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Disclaimer: New disclaimer to go with the new season! Obviously, I don’t own Good Omens or its characters, locations, etc., or else I wouldn’t have let Neil Gaiman destroy my entire soul. I love the characters he and Terry Pratchett wrote, and I wouldn’t change them for the world, except maybe to make them a bit smarter and more observant. But, alas, that’s what fanfiction is for.
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Cry for Absolution
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Aziraphale had well and truly fucked up.
He realized this when he had been discussing the plans for the next apocalypse with the other angels, roughly three years after he had left everything, including his favorite demon, behind in the dust for Greater Things.
In reality, he had never thought he was leaving to do wonderful things. He thought he was leaving so he could stop the other archangels from doing anything that would jeopardize humanity. And a certain redhead that he could never keep off his mind.
The other angels had never experienced Heaven, not in the way that he and Crowley had, so Aziraphale had hoped that he could convince them that humanity was worth saving. After all, they had invented pastries and tea and books and music and a whole host of other things that the angels had no concept of.
Of course, they had also invented chemical weapons and nuclear bombs and automatic rifles and a library’s worth of other things specifically designed to kill each other (and, boy, were they good at that), but humans were mostly good. There would always be bad apples when the concept of free will was in play.
But that was neither here nor there, and the impending apocalypse is a story for another time.
Aziraphale had a sudden moment of clarity, standing in the barren, sterile offices that constituted the offices of Heaven, that he was not doing the Right Thing. And if there was one thing he cared about (well, maybe two), it was doing the right thing. He realized that the other angels would never take his opinion into consideration, even with his added experience of Earth. They were going to do what they wanted to do, which was destroy the Earth and all of creation, and there was nothing Aziraphale could do to stop it.
At least, not while he was in Heaven. So he left.
Aziraphale hoped that he would be able to stop the looming apocalypse from the ground, like he had the first time around. Except, this time, he wouldn’t have his partner with him every step of the way.
Aziraphale was having a very hard time comprehending what had happened between him and Crowley the last time they had seen each other. He had always known, always felt, that he was loved so extremely and completely by the demon that he, as a being of love, had a hard time taking it all in. He had always felt radiating waves of love crashing over him so strongly that he sometimes felt like he would be knocked over, and he had always taken that for granted. He’d thought that Crowley would always be by his side, no matter what.
And then Crowley had kiss him, and, well…
Aziraphale had loved Crowley for a long time too, of course. He couldn’t believe that he’d had the kind of luck that granted him a friend, a life partner, quite like his demon. But when Crowley had kissed him, and he felt all those waves of love and desperation crashing over him, he couldn’t take it. How could he choose between the love of his everlasting life and the Greater Good?
He'd made the wrong bed, and now he had to lie in it.
Aziraphale took Heaven’s elevator down to Earth, stepping out on the corner next to his dusty little shop. He had missed it so much, he felt his chest tighten. He couldn’t let himself feel longing for what (or who) he truly missed, all the way down in his bones, so he let himself feel everything for his bookshop instead.
He made his way inside slowly, shooing Muriel away to the coffee shop across the street while he stroked his fingers along the spines of all his beloved books. There wasn’t a speck of dust out of place, and he made a mental note to thank the angel later, after he grabbed a few things and left for good.
Because, as much as he loved the bookshop, he simply could not stay in this place without Crowley by his side. There were too many memories tucked into the corners of the room, into the creases in the sofa and the golden yellow paint on the walls.
No, he couldn’t stomach staying in this place, his real home, without the person that he made it with.
Aziraphale made his way to the back room of the shop, carefully avoiding looking at the color of the walls. He was only here to collect a few of his absolute favorite books and his favorite tea and cocoa mug, delicately avoiding the thought of who had bought it for him.
Just as he was reaching down next to the sofa for a bag to put his things in, he felt a wave of love crash over him from somewhere off to his right. He knew that feeling, he recognized the essence that was surrounding him, and he felt tears instantly well up in his eyes.
“Angel? Is that you?” Crowley whispered. Aziraphale heard a desperate longing in the demon’s voice that made his chest and throat constrict. He refused to turn around.
“I-I…” Aziraphale tried to clear the lump out of his throat. “I didn’t think you’d be here. I… I just came to grab a few things; I’ll be out soon.” He sniffled and straightened up with the bag clenched so tightly in his fist that he could hear the creaking of the leather handle. He still refused to turn around.
Aziraphale heard the thump of a stack of books being set down on a table.
“Are you going back to Heaven?” Crowley asked quietly. Aziraphale heard him coming closer, and he carefully turned his face away. He didn’t want the demon to see what his presence was doing to him.
“No, I… I’m never going back there.” Aziraphale stuttered out. He felt Crowley walk up right next to him, felt fingers brush against his sleeve. He sniffed again, now even more desperate to fight back his tears.
“Then why would you leave?” Aziraphale felt Crowley’s hand brush against and then carefully wrap around his bicep. He felt the demon’s breath against his cheek, and all of a sudden he couldn’t hold it in anymore.
Aziraphale started desperately crying, sobbing so hard that his throat already hurt from the effort.
“Crowley, I’m so sorry I left, I can’t believe I left you here alone and went back to Heaven, I can’t believe I ever thought I would make a difference, I…”
Crowley shushed him gently and pulled him into his chest, so softly that it made the angel cry even harder.
Crowley cradled Aziraphale’s head in his hand and pressed his face into his shoulder, running the other hand up and down his back. Aziraphale desperately wrapped his arms around his thin waist.
“It’s okay, Aziraphale. It’s okay.” Crowley squeezed him tighter. “My angel, I understand. I forgive you.”
“I don’t deserve your forgiveness,” Aziraphale sobbed, “I don’t – I don’t deserve all the love and… and care and forgiveness you’ve already graced me with in our life together. I can’t… I can’t accept forgiveness that I don’t deserve, Crowley, I…” his voice cracked when he said the demon’s name, and he tried to pull away from the hug that he so desperately wanted. “I’m sorry, I can’t accept this, I…”
Crowley pulled him back against his chest, much more forcefully than he had the first time. “I don’t accept you not accepting my forgiveness, Aziraphale.” He kissed the angel’s temple. “I love you so much, angel. There is nothing you can do to change that.”
“I left, Crowley!” Aziraphale fisted his hands in the back of the demon’s jacket. “You have always made me feel so loved and cared for, more than I have ever felt in Heaven, and I…” he tried to swallow past the lump in his throat. “You kissed me, you tried to tell me how much you loved me, and how badly you wanted me to stay, and I betrayed you! I can’t…” he tried to pull away again, and this time Crowley let him.
The demon looked at him with nothing short of adoration, and Aziraphale swiped the backs of his hands under his eyes to wipe away the tears. He stepped back a few paces, trying to breathe around the waves of love that were crashing over him. He couldn’t understand why Crowley would still love him so much, after everything he’d done.
“Do you think I care for you so little, that betraying me would make a difference?” Crowley asked quietly. “If I have ever done anything to make you think that I would leave you, Aziraphale, then I apologize. I would let you slay me with your flaming sword right here, on the floor of this bookshop, if it meant you would stop feeling this way.” He stepped closer, taking Aziraphale’s hands into his own. “I love you so much that it hurts, angel. There was never a chance in Hell that I wouldn’t forgive you for leaving, Aziraphale. I understand.”
Aziraphale felt even more tears welling up in his eyes. “I don’t even understand why I left, Crowley, how…” his voice broke, and he pressed the back of his hand against his mouth to hold in the sob that was building in his throat.
“Will you please come here and let me hold you, angel? Please?” Crowley tugged on the hands that were wrapped in his own, pulling Aziraphale into his chest again. He wrapped his arms tightly around the angel’s back, and Aziraphale started sobbing again.
“I understand that you thought you were doing the right thing, and that’s all that really matters. You never needed forgiveness for leaving, Aziraphale, but I forgive you all the same. I am so selfishly glad that you’re back, though, because I missed you more than anything.” Crowley threaded his fingers through the curls on the back of Aziraphale’s neck. “I will always be by your side, angel. There is nothing you could do that would ever make me stop loving you.”
Aziraphale wrapped his arms under Crowley’s jacket, desperate to feel the demon’s body heat and the love radiating off his overwarm skin.
“I love you so much, Crowley.” Aziraphale sobbed.
“I know you do. I know. I’ve always known.”
“I’m so sorry, I…”
Crowley shushed him. “Please stop apologizing. It’s okay, Aziraphale. We’re okay. I’ve got you, alright? I’ve got you…” Crowley trailed off into a whisper, kissing the top of the angel’s head.
When Aziraphale had cried himself out, he simply stood there, wrapped in the demon’s arms, breathing in and out and slowly letting all of his muscles relax. He inhaled Crowley’s spicy, Hellish scent and exhaled all of his fears and anxieties and heartbreak back out. He was safe, he was on Earth, and he was in the arms of the being he loved most in all of Creation.
He pulled back after what felt like hours, perhaps even days, of holding the demon as close as possible. He let his arms relax around the demon’s waist and finally looked up into his beautiful eyes.
“Do it again, please?” he whispered.
“Do what again?”
“Kiss me?”
Crowley smiled and pulled Aziraphale closer, gently pressing their lips together in what should have been their first kiss all along. Aziraphale balled his hands in the lapels of Crowley’s jacket, mimicking what the demon had done their first time around, except this time it was to pull them closer together instead of being an attempt to salvage something that, at the time, seemed completely unsalvageable.
Aziraphale closed his eyes and placed his hands on Crowley’s waist, pulling the demon flush up against him and chasing the demon’s lips with his own.
When they pulled apart, desperate for air that they had forgotten they didn’t need, Crowley looked flushed and disheveled, but with the biggest smile on his face that Aziraphale had ever seen.
“I love you so much, Aziraphale.” He trailed a finger down the angel’s cheek, catching a stray tear.
“I know you do, my love.” Aziraphale kissed his cheek. “I love you too.”