Chapter Text
Dedicated to Herb and Terry
“I have always imagined Heaven to be a kind of library.” —Jorge Luis Borges
“Hang on,” Crowley interrupted, raising a hand. “You’re saying that Ludwig the Second is one of yours?”
Aziraphale nodded eagerly, splaying his fingers across the table and leaning forward, eyes bright. “He’s made Germany a fortune in tourism. And his castles! Neuschwanstein, Linderhof—gorgeous! Got Heaven’s hand all over them.”
Crowley made an ungracious noise and sat back in his chair, waving away the angel’s words.
They were sitting at the small table in the cramped sitting room above Aziraphale’s bookshop, surrounded by stacks of books and two recently emptied tea cups.
“Ludwig bankrupted Bavaria during his reign,” Crowley protested. “Germany only made the money long after he was dead!”
“Quite a legacy, though.”
Crowley scoffed. “I thought your lot cared more about moral character than financial gains. He was crazy, wasn’t he? And he hung out with Wagner a lot—and Wagner was one of ours.”
Now it was Aziraphale’s turn to gape. “Not Richard Wagner! And Ludwig had fine moral character! He gave away thousands to commoners, and that thing about him being insane was pure slander.”
“Yeah, ‘cause someone of such high moral stock wouldn’t have got himself deposed and killed by his own advisors.”
Aziraphale drew himself up in his chair, looking respectably insulted. “I’ll remind you of the pantheon of greater and lesser saints betrayed and killed by their own friends, and that didn’t have a thing to do with their moral character—”
Crowley leaned back in his chair, tipping it back onto the rear two legs. He held his hands up in surrender. “Touché, touché,” he conceded.
Aziraphale frowned. “You know, I may have a book on this,” he said, abruptly brightening as he sprang to his feet. “I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
Crowley groaned audibly. “Not another book!”
They’d been playing this little game for a while now—finding some obscure historical figure they both remembered, and neither had personally seen residing Above or Below, and laying odds on where their soul currently lay. Crowley, being perpetually cynical, always assumed they went Below, while Aziraphale, with his boundless optimism, always assumed they went Above, so they usually had a fairly decent discussion. But then Aziraphale would remember something he’d read in a book two hundred years ago, run off, and return minutes later with an armful of obscure tomes, which he would submit as evidence. It just sucked the fun out of life.
About half the time the books ended up swaying the argument in Crowley’s favour, but Crowley was feeling fairly confident in his abilities sans books. He was currently winning with a respectable 70% success rate. Aziraphale chalked this up to high-profile individuals being more easily corruptible, while Crowley thought it was simply because people were inherently bad.
In any case, once Aziraphale lugged the books upstairs, Crowley was subjected to thirty minutes of the angel searching through each one for the exact passage he remembered. Aziraphale’s memory was excellent; he could usually get within twenty pages of whatever he was looking for, but the whole process was such a bore. It was like someone looking up the price of tea in China when someone else had asked. It wasn’t meant to be taken seriously. That wasn’t the point.
Ever since the Apocalypse-That-Wasn’t, however, Crowley had limited his protests on this front. Aziraphale was still slightly miffed about the loss of his entire book collection and its subsequent reinstatement as a collection of first-edition children’s books, and he had only recently started going out and re-buying books he’d had the first time around. There was already a monumental pile stacked between bookcases near the rear of the shop, and another scattering on the table in front of the demon.
“I’ll just be a minute!” Aziraphale said quickly, already through the door.
Crowley remained in his seat for a few seconds, shaking his head as he heard the angel’s footsteps recede down the staircase.
He glanced absently at the books already on the table, gleefully delivered by the angel during their debates about Christopher Columbus, Edmund Halley, Catherine the Great, and Nefertiti.
Suddenly another point occurred to him about Ludwig—this one would convince the angel—and he drew himself to his feet. He was halfway down the stairs, grinning as he opened his mouth to say something sarcastic, when he was stopped short by the unexpected sound of voices.
The first syllable of the demon’s sentence caught in his throat as he teetered on the step. He quickly steadied himself with the banister, swallowing his words. Crowley crept the rest of the way down the stairs and paused on the last step, inching his head near to the doorframe of the main room, remaining just out of sight.
“—don’t understand.” That was Aziraphale, sounding baffled and a little distressed.
“The demon has corrupted you,” said a new voice, huskier and flat. “He has…enchanted you somehow. We need to know how.”
Crowley felt himself tense, and he fished around quietly in his pocket for a weapon. Miracling something up with potentially supernatural beings nearby would give him away in an instant, so he’d have to make do with whatever was on hand. He kept his ears carefully tuned to what was happening in the next room as his questing fingers wrapped around an object.
“We need you to come with us, so we can prevent this from happening to other angels.” That was a second new voice: a little higher than the first, and marginally more compassionate.
“But Cro—the demon hasn’t done anything to me.” Aziraphale sounded perplexed. Crowley could picture the angel’s eyebrows drawing together, his head cocking slightly to the side. Maybe tugging nervously on the edge of his tartan jumper. “He’s hasn’t…cast a spell over me or anything.”
“That’s just what the spell makes you think,” said the second voice, not unkindly.
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” added the first, less kindly.
“Oh, I think I do.” Aziraphale’s voice darkened slightly, downturning to a lower register. Crowley doubted either newcomer noticed the subtle change, but it was impossible to know someone for six thousand years without learning when they were nearing the end of their patience. “And I’m not coming with you. I don’t mean any trouble, brothers—” Aziraphale broke off with a yelp.
Crowley surged forward, plunging recklessly through the doorway, drawing from his pocket the only weapon he could find.
Before him stood Aziraphale and two tall men in identical light grey suits. Even their combed-over hair was the same, though one was blond and the other dark-haired. Crowley recognised angels when he saw them, and could tell at a glance that these two didn’t get out much. One had Aziraphale by the arm and was twisting it so the shorter angel flinched in pain.
Crowley, rushing toward them, took hasty aim and threw the cheap ballpoint pen from his pocket straight at the closer of the two intruders. Though it did nothing but smack him rather ungraciously in the face, the moment of surprise was all Aziraphale needed. He wrenched his arm free and, with his other hand, slugged the blond angel holding him solidly across the jaw.
The angel staggered backward as Crowley barrelled at full speed into the other intruder, sending both of them crashing to the floor. Crowley tried to jump to his feet as soon as they impacted, but the angel was faster than he’d anticipated. He grabbed one of Crowley’s shins and yanked hard, and a moment later the demon’s head contacted sharply with the floor as they reversed positions.
Crowley gasped, willing the stars to leave his vision. The dark-haired angel was on top of him in an instant, pinning him to the floor, and a moment later Crowley’s head snapped to the side as the angel’s fist met his cheekbone.
Over the blood pounding in his ears, Crowley heard a terrific crash from somewhere to his left, and he distantly heard Aziraphale swear loudly.
“Demon scum,” the angel pinning Crowley growled, dragging the demon’s attention back to his attacker. The angel’s eyes, as grey and colourless as his suit, drilled down mercilessly into Crowley’s. He paused only to take a fortifying breath before delivering a fearsome left hook to the demon’s cheek to match his right.
This time Crowley tasted copper.
Spots jumped across the demon’s vision, cartwheeling and pulsing wild colours. He was still struggling to recover when another blow came from the right, hard and fast, and he felt a couple of teeth come unmoored.
Crowley’s head turned automatically back to the front, already anticipating the next blow as he choked on fresh blood, but it never came. Instead, there was a blur of motion and a flash of tartan wool, and the weight atop him vanished.
Crowley coughed and gasped painfully for breath, wheezing as he managed to roll over onto his side.
He heard a sharp snap from somewhere behind him, followed by a heavy thud.
Crowley spat out a mouthful of blood and, wheezing in a broken breath, staggered unevenly to his feet, wiping his mouth shakily with the back of his hand.
His vision had barely stopped spinning when he registered, not three metres away, the dark-haired angel dragging a very sluggish-looking Aziraphale to his feet by the front of his jumper.
Crowley was starting forward unsteadily, determined to help, when he caught sight of the blond angel lunging at him from the left. Crowley dodged backwards just in time to avoid being hit head-on, but the two of them still ended up slamming into the floor in a tangle of limbs. Crowley’s hip impacted the floor hard, but he wasted no time in hastily aiming his foot at the closest part of the angel within easy reach. He heard a grunt of pain as his foot contacted with a satisfying crunch. A moment later the heel of the angel’s shoe slammed into his own neck.
Crowley wheezed in pain and focussed on kicking his way further away from the angel, half-crawling along the bookshop floor.
Then the angel’s foot hit him squarely in the back of the head and he was out for a moment, coughing and struggling to keep his lunch down as the fresh wave of pain rolled over him.
When his vision cleared, he tilted his head up and was just in time to see the dark-haired angel slamming Aziraphale into the wall of the bookshop, hard. Aziraphale’s hands scrabbled at the other angel’s arms, but he didn’t seem to be seeing straight and his fingers didn’t find purchase. The angel pulled him forward and slammed him back into the wall a second time.
The gasping sound of all of the air leaving Aziraphale’s lungs was audible even from Crowley’s distance as Aziraphale’s hands stopped fighting and fell limply to his sides. The dark-haired angel let go and Aziraphale slid down the wall into an awkward sitting position. He stayed there, motionless, two lines of blood running down his cheek as his eyes slid shut.
Crowley pushed himself to his hands and knees. The angel he’d been engaged in a kicking match with had gained his feet and was advancing towards his partner and Aziraphale’s unconscious form. They seemed to have momentarily forgotten him.
The dark-haired angel reached down for Aziraphale’s shoulder. Crowley made a decision.
“Wait!” Crowley shouted, voice cracking halfway through.
The angel with his hand on Aziraphale’s shoulder paused and turned ever-so-slowly back to Crowley. He gave the demon a look both suspicious and incredulous. “What?”
Crowley drew a breath, and it caught in his throat. He raised a hand weakly and closed his eyes, miracling himself back to health.
He took another breath, and this one was steadier. He opened his eyes and pushed himself all the way to his feet. He re-materialised his sunglasses to their place on his nose, tugged on the sleeves of his suit jacket, and brushed off his cuffs. The two angels stared at him.
“You don’t want him,” Crowley said, gesturing dismissively at Aziraphale as he struggled to arrange his voice into a suitably disdainful tone. “He’s not what you're looking for.”
“Yeah, right,” the dark-haired angel said, starting to turn away.
“You want to know how I corrupted him, right?” Crowley said quickly.
The angel paused.
“Enchanted him? Bespelled? Yep. Well, you’re right about that, by the way.”
Both angels turned to look at him, though the dark-haired one kept his hand firmly on Aziraphale’s shoulder.
Crowley forced himself to turn to the side and take a few steps, feigning indifference. “You got me there, boys. Guilty as charged. But, ohhh, it was a good spell.” Crowley chuckled, taking a moment to quickly plan out his next words. He’d never been a big fan of improv. “And, besides, it’s not like he knows what I did to him. Think it through, fellas—if I brought him under my power using demonic means—which I most certainly did—how would he knows the means, only the result? And as you can tell, I’ve got him squarely where I want him.” Crowley chuckled again, darkly this time. A bead of sweat rolled down his temple. “He’ll never tell you anything, of course, not only because the spell won’t allow him to, but because he just doesn’t know anything. I'm afraid this is just a poorly thought-out plan on your end, really.”
The dark-haired angel narrowed his eyes but didn’t move, hand still on Aziraphale’s shoulder. The unconscious angel didn’t seem to be stirring, even a little, something Crowley pushed hurriedly from his mind.
The demon swallowed and swung around to pace in the other direction, forcing his shoulders to relax into indifference. “I mean, you can take him if you like—go ahead—but you won’t get anything from him.” Another thought occurred to Crowley. “And besides, doesn’t harming another angel bruise your ol' feathery souls? Something about brother harming brother and a great big Fall for our old friend Luci?”
“This isn’t like that,” snapped the dark-haired angel irritably.
“I’m sure it’s not,” Crowley assured him smoothly, raising a hand complacently. “But that’s not for me to decide.”
“You've got that right,” spat the blond angel, who was sporting a large red mark on his cheek from Crowley’s heel which he hadn’t bothered to heal yet. “You’re a demon—lowest of the low.”
“Ah, ah, ah,” Crowley interjected, holding up a finger. “Not quite your run-of-the-mill demon, I’m afraid. Name’s Crowley, remember? Not only did I aid in the derailing of the Apocalypse with the help of my—” here Crowley glanced back down at the motionless Aziraphale, “delightfully-bespelled angel slave, but you seem to be forgetting that shortly after I took a nosedive with our old mutual pal, I slithered my way into a certain very exclusive garden and offered a lovely young lady the ripest, reddest fruit around.”
“The First Tempter,” hissed the blond angel, with enough disgust to make a demon proud.
“Precisely,” Crowley said, dusting off one of his lapels impressively. “That’s me. If you want to build a castle, why would you take the housekeeper when you could have the architect? Why take Eve,” here he gestured at Aziraphale, “when you could have the Serpent?”
It took a few seconds for the angels to process this, and then the dark-haired one smiled. The expression didn’t work well with his face.
“Excellent idea,” he said. “Why indeed?” He took a half-step towards Crowley and then stopped. His fingers were still brushing Aziraphale’s shoulder. His eyes narrowed in suspicion. “But why are you telling us this?”
Crowley shrugged, keeping the motion as natural as possible. He turned quickly and paced once, trying to hide his nervousness in his stride. “No reason in particular. Or, perhaps I should say, reasons that don’t involve you.”
At that moment, Aziraphale twitched. Crowley noticed immediately, watching the angel’s chin jerk up slightly, his hands fluttering in his lap. The grey-suited angels, both staring at Crowley, didn’t notice.
He had to wrap this up.
“Tell you what,” Crowley said hastily, locking eyes with the dark-haired angel. “I’ve got a little message for your boss,” he invented wildly. “Michael. He’s still running that show, right? Private business. You give me a little lift up, five minutes with the winged ponce, and I might let you in on a couple trade secrets. You follow?”
Aziraphale’s head was rising higher, a hand going to the back of his skull. The dark-haired angel’s hand had left his shoulder and was now hovering an inch above it.
He exchanged oblique glances with his blond-haired brother, and the latter nodded slightly.
The angels started forward, and Crowley couldn’t stop himself from taking a half step backwards. He knew what doubtlessly awaited him once Above got their hands on him, but he’d bought Aziraphale some time at least. Crowley could escape, or bargain his way out once they realised he really didn’t know anything. It was the best way.
The angels’ hands closed around his arms, one on either side.
“You’d better not be lying, demon,” the blond angel growled. Crowley ignored him, staring past them at Aziraphale.
The angel was stirring further, starting to sit up, blinking and gingerly touching the back of his head.
A white light started to rise around the grey-suited angels and their captive, and Crowley realised detachedly that they were taking the direct lift up.
Aziraphale shook his head and looked up, and his dazed eyes met Crowley’s. In an instant his gaze cleared. He surged to his feet, though it was closer to staggering than the angel probably would have wanted to admit. He opened his mouth.
Crowley subtly shook his head, light spilling around the edges of his vision, narrowing his field of view to contain only Aziraphale. The demon just had time to mouth “run” before the light blotted Aziraphale out entirely, and in a flurry of feathers they were gone.