Happy Holidays, ImprobableDreams900!

[goe_mod]

Recipient: #8, ImprobableDreams900

Title: A Moment Suspended in Sea Spray

Wordcount: 13,400

Rating: T

Warnings: mildly dubious consent, the ark (discussed, but not depicted, child death), mild self-loathing (on par with canon)

Tags: Aziraphale/Crowley, ineffable husbands, mutual pining, wings, wing injury, time travel shenanigans, scene: the ark, angst, hurt/comfort, but the comforted one is also kind of hurt by the comfort, sorry, happy ending

Summary: Green filled his vision in the brief second before he instinctively tucked his head away in his coils. Crawly didn’t think there had ever been anything green and growing in Hell save perhaps a good mold behind Hastur’s knees. Cautiously, he inched the very tip of his nose out of his coils and flicked his tongue.

Growing things. Soil. Apples. The oil left behind by human hands. Something strange and sharp smelling. Under it all, a smell he knew but couldn’t place.

This wasn’t Hell.

---

Part 1

3004

Somewhere over the Endless Sea

Wind, Crawly had discovered, hurt. Not always; sometimes he could sit atop a hill and turn his face into the breeze and it would lift just the ends of his hair and it would be good. Crawly liked days like that.

He had recently learned how to braid his hair and he liked the way the different size braids caught the wind differently, some lifting high enough to fly over his head while others barely twitched.

This wind was as far away from that sort of pleasant breeze as a demon from an angel^[1]. It hurt. Crawly had never been cut with a knife that he could recall, but that was the only comparison he could think to make; it was like a knife pressed to his flesh but instead of a single point or a line, it was everywhere. The braids he had so carefully worked into his hair before the rain began had escaped their ties and whipped about him, the ends he had been so proud of getting smooth turned sharp by the force of the wind.

Crawly was falling.

Really, it shouldn’t surprise him. He’d done it before. He should know how the wind could ache, how it would press and press, and how his skin would begin to feel as if there wasn’t much at all holding it to his bones. Even as his bones themselves pulled at the places where they were meant to connect and his aching, abused wings tried futilely to find lift. But somehow he was still startled by how much it hurt, by how it made his heart race pointlessly and his skin ache and his eyes widen–and, oh, the water was getting so close–but he still couldn’t twist his wings out from where they’d crumbled beneath him.

Crawly was falling and he couldn’t even scream because the wind had torn the air from his lungs and he couldn’t seem to recapture any, no matter how he tried.

High above him, the angels watched in stony silence. Even across the vast—and growing—distance between them, Crawly could still see the shine of their halos, like twin stars glinting in the first light of dawn.

He’d always liked when stars came in pairs.

Crawly hit the water.

Centuries down the line humans would attempt to describe the way something so changeable could become so hard upon impact. They would liken it to flowing silk settling upon marble or the heart of a spurned lover at the moment of betrayal. Crawly had never been one prone to poetic turns of phrase^[2] and so his first thought upon entering the water was the far more succinct, “ow.” This was rapidly followed by the realization that water felt almost nothing at all like sulfur on impact. Far less burning, for one.

Then, before Crawly could pursue either of those thoughts, he opened his mouth and water rushed in. Suddenly all he could taste was salt and cold, and all he could feel were the broken places in his wings. He tried to cry out, but the water muzzled him more effectively than any Divine Edict ever managed. It didn’t matter anyway, there was no one left to hear him. The angels had taken the few sparks of hope he had managed to shelter from the falling rain.

Crawly sank and soon not even the roiling waves at the surface touched him. All was dark and so cold it hurt, the chill seeped into his bones and stole his strength.

Was there a point to any of this? The thought almost seemed to come from the water around him.

Why even try when all that it got you was the whole of humanity wiped out in one fell swoop? He was meant to tempt them, yes. He knew those who succumbed to his wiles would likely have a different destination after death than those who did not, but as the lungs of his corporation began to burn for air, he wondered if that really mattered so much. The fires of eternal torment in hell seemed to be reserved for the demons themselves as far as Crawly could tell. Human souls were just… there. Endlessly circling the lowest pits, always hungry and wanting and shrieking, but not tortured and not burned. Not the everlasting happiness that Heaven offered, no. But, also not what it might be^[3]. If the afterlife wasn’t so different, then what mattered had to be the ending of life and God, in Her Great and Glorious Temper Tantrum, had seen to it that sinners and saints alike died in the same terrible way.

Crawly had never drowned before.

It occurred to him that that was what he was doing.

Drowning.

He could fight his way back to the surface, try and ride the unending storm out somewhere as his wing healed and then hunt down the feathered pillocks who’d hurt him and– No. No time to think on that, not if he didn’t want the grief to drag him deeper. Crawly thought about fighting, about how tired he already was and how exhausting it would all be, and then he thought about not fighting. He could give up here, take a breath, and fill his lungs with seawater and wait for the dark spots that already gathered at the edges of his vision to take over. It would be easy. The easiest, really. Hell was terrible for demons in ways it was not terrible for humans. But Crawly had always been cleverer than most and he knew places where he could curl up and hide until his paperwork was through the nightmare of bureaucratic red tape needed for recorporation. No one would look for him, no one would notice he wasn’t around because they were all used to him being on Earth. It would be so easy.

Crawly thought of a tiny hand clutched in his own, of dark brown curls beneath his chin and of the clamor of little voices asking for stories or a bit more water or some of that bread, the sweet kind, please please please Crawly, we’ll go to sleep after!

He thought of that hand and he thought of Hell and suddenly the idea of being trapped Below until he could be recorporated was intolerable. All he wanted was a place he could rest, a place to grieve and recover and harden his heart^[4] against the blows he knew would only continue to come.

Someplace safe. The cold of the water curled its fingers tighter, a lover’s hand slipped into his own, and Crawly closed his eyes.

He imagined he was warm.

He was warm and he was safe. There was something soft beneath him, perhaps some of the long grasses that grew on riverbanks. His face was turned to the sun and his eyes were closed, basking in the feeling of just being.

Perhaps, he thought, I am not only warm and safe, but also loved. It was ridiculous, he knew. No one could love a demon. But, it was his fantasy as he discorporated and he thought he was allowed a bit of nonsense. So, he was laying in the sun and there was no danger on the horizon and there was someone he loved at his side^[5] and, just for the hell of it, he didn’t hurt for fucking once. His wing was healed and he was whole in ways he hadn’t been since the fall.

The water vanished from around him and Crawly thumped to the ground with a grunt, his injured wing badly twisted beneath him. Well, it had been a nice fantasy while it lasted. He groaned and lay still, trying to gather the strength to stand. He couldn’t stay here, everyone in Hell could feel when someone arrived and he’d never been well-liked. Human souls might not be actively tortured for the most part, but there was a grain of truth in every rumor and the grain there was labeled ‘torturing your demonic colleagues for career advancement’.

When he was able, took a deep breath and slipped from his human-shaped corporation into his snake-shaped one, coiling into a tight ball as he went. It was easier to avoid the other demons when his thoughts and aura weren’t exactly demon shaped anymore.

It took a moment for what he was seeing to register. As a snake he had no eyelids, usually the first thing that assailed him upon shifting in Hell was the sting of sulfur in his eyes and the bright burn of heat at the edges of his vision.

Green filled his vision in the brief second before he instinctively tucked his head away in his coils. Crawly didn’t think there had ever been anything green and growing in Hell save perhaps a good mold behind Hastur’s knees. Cautiously, he inched the very tip of his nose out of his coils and flicked his tongue.

Growing things. Soil. Apples. The oil left behind by human hands. Something strange and sharp smelling. Under it all, a smell he knew but couldn’t place.

This wasn’t Hell.

It took all of two breaths before Crawly realized just how vulnerable he was, curled up there in the sunspot on the soft grass. He raised his head and looked around, searching for someplace he might hide until he could get his bearings. There was a large plant with wide, dark green leaves less than a single body length away. He darted towards it, uncoiling and lunging through the tall grass. As soon as he reached the cool dark patch he coiled himself up as small as he could go, nestling down deep into the leaf litter that covered the topsoil. Then, he waited.

If there was anything dangerous around, anything or anyone hunting him, then that movement would have alerted them to his presence. Sometimes, Crawly wished he felt comfortable taking the massive form he’d used back in the garden. Surely people wouldn’t mess with him if he looked large enough to swallow them in a single, easy snap. But, that would also mean being seen and Crawly staunchly refused to be perceived if it wasn’t entirely necessary.

The shadows around him twitched and Crawly pulled his head back into his coils instinctively, waiting for grasping hands or claws or a blade.

It didn’t come.

The light kept shivering across his scales. Eventually, he looked up. Then, intrigued, he lifted his head a bit, tilting it to one side.

The leaf above him was shivering. It kept twitching and pulling back, trying with all its planty might to shift so that the sun still fell on Crawly. Snakes could not frown, but Crawly flickered his tongue in a distinctly frowny way as he watched the plant. What in all of Creation could make a plant, of all things, so afraid? Without thinking about it, he craned his head upward, rubbing it against the broad underside of the leaves, soothing away what anxiety he could.

“Ssssilly to be afraid,” he hissed very quietly. “Thingssss happen anyway^[6].”

The plant didn’t seem to find that thought very comforting, though it clearly liked his gentle touch. It was so warm here, after the cold and the rain and the wind as he’d fallen, he didn’t mind a little shade. Eventually, the plant stilled and Crowley was able to retreat back to his protective ball. He took long, deep breaths of the warm air and he waited, sure that answers would appear soon.

Then, almost as if that thought had summoned them, there were souls at the edge of his awareness. Young ones. Well, they all felt young to him. Even at the end of their lives Adam and Eve had still felt young and humans' lives had only been getting shorter since then. In fact, Crawly was quite sure–

Voices reached him. High pitched and loud, there was a terrible moment where all Crawly could see was little hands sinking beneath the waves, parents thrusting their only hope towards him even as he knew there was no room left on the raft and he’d not have enough energy to feed them all anyway and–

The children appeared. They looked strange, their clothes oddly stiff and their skin all either far too pale or far too dark. They looked like they were twelve or perhaps thirteen years old, but that made no sense at all. None of Noah’s children had yet had a child, much less one this age, and the people Crawly was accustomed to seeing had brown skin and hair. The girl-child looked like Eve, which was unusual but not unheard of, but one of the boys had hair the color of wheat; Crawly had never seen that on anyone but Aziraphale.

Crawly coiled himself tighter.

Perhaps the angel had been right, he thought vaguely hopefully, and God really hadn’t been upset with the entire world. Perhaps he’s somehow transported himself to Asia. Maybe it was only those between the rivers who had to die.

Crawly wanted that to be true. But, in the early days of the rain he’d flown so very far and found nothing but the sea stretched to the horizon in every direction. The children were still playing, chasing each other and shouting, their clothes strange and tight and their language unlike any he’d ever heard before.

One of them began to sing a song, making it through perhaps a single line before the other three turned on him and tackled him to the ground. He took this with good grace, scrabbling at them and twisting but laughing the entire time until he gave up and allowed the girl and wheat-haired boy to sit on him while the third boy stood from the dust and began to gesture wildly. Crawly was just considered slithering a bit closer so he might hear what they were actually saying when everything around him shivered and then his world rocked on its axis once more.

He’d been the only non-human thing anywhere nearby, he was sure of it and then he wasn’t. There was an angel. Close. Too close. It had to have been warded somehow, hidden away from Crawly’s ability to feel until it was far too close for him to flee. He could feel the angel and the angel would be able to feel him just as easily.

He was trapped.

Angels weren’t supposed to know how to ward things, weren’t supposed to know that sort of ‘dirty fighting’. If one had decided to learn… Crawly didn’t relish the discorporations that awaited him if Heaven had figured out how to sneak up on demons.

Horrified by the possibility of his temporary reprieve from Hell already being over, Crawly ducked his head back into the loops of his body and tried to ignore the world. Sometimes, if he thought hard enough about things, he could change reality without the use of an overt Miracle. If he pretended hard enough, perhaps the angel wouldn’t be here, perhaps he’d be able to stay in this warm place under the plant that worried about pleasing him^[7].

His pretending failed. He’d pictured seeing a field empty of anyone save himself and the plants. But he could still hear, could still sense.

He felt the angel approach the children, all quiet voice and power blazing outward in a great magnetic arc and the humans nothing more than iron filings to be manipulated. Crawly couldn’t take it. He couldn’t watch another angel kill more children, no matter how strange the children were.

Crawly took one more breath, filling his serpent lungs to capacity and then further, growing with the inhale until he was more human-shaped than snake. He unfurled his wings (and oh, that was agony, terrible and all-encompassing) and shook them to fluff the feathers even as he skidded to a stop between the angel and the children.

“No,” he snarled. Then, he blinked and realized exactly which angel he was looking at^[8]. Then, before he could stop the words, Crawly said, “Hey there, angel.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said. He looked more than a little alarmed, peering between Crawly and the children shielded behind his wings. “Is everything quite alright?”

Crawly supposed it probably did look strange. For all that they were meant to be enemies, Crawly and Aziraphale had never physically fought each other. He felt like he’d changed something between them by physically putting his body in Aziraphale’s path. But, he also couldn’t bring himself to regret it when– Wait a tick.

“Did you just– Why’d you say my name wrong?” Aziraphale was wearing the same strange sort of clothes as the children. He looked at the oddly straight lines, the invisible stitches, the fabric so smooth he wasn’t sure it was woven at all and not some animal hide, scraped impossibly thin. The rough edges of his own robes chaffed. He’d spent weeks watching the humans learn to weave and sew because he couldn’t miracle what he didn’t understand into existence. The clothes Aziraphale wore defied anything he could even begin to understand.

He was so preoccupied with studying Aziraphale’s clothing that he didn’t realize he’d begun to lower his wings, just the barest bit, bringing them into range of the children.

“Crowley,” one of them said, “Why’s your wing like–"

Crawly never heard the end of the question because one of them had touched his injured wing and the entire world was lost in a sudden rush of white agony.

---

Crawly woke in what a human might call Heaven, though he’d never compare anything to that nightmare of white and cream^[9]. It was soft and warm and bright without hurting his eyes. He shifted a bit, enjoying the smooth slide of his skin across the surface. More impossibly perfect fabric, he realized. Reaching out, he scooped up the leading edge of the thin sheet that was draped across him. He was naked, he realized with a start, when had that–

“Oh good, you’re awake.” Crawly jumped, half-twisting around towards Aziraphale’s voice before his wing forcibly reminded him that it was injured. He bit down on a cry before it could escape him.

Aziraphale appeared in his line of sight, still wearing the strange clothes, though Crawly could sense no humans about. Now though, instead of looking confused he looked anxious and Crawly sort of hated that he was soothed by the familiarity of that look.

“What happened, dearheart?” Aziraphale asked, seemingly oblivious to Crawly’s confusion. “Why were you dressed like that?” Crowley sputtered, starting and then discarding sentences one after another as he tried to articulate exactly how ridiculous that question was.

Finally, he landed on, “Why am I dressed like this? Why are you dressed like that?” Then, before Aziraphale could respond, he barreled forward, “Actually, where the bloody heaven are we?” Another, far worse thought occurred and he was too tired to stop himself from voicing it, “Why didn’t you just discorporate me? Would have got you a commendation, following orders and all. God wants the children dead, you make it happen. Heaven likes that crap, right? You’re good at doing what they want. ‘Bout all you’re–"

“Stop.” Aziraphale said it quietly, but there was something in his voice that Crawly had never heard before. A core of iron, worked over and over until it was unbreakable.

It made Crawly want to apologize. But, he’d never done that before and he didn’t even really understand where the impulse came from, so he shoved it into the same far away corner of his mind where he kept the little fluttery feeling that he sometimes got when Aziraphale smiled at him.

Crawly stayed quiet.

“You clearly know who I am,” Aziraphale spoke slowly, each word carefully measured before it was released. That, too, was new and alarming. Crawly had only ever seen the angel flustered and anxious when presented with a problem. He had no idea how he was meant to interact with the strange sure-of-himself version of Aziraphale^[10]. “So, they didn’t take all your memories. But, we aren’t friends and–"

“Of course we aren’t friends,” Crawly snapped.

Aziraphale looked at him, eyes wide at being startled from his thoughts.

“How could I think anything different?” Crawly went on, “Every time we talk you remind me that we’re enemies, can’t bloody well forget we’re not friends.” He tried to shift, to sit up so they were having this conversation at least at eye-level with each other rather than with Crawly on his back, but it seemed his wing had stiffened up while he was unconscious and even the slightest shift sent a bolt of agony through him, leaving him panting and clutching the fabric around him as the world rocked. He had thought he was done with ocean waves.

“Fucking… stupid, blessed... wing,” he snarled between great heaving gasps of air, twisting to jab at the broken place with a vicious finger. Just before he reached it, Aziraphale clamped one hand around his wrist, halting his motion with an immovable grip.

“No,” he said again, no room in his voice for argument. “I will not let you hurt yourself, dear.”

Crawly stared at him. Who was this angel wearing Aziraphale’s face? Aziraphale must have seen something in Crawly's expression because he slowly lowered Crawly’s hand to the blankets and let go. Then, seemingly without realizing what he was doing, he brushed the very tips of his fingers across Crawly’s knuckles. He shuddered, shocked by how that gentle touch thrilled through his entire corporation, sinking into his very core. As soon as Aziraphale’s fingers left his skin, he yanked his arm in towards his chest, cradling his wrist in his other hand as he stared at the angel.

“I’m so sorry for snapping, Crowley,” Aziraphale said. “I’m just terribly worried about you^[11].”

“Stop saying my name wrong,” Crawly whispered.

Suddenly it was all too much. Aziraphale was not supposed to worry about him, wasn’t meant to care about him even the slightest bit, but here he was touching Crawly like that. His eyes were narrow with worry and his touch had sung of things Crawly had no name for. And Crawly had no blessed clue how he’s meant to take any of that without breaking entirely.

It took a long minute for him to realize that Aziraphale hadn’t responded, nor had he moved his hand away from the spot where it hovered over Crawly’s own. Eventually, he managed to look up and found Aziraphale staring at him, eyes huge and shining, mouth slightly open while his lower lip trembled. Wildly, Crawly was reminded of the plant outside and how it shook in fear. He suppressed the insane urge to soothe that fear^[12]. He shouldn’t be thinking those things, shouldn’t be thinking anything positive at all about Aziraphale. Crawly tried once again to sit up, straining past the pain to put more space between them.

Aziraphale’s breath stuttered, his eyes falling closed in what Crawly might call pain if there were any reason to think the angel was hurting.

“Angel?” Crawly finally asked, confused beyond measure and realizing that nothing else was about to happen unless he pushed.

“That much?” Aziraphale breathed, voice as unsteady as his lip. “All the way to Golgotha?”

“Golgotha?”

“No, no, no, no, you’re right, it would be before that.” Aziraphale began pacing, twisting his fingers around each other as he went. Crawly watched, shocked by the sudden shift in behavior. “Damn, when would you have– No, not then, you were still fine with Crawly then. Perhaps, yes, the King was always on about names and you were awfully fond of–"

“Aziraphale?” Crawly wanted to yell but didn’t quite manage it. The strength seemed to have gone from him because all of that hinted at a history that he hadn’t shared; of a world with kings and people and places that weren’t underwater.

“Aziraphale,” he said again, catching the angel’s wide eyes. “How long has it been since the Flood?”

Aziraphale released a shuddering breath^[13].

“The flood?” He asked, “Oh, Crow-Crawly, you mean Thera^[14]? It’s been about–"

Crawly shook his head.

“The Upper Rio Negro?”

Another head shake. Very distantly, Crawly thought he might feel sorry for the angel if he weren’t beginning to be so afraid for himself.

“Yangz–"

“The Flood, Aziraphale,” Crawly finally snapped. “The big one. You said it was going to end in a Rain Bow, whatever that is. I suppose it must’ve for all this to be here, but I didn’t see it.”

Aziraphale took a single staggering step backward before he caught himself. He clutched his hands tight to his chest as he turned away from Crawly.

Crawly started to stand to follow him only to fall back with a cry when the wing he’d once again forgotten about protested.

“Fuck,” he hissed.

Aziraphale whirled on the spot, eyes wide. Crawly had managed to get halfway up and the movement had shifted his wing around so it was no longer blocked by his body. Aziraphale stared at him for a long moment before Crawly had the unique pleasure of hearing an angel curse.

“Shit,” Aziraphale said. Then, again, slightly louder, “Shit. I’m so daft. Here I am going on while you’re hurting. Here let me–" He extended a hand towards Crawly, fingers splayed wide.

The angels had appeared over the raft on the seventh day. Crawly was already tired, the children afraid and soaked through, when he’d looked up and seen two angels above them, white wings outstretched and halos ablaze. He’d always hate himself a little for the fact that his first feeling was one of relief, because it didn’t matter what they did, his work was done. Then, reality had reasserted itself and Crawly was launching himself off the raft in time to stop the closer of the two angels from grabbing one of the eldest children and pulling her from the raft.

“Watch the others!” He’d shouted back down at them as he barreled into the angel.

The children had screamed, but the sounds of wings and swords through the air had drowned them out. Crawly was fast, he’d always been fast, and he’d flown as far and as fast as he could, drawing the angels away from the raft like a bird hopping away from her nest. The angels had cared more about killing a demon than they had about helping the children.

He flinched away from Aziraphale’s outstretched hand and immediately regretted it. He knew Aziraphale wasn’t like that, knew the angel had never been happy when his orders told him to stand by and watch as humanity suffered. He even knew, logically, that it was not fair for him to be upset when they both knew that Aziraphale would have Fallen had he actually disobeyed direct orders and helped Crawly save the humans.

But, it was hard to hold those facts in his mind when Aziraphale’s Grace was twanging against all the broken places in Crawly. He was tired and he ached and he hurt and he had just wanted to be someplace safe.

“Ah,” Aziraphale said. “Of course. The Flood.” A strange look crossed his face. “When, exactly, in the Flood do you last remember?”

Crawly began to shrug before the ache crawling up his back made him think better of it.

“Dunno,” he said instead, “It had been raining for a bloody long time, I could barely keep flying, but I had–"

“A little raft of children,” Aziraphale sounded fond, even as Crawly’s blood ran cold. The only way the angel could have known about the children was if he was there, if he came along after Crawly led the others away and–

“The Flood was over five thousand years ago,” Aziraphale said, finally answering Crawly’s question. “Five thousand years.” He looked upset again, but Crawly didn’t care. He could not believe he’d been so stupid, so naive. How could he have ever thought there would be the slightest thing different about this angel over the others? So what if he didn’t smite Crawly on sight? So what if he protected him from the rain? Those things meant less than nothing compared to actively helping other angels kill children. Crawly didn’t care how much it hurt, he couldn’t stay here.

Then, Aziraphale’s words finally filtered through the haze of his thoughts.

“Five thousand years?” he asked.

“Well, five thousand and sixteen,” Aziraphale said, pacing back and forth across the room again, his face a rigid mask of an emotion Crawly had never seen on it before. “Cro– Crawly,” he said very quietly, stopping and turning to face Crawly. “Are you quite sure that that’s the last thing you remember?”

Crawly nodded, confused and afraid and hurting all over. No matter how mad he wanted to be, no matter that he’s terrified that Aziraphale is nothing but Heaven’s Angel like all the rest, he still couldn’t excise the little tremor of trust from his chest. He hated it. How could he rail against the angels if he turned around and forgave one just because he was fond of the feathery bastard?

“Nothing,” he said. A thought occurred. “How do years work now? There were only three thousand and four of them left that I remember.”

Aziraphale chuckled weakly. “It’s twenty-twenty.”

“Twenty-twenty,” Crawly whispered. “Wow. And, and the humans are okay? They survived the Flood? She didn’t do it to them again?”

A smile broke out on Aziraphale’s face, the first since they began talking. Crawly hadn’t realized before how serious the angel had looked. “Oh, Crawly, they’re wonderful.” He was beaming now, though his eyes still looked very tired. “You won’t believe the things they’ve come up with.”

His eyes darted to Crawly’s back. “Oh, dearhear– Crawly, would you allow me to,” he wriggled his fingers in a little gesture that Crawly recognized as one of his own. It was a distinctly odd feeling, seeing something so clearly him in the angel’s movements. That… that had to mean that they really were friends, right? Crawly didn’t remember any of it, but for Aziraphale to be making his gestures, to be so clearly worried about him, he must’ve trusted Aziraphale enough to come around him after the Flood.

Maybe he hadn’t been like the other angels. Maybe Crawly had told him about the raft and the children.

Maybe Crawly didn’t need to hate himself for still wanting to be around Aziraphale.

He copied the gesture back at Aziraphale with a raised eyebrow.

Aziraphale’s smile finally reached his eyes. “Would you allow me to help heal your wing?”

Crawly still hesitated, though he wanted to say yes. Asking for help from each other wasn’t something they did. Hellfire, this was already more time than they’d spent in each other’s presence in centuries.

But…. Maybe that wasn’t the case for Aziraphale. He kept calling Crawly things, tender things. Perhaps, they actually were friends now.

“Please?” Aziraphale sighed. “I– I know from what you remember we aren’t close. That you probably have no reason at all to trust me. But, I promise you, I mean only to heal your hurts.”

That was, oh that was a lot. Crawly had never had anyone offer anything like that to him before. He swallowed, looking away. A tiny noise escaped Aziraphale but he didn’t make a move towards Crawly, waiting for permission, no matter how much he clearly wanted to act.

“Sure,” Crawly said.

“I promise I’ll be fast, and, and– oh what was that?”

Crawly huffed a laugh. “I said yeah, okay sure.” He rubbed the back of his neck.

“Really?”

“Yeah. Smarts a bit.”

Aziraphale’s smile now looked so achingly like the unsure little things Crawly was used to seeing from the angel, but he found he missed the confidence of the other. Five thousand years. Aziraphale was so different. Why couldn’t Crawly remember it all? He wanted to know how Aziraphale had changed. Surely Crawly had as well. What was he like now?

Aziraphale moved around behind him. “I’m going to touch you now,” he said, “Please try not to tense up, I don’t want to hurt you.” His hands were warm when they landed on Crawly’s skin and gentle as he carefully spread his wing out, apologizing quietly whenever Crawly hissed or twitched.

“Oh, Crowley,” he whispered when the wing was fully extended, revealing the damage for the first time. He sounded so sad and lost that Crawly didn’t even correct his pronunciation. He’d thought they were friends, that they were close, but perhaps they only saw each other rarely and it had been long enough that Aziraphale forgot how his name was meant to be said? Could he really be offended if it wasn’t meant? If it was the product of a faulty memory and not malice?

Crawly didn’t want to be mad at Aziraphale.

The angel’s fingers were in his feathers now, pressed and nestled through until they reached the narrow gaps between vane roots. Crawly had to consciously resist the desire to fluff them out, to buffet Aziraphale away with his uninjured wing and escape into his snake form once again where this didn’t hurt and he could hide until the world started making sense again. He shifted, uncomfortable, and feeling strangely trapped.

Then, the very tips of Aziraphale’s fingers seemed to warm and despite himself, Crawly relaxed. He hadn’t felt anything that nice since the Fall.

It was like seeing God’s Love on a mirror held around a corner, a pale reflection, but still more than he could see with his own eyes and not be turned to stone.

It was wonderful.

And then it was over.

Aziraphale stood and stepped away and Crawly realized he was crying. He swiped at his face, dashing away the tears and trying his best to look fierce, all while knowing he was failing rather spectacularly.

“It’s quite alright,” Aziraphale told him, “I should have warned you. I forgot what it was like for you the first time we–"

“Doesn’t matter,” Crawly snapped. Now that he was able to move without pain he stood from the bed and snapped, dressing himself in a black and gray approximation of what Aziraphale was wearing. The clothes felt odd, too tight in some places and far too loose in worse ones. He already stood out from the humans because of his eyes and his hair, he had no desire to do so sartorially as well.

Aziraphale jumped and stared, looking vaguely queasy when he saw Crawly’s clothing, but he didn’t say anything.

“Would you like, perhaps, for me to catch you up on everyth–"

“No,” Crawly said. He stalked past Aziraphale towards the door. As soon as he was out of the little room he snapped his fingers and vanished.

---

Part 2

There was a little village that Crawly liked to visit when he was in the area. The people who lived there called it Raga and they were always excited to see Crawly. He’d visit with a pack full of pretty things gathered from the other communities further afield; little shiny bits of glass and beads and sometimes precious metals or stones. Nothing large or heavy^[15]. The value didn’t really matter. He could, and did, give the things away–offering them to the young people as token for their lovers or children as shiny baubles–and he could tell Hell that he’d sowed discord because the humans were nothing if not jealous creatures^[16]. He probably visited Raga twice a decade, if that. But the drinks were good and the people friendly and he liked it there.

He knew they’d all died in the Flood. It had been one of the first places he flew once the children were secure on the raft. Hours and hours of flight through the wind and the rain, his wings aching with the strain of it, only to find nothing at all left but the rolling waves.

But, surely there was something of the city now. If the humans really had survived and Aziraphale wasn’t playing some cruel trick.

Surely, something of Raga remained.

He dropped from the space between spaces and back into reality with a second snap.

---

Aziraphale watched Crowley stalk from the room. Every instinct in him shrieked that he should be following his husband, that he should take his hand and not let go until Crowley remembered him. But, Crowley didn’t remember anything about their relationship. Aziraphale wouldn’t be a comfort right then, no matter how he wished to be.

The Flood.

Aziraphale’s legs gave out beneath him and he landed on the bed with a thump. He cradled his head in his hands, pressing his thumbs into his eyes to try and stop himself from crying. It was useless. The tears had threatened since the moment he really looked at Crowley and saw the confusion in his expression. How could he have been so stupid? He should have known from the moment Crowley put himself between Aziraphale and the children that there was something wrong. Perhaps if he’d been less blind, paid more attention to what was happening outside rather than sitting in his library and blissfully reading a book as if his entire life wasn’t being ripped to shreds outside his window. Perhaps then he might have prevented this.

Had it hurt?

Oh, he hoped it hadn’t. He didn’t want Crowley hurting.

But… it must have. Crowley was injured. His wing…. Another ragged sob wrenched its way from Aziraphale’s chest. Of course he and Crowley had both been injured before, Earth was a dangerous place after all. But, their home was supposed to be a safe place, a haven all their own after they’d freed themselves from everything else. They were supposed to be able to wake up slowly in the mornings and kiss each other whenever they wanted and Crowley was supposed to be able to take a nap in the sun of their garden while Aziraphale read a book and not be assaulted.

Aziraphale’s throat hurt, his chest heaved. He wanted Crowley. He wanted cool hands running gently across his back and lips pressed to his temple and a quiet voice that he knew better than his own asking why he was crying and if there was anything he wanted. He’d shake his head, but Crowley knew him better than that and would wrap him up, giving him the only thing he’d ever wanted and not been able to have; time together.

Aziraphale wept for his husband.

“What the fuck.” Aziraphale jerked up, startled. Crowley was standing in the doorway of the bedroom, looking dusty and disheveled and overwhelmed. “No, really. What the fuck, Aziraphale?”

“My dear?” Perhaps whatever had been done to him had resolved itself while he was gone and this was a reaction to–

“What happened to Raga? It’s bloody massive. You said the humans were okay. You didn’t say they were like–” He gestured wildly, words lost to the void as always. It made Aziraphale smile even as more tears began to stream down his cheeks. “Lots of them! Rabbits? Ants? Woodpeckers? Whatever! Something that there’s a lot of! That was… that was more than….” He trailed off, peering at Aziraphale as if seeing him for the first time. Aziraphale tried to wipe at his face but it was too late.

“Angel?” Crowley asked.

“Apologies, dear boy,” Aziraphale said. He pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face. If he could just have a moment he could get himself back in control, he could be the person Crowley needed him to be right now. He started to shove the handkerchief away but it wouldn’t fit back in his pocket while crumpled. He cursed and pulled it back out, trying to refold it with shaking fingers. There were so many creases. Too many. How had it gotten so disheveled so quickly? Perhaps he needed to get out the iron… yes, that was exactly what he needed to do. Aziraphale started to stand from the bed, but Crowley was there, right in front of him, hands outstretched.

“Crawly,” Aziraphale said, barely catching his pronunciation in time.

“You were crying,” Crowley said, peering at him with a narrow-eyed gaze that Aziraphale knew meant he’d worry at this until he got a straight answer.

“Yes, I was.” Aziraphale was too tired to dance around things.

“Why?”

The handkerchief was crumpled again as Aziraphale’s fist clenched.

“Why?! Because someone attacked my husband in our back garden and I didn’t hear a damned thing!”

Crowley blinked at him. “Your husband was attacked?”

“Yes!” Aziraphale gestured to Crowley’s wing, “How else do you explain your wings and five thousand years of missing memories?”

“I didn’t attack him!” Crowley snapped, backing up a few steps. “Why would I attack an angel? I’m not stupid!”

“My husband isn’t- You didn’t-” Aziraphale sputtered. “You daft thing!”

If Aziraphale had been thinking at all, he would have taken a deep breath and then excused himself for a walk. But, he was not thinking, so instead he threw the handkerchief on the ground and grasped the sides of Crowley’s face, pulling him down for a kiss.

It took nearly five seconds for him to realize what he’d done. Crowley wasn’t moving. The demon had frozen the moment Aziraphale touched him, mouth half-open so his lower lip slotted neatly between Aziraphale’s. Now, he stared at Aziraphale as he dropped his hands and stumbled back.

“Wassat for?” He sounded half-dazed and oh, Aziraphale hated himself. Crowley didn’t remember anything. He’d actually been afraid of Aziraphale hurting Adam and his friends earlier. And Aziraphale had kissed him. Oh, he was the worst sort of creature.

“I apologize,” he said, “You don’t- I should not have-”

“‘M not mad,” Crowley said. He raised his left hand as if to brush his lips before thinking better of it and letting it fall back to his side. “Just a bit confused. Thought adultery was one of ours.”

“Adulter- Crawly….” Aziraphale trailed off with a grimace. His gaze was locked someplace over Crawly’s left shoulder when he finally sighed and said, “Here, I’ve something to show you.”

Crawly followed in confused silence as Aziraphale led him from the bedroom and down the narrow staircase to a small room at the rear of the house. The entire back wall was made up of windows with the thinnest and clearest glass Crawly had ever seen. Late afternoon sunlight spilled through them, casting long shafts of orange light across the rich fabrics that covered the furniture. The walls were lined with shelves, on which sat what looked like narrow boxes wrapped in leather and linen. Crawly glanced at them, intrigued by what might be hidden away in so many little boxes, but he set that aside in favor of what could be seen through the windows; a riot of vibrant greenery, broken only by the bright bursts of blooms in orange and pink and red, like the sunset on the horizon had been captured in petals. Without quite realizing it, Crawly drifted across the room until he was next to the largest of the windows, pads of his fingers pressed against the smooth surface.

“That conservatory was the reason we settled on this place,” Aziraphale said quietly behind him. “Well, that and the library upstairs.”

“Library?” Crawly had never heard that word before.

A sad sort of smile crossed Aziraphale’s face. “A place for knowledge,” he explained, “to keep books and scrolls.”

Crawly had seen a few scrolls before, but they were few and far between^[17] Aziraphale’s smile shifted a bit, away from sad and towards nostalgic.

“You had the same look on your face in Rome,” he said. Then upon seeing Crawly’s lost expression deepen, he crossed to a shelf and pulled out one of the thin boxes. Crawly watched in amazement as it fell open in his hands to reveal impossibly thin sheets of parchment. Aziraphale ran a hand across them, the smooth slide of his skin across the flawless leaf entranced Crawly. Those hands had been in his wings, they’d touched his skin. Crawly wondered if there’d been anything approaching the same look of reverence on Aziraphale’s face then as now.

Surely not.

“Here,” Aziraphale said, turning the thing around is his hands, “This is Rome. A city that means quite a lot to us bot- Anyway, you saw a book,” he jiggled the thing in his hands, “for the first time there.”

He handed the book to Crawly who took it with careful hands, sure that he was going to ruin the beautifully worked leather wrapped around the outside or tear the delicate leaves inside. There were markings on the sheets; writing, he thought, though it didn’t look like any he’d seen before^[18]. The narrow lines seemed to wiggle and shift a bit before his eyes, though they stilled when he squinted and tilted his head. The leaves were a marvel, but Crawly didn’t think he liked this sort of writing very much. On the right hand side of the book there was what looked like a slice of the world, duplicated and compressed to a flat image. Crawly brought the book up towards his face, feeling almost as if he could topple into the image. The city depicted was beautiful, like a dream of a dream. There were crowds of people all wearing finer clothes than any he’d ever seen,^[19] all of whom seemed to be enjoying the spoils of what Crawly could only imagine was the most bountiful place on Earth; grapes and meat and bread and other fruit Crawly had never seen before, laid out in abundance without regard for who might actually eat it.

“I spent time there?” he asked.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Aziraphale nod. “We both did. Many times throughout the centuries. We-,” he paused and swallowed heavily, “We dined together for the first time there. Or rather, we’d eaten together before, but in Rome I invited you out and you said yes and it was….” He trailed off again and sighed heavily. “Well, suffice to say that I’ve always held a special place in my heart for Rome.”

Crawly touched the image. He’d eaten with Aziraphale. It seemed almost beyond imagining.

“Why did you bring me down here?” he asked quietly.

Aziraphale took the book back from him and carefully closed it, sliding it back into place on the shelf. Then he took a panel down from the wall, bringing it over to Crowley and presenting it to him.

“I, ah, I’ll leave you alone with it,” he said. “The door behind you opens to your garden, if you want time alone after.”

Then, he turned on his heel and made a quick retreat from the room, leaving Crawly behind holding the strange panel and wondering what exactly had just happened.

After the door swung shut, Crawly looked down at the panel. It was another thin sheet of glass surrounded by a wooden frame with gold leaf over it. The glass protected what looked like a single sheet of parchment. There was more writing on this one, but it was also somehow easier for Crawly's eyes to keep track of, though he still didn’t know what any of the shapes meant. Except… at the very bottom there were two Names^[20]. Crawly’s heart stopped in his chest. There, written out plain as day, was his own Name. He could feel the truth in it radiating outward. He could also feel how happy he’d been when he signed this paper, how his signature reached out and coiled around the edges of the one beside it. Crawly touched the glass over the place where a strand of his Name wove through the delicate filaments of the other. This was… Crawly had never seen anything like it. It filled his chest with a yawning sort of need, an ache he had no words to describe.

He understood now, he thought. This was Crawly’s Name and it was Aziraphale’s Name and they were intertwined in a way that was vaguely uncomfortable to look at because it was so very intimate. He might have thought about Aziraphale, sometimes, when he was feeling especially weak and stupid, but he would never have presumed something like….

Aziraphale had kissed him because Crawly was his husband.

His fingers felt suddenly weak and he quickly set the frame down on one of the overly plush bits of furniture before he could drop it.

Aziraphale was his husband.

That had to mean….

Crawly forced that thought away, unable to face the cascading implications beyond one; that fluttering feeling in his chest when he looked at Aziraphale wasn’t just a passing bit of un-demonic weakness.

Crawly loved him, and apparently would not stop loving him for the next five thousand years.

The room suddenly felt very small, sending Crawly scrabbling for the exit. The immediate space outside the door was beautiful but still constrained, surrounded on all sides by the thin glass. He bolted across to another door on the opposite side, tearing it open and entering the larger garden at a half run. He skidded to a stop in the middle of a small copse of trees. It was full sunset now, the orange light from before had shifted to a deep red and he could taste the teeming life around him on every breath.

This place felt familiar, the knowledge tripping along all the other realizations Crawly had endured in the last few minutes until it landed at his feet. It was like The Garden, but not. A paltry imitation and suddenly, Crawly was furious. He was pathetic, he thought, cozying up to an angel and trying to recapture Eden and, and, and–

He collapsed in a pile of shaking limbs beside the very plant he’d hidden under earlier that day. It shivered a bit when he reached out to stroke the broad leaves, but wasn’t as afraid as it had been.

Without hesitation, Crawly ripped the leaf under his hand from the plant, tearing it to shreds under fingernails that had grown overly sharp.

What the fuck had he been thinking here? He was a demon and Aziraphale had always made it very clear that he wasn’t worth– That they couldn’t be anything more than vaguely friendly enemies. He tore another leaf from the plant, ignoring the way it shook and trembled beside him, previous calm eradicated. What had the Crawly Aziraphale married[footnote:The Crawly he loved. It hurt to even think.] done differently? Was he lying to the angel? Was it all some sort of terrible demon plot to hurt Aziraphale? Crawly didn’t like to think he was the same as the rest of Hell, but, well…. He rubbed the sap from his fingers onto the grass.

Crawly stood from the dirt, brushing himself off as he went.

“Pathetic,” he sneered, looking out at the garden and knowing he didn’t mean the plants.

He didn’t want to go back inside and face Aziraphale, but staying here surrounded by the evidence of who he’d apparently become was intolerable. Crawly lingered right at the edge of the garden, a dry leaf trapped between two opposing currents and unable to pull himself in either direction. There was a small flame of some sort inside the house, on the upper floor. He could see Aziraphale moving back and forth across it, carrying books with him each time. Even from so far away Crawly could see how stressed he was.

Probably searching for a way to bring Crawly’s memories back. His hand clenched at his side, the remnants of the sap uncomfortable between his fingers.

He didn’t… want to be whoever Aziraphale had known. No, that wasn’t right. He did. But, he wanted to be himself. The person Aziraphale knew^[21] was different than Crawly and it-

It hurt, he realized.

The last Crawly could recall, Aziraphale would barely look at him, wouldn’t call him a friend, much less another more than that. What had Crawly had to change about himself for Aziraphale to find him acceptable?

The sun vanished behind the horizon and the stars spilled across the sky, but Crawly didn’t have long to try and track all the ways they too had changed in the last few millennia because the clouds that had allowed for such a majestic sunset were rapidly building to something far less pleasant.

Crawly managed to rouse himself from his frozen indecision to collapse against a small stone wall that bordered the garden, halfway between the beacon of light inside and the coiling nasty feelings brought about by the carefully tended plants.

Later, he wasn’t sure how much as time seemed to be passing in fits and spurts; Crawly heard a quiet noise and looked up to see Aziraphale standing beside him holding out a steaming cup of something.

Crawly took it.

“It’s called cocoa,” Aziraphale explained. “You introduced it to me centuries ago and I’m afraid I developed a bit of an addiction.” He smiled in a way that clearly indicated he was inviting Crawly in on the joke, but Crawly wasn’t sure what bit was meant to be funny, so he looked away. The cup was warm in his hands and the drink smelled sweet. He must have liked it, Aziraphale didn’t seem like the kind to offer him things he disliked.

The ‘thanks’ he wanted to offer got stuck in his craw.

Aziraphale stood beside him in silence, sipping at his drink and looking over the garden. After a bit, he set his drink down on the wall and lay one hand across the back of Crawly’s neck. It was overly warm from his own cup of cocoa and Crawly had to strangle back the desire to press into the hold.

“I’ve been searching for a solution,” Aziraphale said quietly. “I’m not entirely sure that you actually did lose your memory.”

“What?” Crawly thought he probably should have been surprised, but he’d had his fill of surprise for the day and had circled around to numb.

“Your hair is long,” Aziraphale explained, “and you were wearing robes.” Crawly nodded, even now his hair tickled at the back of his neck where the strange stiff collar of his shirt sat.

“So what?” Crawly said when Aziraphale didn’t continue, “I somehow hopped across five thousand years?” He snorted. It was ridiculous, patently, obviously, overwhelmingly–

Aziraphale wasn’t laughing.

“You can’t be serious?!”

“I can’t think of another explanation, dear.” Aziraphale said. He still hadn’t taken his hand away from Crawly’s neck, but Crawly could see the other one fisting the fabric of his pants. “You don’t remember and, I’m sorry, I should have told you, but you don’t feel right either. You’re Crawly, I know that. But you feel so very different than you should.”

Crawly jerked away from him, standing and hurling his mug at the base of the wall. Sick satisfaction curled through him when Aziraphale flinched away from the noise.

“Obviously, I’m not right,” he snarled. “You keep saying you cared about me, that I’m your–” He couldn’t even say it. “That I’m something special. But I can’t be changed, Aziraphale. How the fuck did you stand to be around me?”

He did not ask the question he really wanted to know the answer to; what had the Crawly who married Aziraphale done right that Crawly wasn’t doing? Crawly didn’t want to change who he was, he’d done enough of that already, thank you. But he’d be okay with trying not to be all of himself around Aziraphale if that meant he’d–

“Oh, Crawly,” Aziraphale said. He looked like Crawly had just killed something small and cute in front of him and suddenly the sap on his fingers felt cloying and terrible.

“It was never about you,” Aziraphale said. He sat down on the wall and moved his mug in a clear invitation for Crawly to join him. Crawly waffled, shifting his weight back and forth before deciding it was worse to be standing where he had no excuse not to meet Aziraphale’s eyes. If he sat he could stare into space with impunity.

“Sorry about the cocoa,” Crawly muttered as he sat. His little outburst felt childish and petty in the face of Aziraphale’s cool patience.

“Think nothing of it.” From the corner of his eye Crawly could see Aziraphale smiling. “I made a spare.” Then, as if it were nothing at all to use a Miracle for something so small, Aziraphale snapped and another cup appeared in Crawly’s hands.

“Try it,” Aziraphale said, “I really do think you’ll like it.”

So, Crawly did. He raised it to his mouth and blew on it just a bit, out of habit more than actual concern that it might burn him. Then he took the smallest sip he could. Flavor burst across his tongue as the thick liquid coated his entire mouth. It was rich and creamy and tasted of something he’d never had before but, bless it if Aziraphale wasn’t right; Crawly loved it.

“S’good,” he muttered when he recovered enough to speak without his voice breaking.

Aziraphale shifted back and forth a bit in a distinctly pleased way, taking a sip of his own drink and then sighing happily.

“I was afraid,” Aziraphale told him after a moment. “Afraid of Heaven or Hell or myself, afraid to say the wrong thing and drive you away or lead you on to something I knew I couldn’t offer at the time. I enjoyed your company, I always have. Even when we argued I enjoyed it because arguing wasn’t allowed in Heaven. Who else did I have who I could be so free with? So... myself?”

Crawly’s hands were shaking around his cup. “But, you agreed with Heaven,” he whispered. “You said the Flood was God’s Will and that means you thought–”

“I thought it was God’s Will, nothing more,” Aziraphale said. “I didn’t agree with it. In fact, I cried more than a few tears for all those lost, but I also knew there was nothing at all I could have done. I was terrified of Falling had I tried to say anything at all.”

Crawly knew that. That was the real rub of it all. He really did know that and he’d never wish that sort of pain on Aziraphale. He just-

“It wasn’t because I’m…,” he cast around for the right word to encompass all of the mismatched and terrible ways the bits of him fit together and came up with only, “me?”

Aziraphale took Crawly’s free hand with one of his own squeezing tightly.

“No,” he said, “It was never because of who you are. In fact, I’d say that the only reason I ever managed to escape that horrible cycle is because of who you are.”

Crawly sniffed.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Oh dear heart,” Aziraphale held his hand still tighter. “Please don’t apologize. This isn’t your fault.”

Shaking his head, Crawly rushed to explain. “No no, I think it is. I think I did this. I- I wanted to be someplace safe. I was hurt and drowning and I didn’t want to go to Hell and I don’t remember what happened after that but I woke up here and I think I accidentally did this.”

Aziraphale did not respond, but his grip on Crawly's hand did not loosen and he did not let Crawly take his hand back.

“I- I think I took your husband from you,” Crawly finished miserably.

That spurred a reaction from Aziraphale; a little sigh and a quiet laugh, and Crawly was lost.

“I have every faith that he’s alright, Crawly.”

“How do you know? If I appeared where he was then he’d’ve been where I was and I was drowning and-”

“I know because I do remember the ark. I remember being terribly bored and sad and deciding after a week to take a short flight. I’d heard a few other angels talking, you see, and I was worried about the demon they said they’d attacked. So, I left the ark and I found you. You were dressed oddly and had your hair cut short and at time I just put it down to demonic fashion trends, but now-”

“I was him,” Crawly cut in. “I mean, he was me. The me from not then. Not me-me.”

Aziraphale laughed outright and Crawly thought he probably should have been embarrassed by his stumbling, stammering mess of a sentence, but really, how could he be when it meant he’d made Aziraphale so unabashedly happy?

“Yes,” Aziraphale said after a moment. He wiped his eyes with the hand not currently clutched tight to Crawly’s. “So, you see. He’s perfectly safe on the ark, and you’re perfectly safe here. And I think, if you try, you’ll be able to switch yourself back.”

Crawly nodded.

“Right,” he said. He squeezed Aziraphale’s hand once^[22] and then took a long draw of the cocoa before setting it down on the wall and standing up.

“Uh, thanks for everything, I guess,” he said. “Ugh, don’t tell anyone I thanked you.”

Aziraphale smiled warmly at him. “Of course not. You have a reputation to maintain after all.”

That, more than anything, put the last of Crawly’s questions to bed. A simple phrase said with the familiarity of a long running joke, and Crawly knew with every fiber of his being that the fluttery feeling in his chest would be returned one day.

“Yeah,” he said. He smiled at Aziraphale. “Yeah.”

Then, he took a step back and closed his eyes, thinking about the ark and the storm in the sky and the way the waves had felt as he hit them.

“Should I go inside?” Aziraphale asked after a few long minutes of Crawly concentrating as hard as he could.

Crawly opened his eyes, shoulders slumped. “I don’t know why it’s not working,” he muttered. “Did the same thing I did to get here.”

Aziraphale smiled at him. He scooped up the cups and snapped away the debris of Crawly’s first. “It’s perfectly alright, dear,” he said, “Come on, it looks like it’s about to storm and I don’t fancy getting soaked.”

He was still smiling, but Crawly thought it looked a bit forced now.

“Yeah, okay,” he said.

They made their way inside. Just inside the door Aziraphale paused and slipped his shoes off, so Crawly copied him. Then, Aziraphale smiled at him and said, “I’d offer you wine, but you haven’t had that yet and I don’t want to take that experience from past-me.” Crawly had no clue what wine was, but Aziraphale seemed excited about it, so he shrugged and set the idea aside to be discovered later.

“Is there a place to sit?” he asked, “I want to try again.” He knew it would work. The longer he thought on Aziraphale’s theory the more right it felt. He’d always been good at time, and he’d been exhausted when he woke here.

“Of course.” Aziraphale led him back to the room with the thin glass and the shelves full of books. He pointed to the furniture and had opened his mouth to speak but Crawly was already moving past him.

He’d not really registered anything inside the glass room when he went outside earlier. But now he spotted the low chairs right in the very center. The rain outside was starting up and, as he stepped through the door, Crawly thought it was rather like being underwater without getting wet.

Just before he sat down he looked back at Aziraphale.

“Thank you,” he said. “I know I already said it, but,” he shrugged. “I didn’t realize I needed- I mean-”

“Always, Crawly,” Aziraphale said. “And, when you get back, I don’t think you’ll remember this. You would have warned me I think. But, try to remember to be patient with me. I’m a bit of a coward and need time to catch up to you.”

“Being a coward is the only smart thing,” Crawly said because it was true. Cowards were the only people who survived in Hell.

Aziraphale nodded at him. “I’ll leave you to it.”

Crawly watched him go, firmly squashing the terrible thoughts that wanted to rise up again about who Aziraphale really wanted there with him.

The Crawly who lived here might not be who Crawly was now, but as he settled into the chair in the middle of the glass room, Crawly didn’t think he’d had to change himself really. It was more that he’d just grown.

Like a copper-topped demonic weed.

The mental image made a smile curl across his lips and he settled into the chair and closed his eyes.

“Okay,” he muttered. “Don’t fuck this up.”

He took a deep breath and held it until it hurt before letting go and taking another.

He thought of the water, of the way the rain pounded down, of little hands reaching for him and the weight of a child on his hip. He thought of the way his throat had been scratchy from singing songs long past when they all dropped off to sleep because he thought if the rain was the only sound he heard, he might go insane.

He thought of the way his chest felt when he saw Aziraphale after a long time.

He thought of all the moments in the five thousand years between his memories and how very badly he wanted to know what filled those.

He thought of Rome and the fact that they’d dined together.

Crawly focused as hard as he could on those promised moments and memories and soon everything faded away except the sound of the rain.

---

Part 3

2020

A Cottage on the South Downs

Crowley burst into the bedroom, hair plastered to his head by the downpour. He was wound tight and wild-eyed and as soon as he spotted Aziraphale sitting by the window he stalked across the space. Aziraphale stood.

Crowley’s hair was short.

“Cro-mgph!” The rest of his question was lost as Crowley wrapped him in a tight hug. Aziraphale could feel him trembling. “Oh, Crowley,” he murmured, holding tighter. Crowley said something, but it was indistinguishable as he’d refused to lift his face away from the crook of Aziraphale’s neck where he’d buried it. Aziraphale freed one hand enough to snap and then they were settled in the sitting room, curled together on the leather sofa. Crowley was dry and in his favorite winter lounging clothes, complete with the thick knit socks Aziraphale had struggled his way through making last winter. The fire blazed at their feet.

“I said, s’nice to know where the memory of you plucking me and the kids out of the water went,” Crowley repeated. “And my broken wing. Who’da thought a time travel walkabout. Was I here?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale said. “You really don’t remember anything about being here?”
Crowley shook his head slightly. “Impressions. Like a vivid dream, but no details. Tell me about it?”

“Of course, dear. Tomorrow though?”

“Whenever.”

Aziraphale couldn’t contain the question burning away in his chest any longer. Crowley had looked so tense when he appeared in the door and he had to know just how sorry he should be. It had been so long. He recalled Crowley’s strangely short haircut for the first day aboard the ark, but the words they’d spoken to each other were lost to him. “I expect I was awful?”

Crowley’s eyes were still tightly closed and he’d not let his grip loosen, but he did twist so he could press a kiss to the side of Aziraphale’s neck, his lips cool and slightly rough feeling against Aziraphale’s racing pulse.

“I love you,” Aziraphale said, suddenly realizing he’d nearly lost the chance to say that again.

“Love you, too,” Crowley said. He’d stayed close and his lips brushed Aziraphale’s skin with each word. “And no, you weren’t terrible.”

Aziraphale snorted. “That’s kind of you,” he said, speaking over Crowley’s reflexive groan at the compliment. “But, I remember how I was. I’m sure I said terrible things to you.”

Crowley shook his head. Impossibly, it seemed his grip was tighter. It was rather like being hugged by a very large, very affectionate python. “No, not terrible. You were afraid. Don’t think I realized it back then, but it was obvious really.”

“Oh?” Aziraphale knew he’d been anxious. But he didn’t think he was any more anxious in those days than he’d been at any other point in history. Him being anxious was a safe bet really.

“Yeah,” Crowley said. He sounded tired. “You didn’t say anything, but I could tell you were terrified you were going to Fall for helping those kids.”

“You,” Aziraphale corrected.

Crowley laughed. “Me too,” he said, “I was trying to give you the benefit of the doubt there.”

Aziraphale shook his head. “If I’d known about the children, of course I would have helped you. I didn’t know about them, though. I overheard Camael and Muriel talking about fighting a demon and leaving it to die and I thought drowning was an awful way to discorporate.”

“You came for me?”

“Yes.”

There was a sudden flurry of motion as Crowley unwound himself from Aziraphale. He swung his right leg up and over Aziraphale’s hips, settling so that he was half-seated in Aziraphale’s lap, half laying on his chest, chin resting on his folded hands over Aziraphale’s collarbones.

“Hello there,” Aziraphale said, shifting a bit to get comfortable again.

“Hi.” Crowley smiled up at him, eyes huge and warm in the flickering light.

They lapsed into comfortable silence. Aziraphale could tell that Crowley was thinking hard on something, but his own mind was filled with the pleasant haze that only descended on nights like this. Only the most determined of thoughts filtered through and then they tended to skip his mind altogether and go straight to his tongue.

“You were so young,” he said, just as surprised as Crowley when the words slipped free. He watched as Crowley set his own musing aside and focused on him.

“I was ancient when we met, angel,” he said with a smile. “And a thousand years past ancient at the Flood.”

Aziraphale shook his head a bit, trying not to think too hard, lest he lose the thread of what he wanted to say. “No, no, not like that. It was like… I’m not sure. It’s hard to put to words.”

“Like I didn’t quite understand the shape of it all,” Crowley said, plucking them right from Aziraphale’s mind.

“Yes! That’s it exactly. Neither of us was ever young in a human way, but you seemed so….” Young really was the only word for it. Crawly hadn’t been more naive or hopeful or anything that humans tended to associate with youth, but he’d been more raw in a way that Aziraphale could now see had been tempered by the intervening centuries.

“Yeah,” Crowley said. “You too. Hell’s bells Aziraphale, I wanted to shake you a few times.”

Aziraphale’s own smile turned rueful. “I’m sure,” he said, ready to apologize again but Crowley was already speaking.

“Not about that stuff,” Crowley said, waving away six millennia of angst with a single quirked eyebrow. “You were convinced I had no clue why they needed two unicorns.”

Aziraphale stared at him, casting his mind back to those hazy days spent huddled in the depths of the ark.

“You kept trying to explain sex to me,” Crowley went on, grin wicked.

“But, you really didn’t know,” Aziraphale said slowly, thinking about the genuine confusion on Crowley’s face in his memory.

Crowley snickered.

“Maybe Crawly-me didn’t, I don’t remember when I figured it all out,” he said, though the blush on his cheeks said very clearly that he did, “But me-me did.” He leaned up to plant a searing kiss on Aziraphale before pulling back only far enough to say, “Obviously.”

“Obviously,” Aziraphale mimicked back, pulling another laugh from Crowley. He wrapped his arms tighter around Crowley, holding him close against his chest. Crowley’s heart always beat, it was something that had alternately confused and charmed Aziraphale over the centuries, but now it was a balm against the last of his jangled nerves. Each beat a promise that his Crowley was here with him, that the life they’d lived together (and apart) had happened and was remembered and would never be forgotten.

“You’re thinking big things,” Crowley murmured. “Stop it.” He wriggled a bit, getting more comfortable and Aziraphale loosened his tight grip long enough to reach up and card his fingers through the short tuft of hair atop his head.

“Wasn’t,” he protested.

“Mm, angels aren’t supposed to lie.” Crowley sounded most of the way to sleep, tongue tripping over his sibilants and eyes at half-mast. Still, he hadn’t looked away from Aziraphale.

“I was only thinking how handsome you were with long hair,” Aziraphale told him, “And how handsome you are without it and how lucky I am to call you my own.”

“Pft, that’s corny.” Crowley’s eyes had slipped entirely shut now, his head leaned towards where Aziraphale’s fingers still absently traced swirling patterns in the short hair behind his ear. “Lucky fr’you… love corny.”

“Quite,” Aziraphale craned his head far enough down to brush a kiss across Crowley’s forehead and then leaned back, closing his own eyes.

Aziraphale drifted off to sleep to the sound of Crowley’s breathing and the crackle of the fire at their feet.

---

3004

Somewhere on the Endless Sea

Crawly woke feeling as if his head was stuffed with chaff. He blinked against the grit that had gathered in his eyes, reaching up to scrub it away. As soon as his arm was lifted, the world tilted sharply and he lost his balance, toppling off the edge of whatever he’d been laying on.

“Blessed-”

“Oh! Do be careful, dear boy.” There were thick arms around him, holding him up.

Crawly opened his eyes to find Aziraphale peering down at him, the corners of his eyes crinkled with obvious worry.

“Aziraphale?” he asked, confused. He had a vague impression of smooth fabric and Aziraphale’s voice and the sensation that Crawly wasn’t right, wasn’t enough or was shaped wrong or was too much, something that sat terrible and heavy in his stomach. He closed his eyes and concentrated, trying to call forth the details of what must have been a dream; a hard floor covered by something soft, a rainstorm that sounded nothing like this one, the sound of crying--not his own--and the knowledge that there was nothing at all he could do to make it better because it was his fault to begin with.

“Crawly,” Aziraphale greeted. They stared at one another for a moment before Aziraphale seemed to realize exactly what he was doing. “Oh!” He stood up straight and deposited Crawly onto his own two feet. There was something else to the dream, Crawly thought, something just outside of his reach. “Apologies. The floor is just terribly hard.”

Crawly looked down at the floor and then up at Aziraphale, finally taking in his surroundings; a rough wooden deck, boxes and barrels and hand-woven bags, the overwhelming smell of animal fear and human exhaustion.

He was on the ark.

His wings flexed in the other space where they stayed when he wasn’t using them and he recalled the sharp agony of one being broken as he plummeted through the sky towards the ocean.

“You…” Healed me, he wanted to say, but putting it to words seemed to make it real and he didn’t even actually know the truth of it. Aziraphale must have found him in the waves and brought him back to the ark. He must have healed Crawly, for he could feel that not enough time had passed for his own natural healing to do the job. But, Crawly remembered none of that.

“Yes,” Aziraphale said, clearly uncomfortable with Crawly’s intense scrutiny.

They stood in awkward silence for a few breaths and Crawly was casting about for something to say when suddenly there was a clatter and a small group of children tumbled out of what appeared to be a small storage room. The tallest untangled herself and popped up to her feet.

“Crawly! You’re awake,” she said, rushing over to hug him tightly around the middle. The others followed and Crawly quickly found himself staggering backwards and then tumbling to the floor as they scrambled to tell him everything they’d done since he fell asleep.

Aziraphale covered his mouth with his hand, but he couldn’t stop the laugh that escaped. Oh, Crawly realized at the first strangled chuckle, that was the other feeling left over from his dream.

Hope.

---

Footnotes

^1. Which is to say; not terrifically far at all if one happened to have a bird’s eye view of the universe (and about the distance of a million light-year freestyle dive to anyone else).↩

^2. Though he would spend much of the latter half of the 16th century attempting to wrangle his flyaway words into something poetry-adjacent. But then, he was in love, and being in love does awfully strange things to people’s poetic inclinations, if not their skill.↩

^3. Crawly would later realize the true nature of this sort of slow torture; boredom was maddening in its own right and far less effort on the part of the torturers.↩

^4. He’d always had a drift-silk heart and he knew it.↩

^5. He very, very carefully kept his imaginary eyes closed, terrified that he knew exactly who he might see sitting there.↩

^6. Crawly was a very ‘do as I say and not as I do’ sort of demon.↩

^7. Reader, he knew this was a futile hope, but no matter what he said, he was and always has been a creature comprised of a terrible combination anxiety and hope.↩

^8. Later, Crawly will claim that the sun had blinded him, of course he knows Aziraphale, don’t be stupid↩

^9. Crawly didn’t actually remember Heaven aside from a vague sense of stardust and pride and an aching yearning desire for answers that he’d never get, but he’d seen the surveillance photos.↩

^10. The thought that it was awfully attractive was booted to the fluttery place.↩

^11. Crawly had no way of knowing this, but Aziraphale’s departure from the grand tradition of English Understatement was so notable that people four towns away felt oddly inclined to share how they were feeling with their partners.↩

^12. Of course, he cannot press the top of his head to the soft place beneath the angel’s chin, of course he cannot breathe in at the divot of his neck, in and in and in, and never stop because why would he ever want to breathe anything else?↩

^13. He breathed now, Crawly realized. It was strangely endearing to see the angel playacting humanity like that.↩

^14. When the Minoan volcano went in 1623 BC, Crawly and Aziraphale had been in the middle of a rather fraught period of their friendship in Athens and neither witnessed it up close. But, Aziraphale was a being of hope as well.↩

^15. Sloth had been Hell's Vice of the Century of the last four centuries (the demon in charge of picking a new one was quoted as saying "Eh. I'll get to it.").↩

^16. Crawly never mentioned the warm feeling he got in the pit of his stomach when he’d hand over a perfectly smooth stone to a human, one that matched their eyes, and they smiled at him and thanked him and turned to show their friends, day made by something so simple. He hated that feeling. Obviously↩

^17. And likely all gone now, he realized with a lurch somewhere to the left of his stomach. They didn’t tend to be especially waterproof.↩

^18. Crawly was rather more used to the grooves and divots left behind by narrow styluses dragged through damp clay.↩

^19. Besides those the angel was currently wearing, of course.↩

^20. Not to be confused with ‘names’. A Name is the truest form of the concept; a unique identifier that each and every one of God’s creations has, though only the inhuman among those creations can actually perceive the shape of their own Name.↩

^21. Loved.↩

^22. So sue him, he wanted to know what that felt like.↩

Comments

[hsavinien]

This is such a sad, sweet story. Poor Crawly. (Also seems to have double posted. )

[goe_mod]

Thanks, corrected!

[improbabledreams900]

Gah, this was PHENOMENAL!!!

I'd pictured this prompt being very character-driven, and boy did you hit the nail on the head! The ~*character development*~!! And, more than that, it's coming to terms with the parts of your own character development that are yet to come! You did such a terrific job parsing through all the emotions, which was particularly incredible considering they were evoked by such complex and unusual situations! Like Crawly feeling both like he really wants Crowley's world and also like he feels he must have sacrificed some part of himself to get it, and naturally being afraid of what that might have been. *cries*

The slow reveal of what was happening with Crawly and the kids during the Flood was super effective, as I was able to guess at inklings of the big picture and then see how the details slotted in over the course of the fic. Same with the time travel reveal—when Crawly was whisked away into the garden, I spent the longest time thinking it was Eden, and he'd gone /back/ in time! But with a young Eve and...young Aziraphale??? It didn't make a lick of sense, and then it suddenly hit me that it was the Them and the weird language they were speaking was English, LOL.

Similarly, everything with Aziraphale's POV was *chef's kiss*. Because of course Aziraphale's first thought would be that Crowley had been kidnapped and his memories forcibly removed! And then he blames himself for not having stopped it! Even in the sections from Crawly's POV, it's so clear that Aziraphale is really struggling with what's happened but is trying to be strong for Crawly. 😭 And I loved that we got a window into Aziraphale's character development as well, and not just Crowley's! So sure of himself now, so put together, so unafraid of showing his love—it was wonderful to see how much Crowley had affected Aziraphale, as well as the other way around. <3

As a student of history, I loved all the little things Crawly noticed in 2020, like fixating on the invisible stitches in Aziraphale's clothing and having no idea what books are. XD Also, the implication that BC / BCE dates were used in that era is HILARIOUS. But it totally makes sense in a world with an omniscient God with a 6,000-year plan!

Lastly, I must thank you for the scene with 2020 Crowley! As I was reading, I was really hoping we'd get to see what he was up to! And, bless, he's just so happy to be returned to Aziraphale. ^.^ Also, the mechanic of the swap (Crowley's talent for time-based magic) was really inspired! Great way to use the new TV canon to your advantage.

Some quotes I loved:

• "He’d always liked when stars came in pairs."


• "Perhaps, he thought, I am not only warm and safe, but also loved. It was ridiculous, he knew. No one could love a demon. But, it was his fantasy as he discorporated and he thought he was allowed a bit of nonsense." He needs ALL THE HUGS


• "He very, very carefully kept his imaginary eyes closed, terrified that he knew exactly who he might see sitting there" uh-huh you're fooling nobody here


• "Crawly staunchly refused to be perceived if it wasn’t entirely necessary." MOOD.


• "He was and always has been a creature comprised of a terrible combination anxiety and hope." If that ain't Crowley in a nutshell LOL.


• "...all quiet voice and power blazing outward in a great magnetic arc and the humans nothing more than iron filings to be manipulated." :o


• "A core of iron, worked over and over until it was unbreakable."


• "...but Aziraphale’s departure from the grand tradition of English Understatement was so notable that people four towns away felt oddly inclined to share how they were feeling with their partners."


• "...his touch had sung of things Crawly had no name for. And Crawly had no blessed clue how he’s meant to take any of that without breaking entirely." He's so unused to love, BLESS


• "...he wriggled his fingers in a little gesture that Crawly recognized as one of his own. It was a distinctly odd feeling, seeing something so clearly him in the angel’s movements." GOD, they picked up each other's mannerisms. They're so MARRIED and that is SUCH A GOOD DETAIL TO SHOW IT. Did I mention how much I love how MARRIED THEY ARE??


• "It was like seeing God’s Love on a mirror held around a corner, a pale reflection, but still more than he could see with his own eyes and not be turned to stone.
" 😭

Oh, and the footnotes were great as well! And beautifully coded to boot! :D

All in all, this is everything I could have asked for and more! Thank you very much, secret author, and I hope you have a wonderful holiday season!!

[maniacalmole]

“He’d always liked when stars came in pairs.” Beautiful and HEARTBREAKING
“Though he would spend much of the latter half of the 16th century attempting to wrangle his flyaway words into something poetry-adjacent. But then, he was in love, and being in love does awfully strange things to people’s poetic inclinations, if not their skill.” Ok, I need to read THIS fic
“save perhaps a good mold behind Hastur’s knees” This made me laugh
He soothed the plant D’X
I love the idea that Crowley can’t miracle things into existence unless he understands them, like clothes. That explains a lot of his curiosity (although I think a lot of that is innate, too)
FOOTNOTE ELEVEN!
Footnote fifteen is also great XD All of them are!
Ok I stopped commenting for a while because I was just heartbroken and then healed and soaking it all in! This was really lovely. Thank you! Especially for the end :’)

[sonnet23]

What a brilliant, clever, sad, and soft story! The idea is so great: because Crowley really has the most powerful imagination, and the fact that it brought him where he'd wished to go doesn't seem improbable at all!

Crowley-and-kids is one of my favourite topics of all times, even from before the TV show, and this was a beautiful and very in-character take on his actions during the Flood. <3

That moment, in the beginning, broke my heart into a million pieces:

"Crawly thought of a tiny hand clutched in his own, of dark brown curls beneath his chin and of the clamor of little voices asking for stories or a bit more water or some of that bread, the sweet kind, please please please Crawly, we’ll go to sleep after!" << God, I cried when I was reading it for the first time, and now I'm crying again while quoting it.

And I love it that though Crawly is obviously so young, and raw, and soft, and he's saving kids on the Flood - that at the same time he's snappy and angry, and even cruel with Aziraphale. He's not a saint or something, he's still a demon, but he has his own belief, and he's suffered for it. <3

And Aziraphale is so caring and there's so much guilt and regret in him for his past words and actions. And so much sympathy for Crawly!

A was very happy to know that he'd saved Crawly and those kids! And the moment when the kids come to Crawly when he wakes up is just precious! <3

Thank you, dear author!