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The world looks different after he falls – Hell is swathed in red and gold light, radiating from the walls, the flames, the sulphur, the demons, so bright it makes his head hurt and his eyes ache. The heat would be unbearable, were it not for the rising roar of his pulse in his ears as he realises; he can’t see anything beyond the heat.
…
He had thought that Eden would look different to Hell – more like how he remembered Heaven surely – faces and features, what had happened to the faces and features? – seeing as humans were supposed to be so highly favoured – and yet all the creatures emitted a similar glow to the demons. But where demons glowed bright reds and oranges, these beasts pulsed with yellows and greens, cooler than the pits of Hell yet just as bright. The landscape was largely bathed in blues and violets, the topography taking him time – time was strange, he felt he was still having trouble getting used to it – to learn how to navigate, following the glowing trails of heat left by animals in their wake.
How he managed to find the forbidden tree, really, was a complete accident, but if anyone asked Crawly – Crowley, soon – he would put it down to a miracle of his own making. Or, that he actually saw it.
Finding the angels though? That was beyond easy. The delicate emission of holy light glowed white-hot and gave him the beginnings of what would soon be known as migraine headache – it, in a way, was like looking directly at the sun; a jab of pain that withered to a growing dull ache, where black spots danced across his vision. He largely went out of his way to avoid them.
So Crowley wasn’t really sure why he sought out the angel at the Eastern Gate after what he privately considered to be a bit of a disaster – Eve hadn’t even asked questions, although going directly against and order without question was, perhaps, Not Such A Good Idea (not his problem though, even if he thought the punishment was a little harsh). Perhaps it was simply that Aziraphale happened to be standing where the best view of the retreating backs of the humans was, their yellow warm glow fading into the distance, cold compared to the bright-white heat of the angel’s flaming sword.
Crowley couldn’t see the angel’s expression as he fretted over the sword and the humans, nor could he see the look of naked relief of Aziraphale’s face when he reassured him of his decision – sarcasm or not, he thought dryly – but, he could sense the anxious shifting of the angel’s feet and fidgeting fingers. In the height of midday, such as it was, that angelic aura – halo? He didn’t remember it looking like that Before, but well, everything looked different, wrong even these days. Colour itself seemed to be on a completely different spectrum – almost didn’t hurt to look at, so long as Crowley kept his gaze slightly off-centre. Despite himself, Crowley found the angel’s anxiousness endearing, – Oh, I like this one – and his act of kindness – he just! Gave away! His God-given holy flaming sword! Without thinking about it! Or questioning it! Because he! Actually! Cared! (Oh, I really like this one) – absolutely blew away any pre-existing ideas – prejudices, really – about this angel – just Aziraphale specifically though. He briefly considered shifting back into a snake and wrapping himself around Aziraphale – he did look awfully, vibrantly, warm.
…
Crowley was absolutely determined he was going to drive a car.
Did it matter that he could just barely make out the outline of said car – the Bentley – against the identically shaded rest-of-the-non-living-world?
Did it matter that, despite a deep-seated and near-constantly reinforced hatred of horses, it was actually – at least, in theory, horses also for whatever reason had a deep-seated and reinforced hatred of him – easier to just ride a horse seeing as – he wasn’t sure if he should applaud himself for the pun or not – he could, actually, see a horse? – again, in theory, it was more like the horse glowed orange-yellow against the otherwise dark world, although he supposed that did make them easier to find, even if he couldn’t differentiate them. (The number of horses he had accidentally stolen…)
Apparently not, because, for whatever hellish reason, Crowley really really wanted the car.
And there was no-one at all who would even consider it necessary to convince him otherwise.
It had, admittedly, taken Crowley a few decades to figure out how to navigate a world that was not designed to cater to – well, at least the human parts weren’t, but those were the most interesting – people who viewed the world from his particular perspective on the colour spectrum. It was all well and good for snakes and mosquitos to see in infrared; they only needed to navigate to their next meal – and avoid predators, he supposed, but that was irrelevant. Crowley needed to make sure he didn’t fall off bridges… or walk into walls… or into the river (again). There was also the teeny tiny issue with tempting and manipulating humanity, without being able to perceive the more minute aspects of their body language – thank Someone for his additional demonic senses or he’d never get any of his work done.
The fact that Aziraphale had yet to pick up on the fact that Crowley was – technically, most probably at least – legally blind, was definitely a small and guilty point of pride in the demon, especially since it appeared to be the only lie he could consistently maintain with any sort of competency. The secret was simply that Crowley had never actually said he could see in the same way that Aziraphale could; he’d just… never corrected him when he assumed, and now 6000-ish years had passed and he honestly wasn’t quite sure how he’d bring it up anyway – “oh hey angel, by the way I can’t actually see anything without a heat signature and also yours gives me a migraine but I love you so thank someone for sunglasses, right?”.
So, the fact that humans had now invented a new method of independent travel, that miraculously wasn’t alive, after Crowley had bitched and moaned about horses – and camels! They spit, it’s gross, even to a demon – for between 5000 and 6000 years, meaning that, in a way, in order to maintain said lie about his vision, he should… probably… give it a go.
At least that’s how he justified it beyond the aesthetics he could just barely make out in the dim. He also had a good feeling about the demonic properties’ that petrol emissions had the potential for – honestly though, would humans ever get the hint that lead was in fact, really, really bad for them?
…
As it turned out that being a demon with a rather vivid imagination – a trait frequently used to avoid tripping and crashing; can’t walk into a lamp post if said demon specifically imagines that he will not, in fact, walk into a lamp post – made it a lot easier to teach himself how to drive a car without any instructions beyond the “tips” the man who had sold him the vehicle had graced him with. By the 1940s, Crowley felt he had the hang of it – if miracles where involved to work the gears, keep him on the road, and keep anything else out of his way, Crowley couldn’t possibly say; if the Bentley got its own private revenge by refusing to play any music besides Best of Queen long before one Freddie Mercury was actually born, it only delighted, if slightly confused the demon.
The thing was, that while there were in fact a great many hindrances that came with his particular brand of sight, there were also some benefits, one of which had come into particular effect since all the other angels and most demons besides himself and Aziraphale had retreated from Earth. There was nothing on Earth the glowed that specific warmth that angels did, bright enough that Crowley could easily pick out Aziraphale across rather large distances, the light and heat strong enough to be emitted through stone, which was, admittedly, how Crowley had located him in the Bastille, amongst other encounters.
So after waking from a roughly 80 year nap, taking roughly 20 years to teach himself to drive the Bentley after that rather rough parting the previous century – it was, in a word, rough, apparently – Crowley figured he really shouldn’t have felt the surprise he did when he saw Aziraphale going into a church – he was an angel, Crowley reasoned with himself, he did go into churches occasionally – somewhere that was decidedly not his Soho bookshop, from which Crowley could normally see Aziraphale from his own flat on the other side of London.
Yet he couldn’t help but follow him – he could sense the ill intent of the three Nazis a mile off, even if Aziraphale apparently couldn’t. (If Crowley had in fact additionally heard rumours about a certain “gullible idiot” – well, you’d never hear it from him, but if he ever heard you say that about Aziraphale with him in earshot? Well, you’d better hope you had health insurance.)
The church burned worse than the angelic light that he had long since gotten used to from Aziraphale, and he could just barely make out the sting from the blessings on the holy water from where he hopped about on the consecrated ground – really, this would have been the most opportune time to shift into a snake and wrap himself around the angel but that had its own impracticalities, and also what if it spooked Aziraphale? He wasn’t even sure Aziraphale would welcome his presence as it was, given how they had last left things off.
In the end, it was all Crowley could do to hide his giddiness; the whole plan had gone rather flawlessly, if he did say so himself, he’d even managed to save the books when he’d realised at the last second that Aziraphale was so focused on protecting both himself and Crowley - a fact that Crowley would definitely be agonising over later that night - that Aziraphale really had forgotten all about the books. It did mean, however, that when Crowley handed the books back over and offered the angel a lift, he completely missed the journey of expressions on Aziraphale’s face.
Really though, he was also very excited to finally show off the Bentley to his best-friend-maybe-possibly-love-of-his-life-who-he-was-now-on-speaking-terms-with-again.
And if Aziraphale actually screamed at Crowley for doing 90 miles in London without his headlights on – it wasn’t Crowley’s fault really, he couldn’t actually see the speedometer, and honestly angel, it’s after curfew during the bloody Blitz you can’t just turn on the headlights, honestly… - well, you’d never hear it from Crowley.
…
Humans called it “Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation”. For Crowley, that’s just how space looked to him these days.
The thing was, was that he could in fact still remember with perfect clarity what it had all looked like Before – a recollection Crowley drew on as he stressfully poured through his copy of the Big Book of Astronomy, or, well he assumed that’s what it was called, he couldn’t precisely remember the title. Aziraphale had gotten him the book at some point, yet it mostly sat untouched on Crowley’s coffee table – as much as he was sure he would have loved the book (the pictures! He built some of this stuff!) Crowley, unfortunately, couldn’t see what was on the pages except to the residual heat left from his own trailing fingers.
No matter, it didn’t take long for Crowley to remember Alpha Centauri, the corresponding book page floating obediently in front of him as Crowley focused on the nebula. Almost immediately, Crowley rushed back out of the apartment towards where he could already see Aziraphale, his plants – just marginally lighter than the surrounding room – quivering in his wake.
…
Post Armageddon left them both with way more time than two unemployed – well, Aziraphale had the bookshop, so technically he was employed, however loosely the term was used – immortal beings should ever have been allowed. It made for a lot of “celebratory” lunches, was gradually simply became routine – Crowley arrived at the bookshop at ten, and together they either walked or drove to where ever Aziraphale wanted to eat. Humans definitely would have considered them dates, and if either being had bothered to ask, they both would have realised that the other also considered them to be dates – but that was neither here nor there.
“it’s so hot” Crowley moaned as he and Aziraphale walked back to the bookshop after a particularly good meal – even Crowley stole food off Aziraphale’s plate, just to see what the fuss was – “it’s making the roads look all funny.” The roads were in fact a bright fuck-off red – it eerily reminded him of Hell, a fact that deeply unsettled Crowley and made him ever so slightly skittish.
“What do you mean dear?” Aziraphale’s hand loosely held Crowley’s in his own, a small miracle doing its best to keep the angel from sweating under all his layers in the middle of summer – I have standards, Crowley!
“…nothing. Forget I said anything. Just the heat getting to me”
“Oh dear. Shall we get ice-cream?”
…
Crowley knew better than to implement his usual tricks to miracle things out of his way in Aziraphale’s bookshop, but it had never mattered after his first visit to the shop, since whilst Aziraphale regularly rearranged his books to make things as difficult as possible for potential customers, he had never, as far as Crowley had noticed, ever actually moved any of the furniture or shelves.
So really, Crowley throwing open the door to the bookshop – after hours of course, although it wasn’t as if the shop really had many hours – and sauntering in towards Aziraphale’s desk, the conversation already started, same as he had always done for the last 200 years… well, he had never previously given reason to expect any change in the routine.
So it really did come as quite a shock when Crowley, mid-sentence, ran straight into a bookshelf right in the middle of his usual pathway, causing him to land flat on his arse, several novels – and since they were largely first editions, they were large and leather-bound and rather heavy– falling onto his chest and face.
“Wha-?! When did you-? That wasn’t there yesterday!” He spluttered, thoroughly humiliated.
Aziraphale blinked in shock from where he was seated at his desk sorting through yet more books. “Well… yes, dear, I suppose it wasn’t there yesterday, or the day before that either for that matter. But I don’t see how that changes the fact that those shelves were right in front of you. Surely you must have seen them?”
“Ngk”
Aziraphale’s brow wrinkled further in confusion as Crowley’s embarrassed flush turned slightly panicked. He remained silent, which only increased Crowley’s growing stress, the lack of sound or continued verbal stimulus making it difficult for him to properly gauge precisely where the angel was at, so to speak.
Crowley sat up slowly and curled in on himself, staring blankly at where he assumed one of the books had fallen – he traced in lightly with a finger when he found in, fiddling with the binding as he thought about how to phrase what he needed to say. He probably needn’t have bothered, or perhaps he should have taken more time since he really didn’t end up being all that eloquent.
“…angel…” he started, “I, ah… so I can’t… I don’t… Ngk.”
“I’m sorry?”
Crowley rubbed a hand over his face and tried again.
“So, I might maybe possibly be kinda slightly blind,” he said to his feet in a rush.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I… I just walked into a bloody bookshelf Aziraphale! I can’t see shit!”
The following discussion was definitely well and truly long overdue. Aziraphale felt more than slightly foolish that he hadn’t picked up on Crowley’s predicament at all – he had thought that Crowley miracled everything out of his way simply for the chaotic effect it had on the humans around them, had never even considered that the reason that Crowley so rarely ordered food when they went out and when he did, he simply stated “I’ll have whatever’s good” or “whatever’s drinkable” was because he simply couldn’t read a menu (the fact alone acutely horrified Aziraphale) (Crowley would possibly remain forever annoyed that in 6000 he was yet to figure out reading – it wasn’t as if braille was widely available anyway if he felt the urge to copy humans), or that the minimalist design of his flat was actually to simply avoid tripping hazards. The fact that Crowley had let Aziraphale believe for 4000-ish years that he wore dark glasses to hide his eyes from easily panicked humans, instead of the much more vulnerable justification that they allowed him to actually look directly at Aziraphale without feeling like he was going to pass out – he still sometimes felt like he might faint around the angel, but that was completely unrelated to how bright Aziraphale was, although you would never in 6000 years make Crowley admit what that reason was; however obvious it might be it literally everyone else besides said angel – was more than slightly endearing to Aziraphale.
Somehow, they ended up in the back room on the couch, and somehow wine may have gotten slightly more involved than it should have – this sounds like they were rather drunk, which they weren’t, comfortably sitting at around slightly tipsy, but honestly there wasn’t any part of this that really needed any level of alcohol involved. Really.
“You’re warm” Crowley mumbled into Aziraphale’s shoulder from where he was curled into his side. The angel hummed softly in response, one arm draped gently over the demon’s side, a book now propped open in his lap.
“Read to me?” Crowley asked, quietly enough that he could almost pretend he hadn’t said anything. May not have seen it, but he could feel how Aziraphale moved to accommodate the smallest of smiles.
“Okay.”