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“Was the coffee drugged?” Maggie had asked, and Crowley had clung to that question like a drowning man to a buoy. Like a falling demon to an angel. He felt disgusting. Hopeful.
He could make it right.
Feel the flow, find the threads, pull on time, unravel. The world stopped around him in a miracle he hadn’t thought possible without Aziraphale’s sword and silence threatening him. But this still wasn’t enough.
Crowley took a deep breath, threw his whole body against the fabric keeping him here, now, and reached for a crank in another reality between the stars, between excitement and smiles, between desperation and a too human boy. Between Aziraphale and an angel that had asked too many questions. His fingers made contact and wound it up, until the ground cracked underneath his feet and he was sent reeling backwards into a bookshelf.
Aziraphale was still there. Again. Coffee in hand.
Crowley grabbed at it.
“And what do you think you’re doing?” said the voice of God suddenly. Aziraphale turned in surprise, leaving Crowley to stumble and miss the coffee cup now safely out of his reach. Stars burst into existence at the edge of his vision as if they were back when time was an infant in their hands. Its reversal had taken a lot more out of him than just stopping it, the demon realized. He tried to blink away the vision of a smiling Aziraphale and an angel that was long gone.
“I’ll deal with you soon enough,” the Metatron continued, an edge to his voice that Crowley did not remember. Or hadn’t noticed. “Aziraphale first though. Go on. Drink your latte and we’ll have a talk.”
Before the dizziness in his bones stopped dragging Crowley down, half the cup was empty. Too late. Always too late.
Only – “too late” was not a one-way street anymore.
Wading through the receding tide of the universe in his vision, Crowley threw his hands up and snapped. Time couldn’t tell him in which direction to go. Not after all it owed him!
With a lurch, he was ripped from his feet as the world undid itself. It took a moment for his shaky arms to find enough strength to push his body up; to help him lift his chin and see Aziraphale at the top of the stairs, holding a star plucked right from the migraine that was sparking inside the demon’s head. He tried to blink it away again, but stubbornly, it stayed in this world.
“Crowley! What are you doing here?” The angel sounded panicked. Crowley wanted to reassure him, it’s alright, but when he opened his mouth, his whole chest heaved. What gurgled up from his stomach were not words but a wet, painful sob. He lifted a finger instead. Just a moment.
“There he is,” yelled another voice that sounded frighteningly similar to that of Shax. “Tear them both to shreds!”
“Crowley, I can’t keep my halo stable for much longer,” Aziraphale pleaded. “You have to leave!”
But before the demon, lost among the nebula in his brain, was able to make sense of any of it, the world went white.
He wasn’t awake to feel himself hitting the ground.
The voice of his angel woke him gently: “Crowley, dear, I have some incredibly good news to share with you!” The demon turned his head. It was almost too hard to manage.
“You took the coffee,” he struggled to say, voice hoarse. “Why can’t I stop you from drinking the coffee? He drugged it. He’s manipulating you.”
Aziraphale frowned, but it was fuzzy around the edges. “There was nothing wrong with the coffee, Crowley.”
“There was,” he insisted against his exhaustion. “It made you choose Heaven.”
A short silence was ended by an “Oh, Crowley” that sounded like an elegy. “It’s not the coffee. It was never about the coffee. What he offered me was a choice.”
It took the demon all the strength he had left, to squint at what the angel was seeing. Give me coffee or give me death, it read on the store front outside the window.
“Look at you,” said Aziraphale in a voice that tried desperately not to waver. “You’ve been trying to choose differently and it almost killed you.” A sniff, and he continued with that same cheerfulness that had pretended to believe Heaven triumphing over Hell to be a victory. “Remember the precious, peaceful, fragile existence we’ve carved out for ourselves? I will do anything – accept any bargain – to protect it.”
There was a sudden, soft, wet pressure on Crowley’s forehead before Aziraphale pulled away. “I will choose coffee every time,” he said, “to be able to return to you.” And with that, he stood and left.
Into the silence left behind, Crowley whispered: “I forgive you.”