Chapter Text
I don’t know if I’m living or if I’m supposed to be
Crowley stormed into the penthouse flat he called home and looked around him. That sanctimonious little shit had really made him angry. He’d never truly thought he was good enough for Arthur, not really, but the man had always seemed so happy to see him, he hadn’t been able to stop himself lingering to chat when they had kept meeting up repeatedly. From the first moment he had seen him, pedalling along with that beautiful smile, his thoughts had verged on the obsessive, unable to get the man’s face out of his mind.
It had seemed like fate, the repeated coincidental meetings. Crowley had gone along with it, thinking each time would be the last he would see Arthur, never leaving any means to be contacted, believing that such a man, the personification of sweetness, would never be interested in someone as fundamentally flawed as he understood himself to be. Besides, he was stuck with what he was stuck with, and for a while now, he hadn’t seemed to be able to find the nerve to change that for himself.
He had met Gabe not long after college. The broad man with his expansive gestures and big plans had swept him off his feet, and before he knew it he had been installed in his penthouse, entirely dependant on his largesse. Gabe was older, worked in the city, was happy to dress him impeccably, give him the cash to rent a studio space, squire him around town on his arm.
The belittling remarks hadn’t bothered him initially, nor had the difficulties put in his way when he wanted to see his old mates from his college days. Gabe wanted the best for him, didn’t like him out of his sight. It was natural, he was a passionate kind of a guy.
The passion hadn’t lasted. Looking back, Crowley could no longer be sure it had ever existed on his side. He’d been impressed and overawed. It hadn’t taken long for the negative remarks and misinformation to make him feel unsure about himself. To begin with, he had wanted to sell his art. Gabe had prevented him from setting up a business to do so, saying he didn’t want Crowley to be disappointed when he failed, and asking why it wasn’t enough for him to content himself with being the partner of the biggest trader in The City. Gabe looked at his art and declared it amateurish and fit only for niche interests. Nobody made serious art on fantasy themes any more, it was so last century.
By the time he had met Arthur, Crowley had lost a lot of his confidence. Arthur had made him feel seen, made him feel special. He hadn’t been sure exactly what he had wanted when he turned up that day at the library. All he had known was that he had a need to see Arthur again, that he had missed him, and the affectionate banter of their conversations. He had got out of the habit of listening to his heart, ignored it for so long. He hadn’t heard it telling him that love was what he needed, to love and be loved, and that Arthur was the one his soul cried out for. It had seemed, for a while, that in his friend, he had found an echo of that call, an answer to it.
Crowley, alone in his silent room, finally saw the truth - that his need for Arthur was an expression of his desire to be free, free to love someone who listened to him, who cared to see him as he was. He wanted that so much.
He sat and hung his head. Of course someone like Arthur wouldn’t want to get involved with a person in a relationship. He’d been an idiot, he could see that now, telling himself that they were only friends as his feelings had deepened. In his heart of hearts he’d always wanted it to be something more, he’d just kidded himself that if he thought of it is a friendship, he didn’t have to think past the surface of the matter. In truth, the time they had spent together had represented the start of a love affair. He had got it all so wrong. He should have sorted things out with Gabe, found his feet as a free person and then gone to see Arthur with the scarf and offered his whole heart. Nothing less would be good enough for a man like that.
He had blown it though, said some terrible things to the man he loved. Made his bed, now he must lie on it, because there wasn’t anywhere else to go. He had made such a mess of his life.
Crowley took off his shoes and his tie and grabbed a bottle of Talisker. He was done. Gabe would be out all night with that tricksy lawyer person, Bee, so he was free to do what he wanted for the foreseeable. Crowley’s situation would look better from the other side of this bottle, where he could just pass out for a time like the shallow arsehole that he was. He picked up the bottle and a heavy-bottomed glass, grabbed his shoes and tie, and took the armful to his bedroom.
“That’s it angel - what a mess they both made of things, didn’t they?”
“What? - Crowley!” Aziraphale spluttered. “Surely we can’t just leave them there! That poor fellow is about to take his own life. Can’t we do something?”
“It’s already happened. They’ve made their choices, angel, now they’ve got to live with ‘em.”
“No, Crowley! It’s, uh, they, um…” Aziraphale floundered verbally, an expression of distress on his face, colour high on both cheekbones. “Oh bother!” he said
“What, angel?”
“They need each other, Crowley!”
“Why do you say that, Aziraphale? Remind you of anyone, do they?”
“You serpent, stop teasing me - you know they do.”
“What do you mean then?”
“It‘s obvious, you saw them together, Crowley.”
“Humour me Aziraphale, and explain.”
“Well, the librarian, Arthur, he was just so lonely. His whole life was altered by their friendship. He was appreciated and listened to and he did so much more with his time. He had been depressed. It seemed to me that the other fellow lifted his spirits - and he gave tacit permission for Arthur to be his whole self, the transgressive wicked side of him as well as the kind soul. He was transformed.”
“Yeah, angel, and the other human, he felt heard and valued too. I think he liked being admired and having his opinions listened to. He lacked self esteem because of that dickhead he was living with. Arthur helped him feel better about himself and lifted him out of the mindset the gaslighting and abuse had put him in.”
“Yes, dear, very well put. They are both decent people. I can see there is an issue concerning the rather odious man-friend of poor Anthony, but surely the answer is for Arthur to offer support and help him gather the courage to leave. Oh dear, this is most distressing - they get on so well, they’re perfect for each other. We can’t just leave them there to ruin their lives for lack of each other. Can’t we do something?”
His face was adorably creased with his concern as he signalled it to Crowley with a tiny further twitch upwards of his eyebrows.
Crowley looked at Aziraphale and let the silence between them lengthen. He raised an eyebrow and smiled.
“Perfect for each other, are they? Need each other, do they?”
Aziraphale huffed. “Oh do shut up. And stop looking at me like that.”
Crowley continued to look at him, in just the same way - like that.
“It’s not the same,” pouted Aziraphale, “they’re mortals, they are designed to need each other.”
“We’re no different, Aziraphale, and you know it.”
Aziraphale sat with his arms folded huffily. The silence stretched out again. Crowley edged nearer and wrapped an arm around his waist, shaking him a little. He felt the angel’s rigid stance soften, and his body unbend to lean against him as Aziraphale gave in, finally.
“Oh all right,” he said, a touch of petulance in his voice, that softened as he continued, “I admit it, I do need you, and I - I suppose you're saying you need me too. Which is rather lovely of you, thank you Crowley. And I do love you - very much. Happy now?”
“You have no idea, angel.” He pressed a kiss to Aziraphale’s temple, just below his hairline, and the angel shifted and wrapped his arm around the demon’s middle.
“Shall we get back to them angel, see what happened?”
“What!” said Aziraphale, pulling away slightly, outraged, “Do you mean to say the story isn’t complete, that there’s more?”
“Yeah, I just stopped time for a little while to talk to you, it felt like a good opportunity.”
“You tricked me, you fiend!”
“Yeah, I’m a demon. As you keep pointing out, it’s what I do.”
Aziraphale nudged him, feigning irritability.
“Oh you. You know I never meant it seriously.”
“Yeah, yeah, so you say now.”
“Well, you’ll just have to accept that I mean it now. Please unfreeze time, my dear, I want to know what happened next. And there had better not be any funerals!”
“I am yours to command, oh Prince,” said Crowley, snapping his fingers once more.
You made my soul a cell
Crowley was on his second glass of perfect, smoky Scottish malt whisky when it came to him. There had been tears, and these had occupied him for a little while. Now he stood looking around him at the room Gabe had given him in their vast apartment. Crowley slept here pretty much every night now, and had done for some time. The physical side of their relationship seemed to have died a death quite a while ago as things tend to do if not nurtured and encouraged. He spent a lot of time here, sketching, thinking. There was a half finished drawing of a smiling Arthur visible on the open page of a large sketchpad on his desk. Drink in hand, he walked over to look at it, tracing the lines of the face with the tip of his index finger.
Looking up, he noted how little the room expressed his personality. Apart from a couple of boxes of pens and pencils, and charcoal for sketching, and his clothes in the drawers and wardrobe, there was very little of himself in the cold grey box of the room. He found himself wondering why he was still here. There had been reasons, but he couldn’t quite grasp what they actually were. Gabe gave him so little these days, quite often they hardly saw each other.
Why did he stay? The immediate answer had usually been because he had nowhere else to go, no work history, no prospects and no idea of what he might do in the world. But that wasn’t true any more, was it? He had sold a painting, for a lot of money. The guy who bought it had asked about more, hinted that he might be interested in a commission, down the line. Crowley had money, he could make choices, the least he could do was to try and construct himself a life.
He walked into the spacious living room with its up-to-the-minute technology and elegant furniture. None of it belonged to him, none of it even appealed to him. He thought about the evening he had spent at Arthur’s flat once, stretched out on the ancient Chesterfield sofa there, laughing and joking, sparring with words. Watching Arthur open up like a flower under the sun of his attention, the way his eyes changed, how the skin around them crinkled up when he laughed. Crowley thought about how much he had wanted to kiss him then. There had been comfort, rest, and the possibility of peace and contentment. It came to him in a rush. This wasn’t home, it never had been. Arthur was home. Everything about him was what Crowley wanted.
Crowley could make choices, he really was free, if he wanted to be. Arthur might not take him back, but there was nothing stopping him from asking for another chance. Nothing at all stopping him from trying to make things right.
He put down the glass and sprang into action, going back into his room and drawing down his travel bag and portfolio from the top of his wardrobe. He took care of the sketchpads he had and the few drawings of his that were dotted about the place first, slotting them into the portfolio with all of the pencils and fancy pens he had in his room. After that, he went to his wardrobe, looking over its contents with a critical eye. He couldn’t bring himself to think of the really expensive stuff as belonging to him - it was what Gabe had used to buy him with and dress him up as suitable arm candy for a man of his status. At the back he found some jeans that he had bought back in the day, and a few shirts and henleys that weren’t designer. He took off his fancy suit and changed into the jeans and one of the henleys, looping an old silver bolo scarf around his neck. On went one of his ordinary jackets, and the other clothes he had chosen, he stuffed into the holdall, along with a few jumpers and all of his underwear and socks. He slung the holdall across his back, and shoved a pair of the Valentino sunglasses on top that he liked to wear when the day was too bright for his sensitive eyes.
Crowley took one last look around the flat, then picked up his portfolio and left, shutting the door behind him with a bang, and shoving his key through the letterbox. He was whistling as he waited for the lift, high on the adrenaline surge that had run over him once he had started acting on his feelings, and a little buzz left over from the couple of glasses of whisky he had drunk. The remainder of the bottle sat at the bottom of his hold-all. Gabe drank bourbon, so there was no point in leaving a bottle of the good stuff for him to waste. The thought that Arthur would undoubtedly appreciate it flittered across Crowley’s consciousness.
Arthur.
Crowley didn’t want to assume that Arthur would take him in, or even be pleased to see him, turning up at his flat at this time of night. He glanced at his watch, yes, it was late, nearly eleven o’clock. Arthur would still be awake, he had no doubt about that. Arthur had told him about his insomnia, and they had laughed at how different they were when Crowley confessed that he was capable of sleeping through his alarm. Yes, Arthur would still be up, and Crowley wanted to at least try to speak to him, to apologise and see if he could set things straight. Then he thought he would go on to a hotel, and make more concrete plans once he had slept for a night and spoken to the people from whom he rented his studio space, to change the name on the lease.
Crowley crashed through the main doors of the apartment complex and looked about him. Precious little chance of getting a taxi at this time of night. He would walk to Soho, it wasn’t far. His heart started pounding at the prospect of seeing Arthur again, and he broke into a run past the expensive buildings and on into the night.
And so the story ended. Do you know it oh so well?
He was out of breath by the time he got to the corner of Arthur’s street. The running hadn’t lasted, he was too out of condition to run, but he had walked as swiftly as he could, and now he was almost there.
He saw the crowd as soon as he turned the corner, and smelled the smoke a couple of seconds later. Two fire engines stood at angles across the street, and a couple of police officers were looping tape around the nearest lamp posts to keep the crowd away from where the firemen were working. There were jets of water aimed at the top floor of the building where smoke was billowing out of the eaves and the roof. At that moment there was the hollow thump of an explosion and the upper floor windows blew out, raining shards of glass over the straining bodies of the fire personnel beneath. A gout of flame issued forth from both windows in a rush, and Crowley could hear the roar as the conflagration sounded out its hunger for the increased oxygen supply.
It took Crowley a few seconds to comprehend exactly what he was looking at. That corner building, those windows - that was Arthur’s flat. Arthur, who liked to sit up late reading. Arthur who loved his books and his cup of cocoa before bed, whose face he had last seen in the half light by the duckpond at St James’s, trying very hard not to cry.
Crowley started forward, an incoherent wail of dismay bursting forth from his mouth. He could barely form the syllables of Arthur’s name as he ran, blindly to where the door to his flat had been. Hands gripped his shoulders and he felt himself being hauled back.
“Arthur!” he yelled. The man holding him, a huge bloke in a bulky, hi-vis coat was telling him to calm down.
“Let the men do their work sir, they’re trying their best.”
There was a huge crash as something inside the building collapsed, and the roar of the flames intensified. Crowley grimaced in anguish looking up at the flaming structure, then twisted his head to appeal to the man still holding him by his shoulders.
“Is he still in there? Do you know if any one got out before it…?” Crowley struggled in the man’s grasp, still filled with the desperate urge to move forward, to do something, anything.
“Just move back behind the tape sir,” the voice was steady, compassionate. The man holding him called over his shoulder to one of the figures in front of the tape. “Hey, Aziz, come and help me here. This one won’t take no for an answer.”
A police officer detached himself from the crowd and came over to Crowley, putting an arm round his shoulders and leading him back to where his colleague was standing. An ambulance had drawn up and paramedics were jumping out of it, slamming doors and pulling out bulky bags of kit. Constable Aziz led Crowley to the step of the vehicle and indicated it with his hand.
“Now sir, what seems to be the problem here?”
“ 'S m’friend, he was, was - in th-there.”
“Okay sir, you’re probably in shock. Take a seat and I’ll see if I can get you a blanket..”
“I don’t need a fucking blanket! I want you to get in there and find my friend.”
Crowley was shouting now, at the top of his lungs. Everything had gone wrong, he’d lost Arthur and now he was more than likely dead, and it was all his fault. If they hadn’t had that run-in with Gabe, if they hadn’t argued, they would probably still have been in some pub, chatting over a nightcap, or perhaps back at Arthur’s flat and in the position to somehow prevent what had happened. Either way, he was to blame. He subsided on the step of the ambulance and put his head in his hands.
“It’s alright sir, I can see that you are upset, just take a minute, there.”
Crowley took a minute, the first minute of his new life on his own and without Arthur. He saw drops splashing on to his shoes, the only thing he could see clearly from his position, head bowed, on the ridged step of the ambulance. He wondered if it was water from the fire hose for a moment, then noticed the warm wetness on his cheeks. His eyes were leaking, droplets spilling down his face, and there was nothing he could do to stop them as a fresh wave of desolation swept over him. He hunched his shoulders and curled into himself with the pain of his loss. Snatches of conversation drifted over to him where he sat - the people waiting around gawping at the spectacle giving each other the benefit of their views on what had happened.
“Lucky there was nobody in that old shop…”
“Poor chap, he was ever so polite, always a friendly word…”
“Wonder what caused it…?”
“These old flats, they’re a death trap…”
Then there were footsteps, and a wave of noise from the people who had been talking, a babbling as if a lot of people were speaking at once. He thought he heard the words ‘Mr Fell!’ Then another voice, coming from much closer to him.
“Crowley? Anthony? Is that you?”
There was the gentle pressure of a hand on his shoulder and he looked up to see a face surrounded by a halo of curls, backlit by the streetlight overhead. Arthur was there. Arthur, looking ridiculous in his pyjamas and dressing gown, with an overcoat slung around his shoulders and a pair of brogues on his bare feet.
“Hello Arthur,” he managed thickly. “Nice outfit.”
I’ll feel much better on the other side
When Arthur had gone to the cabinet where he kept his small supply of spirits to retrieve his whisky for washing his pills down, in the way that he had always envisaged doing the deed, it was to find that there was only the smallest measure left in the bottom of his bottle of Highland Park. He contemplated making do with mere water, and found that the thought just didn’t sit well with him. Realising how ridiculous he was being, fussing over what he was to drink as he took a fatal dose of drugs, he nonetheless slipped on a pair of shoes without bothering with socks, and reached for his trusty overcoat, shrugging it on over his dressing gown, then stuffing wallet and keys into its pockets in preparation for going out.
The walk to the nearest off-licence that stayed open past ten o’clock was a reasonably lengthy one, taking Arthur past various alleyways and bus shelters. It was in one of the latter that he came across an old acquaintance. Hunched up in an ancient army greatcoat, with his feet wrapped in newspaper, sat the Sergeant. He hailed Arthur when he saw him, and Arthur, not wanting to be rude, approached and sat down next to him, feeling the burden of his years and human body weighing heavily upon him.
From the fumes that blossomed around the old man every time he spoke, Arthur deduced that he was very drunk indeed. The Sergeant was always getting thrown out of homeless shelters all across the capital for his drunkenness and his habit of calling people ‘cunts’ and asking them how many nipples they had. The man had a fixation on the subject, and wouldn’t leave it alone once his mind turned to it. This evening he was in what might be termed a sentimental frame of mind. Arthur looked at him and felt a rush of affinity with the fellow - he looked so fragile wrapped up like that, his eyes bright with the effects of the alcohol and his own imaginings. Both of them had their coping mechanisms. The Sergeant his booze and fantasies about witches, Arthur his books and his music, and his abiding habit of emotional repression. For a moment he felt the both of them were just scraps of humanity in a vast and perplexing universe. They weren’t really so different, after all.
“It’s yourself, sor,” said the Sergeant, in his peculiar mixed-up accent. “How’re y’keepin’?”
He didn’t wait for a reply.
“Ah but you’re a fine man, Mister Fell, you’re a fine man althegither. D’yknow - d’yknow - d’yknow what we are after callin’ ye, doon at the hameless place? No?”
He leaned forward and gifted Arthur with an eye-watering blast of breath, thick with the fumes of the sherry and cider mix that was his habitual tipple.
“The lib’ry angel, thass what we cry ye, ya ken. Cuz yorran angel tae us, so you are sor, indeed.”
Arthur didn’t quite know what to say to this. He felt the prickle of tears behind his eyes again, such was his fragile emotional state. Fishing in his coat, he drew out his wallet, extracted the roll of money the he had in it, and peeled off thirty pounds for the whisky. The rest he folded in half, and thrust into the surprised hand of the Sergeant.
“There you go, old chap,” he said. “Go and buy yourself something to eat, and take care, there’s a good fellow.”
The Sergeant just gaped at him for a moment, then he brought his hand to his temple in a shaky salute.
“God bless you sor, you are a gennleman. A saint, thass what y’are, ’s th’truth.”
Arthur continued along the road deep in thought. His steps slowed and he gradually stopped walking altogether. While he had been talking to the Sergeant, his own problems hadn’t seemed so urgent, the oppressive feeling that had afflicted him since the scene in the Criterion seemed to weigh less heavily upon his spirits, and he was almost able to see beyond the fog that blurred his vision, as if it had lifted slightly.
Speaking to the elderly man had made him aware of a wider world beyond himself, and served to remind him that suffering was not something that was unique to him. He had been part of something bigger than himself all along, united with his brethren in their common humanity. Perhaps if others could bear the pain that their existence inflicted upon them, he could manage to deal with his own. It wasn’t much to hang a whole life upon, but he was aware that he felt a tiny, infinitesimal bit better than he had done when he set out.
Arthur was accustomed to berating himself for his failures, it was a habit he had fallen into years before, when his family had made it very clear to him how far short he fell in their estimation, how very much he did not represent what they had wanted him to be. He carried their disapprobation about with him like a burden, even after he had taken the decision not to spend any further time with them. This momentous step had been taken following on from one particularly disastrous Christmas, during which he had lost his temper and abruptly announced he was gay to the shocked assembly of relatives, after being asked one time too many what he was doing about finding a nice woman to marry.
Never in his life had he ever celebrated his successes. He wasn’t a saint, there had been moments of self satisfaction over the years: when he got his degree, when he had been successful in pursuing the job he had wanted in London, when his certificate of chartership had arrived in the mail after the long years of study. Then he had allowed himself to feel a little smug and happy at his own achievements. None of it had mattered very much in the longer term though. And he seemed constitutionally incapable of appreciating the little triumphs of his life, feeling that somehow they didn’t amount to very much. What if it was his attitude that was wrong, rather than his entire being? What if all this time he had been looking at the big things, and letting the smaller ones pass as if they were beneath his notice? What if he wasn’t as terrible a person as he had always assumed he was? Would that be enough, to keep on living for? Could he make it enough?
The approval of the Sergeant and his cronies might, on another day, not have seemed anything really significant. Tonight, though, it had touched him. Another human being thought well of him, and had appreciated the little offerings of kindness he had made. Arthur hesitated, and then turned to retrace his steps. He wouldn’t buy the whisky, he wouldn’t take the pills. Not today. He would go home and do his best to live through another day. In the event of that working out, he would try to get through the next one, and then the one after that. Perhaps he would put up a sign in his flat, like the ones they had on building sites:
This home has gone 7 days without the occupant having serious suicidal thoughts.
He allowed his mouth to quirk a little at this small attempt at humour. He had been a bit of a drama queen that evening, but perhaps it had been necessary. What Crowley had said that had hurt him so much in the park had been painful because it was true - he really did need to stop wallowing in self pity and get on with his life.
Crowley was right about so many things. Arthur found himself hoping that he might be able to remedy the mistakes he had made, apologise to Crowley and at least make his peace with him, even if Crowley no longer wished for them to continue their friendship. He would always love Crowley, and wish him well, whatever happened. He hoped, in time, he would be able to view that as a privilege, something to be proud of, rather than a source of heartache. He quickened his pace, wanting to get home and perhaps write his friend a letter, laying out his feelings and asking for forgiveness for his hasty words of earlier.
Arthur did hear the sirens in the distance, and he saw an ambulance speeding past, but deep in the contemplation of how he might word his proposed letter to Crowley, he didn't think anything of it until he saw a fierce orange glow against the skyline that had to be something other than the streetlights.
Now it seems, things are not so strange, I can see more clearly, suddenly I’ve found my way
“Arthur!”
Crowley had shot up under his hand when he spoke, and now his face was close suddenly. He held Arthur’s head, the fingers of one hand thrusting into the hair at the back of his skull, the other cupping his cheek lovingly. Those intense, pale brown eyes wandered over his face, frantically, as if Crowley could scarcely believe he was real. They stared at each other, Crowley stroking Arthur’s cheek with his thumb, his eyes red-rimmed and wet. When he spoke he sounded as if he had been running, breathless and overwhelmed
“Arthur! Fuck! You’re here, you’re alright. I thought I’d lost you, I thought you were dead…”
The way Crowley was looking at him thrilled Arthur down to his toes. The serious eyes assessing him, as if he was something special, as if he really was worth knowing. Crowley’s eyes closed and his face stilled as if he was invoking a higher power. He released Arthur’s head, and placed his hands on his shoulders, leaning their foreheads together. Crowley opened his eyes again and they gazed at each other, both sets of eyes suspiciously bright.
“Arthur,” he murmured, his voice low and tear-filled. “I - Oh shit. I love you, you know that - right? I love you so much and I thought you were gone…”
Arthur wrapped one arm around Crowley’s warm waist and pulled him close, placing his other hand on his friend’s back between his shoulder blades as Crowley buried his head into the space between the collar of his coat and his jaw. He held Crowley, rocking them both gently to and fro, fat tears coursing down his cheeks.
“Darling,” he said, into the tousled mop of Crowley’s hair. “Oh my darling, I love you too, I do, I really do. And I - I I’m sorry I said, I mean, I - I adore it when you call me angel, I always have. I am so sorry I said I didn’t. I’m so sorry for everything, my dearest Crowley.”
He was babbling, his voice breathless also, an urgent whisper laden with all the love and comfort he had harboured for this man, and never thought he would be allowed to express. They clung together like survivors of a shipwreck adrift on a stormy sea, until one of the policemen cleared his throat and tapped Crowley on the shoulder, asking if Arthur was in a fit state to speak to them now.
Arthur was taken away to be interviewed about the fire by the Detective Constable on the scene and one of the fire crew. Crowley told him he would wait, and sat on a bollard with his bag and portfolio until the talking was done and Arthur had promised to go to the local Police Station the next day to make and sign a formal statement.
“Arthur, come here,” said Crowley, once his friend was let go and started walking towards him. He opened his arms and Arthur walked in to them. They held each other, surer now, and glad of the warmth of each other’s bodies.
“I’m so sorry about your flat.”
“I think I’m having a bit of a moment here,” said Arthur, holding on to Crowley more tightly and looking up at the smouldering building. “It must have been the bath,” he said, pulling back a little to look Crowley directly in the eye. “I lit candles because the overhead light in the bathroom hurt my eyes. I suppose I forgot about them.”
They stared at each other, and then Arthur’s mouth quirked, and Crowley snorted a little, and then they were both laughing, clutching at each other and gasping. Arthur wondered how he, cautious thing that he was, could find it in him to laugh at a time like this. But he was alive, and Crowley was holding him, and in that moment, he couldn’t find it in himself to worry overly much about his possessions, or the trouble it was going to be to sort it all out. For now, he had the world in his arms, and everything seemed brighter than it had for such a long time. The thought that this was most likely hysteria, flittered across his mind, but he would worry about his wildly oscillating mood swings later, much later, probably, the way things were going.
“What on earth were you doing out on the street in your night clothes, you idiot?” said Crowley, wiping his eyes.
“Oh, ah, I’ll tell you the full story another time, my dear. Suffice to say, I felt the need for some decent Scotch, and I didn’t have any.”
He looked up at the ruin of his home again, and watched the smoke drifting lazily up from it now that the flames had been extinguished.
“I’ve nowhere left to go now,” he said, simply.
“Me neither,” said Crowley. “I’ve left him, Arthur. I realised it was what I wanted after I got back there. I was just coming to see you to say sorry for all the awful things I said. Then I was going to find a hotel.”
“Darling, I don’t want to sound forward, but perhaps we might find one together? There are things I would like to say to you, if I may.”
“Yeah, we could do that, couldn’t we? Nothing left to lose, after all.”
“Nothing left at all, in my case,” said Arthur, with a faint smile.
Crowley pointed at his bag on the floor by their feet, and the portfolio next to it. “That’s all I’ve got in the world, that and a bit of money in the bank - gonna see if I can make it by myself, angel. I think I can.”
“Of course you can darling. I believe in you.”
Arthur smiled, and stretched across to lift Crowley’s portfolio from where it leaned against the bollard, then reached out with his other hand, wiggling his fingers so that Crowley might know to take it. They had both lost everything, and that put them on an equal footing, no better place for both of them to start afresh from than that.
“We can rebuild our lives together, if you want. I think we might well be on our own side now.”
Crowley took his hand, threading their fingers together, and lifted his bag in the other.
“That sounds good to me, lead on, angel.”
They had a meal together first in an all-night cafe. It was hardly haute cuisine, but nobody glanced twice at Arthur’s pyjamas, or the fact that their hands were folded together on the top of the table all through their meal.
The hotel did have twin beds, but it turned out that they only needed one of them. Arthur discovered that night that he adored having Crowley twined round him in bed, and safe in that embrace, he slept like a log for the first time in years.
After the Fire Service investigation concluded, Arthur was formally notified that the candles were not to blame for the fire. Coincidentally there had been an electrical fault, so Arthur’s sensibly comprehensive insurance policy paid out. While they were waiting for the rebuild to be finished, they lived together in a tiny flat in Covent Garden, paid for by the insurance company. It was, as Arthur observed, a little bit of a baptism of fire, being on top of each other all the time (this had been said to much eye rolling from Crowley, accompanied by a fetching blush that made Arthur chuckle). It turned out that their living habits were quite different: Crowley liked to keep things neat, and Arthur was an absent-minded depositor of half filled teacups on every flat surface, but they made it work, somehow, and developed a habit of fond bickering that saw them through the worst of it.
Crowley painted, Arthur went to work. When Arthur’s flat was ready they argued about living together, Crowley going to sleep on a friend’s sofa when Arthur suggested that he might not want to live with him straight away. They lasted a scant two days apart before another tearful reunion, and then Crowley moved in. They decorated the place together and scoured the second-hand shops for furniture that appealed to both of them.
Crowley painted. Crowley sold his paintings. Arthur helped with the accounts. Encouraged by Crowley, Arthur started writing - a novel he’d been plotting in his head for years, but had thought he wasn’t good enough to write.
Crowley painted, and sculpted. Arthur wrote, and managed the money from the sales. Word got about, and suddenly, Crowley was given his first one-person show.
This is the time and life that I am living, and I’ll face each day with a smile.
The Hayward Gallery, South Bank
“Angel! You’re here, brilliant!”
Crowley came forward in the foyer and grabbed Arthur’s hands in his. Arthur leaned in and kissed him on the cheek.
“How are you feeling, dearest. Nervous?”
“A bit, but never mind that now. I want to show you something.”
Before Arthur could even take off his coat, Crowley had him by the arm and was dragging him through the rooms of the gallery to the largest one at the back. Crowley’s art looked magnificent across every wall of the prestigious venue, beautifully framed, hung and illuminated. Arthur was bursting with pride, but also curiosity. Crowley had undoubtedly been keeping something from him, exhibiting a poorly concealed excitement whenever he refused to discuss the arrangements with Arthur for the private view. There was definitely something going on.
They turned a corner, and there it was, three tall panels taking up an entire wall. On the right hand panel, tall and regal looking, stood a naked black man with a staff in his hand next to a riot of flowering bushes and a fountain that appeared to sparkle and flow under the gallery lights. His longing gaze was fixed on the figure in the panel opposite, a beautiful black woman, straight-backed and strong, a cloud of dark hair surrounding her face, standing next to a tree laden with blossom and fruit. Her arm was stretched out gracefully, and in the hand at the end of it lay a perfect red apple, with one crisp bite taken out of it. A droplet of juice shone on her lip. In the centre and largest panel stood the imposing figure of an angel, clothed in pure white and shining gold, in its hand a flaming sword. The most remarkable thing about the figure was the huge black snake draped about its shoulders, its raised head showing the red scales of its underbelly. Its slit pupils stared at the angel as if hypnotised, and the angel gazed at it, a fond expression on its face.
Arthur knew that face, he saw it in the mirror every morning when he shaved.
“Oh goodness, this is magnificent!” he said, and blushed and looked sideways at Crowley. “That’s me, isn’t it? You’ve made an angel out of me.”
“Yup,” said Crowley. “The Guardian of the Eastern Gate - that’s you, getting friendly with the Great Adversary. I like the symbolism - opposites attract.” He was grinning now
“Oh you!” said Arthur, then turned to Crowley with a slight frown. “But darling, you told me you were painting this the time I met you at the concert.”
“I started it months before that, angel. First time I saw you in the park, set me thinking.” He wrapped an arm around Arthur’s waist, and pulled him close.
“That long ago?” said Arthur.
“Yeah, kinda. You’ve always inspired me, even before I knew you. Listen, I wanted to tell you, but I’m not as good with words as you. Since we’ve been together I’ve never had so many ideas and dreams about what I want to do and it’s all because of you.”
“Surely not,” said Arthur. “It’s your native talent, dear, you have an extraordinary mind, don’t undersell yourself.”
He tried to move away and give Crowley a disapproving look, but Crowley merely pulled him even closer.
“You talk to me, and you tell me what you’re reading, and you get excited about the documentaries you see on TV and we discuss my ideas, and it’s brilliant, it encourages me to think and be ambitious. So when you get out your Brewer’s Book of Fables, or whatever it’s called, and read out stuff about Greek mythology, or tell me Russian fairy tales, it incubates in here,” he pointed at his temple. “And eventually, it ends up there,” he gestured to the wall in front of them. “I couldn’t do this - well maybe I could do it - but I couldn’t do it as well as I have been doing lately. You do inspire me, love. And this is where it all started.”
“Well you inspire me too, darling, every day, to make the most of my life, and strive to be happy.”
“Yeah?”
“Absolutely - every single day.”
They stood and took in the huge canvasses in front of them, arms around each other’s waists. They had found each other, and saved themselves, and in that moment, everything was love, and love was, as it should be, everything.
“Thank you, Crowley, that was most satisfactory.”
“You’re just an old sap, I always suspected as much.”
“I suppose I am. Would you care for some wine, darling?”
“Darling am I now?”
“Yes. Yes - I do believe you are. Any objections?”
“You’ll be getting none from me, angel.”
"I love you Crowley.”
“I love you too, Aziraphale.”