Happy Holidays, chonaku!

[goe_mod]

Title: To His Dust I Return
Recipient: Chonaku
Rating: Teen & Up Audiences, possibly Mature (for the death of a human character)
Pairing: Aziraphale & Crowley or Aziraphale/Crowley (feels more gen, but can be read as slash nonetheless)
Notes: I feel like apologizing to my dear recipient for how wistful this turned out, but it takes into account some mythology surrounding a figure from Jewish history, Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel. My recipient asked for a story about Aziraphale, Crowley, Rabbi Loew, and the Golem of Prague. This takes a known fact about Loew’s life and fuses it with the legend.
Summary/Teaser:

Aziraphale grimaced at the looping script and shoved it back at [Crowley]. “That’s where I’m headed.”

The parchment sizzled to ash in Crowley’s palm. “That’s not all I know. That Maharal fellow’s on his way out. Er, whatsisface—Rabbi Loew?”

“Then what are you doing here?” Aziraphale blurted, bewildered at Crowley’s presence. Upstanding religious leaders merited monitoring, but rarely by the other side. “I’m meant to…” He bit his tongue, wondering how much he ought to censor. “Follow up on an accomplishment he’s rumored to have, er, accomplished. See to it there’s no unfinished business surrounding…that.”

“What am I doing here?” Crowley snapped, growing agitated. “To find out how he bloody well did it, preferably before the breath leaves his body. D’you think I like watching humans die?”

Aziraphale leaned heavily against the brick wall, panting harshly as he glanced from side to side.

The alley was empty save for a few unsightly trash heaps, which meant nobody had seen him appear. Miracling oneself somewhere instead of traveling the good old-fashioned human way was now strongly frowned-upon, as humans had grown remarkably desensitized.

The night was dark, but the last thing Aziraphale wanted to risk was ending some poor soul’s life ahead of schedule by triggering a heart attack. He hadn’t personally witnessed someone snuffing it from sheer shock, but rumor had it Michael had set the precedent behind the policy change.

In spite of Earth’s calendar now reading 1609 on this particular continent, if one wanted to just pop from one place to another, one was strongly encouraged—or kindly threatened, depending on the way you looked at it—to do it the hard way. Bugger that.

Just Aziraphale’s luck, that as he turned to exit the alley while dusting off garb that would undoubtedly cause the locals to dismiss him as a bumbling Englishman, there was a forceful smack against the brick. It was followed by a low hiss of irritation, and not just any hiss.

“This is Prague,” Crowley said irrelevantly, pretending he hadn’t just made a bad landing. “Not your sort of place, I should think. Far too…Bohemian, d’you catch my drift?”

“Oh, that’s very funny,” Aziraphale said, folding his arms across his chest. “Taking up puns?”

“Look, you’re the one always telling me to lighten up,” Crowley said, attempting the same nonchalance Aziraphale had attempted on his own arrival, but with much less dignity.

“Fine,” Aziraphale sighed, indicating that Crowley should approach. “Let’s talk. We wouldn’t both be here if there weren’t something afoot.”

“I’ve got an address. That’s the only specific thing about my orders,” Crowley said shiftily.

Aziraphale pressed his fingers to his temples. “Is it written down? Any chance I might see it?”

Crowley shrugged, rummaged in his doublet, and held out a scrap of singed parchment. “Sure.”

Aziraphale grimaced at the looping script and shoved it back at him. “That’s where I’m headed.”

The parchment sizzled to ash in Crowley’s palm. “That’s not all I know. That Maharal fellow’s on his way out. Er, whatsisface—Rabbi Loew?”

“Then what are you doing here?” Aziraphale blurted, bewildered at Crowley’s presence. Upstanding religious leaders merited monitoring, but rarely by the other side. “I’m meant to…” He bit his tongue, wondering how much he ought to censor. “Follow up on an accomplishment he’s rumored to have, er, accomplished. See to it there’s no unfinished business surrounding…that.”

“What am I doing here?” Crowley snapped, growing agitated. “To find out how he bloody well did it, preferably before the breath leaves his body. D’you think I like watching humans die?”

Aziraphale was startled. One, Crowley knew exactly what Judah Loew ben Bezalel was rumored to have done. Two, he’d never quite considered that, had he—that Crowley’s aversion to heartbreak truly wasn’t feigned. He thought of all the times over the centuries he’d told Crowley to buck up, stiff upper lip and all that. Inwardly, he cringed.

“Listen here, dear boy,” Aziraphale said, clapping Crowley’s shoulder, “I’ll go in with you. Heaven knows my people don’t need to know I’ve shared my research on the, er, method behind the madness. Not that we have anything more than strange hearsay.”

“More like the method behind the mud,” Crowley muttered, shaking him off. “And Heaven is your people. You’ve made that joke before, angel.”

“What were you saying about lightening up?” Aziraphale jibed, but stopped smiling the moment Crowley shot him a withering glance. “Fine, business it is. Lead the way.”

Breaking and entering always felt underhanded even when Aziraphale was acting on orders. He couldn’t help but wonder if Crowley felt the same way as he miracled the lock open, hustled Aziraphale inside, and soundlessly closed the wooden door behind them.

“Why is there no one?” Crowley whispered nervously as they passed through the cold, silent scullery and into the main part of the house. “His wife, surely? Or perhaps a maid?”

“Pearl’s yahrzeit has come and gone,” Aziraphale replied. “As for household staff—”

“I know better than to deny entry to your kind,” called a strained voice from down the hall.

Realizing Crowley was no longer keen to lead him on, Aziraphale stepped boldly ahead and opened the bedroom door ahead of them. He stared at the partially moonlit four-poster bed.

“Whether I’m to be turned to salt, well,” said Judah, his voice subsiding to a frail rasp even as his lips twisted in mirth, “that’s of far more import to you at this stage than it is to me.”

“Hah,” Crowley exhaled, his jitters worsening as he flashed white teeth at Judah. “Good one.”

“Take those lenses off, young man,” said Judah. “Come a bit closer, eh? Spare my old eyes?”

“Where is it?” Aziraphale asked, no need for artifice since the old man knew what he was.

“Forgive him,” Crowley said hastily, approaching Judah’s bedside. “No manners, this one.”

Judah sighed, studying the ceiling with bloodshot eyes. “Gone from Creation. Nine years.”

Aziraphale frowned while Crowley uncomfortably pocketed his tinted glasses. “Destroyed?”

“Not by my hand,” Judah whispered, closing his eyes. “Not as rumor would have you think.”

“That’s…reassuring, though, right?” Crowley said, glancing upward in relief when he realized he wasn’t being treated as a curiosity. “Saves us the trouble of chasing the blasted thing down for you, eh?”

Judah’s eyes snapped open, narrowing in fierce, unexpected fury. “How dare you belittle him! You, with such imperfect eyes and tongue! He was even as I am. Flesh, fashioned from clay, even if not blood.”

“Apologies,” Aziraphale said, deciding the interview might fare better if he took it from there. “He?”

Judah moaned feebly, his anger subsiding into an instant, shocking display of grief. “My Bezalel.”

“Your…” Crowley rummaged frantically in his doublet, pulling out a few more scraps of parchment. “That was—wait, you must mean your father?”

“No,” Judah said sadly, finally regarding Crowley with unblinking pity. “He was my son.”

“Named for his grandfather,” Aziraphale said soothingly, frustrated that senility had seemingly blown the old man’s focus off topic. “He must have done the name honor. Er, if we might be getting back to the matter at hand—”

“This is all the matter I care to discuss,” Judah said with a reprisal of venom. “You will listen.”

Aziraphale bit his tongue, wondering if letting the old man ramble might get them to the information eventually. Surely such a momentous achievement was in his dying thoughts. Humans were proud creatures until the end of their days.

“I’ll listen,” Crowley said, his affect filled with genuine-sounding empathy. “Set your story straight, so to…speak.” He didn’t look happy about witnessing Judah’s decline or about the sequence of sibilants betraying him further.

“Bezalel was a bright boy,” Judah said, his gaze once again distant. “So fragile in comparison to his sisters at birth, our youngest. His mother wanted nothing to do with him at first, which…this, I could forgive. She’d had no say in his coming into this world.”

“She hadn’t wanted more children?” Aziraphale asked, knitting his brow in confusion. “Pity.”

Crowley didn’t speak, but his posture had grown curiously tense even as he leaned closer.

Judah misted over, his breath turning to a rasp. “Perhaps you would know a thing or two about being sent forth for a purpose you did not choose. You were collateral, no? As was my boy.”

“You could say that of any child,” Crowley replied tersely. “Rabbi, we don’t…have much time.”

“You mean I don’t have much time,” Judah rasped. “Where was I? Ah, right. Bezalel needed…much instruction, more than his sisters ever had. I taught him to speak, to read, to write. To laugh, play…grieve, fight…”

Aziraphale was growing more irritated by the second. The last thing that he and Crowley needed was for Judah to use his last gasp reminiscing about when he was a young father.

Crowley elbowed Aziraphale in the ribs. “Gone,” he said between gritted teeth. “Nine years.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry for your loss,” Aziraphale said hastily. “No father should outlive his son.”

Judah shrugged, which was, when contrasted with the weight of his sorrow, an unusual reaction.

“Bezalel grew strong and smart. He learned, and he taught. But, at my bidding, he also fought.”

Crowley’s intake of breath was so sharp that Aziraphale jumped. “Oh no,” Crowley whispered.

“Oh yes,” Judah said, eyes overbrimming at last. “The Word ought not to have lasted so long.”

Aziraphale scrambled to put the pieces together, arriving at the curious conversation’s horrifying, yet touching conclusion too late, always too late. And always, always a step behind Crowley.

“Your…son, he protected your people,” Crowley insisted, clearly struggling to keep it together.

Judah’s expression darkened, although he did not stop crying. “Name him. Speak what he was.”

“Golem,” Aziraphale said quietly, berating himself for having been blind. “Bezalel ben Judah.”

“I’m sorry for your loss, too,” Crowley said softly, glancing sidelong at Aziraphale. “There’s nothing to see here, angel. Nothing to report. It was a hoax. We’ll tell them it was—”

“To his dust I return,” Judah wheezed, hand outstretched. “Truth, at last, becomes death.”

Before Aziraphale could lift his hand in response, Crowley clasped the old man’s fingers.

“Goddamn it,” Crowley whispered, his bright eyes closing as Judah’s grasp went slack.

“No,” Aziraphale murmured, putting an arm around Crowley. “I assure you He will not.”