Good Omens Fic: But Thou Readst Black Where I Read White

[rainjoyswriting]

But Thou Readst Black Where I Read White part I of III, a Good Omens fic, Crowley/Aziraphale bless them and yes I'm still on the Blake kick bite me <3

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters and I disclaim half this fucking fic, I'm only writing it to get some of these images out of my head o_0

Rating: NC-17 for a little bit of angel/demon smut (Not Crowley and Aziraphale! Just because I ship them asexual doesn't mean other angels and demons have to be) but mostly for some really - I mean really very very unpleasant violence in the later parts.

Warnings and spoilers: Set post-series, watch that first. Brief mention of domestic violence. And to reiterate the above: I'm only writing this stupid thing to get this horrific image I had out of my head and done, so again, this fic contains what they refer to on TV as strong bloody violence in later parts. First part's pretty fluffy though ^^;

Summary: In which everyone is rather more hung up than they ought to be on the colour of wings.



Note: Written to get rid of an image that I urgently do not want to have in my head for any longer than is absolutely necessary, but written also from an unpleasant nagging sense that Hell had the everliving shit scared out of them by what we shall refer to as the rubber duck incident, but I don't think that Gabriel is ready to let this go.








When the door closes behind Aziraphale with an exactly calculated level of passive aggression in the click, Crowley raises his head over the back of the sofa, and stares at it, and waits. And waits. But the angel doesn't stick his head in again for 'and another thing, my dear -' and is presumably already sulking his way to the bus stop, which gives Crowley some time to himself, which is a rare commodity these days. Rare in the same way that a child refusing chocolate is rare; usually, Crowley doesn't want to be alone.

It's been three years since there wasn't an apocalypse, evident in all the bookshelves in Crowley's flat, the small but finely-curated selection of vinyl for sale in one corner of Aziraphale's bookshop, and the fact that Crowley hasn't slept alone a night since then. There was a little awkwardness in their first coming together, mostly because neither of them had a half-sensible clue how to go about being together after collective millennia of denial. But for safety's sake, at first, they kept to each other's sides, and then they just got very comfortable there, even more comfortable than back in the days when they officially never saw each other and yet could make coffee and tea without having to say a word about sugar and milk. And then Aziraphale started shuffling closer on the sofa on a night, shy and curious and wanting, want looks just delicious in his eyes, and drawing little needy patterns on the seat between them with a fingertip. And when Aziraphale really wants something Crowley is long in the habit of supplying it, which is the lie he told himself that made him brave enough to take what he wanted more than anything in the entire fucking universe, and because Aziraphale would clearly rather Crowley initiated it, Crowley kissed him, because Crowley could pursue him for fucking centuries and still the angel needed some assurance that really, Crowley did mean it properly, he actually did like him, like that, didn't he?

So it's been three years of barely a moment apart, just the days Aziraphale's out of town looking at a collection of books for sale or when Crowley's at one of the poker games the angel disapproves of, and they're used to squabbling, it's more or less the background noise of their relationship. It turn out, weirdly, that angels and demons disagree about a lot of things, who knew? Music and interior design and speed limits, mostly it's nothing they're not used to but sometimes Aziraphale will still start parroting some old line of Heaven's that he didn't actually believe in even then in that pompous way that grinds on Crowley's teeth, and sometimes Crowley will say something too fast, too sneering, and see far too late in the wounded flicker of Aziraphale's eyes that that really did hurt, and sometimes - very, very rarely, just this one special time - Crowley will do it on purpose.

Angel safely dispatched to the bookshop, Crowley gets off the sofa and walks past his plants to the office, flicking an eye to them as he passes, snarling, "You've seen nothing, right?" They shiver submission as he slams the office door closed, alone, taking a long breath in.

Right. He's only checking. He's just checking to - check. It doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean anything, he just doesn't want Aziraphale walking in on him just checking because he doesn't want Aziraphale thinking it means something because it doesn't. He's just checking. To check.

He walks around the desk and chair, head nodding to the beat of a song stuck up there, working himself up to just checking. It's not like he wants it or anything, it's not like it matters to him, it's just something he needs to know, that's all. But his stomach isn't listening to his brain and it can't decide what it wants to happen next but it would clearly rather nothing happened. Crowley doesn't care what his guts think, he's going to check. He's just going to do it. He's been meaning to for months, ever since it first occurred to him, but Aziraphale was always around and when he wasn't Crowley could conveniently 'forget' about it and time kept passing and passing and he kept not thinking about it but it's important that he knows, he has to check. What it means - he doesn't know what it would mean. He doesn't know what he would tell Aziraphale, how he would tell him. Sometimes he lets himself imagine the depth of Aziraphale's shock, and then the depth of his happiness like awe -

Crowley's lived in his imagination, hoarded happiness in his imagination, for a very long time. It used to be easier to live in there than out here in the real world but that's not true anymore. Now he has everything he wants, Aziraphale on tap and not just that, Aziraphale's admiration and affection and adoration on tap, Aziraphale couldn't make clearer how delighted he is with their new Arrangement. Crowley doesn't just have what he wants, he's wanted by the only being in creation he wants, and that's . . .

So he tells himself that he doesn't care but it's for Aziraphale, Aziraphale would want to know, he's only checking for him; and he closes his eyes and shakes his wings back, he feels how they fill the room, humans just didn't make a world big enough for wings. He sniffs, eyes closed, cracks his head left and right on his spine (it feels like weight has been finally let loose, not added, when the wings are free) and takes a long, silent breath.

Then he opens his eyes, and catches a wing as it bends forward, holding it by the pinion to check. The feathers are the scruffy soot-black of a raven's wing.

"Oh come on!"

He drops the wing and turns around, aiming his yell upwards, he knows She's listening, She's always supposed to be fucking listening. "What the Heaven do you want from me?" he shouts, fuck the neighbours, fuck everything. "Still? Still? I saved this - poxy, half-baked planet! I've spent -" He can't stay still, there's too much feeling inside to manage, he strides around the desk glad there isn't a nearby plant to throw through the window, wings snapping at his back. "- thousands of years looking after Your only angel worth looking after and alright, alright, if You asked me back then I'd have told You I was only keeping an eye on him because he went and gave away his flaming sword to what was clearly not Your best or most obedient creation and I wanted to see what he might think was a good idea to do next but You know - oh, You know," aiming a kick at nothing in the air as he circles the desk, he's talking through his teeth, the hiss keeps showing. "And still, still - ? You actually think those angels up there are better than me, you think Gabriel's actually better than me? They're all the same! Up there and down there, there's not a splinter between them! And You're no fucking better. You don't get to not get judged for doing it to all the rest of us. Ineffable." He kicks the chair over this time, boots it hard and it crashes to its side, and he spits, "Hah."

His wings rustle at his back like the hiss of autumn leaves. "I don't care," he growls, because he wants that stated. "I don't care, it just - it just shows You all over, doesn't it, everything's so bloody simple with you, black and white, you actually think those angels up there with faces like they've got a, got a nettle up their arse are better than me? Because they're worse, let me tell you." His voice is getting lower, his neck, his whole skeleton is arching with the certainty of this, he's so angry his whole body feels like a long, long spine, and it remembers all of its venom. "Because yeah, I'd kill them, for trying to kill him. I'd burn every last fucking one of them and all of Heaven with them and I would like it. And after all that I'd still be better than all of them because I would never pretend that that made me good. Damned, fuck You. We have all the decent music, all of it, and any novelist worth reading, and the ranks of the gl-orious saved are the most tedious bunch of fucks humanity could produce, You're welcome to them for all of eternity, You think I care, You think I care?"

He snatches up a pair of sunglasses from the desk but then knows he's just going to snap them to splinters in his hand and puts them down again, teeth clenched like metal straining. He leans on the desk with both hands, fingers flexing fists, trying to control the rage, trying to find some space around its edges to scrabble his grip into, to lever it smaller again, wings flexing back like a cat's claws. His breath shivers out between his teeth.

"He doesn't care," he says, quieter now, to the desk. "He doesn't care. He doesn't think I'm only worthy if I'm perfect and pure and - and white-winged as some - some chicken. I never wanted it. I don't owe any allegiance to You." He strands straight, wings gone, and flicks a final smouldering glare ceilingwards. He says grimly, "I chose my side."

He picks the sunglasses up, stabs them on. And he walks for the door, for a bar where he can drink out some of the rage before going to find Aziraphale to make up and get back to what actually matters, the only thing that matters.

He snaps his fingers on the way out and the chair snaps up from its side to straight again, before the door slams shut behind him.

*

Sometimes, Aziraphale thinks as he unlocks the bookshop and pushes the door very firmly closed again behind himself, sometimes Crowley really can be a bit of a cock.

He's been working himself up to that thought for the entire bus journey (two buses, actually, between here and Crowley's flat; Aziraphale has never liked the Underground but never understood why Crowley insisted on having a car in central London which no-one could reasonably need, why he didn't just take the tube, until he found himself down in the dark cramped crowded dirty tunnels of Hell and he knew, he knew). Having spent it he's done now, and the feeling of being so very cross subsides. The problem is that Aziraphale can only ever manage crossness for short periods of time it exhausts him so, and after the crossness he slumps right down into gloom, and already he feels the fret coming on (Did he do something to put Crowley into such a bad mood after all? Oh he hopes he didn't . . .). If he acts like he isn't fretting then it must be more or less the same as not fretting, so he walks briskly to the office, pom-pom-pomming to a song under his breath, aiming for the kettle and a fortifying cup of tea, when the bell chimes behind him.

"Oh I'm sorry," he says, pausing by his desk to look back, "we're not open ye . . ."

The world goes as quiet and still as the space between atoms, a long opening of empty nothing, dread stretching the incomprehension out endless as if in self-defence because the moment of understanding, when it hits, is going to hit like a hurricane, and Aziraphale is alone.

The demon in the doorway has bulging silvery eyes and fish scales running down the sides of her throat, half covered by the fall of her lank hair; Aziraphale knows that she's a demon the same way he knows that it's the daytime, angels and demons feel each other like static electricity, and his stomach shrinks like a sea anemone retracting. The demon closes the door behind herself, her body a little hunched, her hands - poised, tense - to fight? Oh good Lord - and she says, too fast, "You're the angel Master Crowley left us for, aren't you?"

Aziraphale stands there, one hand on his desk - for no reason, just, the desk has been there for so many many years, it's something solid to touch when he feels like his head might come loose and drift off for sheer horror. "I -" he says, and doesn't know what the right answer is, and then he thinks -

"Have they gone for him?" He jerks forwards, not thinking, just reacting now, to the thought - "Have they gone for him as well?"

If there's a demon here - was Hell waiting until they were divided to strike? Or is it -

It's like ice run down the inside of his spine; is it worse, and if they've sent a demon for Aziraphale, is there some terrible angel in Crowley's flat and Crowley's alone -

"What?" The demon says. "No. Who's 'they'?"

Actually, she says 'oo's "they"?', consonants apparently being shared on a need-to-know basis in Hell. "You haven't come here to - I will fight," he says, with a slightly uncertain intonation halfway through, hesitating on the balls of his feet halfway towards her and squeezing his hands, all jangled nerves and want of Crowley and fear in this moment, if anything's happened to him - if that was the last interaction they ever had, some silly fight - "I won't let anyone hurt him. I will never let you hurt him."

"I aren't 'urting anyone, I onny did the filing," she says. "Look, I came 'ere - I came 'ere -" She holds her (webbed) hands up, palms forwards, empty; "Sanctuary," she says.

Aziraphale stares. Finally, he blinks. He says, uncertainly, "Sanctuary?"

"I done a runner," she says. "I'm out. I want - you two got out. I want out too."

"I'm - you - I'm sorry, just to - clarify, you've - you've left Hell? For good?"

"Yeah," she says. "It's all just bollocks, int it?"

"Well, ah, I suppose you could put it like . . . I'm afraid I'm still not quite sure, however, why you came here, of everywhere you could flee. We are not exactly a, how shall I put this, a surreptitious safe house. Everyone in Heaven and Hell knows to find us here."

"Yeah," she says, "but everyone in Hell dun't dare say 'is name anymore, they shits themselves if they do. So 'ere's safer'n anywhere. Safer'n anywhere in the world." Her eye flicks to the door, she hunches herself a little more into what shadow she can find, between the windows. "Where is he? Is he 'ere?"

". . . not . . . yet." Aziraphale's stomach has re-emerged from the tiny hole it crammed itself into in horror, expanding now with the admittedly childish glee that all those demons terrified of Crowley are in actual fact terrified of him, and he feels really rather proud of himself all of a sudden, settles his head a little steadier on his neck, feels more able to smile. "I'm sorry, my manners are - bit of a trying morning, ah . . . my name is Aziraphale, how do you do, would you . . ." What on Earth else is he supposed to do? "Would you like a cup of tea?"

*

Crowley steels himself on the quick walk from the Bentley to the bookshop, rolls his shoulders back, jerks his head right on his neck, and doesn't allow himself to hesitate. He just opens the door and waves the box in the air, calling, "Look angel, chocolates, sorry I was such a cock this morn-"

Too preoccupied with the speech he'd planned, with keeping on his face the expression he'd intended to wear, he didn't notice that the shop's sign was turned to 'closed' and the lack of customers doesn't register even then; all he sees is Aziraphale sitting on one of the shop's little sofas with cup and saucer in hand, the perfect angle of his head, the open expression of his face, as unguarded as the first day Crowley laid eyes on him. In front of him is a table cleared of books for the tea tray. And beside him, holding a cup in both shiny webbed hands and looking up at Crowley with abject terror in her eyes, is a demon.

Crowley's heart is not beating. Crowley's soul is still.

"Ah, Crowley! This is Ramiel, she-"

It's not like this is the first time that something like this scene has played out in front of Crowley's eyes, in his imagination this has been near-permanent background noise. Not just Aziraphale in danger which is enough in itself to remind Crowley that his blood is cold but Aziraphale blundering into danger without even seeing it for what it is, he has form in this, and that exact expression on his face - that innocent, utterly unwitting look on his sweetest of faces as he sits beside some strange demon for whom it is the work of a fraction of a second to end Aziraphale forever and take from Crowley everything -

He reacts. He reacts immediately, proportionately, rightly. Nothing will ever persuade him any different.

The chocolates hit the floor, Aziraphale says, "Now Crowley -" flailing up to put his cup and saucer out of the way, and Crowley's already halfway to them when the angel is on his feet and between the two demons, arms held out and that very set look on his face, weaving a little with the stabbing of Crowley's body side to side to get around him.

"-kill you-" he snarls in a snake's voice at the demon over Aziraphale's shoulder, who sits there still and dumb.

"Ramiel, back office, if you would," Aziraphale calls over his shoulder, and the demon doesn't need telling twice, cup on the table and she's gone. "Crowley, this is-"

Crowley still wants to get past him, get at that demon, but the problem is that Aziraphale is just as strong as him if he did attempt to force his way past him, there's nothing between an angel and demon in that, and more than that - they both just know that he's not going to force his way past Aziraphale. "Who the fuck is - why is she here? What was she doing to you?"

"Having tea," Aziraphale says. "I mean, with me, not to me, I don't know that you can have tea to -"

"Why is she here?"

He left him alone for five seconds, for five fucking seconds and there's some demon here and if she hurt him, if she hurt him -

"She came for sanctuary," Aziraphale says. "She's abandoned Hell and come to us. Crowley, we can't turn her away," and he catches Crowley's lapel, to hold his eyes while his own look so pleading, so searching, as he says very low, "she's just like you."

"She is not like me, she's - not me, she could have done anything to you!"

"But she didn't. Hm?" the angel says brightly, bobbing a little on his feet. "We've been having a nice little chat actually, she's a sweet girl, bit - rough around the edges, I thought you could help teach her to blend in a bit, you must know what demons need to know about humanity better than I do."

"What - wh- so you just believe her, do you, some complete rando walks into the shop -"

"Rando?" the angel says, brow furrowing.

"- and you just think oh, oh yeah, can't be lying, the demon can't be lying, some random demon won't mean me any harm at all old bean what what-"

Aziraphale lets go of his jacket. "I don't talk like that, Crowley. You're being cruel."

It's said sharply, the way a schoolmaster might say it, but when Crowley looks at his eyes he can see the retreat there, that Aziraphale doesn't know what the fuck Crowley's thinking right now especially after this morning and it's not that demon in his office he's preparing his defences against, it's him. And that's -

Crowley turns away, snatches his sunglasses from his face, scrubs at his eyes. Aziraphale just stands there, he has a habit of stilling when uncertain, as Crowley prowls the room, stalking the emotion out of his legs. And this, he thinks. This is why I'm still a demon. I want to be right for him, perfect for him, but what I am is this, so, yeah, fuck You.

He swings back around to face Aziraphale again, says, "Right. Yeah. Well, one, I'm here now and I trust her less far than I can throw her so we'll deal with her, and two," he scans the room and finds the box, dented in one corner, against a bookshelf. He walks over, picks it up, blows the dust off it, offers it with an embarrassed twitch of his mouth. "Chocolates." He shrugs jaggedly. "'cause I'm a cock."

Aziraphale's uneasy eyeing of him twists and his face softens, he steps forwards and kisses Crowley on the cheek. "You're not a cock, my dear. Now come introduce yourself properly." He checks the box, raises pleased eyebrows, takes Crowley's arm and leads him towards the sofa where the teapot waits. "Ramiel, it's safe to come out," he calls, putting the box down there. "Tea or coffee, Crowley dear?"

"Booze," Crowley says sullenly if they're really doing this, and free of his sunglasses he really glares as that fishy demon slinks her way out of the office, inching her way towards them without her huge eyes ever leaving Crowley's face.

She croaks, "Master Crowley -"

"Oh don't," he snarls back, and Aziraphale, digging around his desk, says, "Irish coffee -" plunking a bottle of whiskey on the desk - "- or French?" as a bottle of cognac joins it.

"Both." Crowley says, feeling like he needs it. He wants to circle the demon, get a good long look at her, but he's also currently standing between her and Aziraphale and he'd rather keep it that way. "So you deserted, did you?"

"Yes sir . . ." voice trailing low at the look in Crowley's eyes. "Yeah," she settles on, and swallows, and on either side of her neck gills flex nervously.

"Ramiel," he murmurs, sliding his sunglasses back on. "I remember you, didn't you have a thing for -"

"Human women," she says, the smile spreading wide across her broad face. "Yeah."

They'd taken her off Earth, got to thinking she was doing it for the wrong reasons, the enthusiasm she put into some of those temptings. "They put you in - it was some kind of filing, wasn't it?"

"Which strikes me as an entirely inappropriate place for her, given that she misplaces a good half of her H's," Aziraphale says, walking back to the sofa with the cafetiere and a bottle tucked under his arm. "Ramiel was telling me how Hell's changed, since you left."

Ramiel's eyes flit to the sofa and Crowley moves just so subtly to draw them back to him, to burn the no into her soul. Then he pulls the armchair closer and says to the demon, "Sit," dropping himself into the seat next to Aziraphale, laying one arm out along the sofa's back, behind Aziraphale's shoulders, as openly possessive as he can get away with without the angel noticing. Luckily it never was Aziraphale's keen skills of observation that Crowley fell for.

"Alright," he says, he can't pretend he's not curious about this. "So how's the old place changed? Redecorated, have they? New lampshades, throw pillows?"

She stares blankly, which bulbous fish-eyes are good for, then says, "No, they just . . . nothin's changed. Everyone's pretendin' nothing's changed. 'cept no-one ever says your name, not ever, or says anythin' about the world ending. But everyone knows. Feels like . . . like the wing's come off a plane, an' all the humans is watching from the windows an' they're gonna scream, but they isn't yet." She looks blankly at the cup of tea Aziraphale has refreshed for her from the pot while she's speaking, then wordlessly takes it.

Aziraphale says, "What do we say?"

She looks at Crowley, then she says, "Thank . . . you."

"You're very welcome. Ramiel," Aziraphale says with an agonised look at Crowley, "takes thirteen sugars."

"Fancy," Crowley murmurs, watching the demon dropping in light brown cubes from the bowl, sugar almost exactly the same colour as Aziraphale's eyes. Aziraphale himself plunges the cafetiere with a martyred expression, unscrewing the lid of the brandy.

"It's all wrong now," Ramiel says, still dropping sugar cubes, plunk plunk plunk, into her cup. "The wheels 'as come off, it's just not stopped yet. An' a few years back I started readin' some of them files, about what they're doing on Earth, I don't . . . we isn't . . . it's just not right. They never asked for us to make them miserable, they're just gettin' on with themselves, an' they're so pretty, they don't deserve it, an' they smell so nice, an' they taste so -"

"So you left," Crowley says but not fast enough, as Aziraphale looks up aghast from the black coffee with a lot of cognac he's pouring and says, "Do you eat them?"

Crowley squeezes the bridge of his nose hard. "No, angel."

"I doesn't eat them," Ramiel says, affronted. "I licks their-"

She catches Crowley's eye and goes silent, and the angel looks between them suspiciously while he's thinking, then stills, eyes almost as huge as hers. Then he shakes himself out with a little shudder like someone stepped on his grave and goes back to Crowley's coffee. He's not so innocent, Aziraphale, he has been in Soho for fucking centuries, he's probably more up to date on human sexual practices than Crowley is, he'd just rather not talk about them over tea.

"So why did you leave?" Crowley says, watching her eyes. He remembers trying to do barely enough, trying to leave kids out of it, trying to not put himself into the position where he'd have to do anything personally, keeping his hands as clean as he could. But most demons genuinely enjoy it, what they do to humans, and the eternity they have them for then -

Crowley spent millennia carefully feeding souls into that machine, sinking their souls to Hell forevermore. He keeps his eyes away from Aziraphale while he thinks it: Maybe he's got a long time left before he can wash all that dirt off his wings.

Ramiel looks back fidgety with nerves, clearly very frightened of him, but that helps; she's probably too scared to lie well. "I read the files," she says. "I never read them before but they said you done this thing with the telephones -"

"Yes, I remember," Crowley says, because he doesn't want these things enumerating in detail in front of Aziraphale, who calmly hands him a cup of coffee laced with cognac like nothing in this conversation is troubling him at all.

"- just, it was meant to be good, so I read it," Ramiel says. "Then I started readin' the lot of them, an' . . . then I started thinkin' all the time, I couldn't, I was always thinkin' about it. About the humans and what we done to them." Her eyes settle on, watch Crowley hold his coffee cup with one arm still long behind Aziraphale's back, which the angel finally settles back to now he's stopped faffing with the tea things, taking a serene sip from his cup. Crowley watches her watching them. Then she looks down at her own cup of - sugar, frankly, with a bit of tea in it, and she mumbles, "I was in love once."

Crowley tenses, Aziraphale looks up. It's Aziraphale who says, "What happened?"

"She died," Ramiel says, and shrugs. "Humans do, don't last five minutes. I really liked 'er though. I never checked where she went, I never . . . wanted to know. I don't think what we did means she shouldn't've gone to 'eaven. I 'ope not, anyway. She was nice. But - I dunno, reading them files, I kept thinking about 'er." She holds herself small, over her cup. "Tin't right what we do to them. Tin't."

They stare back, Crowley knowing he'll never admit to feeling very quietly impressed, Aziraphale's eyes full of five hundred emotions before they settle into a pained sort of softness, and he says, "Well, my dear," and the bell jangles, and he says, "- well - really, we are most decidedly closed -"

"Need to start locking that door, angel," Crowley says, but by then they've both turned their heads and Aziraphale has already clattered his teacup down, is on his feet between Crowley and the woman in the doorway in pale grey office wear, her sleek black hair smooth as water down her back. Crowley startles up in the same second of understanding as he feels Aziraphale's wings flare invisibly outwards, great wide wings not actually present on this world spread between that woman and Crowley like a shield: she's an angel.

Aziraphale has his hands up, Crowley can see every muscle thrumming in him, all calmness done. "Now, look, whatever you're here for -"

The angel looks at the two demons behind Aziraphale, confused and - frightened, not a common expression for most angels, before she looks back at Aziraphale. Her voice is unsteady. "You are the principality Aziraphale, aren't you?"

"Ah - well - yes, hello, if you've come here to cause trouble -"

"I've come here for your help," she says, her hands squeezing fists at her sides. "I - think I've just left Heaven. And now I don't know what to do."

Aziraphale blinks, too surprised to speak. Crowley leans on his shoulder, sing-songs to his ear, "What did I warn you would happen if you started bringing strays home . . . ?"

"Oy," Ramiel says, "I was 'ere first, I bagsed 'em."

The angel in the doorway blinks at her, and Crowley already knows exactly how this is going to go as Aziraphale stares at the angel just blank with too much to process for a long few seconds before he twitches the smile on, and says, "Would you, ah, would you like a cup of tea . . . ?"

*

Zophiel, sitting elegantly in an armchair (Ramiel is sliding down in hers, legs out long in a sulk of a slouch, Aziraphale knows the pose from Crowley) looks down into her cup and says, "You don't know what it's like, now."

"Well, it was hardly all that pleasant before," Aziraphale says delicately. "What's changed, since then?"

She looks up, tucks her hair behind her ear. ". . . Gabriel, mostly," she says. "I don't think he's handling the, the . . . stress very well."

"The stress," Crowley says, from his own sprawl on the sofa beside Aziraphale, and Zophiel flicks her dark gaze to him, then back to her cup, and then, after a pause, she finally looks at Aziraphale.

"There is a great deal of shouting. He knows not everyone wanted to fight, I didn't want to fight, but any expression of - relief, or anyone saying we shouldn't have - it would be treason, to him. But angels whisper, when they dare to, they just hardly dare to. And I couldn't - I couldn't, anymore. I don't want to go to Hell, I don't - I can't, but - you don't give your allegiance to either of them, do you? So I thought . . . if it's possible to leave and not Fall . . ."

"That's all?" Crowley says. "Gabriel's in a snotty mood so you want out? Bit thin, isn't it?"

She looks at Crowley, she with her back as straight as a sword, he almost puddling off the sofa his spine's so liquid. Her face is cold but then there's a tension at the mouth and eyebrows before she says, "I can't keep pretending it's right. The way we treat them, there's no care, we should care, we're angels. But it's all - numbers, paperwork, and testing them over and over, the humans, never giving them a day to themselves, never letting them be, it's - it must be exhausting for them, constantly being needled from above and below, it's not right. We were made to love. What happened to that? That's not what Gabriel's pushing now, it - it never was. We were supposed to love them. She told us to do that."

"I know," Aziraphale says, feeling so terribly sad, looking at her. "I remember."

Zophiel wets her lips, takes a slow breath in through her nose. "I thought it was Heaven or Hell and it was better to do a little for them than Fall and have to actively work to hurt them -"

Her eyes flit to the two demons in the room, Ramiel glaring sullenly at her, Crowley waving a hand. "Oh don't mind us, just furniture, we are."

Zophiel does choose to ignore him, which rather amuses Aziraphale. "Here is the only place between, I didn't know between was possible." she says. "I don't want to spend another six thousand years flagging files, picking and picking at them. They deserve some peace. I want to give them that, just that. I want to stop reading rulebooks and just - love. What is the point of Heaven if we don't love them?"

"I couldn't have said it better myself, my dear." Aziraphale says. "Biscuit?"

"Alright, all this aside," Crowley says, pushing his sunglasses up and rubbing his face with a palm, "what do you two think we're supposed to do? This isn't some sort of training camp for the resistance -"

"This is a bookshop," Aziraphale says, holding the plate across to Zophiel, adding conspiratorially, "The ones with dark chocolate have ginger in them."

"So what did you really think would happen if you came here? It's just us, there's no army to protect the pair of you from -" Crowley flicks his hand an angry no at the offered biscuits, once Ramiel has had her handful. "Gabriel, and Beelzebub. There's just us."

"You cn protec us frm Beelzebb," Ramiel says through her mouthful, and Aziraphale keeps his pained eyes away from her, crumbs everywhere, there'll be mice again and then all that stress of not wanting to use traps but knowing that if one of them eats his books or shits on his books, he's snapping his fingers and igniting the little fucker. "Blzebub's terrfied 'fyuh."

"And you can't be killed," Zophiel says, as if in awe, which makes Aziraphale feel very uneasy, mostly guilty of the lie of it. "Not even hellfire, there's nothing he can do to you."

"That's not exactly . . ."

"So you want to use us for protection, is that it?" Crowley cuts in. "Use us as shields to keep you safe?"

"Crowley, I'm sure that's not what they're . . ."

Zophiel lifts her head and looks Crowley square in the eye and says, "Maybe there should be a training camp for the resistance."

Crowley says, "And it's up to us to run it, is that it?"

She says coolly, "Maybe it should be."

Crowley's body straightens, grows tall, as he leans dangerously forwards. "And we don't get a choice, is that what you're thinking? It must be done so we have to do it? As above, so below?"

"You can do something. You know what Heaven and Hell are doing, what are you doing about it?"

Crowley's eyebrows are up in the way that doesn't mean anything good. "What are we doing about it? I don't know if you noticed but we recently stopped a fucking apocalypse, I think that made a bit of a difference -"

"Crowley, dear," Aziraphale says, still with the guilt sitting heavy in his stomach like a stodgy, ill-advised pudding. "Perhaps we should . . ."

"Office, angel." Crowley snarls, sliding from the sofa straight to his feet, already striding off for the doorway. Aziraphale can only sigh, smile politely to their two guests, say, "There's still a little in the pot." and put his cup down to follow Crowley's back, to his small book-lined office where he tends to the most injured books with glue and thread rather than miracles.

Inside Crowley's pacing up and down, he never does like to be still except for when he's asleep or when he's snuggling, though he probably wouldn't thank Aziraphale for bringing that up in front of anyone. "Crowley," Aziraphale says.

Crowley whips his sunglasses off and uses them to point out of the office in the direction of the demon and angel who have, it must be admitted, rather disrupted the day. "I don't like this," he says. "I don't like anything about it. I say we get rid of them."

"But we can't," Aziraphale says. "Where would they go?"

"So you want them to stay here, do you? In your bookshop, here, you want another rebel angel and demon drawing attention to us? They're letting us be, Heaven and Hell, they're ignoring us, you think they're going to ignore this?"

"According to Ramiel Hell would happily ignore this if it means not having to face you down," Aziraphale says, smiling hopefully, a little wickedly. Crowley glares at him, and clearly isn't in the mood.

"Heaven won't." he says bluntly. "You know what they're like. Hell expects disobedience, we're demons. Heaven demands obedience. They might be ignoring you now," he says, head beginning to shake, his eyes look so grim. "But they won't ignore this, and I'm not seeing you put in danger for the sake of those two. I say we get rid of them."

"I say we don't," Aziraphale says. "We can't throw them out, they have no-one."

"We had no-one, no-one came along and sheltered us."

"But it would have been nice," Aziraphale says, a little wistfully, "if they had."

Crowley stares at him and then says again, "We're getting rid of them."

"They don't have to be here forever. We just acclimatise them a bit so they know how to blend in, teach them how to fend for themselves."

"They're not the - pigeons with weird legs you chase around Soho Square to miracle better again! If they bring the wrath of Heaven here -"

Oh those poor pigeons; Aziraphale really does enjoy deciding for himself which miracles count as 'frivolous' now. But the more Crowley argues against the angel and demon outside the office, the more suddenly resolved Aziraphale finds himself in favour of it. Which Crowley really ought to have anticipated, he has no-one to blame for this but himself. "We've fought Heaven before," he says. "Or you have, for me, and we'd be together this time. Oh Crowley, it might be nice, another angel and demon about the place. I mean, Ramiel has a point, humans are gone in five minutes and we don't want to be one of those couples who don't have friends -"

"I do!" Crowley says. "I do want to be one of those couples who don't have friends, that's literally what I want!"

Oh, Crowley. "You are a very sweet man," Aziraphale tells him, and touches his cheek. "But we have been at a bit of a loose end, haven't we?"

They love their routine but Aziraphale does worry about them sticking in a rut, he worries Crowley will become bored of him, he isn't especially interesting really and they've got eternity to get through, he doesn't want to bore him in the first few years. They've talked about going on holiday and never really got around to it. Aziraphale had suggested they get a dog to give them something to do and Crowley asked what for as if he really couldn't imagine what the point would be, and Aziraphale had said, "Well you feed them, and play with them, and take them for walks in the park and such, they're fun." and Crowley had given him a second's sideways look before saying, "But I already have something to feed and play with and take for walks in the park." and when Aziraphale had actually followed his meaning, he had felt quite cross. But really, it's more than just not getting bored -

Maybe they should fight back more, not just keep their heads down. The machines of Heaven and Hell roll on, grinding souls up under their wheels, and it's long pained Aziraphale because it's not right, some of the pettier reasons for sending souls to Hell, eternity is too high a price to pay for most casual human badness especially when it's been tempted into them by all that demonic tinkering to begin with. Aziraphale doesn't agree with the very worst sorts being taken to a nice afterlife but eternity, eternity, he and Crowley have done six thousand years and it's nothing next to eternity. And it's so arbitrary that at whatever unlucky moment they die, there can be no repenting then. Why can't the soul come to know better and repent in death what it couldn't in life? What difference is there, really? It's not like they were in possession of all the facts in life, they only get those after they die. So why don't they do something about it, something to make it better -

He's allowed to have these thoughts now, after bottling them up for millennia, so he has rather a lot of them.

Still, Crowley says, "I haven't been at a loose end, I've been fine. And you'll never be bored, you're only halfway through that jigsaw puzzle."

"You keep scoffing at my jigsaw puzzle, Crowley, but you still keep eyeing it, and pointing out edge pieces to me," Aziraphale says. "Crowley - it's awful, what they do to humans, Heaven and Hell. It's awful what they do to us. Can't we do something? If we don't they might start up their next war and we'll be right in the middle of it and - Crowley, my darling, I love you, but I don't want to run away to Alpha Centauri with you and leave behind everything and I know you don't really want to either. We can do something. We can help. And if we honestly could make some middle ground - what would you have given, before, for some middle ground?"

Crowley's face twists on that, and then he sucks his breath in through his nose and hardens again. He says, like it shares all the great blind crushing weight of the ocean floor, "I'm not risking you."

Aziraphale's still touching his face, and staring into his eyes, and it twists his heart like a violin string snapping but he lets a shivery breath out, and strokes Crowley's cheekbone with his thumb. "I know," he whispers. "I know, Crowley, dearest. And I know it's not fair of me to do it, I know it isn't, but - I'm asking you to, my dear." He swallows. He knows he's being unfair. "Please."

Aziraphale has never really found the bottom of the well of what Crowley would do for him if he wanted it. This might be it, might be the line Crowley draws, might be the last thing he can ask Crowley to give him knowing that Crowley will give it; but Crowley, after staring into his eyes, closes his eyes and groans, softly, and his arms wrap close around Aziraphale's waist.

He leans his face in, resting his forehead off Aziraphale's, as Aziraphale blinks, swaying a little towards him, Crowley very close always has a strangely hypnotic effect on him. "You're going to owe me," Crowley breathes over his mouth. "You're going to owe me being so fucking careful every minute of the day, Aziraphale -"

"Yes," Aziraphale whispers, and he can feel the invisible span of Crowley's wings closing around his back - he feels it all the way through his soul, being totally enclosed by Crowley, his skin ripples, it's like being utterly lost, utterly helpless, and utterly safe.

Crowley hisses to his mouth, "Promise me. You'll be careful. You'll be careful."

He has just enough presence of mind left to manage, "I promise," very softly, and then Crowley kisses him and Aziraphale's body finds the strength to surge up closer to him again, a bit of awareness of anything other than overwhelming Crowley coming back to him. He presses Crowley's chest with both palms to break the kiss - just to pull his head back and frown at the demon, and say, "You really had best promise it too, my dear."

"Yes, yes," Crowley says, leaning in again but Aziraphale stops him with a palm over his mouth.

"Properly," he says. "You swear you'll keep yourself safe for me, Crowley, as safe as I'll keep you -"

"You're protecting me now are you? - oh angel, yes, yes, yes, you know I'll keep myself safe, someone has to be there to keep an eye out for you. Now come back here." His hand slides up Aziraphale's jaw, guiding his mouth back. "We're not done yet."

It feels terribly naughty, kissing in his office with a strange angel and demon sitting outside waiting for them. Maybe that's why it's so nice.

*

There had been some confusion over where Zophiel and Ramiel could stay, as the demon Crowley insisted they weren't coming to his flat with them. "They can stay in your basement," he said to Aziraphale, who said, "The bookshop hasn't got a basement." and then, "Oh, Crowley, I wish you wouldn't do things to my bookshop without asking."

Zophiel suspects that both of them have had an influence on the room underneath the shop itself, which has stark concrete walls, a cream carpet with a grandmotherly pattern, and the single small window at pavement level, high in the wall, is full of stained glass; come the morning, the light coming through will be cast into colour like rainbows. It also has bunk beds, and Crowley had muttered under his breath, "Really, angel," and Aziraphale had said, "They're fun!"

So they've been left here for the night, Zophiel and the demon, Ramiel, a fishy creature with limp light hair and eyes silvery as her scales. Aziraphale stacked up some books for them that might help them to understand humanity, and given that he is the Heavenly - formerly-Heavenly - expert on all things human, Zophiel sits on the top bunk, diligently reading a book called Daniel Deronda, though it doesn't seem to be very much about a person called Daniel Deronda. Ramiel was laying on her back on the bunk below her, trying to spin a book on the tip of a finger, but she got up some time ago and now she's upstairs, Zophiel doesn't know where or why, she's certain she ought not to be though.

There's the happy thump-thump-thumping of the demon coming downstairs fast, and she says, "Look, angel, drink!"

She's climbing up the ladder of the beds, and Zophiel lowers her book, frowns at her. Ramiel waves a bottle at her which could contain blood for all Zophiel knows, and Zophiel looks at her, levelly, and says, "Should you have that?"

"It was where anyone could get it," Ramiel says, popping the cork out with a low, friendly noise. "Anyone who went an' found the key hid under the desk an' unlocked the cupboard an' dug around in the back. Share?"

She is having trouble concentrating on the book, all of Heaven and what she's done are booming in her head like storm breakers, but she still says, "We're supposed to be acclimatising ourselves to Earth."

"On Earth," Ramiel says, scooting herself to sit on the edge of the bed, legs dangling, "they drinks. Trust me."

"You're a demon," Zophiel points out - trust her, honestly - and Ramiel rolls her big round fish's eyes.

"Not anymore, we're out of all that, in't we? An' I've bin 'ere before. Trust me. Humans? Love a drink. Anyway," she offers the bottle across, waggling it at Zophiel. "We're celebratin', aren't we?"

"That's a very strange way of wording it," Zophiel says, thinking of the wrath of Gabriel and God. But she sets her book aside, unfolding her legs from their neat lotus to hang them over the edge of the bed beside Ramiel, and she does take the bottle. "What is this?" she says, sniffing the rim, not really liking having to share sips from the same bottle.

"Port, s'good stuff. Oh, I thought -" Ramiel digs in the pockets of the heavy coat she's wearing even in here, and pulls out a glass. "I thought you looked the prissy type, look, you pours, I'll 'old it for you."

". . . thank you," Zophiel says, choosing to overlook 'prissy'.

She takes a sip, once the glass is handed to her. It looks a little like blood after all but it tastes delicious, rich and raisiny, too dense a flavour to call it truly sweet. Ramiel takes a swig and a happy sigh, and shuffles to lean her back against the wall, legs dangling. "What d'you reckon then?" she says. "Them two."

Zophiel turns her glass, looking into the play of light on its slick dark surface. "They're not quite what I expected," she says, and Ramiel gives a low giggle of agreement.

All of Heaven knows that the principality Aziraphale refused orders, walked out of Heaven and joined forces with a demon, stopped the apocalypse and the final great war and when brought back for punishment, faced Gabriel down talking about 'the greater good' and stepped into the hellfire himself - and didn't burn. And what Zophiel had imagined from an angel who could do all that - well, not that rather timid, fussy creature. She had imagined how certain an angel would have to be to do all that, how strong, how his courage must be the largest part of him -

He looks a little frightened just as what seems to be his resting expression, and the largest part of that angel is the way he looks at the demon. And she doesn't quite know how to think, now that she can see that Aziraphale might have done it all for the greater good but he did it mostly for him. She'd thought some of the rumours were a smear put out by Gabriel himself and she's unnerved to find them largely true. As much as anything else, she's fairly certain that the angel who defied Heaven and yet didn't Fall shouldn't be nearly interested as he is in biscuits.

She'd filed a lot of Aziraphale's paperwork over the centuries, constantly having to flag files for not only miracles outside of his particular orders or jurisdiction - mending beggars' shoes, healing a butterfly he'd accidentally squashed, when he already ought to have been eighty miles away blessing an elderly priest - but frankly absurd uses of miracles as well, correcting the apostrophes on a greengrocer's sign, putting a hole into the shoe of a rude man on a wet day. Really, some of his paperwork was so apologetic, she should have known what to imagine when she met him. But how was she supposed to balance the angel they can't burn with reports signed off with Terribly, terribly sorry to be such a bothersome fusspot again.

"What are they saying in Hell?" she says, taking another delicate sip. "About those two?"

Ramiel glances across at her, says over the raised bottle, "What's they sayin' in 'eaven?"

Zophiel breathes, slowly. She says, "They say the demon seduced him from righteousness into the lust-poisoned pleasures of demonic flesh that no angel should even desire to know."

"Oh," Ramiel says. "They says much worse in 'ell."

Zophiel swallows her mouthful, looks at her uneasily. "What are they saying?"

Ramiel says, "They says he loves 'im," and takes a swig from the bottle.

Zophiel frowns. "How can that be worse?"

Ramiel sighs. "Lust's onny five minutes. Love's a fucker."

Zophiel doesn't know what to say to that. All she's ever really done is file paperwork. They were supposed to love humans, but not like that. But maybe you have to be allowed to love like that, if you need to, she thinks, to be able to love the way She wanted them to. If you deny people the ability to love what they truly do love with all of their heart, what does that do to their heart?

Ramiel says, "You 'as pretty eyes."

Zophiel sits her back straight, and glares at the demon. "Don't try to seduce me," she says hotly. "I'm not falling for it, I'm not interested in - in - in flesh."

"It was onny a, what d'you call it, a observation," Ramiel says, taking a swig of port. "'s hard to imagine," she says. "Master Crowley an' that angel, doin' the nasty."

"Then don't imagine it." Zophiel says, low and hard. She's trying not to herself. She's never known an angel - and with a demon. She doesn't know what to make of them, and has no idea, now, sitting in this basement sharing a drink with a demon and knowing that now she can never, never go back, that she's made anything like the right decision.

Ramiel lowers the bottle from a swig with a hollow popping noise. "Master Crowley in't 'alf of what I imagined when I read 'is reports. I mean, he's scary, I wouldn' cross 'im for a dukedom, but I thought . . . 'e was a genius for fucking people's souls up, right. Not one at a time, 'e really got it, 'ow you can smear a thousand of the poor buggers 'stead of swallowin' one 'ole. He did this thing with the phones once, made it so 'alf of London 'ad a shitter of a day an' went around takin' it out on other people so he 'ardly 'ad to lift a finger for all that bad to spread. I filed every bloke who went 'ome an' punched 'is girlfriend, every parent screamin' at their kids, every pet what got it or the cleaners or the people in shops, got a stabbin' out of it even. All of it gettin' passed along, took a couple of days before the ripples all went quiet. 'e was a genius for it. I thought he'd be - all malice an' all-knowin', an' that." She stares at nothing, over the bottle, eyes glassy and distant. "An' now I come 'ere an' he's all soppy for some angel who looks like - like an angel."

"They're soppy for each other," Zophiel points out.

"Yeah, but, Master Crowley never wanted to keep us, but the angel said yes so yes it is." Ramiel grins at her. "You lot can't be all bad then, right?"

"Quite," Zophiel murmurs, and when Ramiel offers the bottle, she holds her glass up for another pour.

They drink in silence for a moment, not a hostile silence, which is what Zophiel's ruminating on as she drinks in small sips the rich thick liquor she's been offered by a demon. She's never been so close to a demon before, never had a conversation with one. Is this how Aziraphale began his walk away from Heaven? He shared a drink with that demon, and . . .

Ramiel says, "They're prob'ly at it right now, they're prob'ly never off each other. Do you reckon they's the kinky leg-speaders an' butt plugs an' leather sort or they's like, missionary starin' into each other's eyes cryin' 'cause they loves each other so much, 'cause I'm - really reckonin' it could be either."

Zophiel coughs her port back into her glass, coughs until the demon has to pat her between the shoulder blades, and she will never, she will never, understand how that angel can bond himself to any demon if they behave like this.

Finally she croaks, furiously, "How can you manage 'they're' sometimes and 'they's' the rest of the time, how can you not understand the rule if you're capable of applying it?"

Ramiel looks at her openly, curiously. "Is they rules, then?"

"And stop talking about them - making love!"

"Yeah," Ramiel says, raising the bottle to her mouth again. "Missionary an' weepin'. You're prob'ly right."

*

Crowley sprawls on the whole sofa, given the opportunity, as Aziraphale's sitting on the floor in front of the coffee table focused on his five thousand piece jigsaw puzzle of The School of Athens. Crowley watches him lazily, just looking at Aziraphale's face is a nice way to pass the time and Aziraphale placid and intent, for once, not flustered, fussing or fretting, is particularly nice. Light has a way of striking Aziraphale, a softness as if it holds its breath when touching him, a luminosity where it edges his skin, his hair. Like a halo.

Crowley knows why Aziraphale's on the jigsaw tonight: The angel doesn't like leaving a strange angel and demon in his bookshop overnight, is probably managing a dread in his guts that he'll arrive to it burned down for a second time tomorrow, and he's controlling his stress as best he can. And Crowley doesn't want to have a fight about those two turning up and demanding shelter - there's already the open box of chocolates balanced on a corner of the coffee table where Aziraphale is working, as a reminder of this morning's fight - but he doesn't like it, and he doesn't think Aziraphale likes it either. They'd been keeping their heads down. They'd been getting by, free from Heaven and Hell. And now all this, fuck, Crowley really does not like knowing that danger is edging the ground that Aziraphale is standing on. Take away Aziraphale and Crowley has less than nothing, without Aziraphale he's just waiting to die and take out as many others with him as he can, and he will keep Aziraphale, he will keep him safe, whatever he has to do . . .

"That one there," he says, without lifting his head from where his cheek's mushed into his own forearm. "Aristotle's hand."

Aziraphale murmurs, eyes still on his puzzle, "What, dear?"

"That one. Hand. Hand with palm down, that's Aristotle's hand, it goes -"

"Which - Crowley, you're gesturing at about two hundred pieces, which one?"

Crowley groans out loud at the absurdity of this and slides off the sofa to pluck the piece from the tabletop and fit it into the incursion from the jigsaw's empty edge Aziraphale has been working on towards Plato and Aristotle. "There."

Aziraphale tuts. "You've knocked it all crooked now, you can never do it gently -"

Never do it gently, Crowley parrots mockingly in his head, eyes on the ceiling.

"There," Aziraphale says, having got the empty edges of the puzzle set parallel again, and with not entirely good grace, "thank you."

"You're welcome," Crowley says and means it about as much as Aziraphale did, and as he's on the floor anyway he shifts sideways just enough to wrap his arms around the angel, sitting flush to his back, tucking him in a little towards himself by hooking his chin over Aziraphale's shoulder. They look down at the puzzle in silence, until Aziraphale flexes a socked foot, and says quietly, "I do hope it'll be alright."

Crowley is lazily staring at Aziraphale's foot; the sock is sand-coloured, with a pattern of light beige diamonds up the side. He remembers the first time Aziraphale took his shoes off in Crowley's flat (laying them neatly side by side), the first time he was anything but immaculately dressed from bow tie to polished shoe in front of him. Aziraphale is less squeamish about nakedness than might be thought - he seems to view genitalia as no different to any other body part, like hands and elbows but less useful - but not appearing pristine and polished in front of other people is anathema to him, and the first time Crowley saw him in merely socks felt more intimate, more private than mere nudity. He's still rarely any form of déshabillé even around Crowley, unless pyjamas count, but Aziraphale shoeless and with his hair fluffed and bowtie pulled a little loose by enthusiastic kissing is a very special treat for him.

Crowley murmurs, still staring at Aziraphale's foot, "Do you mean the shop or the situation as a whole?"

Aziraphale sighs, a sigh of too much heavy thought. "Both, really. Do you think we've done the right thing?"

"Do you think it's a bit late to ask me that after you already insisted we do it?"

". . . it is the right thing," Aziraphale says, slowly. "I just don't truly know if it's the right thing, now."

That is, indeed, the problem. Aziraphale has always been hopeless with trolley problems, if God has a Plan and everything is either definitively good or definitively bad, ethical dilemmas don't exist, there's no such thing as a situation where the right option is also wrong; you do the right thing or the wrong thing, you just don't always know that you are doing the right or wrong thing when you do it, only God knows that. Now he's found that the world is a bit more complicated than that he doesn't know how to balance everything properly, because it's not really the right thing if it gets both of them killed. Which is why Crowley didn't want to do it, because his approach to trolley problems is to pick the track that helps him and Aziraphale or at least hurts them least, and whatever goes underneath the wheels should have thought about its decisions before getting in their way.

Aziraphale takes a slow breath in, says, "If it all goes - wrong -"

"Pear-shaped," Crowley offers.

Aziraphale tuts. "It's a terrible slander on pears," he says. "Anyway," he adds, looking down at his own waistcoat, "I'm rather pear-shaped myself."

"You're perfect shaped," Crowley says, and runs his nose along the edge of Aziraphale's hairline, behind his ear, where he smells lovely. "If it all goes wrong."

"Ah - yes. Um." Aziraphale swallows, and his body gives a particularly happy wriggle when Crowley scratches with a knuckle the hollow at the nape of his neck. "If it all goes wrong. Crowley - what do we do?"

Crowley closes his eyes against the angel's hair, feeling distant from the stress of it with Aziraphale in his arms, his nose pressed to the skin behind his ear. "Plan B's never changed," he says there.

"Alpha Centauri," Aziraphale murmurs. "But - Crowley - darling -" There's something in his voice, and Crowley opens his eyes, snake-slowly. "There's nothing to do out there. Are you sure you won't get bored of me?"

Crowley lifts his head, tucks Aziraphale closer in his arm and sighs to the side of his neck before he kisses it. "Oh, angel. You know I'll never get bored of you. Anyway, we can take your jigsaw."

"Crowley . . ." The angel's voice is wavering between being serious and not wanting to come across as if this is too serious. "Do you - promise, that you won't get bored of me?"

Crowley slips a hand around Aziraphale's jaw, turns his head so he can catch his eye, and hold it, and swear to his nervous, soft brown gaze, "I swear it on my soul."

It's a nice kiss. Aziraphale lifts a hand, holds Crowley's cheek. Crowley still doesn't believe he's allowed this sometimes, to be Aziraphale's only and everything, forever. He can't - manage, this, the emotions inside, the great nervy sparking, like someone just threw a match into a firework store and after the first few flashes and pops -

Boom, as the kiss breaks, and Aziraphale looks back at the jigsaw and presses his bottom lip inwards, fingers stroking at Crowley's cheek a little; Crowley hangs his head to get the bearings of all the madness of colour and light inside himself, he doesn't know how to contain it -

He swallows, says as offhand as he can manage, "So you won't be getting bored of me either, then?"

Aziraphale looks at him, his expression calm now, too certain for concern. His eyes just look at Crowley for a moment, Crowley's never certain of what he sees, but the more he looks the more fascinated he looks, like Aziraphale just finds more and more in his face, and his fingers run gently over his cheek. He says, eyes moving from the resting place they found on Crowley's mouth back to his eyes, with a very small sweet smile, "Not for all of eternity, my dear."

He doesn't understand his own feelings. Aziraphale's are as baffling to him as humans must find miracles, the constant refrain under the depth of it is but how- ?

Aziraphale untucks his pocket watch, checks the time and sighs. "Come on, it's getting late." he says. "Off to Bedfordshire."

Crowley rolls his head back, groans at the ceiling, "God I wish you wouldn't call it that . . ."

"Come on, you silly thing." Aziraphale says, tugging Crowley up by a hand. "I want to get back to my book, and I'm sure you want to sleep."

Aziraphale does sleep some nights, luxuriates in curling up with Crowley and drifting, together. Mostly he reads, though, while Crowley finds some comfortable part of his lovely comfortable body for sleeping on. Tonight Crowley knew there was no chance of Aziraphale sleeping; now they've unintentionally needled Heaven and Hell, someone has to stand guard.

Crowley used to think of himself as pretty rock and roll but now he spends his evenings helping an angel with an unreasonably large jigsaw puzzle before getting into his pyjamas and going to sleep at a reasonable hour next to him, and basically, fuck rock and roll, Aziraphale is better. He lays an arm around his stomach in the bed, gets his cheek settled to the angel's shoulder, the comfort of his flesh over the solidity of the bones. Aziraphale opens his book, propped on pillows and already looking focused and intent. Some nights Crowley doesn't sleep much. Some nights he just watches Aziraphale read, the way his face changes, the way he's still, and silent, rapt. Sometimes Crowley thinks, alone amongst the stars, they could kill eternity just staring at each other, eye contact especially just seems to do something for them. Then one of them will piss the other one off without even noticing again and Crowley thinks, This, fuck, this is how we'll spend eternity, bickering, and you know what I fucking love it.

He doesn't care what colour my wings are, he thinks. He loves me. You hear that, God? You gave him six thousand years to be certain, he's certain, he loves me.

So it doesn't matter what She thinks. Crowley has Aziraphale. He doesn't need God.

"Goodnight, dear," Aziraphale says, resting a hand in Crowley's hair, and Crowley grunts, and closes his eyes. Aziraphale breathes against him as soft as a summer ocean, forget-me-not blue and gentle as love itself, and turns the page.

*

It's Crowley's idea but Aziraphale is pathetically eager to agree that for the time being, Ramiel and Zophiel need to keep their heads down. They don't know how Heaven and Hell will respond to their desertion and they don't know how capable the angel and demon are of blending in amongst humans right now anyway - humans wouldn't notice Ramiel's gills if she didn't want them to, but they will notice if Ramiel doesn't think anything of setting someone's head on fire because they shoved past her on the pavement, so they need some Earth etiquette lessons first. Aziraphale agrees fervently, mostly, Crowley knows, because he doesn't want them in the bookshop itself, making the place even weirder and likely crashing his TripAdvisor ratings even further.

Ramiel and Zophiel agree to stay in the basement for a few more days too. Ramiel because she's openly terrified of Crowley which Crowley intends to cultivate all he can, and Zophiel because she seems to regard Aziraphale as an authority figure to be respected and obeyed, which Aziraphale clearly doesn't know what to make of.

The other part of Crowley's idea is unspoken: He's not leaving his angel's side for a moment until they know how safe they are.

He lays on his back on the bookshop sofa, regular customers are hardly unused to him there, one leg thrown over the sofa's arm and having a really good sprawl, he's certain that sustained and varied sprawling is good for the spine. Aziraphale is dusting some shelves, tutting over where customers have left books - "This is clearly on Babylonia and some fool's left it in the Assyria section -" and just pottering that way he does, tending to the books, it's not unlike having plants, Crowley muses. Less shouting, though. He doesn't see the point if you don't get to shout.

The bell rings, there have been a handful of customers this morning but Crowley still looks to check, to be sure; this time he looks a fraction of a second after Aziraphale has already dropped the book in his hand which hits the floor with a bang that startles through the shop, the two customers present both jump and look over -

At Aziraphale staring white-faced at Gabriel, Sandalphon walking in behind him, Crowley already sliding from the sofa feeling a snake's fangs opening his mouth as Gabriel puts on that empty smile of his and then switches it off again, and greets Aziraphale with a corporately friendly, "Traitor."

"Crowley." Aziraphale snaps without even turning his head, and behind him Crowley freezes in his stalking towards that thing, that thing that calls itself an angel, he remembers every second of what that thing wanted to do to Aziraphale - "I can handle this," Aziraphale says, hard, and Crowley just stands there, watching the two angels face each other, Sandalphon at Gabriel's back looking all around the shop before he looks right at Crowley and grins like a rat baring its teeth. Crowley glares back so hard his sunglasses could melt. He knows why Aziraphale has told him to stay out of this, knows that it is not a good idea for him to try to kill Gabriel but every ember of his burnt-black heart is searing inside him, he wants to.

Angels and demons feel each other like static electricity. Gabriel feels like the voltage is about to blow.

"Gabriel, Sandalphon," Aziraphale says, attention finally actually on the Archangel in front of him and the quaver in his voice is so slight it hurts Crowley's throat worse than open fear would. "May I help you?"

Gabriel says, "I think you already know I'm not here for one of your -" He snaps his fingers. "- things -"

"Books," Sandalphon supplies in a murmur.

Gabriel's brittle smile twitches again. "You know why I'm here."

"Well," Aziraphale says, hands clasping behind his back, Crowley can see how tight they grip, "unlike our omniscient Lord I'm afraid you have me at a, ah, a disadvantage, Gabriel. Are you sure I can't help you to a book? Undergraduate ethics, perhaps?"

Crowley's mouth opens with the shock of delight, from Aziraphale that is an insult to the marrow of a person's being but Gabriel just says, "Cut the crap, demon. Where's the deserter?"

It takes Aziraphale a second - it takes Crowley a second - and then Aziraphale says, mostly confused, "I'm not a demon."

Gabriel is walking up and down in front of Aziraphale like he can't keep still. "No? Oh no? You think I don't know what that whole business with the hellfire was?"

Crowley's heart coughs, and stops; Aziraphale's mouth moves silently, if there was any colour left in his face it's gone now, his skin's like paper, and eventually he stammers, "Wh- what was the - business with the - hellfire . . . ?"

Gabriel snatches something from his inside jacket pocket and roars triumphantly, "This!" and -

Dashes a bottle of water into Aziraphale's face.

Crowley lurches forward and Aziraphale barks, "No-" throwing an arm out, and a wing, Crowley feels it invisible between himself and Aziraphale like a shield. "- I can handle this, Crowley," Aziraphale grinds out through his teeth, a little unevenly, and Crowley hangs there on the balls of his feet, heart stopping his throat up, poised to - to -

Aziraphale, eyes closed, stands there and drips. Then, eyes still closed, he pats at his pocket, and draws out his handkerchief. He pointedly snaps it out, and dabs the water from his face, and then opens his eyes and looks at Gabriel and says, "I hope that you're happy, this suit is dry clean only."

Gabriel is staring at him, staring, like his brain has got itself stuck somewhere and can't find the door to get out. Sandalphon gives a wheezy, frightened sound almost like laughter, and Crowley understands why Aziraphale didn't want Crowley lunging forward to help him now; that's holy water he's dripping onto the bookshop floor, and besides killing Crowley here and now it would completely give the game away about their little switch. Aziraphale pats at his waistcoat and jacket with the handkerchief, says, "Well honestly, what did you hope to achieve with that? You could have just asked me if I'd Fallen, this is really needlessly dramatic and terrible for the books, if you're going to throw holy water around in here I will have to bar you, you know."

Gabriel is still just staring at him. Sandalphon says, "Is this some kind of trick?"

"Oh for goodness' - here." Aziraphale reaches awkwardly behind himself, rummaging in the air behind his back and wriggling his shoulder blades, then his hand comes back holding something as white as a star; a single feather, fluffy at its base and coming to a perfect clean point like a blade. "Take this," he says, sounding just cross, throwing it at the two angels in the doorway; it flutters oddly in the bookshop's lazy air currents, and Aziraphale has to clumsily fan his hands at it to send it looping loosely towards Gabriel, who doesn't seem able to think what to do but grab at and catch it. "If you ever see even a tinge of grey in that then you can come down here and douse me in holy water and gloat at your leisure but for the time being would you please stop blocking the doorway of my bookshop and throwing water around in here like - teenagers, honestly -"

Something has lowered, behind Gabriel's face. All the muscles seem to have sagged. He says, "Where's Zophiel?"

Aziraphale, still riding on his indignation from having water thrown at him in his own bookshop, says tartly, "Where Zophiel is is Zophiel's business."

"It's all my business, I'm an Archangel, what the Hell even are you now?"

Hands coming to clasp behind his back again, neat on his feet, Aziraphale says sweetly, "I'm the proprietor of a bookshop. You really should leave now, Gabriel."

"You're not surprised that I asked you for the deserter," Gabriel says, leaning to look right into Aziraphale's eyes (damn, he's known Aziraphale just as long as Crowley has, he knows that's where it all shows), spinning that porcelain-white feather between his fingers by the quill. Crowley finds that he really doesn't like the sight of Gabriel touching one of Aziraphale's feathers, even if it's not attached to Aziraphale right now. Gabriel says, looking Aziraphale dead in the eye, "None of this is a surprise to you, is it? You're sheltering a deserter under our noses -"

Literally, Crowley thinks; Zophiel's below their feet while they talk.

Aziraphale holds his neck steady and looks back at Gabriel with - that look, that way he gets angry, like he's surprised he even is cross, there's always confusion behind anger on his face - "You might be an Archangel in Heaven, Gabriel, but this is Earth, where the entire point is that free will is exercised whether you may like its outcome or not. And now if you genuinely don't intend to buy anything would you please vacate my bookshop, you are causing a scene."

Gabriel stares, glares, into his eyes. Aziraphale's back does not quiver.

And then Gabriel leans back from their staring match and stabs a point at Aziraphale with his own feather. "Don't think I'm not watching you. Don't think treason is a thing we forget."

"Yes, well, I'll just start wearing waterproofs to work, shall I?" Aziraphale says in his bitchiest of mutters, flicking at the water on his waistcoat with both hands as Gabriel marches for the door.

Sandalphon says, "Don't think this is over."

"Better hurry up," Crowley says. "Daddy's on his way out, and you wouldn't want to get left behind with us."

Sandalphon's expression stills, his eye flits between the soggy Aziraphale and Crowley, smirking dangerously from deeper in the shop; and he hurries after Gabriel, as the bell dings behind them.

As soon as the door's closed Aziraphale groans, staggering backwards almost in a circle as his knees come loose, saying, "I snapped at Gabriel - I was sarcastic at Gabriel -"

"Angel-"

Aziraphale flinches back. "Don't touch me!"

Crowley hovers, eyes wide, Aziraphale breathing quick and staring back, and in the silence spreading out from the epicentre of their shock they remember the two staring customers who heard every word of that, and below them -

"You have all been so absorbed in your browsing," Zophiel says, the top step creaking as she emerges onto the shop floor, "that you noticed nothing that's happened around you for the last five minutes."

The two staring customers stand back slack on their feet, eyes distant.

"An' now you just remembered somethin' dead important you gotta go do right this minute now." Ramiel says, snapping her fingers, and the two customers look startled, put down their books and hurry for the door.

Aziraphale, still holy water damp and looking very nervous about it, backs away from Crowley, naked fear in his eyes. "Zophiel," he says, "would you be so good as to help me clear up this mess, Crowley - Crowley -"

He can't touch him. It would be the last time he ever touched him.

Aziraphale's smile flickers, really trying to be real. "How about you take Ramiel downstairs away from all this until we get it cleaned up, hm?"

". . . yeah." Crowley looks around, spots Ramiel who's only just understood what the scene in front of her means and looks glassy with terror. "Yeah, yeah. Come on, Ramiel, back down into the dark with us."

Ramiel's probably just had her closest encounter with holy water in her entire life - six thousand years and she's only just looked at what death is with no shield between her and the puddle of it - and is only too eager for Crowley to keep her company in the basement, apparently for her sake, they're not letting anyone know that Crowley's immunity to holy water is a lie. Crowley paces the basement floor, head full of Gabriel and the way Aziraphale looked at him - the fear but the forgetting of the fear as well, Crowley always knew that Aziraphale could ride the wings of simple indignation to face down God Herself if he had to -

Hugging her legs to herself, huddled on the bottom bunk, Ramiel says, "When they put you in that baff -"

It takes Crowley a moment to know what the Heaven she's talking about; Aziraphale, he remembers. When Aziraphale climbed into a bath of holy water for him, watched by half of Hell.

"You wasn' even scared," Ramiel whispers over her knees, gills flexing nervously in her neck. "'ow can you not be scared?"

"Practice." Crowley says. He's been scared for most of the past six thousand years, he knows how to wear it. Already walking for the staircase he says, "I'll go check upstairs." and Ramiel, hugging her knees on the bed, doesn't say anything.

The two angels are still fussing about at something so Crowley slips into Aziraphale's little office to wait. It's only a minute before Aziraphale walks in muttering to himself ("- honestly -" is the only word Crowley needs to know exactly what he's muttering about), starting when he sees Crowley there. Crowley says, "You dry?"

Aziraphale rolls his eyes in annoyance at ever having been made wet. "Yes, finally, what an absol-"

The rest of the sentence is lost in Crowley's mouth as Aziraphale's back bangs the wall but he never panics to finding Crowley on top of him, bravest of all angels, as Crowley pulls him in by the lapels kissing him and almost growling to his mouth, "You were magnificent, that was incredibly fucking sexy -"

One of Aziraphale's hands is pulling Crowley's jacket taut at the back, the other slipping up over his shoulder as he trades urgent kisses with him, mumbling to his mouth, "I was so scared I thought I was going to be a bit sick, I was - was I sexy? I don't think I've ever been sexy before."

"You - oh for fuck's sake angel." Crowley holds his face and says to his mouth, his delicious, dangerous angel, "You were brilliant. I'm going to buy you your weight in crêpes."

"I'm an angel, my weight is whatever I want it to be," Aziraphale points out, hand flexing its grip on Crowley's jacket before he lets go and just lays both arms over Crowley's shoulders, eyes very close and very focused on Crowley. "You're committing to an indefinite number of crêpes, Crowley."

"All the crêpes," Crowley agrees fervently, and kisses him again, hiking him closer in an arm. Aziraphale is beginning to smile against Crowley's mouth, can't control it; Crowley pulls him up into a hug almost over his shoulder, Aziraphale's shoe-tips skimming the floor, laughing now as Crowley says, "You were incredible, you showed that bastard-"

There's a knock, at the doorframe behind them. Crowley turns so he can see, Aziraphale still practically slung over one shoulder, and there in the doorway is Zophiel, just a little too straight-backed but mostly contained, Ramiel behind her twisting nervous hands together. Aziraphale gives a little swing of his legs to be let down and Crowley releases him, so Aziraphale can regain his footing and resettle his bowtie, as Zophiel says, "We can find somewhere else, so we don't bring more danger here. We think we'll be safer together, it seems . . . it seems stateless angels need to mind each other's backs. But we shouldn't expect you two to have ours. We can find a way, on our own."

. . . this time Aziraphale doesn't have to say it, Crowley already knows it, already feels it. Bringing Gabriel himself here to demand the return of a rebel angel, making Aziraphale confront him, it's a quick sick beat high up in his chest, the anxiety of it. But he knows what Aziraphale feels, Aziraphale was the one who stood his ground, and Crowley gets it as well, now. When he was flung out of Heaven at least he had Hell to go to. The four of them here now, angels and demons, they are stateless. Every last one of them is a refugee, and Crowley's seen thousands of years of what this world does to refugees, he knows they need to have each other's backs.

He can't expect Aziraphale to face down every angel, every time Gabriel appears. They need Zophiel and Ramiel, they never know whey they might need help too. And as Aziraphale shifts nervously, preparing to speak, Crowley puts a hand on his shoulder, squeezes, he knows.

"Nah," he says. "You're better off here. They can find you wherever you go, might as well stay where we can keep an eye on each other."

Aziraphale's head turns immediately to look at him like Crowley just set the moon up in the sky and Crowley's heart gasps in, the clean pure air of the moments when he feels how Aziraphale -

It's more than love, what Aziraphale was made for, what he gives to Crowley now. Crowley feels, in these moments when his face opens with that innocent awe how Aziraphale worships him, Crowley feels the reverence of it like deep clear water. And he feels bathed in it, purer than holy water, safe within it, and he feels certain, now.

Zophiel watches their faces, Ramiel hunches her arms around herself. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah," Crowley says, and puts a casual arm around Aziraphale's shoulders. "Fuck Heaven, and fuck Hell too. There's already no going back for any of us, so now there's Heaven, Hell, and here, and our job is keeping here safe. Right?"

Aziraphale lifts a hand, touches Crowley's wrist where it hangs over his shoulder, murmurs, "I couldn't have put it better myself, my dear."

Zophiel watches them alert and thinking very hard, and Ramiel's smile splits wide on her face. Crowley never imagined rebelling twice - three times? Over and fucking over, apparently he does have a problem with authority - but just like the last time once he's knee-deep in he sees no point in not wading further.

Though -

Last time he didn't have Aziraphale to risk, that weight hanging from the bottom of his heart, the fear ever-poised to drop. But Aziraphale wouldn't thank him for trying to protect him whatever the cost, Aziraphale found the courage to leave the last people who tried to dictate his life to him, Crowley can't become them to him all over again. They were given free will. Here, on Earth, may be the only place that that really can mean something.

The fear hangs, poised to drop. Crowley is being brave. He really is; before he had Aziraphale to lose all of his defiance meant nothing, he wasn't gambling anything he cared about, it took no more courage than tying his shoelaces. Now he has him and they know Heaven's pissed off - this is the bravest Crowley's ever been, because this is the most fucking terrified he's ever been in his life.

His arm lays close over Aziraphale's shoulders.

At least he has some practice at defying Heaven. And he doesn't care what She thinks, he doesn't need Her pretty white feathers to know that he's doing the right thing. It's what Aziraphale wants, what Crowley knows, that's what makes it right. He never meant to Fall, never wanted to go to Hell, he wanted - this, middle ground, he wanted the free will they'd been given to mean something. And now he's being asked to defend the place they've made, they already risked everything to make this space and he's ready to defend it, to defend what he knows they both believe, with everything he's got.

Ramiel touches the back of Zophiel's arm, and the angel continues her silent, assessing frown at the two of them. Crowley's been around a long time and he knows temptation when he sees it, and when he sees that touch - Yeah, he thinks, sliding his eyes back to Aziraphale's admiring gaze aimed at him. Yeah, angels right, what the Heaven are you supposed to do about it . . . ?

(Part II)