Chapter Text
Anyone peering through the windows of a certain bookshop at a certain crossroads in Soho, a few days after the end of the world, would have witnessed a deeply blasphemous sight. Of course, this was true of any given day in Soho, treacherous waters of sex-related paraphernalia galore- but no one would have expected what lay within the dimly lit bookshop that night.
A veritable tsunami of empty glasses that led to a minefield of pints that led to an avalanche of bottles. No surface was spared- not even the ceiling.
And a demon hooting with laughter amidst the chaos.
“You- you did not!”
“I did,” The angel said morosely- alcohol adding that extra flair of melodrama as the corners of his mouth drooped down. He gazed into his glass as though it held the secrets of the universe, most important of them being how he could make Crowley forget what he had just told him.
Oh, the poor dear, with his slouch and his hunched shoulders. He almost looked pitiful, had he not just delivered the most world-shattering news to Crowley a mere 10 seconds before. (Okay, most world-shattering that day.)
“Fuck, my stomach cramped. Angel, have I ever told you how funny you are? Because you’re a riot. And believe me, I am very familiar with those,” Crowley wheezed, hunched over and shaking with suppressed laughter.
“Don’t- don’t laugh! Did you know how much paperwork I had to file? I spent years signing my name on every blasted form alone! Gabriel gave me a…he gave me a stern warning,” The angel wailed, burying his head into his hands. Crowley continued laughing, occasional embarrassing snort escaping him. He didn’t care, though. He was a simple demon, with simple wants- the world was fuzzy, he was warm, and he had Aziraphale with him.
And both of them were alive. Blissfully, gloriously alive. Alive in the way that sent electricity sparking through their veins every time they contemplated it for more than a second, alive in the way that made them delirious with the joy of it.
Alive in the way that meant freedom.
They’d been drinking for a few hours now, and had passed from pleasantly buzzed to slightly loopy. The demon was a dark streak on the couch, an ellipse tucked into the angel’s side. Red hair fanned as close to Aziraphale’s thigh as he dared, and Aziraphale’s left hand seemed to be stuck in a dilemma. It fluttered wildly between hovering an inch above the demon’s hair and gripping tightly onto his thigh, nails leaving marks on his trousers.
Luckily, Crowley didn’t notice. He wouldn’t even have noticed Beelzebub themselves kicking down the doors and dragging him back to Hell, he was that overcome with laughter. Every cloud has a silver lining and all.
“You’re lucky he didn’t- he didn’t give you a dressing-down!” Crowley rolled onto his side, clutching his stomach, as the angel took another swig from his glass.
Empty.
He glared at the bottom of the glass until it filled up with the finest whisky it could muster, only to be downed in a single mouthful.
He hadn’t meant to cause the 1876 Kentucky meat shower! It was a long story, but only in the way people called things “long stories” if they didn’t want to talk about it. It was actually surprisingly short, and stupid. Extremely stupid.
Crowley’s request for holy water had left him reeling, an unmoored boat desperately searching for a harbour it recognised. How could he allow something that devastating to go anywhere near what he loved most? How could he continue on, if he had the demon’s death- not discorporation, death- on his conscience? How could Crowley even insinuate leaving the angel on his own, for eternity?
And how could Aziraphale deny him?
A request that had clearly been borne out of desperation and need, need that was so powerful it overcame the walls and walls of barriers Crowley erected around himself. He’d peeled back his skin and revealed his beating heart with shaking hands, and Aziraphale had spat on it without a second thought.
Fraternising. What had he been thinking?
Denying such a sacred request for a purely selfish reason. How far Aziraphale had fallen.
Then again, suicide was a sin. Crowley'd said so himself, hadn’t he? How could he let a being capable of so much kindness, and light, and love, snuff himself out?
Aziraphale had done the right thing.
He was an angel, after all.
This dilemma was just another one on Aziraphale’s steadily-growing pile (He’d amassed quite a collection over the millenia), but it clung to the front of his thoughts for far longer than he’d liked. Hissing into his ear as he coped the only way he knew how- indulgence. Indulgence in his food, in his books, in his soft sheets and warm hearth. Indulgence in daydreams of his love, daydreams he’d pull himself out of with a gasp and another crack in his heart.
It was another lonely evening in a rather impressive streak of lonely evenings. Aziraphale had been nursing an infinitely-refilling sherry for a few hours now, as he gazed out of his window. He’d been summoned to the middle of nowhere in- horror of horrors- the States.
Ugh.
He had been tasked with blessing an especially pious farmer’s crops, an assignment he got done in approximately 10 seconds. He could have returned to London, but he’d stuck around. He didn’t know why. Maybe it was the change of scenery helping him forget…well, everything. Every memory that hung low in the smog of London, creeping into every facet of his life.
He needed a break.
Aziraphale had been tracing the rim of his glass, absent-mindedly watching the condensation dribble off. He gazed out of the window.
Humans were a fascinating, puzzling, incomprehensible lot. People-watching had always been one of his favourite hobbies. He watched a horse clop across the road, its owner dashing after it. He watched couples wander down the street, gazing besottedly at each other. He watched a little girl dash into a toy store across the street, father in tow.
And he watched the local butcher exit his store, rubbing his temples dejectedly. He leant heavily on the door, bloodstained apron somehow even more wrinkled than ever. Tears shone in his eyes, bright enough that the angel could see it from across the street.
The butcher- Henry- was a good man. A kind man, with a sweet wife and a little daughter. His job may have been slaughtering animals, but he treated the task with the reverence it deserved. He considered each cow, each chicken, each pig, sacred, and sent them to sleep as painlessly as he could. Aziraphale had a soft spot for him.
In an alcohol-ridden daze, he reached his senses out towards him, trying to find out what was wrong. It turned out that his larder had been infested with rats, and he had lost all his work from the previous few months. He’d been left with a cupboard full of half-eaten meat, and a horde of angry customers. And a daughter who was just about to enter school- and now would likely have to work instead.
Henry’s grief was so potent that Aziraphale hardly had to use his Grace to be bowled over by it. Tears sprung to the angel’s eyes, unbidden. (He’d always gotten mopey when drunk.)
What was he supposed to do? With the wave of a hand, Aziraphale replaced all the unusable meat with the finest, freshest he could muster. He shut the curtains, smiling a little self-satisfactorily at a job well done.
And it certainly was well done! After nearly keeling over from shock after he opened his larder, Henry sent a quick prayer to Whoever had helped him. (Aziraphale received the prayer, and promptly tucked it safely into his heart where he kept them all.) He proceeded to receive the best reviews he had ever gotten in his decades of running his business, and went on to prosper. And, of course, his daughter got to go to school.
All in a day’s work for the angel.
There was only a slight, tiny, practically minuscule problem. What had Aziraphale done with the half-eaten meat?
The first person to find the answer to that question was poor Elizabeth Crouch, who got a nasty surprise when she was out making soap on her front porch. Red, bloody meat was raining from the sky- and it looked like someone had already taken bites out of it.
Kentucky was abuzz with amateur sleuths trying to solve the mystery- but no one would have suspected angelic intervention. The instant Aziraphale saw the chunks of meat littering the streets, he packed up and practically fled, tail between his legs.
Regardless of how fast he ran, somehow, Heaven’s exceptionally inefficient bureaucracy caught up to him- he opened his bookshop door to an unexpected guest. Gabriel’s plastic smile had been replaced with the only genuine expression he could muster, a thunderous scowl. After being given a thorough reprimand (bollocking), he’d been sent to Heaven to write a report on why exactly he had done the wrong thing, and go through enough training courses to have him tearing out his feathers in frustration.
High school detention had actually been one of Heaven’s.
Aziraphale gazed moodily into his once-again empty glass, as Crowley choked on his own laughter.
But, of course, when the angel felt an arm on his thigh, he snapped his attention onto the demon, wine glass forgotten. With what looked like a Herculean effort, Crowley’s laughter subsided, replaced by that smile Aziraphale treasured more than anything else in the world. The soft, open, genuine smile- not his Tempter smile, or his pained smile, or the smile he wore when he didn’t want to talk about something. The smile that actually meant joy.
So Aziraphale smiled back. And it was as easy as anything.