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The moonlight softly illuminated the contours of the fashionable building, catching on the edges of the sleek double-doors and refracting in a soft glow. It was quieter than usual in London, even for this late hour, and darker too. A car would appear here or there, slowly maneuvering the roads. Or a pedestrian, padding through the city. A light might be glimpsed at the end of a street. But for the most part, the crowds, the traffic, the electric glow — all of the things that normally staved off the urban night — were absent, and the feeling of a pause remained. That was not, however, what was currently making an angel uncomfortable. What was making this angel uncomfortable was that he was standing in front of a door that led to a particular demon’s flat. Not counting his narrow avoidance of the apocalypse a few hours prior, this was easily one of the most daunting prospects he had faced in centuries, and he stood a few meters away from the entrance, staring.
Crowley, the demon, had not paused. Striding forward, he snapped his fingers to unlock the double doors, swinging them inward like a grand entrance for a dignitary. Even after the not-quite-end of the world, with no one watching, he aimed for style.
“After you, angel,” Crowley drawled, pausing at the threshold and cocking his body toward his companion.
Aziraphale wished he could get a better read on the demon’s thoughts. Crowley had visited his bookshop innumerable times since he had appeared with chocolates for the store’s opening. (1) The pair had passed plenty of nights drinking in the back room (and on a few occasions, days), spent shorter sojourns trading information or discussing a new favor for the Arrangement, and passed other time on activities like lunch (or more accurately, Crowley watching Aziraphale eat lunch or whatever new treat the demon had brought him). But Aziraphale had never been to Crowley’s home. He didn’t really know why, now that he thought about it. It was just the way it worked. Crowley never asked him over, and Aziraphale, being a proper and most English angel, had never entertained the idea of inviting himself. Never mind that Crowley did it all the time. Never mind there was an unspoken, My store is always open for you. Never mind there was no bookshop anymore. That thought brought a deep pang of loss. The stress of entering the demon’s flat had pushed Aziraphale’s beloved now-burned books out of his memory for a full thirty seconds. This all flooded through the angel’s head as his gaze lingered a moment more on Crowley’s face. Well, the middle of a walkway was no place to mourn, or spend the night. Aziraphale averted his eyes to the door and got his body moving forward.
“Right then,” he managed with a small twitch of a smile as he passed by Crowley into the foyer. Looking around, Aziraphale supposed the space passed for modern and sleek, though he found it sterile and spare. Concrete walls blended into polished slate floors, with a narrow carpet leading from the door to the lift. The walls, at least, sported a few floating shelves holding art and books. Though on further inspection, the art was really just splashes of paint cast haphazardly on canvas. And the books seemed to have been selected for color over content, their covers stripped of jackets and blending together in a grayscale gradient.
The distance from the entrance to the elevator was a matter of several loping steps for Crowley, and in the brief time it took him to reach the lift, the doors were already opening. Part of what had drawn Crowley to this building -- aside from the posh location and industrial aesthetic -- was that the penthouse floors had a private entrance, which meant they had an elevator to themselves. In any building, of course, he could have made sure the lift was ready at ground level each time he returned to his flat. But there would have been the bothersome business of people possibly being in it, and that would have been unacceptable. So the demon secured all the upper levels, though he only used the top.
Aziraphale followed his friend into the lift, settling into the space at Crowley’s side. At a snap of the demon’s fingers, the doors slid shut and the pair began ascending. Aziraphale’s eyes danced briefly around the small space before he chanced a glance at his friend. He was taken aback to find Crowley observing him steadily, and he blushed slightly, glanced down and then back at Crowley’s face, pausing there a moment, before his gaze skittered to the walls. He attempted to rescue himself from his discomfort by blurting out the first thing that came to mind.
“It’s not often I’m in one of these, I never took much of a shine to skyscrapers, and Heaven’s just the escalator ride of course.” Lord Above, he was starting to realize why he so often heard humans complain about lift rides. Placing yourself in a tiny box with strangers, or worse yet, someone you quite liked, and with whom you had just survived the apocalypse and weren’t sure how to interact with anymore.
Crowley raised an eyebrow. “You don’t like lifts?”
“Oh no, no, I don’t mind them. I just don’t use them much. It’s only a matter of a few stairs to get wherever you want in the bookshop …” Aziraphale paused, remembrance dawning again with a harsh light. He still hadn’t seen the burned building for himself, and so his mind kept substituting firsthand memory of home in place of secondhand knowledge of the charred shell that remained.
Crowley must have noted the way Aziraphale’s eyes wandered into the distance, because the demon’s face softened and he turned his body toward the angel. “I can’t say my space is much like yours, but you’re welcome here as long as you like.”
Aziraphale refocused his attention on Crowley and sighed as his shoulders relaxed. The thought flitted into his head that they might not have much more time, but he batted it away. Not yet. He wasn't ready to think of it here in the lift, and he wasnt going to let Heaven or Hell steal these few moments from them now.
“Thank you,” Aziraphale's breathed, the look of fondness that washed over his unguarded face giving more context than the simple words. Much as his expression had earlier at the bus stop, when he’d made a half-hearted attempt to reason away Crowley’s offer. You can stay at my place, if you like, the demon had proposed. I don’t know if my side would like that, the angel had replied, though his face had spoken I’d like that very much.
On the ride back to London, sitting next to Crowley with their thighs almost brushing, their hands barely touching, he had felt the heat crackling between them, and considered the concept of our side . For the first time, he allowed himself to examine the idea in detail, holding it out to the light without fear of his feelings or otherworldly repercussion. It no longer seemed traitorous, still perhaps a bit dangerous, heavy and light at the same time — but above all, freeing. And so Aziraphale had come to the conclusion that our side felt as right as anything had ever seemed to him. Now, standing next to Crowley, he had conviction, but that didn’t erase the fact that this was new, or that he was nervous. The lift issued a melodic note, and Aziraphale broke his gaze from Crowley as the doors slid open.
A short walk down the hallway, and they were at the demon’s flat. A golden serpent ensconced the doorbell. Aziraphale noted it was the first touch of Crowley in the place, and he began to warm to this brutalist behemoth of a building.
“Nice detail,” the angel said.
“You like it?”
“Very much, it reminds me of the fashion in the late 1800s. A bit dirty in London then, but beautiful architecture.”
“Don’t tell me that. You make it sound stodgy.”
“It’s not stodgy. The Victorian period had much to recommend for aesthetic.”
“Just because you still wear clothes from antiquity doesn’t mean they’re in style, angel.”
The bantering broke Aziraphale’s tension. It was comforting how easily they always fell back into this. Crowley held the door open and Aziraphale stepped inside with a small sense of awe — here was Crowley’s personal space, his sanctuary. The flat was large and minimalist. The furniture seemed chosen for appearance over comfort, and the decor was sparse amid the concrete walls. The asceticism suited what Aziraphale had always thought to be Crowley’s purity of heart, though that certainly wasn't the first remark he was going to make on entering his home.
It was a far cry from Aziraphale’s shop, made and filled with soft things - old wood and cocoa and blankets, stuffed to the brim with his treasured books, with everything the angel loved. In Crowley’s flat, the decorations were so few that the eye was drawn to them in the open space. The otherwise emptiness almost seemed to lend to them places of honor. And then Aziraphale realized — Crowley also kept what he treasured in his home. He was simply more selective. A painting, a sculpture, something that looked like a section of crumbling stone pillar with a carving of a dove. (2) And now, the angel.
Crowley peeled off his sunglasses as he walked inside, tossing them on a small table by the door in an unconscious motion born of habit.
“So this is home sweet home. More of a storage place really, for me and a few things, though … what?” Crowley noticed Aziraphale staring at him with an odd expression. He looked back at his sunglasses, realizing they were no longer on his face, and made to reach for them.
“Wait!” Aziraphae blurted out. And in response to Crowley’s confused look, continued, “I like seeing your eyes.”
“You like seeing my eyes?” Crowley repeated slowly. “Why?”
“Well, they’re yours,” Aziraphale replied sheepishly, managing to keep his gaze on Crowley’s face, despite his growing blush and his nerves doing their best to direct him to flee. “And … they’re a rather lovely shade of amber.” The angle ducked his head briefly then, speaking softer than before, “I’ve always liked them.”
Crowley looked stunned, then a flicker of softness passed over his face. He drew a quick intake of breath, saying, “Well, I usually keep them off in here anyway. Shall I get some wine? Or a tour? I suppose that’s what humans do, isn’t it? Lead other people around their home the first time they visit.”
“Quite right,” Aziraphale replied, smiling with relief that he hadn’t blown it before even getting past the foyer. “Something with casseroles, too, I think.”
“Casseroles? Why on earth would a casserole be involved?”
“I don’t really know.” Aziraphale crinkled his brow. “Perhaps it was plants instead.”
“Well, I do have those.”
“You grow plants?” Aziraphale asked incredulously.
“The finest in London. They wouldn’t dare be anything but magnificent. Come on, I’ll get us some wine.”
Aziraphale wondered briefly at Crowley’s wording in regard to his botanical pursuits, but his thoughts were quickly arrested by a far more engaging object. Aziraphale’s eyes widened as they approached a statue of two angels locked in a very physical act. An angel with light hair and golden wings had his arm wrenched behind him, pressed down by an angel with dark hair and ochre wings. Both were naked.
“This is … unique,” Aziraphale said, pausing in his stride to study the figures, and trying to sort out the feelings it stirred.
Crowley stopped with him, reciting as if reading from a plaque, “It’s represents Good and Evil wrestling, and Evil triumphing.”
“Are you sure they’re wrestling?” Aziraphale replied, the words out of his mouth before he’d even processed what he was asking. (3)
Crowley puffed up and frowned dramatically. “Of course! I ought to know what the statue represents. I’ve only had it for centuries. Knew the artist myself. I had it commissioned." He paused, waiting for a response, but Aziraphale just stared at him with mild amusement. "Well, do you want to stand here like a bore or come have some wine?”
“Lead the way,” Aziraphale responded, though Crowley was already on the move. Aziraphale allowed his gaze to linger on the carved pair of angels, wondering what it would be like to have Crowley so close to him ...
“ANGEL!” came an irritated call from down the hall.
Aziraphale started after Crowley, but didn’t follow him into the kitchen, distracted instead by the verdant foliage at the end of the passage. It was magnificent. Oddly, he could feel fear in the room. And yet, beneath that, he sensed love.
Past the plants, at the end of the hallway, a door was open wide enough to partially reveal the room beyond. A hulking gilded desk sat weighted with a red marble top, and a matching chair cushioned in plush red velvet was angled alongside. The set was almost ludicrous in its opulence, resembling a throne more than a workspace. Like a lord watching over a garden, Aziraphale thought, and wondered how much Crowley was still processing from his expulsion from Heaven.
Aziraphale took a few tentative steps closer, feeling mildly that he might be intruding, and then noticed a dark heap on the floor, where the tile looked a bit damp. He tensed, on high alert. He sensed evil, and something else. Something more familiar. He shuffled closer, trying to puzzle it out, and realized it was the essence of holy water.
“What are you looking at, angel?” Crowley was suddenly behind Aziraphale, who jumped at the sound and angled his body across the narrow hall, casting his arms out to simultaneously shield the demon and keep him from getting closer to whatever danger lay ahead.
“Crowley!” Aziraphale whispered forcefully. “Something happened here.”
Crowley constricted as if to push past the angel and strike at whatever might be threatening him. But Aziraphale caught him by the shoulders. “You musn’t get closer. There was holy water here! And something else. Something from your side.” He began to feel frantic. “Do you think they’ve come for us? Already?”
The demon, able now to see what Aziraphale was looking at, relaxed incrementally. “Two dukes of Hell are what was here. And that was one of them. They came for me earlier," he said bitterly. And then in a softer tone, "There’s nothing attacking us now, angel.”
Aziraphale put the pieces together. “Your insurance,” he whispered.
“It did me good for half the lot. I drove straight to your shop after I got rid of the other.” Crowley paused, a look of pain crossed his face and his gaze shifted inward.
Aziraphale was still standing close, and gently prodded him on. "What happened then?"
“I had thought they were after me for losing the antichirst, but when they came, they said … they also knew about us. I got to the bookshop, and it was burning. I couldn’t sense you.” Crowley swallowed hard.
He looked Aziraphale in the eyes then. His face, so normally a studied detachment, seemed ready to crack with emotion. Aziraphale’s mind replayed events at high speed. He’d come back to earth, using Crowley as a beacon. The demon hadn’t left for Alpha Centauri. He remembered how Crowley’s voice faltered when he confessed he’d lost his best friend. There hadn’t been time for Aziraphale to process it for himself, or to hold space for Crowley’s grief, not with armageddon mere hours away. But now he revisited that admission. He thought again about our side. And he made a decision.
“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale murmured, and he pulled the demon into a tight embrace. Crowley stiffened, but Aziraphale didn’t let go. Instead, the angel opened the damn to his own feelings, owning everything he had ever felt, letting his love wash out in a cleansing surge. Not like the flood of long ago that harshly scoured the earth, but as an ocean for which every pain was but a drop absorbed in its vastness, for which waves passed as ripples over an unchanging truth. After a beat he felt Crowley relax, and suddenly the demon’s hands were tight around the angel, clutching at Aziraphale’s back as he pressed his face into the crook of the angel’s neck.
“Aziraphale,” Crowley breathed, the word an admittance, an acceptance. It was supplication and assertion. It said everything.
The angel slid one hand to cover the nape of Crowley’s neck, possessive and soothing. They stood like that, absorbing this new intimacy. The city outside remained in it’s hushed stasis. The night inside the apartment was calm. The pair together were still.
Aziraphale broke the quiet. “My dear, I’m so sorry.”
Crowley pulled back to look at him. “For what?”
“For what I put you through.”
“You didn’t mean to get discorporated.”
“Only partly for that. I mean … for everything. You’ve always been the braver one. I … I was harsh at the bandstand, and before. I’m afraid I … well, I suppose I’ve always been afraid. Of Heaven, of doing the wrong thing, or what I thought was the right thing. Of my own feelings, sometimes even my own thoughts.” Now that Aziraphale had begun, the admission carried itself along, the words rushing out after years of being walled away. “I tried to be what Heaven wanted of me, and what I wanted to be, and I ended up rather being neither.” He took a steadying breath. “You’ve always had yourself, Crowley. I’ve so admired that. You know who you are and where you stand and … I’m sorry it took me this long to get here. I’m sorry I hurt you in the process."
Crowley was completely unprepared for this. Mr. Skirt-Around-The-Issues Aziraphale was being open on an unprecedented level. It was like a switch had been flipped at some point that day, and Crowley was reeling from the turn. Six thousand years of habits and assumptions was a lot to shift. As the moments ticked by without a response from the stunned demon, Aziraphale began to get nervous.
"Can you forgive me?” the angel asked, earnest and slightly hesitant now.
Crowley came out of his shock and was suddenly self conscious. “You don’t need to be forgiven, angel.”
“I’m asking it of you.”
“I’m saying you don’t need it. And I’m a demon, remember? Fallen, cast out. I don't hand out forgiveness, I can't even earn it.”
“Oh, blast it all to Heaven. And Hell can bugger off, too," Aziraphale exclaimed in a burst of feeling, shocking Crowley yet again. "I want to make sure you know that you deserve … well, everything. And that you have the right to be mad or hurt or any other thing. And we can sort it out. And I promise, I’ll be honest with myself and with you from now on. It will be our side, Crowley, ... always.”
Aziraphale stood with his back straight, face set. No playful “get thee behind me” barbs or the false pretenses of past meetings. He was nearly vibrating with conviction.
It floored Crowley in a way the events of the day had not. Any witty quips he would have normally used to respond evaporated in his mind. Instead he considered Aziraphale's question. Yes, they’d had rough patches over the centuries, and he’d been angry. They both had. Crowley had sulked, but he hadn’t held a grudge — he never could with his angel. If they parted in a heat a hundred times, he'd come back to Aziraphale a hundred and one. Because he choose him. Because they chose each other. So although Aziraphale had acted like a twat now and then over the millennia, it was all long-ago pardoned. But his angel needed reassurance, and had just offered him ‘always,’ and was waiting for a response. So Crowley said, "Of course I forgive you, angel. Aziraphale."
Aziraphale loosened and his face brightened. He collected Crowley back into his arms, the embrace gentler this time, less urgent. Crowley returned the action, threading his fingers through the angel’s hair. He had long wanted to do that, and the curls were as thick and soft as he’d imagined. Aziraphale hummed a contented sound, and Crowley gave himself over to savoring the moment, temporarily exiling the looming threats of their respective head offices. They weren't coming for them yet, and he wasn't going to let thoughts of reprisal intrude on this. Right now, with his angel in his arms, he had everything he needed, and felt as if he were floating in a cocoon, contented.
“I love you, Crowley.” Aziraphale’s candid proclamation snapped the demon out of his reverie. His eyes shot open and he shifted back to search Aziraphale’s face, hands still on the angel’s arms.
“I have for some time, since before I put a name to it,” Aziraphale continued, a small, sad smile rising at the corners of his mouth. “It only took the end of the world and our imminent destruction for me to say so.”
This was too much for one day. Crowley’s mind struggled to absorb this revelation. His angel — whom he had liked since the first moments in the garden, whom he had loved for centuries, with whom he had long since accepted the Arrangement as status quo — this angel was holding him unashamedly and saying he loved him. Well, by Go- ... by Sata- … by whoever, he was not going to let this be the end of things.
“Angel, I’ve loved you for millennia. If you think anything in Heaven or Hell is going to spoil this now, you’re wrong.”
Crowley was rewarded with one of Aziraphale’s brightest smiles. The angel slid one hand up Crowley’s neck and into his hair, nails scraping deliciously against scalp. The demon’s heart raced as Aziraphale angled his face, searching Crowley's eyes for any resistance, and finding none, gently brought their lips together. Crowley was startled still, caught by the enormity of what was happening, before he found his reflexes. Bringing one hand up to cup the Aziraphale's face, he returned the kiss. His body tingled and his nerves sang as he and the angel explored each other. Aziraphale had said he was the braver one, but Crowley might have waited past the end of the world to cross this gap, so afraid was he of pushing his angel away.
Aziraphale was the first to speak after they paused, still in each other’s arms. “I suppose we have to deal with Heaven and Hell. I expect we have until the morning.”
“I'd agree there. It should be enough time.”
Aziraphale leaned back and looked at Crowley hopefully. “What are you thinking? Something with the prophecy?”
"I'm thinking let's get away from this mess while we figure things out," Crowley replied, glancing down at what had been Ligur. "Let's go to the living room, preferably with the wine. This idea might be a bit strange."