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Presently

Crowley was enjoying the heat off Mirzam (one of the stars that made up Canis Major) when an Angel buzzed past, totally soiling the sanctity of the morose and sulky mood bubble he’d created for himself out in the vacuum of space. 

He’d been gone, wasting away in the vicinity of this single, explosive star for seven days now, which seemed like nothing in the vastness of time and yet seemed like far too long for an immortal like Crowley, who had grown just a little too accustomed to the human measure of time to easily see things through a celestial lense like he used to.

One week of the fifty-four in a year, spent crying, lounging and leaning against the sleek black aluminum of his parked Bentley as it blasted music into space. He used to sleep through entire centuries, and now just getting away from it all for just seven days felt pathetically unproductive. What a waste, feeling like a kicked puppy licking his wounds in a constellation of a dog.

Believe it or not, this was expected. Crowley knew he’d be a mess once Aziraphale left, knew it from that desperate moment he kissed the Angel and felt resistance in the closeness, knew it even before that, when Aziraphale went prattling on and on about offers and Heaven and returning— all these words Crowley had no chance against. Rejection filled him with a strange sense of déjà vu, an urge to run the way he wished he would have one averted-apocalypse ago.

So, not twenty-four hours after Aziraphale ascended to Heaven and left his life with Crowley on Earth (and Earth) behind, Crowley fucked off into space to do some soul searching. What was the human saying? “I’d rather be sad in Paris”? Crowley had been to Paris— not as glamorous as humans made it out to be. He’d rather be sad in space. 

He left in his Bentley, driving it off into the sky in the dead of night — headlights off so he could see the stars and use the constellations to navigate — and he brought with him basically everything he owned, as he had been, in fact, living in his car already. His plants — spotted and looking worse for wear but unscolded considering the circumstances —  had continued taking up residence in his backseats warded to protect them from open space, his phone — bluetooth connected into his stereo to give Crowley allowance to hear the songs he wanted to hear and not whatever Queen song the Bentley insisted on — had rested easily on the dashboard as he escaped the atmosphere, and, of course, Crowley himself occupied the driver’s seat, driving away from the scene of what felt like a federal crime.

On the ride to the far off cosmos, Crowley listened to songs he used to like, before his modern favorites took over the stereo. Mostly, he listened to Ray Charles or Elvis Presley, but on one occasion, he tuned into smooth jazz and old flute instrumentals composed by a snake charmer he used to know, all in an attempt to reconnect with a younger version of him, one that was not so established in being on Aziraphale’s beck and call, one that was not so distraught over leaving Earth.

But he could not reconnect with that younger-Crowley. He was not the same Demon anymore, and music, no matter how old, wouldn’t make it so. So after accepting the fact that listening to forgotten-favorites would not get him any closer to his much cooler, much less sentimental younger self, Crowley turned to his failsafe music genre— upbeat, high-energy, angry and quite sexually provocative songs. 

He played it full-volume when he was in the Bentley, and played it even-fuller volume when he was outside of it so that he (and all the stars around him) could hear. 

This, unfortunately, was a gesture unappreciated by the stars. Space was not the same as when he first made it lifetimes ago

Most of the still-bright and awake stars in the sky were birthed by the sleeping and inactive stellar nurseries Crowley created billions of years prior. 

In other words, most of the awake stars in the vastness of space were not around to see Crowley’s Fall. These stars did not know that Crowley created the primordial cosmos which in turn created them.

In other words, the original stars Crowley made had long since blinked out of existence or otherwise succumbed to a pseudo-eternal slumber or became black holes, and all that was left of them were their children. 

And their children did not know Crowley. 

And Space, the creation for which Crowley felt the most proud, was not as welcoming as he remembered. 

Technically speaking, stars could not feel emotions any more than Earth (the planet) could have a personal vendetta against Crowley, but the Demon still felt like the celestial bodies were wary of him. Stars did not feel distrust, they did not feel prejudice. But they seemed to hum with unease any time Crowley drove near.

His presence was unexpected by the stars — only comets came this way, after all — and unexpected things were seldom welcomed, Crowley knew that.

The young Canis Major stars, however, seemed open enough to his company. And they liked/tolerated the music he played which other stars found disruptive to their own emitted solar-space-songs. Which was perfect, because Crowley deigned to turn off his stereo. Silence, after the week he’d just endured, would no less make Crowley’s mind explode now. 

Mirzam, located in Beta Canis Majoris about 490 light years from Earth, was a very young star compared to most things in the universe. But despite being only about twelve million years old, the star was quickly evolving. Mirzam burned brightly, too bright for a star that young, and Crowley and the star both knew that Mirzam would die far earlier than the star longed to go. For this reason — the mutual understanding that to burn brightly meant to burn shortly — Mirzam welcomed Crowley and his Bentley and his loud, loud music more than other celestial beings. Which led Crowley to post up beside the star for the better part of the seven days he’d been out. 

It felt good to have a celestial body so receptive of his music choices, too. Mirzam seemed to hum to Crowley’s rather scornful playlist, which was refreshing, considering how neither the Bentley nor the miraculously still-living plants in the backseat appreciated them as much. If the Bentley had a choice, she’d force Crowley to listen to heartbreak Queen songs. Lucky for Crowley, installing Bluetooth on the car earlier this decade meant he could avoid the Bentley’s attitude. And even luckier for Crowley, he didn’t need his car or his plants’ approval of his sulk-songs— He had Mirzam’s.

He blared music until the hours stacked behind him and hid his tears from Mirzam whenever they disobediently leaked out. When he felt the star emanating a sort of sympathy towards him, he played harp instrumentals (Stars had an innate love for choir-instruments, built into them all the way back in the Beginning with that first song) as thanks. 

It grew quite annoying, however, whenever Crowley couldn’t hear his own wallowing thoughts through the musical screams and vibrating electric guitar, especially when all he really longed to do was put on slow piano Queen songs and drown himself in self-pity. A well timed Love of my Life would give Crowley the most orgasmic post heartbreak cry, he reckoned.

He wouldn’t give up to that temptation though.

The hardened Demon feared it would be too on-the-nose pathetic, listening to carefully curated breakup playlists, especially considering how he strongly doubted the Angel who’d broken up with him would even call what transpired between them a “break up” at all.

“Break ups” were quite a human activity, weren’t they? And Crowley and Aziraphale were Demon and Angel, as the bright-white blond so loved to point out. And seeing as Demons and Angels entering relationships seemed so unfathomable to Aziraphale, Crowley knew that break ups between Angels and Demons were equally out of the question to Aziraphale. Which was to say, they didn’t break up — couldn’t have possibly broken up — because they weren’t ever together in the first place.

So Crowley saw no justifiable reason to be listening to breakup songs. He never did anything which he could not justify. 

He would not succumb to the call of Freddy Mercury’s In my Defence, no matter how hard the Bentley pouted and whinged. He would not even think about how the lyrics of Dreamer’s Ball or Jealousy would probably send him into a euphoric sobbing-state with just how well they fit the occasion. Because he had dignity. Because he didn’t care.

He’d fuck right out and into space and sunbathe off stars and bleed his ears silly with slutty Billy Squier and angry Van Halen and edgy Black Sabbath, because he didn’t need to cope with sad songs, he needed to just get away for a while— he’d grown too sentimental all these damned years.

Anyway. That didn’t last long. A brightened ball of Angelic light traveling across the cosmos whipped along and circled back to Crowley, perhaps realizing how out-of-place a blasting Bentley and a sulking red-head were in the infinite cosmos of space, and Crowley felt, like a spider being sucked into a vacuum, himself being pulled back into the scene he’d just fled from. 

(Crowley remembered the Early Days, before his Fall, and recalled when there were no stars to light up the empty space— only Angels and their ethereal grace and the pulsing celestial veins they wove all around which would eventually support the life of nebulae and galaxies.

But it had been a long time since the Early Days, and very seldom did Angels of modern times explore outer space anymore. There was no Heavenly Business happening out here. Only the sleeps and births and deaths of stars, and Angels could barely stand the lives and deaths of humans, so who in Heaven gave a fuck about stars these days? 

It made Crowley wary that there was one out here now. Must’ve been that the Angel’s business this far off from Earth was with him. Must’ve been, because there was no other explanation.)

Crowley should have known someone would come looking for him, maybe not from his lot, they'd be busy trying to reconfigure the Demonic hierarchy now that Beelzebub had gone off and eloped or whatever the hell they were doing now, but definitely from Aziraphale’s, that nosy fucking bunch. And he did know, somewhat. He just didn’t think it would be quite so soon. 

The presence of another holy being wasn’t quite so welcomed just yet. Crowley rather hoped he could maybe knock off at least four more weeks in brooding isolation before he could engage in conversation again— he was even planning to lay low with the miracles so as not to give any side a reason to seek him out.

No such luck for him, he supposed. There never was. Seemed all his luck seeped out with his divinity during that Fall. Or maybe he never had any at all. Crowley thought about that stupid human expression — “Luck of the Devil” — and scowled bitterly to himself. Some luck, he thought. Maybe he just wasn’t Devil-y enough to reap the benefits of the expression.

Crowley planted his feet (metaphorically speaking, as there was no ground below him, or above him, or around him for miles and miles) and prepared to be dragged from space kicking and screaming. Billy Squier serenaded him from the opened windows of the Bentley as he, scowling, watched the being of Heaven zip cautiously closer. 

Put your right hand out, give a firm handshake
Talk to me about that one big break

The music blasting out the opened windows of the Bentley still irked Crowley. Somewhat. It felt wrong for the occasion, felt forced. Somewhat. He longed to have an excuse to lower it, but feared the silence heavily. Somewhat. 

So when the Angel rounded around  to where Crowley stood leaning against the front of the Bentley, effectively blocking out Crowley’s view of Mirzam with an ethereal light perhaps just as blinding as the star itself and the Angel spoke, Crowley found himself quite relieved at having to turn down the music just a tad to hear what this bloke wanted. 

Spread your ear pollution, both far and wide
Keep your contributions by your side and— 

“ ‘Scuse me!” The Angel called shrilly, nothing but a ball of light shining much too bright to have any reason being so close to Crowley, whose eyesight had gone blurry and sensitive from the past couple days he’d spent crying and staring at stars. Even through the glasses, the Angel was far too bright. “ ‘Scuse me! Sorry to be a bother—“

“Too late now,” Crowley grumbled, loudly. He bared his teeth and pushed his sunglasses further up the bridge of his nose, subconsciously. 

“Pardon?” 

“You are bothering me,” Crowley enunciated louder.

The ball of light inched back and dimmed slightly, obviously unaccustomed to such a disregard for pleasantries. That was the problem with their lot, really. Crowley would have none of it any longer.

“Waste my time even more, why don’t you?! Go on.”

The Angel flickered an embarrassed shade of pink. “Right— Err, you haven’t happened to see a Demon by the name of ‘Crowley’ pass by here, have you?”

Crowley arched a brow. He pushed off the hood of the Bentley and crossed his arms tightly over his chest, taking two steps forwards and squinting up at the specter of light, thanking the ether his glasses were on. They were all so bloody bright, those Angels. Looking at them made Crowley want to sneeze. But perhaps that was part of God’s clever design, to create beings that spread unpleasant nose-itches and bless-you’s just by being around and shiny, taunting the damned with the pain brought on by their grace.

Fuckers. Disturbing Crowley during his mourning period– intruding on his goddamn alone time, after all he’s done for them! Crowley felt his tongue fork, slightly, and could not hold back a snippy hiss. 

“Why? Surely, his misdeeds must be pardoned by now! If he’s done anything wrong, just talk to management. Ask for the Angel Aziraphale. Hell, ask for the Metatron! I’m sure this ‘Crowley’ fellow’s crimes have been pardoned, else that would be a massive affront on your guys’ part on account of the fact that he saved the world about two times! Twice! Do you know how hard that is? Pretty bloody difficult, I imagine! But does anybody ever show up just to thank Crowley? No! Nobody does! Where can a Demon go to get a ‘thanks’ around here?” 

Put your left foot out, keep it all in place
Work your way right into my face
First you try to bed me, you make my backbone slide
When you find you've bled me, slip on by, and—

“Ah.” The glowing ball of light seemed to sense the defensiveness in Crowley’s tone, and understood, which was far more than Crowley had to say about some certain other Angels. If a ball of light could look sympathetic, Crowley figured this must be how.

“Rest assured, I haven’t been sent to collect you for judgment, Demon. Nothing of the sort, I assure you. I’ve come to bring a message.” 

Crowley waved a hand and heaved a surrendering sigh. He appreciated the Angel’s reassurance and the tension in his shoulders relax upon realizing he wouldn’t be dragged back anywhere, but he still felt a bit snippy. 

“Can’t your lot just set up a business email, or something.” He slouched into himself, stepped back, and leaned back against the Bentley’s hood again. The Angel did not have eyebrows or a face or a corporeal form, but Crowley reckoned this was as confused as a ball of light could look, and took a bit of pity on them for having to deal with him when he was being so misbehaved and disagreeable. 

He toned the attitude down, collecting the misdirected annoyance in his voice into himself, and gestured vaguely towards the Angel to continue. “Give it here, then. Deliver your message.”

“Err— Right. The message. The Supreme Archangel of Heaven,  Aziraphale, invites you for a spot of tea, in Muriel and Co.’s Bookshop, Whickber Street, Soho. That’s in London, United Kingdom, Ear–”

“I know where it is,” Crowley snapped. He staunchly refused to react to Aziraphale’s new title, but the hair prickling behind his neck had its own mind. So did the voice in his head. What a fucking pompous title. Supreme Archangel! More like Supreme Arseangel. “Don’t have to tell me.”

“Ah.” The Angel dimmed again, and Crowley sighed. “Right, of course.” 

Crowley awaited for more, but the Angel had stopped talking.

“Is that it, then?” He asked. “That’s the message?”

“Yes. I apologize for the delay in the message, though I’m sure the invite stands indefinitely— The Archangel will be in the stated location with a tea party ready, at your convenience. I’ve been flying about the cosmos for four human days now, trying to find you, so that I could deliver it for the Archangel.”

Crowley hummed empathically. So Aziraphale’d been waiting four days already. It gave him a sick sense of satisfaction, and then an even sicker sense of guilt.

“Sorry for all the trouble then. I’ve just been here.”

The Angel seemed to nod in acknowledgment. 

“It’ll be the first place I check the next time I may need to deliver you a message then, Demon Crowley.”

“Yeah. Right.” Crowley eyed the ball of light uneasily. “Say, did, uh. Did your boss happen to tell you what the tea invite is for? Or what he plans to discuss?”

The insecurity and nerves unwittingly squirmed their way through Crowley’s tongue, though he doubted this Angel could tell. Only Aziraphale could read him, really. Only Aziraphale knew the tells to his unease. 

“Ah. No, but I’ve a substantial amount of knowledge on human customs, and I do believe the tea would be for drinking.” 

Crowley blinked. An unhelpful lot, Angels were. And Aziraphale was meant to fix the world with them? An idiot’s endeavor, that one. Nevertheless, Crowley slapped on the best he could manage of a semi-thankful grin, and addressed the Angel.

“Right,” he said. “Right, thanks.”

Stroke me, stroke me
Get yourself together boy
Stroke me, stroke me
Say you're a winner but man you're just a sinner now

“My pleasure. And, err, thank you for saving the world.”

Crowley snorted loudly, though he felt the appreciation in his unwitting smile betrayed the meanness of his facade. 

“Twice,” he reminded.

“Goodbye, now,” said the Angel, and they zipped away.

Crowley stretched out, basked in the light of the nearby star, snapped his fingers, and raised the volume of the Bentley’s stereo so loud he wondered if the sound could shake the universe, wondered if it reached Aziraphale. 

(Not a bad song to set off the Universal Richter scales, Crowley mused. Scandalous and catchy. But in the pit where his heart belonged, something in Crowley hummed along to For No One, instead, feeling himself turn more and more miserable.)

Say you're a winner but man you're just a sinner now

After Armageddon

For a brief moment in time, Aziraphale had it all. He was on Earth, for good, and Heaven and Hell would no longer be messing with them, for now, and all the forces which had been separating Crowley and him all these millennia were finally stepping aside, and everything had aligned in one glorious, graspable, blessed moment. 

It was the day after the end of the world, and it was the best, least stressful day of Aziraphale’s long, immortal life. 

Aziraphale was on the sofa, reading the books a certain young retired-antichrist from Tadfield had left him, except he wasn’t really getting anywhere with them because Crowley was at the shop too, and he was being awfully distracting. 

Not that the Demon was being his usual distracting self.

He wasn’t being distracting in that purposeful way he often did for fun or to get under Aziraphale’s skin, asking pointless questions, goading Aziraphale into conversation instead of reading, trying to get the Angel away from his books by buying him pastries and making him tea to distract him, because he knew — the wily thing — Aziraphale did not know how to multitask. No, no, Crowley was not misbehaving, was not keeping Aziraphale’s attention from his beloved books with his sly and silly schemes.

It was just…. Well, Aziraphale couldn’t very well read if he was too busy watching Crowley curled into himself on his armchair and napping under that golden patch of sunlight, now, could he?

Not when Crowley would wake from his nap every half hour only to sleepily get up and move the armchair so it caught the sunbeams before they hit the hardwood floors of the bookshop.

Aziraphale figured it was a serpent-thing, seeking that bright sun-heat, but the Angel couldn’t help but be reminded of a cat, napping and waking only to chase the sunbeam, settling into the heat light like a warm, warm blanket beckoning to be napped under.

He watched as Crowley curled and stretched and melded into the armchair, and he continued to watch while the hours passed as the Demon napped, woke, chased the beam, and settle again, and again, and again, until there was no more sunbeam and it was night time and Crowley got up to settle on the sofa beside Aziraphale instead, leaning his back against the Angel’s side like he’d always belonged there before pulling out his sleek smart phone from somewhere in his pockets.

Aziraphale remembered when smart phones were made. Well, actually, it was very memorable because Heaven and Hell both held very important, very serious meetings over the entrance of this new, portable evil into the Human markets. Crowley told Hell he was the one responsible because he’d wedged himself into a convenient place with a bunch of techies during the height of the early days of transportable technology, and he got a promotion, though Aziraphale knew he was always privately bitter that he wasn’t actually the one to create the smart phone.

Anyway, Aziraphale remembered when smart phones were made, and he remembered the five months of sulking Crowley spent over not inventing it first. But as soon as Crowley picked one up himself, the Demon was able to appreciate the new means of temptations these devices allowed. 

All this to say, Aziraphale was useless with technology, and so any mischief Crowley got around to in the interwebs went unthwarted. Crowley had free reign over “smart phone applications,” which he used to his full Demonic advantage, spreading chaos and mischief and discourse online like he was doing so now. Aziraphale, who had long since abandoned any hope for reading the books Adam Young recommended him, admitted to himself that watching Crowley was far more fulfilling than any hardbound page.

He looked over the top of Crowley’s head nosily, finding him far more fascinating than much anything else in the world. 

He found the Demon was on one of his social media applications, typing out several of those Twitters Aziraphale was always hearing about. Digital messenger birds, was how Aziraphale understood it. Marvelously good in theory, but the way Crowley was typing and posting in quick succession signified the Demon was abusing the reach of a wide audience and spreading nothing but sin and mischief where Aziraphale did not have the technological knowledge to thwart. 

Over Crowley’s laxed body, Aziraphale watched the Demon crank out streams of posts while the Demon continued to lie beside him unawares of the Angel’s attention.

“I’ve met all ur dead problematic favs and they fuck nasty in hell,” was one post, which made Aziraphale have to physically fight against a full-body cringe. “Wot if bodys are like phones and erections were liek notifications? discuss below 👇👇👇,” was another. Crowley did not even have to finish typing out “Did you know: All lottery winners confess they wish they’d started gambling younger? 🤔 Makes you think….” before the Angel was unable to keep in an amused huff poorly disguised as a displeased chuff, loud enough to let Crowley know he was peering at his phone activities over his shoulder.

And Crowley, caught and scandalized, turned his head to say, “Oi, I’m working. Can’t get any privacy here now?” 

Aziraphale rolled his eyes. As if Crowley cared for privacy when he had his entire body leaning against Aziraphale, so close and so relaxed. He did not point out this flaw in Crowley’s reasoning and instead pointed out, “It’s my bookshop.”

“Yes, and every time you annoy me, I leave a bad review on Yelp. And I’m in the Yelp Elite Squad, so that fucking matters, it does.” 

“What?”

“What? Nothing. What?”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes again. He chose to disregard Crowley’s antics and attempted to hide a grin under a judgy expression. 

“Your Twitters are heinous,” Aziraphale said. 

“Tweets, Angel. And I can’t very well spread evil and chaos with a positivity account now, can I?” A notification lit up Crowley’s mobile screen.

Aziraphale read it, cringed at the user’s abuse of the English language, and he said out loud, “I think a… erm, user might have just sent you a death threat.”

“And now their soul is mine,” Crowley shrugged, laughing as he took a screenshot. It was in moments like these, alone together, when Crowley’s laughter rang clear, unsubdued by sarcasm or general air of faux-cruelty. It was in moments like these, together alone, when Aziraphale felt centuries and centuries of ingrained guilt float away from him, because surely, he’d done all the right things to have Crowley in this way, laughing — not cackling or sneering or sarcastically remarking — beside him, closer than Angels were to God. “I love my job.”

”I believe we were both fired from our respective jobs yesterday,” Aziraphale pointed out. He was very fine with this fact, actually. Coping quite well with it and entertaining his internal musings about eventually working his courage up to asking Crowley to — Oh, goodness — be his boyfriend, because how delightful would that be, now that they were allowed? “Please, my dear, free yourself from these corporate shackles.”

To that, Crowley countered, “Still a Demon, just not affiliated with Hell. I’m a freelancer. Call me a workaholic, I invented the term.”

Aziraphale only chuckled, and Crowley went back to spreading evil online, and he went back to admiring the red of Crowley’s hair, the warmth of Crowley’s skin, the beauty of… well, all of it, really. 

Straight out of the Sturm and Drang photorealism movement, this Demon. Beautiful and alluring and looking dangerous as anything. A figure right out of the paintings. A beauty beyond compare, meant to be captured, meant to be a muse to all the good artists of the world. 

Dante Gabriel Rosetti’s Heart’s Haven came to mind. The poem surfaced unexpectedly in his head, but it felt… safe, being recalled here, in a moment as tender as this. 

And Love, our light at night and shade at noon,
Lulls us to rest with songs, and turns away
All shafts of shelterless tumultuous day.
Like the moon's growth, his face gleams through his tune;
And as soft waters warble to the moon,
Our answering spirits chime one roundelay.

The Angel watched Crowley type and tweet “All my followers ungrateful asf, i shouldntve saved the world yesterday tbh,😭😭💯” and then he said, “I remember when TBH stood for To Be Had.”

And Crowley laughed, without looking up from the screen.

“I remember when I taught you that. Words change. They mean different things now than they did in the nineteen-thirties.”

Aziraphale sighed. “Don’t I know it.” 

“Oh, don’t worry, Angel,” Crowley smiled without looking up from the screen. He allowed Aziraphale’s peering eyes, allowed himself to be witnessed. To Aziraphale, getting this was a gift. “The world’ll change, but I’ll still be here to teach you all about it. Get you caught up.”

”Oh, really? Would you promise?”

” ‘Course. What else would I do for all eternity?”

Aziraphale felt affection rush through his body. He smiled at Crowley, mentally forgiving him for all the souls he managed to bag instigating fights on Twitter, and thought, This— This is it.

The moment in the story which confirmed that the virtuous and the good would always be rewarded, that hard work paid off, that you need only to do good and the rest will fall into place.

Aziraphale grinned fondly. In his mind, he recalled Emily Dickenson’s Before I got my eye put out. 

The Meadows – mine –
The Mountains – mine –
All Forests – Stintless stars –
As much of noon, as I could take –
Between my finite eyes –

It was the day after the end of the world. It was the first day of the rest of their lives. They had all the time in the world to love each other, there wasn’t a rush or anything. No imminent danger, no nothing. They were safe.

Crowley’s head no rested on Aziraphale’s lap, casual, like he belonged there, which he did. And things would change, but they never would. Not in closeness. Not in this regard. 

He felt a last poem long to be acknowledged. 

E.E. Cummings, Since Feeling is First: 

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don’t cry
– the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids’ flutter which says

we are for each other; then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life’s not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

Presently.

Crowley knew Aziraphale was like him from the moment that fair-haired son of a bitch exhibited the very promising potential for understanding and gave humankind the gift of a flaming sword, subsequently giving them War. He was infatuated with the Angel long before Eden, when they were both Angels and not a Demon and an Angel, because how could he just not be infatuated with that sweet face? 

But Aziraphale, as enchanting and intelligent, bright and righteous of an individual he was, had been far too deep in the ass of Heavenly Bureaucratic Matters to notice, and Crowley doubted Angels were taught about love and understanding in between their teachings of how to justify mass genocide. 

Which was to say:

Their love was, for more than just quite-some-time, unrequited.

And Crowley fought it, of course he fought it. He was a Demon, and much more, a Demon with standards; he would not have been caught dead feeling so tempted by an Angel who didn’t feel as tempted by Crowley’s presence, at least not without a fucking fight.

To the tune of endlessly angry, fearfully sad songs that had not been written yet, he fought it. To the sounds of instruments that had not been conceived even in the minds of men yet, he fought it. Over and over and over again. 

Back in Mesopotamia when Aziraphale hid his sadness over the death of children in the coming Biblical flood for fear of questioning God. Back in Golgotha when Aziraphale attempted so hard to find meaning in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ despite how senseless the killing was. Back in Uz, when Aziraphale saw the good in him he’d tried so hard to conceal and looked oh-so smug. Back in Rome, when Aziraphale had popped in so cheerily and asked that unintentionally scathing question– Still a Demon, then? As if he could be anything different. 

He fought. Crowley fought and he fought his affections for that stupid, clueless Angel with everything he had in him– every demonic wile, every ill-conceived joke, every refusal and rejection and scathing remark that ended with No, Angel, I am not good, and I will never be good, and you might as well leave now if that’s what you’re expecting from me, because I’m a goddamned scorpion and you’re nothing but a hopeless angel.  

But Crowley couldn’t fight Love. Not really. (He’d fucking try if he ever met the bloke one day, though.) 

Crowley was in love with Aziraphale, and had been since literally the Beginning.

Entire civilizations rose and fell before Aziraphale reciprocated his love for Crowley. Entire dynasties and bloodlines crumpled into dust and nothing in the time it took for Aziraphale to love Crowley back.

Which was to say, it was a long wait.

Through the years, Aziraphale seemed to warm up to Crowley– Not just the Angel’s idea of Crowley, but Crowley Crowley. It gave the Demon some hope, some traitorous hope.

And that hope burst to life some time in the 1940s, when the Demon would step into his first church in order to save Aziraphale and a briefcase full of his very precious books, and Aziraphale’s entire disposition to him seemed to change, shift, and allow for more than just chance meetings, more than just Angelic doubt. He drew closer to Crowley than Crowley would have ever allowed anything else, all because Crowley saved some fucking books. 

Materialistic bugger. Crowley loved him.

As one would imagine, pining after an Angel after your entire race had lost The War To Begin All Wars to them was quite difficult, less so about the treasonous implications and more so about the fact that being an Angel made Aziraphale very, very unlikely to love him back. 

Fortunately for Crowley, though, he was a very skilled liar, and as long as Aziraphale stayed as clueless about Crowley’s pining and Hell could not use Crowley’s affections towards Aziraphale against him, Crowley figured stealing a look or two every century or so would be enough. 

A delicate situation it was, to be a Fallen Angel and having to be slightly afraid at all times for somebody else’s safety. But all it really took was practice. And he had the time to practice.  

He would take what he could get in coffee shop rendezvouses, in the pages of Bible stories that were never written, never recorded, in the moments during the battle when Crowley and Aziraphale found each other on opposing sides, in the moments during battle when Crowley’s weapon miraculously slipped from his grip at the same time Aziraphale’s balance miraculously failed and sent him falling to the ground. 

Small mercies would suffice. Small mercies would be a fine substitute for love.

But all his existence, Crowley had concerned himself with Aziraphale, and all his existence, it had rewarded him with nothing but fear— fear that Hell would punish him through the Angel for such a weakness if they ever found out, and fear that God Herself might condemn Aziraphale should Crowley tempt over the line. See, it was hard to grapple with self-loathing as well as unrequited love if your track record started off with you tempting all of humanity to Fall. A Biblical moment like that changes a Demon, leads them to believe the things they love will be punished for being loved. 

No matter. 

A Demon would take his chances, staving off desire and greed to keep what he could get. A Demon could survive off what they dared to have and want nothing more.

And a Demon did survive off it. Until it changed, and it grew far more precarious. 

Until the tiptoeing turned into a dance of hands, reaching out and brushing, a dance of bodies, meeting in places for no good reason. The dared to grow closer even under the watchful (yet unobservant) eyes of their head offices, meeting under the guise of hereditary enemies thwarting each other’s plans — yet Crowley wondered if hereditary enemies saw concertos together and stole gazes of each other’s lips under the dimmed lights as often as he and Aziraphale did.

They grew closer still after Armageddon, when they’d both quit their jobs and there weren’t watchful eyes anymore, as far as they could tell. After quitting, Crowley practically lived at the bookshop. They went on outings— no, dates— and the guards they’d put up for all those years dissipated. They became as open as the East Gate of Eden where Crowley slithered in, and maybe that’s where Crowley went wrong.

He dared to think he deserved more, until he took more, presumptuous.

Granted, he was under the impression that Aziraphale would at least kiss back. After six thousand years of toeing the line, of carefully chosen words, of a repressed but mutual understanding of affections, was it so wrong for Crowley to assume that Aziraphale would kiss back? 

Obviously, that did not happen. 

And now here he was, standing in front the Angel’s door one week after Heaven and Hell’s least reciprocated kiss with a menacing scowl and an equally withering glare. A scorned dog, coming back in shame. For what? For a spot of tea? A small invite and he was back. Pathetic. 

Crowley eyed the separation of wood and felt nauseous upon realizing he did not even have to touch it to know what the polished ridges and heavy hardiness felt like. Muscle memory had simply taken it upon itself to ingrain it in him from the innumerable times he’d entered Aziraphale’s bookshop. 

Muriel’s now, Crowley reminded himself. Even the sign above the shop had changed. Muriel Fell and Co. Not Aziraphale’s any longer. But Aziraphale was in there anyway. Having his goddamn cake and eating it, too, the fucker. Still occupying this sacred space as if he deserved the bookshop after just how prepared he was to leave it. Still inviting Crowley to tea as if he was not the one to leave. 

Crowley angrily shoved airpods — he was the one to invent those, y’know, after he hyperfixated on temptations that lead to road accidents (he also invented road head, but that was another story) — into his ears, jamming them in there and pulling out his phone to hype himself up with his Angry-Not-Breakup playlist. Secretly, he knew the Sad-Breakup playlist would hit harder, but he could not even imagine listening to The Ultracheese, Piledriver Waltz, or any Arctic Monkeys song right now, really. Not in front of this shop, at least. Not without falling to his knees and throwing a proper fit and maybe throwing up on the welcome mat and all over the place.

He knocked once.

A knock at the door pulled Aziraphale out from his thoughts. He nearly cracked his neck, turning it to follow the crisp and heavy-handed sound. He also nearly jumped out his own skin. No, Aziraphale was absolutely not tip-top. He was on the edge. 

For a moment, he doubted if he even heard the sound or if he imagined it in an anxious haze. But a single knock, like it did not want to be heard, sounded an awful lot like how Aziraphale’s number one Demon would knock if he were cross. So Aziraphale crossed the threshold with haste and opened the door enthusiastically. 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale’s voice was just barely above a whisper. Soft, the softest way Crowley’s name had ever left his tongue. He could not hold back his astonishment, could do even less in holding back the endearment, the relief.

“Supreme Archangel Aziraphale,” Crowley returned, bureaucratically. And he sneered, so weak it could be interpreted as a grimace.

Aziraphale held back a flinch at the scalding tone but sympathized with the faltering facade of cruelty.

Right. Crowley was still in that bitter stage. Ah, well, it couldn’t be helped. On one of the shelves deeper inside the bookshop, a particularly loved poetry book eavesdropped on the exchange with fascination, and inside of this particularly loved book happened to be a poem Aziraphale was reminded of right then. 

Nothing Gold Can Stay.

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

With a pained smile, the Angel said, “Just Aziraphale will do.”

“Will it, though?” Crowley sneered again. This time, it was more successful, and Aziraphale had to really gather the will and patience it took to ignore this comment. 

“You came back,” Aziraphale marveled instead. 

Crowley frowned pointedly. He crossed his arms and stuck his nose up in the air and Aziraphale noticed how Crowley had his wireless earbuds on, which annoyed the Angel just a little. 

(Aziraphale recalled Crowley inventing Airpods. Imagine the amount of road accidents, Crowley had chuckled gleefully. Put these babies on while you’re driving, and show’s on the road— Literally! Big ol’ crash. On par with my M25 idea. Aziraphale had added, disapproving, Oh, but Crowley, imagine how rude it would be if people left these on during conversations, to which Crowley jumped for joy and laughed, Exactly! You see the vision!) 

How endearingly rude, his dear Demon was. But Aziraphale could not bring himself to be anything but glad that Crowley even showed up. Aziraphale wondered how long he could have spent going back and forth from Heaven and Earth to be in this bookshop waiting for Crowley to accept his invite to tea. Months at least. How easily Aziraphale would have been willing to run himself through with his own flaming sword if the Demon were to ask politely, if the Demon would say please.

“Don’t I always come back?” Crowley grumbled, with a hint of resignation, and the mood dropped considerably lower. Under better circumstances, that sentence would have been nothing short of romantic. These were not better circumstances at all. 

Aziraphale did not know what to do with himself.

He fiddled with his hands for a while, a tight smile on his features, and tried very hard not to admit anything idiotic like how for a moment there, he really, truly believed that Crowley had finally gone away from him, for good. 

“I really am glad.” An olive branch. “I’m relieved you’re back, dear.”

Crowley’s crossed arms tightened around himself even more. Rejection.

“Right.” Clipped and brief and dismissive. “Well, there’s ample opportunity for that to change.” 

Aziraphale blinked and then breathed.

I could be a nightmare if I wanted, Crowley’s attitude projected. The softness in Aziraphale’s eyes returned, Not to me.

”And don’t call me that.” 

At that, Aziraphale stiffened.

He’d anticipated seeing Crowley again since the circumstances of their last meeting, but not once did he guess Crowley would feel quite so confrontational, and the Angel suddenly felt much more anxious at the realization that Crowley was not just going to ignore what happened when they last saw each other. 

This was unexplored ground, this fight of theirs. Sure, they’d fought before, but they’d never made it such a big deal, always just found a way to sweep it under the rug, or else they pardoned each other before an apology was even uttered. Aziraphale felt ill, seeing such an unfamiliar side of Crowley.

He was… well, he was being quite bitchy.

But Aziraphale supposed he deserved a righteous enough amount of it. 

The Angel attempted an easy smile — attempted, because the smile rather looked taut-tight and susceptible to breaking if it were wound any tighter — and stepped aside, opening the door invitingly further.

“Why aren’t you coming in? The tea’s fresh.” 

Aziraphale remembered that was a lie and the tea had actually, in fact, been sitting out the past couple hours or so, and miracled it to be the truth. He warmed the biscuits too, while he was at it. 

Crowley stalled by the door, seeming to falter a little at the invitation, though Aziraphale could not understand why. 

“Err… pardon?” 

“Why aren’t you coming in?” Aziraphale repeated. 

“Sorry, could you phrase that more, um… invitingly?” 

Confusion swarmed in Aziraphale’s head, before—

“Oh, really, you took your name off the deed?” Aziraphale would be hurt by this later, but for now, he was just oddly offended. Maybe scandalized. “Is that why you can’t come in? Unbelievable.” 

“Yes, well, congrats on figuring it out. Invite me in, then, why don’t you?” Crowley harrumphed, dearly embarrassed as he gestured around the busy street in an attempt at deflection. “It’s loud out here. And I’m not in the mood for being seen by those failed love humans of yours. They might sit me down and give me bad advice.”

“Oh, come in,” Aziraphale huffed, annoyed. “And they’re not my failed love humans, they’re our failed love humans. Just like how this bookshop was ours to enter freely until you apparently took your name off the deed. It’s barely been a week, Crowley!” 

“Yes, well.” Crowley walked stubbornly past him and pointedly rushed himself to the living area.

“Well what?”

“It’s been a rough couple of days,” he gritted out at Aziraphale, who had been close to jogging to keep up with the taller man.

Aziraphale felt immediately guilty. He’d been feeling so for quite some time now, since he became Supreme Archangel, but while it had at least been manageable and tamed easily enough with a good cry in his office up at Heaven, it consumed him entirely now, worsening with every scalding reminder Crowley served through bitter teeth.

It was by the grace of God he’d not broken into a million pieces yet. 

It stung to know it only took a week for Crowley to begin detangling their existences from each other, but Aziraphale knew what Crowley’s response to that would be if he brought it up— It only took a moment for you to throw away six thousand years. But what did Crowley understand about ineffable things, really? That was the issue with Crowley… he was distracted easily. So he didn’t get it. He was so blinded by the possibility of being with Aziraphale and getting his Happily Ever After that he was unable to realize that in this scenario, Happily Ever After would not be so happy-forever-and-after at all. 

From somewhere in the recesses of Aziraphale’s mind, a poem rang in him, through him, and miraculously, out of him, in waves.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Robert Frost’s Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.

The truth was, if Aziraphale had stayed, he couldn’t have endured the pain of knowing the sky could crash down on him and Crowley at any minute without their knowledge or input. It’d already happened twice before; Aziraphale was unwilling to let it happen again.

He had to take the job, see? He had to, because he’d lived his entire existence fearing for the security of the life he’d made with here with Crowley, and every single time he’d let himself believe that they were in the clear, that nothing could ever reach them again, an Armageddon would happen, or they’d find themselves under threat of being fucking erased down to the atoms for harboring a heavenly fugitive. Every single time, Aziraphale had no say in it. Senseless and ridiculous, that cycle. Every time they he and Crowley felt safe enough to get closer, the world would nearly end.

He felt powerless, all those years. 

But now, he was Supreme Archangel. Now, powerless was not even a word to him anymore. Now, he could ensure that safety would last. 

Now, Crowley frowned at him resolutely, rejecting.

They both stood in front of the sofa but did not sit. 

 Armageddon.

The Antichrist was missing. The end of the world couldn’t have been more than twenty-four hours away. Heaven and Hell could smite them at any moment. All of Crowley’s existence had been leading up to this moment, and the surest and easiest way to survive was to run away. It was as obvious as anything, that running away guaranteed survival. Wasn’t that a human saying? Live to fight another day? Or was it live to die another day? Be still going strong? Win the battle, lose the war? Live and… let live…?

Oh, blast it. All these human idioms. Whatever. It wouldn’t matter in twenty four hours. All that would be left to matter wouldn’t be much.

Aziraphale. Crowley could have saved Aziraphale. He tried. Tried to get him to see that the only reasonable decision was to choose Crowley. Crowley wouldn’t hurt the Angel, not the way Armageddon would. 

Aziraphale said no. Of course he said no.

It shouldn’t have ever been a question in the first place. But that was what Crowley did best— question things that shouldn’t be questioned and make a mess of it. It’s what Crowley did; move too fast, expect too much, convince himself that an Agent of God cared more for him than Heaven. This traitorous habit of his, natural to him as pretending to breathe. It shouldn’t have ever been a question, but Crowley asked it anyway. He bore his heart out on that bandstand and— and—

Aziraphale said no. He said a lot of things, actually, and most of them Crowley knew the Angel didn’t really mean — I don’t even like you stuck itself in Crowley’s ears like water — and Crowley forgave the Angel for those as soon as Aziraphale uttered them. 

The Angel meant it when he said no, though. He wasn’t a runner, never was. It should have been expected. It was. 

But it hurt, knowing that despite it all, despite everything, Crowley would never take priority, never stood a chance against Aziraphale’s blind faith. Even in the apocalypse where there was no other choice, Crowley still wasn’t ever the first choice.

Blast it all. Blast that… that stupid, blasted Angel. Idiot would rather take his chances trying to stop the bloody Apocalypse than be with Crowley. He’d rather take his chances defeating the fucking Antichrist than be with Crowley. Fucker. The prize wasn’t enough for him, so what? He chose to lose instead? Fucker.

He said no. Of course he said no. Crowley wasn’t sure why he ever even questioned it. Call it a moment of weakness. He forgot himself there, for a second, and Aziraphale was quick to show him back down to his place, was quick to remind Crowley that he was never the priority. He was just— just a passing fancy. A way to pass the time. Crowley was a chew toy for Aziraphale who was a dog, led on a leash and raised on God’s scraps. 

He left Aziraphale on the bandstand. The bastard deserved it. But the satisfaction usually brought on by stirring the pot and leaving before it boiled over was hard to find. Sure, it was the Demon that left the Angel on the bandstand, teary-eyed and desperate, but all the same, it was the Demon that felt the worst. Funny how these things went, funny how vengeful acts didn’t guarantee satisfaction. 

Crowley sat on the cold floor of his cold flat and drank his cold wine straight from the cold bottle. Practically fucking french-kissing the thing, he was; forked tongue down the neck of it, sunglasses off to give the bottle some allowance, feeling sorry for himself as he held the bottle like a lifeline. A bottle made for a lousy rope, though.

Crowley used to bathe in the heat of newborn nebulae of his own design. He used to be somebody. And now all he was was cold. 

“I could be a Duke of Hell,” Crowley mused out loud, miserably, continuing his drunken exploration of future careers as he had been for the past hour. His audience consisted of his plants, who occasionally shook and shuddered in either plant-pity or plant-disappointment. “When the Apocalypse is all over and done with, and I’ve gracefully accepted whatever punishment I’ll be getting at the end, I could climb the ranks again. Easy as anything, climbing the ranks. Bureaucracy is overrated. Would love to see the look on his face if he sees I’m a Duke of Hell, though. Hell’s side’ll win, of course. What with the Antichrist and all. Would love to see him looking at me, slithering around in the ashes, a proper Duke.”

He imagined it, briefly. And then he inhaled sharply and said, “Never mind.” 

The shrubbery nodded in agreement, and a small pothos plant swayed as if to say Get up. Crowley hissed. 

“I could…. I could….” He grasped around his mind for ideas. Revenge ideas, unproductive ideas, ideas on how to convince Angels to change their minds and buddy up with Demons who cared for them far more than Heaven ever did, easy to execute ideas. But none popped in his head. 

He took another swig from the bottle and settled himself on the throne. The plants judged him heavily. It was all pointless. He knew he’d always forgive Aziraphale, in the end. Entertaining any other idea would be a waste of time. But it would make him feel better. 

Maybe if he found a place— a good place— Aziraphale would change his mind. He’d created far more impressive galaxies than the Milky Way. He’d designed planets with sunsets and sunrises that could make anybody abandon the Earth. Maybe if— if he just— if there was a place that was good enough for the Angel. Maybe, Aziraphale would reconsider. 

Crowley slunk off his throne. He set the bottle of wine down on the floor and stood, straight and prim, sobering up. “Right. Gotta find a place to go.” 

After The Fall Of Man

Before The Arrangement

(Still before Armageddon, but much closer to the Seventh day than presently)

It was ages ago, when Crowley was still Crawly, and Crawly and Aziraphale were still playing the part of sworn, star-crossed enemies, thwarting each other’s wiles with a ferocity that implied discorporation was unavoidable, when Aziraphale found Crowley in Egypt. Back then, they’d battled when they met, and they killed when they could, not often but often enough.

Aziraphale inflicted his fair share of stabs at Crowley (and on several memorable occasions, strategic use of animals) to discorporate the Demon when Crowley got too witty. Crowley, acting more to infuriate Aziraphale rather than to inflict cruelty, took to cleverer means of discorporation, tricking the Angel into schemes like scavenger hunts where the prize at the end was dying to the view of Crowley performing a practiced victory dance.

Aziraphale didn’t feel particularly guilty about the whole smiting and be smitten business; it was just work. Business. Besides, Crowley’d started it, moments after Cain killed Abel.

Aziraphale was doing his whole ineffable speech, for maybe the third time ever, which meant that he was still really polishing out the kinks of justifying tragedy, and at the end, after what seemed to be careful consideration, Crowley had pushed him off a cliff. The fall didn’t kill Aziraphale, nor the taunt Crowley called after him on the way down — Am I my Angel’s keeper now?! — but the sudden stop at the end did, and his corporation had not even the time to glare before he was back in Heaven, seething with rage.

And what was the phrase? Do unto others? Oh, Aziraphale could manage that. 

So came the streaks of discorporation. 

If they were mortal, these deaths may have mattered, but they didn’t, not really. Even so discorporation struck blows to both their egos.

Earth, no longer a garden, was a battlefield, and Aziraphale was loyal enough to the celestial war to spit hate at the Serpent of Eden whenever he was encountered, and Crowley, who practiced pride as a hobby, never backed down from a fight when he was so surreptitiously invited to it.

Which made this night all the more of a landmark— something of a turning point in Crowley’s and Aziraphale’s relationship. 

Egypt was not a civilization, but a place, deserted and dry but cool in the night, and its name was not Egypt, not yet, but it would be. So might as well call it that.

Anyway.

Aziraphale found Crowley in Egypt. He was sitting on the sand, by the riverbank of a river which would eventually be called the Nile, and his head of fire looked maroon in the blue of the clear night light of the Universe around them. Aziraphale thought about engaging in battle, thought about pulling out the whole Avaunt! speech. But Crowley looked so serene. And there was no one for Crowley to harm for miles and miles. 

He thought it would be a cheap shot, to attack the Demon while his guards were down and he was no threat to anybody. 

So he walked over, slowly and cautiously, and said, “What are you doing here?”

Crowley didn’t even look away from the sky. Which was both rude and fine, Aziraphale supposed. “Don’t fight me tonight. I’m still sore from your last trick with the mongeese.” 

“Mongooses,” Aziraphale corrected, earning an eyeroll. “Demons don’t get sore.” 

“How would you know?” Crowley spat.

Aziraphale shrugged. “We’re made of the same stuff. And I don’t get sore.”

”Everything you say to me is a microaggression,” Crowley said, dryly. “Microaggress-ing bastards, the whole lot of you. Just leave me alone.” 

“No.” Aziraphale sat down beside the Demon. His reason for doing so escaped him. He wasn’t looking for a fight, no, but what purpose did they have to meet if they weren’t going to fight? Perhaps Aziraphale was just stubborn in nature. 

Crowley glowered. Aziraphale inched a little ways awayer, just in case Crowley grew testy.

“I will stay,” Aziraphale declared.

Crowley finally broke his gaze away from the sky to shoot Aziraphale an annoyed look. “What are you, lonely? Leave.”

”I’m not lonely. Angels don’t get lonely.” 

Crowley groaned. Aziraphale couldn’t help but feel like Crowley, as evil as he was, let him get away with a lot more things than Heaven would have. Why, Aziraphale couldn’t fathom. Even on the Wall of Eden, Crowley didn’t give Aziraphale a hard time about the sword thing. But maybe Crowley had his own demonic reasons as to why he allowed Aziraphale to commit these misdeeds. 

“There are no wiles to thwart, so you’re wasting your time.” 

”I’ll decide what I want to do with my time, thank you very much.”

Crowley sagged, and then relented, with a face that suggested stony resolve but a wave of the hand that implied otherwise.

“Fine,” he spat. “Stay if you want. But smite me now, Angel, and I will be properly displeased. You don’t know how much of a Demon I am, not yet. I could kill you easy, and you wouldn’t even have time to come back with a new body before I do it again. Remember that.” 

Aziraphale crinkled his nose. “Really, Crawly, that’s—“

Crowley shot him a look. 

“Fine,” Aziraphale agreed. “Fine. No smiting. I promise.” 

And Crowley nodded primly. He allowed Aziraphale’s intrusion with no further comment, and eyed the stars again. Aziraphale followed his gaze with curiosity, but felt like he lacked the appreciation Crowley had for the stars. They were all so small here on Earth and Aziraphale was quick to grow bored just staring at them, but sneaking looks at Crowley showed the Demon’s eyes sparkling with a fondness Aziraphale couldn’t hope to match. 

He didn’t know how it happened, not really. But one moment, the desert silence was thick and enveloping, and the next, it was gone, replaced with the sound of pleasant conversation. It seemed he and Crowley were… agreeable, when they weren’t pushing each other off cliffs or into literal lion dens. It seemed coexistence was not so difficult to achieve. 

All it really took was a clear night and a promise. Who’d have thunk? 

Anyway.

Crowley pointed out the stars, not by the names they’d bear, but by what they resembled to him. The Dog. The Lion. The Snake, though Aziraphale launched on a fierce debate over this one, because all of them looked like snakes to him. Crowley just rolled his eyes, and with a bit of Demon magic, he pointed and drew lines at the sky, luminous stardust lines that trailed his slender fingers, connecting the stars with strings of magic that made the constellations more apparent to Aziraphale. 

“See it now, you right bastard?” Crowley huffed. But there was no malice, nor impatience. It felt, to Aziraphale, like the first time Crowley’d had to fake the irritation, and all of a sudden, the righteous enemies act was just that— an act. “See the animals now?” 

Yes. It was all so clear when Crowley drew it out like that. 

“Barely,” Aziraphale lied. He didn’t want the Demon to get such a big head about it. 

Rolling his eyes, Crowley waved a finger thoughtlessly and the drawings on the night sky began to move. The Lion reared and roared, the Dog wagged its tail, and the Snake struck out at the North star. 

“Show off,” Aziraphale accused. He hid his entertainment at the moving constellations poor enough for Crowley to notice and grin at, mocking. 

“Hm?” said Crowley, looking smug. “Oh, I didn’t mean for it to be impressive.”

”Show off,” Aziraphale repeated, pointedly. He stopped pretending to be unimpressed, though, and let his lips part in wonder as Crowley made the stars dance and snarl and battle each other for him.

”Make the Lion and the Dog kiss,” Aziraphale requested, laughing delightedly as Crowley had the Hunter and the Archer shake hands after a friendly fight. 

“The Dog would never allow that.” The Snake slithered over, and dug its fangs into the Lion’s throat. The Lion went dead. 

“Horrible!” remarked Aziraphale. “Crawly, bring it back! I love that one. Bring it back or I’ll— I’ll—“

”Ah, ah,” Crowley tutted, smirking. “You promised no smiting.”

Aziraphale sagged. “You… you horrid serpent.” 

“Relax, Angel,” Crowley laughed. “‘S not real. They don’t die.” Crowley waved a hand and the Lion got back up. The Lion and the Snake kissed. “Haha.” 

“Haha,” Aziraphale agreed. 

Later, much later, after the humans invented lightbulbs and electricity, the skies would disappear, only visibly clearer in areas not so densely populated and dark sky reserves. Polaris, God’s favorite star, the one that would eventually lead to Christ, the one people would eventually pray towards and wish on, would survive this shift in sky obscurity, bright enough to be seen in the city on cloudless nights to point its witnesses to the same North the three kings followed.

But most of the rest would not be so lucky. Anyway. That wouldn’t happen for a long while. They’d meet loads of times before the stars faded, and from this particular night onwards, their meetings would be more or less pleasant.

Presently.

It took all of ten minutes together before the conversation devolved into something of an argument. 

Crowley grew confrontational in a way that reminded Aziraphale of their earliest days knowing each other, here on Earth. His eyes blazed, but they were cold, and for a cursed and aching moment, Aziraphale found himself back to before, when they were sworn enemies and the attraction was there but not the trust. He remembered their frivolous inflictions of discorporation, the infrequent meetings every decade or so that ended in hate-spats and foulness. 

They only ever went backwards nowadays. 

Crowley longed to leave, itched to exit this bookshop—once a monument to their bond, now just a landmark to their breaking. It’s what he did best, after all. He was an expert in kicking up dirt and not being there when the dust covered the scene, a professional at going away.

But he couldn’t. Because he’d just forcefully slid away Aziraphale’s offered cup of tea, sat stubbornly and angrily down on the sofa, and demanded of Aziraphale, point-blank, “Explain to me how you thought what you did wasn’t degrading and insulting. Explain to me how you justified that in your head, the rings of ignorance you jumped through to get to the conclusion that I, even for a moment, would say yes to you.”

That was two minutes ago. The silence afterwards was excruciatingly long. It urged Crowley to leave, again, but Crowley planted his feet firmly where they rested and grit his teeth, because he would not be leaving without an answer. He drove back all this way.

Aziraphale said, “It’s not the type of thing that can be explained in one conversation.” 

Crowley was a vengeful serpent. “Well, this one is all you get.” He pushed his glasses closer to his face until they sat nearly fully flush against the bridge of his nose and the peak of his cheekbones. “And the time is ticking.” 

“Right.” 

“So start talking.” 

Finally, Aziraphale, looking pained as he should be, started, “I thought about you and the first time we saw the stars, and I remembered your Fall….“ Aziraphale broke off. He spoke with a sort of rehearsed-ness, like he’d practiced all he was to say, but the words were coming out wrong and jumbled, because he hadn’t expected Crowley to be so brash about it all.

“When… when you were thrown out, that must have… must have been a mistake. You’re so good. I thought I could correct it. The opportunity was there, Crowley.” 

Crowley’s nose jutted up just as quick as the sides of his lips tugged downwards in a frown. His expression took leisure time becoming sour, eyes thinly squinting before his lips pulled back into a toothy snarl and the thin tip of his tongue darted past his teeth and in again like a disproving snake. 

“I,” he enunciated with about the usual amount of venom in his voice, which was both a lot and not enough, “wasn’t thrown out of Heaven.” 

Aziraphale smiled, but his eyebrows drooped downwards with a sort of pity Crowley had grown accustomed to.

“Of course you weren’t,” the Angel sighed, and Crowley felt a bit patronized at that. Of course you weren’t. As if he was a child! As if he was a human child! Oh, fuck it, he was getting too bothered. What did Crowley care about Aziraphale’s tone of voice? And what did Aziraphale know anyway? 

“I wasn’t; I told you— I sauntered out.” Indignant was what he was. And offended. He stood from the sofa, a threat. Aziraphale rose with him, a mirror. The room shrunk with heat. 

“Oh, Crowley, be serious, now.” Aziraphale drew in a breath, and it shook. “You know as well as I that it was called The Fall, not The Saunter. I— I don’t judge you, all right? I can’t judge you, for choosing to believe your… demotion… was your choice, but it—“

“Was,” Crowley finished, interrupting. His voice was rigid, and made Aziraphale freeze in turn. He felt immediately bad, and willed his features soft quickly, to diffuse the tension before it arrived. As similar as this was to their fighting days, Crowley didn’t actually want a fight. He just wanted answers. “It was, Angel.” 

Aziraphale’s lips pursed, and it was clear there was a string of protest ready to be freed should he open his mouth again – he dearly hated being told something he believed was wrong – but he exhibited ample self restraint in biting them back. Crowley appreciated it. 

‘Course, he understood where his angel was coming from. After the Fallen Angels Fell, back during the Great War, the newly-transformed Demons fought their new existence, and who wouldn’t have? Adjusting to Hell after you’d gone your whole existence used to Heaven was enough to make any Demon miss their halo. 

But he’d never regretted his Fall before— not how Aziraphale meant, not how Aziraphale wanted him to admit. Crowley sure disliked no longer being able to create entire nebulae anymore, but that was to be expected. He sure disliked being limited to silly, imperceptible miracles. His ego undoubtedly suffered some type of Fall when, from an Architect of the Universe, he became a Company Basement Employee. 

But Crowley had already accepted his fate, long before even the first Angel Fell. It was… well, it was a lot like picking up the habit of smoking. Bit of a metaphor, bear with him here.

It was fascinating, really, when humans first invented filtered cigarettes — they’d already had ages and ages of rolling and smoking tobacco before then, but pre-rolled cigarettes mass-manufactured and sold in every cornerstore was truly a marvel of human innovation — and those thin little cylinders fit the mouths of smokers like a baby sucking on a teat. Some smoked just one and decided that was enough for a lifetime. Some didn’t even need to pick one up to know it wasn’t for them. But others– others had been craving it for years before it even existed. 

“I met Robert Frost, once,” he started, apropos of nothing and everything all at once, and he settled back down on the sofa.

Aziraphale sat down on the arm chair, too. His nose was scrunched up in slight annoyance. “What’s that have to do with anything?”

“Pretty normal guy,” Crowley continued, flashing back an annoyed look himself. There was a point here, if only Aziraphale would shut his pie-hole and let him make it. Aziraphale promptly shut his mouth again. “Kind of disappointing, really. We both know that, I mean, remember when we met Aesop? And he was just a bloke?” 

Aziraphale shrugged. “All humans are normal. They’re humans, after all. They’re the standard for normalcy.” 

Crowley rolled his eyes. “Sod off.”  

Aziraphale waved an impatient hand. “Continue about Mr. Frost, then. ‘Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,’ and whatnot.”

“The Road Not Taken,” Crowley acknowledged, something snake-y in his voice. “ ‘Course you’d like that one. But I digress.” 

A cheap shot, but Crowley couldn’t help it. Aziraphale schooled his expression into one of stony resolve. He looked very stiffly forward with his jaw very firmly clenched as Crowley made his point. 

“He was a smoker. All poets are, and isn’t that perplexing? It’s like…. Well, it’s like they were born with that urge built into them. Like, they’ve been craving it since before they even knew what it was, like they were an addict always.” 

Something seemed to click in Aziraphale’s head, but then he shook it off in a small, stiff motion, so subtle it could have been mistaken for a tremor. His frown grew tight with contemplation, and his eyes regarded Crowley with a new light to them, with a softness. However well-meaning, Crowley found himself challenged by it.

“Where are you going with this?” said Aziraphale.

Crowley stared off into nothing for the furthest end of a second. And then he shrugged, carding long, thin fingers through his dark red hair.

“Never mind.” 

It was frustrating— this whole communication thing. Translating himself so that he could be comprehended, exhausting all his efforts for the fruitless desire of being understood. If Crowley had his way, language would be abandoned for something more efficient. Speaking left too much unsaid, speaking was too ambiguous. He wished to be comprehended completely.

A greedy, gluttonous part of Crowley desired so terribly to meld consciousnesses with Aziraphale, to fully allow the Angel access to all of him, so that understanding may finally be achieved. Because fuck all this talking. It was getting them nowhere. 

He wanted to cross this sea-of-carpet distance between them, reach out, and shake Aziraphale by the shoulders, exclaiming, The questions were inside me before I ever asked them. I was never there, so I could never have been cast out. Take my memories, understand. I was made with these questions inside me, I was addicted long before my first drag. Try and fault me for that.

But Aziraphale looked all too concerned now. And Crowley, for all his pent-up resentment and anger (both of the righteous and misguided variety), did not long to see the Angel upset, much less be the cause for it. Aziraphale seemed to tie his self worth to his own personal values, seemed to tie his identity to the things he deemed righteous or holy. To challenge those ideas, Crowley felt, would be to wage a war he’d never want to win, for Aziraphale would crumble if he were proven so wrong. 

(Funny, the thought of that. Crowley waging wars. That was Aziraphale’s thing.)

(Crowley’s thing was more… complicated.) 

“I didn’t Fall,” Crowley simply said, and did not elaborate any longer. 

They blinked at each other for a slow minute. This simple act in itself felt too intimate, which beckoned guilt back into Crowley’s mind. The memory of the kiss — that stupid kiss — unwittingly resurfaced in the Demon again, but he held back his shudder, and continued to stare at Aziraphale’s cornflower blue eyes as if he deserved them. It felt like a forbidden thing to do after such a rejection, an activity he should no longer have been partaking in. But if Aziraphale was staring into his eyes, what more could Crowley do than to stare back? And really, what was a minute to eternity? 

Eventually, though, Aziraphale looked away. 

Before Armageddon.

It was a Summer night, and Byzantine looked beautiful. The evening breeze carried a pleasant warmth to it which allowed Aziraphale to be lulled into the comfort of lounging about on a grass field, just under a large lush tree. His clothes, particularly breezy in contrast to the tailored suits he’d later live in, complimented the weather, still so pure white instead of beige or tartan. The white soaked in the evening’s colors, reflecting the dark, dark blue of the sky and the rich, rich green of the leaves of the tree above him.

Crowley had joined him suddenly earlier in the evening, with a presenting flourish, as equally sarcastic as it was over-the-top and practiced, and referencing a poem that had not been written just yet. 

“ ‘In the morning, glad I see,” Crowley had recited, voice cool and level, “My foe outstretched, beneath a tree.’ “

He knew of William Blake’s A Poison Tree the same way he knew about Suggestion Boxes. The same way Aziraphale caught the reference thousands of years before the author who’d first written it down was even born, and knew to react by turning to look at the Demon, and huffing, disapprovingly, “Come now. That’s hardly the most fitting poem for this chance encounter.” 

Crowley had flashed his teeth in a sharp, serpentine grin. “You’re right. It’s not morning.” 

“And this is not an apple tree. And you’ve not killed me with a fruit nurtured by hatred.” 

“As of yet.” 

Aziraphale had huffed. 

Crowley said he was coming back from “a quick temptation,” but was not very clear in his answer at all when asked how he knew where Aziraphale was. Of course, Aziraphale should have been concerned over how exactly the wily Demon Crowley was quite so good at finding him, but it was easier to be so careless when he felt completely secure in the knowledge that Crowley, Demonic as he was, would never intend to harm Aziraphale.

He could pop in anytime he wanted, Aziraphale reasoned, as long as the circumstances remained so agreeable, and Crowley remained ever so captivating.

“Do you keep track of your age?” Aziraphale asked. He did not know what prompted the question, nor did he know what possessed him to ask it. 

“How do you mean?”

“You know. Like how humans do it. Days of birth, annual celebrations, or even just acknowledgments.” Aziraphale felt himself smile without meaning to. He adored humans and their celebrations of life. He adored their frivolous traditions, how they danced with time as if time and death were not so similar.

“Ah,” Crowley breathed. “Like Constantine? He just had a birthday, didn’t he?”

“No,” Aziraphale chortled. Crowley’d been mixing his timelines up since the Ottomans. He couldn’t seem to distinguish dead empires from alive ones. Constantine! Just having had a birthday! For all their love for humans, they couldn’t ever get used to their lifespans.  “No, my dear, he died.”

“Did he?” 

“Yes, a while ago. Decades, actually.” 

Crowley gave him a sidelong look in disbelief. 

“Really?” He clicked his tongue. “Ah, well, I wasn’t there. I was busy gallivanting about… uhm, here, actually. I was in Byzantine. That must explain it.” Crowley considered this. “Or his era paled in comparison to the Dark Ages in my memory. I was there for one of his birthdays, though. February twenty-seven. I remember.”

“He was long dead before the Dark Ages, Crowley. You’re getting your timelines mixed. Rome fell a century after he died.“

Recognition flashed in Crowley’s bright features. “Right! With dear old Romulus. Romulus Augustine.”

“Romulus Augustus,” corrected Aziraphale. 

“I remember the real Romulus. I remember his brother, Remus, too. And their birthdays. See? I remember the days that matter.” 

The last Western emperor having the same name as one of the original founders— that was a coincidence so funny that Aziraphale wholeheartedly believed it was one of God’s jokes. Romulus (the very first emperor) and Romulus (the very last) had made Aziraphale look up at the Heavens and say, Oh, God, You! You and Your callbacks!

“Marvelous job, dear, well done.” He declined to point out that Remus and Romulus were twins, and so remembering both dates was not such a feat. Because Crowley looked so pleased with himself. “Your mind astounds me.”

Crowley grinned triumphantly. 

“And you?” Aziraphale continued, bringing them back to his original point. He sounded hopeful. “If you know this dead first emperor’s date of birth, you must know yours.”

The Demon frowned, contemplatively, and he stared at Aziraphale with an arched, questioning gaze. “We don’t get born,” he said.

Aziraphale huffed. Semantics; Crowley practiced it quite well whenever he played aloof. “I know that. But we were made at some point, weren’t we?”

He studied Crowley’s face closely, and watched as his companion shrugged and nodded agreeably at that. Crowley hummed and said, “Fair enough,” and then he regarded Aziraphale with a dissecting gaze. “I don’t. You do?”

Suddenly, he felt very embarrassed, being caught partaking in a human activity that not even the Demon Crowley dared to defect enough to practice. Perhaps it was his fault, assuming Crowley and him sinned the same just because Crowley was a Demon.

Crowley was still looking at him with that unreadable look in his eyes, though.

Aziraphale felt himself nod. 

“Really?” The Demon was astonished. “How old are you?” 

Aziraphale told him. The metric of time for holy beings was quite inconceivable. Even if it were written down, no human would be able to grasp it. Which was to say, Aziraphale had been in existence for a very long while. 

Crowley’s eyes went wide and soft and full of sparkling admiration. “Is it difficult? To remember?”

“No.” And Aziraphale felt very insecure not knowing how old Crowley was. So he asked, “And you? You really don’t keep track?”

“I couldn’t even if I wanted to,” Crowley shrugged. “I was made before Time.” 

“What?”  Aziraphale snuck a glance at Crowley and felt very young. 

“Do you know how you were made before the Universe?” 

Made. Crowley described it all in such a clinical, analytical way. Took all the Holiness out of creation. But words were only words, and Aziraphale knew what he meant enough to excuse the lack of love in Crowley’s interpretation of being created. Aziraphale just shrugged and nodded. 

“Yes.” Aziraphale also remembered Crowley making the Universe. Or, well, cranking a rather large part of it to life. It was sort of his passion project. “Yes, I was made before that.” 

“Well, even before time, there was me,” the Demon explained simply. He paused to think, and then he added, “Practically, I helped create Time. Practically, I’m like its father.”

“You can’t be Time’s father,” Aziraphale found himself arguing. 

“I said like its father. And why not? Romulus fathered Rome. I can claim myself parent to Time.”

”Time is a concept, not an Empire.”

”So’s War. You don’t see me claiming War isn’t any less real just because she’s a concept.” 

Aziraphale’s brows furrowed. “War is a fact, not just a concept.”

“So’s Time.” Crowley shrugged, unbothered. “Feel yourself getting further away from the past? That’s Time, baby. More factual than anything.” 

Aziraphale thought about War — the Horseman — and how she wouldn’t have existed if Aziraphale hadn’t given man his flaming sword, how his earliest contribution to humanity was a weapon they could all use to fight among themselves with. He wondered about the hand Crowley had in creating Time, and then he wondered if he should be calling himself the parent of War too. He felt the presence of his halo atop his head. 

Aziraphale sniffed in defeat, finding no real faults in Crowley’s argument he could exploit. He sagged slightly.

Crowley noticed and flashed him a crooked grin. “You know we’re not arguing, right? You’ve got this constipated look to you like you think we’re fighting. We’re not.”

”I know we’re not,” huffed Aziraphale. 

“Good. We’re just talking. Talking’s good. ‘I was angry with my friend; / I told my wrath, my wrath did end.’ And all that good stuff.”

“Stop referencing poems just because they have apple tree motifs,” Aziraphale said, rolling his eyes. “And stop picking ones that imply you’ll kill me—”

”Imply?” Interjected Crowley. 

“I think I see your point,” said Aziraphale, ignoring him. “Only if I squint. But I see it.”

”Don’t strain yourself being so open minded ,” snorted Crowley.

”Oh, shut up.”

They sat silent next to each other for quite some time. Even with their constant exposure to the way humans kept time, all fickle-minutes and nothing-hours, Crowley and Aziraphale were still immortal beings, not quite so temporary and short as the humans were. So it was easy to slip into the silence of Byzantine, until the constellations had made a noticeable distance in their journey across the sky, until Canis Major barked his way around the earth.

Crowley extended a hand towards space. Aziraphale had the strangest feeling that he’d done this all before. 

“It’s getting harder and harder to see,” the Demon said, directed to Aziraphale without really addressing him. “With their oil lamps and torches, there’s no way the sky won’t disappear. Isn’t it getting harder and harder to see, Angel?”

A favorite of Aziraphale’s poems came to memory, from Swinburne’s A Forsaken Garden— 

Not a flower to be press’d of the foot that falls not
        As the heart of a dead man the seed-plots are dry;
From the thicket of thorns whence the nightingale calls not,
        Could she call, there were never a rose to reply.
Over the meadows that blossom and wither
         Rings but the note of a sea-bird's song; 
Only the sun and the rain come hither
        All year long.

Aziraphale nodded. He tried to look past Crowley’s hand, to where he was pointing at a faint galaxy, getting fainter by the year. But then his eyes stayed hooked on Crowley’s wrist, and Aziraphale surely had to nod by then. 

“It is,” he agreed, somberly. “But there will always be places where seeing is easier. You could go sailing.”

“ ‘S never been the same. Not since the first time we saw.”

“If you’re looking to beat the first time we saw the stars, I’m afraid to say there’s no justice in that endeavor,” Aziraphale said. “All the experiences pale in comparison.”

”Really?” 

“I watched you explode a nebula into existence.” Aziraphale was shocked by the resolve and sincerity in his tone. “It happened all around us. A comet bounced off your wings.” Crowley snorted. “After that performance, stargazing on Earth is… not disappointing, no, but more like—“

”Being extricated from Orchestra seats and plunged into the last row,” Crowley finished. Aziraphale nodded, relieved he understood. And then, “Y’know, I always considered our first time seeing the stars together was on Earth. In Egypt. Remember?” 

Aziraphale bit his lip.

—and in the same poem:

Heart handfast in heart as they stood, "Look thither,"
        Did he whisper? "Look forth from the flowers to the sea;
For the foam-flowers endure when the rose-blossoms wither,
        And men that love lightly may die—but we?"

He stared at the stars and the stars stared at him back. Or maybe they were staring at Crowley. Aziraphale turned, looked at Crowley as well, and, well, he couldn’t fault the stars for looking. 

“I hope the humans get to see one of them,” Crowley confessed, still looking at the stars. He was wide-eyed rather than squinting. “Light years away… why’d we ever make them light years away? I hope they’ll build a trebuchet that’ll launch ‘em to the Snake. I’d bless it, too, best I can. Clever humans.”

A faint sadness washed over Aziraphale. He declined to mention the impending doom of humanity. Only a couple thousand more years…. He hated to think about what would happen to the stars once humanity’s wiped out— they were built for humans to look at after all.

He pushed aside his dread (despair?) and hummed as if he did not have any at all. “Quite.”

Presently. 

“Didn’t you ever want something more for yourself?” Crowley shocked himself with the question.

The sprinkling outside collected into fat dewdrops on the windows of the shop, a subtle pitter-patter that Crowley could only hear if he tuned out from his airpods and focused on the droplets. 

Aziraphale looked morose. “I have everything I need.” 

“But do you, though?” Crowley’s brow was arched. His frown was unimpressed, unconvinced, unrelentingly confrontational. What happened between them— the undeniable love between them— that would not be shoved under a rug to be ignored. It had spent too long under there already. Crowley was ready to bring it into the light. “Do you have everything you need?”

“No, of course not.” The Angel was quick to roll his eyes. “I don’t have you. But that’s… not up to me. Everything else is up to me. I don’t want more, I just want you.”

Crowley was going crazy. Every pretense of plausible deniability had been ripped from them now, and intentions were clearer than crystal. This game of push-and-pull they’d performed around each other for years and years, finally abandoned to expose the truth: They wanted.

Crowley wanted to rip his hair off and spontaneously combust. He wanted to scream.

Aziraphale studied him cautiously. 

“You—“ Crowley interrupted himself with a staggering breath. “You say things like that—“

“You don’t believe it?”

“How can I? When you— When all your bleeding life, you’ve been—“ He broke off and tried to reign himself in. Crowley didn’t really know why he continued attempting to calm himself down at this point, because it never really worked and always ended up with him doing something he regretted. He inhaled sharply, trying to calm himself down, and when he exhaled, scorn poured out.

“You’re their puppy dog, Aziraphale. They tell you when to bark, and you do it. They tell you when to bite, and you do it. Doesn’t matter who you’re biting, doesn’t matter if you get hurt, doesn’t matter if they beat you afterwards! You do it.” Crowley’s tongue went dead in his mouth. His voice broke, the weak thing, and it was a miracle he was able to swallow around the lump in his throat. “We— We got free. We were so close.”

“Crowley….”

“But we didn’t get free, though, did we? At least, you didn’t. My mistake, for assuming.” His words betrayed his nature. The cruelty bled into his tone, the bleeding made Aziraphale flinch. “They just loosened your leash a little. One little bone waved at you and you’re crawling back again. Not me. Not me, Angel. I’m not gonna come back like that for anything.”

Crowley staunchly ignored the fact that it was a message from Aziraphale that had him driving across the cosmos to be back on Earth from Canis Major. That wasn’t the point. He sat back stiffly with his arms crossed and burned holes through the ceiling with his eyes, tensing even more when he heard Aziraphale scoff from the armchair. 

“I’m not like you, Crowley.” 

Here was this bloody fucking monologue again. I’m the good guy, you’re the bad guy, blah, blah, blah, blah. Would’ve been better if he’d said what Crowley suspected he was actually thinking— You’re a bad influence. 

Aziraphale  let out another frustrated sigh, and Crowley was not looking at him but he could not help but to imagine the way Aziraphale’s chest rose and fell with the sound, the undoubted annoyance gracing those angelic features now. 

He forced focus on the song in his ears to get away from the thoughts about how Aziraphale still looked so put together, even distressed. The song had since switched from Van Halen’s Panama to The Doors’ Touch me. It felt, like all the other upbeat, angry, energetic songs that had played thus far, wrong to play. Crowley resisted the urge to take his airpods off, but he did allow himself to lower the volume and skip this song. Aziraphale did not seem to notice. 

Freebird started playing. Crowley did not remember the beginning of the song sounding so sad. The electric guitar sounded like it was sobbing. 

“I can’t just leave things alone, not like you can. There’s just so much wrong and I can fix them. I… I can make things better— for all the Job’s and Morag’s and Nina’s and Maggie’s— and the Demons and Angels, too! And… And for us. I can make things better for us. I know I can. And we can do it together.” 

You can do it, by yourself, Crowley wanted to say. Aziraphale, for all his talk about “making things better,” didn’t seem to know what “better” was even if it grabbed him by the lapels and kissed him. 

If I leave here tomorrow
Would you still remember me?

“No nightingales,” Crowley mumbled, that same cursed fucking realization crossing his mind, and Aziraphale tensed again. When he’d said it back then, in this same shop, after that cursed fucking kiss, he’d meant it to be more scathing. No Nightingales was meant to mean You’ve made your decision, and I don’t love you anymore. But who was he kidding? He never meant that. “No fucking nightingales.” 

For I must be traveling on now
'Cause there's too many places I've got to see

“You keep saying that! Crowley, I don’t understand.”

The Angel’s voice bordered on desperation, though for what Crowley could not even begin to fathom. It was becoming clearer and clearer to Crowley now that he was just. Too much to be comprehended. 

But if I stay here with you, girl
Things just couldn't be the same
'Cause I'm as free as a bird now
And this bird you cannot change

Freebird made his chest hurt. The beat drop would make up for it, he convinced himself. Any second now, the song would shift into anger, and Crowley would feel better about it playing.

With a loud sigh, Crowley stood up swiftly and abruptly. He adjusted his jacket and checked his pockets before clasping his hands together and said, “Right, then. If that’s all—“

“You’re leaving?” Aziraphale guffawed. He immediately stood from his armchair as well, so quickly that it screeched back with force, and the sharp echo rang in Crowley’s open ear. 

Crowley held back a flinch, either from the sound or from the suddenness of Aziraphale’s movements, and he shrugged, forcing the motion to look cool and relaxed and not at all like he was about to start crying to fucking Freebird. “Aren’t I always?”

“I don’t even know where you go.”

Then fucking come with me, bastard, Crowley almost seethed. But he held that one in.

“And what would you do with that information?” Crowley scoffed, perhaps a bit more scathing than he intended. “Sit on it?” 

Aziraphale stammered. “I— I could visit you. It’s not against the rules. And if it is, then I’ll change it for you. We’re friends, I should… I should know where you are.”

Crowley tilted his head. He felt the Angel attempt to crawl back to safer territory, back to the land of plausible deniability, and it ignited a madness in him. 

“Friends,” he repeated, drawing the word out as if he were tasting it. Suffice to say, it did not taste as sweet as it used to. Not since Crowley had already tasted Aziraphale’s lips. It seemed like a sort of consolation prize. It did not fit. “We’re friends, are we? That’s what we are?” 

A flash of hurt graced Aziraphale’s expression. He looked about ready to cry. Crowley wanted to see it — Aziraphale crying — just a little, but felt immediately guilty when he comprehended this. 

“Yes, we’re friends,” said Aziraphale.

“That’s all that we are?” 

Aziraphale paused, breathing still like he’d just stepped on a landmine. “I— What? Yes.”

Millennia they’ve been together, Aziraphale and Crowley. An inconceivable amount of moments under awnings during storms and births of universes. Millennia they’ve traipsed, in and out of Human history, in and out of Heaven and Hell. Countless inside-jokes about who inspired the Sturm and Drang photorealism movement and who inspired the Nazarene movement and who had crushes on poets and who had crushes on rockstars. Innumerable conversations, over centuries and centuries, about nightingales and plants and the divine word of God. 

Millennia they’ve spent dining together, fingers brushing over drinks, going on midnight excursions, pretending not to notice the closeness to get more of it. As if every moment spent together was not a moment of temptation.

“No, Angel,” Crowley half-laughed in disbelief. “No, you invited me here. You have to confront this truth. Now.”

Aziraphale huffed. “What, you’re saying we’re not friends, now? Stop being so difficult.” 

Crowley fully laughed, unable to hold it in. Such a ridiculous world Aziraphale was living in. 

Twice now, Crowley has had to put on a disguise and crawl back into the belly of the beast to save Aziraphale’s skin. Twice now, he’d stopped the end of the goddamn world because Aziraphale asked him to. Twice he’s wrapped himself in the skin of an Angel, forced himself back into bright-white disguises, forced himself to be a honey-bee instead of the murder hornet he truly was. Twice, Crowley’s stepped into Heaven since his Fall. Aziraphale wanted more? After all that? 

Lord knows I can’t change—

The worst part was, if Aziraphale’s plans went wrong again, if he was truly in mortal danger and needed Crowley again, Crowley would do it all over. He’d turn himself inside out pretending to be an Angel, getting into that stupid elevator, risking everything. 

All to be Aziraphale’s friend?

Ha! What a laughable concept! No, he could not deny it any longer. And neither could Aziraphale. This was… This wasn’t about friendship, it was never about friendship, and it was a goddamn affront to Truth to call it that. A Goddamn Affront.

“You think— You think I stopped the Apocalypse for you because you’re my friend?” His voice pitched up with equal parts rage and disbelief. “You think I disobeyed Hell for you, risked my existence for you, subjected myself to punishment for you, because you’re my friend? Aziraphale, you stupid, oblivious Angel.”

The Angel looked shocked and confused now, his eyebrows pressed together, his eyes wide and gleaming and so vulnerable it ignited in Crowley the inexplicable urge to kick himself. True, the Angel never took insult-words particularly well, but the frustration that fueled Crowley now reasoned with logical reluctance, If he hated being insulted so much, then perhaps he should do better to not be insulted. Flawed reasoning, Crowley knew it to be, but really, who the Hell cared anymore? They'd hurt each other to places they couldn't come back from. This was nothing but a needle's poke in comparison to last week.

Aziraphale swallowed thickly, and his bottom lip quivered. Defeated was the word that came to mind as Crowley regarded the silent Angel, but Aziraphale was still not getting it.

Crowley let his blood boil over. “I’m in love with you, you idiot!”

And despite the bared teeth, the angry, knotted eyebrows, the slim dilation of his snake eyes, Crowley could not help the pang of guilt and regret that immediately shot through his body at the faint sound of Aziraphale’s distress. His body reacted to it, the half-whimper, half-gasp, and it took everything in him not to reach out and apologize. Crowley firmly clenched his hands into fists and pinned them tightly at his side as if he did not trust them to stay put. 

For a moment, it seemed Aziraphale would not respond at all.

‘Course, what else was left to say when Crowley had already covered it all— All six-thousand years of unacknowledged tension, impure intentions, history.

What else was left to say? Crowley wished Aziraphale would say them.

Faintly, a voice in his mind wondered which would feel worse: a rejection or nothing at all. Having been rejected very recently, Crowley braced himself to find out now that he had a standard metric for comparison. But then Aziraphale didn’t remain silent.

The Angel swallowed, again, as if steeling himself, face devastated, all wrinkled up and wound tight like a grimace. “Really?”

Crowley blinked once, twice, three times. He felt his annoyance refill. As if the Angel had to ask.

“You keep saying that. You keep bloody saying that, did you know? Every time I tell you something nice, it’s ‘really? oh really?’ Like— Like it's so hard for you to imagine me being sincere. It's incessant. 'Really? Oh, really?' Why do you keep saying that?” 

“I don’t know. I don’t get to hear the things you say to me often.” Crowley waited for more. Aziraphale shuffled on his seat, a defensive, secretive glint in his eyes. “It’s just a thing I have to do. Now, really?”

Crowley swallowed, stoic-er and braver than he felt, and said with a voice so steady it impressed him, “Yes, really. I’m in love with you.” 

(They had kissed, not two weeks ago. Or, Crowley made a mockery of a kiss, a perversion of it. There was no coming back from that. A million rivers couldn't justify denial now. What was another confirmation of love? What was another rejection, when the worst had already come?)

To Aziraphale, the silence stretching between them was unrelenting. This was true for Crowley as well, but it was less silent and more quiet enough to only hear the loud and awesome part of Freebird start playing in his ears. 

Lynyrd Skynyrd, you talented bastard, Crowley cursed internally, realizing now that the artist’s talent with the electric guitar blinded his judgment of the song, and even after the beat-drop, the lyrics were still far too hyperspecific to his and Aziraphale’s relationship to be listened to without feeling like a sharp object was skewering his heart out. 

It was cold, and outside, it rained, and with his airpod blaring such an inappropriately appropriate song right into the side of his skull, Crowley felt like an actor. It was a scene he did not like being in. 

The thought of risking it and kissing Aziraphale now traitorously flashed past the forefront of Crowley’s mind, daring him to act as if he were in one of the movies. It was not an urge he quite cared to entertain. Not for a second time. Fool him once, and all that jabber.

Aziraphale met his gaze warmly. 

“So am I,” he said, and nothing more. 

He should have jumped for joy.

But wasn’t that just the issue? That they would say these things, and nothing more? That they would profess their love to each other, but not cross this suffocating distance between them? That they would do this, just this, and nothing more.

After the (Invalid) Declaration of War Against Hell, the Arrival of the Metatron.

Sonnet XXVI by Shakespeare went like this—

Aziraphale made Earth safe after Armageddon.

Aziraphale made Earth safe and they were taking it away again. And the first time around, he had no say. The first time around, Armageddon was as inevitable as ineffable, and everyone was ready to give up. Crowley was ready to give up. Blast off to Alpha Centauri was what he wanted. 

But Aziraphale made Earth safe. Because he knew this place could be a paradise. And it was. It could still be. 

Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage
Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit,
To thee I send this written embassage,

The Metatron offered him coffee or death. That could be a metaphor for something. That could be a testament to sinister undertones. Aziraphale wasn’t stupid, and even more, he was familiar with sinister undertones— He’d worked under Gabriel after all. Coffee or death, that could be a threat. 

Aziraphale wasn’t threatened. He knew the real meaning, the meaning the Metatron hadn’t even intended, hadn’t even considered. Because death was ineffable in the sense that it would come either way, the question was never Be with us when it comes, or perish as a civilian on the battleground; it was always Have a say in how it comes, or be caught unawares.  

To witness duty, not to show my wit:
Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine
May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it,

The Metatron offered him a cup of coffee. He didn’t like coffee at all, anybody who knew him would know that. The Metatron offered him the title of Supreme Archangel. He didn’t really want that either. But it would keep Crowley safe, wouldn’t it? If he had a say, it would keep Crowley safe? If he knew when the next mortally dangerous biblical apocalypse would be? If he had even just a soupçon of say in the matter?

But that I hope some good conceit of thine
In thy soul's thought, all naked, will bestow it:

It would keep Crowley safe.

Till whatsoever star that guides my moving,

It would keep Crowley safe.

Points on me graciously with fair aspect,

It would keep Crowley safe.

And puts apparel on my tottered loving,

It would keep Crowley safe.

To show me worthy of thy sweet respect:

It would keep Crowley safe.

Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee;

He drank the coffee and it was too sweet. He tasted Crowley’s lips and he wanted to eat the whole of him. Waiting for the lift to Heaven, Aziraphale grew second thoughts upon second thoughts. The Metatron mentioned the Second Coming, and the second thoughts went away. 

Tricky business, apocalypses. Tricky business, raptures. He needed to be on the frontlines of this war to keep Crowley safe. To have a say.

So he entered the lift. It was his duty. Not to Heaven. To Crowley.

Till then, not show my head where thou mayst prove me.

Before Armageddon.

“You go too fast for me, Crowley.” 

The phantom ghost of the words haunted the silence of Crowley’s Bentley. It was a moment, at first; A gesture in the form of a loaded gun in the form of a thermos, in the place of an I care for you. But the gesture died, killed by those five words. You go too fast for me. 

The silence taunted him, and he did not like to be taunted. He pressed the stereo on. 

(This was 1967. Queen, the rock band, had not yet been formed, and therefor the Bentley had not yet been cursed to play songs exclusively from Queen’s discography. On account of Queen not yet having a discography. Frequently, a Queen song did make it to the stereo, the same way an unwritten poem made it to Crowley’s train of thought, the same way suggestion boxes could be referenced. But the point was, the Bentley, as an extension of Crowley, held some semblance of omniscience, at least on the subject of songs. She was unbound by the rules of time and media. All this to say, a Taylor Swift song graced the stereo.)

Make sure nobody sees you leave
Hood over your head, keep your eyes down
Tell your friends you're out for a run
You'll be flushed when you return

Crowley’s upper body fell forwards onto the wheel, his head plonking unceremoniously on the center of it, accidentally setting off the Bentley’s horn.

He grimaced and waved apologetically at the pedestrians around the car, who placed alarmed hands over their chests and steadied their breathing, as if the sudden shock of a car horn threatened their souls to get away from them.

Humans endeared him, sometimes, with those little reactions— testaments to the fragile nature of their being, always so alert and aware of their own mortalities, enough to be properly discombobulated by the sound of a car horn going off when unexpected. 

The Demon looked, a bit fearfully, at the thermos again, placed gingerly on the cup holder, and the thermos looked at him back. In the presence of one of the very few things that could kill him, Crowley felt a newfound depth in empathy with the startled humans outside. 

Take the road less traveled by
Tell yourself you can always stop

How do you do it? He wanted to crank his windows down and ask. You live with the knowledge that the end could be bitter. But still, you walk down the street. All these ways for things to go wrong. But still, you leave yourselves open to it. Still, you love. 

Outside, a man stopped to tie his shoe. His companion stopped to wait for him. Across the street, a woman scolded her teenaged daughter who rolled her own eyes with rebellion. Crowley watched all interactions with envy. The thermos continued to stare. Maybe it knew not to belong to Crowley. Maybe it missed Aziraphale. Maybe it judged them both. 

Outside the Bentley, neon flashing lights and a busy street. Inside of it….

What started in beautiful rooms
Ends with meetings in parking lots

“You,” Crowley addressed the Bentley, “are the most incorrigible car I’ve ever had the displeasure of driving.”

The Bentley was unimpressed. 

“Fine. This one song. I’ll allow this one song.” Crowley glared at the stereo. “But try to curate a playlist for me again and I will be displeased.”

And that's the thing about illicit affairs
And clandestine meetings and longing stares
It's born from just one single glance
But it dies, and it dies, and it dies
A million little times

He followed the speed limit driving out of the street. He followed the proper speeding laws driving towards Mayfair, to his flat. There was something precious in the car now— and it wasn’t… it wasn’t the holy water.

The holy water was just exigence. The precious thing: it was him. 

His life, made precious by the confrontation of mortality. His life, made precious by the fact that Aziraphale cared for it. 

This was how the humans found the will to live despite all the danger, Crowley couldn’t help but speculate. Everybody is just living for each other. 

So he took care driving home safely, remembering the Angel’s righteous anger when he asked for holy water, the first time around, remembering Aziraphale’s concern, Aziraphale’s love, as apparent as anything, when he finally handed Crowley the thermos. Aziraphale’s guilt.

And you wanna scream
Don't call me "kid"
Don't call me "baby"
Look at this godforsaken mess that you made me
You showed me colors
You know I can't see with anyone else

Crowley took care. Not for his own good, but for Aziraphale’s. Oh, Aziraphale made him weak. 

Don't call me "kid"
Don't call me "baby"
Look at this idiotic fool that you made me
You taught me a secret language
I can't speak with anyone else

(When the time came, Crowley did not use the holy water on himself to evade capture, the way he originally, secretly intended. He did not pour the thermos over himself the way he envisioned, cackling with a satisfied glee knowing that they would not be able to imprison him to hurt Aziraphale, the way he knew Hell liked to work. Instead of destroying himself, he protected himself. Killed Ligur, escaped Hastur. Not for himself. For Aziraphale.) 

And you know damn well
For you, I would ruin myself
A million little times

Presently. 

Aziraphale swallowed. 

He stepped forth to Crowley and felt a pang of hurt echo through him when Crowley jumped back, unwittingly. The Angel clenched his jaw to hold something like a cry in, and he sat down slowly in front of the sofa in an almost animalistic attempt to look not hostile. 

“Hold me.” His voice was so tight with forced back emotions that it sounded like a command, on the edge of an order. But it wasn’t, and where Aziraphale stiffened expecting Crowley to flinch back at the hardness of the tone, Crowley only sagged, helpless, hearing the words how Aziraphale meant them— a beg, a plea, for something more, for something impossible.

Crowley’s face hardened, but he did not leave. He didn’t speak, either, but he reached up to his face and shakily took his glasses off. His eyes, unobstructed, pierced into Aziraphale’s own, imploring, hurt, and curious. The message was clear: Tempt me to. He was giving Aziraphale the chance. 

It was not as big of a chance as last time. But it was a chance nonetheless. 

Aziraphale’s eyes brimmed with tears. “Just. For old times sake. For what we had.”

For what we had, for what was there. If that was reason enough. 

Crowley hesitated. He was biting his bottom lip with something that resembled restraint but was really just fear. His voice shook and shook and shook when he replied, sounding ragged, “You don’t know what you’re asking from me.”

“I do.” 

“No.” Crowley stepped forward, just an inch, and then he seemed to remember himself, and he froze again. He swayed where he stood, like a cypress. “If you knew, then you wouldn’t say it out loud.” 

“Please.” Was it selfish, to ask for so much? Aziraphale almost longed to take it back. 

But then Crowley stepped forward, one hesitant step, and then surged the rest of the way.

His arms wrapped around Aziraphale, his hand pressed Aziraphale’s head gently against his chest, and Aziraphale was being held, embraced, in such a way that made him feel safe and secure. But Crowley’s fingers, buried in his curls, kept the Angel from shifting his head too, kept the Angel from looking up to meet Crowley’s eyes, kept him in place like a coveted thing, a precious thing.

The tense posture, strategically placed hands, reminded Aziraphale of the highest truth— while this had been the most he’s ever had of Crowley aside from last week’s kiss, it was still not enough. Something was missing, like it always was, but this time Aziraphale could put a finger on what it was; and what it was was unbearable. The heat and raggedness of their breaths, the sheer impossibility of their closeness, Aziraphale knew now that it was love, that Crowley loved him too, that there were far larger things at play that were keeping them apart. 

Which was all to say, the same Universe he helped crank to life stood between him and his Demon, his dear boy, now. It felt worse, inexplicably, than how it felt before last week— before Crowley smashed their lips together desperately and confirmed that the love went both ways. 

For so long, the question in Aziraphale’s head had been could this type of love exist between them. In recent years, it turned easily into should this type of love exist, because of course it existed, that was obvious. 

And now… well, those questions were answered. Yes, Aziraphale was capable of loving a Demon. Yes, Crowley was capable of loving him back. The price? 

No, they would not be together. Because there were dealbreakers they couldn’t get over. Because they prioritized different things. Because that love was… it wasn’t not enough. It was too much, and it went all over the place. 

Crowley relaxed, against Aziraphale. Aziraphale felt like putty in arms, and the Angel longed to cocoon them both in his wings until the Universe took its course and expired without them. He didn’t, but he longed.

“When do you think this will happen again?” Crowley’s voice cut through the silence, hoarse and miserable but thankfully no longer quite so stuttering and watery. 

Aziraphale’s hands absently rubbed circles where they pushed flat on the small of Crowley’s back. “Hm?”

“This. Be this close.” He shuffled on Aziraphale’s lap as if to emphasize their proximity, and Aziraphale did not find himself discomforted at all. In fact, he liked when Crowley moved against him. “When do you think we’ll be brave enough to do it again? When do you think I’ll be desperate enough to hold you again even with the knowledge that you wouldn’t kiss back if I tried?”

God. How unfair and unjust. How Aziraphale longed to just surge forward. But he could not, should not, would not. How unfair and unjust and lacking mercy. How sickening that all that’s stopping them now is just a great big wall of “won’t.” Perhaps, even, how cruel. 

Aziraphale could not find his voice outside of stutters and half-finished sounds of uncertainty, grasping for explanation, grasping for answers, starting sentences without direction as if the point would make itself. But he was truly and utterly clueless, so he gave up and shut his traitorous mouth. 

Crowley continued, “Maybe the humans would have gotten cleverer by then. Maybe they’d finally invent space travel.”

“They always get cleverer,” Aziraphale agreed hollowly, purposefully missing Crowley’s point. Internally, he dared, Well, if you anticipate the next time you’ll be in my arms again is in the distant future, we might as bloody well kiss again now for good measure, shouldn’t that be the case? He did not say that, and instead opted for, “I hope… that the, uhm— the next time that we’re like this…. I hope it’s sooner than you think.”

“Maybe we’ll be cleverer, too,” Crowley said hopefully. “The next time I’m this close to you. And we’ll find a way to….” 

He trailed off.

Maybe next time, Aziraphale’s mind supplied, I’ll feel safe enough to kiss first. 

Aziraphale wanted to lie in this moment, this heart-aching moment, for however long Time would allow. He wondered if Crowley would stop Time again for him, if he asked, then scoffed at the question for even entering his mind, as if it had any business being a question at all. Yes, Crowley would do it.

But it didn’t matter now, because Aziraphale would not ask. He tried to keep a steady breathing so as not to jostle the Demon and break the moment, but the trying only made his lungs rebel, and judging from the wary stare, Crowley quite obviously noticed the forced even breathing, quite obviously noticed Aziraphale’s lame attempt at trying to stay positively cool, as the youths say. 

In trying to stay relaxed, Aziraphale felt himself involuntarily tense. Crowley began to unwrap his arms from around the Angel, pulling back, and again, involuntarily, the Angel held on tighter, begging don’t go with the gesture. At that, Crowley swallowed. 

“Sorry,” Aziraphale cringed, the apology laced with embarrassment. “I just don’t want to ruin it. I couldn’t bear— I— I don’t want you to leave.” He sighed, long, and his whole body deflated with it. Crowley leaned in closer, relaxing into the breath until his forehead rested beside Aziraphale’s face. “I want you to know that it’s— it isn’t— it’s not that I don’t want you. More than anything, I want you. I won’t deny it any longer. I can’t.” 

Crowley hummed. It vibrated in the closeness between them, felt like their molecules were melding into each other. Crowley swayed unsteadily. Aziraphale pressed himself closer, to steady him, and their bodies leaned against each other like balanced playing cards. 

The Demon forced an evenness to his voice that made it shaky, and said, “See? You’re getting cleverer already. Know exactly what to say.”

Aziraphale breathed a laugh. “If I was cleverer, I would’ve never let you go.” 

“If you were cleverer, you’d know there was no way I would have stayed.” 

Aziraphale knew. It hurt him nonetheless. He felt the perfect amount of clever for torture, just sharp enough to identify the issues and just daft enough to never know the solution. Still, he supposed he could survive off just knowing, for now. He wouldn’t survive very well and the weight would undoubtedly bring excruciating pain, but he would survive. 

“Maybe,” the Angel mused, “the next time is tomorrow. Maybe, Heaven and Hell would explode tonight, and we’d be free tomorrow. Properly. And I would kiss back, and you wouldn’t pull away.” 

He felt Crowley smile against the wound of won’t. Can, but won’t. “Maybe, Angel. S’all wishful thinking, though, isn’t it?”

And Crowley removed himself from Aziraphale, took a small step back, and attempted a small grin. It wavered, then it fell. Aziraphale missed the warmth dearly.

He pleaded, “Don’t leave.”

Crowley let out a weak laugh. There was an age-old, bone-deep sadness to the way his shoulders sagged as he laughed.

“That one, I can’t do, angel.” 

‘Course, Aziraphale already knew that. 

“I’m going to prove it to you, you know.” There was a cheekiness to Aziraphale’s voice, a mild self-assuredness that twisted his tongue all the same as when he last proclaimed something similar, ages and ages ago when they stood on opposing sides in a much different way than now. We’re going to win, you know. “You’ll see. I’ll win. I must. The world won’t end, now that I can do something about it.” I’ll make it safe for you. 

Crowley shook his head slowly, not unkind. “What else have we been doing if not something about it, angel?”

Aziraphale just blinked at him. Crowley sighed. “Visit me when it goes belly-up. So I can tell you I told you so.” Still, he could not keep himself from adding, sincerely, “Good luck.”

Aziraphale met his resigned defeat with a hopeful grin. “I’ll come to you when the work is done. To tell you I told you so. So tell me where to find you. After.”

Clever Angel. 

“Canis Major,” Crowley relented. “Mirzam.”

And nothing more. 

Before leaving Earth’s atmosphere to begin the drive back to deep space, Crowley finally let his Spotify have some reprieve. He let his phone die on the dashboard and with it, the Bluetooth connection to his car. The Bentley’s engine let out a noise that sounded like a huff, or an impatiently low growl. Finally, the sound suggested.

”Yeah, yeah,” said Crowley, rolling his eyes. He opened up the glove box and pulled out a CD case — didn’t matter which one, the Bentley would know what to do with it — opening it and sliding the CD into the Bentley’s player.

The Bentley read it, disregarded the contents, and, with his cursed car having control over the music again, Freddie Mercury’s voice soothed Crowley into a song.

You had to kill the conversation
You always had the upper hand….

“Bastard,” Crowley told the Bentley, and he sped away.