Chapter Text
As it turned out, Aziraphale’s promise to take Crowley home had meant the bookshop. More specifically, the flat above the bookshop, inside the seldom-used bedroom atop the never-used bed.
Crowley was not quite conscious enough to appreciate the gesture. The past week had taken its toll, and it was there that he spent the next few weeks hibernating in serpent form, leaving a series of noodle-shaped prints in the dust that covered Aziraphale’s moth-eaten duvet.
When at last he permanently awoke, Crowley found he had just enough strength to heal the damage that had been done to his serpent form and not an ounce more. Aziraphale had performed a few human procedures while he’d been sleeping, cleaning and dressing his wounds, but had hesitated to use his own divine magic in case it might do further harm. That had probably been the right decision; just being in proximity to the angel’s smiting had sapped what little strength remained to Crowley prior to rescue, and he shuddered to imagine the kind of damage that power might have done if performed on him directly.
Thus, transformation back to human form eluded him. Crowley didn’t mind much, now that his aches and pains had vanished, and he spent the next few days after he’d awoke filling Aziraphale in on the details of his capture. It was difficult to talk about at length, as either one of them was liable to get upset. Prolonged conversations usually ended with Aziraphale dissolving into apologies, and so they kept things short and simple, returning to old topics and reminiscing when the strain became too much.
All in all, time passed rather peacefully. Crowley was happy to be in the bookshop, and happier still to be in Aziraphale’s unwavering company. Days blurred into weeks, uninterrupted but for the occasional ring of the telephone. It was almost always Anathema. The angel had taken the liberty of reassuring her that everything was alright soon after rescuing Crowley, and she had returned to Tadfield, though with the caveat that Crowley call her as soon as he was well enough to do so. Crowley protested against the idea of Aziraphale holding the phone for him, and maintained that he would return her call once he was human-shaped again.
It wasn’t long before Crowley realized he was capable of making that transformation, if he wanted to. Crowley wondered if Aziraphale could sense it too, and that perhaps they were both in on the charade of his continued serpentry. It was a fool’s hope, of course, but the angel was liable to send him home for good once he was well enough, and Crowley couldn’t resist the temptation to stay by his side just a bit longer.
Eventually, it had to end.
The catalyst was a whiff of brimstone, floating surreptitiously into the bookshop from just outside the front door. Crowley was on the alert immediately and slithered down from the top of his favorite windowsill to find the source. The culprit: a letter that had been pushed through the mail slot, still smoking around the seal.
Crowley tried to grasp it in his mouth to bring it upstairs. When that didn’t work, he attempted to fit it in the coil of his tail tip, but this too failed. Frustrated, and growing more apprehensive by the minute, Crowley mustered up all the strength that remained to him to change back to his human form.
As he’d suspected for some time now, he was perfectly capable of doing so. The transition was smooth and seamless, and after materializing a fresh set of clothes onto his body Crowley headed upstairs in search of Aziraphale. Unused to two legs after so long with none, he clung to the rickety old banister, but otherwise managed the journey on his own.
“You’ve got mail,” Crowley announced, appearing behind Aziraphale in the tiny yellow kitchen above the shop.
The lace curtains over the window fluttered as Aziraphale whirled around, a tiny gasp flying from his open mouth.
“Oh,” he breathed, scrabbling for and hastily drying his hands on a tea towel. “It’s you.”
“It’s me?” Crowley repeated, amused. “Who else might it have been?”
“You know what I mean.” Aziraphale waved the towel disparagingly at him before putting it aside. “Goodness, let me look at you. I know it hasn’t been that long, but I’ve missed this form.”
There were pros and cons to both, Crowley thought. Aziraphale had spent the last few weeks stroking his scales and allowing him to rest in his lap, or on his shoulders in between carrying him from place to place. Crowley found that he would miss the contact now that he was human-shaped once more.
“I’m the same me as I ever was,” he said, slightly uncomfortable under the angel’s scrutiny.
“Yes, of course you are. I know that. It’s just different,” Aziraphale insisted. “I wasn’t sure how long you would remain in that form. I know you’ve mentioned before that you sometimes feared you wouldn’t be able to change back, and I thought...”
Crowley waved off-handedly. “I was mostly kidding.”
“Yes, well, still.” Aziraphale couldn’t quite hide the smile that tugged at his lips. “It’s good to see you looking more like yourself.”
“Thanks,” Crowley muttered, an embarrassing heat rising to his cheeks. Face to face, it occurred to him for the first time that he had forgotten to miracle up a pair of sunglasses when swapping forms. With an uncomfortable cough, Crowley broke their eye contact and looked for something to distract from the conversation.
“I’ll just take this, shall I?” he said, plucking the tea tray Aziraphale had been preparing off the counter. Without waiting for a response, he lead the way out to the seldom used sitting room, miracling a pair of shades onto his face on the way. Aziraphale trailed behind him, rummaging through a few drawers in the cluttered space and eventually withdrawing a sword-shaped letter opener.
A fire was crackling in the hearth, casting a soft orange glow around the little room. Crowley sat down in the middle of a worn leather sofa and placed the tea on the table. To his surprise, Aziraphale squeezed in beside him, bringing their thighs together side by side, nearly close enough to touch. Crowley budged over and made room before offering the letter, which Aziraphale accepted. After removing his glasses from an inside pocket, Aziraphale sliced the envelope open and slipped the document free. His eyes scanned the page.
“It’s from Dagon!” Aziraphale cried.
“What? No!”
“Yes! Look, it says right here at the bottom.”
Crowley leaned in hastily. Sure enough, Dagon’s sigil was scrawled in red right at the bottom of the page, glowing faintly.
“That explains the stench,” Crowley said, wrinkling his nose as if he himself did not carry around the trace of brimstone. “Hang on. Are we certain it’s addressed to you?”
“Fairly. It is my name at the top,” Aziraphale indicated.
“Well, go on then, what does it say?”
There was a short pause as Aziraphale’s eyes moved rapidly from side to side.
“It’s a thank you letter.”
“Oh, it must be for you, then. Six thousand years and I don’t think Dagon’s ever thanked me once.” Crowley groused. “Why exactly are you being thanked?”
“It says here that they appreciate my timeliness in dispatching Eugene Blackburn back to Hell... and look forward to my securing further souls... as part of our agreement… Oh, this is ridiculous!” Aziraphale flung the letter away in frustration.
Crowley quickly snagged it out of Aziraphale’s lap and brought it up to his nose. “Agreement? What agreement?” he asked, barely keeping the note of panic at bay. Agreement sounded suspiciously close to Arrangement.
“Oh, bother, I forgot to mention it. It’s nothing, really. While you were in that circle I contacted Dagon to see if they might be able to help me in figuring out where you’d gotten off to.”
“You what? Oh, no no no no no. Did you sign anything?” Crowley’s face crumpled at Aziraphale’s guilty expression. “Oh, angel, what have I always told you?”
“Now, now, before you work yourself up, take a look at it,” Aziraphale said soothingly. He snapped his wrist in mid-air, and immediately a pile of documents appeared in his hand. Crowley snatched them up and began reading through them.
Sure enough, the contract was demonic in nature, an agreement between Aziraphale and Dagon, only the trademark trappings and sinister clauses weren’t there. Somehow, the angel had negotiated his way into a mutualistic partnership with Hell’s most dangerous beaurocrat. Crowley could feel his jaw hanging open but was too stunned to close it.
“This is… I don’t… How did you manage…?”
“Learned from the best,” Aziraphale twinkled, and he nudged Crowley’s shoulder affectionately with his own.
“I can see that. Though, are you sure you’re alright with all of this? I mean, what’s this whole ‘securing souls’ business?”
“It’s nothing I haven’t done before for you. And besides," Aziraphale continued pointedly, "you and I both know there are some humans out there who will never be influenced toward the light, no matter how hard one tries.”
“I hear that,” Crowley muttered under his breath, flipping another page. “Sort of makes you a double agent, though, doesn’t it? Smiting evil on both payrolls.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Aziraphale said promptly. “My primary goal is now and always will be to serve the Almighty. If those ambitions happen to overlap with Dagon’s… Well, I can hardly be blamed.”
Crowley snorted. “And the Falling Clause? That seems pretty self-serving.”
“Consider it an insurance policy,” Aziraphale said, and he reached for his cup of tea. Crowley continued to scan the pages as Aziraphale sipped quietly.
“The thing I don’t understand is,” the angel broke in at length, “if Blackburn had already sold his soul away, what use would Dagon have for his body?”
There was a short pause as Crowley reluctantly set the document aside. “Ah, yeah, well. See the thing is, the punishments of Hell carry a bit more bite if you’ve got a body to inflict them upon.”
“Oh.”
“They don’t call Dagon Master of Torments for nothing.” Crowley scrutinized Aziraphale’s face. “Does that upset you?”
“No. Not at all. Not after what he did to you,” Aziraphale replied firmly, and Crowley took one look at his expression and believed him.
Crowley hadn’t wanted to go into detail about everything that had transpired during his captivity, but vague references and sparse descriptions had eventually driven Aziraphale to confront him for the full story. After some deliberation Crowley had come clean.
It had been difficult to recount. Every gasp, every flinch from Aziraphale had set Crowley on edge and made him hesitate to continue. When he got to the part where Blackburn had yanked out his fangs with a pair of needle nose pliers, Aziraphale had become so angry the room started to shake, a few books tumbling from their piles and a potted plant slipping from its sill and breaking on the floor. Crowley had stopped talking then, and the angel had apologized profusely for letting his temper slip. They hadn’t discussed it since.
Aziraphale, likely remembering the same thing, broke the silence:
“So what exactly will happen to him, now that he’s down there?”
“He’ll have fallen to whichever circle of sin he subscribed to in life,” Crowley replied.
“And which circle is that?” Aziraphale asked curiously. “Vanity? Pride? Greed?”
“Nah. Envy was his thing,” Crowley sniffed. “Wanted everything he didn’t have. Jealous of what came so easily to others. The good looks, the fancy car, the big house, the great job.”
“Sounds like greed to me.”
Crowley shrugged. “They look similar enough on the outside, sure, but the key difference with Envy is the comparison."
“Sin that looks with grudging hatred upon other men's gifts and good fortune, taking every opportunity to run them down or deprive them of their happiness," Aziraphale quoted thoughtfully. “Yes, I suppose I see that now. He always was envious of my books.” Aziraphale seemed to hesitate a moment before adding the next line as an afterthought. “And of you.”
Crowley waited a moment to see if Aziraphale would elaborate before speaking. “Yeah, well. That’s humans for you. Always wanting more, no appreciation for what they’ve already got. The man directed the best library in all of England and still wasn’t satisfied with his lot in life.”
Crowley paused, expecting Aziraphale to chime in with a little angelic wisdom, but was met with solemn silence. Aziraphale stared straight ahead seemingly without seeing. His overbright eyes reflected the light of the fire.
“What’s the matter?”
“It’s nothing,” Aziraphale said softly, still not looking at him. “Just, well, I can sort of see their perspective, in a way.”
“How’s that?” asked Crowley, leaning forward with interest.
There was a beat of silence. A little wrinkle appeared between Aziraphale’s eyebrows, and he seemed to choose his next words very carefully. “Wanting what you can’t have.”
Crowley frowned. “You can have anything you want, angel.”
At that, Aziraphale gave him a peculiar look, his wide eyes lingering on Crowley’s face. Hungry and sad, as if the demon were a display of sweets in a closed bakery.
“Not everything,” Aziraphale said softly, and Crowley nearly flinched as the angel’s hand brushed ever so slightly up against his own. “Not you.”
“You have me,” Crowley protested.
“I do and I don’t,” said Aziraphale, as though that explained everything.
“I don’t understand.”
In a novel gesture, Crowley felt the stroke of a gentle finger across his knuckles, and then the firmer pressure of the angel's fingers twining through his own. For a few frightening seconds it felt as though his heart had forgotten how to beat, and then as if to compensate it picked up its rhythm double-time, thundering so loud he was certain the angel would be able to hear it. Crowley's hand was clammy, but he didn’t dare move it away, didn't dare move his body at all, waiting with bated breath for Aziraphale to explain what was happening.
The calm, soft tone of Aziraphale’s voice was belied by a slight tremor. “Surely you must know by now that I love you,” he began, punctuating his words with an affectionate squeeze to Crowley's hand. “I know I haven’t been the best at showing it over the years. I can admit that. It took me a long time to realize it myself, that what I was feeling toward you was much more than tolerance for an adversary, and even more than fondness for a friend.”
"Oh," Crowley managed weakly, unsticking his throat with a tremendous amount of effort.
“I guess I had hoped that after last year, after our own side, things might be different," Aziraphale continued. "But when nothing changed I assumed you didn’t think of me that way.”
Crowley blanched. “I do think of you that way. How could you think for one ssssecond that I don’t?”
There was a moment of utter silence as Aziraphale gaped at him.
“You never said.”
“I thought you knew! I thought we were, you know,” Crowley gesticulated wildly. “More than friends. Just unspoken. Couldn’t say it aloud, never knew who might be listening.”
“You mean all this time?”
Crowley nodded. “I mean, obviously not the whole time. But after The Arrangement, I thought well, that was it, wasn’t it? Our commitment to one another over Heaven and Hell.” Crowley’s entire face felt hot, from the tips of his ears to his collar. He resisted the urge to cradle his head in his hands. “Pathetic, isn’t it?”
“No more pathetic than my mistake,” Aziraphale said at once. “I should have noticed. I should have said something.”
“I should have said something,” Crowley argued, flinging his hands up in the air. There was a pause as they stared at one another, both seeming to recognize the absurdity of the situation, and after a moment they began to laugh.
“And to think, all this wasted time…” The angel’s quiet chuckle turned into a soft sigh, and Crowley glanced up in time to see a single tear slip down his round cheek.
“Hey, now.” Crowley braved the space between them to sweep it away with his thumb. “No need to cry.”
“I know,” Aziraphale sniffed, and he reached up to cradle Crowley’s hand against his own cheek. “Truly, I know. It just breaks my heart to think that this whole time you thought that was as well as I could love you.”
Crowley shook his head vehemently. “I don’t need that extra stuff. This, being with you, it’s enough for me. It’s always been enough. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
Their eyes met, and Aziraphale’s gaze was softer and more tender than Crowley had ever seen it. Crowley forced himself not to look away.
“Let me give you more,” Aziraphale said as he removed Crowley’s hand from his face. He brought the palm to his lips and kissed it, leaving the skin there tingling. “Let me give all of myself to you. I want you to have it.”
“Aziraphale…” Crowley started, but he wasn’t able to finish. The angel was suddenly close, closer than Crowley could ever remember him having been in six thousand years. The room seemed to spin ever so slightly as though he'd downed a bottle of wine, and he could smell Aziraphale, could feel Aziraphale’s hands on his face, thumbs stroking the harsh line of his cheekbones, warm lips against his forehead, the tip of his nose, the corner of his mouth.
“Let me make up for lost time,” Aziraphale whispered against his lips, and Crowley’s heart felt on the verge of exploding out of his chest.
“Angel, what are you doing to me?” Crowley breathed. His fingers were trembling, breath coming in short, sharp pants. Slowly, carefully, he brought one hand up to cup Aziraphale’s chin, brushing the pad of his thumb across the softness of his skin.
“Is it not alright?”
“It’s not not alright,” Crowley managed.
There was a hand on his cheek, and Aziraphale’s fingertips trailed over the arm of his sunglasses. “May I?”
Crowley nodded, and Aziraphale gently pulled the frames away from Crowley’s face. His hands returned, soft and gentle and Crowley closed his eyes as the angel leaned in.
Their lips met once, a press so slight it was barely there, a whisper of the real thing. Crowley drew back a fraction, the breath shivering out of him, and Aziraphale trailed in his wake, bestowing feather-light kisses as he lay Crowley back against the couch. The leather squelched in protest as Aziraphale hovered over him.
“Alright?” Aziraphale whispered, drawing back so that his eyes could flicker over Crowley’s heated face.
Crowley managed a nod, and when next Aziraphale kissed him he tried to move his lips in return, a soft, lingering slide. The breath was whistling rapidly in and out of his nose, over-loud in his ears. Crowley curled his fist in the front of the angel’s jumper, neither pushing nor pulling, merely gripping on for dear life as the entire world turned upside down around him. After a moment he turned his head, and Aziraphale pressed a kiss to his temple.
Aziraphale drew back sharply.
“Oh, Crowley, are you crying?”
“No,” Crowley lied, a slight crack in his voice.
In an instant Aziraphale had sat back up and pulled Crowley with him. The angel was far stronger than he looked, and Crowley came up easily, curling over his own lap like a ragdoll as soon as he was released. The moment Aziraphale’s warm weight was gone Crowley missed it, and he scrubbed frustratedly at his eyes with his fist, willing them to stop producing tears.
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to cry. It’s these sssstupid bodies.”
“I understand,” Aziraphale murmured, unfailingly kind.
“It’s all just a bit overwhelming.”
“Shh. You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”
With a low exhale, Crowley leaned forward until their foreheads were pressed together. Aziraphale was warm and close, his presence soothing, and Crowley concentrated on catching his breath as the world slowly righted itself. The flow of tears trickled to a stop.
In the midst of this Crowley felt a nudge against his hand and looked down; Aziraphale had located his sunglasses and was attempting to return them. A fresh wave of tears spilled over at the kindness of the gesture, quickly smothered as Crowley attempted to regain control. Wordlessly, he accepted the glasses from Aziraphale only to toss them across the room.
“No more walls between us. No more barriers,” Crowley said decisively, taking Aziraphale’s empty hand in his own and squeezing tightly. “From now on, nothing comes between us.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Aziraphale said softly. He withdrew a handkerchief from a pocket and offered it to Crowley, who mopped his face before handing it back, miraculously clean.
“Better?” Aziraphale asked, smoothing a lock of hair away from Crowley's face.
Crowley nodded, and Aziraphale squeezed their joined hands.
“Good. There’s something I wanted to show you.”
Before Crowley could protest Aziraphale stood and walked over to the tiny brick fireplace across the room. Crowley trailed after him, and once beside him Aziraphale drew away the sheet covering a cardboard box. Inside was a pile of dusty old books, haphazardly stacked on top of one another.
“What’s this?” Crowley asked, looking from the books to Aziraphale for an explanation. His mind was far away at that moment — still stuck on the sofa and on the kiss they had shared.
Aziraphale reached in and lifted one, hefting it in his hand before holding it out to Crowley. Hesitantly, Crowley accepted the volume and turned it in his hands: Le Grand Grimoire ou Dragon Rogue.
“The books from my safe,” Aziraphale explained. “I recovered them from Blackburn’s house.”
“I’d almost forgotten,” Crowley muttered, tracing a finger over the embossed depiction of a demon on the front cover. Memories were flooding back, unbidden: the cold, gritty surface of the concrete in Blackburn’s refrigerator, the harsh lighting overhead, the threat of a boot on his back. Crowley shook his head to clear it. “It’s a good thing you got them all back. Wouldn’t want to risk them falling into the wrong hands again.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Aziraphale said, standing up a bit straighter. “I don’t want them falling into the wrong hands. Not ever again. In fact,” the angel took a deep, steadying breath, “I think the world would be far better off without these books in it at all. Which is why I think we should destroy them.”
Crowley blinked. “What? No. Aziraphale, no. These are your books,” Crowley said quickly, pushing the one in his hands back toward Aziraphale. The angel refused to take it, retreating a step with his hands clasped neatly behind his back.
“Not anymore,” Aziraphale stated. “I don’t want them.”
“What do you mean you don’t want them?” Crowley’s volume was rising. “They’re valuable, aren’t they?”
Aziraphale frowned. “If you really think I care about the money — ”
“No, that’s, agh—!” Crowley shook his head quickly. “It’s not about the money! I mean the contents, what’s inside them. Who knows when some occult knowledge might come in handy? You should at least hang on to them in case we need them as a resource in the future.”
Aziraphale folded his arms defiantly across his chest. “And risk them getting stolen again?”
“That — it — mngh.” Crowley deflated. “Well, what if we went through them? Only kept the really important ones?”
“What could possibly be more important than your safety?” Aziraphale asked, eyebrow raised. Crowley was starting to flounder. “Crowley, look at me. Look at me.”
Crowley stopped fidgeting and looked. Aziraphale’s gaze was sure and steady, his tone one of complete calm.
“I understand what you’re trying to say. These books are priceless, and some of them do contain information that might one day be of value. But we can never completely guarantee their protection. As long as they’re around, they will always be a liability, a threat to your safety. And I never want to be the reason why your life is in danger. Not ever again.” Aziraphale’s gaze softened, and he reached a hand out to accept the book. “You’re always the one looking after me, Crowley. Won’t you allow me, just this once, to do the same for you?”
Crowley hesitated, looking from the book to Aziraphale's outstretched hand. It felt as though there was a war within himself, and he wasn’t sure if he was winning or losing.
“You know I’d never ask you to do this,” he said eventually.
“I know,” Aziraphale replied. “It’s my choice.”
Crowley swallowed the lump in his throat. In all the years he'd known Aziraphale, the angel had never come close to treasuring anything the way he treasured his books. For Crowley to have his life considered of equal, perhaps even greater value, was simply unimaginable. But then, the angel had already surprised him once today, so perhaps it was not as far-fetched as it seemed. Crowley bit his lip and ran his thumb one last time over the demon on the cover.
“Are you sure?”
Aziraphale smiled sincerely. “My dear, I have never been more sure of anything in my life.”
And so, with a nod of acceptance Crowley relinquished the book into Aziraphale’s hands. Slowly, Aziraphale extended it toward the fire, pausing only once it was close enough for the flames to lick his fingers. The moment seemed to stretch on forever, until Crowley gave a fraction of a nod and Aziraphale let the book go.
It crashed into the charred log, sending up a shower of orange sparks. For a moment it sat pristine among the flames before a few tendrils of smoke began to curl from underneath it. When the first corner ignited Crowley winced, ready for Aziraphale to reach back into the fireplace and save it. But the angel was still as stone, watching the book burn with something like grim satisfaction written across his face.
Crowley slowly released the breath that he’d been holding and watched it crumble away into nothing.
Aziraphale handed him a book, and on it went. For the next few minutes they took turns grabbing from the box and feeding books into the fire, which burned brighter and larger with each new addition.
At length the box was emptied, save one final item. Crowley picked it up cautiously. It was not the largest, nor the oldest, nor the best kept of the lot, but somehow it was the most significant. It was Crowley’s book. The one that had caused him so much grief over the centuries. Enormous, hand-bound, and sweet-smelling with the scent of decay. This was the first time Crowley had ever even held it in his own hands.
“Funny. It seemed a lot bigger, before,” Crowley remarked softly. He paused with his fingertips on the edge of the cover, poised to open it, but at the last second decided against it. There was nothing in there he wanted to see, and in that moment, he recognized that Aziraphale was right. It would be best if this book, like all the others, was never read by anyone ever again.
With a whoosh! Crowley dropped it in the fire. They watched in silence as it was quickly devoured, half a millennia worth of trouble reduced to smoke and ash. Aziraphale sought his hand in the space between them, and Crowley met his touch with a firm grip.
Slowly, the pieces of the book fell away to grey powder, indistinguishable from the rest of the hearth’s contents. Crowley released a deep, cleansing sigh and turned to face the angel.
“Can’t say that didn’t feel good,” he admitted, baring the tiniest of grins.
Aziraphale’s eyes crinkled around the edges as he smiled.
“What? Aren’t you going to say ‘I told you so’?” Crowley prompted.
Aziraphale took a breath to speak, inhaled a lungful of smoke, and coughed. “I t-told… you so,” he managed, eyes watering.
“That’s what you get for being smug,” Crowley said, before dissolving into a coughing fit of his own. “Wow, is all of this just from the dust burning?"
“I’ll open a window,” Aziraphale offered, already moving in that direction.
Crowley followed him over to the far wall and drew aside the curtain as Aziraphale propped open the grimy old pane. The cold London air was not as fresh as it had once been, but Crowley remembered a time when it had been worse and was comparatively grateful. Together they stood in front of the open frame, side by side as they had always been, though perhaps a fraction closer than ever before. As he looked out over the rooftops of Soho and into the city beyond, Crowley imagined he could taste the very beginnings of Spring on the breeze.
“Would you care to go out? My treat, of course," Crowley said. A long time had passed, much of it spent watching Aziraphale out of the corner of his eye.
The angel's gaze moved slowly from the view to Crowley's face, and he broke out into a breathtaking smile. “I’d like that very much,” he said.
And so they did, the angel and demon venturing out of the bookshop and onto the chilly streets below, hand in hand for what was to be the first of many times to come.