Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Crowley strolled through the garden of the Selsey house, pruners in hand, scrutinizing the plants with a practiced eye. He snipped a yellowing leaf off one of his lilies. Once he might have pulled the whole plant up and made an example out of it. He would have hissed threats at the rest of them as he did. But now he just clipped the yellow leaf and tucked it into the pocket of his black gardening apron. 

He had tried to hide his newfound kindness towards the plants from Aziraphale over the last two weeks, but it hadn’t lasted long. His plants, especially the ones in the garden, were so spoiled and soft that they wilted at the barest hint of a glare from him. Not that being nice to the plants was without its benefits. The first time Aziraphale had heard him telling the gladiolus they were doing a lovely job, his angel had gone near feral, pulling him into a secluded corner of the garden’s labyrinth and dropping to his knees. 

Crowley pushed the distracting memory away and continued his inspection of the plants. He moved along the raised beds, looking for any hint of imperfection among the foliage and deep red and purple blooms. Everything was as it should be until he rounded the corner and saw a little patch of yellow daffodils peeking out of one of the beds. 

“Angel?” he called to Aziraphale who sat on a bench next to a nearby fountain, reading a book with a little tray of fruit and cheese.

“Yes, dear?” He said without looking up from his book. 

“Why are there daffodils in my garden?”

“I would assume because they are pretty.” He sounded indifferent, almost bored as he turned a page. 

“They’re yellow,” Crowley said as if that settled the matter.

“Which some people find to be a particularly pretty color,” Aziraphale countered, still not looking up from his book.

Crowley loomed over him, grasping his chin gently with one hand and pulling Aziraphale’s face up from his book to look at him, “Some people are not me, angel. We are not putting yellow flowers in this garden. This garden already has a very cohesive aesthetic. We’ve discussed this.”

“You know, my love,” Aziraphale reached a hand out and ran it along Crowley’s hip, “you really are exceptionally attractive when you’re being stern.”

“ Don’t try and change the subject, angel,” Crowley growled even as heat rushed to his cock. “Why have you planted daffodils in my garden?”

Aziraphale sighed, “ I haven’t.”

“I have!” chirped a cheerful voice behind him. 

Crowley whipped around to find Muriel. Her arms were full of fresh-cut daffodils wrapped in brown paper. She had soil crusted under her fingernails and her face was radiant with pride. 

“Ngk. Wha. Eh. You?” Crowley sputtered. 

“Yes!” Muriel beamed, “You’re always out here playing in the dirt and it looks like so much fun! Then Mr. Fell and I were at the farmers market this morning and I saw these beautiful flowers and I thought I’d try planting them!”

“You thought you’d try planting… what?” Crowley looked from Muriel’s dirty hands to the fresh-cut flowers in her arms. He looked at Aziraphale who appeared to have gone back to his book, but whose shoulders shook with suppressed laughter. Finally, he looked at the daffodils in the flower bed. As he did, one of the flowers toppled over and fell onto the stone path with a soft splat . 

“They keep doing that,” Muriel frowned, “how do you get yours to stay in the ground without falling over?”

Crowley gave her an incredulous look and went to investigate the flowers, not quite believing what he was seeing. But, sure enough, he found half a dozen fresh-cut daffodils stuck into the dirt like little flags.

“Muriel,” he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, “that is not how you plant daffodils or any flowers, really. You need to get bulbs or seeds and then you plant those and they grow into flowers.”

“Oh,” the little angel’s face fell, and looked down at the daffodils in her arms, “then what do you do with these?”

Crowley sighed again but didn’t say anything as he plucked the daffodils from the dirt. He rinsed the ends of them in the fountain and stretched out a hand for the flowers Muriel was still holding. He miracled a vase of smoked glass and filled it with water from the fountain before arranging the daffodils in it. 

“You put them in water and enjoy looking at them,” he said, handing Muriel the vase. “You can put these on the coffee table inside, Inspector.” She toddled off towards the house and Crowley turned back to Aziraphale, who was hiding behind his book, positively vibrating with silent giggles. “Something funny, angel?” 

“Tremendously so.”

“Did you let her buy those daffodils knowing she was going to try and plant them?” He asked with a disapproving frown.

“Oh, I bought them, dearest,” Aziraphale said, tapping him lightly with the book. 

“But you knew what she wanted them for?”

“What she wanted was to garden with you.” Aziraphale beamed at him. “You must remember, dear, she’s new to all of this. She’s never had the time or freedom for hobbies. She saw something that brought you joy and she wanted to try it too.” Aziraphale looked at him for a moment, giddy and utterly enamored. It made Crowley’s heart soar to see him so happy. “You’re spreading joy , my love.”

Crowley frowned again, “I’m a demon. I don’t spread joy. I spread chaos and misery.”

“Oh, I can see that,” his angel said with mock seriousness, “that’s why you showed her what to do with them, instead of, say, stomping them on the ground?”

“Yes,” he snapped, “all part of my demonic plan. Do-gooder like you wouldn’t understand.” 

“I’m sure I wouldn’t.”

Crowley laid down on the bench next to Aziraphale, resting his head in his angel’s lap, kicking his feet up over the back of the bench, and balancing the little tray of fruit and cheese on his stomach. Aziraphale picked up a scarlet strawberry and fed it to him. It was sweet and sun-warmed. He didn’t usually go in for human food, but he could get used to this. 

Aziraphale’s fingers ran through his hair, scratching his scalp lightly as they went. Crowley let out a quiet, contented sigh and closed his eyes. Of all the things that had changed between them since Aziraphale’s return from Heaven, this was his favorite. He loved the kissing and the sex. He loved all Aziraphale’s little pet names, and being told that he was beautiful and loved and good— though he’d never admit to the last one— on a regular basis. But this, this quiet, gentle intimacy, this feeling of complete contentment and wholeness, was something he never thought he would have and he knew he’d never be able to live without it again.  

“What are you reading?” He asked after a while.

“Just a little research for our trip tomorrow.” 

Crowley heard pages rustling above him and he peeked up to see the cover Aziraphale was showing him. It was an old and well-loved copy of Dante’s Inferno . 

“Angel, you know nothing in that book is accurate, right?” Crowley said, closing his eyes once more. 

“I know. It’s not really for research. I just haven’t read it in a long time and…” Aziraphale paused and when he spoke again his voice was distant and a little sad, “my interpretation has changed.” 

“How so?”

“Just… changed.”

The tone in Aziraphale's voice told him not to press the issue. He knew his angel was struggling to reconcile his newfound enlightenment when it came to Heaven. It must be excruciating, he thought, not for the first time, to realize that most of what you believed to be true for the last six thousand years was a lie. 

Unfortunately, Crowley had been of little help. He felt he should have been more useful. Aziraphale was, after all, having all of the exact same doubts and asking all the same questions Crowley had before the Fall. But for Crowley, all that had come naturally. He had always been one to ask questions, and when the answers weren’t to his liking, it felt natural to push back and ask why. Crowley never had the same attachment to Heaven as Aziraphale did, so it had been much, much easier for him to let go of it. Falling hadn’t made him question his whole identity. His questions had only ever been for Heaven, not himself. 

“Mr. Crowley,” Muriel shouted from the back deck, “I think you’d better come here. The doorbell is ringing and I don’t know what to do!”

Crowley sat up and exchanged a worried glance with Aziraphale.

“It can’t be the archangels back again,” Aziraphale said, eyes wide.

“No, it really can’t be.” Crowley stood and held out a hand for Aziraphale. “They wouldn’t be able to ring the doorbell. Wards, remember?”

“Then who could it be?” 

“I have an idea,” Crowley sighed. He was actually surprised it had taken them so long. 

“Oh, look Dev, he lives!” Nova said sardonically when Crowley answered the door. She and Dev waited on the porch, but only she looked murderous. “You bailed on me for the plant sale.”

“I did,” Crowley admitted, “but—“

“And you bailed on Dev’s gig Friday.”

“I did. Something came—“

“If you’re still in here moping,” she leveled a finger at him, her Irish brogue became more pronounced with every word she uttered, “just know I’m prepared to drag you out of this house by—“ 

“I’m not! Something came up. Why don’t you come shout at me inside.” He held open the door and ushered them into the living room. 

“Hello!” Aziraphale greeted them brightly from where he stood in the kitchen replenishing the tray of fruit and cheese. 

“Who’s this, then?” Nova eyed him suspiciously.

“He’s, erm,” Crowley looked at Aziraphale with overwhelming fondness, momentarily at a loss for words, “well, he’s something.”

Nova looked from Crowley to Aziraphale and back again. “And that’s his name, then, is it? Mr. Someting?”

“Right, sorry, no. Erm, Aziraphale these are my friends, Nova and her partner Devan. Nova, Dev, this is Aziraphale. He’s, erm, well, he’s eh, he’s my, erm—”

“Partner.” Aziraphale finished for him. “I’m his partner.” He came around and shook Nova and Dev’s hands. Dev smiled broadly and clapped Aziraphale on the shoulder. Nova continued to glare suspiciously. 

When Aziraphale ushered Dev into the kitchen for refreshments, Nova leaned over to Crowley and said, “Is this Mr. Ten Months, Twenty-Tree Days, and About Two Hours, then?” 

“He is.”

“And it’s good?” She asked, trying to make eye contact through his sunglasses. “It’s good that he’s back in your life?” 

“Yes, very.”

“Good. As long as you’re not settling for an ex ‘cause you’re sad.”

“Being with him could never be settling,” he said, trying and failing to mask the emotion in his voice. 

She beamed at him and reached out to squeeze his hand, “Good. You deserve to be happy.”

She took his arm and he led her out onto the deck where Aziraphale had relocated and was opening a bottle of wine to go with his snacks. Crowley didn’t know why he was so nervous. He’d told Aziraphale about Nova and Dev and had fully intended to introduce them at some point. But it was one thing to intend something and another to actually do it. 

So much of why he’d come here, why he’d bought this house, why he’d made these friends, was to try to forget Aziraphale. He had shown up here utterly broken and Nova and Dev had been here to help him put himself back together. They were the only things now that he had to himself. The only proof that he could be someone separate from his angel. Sharing them meant making memories that would be painful if Aziraphale ever left him again. It meant creating more places for Aziraphale to haunt him.

“Here you are, my darling,” Aziraphale handed him a glass of wine, curled an arm around his waist, and planted a swift kiss to the tattoo on his jaw. The public display of affection was a balm to Crowley’s doubtful thoughts. Aziraphale turned to Nova and said, “It’s lovely to meet you, Nova, dear. I‘ve heard so much about you and Dev. Can I get you anything?” 

Nova nodded and Aziraphale bustled off again. 

“Crowley, mate. Your garden looks unreal, bruv.” Dev sidled up to him and clapped him on the shoulder. “It’s only been in the ground for, what, a month? Impressive.”

“Yeah,” Crowley smirked, “it’s a real miracle.” 

“Miracle!” Muriel poked her head out onto the deck. “Mr. Crowley, is that how you garden? You should have said! Why do you walk around with the pruners and such if you’re just doing miracles.”

“Figure of speech, Muriel,” Crowley said, trying to signal to her with his eyebrows to shut the Heaven up about miracles. 

“Ooooh!” Muriel cooed, spotting Nova and Dev, “Are you Mr. Crowley’s human friends?” 

“Human friends?” Dev asked, looking from Muriel to Crowley and then exchanging a dubious look with Nova. 

“Yes, Muriel. These are my friends, Nova and Dev.” He did some more pointed eyebrow-raising. “No need to specify species.”

“Right,” said Muriel said, blushing slightly as she caught on, “because, erm, because everyone here is a human.” 

Crowley resisted the urge to smack himself, and possibly Muriel as well, on the forehead. 

“I see you’ve met my sister, Muriel,” Aziraphale said, rejoining the conversation and saving Crowley from having to think of an explanation for Muriel. 

“Your sister?” Nova accepted the glass Aziraphale handed her and looked skeptically from one to the other of them. Not only did the pair look nothing alike, but Muriel appeared young enough to be Aziraphale’s daughter. 

“Ah, yes. My much younger sister,” Aziraphale amended. “And we only share one parent.” 

“Yes! It’s God.” Muriel said matter of factly.

Crowley choked on his wine. Nova and Dev exchanged another confused and mildly concerned look. Aziraphale just smiled indulgently at his ‘sister.’

“Would you be a dear, Muriel, and fetch another bottle of wine from the cellar?” Aziraphale said, “The 1921 Châteauneuf-du-Pape would do nicely.”

Muriel bounced back into the house and Crowley turned to Aziraphale, masking his words with a quick miracle, “We don’t have any more of the 1921, angel. We finished that years ago.” 

“Yes, dear,” Aziraphale smiled, “I am aware.”

“So, Crowly,” Dev said, drawing Crowley and Aziraphale’s attention back to their guests, “Now that we know you’re not dead or moping, do you fancy coming out with us tomorrow? We were going to get drinks and dinner and go to Shakespeare in the Park. They’re doing Midsummer and a mate of mine is playing Titania. Azirphale, you’re invited as well, of course.”

“And Muriel,” Nova interjected. Crowley thanked Someone that both of his friends seemed willing to overlook the little angel’s odd behavior.”

“Oh, that sounds just lovely!” Aziraphale looked at Crowley with big, pleading eyes, silently willing him to agree. 

“Yes, it does and if it were any other day we would be there, but tomorrow’s no good. Remember, angel? Our trip?” He raised an eyebrow at Aziraphale meaningfully. 

His angel’s face fell, “Oh, right, of course, the trip. Well, thank you so much for the invitation, Devan, but I’m afraid we’ll have to take a rain check.”

“No worries, mate, there’s another show next weekend, if you’ll be back by then. Where are you off to, anyway?”

“Oh, erm,” Crowley tried to think of a plausible story and came up short, “Just eh, a little day trip up to, erm--”

“Are you talking about tomorrow?” Muriel said from the door. She was back too soon with a bottle of wine that Crowley was certain she had selected at random. She beamed around at them and exclaimed, “It’s all very exciting. We’re going to Hell!”

And Crowley, the last of his composure dissolving at the words, buried his face in his hand and made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a frustrated scream.

Chapter Text

Aziraphale considered his reflection with a frown. Fashion may not be his forte, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever worn something quite so ridiculous.

It was the morning of their trip to Hell. They managed to get through the rest of the evening with Nova and Dev without further compromising incidents. But, Crowley had still given Muriel a lecture on how to behave around humans while he helped her choose her disguise for their trip. Aziraphale had overheard most of it before he went upstairs to sort out his own disguise.

Aziraphale turned a little bit to view himself from another angle. His frown deepened. He wore a black, double-breasted military jacket with stripes of white connecting the silver buttons. His black trousers were tucked into black boots and his eyes were lined in smoky black liner. He looked… well he didn’t really know what he looked like, but the word bebop came to mind for some reason. It was wholly unlike himself.

“What’s the matter?” Crowley appeared in the mirror behind him. They looked, perhaps for the first time ever, like a matching set.

“I don’t think black is my color,” Aziraphale pouted, “that’s all.”

“Agree to disagree, angel. I like you in black.” Crowley pressed a kiss to the back of his neck, surveying him in the mirror with golden eyes. “But it is missing a few things.”

“Such as?”

“It’s too neat for one thing.” Another kiss pressed to his neck. Aziraphale tilted his head to the side to give him better access. “You gotta make it shabbier. Add some rips or wrinkles or whatnot. Demons don’t care about their clothes.” 

“You do. And so does Shax.”

“We are the exception, not the rule,” Crowley murmured into his neck. The low purr of his voice sent a shiver down Aziraphale’s spine. “You’re trying to blend in, angel. Mess it up.”

“Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer to make a mess of me yourself?” he suggested with an innocent little eyebrow raised at Crowley’s reflection. 

Crowley’s answering grin was positively wicked and full of promise. He nipped Aziraphale’s neck affectionately and purred, “You know that I would, but,” he pressed a final kiss to Aziraphale’s neck, washing away the sting of his bite, “we best not, angel. If we start now, we’ll never get out here.”

“Fine,” Aziraphale sighed. He snapped and his uniform became rumpled and dingy, “What else am I missing?”

“You need an aspect.”

“An aspic?” Aziraphale made a face. 

“Aspect, angel,” he said, exaggerating the t at the end of the word, “The thing that marks us as demons. The thing we can’t hide or change. The thing that makes me a monster. For most of us it’s an animal characteristic of some kind,” he gestured to his snake eyes and tattoo, “but for other demons, it’s more… grotesque.”

Aziraphale thought for a moment before snapping. His eyes turned a brownish black that consumed even the whites. White and golden-brown feathers sprouted at his temples and swept upwards, intermingling with his white-blonde hair. For a demonic aspect, he thought it looked rather fetching, except for his fingernails, which had lengthened and curled into talons. 

“An owl? Really, angel?” Crowley scoffed, “I knew you weren’t going to pick anything too horrendous, but demonic aspects are supposed to be at least a little bit sca-- AHHH!”

Crowley’s sentence broke off into a scream as Aziraphale turned his head around to face him. Literally. He turned his head 180 degrees on his shoulders so he could look behind him at Crowley, who backed up several paces.

“You were saying, dear?”

“That is sufficiently terrifying, yes,” Crowley said, breathing heavily and rubbing his chest. 

“Good.” He turned his body around to face Crowley as well. “Am I all set, then?”

“Almost,” Crowley looked pointedly down at his hand, “you should take your ring off.”

Aziraphale immediately started toying with the gold ring on his pinky, “Must I?”

“Yes. An angelic signet ring in Hell is going to be a dead giveaway if anyone notices it.”

He stared down at the ring, still toying with it, and said very quietly, “I’ve never actually taken it off.”

Crowley watched him with a kind of sad understanding. Aziraphale had a hard time meeting his gaze. He knew that taking the ring off was necessary and didn’t mean anything. He could put it back on again as soon as he returned home. But, something about removing this last badge of office, this last symbol of his status as an angel, right before he descended into Hell dressed as a demon, was making this all seem a little too real. He knew he wasn’t Falling. He knew nothing was actually changing, but it was difficult not to draw the comparison. Especially given their long-term plans. 

“You could always wear gloves or something,” Crowley said when Aziraphale still hadn’t removed his ring. “That would probably be fine.”

“No. It’s silly to risk it. You’re right. I should just take it off.” He wrenched the ring off his finger before he lost the nerve to do so. He grabbed Crowley’s hand and slid the ring onto his little finger, “Keep it safe for me, won’t you, my love?” 

In answer, Crowley pulled him in for a slow and gentle kiss. Or at least, a kiss that started slow and gentle, but built with every slide of their mouths, became frantic with every scrape of Crowley’s teeth against his bottom lip. All the carefully curated self-control that Aziraphale had possessed for the last 6,000 years, seemed to have evaporated the night he and Crowley made love for the first time. Now, every time Crowley touched him, Aziraphale became insatiable. Every time, every thought, plan, or responsibility vanished and was replaced by an overwhelming need to be closer, to have more of him. 

Aziraphale’s back pressed against the mirror on the dressing room wall. Crowley's tongue was in his mouth. His hands, despite his earlier assertion that they didn't have time for this, were undoing the buckle of Aziraphale's belt. They were both panting for breath and aching hard. Aziraphale’s hands fisted Crowley’s jacket, desperate to rip it off of him. 

“Mr. Crowley? Mr. Fell? Are you two ready to-- OH! Sorry!” 

Crowley pulled away from him with a frustrated chuckle. He looked up at the ceiling like he was asking Someone for the strength and patience not to bite Muriel’s head off. “Quite alright, inspector,” he said, his voice surprisingly even, “We were on our way out.”

“Sorry,” Muriel said again.

“Quite alright, as Mr. Crowley said. We’ll be right down,” Aziraphale said, “You run along.”

She scampered off without needing to be told twice. 

Crowley rested his forehead on Aziraphale shoulder and groaned, “We have to teach her how to knock, angel.”

Muriel sat in the back of the Bentley, looking out the window at the passing buildings and idly fingering the ram's horns that now protruded from her temples. Mr. Crowley had helped her choose a demonic aspect for her disguise before they’d left. They’d driven to London to enter Hell through one of the doors there. Mr. Crowley had insisted on this because if they were found out and had to run, it would be easier to lose pursuers in London and they would be less likely to have anyone track them back to the Selsey house. 

But, driving to London meant being in the car with Mr. Crowley and Mr. Fell for a few hours. The first part of their drive had been consumed by a lengthy lecture from Mr. Fell on the necessity of knocking on closed doors. It was very similar in tone to the lecture she’d received from Mr. Crowley proper topics of conversation with humans. Neither conversation had been unkind or even unpleasant, but each had made her feel as though she had let them down somehow. She did not like the feeling of disappointing people, especially Mr. Fell and Mr. Crowley. 

She’d spent the rest of the drive in silence, doing her best to ignore the way Mr. Crowley and Mr. Fell held hands. Something significant had changed between them since she’d first met them and she was having trouble identifying exactly what. They loved each other deeply. She’d been able to sense that much right away, but the way they expressed it was… strange. Any time they were in the same room, they seemed to subconsciously orient themselves to be nearer to each other. They looked at each other with open longing, with a burning fascination she didn't understand, even if the other was doing something perfectly mundane. They touched almost constantly like they were worried the other might disappear if they let go for too long. And, they spent a lot of time upstairs having “us time.” She still didn’t know what “us time” was, but it was loud and sounded uncomfortable. Once, she thought they must have been praying because of how much Mr. Fell invoked the lord's name, but he'd followed it up with such a litany of blasphemous cursing, that Muriel had immediately ruled it out.

As much as she didn’t understand the new dynamics of Mr. Fell and Mr. Crowley’s relationship, watching them made her feel lonely. No one in Heaven expressed love the way they did. Angels in Heaven would tell you they loved you all day long, but no one ever held your hand. No one kissed your cheek or stroked your hair. No one gave your shoulder an approving fist bump after a job well done. No one made you a cup of tea or tucked a blanket over you when you fell asleep reading. Muriel had lived her whole life thinking she had experienced the purest form of love. God’s love. But, the longer she spent with Mr. Fell and Mr. Crowley, the more she wanted whatever it was that they had. 

“Here we are,” said Mr. Crowley, pulling the car up to the curb outside of a familiar bookshop. 

Muriel’s heart clenched at the sight of it. It had been home only briefly, but she had become much fonder of it than Heaven in that time. Until, of course, the archangels arrived and savaged her wings. Looking at it now was a strange mixture of pleasant and painful memories and she was suddenly glad she wouldn’t actually have to go inside of it. 

“Right, before we get out, I want to go over the plan one more time,” Mr. Crowley continued.

“My dear, we’ve been over it a dozen times at least,” Mr. Fell sighed. 

“And we’re about to make it a dozen and one, angel.” Mr. Crowey shifted in his seat so he could look at them both, “Now, I’ll let you in, but I won’t be coming with you. I’m still persona non grata and too easily recognized. Even with a disguise, it’s too risky. You two are to go in and head straight to Records. It’s in the second pit, follow the signs. Look like you know where you’re going. Do not ask anyone for directions unless it is absolutely necessary. This won’t be like Heaven. You won’t be able to get by just by blending in. You will be stopped. You will be questioned. Demons don’t trust each other. When you’re asked to state your business, what will you say? Angel?”

“I am Alastair, demon of the Fourth House, on an errand to collect files for Lord Dagon,” Mr. Fell recited. 

“Good. Inspector?”

“And I am Mormo, demon of the Forth House, also on an errand to collect files for Lord Dagon.”

“And if anyone tries to question you further than that?”

“Threaten them,” Muriel and Mr. Fell said together. 

“Yes, and I mean really threaten them. Grind their bones for your bread, the whole bit. You gotta sell it.”

“We know,” Mr. Fell said, laying a hand on Mr. Crowley’s knee. “I know you’re nervous, my love, but we’re not going to be any better prepared for this than we already are. We aren’t going to linger. We’ll go in, get the files, and get out as soon as we can.” 

“Right,” Mr. Crowley nodded and took a shaky breath, “Just gotta do it, I ‘spose. S'not getting any easier. C’mon.”

The three of them got out of the Bentley and walked across the street to the Dirty Donkey Pub. Some of the humans on the street gave them odd looks, but mostly they went about their business. Mr. Crowley hesitated again when they reached the door. 

“Try not to get separated,” he said. “If you see any hellfire fountains, stay as far away from them as possible. I’ll be right around here somewhere when you get back.”

Mr. Fell reached up to cup Mr. Crowley’s cheek, “It’s going to be alright, dearest. This isn't my first trip Below. Open the lift and let’s get it over with.”

Mr. Crowley pressed a quick kiss to the palm of Mr. Fell’s hand, “I know, angel. Just be careful.” 

He made an upward pulling motion as if yanking on a rope that ran deep underground and the door to the lift opened. Unlike the celestial lifts, which were pristine and white, this lift was dingy. Tarnished sheet metal peeled away from the walls in places and the light was dim and greenish. 

“See you in two shakes of a lamb's tail, my dear,” said Mr. Fell, getting into the lift without further ado. 

Muriel made to follow, but Mr. Crowley stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. 

“You be careful too, Inspector,” he said, chucking her under the chin, “life would be a lot less interesting without you. Stay close to Mr. Fell and... try not to let it get to you. It won't be pleasant down there.”

“Will do, Mr. Crowley.”

He gave her a little punch on the shoulder and let her go. Muriel followed Mr. Fell onto the lift. Mr. Crowley reached in and pressed the red button with the letter H on it emblazoned in black flame. He took a step back onto the sidewalk and kept his gaze trained on Mr. Fell’s face while the doors closed. 

When the doors opened again, Muriel was in a place much worse than she’d imagined. The first thing that hit her was the smell, dank and mildewy. Then she was struck by how loud it was, an intercom was spouting regular disheartening messages, which were just barely audible over the sounds of tortured shrieks coming from nowhere and everywhere all at once. 

It was oppressively crowded. Muriel followed Mr. Fell off the lift and was almost immediately bumped into by a large demon with tentacles instead of hands. She tried to step around him and ran into a second demon with horns like a buffalo. She tried to turn around and another demon with no face pressed in behind her. Her breathing came in ragged gasps and the pounding in her ears nearly drowned out the tortured screams. There were demons everywhere, pressing in around her, blocking out the greenish light. She’d lost sight of Mr. Fell and of the lift, though she knew both had to be close at hand. A scream rose up in her throat, but before she could utter it, a hand clasped around her wrist and Mr. Fell pulled her along the dark corridor. 

“Breath, my dear,” he hissed in her ear. “Follow me and try to look like you know what you’re doing?”

She did her best, following Mr. Fell’s purposeful strides and trying to let a devil-may-care swing into her own steps like Mr. Crowley. It worked, at least she thought it did. None of the other demons looked at them or bumped into them again. They traversed a crowded corridor and then turned into a much less crowded corridor, and finally arrived at a door marked “Records” in peeling letters. A demon stood in front of the door. They had the cloudy blind eyes and vicious teeth of an angler fish. 

“State your business,” the demon gurgled as they approached. 

“I’m Alastair,” said Mr. Fell, “demon of the fourth house, sent to retrieve some files for Lord Dagon.”

“And I’m Mormo,” Muriel recited, “also a demon of the fourth house, sent to assist him.”

“Lord Dagon did not inform us they needed files today,” the guard hissed. 

“We’re informing you now on their behalf,” Mr. Fell said cooly. 

“Highly irregular. And you’re not their usual errand scum. Where’s Eric?”

Muriel’s pulse quickened and she fought the urge to wipe her hands on her trousers. Mr. Crowley had said they would be questioned, but it was one thing to know it and another to live it. They were going to be found out, she just knew it! This demon was going to realize they were imposters and eat their faces. And then they would be sent down to the real tormentors in the lower pits or roasted alive in hellfire. Her heart pounded in her throat so hard she thought she might choke on it. Or vomit.

“Either let us inside or I’ll be sure to tell Lord Dagon exactly which demon delayed their important work,” Mr. Fell’s voice had a hard, icy quality that Mruiel had never heard before and didn’t like. “As a dark council member, I’m sure they’d love to reward your dedication to duty by sending you to meet our master.” He surveyed the demon with a disdainful look, “And I’m sure Satan would appreciate the appetizer.”

“Alright, ya bastards, be quick about it,” the demon grumbled but moved so they could scurry through the door into the record room. 

Room was a bit of an understatement. It was a hall as big as a football field and packed with a labyrinth of teetering file cabinets. 

“Oh, my God!” Murield cursed when the door slammed shut behind them.

"Don't invoke the Lord's name, Muriel. She is not here and there is no telling who you might wake up instead." Aziraphale muttered darkly

“But, Mr. Fell. Are you seeing this? We’re going to be here all day! How are we supposed to find anything in this mess?”

“It’s alphabetized, according to Crowley. Personnel files will be in the p’s and organized by legion. And the cabinets are marked, look.” He pointed to the nearest cabinet which had a spiky letter A on the front. “It’s a tedious job, my dear, but not impossible.” 

Without another word they set off, checking the cabinets as they went. They found the ones marked with a spiky letter P about halfway through the room, then they found the ones dedicated to personnel files. They started with the lowest legions, which were primarily comprised of lesser demons and led by the less important Dukes of Hell. 

“Only pull the files that are marked with red flags,” Mr. Fell said. 

“Why?”

“Because those are demons that have received the most demerits over the centuries. Those are, most likely, the demons who have the least love for Hell and the most to gain by switching sides. Don't bother looking through them either. We're to collect as many as we can carry and go through them later with Crowley.”

They rifled through the files in silence for a while, occasionally pulling a file out until each of them had a teetering stack. Muriel, despite what Mr. Fell said, did look through a few of them. It was all she could do to keep from being alone with her own thoughts, which were dangerous territory right now. She was desperately trying not to freak out over the fact that she was in actual, literal Hell. Not only that, but she was stealing from actual, literal Hell in order to assist Mr. Fell in starting a rebellion that would if they were successful, tear down Heaven and Hell as they knew them. And if they were unsuccessful, then… well, Muriel really didn’t want to think about that. 

She trusted Mr. Fell and Mr. Crowley completely. She had known more kindness and compassion with them than she ever had in Heaven. But the fact that she’d gone from a no-one scrivener to an angel living on Earth, an angel who enjoyed human tea and wine, who liked books and was fascinated by flowers, who could look at two people in love and feel lonely, who was not only contemplating but actively bringing about a rebellion against Heaven, was… a lot. She wished she had someone to share it with. Someone who wasn’t Mr. Crowley or Mr. Fell. They were very kind, and she loved them very much, but she didn’t think either of them could really understand. They had been doing this too long and were too far removed from what she was feeling. 

“What are you two doing in here?” said a voice behind her. 

Muriel whipped around and saw the most handsome demon she’d ever seen, with the possible exception of Mr. Crowley, standing behind her, frowning down at her and Mr. Fell. He had warm brown skin, curly black hair that rose up in two pillars, like horns or rabbit ears, and the longest eyelashes Muriel had ever seen. He was familiar to her. Muriel was sure she’d never met him before, but she knew his face.

“We are retrieving files for Lord Dagon,” Mr. Fell found his voice first. 

“Right. Striker mentioned that when I came in, but I’m here retrieving files for Lord Dagon and they didn’t say they’d sent anyone else ahead of me.” The demon’s frown deepened, “Besides, they don’t need personnel files. They asked for Earth Observation files.”

“Lord Dagon doesn’t need to justify themselves to the likes you.” Mr. Fell sneered. 

The demon considered them for a moment, tilting his head a bit and squinting at Mr. Fell. “Don’t I know you?” he said at last. 

“I am Alastair, demon of the 4th house,” replied Mr. Fell. 

“No, you’re not,” the demon said, still looking at Mr. Fell with puzzled recognition. “You look like that angel. The one what owns the bookshop we raided. Crowley’s pet. What’s his name? Azira-something. Azirafane? Azirapap? Azira-”

“Aziraphale,” Mr. Fell said with a frustrated sigh. Then he gasped with the realization of what he’d done, “Oh, fuck.”

Chapter Text

Crowley stayed on the corner fiddling with the ring on his finger and staring at the lift doors long after they closed and morphed back into the entrance to the pub. He felt worse than useless standing out here in Soho while his angel, both of his angels, went to steal personnel files from Hell. Files they only needed to steal because Crowley had spent too little time in Hell with his fellow demons to know which ones might be disgruntled enough to rebel. If anything happened to them, it would be his fault. The weight of that knowledge was excruciating. 

He let out a shuddering breath and launched into motion. Standing on the corner letting his thoughts spiral wouldn’t do any good at all. He had to move, do something, otherwise he would go mad. He walked back across the street and let himself into the bookshop. He’d start there, check to make sure everything was still in its place, and redo the wards to keep angels out as well as demons. None of them had any intention of using the shop as a living space, but it might be useful as a meeting space later down the road. Even if they didn’t use it, it wouldn’t do for the archangels to get in a wreck Aziraphale’s collection out of spite. 

The bell tinkled as he entered the dark shop. It looked different, mostly because a large number of his favorite items had been transported to the Selsey house since the last time he’d been here. But, the biggest difference by far was the mess of bloody feathers littered all over the rug that covered Aziraphale’s summoning circle. 

Crowley panicked briefly at the sight of them before he remembered what had happened here. Then his panic morphed into anger and disgust which made his stomach roil. This was where the archangels had cornered Muriel and ripped the feathers out of her wings in order to get her to give up Aziraphale’s location. The savagery was so typical of Heaven and yet so foreign. The archangels had done this themselves, instead of pawning the dirty work off on someone else. They had pulled her feathers out with their own hands and, according to Muriel, taken a savage sort of pleasure in it. It was disgusting. To add insult to injury, they hadn’t bothered to clean up after themselves. As if they had wanted the evidence of their cruelty to be discovered. 

He cleaned the feathers up with a snap of his fingers and set about redoing the wards. Half an hour later, the bookshop was no longer an embassy of Heaven, and no supernatural entities, angel or demon, could enter it without the express permission of Aziraphale, Muriel, or himself. 

He looked out the front windows, knowing full well he hadn’t killed enough time for his angels to have returned. He paced for a bit, keeping his eyes on the lift door access the street, fiddling with Aziraphale’s ring on his pinky. It was a little too loose for his liking, so he moved it to his third finger. It felt more at home there.  

Finally, gave up pacing with a sigh and sunk into the couch. Maybe he could sleep until they got back. That would silence the worry gnawing in his gut, wouldn’t it?

The bell on the door tinkled and Crowley heard two sets of feet entering the bookshop but felt none of the ethereal presence of angels with them. Humans, then.  

“Bugger off. We’re closed,” he said without opening his eyes. 

“Yeah, well, we don’t give a shit,” said a brusque female voice. 

“Nina, love, you could try being nice,” said a second female voice, higher and kinder than the first. 

“No, I couldn’t. Oi, you!,” someone kicked his foot where it hung off the couch, “Where the Hell have you been?”

Crowley looked up to see a grumpy Black woman with long dreadlocks glaring down at him. Another woman, blond and anxious, looked over her shoulder. 

“Nina. Maggie. What a surprise.” Crowley sat up so he could look at them properly. 

“Answer the question, Crowley.” Nina leveled a finger at him. “Where the Hell have you been? You and Mr. Fell just vanished. The girl who’s been looking after the shop, Muriel, wouldn’t tell us a thing except that you weren’t together and then she disappeared a couple of weeks ago. We peeked in the window and saw it looked like someone plucked a flock of bloody chickens in the middle of the shop. We called the police but they refused to get involved. What the Hell has been going on?”

“It’s a long story.”

Nina pulled up a chair and sat in it. “We’ve got time.”

“Please, Mr. Crowley,” Maggie added, perching on the arm of Nina’s chair, “we’ve been ever so worried.”

Crowley sighed, “Mr. Fell and I had a falling out about his work, which we have since resolved. I bought a house in Selsley and Mr. Fell started living there with me a few weeks ago. Muriel has also been staying with us. Mr. Fell’s… former employers, showed up to harass her about… selling the shop. The feathers were part of that harassment, but we’ve more or less resolved that as well and everything’s fine. No need to worry.”

“Mr. Fell’s former employers…” Nina trailed off, exchanging a look with Maggie.

Maggie gasped and clapped a hand over her mouth, “Oh my gosh, they were her feathers! Muriel’s. From her wings.”

Crowley’s eyebrows shot up over his glasses, “Wings? People don’t have wings, Maggie.”

“Yeah, but Muriel isn’t a person, is she,” Nina said, “she’s an angel. Just like Mr. Fell. And you’re a demon.”

“Ngk. What-- what makes you say that?” Crowley sputtered. “Utter nonsense.”

“Oh, don’t insult our intelligence, Crowley,” Maggie spat, “We were there that night, remember. We fought off a horde of demons with fire extinguishers and encyclopedias. And we were here the next morning when angels threatened to turn us into pillars of salt.”

“You were supposed to forget that,” Crowley said seriously. 

“Well, it’s not the sort of thing you forget,” Nina shrugged. 

“Yes, it is. It’s exactly the sort of thing that humans are supposed to forget. Why didn’t you forget it?”

Maggie and Nina shrugged in unison.

“We just didn’t,” Maggie said. 

“So how about you tell us what’s really going on?” Nina raised an eyebrow at him, “‘Cause I don’t believe that ‘everything’s fine.’” 

“It’s really none--” he stopped himself. He’d been about to say that it was really none of their concern. But it was, wasn’t it? Heaven and Hell were bent on an Armageddon that would destroy humanity. He and Aziraphale were trying to stop it by convincing as many angels and demons that they should fight to preserve humanity. But, didn’t humans have a right to fight for humanity too? Didn’t they deserve the chance to defend themselves? He was sure that trying to alert all humans on a wide scale would induce mass panic. That was a last-resort measure. But, Maggie and Nina seemed to be taking the whole Heaven and Hell are real and angels and demons walk among us thing in their stride. Didn’t they, at least, have a right to know the full truth? 

“What?” Maggie urged him. 

“It’s really not fine. Heaven and Hell are at war,” he said with a resigned sigh. “It really is a very long story, but I'll tell it if you like.”

Nina and Maggie both nodded. 

“Well, in the beginning, no actually, I should start earlier. Before the beginning, I used to make stars and then I started asking questions. Which is damn ironic, considering the stars I made were evidently put in the sky so humans could look at them and ask questions.” 

And then he explained. He told Maggie and Nina all about who he and Aziraphale were, and what they had been doing on Earth for the last six thousand years. They had questions, of course. He got off on a tangent when Nina asked him what Jesus had been like. It happened again when Maggie said he’d always wondered what it would have been like to live in medieval times and Crowley told her about the fourteenth century and how rotten it had been. It felt nice to tell this story from the beginning. He’d never had occasion to before and the telling helped to keep his mind off the fact that Aziraphale and Muriel still weren’t back. 

He explained why Heaven and Hell wanted a war so badly and explained why he and Aziraphale wanted to stop that from happening. He told them about how they’d helped to stop the first apocalypse. That sparked another host of questions. 

“You mean the LITERAL fucking ANTICHRIST lives in FUCKING Tadsfield?” shouted Nina. 

“Eh, yeah. But, he’s technically not the antichrist anymore,” Crowley replied. 

He explained how Heaven and Hell had tried to punish them and how they’d managed to escape their fates thanks to Agnus Nutter’s last prophecy. 

“The Supreme Archangel told Mr. Fell to ‘shut his stupid mouth and die’ and he went back to work for Heaven after that?” Maggie asked, incredulous. 

“Well, eh, he didn’t actually know about that bit. Didn’t have the heart to tell him.” 

Nina and Maggie looked at him with twin expressions of disbelief. 

“You two really will do anything but talk to each other, won’t you?” Nina shook her head. 

“We’re working on it!” Crowley said defensively. 

Finally, he provided some context for the events they lived through. He explained why Gabriel had come to the bookshop, how he and Beelzebub had been trying to prevent another war, and how they had fucked off to the stars and left the rest of them in their current predicament. 

“Fuck,” Nina breathed when he finally finished. She had her face in her hands and Maggie had slid down onto the floor beside her and was looking completely dumbfounded. Nina looked up from her hands and said, “You mean to tell me that this planet and everyone on it for all of human history was a test? You guys have been using our lives and the choices we make to score points in some twisted game? All to see whose team is better? And Armageddon is, what, like your guys’ World Cup?”

“Eh. Well. Yeah. When you put it like that, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“That’s sick,” said Maggie with disgust. “Absolutely twisted.”

“Yeah, you can’t use humans like that? You can just create us and then act like our lives are insignificant.” Nina protested. 

“I know. That’s the whole point,” Crowley said, “Aziraphale and I have been here watching humans since the beginning. We know your lives aren’t insignificant. They’re incredible. That’s why we're trying to stop it.”

“How can we help?” Maggie asked. 

“Can’t think of anything at the moment.”

“Well, how are you trying to stop it, then?”

“We’re going to start by convincing as many angels and demons as we can that humanity is worth saving. Most of them have never spent any time on Earth. They don’t have any idea what it is here.”

“Well we can help with that,” Nina said. 

“How so?
“By showing them how great life on Earth can be,” Nina said. 

“Yes!” Maggie put a hand on Nina’s knee and squeezed it, “We can bring them to our shops. I can introduce them to music. Nina can introduce them to caffeine and sweets. We can have them go to some of the other Whickbar Street shops.”

“Well, I don’t know how many other people we should be involving,” Crowley said and then explained his concerns about alerting too many humans. 

“We don’t have to be honest about why we’re doing it,” Nina stood up and started to pace. “We can tell them that it’s part of a government cultural exchange initiative. We’ll say our street has been selected to participate in the initiative by providing a quintessential English culture experience to tourists or something.”

Crowley thought about it for a moment. It wasn’t a bad idea. If they were going to convince tens of thousands of angels and demons that humanity was worth saving, some of them would actually have to interact with humans. That was how it had been for him and Aziraphale. They hadn’t really started caring about humanity until they fell in love with human things. 

“Let me talk to Aziraphale first, but I think that’s a better idea than anything we could have come up with.”

Maggie and Nina shared a satisfied smile. They left shortly after that. Nina had to get back to the coffee shop. Maggie clutched a piece of paper with Crowley’s phone number written on it. 

Crowley stayed in the bookshop and the quiet started to settle back in again. Talking with Maggie and Nina had given him a sense of purpose, something to do instead of just waiting. Now that they were gone, a restlessness seized hold of him once more.

He started to move, once again fiddling with Aziraphale’s ring. He’d been talking to Maggie and Nina for a long time. Aziraphale and Muriel had been gone for hours. It hadn’t really enough time for him to be properly worried, time moved differently in Hell, but logic was no match for anxiety. They were supposed to go in, grab as many files as possible, and get out. Crowley hoped Aziraphale wasn’t trying to review them as he went. They were supposed to do that together, not that Crowley was at all looking forward to it.

He paced the shop like a caged animal, keeping his eyes trained on the door to the Dirty Donkey across the street and feeling completely useless. Letting Aziraphale do dangerous things alone was not how he liked to operate. He liked to be there to help, to rescue if need be. He knew his angel was perfectly capable of taking care of himself, but this was Hell. It was full of legions of demons with access to weapons specifically designed to hurt angels. The longer Aziraphale and Muriel were gone, the longer Crowley's brain had to imagine all the ways in which his angels were surely piles of ash by now.

 The waiting was agony, more brutal and cruel by far than any torment Hell could think up for him. Another half hour went by. And another. Until Crowley was ready to throw caution to the wind and go in after them.

He stormed out of the book and across the street, but before he reached the curb, the doors of the Dirty Donkey glowed with greenish light and slowly slid open. 

Chapter Text

Aziraphale and the demon looked at each other for a long moment, neither one of them moved or breathed. The demon’s eyes had gone wide and terrified at the confirmation that Aziraphale was, in fact, the angel from the bookshop. Given that the last time they met Aziraphale’s halo blew up in the demon's face, Aziraphale wasn’t the least bit surprised at the expression. 

The demon took a step backward and Aziraphale took a step forward. The demon began backing up in earnest when he saw the angel advancing towards him. Aziraphale picked up his own pace, determined that this demon should not thwart their plans. 

“Don’t hurt me!” the demon shouted. 

“Don’t run!” Aziraphale said at the same time. 

The demon ignored him and continued scurrying back through the labyrinth of file cabinets. “Look, mate. I don’t know why you’re here and I don’t care, just don’t destroy me.” 

Aziraphale abruptly stopped running after him and snapped his fingers instead. The demon stopped in his tracks, completely frozen. 

“What did you do to him?” Muriel shrieked, sounding more distressed than Aziraphale would have anticipated. 

“Nothing serious,” Aziraphale panted, “I’ve never done that to a demon before. I wasn’t at all sure it would work.”

“What are you going to do with him?” Muriel started flipping frantically through her stack of files. 

“I’m going to attempt to make him forget the past few minutes and put him to sleep while we get out of here posthaste.” Aziraphale approached the frozen demon, “Again, I’ve never done this to a demon before, so I’m not entirely certain it will work, but it’s worth a try.”

“Wait, Mr. Fell! I have his file,” Muriel brandished it at him. “He’s one of the demons with more than ten demerits. Eh, a lot more than ten, actually. He’s exactly the sort of demon we’re trying to recruit. So, shouldn’t we try?” 

Aziraphale took the thick file Muriel held out to him. He opened it and found a picture of the demon and a long list of mistakes and transgressions that had earned him demerits over the years. Several of those were listed as “made jokes” or “appeared cheerful.” His name, Aziraphale read, was Eric, and under his name was the title “Disposable Demon.” His file had a record of every body he’d been assigned. He had been banned 3,000 years ago from changing his shape so that Hell could keep a fresh corporation ready for him. There were also times when he had been issued several bodies at once, with his consciousness split between them, so Hell could have backups on hand. 

Aziraphale looked over his employment record. Eric had truly been given some of the most awful assignments over the years. If there was a job that even a demon didn’t want to do, Eric, it seemed, was the one who did it. In contrast, he’d also been given a surprising amount of freedom. His jobs often had no direct supervision. He was the sort of demon who was everywhere all the time, but who no one actually paid any mind to if they could help it. 

Aziraphael eyed the frozen demon. He had promised Crowley they’d go through the files and make a plan for moving forward together. But, circumstances being what they were, Muriel had a point. This was the sort of demon they were after. He would probably make an excellent spy if they could recruit him and he probably knew which other demons were likely to be sypahtetic to their cause. 

“Block his retreat, Muriel,” he said, approaching the demon. 

He came around to face the demon and block the path he’d been trying to escape down. The demon’s eyes were still wide and terrified. If he’d been able to move, Aziraphale was sure he would have bolted in the opposite direction.

“I’m going to unfreeze you as a show of good faith,” Aziraphale told the demon. “Please don’t run. You won’t be hurt. I just want to have a little chat. Blink once if you understand.” 

The demon blinked and Aziraphale snapped his fingers and the demon staggered backwards. 

“Listen, mate, I don’t want any trouble,” the demon said as soon as he was unfrozen, “I won’t tell anyone you’re here, just don’t discorporate me. I’m on a streak, see. Dagon says I can get back on half rations if I can go just two more days without getting discorporated again. I’ve been on quarter rations for so long, you’ve no idea.”

“No one is discorporating you, my infernal fellow,” Aziraphale said patiently. “I just want to ask you some questions and I’d like you to answer them honestly. Can you do that?”

The demon swallowed hard but nodded. 

“Wonderful. First question.” Aziraphale bounced a couple of times on the balls of his feet, not quite sure how to proceed. This was one of the things he was meant to discuss with Crowley later, but he didn’t have time to stall, so he settled on asking, “Do you like working for Hell?”

The demon shrugged. 

Aziraphale clicked his tongue, “Not exactly a ringing endorsement. Have they been good to you? Treated you well for all your long centuries of devoted service?”

“Well, no,” the demon admitted.

“Eric. Your name is Eric, isn’t it?” Aziraphale asked. The demon met his eyes once more and nodded. He continued, “Are you frightened of me, Eric?”

The answer was written all over Eric’s wide eyes. 

“What about her?” Aziraphale nodded to where Muriel stood behind Eric, wide-eyed and pale, looking almost as afraid as the demon, “Are you frightened of her?”

Eric turned to look at Muriel, considering her for a long moment, “Is she an angel too?”

“Yes.”

“Then, yeah.” Eric turned back to face Aziraphale, “Angels are right dangerous bastards.”

Muriel giggled and Eric and Azriaphale both looked at her. Aziraphale in confusion and Eric in terror. 

“Sorry,” she said with a shy grin, “It’s just that, I don’t think I’ve ever frightened anyone before.”

Aziraphale gave her an indulgent smile and Eric looked from one to the other of them incredulously. 

“Can she do the thing with the halo, too?” Eric asked, a note of panic in his voice.

Aziraphale ignored the question and said, “Heaven and Hell are at war, Eric. Do you like the idea of being in the vanguard against a legion of angels?”

“No, thank you,” Eric said with a fervent shake of his head, pressing himself up against the file cabinets. 

“That’s exactly where Hell is going to put you, you know that, don’t you?” Aziraphale took a step toward the demon, “Hell thinks you’re disposable, Eric. It states as much in your file. They’re going to order you to the front lines and leave you to withstand the might of a legion of Heaven’s angels. They won’t care if you’re permanently discorporated. They won’t care if you’re smitten to bits or dissolved with holy water.”

“Oh, Satan,” Eric pressed a fist to his mouth, looking sick.

“And even if you do survive, even if Hell wins this war, do think things will improve for you?” Aziraphale took another step towards Eric. “Do you really think Hell will give you a commendation for your bravery? After centuries of demerits?”

Eric shook his head. The poor thing looked like a frightened rabbit. His brown eyes were blown wider than Aziraphale would have thought possible and he was trembling slightly. Aziraphale loathed to terrorize him so, but fear was a very good motivator, especially among demons. Aziraphale took another step towards the demon so they were mere inches apart. 

“And if Heaven wins, Eric,” Aziraphale lowered his voice and maintained unwavering eye contact, employing all of Crowley’s best tempting techniques. “Do you know what happens to you then? Can you imagine it? Or shall I paint you a picture?”

“No!” Eric shouted, squirming away from Aziraphale’s forced proximity, “Don’t tell me any more, mate, please, just— What do you want with me?”

Aziraphale smiled and held out his arms in a welcoming gesture, “I want to save you, dear boy. This war, as it currently stands, will end badly for you regardless of the outcome. I want to deliver you from that fate. Don’t you think it would be better if Earth and the universe kept running? If angels and demons could work together to keep it running smoothly. You’d be safe, no more discorporations. You’d have a job, a purpose. We might even be able to give you a fresh start. Erase those demerits and give you a position you actually fancy. Wouldn’t that be better?”

“You can do that?”

“Only if we win, dear boy. Only if we can keep Heaven and Hell from destroying the world as we know it.”

Eric took a deep breath and licked his lips, “What would I need to do?”

“Well, for starters, you’d need to escort me and Miss Muriel out of here safely. Then we can sit down in my bookshop and have a nice cup of tea and chat about what comes next.” 

“Yeah,” Eric blew out a deep breath and nodded, looking wary, but no longer as terrified. “Alright, then. Let’s go.” 

Aziraphale gestured for him to go first then summoned his stack of files with a snap, shrinking it down to the side of a deck of cards and tucking it into his pocket. He did the same with Muriel’s stack before beckoning her to follow him with a jerk of his head. She hurried to fall in step beside him. Together they followed Eric back through the maze of file cabinets. 

“You know, Mr. Fell,” Muriel said as they walked, “You can be quite scary sometimes.”

“Yes, my dear. I am aware.”

Eric led them out of the record room and past the guard. The way back was much smoother with the demon leading the way. He navigated the crowded halls expertly, often taking them on little detours to avoid the worst of it. But after the fourth such shortcut, Aziraphale became suspicious. 

“This isn’t the way to the lifts,” he said. 

“No,” Eric admitted. “It’s the way to Lord Dagon’s office. I need to drop off these files or they’ll summon me back before we’re done talking.” He glanced back at Aziraphale and at the dubious look on the angel’s face added, “No funny business, mate, I promise.” 

“For your sake, I hope so,” Aziraphale muttered, letting a hint of divine menace lace his voice. Eric didn’t look back, but he quickened his pace considerably. 

They reached a hall of dingy offices moments later. True to his word, Eric dropped his stack of files into Dagon’s “in” box without further comment or incident. He led them away from the offices quickly, continuing to dart down less crowded corridors whenever possible.

Aziraphale glanced back several times to make sure Muriel was keeping up. She was, but she looked sickly and terrified in the flickering greenish light of Hell. She was clearly doing her best to act natural, but sweat beaded on her forehead, she wrung her hands, and her eyes kept darting every which way. Aziraphale wanted to take her by the hand, wrap an arm around her, and tell her how brave she was and how proud that made him. But that would have to wait. Hell was not the place for such tenderness. 

Eric turned down yet another corridor and all at once Aziraphale knew where he was. The lifts were up ahead. He fought to push down the relief rising inside of him. He would breathe easily once they were back in London. Not before. 

“Oi! You!” Barked a voice behind them. Aziraphale glanced back and saw a tall black-eyed demon with a slimy frog perched on top of his head striding down the corridor towards them.

Aziraphale made to quicken his pace but he nearly ran into Eric who stopped suddenly. 

“He means me,” muttered the demon, so quietly that Aziraphale almost couldn’t hear him. “The lifts are up ahead. I’ll catch up. Bookshop in SoHo, right?”

Aziraphale nodded in affirmation and Eric pushed past him towards the frog-headed demon. Muriel looked confused. But, before she could ask Eric or himself any questions, Aziraphale grabbed her by the arm and pulled her along the corridor as fast as he could without raising suspicion. 

“Lord Hastur, how can I be of service?” Eric said by way of greeting. 

“Who are they?” Growled Hastur. 

Aziraphale has no trouble guessing which “they” he was referring to. He walked faster, praying he could get Muriel and himself to the lifts before Hastur, whom Aziraphale knew by Crowley’s many rants about him, could ask any more questions. 

“Some demons of the fourth house. They’re assisting me with an assignment for Lord Dagon.” 

“They’ll have to do it without you. I have a more urgent job for you.” Hastur said, his voice echoing down the hall and grating against Aziraphale’s ears like gravel in a blender. “Go down to the eighth pit and fetch—“

“But sir, I really think I ought to finish my current assignment,” Eric said, his voice only trembling slightly.

“Are you arguing with me, worm?”

The menace in Hastur’s voice made Aziraphale’s stomach curdle and he was unsurprised to hear a thump and a squeal behind him. 

“Ouch! No, Lord. It’s just that Lord Dagon has already asked me to—.”

“I’ll deal with Dagon, now, go down to the eighth pit and—“

“But, sir—“

The hairs on Aziraphale’s neck stood up as he heard electricity crackle behind him. He chanced a glance behind him as he pressed the button for the lift. 

“Argue with me again, you worthless little shit.” Hastur had Eric pinned against the wall with one fist tangled in the demon’s lapels. His other hand was pulled back as if to throw a punch. Little forks of lightning sparked and cracked around it. 

“Please, Lord Hastur! Don’t discorporate me!” Eric squirmed in vain, “My streak! I’m so close to getting my rations back!”

Hastur swung but halted his fist mere centimeters from Eric’s face. Eric winced as one of his eyebrows singed. 

“You know what?” Hastur sneered, giving Eric a rough shake. “I change my mind. I’ll find someone who’s actually competent to run my errand. But I’ll be filing the paperwork for another demerit for you, worm. See if Dagon gives you back your rations after that!” He spit in Eric’s face before shoving him away, “ Go, before I change my mind again.”

Eric didn’t need telling twice. He wiped the spittle off his face and hurried off down the hall back towards where Aziraphale and Muriel waited in front of the lift. Hastur stayed where he was and watched, the electricity still crackling around his clenched fist. 

Aziraphale nudged Muriel who stared with open-mouthed terror at the two demons, but she ignored him, transfixed by the cruelty. Eric was five feet from them when the lift dinged and the doors slid open. Aziraphale gestured for Muriel to go first but her eyes were still on Eric. 

CRACK

Eric froze. His face twisted in agony for a moment. His eyes locked onto Muriel’s, panicked and pained. Then he exploded into a million sparks of light. As the sparks winked out, Aziraphale saw Hastur, hand stretched out, a sadistic smirk on his face. 

Muriel screamed.

Hastur’s eyes shot to her, a frown creasing his face. He took a couple of shambling steps down the hall, raising a hand to level it at her, electricity sparkling in his fingertips once more.

Aziraphale seized Muriel by the shoulders and threw her into the open lift. He got in after her and smashed the Earth button repeatedly until the doors slid mercifully closed. As the lift began its ascent, Muriel collapsed against him, shaking and sobbing.

“He just— I can’t believe he— that was horrible!”

Aziraphale wrapped his arms around her and made a shushing sound. “I know, my dear. I’m sorry you had to see that. He’ll get a new body, though. There will just be some paperwork.”

“But he was in pain ,” she wailed. “And now he won’t get his rations!”

She clutched his lapels and sobbed into his chest. Aziraphale let her, stroking her hair and whispering reassurances. He suspected that this display of emotion had much less to do with Eric’s untimely discorporation and more to do with everything. Muriel had been through so much in such a short time. It would be a lot for any angel, but especially so for one still on her first adventure outside of Heaven. Coming back to London, descending into Hell for the first time, and witnessing the brutality that had just occurred, Aziraphale doubted very much whether he would have taken it all as well as she was back in his early days on Earth. 

“You are so brave, my dear,” he murmured into her ear, pressing a kiss to her temple, “and I am so proud of you.”

Muriel’s tears had quieted by the time the doors slid open and sunlight flooded the lift, but instead, she had gone concernedly quiet and still and seemed unwilling or unable to move. Aziraphale pushed down his growing anxiety, scooped her into his arms, and carried her out onto the streets of Soho.

Chapter Text

“Is she gonna be alright, angel?” Crowley asked, looking down at a sleeping Muriel. She was curled up on the black suede sofa of the Selsey house. She had fallen asleep on the drive home and Crowley had carried her in from the car, laid her gently on the sofa, and tucked one of his plush, burgundy throw blankets around her, Once she was settled, he had perched on the armrest next to her head and remained there while Aziraphale had brought him a glass of wine, which he had downed half of in one swallow.

The relief he’d felt seeing them emerge from the lift had been quickly overtaken by panic when he’d registered the way Aziraphale had to carry a pale and tear-stained Muriel out onto the street. She had looked at Crowley with a haunted, thousand-yard stare, completely non-verbal. Aziraphale, by contrast, had been overly verbal, tripping over words in his haste to explain what had happened. The only part that Crowley had registered was that they’d run into Hastur and that the Duke of Hell may well be following them up the lift. He’d gotten both his angels in the Bentley as quickly as he could and gotten the Hell out of Soho. 

“Physically there is nothing wrong with her,” Aziraphale said at length, swirling his own wine. “Mentally is another story. I don’t think we’ve stopped to fully appreciate how much poor Muriel has been through.”

Crowley nodded in agreement. He hadn’t stopped to think about it before, but now that he was, Muriel had gone through in one year what had taken him and Aziraphale 6,000. 

She’d come down to Earth, experienced life and the joys of humanity for the first time, and like him and Aziraphale, had grown to love it so much, that she was willing to defy Heaven to defend it. Only, Crowley’s heart broke at the realization, it wasn’t for humanity that she was willing to defy heaven. It was for him and Aziraphale. 

They had shown her more kindness than Heaven ever had. She liked humanity, to be sure, but she was still experiencing it. She hadn’t seen and done nearly a fraction of the things he and Aziraphale had over the millennia. She hadn’t run into, as far as he knew, any of the moral dilemmas that he and Aziraphale had. She had only barely started to ask questions. So she couldn’t believe in their cause. Not really. Instead, she believed in them. She was willing to follow them into the dark because she trusted them to see her safely to the other side. 

The responsibility that came with that realization sank in his stomach like a stone and he reached down to stroke Muriel’s hair. He had only known her for a short time, but he was so very fond of her. He only wanted for her to be safe and happy and he couldn’t bear the thought that he might be leading her to a future that wasn’t going to be either of those things.

“Tell me again about the disposable demon,” said Crowley, smoothing Muriel’s soft curls out of her face. He had been so concerned about getting them all home that he’d barely listened to the finer points of Aziraphale telling him how things went in Hell. 

“Eric,” Azriaphale corrected him. “He found Muriel and I in the records room. I was going to attempt to wipe his memory of us, but Muriel realized she had pulled his file and suggested I attempt to recruit him instead. It seemed to work. He at least seemed willing to listen to what we had to say, but then Hastur discorporated him.”

“That was a risk, angel.”

“The whole affair was a risk, dearest, one which we undertook in order to recruit demons to our cause.” 

“True,” said Crowley, inclining his head, “but did we have to start with Eric? I mean, we call him the disposable demon, angel. He’s not exactly first-class.”

“That’s exactly the point!” Aziraphale said, sipping his wine, “Hell has been running him down for 6,000 years. If anyone is fed up enough to rebel, it’s him. And, looking at his file, I think he’s far more competent than his demerits would have you believe.”

Crowley thought about it for a moment. “Well, er, yeah. I supposed he’s gotten most of them just because he’s kind of irritating.”

“He’s the sort of demon we’d want as an inside man. He knows nearly everyone in Hell. No one, at least when we were there, questioned his right to be anywhere. He could help us to recruit more demons.”

“S’a pity it didn’t work out, then.”

“It still might,” Azriaphale said hopefully, “He knows where my bookshop is. The last thing he said to us was that he would catch up. Maybe he’ll come looking for us when he gets his new body.”

“We’re not at the bookshop, angel. Even if he shows up there looking for us, how is he gonna… hang on,” Crowley pulled out his phone and tapped his most recently added contact. “Maggie? It’s Crowley. Got a favor.” He gave her a description of Eric with instructions that if she saw him poking around the bookshop looking for him and Aziraphale, she should call him immediately and keep Eric comfortable for the few hours it took them to drive to London. “Thanks for your help, love. We’ll be in touch.”

“Was that Maggie from the record shop?” Aziraphale asked incredulously after Crowley hung up the phone.

“Yeah.” Crowley shrugged. Aziraphale raised both eyebrows at him expectantly and Crowley explained his conversation with Maggie and Nina.

“That was a risk, my love,” Aziraphale said when he finished. 

“Yeah. ‘Spect they’ll be a lotta those from here on out.”

Aziraphale drained the wine in his glass, swirling it around his mouth contemplatively before swallowing it. Then he snapped and both his and Crowley’s glasses disappeared and rematerialized, clean and dry, in a cupboard. 

He took Crowley’s hand and said, “Come now, darling. Muriel will sleep much better if we’re not prattling on right next to her and I desperately want to take you to bed.” 

Crowley let himself be led up the spiral stairs to his room. He almost told Aziraphale he wasn’t in the mood. His mind was too worried, too busy, too raw to be properly in the moment. But, watching Aziraphale descend into Hell without him had been so much harder than he’d imagined. The waiting had been even worse. It wasn’t natural to him to sit instead of do, to wait instead of act. Every second of it had been agonizing, and his body and mind hadn’t really registered that the agony was over, that all was well once more. Perhaps because a sleeping Muriel on the couch served a reminder that all was not entirely well.

As much as he felt out of sorts and far away, Crowley knew he needed the physicality, needed to take solace in the press of their bodies, needed to let the feel of his angel reassure him. He felt weak for that need. Aziraphale had done all the truly hard parts. But perhaps, that was why his angel was, to use his word, desperate to get him to bed. Perhaps he needed the reassurance too.

In their bedroom, Aziraphale seemed to have picked up on Crowley’s conflicted emotions. Aziraphale slowly peeled off Crowley’s clothes, item by item, leaving soft lingering kisses in the places where the fabric had once been. When he was completely nude, Aziraphale miracled away his own clothes and massaged him. Rubbing miraculously oil-slick hands over his bowstring-tight shoulders, kneading his troubled thoughts away, bringing him back to himself bit by bit.

Aziraphale turned Crowley over, fitting their bodies together like pieces of a puzzle. Crowley relaxed into deep, luxurious kisses, sucking on the tongue Aziraphale ran along his teeth. Aziraphale’s hands curled in his hair, holding him fast and pulling him closer. Crowley lost himself in it, letting the slide of their lips drown out his anxiety, letting the slow grind of Aziraphale hips rouse molton desire in him. 

With every kiss, every inch of delicious friction, Aziraphale coaxed him out of his head and into his body, until all at once, Crowley was desperate for him. Another night, he might have let Aziraphale continue his meticulous and methodical exploration of their bodies. He might have let Ariaphale open him up and fuck him slow and sweet. He might have savored the leisurely drag of Aziraphale cock along his innermost walls, the press of it against that perfect knot of nerves inside of him, might have relished in every little gasp and moan his angel could wring from him. It was obviously where Aziraphale wanted this evening to go, but Crowley was suddenly too needy for any of that. 

Instead, Crowley slid a hand between them, wrapped his long fingers around their lengths, holding them together, and bucked his hips up against Aziraphale. The sound his angel made was pure sin and Crowley chased it. His tongue swirled around Aziraphale’s, his other hand trailed down to cup his angel’s ass. His hips bucked up again and again, eliciting the most decadent noises from his angel. Each one was a balm to his frayed nerves. Each thrust of their hips was a reminder and a promise. 

Alive. 

Safe. 

Mine. 

The slide of their cocks, the pressure building in his lower abdomen, hand Aziraphale twisted in his hair all kept him wholly present in their lovemaking until Crowley could not think or feel or know anything that wasn’t Aziraphale, that wasn’t them . All the worry and fear from the day was obliterated by the comforting weight of Aziraphale’s body on his, by the toe-curingly pleasure the angel brought forth with every greedy grind of his hips. 

Aziraphale bit down on Crowley’s bottom lip, groaning something that might have been Crowley’s name into his mouth as he spilled his release between their stomachs. Crowley followed him over the edge, the small hurt of Aziraphale’s bite making the pleasure of his orgasm sweeter. 

Later, when they had miracled away the mess and lay under the sheets in a tangle of limbs, Crowley pulled Aziraphale’s ring off and held it up to him. “Here’s this back, angel. Safe and sound, like you asked.”

“Keep it, my love,” he said, sliding the ring back onto Crowley’s ring finger. “I like the way it looks on your hand.”

Aziraphale watched Crowley sleeping in the silvery moonlight streaming through the skylights of their bedroom. His heart felt full to bursting and simultaneously about to break. 

The trip to Hell had been a necessary evil, but awful. Aziraphale hadn’t allowed himself to feel exactly how awful it had been until he was safe at home. The whole affair had been worse than when he’d gone into Hell masquerading as Crowley. He’d been terrified of discovery, terrified for Muriel, terrified he wouldn’t be able to get them out safely. He almost hadn’t. The final encounter with Hastur had shaken him, an abrupt and brutal reminder that the demons of Hell would hurt him if they got the chance, would hurt Muriel. He was so damned glad in that moment that Crowley hadn’t come with them. If it was painful to contemplate what the demons might have done to him, it was unbearable to consider how much worse it would have been for Crowley. 

He watched Crowley’s face, serene in sleep and beautifully pale in the moonlight. He remembered all too well how he’d watched Crowley sleep after he’d patched up Muriel’s wings. He remembered thinking Crowley looked like an angel then, just as he did now. But that angelic countenance had been shattered upon waking, upon hearing Aziraphale put voice, for the very first time, to his intentions to thwart both Heaven and Hell by preventing the Second Coming and a second Great War. He remembered how terrified Crowley had looked then, his eyes wide and snake-like, his voice small and quiet. 

I wouldn’t exactly call it a victory, angel. Crowley had said. There was a cost.

I know. My love, I know. Aziraphale had replied. But there will be a cost either way… Which are you willing to pay? 

He remembered the trust in Crowley’s eyes when he’d finally acquiesced. 

If you’re leading me towards a second Fall, then I will be the first to dive off the precipice after you.

Aziraphale had carried the weight of those words, of that trust, into Hell with him. While there, he’d been forced to acknowledge the weight of Muriel’s trust as well. How many more would he add before this was through? How many angels and demons, how many humans, would be relying on him to create a better world in which they could all live freely? How many thousands of souls would be his to guard? How much blood would be on his hands if he failed?

He thought of Muriel asleep downstairs, already bearing the scars, both seen and unseen, of this scheme of his. How many more would there be? How many more sets of wings would he repair? How many more would cry their trauma out onto his shoulder? How many more limp and broken bodies would he have to carry?

Crowley shifted in his sleep, snuggling closer and snaking both of his legs around one of Aziraphale’s. He was perfect, always, but especially so in sleep. Aziraphale knew his love could sleep for days, weeks, if he wanted to and Aziraphale was sure he could watch him for just as long and never grow tired of it. 

He kissed Crowley’s forehead and gently traced the snake tattoo on his jaw. If they failed, he would lose this. But the same was true if they never tried. Aziraphale would never give Crowley up without a fight, not now that he knew what it was like to truly be an us . Deep down he was a selfish bastard. He would fight tooth and nail against the whole of Heaven and Hell, he would take on the all-crushing weight of responsibility and would make whatever sacrifices were needed if only he could keep this.

Our side.

Us.

For eternity. 

If Crowley was the prize, Aziraphale knew he would pay any cost. 

Chapter Text

The days passed slowly for Muriel. Each one was an effort and an agony. Never once in her exceedingly long life had she felt like this. She didn’t have the words to name or describe it properly. She slept almost constantly because simply existing was as painful as it was exhausting.

Sleeping, while easier, offered little reprieve. Her dreams were filled with torn and bloody feathers, with claustrophobic crowds bathed in greenish light, with beautiful brown eyes screwed up in anguish before they burst into golden sparks. Sometimes she woke from those dreams with tears in her eyes. Other times she woke up screaming.

Mr. Fell and Mr. Crowley were, as ever, unfailingly kind. Mr. Fell held her hand and listened when she wanted to talk. Sometimes she talked, but mostly she listened. Mr. Fell told her about his long life on Earth, of the moments when he had felt lost and how he had found his way again. Mr. Crowley didn’t say much, but he was always there when she woke from a particularly bad nightmare, quick to rub her back and let her cry on his shoulder. 

One morning, a week after their trip to Hell, Muriel was out on the deck, wrapped in the soft red throw blanket, and clutching a cup of tea. She was staring out across the garden and the sea beyond, her untouched tea growing cold in her hands, when Mr. Crowley found her. 

“C’mon,” he said. “Wanna show you something.” 

He set her tea on the patio table and led her into the front garden where two freshly tilled patches of earth waited on either side of the front steps, lined with smooth black stones. 

“I thought you might like to learn how to plant daffodils properly.” Mr. Crowley pointed to a bucket full of grubby, teardrop-shaped bulbs and the small trowel stuck in the dirt next to it. 

“Oh.” Muriel’s throat constricted with emotion and tears pricked her eyes. “Oh. Yes. I would, rather.” 

Mr. Crowley showed how big to dig each hole. He showed her how to place the bulbs with the roots facing down into the dirt and how to cover them back up again. He smiled at her as he watched her plant her own bulb and gave her shoulder a light punch when she’d finished. 

“You should plant them along the edge of the beds,” he said. “Daffodils don’t get very tall, so if you keep them to the outside, we’ll have room to plant something else behind them. Roses, maybe. Or foxglove. We can go see Nova and she’ll help you pick something out.”

“I can pick?” 

“Yeah. I thought so.”

“Why?” 

He frowned down at the ground for a moment, then said, “It helps. The plants do. At least for me they do. They help with the, erm,” he tapped his temple absently. “Talking to them helps too. Good listeners, plants are.” 

“You talk to them?” 

Mr. Crowley shrugged, “Helps ‘em grow.” They both jumped as a phone rang from Mr. Crowley’s back pocket. Crowley pulled it out and frowned at the screen, “Keep planting, inspector. I gotta take this.” 

He wandered off, chatting with whoever was on the other end of the call. Muriel turned her attention back to the daffodils. There was something soothing about the task. Digging the hole, placing the bulb, and covering it back up again required just enough thought and attention to keep her mind occupied. If it did wander, it wandered towards planning what else she might plant here or daydreaming about how lovely it was going to look when the flowers grew in. 

She liked the way the soil felt under her fingers, cool and damp. She liked the earthy smell of it. She liked the sense of accomplishment that came from seeing a trail of freshly dug earth form behind her as she went. As she planted, the heaviness that had settled in her chest lightened somewhat. She breathed more deeply and more easily than she had in days. 

Muriel was almost finished lining the first flower bed with daffodils when Mr. Crowley, joined by Mr. Fell, came to tell her they were going back to London. 

“You don’t have to join us,” Mr. Fell said quickly. “Obviously, if you want to, you’re welcome but don’t feel obligated. We’re just going to have a chat with our new demon friend. He got his body back and has just showed up at the bookshop.” 

Muriel was torn. Part of her, a strange fluttering part of her near her navel, wanted to go so she could see the demon again. She wanted to see him well and whole once more. She wanted to see his brown eyes again and know what they looked like when weren’t frightened or in pain. But, the thought of getting back into the Bentley and driving back to London and being in the bookshop again, being so close to Hell again, made the fluttering near her navel turn sloshy and sick. She didn’t think she could do it, but she didn’t want Mr. Fell and Mr. Crowley to think she was a coward. 

Mr. Fell must have seen her thoughts on her face because he crouched down next to her and put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s quite alright if you want to stay here and keep planting, my dear. We’ll be home this evening, so you won’t have to be alone for long.”

Muriel sighed with relief, “Yes, I think I’d prefer to stay.” 

“Jolly good. We’ll be back in two shakes of lamb's tail,” said Mr. Fell. 

“Don’t burn the house down while we’re out, Inspector,” added Mr. Crowley, “and give those daffodils a good soak with the hose when you’re done planting. They’ll need the water.”

The Bently screeched out of the driveway a few minutes later and Muriel was left to her daffodils and her thoughts. She liked that Mr. Fell and Mr. Crowley trusted her enough to leave her here by herself. She liked the way they called this place home as if it were her home too. She liked the way Mr. Crowley had given her this patch of earth to make her own. Despite all that had happened to her lately, she was glad to be here, glad they had made space for her in their lives. It made all the rest of it feel worth it. 

That thought made her pause. Was it worth it? She thought of the pain she’d felt in her wings as the archangels tore at her feathers. Of the fear she’d felt in Hell. Of the anxiety she felt at the prospect of what they were planning. She wouldn’t wish it on anyone else. She wouldn’t choose to go through it again. But it had been worth it. It had led her here to this place. To Mr. Crowley and Mr. Fell, who made her feel welcome and wanted. It had led her to daffodils and dirt under her nails. 

All the pain and fear and worry had been worth it. There was something hopeful about that. Something human. And maybe, if there was more of the same in her future, that would be worth it too.

“Whatcha planting?” 

A voice behind her made her jump. Muriel turned to see Nova, Mr. Crowley’s human friend, walking towards her carrying a large potted plant.

“Daffodils. Mr. Crowley is letting me plant things here.”

“You got him to agree to flowers that weren’t black? Impressive.” 

“What’s that?” Muriel asked, pointing to the plant she carried.

“Oh, this? It's the Thai Constellation Crowley ordered a while ago.” She set the plant, which had dark green leaves speckled with white spots that did, indeed, look like constellations, down on the front steps. “Got it in this morning. Thought I’d drop it off and see if he and Aziraphale were interested in coming to see Midsummer with us tomorrow. And you, of course, if you like. Is he around?” 

“He and Mr. Fell went to London. They’ll be back this evening.”

Nova nodded, “You’ve done a good job on those daffodils so far. Are you a green thumb like Crowley?”

Muriel held out her hands, “No… my thumbs are brownish.” 

Nova’s laugh rang out over the garden, bright and silvery, “Green thumb just means you’re good with plants.”

“Oh. Then no. I’ve never planted anything before today, but Mr. Crowley thought the plants would help.”

“Help?” 

“I’ve been… or rather, I haven’t been,” Muriel struggled for words. She didn’t know how to name what was happening inside of her. How did one condense a sea of emotion into a word? How could you take feelings that were everything and nothing, too much and not enough, heartbreaking and mind-numbing all at once, and boil it down to a single idea? “Myself. I haven’t been myself lately. And I suppose Mr. Crowley thought the plants would help.”

Nova sat on the steps next to the plant. “Do you want to talk about it? I know we don’t know each other, but sometimes it’s easier to talk to someone who doesn’t know you. They can be objective.” She shrugged. “I’m a good listener, at any rate, if you need one.”

“I wouldn’t know where to start,” Muriel said, looking at the ground and fiddling with a clump of grass. 

Nova didn’t say anything. She just folded her arms on top of her knees and looked at Muriel with kind, patient eyes. 

Muriel had tried talking to Mr. Fell. But the words had mostly gotten stuck in her throat. She didn't know how to explain how she felt. She didn’t want to make Mr. Fell worry about her or feel bad. She felt bad for not being stronger, for burdening him and Mr. Crowley with her problems. Angels were supposed to alleviate suffering and comfort the afflicted. They weren’t supposed to be the afflicted.

But, Nova wasn’t Mr. Fell or Mr. Crowley. She didn’t worry about her like they did. She wouldn’t fuss or fret. She could just listen. Objective, like she had said.

“Actually, I do know where to start,” Muriel said it in a rush, like a damn breaking or bomb exploding. “It’s just that, I spent the last 6,000 years as a no one scrivener. I can probably count the number of angels I’ve actually spoken to in all that time and not even use up all my fingers. And then I come to Earth and it’s incredible and beautiful and the very best place I’ve ever been. I never want to leave and I can’t imagine anyone wanting to destroy something so wonderful. And Mr. Fell and Mr. Crowley seem to think they can prevent that from happening, so of course I want to help them. But Mr. Fell is a traitor and Mr. Crowley is a demon, like an actual literal demon ! And helping them means putting myself in danger and I’m just not the danger sort! Not at all! I had my feathers half ripped out. I was scared to death when we went to Hell. Mr. Crowley is the only demon I’d ever met and he’s grumpy, but so nice and really not evil at all, and let me tell you knowing him did not prepare me to go to Hell. The demons there are terrifying! Except for that poor demon, Eric. He seemed nice. He was almost as scared as I was. Except then he was discorporated right in front of me. And I felt awful for him, obviously, but I also kept thinking that it could have been me! If that slimy demon had been annoyed by me instead of him or if he’d missed Eric and hit me, I would have exploded. Poof! And there would have been nothing I could have done. I don’t even know what happens to an angel after they’ve been discorporated by a demon. It could have been permanent! And I want to be brave, I do. I want to live in a world where Mr. Fell and Mr. Crowley can be free. Where Eric can be free. Where I can be free. And I know that it will be hard work and sacrifice and it will probably be painful. But, I think it will be worth it in the end. And, I want to be brave, but I’m just so damn scared!”

Nova stared at her, open-mouthed and blinking slowly, for a long time. Finally, she let out a breath and said, “Well, that sounds like… a lot.”

“It has been a lot. But Mr. Crowley says the plants will help and I hope they do because I just don’t know what I’ll do if they don’t.” Muriel wiped a tear escaping from her eye, not noticing or caring about the dirt she smudged over her face.

Nova knelt down beside her, “Well, we’d better finish planting them, then, hadn’t we?”

They planted together in silence until each of the beds Mr. Crowley had given her were lined with little mounds of earth covering daffodil bulbs. Nova showed Muriel how to soak the bulbs with the hose, explaining that plants needed a big drink after you put them in the ground. 

“You know, if we put up some trellises, you could plant some flowering vines,” Nova said when they’d finished. “They might look nice along the side of the house. Did you have a color pallet in mind?”

“I like yellow,” Muriel said. 

“Honeysuckles, then?” Nova suggested. “They’ll look nice and they’ll smell even nicer. We could maybe do some roses in the middle. I know Mr. Crowley liked roses. Come by the shop next week and we can look through the catalogs.”

Muriel felt a warmth suffusing through her. She’d never had friends before, and maybe that was the wrong word for Nova. They didn’t know each other, after all. But it felt like it could be the right word. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Nova smiled and put a hand on her shoulder. “I should get going, but Muriel, I think you should know that you are brave. Brave doesn’t mean you’re not scared. It just means that you don’t let being scared stop you. If you weren’t brave, you wouldn’t be worrying about it.” She gave Muriel’s shoulder a little squeeze and was gone. 

Muriel was sitting on the back deck looking out over the sea again when Mr. Fell and Mr. Crowley came home. They had the demon, Eric, in tow. He looked wide-eyed and nervous as he came out onto the deck. The strange fluttering feeling returned to Muriel’s stomach as they made eye contact. Eric gave her a shy smile before averting his gaze and Muriel bit the inside of her lip to hide her own grin. 

“How did it go?” She asked Mr. Fell and Mr. Crowley. 

“It went well,” said Mr. Fell. 

“Obviously,” added Mr. Crowley with a gesture at Eric. 

“Eric here has very kindly agreed to act as our agent in Hell. He’s going to work to recruit more demons to our side. He’s got a lot of ideas of who we might start with, but he wanted to review the files we brought back to make sure our thoughts were aligned on the matter.”

“That’s good!” said Muriel, more pleased than she wanted to admit that Eric would be staying at least for a little while. 

“We’ll also need an agent in Heaven,” said Mr. Crowley, quietly. “Our plan isn’t going to work if we’re only recruiting demons.”

They were both looking at her with sad eyes. 

Dread flooded her stomach. “You mean me?”

“It can’t be Aziraphale. They’ll notice is the Supreme Archangel returns.”

“And it can’t be Crowley. Not only is he too easily recognized by the archangels, but he doesn’t know any of the lesser angels and they don’t know him.”

“Well, it can’t be me!” Muriel’s voice shook. “The archangels are furious at me! Who knows what they’ll do if I go back?”

“We can disguise you to get you in,” said Mr. Crowley. “You’d only have to reveal yourself to those angels you think you might convince.”

“But-- but--” Muriel backed up several paces, shaking her head.

“I know we’re asking too much of you, my dear,” Mr. Fell said quietly. “I wish there were an alternative, but there isn’t one.”

Muriel’s eyes darted around as if another suitable candidate would appear if she just looked hard enough. But there was no one else. Mr. Fell was right about that. She was the only one of them who had spent enough time in Heaven to know who to talk to, who would be trusted by the lesser angels, who would have even the slightest chance of convincing them. She thought back to what Nova had said that afternoon, about how being brave meant you didn’t let fear stop you. She could feel the fear coursing through her and she wanted nothing more than to say no, to say here where she felt safe, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she did. Their plan would fail if she did and then she wouldn’t be able to live at all. No, the only choice she could feel good about was to not let the fear stop her. 

“Would I have to go alone?” she asked, her voice very small.”

Mr. Fell gave her a pitying look. “I don’t think it would be wise for Crowley or myself to return to Heaven. It would probably put you in more danger if we did.”

“So, alone, then?”

“Yes, I’m afraid s--”

“I can go with her.”

All three of them turned to look at Eric. Muriel had almost forgotten he was there. 

“I’ve been to Heaven before,” he shot a guilty look at Aziraphale that Muriel didn’t understand, “I’m not sure how much help I’ll be, but,” he looked at her now, his eyes earnest and vulnerable, “I can go with you if you don’t want to be alone.”

The fluttering feeling obliterated the fear in her until she felt so light she thought she might float away. 

“Thank you,” she whispered. 

Eric smiled at her and Muriel was surprised no one could hear her heart pounding.

“Right,” Mr. Crowley clapped his hands together, “That’s that settled, then. What do you say we look through those files in the morning? It’s late and I’m knackered. Let’s go upstairs, angel. Inspector, you can get Eric settled in down here, can’t you?”

“Yes,” she said, ignoring the persistent fluttering in her abdomen. 

“What’s upstairs?” Eric asked. 

“Their bedroom,” Muriel answered. “They go upstairs to have ‘us time.’ I’m still not sure what that is, exactly, but it’s very noisy, so we might stay out here for a bit.”

Mr. Crowley tripped over nothing and fell into the side of the glass door. Mr. Fell made a strangled choking noise that turned into a cough. His face grew very red. Eric looked from one to the other of them with an expression of abject shock.

“What?” Muriel asked, looking from Eric to Mr. Fell and Mr. Crowley and back again, “What did I say?”

Chapter Text

Muriel’s heart was pounding quite excessively for an organ that she did not, technically speaking, need. She walked through Heaven on trembling legs, the vast white expanse of it suffocating in a way she wasn’t used to. Instead of feeling mundane and stuffy, like it had before her assignment on Earth, the open halls now made her feel exposed. Like a microscope slide held fast beneath the lens. 

Eric walked beside her, so close that the backs of their hands brushed from time to time. Despite her nervousness at their surroundings, a little spark of lightning shivered through her each time this happened. She liked the way he looked in the grey suit he wore on their trips to Heaven. She liked the champagne-colored scarf he wore around his neck and the way his long lower lashes glinted with gold. She even liked his hair, which he had grown out into a large Afro to conceal his aspect.

She had grown out her own hair as well and tied it back into a plait. She also changed the color to a lighter brown and made her eyes green whenever they took these trips to Heaven. She didn’t much feel like herself with these changes, but she supposed that was rather the point. She hadn’t been spotted at any rate. 

This was their sixth trip to Heaven in the past two weeks and so far and all had been successful. They had managed to recruit several of her fellow scriveners, who in turn promised to recruit even more angels. But today, they had, as the humans said, bigger fish to fry.

The fish in question was a Throne with a reputation that preceded them. One of her fellow scriveners had given them the lead to an angel, Zaphkiel, who formerly commanded one of Heaven’s legions, until, that is, they had been demoted after Armageddon. Now the angel in question was merely a platoon sergeant, and while the details of their demotion were unknown, Muriel was willing to bet that a loss in status that severe left some hard feelings behind. Her colleague, Nuriel, had arranged a meeting for them, but knowing Zaphkiel was expecting them didn’t make it any easier for Muriel. This was the first time she was approaching an angel that she didn’t know personally. 

They rounded a corner and saw the angel standing next to the holy water cooler, exactly where Nuriel had said they would be. They approached, although Eric hung back as they got close to the holy water. The angel, who was tall and dark with a full beard and piercing golden eyes, did not look up at them but instead stayed resolutely focused on filling their cup. 

“Zaphkiel?” Muriel asked tentatively. 

The angel took a long drink of their holy water. “It’s just Zaph.”

“Right. Zaph. Well, I’m, erm.”

“Muriel?” the angel said, at last fixing their unsettling golden gaze on them. “Thirty-seventh order scrivener, if I’m not mistaken, and a traitor to Heaven.”

Muriel winced and heat rushed into her face. She knew Heaven had labeled her a traitor. She knew that it was, technically speaking, the truth. Hearing it laid out so bare and plainly sent hot shame spreading through her body like poison. She waited for the poison to find its mark, for the crushing guilt it carried to consume her, but it didn’t. The shame was real enough, but she felt strangely separate from it, like it was a poison that she was immune to. She was ashamed, but not sorry. Perhaps she was ashamed because she was not sorry. 

Muriel realized too late that Zaphkiel was waiting for a response and looked perplexed at her silence. 

“The angel, Nuriel, said that you might be open to speaking to us,” Eric said from where he stood behind her and she was grateful for the interjection. “Did they tell you why?”

“They did.” The angel filled two more cups with holy water and offered one to Muriel, which she took, and the other to Eric, who took a large step backward. 

“None for me, thanks,” he said. “Not thirsty.”

“No, I don’t suppose you would be,” Zaph poured the contents of the second cup into their own. “I can’t decide if you two are very brave or very stupid to walk into Heaven so boldly.” 

“We’re very desperate,” Muriel said, “as I’m sure Nuriel told you. They said you might be sympathetic.”

“Hmm.”  Zaph looked into their cup with a bitter frown. “Did they tell you why I was demoted?”

Muriel shook her head. 

“After the traitor Aziraphale stopped Amageddeon, I said I was glad. Glad that war had been averted, that the blood of angels under my command wouldn’t be spilled.” Muriel watched Zaph’s grip on their cup become vicelike, tiny fissures in the glass spiderwebbed out from where their fingers clutched it. “All I said was that I was glad that wouldn’t have to watch my friends die. But, Michael overheard me say it and had me demoted for it. So, yes, you could say I’m sympathetic .”

“Wonderful, well--”

“But I’m not convinced ,” Zaph interrupted, their burning golden eyes bored into Muriel like branding irons. “I was glad to avoid war because my angels would be spared. But from what Nuriel tells me, you are not seeking to avoid a war, you’re merely trying to reconfigure the sides, and I am not convinced the world is worth the blood that will be spilled in saving it.”

Muriel’s face fell.

“Excuse me,” Eric interjected politely, “have you ever been up there?”

“Once. In the fourteenth century. I wasn’t impressed.”

“Of course not,” Eric scoffed. “Nothing impressive about the fourteenth century. But you should see it now, mate. They’ve come a long way since then. They’ve got latte art now. And avocado toast. And Tiktok, just wait ‘till you get on Tiktok, you’ll never want to leave.”

“What in the blazes is an avocado toast?”

“Oh, it’s toast. But with avocado on it. Sometimes eggs too.”

Zaph looked at him, completely baffled.

“They have it for brunch,” Eric added unhelpfully. 

Zaph looked to Muriel for assistance. She shrugged.

“Oh, no, Muri! They don’t know about brunch,” Eric sounded horrified. 

“I don’t know about brunch!” Muriel turned to look at him. She was sure her face was as baffled as Zaph’s. 

“ You don’t know about brunch? Oh, we have to go. You’d love it.” 

“I am intrigued by this brunch you speak of,” said Zaph. “How does one acquire it?”

“Well, we’re having a bit of a, erm, show and tell for celestial and infernal beings to come see all the good things about Earth,” Muriel said. “We’re calling it the Whickbar Street Cultural Exchange Faire. You should come. We would love to show you why Earth is worth saving.”

“And there will be brunch at this Whickbar Street Cultural Exchange Faire?”

Muriel bit her lip. She didn’t actually know if there would be brunch. She didn’t actually know what brunch was. 

“Yeah, of course we’ll have brunch,” Eric interjected. “Can’t show off all the good things about Earth without brunch. You should bring friends. Brunch is much better with friends.”

Zaph contemplated for a moment. “Alright, I accept. I’ll come to this Whickbar Street Cultural Exchange Faire and I’ll bring my platoon along if I can manage it. But, I’ll wait to make my final decision about joining you until after we have experienced the brunch.”

Muriel was stunned for a moment. She had not expected this meeting to work out in their favor, at least not so quickly.

“Wonderful,” she said at last, “I’ll send on the details.”

She shook Zaph’s hand and the angel strode off into the ethereal mist of Heaven without another word. 

“Well, that was… easier than I expected,” Muriel said when Zaph was gone. 

“And they’re bringing more angels, so all in all, I’d say that’s a win for us.”

“I know. I just expected it to be harder.”

“Well, you’re good at this,” Eric shrugged and started walking back the way they came.

“Me? I didn’t do anything. You did all the convincing. You were brilliant!” Muriel fell into step beside him and their hands brushed, a little tingle of that familiar fluttering feeling shot up her spine. “What’s brunch, anyway?”

“It’s a meal. I think Crowley invented it. It’s a combination of breakfast and lunch. Humans go for brunch on the weekends after they’ve had a bit of a lie-in. They order food and cocktails and take pictures to post on Instagram. It’s fun.”

“It sounds like gluttony… and sloth… and vanity all at once.”

“Oh, it is! Like I said, fun.” They turned a corner and headed towards the elevator. “Where to next?”

“Admissions, I suppose. I didn’t think we’d have the time today, but since we do, I have a couple of acquaintances who work there that might listen to us.”

“Right-o.” 

Eric punched the button on the elevator and the door slid open to reveal the Archangel Sandelphon. The angel smiled, slimy and gold-toothed, at them and Muriel felt everything inside of her turn hollow and icy. 

That smile had haunted her dreams. She had last seen it leering at her as the rough hands of its owner held her down while the other archangels plucked her like a chicken. Muriel forgot how to move, how to breathe, how to do anything other than stare wide-eyed at the angel in the elevator. Sandelphon’s smile turned into a frown as he scrutinized them. 

“Good morning, angels,” he said, then he looked closely at Muriel and added, “Have we met?”

Muriel screamed internally but didn’t answer. 

“I don’t think so, sir,” Eric interjected. “We’re admissions d-angels. We’re just on our break.”

“On your break?” Sandelphon scoffed. “Up here? This floor is for scriveners.”

“We know, we were just stretching our legs.”

Sandlephon stepped out of the elevator, giving them another menacing smile, “Do you really think it’s appropriate to stretch your legs when there are souls that need processing? Would you make the virtuous humans wait for their promised paradise?” 

“Erm, no sir, not when you put it like that. We’re terribly sorry. We’ll head back right away.”

“See that you do and be grateful I don’t report this to your superiors.”

“Thank you, sir. You’re very kind.” Eric grabbed Muriel’s arm and half dragged her into the elevator. 

Sandelphon grabbed the other arm and pulled her back towards him. His grip felt like flame, like ice, like knives and claws and every horrid thing she could think of. It took all her self control not to scream and wrench out of his grip. 

“Are you sure we haven’t met?” He asked, his breath hot on her face as he surveyed her.

Murial shook her head, “No, sir. I don’t think so. Unless it was a very long time ago. I’ve been in admissions since the beginning.” 

“What’s your name?”

“Ariel,” she said, hoping that Sandelphon didn’t notice the tremor in her voice or the beat of hesitation it took for her to remember her alias. 

Sandelphon held her a moment longer, studying her face with his beady eyes. Then, much to Muriel’s relief, he released his grip on her arm. “Don’t let me catch you two up here again. You have a job to do and you ought to remember your sense of duty.”

“Yes, sir,” Eric said, pulling Muriel into the elevator, “a thousand apologies.”

Sandelphon stalked off and Eric punched the button to close the doors. Muriel let out a shuddering breath as soon as they did. 

“That was close,” said Eric, sounding as shaken as Muriel felt.

“Yes,” she breathed. 

“Straight home, yeah?” Eric’s finger hovered over the Earth button. 

“Please.”

Eric pushed the button and Muriel tried not to cry as the elevator moved downwards. She managed all right for the first few floors, but slowly the tears started leaking out of her like the drips of melting icicles. If icicles were warm and salty and melting entirely too fast for her to hide from Eric. She turned her face away from the demon, stifled a sniff, and wiped her eyes with her sleeve. 

A hand enclosed around her hers. The hand was shaking nearly as bad as her own. But it entwined its fingers with hers and held her steady with a firm, calming pressure. Muriel returned the pressure and let the fluttering feeling that rushed through her dry the tears on her cheeks. 

Chapter Text

Crowley’s fingers gripped the lip of black tile in the shower where he and Aziraphale kept their shampoo. He braced his forearms against the wall and held on for dear life while his angel knelt behind him working absolute miracles with his tongue. His hair hung limp and damp in his face and little rivlets of warm water ran along his spine to join the warm tongue laving around his arsehole, working him open. Crowley bit his lip and arched his back involuntarily as Aziraphale added his fingers into the mix. His angel teased and stretched him until he was a whimpering, shuddering mess.

 It felt like so long since they’d done this. Ever since they’d brought Eric back to the house, opportunities had been very thin on the ground. The house was simply too full to find a private moment. Even when Eric and Muriel left for their trips to Heaven or Hell, he and Aziraphale had been busy in London, making arrangements for the Whickbar Street Cultural Exchange Faire. Not to mention, he and Aziraphale were more cautious about their trysts since Muriel announced that she could hear them. Neither Crowley nor Aziraphale had realized how much the noise from upstairs carried down and both had assumed the other would have sorted that out with a miracle anyway. 

Muriel, pure and angelic as she was, hadn’t known exactly what they were up to, but Eric had. Crowley suspected that he might have explained it to the poor thing, because Muriel had taken to blushing furiously and averting her eyes whenever he and Aziraphale came downstairs together. 

So, they had been more stealthy about their amorous activities of late. There had been a memorable evening stroll in the garden that had ended with him bending Aziraphale over a bench. A messy, needy blow job in the stacks of the bookshop after a planning meeting with Nina and Maggie. A quick, but delightful incident when Aziraphale had pulled him into some bushes in the park during intermission when they’d gone to see Midsummer with Nova and Dev. They had returned to their seats flushed and breathless and Nova had looked entirely too knowing. 

But they hadn’t done this in ages. Crowley hadn’t been fucked, properly fucked, in weeks and he was aching for it. Muriel and Eric were out. He and Aziraphale had the house to themselves for hours and he had finally gotten his angel to put his book down and pay attention to him.

Aziraphale’s teeth nipped at Crowley’s ass cheek, making him yelp in surprise. His angel got to his feet and nestled the head of his cock at Crowley’s entrance. Crowley groaned, deep and desperate, and tried to push back against him. Aziraphale foiled him with a slight adjustment of his hips.

“Patience, my love” he said with a kiss pressed to Crowley’s shoulder. “How is your grip on that ledge? Is it quite secure?” 

“M’good.”

“Excellent,” said Aziraphale, lining himself up with Crowley’s entrance. “You’re going to need it.” 

The breach was exquisite, well prepared as he was. Crowley’s toes curled into the tile beneath him and he whined as Aziraphale filled him. His angel gave him a moment to adjust that Crowley didn’t need. He moved on him, trying to will Aziraphale with his hips to get on with it, to let go already and fuck him in to oblivion. 

Hands gripped his hips hard enough to bruise, holding him still. Aziraphale’s voice growled in his ear laced with just enough divine authority to send a little thrill racing down his spine and straight to his already throbbing cock. “We discussed this, my own. You move when you are bid and not before.”

“Angel,” Crowley whimpered, “please. Angel, I need— need, please.”

“Mmm, I love you like this, wanton and begging for me.” The bastard licked the water droplets running down Crowley’s neck. “Do it again.” 

Aziraphale moved, slow and teasing, eliciting an incoherent stream of curses and pleas from Crowley. The angel pressed burning kisses along his shoulder and his hands came around to tease the head of Crowley’s cock. That, along with the drag of Aziraphale’s cock against the bundle of nerves inside him, felt like little zaps lighting zinging through him. But his angel’s thrusts were too slow and too gentle to do anything more than suggest the mind-blowing pleasure that Aziraphale was capable of eliciting. 

Crowley snaked a hand behind him and seized a fistful of Aziraphale’s damp curls and ground his hips against him. “For Someone’s sake, stop toying with me and fuck me properly.”

Aziraphale’s answering laugh was low and smug. He extracted Crowley’s hand from his hair and replaced it firmly on the wall once more. “I didn’t say you could move, dear boy,” he snapped his hips forward once, hard, “but I am nothing if not obliging.” 

What every retort Crowley might have had died in his throat at the wave of pure carnal bliss that rolled through him. His angel’s hands bracketed his hips once more as he withdrew his cock almost to the tip. A smile spread across Crowley’s face and he dug his nails into the tile, bracing himself for what came next, already lost in the stars he was about to see. 

“MR. FELL! MR. CROWLEY!” The shout came from down stairs.

Aziraphale’s hips stilled mid thrust. “They’re home early.”

“Nonono,” Crowley groaned, “you must be fucking joking.”

“I am decidedly not.”

“Mr. Fell! Mr. Crowley!” The shout was muffled this time, drifting in through the open window from the back garden, barely audible over the sound of the shower.

“Just do a miracle,” Crowley begged. “Hide us here for… ten minutes. Whatever it is can wait ten minutes.”

“What if it can’t? They’re not supposed to be home this early. What if—“

“Angel, please.” Crowley arched back, pressing himself down onto Aziraphale’s cock. 

“Crowley, you know I want to, but what if something is really wrong?” Aziraphale pulled out and Crowley wanted to sob at the loss. “We’ll finish this later, I promise.”

“But, I want you now!”

Aziraphale turned off the water and kissed Crowley lightly. “Greedy thing,” he murmured. 

KNOCK. KNOCK.

“Mr. Fell? Mr. Crowley?”

“One moment, my dear,” Aziraphale called, handing Crowley a towel and ignoring his fervent head shaking.

“Oh, Mr. Fell! I was starting to get worried. Where’s Mr. Crowley?” 

“I’m here too, inspector.” Crowley growled. 

“Oh. Why?” She paused, then gasped, “ Oh . Nevermind! Don’t answer that.”

“We’ll be with you in two shakes of a lamb’s tail,” Aziraphale said. “Wait in the sitting room, won’t you?”

Crowley came down the stairs, glowering at Muriel and Eric sitting on the sofa, both of whom looked irritatingly uninjured. Grievous bodily harm was, in Crowley’s opinion, the only acceptable reason for he and Aziraphale to have been interrupted they way they were. 

Aziraphale came down the stairs behind him, straightening his bowtie as he went. His angel, prim and proper as he was, had insisted on getting completely and properly dressed. Crowley hadn’t bothered. He had just thrown on the nearest pair of sweats and his glasses. His state of undress was obviously making Muriel and Eric uncomfortable, but Crowley was entirely too annoyed to care. 

“So, what’s the problem?” he asked. 

“Problem?” asked Eric, his voice quite a bit higher than usual. “Who said there was a problem?”

Crowley pulled his glasses down and leveled a world-class death glare at him. “There had better be a problem.”

Eric blanched. 

“Crowley, don’t be ghastly.” Aziraphale reprimanded. 

Crowley kept his mouth shut, but didn’t stop glaring at the pair of them.

“Tell us what the matter is, my dears,” Aziraphale continued. 

“Well, we have good news,” Muriel started, her eyes flickering nervously towards Crowley, “and… and we have bad news.”

“Bad news first. Get it over with,” Crowley said. 

“Right, erm, well,” Muriel began to wring her hands, “we were in Heaven and I-- we ran into, erm, into--”

“Spit it out, inspector,” Crowley growled.

“Sandelphon. We ran into Sandelphon.”

Crowley hissed at the name and immediately regretted what an ass he was being.

“Details, please,” Aziraphale said. 

“We finished talking to Zaphkiel earlier than we anticipated and we decided to head down to Admissions to talk some angels there and Sandelphon came out of the elevator as we were getting in.”  

“Oh, that is not ideal,” Aziraphale muttered, running a hand over his face. “Did he recognize you?”

“Well, I don’t-- I’m not really--,” Muriel bit her lip. 

“Yes or no, my dear.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Fell. I froze up when I saw him and I think that made him suspicious. He asked if we had met, but I lied and he seemed to believe me.”

“It was a very good lie,” Eric interjected. “He let us go right after.” 

“He can’t have recognized them, angel,” Crowley said. “If he had, he would have done something.”

“Unless he wanted to consult with the other archangels to work out what to do first. He never was much of a free thinker.”

“S’not so incompetent that he wouldn’t detain trespassers, is he?”

Aziraphale merely shrugged. And an uncomfortable silence fell over the room.

“Right, well, good news.” Crowley clapped his hands together. “You said there was good news too?”

“Yes!” Muriel said, glad of the change of subject. “Our conversation with Zaphkiel was very productive. They’re interested in attending the Whickbar Street Cultural Exchange Faire and they’re bringing their entire platoon with them!”

“That is good news,” Crowley said. “I’m impressed, inspector.”

“It wasn’t me, Mr. Crowley. It was Eric. He tempted Zaph into coming… with brunch.”

“Brunch?” Crowley looked at Aziraphale. “Will there be brunch?”

“There jolly well will be now, won’t there. We should call Nina. Perhaps she can collaborate with Margaurite’s.”

“Oh, I’m sure she’ll love that. So collaborative, our Nina.” Crowley smiled at the reproving look Aziraphale gave him. To Eric and Muriel he said, “Right, job well done, you two. If there’s nothing else, I think you’re free to go.”

Muriel and Eric exchanged a look. 

“Go where?” Muriel said, “You’re in our bedroom.”

“What? No. I mean, that’s not- I’m in my sitting room.” Crowley sputtered, “And since when it is ‘our’? You know what, bugger off and watch TV in the office, will you? Aziraphale and I need to talk.” 

Muriel and Eric disappeared into the office and Crowley stalked to the kitchen for a glass of wine. 

“At what point,” he asked Aziraphale, “did our sitting room become a bedroom?”

“I think at the point where we took in an injured angel who needed a safe place to stay,” said Aziraphale, accepting the glass of wine Crowley handed him. 

“Well, what happens if I want my sitting room back?”

“You’re not seriously suggesting we turn them out? Not after everything.” Aziraphale opened the door to the deck and gestured for Crowley to go first. 

The wind that rolled in off the sea was cool and salty. It tousled has damp hair and coaxed up goosebumps along his arms. Crowley snapped and was miraculously dressed in dark jeans and black sweater instead of his sweats. The sun was bright, but not hot and the clouds in the sky were forming the most interesting shapes. It was a perfect day to sit outside with his angel, but Crowley would have given worlds to be back in the shower instead.

“No, of course not,” Crowley grumbled, sitting down on a patio chair and putting his feet up on a footstool. “But that’s another thing! When did they become a them ? When did the sitting room turn into their bedroom?”

“Well, I imagine that happened when we brought Eric home.” Aziraphale sat down beside him. 

“Yes, but the way she said it. You don’t think—“

“I don’t know that it’s any of our business, dear. We’re hardly ones to talk.”

Crowley shrugged by way of agreement. 

“But you didn’t want to talk about Eric and Muriel, did you dear?” Aziraphale reached across and took his hand. 

“No, I was thinking we should—“

“Hello?” A bright voice called from just inside the house. 

“Nova, dear! What a nice surprise!” Aziraphale said as the woman in question joined them on the deck.” To what do we owe the pleasure?”

“I actually have a bit of a bone to pick with Crowley. Well, both of you, really. Been meaning to bring it up for ages, but it never felt like the right time.”

“Bone to pick?” Crowley said with an indignant raise of his eyebrows. “What the Hell have I done?”

“My love, it seems perfectly plausible that she would have a grievance with you,” Aziraphale said reasonably. “The question we should be asking is what the Hell have I done?”

“Neither of you have done anyting. Sorry, poor choice of words.” Nova sat down in an empty patio chair. “I just… I have a weird question and I’m not sure how to ask it.”

“With your mouth, I’d imagine,” Crowley said. Nova and Aziraphale both gave him a look and he shrugged. “S’where words usually come from.”

Aziraphale gave a long suffering sigh. “Why don’t you just come out a ask it, my dear. I’m sure we’ve heard stranger queries.”

“Are you two demons?” Nova asked without further preamble.

Crowley choked on his wine and Aziraphale looked aghast. 

“What gives you that idea?” Crowley asked, keeping his voice level and laying a hand on Aziraphale’s knee before the angel could burst with righteous indignation. 

“Someting Muriel said.” Nova shrugged. “We were chatting the other day, well, she was chatting. Seemed to have a lot on her mind, poor duck. She said a load of stuff, most of it didn’t make much sense to me, but one ting that did was that you’re a demon. Which seems like it should be a load of waffle, but honestly, it checks out.”

“Checks out?” He gave Aziraphale’s leg a little squeeze. The angel was practically vibrating with the need to correct Nova’s assumption about him. 

“Yeah, there’s loads of funny stuff about you. The plants, for one ting.” She gestured to the garden and continued, “Those plants look well established, like they’ve been there for years, and I know for a fact that you only put them in a few months ago. I helped you put them in a few months ago, but every time I look at them someting in my brain tells me they’ve always been there. And when I was chatting with Muriel, I helped her plant daffodil bulbs out front. That couldn’t have been more than tree weeks ago, but they’re already blooming. Blooming, Crowley. In fucking September!” 

“What can I say? I’ve a green thumb,” Crowley said. 

“And then there’s the fact that I’ve seen you drink quantities of alcohol that should literally kill a man and barely be tipsy.”

“Constitution of an ox.”

“But noting is as mad as your eyes.”

Crowley froze, thankful he had his glasses on.

“The first time I saw you without your glasses, I tought they were contacts and I tought ‘dramatic, gay goth’ checks out he’d go around with snake contacts in. But you always wear the glasses, and that kind of defeats the point of contacts, doesn’t it. And when I came over to bring you coffee after you ran out on Dev’s gig, you were wearing them. You’d obviously just woken up, you hadn’t even put a shirt on, but you had contacts in? It doesn’t make any sense at all unless they’re your real eyes.”

Crowley tried to think fast for a reasonable explanation and came up short.

“So,” Nova said when it became clear Crowley had no retort, “are you two demons?”

“I am an angel , madam!” Aziraphale burst, unable to let the incorrect assumption stand a second time. 

Nova blinked at him. “Oh, yeah, I supposed that does make more sense.” She turned her attention back to Crowley, “But you’re a demon?”

Crowley swallowed and nodded, kicking himself for getting too comfortable around Nova, for letting his guard down, for not keeping himself to himself the way he knew he should. First friend he’d made in centuries and she was about to run screaming from his house.

“And Muriel and the other one?”

“Muriels an angel. Eric’s… like me,” Crowley said in a low, devastated voice. There was no point trying to hide it now. He was a dirty, evil demon and she knew it now. Aziraphale’s inability to stomach being mistaken for his ilk was only another painful reminder that he was damned, fallen, and unworthy. Nova was going to pack it up and never see him again. Maybe she’d shout at him first. He probably deserved it and it was probably for the best. She was human after all. He’s known he wasn’t going to be able to keep her forever. 

“Are you really trying to stop the world from ending?”

The question caught him off guard and pulled him from his brooding. Crowley and Aziraphale both gaped at her. 

“That’s what Muriel said,” she shrugged.

Oh, Crowley was going to have words with that angel.

“Well she was quite right, my dear,” Aziraphale said gently. “Humanity is under threat from our former employers and we’re trying our best to thwart them.” 

Nova looked down at her hands for a moment, taking the revelation in. To her credit, she only looked slightly sick. Finally, she let out a rush of breath and said, “Right, then. How can I help?” 

“Oh, my dear, thank you, but that’s really not ne—“

“Music,” Crowley interrupted, and idea coming to him and obliterating all the anxiety he felt at Nova’s discovery of them. He explained their plans to recruit angels and demons to their cause and how it all hinged on making the Whickbar Street Cultural Exchange Faire a success “We need music. Can’t show off the pleasures of Earth without music. Do you think you can get Dev’s band to play a couple of nights in London?” 

“Oh yeah. That should be easy.” She waved a hand. “Anyting else.”

“We were thinking about having some people act as tour guides, if walking around with a big group of angels and demons isn’t too freaky.”

“I could probably manage that. I’ve been hanging around you for months. How bad could the rest of them be?”

Crowley’s stomach sank back down like a lead balloon at that.

Aziraphale got up to get Nova a glass of wine from inside. He could have miracled it, now that their secret was out, but he seemed to sense that Crowley wanted a moment alone with Nova. 

“You’re taking the whole ‘my friend is a literal demon from Hell’ thing in your stride,” he said when Aziraphale closed the door. 

“Yeah, well, I’m Irish,” Nova shrugged. “You can’t grow up with a nan like mine, telling you stories about fairies and banshees and such like every night, and the nuns telling you about angels and demons walking the Earth every Sunday and then be surprised when they turned out to be right.”

“M’sure the nuns didn’t have anything too flattering to say about demons,” Crowley muttered darkly.

“I don’t have anyting too flattering to say about the nuns,” she said matter-of-factly. 

Crowley gave her a tight smile and took a sip of his wine. Nova reached over a laid a hand gently on his knee. 

“I’m not ruling out the possibility of a freak-out,” she said, “I’m calm now, but the night is still young. This all might catch up to me in a couple of hours and I might lose my head, but even if I do, I’m still going to be your friend and I’m still going to want to help you.”

Crowley laughed, humorless and hollow. “This definitely hasn’t caught up to you, then.” He took his glasses off and forced himself to look in her eyes. “I am a literal demon from literal Hell. I am the serpent of Eden who tempted Eve with the apple. That’s not a morose metaphor. I was literally there, tempting humanity into their first ever sin. I’m not a good person. I don’t deserve your friendship, or your trust, and certainly not your help.”

Nova took his hand and returned his gaze, unflinching, and said, “If the account given in Genesis is really true, ought we not, after all, to tank this serpent? He was the first schoolmaster, the first advocate of learning, the first enemy of ignorance, the first to whisper in human ears the sacred word liberty, the creator of ambition, the author of modesty, of inquiry, of doubt, of investigation, of progress and of civilization.”

Crowley’s hand shook, but she held it more tightly. 

“The first time I read that was right after I stopped going to Mass. I got sick of being told that because I was a woman, because I was queer, because I was inquistive and skeptical that my body, my thoughts, my actions, myself were all inherently sinful. It was comforting to realize that all the tings the nuns said were sinful, were really just human. If you were the serpent, then you are responsible for making humanity what it is, for making me who I am. Every good ting humans have ever done happened because Eve ate the apple. You did that. The Pyramids, Shakespeare, fast cars, art, music, science, space travel. You did all of it, Crowley.”

Crowley looked up to keep the tears from spilling down his cheeks and saw that Aziraphale had returned. His angel stood by the door with Nova’s glass in one and and a freshly opened bottle in the other. He smiled at Crowley with a fondness that made Crowley’s heart stutter. 

“It would be funny if we both got it wrong,” Aziraphale quoted softly, “If I did the good thing and you did the bad.” 

“I thought you said it wouldn’t be funny at all,” Crowley said in a shaky whisper. 

“And it’s not,” Aziraphale smiled more broadly, “It’s ineffable .”

He crossed the deck, set the glass and the bottle down on the table, and pulled Crowley into a soft kiss, fingers threading through his hair and brushing his cheek soft as feathers. 

“Although, Mr. Ingersoll obviously never met you in person,” Aziraphale murmured against his lips. “I doubt anyone, after having met you, could call you the ‘author of modesty’ with a straight face.”

”Bastard,” Crowley growled affectionately and pulled his Angel back for another kiss. 

“I would love for you to tell me about yourselves,” Nova said when Crowley and Aziraphale broke apart. “The true version this time.”

“Oh, that will need several hours and several more bottles of wine,” Crowley said, wiping stray tears from his cheeks.

“I’ve got the time.”

“And we’ve got the wine,” Aziraphale said, topping off their glasses. 

“Oi!” Eric stuck his head out on to the deck. “If you’re drinking and tellin’ stories, Muri and I want in!”

“Fine,” Crowley growled in mock exasperation. “Come on kids, gather ‘round for story time. Angel, why don’t you start.”

Aziraphale miracled glasses for Eric and Muriel and said “Well, in the beginning, he was a wiley old serpent, and I was, technically, on apple tree duty…” 

Chapter Text

It was moments like these when Aziraphale began to have serious doubts about the durability of his corporation. He may be a celestial entity and therefore very difficult, if not downright impossible to kill, but he was quite certain that if his corporation were to fly headlong out of a windscreen at 110 miles per hour, he would find himself discorporated, perhaps permanently. 

“For Heaven’s sake, Crowley! Slow down!” 

“I don’t do anything for Heaven’s sake, angel. You ought to know that by now.”

“For my sake, then! You’re going to get us killed.”

“Oh, come off it! I’m barely speeding.”

“One hundred and ten miles per hour is not 'barely speeding!'” Aziraphale braced a hand against the roof of the Bentley as Crowley veered into the oncoming lane to barrel past a lorry. “It’s a flagrant flouting of all known laws of common sense, decency, and traffic!” 

“Decency? Driving fast is indecent now, is it?”

“Tremendously so! Positively obscene!” Aziraphale clutched his chest, closed his eyes, and sent up a silent prayer in spite of himself as Crowley passed another lorry, narrowly avoiding collision with oncoming traffic to do so. 

“I’ve never really gone in for decency, to be honest.”

“That still leaves common sense and traffic!”

Crowley made one of his incomprehensible noises. One that might have been agreement, dissent, or merely exasperation, not even God herself would be able to discern. 

“Anthony J. Crowley, slow down at once! Please! There’s no guarantee of a new body for either of us if we get discorporated.” 

Crowley gave a long-suffering sigh but relented. The Bentley slowed down to a conservative 90 miles per hour. 

“Honestly,” Aziraphale said, adjusting his bowtie and relaxing slightly. “I don’t know why you won’t let me drive.”

“No one but me is driving my Bentley while I am in it,” Crowley said, not for the first time. “Besides, if you were driving, we wouldn’t get there until next week.”

“But we’d get there in one piece.”

“ I’ll get us there in one piece. Have a little faith, angel. Nearly a century I’ve had this car and I’ve never crashed her, not once.”

“Except for the time you hit a bicyclist. Or the time the whole car exploded.”

“There were extenuating circumstances both times and you know it! Neither was my fault!”

“Oh, really? I’ll ask Anathema when we get there then, shall I? We’ll see whose fault she thinks it was.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Crowley muttered as he turned, tired screeching, down the road that would, as the sign proclaimed, take them to Tadfield.

Crowley had the idea of a trip to Tadfield when he first had the idea of tour guides for the Whickbar Street Cultural Exchange Faire. Aziraphale had whole heartedly agreed that letting angels and demons wander aimlessly in SoHo was an altogether unwise idea, but guides seemed a bit unrealistic. They agreed they could only ask humans who were already in the know about them and that list was rather limited.

  Nina was the one who suggested they recruit as many humans as guides as they could for a “soft opening” of the faire. Then, if any angels and demons who came to that were interested, they could return as guides for the subsequent days. The Faire was going to have to be a week-long event at least if they were to show all the angels and demons they’d recruited the wonders of life on Earth. Muriel and Eric had been particularly adept at their jobs, but although he and Crowley were thrilled at their success, they had barred them from trips to Heaven for the time being after their run-in with Sandalphon the day before. 

So, it was that they were on their way to Tadfield to speak with Anathema and Newt to drum up as many human helpers as they could for the big day. It had required a minor miracle to get a hold of them. Crowley and Aziraphale hadn’t bothered to keep in touch and Aziraphale had worried that the young couple would have forgotten all about them in the intervening years, but evidently, twarting Armageddon isn’t something one just forgets. In fact, Anathema had been suspiciously unsurprised when he’d called. 

Jasmine Cottage was as charming as Aziraphale remembered, even more so, now that the front garden had been transformed into a labyrinth of herbs and medicinal plants. Aziraphale could see bundles of them drying in the windows of the cottage as he made his way to the front door. Anathema opened the door before he could knock, her high-necked lacey blouse and severe black glasses rather at odds with the broad smile she wore. 

“Aziraphale! How nice to see you again, but of course, it was foretold.” She opened the door wider to let them in. “Leave the belladonna alone, if you don’t mind, Crowley. You’ll kill yourself. Or rather, you probably won't kill yourself , but you may inadvertantly kill someone else, and that really would be a shame.”

Crowley stepped back from where he’d been toying with a bush bedecked in dusky purple flowers and black berries. He hastily wiped his hands on his jeans and followed Aziraphale over the threshold. He gasped in pained surprise as he did, the sound of it almost, but not quite, muffled the hissing of a horseshoe burning red-hot into the doorframe above them. 

“Oh, sorry about that,” Anathema said. “I tried to have it removed, but it’s well and truly embedded into the wood at this point. Dog hates it. Poor thing won’t cross the threshold unless Adam makes him.” 

Which, evidently, Adam had, if the terrier that came bolting out of the sitting room to yap at them was anything to judge by. 

“Bad, Dog! Get back here!” came a voice, followed by a golden-haired young man who could only be Adam Young. The former antichrist had grown into a strapping young lad of 16, beyond him, Aziraphale could see three other teenagers, two boys and a young lady, occupying Anathema’s sitting room. Newt was there as well, passing out tea to an elderly couple that Aziraphale immediately recognized as Sargent Shadwell and Madame Tracey.

“Cooee, Mr. Fell!” Madam Tracy called when she spotted them, her many beaded bracelets clacking together as she waved. “And Mr. Crowley too, how nice! The gang’s all here.”

“Anathema, my dear! You’ve outdone yourself! I only expected you and young Newt,” Aziraphale said to their host. 

“I know, but you’ll need all of us. Just like before.”

“Is that right?” Crowley said with a mix of amusement and discomfort. “You don’t even know what we’ve come here to ask.”

“Oh, I do,” Anathema said matter-of-factly. “But they don’t, so why don’t you both sit down and explain it properly.”

So they did.

“Of course, we’ll help, Mr. Fell.” Madame Tracy said the moment they finished. 

“I cannae say I like it, cavortin’ with deevils and such like. But, if the Jezabel is a goin’, then I cannae very well let‘er goo it aloon.” Said Shadwell, his odd accent grating unpleasantly against Aziraphale’s ears.

“Let me get this straight,” said the girl. Pepper, she was called, if Aziraphale remembered correctly. “You plan to save the world… with brunch?”

“Well, not just br—“

“Oh come on, Pep,” said Adam. “We’ll be tour guides for real demons. I reckon that’s gotta be more interesting than anything we could get up to in old Tadfield.”

“Yeah!” One of the boys, Brian, Aziraphale thought, chimed in. “I’ll bet they’ll look mad! With funny eyes and fangs and, and tentacles or something.”

“Actually,” said the third boy. Aziraphale couldn’t recall his name, but he thought inexplicably of cheese, “demons are meant to have cloven hooves and horns.”

“I don’t know,” Pepper said skeptically, eyeing Aziraphale and Crowley. “They’re real demons and they just look like stuffy adults.”

“ I am an angel ,” Aziraphale corrected her with poorly concealed outrage.

Beside him, he could hear Crowley grinding his teeth.

“And I’m not stuffy,” he growled with a menace that silenced any further comments from the Them. 

In the end, they all agreed to help. Anathema walked Aziraphale and Crowley to the door while the kids helped Newt clear up their tea. 

“Thank you again, my dear, for everything,” Aziraphale said. “And I’m ever so grateful you had the foresight to invite everyone and save us the extra trips.”

“It wasn’t foresight. Or rather, it was, just not mine.”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

“Agnes told me to,” she said, as if being instructed by a long-since exploded seventeenth-century witch to invite a gaggle of unlikely heroes to tea was a normal and obvious explanation.

“Ah, I should have guessed. Only, I thought her prophecies were all fulfilled.”

“They were,” Anathema said, a note of bitterness creeping into her voice. “She sent more the day after,” she waved a hand vaguely, “everything. I tried to burn them—“

“You tried to do what ?” Aziraphale blanched.

“Burn them. But Agnes saw through that easily enough. The manuscript appeared on my doorstep again the next day. Good as new.” 

“Do they say anything important?” Aziraphale said in a hushed voice, his mouth practically watering at the thought of a whole manuscript of unread Agnes Nutter prophecies.

“I’m sure they say everything important, but I’m still deciphering them. The only one that was clear to me was prophecy 2.1 ‘When the Angel of the Eastern Gate calleth upon thee, summon the Great Beast and and his Lesser Beasts and the witch and her finder. Summon them all to thine table to drink tea and speaketh of brunch.’ So, when you called, inviting everyone else just seemed like the thing to do.”

“Oh my,” said Aziraphale, deeply impressed.

Anathema shrugged. “But, as I said. That’s the only one I’ve worked out. The rest are even more nonsensical.”

Aziraphale would never steal, but he understood for the first time ever what Crowley meant when he said his hands were itching to nick something. A persistent tingling had indeed spread through his fingers which were clenching and unclenching involuntarily, as if the muscles were imagining themselves gripping the pages of that glorious manuscript. He licked his lips, swallowed, and tried to school his features into polite helpfulness instead of covetous greed.

“You know, my dear,” he said, “if you’re having a tough go of it, I’d be more than happy to—“

“The last thing you need is more books to read, angel,” Crowley growled into his ear. “Let Book Girl worry about the prophecies. S’what she does.”

Aziraphale’s heart sunk a bit. He knew Crowley had a point, but he couldn’t stop himself from saying, “Well, do let me know if you require any assistance, Anathema, dear. 

He could feel Crowley rolling his eyes at him, but Anthema smiled, nodded, and waved them on.

“Finally,” Crowley sighed. “Can we get on?”

Aziraphale waved at Anathema as Crowley steered him towards the Bentley. “Thank you again, my d—“

“Get in, angel,” Crowley opened the door with a venom Aziraphale did not understand and held it for him. 

They drove in silence for some time. Crowley drove at a reasonable speed, reasonable for Crowley at any rate, but there was a mood in car. Tension thick as storm clouds hung over them, evident in the uncharacteristically stiff set of Crowley’s shoulders, the way his hands gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles, and the grim downturn of his mouth. Aziraphale was perplexed by it. They’d had, as far as he was concerned, a rather pleasant afternoon in which they had more than accomplished the goal they’d set out with. He couldn’t place where all this surliness had come from.

“Is everything alright, my love?”

“Ngk,” Crowley shrugged. The motion was jerky and unnatural. 

“You’re prickly all of a sudden and I can’t imagine why--”

“Can’t you?”

That caught Aziraphale off guard. Was he supposed to already know the reason for Crowley’s foul mood? Was he the reason for it? 

“No, my dear, I really can’t. We got all eight of them to agree to be guides, that’s more than we’d hoped for. All the plans for the faire are coming alone nicely. I don’t know what there is for you to be so,” he waved a hand vaguely in Crowley’s direction, “about.”

A muscle in Crowley’s jaw twitched, but he didn’t say anything. 

“Well, if you’re not prepared to talk about it, can we at least--”

“Does it bother you that I’m a demon?”

Aziraphale had been prepared for almost anything. Anything, except that. 

“No, it doesn’t bother me that you’re a demon. What else are you supposed to be, an aardvark?”

“Or an angel?”

What? Aziraphale was missing something. Something important. Only, he had no idea where he’d missed it. 

“Crowley, where is this coming from? I told you when I came back that I never needed you to be an angel. I have only ever needed you to be happy.”

“You’ve been mistaken for a demon twice in twenty-four hours and both times you reacted with such-- such-- I dunno. Disgust? You couldn’t let it stand for a second could you? How dare anyone mistake the holier-than-thou-art Aziraphale for a lowly, mangy demon?” 

“Darling, that’s not the way I meant it. I didn’t like being mistaken for a demon because--”

“We’re damned? Fallen? Unforgivable?”

“Let me finish!” 

Aziraphale laced the words with his divine authority. Perhaps not the most sensitive decision, given the topic, but it had the desired effect of cowing Crowley into silence. Aziraphale watched as he slumped in his seat slightly, hand still gripping the wheel far more tightly than was necessary, muscle still twitching in his jaw, but silent. Aziraphale paused to make sure he would remain that way and took a few breaths to steady himself. 

“I don’t like it in the same way a Welshman wouldn’t like it if an American tourist mistook him for a Scotsman just because they couldn’t tell the difference between the accents. The Welshman might have nothing against Scots in general. He might even be completely, incurably, arse-over-tits in love with a Scotsman.”

Crowley’s mouth quirked up a little at Aziraphale's use of the vulgar colloquialism. 

“But he still wouldn’t like it,” Aziraphale continued. “He would still be quick to correct the American because even if there is nothing inherently offensive about Scots or being mistaken for one, it is simply not what he is.” 

Aziraphale watched Crowley’s vice-grip on the steering wheel relax and some of the tension leaked out of him. 

“I am an angel, and for all that Heaven has done to fail us both, I am still proud of who and what I am,” Aziraphale reached over to rest his hand on Crowley’s thigh. “But I am sorry that I caused you distress. It was never my intention.” 

Crowley reached down to claim Aziraphale’s hand and bring it to his mouth for a kiss. 

“I know, angel,” he said, keeping their hands firmly clasped and moving his thumb across the back of Aziraphale’s in soothing circles. “I just got… I dunno. Too in my own head about it, I guess.” 

It was Aziraphale’s turn to bring Crowley’s hand up for a kiss. “It’s quite understandable, my dear.” 

They drove again for some time in silence, but this time the mood was lighter now. Peaceful. Crowley’s hand dropped Aziraphale’s and moved instead to his thigh, stroking lightly along his inseam in a way that made Aziraphale’s trousers feel suddenly tighter. Aziraphale shifted in his seat, hoping to find a position that made his predicament slightly less obvious. They were driving, after all, and it wouldn’t do to get distracted. But, Crowley had already spotted it and was already tracing his long fingers over the growing bulge in Aziraphale’s trousers. 

“Watch the road, Crowley,” Aziraphale said in a breathy voice that fooled absolutely no one. 

“I am watching the road,” the demon purred. 

His eyes were indeed trained on the road in front of him, at least as far as Aziraphale could tell, his glasses were somewhat obstructive. His hand, however, was still palming the front of Aziraphale’s trousers, increasing in pressure and gliding along his aching cock in long, slow strokes. Aziraphale groaned as one particularly enthusiastic grind of Crowley’s palm sent a wave of carnal need shuddering through him. 

“You know, angel,” Crowley’s touches turned light and teasing again, “We never did finish what we started in the shower yesterday.”

“No, I don’t suppose we did,” 

“And the house will be well crowded now that Eric and Muriel aren’t going on missions,” Crowley’s fingertips ghosted over the outline of Aziraphale’s cock, barely more than a tickle.

“Yes, I suppose it will,” Aziraphale laid his hand on top of Crowley’s and thrust up into it, chasing the firmer pressure from a moment ago.

“So we should probably pull over now, shouldn’t we?” Crowley curled his hand around Aziraphale’s cock as much as the trousers would allow and gave him a couple of rough strokes that made Aziraphale cry out. 

“Yes, I suppose we should,” Aziraphale licked his lips and shot Crowley a look of pure, molten lust. “Right now, please.”

Crowley pulled his hand away and returned it to the steering wheel, all of his concentration on getting to a good, secluded turnout as soon as possible. Aziraphale, too aroused to be scandalized by Crowley’s devilish driving, leaned over to press a heated kiss to his beloved’s jaw. Aziraphale made a trail of kisses down Crowley’s neck, his hand reaching over to undo the buttons on his black, leather waistcoat, and eventually the snakehead buckle of his belt. 

“Angel, I’m driving,” Crowley cautioned.

“Then stop driving,” Aziraphale nipped his earlobe, “because you have approximately sixty seconds before I have my way with you whether this car is still moving or not.”

Crowley veered down a deserted side road and found a small turnout, semi-secluded within a grove of trees. He turned the car off and turned to claim Aziraphale’s mouth in a kiss. Aziraphale felt Crowley’s hand tangle in his hair as the demon’s tongue licked into his mouth and swirled around his own. Aziraphale moaned and responded in kind. Crowley’s hands went to his bow tie and pulled it free of his collar.

It was moments like these when Aziraphale regretted wearing so many layers and missed the rather more accessible fashions of millennia gone by. Crowley was working on the buttons of his waistcoat when Aziraphale thought, bugger this , and snapped his fingers. They were both transported to the back seat. Their clothes remained in neatly folded piles of the front seat. Aziraphale hauled Crowley into his lap and ran his fingers through his soft red curls, pulling his mouth down for another kiss. 

Aziraphale ran his hands along Crowley’s shoulders, down his back, across his ribs, exploring, savoring, memorizing the sharp edges of him. After six thousand years of wanting Aziraphale was still in awe of the miracle that was Crowley, the beauty of him. It was almost inconceivable to him that the demon, naked and writhing in his lap was not a dream or a particularly vivid fantasy. That he was simply allowed to touch and be touched would never cease to thrill him.

Crowley, as ever, was deliciously responsive, moaning and shuddering at every feather-light caress. Each groan and gasp went straight to Aziraphale’s cock until it wept with want, little beads of precum smearing across the smooth planes of Crowley’s stomach. 

Aziraphale felt when Crowley grew impatient, felt when his kisses grew demanding and his hands insistent. With a sharp bite to Aziraphale’s lower lip, Crowley grabbed his hands and moved them to cup his arse. Taking the hint, Aziraphale circled a miraculously slick finger around the ring of muscle waiting for him there. Crowley groaned low in his throat and Aziraphale held their cocks together with his other hand, teasing them both as he pushed his finger inside.

“Fuck, angel,” Crowley growled. “Give me another.”

“Eager thing.” Aziraphale sucked a bruise into Crowley’s neck and added a finger.

“You have no idea,” Crowley bared down on the fingers in his arse, “M’dying for you, angel. It’d be embarrassing if I didn’t love you so much.”

“Oh, I love you too, my darling,” 

Aziraphale sucked more love bites into Crowley’s neck and added a third finger, curling them just so to brush against the bundle of nerves inside him. Crowley’s back arched and he nearly came off Aziraphale’s lap with an incoherent stream of consonants and expletives. Crowley was too tall and the Bentley’s ceiling too low for this to have been possible, but Aziraphale had taken precautions we he’d miracled them back here, commanding the car to accommodate its shape to suit whatever thrashing and squirming Crowley did under his ministrations. 

Crowley writhed on him, their cocks still clasped in the hand that wasn’t fingering Crowley’s arse. Every roll and slide of his beloved’s body against him added to the pressure building in his abdomen until he thought he might burst.

“Oh, my dearest, you are so perfect,” Aziraphale murmured into Crowley’s neck, his breaths shallow and gasping. Crowley, for his part, seemed to have lost his grasp on human speech with the third finger. Aziraphale loved being coherent when Crowley was coming apart. He loved being able to watch his beloved reduced to a shaking whimpering mess while he remained relatively unaffected and more than a little smug about it. “You’re so beautiful and you take my fingers so well. Will you take my cock as sweetly, I wonder?”

“Ssstop teasssing and find out,” Crowley hissed, his voice shaking as if every word were a challenge to enunciate.

Aziraphale pulled his fingers out, lined himself up with Crowley’s entrance, and slowly lowered his beloved down. Crowley buried his face in Aziraphale’s shoulder as he was breached, muffling the mixture of hissing and cursing he uttered. Aziraphale’s grip on his mental faculties grew tenuous as Crowley sheathed around him, enveloping him in pressure and heat that sent delicious waves of pleasure rolling through him. When they were fully seated, Aziraphale tangled a hand in Crowley’s hair and pulled his head back so he could look into his golden eyes. 

“Don’t hide from me, my love,” Azieaphale cupped one sharp cheek and brushed his thumb across Crowley’s kiss-bitten lips. His eyes were blown wide and vulnerable. They were undoubtedly the most beautiful eyes Aziraphale had ever seen. “Look at me while you take your pleasure.”

Crowley nodded and moved on him. Aziraphale met each one of his movements with a thrust of his own, each of which wound the tension in his body tighter. Crowley dug his nails into his shoulder and Aziraphale keened, driving himself harder into his beloved’s body. Crowley bit his lip and looked like he wanted to throw his head back in ecstasy, but he kept his gaze locked on Aziraphale like he’d been instructed.

“Oh, angel. You feel so-- so—” Crowley’s eyes flitted to look out the rear window behind Aziraphale’s head, just for a second. His expression changed from one of bliss to one of horror so fast Aziraphale almost didn’t catch it. “Oh, shit. Ohshitohshitohshitohshit.”

Crowley pulled himself off of Aziraphale, snapping as he went. Aziraphale felt his clothes materialize back onto his body. He barely had time to register the strange turn of events before he was ducking sideways to avoid collision with one of Crowley’s boots as he dove back into the driver’s seat. 

Aziraphale twisted around to look out the rear window and saw Sandalphon standing directly behind the Bentley, leering down at them. 

“Oh, fuck!”

Chapter Text

Aziraphale wrenched the Bentley’s door open and all his angelic rage proceeded him out of it. He ignored Crowley’s sputtering protests as he stepped out of the car with eyes only for Sandalphon. The other angel was positively gleeful at having found them in such a compromising position. Until, of course, Aziraphale set him flying back across the clearing with a smite of divine energy.

A satisfied smile curled his lips as he watched Sandalphon collide with a tree. The sickening crunch was more pleasing to his ears than any Shostakovich symphony. Aziraphale waited patiently for the other angel to find his footing before sending him flying again with another smite. There was a vindictive sort of pleasure coiling in his chest, tingling through his arms along with his divine energy. Aziraphale knew he shouldn’t be reveling in it, but he’d been turning the other cheek for far too long when it came to Sandalphon and his ilk. 

Sandalphon rose to his feet, looking decidedly less gleeful than he had peering through the rear windscreen of the Bentley. He sent a smite of his own hurtling towards Aziraphale who redirected it away from him and through the trees with half a thought. Sandalphone grinned, but it came off more as a murderous grimace, his gold tooth glittering in the late summer sun. He stretched his arms wide in what could almost be construed as a welcoming gesture. 

“Supreme Archangel, there seems to be a misunderstanding, I’m merely here too--”

Aziraphale smote him again, cutting off whatever slimy excuse the archangel had been about to utter. This time, he did not wait for Sandalphon to find his feet before hurling another smite. He heard the splitting of wood as the other angel collided once more with a tree. A screeching groan echoed through the clearing followed by a litany of crashes as the tree in question fell backwards into its brethren.  

Aziraphale shook with rage so mighty and terribly it could only belong to a celestial being. He could feel the wisps of it curling off his skin. If mortals had been present, they would be cowering at the sight of him, reduced to shaking and babbling husks the way they had in the early days before he learned to properly contain his divinity within his corporation. 

Sandalphon struggled to his feet again, glowing faintly with his own rage. Aziraphale did not care. Let Sandalphon break against him like a storm upon stone. Aziraphale could withstand his thundering for far longer than it would take for the fool to blow himself out. Then, he could return the fire tenfold without even breaking a sweat. He was too powerful now and too angry for this to be an even match and Aziraphale did not care a wit about the unfairness of it. If Sandalphon was foolish enough to test him unprovoked, then Aziraphale would reduce him to ashes for the impertinence. How many people had this being turned to salt in Sodom and Gomorrah? How many times had he delighted in tagging along to the bookshop with Gabriel just to terrorize him? And just now, the way he’d been leering down at him and Crowley, intruding on their happiness, their love, with his slimy malevolence. Surely that had earned him whatever consequences ensued. Surely this was an act of divine justice, rather than vengeance fueled by millennia of loathing and a denied orgasm. 

“Really, Aziraphale? Is such violence necessary?” Michael sneered, as they, Uriel, and Saraquel materialized out of thin air, “He’s only doing his job.”

“Hardly,” Aziraphale said in a clipped voice, his hands still at the ready, his eyes never leaving Sandalphon. “I should know, I’m his superior. And neither he nor the three of you have leave to be gallivanting on Earth.”

“That might mean something to us if we were still taking orders from the likes of you,” Saraquel scoffed 

“Have I been replaced as Supreme Archangel?”

The angels exchanged a look, and Michael said in a voice like acid, “Not as such,”

“Then my directives stand. Back to Heaven, the lot of you.”

Michael pinched in disgust like they’d just bitten into a lemon. “Do you think you’re the only Angel to discover you have free will too? At least we’re using ours to protect Heaven from traitors instead of debasing ourselves with filthy demons.” 

“I don’t consider being with him a debasement, Michael. And neither does the Almighty, otherwise, she would have cast me out long ago.”

“You should try it.,” Crowley cut in from behind him, “The debasement, I mean. It’d help loosen that stick out your arse right quick.” 

“Silence, vermin!”

“Not, bloody likely,” Crowley sauntered around the Bently, hands in his pockets to stand casually next to Aziraphale, who relaxed a fraction at the feeling of his beloved by his side. “What do you wankers want anyway? Fancy being set on fire?”

“Muzzle your dog, Aziraphale,” Uriel growled.

“I think not. I quite like the way he barks,” Aziraphale returned the tone and the knife-sharp smile. “And he makes a good point. What do you want ?”

“We know you were in Heaven yesterday,” Michael said, “we’d like to know why.”

Aziraphale exchanged a look with Crowley and the latter said, “Heaven? We weren’t in Heaven yesterday unless you count the shower, but that was cut--”

Crowley trailed off and he raised an eyebrow almost imperceptibly over his glasses. Aziraphale realized at the same time Crowley did and fought to keep his face neutral.

“Don’t bother denying it,” Sandalphon said, brushing leaves and twigs off his suit as he rejoined the archangels. “I caught you both in the elevator.” 

“Oh, yes, that’s right, angel. We were in Heaven yesterday. For the erm--”

“No one is talking to you, demon!” Michael shrieked. 

Crowley made a show of looking around, “Which demon were you talking to just now, then?”

Michael gave him a look that might have killed him if he were mortal, then turned their attention back to Aziraphale. 

“Why were you in Heaven yesterday?”

“Well we were just, erm,” Aziraphale glanced towards Crowley. He was really so much better at improvising, but he seemed content to grin maniacally at the archangels. “Clearing out my desk. I left in rather a hurry and didn’t get the chance to collect my personal effects.”

“Angels aren’t allowed ‘personal effects,’ Aziraphale,” Michael said, sweetly.

“Well, he’s never been one for rules, my angel,” Crowley purred, in exactly the same affectionate tone of voice he used to gush about his garden. Aziraphale may as well have been an uncommonly lush begonia. 

Michael glared from one to the other of them, shark’s smile firmly in place, “You never had any personal effects. The Metatron took everything you brought in.” 

“What I had or didn’t have was never any concern of yours,” Aziraphale said dryly. “Neither are my reasons for being in Heaven, to be frank. I am still Supreme Archangel, as you have just confirmed. I had business in my office and I conducted it. If it were at all pertinent to you, I would have informed you as such.”

Michael kept glaring, eyes squinting shrewdly and watching them signs of a lie. The other archangels flanking them mimicked the expression. “You don’t have business in Heaven any longer, Aziraphale. You are no longer welcome in our home. Your still being Supreme Archangel is an oversight that will be remedied shortly.”

“Will it?” Aziraphale asked lightly. “The Metatron wasted no time at all in appointing me after Gabriel quit. It’s been weeks since I left, and he still has you as mere duty officer. Why is that, do you think? Perhaps he finds your qualifications lacking.”

Aziraphale let the insult hang and saw it land in the smallest of flinches in Michael’s jaw. They kept their composure, however, their lethal smile still plaster in place as they simpered, “I don’t trust you. Either of you.”

“The feeling is entirely mutual, I assure you.”

The air around them was heavy. Tense. Like the air before a thunderstorm. The world was just holding its breath before the downpour. Every angel, including the fallen one, looked casually unaffected. So much so that the unsuspecting onlooker might believe this to be a chance encounter of old acquaintances. But the tells were in the preternatural stillness of their postures and the glassy falseness of their smiles. This was a chance encounter of power kegs all poised to blow at the slightest provocation.

Michael’s mouth gave a humorless quirk. “You know, four against two is quite good odds, if I were, as the humans say, a betting man.”

Aziraphale quirked an eyebrow up at them. “Do you think so? Even after Sandalphon’s impeccable impression of an errant football just now? Even after the last time you four faced Crowley and we almost had cause to bring out the marshmallows and roasting forks?” 

“You’re outnumbered, Aziraphale,” Michael hissed. 

“Shax said that too, I think,” Crowley said, shifting slightly to put himself more in between the archangels and Aziraphale “Where’s she these days, I wonder?”

Aziraphale felt a rush of fondness for his beloved and his constant desire to protect him. It was sweet but wholly unnecessary. He took a deliberate step in front of Crowley and loosened his control over his divinity until he could see the faint glow emitting from him in his peripheral vision. He could feel the holy fire dancing behind his eyes, eyes that suddenly seemed to have multiplied exponentially. He watched the expressions of the archangels shift. An almost imperceptible filter of uncertainty washed over the faces as they beheld him, the Supreme Archangel of Heaven, pulling back the curtain of his human corporation just enough for them to glimpse the being within. 

“If we are to have it out now, let’s stop dithering and be done with it,” he said, his voice an echoing cacophony of whispers and screams. “It’s true you have the numbers, Michael, but I still like my odds and I am , as they say, a betting man.”

He let the words hang in the air which was now crackling with divine energy and soft peals of thunder. Michael and their cronies looked murderous, but the slight shift in their posture betrayed their fear. 

“This isn’t over, traitor,” Michael said in their sing-song voice through a saccharine smile. “We will have it out before too long, you and I. And when that happy day comes, I will delight to hear your screams echo across the Heavens, sweeter than any celestial harmony.”

The archangels vanished as suddenly as they appeared. Aziraphale pulled himself back into his corporation and adjusted his waistcoat. When the last of the divine energy dissipated, he turned to face Crowley. He meant to say they needed to be heading back. They needed to reevaluate their plans and confer with Eric and Muriel on stealthier ways of recruiting. But all that died on his tongue when he saw Crowley gazing at him. He had slipped his dark glasses off so Aziraphale could see that his eyes were not wide with concern or fear, but dark and hungry with lust.

“ Bless me, that was hot,” Crowley said rush of breath, running his hand through his hair. “You really ought to do that when we’re alone sometime, angel.” 

Aziraphale preened at his beloved’s barely controlled tone and closed the distance between them. He pulled Crowley closer but his ridiculous silver scarf and caressed his jawline. 

“Oh, my love,” he purred against his lips. “I really don’t know if you’d survive it.”

Crowley’s hand came up to twine through Aziraphale’s hair. “Don’t care. M’gonna enjoy finding out.”

“You will.” Aziraphale pressed a chaste kiss to his lips. “But not right now. Come! We have work to do.”

He extricated himself from their embrace and settled himself primly in the passenger seat of the Bentley. He bit back a smile when Crowley groaned, “fucking cocktease” under his breath as he climbed in beside him.

Chapter Text

Muriel materialized on a cobbled street amid rows of closely built stone buildings with strings of lights and laundry woven between them. The warm, salt-soaked air kissed her face and she inhaled deeply. Finally, finally, finally out of the house. Finally on a mission again. Finally feeling useful again instead of puttering around the house waiting for… something, anything to break the monotony and keep the feeling of failure at bay. 

Mr. Fell and Mr. Crowley had come back from their trip to Tadfield a week earlier in much the same manner as Muriel has returned from her most recent trip to Heaven, with good news and bad news. The good news had been excellent. They had returned from Tadfield with far more tour guide volunteers than they had hoped for. But the bad news… well, the bad news had been bad.

“They think the intruders they caught were Aziraphale and me, but they’re going to be extra careful now. Bees are infamously protective of their hives, after all,” Mr. Crowley had said.

“What do bees have to do with anything?” Eric asked, looking up at his fellow demon, completely lost.

“It’s an analogy and not a particularly good one,” Mr. Fell said, rolling his eyes. “The point is that there will be no more missions to Heaven for either of you. I think I managed to make them think twice about coming after us just yet, but we cannot provoke them further. Not until after the Faire, when we will hopefully have some allies on our side.”

Muriel had kept her eyes fixed on the floor while they spoke, her stomach sinking like a lead balloon. It didn’t matter how many times they reassured her that it wasn’t her fault, that they weren’t upset, and that she had already done more than enough recruiting, she couldn’t fight the feeling gnawing at her insides. She had had one job. Sneak into Heaven and recruit as many angels as possible, and she’d failed spectacularly. She’d gotten caught, nearly blown their entire plan, and ruined her chances of returning to finish her one job. She was so disappointed in herself that she was sure she would burst with the shame of it. 

Mr. Crowley had picked up on her distress almost immediately. He’d punched her shoulder lightly and said, “Cheer up, inspector. You’re not on the bench. Not really. It’s just too risky now and we couldn’t bear to lose you.” 

His kindness, so rarely bestowed to anyone other than Mr. Fell, had made her feel, if possible, worse. He should not have to comfort her over her failure. She should have simply been better. 

For the first few days, Muriel had tried to keep herself busy with her daffodils, but there wasn’t much that needed doing. Then she’d tried reading one of Mr. Fell’s books and watching one of Mr. Crowley’s shows, but each occupation felt more stilted and forced than the last. Books and shows weren’t nearly as much fun when she enjoyed them alone. She liked having someone to read the funny parts too, someone to point out ‘Easter eggs’ in the shows and offer tidbits of trivia. She liked books and shows, but she liked them best with Eric.  

Eric spent a lot of time away from the cottage on missions since he hadn’t totally bungled his job like she had. Muriel missed him when they weren’t together. She missed his bright smile and silly jokes. She missed the way his hand felt in hers, although they hadn’t actually held hands since the day they had been caught in Heaven. She felt easier with him around. She felt easy with Mr. Fell and Mr. Crowley too, but not in the same way. Being with them was comfortable. Being with Eric was like breathing, so easy she almost forgot about it, but it ached when she stopped. She had been having these thoughts over the last few weeks of the demon’s acquaintance and was not prepared to examine further, for fear she knew what they meant. 

Finally, the opportunity to get out of the house arrived. Mr. Fell and Mr. Crowley had sent Eric to retrieve some additional records from Hell and now that they had the information they needed, there were missions to be done that didn’t involve going to either head offices. 

“We realized we have an untapped source of potential recruits,” Mr. Crowley had told her before she left, “It’s a little embarrassing we didn’t think of this earlier, actually. But we should be checking to see if Heaven and Hell’s other field agents have gotten as comfortable as Aziraphale and I did. Aziraphale was able to compile a list of Heaven’s agents from memory, but we needed Eric to retrieve Hell’s list.”

“Surprised you didn’t know them already,” Eric said. “That was your department, after all. You’ve been the top-performing tempter since the beginning.”

Mr. Crowley winced. “Which means they all know me, but not necessarily the other way around. ‘Fraid I never was one for standing around the hellfire fountains, chatting up my coworkers after meetings,” he paused thoughtfully and smiled, “was always in too much of a hurry to get back to Earth and chat up an angel.”

“Rather irresponsible of you, in retrospect. Don’t you think, my dear?” Mr. Fell tutted reprovingly. 

“Don’t pretend you didn’t love it.”

Muriel blushed as Mr. Crowley leaned in to plant a kiss on Mr. Fell’s cheek. 

“So where are you sending us?” she asked. 

“Naples.” Mr. Crowley replied. “The demon and angel assigned to the Mediterranean are Minos and Samael. They’ve been there for the last thousand years or so, and their reports have been coming in on time, but neither of them has done anything that significant for the last several centuries. Minos took credit for the Western Schism, and Samael took credit for most of the Renaissance, even though I know for a fact they had nothing to do with it. I never even sensed them there, let alone saw them doing anything. Leo certainly never mentioned anything about them.”

Mr. Fell’s brow creased a bit at the mention of this “Leo,” but Mr. Crowley continued on without noticing. 

“But since then, they’ve both been strangely inactive. Minos didn’t even take credit for Mussolini, and that was seriously low-hanging fruit. But, according to the record, they’re both still there. They’ve never applied for a transfer or promotion, so…”

“You think they’re comfortable,” Muriel finished. 

“It’s Italy. They’ve got the best wine, the best art, the best weather--”

“The best oysters,” Mr. Fell said, gazing at Mr. Crowley with a dreamy, far-away look.

Mr. Crowley smiled fondly at him. “Holed up in a little seaside villa with a view of the Mediterranean. Doing just enough to keep themselves out of trouble, but otherwise flying under the radar.” Crowley shrugged, “Sounds pretty comfortable to me.” 

Eric materialized beside Muriel, staggering a bit as he reacquainted himself with being solid once more.

“I’ve always hated traveling like that. It reminds me too much of being discorporated,” he said with a shudder. 

“We can get back the human way if you’d prefer,” Muriel offered. 

“Nah, I’ll be alright. Thanks, though,” he said. Then he straightened up and looked around at the mishmash of brightly colored doors set into pale beige stone. “According to the records, Minos operates out of a villa on top of a hill overlooking the sea. I think he must have written his own entry. It reads just like a real estate listing.” Eric rolled his eyes, “The show off.”

Odd coincidence, Muriel thought. Aziraphale had told her that Samael was also working out of a hilltop villa. But, she supposed, this place probably had a lot of hilltops and a lot of villas. If she was assigned here, she would probably choose to make her home in a similar place. Or perhaps, she looked around, perhaps she would prefer to make her home somewhere else. Somewhere like this crowded cobblestone street, with its cozy houses tucked up against each other, surrounded by the smell of good food cooking and sounds of music and people going about their busy lives. A hilltop villa would be a little too remote and removed from everything. She’d get lonely, she decided, in a big villa all by herself. 

“If it’s at the top of the hill, we should probably head that way,” Muriel pointed to one end of the cobblestone street that slanted steadily upwards before disappearing around a sharp corner, presumably to double back on itself as it wound its way up the hillside. 

“Alright, then,” Eric said with a smile. He took her hand and they set off together. 

An hour later, Muriel’s breath was coming in ragged, gulping gasps. The stitch in her side was painful and she and Eric had been forced to stop holding hands as their corporations had become too hot and sticky for physical contact. But, the crowded rows of buildings had thinned out and given way to a rocky hillside dotted with scrubby bushes and olive trees. They had a breathtaking view of the sea from here, sapphire and sparkling in the midday sun. Ahead of them stood a villa built from creamy white stone with stately columns and long arching windows. 

“That’s it,” Eric wheezed. “That has to be it because I think I might discorporate if it’s not.”

They stood in front of the large double doors catching their breath for a moment before they knocked. The knock echoed and reverberated, but went unanswered. They knocked again to similar results. 

“You’ve gotta be joking,” Eric muttered. “Did we get the wrong villa? Or is the bastard just not home?” 

“Maybe they’ve just--” The sound of a giggle that dissolved into a breathy moan floated over the garden wall to their left. “--stepped outside.” 

They approached the garden wall, straining their ears for more indications that the demon was on the other side.

“Oh, amore. The things you do to me,” said a voice, ragged and breathless. 

“What do I do to you? Tell me and be specific, like a good little demon,” said a second, equally wrecked voice. 

“Oh. They have company,” Eric jerked his ear away from the wall, looking wide-eyed and uncomfortable at Muriel.

“What are they doing?” she asked. 

Eric blushed furiously. “Us time.”

It was Muriel’s turn to blush. “Maybe we should go and come back la--”

“Oh, Samael. You make me--”

“SAMAEL!” Muriel gasped and clapped her hands over her mouth. “They’re. They’ve. I mean they’re. Us time!? Like-- like.”

“Crowley and Aziraphale,” Eric finished, looking at the wall with mildly disgusted shock. “Crowley was right. They’ve gotten well comfortable.”

From over the wall came a litany of cursing and the sounds of two people fumbling and crashing around, presumable separating from a compromising position and scrambling to find clothes. 

“What is it, amore?”

“An angel! A fucking angel! I can’t believe I didn’t sense them!”

“But, but, they don’t check in! They never check in! They always--- Merde!”

“What?”

“A demon! An angel and a demon!” 

“We’re fucked. What do we do?”

“Run for it?”

“Where? They’re here now. They’re probably listening to this whole conversation!”

“I don’t know, but we can’t just sit here and let them destroy us!”

“We’re not here to destroy you!” Muriel shouted. “You don’t have to be afraid. We’re not here officially. We’re here very very unofficially, actually, and we’d just like to talk. Can you please come round and let us in?”

The angel and the demon on the other side of the wall dropped into furious whispers. Muriel strained to listen but could only catch every other word. Words like “trap” and “probably kill us.”

“It’s not a trap,” Eric called. “We’re not here to kill you. Sorry for bursting in on you like this, but we didn’t realize you’d be together. I promise we’ll explain everything and I promise we won’t hurt you. Just let us in, please.” 

Silence. Save for the wind rustling the branches of the olive trees and the sound of this distant sea. Muriel and Eric exchanged a look, straining their ears for the sounds of the angel and demon making a hasty retreat. 

“We want you to swear by the masters you serve that you mean us no harm,” said one of the voices. 

“I swear we are not here to hurt you,” Muriel said. “I swear by G-- by the Angel of the Eastern Gate.”

“And I swear the same thing by the Serpent of Eden,” said Eric, following Muriel’s lead. 

The front door opened a few moments later and two swarthy, olive-skinned faces peered out at them skeptically. 

The taller of the two, the one with black eyes and a silver septum piercing, held the door open for them and said, “What the Heaven do Crowley and Aziraphale want with us?”

“So you live here together?” Muriel asked a moment later as Samael, a green-eyed angel with honey-brown hair, poured her a glass of chilled white wine. 

“Oh yes, for about the last four and a half centuries,” they said. 

“But this house is an embassy for Hell,” Eric said with a frown. 

“And Heaven,” said Minos, accepting their wine from Samael. 

“But, how?” 

“There are two doors,” Samael explained, taking a seat next to Minos. “The left door is the entrance to Hell’s embassy and the right is the entrance to Heaven’s. 

“But it’s all the same building,” Muriel said, confused. 

“Technically, yes,” Minos said, their black eyes dancing with laughter, “but no one’s ever checked. A thousand years we’ve been stationed here and no one has ever checked in on us.”

“So we could have just walked right in as long as we went through the right doors,” Eric said. 

“No one ever checked?” Muriel asked, “But they checked on Mr. Fell and Mr. Crowley all the time!”

“Yes, well, Aziraphale and Crowley were the senior field agents. And very good at their jobs, or at least they made an effort to appear that way,” Samael took a sip of their wine. “So, they got all the interesting assignments, and all recognition for doing them. Whereas, we just submitted our reports on time, showed up to meetings whenever we were called, and otherwise did our best to let them forget we existed, and they did.”

“Crowley is going to be so mad when he hears this,” muttered Eric. “He worked so hard to slack off and all he had to do was actually slack off from the start.”

“Be glad he didn’t,” Muriel told him, “otherwise Hell would have given the anti-Christ job to someone else and we’d all be on a battlefield right now.”

“Oh, yes. We were thrilled when they managed to thwart the Great Plan and cancel Armageddon,” said Samael. 

“I don’t know what I’d have done if I had to face my Sam across a battlefield. I was so relieved when we were told to stand down,” said Minos. 

“It was the best day of my existence when I came home to find you safe and sound, vita mia,” said Samael, fondly stroking the back of Minos’ hand. 

“Well, they need to do it again,” Muriel said. “Save the world, I mean, but they need help.”

She explained the situation and the plan to Minos and Samael who looked increasingly uncomfortable as she spoke.

“Well, the thing is, we’re not really fighters,” Samael said when she finished. “We prefer a comfortable, quiet existence.”

“I’m not sure how much of an asset we’d be,” Minos added. 

“Everyone is an asset,” Muriel insisted. “We’ll need everyone we can get if it comes to a real fight and we’ll need you especially when convincing the other angels and demons that the Earth is worth fighting for. Your experiences will be invaluable.”

Minos and Samael exchanged a look. Muriel didn’t like that look. It was the look of two people who were emphatically not about to do what she was asking and were looking for the politest possible way to say so. 

“You like your comfortable life with Samael, right Minos?” Eric said with a harsh bite to his tone. “You like living with them in peace and unbothered? You like your big house and your nice view?”

“Yes, we just said as much,” Minos said warily. 

“Would you like it as much if they were on fire?”

“On fire?”

“Or if you were drowned in holy water? Would you like it then?”

Minos sputtered in response. 

“Because that’s what’s coming for you, for all of us, if we fail,” Eric went on, heedless of Minos’s discomfort. “Heaven and Hell want to destroy the world. They want to destroy each other. They’re going to do it unless we stop them and we can only stop them if we get enough people on our side to stand up to them.” He held the other demon’s black gaze for a long moment, then said in a softer tone, “I don’t want to see my angel burn any more than you do. Please help us.”

Minos reflexively grabbed onto Samael’s arm and everyone stared at everyone else for a long, uncomfortable moment. Despite the tension of the moment, Muriel couldn’t help the happy little bubble that rose up inside of her when Eric referred to her as his. 

“Can you promise us that if we help, we’ll be able to come back here and be left alone when it’s all over?”

“Yes,” Muriel said quickly. “I can promise that with 100% certainty. It’s all Mr. Crowley and Mr. Fell want as well. They’re like you. They’re in love and they just want to be left alone so they can enjoy a life together in peace. That’s all they’ve wanted for ages and they’ve never gotten it. You have. You’ve had the last four and a half centuries together with no one checking in on you or demanding too much of you. And they’ve been helping you, inadvertently, but still helping you have that by keeping Heaven and Hell’s attention on them. It’s your turn to pay it back. Help them have what you have.” 

Minos and Samael looked at each other, having the sort of silent conversation that only two beings who knew each other entirely and trusted each other implicitly could have. She had seen Mr. Fell and Mr. Crowley have those kinds of conversations. She hoped maybe one day she would be able to have them with Eric. 

“Alright,” Samael said, not taking their eyes off Minos. “We’ll help. Just tell us what you need us to do.”

“Oh, wonderful!” Muriel said, “We’d love for you to attend the Whickbar--”

“Well, well, well,” said I high, feminine voice with all the warmth of a glacier, “isn’t this a cozy little gathering of TRAITORS!”

Muriel turned to see Shax sauntering into the garden, smiling sharp and lethal. 

“I came to check in on Minos and here I find four little traitors plotting to save their precious world. I can’t wait to drag you all back to Hell. I’m sure Dagon will be thrilled to see you. Satan may even want to deal with you personally.”

Everyone jumped to their feet. Samael put themself in front of Minos and Eric stood in front of Muriel. 

“Signora, I must insist you leave at once. This is an embassy of Heaven and you are not welcome here.”

Shax laughed sweetly. “Oh, if that were true, I wouldn’t have made it through the door. I don’t know what little trick you did on them, but it doesn’t extend to the rest of the house. An unfortunate oversight on your part.”

“You aren’t taking any of us anywhere,” Eric said. “You don’t have the authority.”

“Oh, Eric. Little, pathetic, disposable , Eric. I knew you must be the one moonlighting for that traitor, Crowley, and his little pet. Striker said you retrieved the list of our field agents, only If found out no one had requested it. So, I decided to start checking in on them all to find out what you were up to. I never imagined I’d catch you plotting to overthrow your masters.”

“Did you hear me? You have no authority here, Shax,” Eric scoffed, ignoring her insults. He pointed an accusing finger at Shax and looked like he meant business, but Muriel thought she could hear a faint tremor in his voice that betrayed his fear. “The command you had was temporary. You’re not a Duke of Hell. You’re not on the Dark Council. You’re just a field agent, so piss off.” 

Shax smiled more widely, but her eyes stayed cold and deadly. “No one will care about the authority I may or may not have if I’m turning over traitors and enemies. Besides, I don’t need authority to send you back to Hell. I just need to… encourage you,” she summoned a crackling ball of lightning, “to do what you do best.” 

“No!” 

Muriel was moving on instinct without thought or hesitation. All she knew was that she had seen Eric discorporated by a cruel and callous demon once before and she couldn’t bear it a second time. She pushed him out of the way and charged towards Shax. The demon's eyes danced with glee as she turned her attention to Muriel.

For the first time ever, Muriel drew on her divine energy. She summoned a smite, the power felt unfamiliar and unwieldy in her hand, but she didn’t have time to grow accustomed to it, to shape it, or direct it with any finesse. She just hurled it at Shax with as much force as she could muster. The demon’s shock didn’t have time to fully register on her face before she was thrown backward against the garden wall. Her head cracked sickenly against the stone and she slid to the ground with a dull thud. Her eyes gazed at them unseeing for a moment before her whole body fizzled and burst into sparks. 

Muriel stared at the spot where Shax had disappeared, chest heaving, fingertips sizzling with energy. She flinched when a hand landed on her shoulder, but it was just Eric. He looked at her like he didn’t quite know what to make of her. His brown eyes were blown wide and the hand on her shoulder was shaking. 

“Are you okay?” he asked. 

Muriel nodded shakily, not feeling okay at all. Eric pulled her into a tight hug and Muriel collapsed against him. Letting him hold her up as she trembled in his arms. He stroked her hair and shushed her quietly. 

“Thank you,” he murmured in her ear. “That was the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.”

Someone cleared their throat and Muriel jumped. She turned to see Minos and Samael looking shaken but impressed. 

“I’m sorry,” she said. 

Minos recovered first. “Don’t be sorry. That was the most incredible thing I’ve seen in ages. It’s about time someone gave Shax a good smite.”

“She was really going to drag us to Hell,” said Samael, their voice small and distant. “She was going to bring us before the Grand Duke of Hell or Satan himself. We would have been,” they put a hand over their mouth, “oh, God.”

“Yes, she was,” Muriel said. 

“And you might have been able to say you weren’t conspiring with us.” Eric added. “We would have backed up the fact you only met us today, but, you would still have been caught living together, claiming this house as an embassy for both Heaven and Hell. And that would have been enough for them. They tried to destroy Crowley and Aziraphale after they stopped Amageddeon and neglecting your jobs to carry on a secret relationship with each other is almost as bad. And they know now. As soon as Shax gets a body back, you can bet she’ll be telling Dagon exactly what happened here. The only way to save yourselves now is to help us.”

“We’ve already said we’ll help you,” Samael snapped, offended. “We gave our word and we have no intention of backing out on it. Now we’re just more motivated.”

“Just tell us what you need.”

Muriel sighed with relief. They were helping. She had not mangled this job like she did with the last one. She could report back to Mr. Crowley and Mr. Fell with her head held high. 

 “Thank you,” she said. “You can start by attending the Whickbar Street Cultural Exchange Faire next week.”

Chapter Text

Aziraphale could not sleep.

A restlessness had worked its way into him. The kind of nervous energy that accompanied high-stakes deadlines and made it impossible to sleep. He was not usually inclined to sleep, but tonight he longed for the sweet oblivion of dreams, to close his eyes and let the morning come without the agony of waiting for it. Of course, now that he was more desperate for a nap than he had ever been in his life, sleep would not come. 

Crowley seemed to have no trouble sleeping, judging from the soft snores that drifted from his side of the bed, but then again, Crowley never did have much trouble sleeping. 

Aziraphale rolled over, adjusted the covers, closed his eyes, and tried to think of sheep. But sheep reminded him of wool and wool reminded him of a very handsome damask rug he had seen on display in Brown’s World of Carpets, and Brown’s World of Carpets reminded him of Whickber Street and Whickber Street reminded him that the Whickber Street Cultural Exchange Faire started the day after tomorrow. 

The day after tomorrow. After months of planning and recruiting, second-guessing, and reevaluating it was finally here. There was no more to be done besides set up tomorrow, attend that first day of the faire the day after, and hope. Hope the angels and demons they invited showed up. Hope those angels and demons brought friends. Hope they ordered enough food to serve for brunch. Hope that no brawls broke out. And above all, hope that all this circus was enough to convince angels and demons to fight for Earth instead of against each other. Please, God, let it be enough. 

Aziraphale silently admonished himself. It was no use praying. He no longer believed she was listening.

Aziraphale rolled over again, pulling a pillow over his head and wishing momentarily that it would suffocate him. That he was capable of being suffocated. If he suffocated, then at least he would not have to confront the awful agitation fluttering in his stomach. He wished he could sleep. God, how he wished he could sleep. 

There it was again, that forbidden, fruitless word. Aziraphale gave himself another silent reprimand. She was not here. She could not help him.  

Aziraphale was about to turn yet again when an arm snaked its way over his torso and two legs coiled around one of his own. Crowley's head nestled into the crook of his shoulder and he sighed contentedly against Aziraphale’s neck. The contact settled Aziraphale almost immediately. It did not alleviate all of his worries, that would have taken a real miracle, but his beloved’s arms did bring a sense of peace with them. Crowley was all of his hopes made flesh. All his prayers and all their answers in one body curled against him, sharp edges fitted perfectly against his soft curves, quieting his doubts and reminding him why all the risks were worth it. 

He may not have God’s blessing, but he had Crowley’s. That was all he needed. 

Crowley woke up with his head on his angel’s shoulder and both of his legs wrapped around one of Aziraphale’s thick thighs. It was a perfect way to wake up. When humans spoke of Heaven, Crowley was certain this is what they meant. Safe and warm in their lover’s arms. Not the cold empty thing that Heaven really was. 

Crowley kept his eyes shut tight to stave off the moment when he would actually have to get up from this perfect state of bliss. But, his breathing must have given him away because Aziraphale only gave him ten more minutes before he started his gentle, but insistent nudging. 

“Come now, my wiley, beautiful one,” Aziraphale kissed the top of his head. “We both know you’re already awake. It’s time to get a wiggle on.”

Crowley opened one eye to glare up at his angel. “I don’t ‘get a wiggle on.’ Have you ever seen me wiggle anywhere?”

“Yes. You’re a serpent. Serpents wiggle.”

“We slither!”

“Semantics.” 

“I resent that remark.”

“Resent it all you like, my love,” Aziraphale flipped the comforter off of them and the chilly morning air brushed against Crowley’s bare skin. He tried to burrow deeper into Aziraphale’s side, but the angel was already moving. “As long as you resent it while driving. Chop chop!”

Three hours later, Crowley pulled the Bentley up to the curb outside the bookshop to find all of the other Whickber Street shopkeepers well underway in their preparations for the impending cultural exchange faire. Nina and Maggie stood on ladders on either side of the street hanging a large banner that read “Welcome to the Whickber Street Cultural Exchange Faire.” Mr. Arnold directed a small battalion of workers as they erected a stage at one end of the street where Dev’s band would play in the evenings. Mutt and Justine wrapped strings of lights around lampposts. Mr. Brown flitted around with a clipboard making sure everyone was completing the tasks he had evidently assigned.  

Crowley, Aziraphale, Muriel, and Eric all clambered out of the Bentley. Muriel and Eric immediately scampered off to help with the preparations. Aziraphale and Crowley merely waved at the Whickber Street shopkeepers and ducked into the bookshop. 

On a table, which had been dragged into the center of the bookshop on a previous visit, there sat an array of papers. Lists and diagrams, many of which had been scribbled over or crumpled up. Crowley strode over and snatched the list they’d been working on earlier in the week. On it were about thirty names including his own, Aziraphale, Muriel, Eric, and everyone they spoke to in Tadfield. The rest were the field agents they had spent the last week tracking down. 

The agents had proved an invaluable resource. Crowley had been correct in thinking that the field agents would haven gotten comfortable living on Earth. Although none had gotten quite as comfortable as he and Aziraphale or Minos and Samael. Crowley still felt a flicker of annoyance when he remembered how Muriel and Eric had found the latter pair. Living comfortably together in a hilltop villa in Italy, surrounded by the best wine in the world, fucking in their garden in the middle of the day without a care in the world. Essentially, they were living Crowley’s dream and had been for several centuries. That could have been him and Aziraphale if it had ever seriously occurred to him to throw caution of the wind, except, Aziraphale would never have agreed to it. Crowley was living his dream now, more or less, so there was no point in resenting Minos and Samael their happiness. Especially when the pair had been so helpful to their current cause. 

“Don’t forget to add Caphriel and Arnoch,” Aziraphale said, having deposited his coat on the coat rack and joined Crowley at the table. 

“Did either say they could bring additionals?”

“Yes, both thought they could bring some acquaintances from their former legions.”

This had been the true value of the field agents. Unlike Crowley and Aziraphale who had been on Earth since the beginning, and unlike Muriel and Eric who were unimportant enough to be ignored, the agents had spent most of their existence in their home offices, working their way up to Earth assignments and making connections along the way. Connections, which had now almost tripled their expected turnout for the Whickber Street Cultural Exchange Faire. 

“What does that bring our estimates up to?”

“Nearly ten thousand angels and demons.”

“That’s quite a lot more than we’d planned for.” Crowley bit his lip and rifled through the other papers, invoices for food orders, and maps of Whickber Street with participating shops marked in yellow highlighter. 

“They’ll be spread out over the week. Whickbar Street sees that much business on a normal day. And we’ll have the road blocked off so that will hopefully deter some of our regular clientele.”

“Even still angel.” Crowley rifled through their staging plans for tomorrow. “I’m thinking about the guided groups. We’ll have nearly fifty in each one. Can you imagine the teenagers trying to wrangle 50 demons? Or Shadwell?”

“It won’t be fifty demons. It’s going to be a mix of angels and demons.”

“Oh, yeah. I’m sure that will make it much less volatile,” Crowley said, taking his glasses off so Aziraphale could see the full spectrum of his sarcasm. “Round up a gang of 50 mortal enemies and put a teenager in charge of them. What could possibly go wrong?”

Aziraphale looked unamused. “The list of what could wrong is nearly endless, my dear. That is why neither of us bothered to write it out. But, what other choice do we have? It’s good that we have so many people coming. We have ten thousand opportunities to convince people to our side and ten thousand convinced people who can subsequently recruit others.”

“We also have ten thousand potential spies who will run back and tell Heaven and Hell what we’re up to. It’s risky.”

“It was always going to be. You were the first to point that out, after all.”

Crowley ran through his hair and down the back of his neck. “I know, but it’s one thing to say things will be risky when you’re sitting in your own home with a glass of wine and another to actually do the risky things.”

Aziraphale closed the distance between them and took both of Crowley’s hands in his. “Do we have another choice?” It was a rhetorical question, so Crowley did not answer it. Aziraphale continued, “I cannot promise you it will all be fine, but it’s the best plan we’ve got.”

“Angel, our plans to save the world don’t exactly have the best track record.”

“And yet the world is still here,” Aziraphale whispered, putting his forehead against Crowley’s. “It is still turning and we are still on it. Together. And we are going to stay on it together.” 

Aziraphale’s hands came up to cradle his face and then they were kissing and kissing and kissing. 

It was so different from the first kiss they shared, all those months ago in nearly the same spot they stood now. And yet, horribly similar. There was an edge to this kiss as there had been to the first one. A desperation and a sadness. It wasn’t a goodbye, but it was uncertain. How many more of these would they have if it all went wrong? If their plans fell through and they lost, how many more chances would they have to taste the surety in each other’s lips? His angel wasn’t leaving him this time, but Crowley was still fighting with all he had to keep them together. They both were. 

They broke the kiss before it could get too heated. That would not do anything but derail their productivity and there was still work to be done. Instead, they turned back to the staging plan and began to make finalizations for who would be assigned to which groups and where each group would start their rotations. 

Several hours later, Eric, Muriel, Nina, Maggie, Nova, Anathema, Newt, Madame Tracy, Shadwell, the Them, and all the field agents filed into the shop for a final planning meeting. Aziraphale bounced on the balls of his feet as he watched them all take their seats in the chairs Mr. Brown had dropped off earlier. When they were seated he clapped his hands together and called the meeting to attention. 

“Firstly, I’d like to thank each and every one of you for your help in making this Whickber Street Cultural Exchange Faire come together. I would like to give a special thanks to Nina and Maggie, who had the original idea for this faire and have been instrumental in organizing it.”

Aziraphale led the group in a round of applause for Nina and Maggie. 

“As we all know, the goal of this faire is to show angels and demons that Earth is worth fighting for, even though Heaven and Hell are determined to destroy it,” Aziraphale continued.” So, priority number one of the next week is to make sure everyone is having a jolly good time. Priority number two is to make sure that none of the angels and demons we’ve invited try to kill each other.” 

“Is that likely?” Newt asked with a nervous edge in his voice.

“Eh. It’s not unlikely.” Crowley responded. 

“Dinnea worry laddie,” Shadwell’s gruff voice piped up. “Ifen it comes to a fight, I still got ma deemon exorcizin’ finga. I’ll blast them all back ta kingdom come if needs be.”

“Your fingers can exorcise demons?” Minos asked skeptically from where they perched on Samael’s lap. The other demons in the room muttered apprehensively. 

“No. No, he can’t,” Aziraphale said quickly. “That was a misunderstanding. A one-time, er, two-time, coincidence. He’s got entirely ordinary human fingers.”

“Well, I think it would be exciting if the angels and demons started fighting,” said Adam. “Then we’d have to fight our way through Whickber Street before they blew up London or some such.” 

“Actually, Adam,” said Wensleydale, “that would be directly contrary to priorities one and two. So, we really don’t want it to happen.”

“I’m not saying I want it to happen. I’m just saying it would be exciting if it did.”

“Ahem.” Aziraphale cleared his throat loudly and soldiered on with his debriefing. “Our plan to thwart Heaven and Hell hinges on angels and demons working together, which we really have not done at all since before the Fall when we were all angels. In the spirit of this, we’ve decided to mix the groups so that angels and demons can enjoy the amenities of Earth with each other. I do not think there will be any violence, as the angels and demons attending have been informed that this is to be a neutral, peaceful event, but I there is likely to be some hostility and you should all be prepared to diffuse it. I understand that this may sound somewhat daunting to our human guides, so we’ve created a leaflet with techniques you can use to pacify any disgruntled non-humans. You will find these in the left-hand pocket of your folders.”

Crowley moved through the labyrinth of chairs passing out black folders to everyone assembled. 

“Now, once you get your folder, please look in the right-hand pocket. There you will find a faire map with each destination numbered,” Aziraphale continued. “in order to keep things moving smoothly, we’ve assigned routes to each of you. You’ll take your groups to each destination along your route in the order that is designated on the back of your maps. This will keep destinations from becoming too crowded and overwhelming for the shopkeepers. At the end of each day, we’ll all assemble in front of the stage for a live musical performance by Dev’s band, The Killer Queens.”

Aziraphale gave Crowley a moment to finish handing our folders and for the assembled guides to look over their routes. When Crowley only had two folders left, he sauntered over to Aziraphale and handed him one, keeping the other for himself. 

“So far so good,” Aziraphale murmured to his beloved. 

“Bloody good organization if you ask me,” Crowley agreed. 

“We never could have done this without Nina and Maggie. It really ought to be them explaining everything.”

“Nah. Maggie would do alright, but Nina would just scowl at everyone and scare them off.”

“Oi!” barked Nina. “I heard that!”

“Am I wrong?” Crowley barked back. Nina scowled but did not contest him. Crowley turned back to Aziraphale and chucked him under the chin, “You’re doing great, angel.”

“Thank you,”  Aziraphale smiled at him briefly and then called the group back to attention. “Now, the closest door to Heaven and Hell is across the street in the entrance to The Dirty Donkey, but we shan’t be using it for a number of reasons. First among them is that The Dirty Donky is one of our participating Whickber shops and we do not wish to commandeer their door for most of the morning. Instead, we’ll be shuttling the angels and demons in from other doors throughout the city. Crowley and Eric have rather miraculously acquired a small fleet of tour buses, which will be driven by Crowley and some of the field agents present. If you are assigned to be a driver, you’ll have a pair of bus keys in your folder along with instructions for where to locate and subsequently drive your bus. Field agents not assigned to be drivers, will be organizing the angel and demon’s departure from their home offices. This is been very tricky to organize and it will be even trickier to pull off without Heaven and Hell taking an unfortunate interest. Therefore, I think all of our field agents deserve a round of applause for undertaking this monumental task.”

Aziraphale led the group in another round of applause. 

“Please note, if you have not already done so, that each of your maps has a group number. This indicates the order in which you will receive your group. Humans will get their groups first, as most of the angels and demons will be coordinating transport. Nina, Maggie, and Nova are all managing their own shops and will not have groups of their own, but they will be on hand tomorrow morning to help direct traffic, so to speak. If you require assistance, find one of them, Muriel, or myself. Any questions?”

“What are we doing for the demons whose aspects are difficult to conceal?” Asked a demon in the back with a ridge of spikes running along his scalp and down his spine like a dragon.

“We are providing disguises,” Crowley answered. “Each bus has a kit.”

“Even with disguises, what do we do if the shopkeepers start getting suspicious?” Anathema asked.

“An excellent question and perfect segue, my dear,” Aziraphale said. “Most of the Whickber Shopkeepers, present company excluded, have no idea about the true nature of this event. They genuinely think they’re hosting foreign tourists. Lean on that if they start asking too many questions. You can write off quite a lot of strange appearances as being a cultural difference or bold fashion choice. If you feel the situation calls for it, you can find me or Mr. Crowley and we’ll perform a memory miracle.” 

Aziraphale paused for questions and comments, but when none were forthcoming, he continued. Additionally, the shopkeepers are expecting to be paid for their participation in this event. Their prices have been heavily discounted, but they’re still honest people who need to make a living. Everyone, please notice the red credit card in the left-hand pocket of your folders. These cards will activate tomorrow morning and are how you will pay for any and all purchases made by your groups. Please make sure that all goods and services are paid for before you leave a destination.”

Aziraphale waited for someone to ask where the funds on the cards had come from and was visibly relieved when no one did. The money on the cards was, technically, stolen and Aziraphale had been agonizing over this ever since the cards had been acquired. He had wanted to provide the funds himself, but Crowley had called that a “monumental waste of a perfectly good savings account.” Instead, Crowley and Eric had miraculously and surreptitiously diverted the funds from an account belonging to a billionaire in Edinburgh. Crowley had assured Aziraphale that the woman in question was quite an awful person and argued that, even if she wasn’t, they were going through “all this damned trouble to save the world and so the world’s one percent can bloody well foot the bill, angel.” Aziraphale, despite his hemming and hawing about the ethics of it, quite agreed.   

“If there are no other questions, then I would like to direct your attention to one final paper in your folders. The yellow one behind the map is your itinerary for the week. This has details regarding when and where you are expected to be on each day of the faire. Please review it before you leave and ask if you have any questions. Otherwise, this meeting is adjourned. Thank you all again so much for your help and hard work.”

There was a clattering and scraping of chairs, stretching of bodies, and general chattering of voices as the guides reviewed their itineraries, asked their questions, said their goodbyes, and exited the bookshop. When the last goodnight had been bid and the door to the bookshop finally locked, Aziraphale flung his arms around Crowley’s neck and sighed deeply into the demon’s shoulder. 

“You did great, angel,” Crowley murmured, pressing a kiss to the top of Aziraphale’s head. “This is going to work; I know it.”

“You’re only saying that because it has to. Because we have no plan B if it doesn’t.”

“No, I’m saying that because it’s a good plan. It’s well thought and well organized and it’s going to work.”

“But, what if it doesn’t,” Aziraphale said, small and terrified, into Crowley’s shoulder. 

Crowley’s arms tightened around him protectively for a moment. 

“Then, there’s always Alpha Centauri,” he said at last. 

Aziraphale huffed a shaky laugh, “There’s always Alpha Centauri.”

“But we won’t need it, angel,” Crowley pulled away, cupped Aziraphale’s face in both hands, and looked at him with an expression of earnest determination. “This is going to work.”

Aziraphale returned his gaze, willing himself to feel the same certainty Crowley did. Crowley was his compass. His lighthouse. If this was the path Crowley said to take, he would take it. If Crowley believed this plan would work, then it would work.

“Then I will plan for that, my dear,” Aziraphale said with a smile. “And I will look forward to this time next week when it’s all behind us, having gone splendidly. How shall we celebrate?”

“Oh, don’t you worry about that, my angel,” Crowley’s eyes glinted with wicked promise. “I already have a plan.”

Chapter Text

So far, the morning had gone off without a hitch. The angels and demons had been shuttled successfully from various entry points throughout London to Whickber Street. They had been distributed into their groups and each group was currently perusing one of the Whickber Street shops, sampling and observing all that humanity had to offer. 

“And this is what we humans of Ear- England, call a pub,” Crowley said, leading his group into the Dirty Donkey. “There’s lots to do in here. You can play darts, billiards, cards, or just grab a drink and chat. Pubs are where people come to relax and socialize, so everyone take a load off.”

One of the angels is his group looked at the bottles lined up behind the bar, jaw dropped and looking scandalized, “Alcohol? But that’s a source of drunkenness!”

“Yes, that’s why it’s fun,” Crowley smiled at them before sauntering up to the bar. “Barkeep! A round of whatever you think’s drinkable for all my friends.”

Crowley helped pass out pints of beer to everyone in his group and then milled about, showing a pair of demons how to shoot pool and a pair of angels how to throw darts. The barkeep dealt blackjack for a group sitting at the bar. Crowley was pleased to see that many of the angels and demons under his charge were sitting together and chatting in a way that, while not friendly, was at least not openly hostile. Smiling a little to himself, he took a seat alone at a table near the window to keep an eye on how the rest of the Faire was faring. 

Outside the window, other groups were milling about Whickbar Street. Crowley saw a group of angels and demons clustered around Nova’s flower stand in front of the bookshop. She was handing out long stemmed flowers to each of them, white roses and daisies, sunflowers and chrysanthemums. He had to chuckle a little at the different reactions the angels and demons had to the flowers. Several were smelling them, some smiling and others with looks of confusion or skepticism. Some were tucking the flowers into their hair and button holes. One confused-looking angel put their sunflower blossom side down on top of their head like a hat. Others were trading the flowers, trying to collect each variety. And one demon, whose mountain goat horns had been disguised with an elaborate beehive wig, ate theirs whole. 

Across the street from the flower stand, Aziraphale stood with his group sampling the drink Nina had prepared. Aziraphale chatted animatedly with a demon while sipping on what Crowley hoped was anything but an oat milk latte (He’d developed rather an aversion to those.) and nibbling on an Eccles cake. The sunlight made his hair glow like a halo and his eye crinkled as he smiled at the demon. He was lovely. The most beautiful being in all of creation. Crowley could look at him all day and not want for anything. But, seeing how his angel laughed with the other demon reminded Crowley that he was supposed to be mingling with his own group instead of skulking by the window. Being friendly did not come as naturally to him as it did to Aziraphale, but if their plan was to work, he needed to be personable.  

Five more minutes, he decided. Five more minutes to finish his beer in peace, then he’d get back to it. 

“That one’s your pet, innit he? The blonde one,” said a demon with bright green eyes and pupils like a cat as he sat down across from Crowley. 

“He’s my partner,” Crowley replied, tersely.

“You mean, you two…?” 

The demon made a vulgar gesture and Crowley frowned. 

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business, mate.”

“Maybe not,” the demon took a deep drink of his beer. “Good stuff this. Some of those angels is complaining it’s too bitter, but I like it.”

“Good. Glad to hear it.”

“Hastur was asking about ‘im.”

“Sorry?”

“Your angel,” the demon said slowly. “‘Is name’s ‘Ziraphale, innit? Hastur was asking us if we’d seen ‘im poking around the office. Said if we did we was to catch ‘im.”

Crowley felt like he'd been dumped in an ice bath. 

“Did he say why?”

“Said ‘e thought ‘e saw your angel in the office a few weeks back. Said we was to bring your angel directly to ‘im if we found ‘im. Said it would be good to teach you a lesson.”

“I don’t need any lessons from Hastur. ‘Sides, Aziraphale hasn’t been in Hell, so I dunno how he thinks anyone is going to find him there,” Crowley scoffed, sipped his beer, and thanked every star in the universe that Aziraphale hadn’t been back to Hell since he went with Muriel. 

“Hastur offered to reward any demon who brought ‘im the angel,” the demon continued. “And I ‘eard two demons saying they was coming ‘ere this week and planned to nab your angel and bring ‘im in.”

Crowley had an instinctive impulse to run out of the pub, scoop Aziraphale up, throw him in the Bently, and get the Heaven out of London. But he forced himself to stay where he was, seated across from the cat-eyed demon with his hand wrapped around his pint glass so tightly it took a minor miracle to keep it from shattering. 

“Why are you telling me this?” Crowley asked. 

“Because Eric said you were a decent sort. ‘E said you and your angel was gonna ‘elp us if we ‘elped you. Said we might be able to get our demerits erased,” The demon looked at Crowley with barely concealed pleading. “I’ve got so many, mate. I’ve been stuck in the deepest pits for so long I’d forgotten what the world sounded like without the screaming. I’m sick to death of the screaming. Some of those poor sods ain’t even done nothing that bad when they was alive and I’ve gotta make ‘em scream ‘till their voices give out. I just wanna do something else. Something quiet.” 

The demon stared down into his beer and looked so miserable that for a moment, Crowley considered laying a hand on his forearm and saying something to comfort the poor bastard. But, some of the demons playing pool chose that moment to start shouting. Crowley looked to see one demon brandishing his cue, while the other held the eight ball in his raised fist. 

“Damn. I’ve gotta deal with this,” He looked back to the demon, “Don’t go anywhere. I have more questions.”

He shot to the other side of the pub and wrenched the pool cue out of the demon’s hands. It took another fifteen minutes of cajoling and reexplaining the rules before the demons backed down from their fight stances and agreed to resume their friendly match. 

Crowley turned back to his tabled and the cat-eyed demon, intent on getting a few more details about this alleged kidnapping plot, but the demon was gone. Crowley searched the pub and every subsequent shop they stopped at, but did not see the demon again. 

Crowley spent the rest of the day on edge, trying to show his group around, look for the cat-eyed demon, and watch out for Aziraphale without looking like he was watching out for Aziraphale. It mostly involved keeping his eyes open and unblinking so as not to miss the movements of anyone on Whickber Street, brushing off any of the beings in his own group who tried to talk to him, and grinding his teeth audibly when any demons approached Aziraphale. 

The concert at the end of the day was nearly the end of him. So many people standing close together, dancing, or in the case of the angels, swaying off-beat and looking confused. Crowley scanned the crowd for potential threats while trying to keep Aziraphale in sight, but the angel kept mingling. By the end of the night, Crowley was exhausted, had missed all his favorite songs, and failed to ask Aziraphale to dance with him. 

“Is everything alright, Crowley?” Aziraphale closed the door to the bookshop. “You seemed… distracted this evening.”

“‘M fine. Just a long day.”

“Oh, you can say that again.” Aziraphale took his coat off and loosened his bowtie. “I had a lovely time, though. It’s been too long since I’ve stopped to appreciate all my fellow shopkeepers have to offer. And getting to know the angels and demons was most illuminating. They had so much in common. Poor things have been so run down and overworked for millennia. I felt that my group made some real connections. How did you fare?”

“Oh, yeah, great. Loads of connections. Very meaningful.”

“That’s wonderful, my dear. Today went much better than I expected. I think you were right, I think this plan will truly work. If we can get angels and demons to socialize with each other, then we can get the working together. And then--”

“Yeah. Listen, angel, there’s something I should--”

“We stand a real chance. I know we still have a long way to go, but today was such an excellent first step. We’ve been working towards this for months, but today was the first day I felt we were truly accomplishing something. It was extremely fulfilling. I am very much looking forward to doing it again tomorrow. I can hardly believe I was so worried yesterday.”

Aziraphale’s face was alight with smiles and Crowley’s heart was sinking. He knew he should tell Aziraphale about the demon in the pub, about the potential threat against him, but how could he burst the shining bubble Aziraphale was currently living in? Crowley thought about the way his angel had buried his face in his shoulder after the meeting last night, how small his voice had sounded when he asked but what if it doesn’t? How could he send his angel back to the dark place? How could he bear to kill the hope he was so high on and make him afraid again?

“I’m sorry, I interrupted. What were you saying, my dear?” 

“Nothing important, angel,” Crowley said, deciding quickly and hating himself for it.  “There’s, er, just something I should discuss with Eric about the shuttles tomorrow before I turn in. I’m gonna run across the street for a chat. Don’t wait up.”

“Oh, very well.” All Aziraphale’s smiles melted into furrows of disappointment. “I’ll just turn in and read a book.”

Crowley put his glasses on and left the shop, having no choice now but to leave his angel looking confused and crestfallen and walk across the street to Give Me Coffee or Give me Death. 

Muriel had expressed discomfort at the idea of staying at the bookshop for the week and Crowley could hardly blame her, remembering the pile of bloody feathers he had cleaned off the floor. Nina and Maggie had instead proposed the idea of a sleepover in the coffee shop. They’d invited the Tadfield crew as well, along with Nova, Dev, and his band members. 

Crowley walked into the shop to find all the tables pushed against the walls and the floor strewn with air mattresses and foam bedrolls. Everyone was already in their pajamas, drinking wine or tea out of blue paper coffee cups, all except for Shadwell, who was snoring in a corner. Muriel was curled up in another corner, her nose buried in a book. Madame Tracy and Anathema had brought decks of tarot cards and were reading them for Maggie and Pepper respectively. Adam, Brian, and Wensleydale were explaining the rules of a trading card game to Eric, Dev, and a band member Crowley didn’t know. Nina and Nova were lounging on their air mattresses, a bottle of wine between them, laughing about something Crowley had entered too late to catch. 

“There he is!” Nina said when he sat down on the floor next to them. Her face was flushed with wine and wearing a rare smile. “Fancy a drink?”

“Please.” Crowley accepted the paper cup she passed him. 

“Where’s Mr. Fell?” Nova asked. 

Crowley sighed heavily, “Back at the shop, reading most likely.”

Nina and Nova exchanged a glance and Nova asked, “Is everyting alright?”

“No,” and without further preamble, Crowley launched into the story about the demon in the pub. 

“Oh, Crowley. You have to tell him.” Nova said when he finished. 

“You didn’t see him, love. He was so happy about how well everything went today, elated even. I can’t take that away from him.”

“That’s bollocks and you know it,” Nina said. “He deserves to know. He is more than capable of taking care of himself and by not telling him, you’re sending a clear message that you think he isn’t.”

“I know he can handle himself, but he shouldn’t have to. I just don’t wanna scare him.”

“You’re not scaring him,” Nina said. “You’re putting him on his guard. Every problem you wankers have ever had as been because you don’t bleeding talk to each other. Don’t keep doing that, Crowley. It’s mad!”

“Not every problem,” Crowley said defensively. “There were some Nazi’s in 1941. 

Nina and Nova leveled him with identical glares and he shrugged.

“It’s not just about not wanting to scare him. I know Aziraphale. He’s many wonderful things, but he’s a bloody awful liar. If he’s worried about demons potentially trying to kidnap him, he won’t be able to show his group around the faire and make sure everyone is having a good time. He’ll be jumpy and anxious and he’ll have a job trying to fake his way through it.”

“But if he doesn’t know, then who’s going to watch his back?” Nova asked. 

“I will. Obviously.”

“But you’re supposed to be with your own group all week,” Nova reasoned. “You can’t make sure everyone you’re showing around his having a good time if you’re constantly watching out for Aziraphale.”

“Sure I can. Did it today, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, and you were jumpy and weird all day,” Nina said. “Everyone noticed.”

“You have to tell him, Crowley,” Nova said. “It wouldn’t be right not to.”

“Oh, yeah?” Crowley raised his eyebrows over his glasses and leaned in, dropping his voice to a barely audible whisper, “And have you told Devan that he’s playing cards with a demon and the literal Antichrist, yet? Hmm?”

Nova pulled back as if he’d slapped her. “That’s different. I kept trying to find the right moment, but it never showed itself. And if I did tell him, I don’t tink he’d believe me. And if he did believe me, I tink he’d be too freaked out to play this week.”

Crowley raised his eyebrows further. 

“The situations are completely different. My partner is a human who has absolutely no knowledge or belief about supernatural entities like angels and demons and no one trying to kidnap him. Your partner is a literal angel and he’s in danger. You told us all about how he threw around those angels who found you when you went to Tadfield. He’ll be fine, but not unless you tell him what’s going on.”

“Fine,” Crowley snapped. “I’ll tell him. But if he turns into an anxiety-riddled mess for the rest of the week, it’s your fault.”

“Says the anxiety-riddled mess,” Nina said dryly. “That’s a little pot to the kettle, don’t you think?”

Crowley glared in response and drained his paper cup of wine. 

“Crowley, bruv. How have you been?” Dev sat down next to him, having abandoned his game of cards with Adam. He held out his cup to Nova, “Can we get a top-up, love?”

“Been busy,” Crowley replied, holding out his cup for Nova to fill and ignoring the disapproving look he got from Nina. “Thanks again for playing this week, mate.”

“Couldn’t pass up a gig in London, especially as a favor for a friend.” Dev leaned over to clink his paper cup against Crowley’s. “Cheers, bruv.”

“Did you lose your game?” Nova asked, nodding towards Adam and the others. 

“Nah,” Dev waved a hand. “Just got bored. It’s a bit slow.”

“Don’t let him lie to you, Nova” Adam called. “He blew all his mana on his first hand and died on his second. 

“Don’t feel too bad though, mate,” Brian added. “Wensley’s got a well-curated deck. Bit tricky to beat if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“I know what I’m doing, ya cheeky shits. I just haven’t played since uni.”

“Actually, Dev. Based on the way you bungled that first hand, I think it’s apparent you don’t know what you’re doing,” said Wensleydale, shuffling his deck with a smug look, the kind you just wanted to slap off. 

“That’s it. Rematch. I wanna new deck, though. I think mine was cursed.” Dev got up and rejoined that game. 

“You wanna play Crowley?” Adam asked. “We brought a lot of extra decks and we can teach you if you don’t know the rules.”

“Eh, yeah. Sure. Why not?” Crowley stood up to join them. 

“Crowley!” Nova reprimanded. 

“What?”

“Don’t you think you should go talk to Aziraphale?” 

“Yeah, I will. When I head back. He’ll still be up; he hardly ever sleeps.”

Aziraphale was asleep when Crowley got back. 

Crowley arrived back at the bookshop in the wee hours and found him tucked into the bed upstairs in his tartan pajamas and reading glasses, snoring softly with a book on his chest and a cold mug of half-finished cocoa on the nightstand. Crowley took the much downstairs and rinsed it. Then he pulled Aziraphale’s reading glasses off and set them on the nightstand. He did the same thing with the book after he miracled a bookmark. 

Aziraphale looked so soft in sleep. He was soft always, but especially so in sleep. The lamplight turned his white-blond hair gold and his face was so relaxed and peaceful. Crowley knew Nina and Nova were right. He should wake him and tell him about the warning he’d received. Aziraphale should be forewarned about the situation so he could act accordingly and it was Crowley’s responsibility to do the forewarning. He knew that. But, Aziraphale hardly ever slept. The fact he was doing so now told Crowley everything he needed to know about how his angel was actually coping with the stress of this week. If he was sleeping that meant he really needed the rest. Crowley couldn’t ruin that for him. All he had to say could wait until morning. 

Crowley tucked the blankets more snugly around his sleeping angel and pressed a kiss to Aziraphale’s forehead. Then he turned off the lamp, took off his clothes, and crawled into bed beside him. 

An hour of tossing and turning later he was up and dressed again. Aziraphale might be sleeping, but there was no way in Heaven, Hell, or anywhere in between that Crowley would be. 

Chapter Text

The next day dawned and Crowley was awake to watch it. 

He had paced around the bookshop for most of the night playing out every scenario he could think of involving Aziraphale and the faceless demons planning to kidnap him. Each and every one of those scenarios ended in him being too late to save his angel before Aziraphale was dragged back to Hell and handed over to Hastur. No matter how he tried to change them, he was too late in every single one. Eventually, he sat down where Aziraphale’s desk used to be and stared out the window until the morning sun flooded through.

“Are you quite sure you’re well, my love?” Aziraphale asked for the third time since he’d come downstairs and handed Crowley a cup of tea. 

“‘M fine. Just couldn’t sleep.”

“You should have said,” Aziraphale kissed the tattoo on Crowley’s jaw and purred, “I could have helped with that.”

“Didn’t wanna wake you. You were knackered.”

“I don’t technically need sleep, my dear.”

“Neither do I, angel.” Crowley stood up and kissed Aziraphale. “But it’s nice and I want you to have all the nice things.”

“You’re too good to me.” Aziraphale moved a lock of hair out of Crowley’s face and smiled fondly. “Why couldn’t you sleep?”

“I, er, I just, erm,” Crowley looked into Aziraphale’s perfect blue eyes and saw all the horrible ways Crowley had imagined him being kidnapped and tortured and destroyed last night. On some level, he knew he should tell Aziraphale, that they should work this out together. Now.  Before the day started and one of Crowley’s waking nightmares had a chance to come true. But, Crowley just couldn’t face reliving them right now, they were too fresh and he was too on edge. 

“What is it, dearest?”

“I just… couldn’t sleep. Too excited. Everything went so well yesterday that I’m anxious to get on with today. You know me, keen.”

“Are you sure? You seem… distracted.”

“Just tired, angel. 

Crowley drained his tea, gave Aziraphale another quick kiss, and left to help coordinate that day’s shuttles before his angel could pry further. They’d talk later. Crowley would just watch out for Aziraphale today, surely nothing would happen today. They could talk later. When they got back to the bookshop after the concert tonight, Crowley would sit down and tell Aziraphale everything. 

Once again, the morning had gone smoothly, at least in terms of shuttling the angels and demons to Whickber Street and sorting them into their groups. For Crowley personally, it had been anything but. He’s been jittery and irritable, snapping at anyone who addressed him. He’s also scrutinized the face of each demon that got on his bus, committing each one to memory, searching their features for any sign of deception or ulterior motive. 

Once he had finished his shuttling duty and began the faire circuit with his group he became, if possible, even more moody and taciturn. He had not bothered to introduce himself properly to members of his group. He shrugged off their questions and left it up to the shopkeepers to explain and showcase their wares until they eventually gave up trying to interact with him at all. 

Instead, he had kept his eyes locked on Aziraphale. Watching his angel with an unblinking stare so intense it he was surprised Aziraphle couldn’t feel it burning a hole in the back of his frock coat. 

“You look like Hell, mate,” Dev said as Crowley, his timid gaggle of angels and demons in tow, approached Nova’s flower stand. 

“Ngk,” Crowley grunted noncommittally. 

“Oooh, he’s right, Crowley,” Nova said, looking up from her task of passing out flowers to the group. “You don’t look well at all. Were you and Aziraphale up late talking?”

Crowley shook his head. “He was asleep when I got back.”

Nova’s eyebrows shot up, “So, you woke up extra early to talk this morning, then?”

Crowley didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to. Nova read the truth in his hunched shoulders and averted gaze. She handed the flowers she was holding to Dev and pulled Crowley aside.

“So, he still doesn’t know?” She said in an angry whisper. 

“Not as such.”

“Crowley!” She slapped his arm. “You have to. That demon didn’t warn you for noting. This could be really serious!”

“I spent six thousand years as a demon of Hell, believe me, I know exactly how serious it is,” Crowley spat through gritted teeth. 

“Then tell him, you idiot!” She smacked his arm again. 

Crowley rubbed the sore spot. “I will tonight. He’ll be fine until then, I’m keeping an eye out.”

“Oh, really?” Nova raised an eyebrow at him. “Then where is he right now?”

“He’s right--” Crowley looked up to where Aziraphale had been standing a moment ago. He was gone. Crowley scanned the crowded street for a glimpse of blonde and beige and saw nothing of the sort. A tidal wave of panic hit him with a force that threatened to discorporate him. “He was-- I just saw him-- he was right there. Oh, God. Where is he?”

Crowley moved to take off down the street with every intention of tearing each shop apart until he found his angel, but Nova grabbed his arm before he could take more than a step. 

“Pipe down,” she said, then pointed across the street. “He’s right there in Marguerite’s.”

And so he was, napkin laid across his knee, mimosa in hand, in deep conversation with one of his group members. Justine, the owner, was setting a plate of crepes in front of him. Aziraphale could not look more content if he tried. Crowley nearly fell to his knees in relief. He closed his eyes, took a few steadying breaths, and suppressed the urge to run across the street and scoop his angel up in his arms.

Then he rounded on Nova. 

“What. The. Fuck ?” Faint whisps of smoke began rising from his shoulders. 

“The fuck, ” she matched is energy with the snarl she put into the work, “is that you cannot do this alone. You cannot be everywhere at once. You cannot make sure your group is having a good time, which, by the way, is the whole reason you put this faire together in the first place, if you’re also trying to keep Aziraphale safe. I know you’ve got a bit of a savior complex when it comes to him, but you need to get the fuck over that. Sooner the better.”

Crowley had a retort. A clever, biting one. He really did, and he would have said it if Dev had not chosen that moment to make a reappearance. 

“Right then, that’s this lot sorted,” he said. “They look happy, don’t they?”

Crowley looked back to see most of his group admiring their flowers. Dev was right, they did look quite happy despite the fact their guide was a grumpy bugger. 

“Where did you say this lot was from, bruv? They’re a funny bunch.”

Crowley tensed. “Funny how?”

Dev rubbed the back of his neck and shrugged. “I dunno. It feels mean to say funny looking; but… they’re funny looking, mate.”

Crowley looked back at his group as if contemplating this. “Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

“Come on, bruv. You had you have. Half of them look like they’re coming from their nine-to-five at the world's poshest bank. And the other half look like they're heading to America for the Warped Tour.”

“Hey,” Crowley said, a little defensively, “there's nothing wrong with dressing like you're headed to the Warped Tour.”

“I know, but these guys are really committed to the aesthetic. They’ve all got funny contacts or prosthetics. They look like extras in the Thriller video. Not that I’m judging. Just seems a bit overkill for a street faire, is all. Like that guy,” he pointed to a demon with iridescent scales on his face. “If that took less than four hours to do, it would be a miracle.”

“Probably a miracle, then. Listen, Dev—“

“And they all seem to know each other. That’s the other funny thing. All the Thriller blokes seem to know all the bank blokes. I mean, I know they’re from the same country, but come—“

Crowley snapped and Dev went still. He rounded on Nova again. 

“Love, either you need to tell him what’s what or I need to do a memory miracle,” Crowley said, his voice brisk and businesslike.

“Oh, that’s rich, coming from you.”

Crowley raised an eyebrow at her and Nova sighed. 

“I want to tell him, but I don’t want to freak him out.”

“Alright then, memory miracle it is. Sorted.” He raised his hand to snap, but Nova grabbed it. 

“No! Don’t do that, then I’ll have to start all over. Just— just turn him back on and I’ll tell him after the concert tonight.”

Crowley raised an eyebrow at her. 

“Oh, shut up.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

She stuck her tongue out at him and he returned the favor before snapping Dev back into action. 

“—on! And even though they know each other, they don’t seem to like each other at all,” Dev continued without skipping a beat. “You should have heard the way one of the bank blokes was needling this guy who, by the way, had a frog on his head. Like an actual, live frog. I swear it croaked.” 

“Hold on. Frog? Who had a frog on their head?” Crowley asked, the panic rising in him once more.”

“Some guy from a couple of groups ago. He was a tall bloke and he was wearing a blonde wig like a hat or something over an honest-to-God frog on top of his head.”

It was fortunate that Crowley didn’t technically need air because every last molecule of it turned to ice in his lungs.

“Where? Which guy? Which group? What shop?” Crowley said, his voice sounding far away and garbled to his own ears like he was speaking underwater.

“Sorry, bruv, what?”

Crowley seized both of Dev’s shoulders, “WHERE’S THE FROG GUY?”

“Oh, he’s, hmm,” Dev looked down the street, scanning the crowds. “Oh, there he is. Look.”

Crowley followed the line of Dev’s outstretched finger and saw the retreating back of a tall demon in a grungy grey overcoat and a lopsided blonde wig. He released his hold on Dev, glanced back to make sure Aziraphale was still happily enjoying his crepes and tore off down the street towards Hastur.

Crowley neither knew nor cared if he was making a scene. If heads turned with mouths agape or if eyes followed him as he ran pell-mell down the street it was unbeknownst to him. His vision tunneled on the back of Hastur’s head and he chased his prey with single-minded determination.

When at last he caught up with Hastur, Crowley grabbed him by the coat and spun him around. He fisted him by the lapels and slammed the demon up against the wall of a shop.

“What the Heaven do you think you’re doing here,” Crowley sneered. “Did you think you could just show up? Did you think I wouldn’t notice you, you slimy bastard? Did you think you could just, just...”

Crowley trailed off as he got a good look at the demon he throttled. The demon was sputtering and stammering out the beginnings of a dozen different questions. His red eyes bulged with confusion and fear. His red eyes. Crowley’s grip on the demon slackened slightly. Hastur didn’t have red eyes. Crowley’s eyes flicked up to the demon’s head. A frog perched jauntily atop it, nestled under the grimy blond wig. A large, acid-green tree frog with red toes and bulging eyes almost identical to the demon’s. 

“You’re not Hastur,” Crowley said, dropping the demon’s lapels.

“Hastur? Of course, I’m not Hastur! You know that. It’s me, Jeff!” The demon clapped one of Crowley’s shoulders. “Blimey, it’s good to see you again, Crowley. It’s been, what? Six thousand years?”

Crowley’s mind was spiraling at this sudden turn of events. The adrenaline still coursing through him and the blood pounding in his ears. 

“Sorry,” he said, “do we know each other?”

“Well, of course! We were both up for the Eden job, weren’t we? I reckon I gave you a real run for your money, didn’t I? But, you beat me in the end. Probably for the best, Amphibian of Eden just doesn’t have the same ring to it.”

Crowley blinked a few times while he waited for speech to return to him. He didn’t remember applying for the Eden job, there being any kind of selection process, or anyone giving him any kind of ‘run’ for it. He was just told to get up there and make some trouble.

“Then, of course, I landed a spot as a first-circle tormentor,” Jeff continued as if he had not noticed anything wrong with Crowley. And perhaps he didn’t, his eyes staring in opposite directions as they were. “It’s a pretty easy gig. No one in the first circle has done anything that bad, so it’s less tormenting and more mildly annoying people for all eternity. It gave me loads of time to work on my cross-stitch. Wanna see?” 

“Wait, you have an easy job? Then what are you doing here?”

“Well, easy doesn’t mean I enjoy it, mate. I mean, sure, it was fine for the first few millennia, but now I’m downright bored! I’d love to get out of Hell and do something worthwhile.”

“So… so, you’re just here, then, visiting Earth because you’re actually interested in helping us save it.” Crowley ran a hand through his hair and willed his heart rate back to a normal tempo. 

“Yeah. Why else would I be here?”

Crowley didn’t have an answer to that so he stared dumbfounded at the demon instead.

“Er, listen, mate. I’d love to keep catching up, but my group is headed to the craft supply shop up the road. I want to chat to the owner about selling my cross-stitch patterns. See ya around!” Jeff clapped Crowley on the shoulder again and vanished. 

Crowley meandered back to Nova’s flower stand, dazed by his exchange with Jeff. Dev looked at him like he’d lost his mind. Nova looked at him with equal parts exasperation and pity.

“You alright, bruv?” Dev asked. 

“Yeah,” Crowley said, feeling anything but. 

Crowley looked across the street at Aziraphale. He handed his red credit card to Justine and helped a server clear plates from the table. Crowley knew this was his cue to rouse his own group so they could move on with their day, but his body couldn’t quite remember how to do that. Nova touched his arm and he flinched.

“You can’t keep this up all day, babe. You need to go talk to him.”

“After the concert. I don’t want to make him panic.” 

“Listen to me,” she took his face in both her hands and slid his glasses down so she could look him in the eye. “ You’re . Panicking . And it’s not doing anyone any good.” 

Crowley shook his head and stepped out of her grasp.

“M’fine.” He lied. 

The concert was torture, as it had been the night before. At least when they were in their groups he knew where to find his angel. Now it was dark and crowded as he strode through a sea of laughing faces and writhing bodies he kept his eyes peeled for any sign of an attack. His eyes burned from how little he had blinked throughout the day and it was difficult to keep track of Aziraphale as the angel flitted around socializing with the faire goers. The thrumming music and cacophony of voices make it impossible to hear any shouts or cries for help. Every shouted lyric or squeal of delight grated against Crowley’s skin like sandpaper. And every time he lost sight of Aziraphale in the mass of bodies, he wanted to fall on his knees and cry. 

“Oh, darling, you don’t look well,” Aziraphale said when Crowley found him again by a concession stand sipping wine with Nina, Nova, and Maggie.

“M’fine,” Crowley shrugged. 

“No, you’re not. You look dead on your feet! And your trembling.”

“He’s right,” Nina said, raising a knowing eyebrow at him. “You look, dare I say, like an anxiety-riddled mess.”

He glared at Nina and let out a single humorless laugh. 

“Nina, be nice,” Maggie admonished gently. 

“I’m fine,” Crowley said again, firmly, with a glare at Nina, “I just need-- AHH!” 

He shouted and jumped as The Them appeared suddenly at his side carrying empty serving trays. 

“Woah! You alright, Mr. Crowley?” Adam asked, exchanging his empty tray for one full of drinks.

“I’m f--”

“Stop saying you’re fine!” Aziraphale snapped. “You’re clearly not. You’ve been acting strangely since yesterday. You’re jumpy and irritable, more so than usual, and you look exhausted. I think should go home and sleep. You’ve been running yourself ragged.”

“Can’t sleep yet, angel. Concert’s still going. Lots to do.” 

“No, there’s not. There’s nothing to do here that someone else can’t handle,” Aziraphale cupped his cheek and looked at him with a sigh and big, pleading eyes. “I’m worried about you, dearest.”

“You don’t need to worry about me, angel. I’m a bit tired, but I really am fine.”

“Actually, Mr. Crowley,” said Wensleydale, giving Crowley a concerned once over, “he has a point.”

Crowley resisted the urge to make a rude gesture at the retreating backs of The Them. 

“You really should get some sleep,” Maggie said. “We have everything covered here.”

“You don’t understand, I—“

Nova laid a hand on his arm. “We have everyting under control.” She squeezed his arm gently. “Everyting. I promise. You head back to the bookshop and rest. You obviously need it.” 

“But—“

“If you go take a nap now, then Aziraphale can always wake you up when he gets in and you guys can have a little ‘us time.’” Nina said with a wink. 

Aziraphale blushed and Crowley glared.

“Or maybe just a nice, long chat,” said Nova with another squeeze of his arm and a knowing look. “I think you’re due for a nice long chat.” 

“Look, guys. I appreciate the concern, but I’m--”

“Oh, that really is enough, Anthony J. Crowley,” Aziraphale said, slamming his wine glass down on the concession table and lacing his voice with a hint of divine authority. “I’m taking you home and putting you to bed, right now, you silly, stubborn, serpent.” 

Nina and Nova suppressed giggles and Maggie looked slightly taken aback. 

“Ladies, please excuse us and enjoy the rest of your evening. Crowley, come.”

Aziraphale wrapped a hand around Crowley’s bicep and steered him in the direction of the bookshop. He snapped the doors open and marched Crowley inside. He snapped the doors shut again and all the sound from the concert vanished as if they were stuck in a vacuum. 

“Now, my ridiculous, obstinate demon,” Aziraphale still sounded authoritative, but also terribly fond when they reached their bedroom and he pushed Crowley’s jacket off his shoulders and unbuttoned his vest. “You’re going to get in that bed and you’re going to have a nice long sleep until you stop being so damn infuriating.”

Crowley managed a weak smile, “Not possible, angel. But--”

“No buts!” Aziraphale snapped, pulling Crowley’s shirt over his head and pressing a trail of kisses and bites over his collarbone. “You are going to bed!”

“Angel, I need to--” Crowley groaned as Aziraphale’s nails dragged down his back and across his ribs on their way to his belt buckle, “Are you trying to put me to bed or take me to bed?”

“Put.” Aziraphale sank to his knees and sucked a bruise into his hip, “But you are much too delicious not to savor while I have you here. It’s been days.”

"I know, angel, and I want thisss," Crowley hissed as Aziraphale slid his too-tight jeans down and cupped his ass, nails digging into the muscle as he trailed more kisses and licks, and nibbles across his belly and hips. "I want this too, but first I need, we need-- Oh, Sssatan."

Aziraphale grazed his lips along the length of Crowley's cock. It was already hard and the tickle of Aziraphale's breath across the sensitive skin was enough to make it weep.

"What you need, dearest, my perfect darling demon, is to relax," Aziraphale pressed burning kisses into the inside of his thigh. "There's nothing you need to do right now. You give too much to others. Just relax and let yourself take for once."

“No, listen. I really need to talk to you. S’something I’ve been meaning to--ngk,” Speech left him as Aziraphale swirled his tongue around Crowley's balls, sucking one gently into his mouth.  

“No talking. You are much too coherent for my liking,” Aziraphale purred against him, one hand wrapping around Crowley’s length and tugging as his tongue continued its thorough exploration of his testicles. 

Crowley fought to stay in control of himself as little pulses of pleasure danced up his spine. He usually loved this part of their lovemaking, the loss of control, the surrender into blissful oblivion under the sensual ministrations of his angel, but now he struggled to retain a scrap of lucidity, to say what he needed to before Aizraphale made him forget his own name. 

“It’s important.”

“It can wait.”

“No, the other day, I met a-- oh, fucking Heaven!” 

Aziraphale finally took his cock into his mouth, swallowing down around him, cheeks hollow and tongue pressing against the underside of his shaft. Crowley’s hands threaded through his blonde curls and he thrust himself deeper. His grip on his angel's hair tightened as Aziraphale moaned around him, as much to steady himself as out of passion. Aziraphale made another encouraging little sound that vibrated through him and every coherent thought he had ever had evaporated when Aziraphale tugged his balls and took him down to the hilt. 

Crowley looked down and found blue eyes and pink lips stretched perfectly around his cock. He met every bob of Aziraphale’s head with a thrust of his own. Aziraphale tongue flicked against him and the syrupy sweet precipice of his orgasm edged closer. There was something he needed to tell Aziraphale. Some important. Something that couldn’t wait. Crowley struggled to remember what it was but he was lost in the sea of Aziraphale’s eyes, the waves of his orgasm crashing through him leaving him sea-tossed and spent. 

Aziraphale finished taking his boots and pants off, steered him to the edge of the bed, and sat him on it. He claimed Crowley’s mouth in a filthy kiss. Crowley tasted his own salt on his angel’s tongue and sighed. 

“Now, my love. You get yourself comfortable. I’m going to make myself a cup of tea and when I get back you can tell me all about whatever it was you needed to tell me.” 

Right. 

The demon’s warning. 

They needed to talk about that now. 

He opened his mouth to call Aziraphale back, but the angel’s footsteps were already downstairs. Better to let him make his tea first. He would probably need it. He wondered if he should follow Aziraphale downstairs. This seemed like a conversation for the kitchen table, rather than pillow talk. 

Besides, Crowley was sure he wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway. His limbs were looser from the blowjob, but the anxiety was catching back up to him. The bed was warm, though, and he knew Aziraphale would make a fuss if he wasn’t in it, so he pulled the comforter over him and settled in to wait. Once his head hit the pillow, despite all his best intentions and certainties to the contrary, he was out. 

Like a light. 

Like a candle. 

Like a prizefighter who should have seen that suckerpunch coming. 

But didn’t.

Chapter Text

Crowley ran down the twisting corridors of Hell. The greenish light cast ghastly shadows on the walls turning every crevice into a demon waiting to strike, but he did not, could not, let the phantoms slow him down. 

He had to keep following the screams. 

Incoherent cries echoed through the halls and rang in his ears, getting louder and more desperate with every step Crowley took. Through the babel and the pleas, Crowley heard his own name over and over again like a talisman. Or a curse. His name, which had once been shouted in ecstasy and sighed in fond disapproval, was now shrieked with inhuman anguish, like the rusted hinges of a closet door opening to let all the bedtime monsters out to torment him.

Crowley sprinted into the throne room too soon and too late all at once. Aziraphale knelt on the brimstone floor, chained at Satan’s feet, his clothes torn and smoldering. The cat-eye demon who had heralded this hell stood next to him, holding an iron rod that ended in the shape of a twisting snake, cherry red with hellfire. 

Crowley rushed forward, but something caught his hands and held them fast behind his back. A damp, putrid smell filled his nostrils as the thing that held him pulled him tighter and a voice like a drowning man’s last breath said, “Ah, here he is, our guest of dishonor. Watch closely, little worm. See how we decorate your pretty angel.”

Crowley strained against the arms that held him, but Hastur only laughed, a sick, gargling thing. 

“No, no, scum. You’re going to stay here with me and watch. Do you see the shape of the brand? Your mark will remind him exactly why he needs to endure this torment and exactly who is responsible for it. I just wish Ligur could have been here to see the look on your face when we destroy him.”

Aziraphale looked up and met Crowley’s eyes from across the hall. They were pleading, as they had been last night when he’d begged Crowley to retire to the bookshop, only now they were laced with fear and pain as well. Tears streaked through the soot on his face and turned to steam as the cat-eyed demon pressed the brand to them and burned a snake-shaped hole into his cheek. 

Crowley’s scream was a raw, inhuman thing, torn from his chest as if Satan himself had ripped it through the splintered ruin of his ribs. Across the hall, his angel screamed too. Their mingled agony reverberated through the room, the sounds bounced off each other until Crowley couldn’t tell where his pain stopped and Aziraphale’s began. Crowley struggled against Hastur’s vise-like grip until he felt his shoulders dislocate. He wished he could slip out of his skin like the snake he was. He was prepared to do anything if it would allow him to put himself between the searing heat of the brand and his angel. 

The sound of tortured screaming still rang in Crowley’s ears when he woke up. He lay in his bed shaking and sweating until realized that the god-awful sound was coming from him and promptly shut up. It took him another few minutes of breathing and assessing his surroundings to realize it had been a dream. Just a nightmare. A nightmare from which he’d woken up screaming and Aziraphale wasn’t in bed next to him, wasn’t bursting into the room to check on him and soothe the horrors away.  

Crowley’s feet hit the floor with renewed dread. 

He had been dreaming of Aziraphale for 6,000 years. Ever since the first time he closed his eyes and succumbed to this human habit, Aziraphale had been in his dreams. At first he dreamed of the angel’s smile, of the way he’d fretted over giving away his flaming sword, and of the way he had looked at Crowley from under his wing, hair damp from the first rain and eyes shining with… not love, not yet, but certainly intrigue and interest. 

Later dreams had been more wish fulfillment than echos of reality. After they had oysters in Rome, Crowley had dreamed of tasting the salt and brine again from his angel’s tongue. After the first time he’d taken Aziraphale to a Shakespeare play, Crowley had dreamed of whispering sweet nothings against his angel’s skin until Aziraphale gasped and sighed for his words as he’d done for the Bard’s. When they’d finished their crepes in Paris, Crowley had revisited the Bastille in his dreams and imagined an alternate version of events. One where Aziraphale had remained in his chains and Crowley pealed those pretty, ridiculous clothes off of him piece by piece until they were pressed against the wall, trembling and holding each other through the aftershocks. When he’d finally returned home after their candlelight dinner in 1941, he’d dreamed of telling Aziraphale all the feelings he’d held back for millennia, which he now suspected were reciprocated.

Of course, not all his dreams had been fantasies; there had been nightmares too. When they fought in 537 and 1862, those fights had haunted his dreams. He tried to rewrite them, to come up with cleverer arguments or more compelling reasons for Aziraphale to stay, but every time they had ended with Aziraphale storming off and leaving him alone exactly as he’d done in real life. His dreams had been plagued by the words “You go too fast for me, Crowley.” for a decade after Aziraphale said them in 1967. But the true nightmares had started when the world began to end. In the wake of delivering Adam to the nuns, Crowley had dreamed of every worst-case scenario, of Heaven winning, of Hell winning, of the whole universe being vaporized into nothingness. In every one of those nightmares, he and Aziraphale were irrevocably separated and the thought of losing him forever was enough to wake him. 

After the bookshop fire, Crowley had dreamed of smoke and flames and a sense of loss so profound it was as if half his soul had been ripped from him. He dreamed of searching for ages and never finding what he was looking for, never truly knowing what he was looking for because he had forgotten the half of himself lost in the flames. Nothing could startle him awake from those dreams. He had to ride them out until he woke naturally, his nose full of phantom smoke and a gaping hole in his chest where Aziraphale used to be. 

He thought the fire dreams were the worst of them. After all, what could be worse than dreaming of being trapped in a world with no Aziraphale, doomed to an eternity of futile searching for an angel he couldn’t remember, but knew he’d lost? But now, as his naked feet slapped against the cold floors of the shop, he knew those dreams had been nothing compared to the one he’d just had. After the fire dreams, he could at least wake up, drive to the bookshop, and reassure himself of Aziraphale’s continued existence. But now? Now he was sprinting through the dusty stacks of the shop, as he had done through the corridors of Hell in his mind, screaming for Aziraphale and coming up empty. 

The shop was empty. 

Aziraphale was gone. 

Crowley paced the main room of the book shop trying to think of an explanation. Aziraphale was supposed to be there. He was supposed to have come back to bed with tea and they were supposed to have talked. But the bright sunlight streaming through the windows told him the night was over, the morning was rapidly turning into afternoon, and Aziraphale wasn’t there . 

With a slow shuffle, more dreamlike than anything Crowley had experienced in his actual dreams, he went to the doors and pushed them open. The street was full of bustling angels and demons delighting in the wares peddled by the Whickber Street shopkeepers. They stopped to stare at Crowley as he ambled past, but they seemed distant and distorted to him. He reached Nova’s flower stand and found her passing out flowers to a group of faire goers.

“He’s gone,” Crowley croaked, his voice barely a whisper. 

“Oh, there you are. I was begin-- Oh, Jesus Christ!” Nova looked up at him and immediately clapped her hand over his mouth, staring at him with an expression of stunned horror, the way one might watch a train wreck. “Crowley, you’re naked.”

“He’s not in the shop.”

“Do you know you’re naked?”

“Had a dream. Woke up. Now I can’t find him.”

“You mean Aziraphale? Oh, love, I’m so sorry--”

The look of strained pity on her face was a catalyst to the panic that shock had numbed. Crowley stumbled forward and clutched desperately at Nova’s shoulders.

“Why sorry? Don't say you're sorry. Where is he? Where’s Aziraphale?” 

Nova extricated herself from his grip and calmly said, “He’s fine. Where are your pants?”   

Crowley looked down at himself, bare chest, bare legs, Effort dangling in the breeze. He frowned.

“M’naked.”

“You don’t say?” Nova remarked dryly she as took off her jacket and wrapped it around his waist. “Let’s get you back inside. Pepper!” she called over her shoulder, “Finish handing those out, will you? I’ll be right back.” 

She grabbed his shoulders and steered him back into the bookshop. 

“Alright, you sit. I’ll find you some clothes and make you some tea.”

“No need for clothes,” Crowley said and snapped his clothing back into existence. 

“Just tea, then,” and she bustled off into the backroom where Aziraphale kept the kettle. 

“Where is he?” Crowley called. 

“He’s driving back to Selsey to pick up a flower order for me and check on the shop. Dev was supposed to do it, but, well, he’s having a bit of a lie-in today too.”

“So, you saw him today?”

“Yes, of course. He came by this morning to get my keys. Didn’t he tell you any of this?”

“No, he never--” 

“Oh! Oh, Crowley, come here! He left a note!”

Crowley was in the kitchen before she finished speaking, snatching the note out of her hand. Aziraphale’s slanting script covered the thick stationery and Crowley wanted to kiss it, but he read it instead. 

Dearest, 

I am sorry to run out on you, but you are sleeping so sweetly and I cannot bear to wake you. I promised Nova that I would assist her in collecting an order of flowers for her stand. She told poor Devan the truth about the faire last night and he needs some time to collect himself, so I volunteered to help. 

I have instructed everyone to let you sleep as long as you need to. Maggie is taking over your group until you wake up. Sleep well. I will see you upon my return. 

I love you endlessly, my dearest. 

-A

“He’s okay,” Crowley said after reading the letter for the third time. His shoulders sagged as all the breath rushed out of him. “Oh, thank Someone, he’s okay.”

“Of course he’s okay. I don’t know why he didn’t tell you. He came back out to the concert after you fell asleep and came back to the coffee shop with us after that. He helped me tell Dev what’s really going on here this week. I don’t tink I could have done without him, actually. And then, when Dev said he wanted to take a day, he offered to help pick up the delivery of flowers and check on the shop for me.”

“So he’s driving around on his own with no one to watch out for him?”

“Yes, but that’s okay because you talked last night, right? He knows to be careful, right?”

Crowley peaked at Nova from between his fingers, “We didn’t talk last night. I fell asleep and he never woke me up.”

“But he said,” she paused for a moment, thoughtful. “Oh, no, I suppose he didn’t say. He just said that he put you to bed and you should be feeling better. And this morning he just said you were still sleeping and we should let you. He asked Nina and Maggie to cover your groups and Maggie called her brothers to tell help with their shops, but I suppose he didn’t actually say whether he’d spoken to you about the demons.”

“He didn’t.”

They fell into a tense silence as they both realized what that meant. 

“But it’s still okay, isn’t it?” Nova said after a moment. “Any demons looking for him will be looking here at the faire and he’s not here.” 

Crowley nodded absently. 

“And he’s going to be back soon. Any minute. You guys can talk as soon as he gets back.”

Crowley nodded again. 

“It’s going to be fine.” 

Her tone was light but she had started wringing her hands in a way that felt almost as anxious as Crowley did. He put his head in his hands to avoid looking at them.

“I’m such an idiot,” he muttered into his palms. “I should have just told him straight away. I dunno why I didn’t. I’m such an arse.”

“You’re not an arse. You’re just shortsighted,” Nova’s voice got closer and Crowley felt her hand on his shoulder, rubbing soothing circles into his too-tense muscles. “You love him and you wanted to protect him and you’re so used to doing that by swooping in with grand rescues that you didn’t realize all you needed was some straightforward communication.”

Crowley scrubbed his face and sighed, “I did realize, though, didn’t I? You told me and Nina as much that first night.”

“Well, yeah,” she said. “But saying ‘I told you so' seemed like taking the piss.”

Crowley looked up from his hands and gave Nova his first genuine smile in days. It was small and strained, but still an honest expression of all the things he could not bring himself to put into words.

“I know, I know. I’m too nice to you and you don’t deserve me,” Nova said. “You can express your gratitude for my basic decency later with lots of wine. But for now, your Aziraphale should be pulling into the alley behind Give Me Coffee or Give Me Death any moment. You should go wait for him so you don’t miss each other.” 

“Thank you.” Crowley gave her hand a brief squeeze and ran out the door. 

Out in the street, the Whickbar Street Cultural Exchange Faire had resumed its normal activity. The faire goers had lost their distorted, unreal quality now that the adrenaline had worked its way out of his system and Crowley could appreciate the beauty of the day. The angels and demons milled about enjoying the various shops and restaurants. The sun shone brightly on a group of angels trading flowers with some demons at Nova’s stand. Outside Marguerite's, a demon and an angel clinked mimosa glasses together. Inside of A Small Back Room, some demons were teaching some angels to do the twist. Everywhere Crowley looked there were angels and demons socializing, communicating, and proving that the two groups could exist together, at least in these small ways. 

For the first time since the start of the faire, Crowley was struck with the realization that this all might actually work. Despite his own anxieties, each day of the faire had gone extremely well. So well, in fact, that it seemed as if celestial beings had just been waiting for an opportunity to set their differences aside and be together, the way God intended when she created them. He’s been so run down that he hadn’t been able to appreciate how well the faire had come together. 

Crowley made his way across the street and around to the ally behind Give Me Coffee or Give Me Death. A black van with the words Eden on Earth printed on the side of it was already parked next to the backdoor of the coffee house, its doors opened wide to reveal an explosion of blossoms. 

“Angel!” Crowley called. He plucked a wilted blossom from a crate of cut geraniums before picking it up and carrying them inside. 

The door to the walk-in fridge was open, but Aziraphale was nowhere to be seen. Crowley set his geraniums on the shelf and called for him again. 

“Nina?” Crowley stuck his head through the kitchen door into the dining room of the coffee house where Nina was making espresso. “Have you seen Aziraphale?”

“Yeah, he just got back with Nova’s flowers,” she called over her shoulder. “He should be unloading them now.”

“Except he isn’t,” Crowley murmured to himself as he retreated back into the kitchen. He called for Aziraphale again, but it only echoed through the kitchen. He went back into the ally, the familiar dread heavy in his stomach once more. He peered into the driver’s seat of the van and found the keys in the ignition. 

“Aziraphale!” Crowley called again, trying and failing to keep his voice even. 

He fought against the rising panic, but it won, sending jitters of adrenaline coursing through him. He tried to breathe and clear his head, to think through the situation rationally. Where else could Aziraphale be? What other explanations were there for him not being with the van? But rational thought was slipping away from him like water off a duck's back. 

He walked around the van, looking for clues, but there was nothing to find. Until there was. He spotted it on the ground by the back tire, untied and slightly torn, a tartan bowtie. 

Crowley froze. Inside he was screaming. He was back in the nightmare from this morning watching hot iron pressed against Aziraphale's face, but on the outside, he was stock-still and ghost-white. He stared at the bowtie, waiting for it to burst into flame or for someone to jump out and declare that this had all been an elaborate prank. But neither of those things happened. It just lay there, innocuous and rumpled on the grimy pavement. Still, he kept staring at it until he realized that underneath all his crescendoing horror and the terrified shout creeping up his throat, he was not even the slightest bit surprised. 

Chapter Text

Aziraphale pulled the flower van into the alley behind Give Me Coffee or Give Me Death and yawned as he cut the engine. It had been a long night and an early morning. Not that he was sleep-deprived. One could not be deprived of something one did not, strictly speaking, need. But he had at this moment the heretical notion that he would gladly commit unspeakable crimes in exchange for a couple of uninterrupted hours in which to close his eyes and hold Crowley. 

Poor, sweet, overworked Crowley. Aziraphale could not remember the last time he had seen him as jumpy and anxious as he’d been last night. Something had clearly been bothering him for the past couple of days, but since Crowley had not been forthcoming about what it was, Aziraphale had not known what else to do besides send him to bed. He had looked delicious last night when Aziraphale tucked him in, sprawled across their rumpled sheets, spent and satisfied. 

After finding Crowley peacefully asleep, Aziraphale returned to the concert and afterward helped Nova explain the existence of angels, demons, the Almighty, and the rest of it to Dev. The poor boy took it all in his stride even if he had looked fairly green by the end of it. By the time Aziraphale returned to the bookshop, he’d only had a couple of hours to watch Crowley sleep and smooth away the bad dreams furrowing his brow before he had to leave again. The only thing he could do for Crowley then was instruct everyone to let his beloved sleep as long as he liked. Aziraphale secretly hoped he was still at it and dreaming about whatever he liked best. 

Aziraphale left the van keys in the ignition. It never occurred to him that he might need them to open the back doors to the van or the coffee shop; both sprung open with a snap of his fingers. He hoisted a crate bursting with white and yellow lilies and carried it into the coffee shop’s walk-in refrigerator.

“Hello Nina, dear,” he said, sticking his head out the kitchen door into the dining room of the coffee shop. “I’ve returned.”  

“And it one piece, I see. Well done, you,” she said over her shoulder. “Have you had tea, yet? Should I get you anything started?”

“Some tea would be lovely, my dear. And some of those lemon poppyseed scones. Although, that Bakewell tart looks scrumptious.”

“I’ll get you some of each. And it’ll all be waiting for you when you finish unloading the flowers.” 

“Delightful!” Aziraphale wiggled at the prospect. “I’d best hop to it, then.” 

He moseyed back to the van and pulled a crate of red geraniums towards him. It was a beautiful array of flowers, marred only by one wilted, browning blossom in the middle. Aziraphale inspected the dead flower for a moment before bending down to breathe life back into it. 

The drying petals rustled feebly but remained otherwise unaffected. Aziraphale frowned at it and snapped his fingers, willing the flower back to life. Nothing happened. 

“That’s odd,” He said with a deepening frown and took a step back. He waved a hand at the coffee shop door to close it. It remained open. 

A horrible sense of deja vu crept over him like ivy on the walls of an old house. He waved his hand towards the door again and it didn’t so much as quiver, let alone close. 

“Bugger.”

Aziraphale took another step back right into a pair of rough hands that seized his coat and dragged him further backward. He lost his footing on the pavement and fell flat on his arse. There was barely any time to register the pain radiating up his tailbone before rough hands seized a fistful of his hair and tilted his head back until he was staring into the malicious grin of a familiar demon. 

“Clumsy fucker, aren’t you, wankwings?” Furfur chuckled. 

“He always was a bumbling fool,” sneered a horribly familiar voice from outside Aziraphale’s line of sight. “But he grew some teeth after he became Supreme Archangel.” 

“I wouldn’t worry about his teeth just now,” another familiar sneer said. “Our friend has him good and muzzled.”

“Miracle blocker,” Furfur grinned down at him. “And no fancy magic tricks to get you around it this time.” 

“Can we please continue this conversation later?” Said a third familiar voice. “You all can boast when he’s properly in custody. The sooner we get him to the Metatron, the better.”

“We’re not taking him to the Metatron,” a fourth voice protested. “He was promised to Lord Hastur.”

“And Hastur can have him after the Metatron is through. I doubt there would be much left of him for His Holiness to interrogate if we did it the other way around.” 

The voices crept closer as they debated until he could see all five of his captors. Furfur, Sandalphon, Michael, Uriel, and Shax all peer down at him with looks of deepest loathing, which he was sure they saw mirrored on his own face. 

“Hello, Aziraphale,” Michael smiled like a shiv. “It’s a lovely event you have going.”

“We thought we’d come to see what all the fuss is about,” said Sandalphon.

“And seeing what you’ve accomplished inspired us to really get into the spirit of things, as it were,” said Uriel. 

“You wanted angels and demons working together, Aziraphale,” said Shax, her needle-like fangs on full display. “And we thought what better show of unity could there be than working together to depose the Supreme Archangel himself.” 

Aziraphale struggled against Furfur’s hands holding his wrists, “This was really quite short-sighted of you all. Crowley--”

“Is fast asleep,” grinned Sandalphon, “with strictest instructions from you not to be disturbed for any reason.” 

Aziraphale stopped struggling, “How could you possibly know that?”

“Finish this conversation later,” hissed Michael at Sandalphon when the latter opened his mouth to reply. “Just because his pet is indisposed doesn’t mean there aren’t others. The sooner we get him out of here the better. Furfur, bind his hands. Sandalphon, his feet.” 

Aziraphale seized his opportunity when Furfur moved to hold both of his wrists with one hand while he fished in his pocket, presumably for something to bind him with. Aziraphale twisted out of the demon’s grip and launched himself to his feet. He felt a hand grab at his collar, felt fabric ripping, and was nearly strangled with his own bowtie. He pulled it loose and the sudden slack caused his would-be captor to lose their hold on him. He let the bowtie flutter to the ground behind him and ran for his life down the alley. 

Aziraphale had read the phrase “run for his life” myriad times in books, but it was, simply put, something that happened to other people. He had never personally needed to run for his life. At most, he feared inconvenient discorporation, but never actual destruction. And if he needed to remove himself quickly from a given situation, he had the ability to disappear and reappear elsewhere at will. He had never once been in a situation in which he needed to physically run for his life until now. 

A good thing too, because he wasn’t sure he’d have the stamina to do it more than once. His feet smacked against the pavement and he willed them to move faster as he heard his pursuers keeping pace with him. His heart was doing its level best to escape through his throat and his breath came unflattering gasps. He waited for the smites to hit his back, to be struck down his in attempted escaped, and hauled off to the Metatron, or worse, Hastur, but his pursuers were thwarted by their own miracle blocker and could only hope to catch up to him in bodies as unaccustomed to exercise as his own. 

He was not sure where the boundary of their blocker was so he put his faith in thick doors and deadbolts instead. The backdoor to Mr. Arnold’s music shop was ajar and Aziraphale seized it, flung himself inside, and locked it. A moment later he heard the thuds of five pairs of fists banging on the door. 

“What the bloody hell?”

Aziraphale whipped around to find Dev sitting in the corner of the shop holding an electric guitar mid-strum. The shop was otherwise empty, Mr. Arold having set up a display outside for the faire to keep traffic in his minuscule shop to a minimum. 

“Angels-- demons-- in the ally,” Aziraphale said between huffs. “You should go.”

“Yeah, according to you they’re crawling all over the place, what of it?” Dev shrugged and kept strumming over the sounds of banging fists. 

“They’re not friendly.”

“I gathered that. Dunno if it makes a difference if I leave or not seeing as they’re supposed to be bloody indestructible eldrich horrors. Speaking of, why don’t they just wiggle their fingers and undo the locks if they want in so bad?” 

“They put a miracle-blocker in place to keep me from smiting them, but it means they can’t use any miracles either,” Aziraphale said, rushing to the other side of the shop and closing the blinds. 

“So we’re alright, then.”

“Only as long as long as the locks hold, or until the miracle blocker wears off.”

The banging on the door became deeper and more regular and Aziraphale suspected Sandalphon was using himself as a battering ram. 

“You should go,” Aziraphale said again.

“What do they want you for, anyway?” Dev asked and Aziraphale had to admire his nonchalance. He might have been asking about the weather. 

“Oh, I think they’d quite like to question me about the faire and the intentions behind it. Then, I imagine they’ll hand me over to Duke Hastur for an eternity of infernal torment,” He muttered, closing the last blind and wishing he was in the bookshop within reach of his derringer. 

Dev stopped playing, “You’re serious?”

Aziraphale stopped securing the shop to give Dev an incredulous look. “Unfortunately, yes.”

“And this Duke Hastur bloke. He’s bad, is he?”

“The worst.”

There was a long pause filled only by the increasingly insistent banging on the door. 

“You know. Last night I thought you were joking. I hoped you were joking, anyway. But, it’s really real, innit? Heaven, Hell, the war, and the end of the world and all of it?”

Aziraphale sighed. He didn’t want to be impolite, but he really had more pressing issues than Dev’s existential crisis. Furthermore, he thought they had covered the topic quite extensively last night. “Yes, it’s really real. Just as I said. Crowley and I put this faire together to convince angels and demons to work together to prevent the end of the world and the angels and demons on the other side of that door are working very hard to ensure we fail and punish us for the effort.” 

“You know, there’s a load of your mates hanging about in the street, we could just open the door and call for help,” Dev said as the wood around the locks began to splinter.

“I’d like to avoid that if possible. I think the appearance of these goons would shatter the progress we’ve made this week. The last thing I want is to scare angels and demons off our cause.”

“So we’re just going to stay here while they break in?”

“You’re free to go, Devan,” Aziraphale said, exasperated. “In fact, I encourage it.”

“What? And leave you on your own? Crowley would flay me,” Dev set the guitar aside, tied his long dreadlocks back, and locked the front door. “Help me move these music stands in front of the door.”

They assembled the music stands in front of the door, which was beginning to crack in earnest now, like makeshift punji sticks. Then they backed up to the other side of the shop to wait. Dev grabbed hold of the guitar once more, which was thick and solid and would work quite well for hitting people with if it came to that. Aziraphale’s gaze darted around the shop and landed on a pair of extra-long drum mallets. They were no flaming sword, but they would work in a pinch. 

The door cracked and caved a little more with every bang until it finally burst open and Sandalphon, followed closely by Furfur, Shax, Uriel, and Michael came charging through it and immediately tripped over the music stands in a clang of metal and and tangle of limbs. Aziraphale and Dev did not hesitate for a moment before charging in themselves and wacking every visible inch of the mob with guitar and mallets. 

The angels and demons on the floor, who moments before had been bellowing war cries, began yelping in pain. Shax was the first to stand, promptly took a guitar to the stomach, and went tumbling backward over Sandalphon. Michael looked up at Aziraphale, red-faced and murderous, and was met with a mallet between the eyes. The minuscule shop worked to their advantage as the crowd of bodies and music stands prevented their attackers from rallying quickly. By the time one of them, Furfur, did manage to stand up properly, he had apparently decided he had had enough and used his newfound mobility to leap back into the ally and run away from the fight. Shax soon followed suit. 

It was just Sandalphone, Michael, and Uriel left, panting heavily and sporting purple bruises blossoming across nearly every inch of visible skin. All three of the angels looked bloodthirsty and barbaric, but unwilling to press forward for fear of further bludgeoning. 

“Aziraphale, you have flouted the laws of Heaven and you are under arrest,” said Michael, their eyes never leaving Dev and his guitar, “put down your arms now and come quietly before you make things even worse for yourself.”

Aziraphale had to laugh at that. “Do not pretend, Michael, that there will be any mercy for me in Heaven. For all our propaganda, we’re not a very merciful lot. A fact you would do well to remember.” 

“You and your band of traitors will burn, Aziraphale!” shouted Uriel. 

“There you go,” said Aziraphale with a grim smile. “That’s the kind of fire and brimstone I’ve come to expect from you lot.”

The five of them stared at each other, each side braced for an attack, but unwilling to initiate it. Aziraphale gripped his mallet so tightly that his hands were growing numb, a warm pins and needles sensation creeping up from his fingertips. 

Faster than Aziraphale would have thought possible, Sandalphon lunged forward and seized Dev’s guitar, using it to pull the man to him. He forced Dev to his knees and placed and hand on either side of his face. 

“Surrender yourself, or we kill the human,” Sandalphon barked. 

If Michael or Uriel were surprised by Sandalphon’s actions they masked it well with haughty expressions and agreeing nods. 

The tingling in Aziraphale’s fingertips was growing stronger and more insistent. Not a numbness, he realized, but his power returning as the miracle-blocker lifted. The tingling turned into a torrent as power rushed through him like breath as if the miracle-blocked had been a pillow removed just before the moment of suffocation. Aziraphale dropped his mallets and sent a smite straight into Sandalphon’s smug face. The haughty looks on Michael and Uriel’s faces turned horrified as they watched their fellow angel disintegrate into a shower of golden sparks. 

Aziraphale rounded on them, the glow from Sandalphon’s discorporating form lighting up the murderous expression on his face. 

“You go too far,” Michael hissed. 

“No,” Aziraphale growled. “You did that when you threatened the life of this innocent.” 

Glowing wisps of power began to radiate off his skin and he seemed to grow in stature.” 

“God created us to protect them. To guide them. To love them as God loves us. Your callous disregard for them is despicable. They are not pawns in our chess game.”

His voice rang through the small shop, reverberating off the windows and echoing with hundreds of disembodied whispers.
“They are not chattel for you to slaughter at will. They are our flock to tend. The God who made me made me their keeper. And. if you think I will suffer you to toy with their lives like cats with mice any longer, please believe I will return you to the dust before you finish the thought.”

Aziraphale felt hundreds of eyes open all over his body, glowing with divine fire. Michael and Uriel had moved further back and closer together, the first sign of terror Aziraphale could remember seeing from them. His power cackled like lightning throughout the small room, the scent of ozone burning his nose. 

“Begone,” Aziraphale said, his many voices coalescing into a single resounding command. 

Michael and Uriel vanished in an instant and Aziraphale pulled himself back into himself, closing his many eyes, shrinking back down into his corporeal body, and dimming his celestial glow. He made to straighten his bowtie out of habit but remembered he lost it. 

“Well, that’s them dealt with,” he said in his regular voice, “for now, at any rate.”

He turned to congratulate Dev for their success and thank him for his assistance only to find him huddled on the floor, backed as far into a corner as he could get and whimpering like a child.

Chapter Text

Oh, bugger.

 Aziraphale watched Dev shaking and whimpering in the corner and wrung his hands. He had quite forgotten how humans could get when they glimpsed his true form and he had not warned the poor chap to be not afraid . 

“Oh, my dear boy, I am sorry. Let’s get you up and find you a nice cup of tea.”

He reached to help Dev up and Dev shrunk further into the corner, eyes wide and muttering incoherently. 

“I’m not going to hurt you, my dear. I’m trying to help you. You’ve had a shock, but you’ll be alright. Let’s get you up.” 

Aziraphale spoke in soft, soothing tones, but Dev shook even harder and cringed away from him, yelling, “Don’t you fucking touch me!”

“Please don’t shout” Aziraphale put up his hands in surrender. “We’ll stay here for now, if you prefer.” 

He stepped away, folded his hands behind his back, and surveyed the shop. It was in shambles. Aziraphale wanted to put it back in order before Mr. Arnold saw and asked questions with complicated answers, but he didn’t think doing miracles right now was going to help Dev’s situation. What he really needed was someone else who could talk the poor fellow down from the shock. 

He spied the phone on the counter near the cash register and snatched it up. “Hello,” he said into the receiver, “Call Miss Nova on her mobile if you please. I’m not sure whereabouts she is, but she’s most likely at her flower stand on the corner in front of my shop. Thank you.”

The phone rang dutifully and it wasn’t long before Nova picked up. 

“Hello?”

“Hello, Nova, I’m af--”

“Aziraphale! Oh, thank heavens it’s you.” The frantic panic in her voice threw Aziraphale off guard and he held the phone away from his ear as she continued her shouting. “Crowley woke up and was worried sick Are you back yet? Has he found you? Are you alright? Is he alright?”

“Slow down. I haven’t seen Crowley,” Aziraphale said, unsure why his beloved would have cause to worry. He had been quite clear in his note, “That’s not why I’m calling. I’m afraid I’ve had a spot of bother with young Devan. You see, I was accosted behind the coffee shop and--”

“Accosted? Oh, god! Did they hurt you? Was Crowley too late? Damn him! I told him he should have told you days ago?”

“Too late? What on Earth are you talking about, my dear? Too late for what?”

“To rescue you! He was tipped off by a demon days ago that someone was going to try and kidnap you and bring you to a Duke Has-Been or some such.” Nova spoke very fast in a rush of breath. “He’s been trying to keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary to protect you and it’s been driving him mad. I told him— I TOLD him— he needed to get over himself and tell you, and that's why he’s been so, you know, insane.”

Aziraphale took a deep breath as he processed all the pieces falling into place. Crowley had been worried about a threat. That certainly explained his behavior of late. But for the life of him, Aziraphale couldn’t see why Crowley hadn't just told him what was happening so they could have handled the situation together. It made no sense.

“I fucking told that slithery spined eejit that he needed to tell you instead of running himself ragged, but he didn’t want to worry you, like an idiot. Please tell me you’re okay, I’ll feel like a complete arse for not just telling you myself if you’re not.”

There it was. Crowley didn’t want to worry him. Didn’t think he’d be able to handle knowing someone was out to harm him. Crowley didn’t think his precious, delicate angel was capable of taking care of himself. 

That’s what he got, Aziraphale supposed, for letting Crowley rescue him all those times. You let a demon miracle you out of the Bastille and drop a bomb on a few Nazis and he is bound to think you can’t take care of yourself, Aziraphale thought. Nevermind the plethora of times Aziraphale had proved he could hold his own. A few weeks ago on the way home from Tadfield, for instance. 

As his thoughts grew more bitter, Aziraphale could feel sticky tar seeping through his veins and he was itching to smite something once more. 

“I’m perfectly fine, my dear.” Aziraphale kept his voice level and pleasant despite the rage oozing through him. “However, I’m afraid young Devan is not. He’s not physically injured, to be clear, but he’s had a bit of a shock and I’m unsure how best to proceed. I’d much appreciate your assistance in this matter. We’re in Mr. Arnold’s Music Shop. Come through the back so as not to attract attention if you don’t mind.” 

“Shock? What happened?”

“It’s rather a long story. If you--” The rest of his sentence was drowned out by a terrified, tortured cry in the ally. “So, sorry my dear,” he said into the phone. “Get to Arnold’s, quick as you can. I’ve got to go see what that was about.”

“Aziraphale, wait!” Nova shouted down the other end of the line, but Aziraphale was already hanging up and charging back out into the ally. 

“AZIRAPHALE! ANGEL!”

Aziraphale spotted Crowley at the other end of the ally near the van, on his knees, clutching his head and sobbing into his lap. The sight was pitiful and shocking. Aziraphale had never seen Crowley break down like this. He usually kept such a tight leash on his emotions. Even in the face of the unspeakable tragedies they’d witnessed together. The flood. Sodom and Gomorrah. The Plagues of Egypt. The Crucifixion. The French Revolution. Both World Wars. Countless humans like Elspeth and Wee Morag, who were the victims of circumstance and whom Crowley and Aziraphale could not save from the world’s harshest realities. Crowley had remained stoic and steadfast through all of them. The closest he’d seen Crowley to truly breaking down had been during the first apocalypse when Satan himself was coming for them. But even then, Crowley had kept it together enough to stop time. 

This, though, was something entirely else. To see Crowley so overcome was unheard of. It broke Aziraphale’s heart to watch. 

“I’m here,” Aziraphale called. 

Crowley looked up in disbelief. His tears made silver tracks down his gaunt face as he stared slack-jawed at Aziraphale, but he leaped to his feet and started running towards him nonetheless.  

He seemed to take an age to close the distance. Long enough for the oozing rage in Aziraphale’s veins, momentarily dampened by seeing Crowley in pain, to grow hot once more. If Crowley had been so terrified for his safety, it was his own damn fault. He had withheld the information that would have prepared Aziraphale for the attack. They could have planned for it and Crowley would not have had to be scared, at least not alone. But Crowley had chosen to keep mum and let Aziraphale fumble in the dark. 

Aziraphale had been attacked by five, five , celestials and if not for Dev’s help he would be with them now, in an interrogation with the Metatron or being flayed alive by Hastur. And Dev was reduced to a blubbering mess of a man for his trouble, forced to pay the price for Crowley’s carelessness

“Angel,” Crowley breathed when he reached him. “You’re alright.”

“Yes, I’m alright. I just--” 

Crowley wrapped Aziraphale in an embrace so tight it knocked the wind out of him. His beloved slid to his knees once more, arms wrapped tightly around Aziraphale’s legs, and cried unrestrainedly into his waistcoat. Aziraphale shushed him and threaded his fingers through Crowley’s hair but the gesture felt perfunctory. An obligatory set of motions Aziraphale performed simply because he recognized this was neither the time nor the place to say all the things he truly wanted to. There were more pressing matters at hand.

They stayed wrapped in that strange embrace until Nova showed up. Then, they, or more accurately, Crowley helped her carry Dev to the coffee shop for a strong cup of tea, as Dev still whimpered any time Aziraphale came too close. Aziraphale busied himself with putting Mr. Arnold’s shop back in order while Crowley and Nova sat with Dev.  

Eventually, Aziraphale took his tour group back over from Maggie while Crowley tended Nova’s flower stand for her. The concert went on as scheduled with the group’s base player providing lead vocals as well. Aziraphale watched the whole concert hand in hand with Crowley. In his other hand, he clutched a seemingly bottomless glass of wine, which he sipped while barely looking at the demon next to him. 

Together he and Crowley chatted animatedly with their guests and flitted around ensuring all were enjoying themselves. They were. As far as everyone else was concerned it was just another end to a successful day at the Whickbar Street Cultural Exchange Faire. If one of their hosts had nearly been beaten into submission by a task force of foes while the other host had a mental breakdown in a bookshop, what did it matter? If the lead singer of the band was currently huddled in a coffee shop clinging to the last vestiges of his reason, who cared? It was rather like putting on a play, Aziraphale thought. These were the little fires that happened backstage. Chaos behind the curtain, dealt with in whispered arguments and improvised solutions so the audience remained none the wiser. And all the actors knew to keep smiling until the final curtain fell and their grins turned to grimaces.

At long last the concert ended. They bid goodnight to their friends and turned in. Aziraphale closed the door of the bookshop, locked it, and set about closing the blinds. He lingered over the last one, aware of Crowley’s eyes in his back, his sunglasses would surely have come off by now.

“You’re angry,” Crowley said. 

“Yes,” Aziraphale said, closing the curtain at last. 

“I suppose I owe you an explanation.”

“No,” Aziraphale said, still not looking at him. “I think I’ve pieced that together well enough. You received a warning some days ago about a plan to kidnap me and instead of telling me, instead of arming me with that crucial knowledge, you’ve been running around Whickbar Street in a state of increasingly debilitating panic trying to thwart the threat by yourself, shirking your responsibilities to the Faire and asking our friends to lie to my face.”

Aziraphale finally looked at Crowley, who had gone very still and was watching him with unblinking golden eyes. 

“Is that about the right of it, my dear?”

Crowley seemed to weigh his words for a moment. 

“I didn’t want you to worry—“

“But, I did worry, didn’t I?” Aziraphale said, his voice low and dangerous. “I just did not know why.”

“I know, and I should have said something, but you’ve been working so hard to put all this,” Crowley gestured vaguely out the window,” together and I didn’t want you to have to deal—“

“But I did deal with it, Crowley.” Aziraphale kept his hands clasped behind his back to keep them from curling into fists. “I dealt with it this afternoon in the alley. But instead of being prepared and forewarned, I was caught completely off guard. My miracles were blocked. I had to improvise weapons out of drum mallets. I scared poor Devan half to death! And where were you? All that running yourself ragged and for what?”

Crowley looked at the floor and Aziraphale could see shame welling up in his eyes. 

“You’re right, Angel. I failed you. I should have been there to protect you and I wasn’t. I’m so—“

“I don’t need you to protect me, Crowley,” Aziraphale snapped. And he could tell by the way Crowley’s shoulders cringed that his tone was too harsh, but he did not care. Crowley's wet eyes, which had moved him earlier, only angered him now. What right did he have to tears? He was not the one ambushed in an alley.

Aziraphale adjusted his waistcoat to steady himself and said, “Allow me to make one thing quite plain. You did not fail me by not being there. You failed me by not telling me in the first place. And I cannot fathom a single reason why except for your love of playing the hero. You love rescuing me and I love letting you, but do not confuse that for me needing you to. I may play the soft and gentle bookseller but do not forget I was chosen to guard the gates of Eden. I was chosen to replace Gabriel as Supreme Archangel. I’m perfectly capable—“

“Oh, I would never presume to forget your position, Sssupreme Archangel,” Crowley hissed, quiet rage lacing the pain in his voice as he glared up at Aziraphale, his eyes suddenly full of daggers. “Your holiness does me a great honor by dessscending from on high to slum it with a good-for-nothing demon like me, and I’ll not forget it again.” 

“Oh ho ho,” Aziraphale laughed humorlessly and leveled a finger at Crowley. “Do not try to turn this around on me, Crowley. You do not get to make this another argument about how I supposedly think angels are better than demons.”

“You do think that! You just said it, didn’t you? You don’t need me! There’s nothing a lowly demon can do that the Supreme Archangel can’t do himself.”

“Anthony J. Crowley, that is not what I meant and you know it!” Aziraphale said, his voice rising to a not-quite shout.

“You just said you didn’t need me!” Crowley did shout and there was something raw in it, but Aziraphale was too preoccupied to examine it.

“To rescue me!” He shouted. “I don’t need you to protect me like I’m some damsel in those James Bond movies you like so much. But I do very much need you to trust me and communicate with me and problem-solve with me.”

“I didn’t want to w—“

Aziraphale held up a hand and looked away from Crowley in disgust. “Please do not feed me one more nonsense line about not wanting to worry me. You did worry me just as much by not telling me. I am very much of the opinion that you withheld the truth from me for your own peace of mind, not mine.”

“For my own peace of mind? Are you joking? Do you think my mind has had any peace these past few days?” 

“No! And neither has mine! That’s the point, you twit.”

“Oh, I’m a twit now, am I?” Crowley threw up his hands and started pacing the bookshop like a caged animal.

“You’re certainly acting like it.” Aziraphale adjusted his waistcoat again and surveyed Crowley’s pacing with a disapproving scowl. “Crowley, you made an error in not telling me the situation, and an error that was very nearly grave--
“You don’t need to tell me I cocked it up,” Crowley snarled. “You’ve already done that. Just another demon whose plans contain the seeds of their own destruction. I’ve gone and floundered on the rocks of my own inequity again, or whatever it was you said about diabolical plans.”

Aziraphale sighed very deeply and rubbed at the crease in his brow before answering. 

“You’re missing the point, intentionally, I rather think, and--”

“Not intentional, angel, just too stupid to get the concept. Too much of a twit .”

“OH, FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE!” Aziraphale frustration exploded out of him. He unconsciously seized a figurine off a nearby shelf and smashed it on the floor at his feet. “If you would just stop trying to act like the wounded party for one damned minute we could have an actual fucking conversation about this!” 

Crowley did not answer. He was staring transfixed at the shattered ceramic on the ground. Azriaphale’s eye followed Crowley’s and it caught up with him what he’d just done. Crowley, it seemed, wasn’t the only one letting his emotions get the better of him today. 

Aziraphale sighed again. The kind of bone-deep and infinitely exhausted sigh that could only be made by a millennia-old celestial who had, at last, reached his wit's end. He snapped and the shattered pieces of the figurine fitted smoothly back together and it replaced itself upon the shelf. 

“On second thought, I don’t think further conversation would be productive at this juncture. I’m going to bed and I should like to continue this tomorrow when we are rested.” He strode past Crowley to the spiral staircase and became aware that Crowley seemed intent on following him upstairs. Aziraphale turned back to him, “You’ll stay down here tonight if you please. I’d rather be alone just now.” 

“So, you’re taking the bed?” Crowley asked. 

“I thought I might, seeing as it’s my bed in my bookshop.” Aziraphale snapped. 

Crowley recoiled again as if Aziraphale had hit him. His voice was very quiet when he said, “I thought it was our bed in our bookshop.”

Aziraphale suppressed the urge to throw something again, but said quite calmly, “I don’t want to fight anymore tonight. I just want to be alone and rest for a while and resume our conversation later when we both have a clearer head.”

“You don’t sleep, angel,” Crowley said acidly. 

“Well, I thought it might give it a go tonight! It’s been a rather trying day. So, if you’ll just kip down here for tonight, I’d really appreciate the space.” 

“Space,” Crowley took a step back. “Sure, angel. I’ll give you space.” He snatched his keys and glasses off a nearby table. “All the damn space you want.”

Crowley stormed out of the bookshop without a backward glance. Aziraphale heard himself call after him but could not muster the energy to physically go after him. Instead, he just watched the door slam and listened to the finality of it echo through the shop for a long time after. 

Chapter Text

Mr. Crowley and Mr. Fell weren’t speaking.

This distressed Muriel and she wasn’t at all sure what to do about it. 

Everything had been going so well. The faire had been running smoothly. She and Eric had had great success forging connections between the angels and demons in their tour groups. She had spent every evening in Nina’s coffee shop with Eric, Nova, Dev, Anathema, Newt, Maggie, Nina, and the Them and felt, for the first time ever that she had real friends. It was such a comforting feeling to know you had people who loved you, and that you weren’t alone in the world. 

Yes, everything had been going just perfectly. Until, very suddenly, it wasn’t. She had helped Mr. Fell explain to Devan about Heaven and Hell. He had been shaken but seemed to be coming around to the idea. But then Mr. Fell had been attacked. She had been in the coffee shop for the aftermath and seen Devan going to pieces again, all his progress seemingly unraveling before her eyes. That, it seemed, was when the trouble started. 

Muriel heard from Eric, who heard it from Adam, who heard it from— Muriel wasn’t really sure where— that Mr. Crowley had known the attack was coming and hadn’t properly warned Mr. Fell. She could certainly understand Mr. Fell being angry about that, but he had seemed completely fine, chipper, even, in the evening after it happened. Evidently, all that had been a facade. She’d seen Mr. Crowley storming out of the bookshop mere minutes after they closed the door for the night with cheerful waves. That had been two days ago and since then Mr. Fell, who had been rather aggressively cheerful to them all in that time, was very much not talking to Mr. Crowley, who had been even more sullen and taciturn than usual. 

Muriel did not like it when Mr. Crowley and Mr. Fell fought. It made her insides squirm. She worried she would be asked to choose sides and she was too immensely fond of them both to ever do that. And she worried she should be doing more to try and help them but she had no idea what might be helpful.

“Stop biting your nails,” Eric said to her, pulling her out of her nervous spiral, as they stood in the middle of Whickbar Street awaiting the arrival of their tour groups. “Nina said it’s unsanitary.”

“I can’t help it,” Muriel said back, the words muffled slightly as she bit the cuticle of her thumb. “It’s terribly difficult to stop once you’ve started.” 

She picked up the habit from Pepper, who bit her nails when she was nervous or pensive, and it had stuck rather quickly despite Nina’s frequent remarks about it. 

“Nina said you’re going to get the germs.” 

“I don’t think germs will actually have any ill effect on an angel,” she retorted, biting her nail with added vehemence. The situation called for nail biting regardless of what Eric or Nina said about it.

“We don’t know if the germs will affect us or not. None of us have ever gotten them. The humans only just invented them two centuries ago!” 

Muriel frowned. That didn’t seem right to her. Surely the humans wouldn’t invent something that made them ill. And besides, hadn’t they been getting ill the whole time they’d been around? Surly if that was true then the germs would have had to have been around the whole time too. Then again, she’d spent the last six thousand years, minus the last two, at her desk. So, what did she know? 

She opened her mouth to voice these thoughts to Eric but was interrupted by the arrival of a grumpy, black-clad figure, so instead she said, “Oh, good morning, Mr. Crowley!”

She received a surly grunt in response before Crowley leveled a finger at Eric and said, “Your lot’s over there. Hop to it before they wander off.” 

He indicated a group of curious-looking angels and demons standing some fifty feet away and Eric scampered off to greet them. 

Crowley started to slouch off in the opposite direction, but Muriel asked, “Where’s my group, Mr. Crowley?”

“Samael has them. He has mine as well. Should be here any moment.” 

“Will you wait with me?” 

She wasn’t sure why she asked or what she hoped to achieve by it. She only knew it was damned hard to catch a word alone with him these days and she couldn’t stand another second of doing nothing.

If Crowley thought her request odd, he did not say so. He simply shrugged and stood beside her. They stayed like that for a moment, Muriel biting her nails, Crowley staring at his feet, and both of them feeling very awkward. 

“Are you alright, Mr. Crowley?” The question broke the oppressive silence. Muriel knew the answer as she asked it, but she needed to start somewhere. 

“Fine,” he said, and Muriel noticed how his teeth clenched around the word. 

“Really? Because you look like you need some daffodils.”

He raised an eyebrow over his dark glasses at her. 

“To plant,” she clarified.

That got her a grim smile, but a smile nonetheless. 

“I wouldn’t be caught dead planting daffodils,” he said.

“You did it for me, remember? You said it would help, and it did, but not nearly as much as talking.”

Silence. She hoped she’d said the right thing. Hoped she hadn’t overstepped. Every second he stayed silent made her feel more embarrassed and anxious until she was praying to the Almighty to erase the last few minutes from their collective memory or else smite her where she stood. 

“I’d like to talk,” Crowley said at last, so softly she almost didn’t hear him, “but he’s not talking to me.” 

“Is he not talking to you? Or have you been avoiding him?” 

He gave her a look that was difficult to discern with his glasses on and Muriel silently prayed he wasn’t angry at her for asking.

“Both, I suppose. I messed up. I know it and I’m sorry for it. I just don’t know how to say it. Somehow it’s harder than all the other times I’ve messed up. I was just so out of my mind worrying about him that I forgot he is capable of worrying about himself. I know I should have talked to him about it all right away, but when you spend six thousand years trying to protect someone you love without being able to openly act like you’re trying to protect them, or like you love them for that matter, it’s hard to break that habit when all of a sudden, you’re allowed to be a team.”

He finished with a rush of air and an embarrassed grimace like he hadn’t really planned on telling her any of that and was now feeling self-conscious.

“Maybe you just say that,” Muriel said after a moment. 

“I was going to. I’d planned weeks ago to take him out tonight. Last day of the faire, and all. I was going to surprise him with dinner at the Ritz to celebrate our success if it all went well and commiserate our failures if it didn’t. Last night, I decided I should use it as an opportunity to apologize properly, but” he sighed heavily, head tilting towards the sky as he exhaled, “I’m not sure he’ll want to come. He was so angry at me.” 

“He’ll go.” 

He gave what Muriel thought was a sideways glance at her, but again, it was hard to tell with the glasses. “You didn’t see him, Inspector, I’m not sure he’s ever been that mad at me. He was glowing and shouting. He smashed one of his ornaments, and practically kicked me out.”

Muriel thought for a moment, not wanting to contradict what he said, but also thinking he might have exaggerated the situation in order to avoid dealing with it. She’d seen him leave after all, and it had looked much more like he had stormed out.

“If I know anything about Mr. Fell,” she said at length, “it’s that he loves you. And I don’t know very much about that kind of love, or about love at all, really. But, I don’t think it’s something that just goes away after one bad fight. I think even if he’s angry, he’d rather work through it than not. He’s probably just waiting for you to be ready to do that.” She paused but Crowley didn’t say anything so she shrugged and added, “If nothing else, Mr. Fell  isn’t likely to skip dinner at the Ritz.” 

Damn Muriel and her sweet, well-meaning advice, Crowley thought later that evening. The last day of the faire went off without a hitch. Everyone had seemed in particularly high spirits. All the guides were buzzing with excitement and the vendors had pulled out all the stops for their last exhibition. Mr. Arnold brought his harpsichord out and treated fairegoers to a spontaneous concert. Nova had put out her most exotic flowers. Marguerite opened a case of good champagne. And Nina had even managed to smile at her group. Now they were standing in the twilit street listening to Dev’s band play. Dev was even singing again, the first night he’d felt up to doing so since the attack. It was a good sign that his mind was on the mend and not permanently damaged by his brush with divinity.

“Speaking of divinity,” Crowley murmured to himself over the rim of his wine glass. He’d just spotted Aziraphale in the crowd, chatting with Muriel of all people. Crowley had booked their reservation for nine, which meant they really should be going if they were going to make it. The table would wait of course, but Crowley didn’t like the idea of making all those poor humans work late just for him. Especially because it served as evidence of what a coward he was as he had not yet asked Aziraphale to dinner.

Crowley watched Muriel give Aziraphale a pat on the arm and walk away. If he was doing this, he needed to do it now. He drained his glass and strode toward Aziraphale, trying to remember the last time it had been this difficult to speak to his angel. Then he remembered and it did nothing to help his mood. 

“Angel.“ Crowley said as he sidled up to Aziraphale. 

 Aziraphale beamed for the briefest of moments before he remembered to school his features back into stern stoicism. 

“Crowley.“ He said with a stiff nod. 

Crowley shoved his hands in his pockets, stared at the sidewalk, and said “I thought you might like to… Or rather, was hoping you would…” 

“ Yes?”

Crowley was still staring at the sidewalk so he couldn’t actually see Aziraphale’s expression, but he just knew it was one of polite yet slightly condescending curiosity. The sort of passive-aggressive expression that made Crowley wither. 

“Dinner.“ He said firmly to the sidewalk under his feet. “I would like to take you to dinner. At the Ritz.“ 

He braced himself for rejection, but chanced a hopeful look up when he heard Aziraphale utter a soft, surprised “oh.” His angel’s lips were parted and devastatingly kissable. His cheeks flushed with pleasure and he looked slightly nervous, like a schoolboy, getting asked to dance for the first time. Crowley beheld this transcendent expression for barely a few heartbeats before his angel's eyes narrowed in suspicion and his lips formed a tight line.

“Why?” Aziraphale asked.  

“Because I think we should talk, you and I, and dinner seems like the place to do it.” Crowley’s eyes had wandered back down to the sidewalk as he spoke so the last few words were spoken directly to a flattened piece of gum by the shoe. 

“And what do we have to talk about, Crowley?” 

“You know.”

“I think I do. But in the interest of communication, I would like to hear you say it so I can be sure we are on the same page.” 

Crowley swallowed hard, eyes still trained on the flattened piece of gum on the sidewalk. This sort of thing went against all his instincts, against his very nature, but this was what Aziraphale needed, and he would always do what Aziraphale needed.

“I would like to take you to dinner so that I can apologize properly for my behavior this week.”  

“Very well.” Aziraphale straightened his bowtie and indicated that Crowley should lead the way.  

Crowley offered his arm and was grateful when Aziraphale took it. His gratitude deflated somewhat, however, when his angel added, “ Just dinner.” 

They drove in silence. Aziraphale’s usual squawking about traffic laws was noticeably absent, although Crowley could see him gripping the sides of his seat with white knuckles. He slowed down and began obeying things like speed limits and traffic signals just to see if that prompted a reaction. It didn’t.

Aziraphale became more animated after the maitre d showed them to their table. He poured over the menu with bright-eyed excitement and ordered what seemed to Crowley to be the entire thing. Crowley for his part ordered a bottle of Pinot Noir and a second order of everything Aziraphale ordered so that there would be second helpings if Aziraphale wanted them. 

“Oh, this looks scrummy!” Aziraphale said when the first courses arrived.

“Mmhm,” Crowley hummed in response as he picked up a nibble of goat cheese and tomato tart. 

“Oh, you really must try this crab and caviar bite.” 

Aziraphale held out his fork and Crowley accepted the proffered bite, the salty caviar, mingling pleasantly with the goat cheese still on his tongue.

“Angel,“ he said once he swallowed.

“Yes,” Aziraphale said too quickly. He looked at Crowley with an expression that was a little too open, a little too earnest. Crowley felt himself crumble under the weight of it. 

“I, erm,” A thousand words withered and died on his tongue. He knew he should get down to the business of apologizing. But, he couldn’t shake the memory of Aziraphale’s anger the other night and trembled at the possibility of rousing it again. Instead, he said, “I wondered if you saw the roast quail. You liked that last time.”

Aziraphale’s expression shuttered and Crowley’s immediately turned the conversation back to the faire.

“Oh, It really has gone off without a hitch.” Aziraphale said, fortunately latching on to the new topic without hesitation, “I’m very pleased. Everything is just been perfect, well everything except for…” He trailed off and looked at Crowley again with that expectant look. 

Crowley refilled his and Aziraphale’s wine glasses just to have something to do with his hands, something to distract from what a coward he was being. Aziraphale was giving him every opportunity to apologize and he couldn’t make the words come.

They passed the rest of the meal in near silence. Aziraphale ate with all his usual gusto but barely looked up from his plate. Crowley was left with nothing to do except watch him eat and try not to dwell on how arousing Aziraphale looked with cheeks flushed from wine and good food. Every groan of pleasure and squeak of delight sounded lewd and wanton to Crowley’s ears. Every smack of the angel’s lips or swipe of tongue chasing some morsel of sauce was indecent. Crowley felt hot around his collar despite the building’s impeccable air conditioning and his hands itched to seize Aziraphale by the lapels and press him up against the nearest wall and make him make all those maddening little noises again, crowded room be damned. He’d make sure no one noticed, of course. 

Every time he caught himself in one of these tangential daydreams, he felt a wave of guilt and he started rehearsing his apology in his head, waiting for the subject to come up naturally again. This usually worked for a minute or two until Aziraphale hummed at some new flavor and Crowley was back to unraveling his tartan bowtie with his teeth in his mind’s eye. 

Finally, the dessert tray came and went. Aziraphale showed great restraint by only selecting two little cakes piled high with whipped cream and sugared strawberries, and Crowley showed uncharacteristic indulgence by selecting the smallest piece of decadent chocolate torte, mostly because it gave him something to focus on besides the growing pressure in his groin.. 

“You know, my dear,“ Aziraphale said, his tone light and conversational as he speared a strawberry and a morsel of cake onto the end of his fork, “I’m not sure why you brought me out if you weren’t actually planning to apologize.” 

Crowley’s face flushed at being called out so plainly. 

“Right,“ he said, “Well, erm, I was planning on it, I mean, I am planning on it, I just didn’t know how to, erm,” he looked up for a moment and saw Aziraphale’s pink tongue dart out to capture a dollop of whipped cream at the corner of his mouth and felt his own mouth go rather dry, “how to start.” 

“One generally starts an apology with the words ‘I’m sorry,’” Aziraphale said, primly, bringing another red-glazed berry to his lips. 

He let out a little moan of pleasure as he ate the berry that Crowley was certain was both unconscious and involuntary, but it entranced him nonetheless. That one little noise reverberated through Crowley sending shivers of want up his spine and quite thoroughly eradicating the thoughts from his brain. Aziraphale speared another berry on his fork. Crowley followed the red jewel from the plate to where it hovered in midair, mere inches from Aziraphale’s perfect lips. Crowley felt the anticipation coiling like a snake in his stomach as he waited for Aziraphale to eat the berry. But the berry remained motionless, hovering in midair as before. Crowley’s eyes darted to Aziraphale’s face and found the angel staring at him with an expectant expression. 

“Wot?”

Aziraphale sighed. “I said , one generally starts an apology with the words ‘I’m sorry,’”

Crowley flushed with shame again. Here he was meant to be apologizing for his abhorrent behavior over the past week and instead, he was ogling Aziraphale’s berries and not listening to a word he said. Further compounding his abhorrent behavior instead of rectifying it.

“I’m sorry,” he said to his napkin, and then, realizing he’d spoken to his napkin and not his angel, he forced himself to look at Aziraphale’s crystalline blue eyes and repeated, “I’m so sorry, angel.” 

“For?” 

“For?”

“Yes, Crowley. What are you sorry for ?” 

“Right,” Crowley looked down at his napkin again, feeling like a fool. Why was this so hard? It wasn’t in his nature to apologize for anything, true, but Aziraphale was the only being in all of space and time who he’d ever thought truly deserved one. It should be easy, perhaps even natural, but instead, Aziraphale was having to wrench it from him word by miserable word. 

“Right,” he said again, taking a deep breath, “I’m sorry, Aziraphale, for not telling you about the danger you were in as soon as I found out about it. I was scared, terrified, at the thought of something happening to you, and in my fear I forgot that this is a partnership. It’s always been a partnership even when we couldn’t name it as such. You’ve always looked out for me just as much as I’ve looked out for you and you're just as capable of looking out for yourself. I forgot that. I’m too used to solving problems for the both of us without appearing to do so and I forgot that I don’t have to anymore. I know that doesn’t excuse my actions, but I hope it at least helps explain them. I won’t forget again. I’m also sorry for the way I acted in the bookshop. You were angry and had every right to be. I acted like a child and an idiot and I’m sorry for it.” 

Aziraphale ate his strawberry. Crowley forced himself to look into his eyes and not at his lips while the angel chewed and swallowed. 

“I forgive you,” Aziraphale said simply before diving in for another bite of cake. 

In all the long years they had known each other, Crowley had lost count of the number of times Aziraphale had forgiven him. He had said it with sincerity, with venom, with sarcasm, and of course, that last, most devastating time. This was the first time that the words didn’t make Crowley’s spine itch. He said it with simplicity bordering on the perfunctory, as if forgiving Crowley was the most natural thing in the world as if he had been ready to forgive Crowley for some time and was merely waiting for Crowley to remember his lines before saying his own. There was no double entendre to his words, no snarky bite or simpering pity. Merely forgiveness. The kind of unconditional forgiveness that Crowley had never known. It did not make him recoil or flush with shame. In fact, the words felt like the great weight of his own iniquity lifting off of him. With is gone, he could hardly remember why he’d been so worked up over apologizing in the first place. 

“Thank you,” he said to his napkin. 

“It’s nothing at all, my dear,” Aziraphale said as their waiter appeared with the bill, “Let’s put the whole business behind us.” 

They walked towards the lobby and Crowley wrestled with himself the whole way. On one hand, Aziraphale had said they were only having dinner and he wanted to respect that boundary. On the other hand, the night had gone off rather well and Crowley suspected, or perhaps just hoped, that Azirphale might have changed his mind. And he had, after all, originally planned this evening for a different sort of occasion. 

“Angel,” he said as they reached the door, pulling back on Aziraphale’s hand gently. 

“Yes, my love?”

Crowley spoke awkwardly to his feet, “Well, erm, I know you had said just dinner, and that’s fine, but I, erm, planned tonight sometime ago and, well, originally, I had other, erm, plans.”

Aziraphale narrowed his eyes suspiciously, “Are you saying you’ve booked a room?”

Crowley nodded. 

“Thank someone!” Aziraphale said, “I was hoping you’d say that.”

He seized Crowley’s hand and pulled him towards the lift. Crowley snapped with his free hand and a key appeared there, the tedious business of checking in was for lesser mortals. Aziraphale punched the lift button impatiently and Crowley felt the pressure in his groin return. The lift doors opened and Aziraphale hauled him in, snapping as he did so. The lift doors began to close much to the displeasure of the hotel guests behind them. Aziraphale, for once, didn’t seem to be concerned with other people. He tangled his fists into Crowley’s lapels and pulled their mouths together for a desperate, crushing kiss, right as the elevator doors closed on the disgruntled faces of what Crowley sincerely hoped wouldn’t be their neighbors.