Archive of Our Own

“Christ almighty!” 

Crowley clutches his chest as he walks out of the screening room. Last time he got a scare like this, there was a naked Archangel in the bookshop. But oh, this could be infinitely worse than Gabriel.

“Crowley less-mighty! What’s uuuup?” Jesus answers. 

For a second, Crowley is flattered that Jesus remembers him. Of course, they hung out a bit back in the old days, in the old kingdoms. When Jesus had a gang and a less groomed facial hair situation going on. 

But it’s definitely not a good thing for Jesus to be back on Earth, in this cinema of all unholy places, in all His hot Hozier-like glory. 

Crowley blinks a few times in hopes it’s just his eyesight that needs adjusting. Maybe he shouldn’t have drunk all those mini flasks he smuggled in. 

Jesus is wearing a horribly colourful ‘I am Kenough’ hoodie that makes Crowley thank the stars that he’s wearing sunglasses. But that isn’t even the weirdest part of this all. That would be the fact Aziraphale is hooked into His elbow like an ill-fitting 3D puzzle piece.

They haven’t seen each other since… okay. Since Aziraphale stepped into that elevator to his Heavenly corporate job and some other, peripheral stuff happened. Crowley stops his hand from automatically rising to his lips. 

Stop. None of that.

Wait. Was Aziraphale just not planning to tell him he had come back to Earth?

“Where did you pop out of?” Aziraphale says, and it’s his ‘still a demon, then?’ voice.

No. Crowley’s not having any of this. He lifts his chin. He probably isn’t swaying too hard on his feet. He’s good at holding his liquor, he believes. That’s the old repressed angel part of him that’s an expert at believing. 

“Oh if it isn’t the Supreme Archangel and Commander of the Host,” he says, taking a deep bow. “If you must know, I went to see Oppenheimer but I’m leaving early. Before the boring bits.”

Aziraphale’s smile falters, and he unhooks himself a little awkwardly from the Son of God. 

“Wait…”, Jesus says, pointing between the two of them, smiling goofily. “Aren’t you two hereditary enemies?”

What did He just call them?

“There’s a piece of popcorn stuck to your ‘I am Kenough’ hoodie,” Crowley snaps. 

Jesus lifts up the fabric and sucks it up into his mouth. 

Crowley and Aziraphale stare at each other. What else is there to say between them? Crowley’s said it all, is the problem. Too much. 

He clears his throat. “So, Jesus, what have you been up to? You haven’t shown your face on Earth apart from maybe on a few pieces of toast.” 

That gives Jesus pause. “Not much,” He says. “Mom put me in Middle Management.”

Crowley nods with some sympathy. That’ll kill anyone’s (holy) spirit. 

Speaking of spirit, he quickly finishes another tiny flask of Single Malt. It courses through his veins, heating him up from the inside out. “I must say, Jesus, buddy. You haven’t really crossed my mind in ages… get it? Crossed?” 

Aziraphale looks increasingly nervous and fidgety.

“You should’ve let me know you were co–”

That’s when the angel grasps his hand and pulls him away, telling Jesus to wait just a second. 

Aziraphale demon-handles him into the loos and Crowley definitely does not think about how the touch of his hand feels like a live wire and also simultaneously as not enough. 

Aziraphale lets go of his hand and pushes him up against the wall, next to the urinals, where a guy is hastily tucking himself away, fumbling with the zipper. Once the man’s disappeared, mumbling “at least use the cubicles”, Aziraphale seems to come to his senses and lets go of Crowley.

“You have to help me,” Aziraphale pleads.

Crowley raises his eyebrows. Oh, is that how it’s going to be?

“I already told you I’m not interested in being your second in command.”

Aziraphale’s eyes briefly dim. That does, of course, nothing for Crowley. Nope. He’s stoic. Unaffected. Forever a demon, unfeeling. 

“No, as my, as my f–” Aziraphale wipes his hands nervously on his vest. “You can certainly guess why Jesus is here, can’t you? There’s, there’s. There’s only one reason why Jesus would come back to Earth and I – Oh Crowley, I’m in so much trouble.”

Deep breath.

“They told me, right away, when they put me in charge, well they told me that the big project I was supposed to manage, um, it was the Second Coming.”

Okay. That certainly sobers Crowley up real quick. 

“And I’m supposed to, well, bring him to Earth to dole out the Final Judgment things and stuff. But I said, Jesus, you just have to see the Barbie film first. I was improvising! I’d seen an ad for it on a London bus that drove by! I was desperate! This is our fifth time we’ve seen it now.”

“Well at least Jesus is definitely a feminist,” Crowley says. 

But Aziraphale looks so sad. Crowley composes himself. He’s still trying to process it all. “So you’re telling me you’re postponing the Second Coming by taking Jesus to Barbie?”

“Not just Barbie. I took him to my favourite restaurants, too. And we went on a minibreak to Naples. And we visited Maggie’s record store. We went through all the classic composers. I’m running out of ideas here!”

Crowley heaves a deep sigh. Yes, it kind of hurts to see Aziraphale, and see him thriving as Jesus’s new best bud. To see him still go along with Heaven’s plan even if he’s trying to sabotage it a little, too. He’s still wearing the uniform. 

They could be on Alpha Centauri together. 

They could be at the Ritz.

But this is bigger than whatever’s going on between the two of them.

This is about humanity. And while humanity’s been doing an excellent job at Oppenheimering all over themselves, Crowley doesn’t really want to say goodbye to all this. He’s in no mood for an ego battle between Heaven and Hell at the cost of millions of lives and frankly, too much paperwork. Otherwise, what’s it all been for?

“Right,” he says, and pushes past a startled Aziraphale, out of the loos. 

“Hey Jesus, my old pal,” Crowley says, putting on a big salesman smile. “How about we go to the Eras Tour this weekend?”

“Taylor Swift? Do you want Him to desire the complete destruction of humanity faster?” Aziraphale whispers into his ear as he follows. 

Crowley pays him no mind and presses three tickets into Jesus’s hands, demonic miracling the concert a year earlier in the process. “These are hard to come by”, he tells Him, even though he just miracled them. 

Crowley did have a big hand in inventing TicketMaster, he remembers with some pride. It had earned him quite the reputation in Hell.

“I do have a lot of eras to catch up on,” Jesus admits. He combs His hand through His locks and it makes Crowley miss his own longer hair a bit. 

“We should head back now,” Aziraphale says, looking at Crowley rather like someone pinned him to him like a butterfly to a board. 

“Can we just take the donkey now? I really prefer it over the tube,” Jesus says.

“We don’t really… Uh, I only have, uh, I could get us an Uber,” Aziraphale says hesitantly. 

That’s how Crowley ends up giving them a ride in an annoyingly chipper Bentley. Somehow the car has gotten into the habit of choosing whichever song to play. It chooses Jesus He Knows Me by Ghost. Cheeky bastard.

—

When Taylor Swift dives into the podium, Jesus nods with approval. “I love a good water based miracle!”

They’re in the lower bowl of the stadium and somehow Aziraphale has gotten Crowley to go on a food haul thrice already, even though the angel claims not to be a swiftie. Crowley very nearly missed the All Too Well ten minute version and that would’ve been harder to forgive than being romantically rejected for bloody Heaven. 

Not that he has forgiven that. 

Anyway, Crowley doesn’t really consider himself a Taylor Swift fan as much as he considers her a triumph in his attempts to make ‘country pop music’ a thing.

“Still unsure if we should have come. The Wembley Stadium is so depressing,” Aziraphale says.

“Thank you,” Crowley says. 

Satan himself made his apartment a whole three feet bigger as a bonus after Crowley told Downstairs that he got that one made. Vice had once called it “possibly the worst venue in the world”. It was soulless, they’d said. 

And really, all Crowley had to do was make a few suggestions. As usual, humans did it to themselves.  

Now, it’s full of life, though. The swifties are causing mini earthquakes jumping up and down. They’re bursting eardrums. If Crowley was still playing for their team he’d report it back to Hell. 

He didn’t miss that, no. If he was honest with himself, the time when he was free from Hell and just hanging out with Aziraphale whenever he wanted, had been the happiest he’d been in 6,000 years. 

Crowley sighs deeply.

“I have to admit, this Miss Swift is good at what she does,” Aziraphale says. 

“Taylor, you’ll be fine!” Crowley yells. “Huh? Yeah, she’s okay.”

“It’s no Beethoven of course.”

“Or Debussy,” Crowley says, guessing Aziraphale’s next words. 

“The what?” Jesus sounds confused.

Crowley gestures dismissively. Nothing for Jesus to worry about. 

The god-among-men better be happy and enjoying Himself. He got Him the blue crewneck after all. Had to miracle away a few fans’ credit cards for that one. 

Screams rise from Wembley that’ll certainly be heard all the way up in Heaven. It’s the surprise song: Right Where You Left Me. 

Oh, they’re really in it now. 

Not this. 

Friends break up, friends get married

Crowley feels Aziraphale shift a little nervously next to him as ninety thousand fans shout the lyrics like a chant. Like an angelic choir of accusation. 

You left me, oh, you left me no,

you left me no choice but to stay here forever

Something constricts Crowley’s throat. Something hangs from his hands like weights, making him sway like a ship on a restless ocean. 

“Right,” Crowley says. “We better leave now to get ahead of traffic. It can be frustrating, trust me I know.”

“You’re right, let’s go,” Aziraphale quickly agrees.

They look over to Jesus, who’s sporting two full arms of bracelets by now. He studies one of them closely, squinting His eyes. “Hey Azz, what are ‘gyllenballs’?”

“Use my full name, please, oh Lord.” Aziraphale pulls Him away as he follows Crowley through the sad, hollow guts of the arena. Maybe Aziraphale was right: this is no place for Jesus. This is abandoned by God. 

When Crowley starts the Bentley, the smug thing begins playing Last Kiss by Taylor Swift. No. No more, please. Enough. 

Aziraphale almost drops the reusable Eras Tour water bottle he made Crowley buy him, by breaking the world record fastest time of tensing one’s whole body up. 

Crowley takes control of the music. 

Dreams by Fleetwood Mac should do it. He pushes down on the gas pedal. This is now a fast-moving party for one and Aziraphale (and Jesus) will just have to deal with this.

Thunder only happens when it’s raining.

Players only love you when they’re –

– ZAP –

Say yes to heaven

What the actual fuck? Crowley’s knuckles pale around the steering wheel. 

Say yes to me

It feels like a brick dropping into his stomach. This isn’t the Bentley’s work. He glances at Aziraphale. Looking all angel-like and innocent.

Time for another demonic miracle. Two can play this game. 

– ZAP –

Ohhh, heaven is a place on Earth, Belinda Carlise sings. 

That’s bloody right it is.

– ZAP –

This is me trying.

Crowley scowls. No it bloody isn’t.

– ZAP –

We could have had it alllllllll

– ZAP –

I try to remember the wrath of the devil was also given to him by God

How dare he? How very dare he? Crowley presses down even harder on the gas. The car’s zapping through London traffic, by some miracle (Crowley can guess whose) not hitting anyone at all. 

Then, Jesus pipes up. “Can’t we just listen to some bebop?” 

One of His bracelets snaps and big white letters and pink beads roll all over the Bentley’s floor. 

Oh. Ohhhhh. This was the very last thing Crowley ever did for Aziraphale.

— 

The next thing they do, is eat sushi. 

They’re in a very tiny, very fancy, very expensive restaurant in the middle of Soho and Jesus keeps secretly multiplying the fish to cut down on the bill. 

“You were right, Zira,” Jesus says, “I couldn’t not eat at this place before destroying it.”

“What’s He on about?” Nina slurs. Crowley suspects there’s been a little too much turning water into wine going on too. 

Oh. Just as well. 

“Nothing,” Crowley soothes her, and watches her steal a Dragon Eye off Maggie’s plate.

Why on Earth Aziraphale thought it was a good idea to invite them here, as well as Muriel, totally eludes him. Jesus “likes big meal events”, he’d said. But now they are all here, with not a lot to talk about other than the quality of the soy sauce, and dangerously avoiding the elephants in the room.

He knows Maggie and Nina must be dying to hear if they’ve ‘figured it out’. But surely, Aziraphale hasn’t told them about The Kiss?

Oh, and then there’s the impending Second Coming, of course. Loads of sensitive topics to be avoided. Worse than Christmas dinners with your right wing family. 

“It’s an honour to share a meal with Jesus,” Maggie says. “Gosh, I never thought I’d be doing anything like this! Of course, after we threw fire extinguishers and encyclopaedias on murderous demons’ heads, I should have been prepared for anything. But dinner with Jesus?”

She pauses, and frowns. “Wait, this doesn’t forebode anything sinister, right?”

She turns to Jesus. “I know your last meal didn’t go too well.”

“What do you mean? It was lovely,” Jesus says. He points, however, at the decoration on the wall. It’s a little crucifix with a miniature Him bleeding and wearing a thorn crown. “Now that is in poor taste, if you ask me.”

Crowley glances over at Aziraphale. 

Why did he agree to come here? They don’t really need him for this. Normally Aziraphale only calls upon him for three reasons: he’s bored, he needs to tell someone about something clever he did, or something’s wrong. 

Clearly, nothing’s wrong. Aziraphale looks perfectly happy. Delicious food will do that for him.

Aziraphale catches him looking, and it twists like a knife in Crowley. He turns away and pours himself some more of the free “water”. 

“So Jesus,” Muriel says. They smile. “I worked in heaven for ages too. I wonder if we have more in common. Is it true you love pedicures?”

Okay. Crowley doesn’t actually have to be here for all this. They’ve got it covered. He gets up, shoving his chair back a little too loudly. “Need some air,” he mumbles to the insanest of companies. He grabs his coat and stumbles out the door. 

Right before he steps into the Bentley, a hand on his shoulder pulls him back. He turns around.

“Where are you going?” Aziraphale asks.

He’s standing very close. Doesn’t he remember the last time they stood so close?

“Why am I here?” Crowley shoots back. 

“I invited you.” Aziraphale frowns, in confusion. “You always come when I invite you.”

“That’s the problem, isn’t it?”

After all that’s said and done, it still hurts a little to see Aziraphale’s face twist in pain, even ever so briefly. Crowley can’t stand it. And yet he can’t stop himself from hurting Aziraphale — because he is, too. Hurting.

“What do you mean?” Aziraphale asks, desperation seeping into his voice. 

Behind his sunglasses, Crowley feels his eyes sting. Does he have to spell it out for him? Crowley comes, still, like a beaten dog returning to its owner. Aziraphale has made it perfectly clear that he doesn’t think Crowley’s good enough for him. Not like this. Not when he’s not ‘good’, not ‘like heaven’. 

Not that he can actually blame him. He spent 6,000 years as a demon. He’s done stuff that isn’t, well, one hundred percent the way Aziraphale would want. Is he good? There was a time he was convinced, by some of those very people in the restaurant, that Aziraphale thought he was good enough. What a fool he was.

But he just says, “never mind.” He turns back around and wants to lower himself to the driver’s seat, but Aziraphale pulls him back up and pushes him against the Bentley.

Okay. If this went to the places his just mind suggested… 

“This is us being together, Crowley. Even though you didn’t want to come with me to heaven. This is all we can… As long as… I thought this was what you wanted?”

A bitter laugh escapes Crowley’s lips. 

“I ran into you by accident. Were you ever going to tell me you were back on Earth?”

The silence stretches too long. 

Sod all of this.

“Enjoy your sushi, Angel.”

He gets in, and slams the door closed. 

And the Bentley, that utter asshole, has discovered Ezra Furman. 

Some angels will carry you homeward

Other angels you don’t wanna meet

—

It’s Crowley who takes the next step. But only because he has a good reason.

“The penis plant is blossoming!” He yells inside the half-open phone booth, startling a few passers-by. 

This is a once — err, not-often in a lifetime opportunity. It’s so rare. And he won’t let Jesus rain down the Final Judgement on Earth before Crowley gets a chance to see this particular plant having the time of its leafed life. Can’t risk it. So he might as well invite Him, right? 

“What?” Aziraphale says, sounding a bit startled. 

“The Amorphophallus Gigas. It’s in bloom, and I think Jesus should see it before it gets wiped into oblivion, don’t you agree? Now hurry up, it only flowers for two days!”

How has he never seen this plant bloom in his 6,000 years of existence? 

That’s how they end up on a small city trip to the botanical garden of Leiden. And even though they’re in the Netherlands, they still do a distinctly British thing: queueing. 

The only reason the British have so much patience for that is because Aziraphale settled down his bookshop in the UK and directly interfered with Crowley’s efforts to reign chaos and bloodshed in queues, as is the natural way. Eventually they both gave up on their useless efforts, but the polite way of waiting stuck.

This Dutch queue is something else. It’s tense. It’s filled with tall people. And some are trying to cut the queue while others are shushing them, evil eye-ing them or plainly telling them off. 

When they finally reach the plant, normally native to Sumatra, Jesus takes one intense look and one (too) deep breath. 

“It smells like dead fish.”

“Exactly! You get it! Isn’t it amazing,” Crowley marvels. 

He eyes up the fully erect plant in all its glory. It stands tall at more than three metres in shades of green, yellow and burgundy. It’s a thing of smelly, smelly beauty. 

“I disagree”, Aziraphale says, inquiring with his hands behind his back. “It smells more like a dead mouse. Or a particularly wet corpse.”

Briefly, Crowley’s mind flashes back to when they were in an Edinburgh graveyard. He paid dearly for those days. Last time he did an overtly good deed in a long, long time.

“I love all of creation,” Jesus says, “but not equally.” 

Before Jesus turns and leaves, Aziraphale stops Him. “But you forgive us, right? For bringing you here?”

“Forgive you?” Jesus raises one eyebrow and swings his hair away from his face with a small head movement. “Of course…”

“Because, dear Jesus…” Aziraphale continues. “Don’t you agree that forgiveness is the greatest Commandment of them all?”

Jesus frowns. “It is important,” he agrees.

Crowley glares at Aziraphale. What’s he trying to accomplish here? While Aziraphale’s ‘I forgive you’ rings back in his ears, he ushers the three of them a little further down the path, leaving the phallus shaped plant behind.

“Surely the not killing one is more important,” Crowley hisses. “And like, not abandoning your friends while stabbing them in the heart, was that one of the Ten?”

“I’m getting an eerie feeling this isn’t about the Word of God per se,” Jesus stammers as Crowley pushes Him out the botanical garden entirely. 

Aziraphale’s jaw slams shut, and he glares out the back seat window the whole drive home while the Bentley goes through the entire Hozier back catalogue. 

—

Still, Crowley helps Aziraphale break into the Greenwich observatory. Call him weak of heart. But if there’s a little bit of breaking the rules involved, he’s always been the one Aziraphale calls upon.

Can’t expect an angel to break a window of a science building. 

He follows Aziraphale and Jesus to the Great Equatorial Telescope in the dead of night.  

When they enter the room, Crowley checks the reflective glass to see if his suit is still in place. He brought a certain Ocean’s Eleven vibe for the occasion (of burglary). 

“What a beauty,” Aziraphale says, and for the briefest moment Crowley thinks he means him. 

Fool. Foolish fool. 

Aziraphale is caressing the telescope like some sort of lunatic. Jesus steps closer, admiringly. 

Why do they keep finding themselves around phallus shaped objects?

With a simple snap of his fingers, the white dome starts splitting, opening a window into the night sky. Crowley leans against the white walls, watching Jesus and Aziraphale take turns using the telescope, delighting in the stars.

“I helped create those, you know,” he says after a while. 

Jesus straightens and turns to him, while Aziraphale bends over the eyepiece. “It’s excellent work, Crowy. Too bad it can barely be seen from the Earth.”

Crowy? He’s going to skillfully ignore that one. 

Crowley pushes himself off the wall. “That’s exactly what I said! What a pity to create all that beauty just to be some sort of wallpaper for humanity, eh?”

“That’s ineffable,” Aziraphale mumbles. 

Jesus takes a few moments to think. It looks like it hurts.

“No. I love that there’s beauty in every detail, even if you need a strong device to see it,” Jesus says eventually. “We all know it’s there. It’s the comfort of beauty constantly surrounding us. The knowledge that everything is deliberate.”

“Come over here, Crowley,” Aziraphale beckons him suddenly. The angel is still bent over the telescope. “You need to see this.”

Slightly suspicious, he approaches. He lowers his face onto the eyepiece. 

“Ah,” Crowley says. Of course. “Alpha Centauri.”

He’s kind of proud of how put-together he says it, while there’s a knife cutting through the middle of his shape and tossing its parts in the garbage chute. 

“We can see it just fine from Earth,” Aziraphale says, resting his hand very dangerously on Crowley’s lower back. Crowley freezes, afraid any movement will break the contact. Hating and wanting it at the same time.

“But if we went there,” Aziraphale continues, “we wouldn’t be able to see Earth, we wouldn’t be able to see any of the things we like doing here, now would we?” 

Crowley blinks into the telescope. This feels like dangerous territory. “What’s your point, angel?”

“You can’t just keep running away from your problems, Crowley. Sometimes you just gotta stay and work on them.”

He straightens all at once, breaking off their contact. “Oh, come off it. You’re the one who ran away! You were perfectly willing to give up even your beloved bookshop for just a chance at licking Heavenly ass.”

Aziraphale takes a step back, as if he was just physically hit. “No, I was willing to give up my bookshop for you, Crowley.”

They frown at each other. What?

What?

Crowley’s mind is reeling with how wrong that statement is. It’s like Aziraphale is living in an entirely different universe. 

“I’m feeling increasingly like you don’t really need me here,” Jesus breaks the silence.

“We want you here!” They both yell at Him. 

As they drive back, morning breaks. The Bentley plays Wilco’s Jesus, Etc. 

You were right about the stars, each one is a setting sun. It’s not scientifically accurate, but Crowley leaves it on. They’re an angel and a demon and Christ the Lord. Nothing makes any bloody sense anyway.

—---

Crowley takes some time away to think about it. The always running away part. While he drives as far north up the UK as he can. It’s ok, it’s not ironic if you’re aware of it.

The thing is, the thing Aziraphale doesn’t see is, Crowley’s been right every time. They don’t need Heaven, they don’t need Hell. They need to simply run off together, be happy together, break away from it all. Alpha Centauri, gazing at the stars, what more do they need, really, to be happy? 

He’s not one to run away from his problems. He really isn’t, he thinks as he drives by Loch Ness (another great practical joke of his, from way back when). 

Ok, so maybe he did want to go to Alpha Centauri in the middle of Armageddon but he changed his mind, didn’t he? 

And isn’t Aziraphale running off to Heaven just as much, well, running off? 

He’s boiling with anger. Aziraphale could do with some more self awareness!

At Dunnet Head, the most northern point of the UK, he jolts out of the Bentley and runs up the rocks where they break off into a strait called Pentland Firth. He screams out, scaring quite a few birds.

Good. That felt good. 

It’s a little like he blew his nose and it rearranged a bunch of puzzle pieces in his brain. Not that they form a clear picture yet. But they’re no longer stuck in the wrong shape. 

He drives all the way back, much calmer. Just in time for the magic show Aziraphale has invited him to. 

—

He hears Aziraphale yelling at Jesus. “This isn’t fair!” 

Crowley doesn’t know much about being a divine handler, but yelling at Jesus is probably not the smartest thing for an angel to do. Even someone as powerful as a recently upgraded Archangel. 

Jesus looks up from where He’s standing in the middle of the lake, on the water. He looks very confused. Not angry, though. “What?”

There are plastic lawn chairs arranged in front of a small improvised stage with a view of the very lake Jesus is walking on. Aziraphale is dressed in full 19th Century conjuror outfit. And even though there is a man walking on water, the kids in the audience look bored. One of them is playing Tetris on his phone. Crowley didn’t even know they still made Tetris.

“You’re um, forgive me. Lord. But you’re cheating,” Aziraphale mumbles into the microphone, sounding slightly less sure. His hat falls off his head as a rabbit jumps to the floor. “Oh dear. Sorry, children. Just a second.”

He starts trying to chase the rabbit. 

A tired looking mom approaches Crowley. “Are you with these guys? We’d like our money back.”

“I don’t!”, a dad comes up. His suit is wrinkled and dirty. “That guy healed my carpal tunnel syndrome.”

“Divine miracles are cheating!” Aziraphale yells out from the background. 

In the meantime, Jesus has stepped off the lake onto the grass again, looking a little sad about the lack of response from the crowd.

Ok. So Crowley’s going to have to do some damage control. He takes a deep breath and claps his hands. One. Two.

“Guys, welcome to the Most Magical Magic Show on Earth! You’ve just witnessed a regular human guy walk on water, now if that doesn’t warrant applause, I don’t know what does!”

He secretly miracles all phones away from the kids’ hands and makes the whole lot applaud. Aziraphale doesn’t need to know about that. 

“Now, for part two of this beautiful magical day, Mr Fell here will make you gasp in awe and wonder. He was trained by John Maskelyne himself!”

Hands clap in a slightly forced manner again. Crowley is already doomed so what’s one more demonic miracle, after all? 

Aziraphale, beaming at him, takes his place on stage. It doesn’t look like the angel’s any the wiser about Crowley’s use of actual miracles. He looks happy! Needs must when the devil drives. 

The rabbit’s safely back in the hat. Jesus, meanwhile, takes a seat in the front row.

Aziraphale starts addressing the crowd and Crowley makes sure their eyes are wide open and their faces extremely happy. He even remembers to make them blink once in a while. And when Aziraphale pulls the unnaturally big, incredibly cute rabbit out of the hat eventually, their gasps and joyous cries are even genuine. 

Crowley watches Aziraphale glance at Jesus while he holds up the fluffy animal, and only then it dawns on him. This isn’t just about postponing the end of the world, to Aziraphale. No. It’s about reinforcing how much beauty there is here on Earth. That there is much to live for, in spite of it all. 

Crowley’s heart twitches. Puzzle pieces shift. 

Meanwhile, Jesus picks up a discarded guitar at the side of the stage. “How about I play some Wonderwall?”

Crowley rolls his eyes. “Have you learned nothing from Barbie?”

“Oh, so you have seen it?” Aziraphale perks up, like he’s achieved something. 

“Oh, shut it,” Crowley says. 

One more little demonic miracle disables all microphones, and as he drives off in the Bentley, he smiles slightly at the song choice. Show me, show me, show me how you do that trick.

—

Well if this is all about the joys of the world… Crowley has an idea or two about that.

A few days later, Crowley drags Aziraphale and Jesus away to experience one of humanity’s most notorious pleasures. Mrs. Sandwich’s fine establishment. 

A ‘seamstress’ specialised in popping buttons, as she was compelled to describe it at Aziraphale’s Jane Austen themed dance party. 

“A brothel?” Jesus asks, upon entering. He sounds surprised, but not disgusted. He was always pretty open minded, Crowley remembers. 

“Careful, Jesus,” Crowley says. “A second coming costs extra.”

They’re in the dimly lit entrance area which doubles as a cocktail bar, for those who need a little liquid courage before asking a lady to go upstairs. 

“We really shouldn’t be here with the Son of God,” Aziraphale stutters. He looks as pale as the days before there was a sun. 

“Oh, don’t worry, these girls have made fortunes off men with god complexes,” Crowley shushes him, pushing him further into the room. 

“You can’t tempt Jesus!” Aziraphale grumbles. 

“Jesus is perfectly capable of making His own decisions.”

This becomes immediately clear as a scarcely dressed woman approaches Him. “Hello, handsome,” she coos. “What’s your name? I’m Trinity.”

“What a cool coincidence,” Jesus says. “I –”

That’s when Aziraphale pulls him away from her and shoves him into a cubicle. “No! His Mother will smite us for this,” he tells Crowley while Mrs. Sandwich approaches their table.

“Mr. Fell! So nice to see you here, and your gentleman friend. And who is this fine looking young man?”

“Older than he looks,” Aziraphale mumbles. 

“One Sex on the Beach, one Slippery Nipple, and He’ll have a Bloody Mary, please,” Crowley orders.

“I’ll have a what now?” Jesus asks.

“Don’t worry about it.”

When Mrs. Sandwich is out of earshot, Aziraphale turns back to them. “You can’t just get Jesus Christ almighty, of Nazareth, our great God and Saviour, son of the Lord, laid, Crowley!”

“Oh, you’re such a virgin,” Crowley bites, but upon seeing Aziraphale’s look on his face, he immediately regrets it. 

“No, wait,” he says, softly. “I didn’t –” 

But Jesus, seemingly sensing some tension as the meat in their fucked up sandwich, interrupts. “Don’t be embarrassed, Aziraphale. There’s nothing shameful about being a virgin. My mom was a virgin!”

Aziraphale’s eyes grow wide. A fake smile freezes on his face. He looks like a malfunctioning robot. 

Then, Jesus notices the leather St Andrews Cross in the corner. “Well, this is bringing back some uncomfortable memories.” 

“That’s it,” Aziraphale says, his body shocking back into motion. “We’re leaving.”

Crowley can’t stop laughing while Aziraphale manhandles them both out of the establishment. This is the most fun he’s had in quite some time. 

The Bentley tries to play Gods & Monsters by Lana del Rey but Crowley shuts the music completely off. There’s only so far he wants to go to torture Aziraphale. 

—

“You can’t destroy the world until you’ve experienced literature,” Aziraphale proclaims loudly.

They’re in the bookshop, and Crowley wonders if Aziraphale feels it just as hard as he does, in his bones, that this is the first time he’s been back in here since the kiss. 

They’re not alone, though. Jesus is on Aziraphale’s chair, reading Pride and Prejudice with a small frown between his brows. And Muriel is hopping away in the background.

Oh yeah, and then there’s half the bloody neighbourhood.

Turns out, Muriel had taken their job as minder of the shop pretty seriously. Though they hadn’t sold a single book, thankfully. Not due to lack of trying but due to sheer lack of competence. But without any clue on what to do, Muriel had accidentally turned this into a community hangout space where people could read books and do humanly things like talk to each other. 

It was a success.

One thing Crowley had to hand to them, is that Muriel had used their experiences as Heavenly archivist to alphabetise all the books again. There was order here. Amidst the chaos of one demon, two angels, seven random humans and one Son of God. 

Oh yeah, and a rooster. Muriel was convinced it would give Jesus a warm feeling of nostalgia. 

To be fair, currently Jesus does seem on a trip down Memory Lane. He has put down Pride & Prejudice to exchange it for a 16th century edition of the Holy Bible. 

“Whoa,” Jesus says. “This reads like a game of telephone. I’m so out of character, dude!”

Crowley smirks. “Just wait until you see the Mel Gibson film.” Crowley helped fund that one, of course.

He chances a quick glance at Aziraphale, who now looks lost in thought in exactly the spot where they kissed. 

Chills spread over Crowley’s body just looking at it. 

It’s like nobody else is in the shop now, only him and the angel, and the heavy weight of their memory. He watches as Aziraphale raises his fingers slowly to his lips, touching them with care, pressing his lips against them. His fingers tremble. 

Then, Aziraphale notices Crowley staring at him, and he freezes like a statue carved by the most careful, soft sculptor ever born. 

Suddenly, the rooster flies against a child’s face. The child falls over, taking a tiny cupboard with it, somehow breaking off its door hinges. 

It shakes them both out of the trance, bringing them right back into the bookshop. 

“It’s okay, I’m a carpenter,” Jesus says. “Like my stepdad.”

“Ah, yes, I knew him,” Aziraphale affirms. “I’m the one who told him not to worry about that little virginal pregnancy thing.” 

Crowley frowns. “I could’ve sworn that was me…”

When he catches Aziraphale’s stare, he feels like he shouldn’t be here anymore. There’s too many people. Too much history.

As he walks out the door, he can hear Aziraphale telling Jesus through gritted teeth: “Oh goodie, another one of your parables…”

The Bentley chooses Death Cab For Cutie for this one. If Heaven and Hell decide that they both are satisfied…

—

“Well, the world certainly can’t end on your Birthday, we have to celebrate it!” Aziraphale says.

It’s Christmas, they’ve been at it for months and they’re at the end of their collective creativity to postpone the Second Coming much further. But they can certainly try.

So they agree to take Jesus to a nativity play. 

Crowley’s found a lovely little preschool that does a tolerable version of it. He’s been scouting out rehearsals for months. Except, of course, on The Day he mixes up the address and they end up at a, well. A less well funded school. 

Jesus exits the play a little dazed. “Now I understand why I’ve always been surprisingly at ease around livestock.”

Okay, that isn’t too bad. Crowley can work with that. 

“So did you like the play?” Aziraphale asks. He’s dressed up for a West End opening night, because of course he is, and not some future childhood trauma’s version of the story of Jesus’s birth. 

He looks, in other words, great. 

“I think I… hated it,” Jesus says, seeming to marvel at his own capability to hate anything.

“What? No need to be so cross. I thought they really nailed it,” Crowley lies. Then he realises his choice of words. “Oh, sorry, Jesus.”

They reach the Bentley, but Jesus stops about five feet from it. 

“Well maybe my Birthday is a good symbolic day for the Second Coming,” Jesus says. “A little death, transfiguration of the universe, resurrection and judging of the dead. I gotta dole out some beatific visions, dude.” 

Jesus shoves a hand into his own robe and fishes out a heavy rulebook. “Says here I gotta be recognised by all of Israel first?”

Crowley exhales. That’ll take a while, surely. 

“Wait!” Aziraphale suddenly yells. He looks completely distressed. “We can’t all die now. I haven’t yet.. Just. I mean. One last dance? Can we have one last dance?”

Aziraphale looks at Crowley. 

“You’re going to dance?” Jesus asks. “Well, don’t expect me to withhold my Judgement, I’ve seen you dance.” 

“At least have the decency to stop pronouncing capital letters,” Crowley says.

The street is completely empty, it’s just Aziraphale and Crowley. And Jesus.

Crowley tenses. What’s Aziraphale planning to do? It’s not as if there’s any music.

The angel turns to him with a very serious look on his face. He spreads his hands, and takes a little bow. 

“You were right, you were right,” he says.

Oh. It’s the apology dance? 

Crowley blinks.

It all happens really fast. Aziraphale turns, and in doing so, he slaps Jesus on the cheek. As Jesus is bound to do, it’s in his DNA, he turns the other one, which a panicking Aziraphale also manages to slap, now throwing Jesus directly into traffic. Underneath a Coca-Cola Christmas truck. 

Aziraphale stares with wide eyes. There’s a big red stain on the road where a person-shaped being of divine intention used to be. 

The truck disappears in the distance — it apparently hasn’t noticed its hand in this holy roadkill. 

Aziraphale trembles like a leaf. “Crowley, I may have accidentally killed Jesus.”

Then, the blood slowly morphs back into Jesus and the tension releases in Crowley’s chest. They might not be in that much trouble. Right?

A large beam of light falls on Jesus. 

“Oh God,” Aziraphale mumbles.  

“Mom?” Jesus says, looking up.

“I’ve had quite enough of this, boy,” a voice beams from the skies. Aziraphale and Crowley can only watch stupidly as it happens in front of their eyes. 

“You do the Second Coming and you do it now,” God orders.

That makes Jesus cross His arms across His chest. “No. You have to stop ordering me around, Mom. I’m not a kid anymore!”

“You were going to do it just a minute ago.”

“Near death experiences change you, you know.”

“It was only a little Coca-Cola truck.”

“There’s like, stuff to live for over here. I see it so clearly now.”

“That’s just the divine light shining into your eyes.”

“I’m not gonna kill a bunch of innocent kids just for depicting baby me with a Bratz doll.”

“Don’t you dare…”

“I dare! I’m coming back and you can’t stop me! Once you have a kid, you can’t really control the choices it makes.”

The deepest sigh descends from the heavens.

“And keeping it 100% real, I’m tired of third wheeling for these clowns,” Jesus adds for good measure.

Without so much as another glance at them, Jesus rises up in the beam of light. A cloud takes Him out of their sight. 

A quiet descends upon all of them.

“Peace and love on Earth for Christmas,” Crowley mumbles. He turns to Aziraphale, who still looks stunned. “Well, dramatic apology dance or not, I guess that was it then. You’re going back to Heaven to enjoy your corporate promotion.”

Aziraphale blinks at him. “What?”

He seems to turn back on like a computer. 

“No, no.” He puts a hand on Crowley’s upper arm. “I quit.”

Now it’s Crowley’s turn to look confused. 

“I’ll admit, my apology dance went kind of…”

“Tits up?” Crowley helps him.

“Yes.” Aziraphale smiles briefly. Crowley has never seen him this nervous. “So let me do it with words.”

He shifts on his feet and clears his throat. “I thought if I, I thought if I took the job I could keep you safe. Back in the bookshop, Michael threatened to scratch me from the Book of Life. Instead, the Metatron came in with his coffee and I, yes, I went with him. He said I could restore you to angelic status. That you could be my second in command. Don’t you see? It would keep you finally safe from both Heaven and Hell.”

“No, but –”

“Let me, let me say this. First. Let me get this out.”

Crowley nods, heart hammering in his chest, puzzle pieces flying around in his head. 

“I should have realised then. They didn’t want me, they wanted you. They had seen the gigantic power your ‘small’ miracle held when we hid Gabriel in the bookshop, and they thought they could get to you through me. Once you didn’t come along, it became clear that, since you didn’t follow meekly, they were going to… Oh, Crowley. They were going to want me to terminate you. As a threat to Heaven.”

Aziraphale puts a hand on Crowley’s cheek, softly caressing it. Nobody has touched Crowley like that since, well. Since ever, actually. Crowley swallows hard. 

“You’re powerful enough to keep yourself safe, Crowley. And so am I. You realised it sooner, how happy we were without Heaven and Hell. Right here on Earth is where our happiness is. I kept hanging onto the idea of, well, Heaven being pure and good or at least it could be. But the reality is, we were. Good. We did good, and we did it together.”

Aziraphale’s voice is trembling terribly. “I am so sorry. I was wrong, Crowley. Nothing lasts forever? I was so wrong. Because we can.”

Aziraphale very carefully takes Crowley’s sunglasses off, and makes them disappear inside his coat. 

It clicks.

And it’s not like it was, the first time. It doesn’t hit them like a train, it’s slow and deliberate and soft, when Aziraphale takes Crowley’s collar in hand and presses his lips against Crowley’s. It’s exactly the way a demon would imagine an angel would kiss, though Crowley isn’t really entirely a demon, of course, he’s a bit of everything, and Aziraphale kisses the angel inside him right to the surface. And a little bit of wicked seems to pop up inside Aziraphale, too, Crowley thinks as he feels Aziraphale’s hands roaming his chest. 

As they kiss, the Bentley’s edges turn yellow behind them. Oh, it’s still a black car. But there are streaks of yellow now. 

And Crowley’s perfectly happy with it.