Chapter Text
The anniversary of the day the world didn’t end (which is every day, really, but in this case refers to the date exactly a year after four children defeated a cadre of biblical horsemen on the tarmac of an American airbase) found Aziraphale and Crowley once more in Tadfield.
Human though Adam Young had apparently become, Aziraphale and Crowley both agreed early on that it would still be a good idea to pop in and check on him every once in a while. The boy seemed to be taking to humanity rather nicely, all things considered. Perhaps not having much time to get used to his unholy powers had eased the transition.
He'd handled the appearance of an angel and a demon in his life with remarkable poise as well, which couldn’t be said of just anyone.
Said occult beings were just on their way out after one such visit when something over Aziraphale's shoulder caught Crowley's eye, and he smirked.
"Well, that's appropriate, isn't it?" he said, nodding.
Aziraphale turned to look, and then gave a wry smile.
"Why yes, I suppose it rather is."
For of course the property next to where Adam Young had grown up contained an apple orchard. Of course it did.
He looked back at Crowley, whose mouth curled in a crooked smile.
"For old times' sake?"
Aziraphale rarely needed an excuse to take a stroll on a pleasant day, especially if Crowley was the one asking, and he readily agreed.
Despite Adam sacrificing his power, a number of the changes he’d made to reality, inadvertently or otherwise, remained. One of these was the fact that the weather in Tadfield was always perfect for the time of year. Autumn had arrived a few weeks ago, and although the sun was shining overhead, there was a bit of a chill in the air.
Crowley walked a little closer to Aziraphale than normal, and the angel raised his body temperature accordingly. Human though he may have looked to an outsider, Crowley still had the cool blood of a serpent, and depended on outside sources for heat. He could of course warm himself with an act of will, but Aziraphale knew he didn't always feel like putting forth the effort. And if it kept Crowley closer to him, Aziraphale certainly didn't mind being warm enough for the both of them.
They didn't say much at first as they walked, both enjoying the day and the setting. It still struck Aziraphale, in moments like these, how very close they'd come to losing it all. The world he'd come to love so much, the peace he'd valued for so long, Crowley. Sometimes, that thought scared him, for he knew the reprieve was most likely temporary.
But today, he was filled only with gratitude and appreciation, and it left him content.
Of course, it was inevitable that walking through the verdant field, among the trees laden down with ripe apples, brought old memories stirring to the forefront of Aziraphale's mind. He found himself sending more and more frequent glances at Crowley whenever he thought the demon wasn't looking.
"You never wear your hair long anymore," Aziraphale remarked after one of these glances, eyeing the spiky amber tuft atop Crowley's head.
"Mmm?" Crowley ran an absentminded hand over the back of his head. "Oh, I s'pose not. Right pain in the arse to keep clean, I can tell you that much."
"It did suit you though." And it would have been so delightful to run his hands through. Although Aziraphale had never done anything of the sort in reality, he was quite certain of that.
"You think so?" A satisfied smirk tugged at Crowley's mouth. "Yeah, it did, didn't it? Well, it should come back into fashion one of these days. Things always seem to."
"Hardly, my dear. I have yet to see neck ruffles make their return, and togas remain limited to university parties, thank Heaven."
"Oh, I liked the togas!" Crowley protested. "So much breathing room in the nether regions. Plus, it was so easy to undo a fold here or there and watch them fall off senators in the middle of important speeches. Do you know how difficult that would be today? All those buttons and zippers and buckles and things; much harder to make it look like an accident."
Aziraphale's cheeks had gone warm at the thought of Crowley's nether regions, so he didn't have the presence of mind to scold him for the bad behavior of millennia past. Instead, he tucked his hands into his pockets and said the first thing that came to his scattered mind.
"I have no doubt you would be up to the challenge."
Of course, he regretted the words almost at once, when Crowley's entire face lit up with a spark of impish mischief that really shouldn't have sent lovely little shivers through Aziraphale's gut. Really, what kind of angel was he?
"Oh, don't even think about it," he said at once. "Really, Crowley, they have video cameras now! That kind of thing would follow a person around for their entire career."
"Yeah, it would." Judging by Crowley's tone of relish, Aziraphale's words hadn't been taken how they were intended. He did seem to note Aziraphale's expression though, because he nudged an elbow into his middle. "Come on, you can't tell me you don't think there are some politicians who deserve it."
Aziraphale opened his mouth to argue, but then found he couldn't.
They continued on in comfortable silence for a few more minutes. The orchard wasn't all that big, and Aziraphale knew that their walk would come to an end soon if he didn't do something about it. So he slowed to a halt by one of the trees, which had suddenly found itself the biggest and most fruitful in the field. It would stay that way for centuries, even as people stopped bothering to take care of the orchard, when the property had changed hands repeatedly until no one quite remembered how they’d come to have it.
One particularly scrumptious looking fruit caught Aziraphale's eye, and he tugged it from its branch. He buffed it carefully on his jacket before offering it to his companion, who gave him a smug look.
"Are you trying to tempt me with an apple?" Crowley's voice dripped with feigned shock.
Aziraphale felt his face heat a little, but he soldiered on. In for a penny, and all that.
"I suppose that depends on whether or not it's working."
"Angel, I am frankly appalled by your lack of propriety." But Crowley had lost a battle with his grin, and he plucked the apple from Aziraphale's hand.
Aziraphale had meant to pick one for himself too, but he got distracted by the sight of Crowley biting into the fruit. A ridiculous thing to be distracted by, no doubt, but he couldn't help it. There was a crisp crunching sound as Crowley's teeth broke the skin, and the muscles of his jaw and neck moved in a subtle dance as he chewed and swallowed.
He opened his mouth to take another bite, but then seemed to notice Aziraphale's - well, ogling truly was the right word for it this time. The flush in his cheeks hadn't gone away, and in fact seemed to be spreading.
"What?" Crowley demanded.
A bead of juice had gathered on his lip, and it drew far more of Aziraphale's attention than was by any means warranted. It quivered, sparkling in the late August sun, threatening to break free and slide down Crowley’s chin.
Without thinking, he leaned in and kissed it away. And once he'd done that, leaning away again didn't seem even remotely like an option worth pursuing.
It had been quite some time since Aziraphale had kissed anyone at all, but he never remembered it being like this.
How could something he'd never done before feel so natural, so right and easy? Aziraphale's whole being seemed to hum with the joy of it, and he couldn't help smiling a little as a surprised Crowley returned the kiss. He tasted like apple and the smoky afterburn of whiskey as he opened himself up, hands plunging into Aziraphale’s hair and gripping just the right side of too tight. The kiss turned into something eager, almost desperate, searching and hard enough to bruise. It was fortunate that Aziraphale didn’t need to breathe, because the kiss wouldn’t have allowed it.
It was as good as it had been in the dreams; better even, because it was finally real.
But then it wasn't. Because then rough hands were shoving him away, and a harsh voice was cutting through the air. Aziraphale opened eyes that had drifted shut somewhere along the way to see Crowley backing away from him, shaking his head, his form rippling with the force of his agitation.
"Don't," he hissed, and even through his dark glasses Aziraphale could see the burning in his eyes. “You can’t touch- it’ss not like that, angel, I told you. I told you."
“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale gasped, stricken.
The rejection hurt — well, more than hurt, really; it felt like a flaming sword to the chest. Still, on another day, Aziraphale might have accepted it. Made his apologies, hidden his embarrassment, and tried to pretend the whole affair hadn't happened so that they could both continue on with their day. He would never ever think of continuing to push himself onto someone who didn't want him.
But he'd felt the longing in Crowley, he'd basked in the frantic heat of that kiss. He'd caught some of the gazes the demon sent his way when he thought Aziraphale wasn't looking. He couldn't find it in himself to believe that Crowley didn't want him, not now, not after all that. So he drudged up some courage, and he held his ground.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, meaning it. “I shouldn’t have done that without your permission. But why shouldn’t we, Crowley?" He kept his voice soft as he took a step towards his agitated companion, allowing a little distance to remain between them.
Crowley shook his head, and then shook it again. But no words came out. Aziraphale took another step closer, reaching out a hesitant hand.
"Is it because you're afraid I'd Fall?" he whispered, fingers meeting Crowley's cheek, caressing it gently. He couldn’t be imagining how Crowley leaned ever so slightly into the touch. "I'll admit, I was afraid of that too, but it doesn't matter. If Falling is the price of being with you, I'll pay it. A hundred times over, I'd pay it."
He hadn't quite thought about the reality of those words, not directly, but as he said them, he realized they were true. For so many years, he'd chosen Heaven over Crowley. But not anymore. Not ever again.
The realization was at once terrifying and exultingly freeing. He felt light as a mote of dust in a beam of sunshine, even as the weight of his declaration settled around his heart. For so long, he'd been struggling with this choice, with accepting that he'd already made it a long time ago. Now that battle was over. He'd chosen his side at last, rather than having it chosen for him.
Their side.
He hadn't expected the agony that twisted Crowley's features. He hadn't expected him to fist both hands in Aziraphale’s lapels, to shake him sharply, teeth bared in a fierce snarl.
"Take that back," he demanded, the words trembling on a line between furious and pleading. Panicked, even. "You can't mean that, you mustn't." He gave Aziraphale another shake, hard enough to make his teeth click together. "Tell me you didn't mean it."
"I'm afraid I can't, my dear." Aziraphale offered up a rather helpless smile. This wasn't going at all the way he'd hoped it would. "I think I've had quite enough of lying to you."
A tiny moan escaped Crowley then, and the sound shot all the way through to Aziraphale's heart. Was it really so terrible to Crowley, the thought of an angel loving him? He wouldn't have thought so a minute ago, but the way Crowley was looking at him gave him some rather serious doubts.
Crowley's grip on his lapels vanished as he backed away once more, hands rising to fist in his fiery hair. He doubled over, as if on the verge of being violently ill.
"Fuck. Fuck."
He looked positively devastated, in a way Aziraphale didn't understand but that pained him nonetheless.
"Crowley," he said, trying to step forward again, but this time Crowley didn't let him. He shook his head, continuing to back away. "Whatever's wrong, just let me-"
"You can't." The words cracked through the air like a gunshot, sharp and terribly final.
Abruptly, Crowley's expression smoothed over a little, cooled into something that should have been an improvement over the agony but instead just sent a chill through Aziraphale. Because it looked terrifyingly like acceptance, and Aziraphale was utterly, sickeningly sure he wouldn’t like the outcome. Crowley straightened, his hands dropping back to his sides.
"There's nothing you can do."
For a moment, the two of them just looked at each other. Aziraphale wished he could just understand, wished it didn't feel like something precious was about to slip through his fingers just when he'd thought he had it all figured out.
"So, that's that, then," Crowley whispered into the silence, almost too quietly to hear. Aziraphale was reminded of those alarming moments at the end of the world, when Satan's imminent arrival had robbed Crowley of his hope. Surely this couldn't be as bad?
Crowley's hand twitched, as if he wanted to reach out but thought better of it.
"Don't try to find me, Aziraphale.”
His edges blurred and rippled, and then he folded in on himself. An instant later, there was a serpent coiled in the grass where he'd been standing.
"Oh, don't," Aziraphale said, feeling a bit desperate himself now. "Please, Crowley, don't run from this. I'm sorry I pushed, that was wrong of me. Please, just- we can go back to the way it was."
Crowley slid across the grass toward him, and sinuous curves wrapped around his ankles once in something that felt quite like an embrace. Hope fluttered in Aziraphale's chest, and he thought for a moment that he hadn't made an irreparable muck of things.
But then the whisper of Crowley's scales vanished from his legs, and the serpent continued on into the grass. It stood high this time of year, and within moments, Aziraphale could no longer see the dark form of his best friend. It felt as though a part of him, some precious, irretrievable part, had vanished with the Fallen angel.
*****
Crowley always came back.
This was what Aziraphale told himself, over and over, in the following days. No matter what hurtful things Aziraphale did or said, Crowley had always returned for him.
Surely this time would be the same. 6,000 years of friendship couldn’t simply be over, just like that, because of a single ill-advised kiss.
And yet, each day continued to tick by without a sign of Crowley, until a week’s worth of them had accumulated, and then another. Aziraphale tried phoning him again, but the number he’d been using for the past decade or so didn’t connect. The line just kept beeping and going dead, no matter how many times he tried or rude things he called the receiver.
Don’t try to find me, Crowley had said. Aziraphale had thought that meant not to visit, but…no. No, it couldn’t be that he’d just gone.
Don’t try to find me, he’d said, but how could Aziraphale not? How could he act as if all those years of friendship, of Crowley being the most important person in his life, had never happened?
His flat, when Aziraphale miracled his way inside, was empty. Not just in the sense that no one was home, either. The flat had been emptied, actively, of every piece of furniture or artwork, every plant and stitch of clothing, every sign that Crowley or anyone else had ever lived there. The space felt cavernous and cold with absence, like a tomb waiting to be filled.
“No,” Aziraphale murmured to himself as he turned around on the spot, as if Crowley’s things might have rematerialized while he wasn’t looking. “This…this isn’t how it’s supposed to go.”
This wasn’t part of their script, the dance of eons that had brought them here. They weren’t supposed to be lost to each other, not really. Not in a way that couldn’t be remedied with a quick search or a covert message.
And yet it had happened anyway. Aziraphale was standing right square in the middle of the irrefutable evidence.
*****
The weeks that followed were some of the least pleasant in Aziraphale’s recent memory. On the surface, nothing appeared to have changed. He still spent his days caring for the bookshop, made the occasional foray out to favorite restaurants, walked through the city on nicer days.
But the bookstore felt oddly dull and empty now that there was no possibility of Crowley sauntering in at any given moment, a bottle in one hand and a smirk on his face. Going to restaurants by himself now felt like less of a treat and more of a reminder of the times he hadn’t been alone. And his walks served as time alone with little more than his thoughts, which invariably turned to regrets and self-recriminations.
Why hadn’t he just followed the rules? Crowley had made clear what the boundaries were, and still Aziraphale had gone and let his heart take over. Could he really be doomed to spend the rest of his life paying for it?
Then there were the dreams. For the first month, he managed to keep his promise to himself, and avoid sleep. Not just because he was respecting Crowley’s privacy, but also because he feared the wrenching bereavement of awakening from his dreams. Never before had the life they offered snatches of felt so out of reach, and every time he thought about them, his gut twisted sharply. It was all but impossible to imagine a time when he’d been able to go centuries without word from his friend.
But eventually, inevitably, the time came when he missed Crowley so much that the thought of another day without even a glimpse of him became more unbearable than the prospect of losing him all over again when the morning came.
He was trudging up a rolling hill, eyes on the familiar figure standing at its top. Crowley was silhouetted against the inky horizon as he stared upward, the sky a glimmering tapestry of stars and galaxies overhead. It might have been a peaceful image, if not for the heavy slump of Crowley’s shoulders, the misery that hung in the air around him like a persistent fog.
So Aziraphale approached him, the distance between them stretching and evaporating in the nonsensical way of dreams. When he finally arrived at Crowley’s side, the demon didn’t acknowledge his presence right away. His beautiful eyes were unhidden tonight, and though they usually shone in starlight like twin celestial bodies in miniature, tonight they seemed dim.
“Whatever’s wrong?” Aziraphale asked him at once, reaching out to cup his cheek.
"They killed it." Crowley's voice was little more than a whisper, but it was full of such grief and pain that tears prickled in Aziraphale's eyes in response.
"Killed what?"
"My star."
At last, Aziraphale shifted his gaze from Crowley’s face to the heavens, and squinted. The night sky looked the same as it always did on clear nights like this. It was beautiful to him, all the more so because he knew Crowley was responsible for its creation.
"Darling," he said after a moment, apologetic. "I'm afraid I don't see what you mean."
Crowley sighed and took his hand, and a tendril of power slid into him. And then his eyesight shifted, colors changing and muting and patterns sharpening, and he knew he was seeing the world as Crowley saw it, through eyes that were more sensitive in the dark. Eyes that allowed him to notice the difference Crowley was pointing out to him, gleaming from within the constellation the humans called Cassiopeia.
"It's brighter."
"That's because it exploded." Crowley's voice was somehow both harsh and dull at the same time, and Aziraphale winced. "Ripped apart from the inside out, and all anyone thinks down here is that it's beautiful."
A "guest star" they would call it, all of the stargazers and astronomers who noticed the supernova. Centuries would pass before anyone knew what it really was, and even then, no one would mourn for it. What, after all, is there to mourn in the reconfiguration of gas and rock thousands of light years away?
But Aziraphale wasn't thinking about the future, or what its inhabitants would think. All he cared about just then was that someone he loved was hurting, and he didn't know how to help.
Not that it would stop him from trying. Nothing could ever stop that.
He gave Crowley's hand a gentle squeeze.
"Isn't that the way of things, my dear?" he asked. "You built the stars, you must have known they wouldn't last forever."
"You don't understand." The look Crowley turned on Aziraphale then was raw, full of hurt and anger and sadness. "That star is thousands of light years away. A little over 5,000, actually."
It took a moment, but then understanding began to dawn.
"You're saying it exploded all that time ago, and we're only just now seeing it."
Crowley nodded, and his expression twisted. He turned his face back to the sky, as if unable to keep looking at Aziraphale. Or perhaps unable to look away from the ghost of a celestial creation breathing its last overhead.
Neither of them had to say what else had happened a little over 5,000 years ago.
Just holding Crowley's hand no longer felt like enough. Aziraphale stepped behind him and wrapped his arms around his slender frame, holding him close. He let his chin rest on Crowley's shoulder as they both looked up at the star that must have died around the same time a certain angel was cast out of Heaven for daring to wonder.
They were both silent for a long moment. For his part, Aziraphale was trying desperately to think of something to say that would help rather than make matters worse. The timing was most likely coincidental. They both knew this though, and Aziraphale didn't think pointing it out would be helpful. That wasn't what this was about. Nor would it help to remind Crowley that the star wasn't sentient, and wouldn't have felt any pain.
As he thought, he and Crowley stared at the expanding star. It really was beautiful, he couldn't help noticing.
"You know more about stars than I do, but...they don't simply go out when they die, do they? They become something else?"
"Nebulae. They become nebulae.”
"And what do nebulae do?"
Crowley turned his face into Aziraphale's neck with a sigh.
"They form other stars."
"So, that star up there...it hasn't really died, has it? It's simply transformed. Become something else beautiful. Something creative and brilliant, and...and a gift to everything around it."
Aziraphale's voice had gone softer now, for he knew full well he wasn't just talking about the nebula. Still, Crowley didn't say anything right away. After a moment, Aziraphale pressed a soft kiss to his temple, and went on.
"But we're going to be able to see it up there for a little while, yes?"
Crowley nodded, still silent.
"Right. Then every night it's visible, you and I shall come out here and look at it. We'll notice it. We'll care about what it went through to become something new."
The words felt right as he said them, but Crowley didn't react immediately. He leaned more heavily into Aziraphale’s embrace, soaking in the strength and comfort the angel was so desperate to provide. Aziraphale ached with his pain, ached with the depth of his love for him in that moment.
“You know, don’t you?” Crowley twisted in Aziraphale’s arms, wriggling around to look at him with a touch of desperation, something almost frantic. “You must do, surely. I mean, after all this time-?”
“Know what, dearest?” Aziraphale didn’t know what had him so upset now, but he would do just about anything it took to make it go away. He stroked a hand over Crowley’s hair, trying to soothe. It didn’t seem to work.
Crowley tangled his fingers in Aziraphale’s shirt, gripping tight. His other hand was on Aziraphale’s face, his touch burning with something that had nothing to do with temperature. His eyes blazed, their golden irises expanding to overtake any trace of white.
“You have to know I love you?”
Aziraphale awoke with tears on his face. It wasn't the first time he’d risen to a hollow ache like this, but this morning was different.
All these months, he'd been assuming that his dreams were just that—dreams, no matter how unsettlingly realistic. Manifestations of a subconscious rather more powerful than that of any human. But that last dream...he'd never had one like it, one that reached down into the heart of him and wrenched forth something he could never have created on his own. Nothing within him ever would have given Crowley that kind of pain. He couldn’t have fabricated the depth of that love.
It hadn't felt like a dream. It had felt like standing inside a memory.
As he sat there on the edge of his bed, something stole over him with the creeping inevitably of a midnight frost.
It wasn’t anything as defined as a specific suspicion. More like a sudden, inexorable urge. A need to understand, to look for a truth he was abruptly certain he lacked.
Frowning, he raised an absentminded hand to his cheek. The ghost of Crowley’s touch lingered there, like a shiver frozen in time.
He closed his eyes and turned his focus inward. The consciousness of an angel was staggeringly vast, and much of that was given over to storage space. On any given day, Aziraphale only accessed a fraction of this, as a simple matter of convenience. It had been quite some time since he’d felt the need to go rummaging through his mental attic, and it took a moment for him to remember his way around.
The first thing that came to him was his expanded awareness of his surroundings. Normally, his subconscious filtered out most of the things he didn’t need, like how people don’t see their nose until something reminds them it’s there. With him retaking manual control, that filter was gone, and for a moment he had to pause to sort through the onslaught of new information.
He could feel the emotions of every human on his block, could hear every prayer being sent up anywhere in the country. It was a Sunday morning, so that was quite a few, and he almost got distracted by a little girl who was praying more fervently than she had ever prayed before in her short life for her teacher’s eyebrows to fall off.
But that cold creep in his gut was growing stronger, and Aziraphale pushed through the noise. He blocked out all external input and focused instead on taking stock of his own mind. Several millennia of memories was a lot to sort through, but he wasn’t looking for anything in particular. Rather, he was looking for something that didn’t feel right, something that stood out from the vast sea of recollections, mundane or otherwise.
Instinct made him take hold of the memory of his most recent dream, to use it as a starting point. Upon closer inspection, it didn’t have the soft, ill-defined quality of most of the dreams he’d had prior to the Apocalypse. Not like something born of imagination, but rather grounded in reality. When Aziraphale concentrated on it, he could feel the faint trace of its connection to something bigger, buried under centuries and something else.
Aziraphale latched onto that tenuous thread and began following it backwards. It led him ever deeper into the dusty vaults of his mind, parts of him he’d long since forgotten existed. He almost stopped to wave at the memory of bouncing Cain and Abel on his knees while he babysat during Adam and Eve’s date night, but he kept going.
As he dug, he found remnants of the other dreams from the past year, each of them with its own ghostly tether stretching ever further into the recesses of his mind. His determination grew as he traced them back, back, until quite suddenly he bumped into something foreign and vaguely sinister.
Aziraphale studied this new obstruction, probing at its edges with increasing indignation. The barrier was solid and imposing, with no beginning or end that he could find. There was something familiar about the feel of it, but it was an alien kind of familiarity, the kind that screamed of not belonging. It carved a swath through his memories, hiding away who knew how many behind it. So firmly was it set in place, so deeply rooted and interwoven amongst his memories, that Aziraphale knew it had been there for quite some time. Decades or centuries or even millennia.
Something was wrong with it though. Cracks webbed its surface, and the memories Aziraphale had been following traced back to these. Through them, he could feel the faint but stirring call of so many more struggling to break free.
At last, he had the beginnings of an explanation for the strange dreams that had made such a mess of his life. Like water through tiny cracks in a dam, memories had started to spew forth at random from this monstrous prison. Not knowing what to make of them, his subconscious had presented them as dreams.
But they weren’t. That much had become abundantly clear. Mere dreams didn’t come from behind a great ugly wall in one’s memory.
Emotions came more readily to Aziraphale with his internal barriers down like this, and incredulous anger began to swell in him, accompanied by anticipation tinged with fear.
The barrier may have been strong once, but something had damaged it. And even if that hadn’t been the case, Aziraphale was a Principality. No matter how soft he appeared, at his core was a ferocious, formidable strength. This monstrosity had only survived so long because he hadn’t known about it.
Sudden, desperate determination joined the storm bubbling up inside him, and Aziraphale braced himself. He reached for the barrier, pressing against the cracks that had already begun to form in it. Almost at once, he recoiled. It burned, with a ruthless ferocity that screamed at him to turn back, to forget he’d even found this travesty lurking inside his mind.
One last attempt at defense, no doubt. But whoever had put this here hadn’t understood him in the slightest if they thought a bit of pain would deter him now.
He redoubled his efforts.
Unbeknownst to him, his flat began to rattle around him, and dust shook down onto the books in the shop below. Throughout Soho, Londoners were baffled as their phones began blaring a medieval battle song that had never been recorded by human technology, long since lost to history.
Strong as the barrier was, as long as it had been cementing its place, it proved no match for Aziraphale, not fueled as he was by outrage and curiosity and a love far mightier than either. So it was only a moment before, with a suddenness that nearly shocked him out of his focus, the walls gave way and shattered, releasing a tide of memory and emotion powerful enough to overwhelm him in an instant.