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Aziraphale had never seen anything like this before. It was awful.
The entire heavenly host was gathered to witness it, scowls on their faces as the disembodied voice of The Almighty seeped through the very molecules surrounding them.
“You are henceforth . . . damned. For eternity.”
“But why?” the disgraced angel cried. His robes lay in tatters around his hips where he knelt. His graying, disheveled wings drooped at his sides. “All I ever did was ask questions! And this? This is what I deserve?”
Silence. Aziraphale looked on in disbelief as the rest of the heavenly host glared down at their former ally, not a shred of empathy in their eyes.
“Well, that settles that,” said Gabriel, Supreme Archangel, from his place at the center of the host. “Time for you,” he sneered at the angel, “to shut your stupid mouth and Fall, already!”
The angel’s wings began to smolder at the edges. Feathers, once as bright as the halls of Heaven itself, littered the firmament around his feet in grayish, sooty piles.
Aziraphale was distraught. How could they treat him like this? Though it was Aziraphale himself who had warned the angel against questioning God’s creation, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Surely, the other angels could find it in their hearts to feel something other than outright disdain. Could they not see this being as one of their own, flawed and damned as he may be?
But he seemed to be the only one who could.
He stepped out of his place in line.
“Gabriel,” Aziraphale’s voice trembled slightly. “You can’t let him go through this alone. It isn’t just.”
“And…… you are?” Gabriel sneered again, turning to him with eyebrows raised mockingly. “Uh, no one? Yeah. Get back in line, soldier.”
“No.”
Aziraphale stood resolutely in place. “I will not abandon him.”
“So you’re saying you want to join him?” Gabriel shot back, quickly losing patience with Aziraphale’s insolence.
“No!” Aziraphale cried. Then, with a guilty glance toward the Falling angel, “I-I mean, I’m saying I… I don’t want to leave him to face this alone. I volunteer to stay with him as… as long as it takes.” He raised his chin in defiance.
“Uh, okay, whatever,” Gabriel shook his head. “Weirdo.” He turned to the rest of the host. “Nothing else to see here, folks! Angels, out!”
With that, Gabriel and the other angels turned and vanished. Aziraphale and the Falling angel were alone.
“You don’t have to do this,” the angel said quietly, avoiding Aziraphale’s gaze and wincing. “I made my choices.”
More and more feathers dropped from his once-magnificent wings as Aziraphale looked at him. He knew the angel was putting on a brave face. That had to hurt.
The angel continued. “I remember you, you know. You’re the one who helped me crank out that first nebula.” He paused. “The one who warned me about asking questions.”
Aziraphale’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “You… remember that?”
“’Course I do,” said the angel flatly. “S’all I’ve been thinking about since… Since.” He winced again.
“Look,” Aziraphale said, stepping closer, “I meant what I said to Gabriel. I don’t want you going through… this”—he gestured vaguely to the gray wings and loose feathers—“alone.”
The angel finally met his gaze. An emotion that Aziraphale couldn’t identify crossed his face. “There seems no point in telling you to leave,” he said. “So.”
Wordlessly, Aziraphale glided over to him and placed a caring hand on the angel’s shoulder, smiling sadly. “I’ll be here with you until—until I can’t,” he reassured him.
They hovered like that for what felt like ages, smoking gray feathers continuing to shed from the Falling angel’s wings. Then, suddenly, small flames began to creep up the edges of the wings. The angel’s face curled up in anguish.
“Hurts,” he mumbled, eyes clenching shut.
“I know,” Aziraphale said softly back, though of course, he could have no possible idea.
With a hand on each of the angel’s shoulders, Aziraphale could feel the heat beginning to radiate off the angel’s skin. It became so hot that he nearly removed them, but resolved to keep them there to offer comfort as long as he could. Then, the angel’s eyes burst open and his neck snapped back so that he was looking straight up. Panic overtook his features. Aziraphale watched in horror as the beautiful brown of his irises gave way to blazing yellow. His pupils stretched and elongated until they narrowed to slits—and Aziraphale could finally see the angel’s fate. A Serpent. Wily and cunning. Nothing like the angel of the nebulas he met.
A tear rolled down Aziraphale’s cheek. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry this is happening to you.”
The angel cried out in anguish and began to slip ever so slowly out of Aziraphale’s grasp. Aziraphale could feel it: The Fall had begun.
Soon, the pain became so great that the angel could no longer open his yellowed eyes. Aziraphale watched helplessly as he seemed to lose consciousness, head dropping to one side. The feathers of his wings were almost entirely black now, flames having made their way to the angel’s shoulder blades. Aziraphale nearly choked on the acrid, unforgiving smoke they left behind.
And then, all at once, the angel slipped out of Aziraphale’s hands as if he’d been jerked away. The sudden movement startled him back into consciousness. With great effort, he tipped back his head once more and opened his eyes to gaze up at Aziraphale.
“Whatever happens to me,” he said weakly, “I will never forget you.”
Suddenly, brutally, the angel dropped through the blindingly white firmament at a blistering pace. He was gone.
Aziraphale wept. Despite the angel’s final words to him, he knew the truth: He would forget. That would be Heaven’s final, awful punishment: to make him forget everything and everyone in his former home.
But Aziraphale knew one thing: He would never forget.
——
Several millennia later, after they finally start Talking (and Listening) to each other . . .
“I knew you… before, you know,” Aziraphale says quietly one evening. They’re indulging in one of their favorite post-dinner (well, for Aziraphale) activities, splitting a bottle of wine by the fireplace in the bookshop. The room is dark, save for the fire crackling merrily in the hearth. It casts a warm, indulgent glow over Crowley, who has draped himself across one of Aziraphale’s many plush armchairs.
“I know that,” Crowley replies lazily. He takes a sip of wine and rolls it around in his mouth for a moment for before he swallows. “You’ve told me. Something about nebulas.”
Aziraphale shoots him a glance, beginning to regret bringing up something so awful on such a pleasant night. But this is what they’ve committed to, right? Actually talking to each other? Sharing things? About their feelings? And their experiences, traumatic as they may be?
“Yes,” he says simply, looking away. “I have. But…” he pauses. “I haven’t… told you everything.” He forces himself to meet Crowley’s questioning gaze.
“…go on,” Crowley says after a beat. “What do you want to tell me, angel?” he adds, his tone softening as he sees the shift in Aziraphale’s body language. He’s nervous.
The pet name, once seen only has a descriptor, encourages Aziraphale. He takes a deep breath.
“I, ah… I was there. Then. At… at the Fall.”
Crowley wasn’t expecting that. He shifts in his chair until he’s upright. He’d deposited his sunglasses on the horse statue, as was his custom, the moment they’d returned to the bookshop after dinner, but now, he longs for their protection. As open as the two of them have been with each other as of late, there are still times when he wishes he could retreat into his steely demon facade. He’s not sure if he wants Aziraphale to see how much this revelation means to him. He’s not sure he’s ready to reveal that he’s wanted to ask about this very thing for thousands of years.
“You… you were, eh?” Crowley says, trying desperately to sound casual.
Aziraphale nods once. He goes to speak again and then stops himself, reconsidering. “I would like to share this with you, but I understand it might be painful for you to talk about… it all,” he says gesturing vaguely. “Is it… okay?”
A small smile pulls at the corner of Crowley’s mouth. They’re so careful with each other now. It’s comforting and infuriating at the same time, to be so gentle, to ask for permission. But Crowley appreciates it. It is painful.
“Thank you for asking, angel. I think I’ll be alright,” he says gently.
“Okay. Just making sure. I know we’re trying to be—”
“It’s okay, my love,” Crowley interrupts. He knows if he doesn’t jump in now Aziraphale will never get to the point. “I’ll be fine. What do you want to tell me?”
My love. Still so new. Still so wondrous. Aziraphale looks down at his hands, folded primly in his lap, and continues. “As I was saying, I was there when you—when you Fell. The whole heavenly host was, actually,” he adds.
Crowley nods. Not surprising. It’s not every day that an angel is cast out of heaven, after all.
“And when The Almighty said…” Aziraphale stops, looking into the fire and cringing at the painful memory, “when She said you-you were… damned,” he breathes, “the other angels, they—they looked at you with such… such contempt. I couldn’t bear it.”
Crowley’s heart breaks a little. His poor angel. He really is too pure. “Well, I’m sure I hadn’t made many friends,” Crowley says, attempting to lighten the tone.
Aziraphale shoots him a mildly scolding look. “It was awful,” he says. “You were just—there, in the center of us all, d-dying.”
Crowley’s eyes grow wet. Not for himself, but for his angel. For the pain this caused him—and causes him still. “I wasn’t dying, angel,” he offers, trying to comfort him. “I was—”
“I know,” Aziraphale bites his lip. “But that’s what it felt like to me. And that’s certainly what it looked like.” He pauses.
“Looked like…” This stops Crowley cold. He’d thought about the Fall many, many times over the millennia, but he’d never once thought about what it looked like to others. All he remembered was pain, and heat, and the horrible sensation of plummeting down, down, down, until he landed with a resounding smack in hell. He doesn’t remember anything about what he looked like before he became the Serpent.
“Yes,” Aziraphale nods. “Your wings, they were—gray, and sort of… shedding. And they were… on fire.”
That explains the heat, then. And the pain. Crowley flinches, and Aziraphale catches it.
“I can stop—”
“—no, angel, it’s fine,” Crowley says through gritted teeth. Then, summoning strength and reminding himself of their commitment, he says, “It is painful to hear. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t say it. I-I want you to. To share. I know you’ve been holding this in for a long time.”
Aziraphale reaches out a hand and places it on Crowley’s knee. “If you’re sure, my love,” he says.
Crowley takes his hand in his own. “I am.”
“It was—it really was awful, to see you there like that, with no one to help you when you were in such pain.” Aziraphale continues. “I couldn’t bear it. And then Gabriel—”
“—Gabriel?” Crowley interrupts, shocked. “He was there?”
“Well, of course, darling,” Aziraphale bristles. “He was the Supreme Archangel. Kind of a—what do the humans say? Big deal.” Then, he gives Crowley a look that clearly says, May I continue? Crowley nods.
“And then Gabriel said something awful—I don’t remember exactly now, but something about ‘your stupid mouth’—”
Crowley’s eyebrows nearly disappear into his hairline and he clenches Aziraphale’s hand even tighter.
“What, my dear?” Aziraphale snaps. He just wants to get through this.
“Nothing,” Crowley says quickly. “Another time.”
Aziraphale shoots him a questioning look but continues. “Once Gabriel said that, I couldn’t take it anymore. So I stepped out of line and told Gabriel that I would stay with you as—as long as I could.”
Crowley blinks. Somewhere in the back of his mind—far, far back, in a place he’s never really reached before—is the tiniest flicker of recognition. “You… you were the one,” he says, so quietly that Aziraphale can barely hear him.
“What’s that, dear?” Aziraphale asks gently.
“You… were the one hol… holding me. My shoulders,” Crowley manages to say, his free hand absently raising to rub his left shoulder. It feels like he’s just drawn water into a bucket at the bottom of a very, very deep well, and he’s struggling to pull it up to the surface.
“Yes,” Aziraphale says, pain and awe in his voice. “You remember.”
“I don’t—I don’t quite,” Crowley says, rubbing his right temple. “But I can feel… things. From that day.”
Aziraphale pulls Crowley’s hand to his lips and places a soft kiss there. “I must have known,” he says, “back then. I must have known that you were special. To me.”
Crowley looks over at him, pulling himself away from the pain of his distant memories, and locks eyes with his angel. He feels a sudden rush of gratitude toward him. “Thank you,” he says, “for staying with me. For as long... as long as you… could.” To his horror, he begins to cry. “Oh, blast—”
“—my darling, it’s alright!” Aziraphale cries, throwing his arms around Crowley. That’s all it takes for them to both begin to heave with sobs. It’s a good, cleansing cry, one that comes from their very cores. A kind of crying that helps release a fraction of the pain they’ve each endured these past 6,000 years.
“I love you,” Aziraphale whispers into Crowley’s auburn curls. “So much.”
Crowley smiles into Aziraphale’s waistcoat as he sees the giant wet spot his tears have left behind. With a blink, he dries them away. “I love you, too, so much, my angel,” he says.