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“…Do you want me to put everything back where it was?” God snides.
Aziraphale shivers, elbow brushing up against Crowley before his mind goes blank, the threat of the question making him disassociate.
“Can we talk?” Crowley speaks, leaning his head toward Aziraphale, unnerved at the choice presented before him.
“Very well. I’ll give you privacy.” The Lord beckons and a bright flash of light engulfs the bookshop. Melting away the something in the nothing into something new.
Somethings is different, they both feel it as the light swells, the air sweeter, the floor creaks as though made of dirt. Crowley shifts his foot slightly, nope still wood.
Then they see it. Eden. Their own paradise in the bookshop, now literal. God always loved her metaphors.
New dyed into where they first met, where they first spoke demon to angel. Where Crowley fell in love by accident, messily, and with no intention too.
And now this Eden, their bookshop, is where they must say goodbye. Crowleys heart leaps, his hand reaches out to the newly formed tree, touching the bark to see if it’s real. If it’s real, he has to choose.
He knows what he needs to choose, but he knows what he wants to choose. And somehow they are the same, so he cannot choose it. That’s how the divine game of chess works and he’s not playing by their rules anymore.
For the sake of humanity, for everything else, for life itself, he has to choose a new universe.
“So. What do you want.” Aziraphale interrupts, Crowley’s freight train of thought halts.
“Me? Why me?”
“I only want one thing. And that’s not what this is about anymore.”
Crowley knows Aziraphale has the other half of his soul when he says that. That they cannot be complete without each other, they share the same thoughts. He didn’t know it always, but he does now.
“What do you want, Crowley.”
Crowley feels his eyes getting wet, a tear drop hanging from his eye. He steps forward, determined to do the right thing.
“You know what I want.” Crowley whispers, full of love. “I want a real universe. I want people to have a chance. I want free will to be a real thing.”
Aziraphale’s face droops, his body mourning the love that they share before his mind can catch up. This is always how it was going to end, wasn’t it.
“People deserve a chance to, live in the real world.”
Aziraphale glances down at Crowleys lips, he’s never wanted that before Crowley gave it to him. Much like everything I suppose. The world and all its stars are his very dream conjured out of love.
He wants it again, very much. One kiss before the world crumbles around them would be enough, it would be enough to say goodbye forever. To hold forever on a kiss would be enough.
“Even if there are no angels.” Crowley mourns, “No demons.”
Aziraphale smiles, that’s a nice idea. No heaven no hell, no meddling business to distract humans from being wonderfully human.
That’s probably the best way to exist, human, that’s why Crowley has to choose a new universe. To give humans a chance to exist freely, experience life. To love like he has loved, and been loved, but without divine interuption.
“No us.” Crowley chokes. The stray tear falls like a comet from the sky, Aziraphale wants to catch it in his palm and hold it forever, “Ever again.”
Aziraphale turns away, he can’t breathe, how could he dare to take the air out of a world that will no longer exist. A world where they would no longer exist, together.
“Did I say the wrong thing?” Crowley jokes, and it’s the best joke he has ever told. And it makes it all alright.
A laugh jumps its way out of Aziraphale, and makes him float, the way he always has near Crowley. That giddy bubble of excitement waiting to be popped but never is.
He will always feel excited by Crowley, has felt. Past tense, not enough time to get used to that.
Aziraphale turns back to him, a few stray tears have passed onto Crowley’s shirt since he last looked at him. Don’t stop looking, don’t miss any of this. It has to be done, and we will be gone so don’t miss it.
Aziraphale let’s another chuckle air out of his lungs, “I believe we’ve come to a decision.”
Crowley laughs, and it’s the same laugh that has always sat deep in his heart reserved just for him. For every silly flourish and whim he’s ever had. Everything has always been for him.
Then the sweet air fades out, the apples fall, and the beginning merges back into the end.
God and The Devil are sat chatting, predictable. It’s unimportant, nothing is more important than eachother right now.
The Devil smirks, “Made your decision?”
Crowley looks at his Angel, he should say it, he should stand infront of them and be brave, he’s always had it in him.
“We want you to create another universe.”
Crowley continues, clarifying. “One without angels, or demons. No God. No Satan. A universe without a heaven and without a hell.”
“No great plan, nothing ineffable.” Aziraphale adds.
That’s a good idea too, let chance fall what it may. Would we even find our way to eachother in that case? Course we would. It’s everything else that pulls us apart.
Aziraphale continues, “It just starts with the Big Bang and then billions of years later the heat death of the universe-”
“Or Y’know, however it stops. Heat death isn’t a deal breaker.”
“Mmh.” Aziraphale agrees, in the way they have always agreed in disagreement. Suppose this is our last one.
The Devil smiles, and God responds, “Your asking god to make a godless universe?”
Saying it out-loud does make it sound quite ridiculous, but this whole situation is ridiculous. We are trapped in this story, this piece of written history, and there cannot be any more of it for anyone’s sake. It’s unfair.
“Neither of you could ever exist in such a universe, you understand?”
Yes. We understand.
We understand we will lose everything in chance to give everyone everything else. I will lose my life, everything I have known and looked upon, every book ever written, every star ever wished upon.
I will lose you more than anything else. I will lose my best friend. It will be alright.
“Wait.” The Devil whispers on Gods shoulder, “You’re not going to indulge them in this nonsense are you?”
“Yes.” God replies lightly, “Yes, I think I am.”
It’s real now. It’s going to happen. Humanity will get their chance at life without rule.
They will cease to be. It will be okay.
“You two fully comprehend the cost?” God confirms, for the first time making sure those she meddles with know the weight of choice.
Aziraphale’s hand magnetically draws into Crowleys, their opposite pull always drawing the other near. An electric current forming between their hearts. In another universe the same could happen.
Crowley decides, “We know what we’re asking for.”
“Very well.” God declares, standing up alongside The Devil, “I’ll make it. I’ll make the universe, your way. I’ll even let an earth happen. Eventually they’ll be humans and life in all of its mundane glory.”
Good. It’s going to happen. There will be humans and human things and it will be glorious. Without heaven and hell. Really, it’s the way things should’ve always been. This sacrifice will merely be a blip in reality, but it will be felt all the same.
“Something that both of you will neither know or experience, though.” God adds, like she’s trying to put salt in the wound. It’s possible she knew the unfair cost she gave to Jobe from that sentence alone. God is mean.
“That doesn’t matter.” Aziraphale proclaims. And he’s right, we will never know that world or the human invention that occur within it. The story’s or the stars.
All that matters is us in this moment, until forever is not forever.
“Say goodbye then!” God meddles, like they are putting on the last show for them, the curtain call as it drops.
Crowley turns first, not daring to move his head in any other direction, to lose a second he has left not gazing upon him. Aziraphale follows.
This is Aziraphale’s last chance to kiss him, to make things right, forever. But he can’t, he can’t possibly.
Infront of God? his last action being a sinner. The shame bubbles up in his gut, and there is Crowley looking back, praying for him, loving him unrepentantly.
He cannot bear not to touch him though. He feels his fingers draw up to his lips automatically, the same way he did as Crowley left, holding onto him.
He kisses them softly, gently, with a thousand thoughts and gestures he’ll never get to share.
He places them to Crowleys lips in an act of courage. Crowley kisses them back.
And as Aziraphale pulls them back a smile of gratitude shines on Crowleys face, as bright as the first morning in Eden. It makes him melt, oh how he wishes he could press his face against his and hold it there forever.
God Damnit.
He’s falling back into the story again, the same old story that they have escaped out of, now writing another page.
No, that will not happen.
There is only a fraction of reality left, a tiny sliver of chance to get his kiss. The one sweeping kiss in rain and then sorted.
The bookshop roof starts to crumble open and that could count as rain, the trickle of stardust blessing them.
His last act in this universe will be to love Crowley, openly and without fear or hesitation or doubt standing in the way.
With everything he has left he reaches out to Crowley, pulling him in by his lapels. Forcing his lips to Crowley in gentle desperation, expelling all the want he’s ever held deep down during their 6000 years of long and twisted history.
“Ngk.” Crowley jumps, not expecting the union but taking it into his soul. Hands starting to wander, he’s always wanted to know how soft the angel's hair is and now he will, petting and caressing it as the walls crumble down. Combing through it with his hands like he’s sifting his hand through the last piece of reality.
Neither of them breathes, they don’t need to, this last moment with their mouths moving and the walls falling and nothing else in the universe but them cannot be condensed into a single breath.
If this is sinning then damn him, he’s wasted every second not conjoined together like this. The airy delight overcoming him, the wonder, the love. The fulfilment and the suffering leaving his body. This is holy.
The bookshop vanishes and their lips are still stained with each other, they don’t need to say anything else. They know it all already. It all flashes by as their lips stick together.
The day Crowley made the universe and the day Aziraphale saved his life against the background of destiny.
The day they met in Eden, and Crowley slithered next to him. Falling in love all because an angel gave away his stupid flaming sword.
The day the flood came. The day Aziraphale sinned to save Job and his children, and Crowley made good to do the same. The day Jesus died for the first time.
The day in Rome where Crawley became Crowley in Aziraphale’s mind, and they ate oysters together. Wonderful oysters.
The day they realised they had been fighting each other’s battles, and agreed to not, beginning the arrangement. Not knowing where it would take them.
The day they made Shakespeare famous.
The day Crowley saved Aziraphale from his death at the hand of the French, repaying the favor that they forged at the beginning of time and then ate crapes.
The day Aziraphale’s faith was tested again in Edinburgh, and he had to save Crowley from falling over himself with laudanum poisoning. All because he couldn’t bear the thought of a young girl commiting suicide.
The day Crowley tested Aziraphale by asking him for holy water, and Aziraphale couldn’t bear the thought of Crowleys death, so he refused.
The day the blitz happened, and Crowley walked on consecrated ground to save him, grabbing the books, he almost dealt to the nazis, in a demonic miracle. That’s when he fell in love he thinks, and it’s probably why they took so long to get here.
The night they preformed on a west end stage together, and accidentally got the press involved, but fell deeper into the pit of love despite it.
The day he did give Crowley holy water in an act of love, realising the threat he was up against may kill him anyway.
The day they stopped Armageddon and saved the world, for the first time.
The day Gabriel came, and the day they stopped another war between heaven and hell.
The day Crowley kissed him in the bookshop thinking it would be his last chance.
The day they saved the world by making a new one, lips conjoined and hearts intertwined for the last time.
Their faces are drown in their shared tears, expelling their emotion as the world closes in.
Everything dissolves around them, every memory, every moment.
Maybe in another universe it will all happen again. They will meet eachother at every turn in history and fall in love the human way. All over again.
But there is no pain in this vanishing, in not living all those versions, because they have already. They have loved eachother for a thousand lifetimes.
It is no pain to kiss and die, Goodnight my love. Goodbye. Goodbye.
Reality slips out from underneath their feet.
The absence of space itself exists now and stretches out into forever.
No noise.
No light.
No nightingale song.
Just nothing.
But somewhere, somehow, in the nothingness light begins to move around itself.
Before colliding and expanding rapidly in a vibrant, multicolor, explosion. Expelling itself rapidly toward a beginning. Blinding and searing and tearing through to make space.
It must be their souls touching.