Chapter Text
April 1999
Of course, it would be a perfect sunset.
Aziraphale sat on a low wall behind the Griffith Observatory, the entire city of Los Angeles spread out below him, the lights beginning to twinkle as the sky slipped from pink and gold to deep purple, the sun hovering just above the horizon. If he were back at home in Milwaukee, he would be tucked in his chair in front of the fire by now, a cup of tea beside him and a novel open in his lap as he dreamed of warmer weather that still seemed a long way off. Instead, he had spent the day wandering in his shirtsleeves, the warm spring sunshine a balm to his bruised soul.
There had to be some perks to watching your life fall apart.
It was just beginning to get chilly now, the night breeze cutting in the desert air, and Aziraphale was grateful for the chunky pullover sweater he had tossed into his car this morning. He had felt a little silly bringing it along, but now he was glad he had. The thick stripes and zigzags of cream, tan and blue complemented his stormcloud eyes and white-blond curls, which he wore in an unruly mop, a little long and growing over his collar in the back. He wouldn’t fit in here, in this city where everyone was stunning, where your cab driver probably had a pilot script in his glovebox and your waitress had an audition right after the end of her shift. But he supposed he was pleasant-looking enough.
Now Gabriel, there was someone who fit in here. Aziraphale’s older brother was an executive at Boeing with a wife and two kids, and he was always up on the latest health craze, with a home gym filled with fad gadgets. He was forever suggesting that a couple of weeks on the Atkins diet might snap Aziraphale out of his doldrums, that he should just try cutting out dietary fat or doing a few sets with the Thighmaster. But to his credit, when Aziraphale had needed to get out of town and clear his head, Gabriel had offered his spare bedroom without hesitation, and Aziraphale could deal with a few disapproving headshakes and the screams of his niece and nephew if it meant having a chance to put himself back together.
Aziraphale sighed, looking out over the rapidly darkening valley, the dry hills and scrubby trees turning inky black as nature’s palette deepened. The vastness of it all, the way it pressed on his chest, one tiny speck under the blanket of the cosmos, brought him a sense of peace. As he sat, he couldn’t help thinking of the offertory hymn he had played during that last Mass, that last day before it all had fallen apart. It was one of his favorites, and he could almost see the white keys of the organ, the notes forming themselves on the breeze.
Lord of all gentleness, Lord of all calm
Whose voice is contentment, whose presence is balm
Be there at our sleeping, and give us, we pray
Your peace in our hearts, Lord, at the end of the day
He let his fingers travel over his lap, seeking out the familiar chords, the give of the pedals under his feet, all of it so comforting, so much like home. And not for the first time, he wondered if he might shatter, if there was a musical phrase so perfect that it could unmake the fibers of his soul.
A tinny melody shook him out of his reverie, the notes of Bach’s Minuet in G straining out of his jeans, and he sighed, digging in his pocket for his cell phone. Gabriel insisted he carry the blasted thing, and if his brother was calling to summon him home —
One look at the number on the small screen completely stopped his train of thought.
Aziraphale fumbled the phone to his ear. “Hello?”
“Aaaaanngelll —” the voice at the other end drawled.
Crowley.
Aziraphale’s best friend — or, well, the closest thing he had to a best friend, even though they hadn’t lived in the same city since they’d left college eight years ago, and they conducted their relationship almost entirely over the phone. And had completely opposite opinions on absolutely everything. Oh, and there was the deeply inconvenient truth that Aziraphale was madly in love with him.
But that ship had sailed long ago.
He settled the phone into the curve of his shoulder, ready to hear whatever calamity was befalling Crowley on this particular evening. “Are you alright, my dear? You sound a bit — well, not exactly yourself.”
“Course I’m not myself,” Crowley grumbled. “Everything is shit!”
Aziraphale couldn’t help smiling at his friend’s dramatics. “And tonight’s problem — is it romantic? Musical? Practical? Philosophical?”
“Musical, and maybe a little bit — hey, I’m not catching you at choir practice or something, am I? I called your landline and got your answering machine.”
“Oh no, nothing like that. I’m just —” Aziraphale looked out over the valley. “Well, I’m just out for a walk.”
“Oh, that sounds nice.” Aziraphale heard a bit of shuffling on the other end, as if Crowley were getting comfortable. “Hey, when you get home and get back to your piano, could you give me a call if it’s not too late? I wanna run some stuff by you because I’m stuck.”
“Well, I —” Aziraphale hesitated. Hadn’t he known, when he’d accepted Gabriel’s invitation, that there was another reason he had decided to come out west? Hadn’t he wanted to know — to see what was possible, now that everything had changed? “Well, my dear, I won’t be able to call you from my piano, because the truth is that I’m actually in Los Angeles right now.”
“Holy fuck, really?” Aziraphale could almost hear Crowley vibrating through the phone. “Where? Why?”
“Gabriel invited me out to visit for a little while. And I’m at the Griffith Observatory right now.”
“Angel, that’s twenty minutes from me. Do you want to come over?”
Aziraphale shifted, rubbing his hand over the knee of his khakis. “Right now?”
“Well yeah, right now —” Crowley sounded a little uncertain. “Unless you’d rather —”
“No, no, right now is fine.”
Crowley sighed. “Fuck, how long has it been?”
Three years, one month, thirteen days, and about twenty-one hours.
“Oh, I don’t know — three years or so? It was that day you came up to see me in Milwaukee.” Aziraphale replied lightly.
“That’s right!” Crowley chuckled. “I show up out of nowhere on your doorstep, and you invite me in and help me write the hook for ‘All My Dreams.’ You won me a fucking Grammy that day.”
“You did that yourself, dear. You just needed a little push.”
Over the years, they’d developed a way of working together, riffing off of each other’s ideas, Crowley with his pop songs and Aziraphale with his hymns. Usually they did it over the phone, putting each other on speaker and trading ideas back and forth. But that day, they’d sat side by side on Aziraphale’s piano bench in his cozy little house, and it was almost like being back in college, back before things got complicated. There had been dinner, too, just a fish fry down at the local grill, because it was Lent and Aziraphale kept to the old rules, even if they made Crowley sigh. He’d tucked into his plate with great enthusiasm, and Crowley had looked at him with such affection that he thought — but no. Crowley had gone his own way at the end of the night, and it had been three months before Aziraphale had heard from him again.
Aziraphale cleared his throat, breaking the lull in the conversation. “If you’d like me to stop by, well — I don’t believe I have your address —”
“Ngghh, that’s right,” Crowley replied. “Got a pen?”
As Aziraphale tripped back down the hill to his car, a paper with Crowley’s directions clutched in his hand, he did his best to breathe. Crowley was his friend — he’d made it abundantly clear that there was nothing more on the table. But he needed help, and Aziraphale was more than happy to give it to him.
September 1987
The first time I laid eyes on you, I knew right away that I was a goner.
It was the first day of our music theory class, and you walked in looking like the rich guy from Pretty in Pink, with your blue button-down and your khakis and your oversized blazer. And I couldn’t help thinking, well, if you’re looking for your Molly Ringwald, I already have the hair.
“Put your eyes back in your head,” Eric sassed beside me. He was my first roommate, remember? “He’s probably straight. And if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t be looking for a skinny punk like you.”
“Do I hear fucking angels singing?” I muttered back. “Because I’m pretty sure he’s glowing.”
You didn’t even look at us, of course. You sat down in the front row and pulled out a fresh notebook and a fountain pen, and then you hung on our prof’s every word, while I was sitting behind you hanging up your picture among the stars. I figured Eric was probably right, that the painted-on plaid pants and the Docs buckled up to my knees and the leather jacket probably weren’t your thing. But then when class was over and we were packing up, you raised your eyes to my face, and there was no judgment there, just something soft, and I wanted to stay there, in that place where you would look at me like that again.
So of course I followed you out. I’ve never been good at keeping my mouth shut. I ask too many questions, you know?
“Hey, wait up!” I called, and you turned. Your eyes were on mine again, and I realized my mind had gone completely blank. “Ngk, um — good class back there.”
I stood and waited for a hole in the earth to swallow me up.
But somehow, even though I was the dumbest person alive, you smiled. “It seemed that way! I think we’re going to learn a lot.” And then, because I was still standing there looking like I’d been hit over the head, you held out your hand. “Aziraphale Eastgate.”
“Uhh — Anthony Crowley — I mean, well, just Crowley. Crowley.” Fucking terrible.
“Crowley,” you murmured, and why did my name in your mouth feel like a caress?
“Um.” I could tell I was striking out, but I could see Eric gesticulating wildly over your shoulder and I didn’t want him to cut in and make it worse. “Hey, do you want to grab lunch at the dining hall with me? It’s just, uh, I don’t really know anybody yet and —”
If Eric rolled his eyes any harder, they were going to fall on the floor.
“Yes!” You did this weird little thing with your fists, almost a wiggle, and I wondered if I could fit you in my pocket. “I mean, yes — that would be lovely.”
We started out, and I didn’t immediately faceplant into the sidewalk, although I did engage you in some colossally stupid discourse about the weather. I remember how blue the sky was that day, not a single cloud in it, which was probably good, because I would have been thinking some idiotic thought about your hair, and I would definitely have walked directly into a parking meter. As it was, I made some dumb comment about how I was worried about the Boston winters, since I’d grown up down in DC where it rarely snowed, and you reassured me that I would get used to it, and that’s how I found out that you were a local, living at home with your parents and commuting to school, the second son of an Irish Catholic family. Turns out we had something in common — although I wouldn’t have called my own relationship with the Church warm. Quite the opposite, in fact.
We were just sitting down with our dining hall trays when I decided to up the ante on getting-to-know-you cliches. “So what’s your major, anyway? Performance? Music ed? Something else?”
You patted your lips with a napkin. “Composition, actually.”
“Hey, me too! I want to go out west and write for Madonna.”
“My, you do set your sights high,” you teased, and it was the first time I saw that bastard twinkle in your eyes that I would grow to love.
“Power of positive thinking,” I shrugged. “Why, what do you want to write?”
You cleared your throat and looked a little shy. “Liturgical music, actually. Psalm settings and Mass parts and hymns. There’s been so much happening in Catholic music in the last few years, and I’d love to be a part of it.”
I looked around the cafeteria at our classmates, the punks and misfits at our small, exclusive music college. “Is this the right place for that? We’re not exactly sitting at the epicenter of godly devotion or whatever.”
“Music is music, my dear,” you said with a smile. “Chords and intervals, rhythm and phrasing. It’s all the same mathematical system no matter what you’re writing. I can learn the fundamentals here as well as I can anywhere else.”
You leaned forward conspiratorially, as if you were about to share some delightfully filthy secret, and I couldn’t help leaning forward with you. “Besides, you should have seen the looks on my parents’ faces when I told them I wouldn’t be going to seminary.”
I couldn’t help throwing my head back in a cackle that definitely shredded any semblance of cool that I had managed to cultivate.
“No interest in being a priest, then?”
“None. At. All. It wouldn’t suit me, and besides — well, I’m not sure I would suit it either. There are things about me that, well —”
I don’t know if you know this, but there’s this thing you do when you’re not feeling sure of yourself, where you look off to the side and peer at me under your lashes, and every time you do, I want to drop everything and make it right, whatever it is that’s troubling you. You were doing it just then, begging me for — something, and as I peered across the table at you, it clicked. There are things you don’t say to a guy you just met, not in the middle of an epidemic that’s killing all your friends, not when the wrong word to the wrong person can get your ass beat, not when the guy sitting across from you is a skinny idiot with a chip on his shoulder so big that it’s a wonder his arm is still attached to his body. So for the first time since you turned my previously functional brain into a cesspool of swamp goo, I said the right thing.
“Hey, Aziraphale.” I don’t know what gave me the courage to reach out, to touch the back of your hand with a single fingertip, but I did it. “Me, too.”
“Oh — oh, really?” you stammered, and I nodded. “Oh, thank you —”
And suddenly, we were friends. You let me drone on about what I was writing, and we talked about music theory and pop culture and books and who knows what else, until you looked at your watch and squeaked that you had only ten minutes to make it to your next class. You hustled out of there, but not before you let slip that you had your organ lesson after class, that you covered the five o’clock Mass at a church out in Somerville every week. And after we’d been meeting up for lunches and study sessions and group trips to the movies for about a month, I figured you wouldn’t mind if I checked it out.
I got there about halfway through and slipped in the back, almost wondering if the consecrated ground would burn my feet. You were up in the choir loft with the organ, so I couldn’t see you, but the service was the usual stand-sit-kneel mumbo jumbo that I always hated as a kid. I definitely wasn’t going to go up and take Communion, so when people started to shuffle up for that, I sat back and shut my eyes, and that’s when you began to sing.
It was a tune I’ve never liked, and look, you and I have gone around and around on this one a thousand times since then. How I say all these new hymns are sappy, sentimental crap, and you look at me with those big eyes like I just ran over a puppy, and you argue that they make people happy and bring everyone together, and that’s good for the faith or some shit. I’m never, ever going to cede the point, because it’s just too much fun to watch you pout. But that day? That day I’ll admit that you got me. I sat there with my arm slung over the back of that hard pew, and I let my eyes drift up to the rafters, and I listened to your warm tenor voice floating over those impossible intervals, the constantly-shifting rhythm of the free verse, and it fucking melted me. It just did.
For to His angels He's given a command
To guard you in all of your ways
Upon their hands they will bear you up
Lest you dash your foot against a stone
And He will raise you up on eagles' wings
Bear you on the breath of dawn
Make you to shine like the sun
And hold you in the palm of His hand
I’ve had years to think about it now, and I’m not going to tell you I fell in love with you at that moment, although I’m pretty sure I was headed that way, almost in spite of myself. And I knew even then that you weren’t available, that you had mountains of shit to work through and that I was lucky you were even letting me be your friend. But fuck, Angel, we’ve talked so much about how music lays things bare, about how it’s honest in a way that words can’t always be. And something honest happened inside me that day, and it has stayed within me ever since.
Maybe I’ll get the courage to tell you about it someday. Or maybe I’ll just write another song about it, and hope one day you catch on.
December 1995
Cold are the people, winter of life
We tremble in shadows this cold endless night
Frozen in the snow lie roses sleeping
Flowers that will echo the sunrise
Fire of hope is our only warmth
Weary, its flame will be dying soon
The church is in semidarkness, illuminated only by the lights from the choir loft and the candles flickering up at the altar. It is just before midnight on Christmas Eve, and I am sitting at the organ, conducting the choir with the movement of my head as I play the accompaniment. Outside the church doors, the city is blanketed in snow, and I picture you that first winter in Boston, huddled deep in your new parka, growling up at the sky. You would be just as grumpy tonight, I'm sure, and yet I wish I could share this with you. I listen to the soaring voices around me, and the only thing that could make them more beautiful would be knowing you could hear them.
Newt comes in a little flat at the beginning of the second verse, and I smile, almost feeling the way you would wince, those expressive eyebrows of yours shooting right up into your hair. You were always such a professional, my dear, and now you are in a business that trades on perfection. But oh, I don’t mind the little mistakes, the odd clashes of personality. These people come to rehearsal every week because they love music, because this particular ministry is important to them. When I took this position two years ago, the choir needed someone to guide them, and it has been such a gift to watch them grow, to take joy in the music we make together. It is only fair that I should give back, too. A choir just like this nurtured me when I was a young teen, and without it I never would have had the courage to pursue music. And I never would have met you.
Anathema catches Newt’s eye from her place among the altos, and with a bit of a twinge I am reminded that love of music is not the only thing that brings my choir members together. I try to picture you, and I wonder what you are planning on doing tomorrow — oh, stringing a palm tree with Christmas lights, or spending the day on the beach with one of your boyfriends. After four Masses in less than twenty-four hours, I will be grateful for the quiet day at home. It is funny that we’ve ended up so far away from each other, so far from everything we’ve ever known. Some days — oh, I do miss you terribly. I can tell you that here, in my mind, where my regrets will not be a burden to you. But I’m not unhappy, not when I have my work and this community. The frost will eventually thaw, and spring will come.
Voice in the distance, call in the night
On wind you enfold us, you speak of the light
Gentle on the ear you whisper softly
Rumours of a dawn so embracing
Breathless love awaits darkened souls
Soon will we know of the morning
The young man who wrote this piece of music was a college student, completing a project for a music theory seminar. I can hardly help but think of you when I play it, of how we were so sure we could conquer the whole world from our little corner of the practice room. It has only been a few years, but already the world looks much larger to me than it once did, so many of the things I want beyond my ability to grasp. But I hold on to this piece of it, this moment, and wherever you are tonight, Crowley, I hope you know you are loved.