Chapter Text
It was a Good day today, as was any other day in Heaven. It had been a Good week, that was a part of a Good month, which was one of twelve Good months that made up the Good year. Which, of course, when put together with nine other Good years, made a Good decade. It had been three Good years since the Supreme Archangel Aziraphale showed his face on Earth.
Aziraphale did not feel very Good today, regardless of how Good the day was. Adjusting his boring tie, in his boring grey suit, he turned to face the gathered crowd of Archangels, smiling nervously.
The reason Aziraphle was so nervous around the angels that were now equivalent to his employees stretches back a long time, though. Sure, once upon a time, they had been a flock, a pack, a host of angels, all equal in Her eyes. They had jobs to do, of course, but there was a tangible feeling of love that surrounded every angel for a long time.
That love faded during the War. It was sibling against sibling, and nobody reemerged unscathed. Sometimes, even now, Aziraphale finds himself reaching for a sword that hasn’t rested at his hip for six thousand years. He did many things he wasn’t proud of during those years. His strategies led to the loss of life on both sides, before he’d even really considered that there were going to be sides from that point onwards.
Aziraphale never really wanted to fight. He wanted to sit by God’s throne, and bask in Her neverending warmth, knowing that She loved him always.
Where Aziraphale went wrong was assuming that everyone felt the same as he did.
When Aziraphale saw battle for the first time, he wept. He watched as his siblings tore apart his siblings, ripping wings from backs, and heads from bodies, and he didn’t see one single angel that looked even the slightest bit conflicted about the blood they were spilling.
He supposes the otherness he experiences from the angels started then. Where his kin reveled in the violence, Aziraphale sought ways to heal those who needed assistance.
Since the War, the other angels have looked at Aziraphale differently. He pretended he didn't hear the whispers of “soft” and "naive" whenever he had to appear Upstairs for a quarterly report. He tried to ignore that the whispers had grown into murmurs of “weak” and “traitor” as the End Times began to approach.
It wasn’t that he didn’t love his siblings, he just also loved the earth (and one particular now ex-demon who lived on it), and he didn’t want it to get destroyed in a frivolous and pointless war. He desperately wanted to prove to all of them that the earth and the life on it was beautiful, and not just a placeholder before the next war.
With this opportunity to be in charge presented to him after Gabriel and Beelzebub went off with one another, how could Aziraphale possibly turn it down? He could make a difference, a real difference, to humanity.
He still remembers the conversation he had with his biggest inspiration besides God Herself, before the war. Aziraphale, in passing, had helped an angel create a galaxy. It was one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen. Granted, everything he had seen recently had been beautiful, but watching the stars appear out of nothingness filled Aziraphale with the sort of adoration that so far, he’d only felt when he gazed upon Her face.
The redheaded angel had turned to him after a beat of silence and whispered “I hope the humans are worth it. I hope they get to see my stars.”
For a while after that, Aziraphale kept an eye out for her handiwork, noticing as new constellations filled the sky. He’d stare up at them for hours at a time, wondering how many were her handiwork.
Then the War happened, and suddenly Aziraphale didn’t have time to gaze at the stars anymore. He’d helped that angel during the War. She attacked him, and he tended to her wounds. They sat for a while after that, listening to the roar of the eternal flame.
There was a lot of time to look at the stars after the War. However, it was less fun to look at them alone.
Aziraphale met them again in the garden of Eden, even though he didn’t recognise them at first. They were Crawly now, and Aziraphale couldn’t find it in himself to shoo the angel – well, demon, now, he supposes, that created the galaxies he’d spent so long looking at.
The pair met a lot more times after that, Crawly became Crowley, and Crowley slowly became Aziraphale’s closest friend. Someone he couldn’t lose. They stopped meeting altogether three years ago. Aziraphale would protect the people of earth, even if it meant that he had to leave Crowley behind. Even if it killed him to be apart from Crowley, now that they could finally, finally, be their side. Not with Heaven, not with Hell. The kiss Aziraphale could still taste on his lips on his way Upstairs was proof of what he could’ve had, and what he gave up to try and make a difference.
He would make a difference if it killed him. He remembered the way Crowley turned to him, that day with the stars. Aziraphale remembered the way the light of the galaxies surrounding them danced in Crowley’s eyes as the then-angel’s wing stretched over his head to shelter him from the raining debris.
Most of all, Aziraphale remembered the warm love nestling its way into his chest.
He felt the love growing cold and jagged as he got on the elevator Up three years ago. But he knew Crowley would never forgive himself if he left the earth to die. Aziraphale had to make the choice for them.
Aziraphale had planned long and hard, and he was rather firm with the other angels about the fact that there was to be no war. Once again, Aziraphale had to pretend that he didn’t hear the backchat, about how he wouldn’t be in charge for long, or how there absolutely should be another war. All the while, Aziraphale tries to hide the way he tenses at the thought of more bloodshed.
Every day, he tries to praise the other angels for the work they do. He remembers how much the little jabs they made at him hurt when he was a Principality, (and how much the memory alone of those incidents hurt him now,) and he has sworn to himself that he will never make anyone who works under him feel small. Even when Sandalphon tests him with how much he brings up smiting humans, even when Uriel rolls their eyes and makes a snarky comment under their breath, even when Michael agrees with everything he says in a very insincere tone to rile up the other Archangels, even when Saraqael turns around and leaves mid-conversation because they have never cared for what he has to say.
Aziraphale endures their childish behavior, and gives them nothing but love in return. Because he knows if he is cruel, he will be no better than Gabriel was to him. And isn’t that the point? To make things better?
Aziraphale hopes he’s making things better.
Because if he’s not, what’s the point of suffering the cold ache that dwells in his bones? What’s the point in trying at all, if there’s nobody there to notice he’s trying? What’s the point when he has nobody to drink wine until they’re both so drunk that someone will need to invent a new word for the level of drunkenness they’ve managed to achieve?
What’s the point if Crowley isn’t here with him?
He hopes Crowley will forgive him, once he’s made everything better.