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There was an odd noise, like someone wailing from behind clenched teeth. Crowley– who had sneaked off to shower after verifying that the angel was really and truly asleep– jerked, cracked his elbow on the tap, and doubled over with a hiss of exhaled air as the sound cut off abruptly. Shit. Shouldn’t have left him alone. Stupid. He snapped his clothes into place on his way out of the bathroom and crossed the apartment in hurried strides. The figure on his bed was thrashing violently.
“What’s wrong? What happened?” He flipped on the lamp and nearly sat on the edge of the bed, then thought the better of it. Things between them were odd enough already. He was already half-crouching, so as Aziraphale stirred and looked up he cleared his throat and turned the motion into a full bend-and-back up again, theatrically slapping his thighs. Too late, he realised his glasses were on his desk. Aziraphale was staring at him with wide eyes, quick, say something. “Nice to still have legs, don’t you think?” He grinned frantically and pointed downward. “Coulda been…” he waved his hands. “Poof. Like everything. So much dust floating through space. Legs ‘n everything. Hands. Fingers! All of it.” He groaned internally. Fine. It’s fine. Just say you’re drunk.
Aziraphale went white. “Crowley. Something. I saw… something happened… it. I don’t know. It’s… it doesn't make sense, but…” He looked around the room frantically, as if reassuring himself it was all there. After the events of the past day, Crowley understood.
“You fell asleep. Been a day.”
“I…” Aziraphale slowly patted his waistcoat. Then he held up his hands and examined them. The ring on his smallest finger gleamed in the lamplight as he touched it. “Gabriel was at the bookshop,” he said at last, blinking.
Bookshops and ex-bosses were at the top of the list of things Crowley wanted to avoid talking about. “Let me pour us a drink.” He’d been leaning on the bedside table, but as he stood back Aziraphale grabbed his wrist and pulled him off balance. Crowley stumbled, still gripped like Aziraphale was the corpse of Carrie determined to drag him into her grave, and fell half on the bed with a whoomph of surprised air.
Aziraphale was shaking. “Gabriel. Was at my bookshop. He wasn’t wearing any clothes!”
“Ohhh,” Crowley said, as realization dawned. “You were dreaming.”
“Was I?” The angel sounded half hysterical.
“Naked boss. Not quite as classic as being naked at work. I’ve had that one. Look, they don’t mean anything. I dreamed once I was being chased by a giant jelly with these wobbly custard tentacles.” Aziraphale was still holding onto his wrist. There was sweat between their skin. “Look, how about something to eat?” Crowley asked desperately.
“Gabriel was naked,” Aziraphale said slowly, as if he hadn’t heard. “I gave him clothes. Why would I do that?”
“Give ‘im a good smiting is what you should've done.”
“I know!” Aziraphale’s eyes were very wide. “But I didn’t. I gave him my clothes, and cocoa. And I let him sleep in my bed.”
Crowley raised an eyebrow.
“Not! I don’t mean. What you’re… look. At any rate. Please, Crowley, let me get this out. It feels important.”
“We’ve got four hours until sunrise. I was going to let you sleep a little longer, but then we need to practice.”
“I know,” Aziraphale said crossly, sounding more like himself. “It was my idea in the first place.”
Crowley gently disengaged his wrist and settled down on the bed a little ways away from Aziraphale, who was still half-tangled in the sheets. Moonlight shining through the blinds made luminous stripes on his cheek, and Crowley remembered looking at him through the bars of the Bastille, thinking he was pretty as a picture. He sighed. “Tell me about your dream,” he said, seeing as if it didn’t look like he had any choice in the matter.
“Thank you. You were there, you know.”
“Like those farmers at the end of Wizard of Oz? Did I fluff his Lordship’s pillow?”
“You were very angry with me.”
Crowley snorted.
“And you slept in your car, with your plants. I turned it yellow, though! And drove it to Scotland.”
“You don’t drive,” was all Crowley could think of to say to that.
“Of course not. You were angry about that, too. The driving. The mountains were tartan,” Aziraphale said, gaze far away. “Why did I go to Scotland? There are parts that are missing.”
“Dreams’re like that. Once you’re awake all the way, they sort of fade away. In a few days, you’ll forget it ever happened.”
Aziraphale looked at Crowley sharply, who shifted uncomfortably, feeling like a bug under glass. “What’d I say?”
“Nothing.” Aziraphale took a shaky breath. “That nun, do you remember? From the manor? She was there, in Berwick Street. Only Berwick Street was called Whickber Street… it all looked different… anyway. She sold coffee. We were trying to make her kiss another shopkeeper.”
Crowley laughed. He regretted it as soon as he opened his mouth, since Aziraphale looked so deadly serious, but he couldn’t help it. “Angel, our lot doesn’t do love potions.” He paused. He’d never really kept track of what those little chubby winged fellows with the archery equipment were up to. “At least… my lot doesn’t.”
“You haven’t got a lot!” Aziraphale exclaimed with real heat. “Our side. You said.”
“Okay, okay. Calm down. I just meant–”
“That’s the thing. My dream. It was all sides again, like nothing we did today– yesterday– even mattered! Angels were all over the bookshop looking for Gabriel. They couldn’t see him though, I don’t know why. Then demons tried to break in. I threw books at them.” Aziraphale looked horrified.
“Doesn’t seem like you,” Crowley said carefully.
“No! That’s what I mean! None of it did! It was like I was watching this… creature… who was me and not me… watching him do things I would never think of doing. He– I– invited all of the local shopkeepers to the bookshop for a dance.” He shuddered. “I’d never let more than four humans into the shop at one time. It disturbs the air currents. The antique Christopher Marlowes start to crumble if you even look at them the wrong way.”
“You also don’t dance.”
“You did.” Aziraphale huffed a little laugh. Crowley was glad to see some colour returning to his face. “Did an apology dance.”
“Did a what?”
“It’s all so strange. I didn’t like it, Crowley.”
Crowley shrugged. “There’s all sorts of dreams. Some are nasty. Some are okay. Mostly they’re just odd.”
“I’ve always remembered everything. Everything. And what I remember is true. Remembering things that didn’t happen…” he shook his head. “I don’t see how you cope with that.”
It’s the same as imagination, angel, Crowley thought. I think things about you that aren’t true. I think about touching your hair and seeing if it feels just like a dandelion clock. I think it would, but I don’t know, see, because it’s not real. I think about what it would feel like to press into you, whether your stomach would be soft, if I could feel the outline of your pocket watch. If we were that close. Out loud, he said, “You can put memories in different boxes. Some you take out a lot. Some you don’t. You know?”
Aziraphale nodded slowly. “I suppose I do.”
“Was that all of it?”
Aziraphale suddenly looked down and to the left. That’s your lying face, angel, I’ve known that face for at least a thousand years. They’d never played poker, but Crowley thought he could have won handily. “No,” Aziraphale said finally. “The Metatron came to the bookshop.”
“Big floatie head guy?”
“The very same. He bought me a coffee. With oat milk.”
“Eughh.”
“I’m not sure I know what oat milk is.”
“You wouldn’t like it.”
“I didn’t drink it. He said he wanted me to be Supreme Archangel and run Heaven for the Second Coming.”
Crowley began to laugh again, but then he saw the look on Aziraphale’s face. “We just stopped Armageddon. It’s normal you’d dream about the End Times, it’s all you’ve been thinking about for years. Dreams just try to work out the problems we can’t solve when we’re awake.”
“Did you have a jelly and custard problem, then?”
“Everyone had a jelly and custard problem in the 1950s. Look, you’re worried. So you dreamed about fixing everything with Heaven and Hell, because we’ve still got to. What’s a Supreme Archangel, anyway?”
“Not sure. As far as I know, nobody up there is supreme anything.”
“Supreme twats,” Crowley muttered, and was relieved to see Aziraphale smile. “Let’s get to work on the disguises.”
“I went,” Aziraphale said abruptly. “Forgive me, Crowley, I went with him.”
Crowley was silent. He watched with fascination as tears gathered under Aziraphale’s lowered lashes, two tiny crescent pools of reflected light. He’d never seen the angel cry, not once in six thousand years. He hadn’t been sure he knew how.
“I thought I could make it better, and then I lost Jesus, and then I found you in an alley. The Bentley turned into an ice cream truck. Michael…” Aziraphale was gulping words now, while Crowley tried to follow what on earth had gotten him so bent out of shape. The whole thing sounded bizarre rather than heartbreaking, but dreams were like that sometimes. You could end up cowering away from a sentient mushroom, for example, or sobbing over a bowl of clotted cream. Didn’t have to make sense. “Michael burned the Book of Life.”
“The what?”
“I don’t know! All that was left was the bookshop. She took this book with all of Creation written down in it to the Eternal Flame because that’s the only place she could destroy it… we went to space to try to to stop her… but she threw it in–”
“Like Frodo in Return of the King?” said Crowley, unable to help himself.
Aziraphale stopped and gave him a look that managed to be tearful, fond and cutting, all at once. “It wasn’t Frodo who threw the One Ring into the fires of Mount Doom, of course. It was Gollum in the end, who–”
“All right, yes, I know. Saw the movie.” Aziraphale winced. “So. Big book-eating Eternal Flame. Floating bookshop. Like, out in space?”
“It was nowhere. We were… nowhere. All the books were blank.”
“Oh, that’s why this was a nightmare.”
“Crowley.” Azirapahle looked at him very seriously. “You talked to God. And Satan. We both did.”
Crowley rubbed his jaw. His face was still damp from the shower. Less we think about those two wankers, the better off we’ll be. “Not big talkers, really.”
“I know. I tried to reach God yesterday, and I got the answering service.”
“Typical.”
“Do dreams ever mean anything, do you think?”
Crowley paused before he answered. “Think it’s up to you, really. Like what Adam said. If reality is what you make of it, then dreams mean what you want them to mean. Even the ones about custard.”
“Oh.”
They were both quiet for a moment. Finally, Aziraphale said, “We’ve got a plan. To make them leave us alone. What if… Crowley, what if after all this, they don’t leave the humans alone? What if they come back? For the Second Coming… or something even more monstrous.”
“You’re getting ahead of yourself. Most likely they’ll find us out and we’ll die tomorrow, so what’s the sense in worrying, eh?” Crowley elbowed Aziraphale in the side. He suddenly felt like bursting into tears. “Hold tight and I’ll get us that drink.”
Aziraphale ignored him. “Crowley. You told God that the humans needed a chance without… us.” The word ‘us’ sounded like it had to be physically forced from Aziraphale’s throat. “Angels. Demons. Me. And you.”
Crowley was sure he was missing something. “Sure, that’s what Adam said, isn’t it? No more messin’ about?”
“You told God to make a universe without us! And then we–” Aziraphale popped his fingers out, movements jerky and angry. “We were gone! Poof! Into dust!” His shoulders heaved, and he made that wailing noise again. It sounded terrified and desperate, a caged animal noise.
Crowley looked around frantically. “Here.” He snapped his fingers once, twice. “Cold drink. Er, handkerchief. A book?” He pushed the items into Aziraphale’s astonished hands. “I’ve only got ones about stars around here, not really your cup of tea, I know, but– oh! Tea!” He snapped again. “Have some tea. Camomille, since it’s late. Go on, have a blow and take a big sip.”
Aziraphale blew his nose, seeming to have been shocked out of outright sobs. “Thank you.”
Don’t say that, Crowley thought, but he didn’t say it. He realised he didn’t have to. “Welcome.”
They sat hip to hip. Aziraphale shifted so their thighs touched. Crowley didn’t move away.
“For the record,” Crowley said eventually, “I wouldn’t sleep in my car. Don’t think she’d like it.”
“I know you wouldn’t.” Aziraphale sipped his tea. “Why didn’t I know it then?”
“What do you mean?”
“You weren’t… you. I wasn’t me, really. The things we did and said… why didn’t I know it wasn’t real?”
“First dream. How would you have?”
“I suppose that’s true.”
“Er. I also wouldn’t. I mean.” Crowley swallowed. “I didn’t do all this for the humans. Not just for them. They’re nice, don’t get me wrong. I really like the clothes. Central heating? Tops. Espresso machines? Can’t beat ‘em.”
“I like what they do with ‘fusion cuisine’,” Aziraphale said, making quotation marks with his fingers.
“Yes! And the little speakers that can play music right in your ear…”
“Scented candles…”
“Wheeled luggage…”
“Umbrellas…”
“Right. All that. Anyway. They’re great. Fun to have around. But angel… you did it for them, I thought.”
“I what?”
“You didn’t want to live in a world without Glyndebourne and antique snuff boxes and sushi restaurants, you said.”
“You said that! You were trying to tempt me!”
“Worked, too.” Crowley grinned at him. “But me… I didn’t need to be talked into wanting to save…” The place where we live. This sanctuary we’ve found between two poles of absolute horribleness. The only place we can be together. “...everything,” he finished, lamely.
Aziraphale’s face fell. No, no. What did I say? “That’s because you love them. More than–” he paused, and did his lying face again. “More than I do.”
Arrrgh. It was like trying to talk to a cryptic crossword. “Aziraphale, it’s late. It was just a dream. Come on and we’ll practice our faces. I don’t think I’ve got the nose quite right.”
“I’m very selfish, you know,” Aziraphale said quietly. “I only want one thing.”
Crowley, who thought they’d made it back to safe ground, suddenly realized he was dangling by a rope over the edge of an emotional chasm. He stared up at the place where the wall met the crown moulding. It needed dusting.
“In my dream, I think you wanted it too. You said you did, I thought. You did something that made me sure you… But then you didn’t, in the end.”
“Well. Er.”
“What does that mean? Please, Crowley.”
Crowley closed his eyes and let go of the rope. What the Hell. We’re going to die tomorrow anyway. Nothing to lose. “What do you want it to mean, angel? It’s your dream.”
“This.” Crowley heard Aziraphle shift. His skin prickled as the soft warmth of him (he is soft) pressed against his side, and then his breath was on his lips, coming fast and frantic, and then his lips were soft, so soft, even softer than his body, on Crowley’s mouth.
They stayed there a moment, lips brushing and clinging. Crowley made a noise that was mixed pain and relief, a desperate guttural sound, like he’d been given something life-saving. Aziraphale’s hands were on him for a few precious seconds. No one had ever touched him so gently, not in all his long years.
He heard the smile in Aziraphale’s voice before he opened his eyes. “You’ve got soap in your hair.”
Crowley pulled him back in until they were cheek to cheek and he had a noseful of soft, fluffy curls. He tried to stop his corporation from trembling. “Stupid dream,” he mumbled at last. “There’s no world in the universe where I don’t want this.”
“Oh. Oh Crowley, I’m so glad.” Aziraphale smiled at him, one of those sunshine smiles that crinkled the corners of his eyes. I thought you were dead, angel. But here you are, warm and whole. “Not that it wasn’t noble of you to sacrifice yourself for the humans, but…”
“Your dream Crowley sounds like a prat. Quick, take my hand.” Aziraphale did. It was just as easy as that. Crowley met his eyes. “I promise not to let any nude archangels come within twenty feet of you, eh? How about that.”
“I promise not to leave you for Heaven.” Aziraphale suddenly laughed. “The very idea! Absurd!”
“See? It’s as weird as the jelly-and-custard thing. Forget about it.”
Aziraphale’s expression grew serious. “I’m grateful for it. I’m not nearly as frightened of tomorrow now. Today. We still have a world. We still have an us.” He sighed shakily and rested his forehead against Crowley’s. “Thank… Someone.”
“Adam, I suppose.”
“If that’s the case, I hope he’s not listening in. There was something that my dream self very much wanted to do, you see. Something he never had the chance to try.”
Crowley’s mouth went dry. He forced his lips to move. “Angel, I– hng. What didn't you tell me about the dream? There was something you were leavin’ out.”
“It wasn't like watching a film, you know.” Aziraphale was looking at him the way he looked at a Black Forest gateau, something towards which he’d never been able to show even an ounce of self-restraint. “My corporation felt things. It craved things.”
“Ngk.”
Aziraphale kissed him again. This time it lasted quite a lot longer, and Crowley learned– at long last– why humans never seemed to mind putting their tongues in one another’s mouths at moments like this. He’d always wondered.
They were both breathing hard when they broke apart. “I promise, Crowley, to never let you sleep in your car. Or on the street.”
“That sounds very unhygienic,” Crowley mumbled.
“Or anywhere else that isn’t with me.”
They finished Crowley’s shower together, in the end.