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The end of times arrives on a Tuesday. It’s a nice day, all things considered.
…a few minutes before the end.
“Well,” says the demon. “That’s that, then.”
Next to him, the angel glances upward. “Do you think it worked?”
“S’pose we’ll just have to wait and see,” Crowley says, scuffing a boot heel against the sand. Rocky beach stretches for miles in either direction, curving out of sight here and there to hug the chalky cliffside. The sky above is flat and cloud-swirled gray; the air tastes like salt.
Aziraphale watches the gentle drag of water along the shoreline. “Crowley,” he says, without looking at him. He can’t bring himself to, not yet. Not when there’s so much that needs saying.
“Hm?”
Flinty waves rush over the sand, in and back out. “If you could go anywhere on Earth,” Aziraphale says, “anywhere at all, where would you go?”
“What, right now?”
“Right now.”
“Putting aside the imminent apocalypse, obviously.”
Aziraphale looks down at his shoes, feeling his mouth quirk. “Yes, I believe that goes without saying.”
“Sure,” says Crowley, sounding a bit bemused.
“If you’d rather not answer—”
“It’s not that, it’s just…we can go wherever we want, whenever we want, can’t we? Snap of the fingers, easy as…well, whatever’s easy. Never gave it much thought beyond that.” A beat; then: “Always meant to go back to Rome. Namibia, in the dry season. And the Philippines, angel, you’d love the food.” Another lingering pause. “Here’s as good a place as any, though.”
Aziraphale hums, squinting out across the channel. The horizon is a blur, windswept brush strokes where water meets sky. Something out of a painting. “It’s rather lovely, isn’t it,” he says. “Quite…peaceful. Not at all like London.”
Crowley bends down to scoop up a rock, then flicks his wrist and sends it skipping. “All that’s missing is your bookshop.”
“And your plants.”
“Eh, I’ll live,” Crowley says. “Or, well. Maybe not, actually. What, too soon?”
Aziraphale nearly grins again, pressing his lips together just in time. “At any rate,” he says, “don’t you think it’s strange that we both ended up here? Well, not— London, I mean. All of those places you just mentioned…you could’ve set up shop anywhere.”
“Could’ve, yeah.”
Aziraphale swallows. Something tugs inside him, soft and urgent all at once. “If it really didn’t work—”
“Oh, come on, angel, don’t—”
“I’m saying,” Aziraphale forges on, “that if it didn’t work, for whatever reason, and this truly is the end…”
He turns his head, unsurprised to find Crowley already looking at him. Always just ahead, waiting for Aziraphale to catch up. His glasses dangle from his fingers at his side; in the watercolor light bleeding through the clouds, his eyes are a pale gold.
“Aziraphale,” says Crowley, voice cracking over the word. “You don’t have to—”
“I do.” Aziraphale holds his gaze, feels the warmth of it anchoring something solid within him. “There’s nowhere I’d rather be, Crowley. Nowhere but wherever you are.”
Crowley sucks in a tiny breath. “Angel.”
Trembling, Aziraphale presses his fingers to Crowley’s wrist, the soft expanse of his palm. Tentative, still a question. He gives voice to another. “Will you…will you do it again?”
“Do it…again,” Crowley says slowly. He’s shaking, too; Aziraphale can feel it where their hands brush together. “You mean…”
“Yes,” Aziraphale says without hesitation. “That is, if you—”
“If I,” Crowley cuts in with soft disbelief, already leaning in.
…a few days before the end.
“Sorry,” says Crowley. “He’s starting a what, now?”
“A ska band,” Aziraphale says, enunciating carefully. “Apparently they were quite popular here in the seventies. I believe it’s a rather upbeat sound, sort of…peppy, is the word.”
“So, bebop, essentially.”
“Certainly not,” Aziraphale huffs; then he sees Crowley’s lazy grin. “What, what’s that look for?”
“I know what ska is, angel. Just wanted to hear you try to describe it.”
“Really, Crowley, this is serious. They’re very upset upstairs.”
“Oh, I’m sure they are,” says Crowley, reaching for his glass of Chilean red. “I’m amazed they haven’t started slinging fireballs out of pure spite.”
Aziraphale’s hands curl around his own wine glass. “That’s just it. He’s the main event, so to speak. Without him…well, they’ll certainly see it as a setback.”
“Archangel Aziraphale,” Crowley tuts, shaking his head. “Barely a year on the job and you’ve got the Son of God swanning off to be a rockstar. Top marks, no notes.”
He’s making fun, clearly. Obviously. Still, each word of praise lands behind Aziraphale’s ribs, stoking something warm there. “I was hardly involved,” he demurs. “I simply…didn’t stop him, when he announced his departure. Besides, he had his own ideas about what the rapture should entail, as it were. More feelings of joy associated with good music and less, erm…”
“Literal raising of the dead?” Crowley asks.
Aziraphale gives a soft shrug. “Semantics. But it does make a certain amount of sense.”
“One of those things is more appealing than the other, sure,” Crowley says. “Right, so that's a big win. Anything else?”
“They’ve agreed to a more subtle approach with the hail and fire. I presented it as a resource management issue, why don’t we let climate change work its natural course, do the heavy lifting for us, that sort of thing. And they’ve removed that unfortunate ‘mingled with blood’ addendum.” Aziraphale sips delicately at his wine. “Less paperwork, you see.”
“Of course. Very clever.”
“Yes, well.” Aziraphale preens despite himself. “Ask me about the locusts.”
Crowley peers at him over the rims of his glasses. “You didn’t.”
“Oh, I did. You should’ve seen the mockup. Michael had a rather visceral reaction to it, more so than anticipated. Something to do with the ratio of teeth to eyes, I believe.”
Crowley laughs, melting back into the sofa. “Well, this is all frighteningly good news, isn’t it?”
“I daresay,” Aziraphale mumbles with a small smirk of his own.
“And everything’s still alright up there?” Crowley asks. He looks down at his wine, aiming for nonchalance and missing by several miles.
Aziraphale hears the real question, unspoken as it is. “I’ve been very careful, Crowley. None of them suspect a thing."
Crowley bobs his head a few times, still staring down at his glass. “Yeah, okay. Good.”
The thing is, Aziraphale knows he should be worried. A smidge more, at least, than he is presently. The Big One—arguably Heaven’s most ambitious project since, well, since the Beginning, and one that he is actively overseeing, he might add—is mere days away, and he has spent the better part of a year plotting with a demon to unravel it completely. He should be fretting over their joint efforts, [1] wondering if they’ve done enough, waiting on pins and needles for the other angels to catch on, or perhaps agonizing over whether or not they already have and are simply waiting for the opportune moment to strike at everything he holds dear.
Instead, all he feels is an overwhelming sense of normalcy. The bookshop’s cozy chaos is like slipping on a beloved and well-worn jacket, grounding and warm in a way that Heaven never was, never could be. And in the midst of it all, the center of this small, imperfectly perfect universe, is Crowley. It hardly feels real, even now. Crowley, here, lounging in the back room like old times, close enough for Aziraphale to watch the lamplight catch in his hair, to breathe in his familiar woodsmoke smell. Close enough, nearly, to touch. It’s beyond anything Aziraphale ever thought he’d have again. On his best days, he never dared to imagine this.
“What if we got out of the city?” he blurts, apropos of absolutely nothing, so much so that even he’s a bit caught off guard.
Crowley’s frown deepens. “Like a holiday, or…? Angel, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the end of the world is, well, nigh. Can’t exactly go running off, can we? Don’t tell me you’ve changed your mind now.”
“Erm, I meant…” Aziraphale shakes his head furiously, feeling his face flush. “The rendezvous. For the Big Day.”
“Rendezvous,” Crowley repeats. “Right.”
“Yes, so, I was thinking it should be someplace new, since all the old haunts are likely being surveilled.”
“Surveilled,” Crowley mutters, lips twitching. “Sorry,” he amends when Aziraphale shoots him a sharp look. “Someplace new. Seems sensible.”
“And somewhat less…obvious.”
“Oh, because Berkeley Square was such a vast departure from the norm.”
“That was one suggestion, Crowley, and if you remember, we both agreed to cut it from the shortlist.”
Crowley smiles wider, draining his glass. “Alright then, what’s it to be? Stratford-upon-Avon? Derby? Cambridge? You’d blend right in with those stuffy academics.”
Aziraphale thumbs the hem of his waistcoat. “Or, perhaps…perhaps somewhere near the coast. They’d never think to look for us there. And it might be nice to…well, to…see the countryside,” he finishes feebly.
“Oh.” Crowley dips his head, and the movement slides his glasses down his nose. “The coast. Yeah, why not? Love a change of scenery, me.” He holds out his wine glass, now miraculously full. “To saving the world, then? Again?”
Aziraphale finds that sparking sensation from earlier, right where he left it. Right above his heart. “To us,” he says.
From this angle, he can see the moment Crowley’s eyes flick up to meet his. “Us,” he echoes softly, clinking their glasses together.
Aziraphale drinks, warm all the way down.
…a few weeks before the end.
“Is the schedule finalized?” asks the Metatron at the next debriefing.
(“It should happen on a Sunday,” Uriel had suggested earlier this morning. “The Lord’s Day, and all that.”
“Bit unoriginal, though,” said Saraqael.
“Well, when would you do it, then?”
“On a Tuesday, obviously. Catch everyone by surprise.”
“It’ll be a surprise no matter when it happens,” said Michael, with the same tone one employs when reminding a small child not to eat paste.
Saraqael sniffed. “More of a surprise on a Tuesday, though.”)
“Nearly,” Aziraphale says, with what he hopes is a convincing smile. “Still ironing out a few, ah, key details.”
“Very good,” says the Metatron. “Best not to dawdle, wouldn’t you agree?”
He would, funnily enough, though he very much doubts that his fellow angels will share the sentiment once they learn what’s actually coming. Or rather, what isn’t. Aziraphale thinks briefly of those spy films that Crowley enjoys, top-secret missions and high-octane stakes that somehow always pertain to the fate of the entire world. Exceedingly impractical, had been his review, the last time Crowley tempted him to sit through one. How ironic that he finally seems to be coming around to the concept.
Thankfully, the question appears to be rhetorical; with a faint chiming sound, the Metatron vanishes. All business and no frills, a leadership style that Aziraphale should, by all means, appreciate, and indeed had, initially. But that feels like eons ago.
Aziraphale sits down at his desk. His body is very heavy all of a sudden, as if he’s being pulled inward, the very core of him collapsing. He’s exhausted in a way he’s never been before. Not that there’s anything to be done about that now; it might already be too late. Oh, he’s been so foolish. Always a step—or two, or ten—behind.
But there’s no use crying over spilt milk.[2] He’s here now, in spite of the many problematic (and, on more than one occasion, painfully naive) choices made over the past several months. Even at this juncture, knowing what he knows, his only regret is how much time he’s wasted, the hurt he’s caused, inadvertent as it may have been.
He lets the feeling sharpen into something with a bit of heft to it, something resolute. All the pointless meetings spent talking in circles. Pushing the schedule back time and again. Every memo, every menial task assigned; all of it judiciously engineered to place him squarely between Heaven and the destruction of everything he loves. He came here to make real change, to reform the system from within. It was a fruitless dream; he sees that now. But there’s always the next dream. There’s still ample opportunity for him to do some good, to save something instead of pulling it apart.
“Supreme Archangel?” comes a voice from the pristine void of his office. Aziraphale glances up to see one of the junior angels—Thael, twenty-sixth class—standing a short ways from his desk, holding what appears to be a large plastic locust. The thing is a sight to behold, with enormous lion’s fangs and a truly inordinate number of large, beady eyes. “Your replica, as requested, sir.”
“Ah!” Aziraphale says, bringing his hands together. “Very good, Thael, you can set it here. I do appreciate the quick turnaround.” He leans forward to inspect it, nose wrinkling. “Goodness, that certainly turns the stomach, doesn’t it?”
“If the design is unsatisfactory, I can have another made up—”
“Oh, no need,” Aziraphale says. He can already picture the look on Michael’s face, sanctimony devolving into horrified disgust. For the first time since arriving in Heaven, he’s rather looking forward to the next staff meeting. “It’s absolutely perfect.”
…a few months before the end.
The first time is an accident. He’s still in his adjustment period, after all; being back upstairs is quite disorienting after so many millennia spent on Earth. Naturally, it follows that his attention will be pulled back there from time to time. If he occasionally finds himself standing in front of the large globe in the atrium, casually observing, of course, and even more casually picturing one brisk little island in particular, or a certain city, or a street, or—
“Aziraphale?”
He blinks. Crowley’s voice. Crowley is here. Or, no, wait. Aziraphale gives his surroundings a cursory scan, confirming the worst.
“Oh, dear,” he says.
“Angel,” says Crowley. “Are you…astral projecting into my flat?”
Aziraphale draws himself up a bit, or at least, as much as he can in his current form. “It certainly appears that way, yes.”
“Oh, great,” Crowley says flatly. “Fantastic. Hardly an invasion of privacy at all, this.”
“Well, it’s not as if I’m doing it on purpose,” Aziraphale snaps, bristling slightly at Crowley’s tone. “If you’ll just give me a moment, I’ll be…” he trails off, eyes narrowing. “Is that— are you reading?”
Crowley is already shoving the offending book underneath his horrid throne. “No,” he says, sounding not unlike a petulant child who has been caught with their hand in the cookie jar.
“But—” Aziraphale casts about for something to say other than you don’t read, which not only sounds churlish, even in his head, but is also quite clearly untrue, as of ten seconds ago. “You don’t like to read,” he finally settles on.
“What’s not to like?” says Crowley. “Chop down a tree, turn it into pulp, slap some words on it…”
Aziraphale opens his mouth to address this egregious oversimplification, but something gives him pause. There’s a faint smell in the air, sharp and cold and clean. He hadn’t noticed before, being in this state with his senses muted, but it’s unmistakable now. “Crowley,” he says carefully, “are you reading the Bible?”
“Oh, for someone’s—” Crowley makes a bitten-off noise of frustration, sheepishly dragging the book out from beneath his throne to drop it onto his desk.
“Crowley,” says Aziraphale again, softer.
The demon squirms where he sits. “It’s not what it— I just don’t want to get caught with my metaphysical pants down, alright?”
“But you won’t,” Aziraphale says. “Crowley, I’ve told you, it’s all still very theoretical, at this stage. Nothing set in stone.”
Crowley eyes the Bible pointedly.
“Alright,” Aziraphale concedes, “so the framework is mostly set in stone. But it’s broad strokes, really, open to interpretation.”
“Sorry, the Book of Revelation is open to interpretation?”
“Well, yes. Because I say it is. That’s rather the whole point, if you’ll recall.”
“How could I possibly forget?” Crowley laughs, a harsh slant of sound. “You’re up there, fighting the good fight, and I’m, I’m…” He sags backwards with a heaving sigh. “Still here. Alone in the dark.”
“That’s hardly fair,” Aziraphale says. He doesn’t technically have a throat, at present, but something goes tight in that general vicinity nonetheless.
They’ve reached something of an equilibrium these past months. Certain things have been put on the backburner, so to speak, now that the world may once again be coming to an end. Certain words, as well; apologies that live on the tips of tongues, explanations crowded behind teeth. That horrible day at the bookshop lingers like a bruise, and Crowley’s rejection with it. Every day since has been a small hell of its own, yet Crowley seems to be implying that Aziraphale has come out the other side wholly unaffected. Worse, that he’s delighting in it. That vise-tight feeling solidifies into a proper ache.
Behind those dark shades, Crowley’s face is a blank canvas, impassive. “I think it’s just the right amount of fair, actually,” he says in a tone that’s horribly civil. “You left; I stayed. Water under the bridge. Just don’t expect me to sit around, twiddling my thumbs—”
“Now hold on a moment,” Aziraphale interjects. “I know the situation at hand is less than ideal, but I was under the impression that we were working on a solution. Together.”
Crowley shrugs half-heartedly. “Thought we’d do a lot of things together. Shows what I know.”
“Oh, Crowley, honestly.”
“Wha— how am I the one being chastised, here?”
“Well, I’m sorry,” Aziraphale says, releasing the thin veneer of calm he’s been clinging to since this conversation began, “but I have limited patience for these theatrics. I’m somewhat preoccupied at the moment with keeping all of Heaven off our respective backs.”
“At least that’s something,” Crowley says, throwing his hands up. “At least you know what the hell is going on, Aziraphale. You’ve got Heaven; you’ve got me. What do I have?”
Aziraphale can only stare for a moment, stunned. He thought the answer to that would be rather obvious, by this point.
“Crowley,” he says thickly, “I—”
“Enjoying the view?” comes a new voice, catching him like a hook. There’s a swift yanking sensation, and when he blinks, more than a little dazed, he’s back in the atrium. The globe looms before him, spinning slowly. Michael is standing just in front of it, wearing an unbearably smug expression.
“Ah,” Aziraphale says, swallowing down whatever’s welling up in his throat. “Michael. Always a pleasure.”
The other archangel smiles thinly. “How’s your book place?”
“Bookshop,” Aziraphale says, “and I’m afraid I don’t follow.”
“Oh, please,” Michael tuts. “I know astral projection when I see it. I basically invented it.”
Aziraphale gives a tight nod, plastering on his best customer service face. “Well. Good for you, I suppose. Now, if there’s nothing else, I have some very important work to attend to…”
He strides off, heart hammering. Michael doesn’t know; of course they don’t. They simply think he was visiting the bookshop. Why would they think anything else? Aziraphale has covered his metaphorical tracks very thoroughly, even more so when he does take the occasional physical sojourn down to Earth. Still, that was far too close. He can’t afford to let his guard down, not when the fate of the world hangs this precariously in the balance. Not with Crowley caught in between.
He takes care to give the globe a wide berth, and time marches on. Hours, days? With nothing but the steady, pulsing light of Heaven all around, Aziraphale really couldn’t say. All he knows is that some time later, he’s sitting at his desk, staring vacantly at nothing in particular, and his thoughts drift idly to Crowley; hands clutching lapels, lips pressing fervently.
He’d thought they would have time, is the thing. Everything had changed, in the aftermath of the Armageddon-that-wasn’t. Weeks, months, unspooling slowly, each one catching its breath before slipping gracefully into the next. No blessings to administer, no wiles in need of thwarting. It was just him and Crowley and the endless possibilities that the remade world afforded them; freedom to do whatever they liked, whenever they liked. Aziraphale hadn’t wanted to rush things. He and Crowley would talk at some point, of course, about the future, and determine what exactly they wanted from it. What they wanted from each other.
Only, they never had. Instead, they fell back into old routines, circling each other comfortably, maintaining plausible distance. Another arrangement, of sorts, and this time wholly unnecessary. Looking back, Aziraphale feels rather foolish about it; but after six millennia of existing in each other’s orbit in this very particular manner, how could they have done differently?
And now— what do I have?
Aziraphale lets his eyes shutter. When he opens them, everything is pitch-dark, so it must be night. In this liminal form, he can see almost as clearly as if the room was lit, and what he sees is Crowley in bed, sleeping.
It’s not often that he catches Crowley in this state. On the rare occasion that it does happen, Aziraphale is always struck by how very young Crowley looks, and this time is no different. He’s sprawled facedown, an improbable tangle of limbs and silky sheets, face half-smothered in his pillow. The only sound in the room is the soft and steady puff of breath from his mouth.
At least it is until Crowley eventually stirs and says, slightly muffled, “I know you’re there.”
“Oh,” Aziraphale says, face going warm. He gives silent thanks for the dark room. “I, um. Well, I’m afraid I’ve quite lost track of the time, being upstairs. If I’ve disturbed you…”
Crowley makes a vaguely disgruntled sound and rolls onto his back, knuckles digging into his eyes. “‘M up now, aren’t I?” He squints at Aziraphale blearily. “What do you want, angel?”
A thousand things, none of which feel remotely within reach at the moment. “We were interrupted earlier,” Aziraphale says, and this, at least, is something he can fix.
Crowley closes his eyes. “Come to tell me off some more, is that it?”
“No, actually. I came to tell you that I was wrong.”
One eye cracks open. “Really.” Crowley props up on his elbow. “Go on, then. Do the dance.”
“That’s not—” Aziraphale huffs. “You were wrong, too.”
Crowley lurches up into sitting. “Unbelievable. I’m losing beauty sleep for this.”
“I only meant,” says Aziraphale, now faintly annoyed, “that we’ve both made mistakes. We’ve said and done certain things, and, and haven’t said and done other things. But I thought, in spite of everything, that we’d reached a mutual understanding.”
“Mutual understanding,” Crowley repeats.
Unsurprisingly, Aziraphale has never had an easy language for this; the details, the specifics, all the bits that ought to be said aloud. He’s grown accustomed to such words eluding him, doomed to live forever in the back of his throat or floating adrift in the gray matter that masquerades as his human brain. Over the long millennia, he’s largely chalked it up to him being somewhat of a coward, afraid to look at certain parts of himself too closely. Certain desires.
“About us,” he says, insufficiently.
Crowley laughs, entirely without humor. “Oh, it’s ‘us’ now, is it?”
“As you said. We’re a team.”
“Yeah, because the world’s ending. Because you have a use for me.”
“Crowley, we both agreed—”
“I know!” Crowley cries. “I know. I should be thrilled. You came back, and I thought— but it’s the same as before. Either we lose, and we’re dead, or we don’t, and it’s back to— this.” He slumps backwards, spine resting against the headboard. His face is utterly empty.
Aziraphale’s heart plummets. And then, so suddenly it startles him, that feeling is swallowed up by an overwhelming sense of urgency. He’s out of time.
“I’m afraid I’ve been quite careless,” he says. “If I could go back…oh, but I can’t. We’re here, and I must say this, just this one thing, and you must hear it. Even if it’s too late.” There’s his courage, attempting to stage a walkout. Aziraphale grabs hold of it. “In another life, perhaps, I might have run away with you. We’d be running still. We always would be. Don’t you see? I left, yes; but I also stayed, Crowley, for the faintest hope that there’s something waiting for us on the other side of all this. It’s all been for you. None of it means a thing otherwise.” Something is building, poised on the tip of his tongue. He lets it fall. “I should’ve said it before, how I— how I love you. There were so many moments. But I’m saying it now.”
There it is. It exists outside of him; it’s real. He can’t put it back. The revelation has him feeling euphoric and nauseous all at once.
“You don’t have to say it back,” he quickly adds. “You never have to. In fact, if you never wished to speak to me again after this, I would understand.”
Crowley stares ahead, saying nothing.
Of course. Too slow, as always. Despair joins the fray, tangled up with the rest. “Right. Sorry,” Aziraphale says. “I’ll be going, then.” He shuts his eyes, willing himself back to his corporation in Heaven, only to open them almost immediately at the sound of Crowley launching himself off the bed.
“Wait,” Crowley says, strangled. “Just— wait a moment.” He pushes his hands through his hair, mussing it up even further. “You can’t— you can’t just say things, angel. How is that even remotely fair?”
“I can,” says Aziraphale. “I should say things more often, actually. We both should.”
“Saying things is what got us into this mess, isn’t it?” Crowley makes a spinning motion with his hands. “Or rather, saying things without actually…saying things.”
“Let me be quite clear, then,” Aziraphale says. “I love you. Very much so. And I’m going to keep loving you, every moment that I can, as long as I can. Even if you don’t feel the same. You have me, Crowley. You always will.”
Crowley’s face goes on a journey. “You know how I feel,” he says. “Must do, by now. You can sense it. Love.”
Aziraphale almost looks away out of pure habit, but something in Crowley’s eyes holds him steady. Six thousand years, and they’ve never looked at each other like this. Furtive glances, yes; little half-looks here and there across the centuries. Never this. Aziraphale lets himself look openly now, some shuttered thing within him blowing wide open.
“Crowley,” is all he finds he can say.
“Ask me again,” Crowley says. He holds Aziraphale's gaze, eyes shining. “After...after all of this. Ask me again, angel. Aziraphale. I’ll tell you, anything you want. Everything, just…”
Aziraphale wonders briefly if time has stopped. It must have; how could the world possibly carry on at a moment like this? The thought is inconceivable.
“After,” he says, parsing the word. “Then you're still...?”
“To the bloody end, apparently,” Crowley says, huffing. “Which, now that we’re saying things, speaking our truths and whatnot…you’re going about it all wrong. This Second Coming business. Thinking like an angel. Yes, I know," he says as Aziraphale gestures widely to his general, well, everything. "That's my point. You need to come at it differently. From the side, or maybe right in the middle, or...well, it's a shoddy idiom, but my point is, you won't ever be able to talk them down. It's Heaven, angel."
"Immovable object," Aziraphale says, softly.
"Right." Crowley looks at him thoughtfully. Then, blinking and shaking his head slightly, he says, "Right, so, when you can't beat 'em, sabotage. Throw wrenches. Tell them the end of the world is scheduled for December 32nd, something stupid like that. Whatever you want. Make it up as you go."
"But that's...well, that's ridiculous," Aziraphale says. "They'd see through it immediately."
Crowley scoffs. "That lot? No way. Candy from a baby." He nods in the direction of the hallway. "But you're free to come down properly if you want to argue about it more."
"Over drinks, perhaps," Aziraphale adds, with a very serious nod.
Something in Crowley's face shifts. Not a smile, not quite. More like a weight lifting, the first gasp of air after a long-held breath. An olive branch, of sorts. An outstretched wing.
"Be down in a jiffy," Aziraphale says.
…a few more months before the end.
Aziraphale is not, strictly speaking, supposed to return to Earth. But the fine print in his contract doesn’t outright forbid him from going back, nor does it mention anything about certain individuals from Earth coming to him. Especially when the individual in question is an angel.
“Supreme Archangel!” Muriel greets. “I mean— Most Holy Archangel!” They frown. “I mean—”
“Just Aziraphale is fine, thank you, Muriel,” Aziraphale cuts in. “As I told you last week. And the week before that.”
Muriel bobs their head. “Right, sorry! Old habits, I guess.” They fidget with the hem of their jumper. It’s slightly oversized and egg-yolk yellow, and Aziraphale can’t help but think how very human it makes them look. He’s more than a little amazed that it passed inspection on the way upstairs.
“So,” he says around the dull ache in his throat. “How are things? Feeling more comfortable down…” He can’t bring himself to say on Earth. “Down there?”
“Oh, yes! The instructions you sent down were very detailed.” They smile warmly. “Everyone still asks about you, but I keep reminding them that you’re very happy with your new job.”
“Ah.” Aziraphale forces a weak smile of his own. “Yes. Very happy.”
“I still have a lot to learn, but Nina and Maggie are helping me. Like the other day, when a customer told me to go to...” Muriel pokes a finger downwards. “Maggie said that’s just a normal human expression, and I don’t actually have to go! I was so relieved. I mean, I’ve never been to the basement, but I imagine it’s awful.”
Aziraphale has a sudden image of a damp courtroom, a dingy bathtub full to the brim with holy water. A trial and an execution, neither meant for him. The memory makes him slightly nauseous.
“And,” Muriel continues, “I’m finally getting the hang of drinking! Apparently, the liquid goes in your mouth! Who knew? Oh, well, you did, of course.”
Aziraphale feels his wobbly smile morph into something a smidge more genuine. “Seems you’re settling in quite nicely. I do appreciate you looking after the bookshop. It’s not the easiest of jobs.”
“I have some big scoops to fill,” Muriel says solemnly.
“Shoes,” Aziraphale gently corrects.
“Oh, right.” Muriel tugs at their hem again. “Oh! And Mr. Crowley, he’s been helping me here and there, making sure I don’t accidentally sell someone a book, that sort of thing. I’m in good hands! Or, well…technically I’m in bad hands, what with Mr. Crowley being a demon, and all. But I don’t think he’s really all that Bad. How can he be, when he’s your friend?”
The lump in Aziraphale’s throat feels like a planet. He’s perilously close to crying, which he’s certain has never happened in Heaven before.
Muriel talks for a bit longer, mostly about their newfound drinking skills (“Nina says I’m not ready for espresso yet”), before heading back down to Earth. Aziraphale watches them go, feeling properly miserable now. How’s that for cosmic irony? An angel of the Lord, in Heaven, miserable. But there’s no denying it. If he were in his bookshop, he’d fix himself a mug of cocoa, perhaps with just a dash of Bailey’s, and settle in with one of his records. Dvořák, or Stravinsky, if he was in the mood for something more modern. But he’s not in his bookshop. He’ll likely never set foot in his bookshop again. And Crowley—
For a moment, Aziraphale lets the misery consume him. A black hole, all-consuming and inescapable.
Then he takes a breath, which he doesn’t need, but he read about it in a self-help book. It’s something humans do. He breathes deeply again through his nose, emptying his lungs on the exhale. A cleansing breath, they call it. He’s not sure it’s helping, but at least he doesn’t feel any worse.
He chose this. Accepted the job willingly. Nobody coerced him into it. This is what he wants; he just has to remind himself why. And maybe take a few more breaths, while he’s at it.
“All in favor of dropping a giant asteroid into the sea?” Uriel asks at the next staff meeting.
“I thought we’d settled on the lion-horses that breathe fire and brimstone,” says Michael.
“Just as long as we can still hear the trumpets over all the death and devastation,” Saraqael chimes in. “I’ve been practicing.”
That does it. Aziraphale stands, so abruptly that it sends his chair toppling.
“Good Lord,” says Michael.
“Something wrong, Aziraphale?” asks Saraqael.
Everything. Everything is wrong, and it’s all his own doing.
“No, no,” he lies. His corporation feels too tight, and this new starched-to-Heaven suit certainly isn’t helping matters. “No, I simply, um. Well. I have thoughts, you see. Many thoughts. On, on how best to usher in this exciting new era. So many, in fact, that it would probably be best if I take some time to ponder on their relevance to the Great Plan.” He backs away from the conference table. “In my office. Alone. With no disruptions.”
“Oh, here we go,” says Uriel, rolling their eyes. “You have the fancy corner office, we get it.”
“Honestly,” Michael grumbles. “Even Gabriel didn’t flaunt it this much.”
“Quite,” says Aziraphale, already on the move.
He has a lift to catch.
Everything is different. The dust mote to sunbeam ratios are all off, for starters, and— good Lord, are those paperbacks? Out here in the foyer? Not to mention the gramophone, which is blaring something decidedly not classical, and at top volume:
YOU SAID YOU WANNA BANG,
WELL, FUCK YOU,
SUCKER!!! [3]
“Dear me,” Aziraphale says, feeling rather faint.
“That you, Muriel?” calls a voice from the back shelves, intimately familiar. It lands squarely in the middle of Aziraphale’s chest, knocking the redundant breath right out of him. “Thought I told you to take the afternoon off.”
OH, DEAR GOD,
DO YOU GET ME NOW?
DO YOU GET ME NOW?
OH, YOU DO?
WOW, YOU’RE AWESOME.
“That’s quite enough of that,” Aziraphale snaps, silencing the noise with a wave of his hand.
Crowley swaggers out from behind the shelves. “Hey, I was listening to— that,” he chokes off, spotting Aziraphale.
How much time has passed? Enough that Aziraphale has started to forget the details. For instance, Crowley’s nose. The tiny cleft in his chin. His hair has grown out, falling in waves just above his shoulders. Blessedly, he’s wearing his glasses. Aziraphale is fairly certain he’d discorporate on the spot if Crowley trained those eyes on him now.
“Um,” he says stupidly. “Hello, I suppose. It’s me.” He does a little ta-da! flourish with his hands that he regrets instantly.
Crowley just gapes at him.
“I mean,” Aziraphale falters, “obviously it’s me. Who else would it be? Besides, erm, well, besides Muriel, of course. Or I suppose Maggie, or Nina. Or any number of other people, customers, you know—”
“Are you having a stroke?” Crowley cuts in, sharply.
“What? No, I—”
“Have you slipped and hit your head on something very hard?”
“Not— not that I’m aware, no—”
“Then what the fuck are you doing here?”
A perfectly valid question, but it hits like a physical blow all the same. Aziraphale opens his mouth to answer, to explain that he had to get away, that he couldn’t stay up there for one more moment without losing his mind completely; that he’s currently the only thing in the universe standing between the Earth and a fiery, wrathful doom; that he spends most of his time upstairs trying not to think about sushi, or old dusty books, or the way the afternoon sunlight slants through the bookshop windows, turning everything hazy and yellow; that his lips have felt bruised ever since he left.
His mouth is still working over empty air, nothing coming out. And then, quite suddenly, everything is.
Aziraphale has cried before, naturally. It’s not unusual for him to go misty-eyed over his favorite opera or a book passage that tugs at the proverbial heartstrings. He has reached for his handkerchief more than once while watching the final scene in An Affair to Remember. All very dignified, of course, the way an angel ought to cry, when the occasion calls for it.
What’s happening now is something else entirely. It’s loud and gulping and messy, pouring out of him like water from a burst pipe, or a storm that finally breaks. He’s properly blubbering. Not even a miracle could stop the deluge.
A pair of hands usher him gently to the nearest armchair. Aziraphale sits, unsuccessfully stifling a sob as he stares miserably up at Crowley. The demon’s glasses have been pushed up onto his head, and somehow it’s the sight of them sitting slightly askew that sends a fresh wave of sorrow reeling through him. Aziraphale cages his face behind his hands and weeps.
Eons pass, or perhaps only a few minutes. His breath evens out. The salty tracks on his cheeks begin to dry. When he feels relatively stable enough to look up again, the world is yellow, sunlight sifting through the windows, Crowley’s eyes, soft in spite of everything. A tentative, humbling silence has settled in the interim. There is no precedent for this, no guidebook on how to proceed. If this was Before, they might retreat to safer waters, dance awkwardly around the situation until it was wholly out of sight. Now, everything is different. Aziraphale hasn’t the faintest idea what to do.
Crowley, as always, is a step ahead. “Something I said?”
Aziraphale hiccups out a laugh. “Yes,” he says, shakily, “and no. It's all sort of, you know…” He gestures vaguely. “Jumbled up.”
“Got it off your chest, at least,” says Crowley.
Aziraphale nods mutely, dabbing his eyes with his sleeve.
Crowley regards him for a moment, then ambles off without a word. Aziraphale hears the familiar creak of the stairs, and the kettle wailing a minute later. He stays right where he is, palms pressed to his thighs. Crowley soon saunters back downstairs, now holding a coffee mug, which is embossed with the phrase GRAB LIFE BY THE BEANS.
“That’s new,” says Aziraphale.
Crowley winces. “Yeah, I had a moment right after you— erm, well. You have more novelty glassware than you did previously, let’s just leave it at that.” He pushes the mug into Aziraphale’s hands.
For one panicky moment, Aziraphale thinks he might cry again. He grips his mug, letting its warmth ground him, and the prickling ache behind his eyes subsides. “Regardless, this is very…very thoughtful,” he says. “Thank you.”
Crowley flaps a dismissive hand. “Just drink it before it goes cold.”
Not needing to be told twice, Aziraphale does so, scalding his tongue a bit in his haste. The coffee itself is somehow both bitter and sweet, and it leaves a rather chalky aftertaste. It’s utterly terrible; it is the most delectable thing that Aziraphale has ever consumed. He takes several inelegant gulps.
“Well, that was a thing,” Crowley says, when he’s finished.
Aziraphale clears his throat delicately. “Yes, it seems I was rather, erm, rather parched.” He smooths a hand over his waistcoat. “I don’t know what came over me earlier, but I…I’m sorry you had to see it.”
“That bad upstairs, is it?” Crowley says.
All Aziraphale can do is nod again, shame settling like a brick in the pit of his stomach. The thought of trying to put to words just how horrible the experience has been makes him want to curl up beneath a mountain of blankets and never emerge. Of course Crowley knows; he’s always known.
“I thought you’d be angrier with me,” Aziraphale admits, without intending to.
“I was,” Crowley sighs wearily, collapsing into the neighboring chair. “I am. I had Muriel reshelve the classics section with Tom Clancy novels, exclusively.”
“Yes, I noticed.”
“I gave you instant coffee.”
“And I enjoyed it very much.”
“Gah, stop it!” Crowley growls. “Stop being so bloody nice. Makes it that much harder to hate you. And I want to hate you.”
Aziraphale stares at the dregs of his coffee. “Ah. I understand.”
“No, you don’t,” Crowley says, exasperated. “You don’t get it, angel, you— you just waltz back in, with your, your general everything, and— I wish, I wish I could hate you, but I don’t. Can’t, actually. It’s a real low point for me, demonically-speaking.” He’s quiet for a beat; then, brow wrinkling, he rolls his head in Aziraphale’s direction. “How’d you know I was here, anyway?”
“I hear things, you know, even upstairs.”
“Muriel,” Crowley groans.
“Oh, please don’t be angry with them. I asked how they were faring down here, and they mentioned that you had been, well, lending a hand, now and again.” Aziraphale grips his mug a bit tighter. “I wasn’t even sure you’d be here. I suppose I…I hoped you would be.”
“No good deed goes unpunished,” Crowley sighs, tipping his head back. “Literally, in my case.”
Aziraphale glances away before he does something stupid, like gaze openly at his neck. “You didn’t have to stay here,” he says softly. “All that talk of Alpha Centauri, or, or the thousands of other places you always wanted to visit? You could’ve gone.”
“I couldn’t have,” Crowley says.
It’s spoken plainly, as if stating an immutable law of nature: the Earth spins on an axis; the sky is blue. I couldn’t have. Aziraphale’s heart tugs in his chest, painfully full. He hadn’t been in the most healthy of headspaces, immediately following his recall to Heaven, to see beyond his own misery, the unending enormity of it. Even now, the loss of Crowley as a constant, focal fixture in his day-to-day existence aches like a bruise that won’t heal. Selfishly, he hasn’t stopped to consider that perhaps his human-shaped heart isn’t the only one that he broke by leaving.
“Oh,” he says, allowing himself to meet Crowley’s gaze. “I’ve made a proper fucking mess of things, haven’t I?”
“Yes, and no,” says Crowley. Then, yellow eyes going wide: “Hang on, you say fuck now?”
“I know I hurt you,” Aziraphale continues, a tad desperately, “leaving the way I did. But I didn’t do it to be cruel, Crowley, you must know that. We wanted different things.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s like—” Crowley balls one hand into a fist and hits his other palm with it. “Immovable object. Unstoppable force. Basic physics, angel.”
“Let me guess,” says Aziraphale. “I’m the object, in this metaphor.”
Crowley’s mouth twists. “To an aggravating degree.” He looks away. “Still. Makes sense, what with me…going too fast, and all that.”
Heart in his throat, Aziraphale says, “I think, perhaps, that I’m the one who has been going the wrong speed.”
“Oh, come on,” Crowley says, rubbing the back of his neck. His cheeks have gone pink. It’s undeniably human, yet somehow undeniably Crowley, as well, and Aziraphale feels a wave of fondness ripple through him at the sight. He is struck, in this moment, at how connected it all is: Crowley and him, the bookshop around them, the sounds filtering in from the street outside; people laughing, a dog barking. A microcosm of the universe.
Aziraphale looks around. There’s the coat rack; there’s the old clock. Papers strewn across the desk. A long-forgotten mug tucked between the book spines. It’s not so different, now that he’s properly looking.
“I’m sorry about the—” Crowley waggles his fingers at the paperbacks.
“Yes, you should be,” Aziraphale says, very seriously. “But questionable taste in literature notwithstanding, I’m glad you’re here, Crowley. I suppose it’s fitting, the two of us here, even if it might be the last time.”
“That’s a bit dramatic, isn’t it?”
“I’m afraid not. They’re planning to destroy everything, just like before. And I’m not at all certain I can stop them.”
“Oh, that,” says Crowley, nodding.
Aziraphale stares at him blankly.
“Armageddon 2.0,” Crowley continues. “Once more, with bigger, scarier fireballs, or something like that? Old news, angel.”
“Old— you knew?”
“Tiny bit, yeah. May have had myself an impromptu field trip up to Heaven, right before you left.”
“An impromptu—”
“It’s not— look, let’s not make it a thing,” Crowley says, melting languidly back into his chair. “It’s a long story, anyway. You wouldn’t want to hear it.”
“I would, actually. I have several questions, not the least of which—” Aziraphale cuts himself off, gasping. “Oh, you fiend. You’re tempting me!”
“Not very well, clearly,” says Crowley. “Tell you what, let’s do lunch. You can glower at me all you want over your foie gras. You’re paying, obviously.”
“Am I,” says Aziraphale.
“Fine, twist my wing. We’ll go Dutch.”
Well. Aziraphale supposes that’s fair. And besides, he can hardly refuse now, seeing as how a table at the Ritz has just miraculously come free.
…a few millennia (give or take) before the end.
“Thanks for that,” says the demon, once the storm has passed. “Don’t much love being cold. And the moisture, eugh. It’s hell on the hair, pun absolutely intended.”
“Pun?” the angel asks.
“Oh, it’s a new thing I’m trying out,” the demon says, looking rather proud. “A sort of intentionally bad joke. How do angels greet each other? Halo, there! That sort of thing.”
“But that…that’s not funny at all.”
“Exactly.”
“It’s rather stupid, actually.”
“Exactly.”
They stand in serviceably comfortable silence for a few moments. The clouds are thinning out; the air tastes earthy and clean.
“So,” says Crawly. “What will you do now?”
Aziraphale stares out across the rippling sand. “I don’t actually know. My orders were to guard the Eastern Gate, watch over the humans. There were no contingencies for, well. This."
“Yeah, that’s my bad,” says Crawly. “But, hey, it’s a big world. You could go wherever you want. Anywhere, really.”
“I should probably go back. Up, I mean. I expect they’ll want me to check in, given the circumstances.”
“Oh, right,” Crawly says, blinking. “Should probably check in with my lot, as well.” But he remains where he is, turning his gaze to the vast sweep of desert. “What’s out there, d’you think?”
“I—” Aziraphale sputters, taken aback. “I’m sure I don’t know.” Then, feeling that this answer is somewhat inadequate, he adds: “More of all this, I suppose. The Almighty’s divine creation.”
Crawly makes a face. “Sorry,” he says when Aziraphale frowns reproachfully, “it’s just…well, the old boss wasn’t all that involved in the design process, was She? Loved the hands-off approach, if memory serves.”
“I couldn’t possibly comment,” Aziraphale mumbles, adjusting his wings primly.
“Right,” Crawly says, with an awful sort of knowing tone. “Well, either way. Have to enjoy all this while we can, before— you know. Six thousand years, was it? Time’s a-wastin’.”
“Ah,” Aziraphale says, eyes flicking upward. “Yes. Well. All above my pay grade, I’m afraid.”
Crawly looks over at him, face settling into an expression that’s halfway between amused and baffled. Not a very angelic look; but of course, Crawly isn’t an angel anymore. Though neither is he anything remotely like Aziraphale expects a demon to be, come to think of it. But it’s improper to think such things. Borderline blasphemous, even. Still, something gentle tugs at his center.
“I’d, ah, better be going,” he says. “It was nice chatting with you.” It was, strangely.
“Yeah, likewise,” Crawly says, smiling. “Catch you in six thousand years, I guess.”
Aziraphale offers a polite smile in return, turning his gaze to the sky as light from the eternal vault of Heaven envelops him. Perhaps he shouldn’t have called Crawly’s joke stupid. Rather rude, for an angel. It was just a silly little play on words, which, he supposes, is harmless enough. Clever, even, in its own way. But it hardly matters. He can’t imagine the two of them will have cause to meet again.
…The End, and the first few minutes of the rest of their lives.
The end of times arrives on a Tuesday, not that anyone really notices.[4] Somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, lightning strikes cause a few localized forest fires; across the ocean, Indonesia’s monsoon season arrives several weeks too late. At the Golden Cross in Coventry, an enigmatic young man and his bandmates play their first live gig for an audience of four moderately inebriated patrons. And on a rocky beach in East Sussex, an angel and a demon are kissing soundly, and have been for the past minute or so.
“Pie!” Crowley abruptly declares, breaking away. “That’s what’s easy.” His hands have wound their way into Aziraphale’s hair, teasing the soft curls at the back of his neck. “Anyway. Not important.”
“You tremendous idiot,” Aziraphale says, affection spilling out of him in bright waves. He couldn’t contain it if he wanted to.
“Oi,” Crowley says. “Steady on. I did just save the world.” He glances around. “Didn’t I? Nothing seems to be on fire. No lion-headed locusts. Christ himself is AWOL. Yeah, I’m calling it.”
Aziraphale pinches his fingers together. “You had a bit of help.”
“Yeah, alright.” Crowley smiles down at him, dazzling. The most beautiful creature Aziraphale has ever seen.
This feeling building behind his ribs is overwhelming. All-consuming. Aziraphale lifts a hand, fingers curling around Crowley’s wrist. He turns his head and presses his mouth to the most tender part of Crowley’s palm. The words are already here, waiting in the wings.[5] They have been for some time now. Aziraphale holds onto them a moment longer; then he lets them go.
“Do you…?” he breathes, tracing the half-question with his lips. Scared and reverent and every little thing in between.
With a sharp breath in, Crowley dips his head, bumping their noses together. “Angel,” he murmurs against Aziraphale’s mouth, “I think I loved you before I knew how to.”
This kiss isn’t the first one, or the second. It lands somewhere between déjà vu and muscle memory, tender and more desperate in the same breath. Hands cradle faces; lips press gently, then urgently. The angel thinks of nebulas, bright whorls of stardust and energy and matter spun into existence from nothing. Stars, galaxies. An entire universe holding its breath, waiting to be created. His hands slide around the demon’s waist, pulling him closer. They’ve waited long enough.
1 No, not that kind, though Aziraphale has, of late, been thinking about that kind with increasing frequency. [return to text]
2 Perhaps if the drink in question was a lovely glass of Bordeaux, or even a respectable Riesling, some shed tears might be more appropriate. But that’s rather beside the point, which is why we’re discussing it here. [return to text]
3 The song in question is “Sucker” by Charli XCX, and it is currently the second-most-played track on Crowley’s breakup playlist. We won't mention what the first is. Crowley is rather sensitive about it. [return to text]
4 Including most of the Heavenly Host. Approximately two hundred million angelic horsemen are currently assembling for the Big Day, every single one of them having received explicit instructions from the Supreme Archangel’s office dictating that the destruction of the Earth is to begin promptly the morning of February 30th. Unfortunately for them, there are no human calendars in Heaven. [return to text]
5 It is a truth universally acknowledged that an angel, having successfully thwarted the apocalypse, must be in want of such simple pleasures as bad puns. [return to text]