Chapter Text
The truth is, Crowley panics.
He's spent the last six thousand years not thinking about Armageddon, except in the most abstract possible way, as the sort of vague and distant goal you're meant to clap dutifully for when people give speeches about it before getting back to more immediate and interesting matters, like whether there's anything good on TV and whether you can fix it if there is (reality television having been one of his best ideas to date).
But now here it is. Armageddon, in his hands. In his car. A ticking time bomb in a basket, counting its way down to doomsday.
He isn't ready. Bless it all, he isn't ready. There are so many things he hasn't done yet. He's not sure what they are, but that's the point, isn't it? The humans are always inventing new things. Fun things. They've been promising him flying cars for nearly a century now, and he doesn't think they're going to manage them in the next eleven years. Not that he isn't loyal to the Bentley, but come on. Flying cars! How can he miss out on that? On any of it?
He takes a corner viciously, vindictively hard, and from inside the basket the imminent end of everything worth caring about lets out a protesting little cry. Crowley bites down hard on his lip to keep from joining in.
At the convent, he storms past the man who seems to be trying to talk to him. Doesn't bother asking which room he's meant to go to. He'll find it. It's Destiny or something. There's no choice in this at all, is there?
He just wants to get it over with. Swallow down the pill or rip off the bandage or whatever metaphor it is people who can't miraculously heal themselves would use, so he can put tonight behind him and spend the next eleven years getting drunk before all the alcohol is gone forever.
The Satanic nun greets him with a smile he doesn't return, says some inane things about the Antichrist's little toesy-woesies that he doesn't bother responding to.
Admittedly, the baby does have cute little toesy-woesies, if you like that sort of thing. He has a cute, round, little human face, too, that you'd think was sweet and innocent if you didn't know any better. Crowley supposes it must be a better form to infiltrate humanity with than a snake.
He lingers for a while, watching as the nun retrieves the human baby and prepares to substitute the Destroyer of Alcohol in its place. Because he's a conscientious demon who likes to make sure a job is done right, of course. Not because he can't look away from that stupid baby and its stupid lying face.
He can't, though. He stares into its wide, untroubled human baby eyes, and all he can see is the end. Including his own personal end in the form of a smiting by Heaven if he's lucky, or an eternity of Hell if he's not. No more concerts, no more highways blurring scenically past his car windows, no more baiting internet trolls, no finding interesting new things to do with his hair. No more wonderful little what-will-they-they-think-of-next inventions. No more leisurely lunches with...
He can't do it. He can't. The realization floods through him with a combination of terror and relief he would have thought would cancel each other out, but somehow really, really don't.
He snaps his fingers. The nun stops her prattling, the baby his gurgling. The world goes quiet.
He switches the babies. He snaps.
The world begins to move onward towards its future again.
"I'll just take this adorable little Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Prince of This World, and Lord of Darkness to his new mummy and daddy now," the nun says brightly, her hands on the cart, or the bassinet, or whatever it is that's now holding the perfectly ordinary human infant.
"Yeah. Yeah, right." He watches his own hands pick up the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Prince of This World, and Lord of Darkness. What is this? he thinks at them. What the heaven are you doing? But they don't listen to him. The baby disappears back into the basket.
"So, I'll just," he says, casually. "Dispose of this one, then."
The nun blinks. "Oh," she says. "I thought we were meant to deal with that?"
"Nah. 'Sokay. I got it." A voice in the back of his brain gibbers at him wildly. Something about this being entirely too much of a lie even for a demon.
"Oh. All right. What..." She glances down at the basket. "What are you going to do with him?"
He grins his biggest, evilest grin. "Trust me, you don't want to know."
I do! gibbers the voice. I want to know! What are we going to do with it?
"Oh," she says again. "Well, all right then. I suppose you know best. I mean, you are the demon after all. Well, wherever you're going from here, I hope you have a good--"
He cuts her off. "Yeah, yeah. Uh, Hail Satan."
A cheery "Oh, yes, Hail Satan!" follows him out the door, and then he's in the Bentley, shaking, and tearing down the road, shaking, and pulling up in front of a bookshop. Shaking.
**
There's a light in the bookshop, a warm glow spilling through the windows and out into the street. It's well past midnight now, but Aziraphale never sleeps. Never puts out his light. He's always here, no matter how late the hour.
In the now-motionless Bentley, in the dark, Crowley looks down through dark glasses at the face of the Antichrist. Unsurprisingly, he looks dark.
Crowley should just kill him. He knows that. It'd be the moral thing to do, even, killing one person to save, well, everything. Not that he's supposed to do the moral thing, but killing babies is pretty evil, right? So either way he's covered.
But he can't. He just... can't.
Satan, but he's a shitty demon.
Maybe Aziraphale will do it. Heaven has no problem killing kids, after all. It's kind of their thing, even. Maybe the angel will do it so he doesn't have to.
Probably not, though. Almost certainly probably not. But, bless it, he needs someone to share this colossal mistake he's just made with. Preferably someone with a well-stocked drinks cabinet.
He gets out of the car and slings the basket over his arm, jauntily, as if he's about to go on a picnic.
Aziraphale will have an idea. Or at least be good for some moral support and perspective. Yeah. Yeah. It will be fine.
**
"You did what?" says Aziraphale. He looks more shocked than Crowley ever remembers seeing him. Nice to know that after six thousand years people can still surprise you.
"You heard me," he says, and turns away for a moment to help himself to a bottle of Aziraphale's second-best scotch. He pours himself a glass, downs it in one gulp, and pours another.
Normally, Aziraphale would tut at him for this crime against good alcohol, but he's still too busy looking appalled to look disapproving. Small mercies.
"You kidnapped the Antichrist?"
"It was an accident," Crowley mutters, and pours the angel a glass.
Aziraphale takes it without even looking at it. "You kidnapped the Antichrist! And brought him to my bookshop!"
"What was I supposed to do? I couldn't leave him where he was. He'd grow up and end everything! And I like everything. Well, I like some things. And those things are part of everything."
"Yes, but you can't just--" Aziraphale is turning his glass anxiously in his hands. For a moment, Crowley almost thinks he's going to let some of it spill.
Crowley interrupts him. "So do you, angel. You know you do. You don't want it to end any more than I do. Think about it. No more sushi. No more chocolate mousse. No more nights at the theater. No more books. There'll be no one left to write any more. You can't tell me anyone writes books in heaven, not good ones. My lot gets all the best writers. Always has. You'll have eternity, on and on and on and on, forever, and before it's even properly got started, you'll have run out of things to read."
The look on Aziraphale's face, before he gets it under control, is one of genuine dismay. Crowley hates putting that expression there, feels a pang of guilt like a pain behind his eyes, but how does that saying go? When the devil drives...
"Well then." Aziraphale takes a swallow of scotch, big enough that by rights he ought to be tutting at himself for it now. "What on earth do you want me to do about it?"
Crowley looks into the basket and down into the face of their dilemma. The baby's eyes are shut, his face peacefully relaxed in sleep. A small bubble of spit bursts between his lips.
"You could..." Crowley licks his lips and forces himself to keep going. "You could make the problem go away," he says.
"Oh, thank you, that's very helpful. I was hoping for a slightly more specific suggestion." The angel drains the rest of his whiskey.
"No, I meant you could... You could kill him."
"What! No, I can't."
"You could, though."
"I..." Aziraphale takes a step closer to the basket, and stares down into it. The baby makes a small sleepy noise. "I don't think I could," he says, soft and halting.
"Yeah. Me either." He takes Aziraphale's glass from his unresisting hand and pours them both another.
"I suppose I could... I could talk to Heaven? Ask them for advice? I could leave your name out of it. Or tell them I stole it from you. Thwarted your wiles."
Crowley feels some vaguely unfamiliar emotion rising up in him. He thinks it might be pity. "And what do you think they'd do, angel? The end of the world is meant to be part of the Plan. I'd wager Heaven is looking forward to it just as much as Hell is."
"Surely... Surely not." But he says it without conviction. Crowley always both loves and hates it when he makes that look of doubt appear on Aziraphale's face.
"Or if not, if they did want to stop Armageddon from happening, they'd probably just order you to kill it."
Aziraphale's eyes widen, but he doesn't reply, doesn't argue, because they both know he can't. Instead he takes another drink. His hand shakes a little, just for a moment.
There are times when Crowley fantasizes about reliving the worst day of his immortal life, of standing in front of the host of angels, spitting in their faces, screaming You can't fire me, I quit!, and flinging his own bloody self down into the Pit.
He looks away from Aziraphale's face, giving him a moment, and retrieves several more bottles from the shelf.
"Well, we can't just keep him," Aziraphale says finally, as Crowley lines the bottles up on the table.
Crowley looks up at him, and whatever part of his expression is visible around his glasses, it brings Aziraphale up short. "Oh dear," he says. "Oh, no. Crowley, no, no, no."
"Well, I can't take him back," Crowley says. "Hell thinks that other kid's the Antichrist. They'll be watching him. And, all right, they're pretty lax, I might get lucky, but if I don't..." He shrugs, and Aziraphale goes pale. Paler.
"Oh, no, Crowley, they'll... They'll destroy you!'
"Nah, don't worry about that," Crowley says, with a nonchalant fling of his head, a dismissive twist of his mouth.
"What... Really?" Aziraphale almost looks hopeful, and suddenly the joke feels even less funny than it did when he started.
Crowley finishes it, anyway. "Yeah. Probably take them centuries to get around to killing me. It's the torture you really have to worry about."
"Oh. Oh, Crowley." Aziraphale runs a hand across his face, tugs his fingers through the white-blond fluff of his hair.
For a few moments, they drink in silence.
Then, Aziraphale says, "Maybe we could find someone to adopt him."
"Oh sure, sure. Foist off the Antichrist on some other unsuspecting humans. That'll go well." Crowley stares miserably into his empty glass, as if it's offended him. It has. It has offended him. He opens another bottle.
"Well, if we can't kill him and we can't take him back, then what exactly are you suggesting?"
Crowley looks at him. He makes a gesture with the hand holding the bottle, but even he isn't certain what it means.
Aziraphale apparently interprets it somehow, though. "Well, don't look at me. What do I know about babies? Besides, he'd... He'd get grubby little handprints all over my books!"
"You think I know any more about human babies than you do?" says Crowley, who knows quite a lot about human babies from having lived on Earth since slightly before they were invented, none of which he thinks really quite counts in this situation.
"Well, you're better with them than I am. Remember how good you were with Moses?"
Crowley remembers helping to save the kid from drowning after the guardian angel who was supposed to be guaranteeing him a safe trip downriver was delayed by an appointment with some honeyed wheat cakes. He'd nearly got in trouble for that after Moses' career really took off, when someone in Hell had gone poking into his past and somehow ferreted out that detail. He'd managed to spin it in his favor, though. No Moses, no tablets -- well, as far as any of them could prove, anyway -- and there is nothing in the world that makes temptation easier than having the rules written down. It's practically daring you to break them. In the end, he'd come out looking not just brilliant and dedicated, but downright prescient. Not that he felt all that great about it, given everything that happened between the kid floating down the river and the man walking down the mountain.
Crowley mutters something about this not being the same sort of situation at all, but he's not listening to himself, because he's busy having an idea. Something about it not having to be the same sort of situation at all. Especially if they can avoid anyone setting any bushes on fire.
"Wait," he says. "Wait."
Aziraphale waits, looking at him expectantly.
"Wait," he says again, because whatever the idea is still isn't quite forming properly in the starting-to-be-drunken haze of his mind.
"Yes? I'm waiting," says Aziraphale with exaggerated patience.
Crowley starts talking, interested to see precisely what's going to come out of his mouth. "The Antichrist is supposed to be evil, right? Spawn of Satan and all that?"
"Yes?" Aziraphale's patience is now decidedly less exaggerated. One might even call it "thin."
"No, no, wait, I'm thinking! OK, so, he's supposed to grow up evil. To end the world. But, look, angel. I like the world, right? You like the world. What if... What if we made sure he likes the world? Loves it, even?"
Aziraphale blinks. "But, surely, if he's meant to be evil, he won't be capable of that?"
Crowley lets out an annoyed hiss. "Aziraphale, I'm meant to be evil. And let me tell you, it's a lot less fun if you don't have a world to be evil in!"
"I don't think you're really very evil, you know," says Aziraphale, kindly.
"Sssshut up! Lisssten! The Antichrist, he's, all right, he's the Antichrist, but he's also a person. Or he will be. He has to be. He's meant to be part of humanity, until he isn't. Maybe we can make him--"
"Less evil?" Aziraphale cuts in, and that's not what quite Crowley was going to say, but the angel sounds almost hopeful. So he goes with it.
"Why not? You could influence him that way. Probably couldn't help it, really. And I'd be there to balance it out. My demonic nature, your angelic one... Maybe they'd cancel each other out, let us bring him up as a plain old boring human. If we do it right, maybe that's all he ever is. A nice human boy who grows up thinking, hey, the world isn't such a bad place."
"So that when the time comes," Aziraphale breathes, "he won't want to end it."
"We can hope."
"You're... You're suggesting we raise him. The two of us. Crowley, that's insane." But he's weakening. Crowley can feel it.
"Do you have a better idea?"
"Well, I..." But before Aziraphale can think of a gracious way to say he has no faintest fucking hint of a better idea, a sharp, shrill noise cuts him off.
The Antichrist is crying.
"Oh no," says Aziraphale. "What do you think he wants?"
"Dunno," says Crowley, walking over to peer into the basket. "Probably hungry?"
"Well, you're the one who wants to raise him. Do something!"
Crowley, who had perhaps begun to be soothed by the balm of his own cleverness, feels panic rising in him again. Right, babies. Feeding babies. He's seen thousands of humans feeding their babies. What is it they usually do again? He tries to shake the anxious, whiskey-filled haze from his mind without taking the radical step of actually sobering himself up.
"Breasts?" he says.
"What?" Aziraphale sounds shocked, as the Enemy of Bookshop Silence begins to wail louder.
"I think I'm going to need breasts." Oh, Satan. He's not prepared for this. He'll have to change his whole wardrobe. He'll have to...
"Can't you use goat's milk?" Aziraphale sounds uncertain. "Or perhaps a cow?"
Realization gallops through Crowley's mind, with relief hard on its heels. "Wait. Wait. They have stuff for this now. What do you call it? Formula!" He holds out a hand, expecting what he needs to be there, and gratefully shoves the resulting bottle into the Antichrist's mouth.
Silence falls. The Lord of Darkness's chubby little face relaxes into quiet contentment.
"Easy," says Crowley, ignoring the gibbering voice in the back of his mind as it tries to make its return. "See? We've got this, angel. Easy."
Aziraphale groans.
Crowley decides he's going to take that as a "yes."