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It started before time did, as many such stories did. Predestination waited for no clock, after all, even if it did tend to take its sweet time when you would really like it to just get on with things.
Large things weren't really predestined, of course, or at least major events weren't. No, that would be far too easy. Every being had to believe they were at least capable of making their own fate, even if angels weren't supposed to want to do so. You could make some sort of tedious argument about quantum mechanics and particles and the lack of true free will, but most people who did such things had no idea what they are talking about and couldn't be much fun to hang around anyway.[1]
But some things, things on a more individual level--these can be predestined. Certain meetings, for instance. A being with the adequate amount of foresight could work out the result of any two specific beings meeting at the right place and time.
No such being existed, so instead there was, like with many other such important things, a Book.
~
Raphael wasn't exactly sure why Mother had handed him a book and told him he was in charge of this and to never lose it as it was very, very important. He turned it over in his mind while mixing nebulas, pondered it while shaping planets, and dwelt on it while he and his siblings filled the oceans of Earth with water.[2]
No one much liked it when he asked 'why' so he was trying to save the whys of things for particularly important questions, and so resolved to have a look at the book first and only ask if he couldn't figure it out. So, upon a rare timeless moment wherein he had no pressing tasks, he seated himself on the rings of the planet that would eventually bear the name Saturn and flipped it open.
It was a register, but as such things did not exist yet, it just looked like a listing of paired names.
Frowning, he ran his finger down the list gently. They were all human names, as far as he could tell? Or names that must eventually go to humans, as they certainly weren't angelic ones. Or at least, no angels he recognized the names of. Mother had said she wasn't done making angels yet, so was this a book of future angels?
But...in pairs?
The first pair on the first page looked to say, roughly, 'Adam & Eve.' The second pair, directly after, was smudged into unreadability. He squinted at it, gently brushed his finger over it in an attempt to fix it with magic, but the smudge remained. He thought it might be angels, and perhaps that was why he could see all the others but not that one.
The question of course remained what it meant. He checked all over it and found no other notation. He was in the midst of flipping through the pages when a loose piece of paper fluttered out. He caught it deftly before it could drift away into Saturn's gases and make him chase it. [3] It was a note, addressed to him.
Raphael,
This is the ledger of soulmates. It falls into your domains and so, I gift it to you to do with what you deem most wise. I know you will not let me down.
The signature was not one that could be translated, but every angel could read.
Raphael had heard of this concept, of course, and now the paired names made sense. The smudge still didn't, but that part had been put out of his mind for the minute.
"Well," he said to himself, "I think it ought to be a touch more obvious to them, then. It really isn't fair to give them a single person to match best with and have no indication of that."
He closed the book again, tucked the note away in his robes, and placed his hand on the cover. It took rather a larger miracle than he'd expected for something so simple, but as he watched a red string twined into existence on the cover and he smiled. Then he glanced down where he felt a slight tug on his left hand and saw a piece of red string tied around his pinky finger.
He inspected it. It didn't seem tied to anything. Perhaps it was just there to signify they existed? Since he cast the miracle and was the book's keeper.
Still, the indicator would work. He didn't think anyone without attuned magic would be able to see them, but everyone ought to be able to feel them tug when they were near the right person.
He tucked the book away, stretched his wings, and headed back to Heaven.
But not for long.
~
The first time Crawly saw the String working as intended was on the two humans in the Garden.
Even after the Fall, he could still see it extending from both their pinky fingers, insubstantial and yet so visible to him and so tangible to them, never tangling, bright red against dark skin, drawing them in ever closer.
Clearly, they felt it. Clearly, it had worked.
He had lost the Book when he fell. It was somewhere on Earth, or else burned up and useless, and he felt a bit of a pang at the thought. Still, it meant he was the only one who knew about the String.
He wasn't sure how he felt about that part.
It wasn't until much later, until he was well away from Eden and so was everyone else, that he looked down at his own now-humanoid-again hands and saw the String, no longer a simple loop, extending off into the distance. He recalled the tugging feeling on the wall, sheltered under an angel's wing.
Fuck, he thought with feeling, staring at the String in horror and now knowing exactly what the smudge meant.
"Fuck!" he said aloud, half the volume of a yell, and startled several nearby animals into scattering, including three frogs and a lemur that was about to attempt eating them.
~
Despite himself, despite knowing better, Crowley-formerly-Crawly simply couldn't resist popping up near Aziraphale whenever opportunity presented. Sometimes he would even go out of his way to do so.
The thing was, he'd discreetly checked around. He'd looked at every demon who had fingers or the approximation of fingers, and there wasn't a red string to behold. Not a single angel had one, either, as far as he knew.
Except him. Except Aziraphale.
Oh, Crowley knew damn well he couldn't pursue it, and risk Aziraphale of all angels Falling. That would be...he couldn't even begin to contemplate how much it would hurt, to be responsible for that. Nor could he keep himself away, no matter how he tried, so he did his best to transmute the feelings into friendship.
It was still so hard to do, especially when while walking through the streets of any given human town he could see red strings everywhere, crossing through the air. The Book, or God perhaps, had been kind enough to tweak things so humans would always encounter their soulmates in their lifetime, but encounter didn't always mean they ended up together.
Rome was particularly bad for that. This man and that woman had a red string between them but were married to other people, and he could tell at a glance they regretted it. Those women there, whose touches that seemed at a glance innocent, most assuredly felt the tug at every one and could do nothing about it. The more people built up cities, the more they seemed to build up customs and traditions that kept soulmates apart.
Not that he could talk. It wasn't like he was with his, either. He didn't even have the excuse of not knowing for sure. [4]
"Do they still talk about soulmates Upstairs?" he asked Aziraphale, after some admittedly rather good if slimy oysters and definitely rather good and not at all slimy wine. It was on a whim; his mood had much improved since running into Aziraphale, but the topic was still on his mind.
Aziraphale did a half-take over his cup of wine. Tug, tug went the string on Crowley's finger, apparently unnoticed by the other end. "I suppose I've heard mention once or twice," he said after a second. "No one seems overly concerned since it only applies to humans."
His tone made it clear what he thought of that, and Crowley made a noise of agreement to that more than anything.
"Why do you ask?" Aziraphale said. "You don't have to--I don't know--disrupt some, do you?"
Something inside of Crowley heaved and twisted, and he felt his expression automatically twist with it.
"I wouldn't do that," he said. "Ugh. No, no, my head office doesn't care. I was just curious if you'd heard of any of yours with one?"
"No, never," Aziraphale said, and he sounded very sure. "It really does only apply to humans, don't worry." He leaned over the table to peer at Crowley and dropped his voice, as if he were relaying some great bit of gossip. "I've heard it said they might not even exist, but I wouldn't go that far. I've certainly seen some love stories play out, now and then down here!"
"Mmnh," Crowley said. "Yeah. They definitely exist. No way to track them, I guess?"
"Goodness, no," Aziraphale said, appalled. "If we all knew ahead of time, undoubtedly we'd be tasked at setting people up--and well I'm not sure I'd like to know or be pushed that way, would you? If it applied to us, that is."
"Ah." Crowley's gaze only briefly flickered to the red string slicing through the air between them, across less than a foot of table between their pinky fingers. "Yeah. Who wants anything to do with fate and predestination? Make my own choices, that's me."
Tug, tug went the string as they toasted their new bottle of wine, and Crowley pretended he didn't feel the pull on his heart as well.
~
It wasn't so bad, really. For one thing he could always tell where Aziraphale was. Even when it became hard to walk through cities sometimes without learning to tune it all out his own string is there, more real than anything else around it, leading him ever toward the other half of his heart.
This was largely convenient for the fact that Aziraphale was so damn reckless. Crowley didn't know if the sensation got more noticeable or intense for humans who had known each other longer or if this was a peculiarity of his having made the things and/or their longevity, but he had gotten particularly sharp tugs whenever Aziraphale needed him or was in danger. One time in 1941, it had been so sharp that it had nearly toppled him over and he'd stumbled against the bonnet of his car.
But it meant he knew where to go, and it meant he got there in time, so that was all right.
Usually.
He'd seen strings of people whose other half had died before. It had never failed to bother him; something was just unnatural about it. How it wasn't so much cut as just...ended, in a frayed mess, several inches from the end of the remaining one's finger.
He stared down at his hand in the burning bookshop, clutching the book he'd grabbed off the floor to his chest.
Frayed.
The end of the world couldn't come soon enough.
~
Crowley felt the shift in the world, the tug at his hand. He looked up from his drink and melted.
"Aziraphale," he breathed.
The frayed string retwined, even still ending abruptly.
It didn't reform in its completeness until Aziraphale had his own body back, and Crowley mentally vowed at that juncture that if they all lived through this, Adam was going to get whatever he wanted for his birthday for the rest of his natural life.
There was only so much he could do, but he damn well did it.
~
"Package for you, by the way," the postman said after he'd taken back the three artifacts. "Assuming one of you is Crowley?"
"That's mine," Crowley said, reaching out for it. He didn't know who the hell was sending him packages at this juncture, but if it was something dangerous he didn't want Aziraphale to have to deal with it.
He waited until the postman had left to open it, and Aziraphale leaned over to look too.
"Oh," Crowley said, disinterested when he saw the brown paper wrapping in the box and its distinctive shape. "It's a book. S'pose you should have this then, angel."
"Are you sure?" Aziraphale said, looking up through his eyelashes even as one hand started to reach out covetously. "It's addressed to you."
"I don't read books, you know that," he said dismissively. "You'll enjoy it more than I will. Besides, odds are good I ordered it for you originally anyway."
Aziraphale's cheeks went pink, and moreso when Crowley lifted the book out of the book and deposited it in his waiting hands. Their hands brushed, and Crowley relished the little tug as he never had before. "Oh, thank you. I imagine whatever it is I'll enjoy it. I'll take care of it, of course."
"Like no one else ever could, I'm sure," Crowley said, and took back the wine bottle while Aziraphale's attention was diverted.
~
Heaven looked so empty, compared to Earth. There were no connections, nothing meaningful. Sure, you didn't need a red string to care--but after so long among people, day in and day out, getting used to how they acted so you could pretend to be one, it was easy to tell how fake everything there was.
Crowley flexed his-Aziraphale's hands under the bindings and waited. It was everything he could do to keep from grinning.
And then they were free.
~
"You were right, of course. An awful lot of new books in the shop," Aziraphale said as they settled into their spots in the back and Crowley cracked another bottle of wine. It was barely three in the afternoon but the shop was already closed, meaning they had it to themselves since returning from the Ritz.
"That whole stack along the front must be from Adam," Crowley said. "Knew they weren't your style."
"No," Aziraphale agreed as he held out a glass absently. "Do you know...I might actually sell them?"
Crowley raised an eyebrow as he poured the wine into the glass in Aziraphale's outstretched hand. "Sell books? You?"
"Perhaps not," Aziraphale conceded. "I wouldn't want to set any expectations. I can bundle them off to Adam for Christmas or somesuch, then."
"He might like that," Crowley allowed. "Or. Hm. Maybe Warlock would. Not that he ever read, much."
The red string between them was relaxed, more than he'd ever seen it. He wasn't quite sure what that meant. A sign of the times? Something to do with the swap? With half a bottle of wine in him, he wasn't all that concerned.
"That other book--the one you gave me, at the bus stop..." Aziraphale swirled his glass of wine contemplatively. "I don't think it was originally meant for my hands after all. It took me a moment to work out what it was, even."
"Misprint?" Crowley asked idly. Aziraphale loved his misprints, but maybe not this one for some reason.
"No." Aziraphale took a drink and set his glass aside before leaning forward. "No. Crowley--I've never seen one like this. Just rows and rows of paired names."
There was a funny feeling in his stomach just then, and knew what the next words were before hearing them.
"The cover only depicted a red string."
Crowley's left hand twitched, and he set down his own wineglass before he made another stain to match the thirty year old one at the other corner of the rug.
"I s'pose that was mine," he said after a moment. "Huh."
He had some small amount of hope for a moment that Aziraphale didn't understand the significance, but no such luck.
"You do know what that means, then?" Aziraphale asked. He wasn't pressing, quite, but the way he was eyeing Crowley seemed to indicate he'd guessed the answer to that. "How it's a book on soulmates?"
Crowley wished he hadn't put his wine down. "Just a list of them, really. I never got the chance to read the whole thing before..." He made a falling-down motion with his hands. "Besides, the specific names wouldn't mean anything to us. Most of them. A curiousity, maybe."
"Really," Aziraphale said, skepticism tinging his voice then. "I find that hard to believe, considering we're in there."
Crowley made a few noises [5] while his brain caught up with his mouth, sounding somewhere between 'beached dolphin' and 'strangled cat.' "Never. Never saw that."
"We're the very second names on the list," Aziraphale said, looking very put-out. "Did you read none of it?"
"Hang on a second." He very clearly remembered that part. "There aren't really any second names. The entry under Adam and Eve was smudged."
Then the rest of his brain caught up with him.
"Oh," he said after a moment. "Er. Aghk. You know, then."
"As if I needed a book to tell me I loved you!" Aziraphale said indignantly, but he was smiling and doing that thing he did with his eyes that always made Crowley's heart thrum rapidly. [6] "But if you didn't read it, how did you know?"
Crowley glanced back down at the string, and raised his left hand wordlessly.
"I see the strings," he said. "Always have. Though, for the record angel? Knew I loved you before I ever saw our string."
Aziraphale settled back in his chair. "That's all right, then."
"I didn't...make the book, or anything," Crowley said after a second. "Or take it, I mean. It was given to me. Back when. And again, I guess, but probably not by the same...being."
"Who's to say?" Aziraphale picked up his wine glass again, still smiling. "I don't think it much matters, really."
"I did make the strings," Crowley continued. "I wanted them to...I don't know. It didn't seem fair without letting them know, somehow. So they can feel it a little bit."
"A tug on your heartstrings," Aziraphale murmured. "I think it's rather fitting. I have, after all, felt that whenever we are near enough--oh, well, of course."
"It's a nice feeling," Crowley said. "Glad it didn't, I don't know, mess up when I fell or anything. That would sort of defeat the point if it hurt."
"It does hurt too," Aziraphale said. "But I think...that part might be just us. It only ever hurt because I knew I couldn't have you."
There were a lot of other couples Crowley had seen over the centuries who were ripped apart through external circumstance. A painful truth he'd long since learned was that the string wouldn't keep anyone together, even if the people tied to each end desired it. Some of them made it back to each other. Others didn't. Aziraphale never had to watch a string fray.
Mind, he'd undoubtedly had to see the results. Humans could feel when the other end of their string vanished, of course, even if they didn't realize what they were feeling. Maybe it was only ever an accent. A confirmation in a streak of red.
People didn't fall in love because they were soulmates, after all. They were predestined because of course they would meet, of course they would fall in love. Anyone claiming the reverse had got the cause and effect muddled.
Just like Crowley had fallen for Aziraphale on the garden wall and not even noticed the tug until later. Just like Aziraphale had fallen for him later, before he had the Book.
"You can have me now," Crowley said, voice the opposite of steady. He was on his feet, had gotten up without conscious intervention, and wobbling over to Aziraphale. Not so much due to the wine as everything else. "You can even keep me. As long as you want."
"Ah," Aziraphale murmured, setting down his glass again and standing to match him before pulling Crowley into his arms with an abrupt burst of movement that wouldn't have entirely passed for human, had anyone been watching, shedding the repression of six millenia in less than the span of a heartbeat. "I'm afraid that's forever then, my dear. You'll never be rid of me now."
Crowley lifted his head from its new spot on Aziraphale's shoulder somewhat reluctantly. His arms slid around Aziraphale's waist. With anyone else, he would have protested the closeness, protested the touch, but this was Aziraphale.
"Why would I ever want to be rid of you?" Crowley asked in amazement, before leaning in to kiss him.
~
"Crowley?"
"Mm?"
"Your bed is ridiculously decadent."
"S'nice, right?"
"Very." Rustle, rustle. "Oh. Oh! I see the string."
"Yeah?"
"Yes." Rustle. "It's quite lovely."
"Don't think I can let you see everyone's, angel. It'll only extend to ours."
"I don't need anyone else's anyway. Let them find out on their own."
"Mm. No matchmaking."
"Quite."
"'Sides. Ours look better the less string there is between them."
"..."
"..."
"Yes, they do, don't they?"
[1] It is true that certain things can be foreseen as inevitable, which is how prophecy works, but that too is just the result of choices upon choices, and even the prophet makes a choice in the words they use to indicate what will be. Or prophetess, rather, as there is only one who has ever been accurate enough to do so. [ return ]
[2] And, by accident, fish, which any angel can tell you 'just sort of happened,' though most don't know why or who was responsible. After the Fall, Lucifer claimed it was him, up until the point humans adopted them as a primary food source and ever after claimed it to be Michael. Crowley, for his part, was pretty sure that they had all had a hand in it. [ return ]
[3] Countless time and six thousand some-odd years later, another angel would chase another scrap of paper from another important book in the wind and catch it, and it would take every remaining ounce of his self-control to not be visibly struck by that. [ return ]
[4] Being entirely fair here, Crowley became sure before he noticed the string or even felt the tug, somewhere around 'I gave it away.' This was the usual way of things. The String simply forced him to admit it to himself. [ return ]
[5] And a few faces to go with them, naturally. [ return ]
[6] Said look was, perhaps very appropriately, often referred to as 'heart eyes.' [ return ]