Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Very little happened to Aziraphale when, quite suddenly, his powers went out. A powercut , he thought, thrilling at the wordplay even as he reeled at the loss of his heavenly powers. It felt a bit like vertigo; overwhelming for the first few seconds, but quickly fading into numbness. The only damage done was the sad, dusty death-rattle of Aziraphale's ancient computer, which at this point was held together by faith and a lot of absent minded miracles.

Crowley wasn't anywhere near as lucky.

Aziraphale wheeled around at the sound of a loud "Fuck!" from the front of the shop, accompanied by a high-pitched scream.

Panic rising, he abandoned his brief vigil for the computer and dashed to the front of the shop, just in time to see a red-faced woman leaving in a hurry. Crowley was nowhere to be seen.

"Crowley, dear?" He called, "Everything alright?"

There was a groan from the shelves at the side of the shop, over by the self-help books he kept to fob off overenthusiastic customers with.

"No, everything is not bloody alright. Don't come back here!"

Aziraphale paused mid-step.

"Erm...why not?" 

He was pretty sure he knew the answer. Crowley's wardrobe changed from week to week, an eternal shuffle of different pieces in black and grey and charcoal depending on his mood. It was all so fashionable, buying it all for real would've cost a fortune. Crowley didn't have access to a fortune. For big purchases there was the company credit card, which was the only one in existence that was paid off in souls. Crowley hadn't tested it since the failed apocalypse, as far as Aziraphale knew, and it was a safe bet that his line of credit was as frozen as the polar ice caps. Most of the time, for little things like dinners or coffee, he just made people forget that they needed paying. 

Designer clothes were too big to forget about, even for very large shops, which meant...

... Crowley had miracled them into existence.

Blushing, Aziraphale retrieved his coat from the coat rack.

"You bloody know why," Crowley muttered.

"Yes, I rather think I do. Can I offer you my coat, dear boy?"

A pale, skinny arm emerged from behind a bookcase and beckoned impatiently. Aziraphale handed over the coat, trying not to laugh as it was whisked away.

the powercut had evidently got Crowley too, leaving him unexpectedly completely naked in Aziraphale's bookshop.

It was no wonder the customer had left in such a hurry. A traitorous part of Aziraphale's brain, the part that had replayed every time he'd touched Crowley over the last eighty years in glorious technicolour whenever he was trying to do his accounts, wished he could've seen it. Crowley had always looked rather dashing in anything he chose to wear, but Aziraphale wasn't sure he'd ever seen him naked.

Not even in Rome, when clothing had been optional a surprising percentage of the time.

Even if he had, it wouldn't have meant the same thing as it would nowadays. Now that he and Crowley were on their own side, they were still figuring out what that meant. 

They had held hands on the night they thought their own personal world was about to end; hands clasped desperately all the way back to London. 

That had been months ago, and it hadn't happened again.

"Don't you dare laugh," Crowley said, shuffling out from behind the bookshelves. 

Aziraphale's coat was far too big, hanging off him and making him seem even thinner, and since Crowley was taller than Aziraphale it ended mid-thigh. The sleeves were too short, and the colour was all wrong, and his hair was starting to droop without the magical equivalent of hair product. Even worse, his sunglasses were gone. Without them, Crowley was stuck attempting to give Aziraphale a death-glare while also squinting in the daylight. All in all, it was a rather pitiful picture. 

Much as he had every day since the end of the world failed to come, Aziraphale wanted to wrap him up in something soft and warm and keep him safe forever. He wondered if a powerless Crowley might actually let him. 

"Socks?" He said, instead.

"What?"

"You've got socks on. Real ones. But presumably not...um. Underwear?"

Crowley was beginning to flush with embarrassment. Normally, Aziraphale supposed, he would miracle it away. 

"Can never seem to get the heels right, they always come out lumpy," Crowley grumbled, "anyway, who cares about my fucking socks, angel! My powers're gone!"

"Yes, mine too, I'm afraid. Isn't it the oddest sensation? Like when your foot goes to sleep and you can't feel it anymore."

Crowley looked at him as if he'd just remarked on an unexpected rain of fish as being rather good for the plants.

"And? It doesn't occur to you to be a little bit worried about the sudden loss of all your unearthly abilities?" 

Aziraphale sighed. 

"Not really, no," he said, testily, "I can still feel my connection to Heaven and it's not as if this hasn't happened to me before. Really, I should be surprised it took them this long to think of it."

Crowley padded past him into the back room, out of view of the windows, and flopped down onto the sofa. After a second or two he snarled and remembered to close his legs. Sitting like that was clearly uncomfortable, but Aziraphale supposed Crowley had probably had enough of feeling exposed.

"Eugh, this coat smells like you," he muttered, while wrapping it even tighter around himself.

"I wasn't aware that I smelled quite so repellent," Aziraphale said dryly. He busied himself with the kettle and the teabags, trying to hide how much the remark had stung. Yes, the coat was old and probably a bit musty, but it was his favourite. He'd had it for almost two hundred years and had spent many an evening sewing it back together.

Crowley made a strangled noise and buried his head in his hands.

"No, no, angel, I didn't mean it like that! You smell nice , is all. Like sunshine...or daisies or something." He cleared his throat and tried again. "Just. Y'know. Angelic."

"Oh. Erm. Thank you."

"S'fine. You're an angel. I'm not, though, and it's just a bit much ."

Crowley took one hand from his face long to accept a mug of tea, but Aziraphale could tell it would be a while before the other one was going anywhere. The demon had a tendency to sulk when he was embarrassed, and this was the most embarrassing thing that had happened since Aziraphale accidentally walked in on him trying to teach himself to play guitar back in the seventies. It hadn't been going well, and the guitar had hit the wall with enough force to turn it into matchsticks. Aziraphale had made sure to knock extra loud on his front door after that.

"Well, I must say you did a bang up job of chasing that woman out of the shop," he said, smiling cheekily as he sat down in his armchair, "I can't imagine she'll be back any time soon, either. However shall I repay the favour, my dear?"

Crowley's face started to turn pink again, which Aziraphale couldn't help but notice started with the tips of his ears. 

"I imagine she'll stay away for a good while, too, so I really am in your debt. Not that I should be condoning such a wicked act of temptation."

"Please stop talking, angel," Crowley grumbled. His heart wasn't in it, though, and Aziraphale could see the shadow of a smile between the demon's fingers.

"I shall have to pray most fervently for her soul, my dear. We wouldn't want her to get a one way ticket to the Second Circle, now would we?" Aziraphale said, voice dripping with mock offense.

"Alright, alright, enough." 

Crowley finally cracked a smile. Aziraphale suppressed a happy wiggle as the demon lowered his other hand and began sipping his tea.

"It was a bit funny. A bit. She certainly stared a lot longer than I would've expected for someone who screamed that loud. Hard to look properly affronted when you're glancing back over your shoulder on the way out."

"Oh dear," Aziraphale laughed, "maybe she'll come back after all!"

Crowley grinned, finally relaxing. He made to slouch back onto the sofa and then grimaced when he remembered he couldn't. 

"Can I get you some other clothes, dear?" Aziraphale asked, "I don't have many and they're probably frightfully unfashionable, but even sartorial suicide has to be better than wearing just my coat."

The expression on Crowley's face was difficult to read, but Aziraphale was fairly certain it wasn't disgust. 

"Yeah. Thanks. Where." Crowley swallowed. "Uh. Where should I change?"

Aziraphale pointed to the rickety staircase and told Crowley to feel free to take anything he wanted from the wardrobe and chest of drawers. He resisted the temptation to watch him climb the stairs, which were steep enough that the coat probably wouldn't have done much to preserve his modesty. His book wasn't nearly as interesting as it had been that morning, and completely failed to be a distraction from the sounds of Crowley rifling through his things and periodically swearing.

He came back down dressed in the only clothes Aziraphale owned that weren't tan, cream or tartan: his black magician shoes, a pair of grey trousers he'd bought when Gabriel had forced him to accompany him to his tailor, a shirt, open at the collar, that was just too daring a shade of blue for Aziraphale to ever actually wear, and…

Oh dear, he thought. He'd forgotten about that.

It was a waistcoat in rich midnight blue, embroidered with a pattern of silver snakes. Aziraphale had seen it in a shop window in the 1890s and bought it purely because it was so beautiful. He'd never worn it, but had spent longer than he would admit tracing the lines of the little snakes and thinking things that he absolutely shouldn't.

Somehow, despite all the clothes being either too large or too short, Crowley looked rather dashing. Admittedly he looked a little like an usher at a wedding but that just added to the sweet, faintly disheveled charm of it. It had been at least a thousand years since Aziraphale had seen him in anything that wasn't sinfully form-fitting, and seeing him looking almost scruffy was almost too intimate.

"Alright, I've got three questions," he said, frowning, "firstly, why the hell does everything you own have buttons, including the underwear . Secondly, what in heaven did belts ever do to offend you?"

Crowley hissed and rolled his shoulders, trying to get used to the sensation of a pair of braces resting on them. 

"And third, what d'you mean this has happened to you before? Too many magical marshmallows in your cocoa and the bastards upstairs cut you off?"

Aziraphale sighed. It was embarrassing, really.

"Not...exactly. It wasn't for frivolous miracles."

He fiddled with the ring and remembered the tears, the pain, the whistle and thump of shells hitting wet mud. He closed his eyes. Best not to think about it.

"When was this, angel?" Crowley asked, so softly that Aziraphale knew he'd let it show anyway.

"Nineteen sixteen. I just wanted to save as many as I could, you understand. Humans start to get ideas if it's too many, unfortunately."

"How many?" 

Crowley didn't really blink, but he did normally breathe. Right now he wasn't doing either.

"A few hundred, I think. I'm not exactly sure. It was all a bit of a blur."

He'd wandered through the trenches touching those who could be saved with a gentle hand. Those that couldn't be healed passed without pain. Star shells had lit the way like falling angels, and Aziraphale remembered wondering distantly if he would join them. He didn't care. It was all too much to bear.

The next thing he remembered was Gabriel slapping him hard across the face and telling him he was in "time out" for the next twenty-four hours.

"Shit. Angel, I..."

"Don't look at me like that, dear. It wasn't your fault, you couldn't have known the whole world was going to fall apart while you were asleep."

"Still, though." Crowley remembered to breathe again, running an anxious hand through his hair. "Should've been there. Shouldn't have let you go through that alone."

Aziraphale smiled weakly and reached out to touch Crowley's hand where it rested on the arm of the sofa. Crowley took it, gripping it as if he never wanted to let go.

"It's alright, Crowley. You're here now, my dear, that's all that matters."

"Nngh," Crowley said intelligently.

Aziraphale squeezed his hand and felt his heart flutter when Crowley squeezed back.

They sat for a while, Aziraphale quietly sipping his tea while he waited for Crowley to process things. He was just starting to wonder whether any of his books would have time to fall apart without heavenly maintenance when Crowley cleared his throat and carefully extracted his hand to adjust his braces again.

"So you were cut off? No miracles, no powers? How long did it last?"

*About a day. Long enough for me to come to my senses, I suppose. Honestly, I've never been sure if it was standard procedure for disobedience or if Gabriel was just at the end of his rope."

It had been long enough to find himself stuck on the front lines, covered in mud and blood and other unspeakable things. He'd only avoided discorporation because a kind lieutenant had manhandled him to the infirmary, shaking and shivering, when he didn't respond to his shouts to get below before someone blew his head clean off.

If Aziraphale trembled as he got up to make more tea, Crowley was polite enough not to mention it. Instead, he followed Aziraphale into the little kitchenette and hopped up onto the counter. 

The position hiked his trousers up far enough to display his socks, which were the novelty pair Crowley had bought him one Christmas, which was very odd indeed since Crowley's socks had been the only part of his own clothes that were actually real. They had a pattern of little angel wings on them. 

"I don't think this is Heaven or Hell's doing, angel," he said thoughtfully, "Too coordinated. Those idiots couldn't put together a piss-up in a brewery, there's no way they'd be organised enough to cut us both off at exactly the same time. Even if they did somehow manage it, d'you really think they wouldn't pop by and gloat about it?"

Aziraphale thought about it as the kettle boiled. It was certainly true that Gabriel enjoyed a good gloat. 

"You saw Hell, angel. Everyone there hates my guts. If word got out that I was up here defenseless it'd be open season, no hunting license required."

"You are not defenseless , Crowley. Anyone trying to hurt you would have to go through me ."

For a second, Crowley just stared, open mouthed. Then he reached over and took the twisted, warped remains of the teaspoon from Aziraphale's hand. 

"Yeah. Good. Uh, thanks," he slithered off the counter in one fluid movement and carefully moved the mugs out of range of Aziraphale's hands, "Why don't I do the rest of that?"

"Yes, I think that would be best. Thank you, dear."

Watching Crowley attempt to make tea was calming. He seemed to think it involved taking the lids off of various containers and poking at the contents with a spoon.

"You need to put the little bag into the water, dear boy."

"I'm over six thousand years old, Aziraphale. I know how to make tea."

The evidence -- specifically the half-gallon of milk Crowley was now adding to the mugs -- pointed to the contrary. The teabags were now floating pitifully in liquid that looked more like dishwater than Darjeeling.

"And then you need to take it out again," he said, helpfully.

"Only if you're a coward," Crowley grumbled, "some of us prefer proper tea, not your wishy-washy bullshit."

Aziraphale rolled his eyes and fished his teabag out. 

He followed Crowley out into the backroom. Instead of sitting in his usual chair, Aziraphale settled next to Crowley on the sofa and ignored the raised eyebrow it earned him. 

"So not Heaven or Hell, then." He said.

"Nope. Too competent."

"Well, that leaves two possibilities," Aziraphale said, trying valiantly not to make a face as he tasted his horrible tea, "It could be earthly magic, some kind of curse or spell. Not very likely in my opinion, since we are both still connected to our respective sources of power, we just can't draw from them. I believe human rituals typically cut the cursed individual off entirely."

"If you say so, angel."

Crowley was looking at him as if he knew exactly where this was going.

"Which just leaves…"

"The former antichrist," Crowley said grimly, "who I thought was on our side ."

Aziraphale looked at him, dressed in clothes that didn't fit him and holding a mug with a picture of a kitten on it. Before he really realised what he was doing, Aziraphale was reaching over and patting him comfortingly on the knee.

"I'm sure there's a rational explanation for everything if Adam's involved. And besides, we're on our side , dearest. We don't need anyone else. We have each other."

Crowley made a funny little sound in the back of his throat, which he tried to hide by sipping from his mug. Rather predictably, he choked on some of the disgusting liquid and had to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being smacked on the back until he stopped coughing.

"You can't just say stuff like that, angel," he spluttered.

"Why not? It's true. I'm not going to censor myself, Crowley."

The "anymore" went unsaid, along with a mountain of other, more difficult words. It wasn't that Aziraphale didn't want to say them, or that he was afraid Crowley would push him away; it was just that after six thousand years he had a serious backlog of feelings to process and no clue how to adequately articulate them. On top of that, Crowley seemed to shrink from his affection like a wounded animal trying to protect itself. 

And in truth, that was what he was. Whether he admitted it or not, Crowley had been hurt deeply by every time Aziraphale treated him as unworthy and unlovable and lesser, and had never really healed.  

There was nothing Aziraphale wouldn't do to take that pain away if only Crowley would let him get close enough to try.

"So," he said calmly, ignoring the unreadable expression on Crowley's face, "It sounds like we need to give our young friend in Tadfield a call. Luckily, I still have his number."

The notes Aziraphale had made on the penultimate day of Earth's history (volume one, at least) were still in his rolltop desk, filed neatly in a drawer for posterity. Adam's phone number was on the final page; the last note he got a chance to make before everything in his personal universe went sideways.

"Here we are," Aziraphale said, and picked up the handset of his ancient telephone. 

Rather predictably, the line was dead.

"Oh. Oh dear."

"Let me guess," Crowley said, "someone's been using miracles instead of paying their phone bill. I'm shocked, angel! Shocked and appalled."

He pressed a hand to his chest in mock-horror. 

"Do shut up, dear boy," Aziraphale huffed, settling back onto the sofa, "I paid good, real money to have it installed when it was new, and I used to give the chap who collected the fees an extra few pennies every month. One day they just...stopped coming, that's all. I simply thought that meant I didn't need to pay any more."

Crowley rolled his eyes, having forgotten that without his sunglasses Aziraphale could see him doing it.

"They probably cut you off over fifty years ago. Can't pay by direct debit if you haven't got a bloody bank account, can you? Let me guess, you only ever call me on it, right?"

"Well, yes." he admitted, "who else would I be calling? Gabriel doesn't exactly have a landline, and even if he did, I wouldn't have called him."

The admission made a smug little smile appear on Crowley's face, and Aziraphale had to admit it was rather infectious. 

"You daft old fool," Crowley said, laughing, "it's a good job they never actually checked your miracle records, although I'd have loved to watch you try to explain away three calls a week to an Anthony J. Crowley."

"An angel would never look at another angel's records," Aziraphale said, aghast, "it would be a monstrous invasion of privacy!"

"Sure they wouldn't. Especially if it was a rogue angel we were talking about. Oh, say, one that'd ditched his heavenly duties in favour of hanging out with a demon for the rest of eternity."

Aziraphale thought back over thousands of years of little selfish miracles, sandwiched between the good deeds and occasional illicit temptations. An  embarrassing amount of them had been used to further his association with Crowley. It wasn't his fault that good wine wasn't always available or that his best friend often got cold on winter's evenings. Aziraphale was surprised to find that even if Gabriel took it upon himself to pore through six thousand years of mundane miracles, he didn't regret any of them.

"Honestly, Crowley, I can't find it in me to care anymore. And besides, it's not as if there'll be any more records for Heaven to pry into if we don't sort out our current situation." 

"S'pose not. Guess we'd better make tracks to Tadfield, then, if dial-an-antichrist isn't an option."

Aziraphale raised an eyebrow.

"Some mysterious problem with your mobile, is there? Not getting reception all of a sudden?" He asked, archly.

"Angel," Crowley said, grinning, "why on Earth would a demon pay phone bills?"

He rose from the sofa and sauntered out to the front of the shop. It didn't quite have the same effect in trousers that were three sizes too big, but Aziraphale was pleased to see the swagger back in his step. As he shrugged on his coat, he tried not to think about the fact that Crowley had been naked in it only an hour ago. That way madness lay, or at the very least an extremely uncomfortable afternoon.

He followed Crowley out onto the pavement, locking the shop behind him. When he turned around, Crowley was standing dejectedly next to his Bentley, grinding his teeth.

"Crowley?" 

"I'm an idiot," Crowley growled in response, "a fucking idiot."

"I wouldn't go that far--"

"I'm a fucking idiot who keeps the keys to his car in a safe back at his flat. A flat which doesn't even have a fucking key. I just...miracle the door open."

"Oh. Well, in that case perhaps I would. I suppose we'll have to get the bus."

He sighed and unlocked the shop again. Crowley followed him back inside, looking almost as miserable as he had when his beloved Bentley had exploded. Aziraphale gently took his hand and led him back to the sofa. He sat down heavily, staring off into another dimension entirely. Aziraphale sat down next to him and squeezed his hand.

"It's not as bad as all that," he said, smiling softly, "I do actually have some money put away."

That got Crowley's attention.

"You mean…?"

"Sadly, yes. I've been selling some of my books."

"I don't think we'll get very far on the proceeds from  your clearance box, angel."

Aziraphale glared at him. The clearance box had been Crowley's idea; a box full of dogeared paperbacks by the door that Aziraphale would happily part with for 50p a pop. It kept the customers happy (people were always happiest when they thought they'd found a bargain), and kept the casual browsers away from Aziraphale's precious folios and first editions. The plan had briefly been a roaring success, until several sneaky punters had tried to pass off valuable old books as clearance rubbish.

After a particularly devious customer had threatened to call trading standards for false advertising, the clearance box had been put away for good.

Aziraphale opened the till, which dinged cheerfully. It was deeply satisfying to see the way Crowley's eyes widened when he pulled out a wad of cash as thick as his thumb.

"Bloody hell," he said.

"Indeed."

"Uh. Angel." Crowley eyed the money and swallowed, "Can I be a pain and ask for something?"

"Anything, my dear. What is it?"

"Can we please go clothes shopping?"

"Of course." Aziraphale laughed.

Chapter Text

If Aziraphale hadn't visited Hell recently, he might have said that Oxford Street on a Saturday afternoon was worse. It was certainly more crowded. People with shopping bags kept bumping into him, and oh, how he missed the little invisible buffer zone he usually gave himself. It was easy to rationalize away (we wouldn't want any receptive mortals brushing up too closely against an ethereal being, now would we? Think of the paperwork!). Over the centuries, Aziraphale found he'd gotten rather skilled at making what was Good and what was good for Aziraphale line up perfectly.

Without his magic, everything was awful.

They had been wandering around for over three hours, and Crowley still had yet to find a pair of sunglasses he liked. As soon as they left the shop, Crowley had winced at the bright sunshine and the people pretending not to stare at the man with snake eyes and ducked into a chemist's. He'd emerged wearing a cheap pair of imitation aviators, and had been on the lookout for a proper pair ever since. The rest of his outfit had been surprisingly easy to source; a black t-shirt and women's skinny jeans from a shop filled with teenage girls, a leather jacket fortuitously spotted in the window of a charity shop, and a pair of snakeskin boots from Harvey Nichols that had almost given Aziraphale's corporation a heart attack when he saw the price tag. But Crowley had clearly fallen in love with them, and who was he to say no?

Some of Crowley's swagger was back, he noted happily. Aziraphale supposed he must look quite ridiculous, trailing after a being who looked like a rock star with his arms laden with shopping bags full of his old clothes. Crowley had also bought far too many hair products; enough that Aziraphale felt like he was carrying a bag full of expensive, fragrant bricks.

Still, there were some advantages to following Crowley around. For one thing, the view was excellent.

"What d'you think of these?" Crowley said, chewing his lip. 

Aziraphale shook his head.

"They look nice, but I'm not sure they're you , dear boy."

Crowley grunted in agreement and put them back.

"Didn't think so. Ugh. All of these are just so uninspired. Whatever happened to creativity, angel?"

Aziraphale thought back to the days when all of his clothes had had lace and ribbons far too many fiddly little buttons. Oh, the silks, the velvets, the hosiery! To a being that had lived through the Regency period, modern fashion really was a colossal let-down. He daydreamed about petticoats and satin while Crowley clattered about trying on glasses and putting them back in the wrong places.

He was thoroughly lost in thought when a glass cabinet caught his eye. It was full of the kinds of sunglasses the store didn't want anyone touching, and on the very top shelf was a pair that screamed "Crowley" at the top of its metaphorical lungs.

"Ooh, look, my dear," he said, tugging on Crowley's new jacket, "you have to try those ones, you just have to!"

Crowley squinted at the little price tag, which had its own gunmetal stand.

"Angel, those are four hundred and seventy five pounds!"

"I don't care. You must try them on."

A shop assistant was hovering nearby, probably to make sure Crowley didn't "accidentally" slip any of the sunglasses he'd tried into his pocket, but he was only too happy to open the case when Aziraphale beckoned him over. That was the power of looking respectable, he supposed.

He thanked the man and took the sunglasses from him, placing them reverently on Crowley's face. The effect was immediate; they had matte black metal frames and slightly paler grey lenses, so that his eyes were still just about visible behind the glass. Aziraphale had always hated the ones that were too dark; Crowley's eyes could be so beautifully expressive. The sides were thick, almost to the point of ostentatiousness, and had a pattern of curling ivy picked out on them in silver. 

"Oh!" Aziraphale said, quite overcome, "I think those are the ones. We'll take them."

"Hang on, I haven't had a look yet!" Crowley protested. The assistant held up a mirror for him.

"Right, yeah. They look pretty good, I 'spose." He glanced back at the pricetag and made a small choking sound in the back of his throat. "That's a lot of money though, angel. Are you sure? I mean, how much have we even got left?"

"Nonsense, you look positively dashing in them. I won't hear another word."

Aziraphale followed the nice young salesman over to the till and meticulously counted out the cash. He also completely failed to notice the look the man was giving Crowley, which was equal parts suggestive and envious. 

When they finally stepped out into the evening air, Aziraphale breathed a sigh of relief, glad to be finally finished with shopping. Crowley, on the other hand, looked like he was trying to keep himself from laughing.

"Something funny?" 

"Aziraphale, I'm pretty sure that bloke thought you were my sugar daddy."

"And what, pray tell, does that mean?" 

Crowley did laugh then, a sharp little bark that he couldn't keep inside any longer.

"How can you have been around humans for so long and not know what that means? It's like. Say there's a younger man, right? Who doesn't have any money but does have certain physical assets. And he gets together with an older man who does have money and can keep him in the manner to which he's become accustomed."

"We're the same age," Aziraphale said, raising an eyebrow, "to the day, in fact."

"Yeah, alright, but he didn't know that, did he? You've got to admit you dress the part of a wealthy older gentleman, at least."

"My clothes are very stylish, I'll have you know."

"Yes, angel, they are," Crowley said, smiling indulgently, "by my point was more that the chap in the shop thought that I was getting your rocks off every night in exchange for nice things."

Aziraphale stumbled, covering it poorly by stopping and pretending to do up his shoelaces. He forced himself to breathe, to blink, to do things normal human bodies did while they were trying to banish the mental image of their best friend spread out on their bed like an all-you-can-eat buffet. It wouldn't be the first time he'd thought about what it would be like to make love to Crowley, deeply and passionately and most likely extremely loudly, but he'd never found himself thinking about it while Crowley was standing right next to him in a crowded public street.

"You OK down there?"

Crowley had stopped in his tracks and was looking askance at the pile of shopping bags Aziraphale was currently hiding in.

"Yes, yes, right as rain," he said, shakily. He fumbled a bit with his shoelaces for verisimilitude, but he could tell it wasn't terribly convincing, "just tripped over my shoelaces, that's all. Silly me, can't even walk in a straight line properly, eh?"

"Angel--"

Aziraphale got swiftly to his feet and gathered the bags, heading determinedly in the direction of the bookshop.

"It's far too late to make a move for Tadfield tonight, don't you think? I, for one, could do with a drink after all of today's excitement. How about you, my dear? Can I tempt you to an excellent vintage or two?"

"Yeah...sounds good," Crowley said, his voice carefully controlled, "Sure you don't want me to carry anything?"

"No, no, they're not heavy," Aziraphale lied.

They walked back to the bookshop in silence, with Aziraphale two steps ahead so he didn't have to look Crowley in the eye.

When they got back to the shop, Crowley disappeared into the little employee bathroom that Aziraphale mainly used to store his less-favoured stock items. He took the bag of cosmetics with him and was gone for long enough for Aziraphale to start worrying. 

He was just about to knock when Crowley emerged, smelling rather heavenly. His hair was coiffed perfectly, and for the first time since the powercut began he seemed to be at ease.

It was enough to take Aziraphale's breath away.

"Whaddaya think?"

"You look...very you," Aziraphale swallowed as Crowley smiled, dazzlingly, "Quite lovely, in fact."

"Thanks, angel."

There was something soft in his expression that made Aziraphale reach reflexively for the wine. There was a sense of something in balance, he thought; that one little touch could send it careening one way or the other. Not for the first time in his long relationship with Crowley, he felt as though he were on the edge of a precipice. He'd felt it before, but he'd never edged as heart-stoppingly close to the point where he would have to make a decision: he could jump, or he could back away. Either way, this time there would be no going back.

He handed Crowley a glass, filled with a dark red Bordeaux he'd purchased in 1989. The demon took a long drink and collapsed happily onto the sofa, stretching out luxuriantly. 

"God, I needed that," he said "how do the humans do it? They must be bloody exhausted all the time."

"I think the common consensus is that they are."

They settled into a companionable discussion of whether it had always been so, or whether modern times were especially bad. As usual, they ended up on opposite sides of a gentle argument; Crowley was convinced that a constant assault of media had to be bad for the mind, Aziraphale countered with the memory of backbreaking labour long since farmed out to machines. It was a wash, they decided in the end, but both agreed that antibiotics had made things a great deal better.

"Don't miss all the boils and flies and wailin', thass for sure," Crowley said, gesturing with his wine glass. Aziraphale quietly thanked the Lord that it was empty.

"Me neither. And all the praying is very depressing when you know it's going to do absolutely bugger all."

"Didn't always do bugger all," Crowley shifted in his seat until he was staring unblinkingly at Aziraphale (or at least several inches to the left of Aziraphale), "sometimes they got you , didn't they, angel? Always takin' care of people, even ones that don't deserve it."

"Oh, that's not true. I've never taken care of anyone that didn't deserve it, dearest." He looked Crowley in his yellow eyes, which were swaying slightly, "Sometimes I've let people down terribly."

Crowley frowned.

"That'sss two. Twice."

"Hmm?"

"Called me dearest," Crowley explained, "twice. Thought it was 'n'accident earlier but you just did it again."

Through a thick fog of wine, Aziraphale realised he should probably cover his tracks, say something that didn't make him sound quite so desperate for Crowley's affection. Something neutral or deniable. What he said instead was:

"Well, who could be dearer to me than you?"

Crowley blinked at him.

"Uh," he said, blinking again, "I dunno. Wilde, maybe?"

Two blinks in as many minutes had to be a record, Aziraphale thought distantly. He opened his mouth to say something he hadn't quite thought through yet when Crowley cut him off.

"M'sorry, bout earlier. If I made you uncomfortable. Just funny when people get the wrong idea."

"Oh, don't be silly," Aziraphale said, waving his concern away and almost knocking the wine off the table in the process, "'sides, it's not too far off the mark, is it?"

"What?!" 

Three blinks, Aziraphale noted. This certainly was an interesting evening. The wine had made him feel loose and floaty and wickedly confident.

"I did spend all day and quite a lot of my cash buying you nice things, Crowley," he said, with a most unangelic grin, "Although it was all to help you feel yourself, you understand, not in exchange for…" 

Aziraphale made a vague gesture in the air and Crowley nearly choked on his wine.

"...services." he finished, lamely.

This time it was his turn to interrupt before Crowley could say whatever it was he was going to say. The demon had an odd look in his eyes, one that reminded him of neon lights and trembling hands and the sensation of hurtling toward danger. This time, though, he didn't slam on the brakes. Instead, he merely tapped them gently. He was too full of wine, too full of emotion. It wasn't the right time, not yet.

"Besides, you couldn't pull off my style. You just don't have the figure for it, dear boy."

"Pfft," Crowley said, and promptly began laughing hard enough to almost shake him out of his chair. Aziraphale laughed along with him, and for the first time since the Ritz he felt free.

The bubble of giddy happiness growing in his chest was burst by the sharp twinge of a headache building in the back of his brain. 

"Oh...oh shit ," Aziraphale said, clapping a hand over his mouth.

"What'd'you say?" Crowley gasped.

"Never mind that! We can't sober up! We'll get hangovers."

"Ngggurgh," Crowley said, "don't be a buzzkill, angel. Tha's tomorrow's problem."

Aziraphale firmly replaced the cork in their third bottle of wine and confiscated Crowley's glass. 

"C'mon, 'Ziraphale, don't be like that."

"We should go to bed," Aziraphale said, decisively. That earned him his fourth blink of the evening.

"Thought you didn't sleep," Crowley said in a strangled voice, face turning pink. Aziraphale tried his best to ignore it.

"I don't. But I think I should. And you should too. Otherwise we'll be useless tomorrow."

"Right."

Crowley looked around muzzily for one of Aziraphale's old tartan blankets. When he couldn't find one, he just shrugged and pulled his leather jacket over him instead.

"G'night, then." he mumbled into the sofa cushions.

Aziraphale hadn't spent much time actually sitting on his downstairs sofa, which existed purely so Crowley would have somewhere to drape himself over when he came calling. He knew it was almost two hundred years old and probably should have been re-stuffed at least a half-dozen times, and that it couldn't possibly be comfortable to sleep on if you were over six feet tall and folded up like an accordion.

"No, no, you can't sleep there. Your back has right-angles in it."

"S'meant to."

"It isn't." Aziraphale shook Crowley's shoulder gently. Crowley hissed in response. "Look, I do have a bed, you know. Even if I don't use it it's still there."

"So? Wha'sss your point?" 

Aziraphale rubbed his head, which was starting to feel like it was full of angry wasps.

"Bed. You. Me. Sleep in it. Is that clear enough for you?"

Crowley rolled over lazily. He looked confused, as if Aziraphale had just smacked him very hard over the head.

"Wha?"

"Oh, for the love of…"

Groaning with frustration, Aziraphale grabbed him by the hand and dragged him to his feet. He was apparently still sober enough to prevent Crowley from knocking them both to the floor, but only just. With one arm around Crowley's waist and the demon's arm slung over his shoulder, he manoeuvred them both to the stairs and somehow made it up the rickety steps to the little apartment above the shop.

The bedroom was filled to the brim with books, but for some reason Aziraphale had resisted using the bed as an ad hoc storage surface. Propriety demanded a human shopkeeper should at least have the plausible deniability of a functioning sleep space, so Aziraphale had dutifully maintained one. In all the years he'd owned it, he had laid on the bed precisely twice. 

Once when it was new, just to see what it was like.

Once when he had stumbled upstairs with a satchel of precious books and fragments of holy rubble in his hair. That night he had lain awake until sunrise and thought, and hoped, and dared to dream.

Tonight, though, he wasn't going to last long. Crowley was asleep before his head hit the pillow, so Aziraphale arranged him as comfortably as possible beneath the covers. Then he laid down on top of them, next to the one being in the universe he loved and respected and trusted above all others, and promptly passed out.

Chapter Text

It would be nice to imagine that Aziraphale woke slowly; peacefully surfacing from a satisfying sleep to find Crowley quietly snoozing on the pillow next to him. It would be eve nicer to picture Crowley's arms wrapped tightly around Aziraphale's middle, the warm sunlight tangling in his hair.

Maybe Aziraphale would have woken him gently, and their eyes would have met in a moment that was soft and perfect and uniquely theirs.

Maybe he would've finally found the courage to show Crowley how he felt.

Sadly, the three bottles of Bordeaux they'd consumed the night before had other ideas. 

Instead of a gentle awakening, Aziraphale woke to the sensation of Crowley's razor-blade knees digging into his kidneys and the sound of him snoring like a band-saw. Every inhale was nails down a chalkboard to Aziraphale's delicate nerves, offset only slightly by the funny little hissing sound Crowley made as he exhaled. The light was too bright, the noises too loud, and his mouth tasted like something had crawled into it during the night and died.

"Mnehrgh," he said, wishing fervently that he'd had the sense to stop drinking at only one bottle, or failing that, that he'd remembered to bring a glass of water up to bed. 

He sat up and immediately regretted it.

Over the course of his long, long existence, Aziraphale had significantly less than his fair share of hangovers. He was usually coherent enough at the end of an evening to remember to sober up, which made the occasions he'd forgotten to do so very memorable indeed. If he'd felt like ranking them, the hangover currently squatting leaden in his head and stomach would come in second place. Nobody forgets their first one, after all. Particularly when it's one of the first ones in history. Finding out that the joyous relaxation of alcohol came with a delayed-action downside intense enough to make a being lose yesterday's lunch onto the desert sands had been something of a shock.

What was worse was that Crowley, the bastard who got him drunk in the first place, had known all along had smugly kept his mouth shut. He'd at least had the decency to hand Aziraphale a waterskin before he'd sauntered off, laughing, into the dawn. 

It had been almost a century before Aziraphale had spoken to him again.

The memory of that horrible awakening fresh in his mind, Aziraphale elbowed the snoring lump of blankets next to him a little harder than was strictly necessary. 

"Wake up, Crowley," he grumbled, "I feel awful."

Crowley rolled over, pulling even more of the covers into a tight ball around him. It was only through sheer bloody-mindedness that Aziraphale escaped being ejected from the bed entirely as the blankets were wrenched out from under him.

"Wake up, I said! Everything is terrible and it's all your fault!"

A muffled groaning noise came from deep within the blanket burrito. Feeling especially petty, Aziraphale grabbed hold of it and shook.

"Alright, alright !" 

Crowley emerged, or at least the top of his head did. He blinked angrily at Aziraphale, eyes yellow from edge to edge except where they were bloodshot pink.

"Whaddaya want? You feel shitty, yeah? S'not my fault."

"You're the one who opened the second bottle of wine," Aziraphale said, accusingly, "and you didn't want to stop drinking the third one!"

"Didn't pour it down your throat, did I? You're old enough to make your own decisions, and you decided you wanted to get gloriously drunk with me."

Aziraphale was forced to concede that he had a point. Nonetheless, he was feeling sorry for himself.

"I feel dreadful ," he complained.

"Then go back to sleep! Or at the very least go away so I can go back to sleep!"

Aziraphale glared at him.

"We haven't got time for that! We have to get to Tadfield, and Heaven knows how many buses we'll have to catch!"

Exasperated, Crowley let out a sound like a lawnmower failing to start, and began the slow process of levering himself upright. His hair, which had been so perfect yesterday, was sticking out at all angles. If Aziraphale had been feeling better he would've appreciated the little flutter in his stomach at the sight of Crowley in all his sleepy glory. As it was, it just made him feel like he was going to throw up.

"I'm up, are you happy?" he croaked.

"No," Aziraphale said, truthfully.

"Brilliant. Thanks for letting me know."

Crowley rolled his tired eyes and felt around next to the bed for his sunglasses. Evidently he'd knocked them off the side table at some point in the night and sent them skittering across the floor.

"I can't live like this, Crowley. I mean, honestly, I haven't had a hangover in over four hundred years. If we don't get back to normal soon I may have to go teetotal."

Aziraphale couldn't see Crowley's face; he was still hunched over, fishing around amongst the piles of books on the floor, but he did see a full-body shudder travel up the demon's spine.

"Let's not be hasty, eh? I'm too young to sit around drinking herbal infusions and knitting cosies for things." 

"You are older than the Earth itself." Aziraphale scoffed. 

He'd been rather proud of his first, slightly lumpy attempt at a tea cosy. Knitting a tartan pattern was more difficult than it looked, and Crowley hadn’t bothered to hide his amusement on the only occasion Aziraphale had brought it out.

"Don't you think it might be time for you to grow up a bit?" he said, archly.

"Age is just--ah, here we go," Crowley sat up, snazzy new sunglasses back in place, "--just a number. We’ve got a few extra zeros, that's all."

With his dark glasses dulling the glare of the morning sunlight, Crowley perked up significantly.

"C'mon," he said, slithering out from his blanket cocoon and into his usual vaguely upright position. Standing up straight for Crowley meant slouched over as though he had several additional vertebrae that he didn't know what to do with. "let's get some grease into you.”

"I beg your pardon?"

Aziraphale felt his face heat up without completely understanding why. Everything was too bright, too warm, and he felt sick. It was also belatedly dawning on him that he'd never woken up next to Crowley before, let alone a Crowley who was rumpled and open and wearing just a t-shirt and jeans. Mortifyingly, his human corporation was becoming extremely interested in the concept. 

"Food, angel," Crowley said, smiling indulgently, "Some good old fashioned grease to settle your stomach."

"Oh."

Crowley stretched, his spine cracking as the joints popped one by one. He made a whimpering sound as the last one went, which didn't help Aziraphale's current state of discomfort at all. It was so embarrassing being at the mercy of human biology like this! Still, he was glad he'd gone to sleep fully dressed; it turned out there were unforeseen advantages to wearing so many layers.

There was a mirror hanging on Aziraphale's bedroom wall, ancient and spotted where the silver had rubbed away. The frame was the thing Aziraphale loved about it; a curling rococo nightmare of leaves and tiny birds, with an apple tree crest at the top. He’d always intended to have the glass restored, but the looming apocalypse had sent it to the bottom of his priorities list. Crowley bent down to find some clean glass and set about fixing his hair while Aziraphale attempted to get both his emotions and his anatomy under control. 

It was a struggle without the aid of a convenient miracle, but somehow he managed it.

“Fine, I suppose we can spare an hour to get some food,” Aziraphale said. 

“You sure? Wouldn’t want to make us late,” Crowley replied, smirking at him in the mirror.

Aziraphale’s stomach chose that moment to growl angrily. 

“Didn’t quite catch that,” Crowley grinned.

“Silence, demon.” 

Aziraphale got to his feet and shuffled Crowley out of the way of the mirror. When he saw his reflection he somehow felt even more queasy. His hair was a mess, his bowtie was missing, and horror of horrors…

“Oh, bugger! I’ve got wine all down my waistcoat!”

“Er. Just a little bit,” Crowley said, unhelpfully.

“Have you any idea how long I’ve had it? Almost a hundred and fifty years, Crowley!” He scrubbed ineffectually at the stain, a deep red mark on his left breast pocket, “Oh no, no, this will never come out!”

He jumped when Crowley reached out and took hold of his wrist, pulling it away gently but firmly from where he was worrying at the velvet. 

“Hey, hey, it’ll be fine. We’ll miracle it away later, I promise.”

“But it’s silk velvet Crowley--”

“-- I’ll miracle it away, then. Deal?”

Unlike the last time they’d been in this situation, Crowley was frowning. There was nothing of the easy playfulness he’d had back at the former convent, a few months and a lifetime ago. Instead, he seemed to be saying please, angel, be alright with this, because there’s nothing I can do. 

“Yes, thank you. That would be most kind.”

“Don’t mention it.” 

A few months ago, Crowley would have spat it at him. Now it was simply an admission that it was nothing; just a trifle as long as it was for Aziraphale. 

Aziraphale was beginning to suspect that there was nothing he couldn’t ask of Crowley that the demon wouldn’t give him. 

It was a lot. It was like being handed a sculpture made of spun glass; a fragile, irreplaceable thing of incomparable beauty, and being trusted not to break it. With Heaven and Hell out of the picture, the only being in existence that could truly hurt Crowley was him . 

If he asked for something he couldn’t take back, he had to be damned sure it was what he wanted.

“Hey, angel, why don’t you wear the blue one you lent me? Don’t think I’ve ever seen you wear it.”

Aziraphale opened his mouth to explain that that was because it was special, it was a secret, that he’d bought it purely to have something that reminded him of Crowley. Then he saw the way Crowley was looking at him (softly, nervously, almost fearful), and realized the cat was fully out of the bag and had fled the scene altogether. He took a deep breath and committed himself.

“Yes, I think I will. I’ve had it for such a long time.”

The demon was still holding his wrist, gently, as if he thought Aziraphale might shatter. He peeled the long fingers away so he could take Crowley’s hand instead, stroking it gently with his thumb. 

“And I do love it very much. It’s about time I wore it.”

Crowley smiled like the sunrise.

***

It pained him to admit it, but Crowley was right about the food. The full English breakfast he’d ordered before Aziraphale could even get a look at the menu was doing wonders for his poor, abused digestive system. He mopped up the last of the tomato sauce with his piece of fried bread and sighed with satisfaction as it melted in his mouth. 

“I told you this place was good,” Crowley said, stirring a third sugar packet into his coffee, “best full English north of the river. Shame it’s a front for a bloodthirsty crime family, mind you, but you can’t have everything.”

Aziraphale almost spat out his tea.

“I’m sorry,” he coughed, “what the Hell did you just say?”

“Joking, angel,” Crowley grinned, “you went into some kind of food trance. Just making sure you were still with me.”

“Wicked creature,” Aziraphale said, entirely without bite. 

“That’s me.”

A woman in a pinny shimmied over to collect Aziraphale’s plate and greeted Crowley with a smile and a wink. 

“Here you go, Anthony,” she said, beaming at him, “Mum said you can have her bus timetable, and I managed to find some paracetamol for your friend. She said she still owes you for six months ago, so the food’s on the house.” 

“Thanks, Jameela. You’re a doll.”

She waltzed back to the kitchen, whistling to herself. Aziraphale raised an eyebrow.

“What?” Crowley said, innocently, “I told you I was joking. You think Jameela’s in the Soho mafia just because her mum owes me a favour, do you?”

“I was merely wondering how often you frequent this cafe, my dear. Especially since it has an excellent view of my bookshop.”

It was true. The cafe was far enough down the street that anyone looking out of the windows would be an indistinct blob to anyone inside the shop but was more than close enough to watch the shop door.

“I like the coffee,” Crowley grumbled, “and the idiot that owns the place keeps getting himself into trouble. Someone’s got to look out for him.”

It was a far more honest answer than Aziraphale was expecting. 

He busied himself with the bus timetable, scanning the numbers and routes without really reading them. Crowley had been worried enough to spy on him, apparently for at least six months. He knew it likely went back much further, although he had no way of knowing if that meant years or decades.

“Well, what a lucky fellow he is, to have his very own guardian demon. Although I must point out that he’s more than capable of taking care of himself.”

“I know that, angel,” Crowley said, quietly, “But some utter bastards have been after him.”

Aziraphale remembered the creeping dread of being trapped in between Gabriel and Sandalphon in the back of his bookshop, the terror of Uriel shoving him up against the brickwork. 

“I suppose I should thank you, then.”

“Better not. I wasn’t bloody there when it mattered, was I?”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale reached across the table and laid his hand on top of Crowley’s, “It wasn’t your fault. You know it wasn’t.”

Crowley shrugged. He didn’t move his hand away, nor did he take Aziraphale’s. 

“How many buses then. To Tadfield.”

Aziraphale turned his attention back to the grids of numbers in front of him. Lining them all up made his head hurt, so he choked back the headache tablets.

“Looks like it’s going to be either four or five. We can get an express bus to Reading or Oxford and then go from there. I don't suppose you could pick the lock on the Bentley and just...”

He made a motion that he hoped conveyed the idea of hot-wiring a car. 

“Nope. Even if that wasn't completely out of the question because it's my Bentley, angel, not an abandoned Ford Escort," Crowley shot him a death-glare over the top of his sunglasses, "it wouldn't make any difference. Hasn't had any petrol in it since 1967. C'mon, let's go.”

Crowley rose from his seat and sauntered out of the cafe, waving morosely to the girl behind the counter as he went. Aziraphale stood up to follow but Jameela called him over.

“Look after him, will you?” she said, “He’s in here all the time and he’s always on his own. Such a nice bloke, too.”

Aziraphale smiled at her. 

“I will, my dear. I promise.”

He left a five pound note in the tip jar on his way out.

Chapter Text

The bus to Victoria station was packed; so crammed with humanity that they couldn't even stand near one another. Aziraphale, with his solid build and plummeting tolerance for being pushed around, found a handle and gripped it for grim death, only shuffling aside to give a man with a pushchair and a screaming toddler some room to breathe. Crowley was less assertive - Aziraphale was starting to realize that Crowley had always been weirdly polite for a demon, especially where innocents were concerned -  and had been swept straight to the back of the bus by a group of overburdened shoppers.

Aziraphale craned his neck but from where he stood he couldn't catch a glimpse of hunched shoulders or flashy sunglasses. It was the first time they'd been separated in weeks. Aziraphale wondered if he should be concerned by how anxious the distance made him. The fifteen feet of crowded space wasn't the issue. It was the fact that he couldn't reach for Crowley, couldn't speak to him even if he wanted to. In retrospect, it took him longer than it should to figure out why Crowley being dragged out of his reach set his whole body vibrating with fear.

The bus ride was short, just twenty minutes, but Aziraphale spent it counting the seconds quietly under his breath and trying to breathe. 

It was fine, he told himself. They were safe. Nobody had bothered them since their miraculous escape, and just because they were both powerless and vulnerable and defenseless right now it didn't mean anyone in heaven or hell knew that. 

They couldn't know just how easy it would be to kill them both.

The bus squealed to a halt in a drizzly little parking bay, pulling Aziraphale back to reality as he almost toppled over. Even after decades of Crowley's terrible driving he wasn't sure he'd ever been happier to exit a vehicle. He stood on the oily pavement and waited and waited, a whole thirty seconds of thumping heartbeats and sharp breaths until Crowley finally stepped off.

Aziraphale grabbed his hand before he knew what he was doing.

"Aziraphale?"

Crowley's eyes were wide and questioning behind his glasses.

"Fine. Everything's fine."

"I've got you, angel. Breathe." Crowley said, squeezing his hand. Aziraphale squeezed back.

"The bus for Oxford's over there," he continued, pointing to a coach parked a few bays down, "you gonna be alright to get on it?"

"Yes."

He let Crowley lead him, unseeing, to a pair of seats on the coach. Money must have changed hands at some point but he had no idea how much. He was in the window seat, he realised, as the bus pulled away into the early afternoon rain, Crowley sprawled out next to him with his legs halfway across the aisle. Their hands were still linked, fingers laced together just as tightly as the first time.

That had been on a bus too. Maybe there was something about buses, he wondered, about the momentous mundanity of every trip or clandestine meeting they'd ever had on one. They were a place between places where an angel and a demon could dare to reach out for one another.

"Angel?" Crowley said, so softly Aziraphale thought his heart might break. 

"Yes. Yes, I'm here now. Sorry about that, dear boy, I'm not sure what came over me."

"You went somewhere, didn't you?"

Aziraphale fiddled with the ring on his right hand, rubbing the inside of it with his thumb. Years ago he'd had to have it repaired where it had worn thin as paper.

"Yes. When you got pulled away from me."

"I don't want to push, angel, but it looked a bit like a panic attack. Dunno if we can really have those, mind you, what with the heart and lungs being purely decorative on these bodies."

"Crowley, do be quiet," Aziraphale said, "we can't keep people from eavesdropping."

"Ah, let em. They'll just think we're weirdos. People expect weirdos on the bus, it's part of the charm. Once when I was waiting to meet up with you, years ago, a bloke in a red bobble hat got on and tried to convince everyone he was Satan."

"I take it you disabused him of that notion?"

"'Course not," Crowley smirked, "I sat him down and gave him some tips. Workshopped his performance a bit, you know? He'd really got the accent down by the end of it."

"Well, you would know, I suppose."

Listening to Crowley prattle on about the things humans typically got dead wrong about Satan was more relaxing than it probably should have been. If he concentrated on the gentle flow of Crowley's stream of consciousness, he could almost forget that ten minutes ago he'd been semi-catatonic with panic.

"And don't get me started on the pitchfork thing, that was Hades, you remember Hades, right? Great big gloomy bastard. S'not even the right pantheon."

"I'm sorry," Aziraphale muttered.

"It's alright, it was two thousand years ago. I only remember 'cause of the whole Persephone business."

"Not for that," Aziraphale said, "Obviously I remember all that. I wasn't the one pretending to be a priest of Dionysus as an excuse to be sozzled at all hours of the day."

Crowley grinned.

"Day and night."

"I meant, sorry for. For earlier. For overreacting."

That got him a little frown, a tiny drawing together of Crowley's eyebrows that wouldn't have been noticeable if the demon's face wasn't so close to his.

"Don't be daft. You haven't got anything to apologize for." Crowley ran his thumb across Aziraphale's knuckles, a feather-light reassurance at the place they were joined together. "Did you. Y'know. Want to talk about it? Why it happened?"

"You. We were separated, that's all. I couldn't see you and I thought. I don't know what I thought." Aziraphale smiled wanly. "Silly, really. Imagine thinking anyone would set up an ambush on the number 38 bus to Victoria."

"It did smell of wee, just a bit," Crowley conceded. 

It was enough to turn Aziraphale's smile into a real one.

"Angel, look at me."

He did. The grey sunglasses that let him see more of Crowley's eyes had seemed like a blessing yesterday. Now he wasn't so sure.

"If you need me to stay where you can see me until we get all this sorted out, I can do that. S'no trouble."

"Really? I don't want to be a bother." 

"Absolutely."

"Oh. Well, that's very kind of you, dear boy."

Aziraphale swallowed thickly, holding back the tears that threatened to embarrass him on public transport.

"It's not. You've got all the rest of the cash," Crowley said, with a wink. "Won't get far without my sugar daddy, will I?"

Crowley waggled his eyebrows and Aziraphale burst out laughing. 

"You certainly will not, you cheeky little so-and-so."

For a while they sat in companionable silence and Aziraphale lost himself following the calming rivulets of rain on the windowpane. How different things might have been, he wondered, if he'd been brave enough to reach for Crowley's hand when they'd huddled together against the very first rains. Not better, necessarily, but different.

More dangerous. More honest.

After a while, he noticed Crowley was beginning to fidget. His phone had stopped making irritating little sounds as he played some unfathomable, luridly coloured game and had disappeared back into his pocket.

"Out of bloody battery," Crowley grumbled by way of an explanation, "Candy Crush was one of mine, did I ever tell you that? Try explaining that one to a bunch of demons who thought harnessing electricity meant really tiny harnesses."

"You did, dear. Repeatedly. I admit I still can't see what's so evil about it."

Aziraphale had been rather enchanted by all the little sweets, even if he would never admit it. It wasn't nearly enough to tempt him to own a smartphone, of course, but it had seemed harmless enough.

"That's what's so perfect about it," Crowley grinned wickedly, "you start out matching colours and before you know it you're dropping all your hard-earned cash on microtransactions and spamming everyone you know with invites. If you get a temptation really right, you can get them to tempt each other."

There was a dreamy look in Crowley's eyes as he no doubt pictured millions of human fingers swiping mindlessly at their phones. Aziraphale smiled indulgently. The lengths Crowley would go to to complete his evil deeds without directly hurting anyone were one of the things he'd always loved best about him. Crowley's first gift to humanity had been the wisdom they needed to make their own choices, after all. He could hardly be blamed if they chose to spend all their time on inane little phone apps.

"Speaking of games," Aziraphale said, perking up immensely as he remembered something he'd always wanted to try, "I know a wonderful one for long journeys like this. We never get the chance to play when you drive, since everything outside the windows is a blur."

"Oh, no angel. Anything but--."

"--I spy," Aziraphale said firmly, "with my little eye, something beginning with...R."

"No, no, we're not playing bloody I spy, Aziraphale. I'd rather count the pieces of chewing gum stuck to the floor than play I spy."

"Wrong. Chewing gum starts with a C, as you well know."

Aziraphale folded his arms and waited expectantly.

"Fine," Crowley growled, "Royal pain in the ass? Ridiculous bowtie? My Reason to remain rapidly receding into the remote reaches of Reading?"

Aziraphale rolled his eyes.

"It was rain, Crowley, honestly. Your turn."

"Rain. Seriously, angel?"

"Yes. Your turn."

"I'm not playing. Obviously."

"What do you want to do, then? We still have forty five minutes to go on this blasted bus and I neglected to bring a book."

"That's got to be a first. Truth or dare, then, something with actual ssstakes." Crowley said, a challenge if ever Aziraphale had seen one.

"What exactly could you dare me to do without leaving my seat or traumatising our fellow passengers?"

He watched Crowley think it over, a series of tiny expressions flashing across his face in quick succession.

"Er. Alright, fair point. Truth then. If you don't answer you owe me a dare later."

"Deal, I suppose."

Their hands were already clasped between them, but Aziraphale offered the other one in for the handshake that traditionally sealed their agreements. Crowley shook it awkwardly with his left hand.

"Deal. My turn first. When'd you buy the waistcoat?"

"Well, I bought the velvet one in eighteen fifty nine--"

"Not that one, angel, you know the one I mean. Weaseling out of the first question doesn't bode well for you."

With his right hand, Aziraphale traced one of the silver snakes twining around his torso. It really was a stunning piece of work, for all that it didn't match in the slightest with the rest of his outfit.

"Eighteen ninety two."

"That's a long time ago. How come I've never seen it?"

"Ah, ah, dear boy." Aziraphale waved a finger at him, "One question at a time. It's my turn, I believe."

"Trust an angel to actually follow the rules. Go on then."

"What is so memorable to you about Persephone's story? I thought you hated gloomy ones."

Crowley flinched a little, so slightly Aziraphale almost didn't catch it, and he wondered if he'd pushed too far already. It was meant to be an innocuous question, but he'd learned the hard way that you could never tell when Crowley was hiding his feelings behind something seemingly irrelevant.

"S'not always a gloomy one. Saw a modern version a few decades back. Persephone wanted to stay with Hades, but she couldn't just let it be winter all the time."

"I see. I haven't heard of that interpretation. So they reached a compromise?"

"Something like that."

An arrangement of sorts, Aziraphale thought. The maiden of summer spends six months in the arms of her dark, brooding lover and six months pining for him, up among the blooming flowers. 

"My dear--

"--So why haven't I seen it then? The waistcoat."

Aziraphale remembered the first time he'd seen it, shining and ridiculous and beautiful. He'd bought a lot of meaningful trinkets during Crowley's long sleep, but this one was the most obvious. Which, of course, was why he'd kept it hidden away.

"Oh. It, um. I didn't think it went with anything I have. That isn't true, though. I was just never quite brave enough to wear it."

Crowley nodded.

"Until now?"

There was fragile hope in his voice; a little seed of it that Aziraphale was determined to nurture, even if it took another six thousand years for it to bloom.

"Until now, yes. Now I might never take it off."

He squeezed Crowley's hand again, and wondered how long it would be before he had to let go. It seemed to smooth some of the hunch from Crowley's shoulders, at any rate, and Aziraphale was glad. Over the long years of their association, Crowley had carried more than his fair share of the load. 

The bus turned off the motorway, swinging at last onto the road that would lead into Oxford. Aziraphale wondered what to do with his remaining question. It would probably only be one. 

"What did you help Jameela's mother with?" He asked, in the end.

"Oh, that. I just happened to be there when her ex-husband showed up and started making trouble, wanting half the profits from the cafe. I marched him out and politely convinced him not to come back," Crowley smiled nastily, "I'm pretty sure they think I'm a hitman."

"Then they obviously have no idea what a hitman looks like," Aziraphale said, laughing, "because traditionally, darling, some element of stealth is required, and you are the most memorable looking person I've ever seen!"

"Hey, now, it's not that unreasonable!"

"Of course, of course," Aziraphale giggled, "I can imagine it now: Could you describe the man you saw doing the shooting? Well, officer, he was a handsome rogue with bright red hair, ostentatious sunglasses, the tightest jeans I've ever seen, and a face tattoo in the shape of a snake ."

"Yes, ha ha, very funny. How would you know anyway? You're an angel, for Hell's sake."

"Oh, I've had a fair few sent to the shop," Aziraphale said lightly, as the bus pulled into the station, "some unscrupulous people were very keen to get me to sell it. Or, failing that, vacate it permanently. Really, I'm surprised you didn't spot any from your favourite cafe."

"What? What did you do to them?"

"Nothing much. They all had miraculous changes of heart, that's all. After a while I suppose it was uneconomical to keep sending them."

Crowley was looking at him with a mixture of horror and admiration.

"I told you I could look after myself, Crowley. My point is that you didn't spot them, nobody batted an eyelid at them. Not a single defining feature between the lot of them."

"Why didn't you tell me? I could've, oh, I don't know, used my underworld connections to help stop the murderers being sent to kill you!"

Aziraphale wagged a finger at him. 

"Now, now, you've had two questions, so it's definitely not your turn. And besides, we're here."

They were. Oxford might be the city of dreaming spires but the bus terminal was a damp, flat roofed affair. He and Crowley made their way to the information board, their hands still linked. Neither of them called attention to it.

"Looks like there's a direct bus in fifteen minutes," Crowley said, studying the board.

"Just enough time to get some lunch, then," Aziraphale replied, and tugged him happily toward Pret A Manger. 

They held hands while Aziraphale ummed and ahhed over sandwich fillings and accompanying snacks, and then spent an age deciding what kind of tea he wanted. In the end, Crowley had to drag him at a brisk jog to the number six bus; bag of sandwiches in one hand and flustered angel in the other.

They made it on time, though, and Aziraphale allowed himself a little sigh of relief when they stepped on board just before the doors closed. They were almost at their destination, and everything was  fine.

That is, it was, until the driver caught sight of them and frowned.

"Oi, don't I know you two?"