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“What do you want me to do?”
The universe. The world. It’s falling on this.
The question was endowed by the elusive creator of the universe, the one that dimensions had gone to war for, and soldiers died for. The one who kept her plans so close to her chest, but so, so sick and twisted, right up until the last second. The one who never gave a chance for free will, but was suddenly giving them the decision of what to do with the whole universe.
Crowley had tried to change the status quo. He knew how it ended. He knew that no matter how hard he tried to do right… he just couldn’t. He’s a demon. He was never wired that way. His thoughts and wants and needs… they weren’t the right thing.
Aziraphale. Crowley had some semblance of hope that he would know what to do. He always does.
As much as he wanted to scream and shout to just let them have this universe. To leave them alone in this stupid, decrepit world meant for destruction after the last 6000 years of cat and mouse, and dancing around the simple fact that they—
They were in love.
But he wouldn’t. He couldn’t.
For all the shit he’d put Aziraphale through— it was him who really cared about humanity. Crowley owed it to him to talk.
“Can we talk?”
“I’ll give you your privacy.” Yeah right. As if they had privacy. As if She didn’t know what was going to happen. It was all one giant fucking illusion.
But he’d take it. He’d take a fleeting moment of faked-out privacy with his angel, for his angel, over an eternity where he picked the wrong thing. A selfish thing that would mean his angel was kept wanting.
Everything went fuzzy. Their vision, their thoughts, their senses.
When Crowley felt his palms against the grain of the stone, he knew. He knew that only She would play a feat like this. She knew that only he would know the feeling of the stone where he had properly met the angel he knew he should never have wanted to speak to, let alone be near for all eternity. The angel She watched bandage his leg, and the angel She saw her fallen angel take another, arguably more damaging, fall for.
He almost felt like laughing. The cruelty of it all. It was a sick, twisted game. She’d planned it all, and it was still the one holy plan that Crowley had no qualms in blindly following.
Aziraphale felt like crying. The stupidity of it all. He knew, against all sensible, rational reason, that he loved Crowley. It took him 6000 years to admit. And now he knew the cost of that. He would have to sacrifice Crowley.
But oh, when he saw Crowley standing there in the shade of the garden… He was as beautiful as the day they met. Long before the war, when Crowley was a seraphim fumbling with a manual in the centre of the dark universe. The angel that called Aziraphale over, and asked for help.
He was as beautiful as the day the two of them gave life to the universe itself, and watched the seed they had planted grow into something that neither of them could have anticipated, but never wanted to disentangle themselves from.
And when that seed had grown into the tree that was life on Earth, they wouldn’t realise it, but the roots the tree had so firmly lodged into the universe’s existence wasn't wood, it was something equally grounding, but oh, so brittle… love. The love between an angel and a demon. And suddenly… it made sense why the world was doomed to end.
Aziraphale was never tempted by the demon. He was simply created to fall in love with his soul, in whatever form that took. Aziraphale could never leave him. He would never want to.
So when Crowley finally managed to slur out a “What do you want to do?” He couldn’t give him an answer. Not an answer that wasn’t selfish.
“You… You know what I want. But that has nothing to do with this anymore.”
What did he want? He wanted the only thing that mattered to him. The only real thing in this world. He wanted the demon in front of him that had captured him: heart, body, mind and soul.
“What do you want?”
“You know what I want.”
And for a moment, their souls aligned. But Crowley knew better. He knew that what they wanted were two different things, but he knew Aziraphale would never accept it if that wasn’t what he wanted, so he had to make him believe it.
“I want what you’ve been fighting for. I want the humans to have a real chance. No angels. No demons. No Heaven or Hell. I want them to play their hands at free will.”
Aziraphale’s chest tightened. He looked at Crowley, as if seeing him for the first time, but also as if he could read him like the back of his hand.
Crowley’s chest was empty. He had bared his soul, there was nothing left for him to give. He was willing to relinquish his existence and the possibility of an eternity with Aziraphale for what his angel wanted.
If this was the last way he would show his devotion to him, so be it. But when Aziraphale turned away, it burned worse than the tar that covered his wings when he fell. Because this was worse than falling from grace, this was, he realised, the last time he looked at this angel, his angel, properly.
“I… I want that too, Crowley.” Aziraphale whimpered through deeply held breaths and tears that he’d only ever felt when it came to his demon.
How could he have ever given this up? Crowley is the reason he feels. He didn't know he could feel till the warm breath of the demon ghosted on his neck as he whispered threats into one ear that came out the other one when he laid his eyes on the pair staring back at him. They were dangerous, to be sure, but they were… different to all the other demon’s eyes. They were kinder. Familiar. Safer.
He couldn't. He can't. He won't throw it away.
“So- we’re decided, then?” Crowley muttered gruffly, having convinced himself to make his peace with whatever came next, as long as Aziraphale would be beside him. He had a sneaking suspicion he would be.
Aziraphale’s body began to rise and fall with such subtlety that no one apart from the demon would've seen it. “I- Crowley, I- I can't.”
“Wha- What do you mean, you can't?” His voice was being held together by strings of miracles loaned from his indebted account. He wanted– needed so badly for Aziraphale to want what he wanted, but the 6000 years he had spent trying to make him want it too, he knew not to expect anything. Not to get his hopes up, because Aziraphale could need him, but he would never love him out of choice.
“I mean that I can't— I can’t lose you, Crowley! I’ve lost you too many times and I just— I want you. I need us. I don't know if I can sacrifice that!” The angel’s posture had been stripped of the confidence and lightness it possessed the moment he swivelled around, yelling with such disdain for their plan as if Crowley hadn't said it just for him. What was left was a hollowed out shell of what Aziraphale was. He couldn't pretend anymore, he needed Crowley, and not for Heaven's sake.
Crowley’s pupils did something they’d never done in the last 6000 years. They dilated. He needed to see as much of Aziraphale as he was corporeally capable of. “Angel…”
Aziraphale shook his head, tears welling in his eyes as he trudged up to Crowley with the weight of the world on his shoulders. “Crowley… I’ve spent my- my whole existence with you. And I was always so focused on trying to do the… right thing.”
Crowley rushed the last couple of steps over to him, looking down at him with more black than yellow in his eyes. “Angel, you’re saying it like it’s a crime.”
Aziraphale couldn’t bear to look him in the eye, too ashamed of his behaviour for the last 6000 years to feel even remotely deserving of his attention. He bowed his head, vision blurry with tears. “It was! Every- Every single thing I did trying to do the right thing, I- I did it at your expense! And you were the only thing that wasn’t a trick or a lie— when that was your job. I can’t give up the last six thousand years of our existence… without having the next twelve thousand to make it up to you.”
Crowley’s heart was in his throat, pumping so hard he couldn’t have hoped to speak any words that weren’t practically engraved in his soul. “A-Angel?”
Aziraphale’s eyes locked onto his, and he melted. He should have lied and sinned at every turn for the only being in the universe that truly cared for him…
“Angel, I-”
“I love you.” The words tumbled out without much thought. He wasn’t going to let anything stop him from saying it. Crowley had worn his heart on his sleeve until he couldn’t anymore. It was Aziraphale’s turn.
Crowley’s head jerked back slightly and his entire body went still. The only tell that he was still in his body was that his pupils were completely blown, now. He was taking in everything he possibly could about this moment.
“You don’t need to say it. I don’t want you to say it. Not after every stupid thing I’ve—”
Crowley nearly laughed in his face, his voice cracked and his eyes brimming with tears that streamed down his face. “Angel, I love you. Of course I love you.”
So this was what it felt like. No running, no hiding or being an agent for anyone. Just being. Loving.
The Angel, whose sole purpose it was to love, realised that the only reason that he was able to want others to know unconditional love, was because he knew what it was. He had lived unconditional love from the moment of the creation of the universe. But it had taken him till the destruction of the universe to figure out it wasn’t from his almighty saviour.
The Demon, whose sole purpose it was to hate, had always felt inadequate at his job. He never got the kick out of being an arse that his demon counterparts did. He had tried, year after year, to find some fulfilment in the casual smiting of everything in the world, but all he could find in himself was an unyielding propensity to prevent hurt. So when he saw a child tending to plants, he figured it was the least holy thing he could do, whilst unknowingly loving something. He wasn’t a demon, and he wasn’t an angel. Not belonging of Heaven or of Hell. He was no one’s.
Aziraphale had never seen it, not like that. He had always thought that Crowley was independent by preference. He was always intrigued by the demon’s skill to charm his way out of any situation only with half a miracle. He figured it must have been a game of sorts for him, not a feat of necessity to beat the loneliness that clawed at the fulfilment of his soul, something he could never escape. Not without holy water at least, and Aziraphale took that too.
Aziraphale let go of Crowley’s hands, leaving them cold without the warmth of his soft grasp. He saw the droop in Crowley’s eyebrows that he had come to learn was akin to a flinch from him.
How stupid he had been. He wouldn’t waste another second to make this up to him.
And he didn’t.
Aziraphale was never a good sinner, but the way his hand lurched for Crowley’s collar whilst the other grasped at the back his neck as he threw his lips against his, suggested that he had been thinking about much more serious temptations than previously suspected.
Crowley knew what Aziraphale’s lips felt like, but not like this. Not how they felt when every brush of skin was saturated with tender feelings accumulated over 6000 years. His entire being was buzzing with a warmth he only distantly remembered from the days before he met Lucifer. His wings stopped hurting, and his chest wasn’t nearly as heavy as it had been mere moments before. Crowley was being loved. Loved by the only being he wanted love from. He couldn’t believe he was going to forego this heaven. He definitely wasn’t going to now.
Aziraphale fell into Crowley’s lips, surrendering himself to the hold of the demon that secured him at the nape of his neck. They were warm, inviting, and moving against his with soft synchronicity. It was as if he knew what Aziraphale was going to do next, as if he had attuned himself to the very frequency of his angel’s soul somehow, over the last several millennia. The thoughts that Aziraphale had running in his mind, like the cars Crowley had given the humans to go at a couple hundred miles an hour, just… stopped. In his mind, there were only two things. There was only Crowley, and there was only love. If he hadn’t been so ignorant, he would’ve turned every ask of Heaven down to be able to feel this freedom.
The both of them feared that once this brief moment of liberation was over, they would only feel emptiness after knowing what they could’ve had. But when they broke away from each other’s lips, and found the other’s eyes just centimetres away from them, they could only feel the shackles on their existence loosening.
Crowley was the first to speak, still holding Aziraphale in his space. One hand cradling the back of his neck, and the other wrapped around his waist, anchoring him there. He was already addicted to the way that their breaths mingled and tickled his nose. And he could see the shimmer that he once used to have in his eyes, as all angels did, but there was only one truly deserving of them. “Six millennia, angel. You’re right, I need another twelve.”
Aziraphale’s whole expression screwed up, but then… he laughed, his nose bumping against Crowley’s, earning a warm huff of affection against his features. “At the very least.”
Crowley very tentatively lowered his forehead down against his angel’s and melted. It’d been so long since he had a place to rest.
Aziraphale stood up straighter, taller, trying to be the perfect post for Crowley’s head.
“You’re like a cat.” Crowley chuckled lowly, shifting forwards to bump his nose against Aziraphale’s again, getting a kick out of the feeling of knowing he was a nose’s distance away.
“You’re the one with feline eyes.” Aziraphale retorted, but with no trace of anything but adoration present in his words.
For Crowley to hear himself described with such reverence was somehow more of a sobering event than the last thirty seconds. But now he knew he was never going to let God take this away from him. “Oh, Angel… What are we gonna do?”
“We, my dear, are going to come up with a plan. Our own ineffable plan.”
Crowley pulled away to look down at Aziraphale with the softest smile ever present on his features. “Ineffable, hm? And what should this plan entail?”
“We’re going to put things back to the way they were. But on our own terms.” Aziraphale declared with such certainty that Crowley did not, for a second, doubt that this was the way forwards. “We have to decide when we want to go back to. We cut off Heaven and Hell. But then there’s the problem of all of this repeating all over again.”
“Hmm—”
Aziraphale buzzed with excitement, his grip tightening on Crowley’s shoulders. “Ooh! I know! We’ll get to keep the book of life.”
Crowley’s jaw dropped slack, with the biggest grin on his face his voice reaching a small squeak at the incredulity of his angel. He loved it. “We- us- keep the book of life?! She’ll never agree to it.”
Aziraphale perked up at Crowley’s rebuttal, clearly chuffed with himself for his own deviously logical reasoning. “Oh, but She will. We get to decide what happens, and She didn’t warn us of any sort of parameters. And regarding the matter of lunacy, we will have to hide it, or entrust it to someone where it will never be tampered with. But we must have it in the first place.”
Crowley simply chuckled, in awe of the seemingly innocent being in front of him, that had been hiding a more… grey side. “Angel… I like how you think.”
“I should hope so, I learnt from you.” And the sentiment cracked something open in the depths of Crowley’s soul, to know that his angel had been watching him and learning from him. To know that he noticed this much.
He chuckled and raised his eyebrow, impressed. “Well then, I’ll let you put your skills to use. Tell Her your demands.”
“Oh, really?! You don’t want in on the fun?” Aziraphale cooed up at him.
“I’ll just… back you up, hm?” Crowley nodded gently as he stepped back, keeping his hands on Aziraphale’s arms a moment longer.
“Right. Tickety-boo.” Aziraphale nodded, smoothening his suit out. His eyes were darting up at the sky and around the garden before he nearly jumped back. “Wait! Where are we going to go back to?”
“Right back to when we tricked them. The Ritz.”
Aziraphale smiled fondly, before an arch in his brow appeared. “You realise… we’ll have to look after Jim, again.”
Crowley considered this for a moment before sighing and nodding. “Can’t have everything, angel. Also, if we didn’t look after him, who knows if he’d even be able to be with Beelzebub.”
Aziraphale hummed and the adoration in his gaze reappeared as he looked back at Crowley. The demon who was more pure of heart that all the holy battalions combined.
“Then we are decided?” The angel had to make sure one more time.
“Go get ‘em, angel.” Crowley grinned wickedly, he couldn’t help the giddy feeling that spread through his body as he looked at his future in front of him. His past, present, and future.
— - — - — -
The moment of disorientation was over before it began.
And the scene they returned to made Crowley’s blood boil. The two adversaries, the picture of good and evil, sitting down together and laughing over a stupid fable. All the destruction and hurt everyone had gone through, for what? For their entertainment.
Aziraphale seemed to be going through a similar form of enlightenment, and the last of the knot of guilt that had gnawed away at his psyche was immediately absolved. He owed them nothing. They owed him, and Crowley, a debt that truly could not be repaid. So if he was going to make demands, they were bloody well going to happen.
God glanced over at them first, with an expectant expression on her face. “Ah, have you two come to a decision?”
Aziraphale cleared his throat and stepped forwards, and the image was quite striking. “We have decisions, and conditions.”
God’s brow furrowed, her demeanour shifting slightly. “Conditions?”
Aziraphale simply hummed and smiled. “You never said we couldn’t have conditions.”
She glanced over at Satan, who shrugged in slight bewilderment, before nodding. “Very well.”
Aziraphale looked back to Crowley, who simply nodded, his faith in the only saviour in his world absolute.
Aziraphale hummed restlessly and turned back to God. “We want you to put the universe back. As it was. We want to return to 2016, after stopping Armageddon.”
God nodded patiently, her palms facing upwards as if she were offering something. “That can be done.”
Aziraphale nodded, his confidence growing as he gestured to the two figures seated in front of him. “We will be left alone by Heaven and Hell, as per your orders.”
They looked between each other and sighed, clearly reluctant, but knowing that the angel’s demands were absolute. “Done.”
Aziraphale’s stature wilted slightly as he prepared himself for the big one, but Crowley stepped up behind him, placing a hand on his arm to set him up properly. “This universe will not be ended through Divine Intervention, it will be allowed to run its course. As stated in my archived design plans… that you scrapped.” He murmured accusatorially, to which God raised an eyebrow, but bowed her head in acceptance.
Crowley patted Aziraphale’s arm, offering reassurance to the angel he had watched suffer from guilt of facing the Lord in front of him, and the angel who was now taking back what he wanted, what he could have had. He took a deep breath and breathed the sentence out. “And… we are the custodians of the Book of Life.”
“You’re what?” Satan hissed, his hands gripping the armrests of his seat.
God looked between the two of them, her expression incredulous. “You cannot be serious.”
Crowley took it upon himself to step in, sensing how Aziraphale had flinched slightly at the outcry. “Oh, we’re serious. We can’t have any more lunatic Michaels waddling around on a homicidal mission. And we can’t have the casual threats of being erased from the book of life. We want peace. And it seems that we are the only two in either of your institutes that wishes for that.” He hissed at the two of them, his hair tinging a little redder and his pupils sharpening at them. “You said we get to decide. We’ve decided. And lying is his thing. Not yours.” Crowley nodded at the being that was once his overlord before snapping his gaze back to the Lord.
Satan looked over at God, still bewildered. “You seriously cannot be considering this. They could control the fate of the universe!”
Aziraphale chirped up. “Oh Heavens, no. We won’t be opening it. I do enjoy having my wits about me, you see?” He nodded, making a small show of jazz hands with a little smile of nervousness.
God pursed her lips before sighing. “I will entertain this. But breach this, and you two will be called to us, directly.”
Aziraphale bowed his head, and Crowley simply huffed. They had to compromise on something, and technically, it was hardly a compromise. They truly would never open that book.
God looked to Satan, nodding her approval, before facing them again. “I will say, I crafted 4 pairs of angels and fallen angels-to-be moulded from each other. You two were the last pair who didn’t leave with each other. Whether that was because of your love for humanity, or sheer obliviousness, I will leave up to your interpretation. But do not waste this now. You two have fought impressively.”
Crowley and Aziraphale looked at each other in surprise. They knew Gabriel and Beelzebub, which makes two out of four, but who else?
That would have to be a problem for another time.
With a simple wave of God’s hand, the two were transported back in time. The experience strangely similar to being discorporated, which incited a small fear of the paperwork to come at the back of Crowley’s mind.
It was only when they reached their bench in Tavistock Square Gardens, just after they had swapped bodies, that he realised he didn’t have to do any. He would never have to do any. He was free.
Aziraphale’s world came into focus, and the only reaction that came from him was a silent tear. A tear for all their pain, and the freedom they had fought for.
Freedom to exist without fear, a freedom to help the world and explore the universe. But most importantly, a freedom to love each other.
There were two tears shed amongst the crowds gathering on a breezy September afternoon, where a table for two had just miraculously come available at The Ritz, and a nightingale had sang in Berkeley Square.