Chapter Text
It was a warm day in August turning into an evening. The streets were busy as thousands of visiting people had made their way to Paris.
The city had changed since Aziraphale had last been there. In some ways it was more... London-y.
He had a map of the exposition area, but he didn’t need it. The tower made it very easy to navigate. Somewhere close to it there was supposed to be a restaurant where he was supposed to go.
When he reached the tower he spent a moment looking around. There were buildings, pavilions, scattered around it. He took one of the paths and walked among the other visitors.
Finally somebody called him by the name of Mr Fell. Aziraphale turned to look and saw Crowley sitting at a table outside a restaurant by one of the pavilions. He was accompanied by a man.
“You came!” the demon said and grinned.
Aziraphale walked closer warily. Crowley stood up to greet him. He whispered to him: “You might want to try Finnish.”
“Finish what?” Aziraphale whispered back but Crowley didn’t offer any more clues. Instead he introduced the man as Juhani Aho, an author. The man said something Aziraphale didn’t understand, and it took him a moment to realize: it was the language. He dialed hastily the built-in interpreter somewhere in his brain until the words started to make sense.
“...celebrating with my friends tonight, it is Helena’s turn, you gentlemen may have seen her works perhaps in -”
“My friend here keeps a bookshop,” Crowley interrupted. “Why don't you tell him about the book? The Railway , wasn't it?”
“The shop is for rare titles only,” Aziraphale hurried to say. He had no shelf space for all and every volume written by amateurs.
“You read popular ones at the book club,” Crowley said and undermined the angel’s refusal.
“There have been many books since The Railway ,” the man tried to put in.
“That is exquisite,” the angel said. He liked humans just fine, as long as he was in control of the situation. Now Crowley was refusing to hand it over and he was running out of patience.
“It is a delight meeting fellow countrymen -,”
That’s it, Aziraphale thought. He turned to face the author. “Your friends must be waiting for you, now. Time to leave us.” He added some divine emphasis on the words and the man started backing out without hesitation.
Crowley raised his eyebrows at him as he took a seat at the table. “Was that necessary?” he said, mocking an innocent tone.
“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale said, “was he a friend of yours?”
“Pfft. His countrymen’s pavilion is right there. I was simply getting acquainted.” He motioned towards the building next to the restaurant. “I hear there’s a granite exhibition in it.”
“Granite? The rock?”
“Yup. Fancy checking it out?” asked Crowley with a straight face that was cracking at the outer corners of his eyes.
“I think I’ll pass, thank you.”
“Let me at least get you a glass of -”
“No, thank you,” the angel refused again.
Crowley straightened up in his chair slightly. “Are you going to be all sullen all day, even after having come all the way here? We’re in Paris, remembering the Revolution, celebrating the modern arts, yada yada. Or are you moping because you left all those precious tomes behind? It’s not going to burn down while you’re gone. Live a little, angel.”
“You asked for my help,” Aziraphale said coldly.
“And you seem very reluctant about it.”
“I was surprised,” the angel said. “Not a word from you in 14 years. Anything could’ve happened. I wrote to you, you know. I don’t understand what you want of me.”
Crowley took the bottle and filled his glass. “Yeah, sorry about that. Intergalactic time works differently. No mail, either.” He slumped back in his chair. “‘S nothing personal, okay?”
Aziraphale struggled to fully believe that but he felt a little bit reconciled nevertheless.
“Maybe a glass of sherry, while you fill me in on what you need me to do,” he agreed.
Crowley waved over to a waiter. When the order was made, he started chattering again.
“What do you think of the tower?”
Aziraphale turned to look at it. It was hard to grasp this close.
“It’s rather overbearing,” he said.
“Don’t you think it’s incredible,” Crowley said, “all that iron and engineering and it is not going to feed anyone, or house anyone, it’s just going to stand there and loom over everything.”
“Is it your work?” the angel said.
“Who, Hell’s? Nah, all human.”
“Yes, I suppose it seems very human.”
A sherry glass was brought to the table. Aziraphale smiled contently. He was feeling much better.
“So, what do you need me to do?” he asked.
Crowley suddenly seemed embarrassed. This was interesting, Aziraphale thought.
“Eh,” Crowley managed to say before emptying half of his glass. Aziraphale raised his eyebrows.
“Come on, it’s what I came here for,” he said in encouragement.
“Ngk. Fine. So.” Crowley drank some more. “I haven’t… slept. Since I… since we last met, really. I’m just worried… what might happen if I try. So I need someone to… oversee. That I don’t light the room ablaze or something.”
Crowley wasn’t looking at him. He hid behind his spectacles deliberately, angling himself so that he was hard to read. Vulnerability was written all over him, though. Aziraphale didn’t need to see his eyes to read that.
They had an agreement. It was centuries old and it had never been spelled out in detail, but it was there all the same. A moment such as this was, by agreement, to be taken seriously. Aziraphale may not have seen or heard of Crowley for 14 years but this kind of thing had no expiration.
There were many things he wanted to clarify: Why is he scared of sleeping? He’d stated before that the nightmares were gone, or maybe Aziraphale had misunderstood? Has he been setting rooms on fire in his sleep before? Why ask me and not get a human to do it for him? And: Why is he so obsessed with sleeping?
But first he needed to address the request itself.
“You mean you want me to watch you sleep?” he said.
“Not in a creepy way,” said Crowley, “you don’t have to watch watch, you don’t have to be in the room or anything, just make sure no one else gets hurt.”
It seemed… reasonable. Comparatively low-risk. It should be easy coming up with an excuse should somebody in Heaven find out. Aziraphale considered these things and decided to agree.
“I’ll help you,” he said. “Just one night?”
“Just one night. If it goes to shit at least I’ll know.”
The angel sipped his sherry. That was settled, then. Crowley was swirling the wine glass in his hand. The silence had time to stretch between them comfortably before he said:
“Thank you.”