Happy Holidays, cursiell_4!

[goe_mod]

Title: I Wish It Were Really You

Summary: A letter appears in between the pages of one of Aziraphale’s books. It seems to have been written by Crowley, but Crowley has been gone for weeks, stuck in Hell…but the letters keep coming.

Rating: General Audiences

Notes: The parts in bold are direct quotations from books Aziraphale is reading. The titles will be near the quotes, but if you can’t find them, ask in a comment and I’ll say more about them! The large chunks of italics but not in bold, without paragraph indentations, are Crowley’s letters.

Thank you for your beautiful prompt, cursiell_4! I’m honored to have been able to write it! Happy holidays!

 

 

September, the beginning of autumn, as the days begin to darken

 

“I dreamed it would be nameless bliss,

As I loved, loved to be;

And to this object did I press

As blind as eagerly,

 

But wide as pathless was the space

That lay our lives between,

And dangerous as the foamy race

Of ocean-surges green.

 

And haunted as a robber-path

Through wilderness or wood;

For Might and Right, and Woe and Wrath,

Between our spirits stood.

 

I dangers dared; I hindrance scorned;

I omens did defy:

Whatever menaced, harassed, warned,

I passed impetuous by.”

 

If I could write you, I still doubt

I’d say what I’ll say here.

 

                At first, it fit so well, Aziraphale did not even notice that something was amiss. Jane Eyre was a classic, but to someone who had lived as long as he had, many books that no one else had heard of were classics, too. Even though he’d read it many times, it wasn’t one he knew by heart. He’d always thought the pair were rather too mean to each other to make a truly romantic story—although, heaven knew they had their moments, and he’d always liked this song that Rochester sang to Jane. The next few lines almost flowed along with it, fitting the same meter. But they went on to the next sentence, and Aziraphale realized what he was reading was not type, but handwriting. There was a separate sheet of paper tucked into the pages of his book.

                Aziraphale frowned, adjusted his glasses, peered at the words.

If I could write you, I still doubt I’d say what I’ll say here. It’s only when I know you’ll never see my words that I put them to any use. You chided me, once, for not having written throughout the whole of the nineteenth century. It was a bit of an exaggeration. Only a bit. It made my day, though, I have to admit. I can admit to that, at least, here. I was glad you’d missed me. That’s one good thing about Hell. You’re at rock bottom, so you might as well show all your cards, the game’s up.

Except that’s not really true. Humans in Hell, they can be honest with themselves—don’t have much of a choice, for them it’s time to face the music. It’s only demons who can be in Hell and still get stuck having to keep all their secrets.

                Crowley, Aziraphale thought, alarm fluttering through him enough to make his hands shake, jarring loose the paper that contained the handwriting. He pulled it carefully from where it had been stuck between the pages. How long had it been there? When had it been written? Later than the nineteenth century, at least. The idioms seemed fairly modern. There was a shakiness to the handwriting that didn’t look, Aziraphale didn’t think, like Crowley’s handwriting now, which was why he hadn’t recognized it at first.

The fact is, Aziraphale, I can’t take it anymore.

                 Aziraphale let out a breath. He stood from the chair where he had been reading, holding the page gingerly between two fingers alone. The paper it was written on was singed around the edges, holding a slight smoky smell. It was so thin he could see the light of the lamp through it. He walked with it, aimless, around the room a few times, trying to put the thoughts in his mind in order. Then he sat on his couch and continued to read.

Oh, I mean, I can take it. Hell. Downstairs. Main office, all that. It’s just like working overtime, I guess. No weekends for me. A few more weeks, a few months maybe, and I’ll be out of here, back up there in the sunshine with you, yelling at traffic and complaining that there’s nothing good on the telly, and it’ll all be fine. I’ll be fine. It’s just—

Angel, it’s harder now than it used to be.

                Aziraphale was fairly certain, now, that these words had been written only a short while ago. They sounded like Crowley, now. The shakiness in the beginning had gone away somewhat, and the handwriting was the same. He knew Crowley had been called back to Hell for a little while. For an ‘all-staff training day’, or something, the demon had said, wrinkling his nose to show the unlikeliness of the sort of thing. He’d said he’d be back soon. In a week, probably. Maybe two. It had now been three.

                Crowley had been in Hell for much longer periods of time than three weeks. He hadn’t been there for more than a few hours at a time since the End of the World, however. The End that hadn’t ended anything at all. Since then, they’d both had what had felt like glorious free reign upon the Earth—or, no. Not reign. Just freedom to roam. To exist.

Hell isn’t just fire and brimstone. Well, some of it is. Parts of it, down by the copy machines, but the maintenance crew’s been working on that. Really. It’s not so bad here. It’s just—there’s no air.

There’s a lot of that, up there. Stinky, polluted, London air, with a good stifling humidity if it happens to be a rainy day, which, well, you know the chances of that. Still, feels like there’s more of it. I don’t know.

I guess that’s why I’m writing this here, on this paper I found that’s probably used for sending interdepartmental memos, ‘The sulfur in the break room is getting bad again, clear out the fridge now or everything’s getting thrown out.’ If they saw what I was writing on it, they’d probably—gosh, I don’t even know what they’d do. What’s worse than Hell?

Plenty.

Still. No one will ever see this. I’ll make sure of that. Don’t worry, angel, I know how to keep myself safe, in spite of what all your nagging would suggest when I dare to drive five above the speed limit.

That’s the beauty of it, see. No one will ever see it. Not even you. So I could just be writing this to myself, I guess. A journal. Diary of a wimpy demon, even more pathetic than it sounds. I don’t know why I’m addressing it to you.

I think I’m just used to it. When I’m telling the truth, it’s usually because you’re there, dragging it out of me. Not even with questions, not even on purpose, maybe, just by being you, with that stare and a twitch of your eyebrow and the way you—

Anyway, I’m at the end of my rope, now, so here’s the truth. And I’ll address it to you, even if you’ll never hear it.

I want to go home.

                Aziraphale realized he’d been biting his lip so hard that it had started to hurt. He pressed his lips together and frowned at the page, trying not to crinkle its thin, delicate edges.

So that’s what I write about when I lose it and start talking to myself like a maniac. Angels and air and ‘home’. Not one of those things is something a demon is supposed to need.

Really. It’s not so bad. It’s pretty much guaranteed that someone will have stolen someone else’s lunch from the fridge, so that’s always good for some interesting drama. We’re going to a twenty-five hour long icebreaker session for staff training next. See, if it’s not torture, then it’s not Hell. I think we’re gonna play the name game. We already know each other, but once Dagon caught wind of it, I mean, can you blame them? Like I said, it’s Hell. I’m all good, though. ‘Cruel Crowley.’ Easy peasy. I went with ‘Curious Crowley’, once, and they gave me—not Hell, but you know what I mean—about it for weeks. Curiosity killed the Crowley. Just a little joke. I’ll be fine. I know how to keep my head down in these things these days.

I’ll burn this in just a minute. Plenty of flames to go around. No one will ever see it. Funny, but I do feel better. So, thanks, angel.

                The last sentence, in scratchier, shakier writing again.

I wish it were really you.

                Aziraphale gently placed the paper on the side table near the sofa’s arm. Then, as though in setting it down he had released a great weight, he slumped back against the sofa’s back and closed his eyes, trying not to imagine what else a staff training day in Hell would entail, trying not to think too closely about the fact that it was all torture, really, Crowley knew it was, and yet he was still there, and there was nothing Aziraphale could do to go and get him.

                He thought about the physics of it all, because if there was nothing he could do, then he needed a distraction. It was the way his mind worked. He supposed that when Crowley had burned the note, somehow he had, subconsciously perhaps, sent it here. Flames in Hell were magical things. Crowley was, even more so. He clearly didn’t expect it to have been sent, but of Aziraphale’s thousands of books, this letter had appeared in between the pages of one the angel had already been reading.

                It had appeared after a song, sung by one of the characters, about the dangers people were willing to face. Aziraphale wondered how much danger Crowley had put himself in by writing such words while in Hell itself.

                He opened his eyes and sat up, then laid his hand on top of the thin, flaking page, the weight of his hand alone almost enough to crumble it. He wondered if it was a danger to keep it even here. He thought about destroying it.

                He couldn’t.

                In the end, he pressed it back in between the pages of the book, certain that he would never forget the place, and added Jane Eyre to the shelf of books that must never, ever, under any circumstance, be allowed to be touched by any customer.

 

***

October

***

 

                Aziraphale tried.

                He tried to write Crowley back. He’d written letter after letter. He’d tried to think of a way to send them down to Hell without them being detected. He’d burned them. He’d written on special paper. He’d written with ink that he’d blessed himself. He’d written with ink that he’d cursed. He’d even, as a last resort, written words upon the very page that had shown up for him, right under the words written by Crowley.

                There was no sign that any of them were received.

                He had tracked down genuine hellfire to burn one of them. It had been harder than he’d thought. People didn’t exactly keep hellfire handy, the way so many did with holy water. Not even Satanists. He’d had to creep, covered head-to-toe to hide himself from view, towards a treacherous hole in the ground and reach for the twisting, winding smoke rising from the embers with a very special candle that he had only been able to hold for so long. He’d burnt the paper with it, but nothing had happened.

                He’d even tried a sort of reversal. Perhaps, he thought, if Crowley had sent the letter inadvertently through his subconscious will by burning it in hellfire, then perhaps it would only work for him, an angel, if he sent it off in his own ethereal way. This resulted in him staring rather pathetically into a bathtub full of holy water where a sheet of paper slowly dissolved into pulp and swirls of ink.

                He didn’t even know what he would write to him. Just a ‘hello’, although it felt a bit pitiful, when he was up here safe and sound and Crowley was stuck down there. Still, perhaps a ‘hello’ would have been something. Not a ‘how do you do’, but a ‘I hope you will be doing much better very soon.’ A sad sort of get-well card. Or perhaps he could write to him about the Earth. Remind him of what remained, what had not been taken away, what they had fought for. He could tell him about the bird building a nest in the ‘O’ in the shop sign across the street. He could assure him his plants were being looked after. He could tell him that there had been sunny days, although under the circumstances, that almost seemed cruel.

                As if on cue, the angel heard the patter of rain start to tap against his shop window. He glanced in that direction, and saw that the skies had gone grey. The sunny days were over.

                Aziraphale, dismal, sat, feeling pinned under his own personal raincloud, and thumbed over the newest letter he’d found.

                It had been in Lolly Willowes.

                Aziraphale always read about Laura ‘Lolly’ Willowes around October because of the way it described the Fall—that was to say, autumn, although some would say that Laura had fallen when she decided to become a witch and converse with the devil. It wasn’t exactly the sort of thing an angel would be expected to read. It wasn’t the sort of thing a demon would have understood, either. It was, fundamentally, a book about being human. Humans probably would have thought it was too fantastical for this to be true. Aziraphale had always smiled at the thought.

                …Laura turned her thoughts backward to the emotions of overnight. She tried to recall them, but could not; she could only recall the fact that overnight she had felt them. The panic that then had shaken her flesh was no more actual than a last winter’s gale. It had been violent enough while it lasted, an invisible buffeting, a rending of life from its context. But now her memory presented it to her as a cold slab of experience, like a slab of pudding that had lain all night solidifying in the larder. This was no matter. Her terror had been an incident; it had no bearing upon her future, could she now recall it to life it would have no message for her. But she regretted her inability to recapture the mood that had followed upon it, when she sat still and thought so wisely about Satan. Those meditations had seemed to her of profound import. She had sat at her Master’s feet, as it were, admitted to intimacy, and gaining the most valuable insight into his character. But that was gone too. Her thoughts, recalled, seemed to be of the most commonplace nature, and she felt that she knew very little about the Devil.

                And then Crowley’s handwriting had intervened, almost as though he could see the words that had preceded his own.

I always forget what he’s like, really. Everyone does. Humans, they have no idea. I don’t suppose you do either. Sorry, I know you hate being told you can’t know something, but it’s true. None of us really know him.

The devil’s just a person, really. Just a person, like they all were, and that’s what made it all so much worse. That’s what makes him so much worse. The fact that he could be pitied and understood and empathized and possibly even reasoned with, if he weren’t so absolutely terrifying, and if it weren’t for the fact that you have to run from him and turn him into a monster you could never look at just in order to protect yourself, to keep yourself alive; because as a person, the devil, someone who’s been cast out of Heaven and who rules over Hell, that’s worse. No person could cope with that. It’s done something to him, and what it’s done is the kind of thing that will eventually be done to you if you stay around him too long, or any time at all, really, and that’s Hell. The inability to escape the injustices people face and the monsters it makes of them.

                At this point, Aziraphale had been wondering why Crowley never spoke about these things in person. Why did he never write them down before? Because he was so eloquent, Aziraphale thought, caught up in the shock of reading something so honest, so heart-rendingly philosophical, and he thought it was probably the most exact and beautiful and wrenching description he had ever heard of the whole thing, and he regretted that he was the only one to have read it.

                And then, he thought, This isn’t some philosopher talking about the devil.

                This is Crowley.

                He stared at the paper again, anew. He reread the words, picturing his friend, trying to really understand him.

                It was hard. Possibly, he couldn’t. Because if Hell was living with the knowledge of what all of that was like, that was the trouble—he wasn’t there. He wasn’t in Heaven, either, not in the bliss of knowing only what is good. He was just in Life, the place where one could only know just enough to be unbearable and bearable all the same.

                I’m sorry, Crowley, Aziraphale thought. I’ll save this, but not for its poetry. I’ll save it because it’s you. I’ll try to understand. I really will.

 

***

 

                Crowley leaned against one of the walls of Hell, an unwise action under normal circumstances, and tried to let the feeling of the cold stone against his back calm him. Tried, even, to find the dampness of it soothing. He took in a few breaths, one after the other, listening for anyone who might be coming his direction. By the time a few demons turned the corner, he was already up and walking the other way.

                He hadn’t meant to write more than one. He’d almost been caught, that time. Stupid, writing the things during their meeting’s ‘intermission’, which was always five minutes shorter than they said it was going to be. He’d barely had time to burn it before a few demons had bumped into him and informed him that it was almost time to go back in.

                Truth be told, they probably wouldn’t have noticed anything amiss. They were all rather shaken up. That happened to the best, and in fact, even the worst of them, when the boss showed up. The real one, that is. It was one thing, higher-ups giving you lectures and threatening you with having marks put in your file and that sort of thing. All of his superiors could be nasty in their own way. Nobody really expected it, though, when he, the devil—when he walked in, not even in Hell.

                Crowley’s face felt tight, the way your skin gets when you’ve been facing the sun for too long. He felt hot, dry, claustrophobic. It was hardly the worst he’d ever felt after a surprise meeting with him. At least it had been all of Hell. At least he hadn’t been facing him alone.

                But now, back in one of the main halls of Hell with every other one of its demonic denizens, all packed together after a surprise greeting from Satan, who was rarely pleased with everybody these days, they all trembled and snapped at each other and stewed like starving dogs that had been scolded unexpectedly for something they couldn’t even remember doing. Crowley tried to swallow, his throat dry and burning, and waited for it all to start over again.

                A demon, duke or earl of something, stood on a platform raised above the others and began her speech. Even she sounded a bit shaken, but as she went on, talking more and more about what Hell had to do next to achieve its goals, her voice grew stronger. It was really reaching that perfect point between booming and growling that only a demonic earl could achieve by the time she started talking about increasing soul-rotting levels on Earth. The other demons were getting their courage back. They were more into it by now, but Crowley still felt cracked and burnt from before. He tried to back away from the platform, hoping he could dissolve himself into the crowd behind him, but he had been pushed up to the front.

                That was why he saw the first drop when it hit the earl’s face.

                She blinked, pausing only a moment in her rabble-rousing speech, and flicked it off.

                As she began speaking again, another drop of something began to slip down her face.

                Crowley’s mouth opened slightly as he squinted up at it. Some of the other demons had noticed too, and there was a murmuring in the crowd. The earl had gone cross-eyed trying to see what was now running down her face in a steady stream.

                Then she looked up, just in time to see the raincloud that had formed above her let loose.

                The demon bellowed, but was spared the embarrassment of being publicly witnessed as the miniature storm-cloud drenched her, because clouds had now erupted all over the hall and were raining on absolutely everybody. Demons cried and screamed and laughed as the rain pummeled them. Imps slipped and splashed each other in the deluge.

                Crowley, suddenly finding himself with much more space to himself since many of the demons had bolted in fear, held out his arms and looked up at what had moments before been the dark ceiling of Hell. He let the rain drench him, cool and wet and clean, like nothing Hell had ever seen before. He closed his eyes and smiled. More and more, the sounds around him transformed from startled yelps to baffled gasps and cheers. Nobody knew where it had come from. He didn’t care. Crowley, still facing the clouds above him, laughed.

 

***

December, the start of winter

***

 

                By December, Aziraphale had learned to recognize the signs. He knew, when he smelled sulfur and the scent of burning, when he sensed something slightly amiss in his bookshop when he had closed for the night and all the customers had left, and he was alone, he knew what it meant. So this time, he went searching.

                This time the letter didn’t appear in whatever he had been reading. He hadn’t, in fact, been reading anything, although the stack of bookmarked volumes chest-high on his desk would suggest otherwise, but it was technically impossible to find the angel at a moment in which he was not in the middle of something. He hadn’t been reading anything in the moment, and when he did a quick scan through the books he’d been reading lately, he didn’t find it there either. He turned, almost giving up, though not really, never, he couldn’t possibly, when a shelf caught his eye and a probability occurred to him.

                The book he had been planning on reading next. Charles Dickens. A Christmas Carol.

                Of course.

                He gingerly slid the book off of its shelf and thumbed through the pages.

                The book he’d been planning on reading next. He didn’t understand how the letters found themselves here. He didn’t understand, but it somehow all seemed right.

                The pages stopped at a section wherein a separate page had been placed.

                He rose; the book read, and Aziraphale skimmed the words that preceded the letter, almost out of habit; but finding that the Spirit made toward the window, clasped its robe in supplication.

                “I am a mortal,” Scrooge remonstrated, “and liable to fall.”

                “Bear but a touch of my hand there,” said the Spirit, laying it upon his heart, “and you shall be upheld in more than this!”

                And then, the letter from Crowley.

Sometimes I think, if I ever really talked to you, you would hate me.

Do you think you could ever forgive me, Aziraphale, if you saw me curse the name of God, a thousand times, and really mean it?

And part of me remembers all it was supposed to stand for, even after all this time, all that ‘good’ and ‘godly’ and ‘holy’ was supposed to mean. What it was supposed to protect. And sometimes, cursing that, I remember, and it feels like I’m cursing all of that, too, and it makes me stop. Sometimes it’s the only thing that makes me stop.

But maybe if you were down here, you’d see why it’s so hard for me to believe that goodness is really what any of it stands for. You’ve told me, before, in a hushed voice, almost like you’re afraid it might be true if you speak it into the world, that sometimes you think the other angels believe there is no Heaven without Hell, no God without the devil. I can tell you’re worried about what I’m thinking when you tell me that, in those moments, but honestly, angel, all I’m usually thinking about is the horror in your eyes at the thought. That’s something, at least, knowing that you would never keep pain and suffering around just so you could show off how much better your own side is. Because the truth is, I don’t think there can be a God if there’s a Hell. What kind of perfection is that? What kind of happy ending, if the darkness doesn’t become light, but just gets shoved into a corner to suffer with more of itself? Just so people can say ‘Without shadows we would have no light’, as though that makes it okay to pretend fallen angels are just the absence of angels, when really we’re still here? We have to live with it.

I’m glad you can’t read this, because it would probably ruin your Christmas. It’s maybe the most undemonic thing I’ve done here, missing Christmas. I always miss Christmas, even when I’m there. It passes me by no matter how much I try and stare at it. It feels like I should be doing it differently. It always feels like we ought to be spending it together, even though we never do, or maybe like we should.

Maybe this will all end, and I’ll show up there, right in time for Christmas Eve, and I’ll be bold enough to knock on your door and make some joke about how spending time with an angel when he should be celebrating Christmas must surely count as some sort of demonic activity. Maybe you’d make hot cocoa. As though there could be any doubt.

Happy Christmas, angel. Writing that feels like the most subversive thing I could do. Maybe I’ll get out of here in time to try something even worse. See what God and the devil and everyone else thinks of that.

                Aziraphale sat in his warm, warm room, with the lights he’d hung up more for customers’ sake than his own dying the page red and green, and shivered. The demon must have lost track of time, down there. It was already Christmas Eve, tonight. It was starting to snow outside. Everything was as magical as could be.

                All the angel felt was cold.

                His numb fingers opened the book at random, and his eyes fell on the passage there.

                “I have come to bring you home, dear brother!” said the child, clapping her tiny hands, and bending down to laugh. “To bring you home, home, home!”

                “Home, little Fan?” returned the boy.

                “Yes!” said the child, brimful of glee. “Home, for good and all. Home, for ever and ever. Father is so much kinder than he used to be, that home’s like Heaven! He spoke so gently to me one dear night when I was going to bed that I was not afraid to ask him once more if you might come home; and he said Yes, you should; and sent me in a coach to bring you. And you’re to be a man!” said the child, opening her eyes, “and are never to come back here; but first, we’re to be together all the Christmas long, and have the merriest time in all the world.”

 

***

 

                In Hell, it was snowing.

                The best part was, it had happened right after Beelzebub had said, “You’ll all get ‘vacation time’ when Hell freezes over.”

                To be clear, snow in Hell was not common. It was, in fact, unheard of. True, young demons used to ice-skate down the door-to-door salespeople, but that ice was the kind formed from the complete absence of heat found only in places so dismal and distanced from humanity that even atoms had lost their will to move. Now the demonlings were delighted to have a skating rink in the middle of Hell where they weren’t constantly tripping on peoples’ elbows or noses.

                Crowley would remember the moment for eternity. Nobody noticed that their breaths were suddenly visible in the hot, packed crowd, or that the temperature had dropped, that they weren’t so sweaty anymore, that they could breathe more easily without the suffocating heat. They had all been here too long. Nothing could have broken them out of their stupor, except for the glass of wine Beelzebub had been holding as they’d made their speech. They’d only noticed it because it had been right in front of all of them. There had been an almost ringing noise as the liquid inside had seemed to shiver, then frozen solid, one long crack spidering its way down the side of the glass.

                Snowflakes danced through the air. The heat radiating from the ground in some places was too much to let them land, but Crowley didn’t mind. Snow without being cold. Hell without burning. It was—

                —It was a joyous occasion. For all, even the demons, at least for every one of them who wasn’t worried what it might mean for the fate of Hell, what it might imply that something seemingly good had happened for once, and some were determined to stop it before it caused a riot, although the cause was so unsolvable that they weren’t having much luck so far. But the other demons, the innocent ones, even though such a thing seemed surely to be an oxymoron—the other demons, who were simply there, played in the snow. Crowley could not possibly have thought, ‘God bless us, every one’, but he did, for once, think, We’re okay. Right now, we’re all okay.

 

***

January, cold

***

 

                By the New Year, Aziraphale had started looking.

                He didn’t wait for the smell of sulfur anymore. He couldn’t spend every second scouring his books for letters, but there were times when he couldn’t stand not to, and so he looked.

                He had started with the books he thought Crowley liked. This hadn’t seemed right. For whatever reason, by whatever method he was subconsciously, accidentally sending his hastily-written confessions, they weren’t ending up in anything the demon was known to read. Aziraphale had looked, then, to ones he thought Crowley knew him to like. Perhaps, he’d thought, Crowley will subconsciously put them there, because he’s thinking of me. This made him wonder why he would assume that Crowley would think of him that much, and yet it felt true.

                It was taking him a long time to find the latest one. He knew there must be one there, or that if there wasn’t, he needed there to be one nonetheless. He felt weary with skimming through book after book, and it took quite a lot to make him feel such a thing.

                It was in The Wind in the Willows, and it broke his heart. It was in the chapter, “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn,” and the Rat and the Mole had just met the Friend and Helper, someone who might have been the personification of Nature, or Pan, or someone entirely else.

                ‘Rat!’ he found breath to whisper, shaking. ‘Are you afraid?’

                ‘Afraid?’ murmured the Rat, his eyes shining with unutterable love. ‘Afraid! Of him? O, never, never! And yet—and yet—O, Mole, I am afraid!’

I remember being afraid, mostly. Back when it all started. When I fell, but also before then, definitely before. Afraid, or in awe. This was before humans, we didn’t have words yet, to distinguish these things. Don’t know how you managed it. Time before words. It felt—I think, looking back now, I think that it was fear.

‘Fear not’, they always say, the angels say. But that’s easy enough. Not being afraid of you.

The Bibles always say to ‘fear’ God, but I think they mean respect. But that’s the point, isn’t it? They should have been more careful. Should have clarified. Who wants to fear their god? What god wants us to fear them? Maybe all it was from the start was me being too afraid, misinterpreting respect and awe or failing at them, I don’t know. Maybe that’s why I fell, because I just couldn’t understand them. They should have been more careful.

I don’t know. I’d like to think that’s not why I did it. I’d much rather think it was a choice. It really felt like a choice, falling. Miserable, horrible, wrong choice, but you have to take one, when you finally have one, don’t you? Rather than live not having any at all.

I’d much rather think I fell because I wanted something more than because I was afraid. Falling for something. Like they say, eh? Falling for someone. It’s much better than running away. I think I wanted freedom.

Wanting things is scary, too. Don’t get me wrong. I’m terrified of you. The most afraid I ever am of any angel, but I’d take that fear over the rest any day. I’ll never regret that fall.

I think I could have handled it, if I’d feared it all, Heaven, the way I fear you. It’s a different kind. I think I could have handled that.

 

***

January, a few days later

***

 

                Aziraphale laid out each of the letters across the floor as though he were looking for clues to solve a mystery. He had considered burning them but found that he couldn’t bear to do it. Crowley had wanted them burned, unread, lost forever, and maybe it was even dangerous to keep them around. But Crowley had also wanted to write them.

                Crowley. Aziraphale let the thought drift around his mind. Not really a thought, but more a series of images, of sounds of laughter and serious conversations, of memories and sensations. Of the feeling that always came with the name. A whole universe of feelings.

                He read them over, again and again. He listened to what they said about fear and wanting and what was all worthwhile. Aziraphale could always read, but he couldn’t always, he thought, listen. Reading was taking in words and finding meaning in them. It didn’t mean you had to find the intended meaning. Sometimes he thought he read books entirely for the thoughts they created in himself. But sometimes, if it was one he really loved, or one he thought was truly important, he tried to listen to what it was trying to say all on its own. It was difficult, and when it came to letters written by Crowley, trying to separate what the demon must have been feeling from his own feelings was especially hard. But Aziraphale listened.

                Does he love me? he thought. It came only as startling as the first drop of rain on a cloudy day. Really, you should have known. You might have even known, once, that it was going to rain, but you had forgotten. Then there was the first gentle drop that made you squint up at the sky, not exactly in bewilderment or in anxiety or sadness, but only in a calm sort of surprise. Yes, he thought, he does. And the rain wasn’t really upsetting at all, because you had known, really, and you’d brought an umbrella—had he?—yes, and it was cool and the light was grey and silver and there was a slight breeze that made everything feel more alive.

                The only question that remained, then, was, Had he brought an umbrella?

                It was funny, he thought, how Crowley was so unlike how he seemed. He seemed like a shockwave. Like something that would jolt you to your very core, and leave you unbalanced forever. He was supposed to be subtle, sneaking into peoples’ minds, convincing them of things without ever being noticed, insidious and insinuating. Instead, thought Aziraphale, he had been something he had settled into, like the kind of sleep you fall into when you are not particularly tired but are simply calm, or the way a good cup of cocoa fills you with warmth gradually and completely, or perhaps Crowley had settled into him, or they had settled into each other. It was like falling the way a feather falls, gentle and no harm done. He had hardly noticed.

                And perhaps he specifically hadn’t brought an umbrella because he had wanted to feel the first drops, and, really, the real question, the one that wasn’t metaphorical or hypothetical at all, had the simplest answer, which was, Aziraphale realized, Yes.

                I’ve got to go and get him, he thought, and then the same old fear, that showing up Downstairs would only end up causing more trouble for them both, prevented him. He wondered, with a kind of sad desperation, if he would be brave enough to go if he hadn’t had this excuse. He was scared and sorry not to know. That wasn’t the kind of bravery they were permitted to show.

                But the Yes was roaring like a storm inside him now. Yes, I love you, too, he thought, and there was no one there to tell it to. He didn’t know whether to cry or smile when he smelled a slight burning smell coming from the nearest book.

                Aziraphale dropped himself into the chair by his desk and opened Mrs. Dalloway.

                For they might be parted for hundreds of years, she and Peter; she never wrote a letter and his were dry sticks; but suddenly it would come over her, If he were with me now what would he say? — some days, some sights bringing him back to her calmly, without the old bitterness; which perhaps was the reward of having cared for people; they came back in the middle of St. James’s Park on a fine morning — indeed they did.

                He found the note. It just said,

Angel. This has been going on for longer than I’d hoped.

                Aziraphale sniffed. He’d settled on a sloppy sort of in-between, where he was crying and smiling at the same time, something he thought he had actually seen Crowley do, once, or maybe more than once, throughout their millennia of existence. He would, he thought, laughing to add to his mix of sorrow, He could hold all that in him much better than I can.

                Aziraphale’s eyes drifted back to the page, the way they always did to the comfort of words somebody else had written. Clarissa Dalloway went on, after that, to try to convince herself she had been right to marry someone else. Someone other than Peter. They were too much, with one another. There was no “little independence,” she said, that was necessary in a marriage.

                But with Peter everything had to be shared; everything gone into. And it was intolerable, and when it came to that scene in the little garden by the fountain, she had to break with him or they would have been destroyed, both of them ruined, she was convinced; though she had borne about with her for years like an arrow sticking in her heart the grief, the anguish….

                Aziraphale stood, strong, determined, then sighed, pressing his fists against the top of the desk, arms straight and tensed. No more anguish, he thought. But I can’t go. He wanted to go and fetch him. But he didn’t know how he could get to Hell, get Crowley, and come back up again. He didn’t know if they would chase him and bring him back again. He sat back down, or more accurately, allowed himself to crumple back into his chair.

                The bookshop creaked in the way old bookshops do, and the letters stayed motionless on the carpeted floor. Aziraphale forced himself to breathe.

                Still, he thought, resolute, no more anguish.

 

***

Date unknown

***

 

                Crowley couldn’t remember the last time he had spoken aloud. In the past, Below, they had normally singled him out, making him explain his reports, drawing attention to him, forcing him to babble on about what he had been doing on Earth, all to shame him or cackle at him or simply frighten him into doing more evil the next time he’d be sent back aboveground. This time they seemed to be taking the opposite approach, and it was working. He was shuffled around with the other demons and imps like he was just one of the many. There was nothing special about him. Perhaps there never would be again.

                Crowley had always wanted to go down fighting. He’d always suspected that he might not, not really, not when faced with the actual end. He worried that now it seemed to be the case.

                He filed in with the other imps into the chamber where they were all being gathered today, stuffed around a pedestal upon which Beelzebub sat, blazing in fire and fury. They looked even more on edge than usual today. Crowley hardly noticed.

                “Zzzomething,” the Lord of the Flies drawled. “Izzz wrong.”

                The demons all stared. Some of them gave a half-hearted cheer, others made noises of concern, none quite knowing which was the appropriate response.

                “Wrong for uzzz,” Beelzebub clarified.

                The audience transitioned to groans of understanding.

                “All over Earth there have been inzztancezz of good—portentzz. Zignalzz of good fortune and the presenze of divinity. Rainbowz have flashed in the sky with no signz of rain. Dovez have flown in through the windowzz of delegates who were arguing momentz before, who take these ‘signs’ azz messagezz to turn to peace. Tea leavez spell out messages of hope, flowerzz are blooming in the darkest patches of dirt. Church attendance haz rizen az people are convinced what they are witnessing are miraclezzz.”

                There was a shuffling noise as demons turned, not to one another, but to avoid one another’s gaze. It was how demons typically comforted themselves. None knew what Beelzebub was going to ask of them next.

                “We muzzt all fight against theze displayz of divinity and graciousnezz,” they said. Their eyes were like flames, stretched wide and desperate.

                “On Earth?”

                The multitude of demons shifted. They looked around, meeting each other’s gaze now, trying to find out who had spoken.

                Crowley hadn’t even meant to speak aloud. It had simply come out of him, tired and exhausted as he was. Maybe I can’t ever fight it, he thought, the idea sparking something like hope within him. Maybe I’ll always have a big mouth. Maybe I can never, ever, truly shut up. He tried not to grin.

                “Who among uzz would go to Earth?” Beelzebub said scathingly. Then their expression changed. The legion of demons shifted once more, this time in unison, focused on one point.

                The next thing he knew, Crowley had been shoved against a wall, someone’s crab-claw-like hands gripping his throat, a dozen other demons driven furious with fear glaring at him, just daring him to try and get away.

                Crowley had to hold himself back from laughing in glee. It was a little easier, since the serrated edge of somebody’s claw was tight against his throat, but only a little.

                “Crowley,” Beelzebub growled from their stand.

                Above their head, there was a torch. A large torch, with a slow red flame, the kind that created far more heat than light. Across its flickering flames, Crowley began to glimpse flashes of other colors. In the flames, red and orange, then yellow, green, blue, purple…

                “Fix thizz.”

                “Yep,” Crowley squeaked, and to the other demons, it probably sounded more like fear than joy. But Crowley had had much more experience than they had with the latter.

 

***

February, an unseasonably pleasant day in the countryside

***

 

                Crowley parked the Bentley in the cleanest patch of grass he could find. Normally, any grass at all wouldn’t do, but it was the best he could find in the country fair car park. Most of the other cars were in the dirt.

                He got out and slammed the car door, not out of irritation, but out of the energized feeling of being in the countryside, breathing in cool air, feeling the sun on your skin from far above but with enough breeze to not be hot. He walked around to the other side, but Aziraphale had already let himself out. He was wearing a sweater-vest that was tartan in pastel blue and purple, something only the angel could make look so nice. Crowley thought it might even be new. He wanted to mention it, but thought maybe he shouldn’t. Then again, maybe he should.

                He gave in, and complimented it, in a little, surprised sort of voice that he didn’t recognize in himself, and Aziraphale beamed at him, and didn’t say a word.

                The angel had been uncharacteristically silent on the whole drive there. Normally, if Crowley dared to bring up something he was wearing, and normally it was not a compliment, the angel would go on and on about where he’d gotten it, what kind of sheep’s wool it was, etc. The angel had been pretty quiet ever since Crowley had gotten back, in fact, not that he’d seemed distant or cold. He had seemed, if anything, happier than normal to see him.

                Crowley had been gone for a long time. When he’d walked into the bookshop—just enough hours after having gotten back from Downstairs to have time to clean himself up, which was another way of referring to staring at oneself existentially in the mirror until your face began to mean something again, and to splash some water on your face and run a comb through your hair—when he’d walked into the bookshop, Aziraphale had beamed then, too. Not largely. It was mostly in his eyes. His mouth had been closed, the corners of his lips curled up a bit, something playing across his whole face without really coming out anywhere, just sort of shining, only recognizable because Crowley knew him. He’d stood up, at once quickly and calmly, and simply stared at him for a moment. Crowley supposed he must have been staring, too. Then, as the smile faded from his lips but not his eyes, finally, he’d said, “Well, hello.”

                He’d been like that ever since. Sort of restrained in a new way, a way that paradoxically seemed more open. It seemed like he was speaking less but looking at him more, ever since he’d gotten back.

                Back.

                Crowley grinned into the sunlight. He leaned back his head, stretched out his arms, wiggled his fingers and drank in the breeze. Aziraphale glanced at him and smiled, then continued leading the way.

                “So where exactly are we going?” Crowley asked him.

                “The fair. I would have thought that’d be fairly obvious by now.”

                “Yes, I know the fair, but you didn’t just let me hop out of the Bentley and make a beeline for the funnel cake stand like you knew I wanted to, so obviously there’s more than that.”

                “Perhaps that was because funnel cake is a disaster on anyone’s stomach,” Aziraphale said, with a small smile, “mortal or otherwise?”

                “A disaster you’d devour in three minutes.”

                “How dare you,” Aziraphale said quietly. His eyes were fixed ahead. After a moment, he added, “You know I like to savor things.”

                They reached the fair entrance and joined the throng of people. They made their way through the rows of stalls, weaving around the wheels of fortune and the test-your-strengths. Children scampered past, darting around Aziraphale’s and Crowley’s legs to hide from their friends, as though they all knew each other and that was what all adults were meant for. It was a different kind of crowd from the one Crowley had been used to lately, and he found he didn’t mind it as much. Still, when they started to reach the end of the booths and the outskirts of the fair, he was even more glad to have more space, although befuddled by it all.

                “Being a bit picky, aren’t you?” Crowley said, glancing at Aziraphale, whose eyes were still fixed forward. “Did you bring me to a fair just to walk past everything?”

                “What we’re here for is past the fair, although we can go back and try the tilt-a-whirl if you’ll be sorry you missed it,” Aziraphale said.

                Crowley knew he was joking, and he also knew he could make the angel regret it if he wanted to, but he cast the spinning metal contraption a glace and winced, himself.

                “All right,” he said. “All right. I’ll trust you.” He looked around at the edge of the fairgrounds. There was a row of trees up ahead, with a little path cutting through it. The smells of fried food and candy floss faded as they got further from the grounds, and the cool air replaced it. Crowley took in a deep breath and looked up at the sky. “Don’t suppose I would regret it, if we didn’t ride a thing, after all. It’s fine just being out here. Nice day for it.”

                “It is, isn’t it?” Aziraphale said happily. Crowley shot him a look.

                “Almost miraculous, weather like this in February.”

                “I’m sure you’re not implying that I had anything to do with it.”

                “Funny things, we heard, while I was Down—Downstairs.” Crowley smirked at the angel as they walked. “All sorts of miraculous weather patterns. Rainbows. Clouds shaped like angels and doves. Simply ethereal.” He sped up ahead so he could turn around and face Aziraphale as he walked backward. “Sure that has nothing to do with you?”

                “And I suppose you think little rainbows follow me around everywhere I go?” Aziraphale said. He made a little ‘tish’ noise, then started humming. Crowley had to hand it to him. The angel had the ability to be completely obvious and entirely unrelenting at the same time. It could have been infuriating, if the day hadn’t been so nice, and his humming hadn’t reminded Crowley of some old tune he’d nearly forgotten.

                “Wouldn’t be surprised if they did,” Crowley said after a moment, turning back to face forward again.

                Aziraphale scoffed. “There isn’t one in the sky now, is there?”

                 Crowley looked up at the perfectly gorgeous sky, wide open, deep blue with white puffy clouds drifting across it. “No,” he said. “There isn’t. How disappointing.”

                Aziraphale smiled, and continued humming, and then they made it through the little gateway of trees into a field, and Crowley was met with a rainbow of gigantic half-inflated balloons scattered every which-way across the ground.

                “Khh—” Crowley began. He cleared his throat and tried again. “What is this?”

                “It wasn’t just any old fair. There was also a hot air balloon festival. I’ve never been in one, myself. I always thought I might like to, ever since that book came out. Not Around the World in Eighty Days, if you’re thinking of that one. It was something else. I can never remember. Anyway, they look simply delightful, and it might be nice to fly slowly, instead of in those dreadful jet things, even though you say they’re better now than they once were.”

                Aziraphale finally noticed that Crowley had stopped walking, and he turned around and waited for him to catch up. He had been babbling again. Now, though, he just looked at him, smiling eyes and—relief. Was that what it was? Maybe, but only partly.

                “So you’re telling me,” Crowley said, catching up to him, “that we’re going to get in one of those things?”

                “Well,” Aziraphale said, with a little shrug. “Only if you want to.”

                As though Crowley would ever say no to anything Aziraphale asked. Especially if it was something uncharacteristically outlandish and—and—well, bold wasn’t exactly the right word, for hot air balloons, but outside of his comfort zone, nonetheless. Especially hopping into a tiny basket suspended by a great big colorful tarp held aloft by a tiny flame up in the great big sky. Of course he’d go there with him.

                Crowley gave a little shrug, and then both of them grinned, and Aziraphale led the way again, to their own balloon.

                There were a few men who had been helping blow the thing up. It was perfect, exactly how Crowley’d always pictured these balloons, red and blue and yellow, billowing up into the sky until it was completely full. The men holding the ropes let go. They walked away. It was then that Crowley realized they were all walking away, leaving the two of them alone.

                “Hold on.” He hurried over to Aziraphale, who had been walking unconcernedly towards the basket. “Isn’t there meant to be somebody with us? Someone who—knows what they’re doing?”

                “They seem to have forgotten,” Aziraphale said. He held his hand to his chin as he contemplated the basket. “I’m sure we can manage.”

                Crowley blithered. “But—but do you have any idea how to fly this thing?”

                “I know how to fly myself,” Aziraphale said. “I daresay I’m much more unwieldy. Besides, if we do suffer some mishap, we can simply—fly down.” He turned and gave Crowley a grin, before turning back to the basket, gripping the edge, and giving himself a great heave that resulted in him only halfway lifting himself up.

                Crowley bit back some remark about the angel being far more elegant of a flying thing than a great big balloon—present situation aside—and helped him without thinking, lifting him by the elbows until the angel managed to turn himself and get half his body over the rim. “But—” he grunted. “Still—it’s—it’s a bit farfetched, for you, isn’t it?”

                Aziraphale didn’t deign to reply as he scootched himself on his stomach over the rail. He finally landed with a huff on the other side, in the basket. He straightened out his vest. Then, he gave the demon a look, and said, “Come on, Crowley.”

                Crowley hopped in immediately—or as immediately as shoving oneself into a hot air balloon basket can be achieved.

                “I think we just need some hot air to get afloat,” Aziraphale said, hands on his hips as he looked at the contraption. He shot Crowley a worried glance. “Er.”

                “No problem,” Crowley said. He dusted off his hands. “I have plenty of experience with that. Er, heat. Flames. Not hot air.”

                “I meant, are you all right with that? Perhaps you’d rather get away from it, since—”

                “This is different, angel,” Crowley said. He was feeling oddly ebullient. He hopped on the balls of his feet a little as he figured out how operating the flame worked. “If I can’t control one tiny Earth flame, then what kind of—”

                One, really not very tiny at all, flame burst out of the burner, and the balloon gave a great shudder. Crowley steeled himself, cast out some more flames, and soon the balloon lifted off the ground.

                Crowley gave a defiant laugh and Aziraphale let out a tiny whoop that distracted the demon into letting them fall with a thump back on the ground. But after another moment, they were up in the air again, and soon they were rising, higher and higher, and Crowley had to do all he could not to reach his fingers out as though they could grab all the blue right out of the sky.

                They were up above the trees. Up above the fairground. The other balloons were becoming tinier and tinier. No one seemed to notice the renegades. Aziraphale and Crowley laughed over the fire and burner for a bit, neither one having any idea how to steer. Eventually, they gave up. The breeze was gentle, and the balloon seemed to be staying in one place. Crowley thought it might possibly have been him, subconsciously wishing it to stay still, wanting to look down at the fairgrounds below. There were so many people, all having a good time. There was a young couple riding the Ferris wheel, leaning towards each other when it paused at the top. There was a pair of girls sharing a candy floss. There were four kids, one with bright red hair, one golden, chasing a dog as it darted among the stalls. There were so many people. There was so much blue if he just raised his gaze a little higher. Some fluffy white above that. Bright orange, happy flames if he turned around, and next to him, the blue of Aziraphale’s jumper which matched the blue of the sky behind it perfectly.

                Crowley watched it all with a still smile that stayed on his face exactly like Aziraphale’s, and he wondered if this was how the angel had been feeling all this time.

                Eventually, after spending about ten minutes watching kids chase each other, couples win each other prizes, giant stuffed animals, and families huddle together to escape the rare chill breeze, he turned to the angel.

                “This is brilliant, Aziraphale,” he said. He wasn’t sure if he had been deafened from the roar of the flames, or if his voice was quiet for some other reason. “How’d you think of this?”

                Aziraphale was leaning on his elbows, looking over the edge of the basket to the ground below. He didn’t reply for a moment. He said, dreamily, “I just thought, after all your time—Down There—you might like some fresh air.”

                Crowley gave a start, then smoothed out his shirt, just to do something with his hands. “Right,” he said, quietly. “Er. Right.”

                “They always say,” Aziraphale said, “that the world looks so much smaller from above. But—they’re wrong, aren’t they? It doesn’t.”

                “You go up and up, and still can’t see the ends of it,” Crowley said, nodding. “You just realize how big it all is.”

                “Still can’t see the Bentley, though,” Aziraphale commented.

                “Nah. We’ll have to walk a ways to get back. Your shoes might be in a state.”

                “So might my feet. So might your feet.”

                “I don’t suppose you know any pedicurists who wouldn’t mind a few scales?” Crowley said.

                Aziraphale turned to him with a laugh. He leaned his side against the basket, then pushed himself off with an odd look. He put his hand to his hip, and his eyes widened. “Oh! I almost forgot.”

                Crowley waited while the angel fished around in his pocket. They were sinking. He let a few more bursts of flame into the balloon, his stomach whirling as it brought them back up again.

                “Here.” Aziraphale handed him something. “I got you a Christmas present.”

                It was a pen. A nice one, too. Crowley twirled it around in his fingers. Black, gold trimming, smooth and cool to the touch.

                “Late, of course,” Aziraphale said. “But I thought, better late than never.”

                “Christmas?” Crowley said. He couldn’t stop twirling the pen around. Maybe because if he did stop, he might have to look at Aziraphale’s face.

                “I know how much you like the one you already have. And, it being you, I figured you probably don’t need a replacement, it’s not like you’d ever let it run out of ink. But this one’s different. Invisible ink.”

                Crowley’s fingers stopped twirling.

                “Since you, er,” Aziraphale said, “are a fan of James Bond, and all. It seemed like the sort of thing he would use. Cool. Erm. Gosh, I feel like I don’t even know if I’m saying that right.”

                He gave a chuckle. Crowley looked up at him. The angel looked a little nervous. Mostly, though, he looked the same as he had before. Relief, and something else. Something the demon still couldn’t quite get.

                “Angel,” Crowley said, his voice low and a little rough. “Why—we don’t—we don’t do Christmas gifts. You—you take me on a hot air balloon ride. You bring me up in the sky. You give me this beautiful pen. What—What is going on?”

                Aziraphale glanced around the balloon, everywhere except at Crowley, looked up at the sky, blinking a little, as though checking for rain. He took a breath and smiled. And then he looked right at him. He said, his voice small and brave, “What’s going on—Ahm. What’s going on—is—that I love you, and I missed you, terribly.” He fiddled with a piece of wicker from the basket, but still keeping eye contact, still smiling softly. “And I thought—I think, that you missed me, too. And so I thought, it might be nice to come up here, and to talk about it.”

                “And,” Crowley said. It had come out of him, strained. He stared at Aziraphale.

                “‘And’?” The angel seemed startled. His cheeks were tinged with pink.

                “And I love you,” Crowley said. His voice was hoarse. “I missed you—and love you, too.”

                Aziraphale’s smiled widened, finally open, his eyes glistening. Crowley realized what it was, along with relief. Relief and joy. The angel just stood there and looked at him.

                “Aziraphale.” Crowley’s throat was dry. He coughed, smiled anxiously, cleared his throat again. “I—um—”

                “Crowley.”

                “Oh! I never said—thank you, for the pen—”

                “Crowley.” Aziraphale touched his fingers gently beneath Crowley’s chin. He looked torn—smiling, pressing his lips together, smiling again. “I said—” he breathed, “—we would talk about it. It—there’s nothing to say.”

                “Huh,” Crowley said, mostly a rush of air.

                Aziraphale gently pulled his face closer, and kissed him.

                A breeze gusted through, fluttering their hair, tilting the balloon so that Crowley leaned against Aziraphale. It chilled the air around them, but their faces were too close together to lose any of their warmth.

                “I—” Aziraphale stuttered. “I was wrong. There are—many things to say.” He sounded stunned. He sounded breathless and relieved and joyful. “I am going to say them to you.”

                “Mm,” Crowley murmured.

                “At—at some point.”

                “Yeah.” Crowley’s mouth twitched into a smile. “Yeah, okay.”

                As they kissed, the balloon began to sink, slowly, safely, like the fall of a feather, gently towards Earth and home.