Chapter Text
Aziraphale had already read through the latest collection of books they had brought him and now paced his prison to stretch his legs before deciding on his next move. He could journal, not that he had anything to journal about other than boredom. Or he could take in some “fresh air” out in the little garden they provided him, even though the fresh air in Heaven was a poor substitute for the authentic outdoor air back on Earth. At least they allowed him to decorate his limited space as he chose, but he could only leave it when he had an assignment.
He decided some tea would be nice, then headed to the little kitchenette that mimicked the one in his bookshop back on Earth to prepare it. He could no longer return there unless his assignments required it. Still, it was hidden away from the prying eyes of humanity, protected from all harm while it awaited him. It still stood there in Soho, immune to the ravages of time or interference from humanity. Human eyes easily slid off of it, thanks to a miracle or two, and they quickly forgot about it the moment they focused their attention on something else.
Tea steeped, he took it through the door that would have led to a storage closet in the real bookshop, but here led to a tiny garden where he could get a bit of exercise. There was a patio with a table, and he had created some flower gardens, complete with a winding path, that he filled with colourful blooms. Plants in Heaven required little care beyond a bit of water, but it helped pass the time. Weeds didn’t grow here, although he would have been happy to have the chore of pulling them.
But a visitor interrupted his little teatime. Aziraphale saw a familiar figure standing on the path before his little table, waiting for him. Gabriel stood easily, hands in his pockets, gazing at the columbines Aziraphale had paired with the peonies. The Principality’s mouth turned up in an annoyed smile.
“Uh, hello, Gabriel. What brings you around for a visit?”
“Are you ready for your next assignment? It’s the end of 2029, and your charge is poised to make it big in some kind of car racing next year. He needs a guardian angel. That sport is far from safe, I’m told.”
Aziraphale’s hands began to shake, and he carefully set the teacup down on the table.
“I can’t keep doing this, Gabriel. Punish me if you wish, but I cannot keep following my charge through countless lives. It’s torture. Please? Just release him from all this. Imprison me. The whole thing was my fault completely.”
Gabriel chuckled. “Aziraphale, you know by now how this works. Punishment is time in your cell here in Heaven. Being a guardian angel to your boyfriend is a chance at redemption. If you can make him remember, you two are free to love each other for eternity without interference. That’s the deal. He was complicit in this as well. But you’d better try harder because Anthony Crowley only has so many reincarnations.”
Aziraphale nodded dully. This is how it had been for, well, he didn’t know how long. Time had no meaning when each guardian angel assignment was a crap shoot. Guardian angels normally worked in chronological order, following one life after the other. They gave him a random life in Anthony’s timeline, and that was what he had to work with. It stacked the deck against him.
Souls evolved slowly with each passing life. They developed stronger memories more likely to become ingrained across lifetimes, a powerful tool Aziraphale could have used to pry open his lover’s primordial mind and release every memory stored there relating to their love. It would have given Aziraphale a fighting chance to win the sadistic game Gabriel forced him to play. Instead, Gabriel threw him to the wind, where he floated along, not knowing much about Anthony’s past lives or what memories Anthony retained.
Regular guardian angels watched the same soul until that human ran out of lives and either ended up in Heaven, if the angel succeeded in their mission. Or Hell if they failed. They could be reprimanded for failure, if warranted, but after a bit of retraining, they moved on to the next soul in need. It was different for Aziraphale. If he didn’t free his love, it would be an eternity of punishment for them both. He would be stuck in this heavenly prison while Anthony Crowley’s soul would become the property of Hell.
Angelic field angels weren’t meant to fall in love. But if he passed Gabriel’s cruel test, he and Anthony could be free to love each other for eternity.
Aziraphale felt the tears rise, blinking hard to hold them back. “I cannot handle him looking at me like I’m a stranger. Or having to encourage him to get to know me all over again just to start on square one in the next assignment.”
“That’s not my problem,” said Gabriel cheerfully. “Off you go.”
Without warning, the ground beneath Aziraphale opened up and swallowed him. He fell through time and space to land in a rather upscale flat with his head full of knowledge about Formula One racing and some instructions on his new assignment. Over the next few days, he would orient himself to his surroundings, then report to his new job in a fortnight. There, he would begin training to replace his lover’s current race engineer, who was taking a position at the factory that would mean less travel. His wife was pregnant with their first, and the gruelling F1 schedule was not family-friendly.
Aziraphale would have the shortest of times to learn the ropes before they threw him right into it, running interference between the car development team and his charge in preparation for the new race season, when the real work would begin. All the while, he would have to fight to build a meaningful relationship with the man he loved and get him to realise that he loved Aziraphale back.
~*~*~
The hot shower in his own London flat was beautiful. It didn’t matter how luxurious his hotel room was; nothing compared to returning home after the last race to spend the precious few weeks off in a familiar environment. He would have nothing to concentrate on now but keeping up his exercise regimen.
Anthony Crowley was feeling content as he towelled off. The stress had left him for now, not to return until the break was over. He just spent forty-five well-deserved minutes allowing his worries to wash down the drain.
He exited the bathroom in nothing but a pair of black silk boxers, rubbing his hair dry with a dark grey towel. With a verbal command, he turned on the lights in the living room and the telly. The latest news blared out of the luxury speaker system. Anthony grabbed the remote to flick it back off again, not interested in what Parliament was up to right now.
He should have been heading out to some holiday in the Bahamas or some place tropical, like the other drivers. The younger ones never slowed down, always chasing that next adrenaline fix. But this time, a nice, relaxing break at home had sounded better to him this year than some frenzied globe-trotting. He had just finished his first year in Formula One, the highest level of open-wheel car racing. He needed to decompress, not post more photos of himself jet skiing off Australia’s coast on social media.
Anthony turned and put the remote on the side table, having taken it off the arm of the chair he usually sat in to watch telly, finally noticing the figure seated on the couch, a glass of wine in her hand, her long leg bouncing from the hem of her short skirt to the stiletto of her designer pump. A wide grin splitting his face, Anthony tore the towel off his head to drape it around his shoulders with a flourish.
“Sierra. I didn’t expect you to come by. I thought you had a business trip.”
The stunning brunette smiled at him, uncrossing her stunning legs to stand up. She shrugged noncommittally and approached to greet him with a rather stiff embrace. “It was moved back two weeks due to scheduling conflicts. I thought I texted you that.”
“You didn’t.” He resented her forgetting. There had been a lot lately she neglected to tell him.
“Sorry.” She didn’t appear to be. He noticed her body language shifted from relaxed to tense, her shoulders becoming stiff. Anthony felt another fight coming on. It was all they did lately. “But I have been busy. Developing your own makeup line isn’t easy, you know, despite how much you try to blow it off.”
Anthony raised an eyebrow at her. “I never said it wasn’t. Just because I can’t talk to you when you break down over the latest setback two minutes before I have to be at a driver’s meeting doesn’t mean I don’t care.”
“You said you’d always be there for me, but you never are.” Cold blue eyes stared back at him as she set down her half-empty wineglass.
Anthony pushed away from her in exasperation. “For fuck’s sake, I cannot always drop everything to be right there for you. You told me you understood that before we got involved.”
“It’s more than that. We haven’t had sex in over four months, and that doesn’t seem to concern you. You’re always too busy or too tired, or you ate some stupid local dish in some foreign country that upset your stomach. Do you even want to have sex with me?”
Anthony paused. First, he realised he really didn’t like her personality much. She was demanding, wanted his constant attention and threw temper tantrums when he had other obligations instead of racing to her side to comfort her through whatever catty insult she suffered at the hands of another social media influencer. Then, his mind shifted to their love life. Lately, he hadn’t found her attractive, and the more he thought about it, lying awake in bed at night in his hotel rooms, the more he believed he never did.
He felt he simply dated Sierra because she was an up-and-coming face in the makeup industry with a solid social media influencer background to prop her up, a good match for a semi-famous athlete. She looked great on his arm, but her beauty didn’t appeal to him, nor was the scant sex remotely satisfying. He was going through the motions fans expected of a Formula One driver, a fast lifestyle and a glamorous girlfriend.
“Helllllo? Anthony? Can you at least answer me?”
Sierra’s snide tone snapped him back to reality, and he tore himself away from his navel-gazing to answer her. “Yeah, you’re right. I don’t want to fuck you. Or come running whenever something small upsets you. Or deal with any of the stupid shit you’ve been pulling lately, like blaming me for all our goddamn problems. You can’t even be bothered to communicate when it’s important. A text would have been nice tonight, instead of you just showing up out of the blue.”
“Oh, would you rather I didn’t come over?” Sierra snapped. She cornered him over by the windows, as if she wanted to block his escape and force him to go toe-to-toe with her.
Angry now, he yanked his towel off his shoulders and threw it to the floor. “I’d rather you weren’t here mind-fucking with me at all! I’m at the top of my game, driving for Mercedes now. If I keep dominating like I did last season, I could be one of the youngest world champions. That comes with a lot of pressure, you know. I don’t need your fucking drama, too. Get out.”
He pointed towards the door, his arm thrust out with a swift, stiff motion.
Sierra sneered in reply. “Oh, yes. How could I forget that you’re Mercedes’ latest golden boy? Better hope it sticks. I hear their veteran driver is quite the diva with the mean streak. Think you can survive against someone determined to get rid of you? Goodbye, Anthony. You were never worth my time.”
“Yeah, then you were the one who wasted it, honey.”
She marched off in a huff, her heels clicking on the hardwood floor once she cleared the rug in front of the couch. Anthony watched her leave the flat, shaking his head in anger after the door slammed behind her. She was his third break-up in a little over eighteen months, and at least this time she didn’t ask if he might be gay.
He had looked at those fresh exes with innocent, wide eyes and asked why they thought that when deep down, he knew the truth. Things were a lot more open-minded than in the past. Even so, there was still a fascination with gay athletes and celebrities that bordered on inappropriate.
He’d face a lot more media attention than he already did. The last thing he wanted was to be followed even more closely on every date, coupled with microphones being shoved in his face so some reporter could ask him when he first figured out he liked guys. The straight drivers were not asked when they first realised they liked girls. With Mercedes’ expectations of greatness from him, he didn’t need the added weight. It was easier just to pretend he wasn’t for now.
He could use his status as a rising star in motorsport as an excuse to not date at all. A few blurbs about wanting to concentrate on a world championship, and the press would leave him alone. It wasn’t unheard of for a driver to sacrifice a relationship to concentrate on his career. Although he was still going to have to weather the press about his less-than-amicable breakup with Sierra. She was known to get dramatic when things didn’t go her way. He would be a fool to think she came here with the expectation of being dumped.
With a sigh, he sat down to pick out a mindless action film to lose himself in while he forgot about his latest failure at heterosexual dating. After finding one, he headed for the kitchen for whatever in his understocked fridge would suffice for dinner without upsetting his nutritionist too much, as the three bottles of pale ale he drank during the film would.
Meanwhile, Aziraphale sat invisible to humanity on Anthony’s balcony railing, sadly watching as the man he loved stared at the television, eating his sparse meal of two slightly freezer-burnt grilled chicken breasts with minimal seasoning and washing it down with the ale. Unable to take Anthony’s depression on top of his own, he spread his wings and flew the seventy miles back to Brackley, where Mercedes had its headquarters.
~*~*~
After a whirlwind month of training, Mercedes assigned Aziraphale to car development duty, having, in the humans’ minds, a very impressive resume of engineering positions in various motorsports. At least he actually had the knowledge to back it up, making him feel less like a total fraud. So much unearned knowledge floated in his head thanks to Anthony’s many career choices. Aziraphale had seen Anthony go from a herpetologist specialising in venomous snakes to a struggling artist, and now, a racecar driver. Each time, Aziraphale was always beside him, either as a friend or a co-worker. It was exhausting. Nobody, not even an angel, needed the breadth of all-inclusive knowledge he had collected.
He stared at a monitor, looking at several front wing designs with the safety coordinator, who had a copy of next year’s regulations pulled up on his laptop and another engineer, Nina, who was more closely involved with the car’s development. In reality, Aziraphale was just here as a liaison. His point was to carry information from the developers to Anthony and the garage crew, although that was proving somewhat difficult. His charge had still not shown up at the factory in the off-season, but had had plenty of time to post his activities on his social media. Aziraphale had left him messages to contact him, but they went unanswered.
“They’re all starting to look alike to me, if you want my honest opinion,” said Nina as she brushed a lock of hair out of her face. “And I helped design one or two. I’m going to go get some coffee. Anyone else coming?”
“No,” said the safety coordinator. “I still need to look over the specs of the last front wing design. We need to have at least one to test in the next month or so.”
“Ezra?” Nina turned to Aziraphale. “You coming?”
“Oh, yes. I could use a short break.”
They headed down the hall to one of the breakrooms scattered throughout the complex, a relatively small one with a tiny kitchenette and a table for four. As they walked, they discussed the livery options for this year. Nina thought they should go with black with teal as a complementary colour, while Aziraphale favoured the proposed livery in silver with a touch of black.
“They are the Silver Arrow,” he said, pulling out a bit of the trivia dumped directly into his head when Gabriel kicked him back to Earth. “I find it fitting, and it’s been a few…”
A flash of red hair caught his attention, and Aziraphale paused. In a small group down at the end of the long hallway, Anthony stood in his characteristic slouch. He wore a long-sleeved team tee in black and a pair of dark skinny jeans. Swinging from his left hand was a black cap with the Mercedes logo and the number 31 on it. The last incarnation Aziraphale knew wouldn’t have been caught dead in a tee or cap. The angel smiled at the memories.
“You haven’t met him yet, have you?” asked Nina.
“No, not yet.”
“I’ll introduce you later. Those are some sponsors he’s talking to. They probably chased him in here because otherwise, we don’t see him until pre-season testing. No point. He’d just be in the way. Maybe when he’s more experienced with F1, he’ll be an asset to development like some of the older drivers, but not now, bless him. That boy just races.”
Aziraphale nodded, the familiar knot forming already in his stomach at seeing a version of Anthony who did not know who he was. Getting to know each other all over again was the most painful part for Aziraphale. To have to look into those familiar eyes once again and have them gaze back at him without a hint of recognition was a sharp knife to his heart.
“Thank you very much.”
“He’s aloof at first, but he’s friendly once you get to know him.”
Getting to know him shouldn’t be a problem. Anthony’s core personality was always the same, whether he was outwardly hostile, approachable, extroverted, or introverted. Aziraphale always bonded with him. Aziraphale’s only failure had been to get Anthony to fall in love with him and remember his past.
They continued on their way, Aziraphale pulling his eyes off Crowley to focus on his own job for right now.
~*~*~
“Who’s that?” asked Anthony of his soon-to-be-former race engineer, Ian, when the unfamiliar white-blond-haired man walked down a nearby hallway in conversation with one of the development team members.
Ian had caught up with him after Anthony bullshitted his way through another meeting with some sponsors, even though he’d rather they just left him alone to do his primary job. That’s why the higher-ups of Mercedes existed: to handle all of that crap for him. Crowley didn’t think driving for an elite team should also include being trotted out to satisfy the sponsors, like some kind of prized racehorse. They should be happy their company had a decal slapped on his car and that he was fucking winning races.
“My replacement, Ezra Fell,” said Ian. “Don’t tell me you haven’t even bothered to meet the guy. He’s very nice.”
“I don’t want a new race engineer. I want you. C’mon. One more year? The kid’s due in December. It’s not like you’ll miss Christmas or their birthday. Or that the kid’ll remember.”
Ian rolled his eyes. “That’s not the point. I want to be home with my family. You’ll understand someday if you bother to settle down. Besides, he’s a good match for you. You’re temperamental on the track, and he has a reputation for staying calm in tense situations. I think you’ll get along great.”
“I don’t.” Anthony watched him step into one of the rooms where all that development magic happened. “He looks old.”
“He’s like thirty. Hardly ancient. I’m thirty-two!” Ian gave Anthony his offended look.
“I’m used to you.”
“You’ll get used to him.”
“Yeah, whatever. I’ll catch you later.” Anthony was very sure he wouldn’t. He glared in the direction of the room Ezra disappeared into and headed out to talk to the team principal.