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Aziraphale’s first priority upon leaving Heaven is, of course, to find Crowley, but once he’s gone to Crowley’s old flat (now occupied by humans) and the bookshop (where Muriel hasn’t seen him in “quite a while, actually, now that you mention it”) and the coffee shop (where Nina just says, “you know you broke his heart” and Aziraphale says, “yes, I know”), he realizes that he has no idea where Crowley might have gone. The telephone number he used to use has been disconnected, and when Aziraphale firmly tells his new mobile phone to call Crowley, it plays dumb.
Aziraphale had not, of course, expected that Crowley would be exactly where Aziraphale left him, especially since he left him leaning against a car, which he was presumably planning to use to go somewhere else. But it does feel as if Aziraphale should be able to figure it out. He’d known already that Crowley had managed to hide himself from Heaven not long after Aziraphale had gone, and it had stung a little, but Aziraphale hadn’t blamed him. He had, after all, turned down returning to both Heaven and Hell. If Aziraphale had done that, he wouldn’t have wanted them to be able to find him either. And it probably would have been difficult, if not impossible, to hide himself from everyone but Aziraphale, not to mention dangerous. Aziraphale likes to believe Crowley knows he would never betray him, but there are ways to betray someone without meaning to.
Once he’s done scouring London for the Bentley, Aziraphale tries some of Crowley’s other favorite places, then moves on to places with some significance to the two of them, but everywhere he goes, there’s nothing.
He would have heard, wouldn’t he, if something had happened? If Heaven had gotten him, Aziraphale would have been told, and if Hell had, word would have gotten back to him. Crowley can’t be gone, but it’s quite a big planet, and Aziraphale never appreciated before how easy it was to find him on it.
After a few weeks of fruitless searching, he uses one of his weekly miracles to go to Alpha Centauri. Despite the size of the star system, he manages to appear directly next to Beelzebub, who’s stretched out in an empty bathtub floating through the void of space, reading a celebrity gossip magazine.
“Oh,” ze says, barely looking up. “It’s you. What do you want? Don’t tell me you’ve come to take him back.”
Aziraphale’s heart races. “Is he here?”
“Of course he’s here, he came with me.”
“Oh. You meant Gabriel.”
Ze sneers at him. “Who else would I mean?”
“I actually came looking for Crowley. I thought he might be here.”
That gets zir attention enough that ze closes zir magazine. “Looking for Crowley? Don’t tell me the golden couple broke up.”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“Don’t have to say it, it’s written all over your face. I think this is above my paygrade. Get over here, my sweet, something you have to deal with!”
Ze says the pet name so casually, so easily, that a shock of longing pierces Aziraphale. He never had any terms of endearment for Crowley, did he? Nothing like the way Crowley would call him Angel. He should have come up with something.
Gabriel appears next to him. “How may I be of service, my dark--oh, it’s you. What do you want, Aziraphale?”
“He’s lost his boyfriend. I don’t want to deal with it, you can.”
“No one has to deal with anything,” says Aziraphale. “I was simply wondering if Crowley might be here, but now that I see he’s not, I’ll simply--”
“No, no, you came all this way,” says Gabriel. “Let’s talk. Have a seat.” He waves his hand and Beelzebub’s bathtub gallops off as two chairs materialize. “I do owe you.”
Aziraphale sits awkwardly. “If you insist. How are you liking…all this?”
“Oh, it’s perfect. Do you have any idea how much stuff I had to think about when I was supreme archangel?”
“Some idea,” he murmurs.
Gabriel ignores him. “And it was all so boring. Humanity, Earth, Armageddon, who cares, right? Who needs any of it? We’re the most powerful beings in the universe and we spend all our time thinking about one dinky little planet? You get it.”
“Do I?”
“You and Crowley, you figured it out first, didn’t you?”
“Not as such, no.” He looks down at his hands. “You haven’t seen him?”
“Oh, no. No way. He wouldn’t come to me, he hates me. For trying to kill you.”
“You tried to kill me?” Aziraphale asks. It seems like the kind of thing he'd remember.
“Yeah, it took me a little while to figure that out after I got my memories back. The two of you switched places, right? After Doomsday. That’s why I couldn’t burn you in hellfire like I wanted to.”
“Oh, that. Yes. I didn’t know he was holding that against you.”
Gabriel shrugs. “I don’t blame him. I would too, if it was Beelzebub. So, you two had a fight, or what?”
“I suppose we did, yes. I need to apologize to him. I was…well, I said things I regret. But he’s hidden himself away. I can’t find him.”
“Well, if you want someone to find you, I think the best thing to do is to be easy to find,” says Gabriel. “If I had been easy to find when I was Jim, Beelzebub would have gotten to me much sooner.”
“Very sorry for trying to protect you,” Aziraphale murmurs.
“I forgive you,” says Gabriel immediately. Aziraphale can see why Crowley might find that irritating after a certain point.
But he lets it go. “He doesn’t want me to find him. That’s why I’m here, because he isn’t easy to find.”
“But you can be. Just pick a place and be there until he’s ready to find you. I’m sure he’ll turn up sooner or later.”
“You know, I wouldn’t have expected you to have much of an opinion on this. Even if you do, as you say, owe me.”
“Love,” says Gabriel, like he’s still addressing a whole host of angels and not just a single Aziraphale, “is the most powerful force in the universe. Everyone should get to experience a small shadow of what Beelzebub and I have.”
“Ah, right. Yes. Thank you.”
“And you were the proof of concept,” Gabriel adds. “You wonder if an angel and a demon can make it work, but there the two of you are! Of course, you are in a fight. So we’re the improved model. Better functionality!”
“Of course,” says Aziraphale. “Well, thank you for your help. I had better get back to somewhere Crowley can find me.”
“Make sure you tell him that I didn’t try to kill you this time. I’m over that.”
“I’ll let him know as soon as I’m able. Do, um, say goodbye to Beelzebub for me. Give zir my best.”
“Ze doesn’t need your best, ze has mine. But I understand you’re being polite, and I will pass on an appropriate message.”
“Thank you,” he says, closing his eyes and opening them in front of the bookshop. Nowhere else, not even Heaven, has felt like home like this place has.
He can only hope Crowley feels the same.
“Oh, are you back?” Muriel asks.
“I am. You’re welcome to stay, of course. I wouldn’t turn you out. But I think I’ll stay for a while myself.”
“Wonderful! Welcome back.”
He lets himself smile. “Yes, thank you.”
*
It’s easy to fall into his old habits. He gets back in touch with his contacts in the bookselling world, the other vendors on the street, the other contacts he’s made, explaining that there was a family emergency, but he’s back now. Muriel sold some books, a possibility he’d prepared himself for, and he spends a few weeks cataloging, figuring out which of the books that he’s lost he wants back. Which is all of them, obviously, he puts them in order by priority.
He’s on the phone with a dealer in Germany, trying to track down another first edition of Der Antichrist, when the bell over the door jangles and Crowley walks in.
Aziraphale drops the phone.
“Heard you were back,” says Crowley. He looks Aziraphale up and down, nods once, and walks back out.
By the time Aziraphale has collected himself enough to follow, Crowley is already gone.
*
Two days later, he comes back in with Aziraphale's first edition La Comedìa and puts it on the desk. “Since you’re getting the band back together.”
Aziraphale blinks at it. “I didn’t even know I was missing that one.”
“Well, you were.” He turns to go again, but Aziraphale is ready this time and catches his wrist.
“Crowley.”
“Don’t touch me.”
The edge in his voice is enough to make Aziraphale let go. “I was hoping I could apologize.”
“Nothing to apologize for.”
“Crowley.”
“You made your choice. Don’t have to apologize for that. How long are they letting you stay down here? Supreme Archangel can’t live on Earth, after all. Just taking a little vacation? I’m sure they’re working you hard.”
Aziraphale’s jaw tenses. “I am no longer Supreme Archangel.”
There’s not even a flicker of emotion on Crowley’s face, not unless it’s behind his glasses. “Oh well, bad luck, that. At least you had the shop to come back to. Not totally out of a job.”
“I was wrong,” he says, desperation tingeing his voice.
“Don’t have to tell me that. Tell Muriel I said hi.”
And he’s gone again.
*
“A Mr. Crowley was asking about this one,” says Ms. Alonso, a rare book dealer in Barcelona. “Very interested in buying, but I didn’t want to give it up if you were still interested.”
“Anthony Crowley?” Aziraphale asks.
“Let me see…” She clicks her tongue as she checks her files. “Yes, Anthony J. Crowley.”
“Oh, well. That’s all right.”
“All right?” she asks, sounding confused.
“Well, I had it for such a long time, you know. I wouldn’t want to deprive someone else of getting the chance to have it. Please, let Mr. Crowley know it’s all his. But don’t tell him I said that,” he adds quickly. “Please don’t mention me at all.”
“Do you know Mr. Crowley?”
“It’s a very small world, book collecting. He’s just starting out, I wouldn’t want him to get discouraged.”
“If you’re sure.”
Aziraphale can’t stop smiling. “Quite sure.”
*
It’s Sunday, and Aziraphale is out of celestial power for the week, which wouldn’t be so bad if there wasn’t a heatwave. Muriel has been helping out cooling the shop down, but he sent them up to Cambridge to pick up a book and so he could have a very small break from, well, Muriel. It is nice to have an assistant, and to not be completely alone, but every now and then, they can be a little too much company.
Still, if he’d known the heat wouldn’t break, he might have kept Muriel around for another day. As it is, he’s had to take off most of his outer layers, but even in just his undershirt, it’s sweltering. He should have bought more fans, but he’d never needed them before.
He finishes shelving the new batch of reclaimed books and climbs off the ladder to find Crowley standing behind him, a book about to fall out of his hand.
“Crowley!” he says, with not quite as much dignity as he’d like. “What are you doing here?”
Crowley visibly snaps out of some kind of trance, and his head jerks up to Aziraphale’s face. It’s always difficult to see what he’s looking at with his glasses on, but Aziraphale is suddenly sure that he was looking at, well, Aziraphale. Just not at his face. His bare arms, apparently, and possibly his back.
“Are you sweating?” Crowley asks.
“There is a heatwave.”
“You don’t sweat.”
“I didn’t sweat. I do now.”
Crowley’s in front of Aziraphale in an instant, yanking his glasses off so that his gaze can rove over Aziraphale unimpeded. “What did they do to you?” he asks, his voice dangerous.
Aziraphale tries with a truly heroic effort to not look at Crowley’s lips. And he only looks at them once, for a fraction of a second, which he thinks is probably good enough. Certainly an incredible accomplishment.
“You aren’t a demon, we don’t sweat either,” Crowley goes on. “Tell me you’re not human.”
“I’m not human. I made a deal.”
“A deal.”
“I thought you didn’t want to know what happened.”
“Aziraphale,” he growls, and Aziraphale’s breath catches.
He probably shouldn’t be protesting. This was what he wanted, Crowley talking to him again. Crowley, worried about him. “Apparently, we made a mockery of the cosmic order. An example had to be made. They couldn’t destroy me in hellfire--”
“They didn’t try again.” It's not a question so much as a guarantee of vengeance if they had.
“No, of course not. I wouldn’t be here if they had. But I agreed to be demoted and banished from Heaven. I have a limited amount of celestial power every week, restrictions on what I can say to the other angels, my contact with them, that kind of thing.”
“Doesn’t sound like much of a deal. What are you getting out of this?”
“They aren’t going to destroy the world. More than worth a little sweat, as far as I’m concerned.”
Crowley snaps his fingers, and the temperature immediately drops back to Aziraphale’s preferred twenty-one degrees. The sweat cooling on his skin makes him shiver, almost as novel as sweating in the first place.
“Thank you, dear,” he says, trying out the word.
“They shouldn’t be letting you boil alive in your own shop,” Crowley mutters, putting his glasses back on as he turns away from Aziraphale. He reaches back over his shoulder to offer the book he’d brought. “Anyway, found this the other day. Must be yours, judging from the inscription. And if you need someone to cool down the shop, you can always give me a ring.”
“I can’t, actually. Your phone doesn’t work anymore.”
“Oh, right, you’ll need the new number. Did you finally get a mobile?”
“Muriel insisted. They told me everyone has them nowadays.”
“They’re right. Give it here.”
Aziraphale hands him the phone, making sure his fingers brush against Crowley’s as Crowley takes it. Crowley focuses on the phone with the kind of focus that could shatter a lesser phone.
“All right, it’s in there now. For emergencies,” he adds. “When you run out of power or something.”
“Of course,” Aziraphale agrees. “Thank you.”
Crowley leaves without looking back again, and Aziraphale pulls his shirt over his shoulders but doesn't bother to button it.
It's been quite some time since he’s updated his look. He hadn’t much liked the shift to the modern style, not nearly refined enough for his tastes. And if he went to Heaven unexpectedly, he always wanted to be sure he’d look his best.
But he’s not going back to Heaven anymore. He’s agreed to be done with them. And even if he went back, his clothes wouldn’t make them forget who he is: the traitor, the demon lover, the one who should fall but somehow doesn’t. He’ll never be one of them again. So he might as well dress to impress the only person whose side he does want to be on.
Besides, he could use another project, now that Crowley is taking care of finding his books.
*
Crowley was not actually the first being to kiss Aziraphale. The first had been a friendly innkeeper in the 1500s, and that one had taken him completely by surprise. After, when he’d asked why the innkeeper had kissed him, the man had listed a few things that he’d interpreted as encouraging and flirtatious, and Aziraphale had made a note of them. The next time he’d found himself doing the same things, a century or so later, he hadn’t stopped himself, curious to see if this human--an actor--would kiss him as well, and he had.
With that experiment concluded, Aziraphale had stopped doing any of those things until the apocalypse was resolved and he had been cast out of Heaven and Crowley was suddenly around all the time, and Aziraphale didn’t know how to stop smiling at him and touching him and sitting a little too close to him.
And Crowley had kissed him too, so it had worked, at least until Aziraphale himself had made a mess of things. Crowley didn’t seem interested in rehashing all of that, but his feelings clearly haven't just gone away.
If nothing else, Aziraphale is fairly sure that Crowley still wants to kiss him, and if he does it again, then Aziraphale can kiss him back this time. Aziraphale has never kissed anyone back before, and he’d very much like to try it.
“Muriel, today we're going on what I believe the Americans call a field trip.”
Muriel perks up. “Yes! I'd love to take a field trip! To what field?”
“Ah, not to an actual field.”
Their enthusiasm deflates somewhat. “Oh. A metaphorical field?”
“To a clothing shop. You're a human shopkeeper who still dresses like a human police officer. And I'm a human shopkeeper who still dresses like someone from the last century. I think we could both use a wardrobe update.”
“New clothes?” asks Muriel. “Can we afford them? I haven't sold any books since you came back and you and Mr. Crowley are buying new ones.”
“I can afford it, yes.”
“Do you think we should ask Mr. Crowley to come? He told me I should get a new outfit too.”
Aziraphale had been imagining taking Crowley by surprise, revealing a brand new look with no warning and blowing him away. But Crowley has made enough comments about Aziraphale’s fashion sense over the millennia for Aziraphale to know that he might not actually pick something that would have that effect on his own.
“I suppose there's no harm in asking,” he says, and dials Crowley’s number.
Crowley picks up before the first ring has even finished. “What's wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.”
There's a pause. “I gave you my number for emergencies.”
“Well, unless you have another way for me to get in touch I'll continue to use it for non-emergencies.”
“You shouldn't be getting in touch unless it's an emergency.”
“Muriel wanted me to call,” he says, pushing through the hurt.
Crowley pauses. He does have a soft spot for Muriel. “Well, does Muriel have an emergency?”
“We're going to get them some new clothes. They thought you might have opinions.”
“Fine. Where are you going? I'll meet you there.”
“That's a good question. I haven’t bought new clothing in some time.”
Crowley makes a frustrated noise. “Fine, I'll text you where to go. Meet me in twenty minutes.”
“Thank you,” says Aziraphale, and Crowley hangs up on him.
*
Even though inviting Crowley was Muriel’s idea, Muriel becomes uninterested in his feedback basically as soon as they set foot inside the clothing shop, with all its many wonders.
“What’s the expression?” Aziraphale asks, as he and Crowley watch Muriel tear off. “Like a child in a sweet shop?”
“Or a Muriel anywhere,” says Crowley. “Surprised upstairs is letting you keep them. Aren’t they worried one of us will corrupt them?”
“I believe the idea is still that Muriel will keep an eye on me and report back. Which I believe they do. Unfortunately for Heaven, Muriel remains a terrible spy.”
Crowley lets out a small snort of amusement. “So, you didn’t manage to make a difference, then. Heaven’s still the same as ever.”
“Same as ever.” He smiles the kind of smile he hopes Crowley isn’t watching too closely. “Well, since Muriel is occupied, perhaps you could assist me.”
“Assist you with what?”
“Now that I am officially a semi-independent agent, I thought I could update my own wardrobe. Try for something a little more modern.”
“You? More modern?”
“A youth at the coffee shop called me Bilbo Baggins the other day. I didn’t get the sense he meant it as a compliment.”
Another snort from Crowley. “No, I don’t think he did. You’ve never asked for my help before. You’ve actually rejected my help. Sata--you know I’ve tried.”
It’s hard to come up with oaths to use when you’ve parted company with all the things anyone has ever sworn by. “I was wrong to reject you,” he says, and watches Crowley stiffen out of the corner of his eye. “I made a mistake.”
“About the clothes.”
“If you’d like.”
“We can probably find you something, yeah. Come on.”
Aziraphale isn't sure what to expect from Crowley on this occasion, and as Crowley stalks around the menswear section like it's wronged him, he realizes Crowley's not sure what to do either.
“Finding anything?” he asks.
“I never thought you'd agree to this! I didn't have anything picked out.”
“Should I wear a…v-shirt?”
“It's a t-shirt.”
“You had that one with the v,” says Aziraphale. “You don't wear that one much anymore.”
“That's a v-neck, that's different. You don't need a v-neck.”
“Why don't you wear that one much anymore?”
“What? I don't know. Hadn't thought about it. Are you sure you need a new look?”
“It's much more trouble to put on all these layers myself. I don't have enough power that it seems worthwhile to use any on getting dressed.”
“That explains it. I thought your bow ties were getting sloppier.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The truth hurts, Ang--” He clears his throat, turning his attention back to the clothes. “Anyway. You wouldn't like t-shirts or v-necks. You wouldn't look put together enough. But we can probably find something that takes a little less time and effort.”
“Thank you.”
“You've been thanking me a lot, you know.”
“You've been doing a lot of things to be thanked for.”
“Don't remind me.”
“Heard anything from your side lately?”
“No. To be honest, I think there must be something going on.”
“Something like what?”
“Not sure. They're afraid of me after our little trick, but someone should be able to take me out if they want to. And I'm sure Shax wants to, so if she hasn't, it's above her pay grade.”
“So you think they have another plan.”
“I think Heaven didn't have to make a deal with you, and Hell doesn't have to keep on letting me do whatever I want.”
“I agree.”
Crowley pulls a collared shirt in pale yellow off the rack and hands it to Aziraphale. “But you still took the deal.”
It's an important statement, and Aziraphale’s answer is important too. “It wasn't how I remembered,” he finally says. “I hadn't been to Heaven, except for that brief visit during Armageddon, for so long. I knew it wasn't, well, interesting like down here is. But I thought there might still be all the good things.”
“But they're gone.”
“Worse than that. They were still there, just not good, after all. Quite dull, actually. And I knew already that none of the other angels cared about what happened here, but it's how they don't care. If they only didn’t care about the Earth, that would be one thing, but they aren’t interested in anything. Nothing at all.” He runs his hand over a pair of khaki trousers. “The more I thought about it, the more I realized I'd only ever known one angel who seemed passionate about anything.”
“You?”
“You.”
Crowley looks away. “Ah.”
“I think I had to go back,” he admits. “As difficult as it was and as much as it hurt, I needed to go back and see what it was like. It was easy to tell myself that I was missing something. It's Heaven, after all! It's supposed to be good. If there's nothing, good--really good, not good by standing against evil--then what’s the point?”
“You know what I think.”
“I know what you said,” says Aziraphale. “And it was very romantic. But I don't think that's all you think.”
Crowley’s jaw ticks, and silence stretches between them until Muriel reappears, their face barely visible above a riotous pile of garish fabric. “I didn't even know there were this many colors! We don't have this many in Heaven.”
Aziraphale glances at Crowley, but Crowley still isn’t looking at him. “No, we do not. You have to come into Creation for colors like these.”
*
Crowley doesn't return for another week and a half. Aziraphale tries not to let it bother him, and it mostly doesn't. He's not worried, as he was when he first came back, that he broke something that can't be repaired. Crowley might not return for a few weeks, but he doesn't seem to want to stay away.
When he does come back, he brings another book. Aziraphale blinks at it.
“That's not one of mine.”
“It's not?”
He takes the book out of Crowley’s hands with careful reverence. It's a lovely slim volume of Propertius, translated by dear old Alfred Housman, not something Aziraphale had been looking for, but appreciated all the same.
“No.”
“Want me to take it back?”
“No! No, I didn't have this one. Where did you find it?”
“Just under the sofa, you know. Stumbled on it.”
“Of course.”
Crowley stands for a second, watching Aziraphale from behind his glasses, his jaw tense. Aziraphale hasn't seen his eyes since Crowley thought he'd been turned into a human, and he didn't know how used to them he'd gotten.
“That's one of the new shirts?” he asks at last.
“Yes. I feel a little naked without a tie, to be honest. But it's nice to be able to undo a few buttons when it gets warm. I'm using much less of my power, just unbuttoning a few buttons.”
“Better keep that one quiet, don't want anyone else figuring out that kind of powerful secret.”
Aziraphale hits Crowley’s arm, softly and deliberately. “Be nice.”
“I won't be,” Crowley says, but he's looking at his arm.
“If you're not a demon anymore, you can be nice, you know.”
“Hmm. And you're going to start being wicked now, are you?”
“I do have a few ideas,” he says, with a deliberate look up and down Crowley’s body.
Crowley leaves without another word, and Aziraphale settles at his desk to examine his new book with a smile.
*
“The Metatron asked about my clothes,” says Muriel, upon their return from their celestial check-in.
“What about them?”
“Where I'd gotten them. I told him the name and address, in case he wants some for himself.”
Aziraphale nods. Muriel’s outfit has more colors than any outfit Aziraphale has ever seen on one person. Joseph himself would have gone green with envy. “I'm sure he appreciated the tip.”
“He asked about Mr. Crowley too.”
A surge of righteous, defensive anger rises in Aziraphale, but he pushes it down, making his voice come out steadily. “That's to be expected. What did he ask about Mr. Crowley?”
“If he'd been by. I said he helped me pick out the clothes. I couldn't lie,” they add, “so I didn't. He did help me pick out the clothes.”
“You can tell him that Crowley visits sometimes,” Aziraphale says gently. “That's a fine thing to say.”
“Is it? Oh good. I thought it might be, but I wasn't sure. I wouldn't want anything to happen to Mr. Crowley.”
“You wouldn't? Why not?”
“I know he's a demon, but he's always been very good to me. Nicer than some of the angels, really. And of course, it would make you so sad, if anything happened to him.”
“It would,” Aziraphale admits. “I can’t think of anything that would make me sadder.”
“I'm sure if Heaven just got to know him, they'd like him too,” says Muriel, with the conviction of someone who doesn't realize how much Heaven dislikes Aziraphale, let alone Crowley. “But it's hard to convince anyone of that, so I think it's better if we just protect him.”
Aziraphale relaxes into a smile. “Yes, I think so too.”
*
Aziraphale has resisted the urge to call Crowley since they went shopping together. He tells himself it's out of respect for Crowley’s emergencies only rule, but deep down, he knows it's because he still doesn't know what to say. He doesn't want to accept Crowley’s offer to leave everything behind, and he doesn't know if he's allowed to propose alternative ideas yet. If Crowley is ready to hear everything he's figured out yet.
He wakes up on a Sunday morning feeling, for the first time in his existence on the planet, stuffed up. His head is thick with cotton and clouds, as if he'd gotten extremely drunk last night, and his throat aches.
He tries to put himself in order enough to miracle away the illness, but he's either out of power or too impaired to manage. All he manages is to make his headache worse.
The smart choice would be to ask Muriel to help. He's been so good, hasn't he, letting Crowley come to him, being careful. So patient. If he asks Muriel, he can keep being that good and that patient. It’s the right thing to do.
He rolls over and grabs his mobile telephone. Crowley lets the first ring finish this time, but doesn't let the second start. “Let me guess, Muriel needs a hat.”
“I think I'm ill,” he rasps.
“Ill?”
“A cold, if I'm not mistaken.”
“They let you catch a cold?”
“Apparently.” He coughs, which is very unpleasant. Worse than he'd realized it would be. “I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do.”
Crowley makes a frustrated noise. “I'll be over in a tic. You must have really pissed them off.”
“Apparently. Bring cocoa.”
“Don’t you have cocoa?”
“Yes, but bring more.”
“You're going to be insufferable,” Crowley mutters, and hangs up on Aziraphale’s mild and pathetic protests.
It doesn't feel like a targeted divine punishment, just a spot of bad luck, but even Aziraphale’s foggy head is aware that something like this is concerning. Sweat is one thing, but illness is quite another, and not angelic at all. At least he’s not human, he's sure of that--his body would be different, for one thing, and he wouldn't be able to travel like he does. But there's something going on that shouldn't be, and he's barred from returning to Heaven to find out what. And that, he has to admit, is not good.
Crowley shows up fifteen minutes after the call ends with a plastic bag and a scowl.
“Ill,” he says, his voice dripping with contempt.
“It wasn't my idea.” Aziraphale would like to face his relatively mild sickness with dignity, but he's quite sure he's pouting.
“I don't like this deal of yours.”
“I don't either.”
“But you still took it.” He stands awkwardly in the middle of the bedroom, looking around with a slight frown. Aziraphale has a bedroom because people expect a bedroom and saying “oh, I don't need one” raises eyebrows, and because he finds sleeping generally enjoyable. He doesn’t do it every night, but he indulges regularly.
Not only has Crowley never needed to come into Aziraphale’s bedroom, but no one else ever has either, and there's nowhere for Crowley to be in the room. After all, it's a bedroom, not a chair room, and, unlike the guest room where Gabriel had stayed as Jim, a completely private space. He wasn’t ready for this.
Finally, Crowley just walks over to the bedside and offers the bag to Aziraphale. “Want me to see if I can fix it?”
“The cold?”
“Might be able to. Not that healing the sick is a demonic specialty, but I could give it a shot.”
“If you don't mind.”
Crowley snaps his fingers, and nothing happens. He tries twice more, then snarls at nothing in particular.
“I don't like it.”
“I don't like it. I'm the one who’s ill.”
“I meant whatever Heaven's planning.” He lingers for another moment and then sits carefully on the edge of Aziraphale’s bed, as far from Aziraphale as he can get. He might be performing a minor miracle to keep from slipping off the bed, that's how little of him is actually sitting on it. But he is sitting. “Are you sure they aren't still using you?”
“No,” he admits. “I'm sure this is part of some plan I won't like.”
“But you went along with it, and you still won't tell me why. You said why you didn’t want to stay,” he points out, as Aziraphale tries to protest. “Not why you agreed to this.”
“I couldn't do anything in Heaven alone. I never thought I could. The only reason I wanted to go was because I could go with you.”
“Went without me anyway, didn't you.”
“Well, you--” Aziraphale starts, and then begins to cough again. It feels as if his throat is full of glass; he can't believe humans consider this to be a mild, ordinary illness.
“Are you supposed to do that?” Crowley asks, once the coughing fit has passed.
Aziraphale checks the bag Crowley brought and finds a bottle of orange juice. It burns a little as it goes down, but he does feel better after. “I think it's fairly standard.”
“There's some other stuff in there, I think. I went round to Waitrose and asked what I should get for a cold. So you should have everything.”
“Thank you.”
He looks away. “You can stop thanking me. Almost as annoying as you forgiving me.”
“I'm trying to show my gratitude.”
“No need.”
“There is. You're not the only good thing in the universe, Crowley. But you are my favorite thing.”
There’s another silence, and then a rustling of plastic. “Throat lozenge.” He presses something that feels like a travel sweet wrapped in wax paper into Aziraphale’s hand. “Supposed to help with the cough. Don't thank me,” he adds, before Aziraphale can.
“I appreciate it,” he says, and Crowley snorts.
“You really are a bastard sometimes.”
Aziraphale pops the lozenge into his mouth. It doesn't taste as good as sweets do, but it does soothe his throat. At least this didn't happen three hundred years ago, when there would have been chemist's on the corner for Crowley to stop by.
“I thought that was one of my good points,” he says.
Crowley is quiet for a while. “I can't go back to how we were before. Not even how we were after armageddon.”
“I remember. You think we have to leave.”
“No, not that either. Not until you have all your power back and I'm not worried you'll somehow come down with consumption. And even after, I've been thinking. This is our planet, isn't it? More than anyone else’s, aside from the humans. We shouldn't be the ones to leave.”
“I quite agree.” He screws up his courage and makes himself ask the question he knows Crowley wants to answer. “Then, what do you want?”
“More,” he says simply, and leans down to brush his lips against Aziraphale’s, soft and quick, a passing shadow of a kiss that’s over before Aziraphale can kiss him back.
He stands and goes to the door. “I’ll send Muriel in, see if they’re better at curing colds than I am. You should get your powers back tomorrow, yeah?”
“Yes,” Aziraphale manages.
“Call me if you don’t. Feel better.”
Aziraphale sinks into his mattress, staring at the ceiling. His head is swimming more than ever, and now that the lozenge is gone his throat is getting worse again, and he thinks a sniffle is coming on.
He finds his phone again and opens the message function for the first time. You are not a demon any more, so you did not have to do that when I was ill and unable to respond properly.
Muriel pops their head in. “You’re sick? You should have told me! What do you need? How can I help?”
“Crowley brought me everything I need for now, thank you, Muriel.”
“All right. But you will tell me, if you need anything.”
“Yes, of course.”
Muriel bobs their head and ducks back out the door, and Aziraphale sees that Crowley has sent him a message back: feel better angel
Despite everything, a smile spreads over Aziraphale’s face. I already do.
*
“Is there any way to use a mobile telephone to find another mobile telephone?” Aziraphale asks Nina the next morning. As soon as his power reset on Monday, the cold disappeared, and Aziraphale is ready to stop putting things off. He may not be able to find Crowley in the traditional way, but perhaps there are other options.
Nina considers him. “Let me see your phone.”
He hands it over and she taps the screen a few times. “I assume you’re looking for Crowley.”
“Yes.”
Her eyes flick up from the phone to his face. “And you’re not looking for him to shoot him down again?”
“No. Quite the opposite.”
“All right then. You can turn on find your phone. You share your location, and if he accepts, he’ll share his. And then you can find him. But if he doesn’t accept, you’d need to find someone a lot better with technology than I am to track him.”
“How will I know if he accepts?”
“He’ll show up in your list of people here,” says Nina, pointing to a spot on his screen. As she does, as if by magic, Crowley’s name appears there, and Aziraphale jumps.
“There he is!”
Nina is smiling a little. He still doesn’t think she’s forgiven him entirely for what he did to Crowley, but Aziraphale doesn’t mind that. There’s a part of him that actually quite likes that there are people who will hold grudges against him on Crowley’s behalf.
“Looks like he’s about twenty kilometers off and heading this way. Maybe you didn’t need to find him after all.”
“No. But I don’t like not knowing where he is.”
“Can I ask why you left him? I know there’s probably some big, supernatural reason, but there has to be a small one too, right? One a human can understand.”
“I wanted him to come with me, and he wouldn’t. And the more I asked him to come, the better of an idea it sounded like to me, and the worse it sounded to him, and by the end I didn’t really want to leave, but I knew I couldn’t stay either. So I left.”
“So you both said no to each other.”
Aziraphale shrugs helplessly. “I would have loved for it to be simple and easy, like in a story. But that's not how the two of us are.”
“Not even now?”
“No, I'm afraid not. But I think we'll be alright.”
The Bentley pulls into a spot in front of the bookshop and Aziraphale leaves to greet Crowley as he gets out.
“Didn't think you figured out how to find me on your own,” Crowley observes. “But I thought you would have gone to Maggie.”
“Nina is better with technology.”
“Feeling better?”
“As soon as my powers returned. I think I'm more susceptible to human limitations when I've run out.”
“Makes as much sense as anything.” He holds up a book. A Bible, in fact. “Just wanted to drop this off. Not actually sure if it was one of yours, but I thought you might like it.”
Aziraphale doesn't think. He makes no grand plans. For once, he doesn't worry about who might see or what might happen or anything at all, really. He reaches up, grabs the lapels of Crowley’s coat, and pulls Crowley’s mouth to his.
It's not a much better kiss than their first, so it’s possible that the lapel-grab technique leaves something to be desired. But it is the kind of kiss that gets the point across.
Aziraphale pulls back when someone whistles, and Crowley stares at him for a second before he glances around the street, checking their audience, which is more substantial than Aziraphale was expecting. And then, to Aziraphale’s shock, he takes Aziraphale’s hand. Picks it up like it's nothing at all and tugs Aziraphale across the street and into the bookshelf.
“Muriel!” he calls.
“Muriel?” Aziraphale repeats, dubious.
Crowley ignores him, but he's still holding Aziraphale’s hand.
Muriel appears from somewhere in the back. “Good morning, Mr. Crowley. You're quite early for you, aren't you?”
“I am. We need some us time, think you can amuse yourself for a few hours?”
“Oh, of course! I'm very good at amusing myself.”
“That's the spirit. Give us a call before you come back, yeah?”
“I will call or send a text message,” Muriel says. “Sometimes I like to do those.”
Crowley smiles in a way that suggests he is very fond of Muriel but it is, at this moment, against his will. “Perfect, thanks.”
“Enjoy your us time!”
The door closes behind Muriel, and the shop feels very large and very quiet and very empty, as if Aziraphale and Crowley are at the center of the entire vast universe.
“I think we can do better than that,” Crowley says, apparently in reference to nothing. He lifts his free hand up to cup Aziraphale’s cheek and leans down to kiss him again.
It's soft again, like in Aziraphale’s bedroom, but Crowley doesn't pull away this time. He stays, but so still that it feels as if he’s frozen time, as if he’s afraid if he does anything more than press his lips against Aziraphale’s, the moment will shatter.
And Aziraphale does enjoy having his lips pressed against, he truly does, but he’s quite sure that there’s more to kissing than standing perfectly still and hoping no one moves. Better is a low bar for them to clear, given their previous efforts, and they've done it, but Aziraphale would really like it to be good.
“You can move, darling,” he murmurs against Crowley’s mouth, and then he tries the thing he’s read about, sliding his tongue against Crowley’s lips, and when Crowley’s mouth opens he tries that too, and there’s suddenly a lot more for him to do, and kissing Crowley is very, very good.
Crowley takes about half a second to catch on, but then he’s responding in kind, pushing Aziraphale up against the shop door as he explores Aziraphale’s mouth. He does let go of Aziraphale’s hand, but the disappointment barely has time to set in because Crowley’s hands are moving all over him, roaming over his body as if he thinks he’ll need to draw a map of it later.
When he pulls back, they’re both breathless, but Aziraphale still tries to drag him back in. “You need to not perform any miracles,” Crowley says, a smile playing on his lips.
“I’m not.”
“I can feel the happiness coming off you. The last thing we need is for you to accidentally blow all your power for this week and come down with some sort of obscure human illness. Do they still have measles?”
Aziraphale reaches up to pluck Crowley’s sunglasses off. His eyes are soft and warm, and they’re only looking at Aziraphale.
“No miracles,” Aziraphale promises, putting the sunglasses aside and sliding his arms around Crowley’s neck. “No measles.”
“Should be alright, then,” says Crowley, and kisses him again.
*
Aziraphale wakes up to the unfamiliar feeling of Crowley draped half on top of him. He snores, which is probably something all demons have put in specifically and not just a quirk of Crowley’s, and his breath smells awful, and Aziraphale never wants to wake up any other way for the rest of existence. Which he can probably achieve, assuming he just never bothers sleeping when Crowley isn't around from here on out.
He does his best to extricate himself from Crowley’s arms without disturbing him, but of course, it doesn't work. Crowley’s grip tightens and he makes a noise against the back of Aziraphale’s neck.
“Why’re you getting up?” he asks, his voice slurred from sleep.
“To open the shop.”
“You don't care about that.”
“If I don't open, I have to at least put up a sign.”
“Muriel can do it. Whassa point of having an assistant if they don't open the shop up for you when you want to sleep in?”
Aziraphale has never had an assistant before, nor any particular desire to sleep in. But Crowley makes a compelling point.
“We will have to do other things at some point,” Aziraphale says, but he's already settling back in. “Important things. Celestial things. Infernal ones too, no doubt.”
“Yeah. All the more reason to take the time we can, right?”
Aziraphale would like for the time they have to be a lot. He'd like for them to have at least as much future together as they have past together. Longer, ideally.
But no matter what, however long they and the world and the universe have, it starts with this morning. And Aziraphale really doesn't want to get up yet.
“Muriel does so love to open the shop,” he murmurs, and he can feel Crowley’s smile against his skin.
“That's the spirit. Knew I could tempt you.”
Aziraphale closes his eyes. “Yes, you always can.”