Happy Holidays, August!
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go_exchangeSummary: Armageddon didn’t, the Second Coming hadn’t, and Crowley and Aziraphale had happily retired to their South Downs cottage, if not quite on the romantic terms that Crowley pined for. But when a vengeful Hastur sent Crowley back to the absolute worst century ever, Crowley had no choice but to seek out Aziraphale’s help in returning to his proper time.
That is, if the angel were willing even to speak to him.
Rating: T for language and some dark themes
Fic and chapter titles are from the Revelations of Julian of Norwich (long text)
Chapter 1 the daye and the time is unknowen
Crowley regained consciousness with his face smushed into a mud puddle.
This was not a new experience for him.
It had occurred unpleasantly often over the six thousand years he had spent upon Earth. Hardly ever in the past century or two, though, and not once since he had retired to a blissfully domestic existence with Aziraphale in the South Downs.
His first thought was that his angel was going to be so disappointed in him.
This was also not new.
It had, however, been increasingly rare since they had managed to stop the End of the World (capital letters and all) once again. And if Crowley hadn’t persuaded Aziraphale to return anything like the embarrassingly un-demonic romantic devotion that he himself felt [1], he was more than satisfied with the angel’s overall friendly regard, and occasional dizzying beams of warm approval.
Well, he wasn’t going to earn one of those radiant smiles by continuing to lie here face down in the muck. Might as well sit up and try to figure out why he’d apparently drunk himself blotto this time.
He struggled upright, and glanced over to their cottage to check if the angel had spotted him yet.
On the plus side: no angel.
On the minus: no cottage.
Nor were there the homes of any of their neighbours. Just empty fields of wild grasses, waving gently in a Spring breeze, spotted with cowslips and poppies and butterfly blooms, bordered by a distant darker treeline.
This catastrophe had Hastur’s fingerprints all over it; Crowley was sure of it. The Duke of Hell’s pallid, leering face was the last thing he could remember seeing, vicious glee in those pitiless dead eyes. Crowley struggled to remember if the wanker had said anything, before… before…
“You can’t do anything to us,” he heard his own voice saying. “We were to be let strictly alone. That was the deal.”
“Going forward, yeah. Nothin’ were ever agreed ‘bout going backward, though.”
“Oh, Hastur,” Crowley groaned. “What have you done?”
Crowley had mucked about with Time when it seemed useful, but he hadn’t anything like the juice necessary to send someone to the past. And quite a ways into the past – their cottage was built over three hundred years ago, and wasn’t the oldest in the village, not by a long chalk. As a Grand Duke of Hell, Hastur had miraculous power oozing out of every orifice, but Crowley wouldn’t have thought the other demon would possess the sheer imagination to send someone else hurtling back to the Middle Ages.
Apparently a massive grudge allowed for a significant level-up. Crowley could respect that.
The question remained: when, exactly, had he landed? Crowley had a dreadful suspicion, but he needed some evidence. A quick glance confirmed that he was still wearing his stylish twenty-first century outfit, so he had been probably been transported corporation and all, and not simply jammed into his mediaeval body.[2] A quick snap re-kitted him in a set of boring but all-purpose black robes, which would (he hoped) not draw unwanted attention in any number of centuries. It also, thank Someone, proved that he still had access to his miracles.
Then he concentrated.
One of the side effects of the whole “demon” gig was an acute sensitivity to human desires, all the better to craft temptations. Crowley usually tried to dull this sense (alcohol worked pretty well); humans were always wanting, and their yearnings and lusts and greeds could get overwhelming. But right now he needed info, and the weeds and bugs weren’t about to tell him anything useful, and… bingo. Not much more than ten minutes off. A smallish boy-shaped ball of hunger and weariness and irritation and above all, boredom.
Crowley grinned, showing all his teeth, and ran his hands through his hair, dulling the ginger with grey and making it stand on end. He rubbed his chin, adding a grizzled untidy beard; and snapped stains and tears into his robe.
Someone was about to get a year’s worth of entertainment.
He spied the lucky winner of today’s temptation, leaning heavily upon a stick, gazing at a dozen or so sheep doing whatever sheep did. Crowley kicked into a run, waving his arms and shouting “Praise be! Praise be! Answer me quick, boy, be you a son of Adam or devil sent to deceive me?”
The lad startled, and took in with shrewd, curious eyes the odd figure Crowley presented: unkempt and dirty and waving skinny limbs about. “Aye, and I am a Christian man, right enough,” he nodded, crossing himself. “How can I help you, grandfather?”
Crowley sank to his knees. “Years it has been, since I have spoken with another mortal soul,” he announced dramatically. “I have been wandering the forests and moors, like the Baptizer, seeking forgiveness for our forsaken world.”
The demon deliberately shifted his speech towards the sound of early Modern English, but the shepherd responded with rich earthy vowels that seemed to have scarcely changed since Beowulf. “We’ve had no shortage of prayers these days it seems. Not since the Great Plague.” He shook his head. “Didn’t keep it from coming back.”
Crowley’s heart sank. Of all the miserable centuries to be stuck in, the late fourteenth was his least favourite. “Wait. Did you say ‘back’?”
His informant eyed him. “You truly have been cut off from the world for a long time. Aye, the plague came back, only a few years past. A dozen years had not sated its hunger. This time, it stalked the children.”
“Children.” Oh, the demon remembered well the White Rider’s usual pattern: how epidemics became endemic, and how the very young and the very old were most vulnerable. Had he known how soon the Black Death had returned? Or had that been while he was still indulging in his epic drunk up North? Had Aziraphale – he cut that thought off immediately.
“You seem shocked, grandfather.”
“Well. Yes. It seems that I need more up-to-date information. To, ah, guide my prayers appropriately.” Crowley’s thoughts scattered haphazardly about his brain, like marbles ping-ponging against the inside of his skull. He scrambled after them and managed to catch the caboose of one train of thought. “Does, um, Edward still wear the crown? Has the Pope returned to Rome?”
The boy shook his head. “Edward still reigns, though the gossip holds that he’s not much longer for this world. And Peter’s throne is still held captive by France.” He brightened. “But cheese and wool sell well in the market, for half again the usual price.” He regarded his little herd with satisfaction, before frowning. “There are those who call us cheats and thieves, though. There is much anger among the poor in this land.”
“Tis ever so,” Crowley sighed in sympathy. He had never paid enough attention to human events and dates to figure out useful questions to ask. He wished, ferociously, that his angel was with him; but he couldn’t allow himself to experience the yearning, lest it overwhelm him.
“Have you wrestled with many demons in your wanderings, grandfather? Dispatched any withered hags?” The lad eyed him greedily. His longing for tales of lurid violence was palpable.
“Demons, yeah. Lots of demons. Oodles of demons. Twas a nasty toad-topped bugger who dumped me here, to tell the truth.” Crowley scratched at his chin, sighed, and launched into a few more-or-less accurate accounts of Hellish interactions on Earth – safely sanitised, of course, for his audience’s tender years. He didn’t want to give the kid nightmares.[3]
At any rate, the shepherd listened avidly, eyes growing rounder and rounder. As Crowley ran out of all-ages stories, the lad felt it only fair to offer up his own monster-fighting tale. “The miller’s boy Wat said he threw rocks at some Jews in Portsmouth,” he confided. “They were in the pillory for poisoning the wells with plague.” He grimaced in disappointment. “Wat says he didn’t see horns nor hooves, though. He reckoned they must’ve known to hide ‘em.”
Crowley suddenly very much wanted this dreary human to be elsewhere. He discreetly snapped, then pointed out to the fields. “Say, should your sheep be doing that?”
Uttering a curse that probably went back to the Roman legions, the boy fled after his animals, currently scampering in all directions like … well, like a devil was nipping at their heels, rather than simply inspiring their natural propensity towards mischief. At least the little beast couldn’t complain about being bored anymore.
(Crowley also ensured that none of them would come to harm. His irritation wasn’t the sheep’s fault.)
He wanted his angel. He needed his angel. There was a cold angel-shaped hole in Crowley’s existence right now, and it kept distracting him from figuring out how to fix this mess. True, they had in the past gone centuries without encountering each other; the first time he went through this beastly century, they had only met once…
Crowley’s shoulders hunched as he recalled that disastrous occasion. It was right before the first onslaught of the Black Death, and Aziraphale had pleaded with him to protect his beloved Oxford from the worst ravages of the coming disaster. But after the angel had revealed that the plague was instigated by Heaven (hence Aziraphale’s unwillingness to work against it himself) and worse, implied that it was somehow easier to have Fallen than to uphold such angelic standards… well, things had devolved into a right proper brangle, and both of them were furious at the other, and Aziraphale had vanished and Crowley had hied himself up to Scotland for decades of sullen drunkenness, and Crowley wasn’t sure if Aziraphale had yet simmered down enough to tolerate his fiendish presence.[4]
But such long periods of separation had gradually become shorter and shorter, even before the End-of-the-World-that-Wasn’t. And after upending Armageddon and compromising the Second Coming, they had become used to seeing each other daily. And now (well, not now-now, but future-now, and this was all making Crowley’s head hurt) they were sharing a home, and maybe more, and Crowley ached for the Aziraphale who wasn’t there.
Maybe he should just go and find him. It’s not like the contemporary Crowley would be around to confuse things.
Footnotes
1. To be fair, he hadn’t actually tried. The consequences of rejection, no matter how kindly, were too catastrophic to risk.↩
2. He refused to deal with the implication that there was another Crowley running around whenever-this-was; that was a problem for Future Crowley. Or maybe Past Crowley. Anyway, not This Crowley.↩
3. Crowley also left out any of his own exploits. He didn’t think the boy would appreciate the fine details of sophisticated wiles, especially ones lacking such vulgar flash as bloody eyeballs and exploding maggots.↩
4. Aziraphale had calmed down eventually, of course. He always did, even after far worse rows. You don’t give up completely on a frenemy of six thousand years standing.↩
Chapter 2 as clene and as holy as angels in heven
Crowley had never figured out exactly how he always knew where Aziraphale was. It wasn’t related to the standard demonic sensitivity to human weaknesses. It certainly had nothing to do with the highly-touted angelic ability to sense love.[5] But ever since he had crawled up from Hell and emerged into the Garden, Crowley had felt a buzzing awareness of one particular pale-haired angel, as if they were connected by an invisible electrical cord. He had wondered out loud once, if it were an artefact of some pre-Fall relationship they had shared in a dimly-remembered Heaven; but Aziraphale had gone extraordinarily vague in response (even more so than normal), and Crowley hadn’t cared to pursue the topic.
Now, however, he sought out that odd link and surreptitiously tugged. His eyes widened.
He knew that Aziraphale hadn’t been able to bear witnessing Oxford bear the ravages of the plague; he had suspected he had fled England entirely, not that the continent had gotten off any more lightly. He had thought that his connection to the angel would be faint, attenuated by distance, perhaps stretching even to China or maybe North Africa. But no, Aziraphale was only a few days away. North and east. Not as close as London… Cambridgeshire, maybe, or Norfolk.
Wherever he was located, he was terribly sad and desperately weary.
Crowley instantly snapped for the Bentley, then sighed. No automobiles in this blessed time period, and nothing to drive them on if he had one. For a moment, he missed his beloved vehicle even more fiercely than he did the angel. Then Crowley sucked it up, and went searching for a horse to steal.
Fortunately for his arse (and the local stables), he managed to tempt his way into seats on an assortment of farmers’ wagons, peddlers' carts, and even amidst a bedraggled troupe of players, as far as Peterborough and then (finding that cathedral city to be sadly devoid of angelic presence), Norwich. Those with rides to offer were more wary than he remembered; he soon ditched the ragged hermit disguise, and adopted the pose of a journeymen woolmonger seeking a runaway apprentice. His travelling companions would respond with their own scathing condemnations of laziness and petty criminality amongst the Youth These Days, and then they would bond over the scurrilous untrustworthiness of such notorious villains as travellers, weavers, the Flemish, the Irish, the Welsh, Lollards, Jews, and of course women.
By the time the demon had jumped off the cart of a particularly chatty purveyor of eels, he had developed a throbbing headache, a sour stomach, and a deep disgust for humanity.
Unlike most of the rest of the places he had travelled through the past few weeks, Norwich seemed to be thriving, its streets crowded and the people prosperous. Despite pestilence, poverty, and warfare, business went on; and the business of Norwich was wool. There were also considerably more churches and monasteries than Crowley had expected, and he quickly transformed into the anonymous robes of a Dominican. He wrinkled his nose at the omnipresent stench of holiness, and remembered uneasily Aziraphale’s explanations of Heaven’s agenda in fostering the plague. They had certainly accomplished their goal of spreading Celestial-style self-righteousness and judgmentalism among the fearful population.
Still, he had his angel’s warm (and subtly spicy) scent now. Aziraphale wasn’t far.
Crowley meandered along the streets, happy to pass by the Cathedral (Aziraphale had an unfortunate propensity towards bunking in consecrated spaces), heading towards the Bishop's Gate when, by a bend in the river, he caught sight of the personage he sought, almost buried beneath a load of bundled cloth. The cloud-pale curls were neatly tucked beneath a white wimple, but there was no mistaking that sturdy soft figure, that barely-perceptible warm glow, that indefinable sense of home.
Cool, Crowley reminded himself. Be cool. He's probably still angry with you. And he certainly won't greet you as a friend.
Aziraphale lifted his head, and met Crowley's eyes from across the road. A sudden brightness lit up his face, a faint smile quivered on his lips; and Crowley was running, hurtling to close the distance, grabbing the angel in both arms, pressing him close, sinking into the ineffable certainty that yes, yes, everything will be all right now.
He felt Aziraphale's arms briefly tighten in a return embrace before they stiffened and pushed him away. “Crowley!” Aziraphale hissed. “Are you drunk? What kind of trouble are you trying to make for me?”
Oops. It hadn't quite registered that Aziraphale was currently presenting as female, and probably shouldn't be hugging a strange man in public, even a fake Blackfriar.
“What kind of trouble is it to kindly greet an old friend?” Crowley said, quickly snapping himself into a modest chemise and kirtle, an ebon mirror to Aziraphale's own.
“Friend? We're not friends.” Aziraphale frowned, and didn't that sting. But of course she wouldn't admit it, not for centuries to come. It was only after the Notpocalypse, after all, that the angel would even bestow a casual touch, let alone a hug.[6]
“Colleagues, then. Professional acquaintances.” Crowley twitched her veil to a more flattering drape, without permitting her easy grin to falter.
“Dame Fell? Should we hang the sheets now?”
Aziraphale started, and turned to the younger woman, bearing a smaller burden of sopping wet fabric. “Ah. Julian. Yes. Thank you, my dear. This is Mistress Crowley, from my old home. She's a, ummm...”
“Respectable midwife, that's me,” Crowley put in, knowing full well that the “respectability” of said profession was in some contention.
Aziraphale rolled her eyes. “Oh, not this again,” she said in an undertone.
The young human — Julian — said nothing, though, merely dipped her chin and regarded Crowley with a blank expression. The demon wondered if she was daft, perhaps, or just a bit slow. Another of the angel’s crippled lambs, he supposed. At least she wasn’t malicious.
“Anyways, if you could start setting the sheets, there's a dear, my, err, colleague and I will take just a moment to catch up,” Aziraphale said hurriedly.
Julian glided a few yards off, and began to spread the damp cloth across the bushes to dry in the sun.
“Laundry, angel?” Crowley enquired sardonically. “I've heard cleanliness is next to godliness[7], but you'd think that Heaven could find a more... exalted... use of its resources.”
“Not everything I do is at Gabriel's direction, as you know very well.” Aziraphale sniffed with adorable irritation. “Not that it's any of your business, but I'm currently nursing at the Hospital. Washing sick bodies, feeding them, changing their bedclothes... it may not be glamorous, but it brings comfort to those poor souls in residence.”
“Probably does more for them than the inflicting of three Masses a day,” Crowley said frankly.
“It isn't for me to say.” She pursed her pretty pink lips. “But it isn't a mission that would bring you any glory in Hell to interfere with, so if you would be so kind as to pop off to whatever foul mischief you've come here to foment, I shall wish you good day.”
Oh, Aziraphale was still angry. But there was also that grief there, that bone-deep exhaustion, and Crowley could no longer leave her angel to it than she could hop back to her own proper time. “But I won't, angel,” she said softly. “Be kind, that is. You should know me better than that.”
Aziraphale didn't answer, preferring to attack her own pile of wet laundry with an aggrieved huff. After one length of cloth repeatedly caught on an inconvenient twig, she finally snapped, “You could help, you know, instead of just standing there like a sulphurous beanpole.”
“Since you asked so nicely,” Crowley freed the snag with a smooth curtsey. She nodded at the younger woman, still spreading out sheets with dull perseverance, “So, what's with the cumberwold, there? She must have quite the sob story, for you to put up with such dull company.”
Aziraphale dropped the corner she was tugging on to whirl upon him. “Indeed she does,” the angel bit out through her teeth. “Julian wasn't yet six before she lost her parents and the rest of her family to the Black Death. The sisters at Carrow Abbey,” she glanced in the direction of the nearby priory, “took her in — laying claim to her family's modest holding in recompense, of course. Still, she was fed and cared for and educated, they arranged a marriage with a fine young man in the fuller's guild, and all seemed happy enough. Then the plague returned, and struck down her husband and infant daughter.”
“Oh,” Crowley responded inadequately.
“Yes, oh. The poor lass pretty much lost herself afterwards. She returned to the Abbey, and would simply sit silently praying day and night. The sisters had to bully her into swallowing every bite of food. Dame Edith — the prioress, a very estimable woman — asked me to take the girl on. I haven't been able to do much for her, but at least she gets fresh air and sunshine, and something else to think about.” Aziraphale flapped the sheet aggressively, spattering Crowley with water. “Don't you dare call her names, demon.”
Crowley wiped her dark lenses dry. “You're right, Aziraphale.” The angel stiffened, as if she had been expecting another response.
Now that Crowley was paying attention, the vast dark void of grief eating the human girl from within was all too obvious. “It’s just that… ugh. Everyone’s been so bloody nasty these days, s’enough to disgust even a demon. Yeah, yeah, everything’s gone to shit, I get that, but I don't see why people have to lash out at everybody else. S'like, dunno, they're all trying to climb out of the muck by kicking everybody weaker into a heap underneath them, instead of reaching for a hand up.”
Aziraphale looked sad. “You're not wrong. I've seen far too much of that as well. And it’s not only punishing the vulnerable; when they think of those more fortunate, it's with resentment and violence. All in all, an ugly situation.” She smoothed out the wet sheet with trembling fingers.
This. This was why her angel was so weary and despairing. It wasn't the death toll of the plague; they had both thousands of years to be accustomed to the way that all humans die, and the longest-lived were the merest blink against an immortal's lifespan. No, it was the misery of the survivors that ground down Aziraphale: the grief and the anger and the fear. “You said this would happen. When we last saw each other. You said that they were brave and daring; but they would learn to cower and hide. And I said,” she swallowed, “I said that you were cruel to want them to hope.”
Aziraphale shook her head numbly. “We both said unwise things, I suppose. I shouldn't have...” she trailed off.
“You shouldn't have suggested it was easier for me,” Crowley said, without bitterness. “But I goaded you into it. I'm good at that. I was wrong, and,” she gritted her teeth, “I am sorry for it.” She might as well go all in. “I am truly sorry that I ditched you. That I left you all alone to cope with” she waved a hand “all of this. Especially since I knew that Heaven would tie your hands.”
“My dear,” Aziraphale looked at her strangely. “I do believe that this is the first time in over five thousand years that you have apologised to me.” She leaned forward to place her hand against Crowley's forehead. “Do you have a fever?”
Crowley did not lean into that light touch. “Well, yeah, don't get used to it.”
Aziraphale offered up an uncertain little smile, then glanced at her protege. “I must be getting back. It’s time to help our guests take a little nourishment before Nones. Julian, dear girl,” she pitched her tone a little higher. “Would you rather help in the kitchens, or return to the Abbey?” She smiled with bright encouragement.
The young woman returned a dull stare, saying nothing.
Aziraphale sighed, then turned back to Crowley. “Would you object terribly to escorting the young lady?” She lowered her voice. “It isn’t fair to ask you, I know, but I’m not entirely certain that Julian would make it on her own. She once merely stood outside the gate until they were closed for the night. And I’m afraid that the masters don’t permit women to personally nurse the patients.”
Crowley allowed her gaze to pointedly flick up and down the generous feminine curves visible beneath the angel’s modest gown.
“Well, yes,” Aziraphale said. “But I am hardly young or pretty enough to entice a poor soul into sinful thoughts.”
Crowley slowly raised her eyebrows.
“Oh, hush, you.” Aziraphale blushed, and addressed her young charge. “You go along with Mistress Crowley, my dear. She’ll see you safely back to the sisters.” To Crowley she added, “My lodgings are right across the way. Stop by after Vespers, and we can share a bottle of something. And talk about whatever brought you here.” She bustled back to St. Giles, leaving the demon and the human looking at each other.
Footnotes
5. Highly overrated, in Crowley’s opinion; Aziraphale had never once indicated he felt anything around Crowley; although maybe a demon’s love didn’t count.↩
6. And certainly not a kiss, never a kiss, not after the one disastrous attempt right before Aziraphale’s brief return to Heaven.↩
7. Not from John Wesley, she hadn't, considering that the churchman wasn't going to coin the phrase for another three hundred years.↩
Chapter 3 in my folly before this time, often I wondred why
“Welp. Come along, then.” Crowley shrugged and started towards the Bishop's Gate, expecting the young woman to fall in beside her. She couldn’t see it yet, but the Abbey couldn’t have been more than a mile off and it was a nice day for a walk. Aziraphale being on one hand so dejected over the state of humanity, but on the other so unexpectedly welcoming to Crowley, all on top of being hurled back to the wrong millennium with no idea of how to get back to her own time, had resulted in a big tangled mess of complicated feels right in the middle of her corporation, and she was counting on the exercise to help digest them properly.
Whatever else was up with Julian, she wasn’t a chatterer; so Crowley was able to avoid any sort of annoying small talk for most of their journey. It was all the more startling, then, when the girl said out of the blue, “You told Dame Fell that you thought this world was a miserable place.”
“Uhhh…”
“Why then do you choose to help mothers bring more infants into a life of suffering? Would it not be better to let the innocents go at once to the blessed peace of Heaven?”
Now Crowley might not have been a career midwife, but she had supervised thousands of births in her time, and she was demonically vain about how few of them she had lost to the so-called ‘Curse of Eve’.[8] “Wot, you think I should’ve let the kids die? That’s just not on!”
“Oh, no. Of course not. But shouldn’t every new life be a cause for mourning, rather than celebration?”
Crowley stood stock still in the middle of the path, then turned around to stare. “Look, I’m not what anyone would call an authority on Church doctrine, but if I recall correctly, Yeshua – Jesus, I should say – was not a big fan of giving up in despair.”
“Our Lord called it the unforgivable sin,” Julian agreed, with head bowed and hands folded. “I am a fallen creature indeed.”
“Ngk!” Crowley said. “Oh, for…” Her thoughts raced. It would be so easy for her to mire this suffering human in the Slough of Despond. As an agent of Hell it was practically obligatory. If she wanted to exert a little effort, she could probably nudge Julian from guilt and depression into bitter cynicism, motivated by sheer spite at the Creator that had dealt her such a raw hand.[9]
That’s what Fourteenth-Century Crowley would undoubtedly do.
But Fourteenth-Century Crowley wasn’t here.
Twenty-First Century Crowley was, and frankly she wasn’t interested in what the proper demonic course of action might be. This Crowley owed even less to Hell than she did to Heaven; and when confronted with such naked raw despair, she just didn’t have the heart to make it a permanent condition.
Besides, Aziraphale wouldn’t like it.
Before she could decide what to say, Julian started walking again. “I should not have asked. I know my thoughts are evil. I should confess them, and accept the penance the priest imposes.”
“No! There’s no such thing as a wrong question!” Crowley blurted out. She was suddenly furious at how the memory of the passionate young rabbi was being twisted into condemning this one not-terribly-interesting human to eternal damnation. She’d seen it so many times in her demonic career: suffering people who thought that what they wanted was to make their sorrow, pain, and rage go away, when what they really needed was to have those emotions acknowledged. Validated.
She circled around to look in Julian’s face. “Look, what I meant to say was … Jesus knew grief, okay? He cried when his buddy Lazarus died. He cried over the future he saw for his people. He cried bloody tears when he knew he was going to die, or so they say. And anger! Man had quite the temper. Could raise blisters with his tongue, when he wanted. Busted up a whole marketplace, breaking furniture and everything. He felt his feelings, and they were real feelings, great big feelings. Nobody could blame you for doing the same.”
Julian’s gaze was steady. “That’s not what the Church teaches.”
Crowley made a rude noise. “Oi, theologians, what do they know? They don’t listen to their own stories. Even…” he swallowed. “Even Dame Fell. She’s a, an absolute angel, don’t get me wrong; but big feelings frighten her. And they should, they’re dangerous.”
The other woman didn’t answer, but Crowley could see how intently she was listening.
“Jesus, though … He was sure that these big scary feelings were all right, were safe, because they were surrounded by an even bigger, more powerful feeling. That everybody, everything’s all held in…” The demon gagged. “You know.”
“Grace? Mercy?”
“Those are church words. So we don’t have to say it.” Crowley almost spit the word. “Love. Everything’s held together by love. Like a baby having a tantrum, but safe and warm and loved in their mother’s arms. And so… we can hurt and be sad and angry and it’s okay? Because She, I mean God, of course, is hurting and sad and angry right along with us, and loves us anyway?” The words felt like acid, burning in Crowley’s throat; but she forced them out anyhow. “That’s what I think Jesus would say. He was a bit of an oddball, that one.”
Julian shook her head. “These are strange teachings, good Mistress. I know you mean kindness, but I would not share them aloud with others, if I were you.”
“Trust me, I am not kind,” Crowley answered, almost reflexively. “And I’m not in the habit of chatting with churchmen.” She pointed to the building over the crest of the hill. “Here’s where I leave you. Remember that there’s more to this life than death and cruelty. Thirty sick men will have full bellies tonight, and sleep clean and warm. That’s as real as any sorrow or sin; and that’s on you as well.”
“More credit to Dame Fell, I should say. But I thank you for the thought.” She dipped her head before walking on up to the Abbey. “I am glad that you know you are loved.”
Crowley stared after her, mouth hanging open like a fool. “Wait. No. That’s not…” she finally managed to splutter, far too late for the young woman to be able to hear. At any rate, she did not respond.
Crowley very aggressively did not think about any of this all the way back to the city.
Footnotes
8. Yes, Crowley still took that personally.↩
9. A perfectly healthy attitude to take in Crowley’s opinion, thank you very much.↩
Chapter 4 for wrath and frenshippe be two contraries
She returned well before sundown, so decided to while away some time in the markets purchasing bread and cheese and some of those candied nuts that she knew that the angel liked.
By the time she got back to the lodgings near the hospital, Aziraphale was waiting for her. The angel was in an odd mood. While she exclaimed at treats Crowley offered up, and nattered cheerfully about what there was on hand to drink — “I shan't insult you by suggesting any of the local wine, my dear, but the ale is really quite excellent, or if you'd prefer, I've a few bottles of the Rhenish tucked away” — she also fluttered nervously about the room, from table to chairs to narrow bedframe, fidgeting with her pinky ring all the while, and several times the demon caught Aziraphale glancing at her through narrowed eyes.
Well, it had been quite some time since Crowley had felt the weight of Heaven and Hell staring over their shoulders. Perhaps she was just out of practice at being wary.
At any rate, Aziraphale eventually ran out of things to say about her status at St. Giles (“Not a Beguine, nothing so scandalous, the bishop believes me to be a corrodian, and I'm certainly not about to disabuse him“) and what she'd been reading and hearing (”There's a new priest in town, a Kentish fellow, quite radical but definitely gifted at words, he certainly knows how to stir the people up”); so she rubbed her hands across her thighs, and flicked her gaze around the room and finally said, “All right, Crowley, out with it.”
“Out with what?” Crowley answered a bit fuzzily. Aziraphale was right – the local ale was superb.
“Why are you here? I can't imagine you chose to visit Norwich on your own. And,” she twisted her fingers together, “I'm aware that I presumed upon our Arrangement most abominably when last we met. I promise you, I shan't be so difficult about helping out this time.”
“Ahhh. S'not like that, angel.” Abruptly, Crowley decided to tell the truth. Lying to Aziraphale never really worked out well. “Thing is, I came here because you're here.”
“Truly?” Aziraphale turned slightly pink, then hurried on. “I can't imagine why. I'm not doing anything of particular significance. You know of course that Heaven doesn't want me ... meddling with their plans for the plague, so all I've been able to pull off are simple human remedies, not that they can do much, with tiny unrelated miracles of comfort and ease here and there.”
“I'm sure you're doing as much as you can for the humans, angel. But I came because I need your help. M'not supposed to be here, you see.”
“Oh? Hell wants you in France? The Low Countries? Somewhere else in the world entirely?”
“Somewhen else, more like.”
“I don't understand.”
Crowley ran her fingers through her hair, dislodging her veil. “I don't belong in this time. This century. The me who belongs here is falling-down drunk somewhere in Scotland right now. This me... I'm from almost seven hundred years in the future. Hastur — Duke of Hell, don't think you know him — sent me back to my least favourite time as a sick means of revenge.”
To her surprise, Aziraphale simply nodded. “I see. That explains a good deal.” The corner of her mouth quirked up. “And gives me a bit of hope as well.”
“Wot?”
“Well, you haven't been acting quite like yourself. Much less ... on edge, shall we say, than usual. More ... accommodating. And, of course, you, err, hugged me.” The full smile appeared, like the sun from behind a dark cloud. “It appears that the world has become a bit less hostile to Future Crowley, and that’s a lovely thing.”
“Ngk.”
Aziraphale flashed that sweet smile again. “Not to mention that evidently there is a future, that far out. What with all the pestilence, war, famine of late... I confess, I've wondered if we were barrelling headlong into the End Times.”
“Nah. Not for quite a while. And we sorted that out.”
Now Aziraphale did look shocked. “I beg your pardon?”
“Wasn't really Us-us,” Crowley clarified. “I mean, we tried, but mostly just faffing about the edges. It was really the Antichrist — splendid boy, you are going to like him — saying 'No thanks, like the world just as it is, piss off.' “
“And the Almighty was fine with that?” Aziraphale asked faintly.
“Didn't really register an opinion one way or the other, to be honest. Unlike Heaven.” Crowley considered. “Well, Hell wasn't happy either, but couldn't do much about it once Lord Beelzebub buggered off with Gabriel. Anyways—“
The angel held up one shaking hand. “Excuse me? Did you just say that the Prince of Hell and the Supreme Archangel…”
“Yep. Hooked up, then left for Alpha Centauri. Nobody saw that one coming.” Crowley still felt rather salty about the whole thing. “But you know Heaven. Even with Armageddon called off, the checklist said that next up was a seven-year Tribulation,[10] and after that…”
“The Second Coming.” Aziraphale nodded. “But without a Supreme Archangel…”
“Oh, there was a Supreme Archangel, all right.” Crowley tensed. “You.”
“Me?” Aziraphale was flabbergasted. But also, no denying it, pleased. Crowley shouldn’t be angry about that. The angel had no understanding of the circumstances. All she would be able to think was that finally, finally, Heaven was taking notice of her worth. It would be cruel of Crowley to explain further.
“Mmm-hmmm. We had a big fight about it, to be honest.” They had talked about this, afterwards. Crowley understood, truly she did.
That didn’t mean she was okay with it, though.
“Oh.” And now Aziraphale was disappointed.
“Yeah. Worked out, though. I should’ve trusted you, maybe.” Crowley looked away as she remembered.
Crowley remembered Malkah, Daughter of God, created not to serve (as in two thousand years past) but to rule. Whom the Supreme Archangel had sent to Crowley, even though they were not speaking, trusting the Original Tempter to show the child “all the kingdoms of this world.” And so Crowley had shared with her all humanity, clever and foolish and generous and selfish and funny and sad and cruel and kind, and Malkah had wondered and asked questions and fell irrevocably in love with the humans, just as Crowley had learned to love them, just as that troublemaking rabbi she had been thousands of years ago had loved them, just as she in all her own curiosity and generosity was always going to love them.
Crowley remembered the Metatron’s face, livid with rage, screaming at the girl, threatening her with the Book, telling her to destroy everything she had learned so to love, or else be scratched out, erased, obliterated: “You will not be! You will never have been!”
Crowley remembered Aziraphale, pale and shaking, unfurling his wings to protect the terrified child, standing between the preteen Messiah and the Voice of God, just as years earlier a fearful and determined Antichrist had stood before an angel and an a demon to defy the Lord of Hell.
Crowley remembered Aziraphale, reaching out one hand without even looking, so sure he was that the demon would accept his offer, would step up to his side to shield the Incarnation of the Almighty, to protect Crowley’s friend. Aziraphale, declaring quietly but firmly, “No. She is as she is. She was. She shall be.”
Crowley remembered taking that hand – what choice had he had? – and shuffling close, wings overlapping, positive that this was it, that it was all over, that he and everything he had ever cared about was due to be wiped from existence. “Yeah. What he said.”
Crowley remembered the electrical surge like a lightning strike, and the sensation of power as a mighty wall, as Beelzebub and Gabriel appeared behind them. The Messenger of God glowing in a violet nimbus, the Lord of the Flies enshrouded in a whirling black buzzing cloud, together at their backs, proclaiming, “She is.”
Crowley remembered a white-faced Muriel, trembling so hard that they could barely keep their balance, suddenly grabbing at one of the Erics, yanking him along to stand in solidarity, their voice barely audible as they quavered, “She is,” the pointy-haired demon nodding in agreement.
Crowley remembered the great wind like an awful sigh, as General Michael in her gleaming armour glided into formation, stern and terrible. “She is,” she stated, as if remarking on the weather. Dagon, the silver scales of her uniform catching and scattering the light, insinuated herself by the archangel’s side, her pointed teeth glistening wickedly. “She is,” she rasped with bureaucratic certainty.
Crowley remembered the great surge of angels and demons that followed, the Hosts of Heaven and Hell pouring together, utterly opposite yet strangely the same, forming rank after rank to defy the Metatron and to affirm Existence – the Messiah’s, this world’s, their own – chanting their allegiance to What Was And Is And Shall Be, plans and plots and petty rivalries abandoned.
Crowley remembered what happened next. And shuddered.
Crowley did not tell Aziraphale any of this. “Anyways. We stopped it. All of it. With a little help.”
“So. What you are saying,” Aziraphale said in a voice stretched wire-thin, “is that in less than a thousand years, I – an angel of the Lord! – shall choose to throw in with a demon's schemes against the Almighty's Great Plan.” Her attempt at a smile was a ghastly thing. “Well. Self-knowledge, some say, is the highest form of wisdom.”
“Oh. Oh! Fuck, no, s'not like that!” Crowley hurried to fix her stupid mistake. “You never turn against Her, not for one second! Angel — you are an angel, you stay an angel — it's, it's not the same thing, what She wants, what the archangels say She wants, that's what you learn. That's why we told Heaven and Hell both where they could stick it, and went off on our Own Side.” She dropped to her knees in front of Aziraphale and grabbed her hands tightly. “She doesn't cast you out. You still have every drop of your Grace. I swear it by anything you like. Satan's sweatsocks, your wings are still as white as anything, I see them every day, I should know.”
Aziraphale's grip on Crowley's fingers was still painful, but her breathing slowed and evened out. “I don't know what to think. What to believe. None of this makes any sense at all.” She glared at the demon. “Why on earth do you see my wings every day?”
Crowley grinned. “Well, we do share a cottage, you know. And you're hopeless at keeping your feathers tidy by yourself.”
She had expected the angel to bridle at the teasing, but Aziraphale's reaction was beyond anything she could have foreseen. The angel's eyes grew huge and round and luminous. She dropped Crowley's hands and clapped her palms to suddenly scarlet cheeks. “We share a cottage? We live together? Like... like humans do?”
“Uh, yeah?”
“Oh, Crowley!” Aziraphale threw her arms around the demon with such force that she knocked the demon backwards onto her arse. Undeterred, Aziraphale climbed right on top of her, still holding her tight, all the while making a noise rather like an unusually harmonious teakettle. “I never thought that that would be something you ever wanted, not in sixty thousand years! But I could bear it, opposing the Plan, becoming estranged from Heaven, even Falling, it would all be worth it if you have eventually come to love me back!”
Crowley was discovering just how difficult it was to corral even one single coherent thought while contending with a warm lapful of snuggly ecstatic angel. She knew that she ought to say something like ”Oops, no, not like that.” She also knew that there was nothing she wanted so desperately as “Yep, exactly like that.”
What eventually fell out of her mouth was “Love you back?”
Aziraphale pulled away a little. “Oh. I shouldn't have assumed. I… I just thought that maybe, if we were truly free of our respective ... well, this is embarrassing. Of course you don't... you don't...”
“Shaddup, angel,” Crowley growled. “Of course I do. Since forever.”
Then neither said anything at all for quite some time.
Footnotes
10. It was still up for debate whether those years were truly uniquely awful, how much could be blamed on the Great Plan, and how much was humans just being humans.↩
Chapter 5 that that is unpossible to thee is not unpossible to me
When Crowley felt like using words again, she was lying on the woven rug, nose to nose with the most beautiful angel in Creation, limbs so intertwined that Crowley wasn't entirely certain which (if any) were originally hers.[11]
“Look at you,” she said softly. “You’re gorgeous.” She tilted her face so their foreheads touched. “You have stars in your eyes, did you know that?”
Aziraphale giggled, and Crowley almost melted into a puddle from sheer fondness. “Of course I do, darling,” she said. “You put them there, the first time I ever saw you.”
Crowley cursed herself silently. All the centuries they could have had this, together. I am glad that you know that you are loved. “Bless it, angel. You know I have to go back. To my own time, I mean.”
“I understand that, dearest. Future-me must be missing you dreadfully.” Aziraphale propped herself up on a bent elbow. “But not right now, no? It shouldn’t make any difference when you return… I don’t know how any of this temporal manipulation works. You were always so clever at it.”
“Ehhh. Time is weird. Like a big gooey ball of wibbly-wobbly… stuff.” Crowley wiggled her fingers. “I mean, I can slow it down. Bend it a little. Stop it completely for a bit, if I really try. But jumping through centuries… I can’t tell exactly what Hastur did but I’m hoping that I’m still tethered somehow to my own time, and if I put enough power into it, I’ll just sort of … bounce back. ‘M gonna need your help.”
“Me? What can I do?”
“We found out, during the whole, yanno, Everything, that when we do a miracle together, it amplifies the power enormously. Like 25 Lazarii.” Aziraphale’s eyebrows shot up, and Crowley nodded. “Dunno if it’s just us, or any angel - demon pair will do. Not exactly advertising it, for obvious reasons. I’ll bet you anything you like, though, that Hastur’s not expecting me to pull off a stunt like that.”
“You’ll have to walk me through it, but we can certainly try.” Aziraphale sighed. “I shouldn’t say that I will miss you, should I? After all, you are still going to be here.” She nudged Crowley playfully. “Will you come with me to Scotland to help sober up your present-day self? I’m afraid he might not take things quite so well from me, but certainly seeing you will lend, shall we say, credibility to the argument.”
Crowley started to smirk, then abruptly stopped. Fuck. She had really not thought this one through. “Angel. I can't. I...”
“Oh, piffle. You've played silly buggers with time and space before. I've seen you. You certainly won't shock yourself.”
“It's not that. I can't give that much information about what happens in the future. It will change what I do, how I react to things.” She crossed her arms, distancing herself from the hurt her next words were bound to inflict. “Aziraphale, you're going to have to forget everything I told you. Forget that I was ever here.”
“Certainly not!” Aziraphale sat up primly. “You cannot ask that of me. To go through the next seven hundred years, always thinking that everything is about to come to a dreadful end. To be so afraid of Heaven, so desperate to live up to their expectations. To have no idea that...” She swallowed. “To not even know that you care.”
“Oh, angel. But that's exactly what we have to do. Both of us. Otherwise none of the things you want to hang onto are going to happen.” She scowled. “I'd suspect that that was exactly Hastur's plan in sending me back, but he's not anywhere near clever enough.”
Aziraphale set her jaw stubbornly. “I can pretend that I don't know. I can be very convincing at, er, dissimulation.”
“No, you can't,” Crowley retorted brutally. “You are an absolute rubbish liar. Probably something to do with being such an excellent angel,” she added as a sop to Aziraphale’s ego.
“Well, it doesn't matter anyhow,” Aziraphale shook her head. “Angels cannot forget -- as you very well know. We're simply not built for it.”
Crowley rubbed her face. What Aziraphale said was true. Even demons had perfect recall; Crowley may have had only the haziest flashes of her existence in Heaven, but every excruciating detail of the Fall itself, and every Hellish experience since, was as brutally vibrant as if it had just occurred.
Yet. There was Gabriel. Or more relevant, Jim.
“Angels can't forget,” she said slowly. “Not exactly. But memories can be ... removed, right? Put elsewhere. Or at least made inaccessible.”
“Ye-es,” Aziraphale chewed her lip, a highly distracting gesture. “The Healers might do that, if a memory was particularly painful. I haven't the slightest notion how to accomplish it, however. And I'd really prefer not to,” she said honestly.
“But it can be done,” Crowley insisted. “And we can put in some sort of trigger that will let you get the memories back. Something you'd only say or do if you knew it was perfectly safe.” She made an (unsuccessful) attempt at a smug smirk. “Like trying to kiss me, for example.”
“Dearest, if the memories returned every time I wanted to kiss you, there'd be no point in suppressing them at all,” the angel responded with warmth that made Crowley blush vividly.
“You'll think of something,” she answered. “Thing is, we've got to do it together, and simultaneous with sending me back to my own proper time. Else you’d see that something was up, and knowing you, you’d poke at it until everything unravelled.”
“I do not poke,” Aziraphale said indignantly. But she dropped the point. “How do we do this conjoined miracle, then?”
“Now?” Crowley felt a bit wrong-footed, although she wasn’t exactly sure why.
“Might as well,” the angel said, peevishly enough that it was clear that she was still upset. “If you’re just going to erase my memories of it all, it hardly matters whether or not you stick around any longer, does it?”
But Aziraphale wasn't wrong; there really wasn't a good excuse for putting things off. Crowley stood and held out both hands to pull the angel to her feet. “Right. It's easier if we're holding onto each other.”
Aziraphale looked back, with an expression of concentration on her face. “Like this?” Her fingers were so warm and soft. It wasn't bloody fair.
“Unhh. And then we both concentrate on what we want to achieve. That would be me, going forward to my own time. And you... your memories of the last hour or so being tucked away somewhere safe.”
“I would like to take this opportunity to formally object once again to the latter plan. I still think—”
“Noted, but overruled.” Crowley squeezed her hands tight. “Angel, d'you think I want this? I know it's gonna hurt you, hurt us both, and I am sorry about it. I mean, I've spent the last few years convinced that you weren't interested in anything more than friendship, that you only tolerated that much because you cut your ties with Heaven!” Too late she realised her mistake.
“Oh! And you led me to believe that we had... that we were... ” Aziraphale's lips were pressed tightly together, her eyes narrowed with indignation. “Cohabiting in connubial bliss!” she accused.
“I never!” It took everything that Crowley had not to burst out laughing. “I would never say anything so ridiculous! I mean, I might've implied that we were shacking up, but not ... what you said.”
“Well then, let me add to the record that I find you to be the most annoying of fiends, and I withdraw any interest in kissing you, now or a thousand years in the future!” Aziraphale's eyes were sparkling now; nevertheless, her grip on Crowley's fingers did not loosen in the slightest.
Ouch. The angel had no way of knowing how deeply that cut. “No? Not even if I add that the minute I get back, connubial bliss is the absolute first thing on the agenda?”
“I might then reconsider,” Aziraphale allowed graciously. “Oh Crowley, please,” she begged suddenly. “We have to do this now. I won't have it in me if we put it off any further.”
“Right.” Crowley took a deep breath and freed one hand. “On the count of three, then. One... two... “
They both snapped.
Crowley could feel the immense power of the conjoined miracle. She could almost see it, like two vast shining globes, one crimson and one gold, spreading out to encompass the pair of them, light melding and colours blending to form an impossible incandescent greenish-violet. She saw Aziraphale's eyes open wide and blank. She felt a vast irresistible tug somewhere beneath her own breastbone, like she were a fish caught on a metaphysical hook; at the same time there was a cosmic shove between her shoulder blades; between the push and the pull she was somehow nowhere and everywhere and she couldn't breathe (she didn't need to breathe) and she couldn't see (there was nothing to see) and she wanted to scream and she wanted to curl up and hide and she was falling...
... and then she landed face down and limbs splayed on something cold and hard.
“Fuck! My tits!”
Footnotes
10. It was still up for debate whether those years were truly uniquely awful, how much could be blamed on the Great Plan, and how much was humans just being humans.↩
11. She had experienced this sensation before, but it usually meant that she had just woken up from a difficult shed.↩
Chapter 6 the beholding of this blissful accord
Crowley groaned as she rolled over onto her back, crossing her arms across her chest. “Owwww.”
She could tell by the smell that she had reappeared in their South Downs village, but still wasn’t ready to open her eyes quite yet. What if the cottage wasn’t there?
A sudden coolness warned her that a shadow had been cast. It might have been a cloud over the sun, but the heady buzzy scent of ozone and tea and old paper suggested that her favourite being in the entire universe was standing by her head. Probably with his hands clasped behind his back, frowning in disapproval, ready to scold.
“Ahem. Do you plan on lying in the public street all day, my dear? Just let me know, and I shall put up some of those garish plasticine cones, in order to divert traffic.”
Crowley was so happy she was ready to cry. “Nah, let the cars run right over me. Couldn’t possibly hurt any worse.” She opened her eyes to see Aziraphale examining her carefully.
“Crowley, dear girl, I cannot help but notice that you seem to be wearing a late mediaeval kirtle and chemise.”
“You know how fashion is, angel. Wait long enough, and everything eventually comes back into style.”
Aziraphale ignored this. “One might think that you have just returned from a journey to, oh, circa 1363.”
“Huh, was that the year?” Crowley wondered. “Never could pin it down. Terrible with dates, me... wait, you remember?”
“And if that were the case,” Aziraphale went on severely, “I do believe that I am contractually entitled to a portion of ‘connubial bliss’.”
Without fuss, he bent down and scooped Crowley into his arms, bridal-style, and turned to march back into their cottage.
Crowley for her part squawked and pounded on his shoulder with her fists.[12] “You bastard! You do remember! How long have you had those memories back?”
“For quite some time, to be honest,” Aziraphale responded, settling himself in his favourite easy chair without releasing his grasp on the demon. “It's all your fault, you know. What with all your ... insinuations ... about kissing, and so forth, you very much determined what the trigger for releasing my suppressed memories would be.”
Crowley placed her hands on his chest and pushed. “Wait. Wait! You mean, then? When I...” she mimed grabbing at his lapels. “All those years ago? Why didn't you say something?”
“I did say something. Practically the last thing you said before we performed the joint miracle was an apology for suppressing my memories. So I let you know that I forgave you.”
“That was what you meant?” Crowley shook her head. “I thought...”
“I confess that I was rather ... overcome,” Aziraphale mused. “The situation, as you may recall, was quite fraught already, and then to be confronted with such intense emotions ... it took me some time to process everything properly.”
“Okay, fair. And by that point you had already left for Heaven.” Crowley let herself fall back against her angel. She was still miffed, but not stupid enough to turn this into a fight.
“Quite so. I daresay I spent the entire elevator ride just untangling the past and the future from the present.” Aziraphale hesitated. “I will say that the timing proved most ... fortuitous. I don't know whether I would have been clever or brave enough to see through the Metatron's blandishments otherwise.”
“You would've. I do trust you, you know,” Crowley mumbled into his shoulder. “Always have.”
A tightened embrace was an acceptable reward for revealing such vulnerability. “Still, having those vivid reminders in front of mind was almost as good as having you beside me, forever questioning everything,” Aziraphale admitted. “You didn't tell me what I chose to do; but you told me enough to realise that I indeed had choices.”
“Kay. But afterwards?” Crowley objected. “When we moved here? You let me think that you didn't want anything more than friendship!”
“Of course I did,” Aziraphale said with maddening reasonableness. “You were the one who told me that’s what happened.”
“But- but-” the demon floundered. “You lied!”
“Not exactly. I simply didn't say everything that I was thinking. Besides, I have been reliably informed that I am rubbish at lying.”
“You are a terrible person and I hate you,” Crowley sulked. She snapped her fingers, transforming her bulky mediaeval layers into a much more comfortable and stylish silk lounging suit. She wound herself in a fiendishly snakey fashion about the deliciously warm angel.
“Understood, dearest,” he soothed, summoning a hideous tartan blanket and tucking it securely about her.
Crowley yawned, and nestled into Aziraphale’s entirely unnecessary heartbeat. “I s’pose, though, like old Will wrote, all’s well that ends well.”
“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well,” Aziraphale quoted back. “That’s from Julian’s meditations on her visions of the Almighty. First book written in English by a woman, did you know that? She sent me a copy.”
“Your Julian? Fancy that,” Crowley said, more interested in the way that his fingers were gently carding through her hair. “Didn’t seem the type to me.”
“Oh yes. This was years and years after you met her, mind you. She had herself walled up in a church to spend all her time in prayer.”
“That tracks.”
“She didn’t get to, though. She became quite famous for her wisdom and compassion. People from all over would seek her counsel.” His hand stilled, and Crowley made a soft growl of protest. “She never did tell me what you said to her, you know. But she seemed quite disappointed that you had, as I thought at the time, abruptly left town without saying farewell.”
Crowley made a series of indescribable noises, screwing up her mouth and eyebrows in a succession of faces that quite clearly conveyed that she hadn’t said anything in particular to this Julian, hardly remembered her, in fact was certain that she’d never met her.
Aziraphale seemed to understand; at any rate, he resumed petting Crowley, which was the important thing. “I must say, it’s quite a remarkable book. You know that I had convinced myself that the Great Plague and its after-effects would test humanity unto their destruction. That they would no longer trust, no longer dare; that they would turn on each other and themselves in fear and bitterness. And for so many, I’m afraid that prediction came true.” He fell silent; and Crowley made a small sound of protest at the wave of remembered grief that passed through the angel.
“But Julian… She proved that it didn’t have to.” Now Aziraphale’s mood shifted. “Her meditations included no mention of her own trials, or the violence and suffering and death that was omnipresent by that point. Her topic and theme and conclusion are all the same: Love. Love everywhere, love eternal, love resilient, love triumphant.” His voice was soft with wonder. “I am forced to admit at times that we – Heaven and Hell – simply are not worthy of the humans we have been entrusted with.” He tugged gently on a curl. “I’d give the book to you to read, but I don’t think you’d like it.”
Crowley was about to argue, just to be difficult, but found herself sidetracked by another enormous yawn.
“Poor thing,” Aziraphale cooed. “You need to sleep. You’ve just pulled off an enormous miracle.”
“Y’did half’ve it,”Crowley slurred.
“Yes, but that was several hundred years ago. I’ve recovered by now.” Aziraphale wrapped the blanket more securely about the demon’s noodly limbs. “I’ll just carry you upstairs to your bed, shall I?”
“Nah. Promised you communibble… canoodible… bliss-thingummy.” Crowley was perilously close to whining. “Wanna do the bliss thing.”
“Nap first. Canoodle afterwards,” the angel said sternly. “After all, we have all the time in the world.”
END
Footnotes
12. Not for anything would she have confessed that display of casual strength was really doing it for her.↩
Fantastic
Date: 2024-12-14 12:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2024-12-14 02:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2024-12-15 07:03 am (UTC)foul...absolutely foul...but so very real. crowley get behind me i'll protect you
RAHHH crowley am i going to have to be protecting you this entire time . like i FEEL the impending doom so hard it's so bad. crowley get BEHIND ME (also side note these descriptions are very rich i love it <3)
JAW DROPPPPP ITS THE DRAMA THE DRAMA JUST LIKE I WANTED. BLESS YOUR SOUL FR FR. also i wonder what crowley's wearing. like is this guy (gn) in his lil silk pajamas?? in a t-shirt?? in his regular suit?? when did the demon get his ass?? any of those options are not going to be good if he's gonna want to blend in i fear
LOLLLLL brilliantt brilliant brilliant. me when anything reminds eme of crowley post bookshop fire because this describes his drive through the ring of fire So Good (also... "anyway, not This Crowley" CRACK ME UP WHY DON'T YOU) (also yay my questions were answered!! but that mud...) AHHHHH the plot thickens!!! ONWARD!!
heheheheh i love this bit. poor bentley without her owner!!! she must be so very worried. and crowley's here too ig
YESSS SYESSSS YESSSSSS HUG HER CROWLEY HUG HER LIKE THERE'S NO TOMORROWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW AND THEY'RE WOMEN NOW YIPPIE!!!
AZIRAPHALE MY GIRL I LOVE YOUU <3 also this is the delicious interaction in a time travel story i needed fr fr. this makes me wanna continue writing my own right NOW, but i won't because i must continue...also i keep noticing crowley keeps saying his angel and her angel its TOO SOFT AND THIS IS ALL JUST SOOOOO <3
bro i love the little modern lingo spliced in crowley's train of thoughts. really highlights her out of placeness in Another Time. feels, info, buddy...UGHHHHH BRILLIANT
the character development is sooooo palpable i cant believe it. im gonna tear up. i AM tearing up. she's grown and loved and AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
the way she just admits to her problem....no pretending...just going out with it..... bashing my head against a wall right NOW
so THIS is the exact line when tears start falling from my cheeks. YES AZIRAPHALE!! THERE'S HOPE!!!!!!!!!!1 THERE'SHOPE FOR YOU BOTH!!!!!!!!!! YOU WILL BE HAPPY ONE DAY I PROMISE I PROMISE oh god im ugly crying. oh no the emotions....
SORRY IM SCREAMING AHHHHHHHHHHHHH I LOVE YOU CROWLEY I LOVE YOU WITH EVERY FIBER OF MY BEING
maybe its the fact im listening to untitled #9 rn but omg im bawling. wings are still as white as anything. you still have every drop of your grace. angel, you are an angel, you stay an angel. i see them every day. i should know. dont you fucking do this to me...im gonna. die. thats all i can say lest i sob...ok i sobbed sorry. fucking sue me. fuck. fuck. FUCK
NAHHHH U CANT END THAT SCENE LIKE THAT LOLOLOL that's exactly how i'd react tbh. fuck!!!! my fucking boobs!!!!
JAW. DROPPED.ONCE MORE. I FORGIVE YOU. JAWWW DROPPED. ALL THE DRAMA I NEEDED RIGHT HERE IN THIS VERY LINE OMGGGGG OMGGGGG THIS IS BEAUTOFU RAHHHHHH
god. god this. THIS. this is beautful. im gonna cry. i DID cry. i need to know everything about the daughter right NOW. i need to bookmark this on ao3 right NOW. gosh, what do i even say!! this was the best fucking present i have received in!!! EVER!!!! the humor the softness the setting the backstory crowley's unabashed LOVE and aziraphale's eagerness to latch onto hope likeeee BRILLIANT BRILLIANT!!!! and the fact you mashed the prompts together so nicely!! i need to write aziraphale's pov of all this fr fr. gosh. GOSH. thank you, secret person. pleaseee post this to ao3 if you so choose to so i can bookmark it properly. alas, for now i must do it externally. this was absolutely beautiful <3
(no subject)
Date: 2024-12-22 03:11 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2024-12-22 03:14 am (UTC)