Happy Holidays, NotASpaceAlien! Part 2
Dec. 30th, 2018 06:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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go_exchangeNot Without End - Part 2!
A resourceful quest
(Note: Dear reader, if you absolutely detest [even fictional] physics, please jump to the paragraph after the asterisks if you want to preserve your Christmas cheer and peace of mind.)
Aziraphale found that one of the most useful skills he had picked up on Earth was crafting a proper apology, accompanied by genuine feelings of regret and enormous relief when forgiveness was received.
He also found that all of this couldn’t make up for the horrible truths of that day that he had to learn from a witch who showed more determination in her research of the supernatural than even most ethereal or occult beings did in loving or in hating humanity, respectively.
This second time around, he managed to pay close attention to her explanation, and keep an open mind (with some nudging from Crowley). And the picture she painted looked somewhat like this: the world wasn’t ending. Magic was.
In a world with a small population, there were very few magic users, and also very little need to disrupt natural processes with spells or miracles. But the practically bottomless well of magical potential, which was woven into the fabric of the Universe, and which was a concept that confused both Aziraphale and Crowley to no end, could have been enough to fulfil the needs of the overpopulated globe, and the drastically increased necessity for miraculous interventions, for tens if not hundreds of thousands of years.
Except, the world wasn’t necessarily meant to last that long. Possibly, not even as long as it already had…
Cancelling out all the consequences of the aborted Apocalypse, turning back the clock, in a way, had been an… well, apocalyptic drain on magical reserves. In short, magic was a non-renewable resource, and it was starting to show now that it had become scarce. Magical potential energy - whatever it really was - was generally low by now, unevenly distributed, and having some difficulties striving towards a state of equilibrium, being drawn to actual magic-users as it was.
* * *
After going through a series of comparisons that were meaningless from a non-human perspective, Anathema managed to find a way to illustrate what her countless hours of aural observations had led her to conclude: magic was a tiny bit like rain. Ignoring the quantifiable physical description, magic could be imagined as a swirling cloud that filled all the world, unseen by anyone who was not focusing on actually noticing its haze. To become visible, and to affect the miracle-thirsty world, it needed condensation cores: creatures wanting to cast or conjure. Spells condensed around magic-users in the same way, no matter if they were angels, demons, witches, or something in-between: they drew nearby parts of the inert cloud to themselves by their belief (in magic and in their envisioned success), and forced it to condense into “raindrops” of miracles.
Now, though, the cloud was thinning out and breaking up - except, the metaphor ended there, because there was no sun to shine through, and nothing to replenish it, unlike the earthly water cycle. Magic was a strictly non-renewable resource, and now that the cloud looked more like patches than a continuous cover, it had become fickle and slow. Just as Anathema had predicted on that stormy night, and tried to convey on that much less dramatic rainy night, there was too little of it around to uphold the illusion of perfection. Miracles would occasionally (ever more often) not be instantaneous, but instead, need time to syphon enough energy and condense into reality. Sometimes, they wouldn’t even work - when there wasn’t enough raw magic floating around at all to complete the spell. Much like a raindrop that never fell, that failed miracle had “removed” a tiny bit of cloud, but not provided any actual water to the parched ground.
At that point, Aziraphale had found himself quite involuntarily mimicking Crowley in nodding along. From what was probably days’ worth of conversations he'd had in the past with the brilliant witch, he knew that Anathema had irrevocably won both of them over. This was how it always worked: she would ask lots of questions, including lots of uncomfortable ones, spend some time drawing or calculating, then come up with an answer to a question Aziraphale hadn’t even realised he should have been asking. This was the same process, just on a longer time-scale… and with unnerving instead of astonishing results at the end.
Because minor miracles failing? That was just the beginning. It must have been going on for longer than either of them realised, but, to be fair, it was very difficult to tell a drunken lack of concentration and the scarcity of unknown resources apart. In any case, they were now low enough on mystical reserves that the magically supported parts of the world order themselves had become faulty.
In laymen’s terms (which Crowley and Aziraphale had thanked Newt very much for), between the patchy clouds of magic that kept the realms separated, there were now occasional holes in Heaven and Hell. Falling through them wouldn’t hurt an angel: the magical malfunction would be only momentary, thus it would end well before said angel could hit the ground. They could all land safely, if somewhat confused, on Earth - as opposed to demons. Hell wasn’t a friendly environment, to any of its denizens - a momentary slip in defences was enough for it to do irreversible damage.
… hence the sulphuric ashes and aborted orders Crowley reported.
All in all, while it all meant slightly alarming and depressing things to look forward to for magic users (human or otherwise), Aziraphale didn’t find the situation particularly dangerous. Neither did Crowley - if anything, he seemed slightly relieved now that the mystery was solved.
… until their little world of illusions was shattered by a very human and logical conclusion.
“But this means that, after a while, everyone in Heaven and Hell will end up on Earth, doesn’t it?” Newt pointed out, fiddling with a pencil that chose this exact moment to snap in two. “I mean, we’ve already got a massively overpopulated globe, so, how… uh… how many is everyone?”
“Forget the numbers,” Anathema shook her head, “we probably won’t live long enough to feel the effects of that.”
“And why is that, pray tell?” Aziraphale asked. He didn’t intend to sound grumpy, he honestly didn’t… but there was only so much world-shattering change he could take in all at once, knowing full well that he would be powerless to stop it. One Apocalypse was more than enough for a lifetime.
“Because everyone includes those sodding idiots who wanted to fight their final battle on Earth in the first place. Their resources might be limited once they get here, but they will have just enough time to send this whole planet up in flames before they run out,” Anathema explained. Calm and collected as she spoke, Aziraphale still hadn’t heard a prophecy more chilling than her calculated prediction. Maybe exactly because it was so well-founded, it sounded far more certain and inevitable than hazy references made by confused fortune-tellers.
“Is there nothing we can do?” Crowley asked - ever the questioning one. Although the demon would deny its very existence, that inalterable spark of restless optimism brought a small smile to Aziraphale’s face.
“Of course there is,” Anathema said in the off-handed manner of someone who had a reply ready well before the question ever occurred to anyone else. “We can find Adam.”
“Hang on - find him? I thought you two were keeping in touch?” Aziraphale wondered.
“Yes, well, he hasn’t been replying to any sort of message, occult or otherwise. He knew what I was working on, but by the time I figured out what was going to happen, he was nowhere to be found.”
“What about his friends?”
“They are either just as clueless as I am, or very tight-lipped about his whereabouts.”
“Let’s suppose for a moment that we do find him,” Crowley said, “which I’m not saying we will, but let’s suppose we do - what then?”
“Then he can put things right - for real this time.”
“Meaning?”
“Eventually, it came down to him to stop the Apocalypse the first time around. It was him, who used all the resources the world had to offer to save it. He’s the last great focal point of magic - and he can use whatever remains to create more.”
“Couldn’t we just-”
“Not how it works, sorry. He could have done his whole 'saving the world' thing from power that he made - I don’t know why he didn’t do it, since he has always had this ability. It needs a spark of outside energy to start off the chain reaction, as I understand, but afterwards, it all falls into special Antichrist territory. Let’s just say that I’m not quite at the point of figuring out how that works.”
A meaningful glance was shared between the rest of the people (or person-shaped beings) in the room that said thank Someone she’s not at that point. She was already more than qualified to demonstrate how powerful and terrifying knowledge could be.
They parted ways peacefully, if among lingering thoughtful glances that quickly became uncomfortable. In the suddenly all too oppressive silence of the street, Aziraphale couldn’t bear not to keep talking to his long-not-seen counterpart.
“It’s strange how we ended up doing kind of what we had set out to do originally, even though nothing worked out how we planned, isn’t it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, we thought by interfering with Hell’s plans, we would only postpone the inevitable by another eleven years. It’s funny how that worked out…”
“Not really,” Crowley mumbled.
Aziraphale took a good, long look at him.
“No,” he said, sobering up. “Not really, I suppose. It’s just…”
“It’s just like you always say,” Crowley interrupted. “You can’t second-guess ineffability,” he quoted, distorting his voice - without miracles, for once - to sound brighter and more full.
“Crowley, are we… I know I’ve been busy lately, but… I thought you understood…”
“Oh, I understand,” he snapped. Do I have any other choice? his impenetrable sunglasses accused.
Hardly knowing what to say at that point, Aziraphale was shamefully happy that his phone went off and interrupted their confusing moment. That is, he was happy until he heard the voice on the other end, panicky and high-pitched as ever.
“No, don’t!” he nearly shouted at the speaker. “Hayliel, you have to stop them - they’ll flood the whole bloody city! I don’t care who they think they saw, they have to wait until I get there! And that goes for you, too - yes, you can take that as an order!”
He quickly ended the call while he had the upper hand, trying to work out how to apologise to Crowley for having to rush off and get the angel colony in check - but the demon was nowhere to be found.
Exponential growth
The miserable October rain was just preparing to turn into miserable November rain - it only had to linger for one more day to accomplish that. But the wind started to pick up again, knocking over bins, people, and weaker trees alike. Finally, it managed to shove one of the latter against an ageing lamppost, which, in a not-at-all comical series of events, ended up causing multiple cars to crash into one another.
The sound startled Crowley awake, and, in spite of the protests of his prickling eyes, he was glad for the interruption. Once again, he found himself coming back to consciousness swimming in a mixture of cold sweat and, embarrassingly enough, venom seeping from his teeth.
It was only one week! One blasted week that he had spent trapped in snake form a decade ago, and this idiotic thing still kept happening! This was unfair! Ridiculous! This was…
… this was ruining his life, slowly but surely. What little was left of it, anyway, before the second end of the world.
He had liked sleeping, once upon a time, and he still missed it - and not only because of the limited occult reserves he turned towards the upkeep of his corporation nowadays. But every single time he drifted off, even for five minutes, he ended up having nightmares about that one horrendous week. Never mind that ever since he had experienced the uncontrollable rushes of alternating terror and aggression accompanying the process, he'd set free every snake he found that was being milked for their venom… Never mind that he had forced himself to get used to the angel’s unconscious affectionate touches all over again without panicking… No, that one stupid, stupid, meaningless gesture had been enough to bring all of this back.
He rubbed his palms against the back of his neck, and tried to repress the resulting shiver - without much success. He could still feel the ghosts of much harsher, almost burning hot hands linger over there…
But there was no time for this. The world was ending - again - he reminded himself.
He only just caught himself before he would have miracled the pillow clean, and chucked the whole blasted thing into the bin instead. In his opinion, it was far too late to learn to manage a household the entirely human way.
Besides, he was scheduled to pick up Aziraphale soon - there was finally a lead they could follow. He doubted its usefulness; if Adam didn’t want to be found, then an entire colony’s worth of angels working on low-energy remote sensing should not be able to suss any hint of his presence out… but whatever the concentration of power they had found really was, it had to be investigated. Crowley was willing to drive around the Earth three times over for anything that could be helpful against the sanctimonious bastards in the endgame.
The fact that a road trip gave him lots of time to spend near Aziraphale without interruptions was an added bonus. And that it would take him away from the colony of heavenly outcasts? Absolutely marvellous - a sneaky little part of Crowley’s mind supplied, which was soon drowned out in decidedly un-demonic guilt. He shouldn’t want to control who the angel spent his time with, and even if he did manage to influence it - what good would that do in the long run? The feathery idiots were still his kind. What could a prickly, anxious little demon offer in comparison?
But there had to be something, right? It had been Aziraphale who suggested they leave together… and, other than making them work on gathering clues about remaining concentrations of power, he barely engaged with the colony nowadays…
Crowley was still pondering over this, for possibly the millionth time, when he arrived at the bookshop, and saw his favourite tartan disaster walk cheerfully towards the Bentley. Soon enough, they distracted themselves with small talk, and then with a somewhat more serious discussion about the infinitesimal progress they had made. It wasn’t an especially engaging topic, and Crowley couldn’t help keep yawning through it. Which, in turn, inevitably led to a hundred questions from the angel, leaving him with no other options than to either pull up all his defences and start a senseless argument, or to share a tiny bit of the annoying truth. For some reason - maybe owing to the soft weight of the pleasantly warm, plump hand over his - Crowley opted for the latter.
“Can’t really sleep recently. I’ve been having nightmares,” he all but whispered, with eyes fixed firmly on the empty road ahead. He patiently listened to all Aziraphale’s suggestions about what remedies he should try - hell, some of them were even funny (yet he had still tried them already).
More useful, and, to him, much more important than the angel’s words were the compassion he showed, and his understanding for a habit he had for the longest time not condoned (what with evil never really sleeping and virtue being ever-vigilant).
Maybe, one day, Crowley would even be able to tell him what the nightmares were about. For now, the very thought made him shiver as he tasted venom in his mouth.
He stepped down on the accelerator, and, in a nearly uncharacteristic burst of attentiveness, Aziraphale took this as a sign to change the topic.
“I’m glad you told me, my dear,” he said still, before he started asking about what music currently resided in the glove compartment. He laughed for minutes and minutes - a deep, rolling, bubbly sound that warmed Crowley’s heart - when he learned it was an actual best of Queen collection - one that had been factory-made, rather than magically transformed. Just for the sake of novelty, they absolutely had to listen to it now, from beginning to end.
Power laws
The weather either didn’t take well to the departure of magic from the world, or it just wanted to make up for having been too nice the last time the Apocalypse had rolled around. In any case, a Halloween snowstorm was raging with full force in the night. Aziraphale made sure his favourite, slightly cold-blooded demon was bundled up well before they got out of the car. Between miracling the roads clean for it, or conjuring a few extra layers of clothing, the latter decidedly seemed like it would be less of a waste of scarce resources. He sighed at his own reminder at just how exhausting it was, thinking of magic like ancient hunter-gatherers had thought about and treasured food and water.
They leaned forward to push against the bitter wind, and made slow progress together - right until the moment when an extraordinarily strong gust shoved them off of their feet. As they tumbled through the snow, long-forgotten fighting instincts screamed danger at both of them: this was not just any gust of wind, but a blow coming from swiftly striking wings upon landing. And to cause this much of a blast, well, that required a multitude of wings…
Aziraphale did not have nightmares. (He didn’t usually sleep, for that matter.) But if he had, they would have gone something like this:
“I always knew you could not be trusted to resist the Serpent’s temptations,” the Archangel Gabriel said, voice dripping with malice and contempt for the both of them. He was towering over a statue-still Crowley, keeping the demon motionless with a gleaming-glowing holy sword pointed straight at his heart.
Aziraphale didn’t have nightmares, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been preparing for them.
“I was actually following him hoping to find out more about the cause of recent events,” he lied smoothly. “Now, of course, the game is up, we can’t expect him to give up his information willingly. I know the perfect place to lock him away, though-”
“Yes. It’s called non-existence,” Gabriel countered, entirely untouched by the stream of carefully crafted falsities. The sword moved an inch downwards, and Crowley tried to push himself deeper into the snow to avoid it.
“Wait, I’ll tell you everything!” the demon offered - the closest he could come to begging for his life to a creature such as this.
“You have no information of value. You two traitorous idiots might not be aware, but I know exactly what is happening and why. And that ultimately, it’s your fault," the archangel declared. “You would deserve a much more painful death for this, but I will take what I can get.”
“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that,” Aziraphale said, surprising even himself by how calmly he had managed to speak. He was openly disobeying, Crowley’s life was in danger, and in the midst of all that, here he was, carefully and calmly measuring up his enemy - his superior - like he had been taught at the beginning of time…
But that was the only way out of a nightmare, wasn’t it? Not caring anymore what fate may befall you?
“I knew you were weak. You would deserve to have Fallen with the others-”
“Yet still, look who has just tumbled down from Heaven,” Aziraphale baited. For once in his life, something worked perfectly: the sword came around in a wide, swooping arc, to point at Aziraphale now, and it was shaking the tiniest bit with uncontrolled anger.
“How dare you-”
“Well, you see, you must be much less intimidating than you think,” Aziraphale offered. It was almost true; the higher-ups tended to think very highly of themselves in every respect (even though they were absolutely terrifying). In any case, it felt insanely good to finally insult one of the bastards.
And it had almost worked, too… however, to Aziraphale’s horror, Crowley jumped up from the ground, and, instead of running away like a sensible demon, tried to grab the archangel’s arm. Probably even he wasn’t sure what he had been hoping to accomplish, but it absolutely didn’t matter: he had had no chance anyway. Still mid-leap, he found himself knocked back down and beaten into submission by battle-hardened wings.
Ignoring the current energy crisis, Aziraphale gathered all his strength and willed the offending wings to break.
His (possibly former) superior let out an ear-splitting cry of pain, and turned on him again, forgetting entirely about the demon at last. This, of course, led to Aziraphale being cornered in a matter of minutes. He acknowledged bitterly that he would spend the last moments of his life pinned to a creaking old tree, with a burning hot sword scraping at his neck. His reserves of fear, just like those of magic nearby, were largely used up. If the remaining snippets of power were evaporating from the world at such a rate that would make a hole in the fabric of Heaven swallow someone as powerful as an archangel, and spit them back out on Earth, there wasn’t much time left for the planet anyway. Far less than he had hoped.
More out of a sense of obligation, than out of hope, he tried to struggle against the iron-strong hold. And, to his endless surprise, it disappeared altogether after a few seconds, as Gabriel fell to the ground, rendered unconscious by some unseen power.
Only when the useless wings floated to the ground, too, and stopped obscuring his view, did he notice the tiny marks of a snake-bite on the other’s left ankle. A harsh discolouration was starting to spread around it already, as whatever bits of the ethereal remained in the stolen corporation interacted with the hellish venom.
“Crowley?” Aziraphale called out uncertainly - but no reply came.
A second, more careful look around revealed a nearly circular hole in the pristine snow cover, and at the bottom, a freezing cold, exhausted little snake all coiled up and barely awake.
“Crowley, you can change back now,” Aziraphale whispered.
The serpent peered up at him, and shook its head sadly.
The angel swallowed hard. This was what he had been afraid of since spotting the bite mark…
“Don’t worry, dearest, we’ll figure this out,” he promised, lifting the poor creature up, and hiding it in his coat for warmth. “We will,” he repeated, wishing he could have believed it, and took uncertain flight in the fanciful gale.
Home for Christmas
Aziraphale cursed himself a lot in the following days. Or possibly weeks. He couldn’t be bothered to count. And what did it matter? He should have simply been able to fight off the heavenly danger - to protect Crowley. Instead, the demon had had to come up with a self-sacrificial plan. He had correctly estimated that the enraged archangel would not care for the movements of something as small and natural as a snake - as opposed to those of a demon. So he changed form, poisoned the enemy, and… that was it. With only so few and thin so-called clouds of magic left in the world, he had no power to draw on for changing back. He was stuck - again - in snake form, just as he must have known he would be. Yet he still went through with the courageous plan, and saved both of them.
But now? Aziraphale couldn’t even figure out a way to get him back to normal. Neither could anyone else, it seemed. No matter the new series of masterfully-constructed lies about it serving the greater good, most of the angel colony wasn’t even willing to waste so much as a thought on helping a demon. Then they could just sort out their problems on their own, too, for all Aziraphale cared. He had only asked them anyway, because Anathema was stumped.
After a lot of fruitless research and running around, they decided it was best for them to go home to their cottage down south. For one thing, it was slightly warmer. For the other… it was the only common home they had ever shared. It was where they both wanted to be if those bloody heavenly idiots were going to usher in the end of the world anyway.
Yes, both of them definitely missed the little cottage. It was comfortable, well-protected, and it was full of good memories. Plus, no nosy neighbours gave them strange stares when Aziraphale was staring into the eyes of a snake, and then talking to him like one would to their best friend. People around them had no way to know that was exactly the case.
A certain drawback - and at the same time, advantage - of the animal form was that it was much more difficult to keep up mental defences in it. And so, slowly but surely, Aziraphale managed to peek into enough surface-adjacent thoughts to figure out what had been going on with Crowley during the past year or so. He saw the nightmares, and once he had, he was very careful not to touch the poor serpent in a manner that was to any degree reminiscent of how his former captors had grabbed him for venom-milking.
Maybe this helped somewhat, or maybe the animal form possessed one more, indirect advantage - but the point was, Crowley’s nightmares stopped in a matter of weeks after that snowstorm. Part of his haunting fears had already come through: he was stuck as a snake. This time around, though, instead of being exploited by a particularly greedy and inhuman so-called person, he was being shown everyday that, no matter the shape or size, he was safe and loved.
Or maybe the trick was that he had to fall asleep after purring for a long time in his own hissing language. Aziraphale was all too happy to provide reasons for that.
When they were not running around, chasing their tail as they searched for a solution, they spent long hours talking - partly aloud, and partly with their thoughts, as their respective corporations allowed. Bit by tiny bit, Aziraphale managed to convince Crowley that, although having more angels around was interesting in its own way, and of course said angels would by default have some things in common with Aziraphale, he didn’t enjoy their company nearly as much as he loved being with his age-old counterpart. He even caught Crowley feeling sorry that he ended up cutting ties with the colony.
Out in the world, or in the safety of their home, whenever Crowley was asleep, Aziraphale still often spent his time berating himself - for any number of things. Mostly, of course, for the snake situation; but nowadays, also for not understanding sooner what Crowley had been going through.
… which was what he was doing when the ethereal alarms went off. Acting quickly, he shook Crowley awake, and secured him around his non-dominant arm. He grabbed a slightly dented ancient sword he had dug up after Halloween with the other, and marched of the house, towards where his mental radars were screaming about intruders.
He stopped short when he saw three familiar faces emerge from behind the windshield of the Bentley.
Upon a tiny hiss from Crowley, he remembered to at least lower his sword for spectating.
“We thought we’d bring it back,” Newt offered quietly. “I wish I could find such an amazing car. I was driving all the way, and it still didn’t break down,” he added with a small smile.
“I took care of sleeping beauty,” Anathema said smugly. Something in her eyes suddenly reminded Aziraphale that her ancestor, Agnes, had died taking the entire village green out with her.
“Thank you, I think?” he said, still a bit uneasy. “He appreciates the care very much,” he added, quickly reacting to an urgent squeeze on his wrist.
“I’m sorry about what happened,” Hayliel muttered somewhere behind the couple’s back. They shuffled to the side to fully reveal the nervous angel. “The witch…”
Anathema cleared her throat.
“... Anathema explained what happened to you. And it’s not right! You were just trying to help people, the higher-ups shouldn’t think badly of you! Or attack you! Or your friends!” she continued, volume rising with every sentence, until she was all red in the face, and struggling to keep her wings from showing, thus wasting valuable magic.
“You do know Crowley is a demon, don’t you?” Aziraphale asked, doubtful of the possibility that any member of the angel colony could show such a change of heart.
“Yes, but he was only helping, too! It’s not fair, and it - it shouldn’t happen again!” Hayliel declared. “I brought you my dagger,” she said, pulling a shiny piece of metal out of her pocket. She must have seen mistrust and alarm in their eyes, because she quickly dropped it onto the still snowy ground. “Technically, it was supposed to be a pen-knife, but there was some mix-up in the resources department, and I got this one,” she rushed to explain, “and I only used it as a pen-knife, but it’s still properly holy, a bit, so it might help if someone tries to attack you again?”
No one moved or said a word.
“I… um… I’ll just wait in the greenhouse,” Hayliel said quietly. “Don’t want to be in your way.”
With that, she turned on her heel, and ran into the small building.
“She means well,” Anathema noted. She picked up the knife, and brought it to the still flabbergasted Aziraphale. Barely had he pocketed it, a scream came from the greenhouse, and they all rushed in after the angel.
“This is supposed to be extinct!” Hayliel was still practically screeching. “And this one, too! And this! And that! And look at that! Oh, my God, this is why my files kept disappearing!”
“She used to work on reports about extinct species,” Aziraphale explained quietly, his brain still running mostly on autopilot.
“Wait. You have a greenhouse full of extinct plants?!” Anathema asked, nearly vibrating with excitement.
“Er… yes?”
“This changes everything!” the young witch cried out, her volume putting Hayliel to shame. “This is an incredible amount of bound magic! And he was the user! I have it, I have the solution! Wait here, I need some chalk!” she yelled, and ran back to the car to get her supplies. Once she was back in the small glass building, she began drawing elaborate patterns around the dumbfounded spectators, muttering to herself in at least three different languages during the process.
Once she was done, she extended her arm in an almost commanding manner, and, mesmerised, Crowley slithered forward to coil around it instead of his angel.
“The rest of you, out!” she said, and no-one dared contradict her.
The star of Bethlehem from so many Christmas nights ago could have hidden behind the brilliance that filled the shattering greenhouse.
Here’s your captain speaking...
Newt, Anathema, Hayliel, Aziraphale and Crowley were sitting around the fireplace, drinking hot cocoa, spiced with some alcohol in four cases, and drowned in cream in one (although Hayliel, too, was taking curious sniffs near the others’ mugs, so it was just a matter of time to “corrupt” her, really).
None of them pretended to have properly understood the explanation Anathema had given them about how she managed to channel the magic from long ago that Crowley had used to bring back the plants, and turn it towards helping him regain his human form again. For now, they were just incredibly happy about it. Giddy, even - although that might have been the alcohol; Aziraphale measured it very generously, even though it had taken him a long time to carry it home from the shop without using any miracles (either to shorten the way, or to create more bottles).
Before they had settled down, they even threw together a quick little Christmas tree using one of the plants from the greenhouse (which would soon become properly extinct now), and whatever they found lying around the living room. With the renewed, light drizzle of snow outside (the weather had some sense of decency, after all), it would have been the perfect Christmas Eve.
And then the occult alarms around the house went off, just a second before the television switched itself on, and tuned to a thankfully non-existent channel that showed a cavern full of not quite non-existent shapes swirling in the background (nauseating to any magically gifted onlooker), and an impatient Adam in the foreground.
“Is this thing working?” he asked, furrowing his brow. “Blast, what might have gone wrong? Demon bureaucrats are horrible consultants…”
Crowley, who was used to Hell turning up in his media, was the first to recover.
“It’s working. Er… sorry, you just surprised us, is all.”
“Oh, wicked! So, I hear you’ve been looking for me?”
“Yes!” Anathema piped up. “For over a year! Would it hurt you to pick up the phone?!”
“Sorry, the reception is horrible down here, even for me. So, you’ve figured it out?”
“Wait, what?! You knew all along?! And you didn’t tell us?”
“No, no, no, I just saw that miracles weren’t really always working - so I popped down to look for answers.”
“And?”
“It turns out other dad messed with things when I decided not to destroy the world for him… I was sorta too busy to notice where the power was coming from. Anyway, I ended up a bit stuck here, because someone has to guard the metaphysical remains of all the angels and demons that don’t survive the trip to Earth.”
His audience took a long minute to process all that. The general stupor was broken by Hayliel pulling urgently on Aziraphale’s sleeves.
“Angels?” he asked back, right on cue.
“Well, yeah. It’s a long fall, and the blackouts are getting ever longer. Sorry.”
“What happens with those you’re guarding?” Newt asked this time.
“They’ll get to try again later. Wouldn’t want to cause overpopulation, now, would we?” the laughed.
“Why can’t you just fix it, though?” Anathema inquired. “You could come back, and…”
“Oh, I will. It won’t take too long now for the estates above and below to vacate, then I can just seal this up temporarily - and I’ll get to explain to Brian, Wensley, and… oh, my God, Pepper… where I’ve been… oh, joy…”
“I’ll be there for moral support, if you want,” Anathema offered, “but again: why won’t you just fill up the reservoirs?”
“Because I still don’t think anyone would learn anything from me fixing things for them. I’ll make sure nothing apocalyptic happens, but the rest is really not on me. Are we done with the twenty questions?”
“Well… sure.” Anathema sighed. “Come over for a hot chocolate and some more persuasion if you feel like it.”
“Not quite yet,” Adam said with a grin.
“In that case… merry Christmas.”
“And a happy new age,” he winked.
“Merry Christmas,” the rest of the room echoed as the connection faded.
A resourceful quest
(Note: Dear reader, if you absolutely detest [even fictional] physics, please jump to the paragraph after the asterisks if you want to preserve your Christmas cheer and peace of mind.)
Aziraphale found that one of the most useful skills he had picked up on Earth was crafting a proper apology, accompanied by genuine feelings of regret and enormous relief when forgiveness was received.
He also found that all of this couldn’t make up for the horrible truths of that day that he had to learn from a witch who showed more determination in her research of the supernatural than even most ethereal or occult beings did in loving or in hating humanity, respectively.
This second time around, he managed to pay close attention to her explanation, and keep an open mind (with some nudging from Crowley). And the picture she painted looked somewhat like this: the world wasn’t ending. Magic was.
In a world with a small population, there were very few magic users, and also very little need to disrupt natural processes with spells or miracles. But the practically bottomless well of magical potential, which was woven into the fabric of the Universe, and which was a concept that confused both Aziraphale and Crowley to no end, could have been enough to fulfil the needs of the overpopulated globe, and the drastically increased necessity for miraculous interventions, for tens if not hundreds of thousands of years.
Except, the world wasn’t necessarily meant to last that long. Possibly, not even as long as it already had…
Cancelling out all the consequences of the aborted Apocalypse, turning back the clock, in a way, had been an… well, apocalyptic drain on magical reserves. In short, magic was a non-renewable resource, and it was starting to show now that it had become scarce. Magical potential energy - whatever it really was - was generally low by now, unevenly distributed, and having some difficulties striving towards a state of equilibrium, being drawn to actual magic-users as it was.
* * *
After going through a series of comparisons that were meaningless from a non-human perspective, Anathema managed to find a way to illustrate what her countless hours of aural observations had led her to conclude: magic was a tiny bit like rain. Ignoring the quantifiable physical description, magic could be imagined as a swirling cloud that filled all the world, unseen by anyone who was not focusing on actually noticing its haze. To become visible, and to affect the miracle-thirsty world, it needed condensation cores: creatures wanting to cast or conjure. Spells condensed around magic-users in the same way, no matter if they were angels, demons, witches, or something in-between: they drew nearby parts of the inert cloud to themselves by their belief (in magic and in their envisioned success), and forced it to condense into “raindrops” of miracles.
Now, though, the cloud was thinning out and breaking up - except, the metaphor ended there, because there was no sun to shine through, and nothing to replenish it, unlike the earthly water cycle. Magic was a strictly non-renewable resource, and now that the cloud looked more like patches than a continuous cover, it had become fickle and slow. Just as Anathema had predicted on that stormy night, and tried to convey on that much less dramatic rainy night, there was too little of it around to uphold the illusion of perfection. Miracles would occasionally (ever more often) not be instantaneous, but instead, need time to syphon enough energy and condense into reality. Sometimes, they wouldn’t even work - when there wasn’t enough raw magic floating around at all to complete the spell. Much like a raindrop that never fell, that failed miracle had “removed” a tiny bit of cloud, but not provided any actual water to the parched ground.
At that point, Aziraphale had found himself quite involuntarily mimicking Crowley in nodding along. From what was probably days’ worth of conversations he'd had in the past with the brilliant witch, he knew that Anathema had irrevocably won both of them over. This was how it always worked: she would ask lots of questions, including lots of uncomfortable ones, spend some time drawing or calculating, then come up with an answer to a question Aziraphale hadn’t even realised he should have been asking. This was the same process, just on a longer time-scale… and with unnerving instead of astonishing results at the end.
Because minor miracles failing? That was just the beginning. It must have been going on for longer than either of them realised, but, to be fair, it was very difficult to tell a drunken lack of concentration and the scarcity of unknown resources apart. In any case, they were now low enough on mystical reserves that the magically supported parts of the world order themselves had become faulty.
In laymen’s terms (which Crowley and Aziraphale had thanked Newt very much for), between the patchy clouds of magic that kept the realms separated, there were now occasional holes in Heaven and Hell. Falling through them wouldn’t hurt an angel: the magical malfunction would be only momentary, thus it would end well before said angel could hit the ground. They could all land safely, if somewhat confused, on Earth - as opposed to demons. Hell wasn’t a friendly environment, to any of its denizens - a momentary slip in defences was enough for it to do irreversible damage.
… hence the sulphuric ashes and aborted orders Crowley reported.
All in all, while it all meant slightly alarming and depressing things to look forward to for magic users (human or otherwise), Aziraphale didn’t find the situation particularly dangerous. Neither did Crowley - if anything, he seemed slightly relieved now that the mystery was solved.
… until their little world of illusions was shattered by a very human and logical conclusion.
“But this means that, after a while, everyone in Heaven and Hell will end up on Earth, doesn’t it?” Newt pointed out, fiddling with a pencil that chose this exact moment to snap in two. “I mean, we’ve already got a massively overpopulated globe, so, how… uh… how many is everyone?”
“Forget the numbers,” Anathema shook her head, “we probably won’t live long enough to feel the effects of that.”
“And why is that, pray tell?” Aziraphale asked. He didn’t intend to sound grumpy, he honestly didn’t… but there was only so much world-shattering change he could take in all at once, knowing full well that he would be powerless to stop it. One Apocalypse was more than enough for a lifetime.
“Because everyone includes those sodding idiots who wanted to fight their final battle on Earth in the first place. Their resources might be limited once they get here, but they will have just enough time to send this whole planet up in flames before they run out,” Anathema explained. Calm and collected as she spoke, Aziraphale still hadn’t heard a prophecy more chilling than her calculated prediction. Maybe exactly because it was so well-founded, it sounded far more certain and inevitable than hazy references made by confused fortune-tellers.
“Is there nothing we can do?” Crowley asked - ever the questioning one. Although the demon would deny its very existence, that inalterable spark of restless optimism brought a small smile to Aziraphale’s face.
“Of course there is,” Anathema said in the off-handed manner of someone who had a reply ready well before the question ever occurred to anyone else. “We can find Adam.”
“Hang on - find him? I thought you two were keeping in touch?” Aziraphale wondered.
“Yes, well, he hasn’t been replying to any sort of message, occult or otherwise. He knew what I was working on, but by the time I figured out what was going to happen, he was nowhere to be found.”
“What about his friends?”
“They are either just as clueless as I am, or very tight-lipped about his whereabouts.”
“Let’s suppose for a moment that we do find him,” Crowley said, “which I’m not saying we will, but let’s suppose we do - what then?”
“Then he can put things right - for real this time.”
“Meaning?”
“Eventually, it came down to him to stop the Apocalypse the first time around. It was him, who used all the resources the world had to offer to save it. He’s the last great focal point of magic - and he can use whatever remains to create more.”
“Couldn’t we just-”
“Not how it works, sorry. He could have done his whole 'saving the world' thing from power that he made - I don’t know why he didn’t do it, since he has always had this ability. It needs a spark of outside energy to start off the chain reaction, as I understand, but afterwards, it all falls into special Antichrist territory. Let’s just say that I’m not quite at the point of figuring out how that works.”
A meaningful glance was shared between the rest of the people (or person-shaped beings) in the room that said thank Someone she’s not at that point. She was already more than qualified to demonstrate how powerful and terrifying knowledge could be.
They parted ways peacefully, if among lingering thoughtful glances that quickly became uncomfortable. In the suddenly all too oppressive silence of the street, Aziraphale couldn’t bear not to keep talking to his long-not-seen counterpart.
“It’s strange how we ended up doing kind of what we had set out to do originally, even though nothing worked out how we planned, isn’t it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, we thought by interfering with Hell’s plans, we would only postpone the inevitable by another eleven years. It’s funny how that worked out…”
“Not really,” Crowley mumbled.
Aziraphale took a good, long look at him.
“No,” he said, sobering up. “Not really, I suppose. It’s just…”
“It’s just like you always say,” Crowley interrupted. “You can’t second-guess ineffability,” he quoted, distorting his voice - without miracles, for once - to sound brighter and more full.
“Crowley, are we… I know I’ve been busy lately, but… I thought you understood…”
“Oh, I understand,” he snapped. Do I have any other choice? his impenetrable sunglasses accused.
Hardly knowing what to say at that point, Aziraphale was shamefully happy that his phone went off and interrupted their confusing moment. That is, he was happy until he heard the voice on the other end, panicky and high-pitched as ever.
“No, don’t!” he nearly shouted at the speaker. “Hayliel, you have to stop them - they’ll flood the whole bloody city! I don’t care who they think they saw, they have to wait until I get there! And that goes for you, too - yes, you can take that as an order!”
He quickly ended the call while he had the upper hand, trying to work out how to apologise to Crowley for having to rush off and get the angel colony in check - but the demon was nowhere to be found.
Exponential growth
The miserable October rain was just preparing to turn into miserable November rain - it only had to linger for one more day to accomplish that. But the wind started to pick up again, knocking over bins, people, and weaker trees alike. Finally, it managed to shove one of the latter against an ageing lamppost, which, in a not-at-all comical series of events, ended up causing multiple cars to crash into one another.
The sound startled Crowley awake, and, in spite of the protests of his prickling eyes, he was glad for the interruption. Once again, he found himself coming back to consciousness swimming in a mixture of cold sweat and, embarrassingly enough, venom seeping from his teeth.
It was only one week! One blasted week that he had spent trapped in snake form a decade ago, and this idiotic thing still kept happening! This was unfair! Ridiculous! This was…
… this was ruining his life, slowly but surely. What little was left of it, anyway, before the second end of the world.
He had liked sleeping, once upon a time, and he still missed it - and not only because of the limited occult reserves he turned towards the upkeep of his corporation nowadays. But every single time he drifted off, even for five minutes, he ended up having nightmares about that one horrendous week. Never mind that ever since he had experienced the uncontrollable rushes of alternating terror and aggression accompanying the process, he'd set free every snake he found that was being milked for their venom… Never mind that he had forced himself to get used to the angel’s unconscious affectionate touches all over again without panicking… No, that one stupid, stupid, meaningless gesture had been enough to bring all of this back.
He rubbed his palms against the back of his neck, and tried to repress the resulting shiver - without much success. He could still feel the ghosts of much harsher, almost burning hot hands linger over there…
But there was no time for this. The world was ending - again - he reminded himself.
He only just caught himself before he would have miracled the pillow clean, and chucked the whole blasted thing into the bin instead. In his opinion, it was far too late to learn to manage a household the entirely human way.
Besides, he was scheduled to pick up Aziraphale soon - there was finally a lead they could follow. He doubted its usefulness; if Adam didn’t want to be found, then an entire colony’s worth of angels working on low-energy remote sensing should not be able to suss any hint of his presence out… but whatever the concentration of power they had found really was, it had to be investigated. Crowley was willing to drive around the Earth three times over for anything that could be helpful against the sanctimonious bastards in the endgame.
The fact that a road trip gave him lots of time to spend near Aziraphale without interruptions was an added bonus. And that it would take him away from the colony of heavenly outcasts? Absolutely marvellous - a sneaky little part of Crowley’s mind supplied, which was soon drowned out in decidedly un-demonic guilt. He shouldn’t want to control who the angel spent his time with, and even if he did manage to influence it - what good would that do in the long run? The feathery idiots were still his kind. What could a prickly, anxious little demon offer in comparison?
But there had to be something, right? It had been Aziraphale who suggested they leave together… and, other than making them work on gathering clues about remaining concentrations of power, he barely engaged with the colony nowadays…
Crowley was still pondering over this, for possibly the millionth time, when he arrived at the bookshop, and saw his favourite tartan disaster walk cheerfully towards the Bentley. Soon enough, they distracted themselves with small talk, and then with a somewhat more serious discussion about the infinitesimal progress they had made. It wasn’t an especially engaging topic, and Crowley couldn’t help keep yawning through it. Which, in turn, inevitably led to a hundred questions from the angel, leaving him with no other options than to either pull up all his defences and start a senseless argument, or to share a tiny bit of the annoying truth. For some reason - maybe owing to the soft weight of the pleasantly warm, plump hand over his - Crowley opted for the latter.
“Can’t really sleep recently. I’ve been having nightmares,” he all but whispered, with eyes fixed firmly on the empty road ahead. He patiently listened to all Aziraphale’s suggestions about what remedies he should try - hell, some of them were even funny (yet he had still tried them already).
More useful, and, to him, much more important than the angel’s words were the compassion he showed, and his understanding for a habit he had for the longest time not condoned (what with evil never really sleeping and virtue being ever-vigilant).
Maybe, one day, Crowley would even be able to tell him what the nightmares were about. For now, the very thought made him shiver as he tasted venom in his mouth.
He stepped down on the accelerator, and, in a nearly uncharacteristic burst of attentiveness, Aziraphale took this as a sign to change the topic.
“I’m glad you told me, my dear,” he said still, before he started asking about what music currently resided in the glove compartment. He laughed for minutes and minutes - a deep, rolling, bubbly sound that warmed Crowley’s heart - when he learned it was an actual best of Queen collection - one that had been factory-made, rather than magically transformed. Just for the sake of novelty, they absolutely had to listen to it now, from beginning to end.
Power laws
The weather either didn’t take well to the departure of magic from the world, or it just wanted to make up for having been too nice the last time the Apocalypse had rolled around. In any case, a Halloween snowstorm was raging with full force in the night. Aziraphale made sure his favourite, slightly cold-blooded demon was bundled up well before they got out of the car. Between miracling the roads clean for it, or conjuring a few extra layers of clothing, the latter decidedly seemed like it would be less of a waste of scarce resources. He sighed at his own reminder at just how exhausting it was, thinking of magic like ancient hunter-gatherers had thought about and treasured food and water.
They leaned forward to push against the bitter wind, and made slow progress together - right until the moment when an extraordinarily strong gust shoved them off of their feet. As they tumbled through the snow, long-forgotten fighting instincts screamed danger at both of them: this was not just any gust of wind, but a blow coming from swiftly striking wings upon landing. And to cause this much of a blast, well, that required a multitude of wings…
Aziraphale did not have nightmares. (He didn’t usually sleep, for that matter.) But if he had, they would have gone something like this:
“I always knew you could not be trusted to resist the Serpent’s temptations,” the Archangel Gabriel said, voice dripping with malice and contempt for the both of them. He was towering over a statue-still Crowley, keeping the demon motionless with a gleaming-glowing holy sword pointed straight at his heart.
Aziraphale didn’t have nightmares, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been preparing for them.
“I was actually following him hoping to find out more about the cause of recent events,” he lied smoothly. “Now, of course, the game is up, we can’t expect him to give up his information willingly. I know the perfect place to lock him away, though-”
“Yes. It’s called non-existence,” Gabriel countered, entirely untouched by the stream of carefully crafted falsities. The sword moved an inch downwards, and Crowley tried to push himself deeper into the snow to avoid it.
“Wait, I’ll tell you everything!” the demon offered - the closest he could come to begging for his life to a creature such as this.
“You have no information of value. You two traitorous idiots might not be aware, but I know exactly what is happening and why. And that ultimately, it’s your fault," the archangel declared. “You would deserve a much more painful death for this, but I will take what I can get.”
“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that,” Aziraphale said, surprising even himself by how calmly he had managed to speak. He was openly disobeying, Crowley’s life was in danger, and in the midst of all that, here he was, carefully and calmly measuring up his enemy - his superior - like he had been taught at the beginning of time…
But that was the only way out of a nightmare, wasn’t it? Not caring anymore what fate may befall you?
“I knew you were weak. You would deserve to have Fallen with the others-”
“Yet still, look who has just tumbled down from Heaven,” Aziraphale baited. For once in his life, something worked perfectly: the sword came around in a wide, swooping arc, to point at Aziraphale now, and it was shaking the tiniest bit with uncontrolled anger.
“How dare you-”
“Well, you see, you must be much less intimidating than you think,” Aziraphale offered. It was almost true; the higher-ups tended to think very highly of themselves in every respect (even though they were absolutely terrifying). In any case, it felt insanely good to finally insult one of the bastards.
And it had almost worked, too… however, to Aziraphale’s horror, Crowley jumped up from the ground, and, instead of running away like a sensible demon, tried to grab the archangel’s arm. Probably even he wasn’t sure what he had been hoping to accomplish, but it absolutely didn’t matter: he had had no chance anyway. Still mid-leap, he found himself knocked back down and beaten into submission by battle-hardened wings.
Ignoring the current energy crisis, Aziraphale gathered all his strength and willed the offending wings to break.
His (possibly former) superior let out an ear-splitting cry of pain, and turned on him again, forgetting entirely about the demon at last. This, of course, led to Aziraphale being cornered in a matter of minutes. He acknowledged bitterly that he would spend the last moments of his life pinned to a creaking old tree, with a burning hot sword scraping at his neck. His reserves of fear, just like those of magic nearby, were largely used up. If the remaining snippets of power were evaporating from the world at such a rate that would make a hole in the fabric of Heaven swallow someone as powerful as an archangel, and spit them back out on Earth, there wasn’t much time left for the planet anyway. Far less than he had hoped.
More out of a sense of obligation, than out of hope, he tried to struggle against the iron-strong hold. And, to his endless surprise, it disappeared altogether after a few seconds, as Gabriel fell to the ground, rendered unconscious by some unseen power.
Only when the useless wings floated to the ground, too, and stopped obscuring his view, did he notice the tiny marks of a snake-bite on the other’s left ankle. A harsh discolouration was starting to spread around it already, as whatever bits of the ethereal remained in the stolen corporation interacted with the hellish venom.
“Crowley?” Aziraphale called out uncertainly - but no reply came.
A second, more careful look around revealed a nearly circular hole in the pristine snow cover, and at the bottom, a freezing cold, exhausted little snake all coiled up and barely awake.
“Crowley, you can change back now,” Aziraphale whispered.
The serpent peered up at him, and shook its head sadly.
The angel swallowed hard. This was what he had been afraid of since spotting the bite mark…
“Don’t worry, dearest, we’ll figure this out,” he promised, lifting the poor creature up, and hiding it in his coat for warmth. “We will,” he repeated, wishing he could have believed it, and took uncertain flight in the fanciful gale.
Home for Christmas
Aziraphale cursed himself a lot in the following days. Or possibly weeks. He couldn’t be bothered to count. And what did it matter? He should have simply been able to fight off the heavenly danger - to protect Crowley. Instead, the demon had had to come up with a self-sacrificial plan. He had correctly estimated that the enraged archangel would not care for the movements of something as small and natural as a snake - as opposed to those of a demon. So he changed form, poisoned the enemy, and… that was it. With only so few and thin so-called clouds of magic left in the world, he had no power to draw on for changing back. He was stuck - again - in snake form, just as he must have known he would be. Yet he still went through with the courageous plan, and saved both of them.
But now? Aziraphale couldn’t even figure out a way to get him back to normal. Neither could anyone else, it seemed. No matter the new series of masterfully-constructed lies about it serving the greater good, most of the angel colony wasn’t even willing to waste so much as a thought on helping a demon. Then they could just sort out their problems on their own, too, for all Aziraphale cared. He had only asked them anyway, because Anathema was stumped.
After a lot of fruitless research and running around, they decided it was best for them to go home to their cottage down south. For one thing, it was slightly warmer. For the other… it was the only common home they had ever shared. It was where they both wanted to be if those bloody heavenly idiots were going to usher in the end of the world anyway.
Yes, both of them definitely missed the little cottage. It was comfortable, well-protected, and it was full of good memories. Plus, no nosy neighbours gave them strange stares when Aziraphale was staring into the eyes of a snake, and then talking to him like one would to their best friend. People around them had no way to know that was exactly the case.
A certain drawback - and at the same time, advantage - of the animal form was that it was much more difficult to keep up mental defences in it. And so, slowly but surely, Aziraphale managed to peek into enough surface-adjacent thoughts to figure out what had been going on with Crowley during the past year or so. He saw the nightmares, and once he had, he was very careful not to touch the poor serpent in a manner that was to any degree reminiscent of how his former captors had grabbed him for venom-milking.
Maybe this helped somewhat, or maybe the animal form possessed one more, indirect advantage - but the point was, Crowley’s nightmares stopped in a matter of weeks after that snowstorm. Part of his haunting fears had already come through: he was stuck as a snake. This time around, though, instead of being exploited by a particularly greedy and inhuman so-called person, he was being shown everyday that, no matter the shape or size, he was safe and loved.
Or maybe the trick was that he had to fall asleep after purring for a long time in his own hissing language. Aziraphale was all too happy to provide reasons for that.
When they were not running around, chasing their tail as they searched for a solution, they spent long hours talking - partly aloud, and partly with their thoughts, as their respective corporations allowed. Bit by tiny bit, Aziraphale managed to convince Crowley that, although having more angels around was interesting in its own way, and of course said angels would by default have some things in common with Aziraphale, he didn’t enjoy their company nearly as much as he loved being with his age-old counterpart. He even caught Crowley feeling sorry that he ended up cutting ties with the colony.
Out in the world, or in the safety of their home, whenever Crowley was asleep, Aziraphale still often spent his time berating himself - for any number of things. Mostly, of course, for the snake situation; but nowadays, also for not understanding sooner what Crowley had been going through.
… which was what he was doing when the ethereal alarms went off. Acting quickly, he shook Crowley awake, and secured him around his non-dominant arm. He grabbed a slightly dented ancient sword he had dug up after Halloween with the other, and marched of the house, towards where his mental radars were screaming about intruders.
He stopped short when he saw three familiar faces emerge from behind the windshield of the Bentley.
Upon a tiny hiss from Crowley, he remembered to at least lower his sword for spectating.
“We thought we’d bring it back,” Newt offered quietly. “I wish I could find such an amazing car. I was driving all the way, and it still didn’t break down,” he added with a small smile.
“I took care of sleeping beauty,” Anathema said smugly. Something in her eyes suddenly reminded Aziraphale that her ancestor, Agnes, had died taking the entire village green out with her.
“Thank you, I think?” he said, still a bit uneasy. “He appreciates the care very much,” he added, quickly reacting to an urgent squeeze on his wrist.
“I’m sorry about what happened,” Hayliel muttered somewhere behind the couple’s back. They shuffled to the side to fully reveal the nervous angel. “The witch…”
Anathema cleared her throat.
“... Anathema explained what happened to you. And it’s not right! You were just trying to help people, the higher-ups shouldn’t think badly of you! Or attack you! Or your friends!” she continued, volume rising with every sentence, until she was all red in the face, and struggling to keep her wings from showing, thus wasting valuable magic.
“You do know Crowley is a demon, don’t you?” Aziraphale asked, doubtful of the possibility that any member of the angel colony could show such a change of heart.
“Yes, but he was only helping, too! It’s not fair, and it - it shouldn’t happen again!” Hayliel declared. “I brought you my dagger,” she said, pulling a shiny piece of metal out of her pocket. She must have seen mistrust and alarm in their eyes, because she quickly dropped it onto the still snowy ground. “Technically, it was supposed to be a pen-knife, but there was some mix-up in the resources department, and I got this one,” she rushed to explain, “and I only used it as a pen-knife, but it’s still properly holy, a bit, so it might help if someone tries to attack you again?”
No one moved or said a word.
“I… um… I’ll just wait in the greenhouse,” Hayliel said quietly. “Don’t want to be in your way.”
With that, she turned on her heel, and ran into the small building.
“She means well,” Anathema noted. She picked up the knife, and brought it to the still flabbergasted Aziraphale. Barely had he pocketed it, a scream came from the greenhouse, and they all rushed in after the angel.
“This is supposed to be extinct!” Hayliel was still practically screeching. “And this one, too! And this! And that! And look at that! Oh, my God, this is why my files kept disappearing!”
“She used to work on reports about extinct species,” Aziraphale explained quietly, his brain still running mostly on autopilot.
“Wait. You have a greenhouse full of extinct plants?!” Anathema asked, nearly vibrating with excitement.
“Er… yes?”
“This changes everything!” the young witch cried out, her volume putting Hayliel to shame. “This is an incredible amount of bound magic! And he was the user! I have it, I have the solution! Wait here, I need some chalk!” she yelled, and ran back to the car to get her supplies. Once she was back in the small glass building, she began drawing elaborate patterns around the dumbfounded spectators, muttering to herself in at least three different languages during the process.
Once she was done, she extended her arm in an almost commanding manner, and, mesmerised, Crowley slithered forward to coil around it instead of his angel.
“The rest of you, out!” she said, and no-one dared contradict her.
The star of Bethlehem from so many Christmas nights ago could have hidden behind the brilliance that filled the shattering greenhouse.
Here’s your captain speaking...
Newt, Anathema, Hayliel, Aziraphale and Crowley were sitting around the fireplace, drinking hot cocoa, spiced with some alcohol in four cases, and drowned in cream in one (although Hayliel, too, was taking curious sniffs near the others’ mugs, so it was just a matter of time to “corrupt” her, really).
None of them pretended to have properly understood the explanation Anathema had given them about how she managed to channel the magic from long ago that Crowley had used to bring back the plants, and turn it towards helping him regain his human form again. For now, they were just incredibly happy about it. Giddy, even - although that might have been the alcohol; Aziraphale measured it very generously, even though it had taken him a long time to carry it home from the shop without using any miracles (either to shorten the way, or to create more bottles).
Before they had settled down, they even threw together a quick little Christmas tree using one of the plants from the greenhouse (which would soon become properly extinct now), and whatever they found lying around the living room. With the renewed, light drizzle of snow outside (the weather had some sense of decency, after all), it would have been the perfect Christmas Eve.
And then the occult alarms around the house went off, just a second before the television switched itself on, and tuned to a thankfully non-existent channel that showed a cavern full of not quite non-existent shapes swirling in the background (nauseating to any magically gifted onlooker), and an impatient Adam in the foreground.
“Is this thing working?” he asked, furrowing his brow. “Blast, what might have gone wrong? Demon bureaucrats are horrible consultants…”
Crowley, who was used to Hell turning up in his media, was the first to recover.
“It’s working. Er… sorry, you just surprised us, is all.”
“Oh, wicked! So, I hear you’ve been looking for me?”
“Yes!” Anathema piped up. “For over a year! Would it hurt you to pick up the phone?!”
“Sorry, the reception is horrible down here, even for me. So, you’ve figured it out?”
“Wait, what?! You knew all along?! And you didn’t tell us?”
“No, no, no, I just saw that miracles weren’t really always working - so I popped down to look for answers.”
“And?”
“It turns out other dad messed with things when I decided not to destroy the world for him… I was sorta too busy to notice where the power was coming from. Anyway, I ended up a bit stuck here, because someone has to guard the metaphysical remains of all the angels and demons that don’t survive the trip to Earth.”
His audience took a long minute to process all that. The general stupor was broken by Hayliel pulling urgently on Aziraphale’s sleeves.
“Angels?” he asked back, right on cue.
“Well, yeah. It’s a long fall, and the blackouts are getting ever longer. Sorry.”
“What happens with those you’re guarding?” Newt asked this time.
“They’ll get to try again later. Wouldn’t want to cause overpopulation, now, would we?” the laughed.
“Why can’t you just fix it, though?” Anathema inquired. “You could come back, and…”
“Oh, I will. It won’t take too long now for the estates above and below to vacate, then I can just seal this up temporarily - and I’ll get to explain to Brian, Wensley, and… oh, my God, Pepper… where I’ve been… oh, joy…”
“I’ll be there for moral support, if you want,” Anathema offered, “but again: why won’t you just fill up the reservoirs?”
“Because I still don’t think anyone would learn anything from me fixing things for them. I’ll make sure nothing apocalyptic happens, but the rest is really not on me. Are we done with the twenty questions?”
“Well… sure.” Anathema sighed. “Come over for a hot chocolate and some more persuasion if you feel like it.”
“Not quite yet,” Adam said with a grin.
“In that case… merry Christmas.”
“And a happy new age,” he winked.
“Merry Christmas,” the rest of the room echoed as the connection faded.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-01-05 12:47 am (UTC)i'm glad the ending was not the irritating kind of too-big twist. i couldn't give away much about the Adam-ex-machina, other than him having gone missing before; but i decided to absolutely stick to the Checkhov's gun principle when it came to the greenhouse-ful of botanical curiosities :)