Chapter Text
The first time it happens, Aziraphale is looking at the Pyramids of Giza.
Well, they aren’t the actual Pyramids. They’re just copies, holographic copies made by Heaven’s Human Affairs Department, the members of which have probably most likely never ever set foot on the surface of the Earth. This isn’t a discredit to their renderings (although they are not quite to scale, if Aziraphale is being nitpicky), but rather a criticism of Heaven’s strict adherence to their Essential Travel Only policy.
“But don’t you think,” Aziraphale had said, already at the frayed end of his rope as he’d followed Michael through the tour of the Administration Wing, “don’t you think that a trip to Earth perhaps maybe could quite possibly be considered essential for the people working in the Human Affairs Department?”
Michael had looked at him like he was a housefly buzzing round her head. “What do they need to travel for?” she’d asked, turning back to continue their tour. “They’ve got surveillance, haven’t they?”
“Yes,” Aziraphale had said, hopping a little to keep up with her stride, feeling foolish—and a bit irked, honestly, he was her boss now, didn’t she have any respect —“but there really isn’t a substitute for in-person experience, is there?”
“Of course there is,” Michael had told him. “It’s called, ‘working remote.’”
Now he’s looking at them again, the Pyramids, from the other side of his office window. He’s standing an inch away from the glass. It’s a miraculous Heavenly glass that does not give off glare from light and does not fog when you breathe onto it. Not even when you breathe very hard, and in gasping spurts, because you are crying into it inconsolably.
So this is what it’s come to , Aziraphale thinks, hiccoughing and feeling his nose run down his upper lip. Day two of my Supreme Archangel promotion and I’m already having a cry.
(Though, if he’s really being honest with himself, he’s shocked he’d made it through the first day without one.)
It’s not the Pyramids that are making him cry. It’s not Michael’s blatant disrespect, or the fact that the other angels he’d seen on the tour—the ones who had acknowledged him at all—had given him looks like he’d been something slimy and foul on the bottoms of their shoes. It’s not the visit from the Metatron afterward to show him his new office—a blank and empty floor-to-ceiling bright-and-white-and-shiny furnitureless warmthless invitingless ethereal warehouse —and the clap on the back and the backhanded wish of “good luck” and the politely offered, “How was the tour?” and the leaving before listening to any of Aziraphale's answers. It’s not even the daunting and impossible task of “reforming Heaven” nor the even dauntingier and impossibler ( not words , Aziraphale thinks, but his brain is mostly mush at the moment) task of running the “Second Coming” that are just now settling into his comprehension like live lobsters into a boiling pot of water.
It is, inevitably, Crowley.
Inevitably. It had been inevitable, as soon as he’d followed the Metatron out of his bookshop and gotten into that damn lift. It had been inevitable from the very start, from the start of the Garden wall, when that damned serpent had deigned to speak to him and look at him with those damned brilliantly gorgeous golden eyes and damned gleaming, silken locks that had practically invented the color red. Inevitable. God damn him, again, Aziraphale feels like forcibly dragging the demon to Heaven anyway and restoring his angelic sensibilities only to have God damn him back to Hell all over. That’s how goddamned angry he is.
That’s how much he misses him.
He remembers Crowley in ancient Egypt. He remembers the kalasiris he’d worn, the kohl he’d painted around his eyes. He remembers how he’d laughed, he laughed when they’d played Senet together and he’d won, he’d won right at the end and right as Aziraphale thought he’d had it in the bag and had already jumped up to celebrate and had stood there, staring down at the game, flabbergasted as Crowley had played his last move and stolen the win right out from under him. He’d laughed because Aziraphale, in his outraged complete shock, had pointed his finger and with an undignified roar had accused him of cheating .
He’d laughed with his head thrown back and his sleek copper hair catching the light from the nearby lamps. “I didn’t cheat, angel,” he’d said, cleaning up the pieces, still laughing, “you’re just not very good.”
The Pyramids had just been completed. They could see them from the balcony where they’d played.
It had been a warm night. There had been a light breeze. There had been a jug of wine that they had shared, and some sticky sweet dates on a platter. It had been ten years since they’d seen each other last, ten years since they’d saved Job’s children. Ten very long years, in Aziraphale's opinion, although any year he’d gone without seeing Crowley had always felt long.
It’s been two days, now, and it feels like two millennia.
He misses him. He misses him like an ache, like an actual physical pain in his chest, which should probably be concerning since he does not technically have a physical body up in Heaven. The crying should be concerning too, he thinks, but with everything else going on, it’s kind of a wash. He misses him like he doesn’t know how to go on, like he doesn’t know how to take a step forward, like he doesn’t know what words to say, doesn’t know how to move or how to speak or how to survive without Crowley in his life.
That’s when it happens.
Aziraphale has never been summoned before. Angels rarely get summoned, not the same way demons do, anyway. Pulled through time and space with no previous warning, no alarm bells, no time to prepare for being shoved into your corporation at lightning speed. It’s painful, and jarring, and moreover, it’s a total nuisance. But Aziraphale is summoned now, summoned straight from his barren Heavenly office and onto Earth and into the passenger seat of the demon’s nineteen twenty-six black Bentley.
The demon is there, next to him.
They stare at each other. Crowley's eyes are uncovered. It’s the middle of the day in London, the rain is pouring outside. It’s loud on the metallic roof of the car. The eyes are yellow and large. They’re shining, and wet, his cheeks are wet, his eyes are rimmed in red, not kohl. Crowley's upper lip is glistening, two great big globs of snot are draining down onto it from his nose. He blinks a lot, and then he wipes the lip with the back of his hand.
I kissed that lip, Aziraphale thinks, as Crowley gasps, “What the fuck?”
It occurs to Aziraphale that he should probably wipe his lip too. That his face is no cleaner than Crowley’s; that they’ve both been crying, somehow, at the same time, and that he’s just now just realizing it.
“I—” Aziraphale begins, not sure where he’s going to end.
“Get out!” Crowley screams.
The demon has plastered himself back against the side of his door. His arms are across the front of his chest, a protective gesture. He’s protecting himself, Aziraphale thinks. He’s protecting himself from Aziraphale.
“I—” Aziraphale tries, fruitlessly again.
“Come to gloat?” Crowley sneers, his face twisting ugly. Embarrassment, Aziraphale sees, seeing right through the ugliness to the vulnerable emotion underneath. He’s embarrassed that I’m seeing him cry. “’S not enough to know you broke my heart? Had to see it for yourself?”
“I—” Aziraphale breathes, unable to move past himself.
“Get the fuck out.” Crowley’s voice breaks at the end, and Aziraphale reaches—he reaches for him, before he even knows what he’s doing—
“Don’t touch me!” Crowley shrieks. He’s practically merged into the door now. He flings a hand to the side to push himself farther away from the angel’s outstretched hand, and his fingers smack into the radio buttons as he does.
“That certain night, the night we met—”
“Fuck!” Crowley howls, his furious wet gaze turned upon the radio, and Aziraphale takes the opportunity to miracle himself out of the car and straight into the lift back to Heaven.
At least I’m not crying anymore, the angel thinks, as the lift ascends.
He makes his way back to his office with no interruptions. Other angels pass him in the corridor without even looking his way. It’s like he’s invisible, but at the moment, he can’t be bothered to care.
He goes into his office and stares out the window.
“What just happened?” he says to himself, watching the Pyramids again.
It seems that Crowley had summoned him, somehow. Unwittingly. He obviously hadn’t wanted him there. But there he’d been, and Aziraphale is simultaneously fascinated and horrified by the implications (of which he can’t come up with a single one).
What just happened? he thinks again, his eyes roving over the Pyramids, not really seeing them.
What if it happens again?
Oh God, Aziraphale realizes, feeling dizzy even without his human corporation, I hope it happens again.