Chapter Text
August 2020 (Three hours until the rapture). A.Z. Fell and Co., London.
On the morning of the rapture, the great ascension that was to be heaven’s next move in their eternal chess game against hell, Crowley and Aziraphale sat on the floor of the bookshop with their legs stretched out in front of them, nursing their favourite drinks in peaceful silence.
“Honestly, Crowley.” Aziraphale glanced sharply at the wine glass in Crowley’s hand, then down at the half empty bottle by his side. “It’s nine in the morning. Knocking back wine like…”
“Like there’s no tomorrow? Hilarious, angel, tell us another one.”
The angel smiled sheepishly, turned his attention back to the mug of cocoa he was holding. The hot chocolate didn’t feel particularly time or weather appropriate but, well, there wasn’t much time left and he didn’t intend to squander it on subpar beverages.
“You could have been up there, looking down on all of this. Surviving.”
“Yes, and you could have been down there, Crowley, looking up.” Aziraphale rested a hand on Crowley’s thigh, and the demon’s chosen name had never sounded so sweet, so filled with affection. “We could never have survived apart, we only work when we’re together.”
“We barely work, even then.” Crowley laughed. “The worst celestial emissaries there ever were. Lost the Antichrist, foiled Armageddon, ran away together.”
Aziraphale swallowed a mouthful of cocoa, exhaled happily as the liquid warmed him from the inside out. It was a small comfort but he was grateful, all the same. “Speaking of the Antichrist, where is Adam Young when you need him? He would have been a godsend today.”
“Just the two of us today, I’m afraid.”
“We go out the way we came in, two lost souls looking for a home.”
Aziraphale set his mug down on the floor between his thighs as he continued talking, listing all the other ways in which they’d disappointed their respective head offices. It was a long list, gave Crowley plenty of time to stare down at the faint lip print Aziraphale’s mouth had left on the rim of the mug. He smiled ruefully, remembered how it had felt to stand in the shop on that night all those months ago and hold it in his hands, touch the imprint of Aziraphale’s lip with his fingers and take the first step forward into everything that had led them to that day.
They had been so full of hope then, in those heady weeks of sending each other on a treasure hunt around London that had culminated in the park. Reunited, together, finally. Back in the shop, Crowley dug his teeth into his bottom lip to give himself something else to focus on, to root himself in the present before he could drift too far into the past.
“Crowley.” Aziraphale nudged him with his elbow, brow furrowed in irritation. “Are you even listening to me?”
He tore his gaze away from the cup, gave Aziraphale a wink before taking a swig of wine. It was his second glass. It turned out wine for breakfast did wonders to pacify a racing heart. “Thinking about your lips, sorry.”
“Oh.” Aziraphale nodded tightly, pink blooming in his cheeks. “Well, that’s all right then.”
He clambered to his feet, held out a hand to help pull Crowley up behind him. They stood there, in the doorway of the shop, arms wrapped around each other’s waists as they watched London bustle to life outside.
“They have no idea, do they? No time to say goodbye,” Crowley mused sadly.
“I’m not sure they need to say goodbye.” Aziraphale thought back to the early years in heaven, what he had learned about the great plans for the glorious rapture. It had felt so out of reach, something distant on the horizon, millennia in the future. He would see every inch of the globe by that point, he had thought, would lead humanity away from sin. He would make heaven, and Gabriel, so very proud by the time the rapture came, that faraway date in the future. He knew it. “The rapture arrives, those heaven deems worthy ascend and then, I believe, the world continues on as if they were never in it. The tribulation. A test, if you will, before the end. The real end.”
“They don’t even know?” Crowley asked, raising an eyebrow. “The world ticks on as if it hasn’t just lost half of its population?”
“Half? That’s generous. No, I think the actual number will be quite a bit smaller than that, Crowley. Heaven is pretty stringent with the entry criteria these days. Overcrowding, remember? Anyway.” He pursed his lips. “I’m sure Gabriel has changed the metaphorical goal posts yet again. He’ll do away with the tribulation next, jump straight into the final battle between heaven and hell if it would win him a bit of favour with the masses.”
“You never know, Satan might run into dear old Gabe and tear him apart, if we’re lucky.” Crowley grinned, allowing himself the fantasy that the archangel would ever depart heaven to hedge his bets on the battlefield.
“Not that we would know anything about it. No, we’ll be long gone by then. Somewhere out there, or nowhere…” Aziraphale trailed off, gesturing vaguely into the ether before shrugging. “Anywhere, really, I’m not particularly fussy.”
“There are a million other worlds out there, angel, a million other versions of us. At least. Star-crossed in every galaxy. Human, ethereal, occult. Maybe there’s even a world where you’re the demon and I’m the angel. Imagine that, eh?”
Aziraphale fussed with his jacket, straightening his collar before he turned to Crowley, smiling. “Well, I would find that very hard to believe.”
“It’s a good dream though, isn’t it? Even if that’s all it is.”
Crowley felt fingers slip through his own, closed his eyes to bask in the tenderness of Aziraphale’s thumb running slowly across his palm. It was an absent-minded gesture, something the angel did when his mind was elsewhere, a tiny movement to keep him tethered to the present.
“Do you think they love each other in every universe, on every star?” the angel asked finally. “Do you think they find their way to each other, wherever they are?”
“Oh, I’m sure they do, angel, even if it takes them a little while. Took us six thousand years to face up to it, didn’t it? Maybe some of them don’t wait so long.”
“If I could meet them, if I could gather them together and tell them one thing I’ve learned…” Aziraphale looked down, sniffed sharply. “I’d tell them not to wait when they find the thing they love. We have less time than we think, all of us. Immortality made me complacent. I thought I had all the time in the world. I moved so lazily. No idea of the shadow behind me. I thought I could take my time, feel out every outcome before I committed to something new. And now we’ll be gone in two and a half hours. A bloody…grain of sand in an hourglass. ”
Crowley quietly took the mug out of his hand, placed it next to his empty wineglass on the edge of a bookshelf near the door. He wrapped his arms around the angel’s shoulders, resting his chin on top of his head as he murmured words of comfort. “Nothing is ever truly gone, angel. Look at the stars. Dead for centuries, some of them, and their light hasn’t even decorated our night sky yet. There’s always something that endures; an echo, or a story.”
***
One last walk through the city they had called home. They walked slowly, hand in hand, arms gently swinging between them like a pendulum, Aziraphale’s sword strapped to his back as if it was a perfectly ordinary occurrence. If the humans could see it they didn’t react, eyes glancing over the odd couple, one of them carrying a sword like it was an extension of his body. So many sights, Aziraphale thought, marvelling at how many beautiful buildings he had walked past day after day, head down, too busy to give them a moment of appreciation.
The National Gallery rose up beside them, tourists milling around Trafalgar Square as if they had all the time in the world. Couples sat side by side at the fountain while children clambered up to the base of the bronze lion statues. Aziraphale looked up at them, smiled at the memory of a night spent coaxing Crowley down from one of their backs. There was something of them woven into every part of the city’s sprawling patchwork quilt. They had left their mark on this place, at least.
As they passed through the entrance of the park, grey stepping away to let green take over, Crowley focused on nothing other than the feeling of Aziraphale’s presence next to him. He soaked up the way the angel’s fingers fitted so perfectly together with his, the way their forearms brushed against each other as they walked, acutely aware of every way their bodies touched and moved as one. Two halves of a whole, coming together to form something infinitely greater than the sum of its parts.
Aziraphale stopped suddenly, pulling Crowley to the edge of the path and taking the demon’s other hand in his. “I love you.”
It hadn’t been a discussion, where to spend their final moments, both knew it only made sense to end where it had all started, in the first place they had found the courage to say those three simple words that still held all the magic they ever had.
“And I love you, angel, all the way to the end.” He tightened his grip on Aziraphale’s hands, as if holding onto each other would somehow keep them together through whatever might come next, leaned down into a lingering kiss, slow enough that it felt like a challenge to whoever might be watching, heavenly or damned. Go on, he thought, try and tear us apart, just try.
They walked on to the duck pond, down the gentle path towards the water that they’d trodden untold times over the centuries. It had been the backdrop of so many moments in their shared history; of hissed arguments and joyful reunions after decades apart, of carefully-laid plans and long looks goodbye. If the bookshop was their night time secret, the duck pond was their day time escape, hiding in plain sight. The moon and the sun, lighting their path.
“I brought oats,” Aziraphale announced, digging a bag of porridge oats out of his trouser pocket as if it was any other Saturday, their plans extending to nothing more stressful than hurling handfuls of food at the ducks and bickering about who the birds liked more.
Crowley laughed, grabbing a fistful and tossing them into the water. “Of course you did.”
He heard footsteps behind them, turned to look over his shoulder as Aziraphale gleefully treated the ducks to one last treat. Two clean cut men in pristine suits sat behind them, one pretending to read the newspaper while the other passed him a slim brown envelope. The men looked up in tandem, narrowed eyes relaxing when they saw it was Crowley looking back at them. One of them raised a hand in greeting as if he’d spotted an old friend in the distance. Crowley smiled, gave them both a nod, and then turned his attention back to the pond.
It was one of life’s simplest pleasures, Aziraphale had always thought, a walk through the park to stop and feed the ducks. They were sweet things, chattering away amongst themselves, feet paddling furiously beneath the surface as they dashed for a mouthful of food. He watched a particularly rotund drake make its way in for a second helping, felt his jaw drop open in horror as it plunged suddenly below the surface as if an invisible hand had pushed it from above.
He grabbed for Crowley’s hand, heard his own voice cry out in fear. “It’s starting! Crowley, it’s here!”
The duck reappeared then, quacking unhappily for a moment until he hoovered up a beakful of oats and forgot quite what he’d been so annoyed about. Next to him, Aziraphale could hear the demon dissolve into hushed laughter.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, my dear. Today, really?” He gave Crowley a withering look, rolled his eyes up to the sky and threw an extra handful of oats in the soggy duck’s direction.
“One last spot of mischief for the road, eh?” Crowley bit his lip, tried to keep a straight face as the angel glowered next to him.
Is hell watching? Crowley wondered, letting his thoughts stray. Were they watching them that very second, waiting for the moment their little stain was wiped clean from the Earth? Did heaven still have eyes on Aziraphale, or had they lost him the day he turned his back on them? Would anyone be watching, or would the angel and his fallen lover slip away as easily as they had come? Would Raphael, sweet Raphael who had all but raised him, would they ever know how his final moments unfolded? Would they think about him, in the time afterwards, the only other being who had ever loved him?
Next to him, Aziraphale’s thoughts had also turned to the heavens, to how he had felt on the day he left heaven for Earth, for Eden. It had been the single most significant day of existence at that point. The only significant day, really. He had been so proud. To guard humanity against the forces of evil, to wield his sword and meet his adversary in combat. It was to be, he had thought, the most important role of his life. Principality Aziraphale the Protector, he had called himself in the safe freedom of his mind. He would be brave, quick-thinking, ready to thwart whatever wiles the hell-sent demon could dream up in his nightmarish mind. What a contrast he would be to Aziraphale the Slow, Aziraphale the Weak. He would finally become what he was destined to be.
Aziraphale the Slow. Standing in front of the duck pond he chuckled to himself, remembering the nickname Gabriel had given him, shortly before the archangel cuffed him on the arm and told him to lighten up. Well, Gabriel, he thought to himself, Aziraphale the Slow is about to save the world, right on time.
Crowley had given him the idea, of course, without even realising it. He had been a near constant source of inspiration for six thousand years, why would that change now? The demon had spent so many long years saving him, stepping in at the final moment, drawing untold strength when they needed to survive, now it was his turn.
“What do you want, angel?” Crowley had asked him the night before, as they lay together in bed after sharing one final dance, planning what to do with their final hours. “Lunch at the Ritz? Drink all the tea in China? A last minute jolly around the world?”
“You asked me that once before. My answer hasn’t changed, it never will. Just you, that’s all I want.”
Later that night as Crowley had fallen asleep next to him, the cogs in Aziraphale’s mind had slowly ticked to life. It was a risk, daring to have hope, but then when had anything that mattered in his life not been?
“Sort of thought something might have happened by now.” Crowley’s voice, tinged with boredom, pulled him back to the present. The demon looked down at his watch and then frowned up at the sky. “Shouldn’t there be thunder and lightning, biblical rain, the sudden reappearance of the kraken? Something?”
Aziraphale slapped his chest, tutting. “Don’t give them ideas.”
“More waiting around than I thought there’d be.” Crowley nodded over to the ice cream stall that was peeking temptingly out from a bend in the path. “Time for an ice cream?”
He heard a sound next to him that was remarkably close to the sort of sound Aziraphale made when he tried and failed to unscrew the sticky lid of a jam jar, turned to find the angel standing there with his eyes screwed closed, fists clenched dramatically in front of him.
“Angel?” he asked lightly. “Are you…being raptured?”
“No,” Aziraphale hissed, unscrewing one eye to glare at him. “I’m…give me a minute, I’m fixing things.”
Crowley nodded slowly, struggling to keep his eyebrows in a neutral position lest they rise swiftly to the heights of sarcasm and earn him another glare. “I’ll go and get us some doomsday ice creams, shall I? Quarter of an hour to go, still time for a 99.”
Aziraphale looked down at his hands as if they had failed a test they didn’t know they were taking. He flexed his fingers, aghast, before turning to Crowley with a look of impossible frustration on his face. “Stop being so…complacent, Crowley, for crying out loud. We have to do something!”
“I am doing something, I’m going to get an ice cream so I can enjoy one last Mr Whippy with my eternal soulmate. There are worse ways to go out, angel. What are you in the mood for, strawberry split or a Cornetto?”
“This is…this is just like Tadfield all over again.” Aziraphale grabbed for the cuff of his jacket, pulled him back. “Stop just…accepting everything. This is not the time for ice cream.”
“I don’t want to repeat the well-loved adage we are fucked but we are fucked.” He rolled his eyes as Aziraphale unbuckled his makeshift sword sheath and pulled the blade free. “Oh, oh I see, time for the old wield my weapon in Crowley’s face until he panics us into another realm routine. That came out wrong. But my point still stands.”
“You did it before, Crowley, you can do it again.”
“That’s not how it works, Aziraphale. What I did that day, it’s not infinite. It’s not an escape. All I did then was buy us a few minutes.” His voice softened as he took Aziraphale’s hand, locking their fingers together in an easy, practised motion. “If I thought there was anything I could do to stop this, I would have done it on the day we left heaven. I’m not being complacent, I’m being realistic. I’m tired, angel, I am so tired of running. I can’t do it anymore. I can’t keep trying and trying and failing every single time. I tried to get back into heaven and now we’re both doomed. I don’t want to spend my final moments with you failing us again. Now, do you want a strawberry split or a Cornetto?”
“Strawberry split,” Aziraphale mumbled, watching mournfully as Crowley walked away from him.
He turned away, leaned his sword against the railings and stared down into the murky water of the duck pond. He felt numb, the pulse-pounding adrenaline he had conjured moments before streaking its way through his limbs and rendering them soft and useless. It hadn’t worked. He had tried twice and it hadn’t worked. Creation. Crowley had told him how it felt. He knew what he needed to do. He had closed his eyes, he had flung the doors of his heart open and set what hid there free. The perfect world. He had seen it all. No evil, no darkness, no unadulterated hate for the sake of hate. There would be no war, no heaven, no hell. There would be only love and gentleness and creativity free to bloom wherever it saw fit. It would be paradise, for all of humanity, and they would be safe there. He had seen it all, had seen it before his eyes. So why when he opened them were they still standing in St James’s Park, Crowley talking about ice cream, of all things?
Why hadn’t it worked, the first time or the second? He had done everything he was supposed to do. It was his plan, the only one he had. Make a perfect world. It could be done, he knew it could. The Almighty had done it a million times over. Gabriel had done it, so he’d heard, best to take that with a pinch of salt though. There were archangels who had created worlds, seraphim who had dreamed up entire galaxies, Raphael had made near enough every star in the sky, for heaven’s sake. All he needed was one. However tiny. One secret world the size of London would do. He didn’t need to travel, would forgo nipping across the Channel for crepes if that was the sacrifice he had to make.
I must have missed something, he thought, rolling his shoulders back and closing his eyes as he readied his mind for another attempt. Third time’s the charm. He emptied his mind, quieted the racing of his heart, thought only of a secret space they could exist in, free from every evil, every judgement. He felt his nails tear into his palms, wondered if the dampness he felt in the half moon crescents of his nails was blood or sweat. He dreamed of everything they would need, imagined it spiralling up around them now, in that moment, the old broken world washed away like letters written in sand.
Then Crowley was standing next to him, depositing an ice cream into his hand and kissing him, the taste of vanilla on his lips. “Right, well, they were out of strawberry splits so a Cornetto will have to do. Mint, obviously, I’m not a monster.”
“Crowley, I-” Aziraphale stopped suddenly as the ground rumbled slowly under their feet, as if something long buried was beginning to wake up after a very long wait. It was time.
The demon reached for him then, all traces of gentle teasing and last minute sarcasm evaporating, ice cream inelegantly tossed to the floor. There was only space in his mind for Aziraphale, to be as close to him as possible, to shut the rest of the world out.
“I couldn’t do it, Crowley,” the angel wept, gripping onto his shoulders, thumbs pressed to his collarbone. “I tried to take us somewhere. I tried to make something, to create what we always wanted.”
Crowley smiled at him, one hand tangling in his hair. There was sadness in his eyes, and happiness, a thousand memories gathered there all at once. “I lived an eternity with you, angel, I had everything I always wanted.”
“Six thousand years, wasted. After everything, we only had a year.”
Crowley shook his head, pressed a quick kiss to the angel’s lips, and then another. “We didn’t waste a second. It all happened exactly as it was supposed to. It led us here, didn’t it? Look at everything we did, we saved the world.”
Another rumble sounded, closer this time, and then a cracking sound filled the air as if something nearby had split clean down the middle. They turned in tandem to find a chasm on the edge of the park, rock and earth tossed into the air and landing in the centre of the busy road. Cars, pedestrians, cyclists, they all neatly navigated past the debris and continued on with their journey as calmly as if they were stepping over a discarded takeaway box.
Then the chasm began to vomit fire, flames of red and orange licked out across the ground and began to grow, twisting and hissing until it was a swelling wall of fury, rising up in search of who it had been sent to find.
“Not this time, though.”
“No.” He looked into Aziraphale’s eyes, felt the same lurch in his heart that he’d felt the very first time. “No, not this time.”
Aziraphale looked down at their clasped hands, brought his forehead to rest against Crowley’s chin, whispering a single word. “Hellfire.”
“That’s not hellfire.” Crowley shook his head, brought his arms up around Aziraphale’s back. “It’s heavenly. It’s here to cleanse.”
“To burn away sin.” Aziraphale laughed, despite himself, watched the humans walk casually over the fiery threshold and into the park as if there was nothing there. It’s not here for them, he realised with relief, a heartbeat before white hot dread began to drip over him. It’s here for us.
And then the fire began to move as fluidly as if it was holy water, creeping closer as the minutes ticked into seconds.
Crowley didn’t release his wings very often. The last time, in fact, had been two years ago when he had pulled Aziraphale and Adam somewhere else for that brief moment. When heaven’s cleansing fire began its painstaking crawl towards them, to put an end to their rebellion and every sin they stood for, he saw the fear in Aziraphale’s eyes and did the only thing he could think to do, he unfurled his wings and wrapped them around the angel. It would do nothing when the moment came, he knew that, but for a minute, at least, they were safe.
“Crowley,” the angel breathed, eyes closing as he let his own wings spring up and pull them closer together. “This can’t be happening. This can’t be…”
“Eden,” Crowley said, placing gentle hands on either side of Aziraphale’s face and holding him still. “Angel, look at me. What came after Eden?”
“You know what came after, you were there.”
The demon raised his voice and it soared over the sound of chaos behind them. “Tell me. What came after?”
“The ark. The flood.”
“And then?”
“Abraham. You were particularly meddlesome, if I remember.”
“Just wanted some attention, in my defence.”
Aziraphale pursed his lips, set free the tiniest smile. “Then Sodom and Gomorrah.”
“Ah, who were the meddlesome ones then?”
“Well, it wasn’t me, was it? I stayed out of the entire mess as you well know. Pillars of salt, honestly.”
“Could have done with some chips that day, couldn’t we? Saul’s coronation then, wasn’t it? God, you were a nightmare that day.”
“You’re forgetting Egypt. The plagues.”
And for a moment they were no longer in St James’s Park with heavenly fire rushing up to burn them out of existence, they were diving back into six thousand years of near misses, blazing rows, moonlit promises and those few nights when they had almost, almost given in. They were drinking champagne on the back of a yacht in St Tropez, swapping office gossip in the Moulin Rouge in Paris. They were shoulder to shoulder in the Bentley at a drive-in movie, politely ignoring the writhing teenage couples in every other car, they hid behind masks at Venice’s Carnevale, sat in a damp little cave in Bulgaria and scribbled pictures on the walls to keep themselves entertained. They were sitting on the edge of Brighton pier, cone of chips passed between them, lay entwined in sweaty sheets in that little Moroccan guesthouse, and a thousand other moments that had led them there, together, at the end of everything.
Crowley looked behind him, saw the fire reaching the edge of the pond, saw the sky split in two above them as heavenly light poured down. He kissed Aziraphale, as slowly and easily as if they had all the time in the world and when he felt the heat of the fire as it roared ever closer, he kissed him for just a little bit longer. “You can do it. You have everything you need.”
The angel peered over Crowley’s shoulder, shrank back as he saw the fire approach. “I can’t. I can’t do it. I tried, Crowley, I failed every time.”
Crowley guided his face away so they were looking into each other’s eyes agin, his words hurried and insistent. “What did we say yesterday? Fourth time’s the charm with us. It doesn’t need to be perfect. Absolute perfection, sounds a lot like heaven’s idea of paradise, doesn’t it? What do we need perfection for? We’ve always been wonderfully, wildly wrong. Don’t make it perfect, make it ours. I’ll meet you there, angel. I love you.”
Aziraphale reached for him one last time, tasted salty air on the demon’s tongue, the sweetest wine, fire smoke and snowflakes and longing and love and lifetime after lifetime of memories. Please. Aziraphale squeezed his eyes closed, felt the heat grow closer, clutched Crowley’s hands tighter. Please don’t hurt him. Don’t hurt them. Don’t let all of this have been for nothing.
In his final moments, as the rapture began and heaven smiled down on humanity, Aziraphale whispered his final words to the demon in his arms, thought of everything they had ever wanted for their future, everything they had built there in the present, everything he could have done differently in the past. It was all there, his life, and he pulled at every part he wanted in his last moments, all the parts he had loved the most: snake eyes and a pair of arms wrapped around his waist as he slept; waking up to find himself already home; humanity, with all of their funny little quirks he was so fond of; watching the joy in Crowley’s face as he had played with the only puppy who had never feared him; his books, his precious books; his shop, with its comfortable sofas and dusty windows; the race of his heart as the Bentley flew down Oxford Street, pretending he hated it, secretly loving the rebellion, loving that it was something that had been theirs. He took hold of it all, everything that had ever mattered, and pulled it into his heart, tugging it all free, great roots coming loose as he held them close, locking them away like a secret.
An angel and a demon clung to each other by the duck pond in St James’s Park when their world ended. As the wall of rapturous fire came upon them, a great beast sent to cleanse Earth of everything that didn’t belong, the last thing Crowley heard was Aziraphale telling him he would love him for eternity, saw his own face reflected in the angel’s eyes, and then everything was stardust and silence.
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Aziraphale opened his eyes and sucked in one shuddering breath, as if coming up for air after rising up through the depths of the deepest ocean. Around him, he found only darkness stretching out into infinity. He lowered one foot and then the other, looked down to find himself standing on nothing at all. There was a tiny sound in the distance like the ringing of a bell. And then a light, a tiny flicker that could only grow.
“Crowley?” he whispered into the emptiness, reached out a hand to find nothing there but a memory. “I’ll find you.”
In the nowhere of after, an angel smiled. It was time to begin.
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August 2020. The Garden, London (Somewhere).
“Sorry, mate,” Crowley hissed, holding his hands up in apology as he ducked out of the man’s path. Bloody garden. People stopping dead in the street to take a selfie in front of it like they’d never seen a rose bush before. He glared across at the sprawling greenery that had caused such a stir when it had bloomed to life, seemingly miraculously, a week ago. The papers had had a field day with it, tourists flocking from miles away to witness its beauty. Species never before seen on the planet, according to horticulturalists. Yes, yes, Crowley thought, it’s all very lovely but some of us have had a very weird day and would like, no, need to get somewhere with an alcohol license without any hold ups.
The Garden. He looked up at the slick minimalist sign that hung above the bar, was sure it hadn’t been called that when he'd walked past it that morning. He shook the thought away, it wasn’t anywhere near the strangest thing that had happened that day. He went inside, ordered a half pint of whatever was on tap, and sat down to try and forget.
“Sir.” Crowley had barely finished his first drink when the barmaid leaned across the table to set a glass down in front of him. The liquid inside was green. The sort of green that had never, not once, occurred naturally. “Appletini. From the gentleman at the bar.”
At the bar? Crowley frowned at the delicate martini glass. He was not an appletini drinker. Barely liked apples at the best of times. Sour things. He was also not, by any stretch of the imagination, the sort of person who had drinks sent to him by mysterious admirers in overpriced cocktail bars. He was sure he’d seen a horror film that had started in precisely this manner but he wasn’t in any position to turn his nose up at a free drink, and it had been a very long, odd day. He took a sip, felt the fruity tang on his tongue. Could be worse, he conceded.
Meanwhile, a blond-haired bookseller sat at the bar cradling a glass of wine and wondering what in the world was possessing him that day. He was behaving ridiculously. What am I doing, sending a drink to a stranger like some sort of…rapscallion? Zira Fell was not the sort of person who sent drinks to strangers, however much they pulled at his periphery. He had watched him, the redhead with the sad eyes, as he flung himself dramatically into an empty seat and nursed the same half a pint for almost an hour. He had the hunched shoulders of loneliness incarnate, a defensive posture meant to lock the world out before it had a chance to peer inside. Zira smiled ruefully, perhaps that had been what caught his attention. After all, he knew the echoing darkness of loneliness all too well, recognised a kindred spirit in the crowd.
What was the etiquette in these situations, Crowley wondered? Send a drink back in return (at these prices? Not a chance, pal, sorry), write his number on a bar mat and paper aeroplane it over to the bar on the off chance his soulmate might reach up and pluck it out of the air? He turned to glance across at the bar. It was packed full of people. Excellent, he thought, narrows it down.
He took another sip of the drink, and then another. One more look and, oh, somebody was glancing back. They looked away, embarrassed, then looked back again and smiled. Crowley raised his glass to cheers him and the mystery admirer, oh god, he was getting up and coming over. Leave me alone, he pleaded silently, don’t make it weird, don’t be weird, please. I’ve had enough of weird for one day.
“Did it hurt?” The voice that came was almost serious, betrayed by an audible smile, words soft around the edges. “When you fell from heaven?”
Crowley rolled his eyes, momentary intrigue wilting away as quickly as it had bloomed. “Has that line, in the history of existence, ever worked on anybody?”
He heard a little cough of embarrassment, and then, “I, er, first time trying it out, if I’m honest. You tell me. Been a bit of a day, thought I’d try something new.”
Crowley looked at him then, at the white blond hair curling at the tips, cream jumper and practical shoes. He was holding a very sensible glass of wine, unoccupied hand fidgeting at his side, the polar opposite of somebody who spent their Saturday nights sending cocktails to strangers. To hell with it, he thought. “Take a seat.”
The seconds that ticked by as they politely stared into the depths of their drinks felt a lot like torture. When it was almost too much to bear, Crowley sighed to break the silence. “Anthony, by the way, Anthony Crowley. Just call me Crowley, don’t usually bother with the whole first name thing.”
“Crowley,” the bookseller repeated, turning the word over in his mouth until he decided he liked the taste of it. He extended a neatly manicured hand. “Zira.”
“Unusual.” Crowley took his hand, gave it a firm shake. Unusual was one word for it, for both the name and the entire situation.
Zira raised an eyebrow, slid his glass across the table as he leaned forward, elbows pressed to the dark wood as he dropped his voice conspiratorially. “Mmm, that’s not the half of it.”
“Oh?”
He shook his head, paused to take a sip of wine and narrowed his eyes. It was a test, of sorts. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. I think it’s been an unusual day all round. Something in the air.” Crowley laughed, relaxed lower in his chair as he let Zira’s chatter wash over him, his words tumbling out in one great breath as if they were old friends reunited after far too much time apart.
By the time the sky grew dark two humans sat thigh to thigh, hands curved around damp glasses as they swapped stories about that odd moment at midday when everything had gone dark for just a moment and they’d come to with the unsettling feeling that something had shifted, as if the world’s axis had been knocked ever so slightly off kilter.
Zira gestured down to their empty drinks, nodded briskly towards the bar. “Tempt you to one more?”
Crowley looked across at him, felt something stir to life in his chest, an unmistakeable flicker of familiarity that he couldn’t quite place. Not yet, at least, but there was still time. Plenty of it, in fact. He bit his lip, chuckled at the madness of it all. “Temptation accomplished. Go on then.”
As a bookseller and a dog walker smiled at each other amid the bustle of the city continuing around them as it always had, it felt very much like the start of something which would begin, as these things so often do, in a garden.