passes, whether Aziraphale is alone or not, but there are no evidence of changes, of days passing. Eden is Paradise, perfect, immutable, whether Crowley is here or not.
“I don’t decide when to leave.”
It is now Aziraphale’s turn to frown, and he wonders what kind of urgency requires Crowley’s presence, what his Purpose might be. Crowley, however, looks less troubled than before, or at least pretends to be less solemn.
There’s even a polite smile, showing off a glimpse of white teeth, as he interrupts Aziraphale’s thoughts as he beckons, “Care to show me around?”
“Have you - do you not know this place?” Aziraphale blinks, trying to make peace with the notion of an angel unfamiliar with Paradise. He feels sorry for him, then, for not having experienced what has become Aziraphale’s home.
Crowley sighs, his shoulders falling as he exhales. “It’s been a long time.” His head turns slowly, taking in the view of the meadow ahead with its sprouting flowers and the curious foxes creeping closer.
“Lead the way?” Crowley beckons, and so Aziraphale does. He takes Crowley’s hand, savoring its warmth, while he shows him his favorite spots: the calm pond, the part of the forest where the trees grow so wide, no glimpse of the sky can be caught, and the waterfalls where the noise of the water will keep your secrets safe, no matter how loud you shout them.
Aziraphale doesn’t attempt to hide his pride of Eden - it is not his creation, of course not, but it is his home, and he considers himself particularly lucky for being surrounded by such wonders. He hadn’t realized, at least not until now, how sharing them is an even bigger blessing.
He talks eagerly, about the time he dove beneath the surface of the water to admire the fish for the first time, how he sometimes unfolds his wings to impress the flock of geese, how he will help the birds build their nests. Crowley lets him speak, but when Aziraphale halts the flood of words to breath, he interjects with curious questions to comment on the newest scene before them.
“Do the trees ever wilt?”
“What do the pumas eat?”
“Why are you the only angel down here?”
“You ask a lot of questions,” Aziraphale comments out loud, wary of the fact. He watches as the corners of Crowley’s mouth creep upwards into a sly smile.
“That’s because I’m stupid,” he tells him, tilting his head back toward the sky.
It can be dangerous, asking questions. Aziraphale isn’t sure why, he just knows that it is. He doesn’t have all the answers that Crowley wants, but he doesn’t mind trying. “I don’t think you’re stupid.”
“Then you have to get to know me better,” Crowley simply says.
Aziraphale cannot stop himself from beaming, wondering if this is a promise for Crowley to stay longer this time. “I’d like that.”
Even now, basking in his presence, he knows so little about Crowley. And since the other angel has shared so little about himself so far, it is Aziraphale’s turn to dare to ask questions.
“What is your Purpose?” he stutters, already wringing his hands. How silly of him, to fret over a question that is merely - merely business in its core. It should not feel so personal. “I - Well, your visits are very lovely, but you must be so busy. What are you doing when you’re not here?”
“Causing trouble,” Crowley answers, a bit to quickly, stretching his lips into a forced smile. It fades, not too long after, when his shoulders slump and the truth leaves his lip slowly, hoarse and fragile. “Actually - there was this job I turned down a while back. I didn’t think I’d be the right person for it. Or that it’d be worth the trouble. But that meant someone else had to do the whole thing alone. And he tried his best but - He ended up getting stuck in the process. It wasn’t a one-man job. So now I’m trying to make sure his efforts weren’t wasted.”
He isn’t looking at Aziraphale any longer, but at the branches hovering above them, as though trying to spot the sun through the thick foliage. Birds follow them, gliding from tree to tree, listening rather than singing.
“That is nice of you,” Aziraphale says, starting to understand why Crowley has that sad look in his eyes sometimes. “Helping a friend when he needs you.”
“He needed me before,” Crowley admits, eyes dark with regret. “I was just a bit too slow. Just - hopefully not too late.”
They came to a stop in a clearing, a tree reaching for the sky with heavy fruits adding splotches of red amidst all of the green. They look ripe, asking to be plucked.
“That’s quite the apple tree,” Crowley muses, his stare drifting toward Aziraphale.
“Yes. It is -” Aziraphale blinks, the tree seeming even larger than before when his eyes open again, towering. “It is very special.”
“What do you think it tastes like?” Crowley asks, voice low and smooth with curiosity. “Have you ever tried taking a bite?”
The sense of danger hums within him like a low vibrating note, a string trembled after being plucked.
“That’s forbidden,” Aziraphale says, mouth dry, all appetite gone as he looks at the apples once more and imagines them rotten, foul-tasting, decaying with the rest of Eden.
When he turns his head, there is only the tree’s shadow where Crowley had been standing.
Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord had made.
Aziraphale stalks around the tree for a long, keeping a proper distance from caution, from admiration, counting the apples, wondering, thinking. It would taste sweet, he is sure, the skin snapping under his teeth. In one moment of weakness, the tips of his fingers almost touch the forbidden fruit as he reaches out - until he stops himself in the last moment, fleeing the meadow.
He calms himself down by listening to the birds’ songs, watching the light bounce off the surface of the pond, counting the dragonflies race each other between the cat tails. His hands feel so terribly empty, and he so he allows the comfort of the otters that keep climbing into his lap.
Eventually, Crowley returns, as always without much fanfare. He sits down next to Aziraphale who doesn’t bring up the apple tree. It is easier, and better, to pretend that whole incident didn’t happen. It makes Aziraphale feel better, too, to simply ignore it, so that the sense of wrongness, of danger, humming quietly within.
“So what are you supposed to do here?” Crowley asks him as they watch a pair of ducks float around in circles.
“I guard Eden,” Aziraphale says proudly, chest swelling with the comforting knowledge of his Purpose. “Well, the Eastern Gate, to be precise.”
“From what?” Crowley continues to ask. “Are you trying to keep people out or in?”
Aziraphale hasn’t thought about that before. Now when he does, he finds himself frowning. “Well, I seemed to be doing a rather bad job either way.”
Crowley smiles at that, warm and understanding.
“But you’re welcome here! Of course you are!” Aziraphale adds with burning cheeks just a moment afterwards. “I wish you could stay longer, this time.”
“Do you enjoy it? My presence?”
The easy answer is yes. Excitement bubbles beneath that trembling string, as though caused by the vibration, or maybe the other way around. They are intertwined, Aziraphale thinks, the curiosity and joy and thrill and fear.
“It’s very nice,” he admits slowly, “Having someone to talk to. Don’t you think?”
Crowley’s jaw tenses. He looks hurt, a kind of pain that shouldn’t exist in a place like here, and Aziraphale wants to soothe it, wants to remove every trace of it. “I’ve been feeling rather alone lately, actually.”
“You could stay,” Aziraphale offers, wanting so desperately to feel hopeful, but he already knows what the answer will be.
“I can’t,” Crowley says. “But I’ll stick around for as long as I can.” A handful of crumbs manifests in his palm, and he throws them at the ducks who eagerly feast on this unexpected dinner. “Time feels strange here, doesn’t it?”
Aziraphale stares at the sun and tries to convince himself that he doesn’t know the feeling that Crowley is hinting at. “Whatever do you mean?”
“Does it feel like an eternity?” Crowley asks him, brows furrowing in concern. “Waiting for me to come back?”
When he thinks of him, yes. But when Crowley is gone, it is at the very moment when Aziraphale has managed to stop thinking about him that he usually manages to reappear - or maybe time just passes faster when it isn’t spent on longing.
“If you have to wait for an eternity, this is the place to do it,” Aziraphale says, comforted by the fact that it isn’t a lie. His love for his home, the pride for it, and the desire to protect it, still burn bright within him. “It’s all so lovely.”
“You’re happy?” Crowley asks him, his stare solely focused on Aziraphale, so intense that he might just get lost in the shade of yellow.
He nods slowly. “I like it when you come back,” he adds. “It’s a nice change.”
Crowley’s expression is hard to read - at first Aziraphale believes him to be disappointed, though he cannot guess why, but then the look of relief seeps into the sharp features.
He leans his head back with a sigh, his gaze leaving Aziraphale to scrutinize the distance instead. “Have you ever been on top of the wall?”
He gestures toward the border, the limit of the Garden.
“No,” Aziraphale says, squinting. It looks - Well, it looks like a wall. It is nothing compared to the Paradise within.
“I think the view’s great from up there,” Crowley continues to muse, and he sounds innocent, like Aziraphale’s own worry is misplaced.
“But Eden is best enjoyed up close. Not from a distance.”
Crowley gives him the look, the one that Aziraphale cannot quite read yet, a test where he is yet to learn the correct answer, even when he strives to impress. “A different perspective never hurts.”
His feathers itch on another plane. Aziraphale shifts his shoulder and tries to ignore the unease creeping beneath his skin.
“So you’ve already been up there?”
Crowley nods slowly. “Do you know what’s on the other side?”
Yes. No. The string is plucked once more, and Aziraphale shivers from the trembling sensation of danger, forbidden, not right, not right, not right -
“You could tell me,” he says, desperately keeping the smile on his face.
“Do you want to know?” Crowley continues relentlessly, and it’s working, and even worse: they both know it is working. “One quick flight, and you’ll know.”
It would be so easy. His wings beg for the release, for the freedom, for the adventure that Crowley could bring him. To stand on the wall with him next to him but -
“No,” Aziraphale says, and he wishes that Crowley would leave, that he was gone, because he knows that if the angel continues with his questions, Aziraphale will cave. “No.”
And like that, Aziraphale is alone.
The tree was good for food, and it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise.
He is alone for a long time.
He seeks the comfort of the garden, seeking shelter underneath the towering trees. The sky rumbles, as though someone is about the break, the sky ready to shatter - But it doesn’t rain. It never rains here.
Aziraphale hasn’t experienced rain, he doesn’t even know what it is, and yet - He does, but he doesn’t know how, and the string deep inside of him trembles, wrong, wrong, wrong, no, no, no, forbidden -
Crowley is gone, and everything has returned to normal, except for Aziraphale who presses himself against the trunk and tries his best to hide the horizon from view. But he knows it is there, the wall, surrounding him. Does it keep people in or out? Aziraphale isn’t certain any longer, and he imagines Crowley on the other side, how it rises tall to keep them apart.
He’d wanted Crowley gone, at a certain safe distance, to clear his head, but now, alone and confused, regret creeps in. It feels cold. Aziraphale remains for a while, acknowledging the emotion, studying it, pondering its existence in Paradise. It’s not a very nice feeling.
But it belongs to him, and Aziraphale lets the emotion settle before gazing up toward the wall again. To say he isn’t curious would be a lie.
From the wall, he could see all of Eden. He could see what lies beyond, too. And, maybe, he could catch a glimpse of Crowley on the other side.
He is meant to guard it, after all, the Eastern part of it. It should not feel as wrong as it does.
Aziraphale’s wings unfurl with one mighty shake, and the flight itself is easy, quick. His feet touch the dusty bricks below before he can allow himself any second thoughts.
He opens his eyes, ready to face the unknown.
There is nothing.
The void stretches endlessly, and Aziraphale’s knees buckle from the terror of it all.
He has no words to describe it, it is beyond his comprehension, his senses, his understanding, ineffable, he thinks, and cowers in fear.
He forces his eyes shut, fleeing blindly back toward the Garden, stumbling over the edge, falling, wings flailing, before the soft grass below catches him. He pulls at it desperately, burrowing his hands in the dirt, trying to ground himself while the tears stream from his face.
He feels scared, abandoned, dirtied, like it is only a matter of time before the void, too, will swallow him, like he cannot stay in the garden that he no longer feels a part of. He wants to, wants to go back to the time before these changes, these horrible emotions, before Crowley, before his own mistakes.
“I’m sorry," he weeps, and Eden is silent around him. “Forgive me.”
I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.
Crowley returns right when Aziraphale considers forgiveness. It is his fault, his own choice to have looked outside, to have lingered on the border between Eden and the nothing he now knows exists.
When he sees him again, a part of him wants to rush forward, to embrace, to embraced, to chase this chill out of his body, but then he stops after a few steps, stumbling to a halt, staring into those yellow eyes and wondering if the intensity of that stare has carved out pieces of him.
He feels empty. But whatever he’s lost, he fears has never truly been there.
Crowley looks sorrowful, at the very least, approaching slowly, meeting Aziraphale’s anger with somber acceptance.
“I wasn’t sure I could come back this time,” he says thickly. “I didn’t think you’d let me back in.” He shifts, frowning as he meets Aziraphale’s tearful gaze. “Do you want me to go?”
“No,” Aziraphale says, a bit too quickly, shaking his head. “Despite how I feel - no.”
“And how do you feel?”
“Angry,” he says, finally able to truly name the motion. It had taken a while for him to identify it, for him to tell it apart from those other murky sensations of hurt within him, all new unpleasant experiences to him. “Why did you make me see that?”
His fists shake as he thinks of it, the void waiting for him just outside what had been his whole world. It feels corrupted now, tearing at the edges.
“I didn’t make you,” Crowley reminds him.
“I hadn’t even considered what is on the other side of the wall before you brought it up,” Aziraphale cries because that is the truth, too. “I didn’t know! I didn’t want to know!”
“But you looked.”
It feels like a damnation, how simple it all is.
“Because you put the thought in my head. You tempted me into doing that,” Aziraphale concluded, and he could feel parts of his heart give away from the weight of the truth.
Crowley’s eyes are yellow, strange, dry, full of hurt. They do not look to be the eyes of an angel.
“Yes,” Crowley says.
“You tempted me into doing that, knowing it would upset me.”
Distress, fear, betrayal. Aziraphale scours the new emotions he’d learned, trying and failing to find quite the proper word for what is swelling within him.
“...Yes,” Crowley tells him.
It hurts. Aziraphale has never hurt this way before. Before Crowley, there had been no hurt at all.
“Why?”
“Because it is the truth.”
“Is that why you are here?” Aziraphale demands, squinting, hands pressed against his chest. “To - to make me feel these things.”
“What things?”
“All the wrong things!” At his shout, Crowley flinches, but Aziraphale doesn’t allow himself to stop. “This is Eden - it is perfection, it is good, it is not to be changed - I am not meant to feel like this!”
Crowley doesn’t argue against it. In the following silence, he allows Aziraphale to steady his harsh and wet breathing. The forest is quiet around them, the birds mute, missing.
“It is cruel what they did to you. Clever, too,” Crowley finally sighs, running a hand down his face in anguished defeat. “Trapping you here. In your own mind. A memory. Or illusion.”
He plucks the string, playing that low, penetrating tone once more. It shifts Aziraphale’s world, shatters it, and he feels faint as he takes one step back, then another, barely resisting the childish urge to cover his ears.
“Just - stay with me here, okay?” Crowley’s hands are outstretched, hesitant, approaching with slow, gentle movements. “It’s - of course you’d want to protect this! It’s what you do! So if I - if I go too fast, if I ruin it - You block me out. Kick me out. To preserve it, to guard it. So fucking clever of them.” His mouth twists into a sneer, but Aziraphale can tell the anger isn’t directed at him, though a dark look in Crowley’s eyes remains when his stare tilts toward the angel. “I can’t save you when you don’t want to be saved.”
Aziraphale’s legs feel unsteady beneath him, the world shifting around him. “Who are ‘they’?”
“Angels I warned you against, but you didn’t listen, you never did, and just look at where you ended up. A mental prison,” Crowley continues, pacing back and forth, managing to look even more frantic than Aziraphale feels. “Saraqael called it ‘a kindness’, too. Bastard. All of them, bastards.”
There’s a desperate sheen in his eyes that has Aziraphale wary, and Crowley can sense it, how he is about to flee, and so he begs, “You have to listen to me. Just - Don’t kick me out just yet.” His words sound sincere, dripping with despair. “I want to explain, but I can’t, because I’d ruin this - you won’t let me -”
“You’ve already ruined it!” Aziraphale snaps back at him, and Crowley’s eyes open wide, fully yellow.
“It’s not real!” His snarl is feral, fear barely masked underneath the growls of frustration. “The witch helped me get to you, but I can’t get you out, angel, I can’t pull you out. You won’t wake up. And when I try, I have to start all over, and you - I’ve been trying to be patient, but we’re running out of time, and I need you to -”
It hurts. Aziraphale can feel it fall apart, the garden, himself, and he stares at Crowley, seeing him as the stranger he’d been, the intruder, someone who isn’t a part of this, who cannot be a part of this, a flame that’s burning the beautiful picture. Eden shifts, but Aziraphale stands tall, raising his empty hand to fulfill his duty, to protect what is holy, perfect, his.
“Leave.”
The sky roars above him, threatening to break too, but Crowley remains, even at Aziraphale’s command. He knows why. He knows that if he willed it, Crowley would be gone once more, and the only reason why his presence is still allowed, is because a part of him wants him to stay, just for a bit longer, just to tell him what he needs him to hear.
“I was happy!” he wails. “I didn’t miss anyone or anything, I didn’t feel this way, there was nothing missing, nothing wrong! It’s paradise! There can’t be anything wrong here. Until you.” All the days had been nice, and then Crowley had arrived, beautiful and interesting, granting him something Aziraphale hadn’t even known he’d missed: company, conversations, new ideas. And with them: temptations, fears, longing, his whole world unraveling.
Something had been lost. His own innocence, he supposes, and the purity of this place. How can he stay? How can he protect what is slipping through his fingers?
He thinks of the void, just out of sight, waiting for him to see it, to come closer. He cannot unsee it. It frightens him still, and he continues, voice soft with his heartbreak. “Why would you ruin it?” he asks. “You could have left me alone, and I wouldn’t have known, and I would have been happy.”
Crowley looks at him, the yellow is all wet, and though his jaw trembles, he cannot speak, cannot argue against the truth.
“You are cruel,” Aziraphale tells him, his entire body shaking with fury and the fear he can no longer deny. The string breaks, and something inside of him bleeds. “You were cruel when you did this to me.” It is his turn to approach Crowley who is frozen on the spot, staring, silent, listening. “You shouldn’t have come for me.”
And Crowley is gone.
The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.
The rain falls hard.
It rips Eden apart with its force, like tears through a fabric, and behind it, Aziraphale sees glimpses through them: a lamb dangling limp from a wolf’s jaw, flowers choked beneath layers of ash, shards of metal cutting through flesh, the crushed head of a serpent coloring the dirt crimson. He sees the bricks from the wall taking new shape, a fortress, pillars rising, and through panes of glass he sees - he sees books. Rows of them, precious knowledge for him to guard, candles casting long shadows, a record spinning on the stage of the gramophone, silhouettes dancing, drawing nearer -
It’s a world Aziraphale doesn’t know, yet one he recognizes, it both scares and allures him. It feels as though he’s discovered a new color, and when he tries to behold his beloved Garden, it appears pale, faded. He mourns it, the way it had felt grander, whole, before it changed, before he changed. That is a loss that can never be recovered.
Aziraphale kneels, soaked to the bone. He is back on the wall, the Garden in front of him, his back to the void. He might as well have been stripped naked, his whole being laid bare, and he waits for judgment that doesn’t come. That is the worst part, he realizes, how lonely it feels to not even have one’s sins acknowledged.
It is the loneliness that calls Crowley back, that allows him in. Aziraphale doesn’t see him, but he feels the change as a wing unfurls above him to shelter from the rain.
The feathers are black, Aziraphale notices dimly as he looks up. They are beautiful.
“Thank you,” he breathes softly.
Crowley stands to his left, tilting his head to look down at him with eyes swimming with sympathy. “You have questions.”
“I’m not sure I dare to ask them,” Aziraphale admits. “I’m so afraid.” He takes Crowley’s hand when it is offered, standing up next to him. The garden in front of them has fallen dark, silent. From here on the wall, it feels just out of reach. “This was everything I had.”
“You could have more.”
Aziraphale shakes his head softly. “It was enough.”
“You had more,” Crowley continues, his voice weary yet gentle. “You left this place a long time ago.”
A part of Aziraphale wants to believe it, but he cannot trust the notion of such courage in himself. “By choice?”
Crowley doesn’t answer, which in itself tells Aziraphale what he wanted to know.
He sighs, wringing his cold hands, watching drops of rain fall from the shaking tips of his fingers. “I wasn’t sure you would come back.”
“You let me in. And I wasn’t going to give up on you now.”
The words warm him in the middle of the rainfall. Aziraphale trusts them, and he needs that now, trust, faith, something to believe in.
“Were we friends?” he asks Crowley. “Are we friends?”
Crowley shifts, his feet inching closer to the edge of the wall and the Garden below. “Yeah,” he says thickly, and though heavy drops of rain cling to his long eyelashes, Aziraphale sees his tears.
“After everything?”
Unable to answer right away, Crowley looks up, toward the sky, toward somewhere else, and the rain falls freely on his pale face. It carves rivers down his cheeks, and Aziraphale sees his lips tremble. He hears: We could have been us.
But that is not what Crowley says.
“You’re my best friend,” he chokes out. “I won’t stop trying to save you. Even when you make it very hard for me.” The rain caresses his cheekbones, his eyelids, his lips. “Wherever you go…” he breathes. “Even here.”
The Garden below looks small now, empty, and Crowley beckons toward it. “It’s not the place that changes. That’s the whole curse of it. Always has been. It’s the people inside that have to change.”
And he has. He has changed in ways that cannot be undone, it scares him, the person he is now, the one he was, the one he is becoming.
“I think,” Aziraphale says slowly, his voice still hoarse from grief and that bitter taste of betrayal, “that both of our lives would have been easier if you’d never bothered to talk to me. If you had just left me alone.”
The sky above them is grey, and in the storm, the yellow color of Crowley’s eyes appear to be glowing. “...You’ve always been so clever.”
Aziraphale almost turns around, almost faces the void behind the two of them, but he cannot bring himself to do more than twist his head, just enough to catch a glimpse of the nothing.
“Is it truly a wasteland?” he asks fearfully.
“Oh, it’s not empty. It’s quite full. You just have to see it to imagine it.” Crowley moves to turn around, but stops himself when his wings can no longer provide shelter for Aziraphale. “It’s not perfect. Full of sin and destruction. Wars. Death.” He winces. “It makes it pretty hard to sell, compared to all of this. But it is real. And full of wonders. Sushi. Music. Books. In a bookshop. And you’ve been fighting so hard to keep it. All of it.”
Crowley speaks of him with such pride, Aziraphale doubts he could ever do it justice.
“Then why am I here? Why can’t I bring myself to leave?”
“No one can blame you for wanting to cling to paradise. It’s perfect. Safe, too,” he tells him. “You care about that. Wanted us both safe. I didn’t know you missed this, though. Eden.”
“How could I not?” He wonders if Crowley misses it, how he could not, how anything could be a greater memory than this.
“You love Earth,” Crowley says, fully confident in that statement. “You sacrificed so much to keep it safe. And it’s pretty terrible, too, compared to all of this.”
Aziraphale blinks. Crowley shrugs and continues, “I mean, there’s the pollution. Things aren’t as scenic as before the humans came up with the industrial revolution. And the deforestation, can’t forget that. But even before we ruined their homes, the animals were dying. Killing. They kill and they die and their bodies rot so some new grass can grow, or something like that. Humans too. A lot of death, actually.”
“They kill each other?” Aziraphale asks, horrified.
“Sometimes. Or they die from disease or hunger or because someone couldn’t put down their phone while driving. They die from such stupid things. It all seems rather pointless at times.”
Aziraphale can almost imagine it, the void being replaced with these terrible, terrible scenes.
“Then why would I ever leave?”
“Because they’re humans,” Crowley replies. “Because the humans couldn’t stay. And this place? It didn’t need you. The humans did. So you followed them. We both did. Anything else would have been so dreadfully boring.”
Humans. Aziraphale tries his best to imagine them, these wayward creations. “But if anything outside of here is terrible -”
“It’s not,” Crowley interrupts. “Well, it has terrible, terrible things. But it has good things, too. And they matter, because the bad stuff’s there. Otherwise, it wouldn’t count.”
“And the humans? Are they good? Or -”
“Both. Well, capable of both. I think both of our offices would like it if it weren’t as complicated as it is. But it is. And we both know that because we’re the ones who’ve been there since the Beginning.”
Crowley paints a picture so vivid that it flashes before Aziraphale’s eyes: the two of them leading mankind out of the Garden, into the world, through the world, ever-changing and growing. Or perhaps it is the other way around. Mankind leading them.
“They can be kind. Stupidly kind. And they invent the strangest things, and they wreck stuff, and they put it back together, and they change the world around them, for better and for worse, they don’t even hesitate -” Excitement has Crowley’s voice climbing higher and higher until he stops himself, the brightness leaving his expression for the next part.
“The world’s different out there. Less stale. More dangerous. The pumas have to eat, so - And it rains, especially in Britain. Who likes mud? Well, toddlers, but they learn eventually. And the plants are lazy. Always with the brown spots and the rot and the withering. But then a new one grows, and that’s the point, I think. Why this garden just can’t cut it. It’s too perfect. Nothing changes. It all lasts. And then there won’t be something new. Something to surprise you.”
The wind shakes them, threatening to rob them of their balance. Aziraphale fights the urge to cling to Crowley’s arm, to ground himself, trusting that Crowley will not let him fall, and that Aziraphale will not drag him down with him should he stumble.
“When I went to the wall, I saw nothing. A void.”
“That’s just because you don’t know it yet,” Crowley tells him. “It’s a leap you can’t undo.”
“I wouldn’t leap. I’d fall,” Aziraphale says. “I feel so - unsteady.”
“That’s what a leap of faith is. A fall. You just have to stick the landing.”
Aziraphale thinks about it, all the things that Crowley has told him, the pictures he’s painted, and then he frowns, pouting, “I don’t want to land in mud.”
Crowley laughs at that, a loud, beautiful sound, one that Aziraphale would like to collect more of. “Oh, you’d hate that,” he says, still grinning. “It’s not easy, trying to convince you to leave. Hardest temptation I’ve ever signed myself up for. Being back here - I’ve missed it. Part of me wants to stay. But that’s not because of the place. It’s just - this. You. I’ve missed that. Earth’s not that fun when you’re alone.”
Aziraphale can sense his pain, and he understands it, knows it. He thinks about the time he’s spent alone in the Garden, untroubled and unburdened, and how now, he knows, he can no longer return to that joy. Now he knows loneliness, and he cannot unlearn that pain.
“Would I be alone?” he asks.
“No,” Crowley promises him without hesitation. “Unless you’d - You might be rather cross with me. Maybe you want to be left alone.”
Aziraphale knows how it feels, to be angry at Crowley, but he also knows what comes afterwards, the longing, the grief. “I was happy being alone,” he says. “But I felt happy, too, being with you. Happier, I think. Until - I felt both. The good and the bad.”
“You had a point. Your life would have been much more simple if I had left you alone.” Crowley sighs, guilt dripping from his words and from his eyes. “Safer, too. You and me together? That’s dangerous. You knew that. And you always tried your best to keep me safe through it.”
Aziraphale wants that now, the two of them safe, together, away from here, out of the storm. “You said you were trying to save me,” he says, still trying to understand all of it. He doesn’t think he can, not here, and so he finally reaches for Crowley’s hand, begging him, “Please.”
He wants Crowley to be his savior, to pull him out of the mess, to free him from the things that Aziraphale cannot bring himself to do.
Crowley raises his free hand to Aziraphale’s face, and Aziraphale leans into the soft touch, the warmth, feeling as though he might just drown in this storm should Crowley let go of him. “I don’t think I can,” Crowley whispers. “But I wish I could.”
“You want me to leave.”
“I’ve always been that selfish, yes.”
He leans closer, his wings a hovering shadow behind him. Their foreheads touch all while Crowley keeps stroking his cheek, as though he cannot trust the touch. The rain is cold, embracing the two of them, and this is what the Garden needs, Aziraphale realizes, rain to grow, even when the storm itself is dark and full of uncertainty.
“I’m terrified,” Aziraphale admits thickly. “I thought this would last forever.”
“Yeah… Few things do.”
“Can you stay with me?” Aziraphale begs of him. It could be a compromise, he thinks, if he truly is trapped. It is a beautiful prison, after all, and with Crowley by his side, there is nothing to endure. “This could be your home, too.”
Aziraphale closes his eyes before Crowley can answer, bracing himself for what he knows will come next.
“Oh, I’m afraid I can’t, angel.”
“And you cannot keep coming back either,” Aziraphale concludes thickly. The options are narrowing down, or rather, they are the same as always, even when Aziraphale has tried to be hopeful. Two sides of the wall.
“It’s getting harder and harder,” Crowley admits with a flinch. “It’s not easy - losing you.”
In truth, there is only one option. Aziraphale faces it now, bathed in Crowley’s tearful gaze.
“Was I happy?” he asks, bracing himself for the answer.
“You were loved,” Crowley tells him.
The love remains, so strong that Aziraphale feels it now, the very eye of the storm.
How beautiful the world must be, if it has love like that.
“You must leave.”
It is Aziraphale who says this, who pushes the words past his lips. He pulls back, and sees the confusion, the fear, in Crowley’s eyes.
“Angel.” His hands fumble for the fabric of Aziraphale’s white robes, to pull him back, closer, and there is force in his grip, desperation and longing, and Aziraphale doesn’t want him to let go. He remembers it now, the taste of Crowley’s lips. “Come back to me.”
He is gone before Aziraphale can make a promise. He must banish him before he can have any second thoughts.
He does not know what will happen to this Garden without him, or more importantly, what would happen to Crowley, when he leaves. It is not real, he understands, but a memory, an illusion, a prison within his own mind.
A comfortable prison, one he fought to stay in, to keep intact. And it is beautiful even now, all the leaves weighed down by the raindrops, the surface of the lakes breaking over and over. Aziraphale’s wings bring him back to the Garden safely, the flight easy and brief despite the wind. This is where he must go, to the heart of it all. Not the void. There is a world waiting for him out there, but the way toward it is Aziraphale’s road to choose.
It leads him to the tree, to the fruit still untouched, waiting for someone to pluck it, to taste it.
The birds are gone as Aziraphale makes his way through this faded memory of Eden, but he can hear their song, he can imagine it, remember it, if he tries hard enough.
He says goodbye to this paradise with every slow step through the Garden, knowing that he will never forget this place. He will carry it within him, but he refuses to let it be used against him.
Eden was beautiful and safe and perfect.
But it is not his home. Perhaps it still exists somewhere, hidden from the humans that forever lost it, but it is empty now. It needs no guardian.
The apple fits perfectly in his palm. Drops of rain still cling to it, only adding to the temptation.
Aziraphale allows himself a moment to admire it, to press his lips against this forbidden thing.
The taste is sweet.
For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
Aziraphale wakes up, and the first thing he sees is the well-known shade of yellow.