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tallerthantale · 3 months

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What Does Aziraphale Actually Believe, Part 9: They Know Not What They Do

This is a series of my takes on what Aziraphale believes through the timeline of the show. It is all my personal interpretation, and I am happy to hear others. You don’t need to read them all in order, but know that I am coming from a perspective on Aziraphale’s machinations that can be difficult for people without a psychology background to follow without the first two as a primer. The quick version is that Aziraphale has a set of beliefs that exist in some form or another within his mind. However, at any given moment, only some of them exist ‘with awareness.’ The context of the moment will determine what lives on the surface and what stays buried outside that awareness, whatever arrangement best prevents a threat to Aziraphale’s sense of self and makes whatever he is inclined to do feel right.

While I have been going through the timeline, there have been a few points that have been put on hold, that I’ve promised I would circle back to later, because I needed to integrate a lot of information from different points on the timeline. Now is the time for that integration. I need to more seriously address the question of how Aziraphale can still believe angels are existentially good in the abstract, with all that he has seen them do, while also believing they are acting against the wishes of God.

If angels are good by definition and don’t have a choice in their moral alignment, how do they end up committing morally reprehensible acts? If Aziraphale uses his own continued ethereal status to prove to himself God is fine with his actions, wouldn’t that also prove God is fine with all of the other angels’ actions? Not exactly, and the reason takes us all the way back to the opening of Season 1. The first point I promised I would eventually get back to was a question:

What happens if Aziraphale thinks he isn’t supposed to know what God’s will is, because it’s not for him to understand, but he also thinks that he does know it? What are the consequences of having knowledge he isn’t supposed to have?

Responsibility.

I Slithered Here From Eden

The design of the universe (according to Aziraphale) is letting humans choose sides between good and evil. That is a choice that humans make, and celestial entities don’t. But at what point did humans get that choice?

They had to have knowledge of good and evil first. As far as philosophers tend to frame things, it’s only really free will if you know what you are doing with informed consent. By eating the apple, Eve and Adam gave that knowledge to humanity. Now that humanity has the knowledge of good and evil, they have the power to make a choice, and the responsibility to choose good.

One point I glossed over at my first look at Eden is that Aziraphale was on apple tree duty. He failed that mission in a big way. While there are fun speculations about Aziraphale being distracted by the sexy snek, I wonder if he had a hard time with the idea that knowledge of good and evil was bad. When discussing the human’s transgression, Aziraphale weakly says, “It must be bad… … otherwise you wouldn’t have tempted them into it.” It’s not a compelling argument as to why eating the apple was bad, and frankly, there isn’t one. The most compelling argument I could give is that lacking knowledge of good and evil shields people from responsibility to do good, and it might be kinder not to burden humanity with that responsibility. I think during their conversation at the wall, Aziraphale won’t see things that way because that would hit too close to home.

When Crowley encouraged Eve about the apple, Crowley was just looking to stir up trouble, and was surprised they were punished so harshly. From Crowley’s perspective, I would imagine the apple as a precursor to the real temptations. Crowley argues his points logically, he is not on the ineffability train. How do you make a logical argument about what is fair and reasonable to someone who has no concept of good and evil? You’d have to teach them about good and evil first. Crowley makes arguments that are built on meaningful concepts of right and wrong frequently. They are not alien to him.

When Aziraphale takes on the worldview that the universe is set up to allow humans to choose between good and evil, he is tacitly endorsing the idea that Eve and Adam eating the apple was part of the Ineffable Plan. This was originally Crowley’s idea, though it may have just been sarcastic. Aziraphale has taken it on for real. Now the humans are choosing good and evil.

'The Right Thing'

Aziraphale has asserted very confidently twice in the timeline that choosing is for humans. Not celestials, just humans. I’ve talked about how this is self serving for him, it means he is good by definition. It makes his place in the universe make sense, it gives him a sense of self and purpose. It also has major downsides, in that it makes him consider Crowley existentially evil independent of his character and actions, which makes a mess of how he treats Crowley. It also risks entrapping him into considering the other angels definitionally good, and believing that whatever they do is definitionally 'the right thing'. The instability of what Aziraphale believes situation to situation lets him spend most of his time avoiding the downsides of any particular belief system, he mostly pulls them into focus when they are useful, and forgets about them when they aren’t.

When I’ve brought up ‘choosing is for humans’ before I glossed over a key question. Why is choosing just for humans? Not in the sense of what motivates Aziraphale to believe that, what does he think the reason is? By the Edinburgh framing, why don’t celestials have the capacity to choose that humans have? The answer: they never ate the apple. They have no meaningful knowledge of good and evil. The institution of heaven is a rigid hierarchy. Angels and demons only know what they need to know to follow orders. They have no opinions on ethics or grounded morality. 'The right thing' is a term of art for the heavenly code of conduct. 'The wrong thing' is a term of art for the demonic code of conduct.

Something shifts in Aziraphale's relationship to humanity at Edinburgh as he is confronted several times over with scenarios he can't help but notice demonstrate that the normal day to day heavenly code of conduct, 'the right thing,' is absolutely not in keeping with what he would personally understand to be morally good. It was not a one off instance from God that could be a test, the issue was the system. He was forced to acknowledge Crowley knew what was morally right better than he did, and that he knows what is morally good better than the other angels do. Aziraphale's biggest leaps forward happen when he is forced to admit he does actually have an opinion that is his own.

I think for the audience, the absurdity of 'the right thing' and 'the wrong thing' being terms of art is most pronounced when demons are tasked with doing 'the wrong thing' because God represents Herself to will it. When Crowley 'destroys' Job's goats and children, his permit is signed by God. Crowley understands his assignment as given by God. Does that make it 'the right thing'? No, it's outsourced to hell because the aesthetics are wrong, and if it's been given to hell to do, that makes it 'the wrong thing' for Crowley to do it. Does that make it 'the right thing' for Crowley to refuse? No, because the code of conduct for the angels it to let it happen, and Crowley isn't an angel anyway. The correct thing for Crowley to do is 'the wrong thing,' that God want's him to do. (Aziraphale doesn't believe that is what God wants in that case, but he does believe that God generally wants demons to do demonic things.)

These terms have no relationship to what is actually morally good or bad. However, the knowledge from the apple does have that grounded relationship. Humans need that connection to have that real choice, and be accountable for that choice. Celestials are following orders, they aren't 'supposed' to be making choices, they are 'supposed' to do what they are told. Knowledge of actual good and actual evil has no value to their professional role. Aziraphale continues to think that ignorance is how things ought to work all the way to the 1800's, and even as he shifts to wanting the other angels to have the depth of that knowledge, he can plainly observe that they don't.

To be clear, this isn’t to say that celestials are not able to decide to do things, but rather that as Aziraphale sees it, their actions cannot be judged in a way that impacts their moral alignment. The angels aren't responsible for the misalignment of heaven because they don’t know any better. Their actions don’t make them less existentially good, because they are too ignorant to make informed choices. Same with the demons. I don’t think Aziraphale would consider any of them to have chosen evil, because they didn’t have knowledge. Fate put them in the evil role, and they do what they are told. Choosing sides is for the humans, and they are only able to do it because of their ability to know the difference between good and evil.

As we move past Edinburgh, Aziraphale understands that the angels, near universally, are maintaining a system that doesn't let humans choose freely thee way he would believe in, and thus they are maintaining a system that he believes isn't operating as God would want. As a practical matter of staffing, it would make a mess of things if She turned them all into demons.

Aziraphale can use his maintained ethereal status to prove to himself that he is on good terms with God, because he is the odd one out. If Aziraphale is in the wrong, and heaven has the right of it, it doesn't break the system to fell the weirdo angel going off on temptation missions as a treat and salivating over demon décolletage. If everyone else is wrong, the remedy for that has to be learning, growth, education, and training, not leaving Aziraphale as the last angel standing.

Unconditional Forgiveness

The second time Aziraphale argues choosing is for humans, it isn’t an argument about ability anymore. He wants all of the angels to join him in deciding not to choose a side, in taking a caretaker role over the system that lets the humans choose. He presents this plan to the archangels, offering them a way forward that would move them away from ignorant obedience and us vs them thinking, into a world of layers and depth.

They are not prepared to go along with Aziraphale on this, lacking his 6000 year long character arc of developing knowledge of ethical complexity. Uriel accuses Aziraphale of thinking too much. When Aziraphale shouts at the archangels on their way back to heaven, he calls them ‘bad angels’ in the tone someone would use to say 'bad dog.' It is an expression of them being ‘bad at being angels’ yes, but it is also an expression of their lack of depth, lack of thought, and lack of understanding. It is a condescending dismissiveness of their capacity to make valid decisions. I don’t think Aziraphale retains any animus towards them after the scene ends, because they don’t have enough knowledge to be accountable for their actions.

When Crowley confronts Gabriel in Season 2, he points out that Aziraphale wasn't there for his execution. He never witnessed Gabriel tell him to “shut his stupid face and die.” That's true, but I honestly don’t think it would make a difference to Aziraphale. Aziraphale also does not retain the resentment for Michael’s role in Crowley’s failed execution that Crowley has for Gabriel. I don’t think that comes from a lack of valuing Crowley, but instead speaks to Aziraphale’s unwillingness to apply accountability to celestial entities. Gabriel hasn’t eaten the apple. Michael hasn’t eaten the apple. Forgive them for they know not what they do. Automatically, no hesitation. Without knowledge of good and evil, they are not responsible.

But That's For Them

I have talked about how Aziraphale doesn’t believe everything he can believe at once, and his potential beliefs often contradict themselves. Aziraphale has a lot of shame and self doubt for someone with developed strategies on how to be certain his choices are good by definition. (Not an uncommon phenomenon IRL, but still an ironic one. People develop the strategies because they feel a need to have them.) He puts an enormous burden on himself to do the right thing, compared to the instant and absolute forgiveness he grants to the other angels. Aziraphale does gloss over his own mistakes, but not by forgiving himself. He does it by burying the shame out of his awareness because he can't forgive himself.

Over time Aziraphale has become more settled into comfortably believing that he can intuit God’s will in ways the other angels... I wouldn't say 'can't,' but at the very least, don't. Along with that comfort, he has developed his own senses of what is morally good, and morally bad, and those opinions diverge from how the concepts are framed by heaven and hell. He can also observe that the other angels have not developed these concepts. Gabriel has a preference for getting what he wants, Michael has a preference for order, and Uriel woke up this morning and chose violence. They have personalities, but no moral compass. Post Edinburgh Aziraphale typically considers himself to have knowledge of good and evil that the other angels do not have. Given that he is correct, I am willing to forgive him the arrogance.

Aziraphale understands that ‘wrong’ as defined by heaven has no substance. What he sometimes forgets is that he personally does have substance. It is uncomfortable for him to know that, because the weight of responsibility is tied to it. When he is told to do something he cannot do, or abide by something he cannot let stand, Aziraphale believes he has knowledge of good and evil, because he needs to own that knowledge to justify going against the party line. When it kicks in, he feels the weight of the responsibility to make the morally right choice, and he feels the horror of all the other angels being on board with the morally wrong one.

The moments where he goes against heaven and the rest of the angels because he thinks that he understands God’s will and that they don’t are not Aziraphale at his most self righteous. Quite the opposite, he usually seems hesitant and ashamed. He has knowledge of good and evil, but he doesn’t think he is supposed to have it. Most of the time he wishes that he didn’t. Aziraphale is very good at suppressing knowledge he wishes he didn’t have.

The evidence isn’t always visible, but Aziraphale has metaphorically eaten the apple. So has Crowley, although I don’t think Aziraphale believes Crowley was responsible for his fall. I think modern Aziraphale is fully onboard with the idea that God felled Crowley into a martyr as part of a larger plan. The other celestials haven’t eaten the apple. Yet. Saraqael and Muriel are probably on their way, but I don’t think Gabriel and Beelzebub are. They went AWOL for love, not for principles. For Crowley and Aziraphale, as grand as their love for each other is and has been, their principles always came first. That is what they love about each other.

To Shades of Grey

At Uz Crowley was a demon who goes along with hell as far as he can, and Aziraphale was an angel who goes along with heaven as far as he can. To the extent that they experienced a choice, it was finding ways to be as conformist to their jobs as their principles would let them. Post agreement, they tend to stray as far as they can get away with. Their principles would allow them to be more conformist, they just don’t want to be. They aren't trading and gambling on their professional assignments at the Globe because Aziraphale got asked by Gabriel to allow an atrocity in the name of heaven, or because Crowley got tasked with killing children, it was because neither of them felt like bothering to ride a horse up to Scotland. There is no rock vs. hard place dilemma there.

At first Aziraphale hides behind believing that he is too definitionally good for doing Crowley's assignments to be 'choosing' anything, or creatively reframes his understanding of responsibility to not feel his actions are impacting the outcome. After the church bombing, something clicked when he allowed himself to know he was in love with a demon. He let himself know he was choosing to meaningfully stray from the expectations of what it supposedly means to be an angel.

In 1941, Aziraphale offered a toast “To Shades of Grey.” At this toast, Aziraphale let himself understand that he and Crowley do have a degree of choice, and the shades they each choose are not pure. The responsibility is something he really doesn’t want to engage with most of the time. The option is there though. If a decent set of situational beliefs can be cobbled together, Aziraphale can believe that he and Crowley are human aligned enough to choose a little, deciding to become a bit grey, and with that comes the responsibility and accountability that the other celestials don’t have.

I think the choice of their shades of grey needs to be understood relative to their respective defaults. Aziraphale represents a default white that decided to become light grey, and Crowley represents a default black that decided to become dark grey. We can understand this as Crowley preferring darker shades to Aziraphale, and while that is true, I think it is very misleading. Crowley is choosing the lightest shade of the options available to him, and Aziraphale is choosing the darkest shade of the options available to him. I don’t think that is lost on Aziraphale. It is one of the tragedies of their miscommunication that Aziraphale believes Crowley to be the better one, while consistently saying sentences a reasonable listener would assume mean the opposite.

To The World

The toast is offered by Crowley. Crowley, who argues with God over Her treatment of humanity. Crowley, who gave humanity knowledge of good and evil. Crowley, who paved the way for saving Job’s children. Crowley, who convinced Aziraphale to work to alleviate human suffering, and give a way 90 guineas. Crowley, who convinced Aziraphale of the need for humans to have equal opportunity. Crowley, who convinced Aziraphale to try to derail the Great Plan. Crowley, who convinced Aziraphale to stand up to the Institution of Heaven. Crowley, who just before this toast predicted their peace wouldn’t last.

To the World. Their home together. Their future together. Their choice together. Their responsibility together. Aziraphale believes they are committed to defending the earth together. And, he believes that is what God wants them both to do.

Part 9/10

#good omens #good omens meta #go meta #ineffable spouses #ineffable husbands #aziracrow #aziraphale #what does aziraphale actually believe

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lady-divine-writes · 5 years

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In the Beginning ... (Rated PG)

What if Aziraphale’s job on Earth, in part, was to keep an eye on Crowley because God realized She’d made a mistake banishing him from Heaven? (2378 words)

Notes: I’m sure other people have written this, but here’s mine XD

“Aziraphale?”

A holy light shines down upon the angel currently scrambling to fit the last grey brick from a rather large hole in the great stone wall back into place. He spins around quickly in response, nearly twisting an ankle in the soft, disturbed earth.

“Yes, Almighty?” he replies, shielding his eyes from a glare that glows brighter second by second, as if God’s goal is to blind him on the spot. “H-how may I help you?” He worries his hands, then throws them behind his back so as not to bring attention to the fact that something those hands should be holding, something the Almighty gave him specifically to do his job, is now gone, paving its flaming way to the outskirts, clutched tightly in the hands of the first man protecting the first woman, both of them banished to the wilds beyond.

Banished for disobeying God, which he, too, has done.

‘Heaven help me,’ Aziraphale thinks, which smacks of irony seeing as he’s begging for help from those he’s just betrayed.

Any way he looks at it, he’s doomed.

He hopes Adam and Eve don’t walk too quickly. He may be catching up with them in a minute.

“Aziraphale, my dear,” God says, Her voice motherly sweet. “Come. Stand with me. I desire to talk with you.”

“All right,” Aziraphale agrees. No sooner does he say it then he’s standing at his post overlooking the Garden of Eden, and the apple tree he’d been tasked to guard.

The one that slipped his notice right when a giant snake tempted Eve into eating the fruit she’d been warned to avoid.

‘This is it. Banishment.’ He steals a final look at the glorious Paradise he’ll never set eyes upon again. He just got this appointment, too. It was a stepping stone, coming on the heels of another promotion set to begin soon.

Now, he’s finished.

But would he change a thing? he asks himself privately. If the situation presented itself again, would he do anything different? Would he second-guess giving up something valuable, something God-given, to protect the vulnerable and the innocent?

No, he answers honestly. He doesn’t think he would.

Aziraphale stands in silence beside the shaft of light, God’s ethereal form, for some time, ready to defend himself and his actions, before it becomes too much for him and he clears his throat to speak.

“God?” he starts. “Might I inquire as to what it is you wish to speak to me about?”

God heaves a heavy sigh.

A disappointed sigh.

Aziraphale’s stomach drops to his feet.

“Aziraphale,” she says sorrowfully, “I may have made a mistake.”

“That … that doesn’t make sense. You don’t make mistakes.”

“I created the concept of a mistake. I definitely make them.”

“What kind of mistake?” Aziraphale asks when he knows he should be holding his tongue. A sudden chill freezes him solid. Why would God be confiding in him this which sounds so utterly important if it didn’t concern him directly? “Is it me? Am … am I the mistake?”

“No, my love. You are not a mistake. Not by a long shot.”

Aziraphale sighs so deeply he shrinks a foot. “That’s a relief.”

“Do you see that demon over there?” God directs her light on the apple tree, the Tree of Knowledge, and a scaled, red-bellied creature slithering swiftly out of sight.

“I … I see a serpent.”

“Look with your third eye.”

The serpent burrows into the earth then as if it knows it’s being watched. Aziraphale squints to catch a glimpse of it past God’s golden glow before it disappears. “Ah, yes. I see now.”

“Just like you, that demon was once an angel. But now …” Another heavy sigh “… he is Fallen.”

“H-how? Why?” The words slip past his tongue before he can think better of it. He shudders with the feeling that he’s taking a huge risk questioning God.

“I banished him. Tossed him out of Paradise,” She explains succinctly and says nothing more. “And I realize now that I may have been a bit hasty with that decision.”

“If you feel you have made a mistake,” Aziraphale says, choosing his words carefully, “why not reverse it? Bring him back?”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It’s not?”

“Unfortunately, no. You see, all of my creations have their part to play in the Universe. And when I set them on their path, no matter what that path is, how it may change, they must remain, headed in one direction. Once an angel is Fallen, there is no way they can return. That’s where I’m hoping you come in.”

Aziraphale looks away from the hole the serpent escaped into and up at the light that is God. “Wh-what do you mean?”

“You and he are similar. You have the same pure heart, you cling to the same truths, though you execute them differently. You’re opposite sides of the same coin.”

Aziraphale frowns. “Coin?”

“You’ll find out about those later,” God dismisses. “I need you to help me keep an eye on him, Aziraphale.”

Aziraphale nods. This he understands. “So that his doing Evil deeds doesn’t prevail over the greater good.” He folds his hands in front of his stomach and puffs his chest with pride of his appointment. “Gabriel already told me.”

“Gabriel is wrong. Though, by the time the two of you meet, you won’t remember I’ve said that. In fact, you won’t remember this conversation at all.”

“Why won’t I?”

“Free will. In order for you to take this particular assignment, you can’t remember that it is an assignment.”

“Forgive me for my confusion, but what exactly is it you need me to do?” Aziraphale asks, mildly disappointed that the great role he was supposed to play in the evolution of the Earth, the inspiration of all humanity, may now be changed, demoted, due to the fate of one single demon.

“I need you to make sure nothing too bad happens to him, Aziraphale. Oh, he’ll do Evil. He’s a demon, and as such, must do demonic things, but … I want him to know that no matter what, he is loved.”

“If … if you erase my memory then how will I remember to do that?”

“You won’t need to.” God chuckles. “Within five minutes of meeting you, he’s going to fall hopelessly in love with you.”

Aziraphale’s face scrunches. “Really?”

“Yes. From this day forward, he’ll devise plans to ensure that the two of you forever meet throughout time.”

“Yes, I see. I suppose you’ve … you’ve planned it that way.”

“You underestimate yourself, my dear. That I will play little part in.”

“But … don’t you control everything?”

“Again, it’s confusing. The only answer I can give you is yes and no. Will you do it?”

“Why are you asking me? Can’t you simply make me do what you want? Set me in motion the way you set him in motion?” With a wince, Aziraphale notices how bitter that came across. He doesn’t question God’s ways, but that doesn’t mean he always appreciates Her line of thinking.

“No. Not when it comes to love. You have to decide this for yourself or it won’t turn out the same. The outcome won’t be genuine. Also edicts of this nature would need to pass through the head office, and I don’t want the Archangels knowing about this request. It’s top secret.”

“Top secret?” Aziraphale repeats, tossing God’s request over and over in his head. Down below he sees the serpent surface again. It looks up at them, tilts its head, and grins (if a serpent can grin. Normal serpents can’t but a demonic serpent probably can …). It ducks beneath the earth once more and disappears. “If I do this, will it be for the good of humanity?”

“Yes? No? Possibly? This one time, that can’t be the crux of your decision making.”

Aziraphale’s eyes unfocus as he considers what God has said. He feels better knowing that this assignment isn’t a demotion, but he still has to wonder … why him? Why would God choose a principality for something like this, especially if it’s this important? Wouldn’t an Archangel be better suited for a mission of this kind? Keeping tabs on a demon should fall somewhere in their purview.

Unless this top secret mission isn’t as important as God is making it out to be and just a fancy way of assigning Aziraphale to babysitting duty.

“Will he really fall in love with me?” Aziraphale asks, unsure why it matters. It should matter because he’s a being of love, but it surprises him how much that doesn’t seem to enter into his thinking. It matters because it matters, whether he can explain why that is or not.

“Yes,” God says, matter-of-factly.

“Will I … fall in love with him?”

“Eventually, but it’ll take a bit longer.”

“H-how long?”

“That depends on you, Aziraphale. But right now, time is running short. The demon is coming, so I need to know how you wish to proceed.”

“I think I should …” Aziraphale pauses when Gabriel’s voice, of all things, leaps into his brain.

“Your job on Earth will be to inspire humanity.”

“Inspire humanity to do what?”

“To be good. Follow the rules. And to, you know, love … one another,” the Archangel replied uncomfortably.

“Yes, of course,” Aziraphale said. “I read that in the literature I received. Thank you for that, by the way. What I need to know is how, exactly, am I supposed to do that? I have a general idea but what are my parameters? Do I have any guidelines?”

Gabriel blew out a breath and made a face. “Not really my department.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale replied, as lost then as he is right now.

Did anyone in Heaven know what was going on?

Inspire humanity. Inspire them to be good. To be compassionate and kind. To be loyal to God.

To help one another. Love one another.

That was a huge undertaking, no matter how Gabriel sneered and smirked when he mentioned it.

Aziraphale could do both jobs in tandem – inspire humanity and look after this demon. So no, not a demotion. Besides, it’s a top secret mission bestowed upon him by God Herself! Is he really going to say no?

It’s the love aspect that he’s having trouble wrapping his mind around. Love humanity he understood. But love a demon? And not necessarily for the sake of humanity? That part has been left to interpretation, apparently, but that’s not the point.

Love a demon.

A demon who will fall in love with him.

And make sure he knows God loves him still.

Because God may have made a mistake.

Oh, and fall in love himself, as if that’s something he can easily overlook.

That’s everything!

His stomach takes a turn and dammit! Why wasn’t he looking after that stupid apple tree the way he’d been supposed to!?

He doesn’t feel prepared to make this decision on the fly. He hasn’t entirely come to terms with what eternity as a whole will hold for him. This is the beginning. What happens in the middle?

What happens at the end!?

But while he ponders these quandaries, his mouth speaks unexpectedly for him.

“I’ll do it,” his mouth decides.

“Excellent!”

“Yes, excellent,” Aziraphale mutters, shuffling uncomfortably in place. “So, when do I begin?”

“Somewhere around … now.”

Aziraphale hears a sharp crack, like fingers snapping. Or could it be thunder? He thought he saw a fork of lightning out in the distance. Thunder would surely follow. Still, he can’t help the feeling that he was talking to someone about something important, but he can’t remember where they left off.

Or who they were.

“Sorry. What was that?” Aziraphale looks about him, confused. He’s at his post on top of the wall, the Eastern Gate of Eden, only he can’t recall how he got there. He’d been down in the garden giving those poor people his sword. He’d finished repairing the wall when he saw a light. He thought the Almighty had caught him, come to reprimand him, but now he’s back here.

Why can’t he remember what happened in between?

He turns his head left and right, then left again when the body of a snake rises up and transforms into the human-shaped figure of a demon dressed in long black robes and spreading glossy black wings.

“I said, ‘Well, that one went down like a lead balloon,’” the demon says, staring out over Eden forlorn, as if searching for a way home.

Aziraphale straightens, unnerved by the thousand nonsensical emotions erupting inside his brain, bursting like poppies with explosive colors and pungent aromas, dizzying him with unasked questions. “Oh,” he says, coming back to himself. “Yes, it did, rather.”

***

“Angel …”

Aziraphale startles. He turns and looks at his companion handing him the bottle of wine they’ve been sharing.

“Hmm?” he says in response.

“What if the Almighty planned it this way all along?” Crowley asks, gazing across the bus stop bench at Aziraphale, serpent eyes behind dark lenses hoping for an answer, some insight that only an angel might have that he is too far removed from. “From the very beginning?”

“Could have.” Aziraphale grabs the bottle by the neck and takes a swig. It tastes bitter, like truth. The realization that this ineffable plan – ineffable game, really – that God has devised isn’t just for the world, but for all Her creations, including them. They had played a part in it, too, regardless of how small, impotent, and in the end, unimportant that part was. But that begs the question - if saving the world wasn’t their particular goal then what was? What did they get out of all of this? Had the world exploded, they would have survived one way or the other. So why involve them?

The thing they got out of it, Aziraphale discovered, is the thing he refuses to acknowledge yet - not because it’s bad (in his eyes) but because it would be selfish of him to do so.

They got one another.

Was that part of God’s plan, too?

Aziraphale shrugs.

He’s not drunk enough to decide.

“I wouldn’t put it past Her.”

#good omens #ineffable husbands #crowley x aziraphale #aziraphale x crowley #Frankie writes

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cheeseanonioncrisps · 5 years

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A lot has been made of Aziraphale's giving away his flaming sword in terms of it being a rebellion of sorts, signalling his willingness to put aside Heaven's agenda to do what he thinks is right— but I don't think I've seen anyone talking about what a profound lack of faith it shows.

I mean, you've got Crowley, who is questioning the divine plan, exactly the thing that got him Fallen in the first place— but he's questioning the direction of the divine plan, not the existence or rightness of it. He's wondering whether God didn't intend for humans to eat the fruit all along, arguably questioning Heaven, not God.

And then you have Azriaphale, who apparently took one look at the world outside the Garden— cold, vicious animals, and with Eve expecting already— and came to the conclusion that God probably didn't care enough to protect the humans from that.

He may parrot the party-line about God's plan, but when push comes to shove, even before meeting Crowley and spending 6,000 years living outside of Heaven, he has more faith in a flaming sword to protect humanity than he does in Her.

Crowley the rebel, by the way, takes for-fucking-ever in comparison to get to this stage. Crowley is shocked and horrified 1,000 years later when Noah's Ark happens, because he can't believe that God would do something like that to humans. Crowley is significantly more disillusioned but still very bitter and upset about the whole Jesus thing, because it still seems like something Heaven shouldn't be doing.

Aziraphale, meanwhile, is clearly very uncomfortable with the whole Noah's Ark thing, and by Jesus is actively trying to distance himself from Heaven's decisions by saying that he's not in charge of "policy".

And by WW2, he's helping, or at least trying to help. Which I really don't think is something he's meant to be doing.

Aziraphale has been put on Earth to thwart evil in the form of Crowley, but otherwise he's supposed to be leaving the actual thwarting up to humans. The two of them are there to direct souls to their respective sides— they can tempt or bless people, and they can create situations where people are more likely to do good or bad, but I really don't get the impression that they're supposed to interfere with politics.

Aziraphale could try and encourage the Nazis to repent, or he could give a member of the Allies an idea for how to stop them, but I think actively participating in a sting operation to get them captured might be a bit outside his jurisdiction.

But, again, he has to help. Because who else is going to help them? Certainly not Heaven, he's seen Heaven, he knows they don't give a shit about individuals. Certainly not God.

Sure, he believes that God will stop the apocalypse. Because he believes that She will want to stop the AntiChrist sooner rather than later. He's not shocked by the idea that God would allow a war, he's shocked by the idea that God would allow a war for the sake of war when She could just murder a child.

There's a scene from the book that was cut from the series (because they didn't have the time or money to film it) where Aziraphale posesses the body of an American televangelist in the middle of an excited speech about how the apocalypse is just round the corner and all the good people are about to be raptured out of there. At which point Aziraphale interrupts to tell him that no, no they won't, because nobody cares about humanity. Humans are basically a way of keeping score at this point, and nobody gives a shit if a planetful of them are caught in the crossfire of Heaven and Hell's last great battle.

I'm really not sure if Aziraphale even thinks there is a great plan.

I mean, he ends up averting the apocalypse with the power of 'realising that Heaven and Hell have no idea what the fuck they're talking about'. His whole "would that be the ineffable plan?" thing depends on the idea that nothing has actually been written down and nobody has been given any explicit instructions.

Crowley not only doesn't come up with this himself, but is surprised that it works. "Surely? Crowley thought, they don't actually know." is the line from the book. Crowley has doubts about whether it's a good idea to follow the ineffable plan (or Heaven and Hell's idea of it) if it means screwing up Earth— in fact by the time we get to the apocalypse he's openly against it id it means that— but he doesn't doubt that there is one.

At the end he even speculates that maybe God intended them to stop the apocalypse all along, and their rebellion was also part of the Great Plan, just like he did when Adam and Eve ate the apple. (For someone who rebelled against God, Crowley is surprisingly anti-free will.) To which Aziraphale responds with a non-commital "wouldn't put it past Her."

Even the ways in which they approach God show their different levels of faith. Less so in the book, but in the TV series Crowley prays. He raises his weird serpenty eyes to Heaven and he questions God, on the assumption that there's at least a chance She might be listening.

Aziraphale never does that. When Aziraphale wants answers from God, Aziraphale petitions God's secretary. The idea that there might be an unofficial channel to the Creator of the Universe doesn't occur to him. He knows that God exists, alright, but he doesn't believe She's listening.

Aziraphale wants there to be a divine plan. He wants Heaven to be good and Hell to be evil (with the single exception of Crowley) and God to be looking out for everyone after all. But, deep down, I really don't know if he ever truly believes it.

#good omens #good omens meta #good omens analysis #good omens spoilers #a structured argument you say?#oh no we don't do that here #this is word-vomit #crowley #aziraphale

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high-tidethunder · 5 years

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like my mirror, years ago

Also on AO3!

Babe, there's something tragic about you

Something so magic about you

Don't you agree?

Crawley remembered Aziraphale, from before. Much of his time as an angel was wiped from his mind the moment he hit that pool of sulfur, but some memories, big ones, those remained, and nothing about this particular angel was small enough to be forgotten. Crawley remembered vividly his radiant, sweeping wings, the halo that seemed to be sunlight itself pouring from his essence, the striking, ice blue eyes that peppered his skin, unblinking, all seeing. Aziraphale was power in a name, glory in a soul, reverence in a being.

At least,

he had been.

When God had been creating the universe and Aziraphale had wielded his incredible power with such delicacy, had created a solar system with a snap and millions of species with a breath.

Now, though, now he just looked ordinary. The only thing that defined him as an angel was the sword strapped to his back that burst into heavenly flame when brought into his grip. Crawley tried to avoid thinking about that sword as he slid through the Garden, looking for his mark. He wasn’t sure what it would do to him and he didn’t want to think about it, hoped he wouldn’t be caught before his task was completed (for that matter, hoped he wouldn’t be caught after, either).

Of course, he had the most rotten luck of all existence (not that that was hard, there wasn’t much of it yet), and Aziraphale noticed him winding through the lush growth and Crawley found himself face to face with that sword. He coiled back, tongue flicking out between his fangs with a hiss, when the angel lowered his sword and the flames died.

“Go quickly,” he said, looking around as though to check they weren’t being watched, “go quickly and don’t look back.”

Crawley wavered midair, confused, and the angel shooed him on. “Go!” he whispered urgently, turning on his heel and hurrying away, sparing one last glance behind him to check that the snake had listened.

Later, when Crawley slithered up the Gates of Eden and confronted the angel, finding that he had given his sword to Adam and Eve (“it’s going to be cold out there!”), the demon found himself wondering how, with all his infractions, Aziraphale remained among the ranks of Heaven while he himself had found himself cast into Hell for less.

Perhaps it was the achingly pure compassion the angel possessed that he couldn’t help but being drawn to.

Babe, there's something lonesome about you

Something so wholesome about you

Get closer to me

Somewhere down the line, Crawley realized Heaven didn't care for Aziraphale in the way they should. Didn’t appreciate him. Did they know what they had in the angel? What fire, what passion laid within him? Crawley had seen it with his own eyes, seen the way Aziraphale gave everything for humankind. Was that not God’s ultimate goal? That their first creation give all of themselves to their last?

He found it funny that Heaven seemed to have forgotten that goal. That they no longer focused on that aspect of the “Great Plan” (ineffable, the angel called it, a plan too great to be known. Crawley wondered how he expected to follow it, were that the case.)

It was clear that Heaven had made its own agenda, had strayed from God’s Great Plan while staying just enough within the lines to pretend they were carrying it out, and that Aziraphale’s dedication to his orders from the Almighty was throwing a wrench in their gears. Crawley worried about him, about what the other angels might do to prevent him further screwing up their plans.

Aziraphale, it seemed, had forgotten how to be the angel he once had been.

He had grown soft in his time around humankind, no longer the force to be reckoned with, the fearlessly rebellious bastard that Crawley had gravitated to.

He put too much faith in God and not enough in himself, but Crawley supposed that doing the opposite was what made him fall in the first place. Maybe it was for the best that Aziraphale had softened his edges. Had calmed down. Crawley wouldn’t wish the Fall on anyone, much less an angel he actually admired.

Maybe, Crawley thought, maybe it was meant to be this way. Him with so much faith and me with so many questions, coming together. Finding each other. Forging something.

Then he scoffed at himself. Meant to be, who was he? A demon, or an angel? No, this was a choice he’d made. Angels were insufferable, and this one was slightly less so. That was it.

No tired sighs, no rolling eyes, no irony

No 'who cares', no vacant stares, no time for me

Crawley decided he hated the name The Almighty had christened him with when he fell. Had the act itself not been demeaning enough? He got it, he was a snake, haha very funny, God.

I thwarted you, he thought, I took your people, I took your “Great Plan”, I took your do not touch sign and I wrecked it all. I do not belong at your feet, I belong in your throne. I set humanity free. You may have created them, but you also caged them. They can thank me for their nomadism, for their villages, for their growth. Not you. Me and your renegade angel. (“my renegade angel” lingered at the back of his mind and he didn’t know when he’d started thinking of Aziraphale that way, as something that might be, could be, shouldn’t be his, but that was a problem for a different day. Today he’d set aside to find a name, a title, that he could call his own. Now wasn’t that very demonic in itself? Defying God’s decision to see him as slithering at their feet and proclaiming himself other, taking his identity into his own hands. That was all it had taken for him to fall, why shouldn’t he continue on that path?)

No, he decided, he wouldn’t be seen that way, he refused to be. He was clever, he was tricky, he was a whisper of temptation in the ear of any who chose to listen and he was not a snake. He was not tethered to the ground, he could go where he pleased, take what he pleased, do what he pleased.

Do what he pleased.

Maybe he took a bit too much pleasure in the acceptance from Aziraphale when he introduced himself as Crowley. But he was a demon, wasn’t he supposed to indulge?

Either way, his heart fluttered when that name fell from Aziraphale’s lips. So much kinder than the way his fellow demons had taken to it. So much sweeter. So much more...right.

Honey, you're familiar like my mirror years ago

Idealism sits in prison, chivalry fell on its sword

Innocence died screaming, honey, ask me I should know

I slithered here from Eden just to sit outside your door

Something in Aziraphale loved Crowley, he could tell, but he didn’t think the angel knew.

Aziraphale was a perfect Heaven’s perfect angel. He was loyal, dedicated, and endlessly generous. And he would not fall in love with a demon, no matter what Arrangements were made, how many lunches were enjoyed, how many times he saved his life. He may love everything on God’s green Earth, but he would not love Crowley. Not the way Crowley loved him.

At least, not consciously.

Crowley was Hell’s worst demon, which meant something along the lines of he was their best demon, but in the most aggravating way, which made him an even better demon. He indulged, he thwarted, he secured more souls, fomented more discord and dissent than other demons, he tempted an angel. But he was never violent. Never if he had a choice not to be. And the other demons despised him for it.

Of course he was in love with an angel.

It was only right, that he mangle the rules to follow his own heart.

They were the nicest things he could mangle.

Babe, there's something wretched about this

Something so precious about this

Where to begin

What Crowley didn’t know was how much his angel loved him.

And how sorrowful that made him.

Everything in him wanted to love Crowley how he was meant to be loved, but he was a demon. He couldn’t love. Would he know how much it meant to Aziraphale to love him, to be loved by him? How much his heart swelled whenever the demon showed signs of kindness, and how painfully it shattered with Crowley’s quickness to shut down that assertion.

What Crowley didn’t know was he was lying in a grave of his own making.

What Aziraphale didn’t know is how deeply Crowley could love.

How deeply he loved every human being for breaking God’s rules, how deeply he loved “undesirable” critters because of the kinship he felt towards them, how deeply he loved God, how deeply he loved Aziraphale. But Crowley couldn’t fathom that he could be worth Aziraphale’s love in return.

What Aziraphale didn’t know is the way Crowley craved him with every atom of his being.

Babe, there's something broken about this

But I might be hoping about this.

Oh, what a sin

The apocalypse that wasn’t shredded the veil between them.

It’s funny how it happens. How when you face the actual worst possible thing that could ever happen, the version of the worst possible thing that could ever happen that your brain fabricates to protect you from what it knows is the true horror just kind of. Falls apart.

The pretense crumbled.

There was no more Angel, and no more Demon.

There was only their side. And they, for once, truly believed that. They, for once, truly believed that they could love and be loved.

And they did.

That park bench, to that bus, to that cold, sharp apartment, so late at night, so early in the morning, they loved.

They loved quietly.

The world had been disturbed enough for one day, it didn’t need the cataclysm of an angel loving a demon.

The world didn’t need to know, but they did. And for once, it was not danced around, not skipped, not overlooked because more pressing matters were at hand.

They loved, and it felt like everything that was right, everything that they had ever needed, everything their former sides never wanted to feel.

There was nothing big about it. Theirs was a gentle love, a new love, an ancient love, a love born, like a phoenix, from the ashes of so many loves that came before.

To the strand, a picnic plan for you and me

A rope in hand, for your other man

To hang from a tree

Berkeley Square had become, for them, a place of essential endings and bittersweet beginnings.

It wasn’t easy, severing yourself from everything you’ve known, everything you’d been told was there for you.

But when that everything no longer served you, it was necessary to get up and find somewhere that did.

Aziraphale and Crowley were that something for each other.

The world made sense when they were together.

And maybe, Crowley thought, maybe it was a little bit meant to be.

#good omens #ineffable husbands #good omens fic #ineffable husbands fic #aziraphale/crowley #hozier #from eden #my oc #rory.txt #long post

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queenburd · 5 years

Text

good omens swap au written bits and concepts:

Eve, pointing at the apple Crowley is currently eating: how are you not dead? Mother said eating from the tree would surely bring death crowley, blinking at it: oh? huh. well, it's not poisonous. Rather, it teaches you things. Eve: it teaches? crowley: Yeah. it teaches you right and wrong eve: but that doesn't sound bad at all! crowley: erm. well. you're free to eat anything in the garden, I won't stop you, but make good choices. eve, as crowley is walking away: .........what are choices.

Strike One. That was how Gabriel phrased it.

Fell found him on the wall, right after the humans left. Croliel was mid panic attack. “It’s all my fault,” he kept saying. “They’re going to die out there because of me, and heaven wants me to follow them, to watch. And nobody to take care of the garden. It’s all my fault. Can’t do bloody anything right, can I?” “My dear,” fell says, because croliel isn’t fallen but he’s very scared and lonely and heaven is already punishing him for something barely his fault. “Surely they’ll survive. Tougher than you give them credit for.” Croliel looked at him with wild eyes. “She’s expecting already. There are wild animals out there. There’s a storm coming—“ he chokes a laugh or a sob, “the very first. How are they supposed to eat? It’s a desert.” Fell looks at him, looks at the sword in his hand, blazing and warm. “Allow me, my dear.”

When they meet again at the ark croliel looks heartbroken "i tried to ask them why--why not at least the kids. and, and gabriel just--" he cant seem to breathe. "he asked me if I was questioning the Plan."

"I wanted to at least, to, to--there has to be space, but they were angry, they said no, and she said no, and I can't, I can't do anything."

Fell looks at him, in near tears, again, with another storm on the horizon, and then tells him to fly in the opposite direction.

"Im going to do some wicked deeds, you know," he says, placing a hand on a child's shoulder. "if you stay and watch, you might have to thwart me."

he once nearly tempted crowley, millennia earlier, without meaning to. they were both roaring drunk, crowley didnt have glasses just yet, and fell kept looking at him and wanting and wanting, looking at his soft long hair. and then crowley had looked at him, and not looked away, and his eyes had gone lidded and his breath all fast, and he leaned forward and fell just about toppled out of his chair when he realized what was happening, and he sobered up immediately, covering his eyes, and Crowley had blinked sharply, and sobered up as well and Crowley would have smited him out of righteous fury if Fell didnt look so caught off guard, if Fell hadnt so abruptly broken it off the second crowley had let go entirely the next time they see each other, crowley has tinted glasses.

croliel: lets just run away! let's go off together, we can't find the antichrist, but I dont want to fight, let's just go fell: no, I need to stay, I need to be here, because-- croliel: what, you want to witness the end of the world? you want to fight in this stupid war that kills everything we've ever liked? fell: that isn't-- croliel: should've known. you're still a demon. still bask a bit in war and hell and sticking it to Her. fell, actively hurt: oh, yes, still a demon after all this time. unforgivable, evil, that's me. thank you ever so much for remembering. croliel: right, fine. i'm leaving then. fell: fine. run away. run off while I do the hard thing once again! croliel, freezing: what. did you just say. fell: oh, you heard me just fine, Croliel. you go, you run off to the stars, wherever you like, and I'll stay here and try to fix this mess, like I've always done for you! croliel: how dare you-- fell: how DARE I? of course I dare! I'm a demon, yet I've done all the good things you never got the courage to do because if Gabriel even glanced at you you'd piss yourself. let's face it, I've put more work into this planet than you ever have, and I'm not about to drop all my hard work just because YOU want to leave. so go on! run! and I'll take care of it all again!

All angels had been holy warriors at one point, with preferred weapons and styles with which they used to smite. Sandalphon fought like a boxer, aiming for tender points with precision and force. Uriel themself preferred martial art styles that humans had not even learned yet. And Croliel—

Well, Croliel fought like a human. That is to say, dirty.

You couldn’t go 6000 years without learning a thing or two to defend yourself. Croliel had been witness to them all, from “you’ve got something on your shirt” to feinting, to blinding opponents with dirt—all of them. He’d stockpiled them in his excellent memory to defend himself, because Croliel might have been an angel, but he wasn’t stupid.

The strike to his stomach had hurt, but he’d seen the motion moments before it had happened, had prepared himself for it, and when it came, he acted as though it had caused more damage than it had. He bent double against the wall, and Uriel leaned over him with a sneer.

“Your little demon boyfriends going to be in deep trouble too. I expect there’ll be nothing left when we’re done with h—“

Something hot pulsed both in Croliel’s gut and his head, and he brought his large forehead (full of stress lines and wrinkles) forward and down hard towards Uriel’s nose.

There was a satisfying crack. Uriel reeled back, but not fast enough, because he’d wound his fist tight into their coat collar. Golden ichor was already sliding out of one nostril. He smiled grimly.

“If you all don’t mind, I have a call to make.”

fell: sunshine Im sorry, I'm so sorry for all the things I said, but we have to go, there's no more time. the forces of hell, they're coming for us and we have to go NOW. we can go wherever you want, alright? croliel: you--you're being ridiculous. l-look, I'm going to have a word with Her, I'm going to talk to Her and get Her to understand and stop it all. fell: th....that won't happen! you, why are you--how can someone so clever be so stupid!? croliel, looking over Fell, smiling rather sadly: Someone once said bravery was stupidity with a different face. I forgive you. fell: Q~Q

“I’ve always been yours.” Croliel’s thumb stroked Fell’s cheek. It was warm. “You know that, right? Since you found me in Eden. You saw me, panicking, terrified for some humans you didn’t care about in the slightest. You saw me, in tears, and the first thing you ever did on this world was be kind to me.” Fell turned his head and kissed that thumb. “Of course. Sunshine, I saw you, in all your emotional glory, terrified for someone else’s sake. It was so different from all of Heaven, all of Hell. Of course. You’ve had me since the start. I knew I’d do anything to keep you like that, to make sure you stayed kind and caring. You were perfect. You’re perfect.”

#good omens #ineffable husbands #this is swap stuff!!!! bc i sit around thinking about it but dont WRITE the dang thing

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casual-eumetazoa · 5 years

Text

Re-watched Good Omens for the third time and I think I’ve been underestimating the importance of Aziraphale’s short recap of their story in episode 6.

“...and I was on apple tree duty...”

This bitch... was on apple tree duty. This can only mean either one of two things:

(1) Aziraphale simply didn’t notice a huge talking serpent tempting Eve, probably because he wasn’t looking, in which case, man, peak fucking incompetence

(2) Aziraphale did see a huge talking serpent tempting Eve, but didn’t do anything

The first is funnier, but the second has more implications, because then you need further explanation. Why didn’t he do anything? Was he doubting the rule to begin with, and therefore (consciously or subconsciously) let it happen? Or did he trust Eve to do the right thing and allowed her to make her choice? Because if it’s the second, then

a) the “giving away the flaming sword” makes even more sense, since he feels guilty about the whole thing

b) along with Crowley, Aziraphale was the one who stood aside and let humanity choose their path, therefore creating (either metaphorically or literally) free will

Also, in any case, it would also mean that when Crowley approached him for the first time, Aziraphale knew that this is the demon who tempted Eve, and yet he continued to chat with him. Aziraphale was on apple tree duty. He failed, and the reason he failed is standing right in front of him, going on about lead balloons and stuff... and he maintains smalltalk with him!

Maybe it was the first explanation (he doubted the rule) and so the act didn’t quite register as evil to him. Maybe he decided to put the blame on Eve and Adam and not on the one who gave her the choice. Maybe he was too worried about other things to be hostile, and just wanted reassurance about his choices (which Crowley happily provided one minute into the conversation). Either way, there’s much more meaning to this than simply two people on opposite sides of the game.

#good omens #good omens meta #aziraphale #crowley #your thoughts?#paradox nerd post

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journalxxx · 4 years

Text

And They Rested on the Seventh Day

[I read the Good Omens book and watched the Amazon series, and enjoyed both a great deal: however, this story doesn't strictly follow the canon or characterizations of either. It's a bit of a mix of the things I liked the most from both versions (for clarity, this considers basically the plot and ending from the book + few selected elements from the tv series. Also Tennant. Definitely Tennant), topped with purely made-up bits of headcanon and character interpretation. The final result is that it’ll probably feel full of inconsistencies and OOC moments, but oh well. I had to take a few ideas off my head.]

To think that it had all started as a hobby of sorts. A wild bet on and against himself, just for the fun of it.

Crowley hadn't thought much of the job he'd done in the Garden of Eden, at first. To be fair, he was still convinced that most of the responsibility for that big mishap fell on God Herself and Her inexplicable - pardon, ineffable - decision to dangle juicy bits of edible forbidden knowledge right in front of people who had literally been born yesterday. Honestly, what else could have happened? Crowley was sure one of the two humans would have given in to curiosity anyway, sooner or later: his intervention had simply sped up the process.

But Crowley’s superiors had been positively enthusiastic about it. God’s new and supposedly best creations, twisted and corrupted and exiled in less than a week since the beginning of the world? An astonishing success for the dark forces, they had said, very well done Crawly, you shall hereby be hailed as The Tempter (a title that would be handed out very freely in the centuries to come, in fact, since he had basically invented a whole new and very busy line of work for the entire Underworld). They had been so keen on putting his supposed talents of persuasion to good use that they had assigned him on permanent Earth surveillance duty, keeping an eye on things and easing the slippery slope of other innocent souls to the abyss. A simple enough job, he thought, and he wasn’t at all displeased with the idea of spending most of his time away from Hell. The place was, well, hellish.

He had been quite surprised to meet the Guardian of the Eastern Gate there as well, apparently tending to the exact opposite task as Crowley’s. What were the odds, uh? But in Aziraphale’s case, Crowley couldn’t help but feel that the new office was meant more as a demotion rather than as a reward. The angel didn’t seem exactly… suited to field work, so to speak. He was definitely the kind of guy who’d deal better with paperwork or with performing celestial harmonies or with whatever those guys up there got up to, these days - rather than with acting as an incognito emissary of the Light. He was simply too soft-hearted. It clearly pained him to witness the daily struggles of mankind without being able to relieve them, if not in a very roundabout and indirect way. He would have gladly handed out miracles and blessings as promptly as he had relinquished his flaming sword, Crowley thought, if he hadn’t directly been ordered to stick to spreading ‘positive influence’.

He was a queer one, Aziraphale, but overall rather amusing to have around. And after the first mostly accidental meetings, Crowley had started to notice several very, very interesting things about him.

First of all, the angel was a sinner. And a rather nonchalant one too.

The first sin Crowley noticed was pride. Now, pride was objectively quite intrinsic to all angelic beings, to some extent, with their perpetual holier-than-thou attitude and their unbending illusion of absolute righteousness. Aziraphale wasn’t an exception. He could have very well avoided Crowley, if he really thought so lowly of him and his shady dealings, but he didn’t. He met him, he primly and oh so very graciously tolerated his company, he pointedly corrected his faulty views on creation and the universe with the self-satisfied attitude of a conceited schoolmaster. It made Crowley’s skin, well, crawl. And he had this ridiculous habit of pointing out, at randomly fitting points during any discussion, that he, Aziraphale, was an angel and he, Crowley, was a demon, and therefore blah blah. He did that really often, inexplicably so. It wasn’t like either of them was going to forget what they were, after all. And it wasn’t like he needed to repeat that at frequent intervals to make sure that some undefined and distracted external audience was aware of their standing in the universe either. It was just plainly dumb and irritating. Crowley had taken to address him as ‘angel’ more often than with his proper name, out of sheer sarcasm. Sadly Aziraphale hadn’t taken particular notice.

Another very glaring sin Aziraphale keenly committed was gluttony. Oh, what a glutton he was. The first time Crowley had met him ‘socially’, he had been astounded to notice that Aziraphale actually ate. If his body was anything like Crowley’s, and Crowley was sure it was, it was conveniently free from most of the intentional design flaws God had installed on humans after Adam and Eve’s escape, such as illness, hunger and tiredness. Neither Aziraphale nor Crowley needed any sustenance or sleep (although Crowley had quickly taken a liking to the latter activity - but he was a demon, Aziraphale would have pointed out with his most slappable face, so he was allowed as many indulgences as he wanted). Even the most gluttonous human had some sort of excuse, what with needing to eat to survive and, while one was at it, he may as well do it decently, to build the temple of his body in the best possible way and so on and so forth. It was a very flimsy and poor excuse, considering the sort of folks who usually resorted to it, but humans clung to such moralistic drivel like limpets. Aziraphale didn’t even have that tiny pretext on his side. He ate (and drank) without any need to, and he did it often and with much gusto, out of sheer pleasure. If that wasn’t the epitome of gluttony, Crowley was an anteater.

And, after a few centuries, a hint of greed began to emerge too. It was a very specific sort, aimed at very specific material possessions, namely those that had to do with writing. Aziraphale had been inordinately proud when humans had begun to carve their funny little thoughts and grocery lists on very impractical clay tablets, he had called it a revolutionary intuition, surely sparked by divine goodwill. Crowley’s reaction had been more along the lines of a whole-body shrug. Aziraphale was fond of reading and, when it became possible, he even started collecting reading material. Papyrus, parchments, scrolls, anything he could find. When books started to become a thing, the angel ogled them like misguided shepherds ogled golden calves. He acquired them very sparingly and with a trace of guilt at first, when books were rare and their production was lengthy and expensive and holding onto some tomes for his own personal enjoyment effectively diminished the amount of knowledge available to the world at large. But after the press was invented, oooh boy. Yes, the excessive and self-serving accumulation of literary material goods was definitely among Aziraphale’s faults.

But that was only the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

In fact, for all his preaching and sternly-worded proclamations of faith, Aziraphale had perplexities. That much was glaringly obvious. Ineffability perplexed him, even though he unerringly presented it as the ultimate argument against Crowley’s own perplexities, whenever they ventured to discuss celestial politics. It had been perplexing him, at least to a certain extent, since the apple incident, Crowley was sure of that. And that was odd in itself. Crowley had believed that, after the Rebellion, Heaven had been purged of any angelic creature who wasn’t a hundred percent committed and trusting in God’s cause, but Aziraphale seemed troubled to a visible degree, at times. Crowley had known Aziraphale only very superficially before falling, and he couldn’t quite say if his doubts were a recent development or not.

So, a peculiar idea started to slither in the corners of Crowley’s oft bored mind.

What if, he thought, what if I could make this angel fall?

The premises for the evil deed were all there. Aziraphale already committed almost half of the deadly sins of his own accord, whether he knew it or not. And he had reservations, however intimate and rationalized, about God’s plan. That was all it had taken for Crowley himself to fall, after all. Just a couple of reservations and hanging around the wrong people. Crowley could provide both of those factors very easily.

It was, admittedly, mere speculation. Crowley wasn’t even sure it was possible for angels to fall after the Rebellion - something had seriously shifted in the balance of the universe back then, everyone had noticed. But the concept was absurdly inviting. Who else, after all, aside from the Morning Star Himself, could boast coaxing angels into corruption? It would be a stunning accomplishment in any demon’s curriculum, wouldn’t it? Forget about apples and tempting feeble human minds, that would be real bragging material. The more he thought about it, the stronger the itch got. In addition, despite his earlier doubts, Crowley had discovered himself quite naturally adept to that whole temptation business. He had thought his success with Eve a bit of a fluke, born of very favorable circumstances: deep down she already wanted that fruit, and so did her companion. They were already leaning towards disobedience, and all Crowley himself had to do was just to give the both of them a little nudge in that direction.

But then, he had found out that that principle was valid for all humans. Every human, literally every one of them, was inevitably attracted to Evil, at least a little bit. In some cases he had to resort to some delicate manoeuvres and subtle approaches to nurture that twisted tendency, in others he simply had to knock on an open door. A very easy and straightforward job, indeed.

But would it be that easy with a full-fledged angel? Presumably not. How should he go about it, then? He supposed that approaching Aziraphale with a rapid fire of existential questioning would be slightly too on the nose. Besides, ineffability. How did you even question that? It’s a brick wall of suspended disbelief and logic denial. No, theology speculations weren’t the right answer, only the most mind-numbingly boring one.

Crowley decided to roll up his sleeves and start with the basics. Adding the remaining deadly sins on Aziraphale’s list of misconducts would be a solid start, he deliberated. Whittling away at a soul’s integrity bit by bit was all the rage back then, in terms of temptation tactics. He’d slowly erode the angel’s rectitude as if he was your average human, and then he’d see where he could go from there. And he would take it nice and easy, spreading his influence over centuries, millennia if necessary. He wouldn’t risk ruining his chances by revealing his hand too soon. He had picked the most promising one among the four remaining sins, and he had started plotting.

He could still remember the indescribable sensation he had felt when he had succeeded, sometime around 1000 AD. It had indeed taken centuries of discreet suggestions and proposals, refuted firmly and scornfully at first, but with less and less passion over time, until Aziraphale had finally given in to the Arrangement, with nothing more than a curt and tense nod. Crowley had offered his assistance first, obviously. He was already about to head to Byzantium to tend to his own business, so he thought he may as well take care of Aziraphale’s too. Just an innocent favour, free of charge. Obviously, if for fairness’ sake the angel felt like returning said favour in the future, Crowley’d be obliged, but really, no pressure whatsoever.

Unexpectedly, unlike all the previous times, the angel had accepted. It felt like a minor victory in itself, even though it was only the first step. Naturally Aziraphale followed him, although not quite as discreetly as he thought. And he followed Crowley the next time as well, and the third- the third he didn’t.

Now, that felt like a triumph. Crowley’s skin had begun to tingle in sheer excitement when he had ascertained that the third time he had offered his assistance to Aziraphale, the angel had simply trusted him to carry out the task as requested. Not that Crowley wanted or could avoid doing what he’d been asked - their respective head offices may be careless about smaller details, but they were fond of keeping scores. If the holy work hadn’t been performed, Heaven would have noticed, therefore Aziraphale would have been reprimanded, and Crowley would have lost that hard-earned trust. What was notable, however, was that it had taken only two trips for the angel to trust completely a demon to perform honest, divine work. It was foolish of Aziraphale not to check that he would, it was lazy of him not to perform the job himself, as he’d been ordered, as he’d undoubtedly report he had. It was deception to his superiors, it was negligence, but more importantly, it was sloth.

It was a heady rush of adrenaline after a long period of forced calm, the kind of exhilaration a skilled hunter feels after waiting for hours - centuries, in that case - for the prey to fall into an aptly placed trap. It was indeed possible to tempt an angel, and he, Crowley the Tempter, the Snake of Eden, had managed to do it. It was riveting. That sensation of well-earned success alone would have been enough to brighten his days and put a spring in his step for the next century, but the best was yet to come, and it was something Crowley wasn’t even planning of.

He had been joking when he had suggested that Aziraphale should be the one to carry out the next bunch of long-distance duties for the both of them. He wasn’t expecting him to accept by a long shot, definitely not so soon at least - but he did. Sheepishly and uncomfortably, Aziraphale had listened to Crowley’s instructions and headed off with a half-muttered promise to ‘see what he could do’. That was a surprise, although Crowley didn’t believe for one second that he would see the job done. An angel (and not just any angel, Aziraphale), doing Satan’s work? What a joke. He’d chicken out of it before dawn, for sure, and either later inform Crowley that he had met with obstacles, or pretend to have forgotten about the whole conversation. And indeed, after seeing neither hide nor hair of the angel for the next month, Crowley assumed Aziraphale had just done that. The demon had then made the hundred-kilometre trip to take care of the business personally, only to find the couple of married lovers (married to other people, that is) already in the throes of the deep reciprocal passion that had been haunting them for the past three years, their families in turmoil and their small town in the middle of nowhere now enjoying the best bout of spicy gossip since that peculiar incident with the shepherd and his sheep forty years earlier.

Crowley was absolutely flabbergasted. That was much, much better than he’d even dared to expect. He felt like he’d basically already done it. It was going to work. If it had taken so little effort to convince an angel to tempt humans instead of blessing them, it was only a matter of time before Aziraphale eventually succumbed completely to Crowley’s scheme. Only a matter of time! He’d keep working on it, slowly and patiently, in a world that would soon start moving forward at an increasing and unimaginable pace, treating Aziraphale like his personal pet project, tackling one sin at a time. What was left? Lust, envy, wrath - oof, wrath was going to be a tough one, wasn’t it? The strongest negative emotion he’d ever seen Aziraphale display was ‘mildly peeved’ - but it would definitely, definitely work. He wouldn’t rush it, he’d wait for the perfect occasion to land in his lap and he’d seize it, to drag the angel to ruin in careful, calculated steps.

That night Crowley had gotten fantastically, gloriously, immeasurably drunk, and had dragged literally the entire village into his personal celebration, thanks to the inexplicable appearance of a good dozen abandoned carts on the main road, filled with jugs of excellent wine from the local vineyards. The huge, impromptu party that followed would have put Bacchus himself to shame, and it provided the village spinsters with enough gossip about the many depraved deeds that had been consumed on that night for the next 378 years, give or take.

That was roughly a thousand years ago.

Funny, Crowley thought as he was sprawled on an unimportant bench in an unimportant road of Lower Tadfield, Oxfordshire, feeling and looking like a puppet with cut strings. Funny, Crowley thought as he was looking up into the cloudless and starry sky of a world that hadn’t ended, how much things can change in just a thousand years.

Aziraphale stood up when two round headlights appeared at the end of the road, and glanced curiously at Crowley when he didn’t do the same. Slowly, with immense effort and groaning like a metal crane bent by a gigantic hand, Crowley gathered his strewn limbs and rearranged them vertically as well. The angel and the demon climbed on a bus that wasn’t going to Oxford, walked past an unresponsive conductor that wasn’t asking for tickets, and spent most of the trip sharing a bottle of wine whose quality vastly outmatched its price tag and whose capacity had long since exceeded the promised 750 millilitres.

The repetitive scenery of the the dark English countryside let Crowley’s mind wander back into the past. It occurred to him that it had been roughly 600 years since the last time Aziraphale had set foot into his house. You could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times the angel had ever accepted to visit his ‘den of iniquity’ (Aziraphale’s words, c. 310 AD), and always very briefly. They had always preferred meeting in public venues anyway, until Crowley had decided that Aziraphale’s bookshop definitely counted as one and had taken the habit of dropping by for the occasional drink.

The invitation had slipped out of Crowley’s mouth easily, unthinkingly, while they were waiting for the bus. And, honestly, how could he not offer hospitality in such circumstances? All of the angel’s earthly possessions, including his very house, had gone up in flames. What was Crowley supposed to do, let him go to a random public bathroom, lock himself into a cubicle and miracle the inside of it into Croesus’ mansion? Seriously. Just because he was a demon, it didn’t mean he was utterly uncivil. Still, Aziraphale had taken up on Crowley’s suggestion with less hesitation that he’d expected. At that point, all Crowley could do was hoping that Hell hadn’t sent reinforcements after Hastur and Ligur’s failed attempt at ‘collecting’ him, and an apartment to invite Aziraphale into still existed in the first place... Oh, well. Worst case scenario, they’d hijack two cubicles.

“How long do you think we have,” Aziraphale said quietly, interrupting the disorganized flow of Crowley’s thoughts, “before they’ll decide to come after us?”

“Heaven and Hell, you mean?” Crowley answered slowly, syllables sticking to his tongue. “I don’t know, a while. I bet they have some serious internal mess to deal with first. Disappointed warmongers and whatnot. Bigger priorities than us.”

“But they will sort that out eventually.” Aziraphale stretched his arm towards Crowley, hand open in a muted request for the bottle. “And then what? I doubt they’ll leave any rogue agents be.”

“....Eh. They might, you know? The kid- whoops.” Crowley let go of the bottle when he felt Aziraphale’s fingers brush his own, but the glass slipped from both their grasps. Aziraphale blinked, and the bottle froze in midair a few centimetres above the floor. He calmly bent down to fetch it as Crowley continued. “The kid told us not to worry.”

“But do you think he has the power to grant us protection from both Reigns?”

Crowley shrugged. “He’s the boss’ son. And he just stopped the bloody apocalypse, if you haven’t noticed. He has power, all right. That’s good enough insurance for me.”

Aziraphale hummed pensively, his gaze lost out of the window. Crowley watched him take a measured sip, and then clean distractly the neck of the bottle with a handkerchief. His movements were quiet, harmonious, steady. Everything about Aziraphale was, and always had been. Crowley’s whole, brilliant temptation plan was centered on the expectation that sins would change his angelic nature, that they would change him. Instead, what had happened was the exact opposite. As the decades and centuries went by, as their meetings grew less and less ‘business’ oriented and turned into genuine divertissement, Aziraphale wasn’t changed by the sins: the sins were changed by him. A tasty nibble of food wasn’t a temptation any more, but a moment of genuine appreciation for the little, blessed pleasures God still allowed mortals to experience. His elegantly-worded notions about the order of the universe ceased to be a prideful display of superiority, and instead became an engaging debate capable of building dialogue between spiritual opposites. His love for books wasn’t a selfish desire of accumulation for accumulation’s sake, but an intellectual connection to the history and minds of the humans he was meant to protect, from all times and cultures. His acceptance to share duties with a demon wasn’t sheer laziness, but a very tangible olive branch offered to a former sworn enemy. Deeds that would have tarnished any human soul, made it revolting and beyond repair, hadn’t even dented the core of Aziraphale’s goodness. If anything, they had enriched it: like the light patina of a vintage Bentley, those sins adorned Aziraphale’s very soul like unique and distinguishing traits, all the more intriguing to a discerning eye.

And the most baffling thing was that Crowley hadn’t even noticed. He hadn’t noticed that his plan, ostensibly always in motion and always waiting, waiting, waiting for the next occasion to move further, was gradually being shoved into the most forgetful corners of his mind. He hadn’t noticed he’d stopped plotting against his enemy, and had instead started just coexisting with him. It had taken him so goddamn long to notice he’d stopped considering Aziraphale as an inconvenient obstacle to be removed from the world Crowley was meant to submit, but that the angel had rather become one of its most interesting and worthwhile features.

It had taken him until the end of the world to realize that.

As it turned out, Crowley’s flat hadn’t been obliterated by the forces of Hell. Yet.

“Make yourself at home.” Crowley said as he jogged from room to room to make sure there were no former colleagues of his lying in wait anywhere.

“This is where you live?” Aziraphale asked, peeking curiously from the entryway. Crowley interrupted his inspection just to make a face.

“Oh no, I’m just appropriating the humble abode of a millionaire manager perished in the latest fish tornado. He won’t need it anymore, will he?” Aziraphale gave him a dubious glance. Crowley rolled his eyes. “Yes, this is where I live. What kind of question is that, why wouldn’t it be?”

“Oh, you know, just wondering.” Aziraphale answered, visibly relieved. “I wasn’t really expecting your home to look like this.”

“And why not?”

“Well, it’s… rather neat and minimalistic.” Aziraphale hesitated. “It almost reminds me of the Upper Offices. Although it is quite darker, I suppose.”

Crowley stared at Aziraphale pointedly. Deafening silence was the only appropriate reply to such a statement, so he let it stretch leisurely until Aziraphale couldn’t help but look away.

“Are you going to come in anytime soon or…?” Crowley eventually said, gesturing around vaguely.

“Yes. Thank you.” The angel finally unstuck from the threshold and followed Crowley into the study. “I really appreciate your hospitality, by the way. I’ll be out of your hair by tomorrow, I’m sure it won’t be hard to find a nice spot for me to move in.”

“Oh, no rush. I barely use this place.” Crowley waved at him dismissively, his attention suddenly caught by the ansaphone. It wasn’t blinking exactly as he had left it. It definitely should be blinking exactly as he had left it. “Uh, right, the bedroom’s over there. If you don’t feel like sleeping, there’s the…” There was the tv, which Aziraphale hardly ever watched. There was the computer, which surely he didn’t even know how to plug in. There was the hi-fi, boasting an impressive collection of contemporary artists 95% of which the angel probably had never heard of. It suddenly occurred to Crowley that Aziraphale wasn’t the easiest guest to entertain.

“You don’t happen to have any books lying around, I suppose.”

Crowley shrugged. “‘Fraid not. But there’s some food in the fridge, if you want.” He offered lamely.

“Oh. Thank you, but I think I’ll be catching some sleep tonight as well.” Aziraphale smiled sheepishly. “I haven’t had a day as intense as this one in a long while. It takes a toll on you even when you’re indefatigable.”

“You’re telling me.” Crowley mumbled, watching Aziraphale head off into the corridor. He waited until his guest was reasonably far from the study before checking the new recorded message. He regretted it very quickly.

“What’s that?” Aziraphale inquired loudly, when the unmistakable noise of demonic torment and horrified screams erupted from the speakers. Crowley hurried to silence it with some chaotic button-mashing and removed the cassette from the machine. A single, fat worm fell from the tape.

“Ugh.” Crowley grimaced, shoving the whole device into the trash can. All right, his mistake. He should have dealt with Hastur when he had the chance. But then again, what was one more demon free out there wanting him dead when he had already earned the eternal grudge of both Heaven and Hell? “Nothing. Nothing to be worried about.”

“That definitely sounded like something to be worried about.” Aziraphale insisted, rather alarmed.

“Nah, just prank calls. I really need to find out who invented them and offer them a drink, now that’s some first-calls deviousness-” Crowley hurried to the bedroom before Aziraphale could decide to investigate the matter personally, and stopped abruptly when he saw the angel sitting innocently on his bed. “Uh. That’s my bed.” He felt it was important to state that fact aloud.

“Yes, I gathered. Excellent mattress, I must say.” Aziraphale replied genially, until Crowley’s silence prompted him to stand up hastily. “Oh, sorry, you pointed me to the bedroom and I thought you meant I could…?”

“No! I meant that you could make yourself a bed and get settled!”

“Oh! I’m terribly sorry, I just thought…” Aziraphale paused, looking at the object of the argument confusedly. “It’s a very large bed though. It looks like four people could sleep comfortably on it, so I thought-”

“I roll around a lot when I sleep, all right?” Crowley retorted with anger, with tangible and very obvious anger, and with absolutely no embarrassment whatsoever. “Look, just- miracle yourself some furniture, here or wherever you want, or sleep on the sofa, or anywhere that isn’t my bed.”

“All right, all right!” Aziraphale frowned and raised his hands defensively. “I’ll take the sofa then.”

Crowley collapsed face-first on his reconquered berth as soon as Aziraphale left the room, his sunglasses conveniently teleporting to the bedside table before they could bore into his skull. He felt positively destroyed. He’d give anything for another century-long nap, he hadn’t had one of those in a while. But it would be rather imprudent in the current circumstances. He’d have to make do with a dozen hours. He closed his eyes and exhaled deeply, welcoming that exquisitely human sense of physical relaxation that came with dozing off. He let the beginnings of sleep dull his senses and his mind, sweetly and mercifully-

“My, such luxuriant foliage…”

Crowley’s eyes snapped open. “NO!” He bellowed, hurling himself off the bed and into the corridor with barely enough coordination not to trip on his own feet. “Stop it! Shut up!”

“What-” Aziraphale startled as Crowley suddenly appeared before him, arms spread in a clear effort to physically separate him from the potted greenery. “W-What’s going on?”

“Nothing. Leave the plants alone. Don’t look at them. And above all don’t talk to them.” Crowley ordered as he grasped the angel’s shoulders and steered him bodily out of the room.

“But why? I was just admiring the-”

“There’s nothing to admire here. Everyone’s just doing what they’re supposed to do.”

“But-”

“My house, my rules. The plants are off-limits.” Crowley snapped his fingers and two robust metallic doors materialized out of thin air to seal the area from the rest of the house. Crowley shoved Aziraphale past them, while he lingered on the threshold just long enough to glare at every single plant in the room.

“Don’t forget whose opinion really matters here, guys.” He hissed, his teeth bared. His warning was met with a collective, deferential shudder.

“...Crowley, are you all right?” Aziraphale asked, eyeing him worriedly. Crowley looked at him like a naked Bedouin sitting on a glacier in the Arctic might look at someone asking him if he’s cold. The doors locked with an audible clang.

“...Yeah, I’m just peachy.” He eventually muttered, rubbing his eyes and heading back to the bedroom. He lay down again and closed his eyes, enjoying a grand total of ten second of peace before Aziraphale’s footsteps reached the room. Crowley sighed. “...What?”

“Actually, I think I would like to sleep here, if it’s all right with you.”

“Do whatever you want.”

“Are you sure you don’t mind-”

“What do you think ‘do whatever you want’ means, Aziraphale?”

“I’m guessing it means that I have free reign over any part of your house that doesn’t include your bed or your plants.”

Aziraphale’s miffed tone got the tiniest smile out of him. “Yep, you got it. See? Wasn’t difficult.”

Crowley felt reality shift around him. Curiosity got the better of him, and he peeked to the side. The bedroom had conveniently enlarged just enough so that Aziraphale’s newly created bed could fit. It was a small, single one, all wood and fin de siecle linens and puffy pillows and creamy tones. It clashed with the existing decor something terrible, but Crowley barely took notice. He was more concerned with its owner, sitting somewhat rigidly on it and glancing around the room nervously. Suddenly Crowley understood why he’d chosen to sleep there.

“Relax, angel. No one will be coming after us.” Crowley couldn’t help but offer, lowly. “Not tonight, at least.”

Their eyes met. After a beat, Aziraphale nodded. “Yes. You are probably right.”

Aziraphale was still sitting up when Crowley closed his eyes. He hoped that the other could catch some rest, but he wouldn’t mind too much if he didn’t. Even a demon could use a guardian angel to watch over his sleep, after all.

Aziraphale did sleep that night, for a good two hours and a half. It may not sound like a lot, but considering that he hadn’t rested since that quick twenty-minute nap in 1732, it felt immensely refreshing anyway. Upon rising, he had to admit that creating his own bed had proven to be a wise choice: in his sleep, Crowley had somehow managed to scatter his considerably long limbs all over the mattress, effectively covering a flat surface that must be at least three times as large as that of his own body. Admittedly he looked quite endearing, arms and legs making a decent impression of a windrose and snoring away with his mouth open.

Aziraphale spent the rest of the night keeping himself quietly busy. He checked all the news from the radio and the tv, from which he gathered that Adam was mending reality with impressive speed and ease, considering how suddenly his powers had bloomed. It was truly a blessing that the boy was far more mature than anyone had credited him for. To think that Aziraphale himself had seriously entertained the notion of eliminating him… No, that guilt wasn’t going to leave him anytime soon.

The angel then proceeded to tidy up what little there was to tidy up in Crowley’s apartment. Some spilt water here and there, and a ragged, dark set of clothes oddly abandoned on the threshold of the study. They didn’t look like the type of get-up Crowley would choose for himself, and it certainly wasn’t one Aziraphale had ever seen him wear, but then again the demon had a thing for experimenting with mortal fashion. Aziraphale also repeatedly wrestled with the impulse to take another look at Crowley’s plants, entirely because of his exceedingly suspicious behavior. He didn’t do it, though. That would have been extremely impolite, almost traitorous. Utterly unworthy of his status. Although- no. No, he wouldn’t.

He even managed to find a few books, tucked away under the sofa or on top of unreachable shelves. They were atlases, maps, photography magazines, all focussed on naturalistic topics: pictures of panoramas from all over the world, animals, plants, even remote stars and galaxies. Aziraphale wasn’t an especially avid consumer of such publications: he vastly preferred both the written word and man-made illustrations, which did a much better job of conveying the divine spark of creativity God had blessed humanity with. However, as he was leafing through those pages and seeing ruins of cities he had inhabited, cute yet clumsy species he had discreetly saved from extinction, masses of gas and dust he had shaped into celestial bodies, he couldn’t help but slip into a lengthy bout of nostalgia for the halcyon days of creation. He wouldn’t be surprised if Crowley kept those books around for the same reason.

When he heard some muffled noises coming from the bedroom, Aziraphale decided to make breakfast. His noble endeavor, however, was thwarted by the complete lack of any sort of raw or packed ingredient in any cupboard of the house; the fridge, instead, offered a vast selection of gourmet brioches, fruit juices, bacon and eggs, pancakes and all sorts of scrumptious dishes that looked as if they had been cooked mere minutes earlier. Well, it would be a waste not to partake, he deliberated. He’d just finished setting the table when Crowley finally joined him with a half-yawned “‘Morning.”

It was a most refreshing and welcome change of pace, being able to chat of everything and nothing over a hearty meal again, instead of covertly panicking over the very real possibility of Doomsday disrupting the next weekend, as well as all the others that would never follow. The last week had been exhausting for the both of them - especially for Crowley. For all his trademark devil-may-care attitude, it was really quite easy to notice when the demon was genuinely distressed: from his eyes, thin slits of darkness in a pool of gold that Aziraphale could always see through the glasses and that darted left and right more quickly than usual, to his gestures, that lost their swaying languor in favor of nervous, reptilian jerks, to the sudden explosions of anger and aggression that were just as dangerous as the roar of a kitten. All of that was gone now. His cutting temper was still dulled by the lingering drowsiness, and soft, unguarded smiles curved his lips in response to Aziraphale’s casual chatter. The ruffled hair, the creased clothes and the lazy nibbles at his brioche spoke of the unhurried comfort that came after overcoming a trying ordeal, and they filled the angel’s heart with genuine tenderness. There were, truly, beauty and goodness in all the things and entities that existed, even in those who supposedly tried their hardest to antagonize them.

“Oh, you may want to take those to the cleaners.” Aziraphale pointed at the folded rags he’d put on the sofa, once he was finished with his breakfast. “What ever did you do to those poor clothes to ruin them like that?”

“Ugh, throw them away.” Crowley replied with a disgusted grunt. “That’s Ligur.”

“I see.” Aziraphale said, having never heard of the brand. He agreed that the quality of the tailoring was rather shabby, so he did as he was told. “Well, I was thinking of dropping by the bookshop this morning - or what’s left of it, anyway. Who knows, there may be some intact books among the rubble…”

“Mmmh. I guess there’s no harm in checking.” Crowley didn’t look terribly convinced. “Mind if I come along?”

“Oh, not at all.” Aziraphale replied, pleasantly surprised. “But don’t you have more urgent things to do, instead of helping me carry around charred tomes?”

“Right now, not at all. I’m pretty sure I’ve been fired, so I happen to have a lot of free time on my hands.” Crowley snapped his fingers, and in a blink he was as elegant and well-groomed as ever.

“You aren’t going to keep performing your duties then? No more tempting innocent souls or spreading negative influence?” Aziraphale inquired as they stepped into the lift.

“Are you? Even if your boss doesn’t care?”

“Why, of course. Being a harbinger of the light is the very reason of my existence! It’s more than a job, it’s my very nature!”

“Aren’t you a model employee?” Crowley deadpanned. “Well, first and foremost, I think I’ve earned myself a vacation. Now, that isn’t to say that I’m going to pass up on any opportunities to have some fun if the occasion arises...”

“Of course you aren’t.” Aziraphale smiled, stepping out of the building. “Shall we take a taxi or- Crowley?” Crowley had abruptly stopped in his tracks, staring at something in the parking area-

“Oh!” Aziraphale eloquently commented.

Crowley jogged to what was, without a doubt, his car. Not the scorched ball of molten metal and rubber he’d been forced to abandon at Tadfield Airbase, but his cherished Bentley in all its former glory and vintage elegance. The demon stared at it in evident disbelief, his brows so high that they almost disappeared into his hairline, his mouth shaped into a perfectly round O. He admired it, ran his palm along the chassis, hopped all around to inspect it from every possible angle - including under the bumper and over the roof.

“Did you do this?” He eventually managed, his gaze bouncing back and forth between the car and the angel.

“No, it wasn’t me. But I’ve heard that yesterday’s disasters are being reverted. Maybe this is part of it.” Aziraphale suggested as Crowley opened the door and basically dove head-first into the car.

“It’s exactly as it used to be! Custom leather seats and all! Even my CDs-” Crowley took one from the dashboard, one whose cover was a wordless black void with a glass prism refracting white light into a rainbow. He inserted it into the radio and a cheery band started to sing very enthusiastically about riding a bicycle. Crowley’s exhilarated mood seemed to dampen ever so slightly. “...Yep. Just as they used to be.”

“It looks like Adam knows what he’s doing.” Aziraphale smiled, knowing how much that little miracle meant for his friend. Then, a thought struck him. “Maybe…”

“...Maybe.” Crowley agreed, understanding him at a glance. “Hop in. Let’s go and see.”

Aziraphale’s empathetic joy waned very quickly when it was obvious that Crowley’s driving style wasn’t at all affected by the recent demise of his old vehicle.

“Out of curiosity, how did the fire start?” The angel asked, trying to think of anything but the absurd number on the speed gauge.

“I was about to ask you the same thing. Serves you right for quitting on me as you did though. Seriously, did you really have to pick the busiest day in the last six thousand years to leave this plane of existence? Where did you even go?”

“To Heaven, of course. And I didn’t exactly choose to leave, if you must know. I was… summoned.”

“Oh, you don’t say?” Crowley sneered. “Well, guess what? My lot summoned me too, but I ignored them because I had more important stuff to do, namely saving the bloody universe-”

“Also because they would have welcomed you less than enthusiastically, I imagine-”

“On my own, because someone ditched me without one word of warning-”

“That’s not what happened at all! It was… an unfortunate accident.” Aziraphale burst out, halfway between affronted and embarrassed.

“What kind of accident?” Crowley frowned inquisitively when Aziraphale didn’t reply. “Oi! What kind of accident?”

“...Promise me you won’t laugh.” Aziraphale begged. Crowley merely raised an eyebrow in response. The angel sighed. “Well, the thing is… I was in my bookshop, and I opened a channel to Heaven, to see if I could… talk them out of the whole universal annihilation thing-”

“Talking people out of war. Yeah, solid plan. When has it ever not worked in the history of wars?”

“It made sense to try, at least. Anyway, Shadwell walked in-”

“What the heaven was Shadwell doing in your bookshop?”

“I don’t know- could you please stop interrupting me? As I was saying, Shadwell saw the ritual and… I fear he mistook me for one of your lot. He got rather worked up and…”

“He killed you?” Crowley guessed, genuinely impressed.

“Oh no, no! He just… started pacing here and there, muttering strange things, and… well, he got a tad too close to the summoning circle - the passage was still open, you see, and…”

“And?”

“I sort of… stepped on it. While I was trying to keep him away.” Aziraphale paused. “By accident.”

Crowley didn’t reply. He looked at Aziraphale, then back at the road, then at the angel again. His mouth twitched.

“Don’t.” Aziraphale warned him. Crowley’s face had already become a quivering mess of aborted expressions that devolved very quickly into hysterical half-snorts.

“Oh sure, go ahead and- don’t take your hands off the wheel!” Aziraphale squealed when the demon did exactly that, holding his sides and throwing back his head as he burst into a boisterous laugh. Luckily, the car seemed to be endowed with all the common sense Crowley had never had and it kept avoiding pedestrians autonomously.

“That’s so stupid.” Crowley gasped, making a show of wiping away a non-existent tear. “That’s so bloody stupid. How can anyone possibly be so stupid?”

“Oh, I don’t know. In the same way one can misplace an Antichrist for eleven years, I suppose.” Aziraphale’s jab sadly didn’t manage to penetrate the waves of hilarity Crowley was exuding. “Judging by Shadwell’s behavior, he must have presumed my disappearance was due to his own… peculiar powers.”

“Oh, is that what he’s been doing with his finger all day yesterday?”

“Well, yes. What did you think he was doing?”

“I don’t know! I thought you had tried to possess him and fried a bunch of his neurons… And it’s not like he had that many to begin with-”

“Now you’re just being needlessly nasty.”

Crowley shook his head, still giggling like a child as he put his hands back on the steering wheel, just in time to park the car as they reached their destination.

“Huh.” He simply said as he climbed out of the car, studying the building as if he’d never seen it before.

“Ah, bless that boy!” Aziraphale glowed as he excitedly walked back and forth along the front of the bookshop. A rapid survey of the inside as well confirmed that his earthly abode was just as he’d left it, books and all. Actually, there seemed to be a few extras too.

“Ohoh, this is the kind of reading I could be convinced to try.” Crowley grinned, leafing through the flashy illustrations of one ‘Blood Dogs of the Skull Sea’. “Look at this beast! This stuff is inspirational! It makes you wonder why the hellhound didn’t turn into one of these beauties.”

Aziraphale didn’t reply. Yes, everything looked just as it did before, but… “Something’s off.”

Crowley glanced around the shelves in surprise. “Really? Is anything missing?”

“No, no. The place is fine… physically. But there’s a strange feeling in the air.”

Crowley groaned and rolled his eyes. “Are you going to start gushing about ethereal flashes of love again? I thought London was impervious to those.”

“It’s not love.” Aziraphale frowned, trying to focus on the odd sensation. It was different from what he’d felt in Tadfield: Adam’s love for his hometown was a deep-rooted, all-encompassing and aged feeling, a quiet yet powerful acknowledgement, indissolubly weaved into the very matter that composed its streets, its woods, its soil. What the angel was perceiving in his bookshop was more akin to an explosion - sudden and short-lived, yet extremely intense. “I think it’s the opposite of that.”

“Ooooh, you mean spooky? Nice. I love spooky. Still can’t feel anything though.”

“It’s… anger, I think. Rage. And…” Aziraphale paused. The sensation glimpsed in and out of his head swiftly, as if it was moving, pacing, speeding around the place almost like a physical entity, phasing through him and leaving a trail of suffocating heat-

BASTAAAAAARDS!

Aziraphale forgot to breathe. For the following seven minutes, approximately. It happened relatively often, for the most varied reasons. The most surprising thing was that this time it made his chest hurt. “...Grief.”

Crowley stood perfectly still. Very slowly, his features relaxed into what would have looked, to anybody else, like a perfectly natural neutral expression. He gazed around the shop and strolled away from Aziraphale to look out of the nearest window with equally studied nonchalance.

“Must have been one of your neighbours. It was a pretty big fire.” He said, his back turned to Aziraphale. “You know, mothers forgetting babies inside flaming buildings and all that.”

ALL OF YOU!

Aziraphale’s heart thrummed in sympathy with that whirlwind of emotion. By sheer force of habit, he blessed that painful feeling and the creature that had generated it, for nobly bearing the sacrifices that God’s plan required. Considering that Crowley didn’t instantly turn into a screaming, bubbling puddle of goo, Aziraphale guessed that God, in Her infinite wisdom, must have refused to validate that particular blessing, and he sent Her his heartfelt thanks for that as well. Aziraphale let the silence stretch for a while, quietly contemplating that powerful echo. Even when Crowley finally turned to face him, his expression still blank and his hands casually tucked in his pockets, neither of them spoke. It occurred to Aziraphale that his intent staring may have been interpreted as some sort of challenge only when the demon admitted defeat, sighing in annoyance and pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Look, what do you want me to say? Mh?” Crowley asked, spreading his arms. “What do you want me to say that you don’t already know?”

It was a fair point. It was also (it being Crowley’s ruffled demeanour, his flat tone, his casual evasion) so strikingly familiar and typical that it warmed Aziraphale’s heart enough to finally distract him from the lingering negativity of the ambiance.

“...Would you like some hot cocoa?” The angel offered with a kind smile.

“Far from me to twist the knife into what you undoubtedly consider a major flaw in your character,” Aziraphale said as he slid in front of Crowley a steaming cup of chocolate that the demon hadn’t exactly accepted, but that he hadn’t exactly refused either, “but why were you upset so deeply? It’s not like I’ve never been discorporated before.”

“‘It’s not like I’ve never been discorporated before.’” Crowley parroted him, without acknowledging the existence of the beverage. “I swear you say the most idiotic things sometimes.”

“Well, I’m just a tad confused about your reaction, is all-”

“Why would I care about you being discorporated?!” Crowley burst out. “I thought you’d been destroyed! You try to call me - urgently - and I can’t answer, I try to call you and you don’t answer, and then I arrive here and you’re nowhere to be found and everything’s on fire - on fire! The one thing that can damage you! What was I supposed to think?”

“But… You thought it was hellfire?” Aziraphale asked, confusedly. “Why would there be hellfire in my bookshop?”

“Oh, I don’t know. It may have had something to do with the fact that I myself had almost been murdered a scant ten minutes before-”

“You were what?!” Aziraphale gasped, aghast, his own cup freezing halfway towards his mouth.

“Yeah. That was probably it, now that I think about it.” Crowley snarled, tapping his fingers on the table. “You became unreachable five minutes after I received a visit from a couple of pissed-off demons trying to ‘collect’ me. I thought that Hell had decided to settle the score with you as well, while they were at it.”

“My dear boy, I had no idea…” Aziraphale trailed off. He gasped again when the gravity of the situation sank in fully. “Heavens, you said almost murdered?! Oh no… No, this won’t do…”

“Oh, well… Maybe ‘almost murdered’ was laying it on a bit thick.” Crowley admitted, his temper finally subsiding. “They were pretty pissed off, but they didn’t even get close to the murdering part.”

“Thank God for that. But how did you manage to escape from them?”

“Oh. Remember that thermos of holy water you gave me fifty years ago?” A malicious smile spread on the demon’s face. “Good insurance indeed.”

“..Are you trying to tell me that-”

“Oh yes.”

“You’ve smitten two demons?!” Aziraphale gaped.

“One, actually. The other one managed to escape, but I’d say I was rather-”

“I’ve never smitten a demon!” Aziraphale added, suddenly facing a minuscule existential crisis. “And that’s supposed to be my job!”

“Really? How odd.” The only demon Aziraphale had interacted with in the last six thousand years replied. Still, the angel was too caught up in his own thoughts to pay any attention to sarcasm.

“Do you have any holy water left?”

“Uh, no, I’ve used it all up-”

“Then you’ll need some more. Lots more. It could save your skin if Hell decided to strike again.” Aziraphale stood up and headed towards the kitchen. “Here, give me a moment-”

“Hey, hey, calm down, I don’t need it right this second!” Crowley stammered, pointing at the other’s abandoned cup. “We can worry about that later, your cocoa is going cold-”

“It’s no matter, I need just two minutes-”

Exactly two minutes and seventeen seconds later, Aziraphale handed to a mildly astonished Crowley the biggest and sturdiest piece of tupperware he owned, filled to the brim with the precious liquid.

“Did you just make all this?”

“Well, yes. Blessing tap water isn’t exactly a lengthy or complicated process.”

“You can make literal gallons of holy water in two minutes, and it took you a hundred years to decide to give me two cups’ worth of it last time?!” The demon complained, without moving to grasp the container. “How very generous of you!”

“I didn’t know what you were planning to do with it! I was concerned!”

“Of what?!”

“That you might… mishandle it and get hurt! You wouldn’t give your sharpest kitchen knife to a five-year-old child just because he asked for it, would you?”

“I would. Anyway that’s a very unflattering comparison and I resent it.”

“Well, yes, here’s more holy water than you’ll ever need, hopefully.” Aziraphale impatiently held out the pitcher towards Crowley’s chest, who positively jumped back holding his arms out defensively.

“Wait wait wait wait! Your cuff is wet! Have you even dried your hands? Are you trying to kill me?”

“What- That’s just normal water! I blessed the one in the container after sealing it! Do you really think I’m that outrageously clumsy?”

“Considering that you’ve discorporated yourself through sheer clumsiness just the other day, yeah, kind of.”

“Oh, for Heaven’s- look, if you want it, it’s here. If not, do whatever you want.” Aziraphale put down the plastic carafe on the table primly, and then he finally set down to sip his cocoa. Crowley eyed the container from every possible angle, clearly expecting to find some traitorous droplet rolling down its sides, then he poked the lid gingerly.

“I don’t trust this thing not to burst open by accident before I can put it somewhere safer. Got any tape?”

Aziraphale fetched some packing tape from the cupboard and handed it to Crowley. He stood beside him, watching him secure the lid meticulously for a couple of minutes. Now that the idle bickering wasn’t distracting him any more, Aziraphale found his own soul attuning again with the background thrumming of the demon’s past anguish. It felt only natural for Aziraphale to squeeze the other’s shoulder warmly.

“You know, I’m very proud of you.”

“...Uh?” Crowley squinted at him as if the angel had just sprouted a second head. That is to say, not as if he’d done something utterly impossible, but merely something very random for no reason whatsoever.

“For showing up at Tadfield, even after all this. You were hunted down by your own brethren, you suffered a painful loss, and yet you reined in your wrath and braced your sorrow and still found the will to fight for this world. It was very brave, and selfless.”

“Uhm.” Crowley answered, with a strange dumbfounded look that instantly raised a few doubts in Aziraphale’s mind.

“That’s… that’s what you did, isn’t it?”

“Uuuuuuuuuuh- Yeah. Yeah, yeah, of course.” Crowley floundered with the elegance of a beached whale. “That’s what I did… eventually- which is to say- yeah-”

“‘Eventually’? What do you mean, ‘eventually’?”

“I mean- not right away, I needed a moment to... You know, my human operatives never managed to locate the Antichrist, so I was… kind of lost as to what I should have been doing in that moment-”

“What did you do?”

“And even if I had known where to go, what were the odds of me, all alone, averting the apocalypse? Realistically speaking-”

“What did you do, Crowley?”

“Well, since you were no more, and the Earth was going to be no more very soon regardless of what I did, I thought… you know, I may as well enjoy one last bottle of scotch in that old-fashioned pub in Hollen Street-”

“...Good Lord.” Aziraphale covered his eyes with his hand, his tone falling as flat as his expectations. “You were going to get hopelessly drunk and do nothing whatsoever about Armageddon, weren’t you?”

“Hey, don’t you dare use that tone with me! Not when I was the one who had to convince you to do anything in the first place! You were merrily going to let the sea bubble and all the creatures, great and small, be vaporized in a blaze of divine glory, remember?”

“For an entirely different reason! I was simply trying my best to follow God’s plan! You never cared a trifle about that! You only ever cared about your earthly pleasures - such as getting drunk while the whole world goes up in flames, apparently-”

“Look, what was I supposed to do?! I didn’t even know where to go! If it wasn’t for your book-”

”My book? What book?”

“Well, not your book, the American lady’s book. Agnes Nutter’s Something Something Prophecies.” Crowley resumed plastering tape all over the already foolproof lid. “I found it here while I was looking for you and I took it, because why not? And then I was leafing through it at the pub and I found your notes about Adam and the airbase and- and then this strange thing happened, you know? I opened the book on a completely random page and the very first prophecy I read was… I don’t remember how it went exactly, but it was… obviously aimed at me. In a very specific way. And it said that my ethereal companion hadn’t vanished, but I’d meet him again at the place of the final confrontation, or something like that, and I’d just read on your notes that everything written on the book is invariably true, and I thought…’Oh.’”

“Oh.” Aziraphale echoed.

“Yeah.”

While Crowley’s peculiar tale depicted a somewhat less virtuous attitude towards pain and unfavourable odds than what he’d first envisioned, Aziraphale had to admit that there was something undeniably noble in the idea of the demon abandoning his drunken stupor and speeding across the country on a flaming car the moment a few key indications and the promise of reuniting with his best friend reignited his hope. There was something undeniably touching about it on a very personal level too.

“Well... I suppose I can’t- that’s enough tape, don’t you think?” Aziraphale said gesturing at the carafe, which was by now mummified under layers of ugly brown tape.

“Uh. Right.” Crowley blinked at the container as if he’d just become aware of its existence before sitting down to finally take a sip of his own cocoa. As he sat back as well, Aziraphale took care of heating the beverage up to a pleasant temperature with a thought before it reached the demon’s lips.

“I was saying, I suppose I can’t blame you for taking a moment to… gather your thoughts, so to speak. I must confess that I myself haven’t acted quite as promptly as I could have in the last days.”

“Oh. Really?”

“Yes. Admittedly, by the time I called you, I’d been aware of the Antichrist’s whereabouts for… a little bit.”

“Yeah?” Crowley frowned. “How little, exactly?”

“Oh, roughly… twelve hours, I think.”

“Twelve hours?!” Crowley sputtered. “We could have got to Tadfield twelve hours earlier?! Do you have any idea how much trouble we’d have spared ourselves with a twelve-hour advance?”

“Well-”

“I wouldn’t have had to drive my car through a bloody wall of fire, for one!” Crowley threw his hands in the air in exasperation. “What have you even been doing in all that time?”

“I was… considering the situation. You’ll admit I was in a rather delicate position, and I felt that I had to choose my actions carefully.” Aziraphale argued. “Eventually I decided to tell you, and the upper offices as well. It seemed like a good way to help our cause without, you know, openly obstructing Heaven’s plans.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“What else did you decide?”

“Nothing. That was what I came up with, and so I-”

“And it took you twelve hours to decide that?” Crowley groaned, covering his face. “Quick thinking really isn’t your thing, is it?”

“Well, there’s no reason to dwell on recriminations.” Aziraphale stated briskly. “Everything turned out just fine, in the end.”

“If by ‘fine’ you mean that ten million demons’ and ten million angels’ best laid plans and efforts went completely into smoke for no purpose other than postponing the inevitable battle for another… I don’t know, one or two thousand years - then sure, everything’s just dandy.” Crowley muttered to his cocoa. “Do you seriously believe this was all God’s plan? All of this for nothing? What’s the bloody point?”

“You know I can’t answer that question. But I wouldn’t say this was all for nothing. From my very limited and imperfect perspective, for example, I can clearly see at least two creatures who have ultimately benefited from this whole Apocalypse ordeal. But I’m sure there must be many, many more.”

“And those would be?”

“Adam, for one. Armageddon truly brought out the best in him. Didn’t you hear him talk with the Horsepeople? His words were so humble and simple, yet such an inspiring embodiment of all virtues! Prudence and temperance above all, and then justice and courage-”

“Yeah, yeah, just wait until he reaches puberty and then we’ll see where all those virtues will go.”

“Still, you have to admit that, for someone who’s supposed to be the literal spawn of Evil, his spirit is remarkably untainted. I’m sure he wouldn’t have turned out like this without going through the process of human life, or if he had come into existence among demons in the depths of Hell. Maybe this was all this proto-Armageddon was about: offering a chance of redemption to what would have otherwise been unredeemable spirits.”

“Mmmh.” Crowley crossed his arms with evident skepticism. “And who’s the other one?”

“Why you, of course.” Aziraphale couldn’t hold back a smile at Crowley’s stunned silence.

“...Sorry, what?”

“Isn’t it obvious? As I said, during the past week you have displayed an admirably selfless side-”

“Watch it, angel.” Crowley muttered. “Keep casting aspersions on me and no miracle will be able to fix what I’ll do to your collection of Bibles.”

“Oh, don’t be a child about it. It’s perfectly understandable, considering how much time you spent around me. I am a Principality, after all-”

“Excuse me. I must have misheard.” Crowley raised his finger, then he leaned towards Aziraphale across the table with a malevolent squint. “Are you by any chance telling me that you’ve been trying to inspire goodness in me?”

“Maybe.” Aziraphale gave him an apologetic smile. “I didn’t hold much hope to succeed, but I’ll admit I was rather curious. A few good deeds now and then, less evil ones performed in person, after yours truly accepted to carry them out for you… I wonder if all that could tip the moral scales at least a little bit, so to speak.” Aziraphale let out a small laugh in response to Crowley’s stunned silence. “What? Haven’t you been trying to do the same since we met?”

Crowley’s eyebrows raised so much that they almost disappeared into his hairline, and he opened and closed his mouth soundlessly like a fish gasping for air before he managed to put together a reply. “I- You- you knew?”

“Of course I knew! Why else would a demon associate so freely with a sworn enemy?”

“But- then- why did you keep seeing me?!”

“Because there was no way you’d succeed, obviously. An angel being corrupted, in this day and age! And me, of all people! No offense, but the mere idea is laughable.”

“It’s no more laughable than a demon being redeemed!”

“I disagree on that. Demons used to be angels, after all. Evil is an acquired trait for your lot, and who’s to say your innate core of Goodness isn’t still there, ready to be unburied?”

“No. No no no, all right, this is much more than ridiculous. This is blasphemous. You thought you could pave the road to the redemption of someone who’s been irrevocably deemed unforgivable? You thought you could single-handedly overturn a sentence of eternal damnation issued by the Almighty Herself? You thought you knew better than God?” Crowley spread his arms in outrage. “And they said Lucifer had too high an opinion of himself!”

“I never said that God was wrong.” Aziraphale raised his hands defensively. “Your punishment was amply deserved. But that happened thousands of years ago. Some things have changed. Some demons may have changed too. And God has always been way more forgiving than your lot credited Her for.”

“You are out of your mind.”

“But… Oh, you must see my point! Think of the lives you saved- think of the whole world you saved!”

“Literally none of that was done out of goodwill. Especially not for the humans. I just like what they’ve done with the place, therefore I want it to keep existing. For myself. It’s entirely selfish. End of the story.”

“And,” Aziraphale pressed on, leaning towards Crowley as well, “you rebelled!”

“Uh… Yeah. Yeah, I did. That’s what I’m saying, it isn’t the kind of thing God just gets over with-”

“No, I don’t mean against God! You rebelled against Satan! If you had reported to Hell about the baby swapping as soon as you learnt of it, they still could have found a solution- tailing the hound, for example. But you did not! You sabotaged them, you went as far as to fight other demons-!

“Out of self presevation! No one in their right mind would keep working for someone who’s just going to slaughter them at the end of the job! I was doing anything I could think of doing to save my skin! You know, selfishly! How are you struggling to grasp this basic concept so much?!”

“And then you fought Satan himself!” Aziraphale proclaimed, undeterred by the growing heat of Crowley’s answers. “You did not run, you did not turn sides-”

“As if you could just run from the boss. And fighting is a bit of a strong word, isn’t it? The kid didn’t let even the tip of his horns out of the pavement-”

“That hardly matters, what matters is the intent! You held your ground, proud and determined, ready to fight him ‘til the bitter end, armed only with the one thing you loved most in the world in your hand-”

“Oi, oi, oi!” Crowley sputtered. “Lay it on a bit thicker, will you? Where did that- You can’t just-”

Crowley’s confusion gave Aziraphale pause. The demon was growing considerably red. Oh dear. Could he ignite out of sheer rage? That would be a first. “I really don’t think I’m exaggerating. You were ready to die fighting him, we both were.”

“Not that! The thing- the ‘thing you love the most’ thing, what even-”

“That too. At least I had a proper weapon, but you only had that… what was that, a piece of your Bentley? I’m sure it had a huge emotional value for you, but in terms of offensive capabilities… Talk about David and Goliath…”

That shocked Crowley into silence. “...Oh. The car.” He eventually managed. “Yeah. The car. Yeah.”

“Yes. What did you think I was-” The answer struck Aziraphale before the question was finished. He had only two hands, after all. “...Oh, Crowley-”

“All right, that’s IT!” Crowley suddenly shouted, shooting up on his feet and banging his fist on the table. The sunlight filtering from the window behind Crowley was blocked by the magnificent pair of wings that spread from his back, casting a looming shadow above the sitting angel. The rest of the room grew inexplicably darker as well as the demon towered above Aziraphale, mouth twisted and teeth bared in an enraged snarl. He pointed towards his wings. “Look. Look at these, do you see them? Not a single white feather. Not a lighter shade of grey anywhere. Do you see them? Black. Charred. Tainted. Not by fire, or tar, or soot, or mud. By God. God changed them. Changed everything. And you can’t fix God’s work. You can’t get a bloody word in edgewise, actually. Believe me, we’re the ones who tried. Now,” Crowley bent downwards still, his back arched like a predator ready to strike, his nose mere centimetres away from Aziraphale, “I don’t know what gave you the impression of being smarter than the highest order of the universe, but I think we can agree that whatever little self-empowering game you’ve been playing hasn’t changed anything. Right?”

“Right.” Aziraphale replied without the slightest inflection, as he was starting to feel like he’d overstepped some boundary. Not so much with the universe as with his friend.

“Right. So quit yapping about goodness and selflessness and whatnot before I show you exactly what’s the difference between the two of us.” Aziraphale remained respectfully silent. Finally Crowley straightened up as his wings disappeared and the room cleared up again. The demon fixed his jacket, scowling at the surrounding shelves as if they had personally offended him. “Keep the water, I don’t need it. I have plenty of other tricks up my sleeve. Bye.”

“What? Wait! Where are you going?” Aziraphale startled, hurrying after Crowley as he walked off to the front door.

“Away. I’m busy.”

“I thought you were on holiday.” The angel almost bumped into the other as he stopped and turned on his heels abruptly, another snarling reply ready to fire. “And I was wondering if we could have lunch together at the Ritz.”

“Why? So that your ethereal influence can polish my spirit a bit more?”

“Really, now. You know me better than that.” Aziraphale gave him his most conciliatory smile. “No point in saving the world if we don’t get to enjoy it, right?”

Crowley hesitated just long enough to let Aziraphale know that he was well aware of being played. And then he did it anyway. “...Right. But you’re paying.”

“Of course.”

“What do you think would happen to us, if we were to die from now on?” Aziraphale asked, several hours and a lucullan lunch later.

“Well, aren’t you a bundle of laughs lately?” Crowley deadpanned. He was enjoying the fine afternoon breeze and the idle quacking of the ducks in St. James’ Park too much to embark in such grim elucubrations.

“I think it’s a legitimate concern. I don’t see either Heaven or Hell granting us a new body after all the trouble we’ve caused.”

“I guess not. But I think we’re covered at least until Adam remains on Earth. He didn’t even have to snap his fingers to make you a new one.”

“You have remarkable faith in that child, haven’t you?” Aziraphale graced Crowley with an obscenely proud smile. The demon grimaced and waved at him dismissively.

“Faith has nothing to do with it. Faith is blind and deaf and groundless. Adam has put up a pretty effective and tangible demonstration of his powers. And he likes us. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. If you get discorporated, just knock on his mind and he’ll fix it.”

“But he won’t be here forever to help us. He’s still a mortal, just like Jesus.” Aziraphale insisted from above his newly acquired copy of Treasure Island. “What about afterwards?”

“I have a better question for you.” Crowley enunciated importantly, shifting to lean on the bench just a tad more composedly and deciding to change the topic. “What about his afterwards?”

“...You mean what will happen to him after his death? Well, won’t he just go back where he came from?”

“To Hell? Really?” Crowley leaned towards Aziraphale conspiratorially. “Do you really think that Satan will let anyone, including his son - especially his son - potentially endowed with the power to rival him, into his own Reign? Do you have any idea of the trouble it could cause? Demons have a strong tendency to question the authorities, you may have noticed.”

“I… I suppose you do have a point.” Aziraphale had to agree, visibly struck by the realization. “But where would he go then? Surely not to Heaven… The Antichrist in Heaven, could you even imagine it?”

“Not really, no. But there’s another possibility.” Crowley tipped his glasses forwards, staring pointedly at the angel from above the dark lenses. “If neither Reign will want him, he may… you know, carve his own place for himself. A new one. Create his own path.”

“What?” Aziraphale slightly leaned away from Crowley in sheer shock. “A third faction? For the love of God, Crowley, don’t even mention it! Aren’t things already difficult enough with two parties at war? Another schism, whether within Hell itself or from the outside, would only compromise the balance of the universe even further!”

“Looks to me like a third faction has been existing for a long time now.”

“Pardon?”

Crowley gestured vaguely all around. “How would you call the six billions humans currently living on this planet, and all the others who came before them?”

“They’re not a faction. They’re-”

“Sort of cattle, when you think about it-”

“Creatures.” Aziraphale corrected him sternly.

“Creatures that both our lots have been merrily cannibalizing for the last six millennia for the sake of our own petty squabble-”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that your lot has been indeed cannibalizing all the poor souls you could snatch.” Aziraphale pointed out primly. “We, on the other hand, have been educating them. Guiding them. Nurturing them. Cherishing them-”

“Oh yeah, those words sound so much nicer, don’t they?” Crowley sneered, barely repressing the impulse to hiss in annoyance.

“Are you seriously trying to tell me that you see no fundamental difference between what we do and what you do?” Aziraphale asked in dismay. “Do you really, honestly believe Heaven and Hell to be on equal moral ground?”

“All I’m saying is that it’s really easy for me to imagine these guys,” he insisted, pointing at a random couple of passersby who clearly did not appreciate being pointed at by a perfect stranger in the middle of a heated argument, “getting fed up with both our and your interferences sooner or later, and it looks to me like they may just find their own champion in our dear Antichrist.”

“This is ridiculous! We needn’t talk about such a hare-brained notion any longer.” Aziraphale asserted firmly, then a thought struck him and he eyed Crowley suspiciously. “I do hope you aren’t planning to put strange ideas in that child’s head.”

“Putting ideas in his head?! He has enough ideas of his own to build a brand new universe from scratch! He doesn’t need mine!”

“Good, because the last thing everyone needs right now is another Rebellion.”

“Why? Are you scared he might have better luck than we did?” Crowley couldn’t help but smirk.

“Of course not. It’s just… not the right way to go about it.”

“Asking questions and demanding a little more respect and straightforwardness from your boss isn’t the right way to go about solving a problem? ‘Cause that’s what we did-”

“You raised your hand against God.” Aziraphale’s glare was more scalding and cutting than his sword had ever been. “You took up arms against Her and your own brethren, and you did it first and without provocation, and don’t even try to justify that.”

“I-” Crowley started, but bit his lip not to continue. He hadn’t taken up any arms, surely not first, he thought. He hadn’t, but others had. Others on what he hadn’t realized yet would permanently become ‘his side’. And by the time he had finally grasped the severity of the rift that had formed between those new sides, it was already far too late for reconsiderations. He turned his gaze away from the angel, and focussed instead on a couple of black swans elegantly brawling for the possession of a floating chunk of bread. The park was oddly quiet, and their irked squawking was the only sound the demon could hear for several minutes.

“My point is,” Crowley suddenly said when he spied Aziraphale’s mouth moving to speak, because he would not let him have the last word on that topic even if it killed him, “that if one feels that he isn’t being treated fairly, you can’t really blame him for trying to look after himself. At least we can agree on that, yes? Yes.”

Aziraphale’s silence felt like a hard-earned victory. Neither Heaven nor Hell would be impartial when the moment to judge Adam would come, and if the Antichrist was to be shunned by both sides, wouldn’t it be only natural for him to-

“Is that why you rebelled?” The angel asked, eyes fixed on the book open on his lap. It took Crowley by surprise, how delicately Aziraphale had uttered that ‘you’, so very different from the spiteful ‘you’ of the rivalling group. It was a very personal question, the most personal question the angel had ever asked him.

Crowley didn’t answer. Aziraphale didn’t ask again.

“Well,” the angel sighed after a long silence, “I guess my point is that we’d better be extremely careful not to be discorporated in the future. Our sudden reappearance in our respective head offices might have rather unpleasant consequences.”

“You just can’t stop worrying about it, can you?” Crowley remarked, a tad mockingly. “I guess it comes with spending your entire existence as an upstanding Heaven citizen. Never really got on God’s bad side, have you?”

“Well, there was that little mishap with my sword...”

“Psh, I’m not talking about misplacing your toys. I mean Her really bad side. I’m talking about going openly against Her will - like you may very well have done by averting Armageddon-”

“Excuse you, I firmly believe I’ve been doing nothing but serving the Greater Good during these trying times.” Aziraphale countered, rather piqued. “And the Greater Good is God’s will by definition, so I don’t see why She should be in any way displeased by my actions… I believe.” A flash of uncertainty crossed the angel’s features, but he shook it off immediately. “Besides, everything that happens anywhere and at any time is part of Her plan, and therefore part of Her will, and therefore good.”

“Well, excuse you, but by that ridiculous logic the Rebellion was part of Her plan too, and therefore good, and therefore none of us should have been banished and doomed to eternal spite and damnation. And yet.”

“No! That is an entirely different matter, and-” Aziraphale stopped talking abruptly. He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed deeply. “Let us not talk about politics. It never ends well.”

“Yeah, I wonder why.” Crowley crossed his arms belligerently, but he didn’t push the argument further. Not that specific argument, at least. “Anyway, I still don’t see why you’re having kittens over this disobedience thing. If you think God Herself has no beef with you, what’s the matter? What’s the worst thing your seraphic superiors could do to you, uh? Call you back up to head office and confine you to a boring desk job where you couldn’t possibly hinder their holy machinations? Oh boy, oh dear, mighty scary punishment-”

“It’s not myself I’m worried about, Crowley!” Aziraphale interrupted him vehemently, hands tightly clasped in his lap. It took Crowley frankly too long to figure out the meaning of his troubled grimace.

“...You’re worried about me?”

“Of course I am! Desk jobs and bureaucracy will be the last of your worries if you end up within the grasp of a cohort of vengeful demons! They’ve already tried to destroy you once-”

“No, no no no, you don’t get it, it’s fine. I’m not in danger!” Crowley exclaimed, stretching the truth roughly to the size of Australia. “They’ll never manage to get their hands on me. The top brass wouldn’t come up here just to retrieve a small fry like me, they’ll just send a couple of brainless grunts now and then. And I’m not calling them brainless as gratuitous slander, they really are unbelievably stupid. Not even remotely a threat.”

“You’ve destroyed a demon! One of your own kind! They won’t overlook such an act so easily, for sure!”

“All right, listen. First of all, demons killing other demons isn’t nearly as outrageous as you think. Happens every other day. One day you’re chatting with Valak from Heat Management about the new strain of flies Beelzebub’s sporting and the next day, poof! Someone tells you that he’s been shoved into a furnace by a pissed-off Count because of a broken thermostat. Not even worth a slap on the wrist.”

“Still,” Aziraphale hesitated, “your case is clearly different. It’s outright treason! They’ll send some skillful operatives-”

“The ones they already sent were the skillful ones! Dukes of Hell, no less! And I dispatched both of them literally in five minutes! Want to know how?” Crowley stood up and started pacing back and forth in front of the bench, gesturing wildly to re-en-act his epic tale of cunning and strategy. “All right, here’s how. The holy water you gave me, right? I poured that into a bucket and put the bucket on top of the door of the study, which was ajar - what are you looking at? Get lost!” He added, glaring at a couple of nearby kids who had interrupted their aimless running around to stare at him as he stood poised on the tip of his toes to position an invisible prop on top of an invisible surface. The brats scampered away immediately. “Anyway, Ligur opened the door and bam, one Duke of Hell melted into nothingness, just like that. And the second? Well, actually I did have a plan involving holy water for him too, but that one didn’t really fly - but then!” Crowley pointed at Aziraphale suddenly and enthusiastically enough to make him flinch. “You called, and I - brilliantly - got inspired by that and trapped Hastur into my phone! ...For a while - but the point is that it was just that easy.”

“Why, wasn’t that ingenious of you?” Aziraphale said, his eyes shining with such disarming and honest admiration that Crowley completely lost track of his thoughts.

“I- well, yeah, I guess I-” He started, before his brain rebooted and he smacked his forehead in frustration. “No! No, it wasn’t! It was dumb! That’s my point! A bucket on a door, Aziraphale! Two Dukes of Hell tricked by the sort of pranks that some dumb human toddlers- Oi! Why are you still here?!” He suddenly shouted, as his gaze fell on a bush that did absolutely nothing to hide the same couple of brats he’d just shooed away, still spying on his little pantomime. As they ran away again, Crowley took care of summoning a couple of ringed snakes and sending them on their heels, just to provide that extra zest of entertainment that their afternoon clearly lacked.

“Ehr, you were saying?” Aziraphale asked, eyeing the hissing grass with mild concern.

“I was saying that my esteemed colleagues have the tactical prowess of drunk baboons, and they don’t even bother to keep up with what’s going on up here. A child with a mobile phone could outsmart them. So no, they’re never going to get me.” Crowley plopped back on the bench heavily, crossing both arms and legs and deliberately channeling a good three decades of macho cinematography in his stance. “Not on my turf.”

“That’s reassuring, but it doesn’t quite put all my worries at rest. Don’t you think we should at least keep a close eye on each other for a while?”

“How so?”

“Oh, just seeing each other. More often than once a decade, I mean. Exchanging information, checking that we’re still around in one piece.”

“And if we aren’t? What if one day I just disappear, uh? Are you going to march into the depths of Hell armed with your non-existent army and your lost sword?”

“I was thinking more of a tanker filled with holy water.”

Crowley snorted. “That would be a sight.”

“So? What do you say? Once a month? Once a week? At least until things get calmer.”

“Oh boy, I don’t know if I have all this free time to ‘keep an eye’ on you. I’ll have to check my agenda.”

“You’re still on a self-proclaimed holiday.”

“And do you have any idea how time-consuming that is?”

#good omens #crowley #aziraphale

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undertheinktree · 5 years

Text

Trust Fall (2/2)

part 1

The Archangel raised his right arm to show he was holding a scale. The plates, apparently empty, were tilted to the left, defying Earth’s laws of physics. “You will follow me without resistance or you will suffer the consequences. Do you understand?”

*****

Aziraphale couldn’t sleep that night. Truth be told, he wasn’t very keen on sleeping in general. He did enjoy taking naps after hearty meals, but they rarely lasted more than a handful of minutes. The night the world hadn’t ended he had actually managed to sleep for a couple of hours before waking up excitedly yelling he had figured out what Agnes Nutter’s last prophecy meant. His sleeping record was set in 1865, when he had lost consciousness for almost six hours, his mind clouded by French wine, opium fumes and words of decadence – but he didn’t like talking about that.

That night, however, he probably wouldn’t have been able to sleep even if he’d wanted to, caught up in the turmoil of emotions the afternoon had brought.

When they had got back to the bookshop Crowley had offered to stay with him – an offer he had phrased like “I’m too tired to drive to my apartment, can I crash on your couch?”, but that Aziraphale had understood was really a “Let me keep an eye on you”. He had refused, saying he needed some time alone.

Immersed in silence, with his mind free to wander and to conjure up images of flames and Falling angels, he started to regret his choice.

Unable to sleep, Aziraphale prayed instead. The human way: on his knees, with folded hands and eyes shut tight, whispering psalms and hymns someone else had written centuries before. The human way, he felt like his words were falling on deaf ears.

His sigh resounded in the silence of the empty bookshop and he was struck by an overwhelming sensation of loneliness. Stumbling on his feet he sprinted to the phone and picked up the receiver with shaky hands. He had already dialled half of Crowley’s number when something in his mind switched, and the fear that was quickly building up inside of him stepped into the light and showed itself for what it really was: resentment.

“No, this is not right,” he declared out loud, slamming the phone down. He started pacing the floor on restless feet.

“This is Your fault! I shouldn’t feel alone right now, You are supposed to be by my side in times of need, aren’t You?” he slurred pointing a finger at the ceiling, almost expecting the wooden beams to dematerialise and God Herself to descend to Earth just to answer to his accusation. It didn’t happen, but the thought of it was enough to make Aziraphale tone down the anger in his voice. He started fidgeting with his hands, torn between the need of answers and the aversion to open disobedience that, despite everything, was still part of his nature.

“Am I already damned, then? Or am I just so insignificant I don’t even deserve to feel Your presence?” he asked.

“Just let me understand. Is this somehow part of Your ineffable plan? Am I supposed to Fall? Or have I really strayed that far?”

The events of the previous twelve years had destroyed any faith Aziraphale had in Heaven and his fellow angels. Slowly, begrudgingly, he had faced the senselessness of their Manichaeism and their twisted moral code and had accepted that their system was broken. Nonetheless, he had always held on to the idea that everything since the beginning of time had been part of the Almighty’s plan. Crowley tempting Eve in the Garden, him giving Adam his sword, the Antichrist being raised by the wrong family, the averted Apocalypse, all part of an enormous game not even an angel’s intellect was able to understand.

Was this simply Her next move or had he got it all wrong?

“I mean, I know I have done…some bad things,” he admitted “I know that. I’m far from perfect. But am I really worse than all those who follow any order they’re given without wondering who could be hurt in the process? All those who wanted to completely destroy the Earth and wipe out the human race? Who tried to kill me and Crowley?”

Saying the demon’s name out loud raised another doubt in his mind.

“Is this about him?”

He immediately dismissed the idea shaking his head.

“You can’t tell me it’s about Crowley. You are the one who made me able to love. To love him. No, I refuse to believe that’s in any way wrong. But what is it, then? What have I done? Do You really want me to be punished or do You just don’t care if I am?”

He saw his own reflection in the big mirror leaning on the wall in the corner of the room. He looked very tired.

“Are You even there? It’s been so long,” he murmured, exhaustion echoing in his voice.

A shiver went down his spine at the thought of everything he had said up to that point being nothing more than a soliloquy, a stream of consciousness destined to remain unheard and unanswered.

“Am I asking too many questions?”

He stared at his image in the mirror. The face he had worn for thousands of years, usually lit by excitement, serenity and self-esteem, stared back at him with a mixture of doubt, pain and confusion. Behind it he could glimpse at his true form, the one he hadn’t fully embraced in millennia and had almost forgotten. An Angel in the truest sense of the word, who fully belonged to Heaven, was sure of what his purpose was and barely had a conscience of his own. For a moment his face morphed into an unfamiliar expression, blank stare, upper lip raised and nose wrinkled in disgust.

“Of course I am,” he spat out, “Angels aren’t supposed to ask questions, right?”

“Come with me.”

Aziraphale turned around stumbling on his own feet. The menacing glare of the angel behind him was enough for him to immediately put on the polite smile he was so used to showcasing with his former bosses.

“Michael,” he said, trying to suppress the terror in his voice with a cheerful intonation “I wasn’t expecting you.”

The Archangel raised his right arm to show he was holding a scale. The plates, apparently empty, were tilted to the left, defying Earth’s laws of physics.

“You will follow me without resistance or you will suffer the consequences. Do you understand?”

Aziraphale’s fake smile faltered. He was sure he had already seen that same expression in the Archangel’s eyes once, long before the beginning of Time, when he had faced and defeated what was once God’s most faithful servant.

“Already?” he asked, the reality of the situation slowly dawning on him.

“You were created with a great deal of divinity inside of you, principality. You have squandered it.”

“All right, then.” Aziraphale took a deep breath and straightened his spine. “Let us have done with it.”

***

“Aziraphale!” Gabriel’s smile was as broad, as bright and as condescending as usual. Behind him, dozens of angels were lined up facing Aziraphale, making it clear that if he had tried to do anything stupid he wouldn’t have had any chances of succeeding.

“Is it actually you in there? If I’m not mistaken last time we saw you you were possessed by a demon.”

Aziraphale replied with a smile just as fake. “Last time you saw me you tried to kill me, if I am not mistaken either.”

Standing beside him Michael gave him a push, in a silent threat.

“I’m sure you understand we were in an emergency situation,” Gabriel explained as if his and Crowley’s extinction was just business as usual. “We had been in an arms race for six thousand years and were suddenly placed in disarmament. Order had to be re-established as quickly as possible.”

“Of course.” Aziraphale could taste his scorn for the Archangel on his tongue.

“Moreover, I believe you now wish we had carried out the execution, don’t you?”

Gabriel’s smile widened even more, but the malicious twinkle in his purple eyes made Aziraphale turn pale.

“It’s been ages since the last Fall,” he continued. “It’s a bit of an inconvenience of course, losing one of ours to the other side. But we do what we must.” The confident façade Aziraphale was already struggling to maintain began to crumble under Gabriel’s mellifluous voice. “I must admit, it will be interesting seeing how much Hell is going to affect you. It’s almost a shame. So soft and weak. I imagine it won’t take much to break you.”

“You are cruel. Why are you even doing this?” he asked, unable to dissimulate the shakiness in his voice. Gabriel shrugged.

“We cannot keep a demon in our ranks.”

“But I am not a demon!”

Just like the previous afternoon, Aziraphale found himself dizzy and short of breath, his mind clouded by quickly approaching panic. Was he becoming a demon? How bad would it be? Crowley was a demon. Was it a good thing, then? On Gabriel’s lips the simple word sounded like the worst of insults.

“I’m an angel…” he murmured. He realized that word said out loud sounded just as degrading.

“Are you?” Gabriel scoffed “I believe Michael’s psychostasia said the opposite.”

Aziraphale remembered the unbalanced scale the Archangel had showed him in the bookshop and whatever hope he had of being absolved by the jury of angels in front of him vanished in thin air.

“This makes no sense,” he muttered. “I’m a good person.”

“That’s the point, Aziraphale, you are not a person. We are supposed to be better,” Gabriel replied, patronizing. “Let’s see. That old shop of yours. All the things you hoard in it. Not only it’s frankly disturbing, it’s Greed. That’s a sin, you do realize that.”

The jury angels all nodded in agreement.

“What about Sloth? Have you ever really put any effort in the work the Almighty assigned to you? How often have you actually, actively performed Good?”

In response Aziraphale just shook his head, unable to form a sentence.

“Gluttony. That’s a big one for you, isn’t it?” Gabriel resumed “All that disgusting organic stuff you are ceaselessly ingesting…”

“It’s just food. It tastes nice,” he managed to say.

“You don’t need it! It’s just a human thing. You see, that’s a big part of your problem.” The Archangel wagged his finger at Aziraphale, who recoiled. “You are too invested in humans and their oddities. You have always been obsessed with them. I would dare to say that you wish you were just like them. Which brings me to Envy.”

“Stop it, Gabriel, please. All of this is ridiculous.” Aziraphale could feel tears springing up behind his eyes, while the Archangel’s accusations dug grooves in everything he thought he knew and everything he thought he had learnt in thousands of years. Was Gabriel right?

“Now, Lust. We obviously heard your little ‘I love you Crowley’ rant last afternoon, so…”

Aziraphale felt his whole body freeze in an instant.

“You heard?”

“Of course, what did you expect? We’ve been observing you these last few days. We needed to know if you were actually, irredeemably corrupted. And as you can see…”

“But that’s not Lust!” Aziraphale was able to collect enough air in his lungs to stop muttering and begin to yell instead. “It has nothing to do with it, Love is a good thing! It’s the good thing!”

Michael’s grip on his arm tightened.

“Oh. Is this Wrath?”

“Wra- this is common sense! Love is not Lust! Why would Love be wrong?”

“Aziraphale…” Gabriel’s voice wasn’t far from the voice an old woman would use when speaking to a toddler “We’re talking about a demon.”

An outraged muttering rose from the jury.

“You will not convince me that Love is a capital sin, Gabriel. What do you even know about it?”

“Mind how you speak, Aziraphale. We are angels. Love is our essence.” The Archangel took step towards him, dropping his over-polite demeanour. His voice was still calm and controlled but it had dropped an octave and sounded more menacing to Aziraphale’s ear. “You are basically a demon by now, the farthest thing from Love there is. You are the one who will no longer sense Love. You will no longer receive it in any way. You will no longer feel it.”

To everybody’s surprise, including his own, Aziraphale broke into a harsh laugh. For a moment he thought he could hear an echo of Crowley’s voice in his own.

“I must say I pity you, Gabriel. You have no idea what you are talking about.”

“You think?”

“I know. You are not making any sense.”

“Sure. Pride, that’s another big one for you, isn’t it?”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes. All the terror and self-doubt he had felt until a few minutes before had reached their peak to the point all he could actually feel was weariness.

“This is absurd. You are just making up excuses to toss me out because, for whatever reason, you have always hated me.”

“We’re angels, we do not hate.” “Well, then I see why I’m not an angel anymore.” He was getting nauseated and just wanted that pointless inquisition to be over. All the questions he had been asking himself for hours, what was really right and wrong, how much he would change, what he would or wouldn’t still be able to feel, all of that didn’t matter anymore.

“Once I Fall, will you leave me alone?” he asked with a deadpan expression.

Gabriel scoffed “The farther we will be the better I will feel.”

“All right, then.” With a yank Aziraphale freed his arm from Michael’s grip, who left his side to reach Gabriel’s. He tried to pull himself together the best he could, fixing his linen shirt and taking deep breaths to choke back his tears one last time. He managed to put on what was the shadow of his old, phoney smile and found relief in the thought that he wouldn’t need it anymore.

“You know, I wish you were able to understand how wrong you are. I will pray for you, Gabriel.”

The Archangel wrinkled his nose “Yeah. Please don’t.” He turned to face the other angels.

“Shall we?” he asked. The jury nodded in agreement.

Immediately Aziraphale could feel a surge of energy whirl all around them, tingling on his fingertips and making his hair stand. The dazzling light of Heaven began to quickly fade, leaving as the only light source the bright halos of the angels, suddenly visible.

The ground under his feet started to shake but he was the only one who had to struggle to keep his balance: the others were standing perfectly still, staring at him with their eyes glowing so brightly he was almost blinded.

Gabriel’s three sets of wings cut through the planes of reality and appeared fully spread, their umber feathers ruffled by a non-existing wind. When he turned again and spoke, his voice came straight from a Time so remote that the meaning of the words he pronounced had been forgotten by all the other angels.

Dazed, Aziraphale stepped back. When his foot landed in the void, he had just the time to take one last look of the angels that were pushing him to his damnation.

Then he was Falling.

He hurled through the air at an unbearable speed, his arms and legs appearing and disappearing from his view as they pointlessly spun around as if with a conscience of their own. Instinctively he opened his wings to break the fall, but to no avail.

He kept his eyes fixed on Heaven, above him, farther and farther away, blurred by the tears that he had finally allowed to fill his eyes.

When his white feathers caught fire he tried to scream, but the wind pushing on his chest was too strong and his voice died before reaching his throat.

The excruciating pain within him matched the one on his skin, numbing both his senses and his mind.

He stopped struggling.

It is said that when a man dies he can see all his life flash before his eyes, as if Death operated by pressing the rewind button on an old VHS recorder.

Aziraphale wasn’t a man and he wasn’t actually dying; nevertheless, during his apparently endless Fall a huge amount of images and sounds flooded his mind, mixing up and chasing one another, presenting him the evidence of all the Sins he had been accused of. Books, tea, Crowley’s eyes, warm wool sweaters, sponge cake, Crowley’s laughter, vinyl records, Crowley’s wit, choosing to help, Crowley’s light-heartedness, choosing to disobey, Crowley’s hands, drinking with Crowley, magic tricks, Crowley’s thoughtfulness, sharing lunches with Crowley, listening to Crowley’s rants, running his fingers through Crowley’s hair, Crowley’s kindness, Crowley.

Crowley was a constant in so many of these thoughts that when a pair of black wings wrapped around Aziraphale’s body he thought for a moment he was only imagining them. Then he thought that he had pictured him so intensely he had accidentally summoned him. Then he thought that of course Crowley was there, ha had promised he would catch him.

Then they crashed.

***

Crowley’s shoulder hit the ground first. He heard the snapping sound of bones breaking, but he immediately willed them back in their place before his body could register the pain.

He held Aziraphale tighter as they tumbled in dirt and dust in a remote, godforsaken corner of Hell.

When they finally came to a stop, all of Crowley’s muscles went limp and he collapsed on his back, trying to steady his breath. Above him, the ground that had recoiled at their passage was closing again, blocking any view of Heaven and the sky, just like it had done thousands and thousands of years before.

It took him a couple of minutes to come to his senses and realize Aziraphale was clenching his shirt, eyes shut tight and face buried in his chest, still bracing for impact.

“Hey,” he said, slowly sitting up. “It’s over. You’re all right. It’s over.” Carefully, as if approaching a wounded animal, he touched Aziraphale’s cheek with the point of his fingers.

When he turned to look at him, startled, Crowley’s stomach dropped.

Beneath Aziraphale’s pale skin soiled by grime and soot, bright red streaks ran through his right arm, starting on his fingertips, climbing his shoulder and his neck and reaching his lobe, branching out like hundreds of tiny capillaries. Still, what struck Crowley the most were Aziraphale’s eyes. In particular what struck him the most were his pupils, them too bright red as if in a photo shot in darkness with a bright flash.

A moment later Aziraphale threw his arms around Crowley’s waist and hid his face in the crook of his neck. His shrill scream pierced through Crowley’s head and through his heart. Crowley felt the urge to squeeze him with all the strength he could muster but, knowing the pain he was in at the moment, he just carefully wrapped his arms around his shoulders and gently caressed the back of his head. He gathered all the energy he could from the Hell that surrounded them and focused it on Aziraphale, hoping it would soothe an ounce of his pain.

“I’m so sorry,” he muttered, feeling Aziraphale shake in his arms and his tears wet his collarbone “I couldn’t stop it. I tried. I didn’t know how.”

He cradled him for what felt like forever, whispering apologies, curses and words of comfort.

Every time he laid eyes on his white wings, broken, bleeding and smouldering, a sharp pain in his chest brought to his mind the idea he was ignoring at all costs: the Aziraphale he had known for six thousand years was gone. Crowley knew too well what Falling felt like, he remembered how deeply and abruptly it had changed him, and the thought that the same thing had happened to his Angel filled him with anger.

Like thousands of years before he felt a surge of loathing towards Heaven and all those who had just decided to ruin the Universe wasting what he knew was the best thing of all Creation. Fury grew in him but he strived to keep still and just clenched his teeth, pressing his lips to the top of Aziraphale’s head, keeping him as close as possible while he could, afraid that the moment he would let him go everything he was dreading would become real.

“They will regret doing this to you,” he hissed “We’re gonna make them pay for this.”

“There is no need.” Aziraphale’s voice was so quiet Crowley barely heard him despite their proximity. Something in it, however, instilled a drop of hope in the middle of his anger and despair.

“What did you say?” he asked, pulling Aziraphale away from his chest just enough to look at his face. The corners of Aziraphale’s mouth were curled into a smile. Crowley looked at him in shock, unable to fully process what he was seeing.

“There is no need,” Aziraphale repeated. “I don’t care. They will leave us alone. I’m all right.”

Crowley gaped at him and cupped his face with shaky hands. Aziraphale’s blue eyes were puffy from crying and the unnaturally red pupils were impossible to ignore, yet they were just as bright, soft and kind as they were the day before.

“It’s you,” Crowley croaked, squeezing Aziraphale’s cheeks in excitement “It’s still you. Actually you. How is it still you?”

“Crowley…” Aziraphale laughed softly, pulling Crowley’s hands away from his face.

“I don’t understand, it can’t be you… You were an angel, you’re not an angel anymore, you’re a demon. Are you a demon? You’re not a demon. Why are you not a demon? Are you still an angel? You should be a demon.”

“Crowley, please.”

“Yes. Slowing down, yes. Just…It’s you,” he sputtered, nearly shaking in exhilaration.

“My dear…” Aziraphale wiped tears off his face with the ripped sleeve of his shirt, then he squeezed Crowley’s hands. “I’ve fallen for you in every way was possible,” he said with a hoarse and weak voice. “If there is something I’ve learned it’s that Grace is overrated. Words like Heaven, Hell, Angel or Demon… They really don’t mean anything. Angels can be cruel, wicked and vengeful. Demons can be loved. I don’t care what Heaven decides to call me, I don’t belong there just like I don’t belong in Hell.”

“But,” Crowley said “It makes no sense. You were an angel and you Fell. Doesn’t that mean that now you are… Just like me?” His lips twitched: after being a demon for millennia putting Aziraphale at his own level felt like the worst blasphemy he had ever spoken.

“Crowley, can’t you see? I have always been.”

Crowley realized he was crying only when Aziraphale caressed his cheek, rubbing a tear away with his thumb. Then he delicately pulled him down towards him and softly kissed his forehead.

It wasn’t a blessing, it couldn’t be, not anymore, yet it felt like one. All of Crowley’s worries and doubts instantly dissolved in the knowledge that Aziraphale would never change, and he breathed a sigh of relief he felt he had been holding for thousands of years.

“Well,” Aziraphale said. “I believe it’s time we go back to Earth, what do you say?”

Crowley nodded with a smile. “Can you walk?”

“I think so.”

“Come on then.” He got to his feet and offered him a hand. “Let’s go home, Angel.”

That would never change either.

***

The sun had already started to set when Aziraphale put on the kettle in the little kitchen in the back of his bookshop. For the first time in millennia of existence he had slept for over twelve hours, slumped on the couch in a position that would have been deleterious to any human being’s back. Admittedly, Aziraphale’s whole body was sore, but he suspected that was mostly due to Falling from Heaven rather than uncomfortable cushions.

A pang of burning pain between his shoulder blades made him wince and almost spill his cup of boiling tea. He moved his head from side to side in hope of releasing some tension.

“It hurts?”

Crowley appeared from behind a bookshelf as if he had summoned him.

“Just a bit,” he answered.

A moment later Crowley had slithered behind him and placed a hand on his back. Aziraphale immediately felt the pain miraculously ease, and he sighed in relief.

“Thank you.” Gratitude warming his chest, he flashed a smile at Crowley, who replied with a dismissive wave and leaned against the counter beside him.

“I threw away your flask of holy water,” he said causally, pretending not to see the dirty look Aziraphale threw at him. “You know, the emergency supply you had in the cabinet upstairs.”

“Crowley, are you out of your mind?” Aziraphale hissed. “What if the lid was unscrewed for whatever reason? What if you dropped it? You could have at least waited for me to wake up.”

Crowley groaned. “Relax, I was careful. Do you have other?”

“Obviously not, I would have told you.” he replied, piqued.

“Angel, you have to stay away from that stuff too, from now on. You know that, right?”

The honest concern in Crowley’s voice softened Aziraphale, who sighed.

“Yes, of course.”

The mirror in the corner made it clear that even though Falling hadn’t had the impact he dreaded on his mind and his heart, it still had changed some things.

He stared in silence at his unfamiliar reflection for a few minutes, sipping from his cup. He followed the red lines on his neck with a finger, frowning.

Crowley bumped his shoulder with his own. “Don’t rack your brains. You’ll get used to it.”

Aziraphale nodded with a slight smile. “I guess I will start wearing turtlenecks.”

“Why not? Might suit you.”

“I’m not gonna lie, the red pupils are a bit creepy. Will I have to wear sunglasses?” He scrunched up his nose “They’re not really my thing.”

“There’s no need. Humans hardly ever notice,” Crowley scuffed. “You look fine anyway. I mean, your eyes. They’re nice. I mean. Red pupils, kinda cool. Yeah.” He coughed.

“For crying out loud, wear whatever you want, that’s my point.”

Aziraphale finished his tea. He put the cup down on the counter and took a deep breath.

“Thank you, Crowley. For everything. Really, I owe you so much.”

“Shut up.” Crowley crossed his arms and turned away from Aziraphale, but he was still able to catch a pleased smile.

They stood there for a few minutes, enjoying the comfort of each other’s company.

Crowley was the one who broke the silence clearing his throat.

“Angel,” he said tentatively, gazing at the floor “That thing you said yesterday…”

Aziraphale tilted his head towards him. “I’ve said a lot of things yesterday. It was a pretty eventful day.”

“You know, about… me. Well, you. And me. What you said. About what you felt.”

“The fact that I love you?”

Crowley cleared his throat again. “That’s the thing.”

“What about it?” Aziraphale asked, feeling his chest tightening slightly.

Crowley kept his head down but glanced at him out of the corner of his eyes.

“Did you mean it?”

Aziraphale looked at him with a fond smile.

“With all my soul.”

Crowley pursed his lips and nodded.

“Is it still true?”

“Why?” Aziraphale asked “Can’t Fallen angels love?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Aziraphale stepped away from the counter and placed himself in front of Crowley, leaning in to catch his eyes.

“It would make sense, though, Gabriel told me so. Could a demon ever love?”

He batted his lashes with a naïve expression. Crowley leaned back and kept shifting his gaze from the floor to the wall to the ceiling, unable to suppress a grin.

“You bastard,” he said. “Stop it, I know what you’re doing.”

“What?” Aziraphale teased, “You’re the expert here, I’m only asking questions.”

“You’re a natural at this, aren’t you?” Crowley laughed. He placed his hands on Aziaphale’s shoulders and softly pushed him away.

“Okay, fine,” he sighed. “Yes, I know first-hand that a demon can love. A whole lot, as a matter of fact.”

“First-hand, you say?” Aziraphale beamed, scrunching his nose.

Crowley rolled his eyes. “Come on, you’ve always known,” he muttered.

“I might have suspected it, yes,” Aziraphale said. He gently caressed his cheek, feeling warmth spread under his touch.

“Good Lord, are you crying now, my dear?”

“I’m not,” Crowley lied, burying his face in his neck.

“There, there, it’s all right.” Aziraphale wrapped his arms around him with a laugh.

The burning pain in his back where his wings would be still hadn’t worn out and seeing his own reflection in the mirror still felt somehow wrong.

Yet, in that moment, Aziraphale felt the closest to Heaven he had felt in thousands of years.

#good omens #good omens fic #fallen aziraphale #ineffable husbands #i can't believe i finished i may or may not have cried while writing this #i write stuff

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thisbitchinthecorner · 5 years

Text

Roughly 7 minutes after the End of the World that wasn’t part 2

“We’re fucked!”

Aziraphale turns to look back at the group of children clustered together, Pepper, Brian and Wensleydale watch, eyes wide with fear, as the Archangel and Prince of Hell transform into their celestial forms. Adam Young, The Antichrist, stands right behind him and Crowley, the young boy quietly absorbing all that is unfolding around him, but his only concern seems to the be supposed Hell Hound trembling at his feet. Do something Crowley! He thinks to himself. He closes his eyes and as he opens them, he feels an intense light shining down from Heaven, one he has not felt for 6000 years.

“Aziraphale, Guardian of the Eastern Gate, I see you found the sword I gave you.” God’s voice broke upon him like the crescendo of a symphony; leaving him shaking with both joy and despair.

“Oh! Well, yes.” He stumbled over his words. “But that’s not important. You got my message! Thank the Lor...I mean, thank you!”

“Aziraphale, what is it that you want me to do?” God asked plainly.

“What I want you to do? Right! What I want you do is to stop this! The world doesn’t need to end!” He waved his arms erratically. “That boy is The Antichrist, and by some miracle, he refuses to start the apocalypse. But Gabriel is convinced that this war must happen, and now he and Beelzebub will stop at nothing to see that Heaven and Hell have their way. But you can stop this, all of it!” He pleads with desperation coursing through his voice.

“Aziraphale, what if this is the Great Plan, the Ineffable Plan, and all of this is meant to happen?” God asked calmly.

“I cannot believe that you would destroy humanity just to settle a proverbial score.” He argued, his voice shaking. “They do not deserve to die. Humans are inherently good and filled with wonder. They have created so many beautiful things; music, art, language, food and books, so many wonderful stories they have told over the centuries! They are curious and constantly seeking understanding and knowledge, and that has given them grace and their lives meaning. How can you destroy so many miracles made from their own hands?”

“Aziraphale, you, more than anyone, must know how much the human mean to me.” God’s voice offered him some measure of comfort.

“So...you will stop all of this then?” He asked hopefully.

“Yes, Aziraphale. I will stop this and set things right.” God soothed.

He let out a shriek of joy; his hands clasped together and a brilliant smile flashed across his face. “Oh thank you my Lord! You truly are merciful!”

“I will return the world to the way it was yesterday. What has been done will be undone. I will return the angels to Heaven, with the exception one exception, and banish the demons back to Hell.” God declared triumphantly.

He paused for a moment. “All...all the demons will be sent back to Hell?”

“Yes,” God replied. “All of them.”

“But what about Crowley? Surely you do not intend to banish him to Hell.” The very thought made him ill.

“He is a demon, he belongs in Hell, Aziraphale.” God stated coolly.

“Crowley doesn’t belong in Hell! I mean, he is a demon, but he’s not...he’s not like the rest of them.” He protested.

“Aziraphale, are you saying that he belongs in Heaven?” God’s voice raised in tone ever so slightly.

“Oh goodness no!” He nearly laughed at the idea of Crowley strolling into Heaven with his ridiculously tight pants, low cut shirt and flashy watch, asking Michael for a high-five and languishing seductively over a plush chaise he miracles into existence. “No, he belongs on earth, he’s been living among humans for well, for as long as I have.”

“He has,” God began. “And he’s been corrupting them for as long as he’s been on earth. You remember it was Crowley who tempted Eve to eat the apple. It was him who set all of this into motion. So, in reality, everything that is happening now is directly his doing.”

“In his defense, you did put the forbidden tree in the very center of Eden. Seems to me they would have succumbed to temptation even without Crowley’s influence.” He daringly argued.

“Aziraphale, Crowley is a demon, he is Fallen, and despite what you believe, he deserves to be in Hell.” God reasoned.

“But Hell is angry with him over this business over the mixup with The Antichrist. They will not be pleased with the canceling of the apocalypse.” A shudder went down his spine as he considered what Hell would do to Crowley as a result of his betrayal.

“Aziraphale, I fail to see how that is a concern to you.” God remarked. “What Hell chooses to do with one of their own shouldn’t concern you.”

“Except it does, in fact, concern me. Greatly.” He could hardly conceal his growing anger. “They will destroy him for what he has done for humanity. For what he has done for me.”

“And what has he done for you?” God asked.

“Crowley has been there every time I needed help. He’s saved me more times that I can even count.” His memories go back to the little village decimated by the Black Plague where he nearly discooporated due to illness, to The Bastille where he was nearly beheaded, to Nazi occupied London where he was nearly shot, to a dark alley in the late 1980’s where he was nearly beaten to death; every single one of those moments could have been his last, had it not been for the miraculous appearance of a certain demon. “He’s been there for me. He’s always been there for me.” The words kept coming, and he could scarcely stop himself from speaking. “It was Crowley who came to my rescue time and time again. Crowley who convinced me to try to stop the apocalypse. Crowley who was there for me when Heaven turned their backs on me.”

“Aziraphale, it sounds as if you have affection for him.” God questioned, and he could feel God’s judgement upon him. But he would not be diminished, not anymore.

“If it sounds that way, it’s because I do.” He snapped. “I have more affection for a demon than I do for my own kind. When was the last time an angel offered me any kindness? Heaven treats me like a joke; they belittle and mock me.”

“I am not altering my decision on this, Aziraphale. If you want to save the earth, then Crowley must be sent to Hell. With demon influence, this same scenario will continue to occur, time and time again.”

“You’re asking me to sacrifice Crowley, to damn him to utter destruction at the hands of Hell to save the world?” He clenched his fists and nearly drew blood from biting his lip so hard.

“I am. But for that sacrifice, you will have the earth and all its splendors. You will have it’s music, art, language, food and books. You will be free from Heaven’s scorn and free to enjoy yourself. Be thankful that I am giving you this opportunity, thankful that I have not cast you out for your indiscretions. I am giving you this reward for your many years of loyal service to making humanity inherently good. Choose carefully, Aziraphale.”

“Then my answer is no. I won’t sacrifice Crowley. I won’t abandon him! You might not care what happens to him, but I most certainly do.” He is filled with defiance now, filled with an anger that he had never experienced before, but now that he had unleashed it, there was no stopping him.

“Not even to save all of mankind? How can one demon be worth all of this?” God’s voice roared back.

“Look at him right now! Just look! Crowley is going to fight Gabriel and Beelzebub with nothing more than some busted car part, and you have the nerve to say he is the cause of humanity’s downfall? He is their savior and protector! He and I, we are the only ones fighting for the earth. We’re the only ones fighting for what is right!” He gestured to the frozen scene playing out before him: Gabriel about to unfurl his final wings, The Prince of Hell raising his cursed bow and Crowley, still in human form, brandishing a bent piece of metal with as much menace as he could muster.

“Surely you know you cannot win against them. But if you somehow make it out of this alive, Gabriel will see you punished for siding with a demon, and he will not show mercy.” God said with a knowing arrogance.

“I would rather face Heaven’s judgement and die a traitor’s death than betray Crowley!” He spat bitterly.

“Why would you choose to die for this demon?” God roared angrily.

“Because I love him!” He screamed as loudly as he could, and he immediately gasped at the boldness of his own words. He repeated them quietly to himself. “Because I love him.” He looked at Crowley, frozen in time, standing beside him in triumphant glory; poised to defend him and everything he holds dear. He studied the sharp angles of his face, the cascade of fiery red hair that seemed almost ablaze in the evening sunlight, the intensity in his eyes visible even under his dark sunglasses, the trail of freckles that formed over centuries of sunshine that traced along his cheek, spilling onto his neck and down his clavicle. He sighed, drew in a breath and steadied himself before continuing. “I know who I am and I know where I belong. I was afraid before, afraid of what Heaven would think, about what you would think, but I’m not afraid anymore. I love Crowley, and I have loved him for so long that I cannot remember a time when he did not hold my heart. Where he is is where I belong. For you see, I am not only the Guardian of the Eastern Gate, I am the Principality Aziraphale, and along with Demon Anthony J. Crowley, we are the Protectors of humanity, and we will stand together to defend the earth against anyone or anything that threatens our home. Because that is who we are, and earth is where we belong, and we belong together. Me and him. I would rather die fighting by his side, than live in a world without him. For we are together; we are on our own side. I don’t care what Gabriel thinks, he can lick my ass if he doesn’t like it!” He thought for a moment, or was it kiss?

“That is your decision then, Aziraphale?” God asked flatly.

“Yes. That is my decision.” He stood proudly, chest heaving as his hand still firmly gripped the sword. “Furthermore, if you’re going to damn me and cast me out, could you kindly wait until all of this is finished, because I’m in the middle of something important. I cannot simply die without telling Crowley that I love him.”

“Very well.” God’s voice softened. “And Aziraphale, it’s about time, don’t you think?”

“Oh?” He fumbled for words, unsure how to respond. Just as he attempted to process God’s final words, he felt a wave of intense love wash upon him; sending him reeling and filling his eyes with tears. “Thank you, my Lord.” He whispers quietly and as soon as it began, the bright light radiating from the clouds dimmed, and time began again.

He turns his attention away from the terrors before him, and shifted his gaze towards the slender figure beside him.

“Aziraphale,” Crowley began. “There is something I must tell you.”

“I know.” He says, as he lowers his sword while turning towards the demon. “There is something I must tell you too. And I’m afraid it cannot wait.” He swallows hard before continuing. “I’m sorry, my dear, I’m sorry for being a complete fool and for making you wait. I love you. More specifically, I am in love with you, and I have been for a very long time. I was afraid of what Hell would do to you and what Heaven would do to me. But none of that matters anymore. All that matters to me right now is you.”

Crowley smiles as he removes his sunglasses, revealing his golden eyes. “Took you long enough.” Crowley laughs while reaching out his hand toward him. “Angel, you are, and always have been, the love of my life.”

He reaches towards the demon-his demon and gently threads his fingers between Crowley’s, giving his hand a gentle squeeze.

“Time to finish this?” He asks with a smile.

“I believe it is, my angel.” Crowley says as he raises his tire iron and points it towards the wrathful creatures in front of them. “Ready to die?”

“I am now.” He nods as he grips Crowley’s hand tighter. “By your side.”

......

#ineffable husbands #good omens #crowley #aziraphale #justenoughofabastardtobeworthknowing

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bonesthebeloved · 5 years

Text

Of sunsets and Evening gowns - a Good Omens fanfic

@punk-aziraphale I thought you might like this???

count: 5772

Summary: A brief history of a fallen angel, his soulmate, his struggle with gender and a ineffable happy ending

TRIGGER/SQUIK WARNING: Period typical trans/homophobia, crying, emotional distress, discription of pain (the fall), mention of food (if I forgot any, feel free to point them out to me)

Story:

He'd always rather enjoyed sunsets.

One of the almighty her better inventions; colours bleeding through the sky and shadows stretched long and dark, the red and orange and deep purple hitting the objects in the light's way to the earth underneath his feet, wrapping them in the soft glow of the last hours of the day.

Now that he thought of it, he wasn't quite sure if God herself had created the colourful wave of goodbye the sun gave the earth every time it turned.

It must've been another angel, She had never been one for details like these.

And maybe it was well known who had created it!

Dawn and Dusk, morning and evening.

Yes, maybe it was. Though he wouldn't know either way.

He'd never really had contact with the others, too far off in the galaxy creating stars and nebulas to be around them much and always getting ushers away from them when he got too close.

'I want to see what they are making,' he had said. Well, not really. Back then they didn't really have a voice. Or something that could be considered a body, for that matter.

'Don't dwell on them, brother,' had been his answer. 'They are lesser, as we are the ones that give shape to the divine plan.'

Back then, when everything had still been peaceful and emotions and actions were being named left and right, he had agreed with his brother. Simply because, in the short time that the emotion had existed, he had felt nothing but annoyance for Gabriel.

A few years went by (after someone had gone through the trouble of naming them just that) before he returned to earth, his newest creations merely small white dots in the endless dark of the night sky as he sat on what would soon be called the wall of Eden, the feet of his now human-shaped form, dangling over the edge of it as he looked out over the garden;

The trees and flowers and water and dirt still untouched by any living creature except for the angel that brought them into existence.

"Brother, what are you doing here? Gabriel has been asking for you."

The term brother didn't feel as if it were fitting for his relationship with the other archangels. Not really.

Though a different term for what they would then be hadn't been invented yet and he didn't bother doing it himself.

"Hello, Lucifer. Sorry for worrying you. Was just curious 'bout what the other angels have been so busy creating down here. Seems like it's quite a lot."

"That it does, Raphael."

"You ever wonder what this is all supposed to be for? Her, creating all of this just to test the humans I mean?"

Lucifer sat down next to him now, a reserved expression on his face, both of their wings brushing the stone beneath them where they were stretched comfortably behind them. There was no reason to hide their wings. Not yet anyway.

"Every day I wonder brother. You're not alone in your doubts. I overheard her saying terrible things: Talk of death and disease. Of war and hunger. I wonder why she would subject any creature of her own making to such cruelty. Wonder if the souls that will be lost due to her testing would mean anything to Her. And, if they do not, if ours don't do so either."

Lucifer had always had a way with words. Good at getting what he wanted when he wanted it by carefully selecting them and twisting them into complex puzzles which one would only figure out when listening to them a couple of times.

Raphael nodded in agreement before actually realising he was doing so.

But there were more important things about this that he should have realised.

Like how Lucifer was more manipulative than he was simply pushy. That he had him wrapped around his finger and, that with that simple nod, he had signed for his own execution.

***

He liked to tell others that he didn't really fall. That it hadn't hurt him as much as it had the others and that he went on his accords; only because he wanted to go and not so much because God had cast him out.

But when one hits the ground so harshly, any fragile human would have died on impact, his wings burning and burning and his sight gone, body heat dropping rapidly, there is not much else one could do except scream in pure agony.

After what felt like double the time he had been alive for until then -which had been quite a while- he regained his vision again, now able to see significantly better in the dark and make out his wings, black as night and every movement hurting him so severely he was certain he had burns all over the muscles and fat underneath the burned mass of feathers.

It wasn't crowded, not yet anyhow.

Lucifer and he had fallen first.

'To show the others that She will have no mercy,' his brother had said. The darkness around them so dark that it hid what he had become or currently was becoming.

Once more angels fell, he asked his brother what they'd do now. Though before he could even get past the last vowel of his name he heard Lucifer hiss at him as if the mere mention of his name had hurt him.

'We can't keep our old names brother. They are God-given and will, therefore, do us harm. Demons aren't made to have anything angelic.'

The word 'demon' had never been used before that exact moment. Though as it rolled off of his brother's tongue, Raphael knew that that was exactly what they were...

***

He got the job just four days after falling.

Lucifer, who now called himself Satan and who Raphael no longer saw as anything close to a brother (or an ally and trustworthy person for that matter) telling him to 'cause some trouble' as that was what they were now meant to be doing.

He was happy to leave; Hell (which is what they had called their new home) had gotten awfully crowded and, as the boundaries had disappeared with angels falling from the sky, way too touchy for his liking. He'd refused a position of power after being offered one. Had refused to rule alongside Satan or do anything that would elevate his status in any way. So Satan, seeing no other use for him, had given him a mission and it was so that he made his way to earth for the very first time since the fall.

He searched out a reflective surface -in this case, a large body of water he would later learn was called a lake- as soon as he arrived, finally able to see what he looked like and if he had changed anywhere near as severely as Lucifer had done.

He hadn't, it turned out. His skin was not red and burned like his brother's was and in almost every way he looked the same as he had done before the fall. Maybe dishevelled and wearing black, ash stained clothing instead of the pure and clinical white he'd worn before, though the same none the less,

That is, nearly everything.

He stared at his reflection. Yellow, reptile-like eyes staring back at him, unblinking. The slits thin and fearful looking. The yellow having driven away every bit of white in his eyes.

He hadn't found it so bad at first. Had almost found them charming in the way they reminded him of his creations, the only animal-like creatures he had created that slithered through the trees and winded their elegant bodies around the branches, scales shimmering in the sunlight.

After hearing about how there was only one rule he could have the newly made humans break to satisfy Lucifer's urging on to make them break as many as possible, it only seemed logical to turn into one of his serpent friends and tempt the curious Eve to eat an apple.

***

The angel was strange.

For starters, he knew that they were supposed to be enemies. That the divine had urged them all on to smite every demon within smithing range.

What he also knew though, was that Aziraphale would not be doing any smithing and that hiding from the rain under an angel's wing was comfortable and way more so than he had deemed appropriate for all of his four days in Hell.

Another thing he did know was that, as soon as the name Crawley had left his lips, rolling off his tongue while they watched the humans set their first steps outside of the garden, was that he didn't like it. It almost sounded like an insult to him and to the lovely creatures Eve was so kind as to give the name 'snakes' to.

Of course, he wouldn't ask Aziraphael what his name was before a good hundred years had passed. That he technically didn't have to ask as he had somehow known it before he had even crawled up on the wall of Eden was beside the point.

***

The relationship they formed over the decennia, over thousands of years, was something that transcended human description.

Some might call them lovers when seeing them walk alongside each other in the park or dine at yet another small establishment Crowley had found for them. Maybe it was the way Aziraphale always called him dear in that soft, endearing ton of his or maybe it was because Crowley had called Aziraphale angel so many times it had led to the humans making it a pet name of their own after one of them overheard him saying it.

Others would call them friends. With the way, they always were there for each other and could talk for hours and hours with a good bottle of wine. Discussions going on deep into the night about the memories they had made.

The ones who called them soulmates would probably be the ones closest to an even vaguely accurate explanation.

The way they felt lost when the other was gone. How they seemed to know every quirk and every thought and the thought process behind it so well it seemed to others as if they had invented telepathy.

And yet, Aziraphale always seemed just out of reach.

When Crowley asked for them to go to a restaurant the first time, he got shot down with a dismissive wave and an awkward laugh,

When he asked again about three-hundred years later, he got a soft 'You go to fast for me Crowley' in return and proceded to wrack his brain over that sentence. He had goten drunk and sobered up and got drunk again and had talked to his plants while they shook in fear, their owner rambling on about those seven words. Speculating if it was only ment to be about the speed at which he drove and if it wasn't, what the angel had ment by it otherwise.

It had taken him hours and several bottles of various types of alcohol to come to the conclusion that, if it meant something other than him using the entirety of his bentley's speedometer, that he would just wait and see how their relationship progressed.

***

Crowley and Aziraphale, just like all angels and demons, were both technically genderless.

Both of them had corperations which would be considered male though. And because they also tended to dress in mostly masculine ways (Crowely had once told the angel that the only reason for that was that most mens clothing was way more comfortable) and they had both chosen a male presenting bodies, they were spoken to as such and neither of them really minded.

But Crowley had always loved mixing it together.

'Womans' pants and skirt he liked he would buy without even thinking about the ridiculous gendering of things.

His 'experiments' had gotten less risky over the milenia as humans started to develop genderrolls and he was burned at the stake for wearing a lovely lightgrey and black dress in 1652. Aziraphale was still convinced that the burning had taken place because of the fire that had been floating just above Crowley's palm which he was using to heat up his tea with. But he could also admit that the wonderfully crafted dress probably hadn't helped his case.

The very first time (which also turned out to be the last time for quite a while) that Aziraphale had actually been there to witness Crowley's bolder fashin choices (the demon would laugh in your face for calling a certain piece of fabric a 'bold choice') had been in the 80's.

A riot in Germany surrounding the wall that seperated the country in two had driven them both away and so they found themselves fleeing from their respective places to go to the safehouse they had created for the two of them somewhere in the late 20's.

England, which is were the lovely little cottage was located, was completely safe at the time, so, after greeting eachother with a handshake and a smile (Crowley had to restrain herself from giving the angel a hug.) they decided on going to one of their newest discoveries: A small restaurant in an alleyway lit with fairy lights where they sold the most wonderful creme brulé.

Aziraphale was already waiting for the demon when she finally came out of her room, hands twisting nervously in the material of the slightly flowy skirt. The fabric looked like some very light cotton, the jet black thing having a high waistband that made the dark grey button-up she had tucked into it poof up a little.

With her currently delightfully long and partly braided hair completing the look Aziraphale had a hard time keeping his hands to himself as Crowley gave him an anxious smile, eyes flickering from Aziraphale to the floor, to the wall and back to Aziraphale again.

"You look wonderful my dear. Come on now, dinner awaits."

The angel knew, of course, that this was the first time Crowley wore anything considered too feminine for a mostly male presenting person to wear since that dicorperation about 360 years ago.

What Aziraphale also knew though, was that his companion looked positively deligtful and so very fragile in the way she kept adjusting the skirt. He would try to make sure the fragilness would be replaced with confidence even if it was the last thing he did.

So he stuck out his arm, offering it to the demon with a small smile. It quickly turning into a wide grin as Crowley reluctantly took it and smiled back at him as he opened the door for the both of them.

"Shall we then, my dear?"

***

Humans could be cruel.

He had realised this many times in the past and would realise it again on many occasion in the future.

That didn't mean that he was prepared in the slightest for what waited for his partner outside of the bookshop.

Slur after slur was thrown her way. Their way, in some occasions of people taking note of their linked arms. Pebbles and food was thrown at Crowley (all of it miraculously missing her of course) and glare after glare, whisper after wisper he saw the small smile slide of off her lips,

Hadn't it been for Aziraphale letting go off the simple spell that kept his ethernal form hidden and showing some rather rude gentelmen his true form, Crowley would have actually been assaulted. (That she could very well defend herself or, if need be, simply transform into a snake and slither away from them, did not occur to him.)

They returned to the bookshop before less than an hour had passed between that moment and them first exiting it.

They hadn't gone to the restaurant and Aziraphale now had a firm arm around Crowley who was strangely quiet, even her slightly too fast intakes of breath being nearly unnoticable.

"My dear, are you alri-" "It'sssss fine angel. I'm doing sssssuper."

Crowley seemed to get slightly mad after the last part, Harshly ripping the skirt off and miracled herself into a large black hoodie and some jeans. She pulled her legs up and curled up on the couch rather then taking on her usual position of laying sprawled out over it in the most obnoxious way possible, hair now up in a messy bun that made the angel itch to undo it and run his hands through her hair.

Aziraphale watched her, a sad smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as he nodded and silently went to make his demon some tea.

He had just poured the water into the cups as he felt something nudging his left pants leg, looking down just in time to see the end of a scaled black tail before the head of a rather large snake peeked over the counter to look at him. The snake reluctantly slithering towards the angel's outstretched hand after a while.

"Oh! Hello there beauty" Aziraphale's voice was barely above a whisper as he spoke to the snake, carefully petting her head before letting her wind herself around his arm and drape over his shoulders comfortably, size seeming to be significantly smaller as she had been a second ago.

Aziraphale simply smiled and ran a hand over the smooth scales before picking up the two mugs and carrying them (and the serpent) towards his rarely used bedroom rather than towards the couch they had previously been sitting on.

The snake (or rather, Crowley as a snake, let's not beat around the bush here) hissed quietly in a manner that the angel identified as one of unease, resulting in Aziraphale quietly explaining that she needed some rest.

And thus the cups were set down, Aziraphale miracled himself into some rather comfy pyjamas (He still prefered to sleep nude, though he didn't think Crowley would apprechiate that very much at that particular moment) and the demon lay rolled up comfortably in the angels arms, yellow eyes with dialated pupils lazily looking up at him before blinking shut.

The angel laid them both down carefully, shifting the serpent in his arms to make sure they were both comfortable. He was sure that Crowley had fallen asleep by the time he whispered a soft 'you looked wonderful in that skirt my dear.' And then, ten minutes later, he finally felt able to say the rest: "I hope you know that I love you, no matter what form, body or clothing, I always will."

After ten long seconds of silence, Aziraphale already accepting that he wouldn't get a reply and have made peace with the fact that it simply was a conversation for another time, felt Crowley slowly shift back into her human form and, once she was fully changed, wrap her arms around the angel.

He didn't get a verbal reply back then. Didn't get one for a long time after that either. But angels weren't anything if not patient. And it was alright.

He could live with it. He hadn't been pushed away or told of after all.

***

Crowley, for all the years he had loved Aziraphale in a way that couldn't just be explained with a simple 'I love you' was utterly useless when it came to telling the other that the feeling of love wat mutual. Nothing really changed after that evening after all. Thought Crowley didn't wear skirts again up until it being his desguise in their plan to prevent Armagedon.

He didn't say anything about the confession Aziraphale had made up until Armaged-oh-never-mind and a bit after that.

He didn't say anything until four months after said even had not taken place and he and the angel had decided that today was an excelent day to visit Anathema. The Them had just left, Adam giving them both a wide and highly un-Antichrist-like grin as Pepper rambled on about how they ought to make mudpies this time instead of the horendous stone and sand filled cake they'd made last time Wensleydale wanted to play bakery.

Anathema had told the two celestial beings to go sit in the back room and make themselves comfortable while she and Newt prepared dinner and so they sat, watching the raindrops on the windows when Aziraphale started the conversation.

"Do you remember what it was like? Heaven, I mean. I've heard of demons forgetting everything before the fall and we've never talked about it before but I fell as if... You talk about certain things, like the stars and the galaxy as if you watched them be created and I- Oh dear is this a bad subject?"

Crowley knew the last part had been added because of how pale he had gotten. How still he was sitting.

Crowley also knew that, how much easier it would be to lie put aside, he would never do that to Aziraphale.

So he secured himself. Mentally hiding away in his little bomb shelter and hoping for the best.

"Yeah, most of them forgot. Memory wiped. Clean slate and all that. I... remember though. Not everything of course, and it took me a he- heav- an awfully long time to recover them.

I remember... I remember the fall. How it felt. The creations we all put into the world..."

Aziraphale, though he'd pulled away, backpaddled as soon as he realised this topic was making his partner highly uncomfortable, latched onto the new conversation topic like a predator to its prey.

"What was your favourite creation then?"

Crowley thought for a moment, Snakes had been It by a long shot had you asked him 6000 years ago. But times change, and so do celestial beings. And his hatred for the snake eyes that had always made him not able to fit in just right ran deep.

"I quite enjoy the Nebula's I helped create. Alpha Centaury still has that little something that just pulls me towards it. Two stars always circling until they will eventually collide and become one, go down together."

"Wasn't Alpha Centaury-" "The one I asked you to run away to? Yeah. A bit selfish of me to pick my own I know."

Aziraphale stayed very quiet as Crowley watched how the raindrops ran down the glass. Grey clouds obscuring the sunset that should be happening right about now and putting a slight damper on the contentness he felt.

"...Did- Didn't the archangels create all the stars, my dear boy?"

Ah, that's what he had been forgetting then. He looked at Aziraphale out of the corner of his reptilian eye, seeing how the angel was watching him closely.

"Crowley?" he turned his head now, meeting his partners gaze head-on at that specific moment felt nearly as difficult as it had been to walk on the holiest of grounds in the body that wasn't his to undergo an execution which he knew would fail. Nearly.

"Crowley were you- and don't lie to me, my dear. We're you-"

He must've said it. Crowley was sure of it. But he hadn't heard it.

The word forbidden, burning him like a red hot iron rod would have done. And Aziraphale must've noticed him hissing. Watched him crumble and catch his breath as if he'd just been punched.

"Crowley?"

"Yeah. Fine- I'm fine. I jussst-whatss the he-heav-ssssomthing! What was that? "

"I don't know. Are you alright?" and then, once he was sure Crowley was not harmed in any way: "And I know I'm pushy my dear but this is important. Are y-" Crowley silenced him with a hiss and a warning finger. Eyes wide and panicked.

"Don't- don't say that. The name. I- It hurts me."

"So... So you are-"

"Yeah. I guess I- I don't know angel. Whatever you said, whatever name must be correct as otherwise, it wouldn't have-... Yeah. The name is the only thing I could never remember."

Aziraphale kept silent, simply looking at him with a strange sort of sadness in his eyes. Maybe a bit of betrayal.

" I'm sorry I never told you, angel. I was just... Scared, I guess. "

The other nodded, still sitting very still and watching him. Behind them, thunder rumbled as the sky darkened.

"W-what was your favourite? Creation I mean."

The angel gave him a sad smile at the change of topic and reached out, wanting to pat his hand, though decided against it and laid his own on the armrest instead.

"I always quite liked the pufferfish I made. Funny creatures, those things.

Though sunsets are my favourite I believe. The pretty colours making up the golden hour, quite proud of those."

Crowley, who had been fidgeting with one of his jacket pockets, looked up sharply, staring at the angel for a hot second before blurting out 'you made the sunset?' immediately followed by a quick 'sorry' as he realised how blunt that sounded.

Though Aziraphale only looked happily surprised at the reaction, glad he could lend the other a distraction.

"I did. Always found it too boring so I threw some colours in. I'm not sure Emanuel was happy with me playing around with his morning and evening concept but it made the humans smile once they saw it so I think it was worth it."

"Sunsets have always been my favourite thing about the earth," Crowley said without really being able to stop himself.

"I've always wondered who would think of such a thing. Looking back I suppose it should be obvious that you would be that angel. You've always been the only creative one out of all the bastards up there."

They both laughed at that, light and unbothered as the raindrops raced each other down the glass.

" I meant what I said in the 80s you know. "

The topic change came sudden and made Crowley forget that his human body needed air for a few moments.

It was said with such intense casualty. The meaning carefully woven through the words and tone one that would be normal if this had been said mere hours, or perhaps days, after that confession. Not nearly forty years.

"About me loving you no matter what, I mean. We do need to talk about you being... Them. Someday, that is. But not now if you don't want to. And I do get it if you don't want to be associated with me like that. But I wanted you to know so you-" "Angel"

Aziraphale looked at him, cutting his nervous ramble short, eyes round, blown wide as he let Crowley take his hand.

There were so many ways he had told the angel that he cared about him deeply without having said 'I love you'.

He didn't think it was needed. That there were better ways of showing it. Like dinners and offers for a lift home. Like picking up a signed copy of a book that the angel just happened to be looking for for the last few months and like an offer to stay at his flat while the both of them sat on a bench in a small village.

And perhaps, for him there were. But Aziraphale needed the confirmation. Needed those words so he would stop doubting what they had was special.

"Aziraphale..."

He said again, a small smile tugging at his lips."I love you to angel."

Said celestial seemed to suddenly relax as if all of the air had been let out of him. Like a deflating balloon, as his face lit up with a smile so bright Crowley felt the need to reach for his shades that sat on the table beside them.

"Oh thank the lord-" (Crowley whispered a quick 'she had nothing to do with it' under his breath at that) "-Then I won't have to return this." And with one fluid movement, he pulled out a little velvet black box.

"Zira... Is that-" "A wedding ring yes you're correct." "And you want to-... With me?"

Aziraphale smile got possibly even brighter as he nodded enthusiastically. "As if I would ever give it to anybody else. I thought, as we are already bound to each other for life and both care about each other very much, why not get married!"

"You-I- we can't- demon?"

"Crowley, if you're about to say that we can't because of our respective sides, let me remind you of a certain conversation we've had about us being on our own side."

"No, Zira I didn't--well, I did but that's not what I wanted to say."

What Crowley actually had wanted to say, would have been something along the lines of 'I've been dropping hint for 6000 FUCKING YEARS angel but to straight-up ask me to marry you might be moving a bit to fast even for me.' or perhaps 'Of course I'll say yes angel don't give and never have given two shits about what above or down under think now please show me the ring or I might cry.'

Though what actually came out of the demon's mouth, was sputtering and a slightly chocked up sound, Aziraphale merely waiting for his response to get somewhat closer to becoming words, the little black ring box still closed in his slightly outstretched hand.

"Can I... Can I see it? The ring I mean."

"Oh, of course, my dear. Though I must warn you, it's a bit cheesy. If you truly don't like it we can always go get ourselves some new ones."

When Crowley opened the little box, a high pitched noise came out of his throat, the only thing he could manage was to simply stare down at the ring.

Two light gold angel wings, tips and basses touching to form a perfectly round circle Crowley was sure to fit like a glove once he put it on. The represented his angel, of course.

"Aziraphale, I-" "It's alright if you don't like it. That's not what it's about after all but-" "No angel, I love it. It's beautiful but I-well I've had this for so long and I didn't know you would-... Well, beat me to the punch I suppose."

At that he reached into his inner pocket to pull out a pure white box, the thing having sat in the pocket for such a long time that the angel has stopped noticing that there was something there.

The demon opened the box, revealing a simple silver band, a small and incredibly detailed black snake wrapping around it two times.

" Crowley is that-" "An engagement ring? Yes. I should've asked sooner, or at least told you but... Well, I'm not the best at expressing any sorts of love."

"Well then, we better get on with it then, right?" the angel said, giving Crowley a nervous smile before getting down on one knee.

Both of them were too wrapped up at the moment to notice Anathema standing by the door, leaning against the doorframe as she watched the scene unfold.

" Anthony J. Crowley." Aziraphale started, watching as the fond little smile on the demons faces morphed into a full-on, gleeful grin. "I've known you since the very beginning, we've gone through literally everything together and while no human word would be able to accurately describe what we are to each other, I've found that the word soulmate to be a term I've grown quite fond of when referring to you in my head. We've known each other since the very beginning and will continue to know each other till the very end. This human formality is not necessary in any way. But 'my husband' or 'my wife' has always had a nice ring to it for me and I'm certain it would feel like just another type of connection we'd share.

So Crowley. Anthony J- demon- Crowley, will you marry me?"

Crowley's world seemed to be nearly as frozen as it had been when he had actually stopped time.

He was aware of his heart thumping very fast, almost obnoxiously so, seeing as it technically had no purpose whatsoever. He was aware of the sound of the drops hitting the cemented tiles on Anathema her terras and was fully and wholeheartedly aware that neither of those things should be holding his attention right now.

"I-yeah. Yes of course angel."

Aziraphale. Even as Crowley didn't dem it possible, smiled even brighter as he had before, a bit of his angelic grace momentarily slipping through, the faint outlines of wings shimmering in the air behind his back.

He hugged Crowley then, soft curls tickeling his counterparts neck as his face lay buried in his neck.

Now, it's important that you are aware of a certain quirk that our angel has. Aziraphale, when extremely happy or content, would accidentally influence his surroundings. Not that a poor man suddenly winning the lottery with the single ticket he'd bought or every rose in the garden blooming in mid-winter was a particularly bad thing, it was just rather odd to most bystanders. And, because Crowley had experienced such phenomenon before and was fully aware of the possibility of it happening at that moment he was only mildly surprised when it stopped raining and every flower in Anathema's garden opened up at once.

"Aziraphale?" they were still hugging, Crowley resting his chin on his angel's shoulder, Anathema smiling and slipping away (before either of them could notice her) to go and get the two of them a slice of cake by their tea as a form of celebration.

"Yes, my dear boy?"

"What would you say if I were to wear a dress to our wedding?"

Aziraphale felt like a bit of his heart melted at the fragile tone that barely covered up layers and layers of insecurities his demon had hid away for so long it had become another part of his personality.

"I would tell you that I would be absolutely delighted and quite sure that you would look all kinds of wonderful Crowley."

The demon made a little happy noise in the back of his throat muffled by the angles shoulder as he watched the last of the raindrops race each other down the glass and a soft breeze swept away the clouds to reveal the sun setting between the trees of Anathema's garden.

And the evening sky tinted red and yellow as the sun sank down, at peace with the world she was leaving behind.

#good omens #good omens fic #Fanfiction #Fanwork #aziraphale #Crowley #Aziraphale/crowley #Raphael! Crowley #Proposal #weddingproposal #fallen angel #amgel #demon #neilman

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spootiliousrps · 5 years

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Satan!Crowley (Though my partner didn’t seem to like it much :/)

Stranger: (Very much au, Crowley is Satan. Will be explained, don’t worry he’s not evil. Based after the fact that it's fairly well accepted that the snake was actually the Devil) When mother had told him of her plans for humans Samael had been curious to meet her latest creations, until she’d told him of her plans for them, of free will and the tests and trials she would put them through. He’d argued with her then, for the first time he had argued. And she’d told him how he would have his own role to play. When she'd told him what that role to be he was horrified, angry. He'd argued and argued with her, pleaded when that failed, refused. But then she'd shown him what would happen if he didn't. There was already unrest among some of the Angels, who didn't like their mother focusing so much on her latest project, who were jealous. And if they didn't have a leader in their rebellion it would be chaos. Random reckless outbreaks of fighting, more and more of the host falling when they grew resentful as to why mother hadn't stopped it, until the world would be black and barren. Samael had hated her for that, but he'd done what he had to. He'd rebelled, became the leader and took control, until it was an actual war, and he was cast down and burned for it. The only one who knew the truth about his reasons was his closest friend and most trusted regent and general Azazel. Once he got things in order things had already started on Earth, and mother had told him it was time for the first test. That he needed to tempt Eve. And... well Samael didn't have any problem with that. The chance to choose... well he'd wished he'd been given that. And then he'd met Aziraphale, and he'd decided to stay on Earth, taking on the persona of a lesser Demon, choosing the name Crowley, leaving Azazel as his regent, his ally telling the legions of hell that he was sequestered away, planning and preparing for the future war. And he enjoyed his time on Earth, learned to love Humans, and a certain Angel. Then after so long Mother had sent word that he needed to create the Antichrist. So he had, even if he took no pleasure in it. And he'd delivered the baby and went to Aziraphale, and they'd come up with their plan, had sent people to influence his son, his Angel doing the same, and he'd reached out for his son in his dreams, nothing evil, just telling him that he loved him, that he could be the best of them, and all the while he stayed away from seeing his son in person, he couldn't risk anything going wrong couldn't risk his son getting hurt, and he tried to ignore that worried feeling, that something wasn't quite right with Warlock-and really that was a terrible name. And then he'd s een the boy at his eleventh birthday and he'd felt horror. That wasn't his son. He'd lost his son-oh he knew it was his son he'd spoke to in his dreams. But he had no idea where the boy was, physically. And he longed to tell Aziraphale why he was so panicked, but the long lie was too deep now. He didn't want to lose his Angel, and he was terrified he would if he told Aziraphale the truth. And then the end hadn't come, and they were in Tadfield, and he resisted the urge to snort when Beelzebub said that she was going to tell Adam's-and that name he definitely approved of- father. And then the Demon and Gabriel were gone and Crowley relaxed, running his fingers through his hair, “Well Angel.” he gave Aziraphale and smile, “I think that went very well.” his eyes flicked to Adam, who was stood watching him, a curious look on his face. “A-” he groaned when the ground shook and Azazel rose out of the dirt, looking thoroughly annoyed. “CROWLEY!” and Crowley winced. “Azazel! Good to see you-” “I just had Beelzebub screaming at me about you and the Antichrist!”

You: [Reading]

You: Aziraphale wobbled as the ground shook beneath them, trying to keep his balance. As soon as he gained his footing he moved to the young boy's side protectively as the giant Demon appeared before them. His heart was racing as he raised his sword, terrified, not for himself but for the potential of losing those he cared about. Adam was only a recent addition but he was an Angel, capable of immeasurable love. Adam /was/ loved. His gaze turned towards the red haired Demon, the man he was truly scared for. Satan could destroy Crowley with just a thought he was sure. There would be nothing he could do... Still, he refused to give up, standing tall as the Devil snapped at his oldest and dearest friend, ready to strike with whatever strength he could muster.

Stranger: "Yeah, yeah." Crowley rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, "I bet that pain in the arse did. Let me guess, he told you that you needed to inform the big boss." "DO you have any idea how hard it was to keep a bloody straight face Crowley?" Azazel demanded, "Hell is in chaos right now-" "Eh I'm evil I thrive on chaos, let those idiots suffer for a little while." he waved a hand dismissively, "And drop the Devil guise Azazel, we both know it doesn't suit you." honestly it didn't suit him either, and he watched amused as Azazel's form shrunk, and he became almost like a normal demon. "You know sometimes I really regret offering to help you." he grumbled, eyes flicking towards Aziraphale and Adam. "Ah, that would be the Angel you stayed on Earth for even if you pretended he had nothing to do with it and-ah. That must be the young master." "Adam." Crowley answered proudly, "He decided to stop it." "Yeah." Adam nodded, "I like the world. I haven't seen all of it yet why would I destroy it?"

You: Confusion flashed over Aziraphale's features at the exchange, his sword slowly lowering as Crowley approached the other Demon. It was obvious that Crowley didn't see any threat which put the Angel at ease... a bit... Still something didn't add up. His gaze narrowed as he glanced between the two trying to connect all the pieces. When Adam spoke Aziraphale glanced back at the boy and offered a proud smile, straightening his vest as if to emphasis how pleased he was. At least... Until the mention of himself had him snapping to attention once more, moving forward to stand next to the red head. "What in Heaven's name is going on here Crowley?" He asked softly, though his tone hinted he was half way between concerned and annoyed. He eyed Azazel apprehensively as if he would suddenly jump out and bite him; and to be honest the Angel wasn't quite convinced he wouldn't.

Stranger: Crowley suddenly looked incredibly sheepish, which made Azazel smirk almost gleefully, "Oh Crowley don't tell me you've not-" "Azazel please don't." Crowley groaned, "Please I don't want to ruin-" "Crowley keeping up the lie is what will ruin things." he stated exasperatedly, "Are-are you scared you'll scare your precious Angel off is that it?" Azazel focused on Aziraphale before shrugging "If he's half the Angel you seem to think he is then he'll come around, he'll be pissed but he'll understand eventually." "Azazel now is definitely not the time for this discussion-" "Oh come on! The only reason you rebelled is because she told you to. You're not like the others you should have never fallen Crowley, you're an idiot in love who's terrified."

You: Aziraphale blinked at that, clearing his throat awkwardly as he ran a hand down his lapels. "An idiot in love?" He mumbled, giving a small scoff. "Nonsense, you never told me of any love." He inquired, giving his friend a pointed look, obviously too oblivious to connect the words to himself. He paused only for a moment before shaking his head and waving a hand in the air. "It doesn't matter. The subject is highly inappropriate at the moment." He added with a huff, trying to ignore the jealousy that was rising in him. The few words that Azazel had already spoke contained a lot of information to process and yet... Not nearly enough. A

You: [sorry wasn't done]

You: Crowley was hiding something from him? Something that could ruin their friendship? Nonsense, nothing could do that... Could it? No. Aziraphale was certain of it. "I demand to know whats going on." He snapped, his voice commanding and unwavering. "I don't care who tells me. Just tell me." He demanded.

Stranger: Crowley didn't look at Aziraphale, and it was Adam who spoke up, tilting his head, "You're him aren't you?" he asked, "I can see it. You were so bright once... and you're hurt and angry but you still love humans... you love us." he paused, "and me. My dreams were real." he tilted his head, "You love me more than anything else don't you? You... you didn't raise me but you're my father." Crowley closed his eyes, wincing, "He uh... he's not wrong Angel." his voice was tight, "Before I fell... I never told you.. I didn't exactly lie... I mean... I never claimed to be a lesser demon I just implied as much... I.." he let out a little cough. "My name was Samael, Angel."

You: Aziraphale's attention snapped to the boy as he began; his expression still confused. Slowly, realization began to dawn on him with every word the boy spoke, eyes growing wider and wider until he turned to stare at the Demon before him. Crowley... The man he had entrusted with everything... His friendship... His love... The being he expected would always be there for him even if he pretended that wasn't the case. Tears began to well up, threatening to fall over his usually rose colored cheeks. Everything was a lie... All of it... His brows furrowed, a mixture of betrayal, pain, and confusion contorting his features, a hand moved to cover his mouth in shock as he took a step back from the Demon... No... The Devil himself. The very being he'd been fighting almost his entire existence. Was this all a joke? Poor, poor Aziraphale fighting the very creature he tried to keep so close? Poor, stupid, /angel/. He shook his head as he took another step back and another. "Adam?" He asked softly, voice cracking. "Will you send me back to my shop, please?" He pleaded, forgetting that it had burned.

Stranger: Crowley's eyes widened and he ran his fingers through his hair, "Angel-Angel it burned down-" "I can fix it." Adam spoke up, focusing on Aziraphale and stepping forward, "I'll fix it for you." he paused, "But-will you talk to him later? Please?" he glanced towards Crowley, who had a look similar to a kicked puppy, pained and hurt and desperate. "Lies are bad I know, but I don't think he wanted to hurt you." "I didn't." Crowley stated quickly, "Angel I- I am sorry." he stated quickly, "I am so sorry Angel.. I... when I first met you... it was wonderful. You didn't recognise me... and because you thought I was just a normal Demon you didn't fear me-and you would have feared me when you first met me. Don't deny it Angel. I know what heaven thinks of me. The fallen, the worst of them all." his voice was bitter. "She forced me to do it you know. The choice she gave me was barely a choice at all. You don't know what would have happened had I not taken over the rebellion. She showed me. She told me it was my job."

You: "STOP!" Aziraphale snapped, his voice so loud that the ground beneath them shook just as it had when Azezal appeared. "Stop talking!" He ordered, a holy glow beginning to appear around him. "I don't want to hear anymore lies! I just want to go home!" He added, shooting the Demon a glare even as the tears began. He felt pathetic... used... warped in some way. His hands shook as they fisted at his side, as if he was doing everything in his power not to smite Crowley where he stood... Not that he could, and he certainly didn't /want/ to. Still, when he glanced towards Adam his expression softened, his wrath obviously not directed toward him. "Adam... If you would... please." He asked softly. "I can make no promises, but I will take your request to heart." He reassured.

Stranger: Adam nodded, frowning, and Crowley felt the subtle shift in reality, and then he nodded, "I fixed your bookshop. I'll send you home now. He'll give you a few days to settle down and think things through." "I will." Crowley ducked his head, looking upset, "I really am sorry Aziraphale... and I really, really hope that you'll let me explain in time."

You: Adam earned a soft fond smile at his words. It was nice to see that he had grown to be the boy they had hoped him to be. The smile was gone however, as Crowley spoke once more, causing Aziraphale's jaw to tighten as he pinned the man with a flat stare. "Perhaps it would be preferable if you saved your breath, Samael. Your words are falling on deaf ears." He stated before he felt to world shift as he was sent home.

Stranger: Crowley winced and watched Aziraphale go, before he spent some time with Adam, and after that went down with Azazel, dropping his act and sorting out the chaos downstairs, it took maybe a week or so, and after he returned to Earth, and he was torn. He wanted to see Aziraphale, but... how would he know when his Angel wanted to see him? If he ever did.

You: As soon as he felt the worn wooden floor of his shop beneath him, Aziraphale collapsed, uncontrollable sobs escaping him. He'd been betrayed by the only person in existence he had trusted. How could he have been so stupid?! He should have never trusted a Demon... Especially THAT one. He was a fool. The next few days were spent in solitude, the Angel wallowing in his own sorrow, feeling sorry from himself. Eventually, he had enough of his pathetic nature and got to work. He'd sell what he had copies of or didn't need. He'd pack the rest up and put them in storage. From there... Well... He didn't know. Heaven wouldn't take him now... He supposed he could travel... Maybe visit Atlantis... Or Rome. No... too many memories... America could be nice he suppose... Perhaps Florida... He wasn't sure yet. Regardless, the preparations would take a bit of time, giving him the opportunity to decide.

Stranger: Crowley did eventually pull himself together enough to visit Aziraphale, opening the door to the shop, the small bell making its little familiar jingle as he padded inside, "I uh-" he let out a nervous cough, "It's me Angel. Just-if you want me to leave just yell at me okay? You are here aren't you?" he was stood in the doorway, almost too scared to go in fully, to see his Angels reaction to his presence. This was why he'd hid it for so long. He knew it would destroy things.

You: "We're closed." Aziraphale's voice came from somewhere in the back as the bell chimed. Many of the shelves were already empty leaving the small shop feeling empty and cold. At the sound of the Demon's voice however, the Angel glanced up from where he was packing a box and frowned, his heart rate spiking a bit. For a moment there was silent as he considered doing just as the Demon suggested. Though, eventually he gave a huff, tossing down one of his book with a bit too much force and giving a wince. "I'm back here." He replied loud enough to be heard, tone still a bit harsh. "What do you want?"

Stranger: Crowley was tense, nervous as he heard his Angel's voice, and when he didn't send him away he started to speak, "I know what you and the others all think of me." his voice was tight, "I knew telling you would destroy things... I... I wanted to make what we had last as long as I could before I lost you. Selfish of me I know." he admitted, "I should have told you long ago Angel but I was terrified of losing you." he leaned against the wall, closing his eyes, "You know, only Azazel knows why I rebelled. I know the others were always so horrified at how suddenly I turned, decided I was faking all along but that's not true. I-I remember going to mother, to ask about her project, humanity. I loved them you know... I was curious and excited for them... and she told me I'd have my own job... and she told me what it would be. I argued with her. I begged and pleaded and I refused to rebel, even when she told me I must, I said I'd never tempt them. And she showed me what would have happened if the rebels had no leader. Random attacks, brutal and bloody-there was no organisation so Heavens armies couldn't exactly find out plans." he felt like crying as he spoke, remembering how he'd felt. Trapped and lost, betrayed. "And more Angels would have gotten angry and hurt and resentful towards mother for not stopping it-and she wouldn't have. She'd have let it happen to punish me for refusing to do my duty. And Heaven and Earth would have become burnt out husks. I didn't fall because I hated mother, because I wanted to take over or anything like that. I did what I did to save as many as I could... because Mother decided that was how things must be and she always gets what she wants."

You: Aziraphale listened to the words as he worked, moving about the shop, collecting this or that to pack into the box as he went. The words didn't help in the least, if anything they only made his anger worse. Still, he wouldn't interrupt the Demon. He would allow him to say his peace and go before Aziraphale, himself, would. Still... What would it be like without him? He and Crowley had been together for as long as Humanity had existed... Well, practically anyways. Even if they weren't always in the same place they were always there for one another. No! He couldn't afford to think like that. Not now... He was finally gaining enough strength to walk on his own, he wouldn't allow himself to fall again. "I don't care about any of that." He called back with just as much malice. "I don't care to hear any of your stories! They mean nothing!" He countered, still not moving into the main entrance, too afraid to see him. The Angel wasn't fearful /of/ him but rather... The effect he had on him... the pain he caused.

Stranger: "Do you think I'm lying?" Crowley asked, his voice tight, "Is-is that why you're angry... or... or do you just.... do you think I must be evil because I fell... do you believe everything they say about me?" his voice was hurt, "Or is it the lie that hurt you? I-I can understand that... I should have told you a long time ago I just-I feared this Aziraphale... Mother... she didn't just force me out of my home she destroyed me. Destroyed my reputation and broke me down. I had to rebel. I had to kill other Angels who I loved as brothers and sisters, because of her."

You: Pain bloomed in Aziraphale's heart at the words. He understood how difficult it could be to harm those you loved... to strike them down. He had been there during the rebellion. He set his jaw at that, trying to ignore the feeling as he set another book aside and strode out of the room and into the lobby. "Are you really such a fool, to think any of that matters to me?" He spat. "Or perhaps you take /me/ as one; to believe everything my kind says about you?" He asked, obviously insulted. "Stop making excuses!" He demanded as he strode about halfway to him and paused. "Mother may have forced you to fall but everything else was your own doing. You talk about your /reputation/? You had no other reputation to me than the one you /earn/ through the countless centuries we've been together. A reputation that /you/ ruined! Not mother, not our brothers and sisters! You!" He accused, obviously having enough of it all.

Stranger: Crowley flinched, "I-You and I both know that the worst thing I've done is tempt people... and not even really bad stuff Aziraphale you know that.. you know most of the things that I claimed I did I didn't do.. the worst thing I did back then was on mothers orders! She told me to tempt Eve! I followed orders... and then I met you." his voice shook, "I met you and.... and I felt something new. You gave them your sword.... I wanted to know more but I knew you'd run away if I told you who I was so I gave myself a new name. I told Azazel to take care of hell. I hated it down there anyway, and... and I wanted to be where humans are, watch over them. And I just... needed to know /you/ and over the years we became... allies of a sort and then friends... and by the time we were friends... how? How do you tell someone that you're actually the Devil? Aziraphale I know I should have told you I know that... but I was scared. I'm not perfect angel I never claimed to be."

You: "Stop calling me that!" He snapped the shop shaking briefly in his turmoil. His gaze shot up as dust drifted from the ceiling, worry crossing his features before he managed to calm himself enough to keep it together. Finally he pinned the Demon with a glare once more. "You're wrong, Crowley." He stated flatly, an almost growly. "The worst thing you've done is far worse than tempt people." He corrected. "I'm well aware of the lies being told about you... about..." It was hard to admit it, as if saying his name would make it that much worse. "About Satan..." He finally managed. "That has nothing to do with this. Mother has nothing to do with this. What is happening now, in this shop... This is /you!/" He pointed out, shooting an accusing finger in his direction. "This is /your/ doing not theirs. Maybe you're right about not telling me in the garden... Maybe you were right to wait... But the fact that you never intended to tell me! What did you expect Crowley?! Was it some sort of game to you?! Poor, foolish /angel/! Look how dense he is! Look how naive!" He spat. "Well, I won't stand here and be made a fool any longer! You didn't want to 'ruin this' by telling me? Well congratulations Crowley! You didn't! No, you ruined it by doing the opposite!"

Stranger: Crowley was near tears as he stared at Aziraphale, "That was never what it was about." he shook his head, "Never Aziraphale I swear. I never... you're not foolish Aziraphale I-" he could feel his heart breaking. This was far worse than falling had been. "I never thought you were any of that. A part of me wanted to tell you so bad but I'm a coward I just-I didn't choose to fall but I did. I-I'm a monster I'm far worse than any of the normal demons I know I am. How-how could... I could never deserve you, no Demon or Angel would ever deserve you Aziraphale you're too good. But I thought.. I thought maybe if I pretended for long enough it would somehow-somehow make it better, somehow if I didn't tell you I was-then you wouldn't realize how much better than me you are and you wouldn't leave me behind. I was lucky enough to earn your-to be-while I was a demon.I wanted it to be real. I wanted to just be a normal demon... because you could never love the Devil because you'd leave me."

You: "Bullshit." He replied, his emotions so forceful that it pushed him to actually curse. "How dare you blame this on me. You have never been a monster! Even if I didn't know what you were I'd know that much! And don't you dare put me on a damned pedistood to make excuses for your behavior! You /lied/ to me, Crowley! For centuries! And you haven't even managed the nerve to apologize! To Hell with the rest! I don't give a tick about any of it and you should well know it! If you haven't figured it out then you don't know me at all! The only think I care about is that you lied to me and show no remorse for it! So, as far as I'm concerned you can march straight back out those doors and don't come back until you've learned to properly apologize!" He snapped, pointed towards the very exit he had mention, his expression obviously not to be trifled with. He paused waiting to see if Crowley was going to attempt to speak before interrupting him. "I said MARCH!"

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