Chapter Text
The darkness stretching outside the bookshop windows is the blackest black Crowley has ever seen.
It’s more completely black than outer space, pressing in hard on his sensitive eyes even behind his protective lenses, and it’s impossible to look at for too long without getting dizzy.
It feels…foreboding.
Crowley tries to ignore the warning tingle on the back of his neck, and turns to see Aziraphale peering out the door, inexplicably turning over the sign hanging in the window.
“Open?”
“Someone might want to buy a book.”
Foolishly optimistic angel.
“As far as I can tell,” Crowley drawls, aiming for carelessness to mask his growing fear. “The entirety of creation is us and this bookshop. I don’t think you’re gonna get many customers…”
Aziraphale’s face falls. Crowley tries to ignore the twinge of regret at his own words. It’s not his fault that he’s always forced to be the realistic one in this…relationship.
(Because the last time he attempted to be spontaneous, romantic, and idealistic like Aziraphale…well, the one being from whom he never wanted to be parted left him for Heaven and he ended up sleeping in an alley with the rats.)
“Crowley…” Aziraphale suddenly starts, his tone now tentative but urgent. “Before anything else happens, um…there is one more thing that needs fixing.”
This can’t be good.
“What?” he growls.
“I need you to forgive me.”
Like Hell.
“Oh, come on, angel.”
“I need to hear you say it.”
And what about what Crowley needs? Does that matter? Has it ever?
The former demon makes a series of unintelligible protesting noises, unable to believe they’re actually having this conversation, and even more unwilling to participate in it.
“Please, Crowley,” Aziraphale presses unfairly, his blue eyes wide and beseeching.
Crowley lets out a low groan, gruff and scratchy in his throat, reluctance personified.
Aziraphale pays no mind and - someone help him - starts to do the apology dance right there on the rug in front of him -
“You were right, you were right -”
And wasn’t he listening, when Crowley told him in no uncertain terms that they were way beyond little dances, angel -
“No - no, don’t do the dance!” Crowley snaps, irritation and hurt nearly seeping from his pores.
“Well?” Aziraphale demands peevishly in return.
(And in what universe is this fair - certainly not the one currently lying in shambles all around them - because while he can tell Aziraphale is contrite, Crowley has yet to hear an apology that means something to him, any indication at all that the angel is aware of just how much he destroyed Crowley when he left the way he did, despite the fact that he found him wrapped in a dirty sleeping bag and all his reeking regret -)
“Eh, I forgive you,” Crowley mutters, without any feeling at all.
“I - I didn’t -” Aziraphale shakes his head and touches his ear meaningfully, actually wanting to hear it again.
The bastard.
(- because how much does he have to suffer, how obvious must he be, before Aziraphale realizes he has held Crowley’s heart in his soft, angelic, careless hands for centuries, managed to crush it in an instant without a thought or care, and still Crowley will come crawling back to him without Aziraphale feeling an inkling of remorse because that’s just the helpless, pathetic, adoring demon he is -)
“I forgive you!” he barks.
Aziraphale smiles like that’s all he’s ever wanted to hear, like everything’s fine and dandy, like it’s all fixed.
“Thank you,” he murmurs gratefully.
Crowley sighs.
(- and what does it matter that his heart is still shattered inside his chest and the sheer yearning of wanting to be loved by the angel is slowly draining the life out of him and the fatigue that weighs down his shoulders from waiting is likely to break his back before Aziraphale finally opens and eyes and sees him standing there begging for his love -
But it doesn’t matter. If it makes Aziraphale happy, it’s worth the pain. That’s been his modus operandi for longer than he can remember so, here at the end of the universe…well, why change now?)
“Well, there’s just us…” Aziraphale sighs then, somehow both wistful and suggestive at once, pacing slowly toward him across the bookshop. “In the whole of everything…”
Crowley feels his throat tighten and wills his tears to stay firmly buried with his heartbreak.
“It’s a place for us.”
Oh, if only.
“We’ve got nothing,” Crowley deadpans, unwilling to give an inch.
“Well, we’ve got each other,” Aziraphale insists, either oblivious to or uncaring of Crowley’s mood. “And we’ve probably got some cocoa.”
As if cocoa could fix the gaping, yawning void stretching between them in this bookshop that was once their sanctuary.
“And we’ve got lots of books!”
That…doesn’t sound quite right, actually.
“Have we?” Crowley mutters, before grabbing a book at random off a shelf and flipping through it.
Nothing but blank pages.
“Good luck reading these,” he mumbles, tossing the useless thing into the air for Aziraphale to catch.
“But that’s -” Aziraphale stutters, grabbing for another book and flipping through it in desperation, uncharacteristically uncaring of Crowley tossing others over his shoulder and onto the floor. “Even the Dickens…”
(And Crowley feels a pang of sadness for the angel, knowing as he does how much he cherishes his silly human tomes, and wishes for an illogical, lovesick moment that he could snap and say abracadabra and restore all the black ink and innumerable words to every page in the shop, just to see the way Aziraphale would beam at him in thanks - )
“Well, if…if it’s all come down to this, then…” Aziraphale begins, audibly grasping at straws. “There must be some sort of answer here, finally. To everything.”
Crowley slowly approaches him, flipping through yet another blank book, with a healthy dose of skepticism.
“Oh, yeah. Hundred thousand blank books, but one with all the answers in them,” he snarks, watching Aziraphale skim through more pages in a growing panic. “Doesn’t sound very likely, does it?”
With a world-weary sigh, Crowley tosses the book he’s currently holding and begins to pace in front of the obsolete shelves, feeling more and more like a wild animal cornered and trapped.
What in Heaven and Hell are they going to do now?
If only they could go back in time to just a few short hours ago, before Jesus came down to Earth and Aziraphale came looking for Crowley and Crowley and Aziraphale took off after Michael, and that stupid twit of an angel went off her rocker and burned the bloody Book of -
Hm.
Turning abruptly on the heel of his snakeskin boot, Crowley swivels around and comes to a halt next to Aziraphale, who is currently wringing his hands over a stack of blank Jane Austens right where he left him.
“Do you have a pen?”
Aziraphale looks at him as if he’s being monumentally stupid.
Then, with a little hum of assent, he bustles to his desk and brings back a ridiculously over-the-top box of fancy fountain pens with the lid held aloft in offering.
“What kind of pen do you need?”
Crowley rolls his eyes at him in spectacular fashion and pointedly picks a pen without looking, uncapping it with his teeth and resolutely ignoring Aziraphale’s haughty huff of disapproval.
“Pass me a book,” he instructs next.
“…Which book?”
“Well, it doesn’t matter, they’re all blank,” Crowley reasons. “Whichever one you give me is the right one.”
Aziraphale seems to accept this logic without question, selecting a book from a nearby stack with a black cover and handing it to him, holding it open to the first empty page.
“Bleak House.”
Isn’t it just.
Holding his breath in anticipation, Crowley begins to write, his messy scrawl marking the top of the otherwise creamy, white page, while Aziraphale reads curiously over his shoulder.
“But - but that isn’t the Book of Life,” the angel says in confusion, as Crowley underlines the title he’s just written.
“Obviously,” mumbles Crowley. “But maybe…it is if we say it is.”
After thinking for a moment, Crowley writes something underneath his title. Simple but - if it works - telling. In his apprehension and hope, he can’t quite bring himself to turn around and check.
“Angel,” Crowley murmurs, knowing Aziraphale has seen what he’s just written. “Look on your desk, would you…”
Feeling Aziraphale’s eyes appraising his face, Crowley stares fixedly at the book in his hands until the angel finally turns away -
And inhales sharply in surprise.
He steps away from Crowley, only to reappear in front of him a moment later…
With a miraculously shiny, bright, red apple in his outstretched hand, summoned as if by magic.
Crowley grins.
“Excellent,” he hisses, shifting the book to one hand and taking the fruit from Aziraphale, rubbing it lightly on his shirtfront to polish it before taking a large, crunchy bite.
Delicious.
“Want some?” he asks Aziraphale after he’s swallowed, who’s still looking at him in awe, and Crowley offers the apple back to him.
After a long moment of speechlessness, Aziraphale slowly but surely accepts the apple from him, taking a generous bite that overlaps Crowley’s.
(And Crowley tries desperately to ignore the flare of heat in his gut at seeing Aziraphale’s pretty pink lips cover the red flesh where his teeth just were, telling himself it doesn’t mean anything because it doesn’t, except that he’s still got it when it comes to apple-related temptations -)
“Right, then,” says Crowley, forcing himself to turn back to the book as Aziraphale daintily chews and dabs his mouth.
As he starts to write again, Aziraphale returns to his place over Crowley’s shoulder to watch, before he suddenly and quickly begins to protest.
“Oh - no, no, you can’t do that!”
Crowley grins manically at the angel, feeling drunk on the sudden onslaught of possibilities, and sure that his yellow eyes are glowing unnervingly.
“Oh, yes, we can,” he growls, before offering the book and pen to him. “Do you want to write it?”
But Aziraphale is still shaking his head.
“No, no, I - of course, we can, apparently,” he stutters. “But what I mean is - Crowley, we can’t summon Her without a plan, first!”
That gives the demon pause.
“Hmm,” he grunts, considering the angel’s slightly panicked expression, before Aziraphale gently takes the book and pen from him, turning to place them - along with the half-eaten apple - safely out of the way on his desk. “What sort of plan?”
Aziraphale turns back to look at him as if he’s worried Crowley has gone insane.
“Crowley,” he murmurs fervently. “Before we bring Her into the equation…we need to decide…what it is we want.”
Crowley stares at him, confused.
“What we want?” he repeats blankly. “What do you mean, ‘what we want?’ I have questions, I want answers, I don’t -”
But Aziraphale is shaking his head.
“Yes, I know, dear. You deserve to ask your questions and get your answers, and I’m going to make sure you do,” he says quickly. “But…we have a bargaining chip here, Crowley. This new Book of Life is something we can use to…well, fix things.”
“You want to bargain with God?” Crowley demands, gaping at him.
“I want to get out of this alive,” Aziraphale states bluntly. “With you. And preferably with our world intact.”
Crowley stands there, gaping at the angel, his oldest friend who is so suddenly and unquestioningly unconcerned with the Ineffable Plan in a way that shocks the demon to his core.
“Do you understand?” Aziraphale presses, his eyes very blue and his furrowed brow very serious.
Crowley scoffs, eyebrows high on his forehead.
“I suppose…” he mumbles, even though he very much doesn’t, still grappling with Aziraphale’s fierce expression. “What do you want then, exactly?”
At that, Aziraphale breaks his intense staring contest with Crowley and looks down at the rug sheepishly, before appearing to bolster his own confidence and lift his chin to gaze straight into Crowley’s eyes.
“I only want one thing,” he says meaningfully, taking a step closer to the former demon, and Crowley freezes in confusion. “But that’s not the only thing that matters anymore…so what do you want, Crowley?”
The question is so foreign, that for a long moment, all Crowley can do is stand there in silence.
(Because when has it ever mattered what he wants? The few times he’s ever done what he wanted - for humans, for Aziraphale, for himself - he’s been punished for it, either by Hell or God herself, so often that the only thing he’s ever wanted has remained so far out of reach he might as well be in a different galaxy, when all the time he’s been standing right next to him for six thousand years -)
“What do I want?” Crowley repeats, anger starting to overtake him from the ground up. “What I want, Aziraphale, is for none of this to have ever happened! I want the real Book of Life to not have been destroyed, I want our universe to still be in existence, I want you to have never left me for Heaven!”
Aziraphale has the good grace to look appropriately guilty before he responds.
“Well, unfortunately, I can’t do much about the old Book of Life or my leaving for Heaven, other than…being back now…” he murmurs, sounding slightly defeated before seeming to gather his courage again. “But let’s see what we can do about saving our universe, yes?”
Crowley snorts rudely.
“And how exactly do you think we’re going to do that?”
“Well,” Aziraphale muses, starting to pace back and forth across the worn rug in front of Crowley. “We summon God, you ask your questions, and - with a little luck and some quick thinking - perhaps we can…make a case.”
“Make a case,” Crowley repeats, skepticism dripping from his voice.
“Yes,” Aziraphale says, quickly picking up steam. “We’ve been on Earth the longest, the two of us. She should listen to us. We can ask that much of Her, can’t we? I mean, she’s…the Lord, after all. She’s…kind…isn’t she?”
Crowley raises an eyebrow at him.
“Yes, I suppose that depends on your point of view,” Aziraphale mutters, before striding back to his desk, and picking up the Book. “But that’s why we have this! If all else fails, we can threaten to…write Her out or some such nonsense!”
“Write God out of the universe?” Crowley parrots in disbelief. “Who are you and what have you done with the Supreme Archangel?”
“Oh, I think those sorts of titles lost all meaning around the time Michael started killing angels,” Aziraphale mutters darkly, before growing more serious. “Crowley, this is about us. And the fate of our universe. I think all bets are off, don’t you?”
Standing there in a bookshop that feels emptier than it ever has, staring at an angel he’s not sure he even recognizes anymore, Crowley doesn’t know what he thinks.
(But, glancing outside to the black nothingness that seems to press closer with every passing moment, Crowley thinks that anything would be better than fading out of existence and being separated from Aziraphale forever.)
Crowley nods once, his neck stiff and unyielding, before collapsing to sprawl in Aziraphale’s armchair with a noisy huff and arms crossed across his chest.
“What’s our case, then?” he demands.
“Well,” begins Aziraphale, putting down the Book and beginning to pace once again like a lawyer in a courtroom. “You want our universe back as it was, yes?”
“Of course,” Crowley spits, offended at the question. “Otherwise, what was it all for? What did we fight so hard to save all this time? And the first time, even, what did Adam fix it all for? I mean, I know it’s not perfect, but it’s still worth saving, obviously, we can’t just let it all get flushed down the -”
“Yes, yes, I quite agree,” Aziraphale interrupts hastily, clearly trying to placate him. “I just wanted to assure we were on the same page, that’s all. All right, point one: put the world back.”
Crowley grunts in assent.
“While there’s nothing wrong with humanity, overall,” Aziraphale continues. “I think we can both agree there needs to be some changes on the…celestial side?”
“Yeah, they need to leave humanity well enough alone!” snaps Crowley. “Two failed Apocalypses and what do they have to show for it? Nothing! Leave humanity to make their own choices. Free will and all that.”
“Fair enough,” Aziraphale nods. “But what of all the angels and demons? I suppose they could live among humans as we have, with little or no miracles, so they can’t interfere or advance their own ridiculous agendas. Or perhaps there could be a new afterlife, something of a middle ground, and they can all be charged with ferrying human souls…”
“Eh, let the Almighty figure that one out,” Crowley says, waving a careless hand. “She can take them all and bugger off to a new universe for all I care.”
“I see,” the angel hums thoughtfully, his pacing finally slowing to a stop in front of the armchair. “But then, where does that leave…us? I can’t say I want to leave Earth, Crowley…”
“Nor do I!” barks Crowley. “No, that’s the -” he gestures wildly at the Book “- bargaining part, isn’t it? We get to stay here forever, just like we always wanted. No sides to report to, no responsibilities to ignore…just…a peaceful existence. Here on Earth.”
Aziraphale is nodding slowly but also peeking at Crowley with a curiously fearful expression.
“We can look out for the humans, make sure nobody interferes, just like we’ve been doing this whole time,” continues Crowley, not sure what Aziraphale is thinking, so taking it upon himself to think out loud for both of them. “No interference, just…keeping an eye on things. Retired, if you will. We deserve that much, surely, after all these years. Yeah, retired. Guardians, let’s say!”
“Guardians,” Aziraphale repeats quietly, a little awe leaking into his voice, sounding eerily familiar to the word godfathers that he’d uttered what feels like centuries ago. “Yes, guardians…I like that. But, Crowley…”
“What?”
“Will we be…together?” Aziraphale asks tentatively. “Do you still…want that?”
There’s a silent moment that stretches far longer than it ought to.
(Because the issue isn’t whether Crowley wants that, it never has been, simply because he’s always wanted that. The issue is whether Aziraphale wants that and, if he does, in what capacity. Because it makes Crowley’s heart ache to think of continuing on as they always have, spending their time together as friends, fearful of pursuing anything more, all the while Crowley will hold close the painful knowledge that he asked Aziraphale for more and the angel didn’t want him -)
“…Crowley?”
The murmur is so soft and pleading that it cleaves Crowley’s heart in two.
“Yeah, angel,” he answers quietly, wanting to cry at how relieved Aziraphale looks at those two words. “We’ll be…together. No matter what.”
In whatever way you’ll have me.
(Because, even after everything, Crowley knows deep down that he’ll always choose Aziraphale…even if it means he’ll never stop yearning for more.)
“I believe we’ve come to a decision, then,” Aziraphale murmurs, a faint smile on his face to accompany his watery, blue eyes, swimming with happy tears.
And Crowley’s own eyes fill with tears of resignation behind his lenses, distorting his vision into blurs and streaks of light, all stemming from the sun-like angel he’s been orbiting for as long as he can remember.
Then, as if on cue, the bell above the bookshop door jingles merrily, signaling something…impossible.
A customer.