Work Text:
“You idiot. We could have been… us.”
Aziraphale turned away. He couldn’t cry — he never cried. And certainly not in front of Crowley.
He was stalking closer. And closer. Don’t look, don’t look. Then there were hands grabbing his coat, and Aziraphale turned straight into the kiss.
His brain couldn’t process it at first; Crowley was kissing him. Oh dear God, this was their first kiss and it would ruin him.
A spark of something passed between them. At first Aziraphale thought it was just the inevitable result of them finally coming together, but it was more than that. Some force coming from Crowley was breaking through invisible barriers in his brain, rewriting broken connections, unwinding and reweaving the threads of time. He clung to Crowley like a life raft, even as he became unmoored from the present.
He was pulled out of himself, and flung eighty years into the past — a past that, up until now, didn’t exist. At least, not for him.
“Shades of a very light grey, I rather fancy.”
The sly grin hadn’t left Crowley’s face. He just shook his head, and took another sip of wine.
Things were finally quiet, and Aziraphale was savoring it. The stillness, the companionship. The victory of simply existing in the same room, the victory of survival.
He was still riding the adrenaline high — or whatever the angelic equivalent was that his corporation had conjured up. A marvel of design, a chemical that would keep humans alive in the most dire of circumstances. That would keep them from lying down and accepting their fate. Humans had been known to perform feats of enormous physical strength under life-threatening pressure.
Aziraphale hadn’t lifted a car, or dragged a child from a burning building. He had merely switched a photograph with a piece of paper. Stolen what could have been both a precious keepsake and their death sentence from that odious demon.
He’d had a gun pointed right at his face that same evening, and yet nothing had kicked in his survival instincts like the idea of Crowley being dragged down to Hell, forever.
In retrospect, once the feeling wore off and the immediacy passed, he might contemplate the recklessness of their actions and the need to avoid it in the future.
But for now, they’d survived. Not just that night, not just the bullet trick and the Nazis. The two of them had survived eighty years of separation. This… thing between them hadn’t died. Maybe it was fighting for survival too. Maybe its instincts had kicked in just as Aziraphale’s had, sensing the desperation, the thread that could have been so easily cut. Maybe like a lizard, it had learned to grow back its tail.
Aziraphale cleared his throat. “Regardless, it’s nice to be back to our usual pace of things.”
“Back to our fraternizing, you mean.”
“I seem to recall you having many options to fraternize.”
Crowley waved his hand in dismissal. “Nah. Who else is going to let me shoot them in the face?”
“Almost shoot me. Which was the whole point, and you performed admirably.”
“Makes you wonder, though.”
“Wonder what?”
“I mean, all we were doing was putting on the worst magic show — sorry,” he said at the stern look on Aziraphale’s face. “The most memorable magic show the West End has ever seen. And Furfur got all worked up over what? A handshake? And he could have taken that” — Crowley pointed accusingly at the photo where it lay on the table — “and caused some real damage.”
“I’m not sure I follow,” Aziraphale said.
“Hell’s never taken any interest in auditing what I do up here. It took some nobody demon with a vendetta to actually get on our case. They didn’t exactly send their best and brightest, did they? But besides that…” Crowley started to tap his fingers against the side of the wine glass. “You know, don’t you? You know what would have happened if you hadn’t managed to swap the photo?”
“Nothing good, I imagine,” Aziraphale said thinly. He didn’t want to think about it, not right now.
“Nothing remotely good. All for collaborating on a magic trick. Not traded assignments, not fudged reports, just being in the same bloody room.”
“Are you…” Aziraphale felt a pit forming in his stomach. “Are you saying we should keep some distance? To be safe?”
“No!” Crowley said quickly. He reached an arm out toward Aziraphale, before pulling it back and settling on the table between them. “No,” he said, a lot more calmly. “I do think we’ll be safe for a while. But it makes me wonder, if the worst could happen for something so small…”
“Why not go for something big?” Aziraphale whispered.
Crowley nodded slowly.
Aziraphale reached out and lightly traced his fingers along the top of Crowley’s hand. His skin still held a slight chill from the night air. “Something like this?”
Crowley let out a shaky exhale. “Angel…”
“Would you take off your glasses?” Aziraphale asked, gripping Crowley’s hand more firmly.
Crowley hesitated, but took them off, placing them gently on the table. Then he met Aziraphale’s gaze, giving him the first real glimpse of those piercing yellow eyes that he’d had all night. The usual need for bravado and camouflage was warring with a softening desperation.
Crowley looked so beautiful here in the candlelight, shadows casting across the ridges and lines of his face.
“Angel, you have to know—”
Aziraphale didn’t mean to cut him off. Didn’t mean to interrupt what surely would have been some stilted declaration, words that would rend his heart in two. But that same survival instinct that had saved him earlier was telling him that what he needed, what he absolutely had to have in order to keep on living, was to be as close as possible to the demon across from him.
In an instant he had launched himself up and gripped Crowley’s face to kiss him. He could feel the surprise in the shape of Crowley’s lips, that clever mouth that he had watched over the millennia, thinking of this exact moment. He pressed in closer, dragging a hand down Crowley’s jaw to gently tip his head to the side.
Crowley let out a deep moan and opened his mouth, meeting Aziraphale’s hunger with his own. He dug his fingers into Aziraphale’s waist and pulled him in closer. Aziraphale whined as he let himself be dragged in, first to stand between Crowley’s legs and then to climb onto his lap.
He didn’t break the kiss, he didn’t dare. He didn’t need to, neither of them did, what did oxygen matter when this thing was crying out to be fed? And he fed, oh he fed. Gripping at Crowley’s neck, at his shoulders, licking into his mouth and gasping as Crowley briefly caught his tongue between his teeth. There were hands all over his back, his arse, his thighs, holding and squeezing and pressing him closer so there was no space left between the two of them.
Crowley groaned, deep in his throat, at the first roll of Aziraphale’s hips against him. He wasn’t even thinking, he just needed to do it, he needed to feel, to know that this rabid need inside of him wasn’t one-sided.
Crowley pulled his head back and Aziraphale tried to chase his lips, but gentle fingers on his cheek held him still. “Aziraphale,” he panted, voice rough. “I need to know…” He looked up, eyes blown wide. His lips were beautifully flushed and shining, and it took some effort for Aziraphale not to dive right back in. “I need to know what you want.”
“I would have thought that was obvious,” he said with another roll of his hips. Crowley groaned again, and tucked his head against Aziraphale’s neck.
“That’s not what I meant,” he said, his breath tickling the skin.
Aziraphale frowned to himself. How was he supposed to think straight, with Crowley so close, holding him so tight? He conjured up the best answer that he could.
“I can't... darling I... I just want us. You and me.” He swallowed, and nuzzled in closer. “Isn't that enough?”
“Yeah. Us.” Crowley’s voice sounded shaky, and Aziraphale didn't know what else to do besides burrowing in deeper, kissing down his neck, tasting the sweet musk of his skin.
“I’ve got a bed upstairs, you know. Not that I ever use it. I’d like… if you…” He screwed his eyes shut. He didn’t understand why words were failing him so spectacularly tonight. “Come upstairs with me, Crowley.”
Crowley tightened his grip on Aziraphale’s back. “Yes. Yes, angel.”
Aziraphale snapped his fingers, and then they were falling back onto a soft mattress covered with a tartan bedspread. Aziraphale braced his hands on the bed to stop himself from tumbling completely on top of Crowley, who was glancing briefly around the room that he’d never been in before. The bed took up most of the space — Aziraphale had cleared it of books and lit a soft oil lamp in the corner, bathing the room in a dim yellow glow.
Aziraphale stared down at Crowley splayed out beneath him, red and amber atop his crisp cotton sheets. He lowered himself to rest his full weight on top of him. Crowley groaned and wrapped his arms around his back, leaning up to kiss him again and again. Aziraphale’s body started moving on its own volition, rolling into a slow grind where he was straddling Crowley.
Crowley moved one hand down to grip his arse and rocked against him, making Aziraphale moan into his mouth at the feeling of Crowley’s hard cock pressing against his center.
Crowley broke the kiss, still holding on for dear life. “Are you… um… is this not working for you?”
“What?” Aziraphale asked, momentarily confused. This was working very well indeed for him, as evidenced by the wetness beginning to soak through his briefs. Then it occurred to him that that in itself was the issue. “Oh no, it’s nothing like that. I swapped Efforts. It’s become a habit whenever I get home, I don’t even think about it, I’m just more comfortable like this. Is… is that alright?”
“Of course it’s alright,” Crowley assured him. “It’s perfect.” He kissed him, and ran a hand gently through his hair. “You’re perfect.”
Something in Aziraphale simultaneously crumpled and snapped. He sat up and started frantically tugging at Crowley’s tie, whipping it loose and successfully wrangling the top few buttons of Crowley’s shirt. He had just gotten a peek at a few tantalizing inches of skin before Crowley sat up, hoisting Aziraphale briefly by his legs so he was perched on his lap and Crowley had room to start working at Aziraphale’s layers. They got sidetracked by some more kissing and some more grinding, but eventually managed to get both of them bare-chested.
“Lie down so I can look at you properly,” Crowley whispered. Aziraphale shivered and moved off his lap, lying back on the bed, squirming a little under Crowley’s hungry gaze. Crowley propped himself on his side next to him, and gently ran his hand down his sternum, exploring slowly.
“Crowley,” Aziraphale whined.
Crowley groaned. “Fuck angel, do you have any idea…” He leaned in and started to follow the path of his hand with his lips. Each kiss was scalding, leaving an imprint on Aziraphale’s skin that he knew would never wash off. “How long I’ve wanted to hear you say my name like that…” He kissed lower, not taking his sharp yellow eyes off of Aziraphale’s face while he made his way down his stomach and towards his hips. “Wanted to see you like this.” There was a slight tremor in his voice, mirrored in Aziraphale’s when he answered.
“I’ve wanted this too,” he whispered back. “I’ve wanted you so much, darling please—”
Crowley fumbled with Aziraphale’s belt. “Can I take this off?” he asked. Aziraphale nodded. He miracled his own shoes and socks away to allow Crowley to pull his trousers off.
Then he was completely bare in front of Crowley for the first time, who was now kneeling between his parted legs.
“You’re stunning,” Crowley said. “I mean, I always knew, but fuck—” And then he had his lips on Aziraphale’s legs, his knees, his thighs, moving up and up until the searing heat of Crowley’s tongue was diving into the space between his legs.
Aziraphale squeezed his eyes shut so hard that he saw stars. He felt them too, a supernova beginning to take form.
Crowley was taking his time, lapping at him gently, spreading him apart with a delicate touch. He closed his lips around Aziraphale’s bud and sucked, the sensation so incredible that Aziraphale brought his fist to his mouth to stifle the loud whine that escaped his throat.
“Don’t.” Crowley pulled away, and Aziraphale looked down at him. His lips were glistening, covered in Aziraphale’s desire. “I want to hear you.” He licked a long stripe up Aziraphale’s center and he keened. “I want to hear every blessed noise you can give me.”
“Crowley—” he gasped out. He couldn’t form any other words, not when Crowley was taking him apart so completely. He grasped downwards, needing to anchor himself, and found a hold in Crowley’s hair. The gel was a little crunchy, and Aziraphale couldn’t help but huff out a small laugh.
Crowley, of miracled clothes, fake money and a mysteriously fireproof car, had done his hair the human way.
And now he was pleasuring him the human way.
The laugh quickly turned into a groan as Crowley kept devouring him, every pass of his tongue drawing fire up through his skin.
“Crowley, yes, yes, oh!” He lurched upwards and tightened his grip in Crowley’s hair. Heat was surging through him, and he looked down again—
Straight into amber eyes that were fixed on his every movement and thrash. He could feel them memorizing him, feasting on the sight as much as his own swollen flesh.
He held Crowley’s gaze as he came, the heat and electricity radiating through his body until he could barely breathe. His legs shook against Crowley’s hold, long fingers digging into pale flesh.
Crowley gradually slowed as the feeling subsided. He wiped his mouth off with the back of his hand and then kissed up along the ridge of Aziraphale’s hip. His lips ghosted over a sensitive part of his side, and Aziraphale giggled, still riding his high.
“What?” Crowley looked offended.
“That tickles.” He grinned affectionately. “Get up here.”
Then he had him in his arms once again. He couldn’t help smiling into their kiss, basking in the fading glow of his orgasm, the joy of being with Crowley, and the slightly musky and briny taste of himself on his lips.
Aziraphale snapped Crowley’s trousers away, and he made a small noise of surprise as the bare skin of his cock came in contact with Aziraphale’s leg.
“Sorry,” Aziraphale said. “Was that too presumptuous?”
“Presume away,” Crowley said, nuzzling into his neck. “I’ll give you anything you want, angel. Anything.”
Aziraphale shuddered. He wanted so much. Much more beyond what they were doing in this bed.
But he couldn’t think about that right now.
“Would you take me, Crowley?” He tightened his arms around Crowley’s back, and hooked a leg over his hip, grinding up against his hard length.
He got a ferocious kiss in response.
He was so wet that Crowley’s cock kept slipping on his entrance. Aziraphale reached down and guided him inside, and he threw his head back and arched up into it as Crowley slowly speared him open.
Aziraphale’s body took him in like it was the most natural thing in the world. At some level he knew he’d been waiting for this moment for eons, since the first drops of rain had fallen on Eden.
Crowley rested his forehead on his as he started to slowly move in and out.
“Oh, Crowley,” he panted.
Crowley propped himself on one elbow and looked down at where Aziraphale’s body was swallowing him up over and over.
“Look at you,” he groaned. “You’re gorgeous.”
“Harder,” Aziraphale gasped. “I need more of you.” Crowley gripped the back of his knee and hoisted it up around his hip, taking him faster and faster.
It wasn’t deep enough, it never would be. He’d never be able to take Crowley in as much as he wanted, for him to crawl inside of him, to make a home in his soul. But he could have this. He could take what was being offered.
Aziraphale didn’t even realize that there were tears forming in the corners of his eyes until his next breath came out ragged and wet.
“Are you ok?” Crowley asked.
“Keep going,” he begged. “It’s so good, I — I—” he lost himself to words. He was clawing at Crowley’s back, urging him on, pressing their lips together in something that was less a kiss and more an attempt to join them everywhere physically possible.
The rhythmic pounding of Crowley’s hips overwhelmed his senses. It was dragging him higher, and higher, his cock striking that sensitive spot inside of him, his pelvis slapping against his clit with every push, the wet joining of their bodies and their desperate groans filling the room.
“Angel, I—” Crowley gasped into his shoulder, his hands tightened around Aziraphale’s waist. “Fuck, you’re everything, everything to me—”
“Darling,” Aziraphale gasped. “I need you to come with me, I need to feel it, please Crowley—” He claimed his mouth again, moving urgent and desperate.
Aziraphale couldn’t tell where one of them ended and the other began. He was sizzling out of his skin, shaking, and Crowley was grinding into him, filling him up to bursting, darling Crowley, and he was crying out, he was flying and falling at the same time—
The lamp in the corner flickered and burst in a shower of light and glass, but Aziraphale barely noticed. By the time he came back to himself, the room was dark, and Crowley was running his hand soothingly up and down Aziraphale’s chest.
There were kisses, and lazy caresses, and the languid slide of their bodies against each other as they settled into a loose embrace. Aziraphale tucked himself up against Crowley’s back, an arm thrown around his thin waist. Soon the slow and steady rhythm of Crowley’s breathing let Aziraphale know that his darling demon had dozed off.
“This better not be one of your century-long naps,” he whispered into the back of Crowley’s head. Aziraphale settled further into the pillow, closing his eyes and smiling to himself.
He tried to, but couldn’t fully relax. After a while he realized that his chest and throat were beginning to tighten. He should be happy, shouldn’t he? That things had finally progressed between the two of them.
He was happy, but that wasn’t all of it. A slowly creeping sense of dread was working its way down his spine.
He opened his eyes. The room was too dark, the air too thick. He gingerly extricated himself from around Crowley, moving slowly so as not to wake him, then slid out from under the covers and stood. Being naked like this felt odd, he was almost never fully nude, and even though no one was looking he felt very self conscious, so he quickly dressed himself with a muffled snap. He looked back at Crowley from the doorway, at the softened contentment on his face, at the ungraceful sprawl of limbs across his side of the bed. It hurt how natural Crowley looked, tucked peacefully away in tartan, so Aziraphale turned and left.
His feet felt leaden on the stairs. Individually, nothing he was feeling was new. Fear was his constant companion over the millennia, so much so that it faded to a constant background hum in every waking moment. Fear of doing the wrong thing in the eyes of God, of displeasing the Archangels, of overstepping his role on earth. Guilt was his old friend too — guilt over his silent questioning of Heaven’s plans, over his earthly indulgences, over the Arrangement, over his feelings for Crowley. And loss — well that was the hardest one of all, wasn’t it? Because to feel a loss, you have to have had the thing in the first place. And Aziraphale wasn’t allowed to have anything of his own, not really.
But for several blissful hours, he hadn’t had to feel any of those things. All that had mattered was Crowley, and how the two of them fit together, made each other whole. He hadn’t had to think about anything other than good and right and finally.
And now the engine of his brain was roaring back to life, sending the train of thought hurtling over a bridge that he was still frantically constructing brick by brick.
He stepped down into the quiet empty of the shop floor. The sun was rising, and he was stabilizing. That could be his excuse — instability. A hundred years of contact packed into one night. Too much, too fast.
Can six thousand years be too fast?
When humans make mistakes, there’s an expiration date on the effects of their choices. A few decades at most for them to either cherish or regret the outcome. But Aziraphale had to live with all of his actions for all of eternity, and because of that was usually so careful in the ways he conducted himself — tiptoeing around Heaven’s rules and maintaining a deniable distance to spare Crowley from Hell’s wrath.
How could he have been so foolish?
He peeled back the window coverings above his desk, needing to tether himself to something beyond his own turbulent mind.
Across the city, dawn was breaking. The humans would be taking down their blackout curtains, counting their dead, counting their blessings. The city might have survived, but Aziraphale hadn’t. This thing had clawed its way straight through him in its feeding frenzy. Like a virus, it had burned out its host, sacrificing him to live for a brief, bright, and baleful moment.
And now Aziraphale would have to do the same thing to Crowley.
He didn’t realize how long he’d been standing at the window, until footsteps on the stairs behind him jolted him out of his reverie.
“There you are,” Crowley said from across the room. “Woke up and you were gone.”
Aziraphale briefly pressed his eyes closed in an attempt to steel his nerves. “Just wanted some tea. Would you like a cup?”
“Nah, I’m good.” Crowley entered his field of vision, padding across the carpet in bare feet, dressed only in trousers with his dark blue button-up hanging open across his alabaster chest. His hair was adorably messed up, like he’d just rolled right out of his lover’s bed, a soft smile gracing his lips. It was exactly as Aziraphale had feared; Crowley looked just as captivating in the light of day as he did last night.
That brief image of domestic bliss disappeared in an instant as Crowley froze at the expression on Aziraphale’s face. Six thousand years and he knew exactly what he was thinking.
Aziraphale held eye contact for as long as he could before looking away.
“Crowley—”
“No. No no no, you are not doing this, do not do this to yourself—”
“We have to talk about this rationally—”
“Stop, Aziraphale, please— ” Crowley reached out for him, but Aziraphale stepped back and away. He knew if he let himself have an iota of that devastating touch, his resolve would crumble.
“This was completely beyond the bounds of what is permissible,” Aziraphale said, willing his voice not to shake. “If anyone finds out–”
“Aren’t you tired of it?” Crowley asked. “Aren’t you fucking exhausted of treading the line, of following their rules?”
“They’re not just rules, Crowley! There are consequences!”
“We talked about this,” he said in a pleading voice. “We’ve made it this far, and we’ve survived, but don’t you want more than that? Don’t you deserve — don’t we deserve to have just one thing for ourselves?”
“We have us. The way we always have. Or we did — and I’ve gone and sullied it.” Aziraphale said it more to admonish himself.
“Sullied? Sullied yourself with…” Crowley trailed off and looked away.
“It was wrong.”
“What about everything you said last night?”
Aziraphale opened his mouth, and spat out the most egregious lie he’d ever told in his life. “I didn’t mean it. I was just caught up in the moment, we both were.”
“No, no, you — then why would you start it? Why would you—” Crowley shook his head. “This is my fault, isn’t it. For thinking that you could possibly—” He made a choked sound, and looked up to the ceiling, eyes shining with unshed tears.
“I should have known. I should have fucking known. Par for the course with you, isn’t it, Aziraphale.”
“That’s not fair!”
“None of this is fair! Always with the self-sacrificial bullshit.”
He’d never seen Crowley this angry at him. Angry at Her, at their respective offices, sure. But it was never directed at Aziraphale.
Which was further proof of how terribly he’d messed up.
“I am trying to do the right thing, for both of us. This can’t happen again, Crowley, it just can’t.”
“You are panicking, you are spinning this out of proportion.”
“One of us has to think with something other than what’s between our legs.” The second the words left his mouth he regretted it. They tasted like ash on his tongue.
“Wow.” Crowley looked out the window. “That’s what you think happened here, angel?” he asked in a quiet voice.
Aziraphale couldn't bring himself to lie again. “It doesn’t matter why it happened. The only thing that matters is that it doesn’t happen again. We were lucky to get away unscathed last night, we need to keep our distance and be smart about this.”
Crowley was silent, still resolutely looking away.
“Do you understand?”
“Loud and fucking clear, angel.” Crowley nodded, chewing on his lip. “Right.” In an instant he was dressed in his jacket and shoes, the armor of his sunglasses firmly back on his face.
He stalked out, slamming the door behind him, and disappeared into the remnants of their bombed-out city.
Aziraphale didn’t go back into the bedroom for weeks. He knew he should — the sheets needed cleaning, the bed needed making. And he couldn’t do it with a miracle, he couldn’t have that on any reports. When he finally mustered up the courage to venture inside, it was like a shovel to the face. Dual imprints on the pillows, the rumpled duvet where Crowley must have pushed it aside when he got up in the morning for what would be the last, and only time. The smell of sweat and sex still clung to the bedding and air, longer than it would have for any humans. He gritted his teeth and commanded his eyes to stay dry.
He gathered the sheets with shaking arms; he would throw them out. There was no washing away his sin, only sending it as far away as possible.
As he scooped them up, a flash of red under the bed caught his eye. He bent down and pulled the strip of maroon fabric into the light.
It was Crowley’s tie.
It didn’t smell like sin or shame. It just smelled like him. Beautiful, crafty, infuriating Crowley, whose life he had so selfishly put in danger.
Aziraphale sobbed on the floor for an hour straight. And then hid the tie in the back of a dresser drawer.
He never looked at it again. Even after… after.
4 years later
The bookshop phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Hi. It’s me.”
“Yes, I know.”
“…”
“…”
“War’s finally done.”
“I heard. It’s terrific news.”
“…”
“…”
“I could bring over some champagne.”
“I don’t much feel like celebrating.”
“Right.”
“I need to go. Goodbye, Crowley.”
“Bye, angel.”
10 more years later
“Fell’s bookshop, how may I help you?”
“Hi.”
“Oh. Hello.”
“How, um, how are you?”
“I’m quite well.”
“…”
“And you?”
“Doing alright.”
“…”
“There’s a new seafood bistro on Brewer Street, would you want to—”
“I think not.”
“Right. ‘Course not.”
“It’s just — we shouldn’t — it isn’t—”
“Got it.”
“…”
“…”
“Goodbye, Crowley.”
“Bye, angel.”
6 more years later
“Hello?”
“It’s me.”
“Yes.”
“I’m not — I don’t — I just wanted to check on you.”
“I’m perfectly alright.”
“Yeah.”
“I need time, Crowley.”
“How much time?”
“I don’t know.”
“…”
“…”
“Are you still there?”
“Yeah. ‘M always here, aren’t I?”
“I’m hanging up now.”
“Right.”
“…”
“We can—“
“Goodbye, Crowley.”
Aziraphale slammed the headset down before he could say something foolish. Something like, “Get over here this instant so I can put my hands on you and reassure myself that it wasn’t all a dream.”
Two weeks later, far too late in the day for any customer to drop by, the bell on the door jingled, and Aziraphale’s heart leapt into his throat. Surely Crowley would never break a direct request of his to be left alone. Would he?
“Aziraphale!” A loud, gratingly confident voice that definitely didn’t belong to Crowley rang out in the front of the store. And in a heartbeat Aziraphale realized that he’d been hoping it was him.
“Gabriel!” Aziraphale plastered on his usual fake, subservient smile.
“Hope you don’t mind the impromptu visit,” the archangel said, striding in in his impeccably tailored suit as if he owned the place.
“Of course not. It’s always a pleasure.”
“I’m a little surprised you’re still using this place as a base of operations,” Gabriel said. “There’s so much… stuff here.” Aziraphale held back a flinch as Gabriel poked at one of his Wilde first editions.
“It’s served me well over the years,” he said. “That is, enabled me to serve the humans. There’s a delightful family that runs the record shop next door, and the daughter—"
“I’m glad you find the humans fascinating,” Gabriel cut him off. “But that’s not why I’m here. There’s been demonic activity reported in the area.”
Aziraphale’s stomach clenched. Crowley couldn’t possibly have been so foolish as to garner heavenly attention, could he?
“I don’t believe my adversary Crowley poses any kind of real threat,” he said. “I have him well under control.”
“What?” Gabriel made a face that only he could, where he seemed to smile and frown at the same time. “No, not him. Some new ones have been spotted.”
“They aren’t — not around the bookshop?”
“No, they’re not stupid enough to hang around a heavenly embassy. But the city in general, yes.”
“I see.”
“We don’t have any specific concerns yet, but we need you to keep an eye on things.”
“Of course. I shall certainly do my best.”
Gabriel just nodded, eyes wandering distastefully around the bookshop. “I’m sure you will.”
And in a blink, the archangel vanished.
Aziraphale waited an hour to make sure Gabriel was well and gone, then wrote a brief note and prepared to miracle it over to Crowley’s apartment. He was shaking too much to speak on the phone.
Come to the bookshop. We need to talk.
He stopped and considered how Crowley might interpret that. He added a single word, and sent it on its way.
We need to talk business.
Not ten minutes later there was the sound of a car door slamming and a knock at the door.
Crowley was dressed in some fashionable pinstripe suit, hands shoved in his pockets. No hat this time, and he had on a different style of sunglasses than he'd been wearing twenty years ago.
“Crowley,” he greeted him.
“Aziraphale.”
They stood in the doorway for a while, neither quite making eye contact, until Aziraphale cleared his throat and moved aside.
“Won’t you come in?”
Crowley moved past him into the store, and Aziraphale got a small whiff of his scent. He had to quickly tamp down the memory of licking it off his neck.
“You look well,” he said to Crowley.
“And you look… the same.”
Aziraphale glanced down at himself. He hadn’t updated his outfit in decades, it hadn’t even occurred to him.
“It’s not an insult,” Crowley said quickly. “It suits you. The bowtie.”
“I didn’t ask you here for — Gabriel came to see me.”
“Oh.” Crowley stiffened even more than he already was. “Everything all right?”
“I was hoping you could tell me. Apparently there are a few new demons in the area.”
“Yeah, someone Downstairs got it in their head to stir up trouble with some bloke in Macmillan’s cabinet. Standard cheating scandal, pretty amateur stuff if you ask me.” Crowley waited. “And?”
“And what?”
“Is that all that’s got you spooked? A few low-level incompetents causing minor trouble?”
“Isn’t that enough?”
“This isn’t the first time there’s been demons roaming about our turf. They’ll be gone in a few months. We’ll be fine.”
“What if they somehow find out about us?”
“Given that you haven’t wanted to see me in twenty years, I’d say we’re safe,” Crowley said, an acidic note to his voice.
“Yes. I suppose. But best not take the chance and hang around too long.” Aziraphale wrung his hands and cleared his throat. “That was all we needed to discuss. You should probably be going.”
“Is this how it’s gonna be from now on?” Crowley asked.
“What?”
“I thought maybe… twenty years, Aziraphale, and you’re still worried?”
“I don’t wish to discuss that.”
“But that’s why you asked me here, right?” he asked accusingly. “Afraid one of these new folks will find out you shacked up with a demon?”
Aziraphale blanched. “Don’t be cruel, Crowley!”
His face softened. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to — fuck.” He collapsed onto the couch, and buried his head in his hands.
Aziraphale didn’t know what to say. He knew by now, on some level, that his fear of being found out was irrational. Nothing had changed just because he’d taken Crowley to bed. But the aftermath had been so profoundly staggering for himself, he worried that he was broadcasting it to everyone he came across. And that was the real problem, that he didn’t trust himself to keep Crowley safe.
Finally Crowley broke their long silence.
“Would you undo it?” he asked, looking up at Aziraphale. “If you could go back, and make it so it never happened, would you?”
“Yes,” Aziraphale whispered, suddenly finding his throat tight. “But I can’t. I have to live with my choice.”
“What if you didn’t have to?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I can take it away. Fuck, I don’t want to, but — Aziraphale, if it’s going to continue like this, if you’re going to keep torturing yourself and avoiding me for the rest of your life — I can’t take it. I just can’t.”
“You don’t mean…”
“You know who I was before.” Aziraphale tensed. They never talked about Before. “And I still have that power.”
“What power?” Aziraphale asked, afraid that he already knew the answer.
“To…” Crowley closed his eyes. “To change your memories. To erase it.”
“You could do that? To me?”
“Yes.”
“But not to yourself, I presume.”
Crowley shook his head.
“So…” Aziraphales mind churned with the implications. “To me it would be like it never happened, but you’d always remember?”
“Yes.”
“Crowley I…” he looked away, a tear streaming down his face. “I could never ask you to do that. To live with that knowledge forever.”
He barked out a hollow laugh. “What would be the difference? You’ve made it abundantly clear how you feel.”
Aziraphale clenched his jaw. Yes, he’d made it clear, how he should feel. That the way he actually felt didn’t matter.
“You’d suffer.”
“What do you think is happening now? At least you wouldn’t have to suffer alongside me.”
“I… I don’t know, I…” He glanced back in Crowley’s direction, unable to meet his eyes. Could he do it? Willingly forget the joy of being in Crowley’s arms, the feeling of kissing his lips and taking him inside his body, of making love to him?
But he would also be free of the pain, the crashing reality that he already lived in, made so much worse having tasted what he could never have again.
It was so tempting.
“What if I do it again?”
“I wouldn’t let you. Not if you tell me to.”
Aziraphale looked around the bookshop, at the table they’d sat and kissed, the stairs he’d trodden down the next morning, at the carpet by the window where he’d broken Crowley’s heart. His entire home was stained with the memories of what they’d done. Crowley was right — they couldn’t continue like this.
He sat down next to Crowley on the couch and folded his hands, staring down. “I’m so sorry, Crowley.”
“It’s not your fault, angel,” he said quietly. “You can’t help who we are.”
“Do it.”
He heard Crowley breathe in sharply. “Alright. But before I do this, you have to tell me. Are there any circumstances you’d want me to restore the memories? If things change, if there’s a chance—”
“There never will be.” Aziraphale spoke with utter certainty. “That world doesn’t exist.”
“Ok.” Crowley took a deep breath. “This is it, then.”
“How does this work?”
“Just close your eyes.”
Aziraphale turned and took one last look at Crowley. The hair he had run his hands through, the shoulders he had gripped. It was a small mercy that Crowley had left his glasses on for this.
Aziraphale slowly closed his eyes. “I’m ready.”
After a few moments he felt fingertips gently rest on his temples, until Crowley was cradling his head in his hands. He could sense a power building up, something angelic and demonic at the same time.
It was nearly at a crescendo, and Aziraphale braced himself.
“I love you,” a broken voice creaked out.
Aziraphale’s eyes flew open. Crowley had his glasses off, and his eyes were glowing a brilliant violet, glistening with tears that were streaming down the lines of his face. He looked more open and wretched than Aziraphale had ever seen him.
“Forgive me,” Crowley whispered.
Then everything went black.
Aziraphale blinked and looked around the empty bookshop, sitting up straight on his couch. Why had he come into the back room again?
He turned from his perch on the sofa and saw his newly acquired short story anthology on the side table. That must be it. He’d been meaning to settle in and read the title that Crowley had slyly recommended, one of the few times he had accidentally divulged that he liked to read. Ever since Aziraphale opened the bookshop, Crowley proclaimed loudly and often that he had no interest in something as dreary and pedestrian as reading, insisting that the written word had peaked in the eighteenth century. But Aziraphale had seen this particular volume sliding around the backseat of the Bentley the last time Crowley had picked him up for dinner, and the demon begrudgingly muttered that he would find Aziraphale a copy.
His eyes then drifted to the small dining table on the other side of the room. For some reason Aziraphale’s mind was wandering, supplying memories of the night back in 1941 when he and Crowley had basked in their victorious outwitting of Hell’s most incompetent blackmail squad. Aziraphale had been rather pleased with the two of them, up until the point Crowley started making excuses to cut their drinking short, muttering about keeping a deniable distance until that other demon lost interest in them. It had been disappointing, but not surprising. He was right, of course. Crowley was looking after their safety. Like he always did.
Aziraphale shook it off. Odd that he should be thinking of that night. It wasn’t worth pondering right now, or probably ever. Although it had been a few months since he’d seen Crowley, maybe he should ring him up and ask to get dinner.
Aziraphale opened the book, and started to read.
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
Back in the present, Crowley released Aziraphale’s jacket, and broke the kiss. Not their first kiss, not even their tenth. Aziraphale hadn’t been keeping track back then, but maybe he should have been, so he would be able to know which one was their last.
Was this their last?
“I… I…” he stammered out. He wanted to rip the glasses off of Crowley’s face. He wanted to cry. He wanted to painstakingly map the last eighty years to see how all the pieces fell into place, to dig through every look and word Crowley had given him and connect it. He wanted to relive that memory, again and again, and ask himself why, God why, he had agreed to such a thing.
He wanted to take Crowley’s hand and run. To sit him down and apologize, to hug him, to scream at him, demand to know why he had waited three years after the apocalypse, until the absolute worst possible moment, to remind him of his own betrayal.
He couldn’t do any of that. Metatron was waiting — the world was waiting. None of this made a difference, none of this changed anything.
“I forgive you,” he finally said. For restoring his memories, now of all times, for taking them in the first place.
And although Crowley might have wanted forgiveness back then, he clearly didn’t want it now.
“Don’t bother.”
Then in an eerie echo of eighty years ago, Crowley was once again stalking out of the bookshop, and out of Aziraphale’s life.
And this time, he would never forget.