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The dissolving sensation should have been the weirdest thing. Not only discorporating, but having your very essence blown up to small pieces, that still kept hoovering together like a swarm of confused bees. It would have been the weirdest thing, if not for the weirder surprise of still being there to feel anything at all.
Crowley should have been furious. He was, in a sense. But the whole lack of corporation and glands and stuff made it strangely theoretical. Like these parts of floating bits of him were furious, and these others ones, that were still him but just a little further away, were busy trying to understand what the fucking hell was happening. She was obviously still playing Her bloody game. He really thought he had found the Lady this time but, as usual… Why on Earth would he have taken Her words at face value when She had proven time and time again what a fucking psychopath she was.
He should be gone. Everything else was! A lot of his pieces were grieving his universe, his own disappearance and, most of all, the one of his angel before they even could- Ah. Some emotions were still powerful enough to touch all parts of him apparently. The only bloody silver lining in this fucking mess was that he was not supposed to still feel anything afterwards. He should have been able to finally get a fucking break by melting into nothingness. So what? He was now supposed to stay sentient and suspended in the void for eternity? Was this some kind of Hell for occult entities?
He shouted his rage to the darkness, not that he understood how a cloud of soul dust could even produce sound, "Fuck it all!"
"Crowley?" asked the softest voice he had ever heard.
"Angel? You're here? You're really here?"
He reached his swarmy self as far as he could and, suddenly, he felt it, another cloud of sentience. He rushed and merged into it, relishing the confusing sensation of Aziraphale closer than he ever had him before. His voice resonated all around and inside of him, "Oh my dear boy! What's happening? How are we still there?"
"I don't mean to criticise but I'm not sure you want to start your new project with rage and confusion as founding words," God's voice reverberated in the darkness.
Crowley felt himself condense around Aziraphale's particles, holding him tight inside himself.
"You!" he growled. "What sick game are you playing again? What more do you want from us?"
She laughed, as if this was some kind of joke that no one but her would get anyway. "Oh, I'm quite done with you, don't worry. I'm just settling you in, and I'll be on my way. You said you wanted to make the decisions, didn't you?"
"Settling us in? You said neither of us could ever exist in the universe we wanted!" Aziraphale protested.
"Yes, in the universe 'you wanted'. And then I said, 'I'll make an universe your way' which is not exactly the same thing, is it? I mean, I thought you were very judgmental for people who didn't even know how to create whales! You think you can do better? Well, have a go! This universe wouldn't exist without your will, so now it's yours. Have fun watching what people can really do with true free will."
Crowley felt like going mad with grief and anger and relief. "You told us to say goodbye you psychopathic--"
"Oh yeah, testing to destruction is always the fun part of it, isn't it? Then you really see who people are, deep down. Really worked on Job, Satan was pissed for centuries afterwards! Well… I would love to stay and chit-chat but I have new projects to attend to. Have fun with your new Godly powers!"
"But… We said no God either!" Aziraphale protested half-heartedly. Crowley could feel the confusion shivering through him.
"I'm pretty sure you meant me, which I'm trying not to take personally. I'm not going to kill myself to please you, if that’s what you were expecting. I'll just shut myself out of here. You don't want to play Gods? Don't. But you won't have a universe if you don't at least start it. You did it for the previous one so you know the ropes. Have fun..." she said in a giddy voice, that decreased into nothingness.
Crowley realised that, even though he hadn't felt Her presence before, he could definitely sense Her absence now, like when you notice air conditioning brutally stopping.
"What a fucking bit-"
"Crowley!"
"What? Can't an exploded entity swear in his own universe?"
Aziraphale let the smallest chuckle out. It reverberated through all of them and Crowley felt himself slightly calm down.
He sighed. "What are we going to do?"
"Well... We're not going back to being an angel or a demon, and I really don't want us to become judgy Gods..."
"Agreed."
"But, you loved making the universe, and I loved being its guardian. Couldn't we just go back to our first jobs? Without all the influencing mess that came afterwards?" Aziraphale was so hopeful it hurt. It was such an incredible feeling, being mixed together like that. You could hear the other talk, but also kind of feel what he felt and get what he meant like you meant it yourself. After millennia of hints and coded messages and suppositions, it was really soothing. Also, for the first time since his Fall, Crowley could sense love. He was surrounded and basking in Aziraphale's love, and it was better than any sunbathing he had ever taken in his snake form.
"I would love to watch over them angel, but who's gonna watch us? How do we know we're not gonna end up meddling? You know how hard old habits die."
Crowley felt his angel do the mental equivalent of shrugging around him. "We can do whatever we want, including making us unable to do anything once it's all started."
He tried to chew on that but his thoughts were, quite literally, all over the place.
"Could I have a moment to think about it?"
"My Dear, I believe we have all the time in the world."
13,8 billions years later
"What do you mean it happened again?"
The omniscient thing was fun in principle, but there was the whole trouble of focusing on everything at once, and that had never been Crowley's forte. So, it was always Aziraphale who spotted them first. "Look!" he said, mentally pointing inside the part of consciousness they had decided on keeping sharing together.
And here they were, again. He was good at maths, but even he had lost count at this point. It was them, and not them. And if the past occurrences were anything to rely on, they would find each other, fall in love and stay together until death do them part... Only to pop up again somewhere else, and do it all over again.
Crowley didn't know why it surprised him any more, but it did. "Why does this keep happening?"
Aziraphale, who had been staring thoughtfully at the ceiling, turned on his side to cuddle against him. The not-a-demon-any-more let out a sigh of satisfaction at all the soft earthly sensations that flooded through him.
Giving themselves their old corporations back had been one of the first things they did. They had agreed that, if they were to keep existing, they should at least be able to fully enjoy it. The big discussion had been on the details of the corporations, Crowley being beyond scandalised at the implication that he might like Aziraphale's better with less padding. His own eyes and tattoo had been up for debate too, but the ex-angel loved them so much and... Well, to be fair, Crowley had also grown used to them. They simply had added yellow to the natural variations of humans' eyes color so it wouldn't be such a big deal to go out anymore.
The only problem was that, once they had gotten their corporations back and were actually able to see each other, all the pent-up emotions and unreleased tension had come crashing down. There had been a lot of crying, and hugging, and kissing and things had escalated swiftly afterward but with all the creative energy floating around well... Big bang indeed.
Thankfully, it was such a long process that they managed to check and correct all the important parameters before Earth had even finished cooling.
There had been a very long wait before the interesting things really started, which suited them fine because they had a lot of things to talk about. Sharing a mind for some time had been really helpful in understanding each other, but they would still have to actually bloody talk about things at some point. And so they did, and it was so healing.
All this time together, alone in the vastness of the universe with nothing else to do than to watch in wonder at the stars in the sky and at all the human souls drifting back towards Earth as life started to appear. It would be such an unexpected pleasure to see all the people they had known through the ages again. Well, except for that sucker Wilde... But surely he would be less of an arsehole with Aziraphale now ostensibly spoken for!
He had wondered at Hastur's soul when he saw it pass... But Aziraphale had offered him his bitchiest smile and said, "Too bad we can't do anything about it, can we?"
And he had groaned in frustration but really it was such a relief, to just watch and wonder and not be expected or even able to tip the scale for once.
"-don't you think?"
Crowley popped out of his reminiscence. Aziraphale was looking at him expectantly.
"Wut?"
"I said, we created all this with so much of our love, it was bound to keep appearing everywhere in it, don't you think?"
He grinned. "Love? If I recall, we also created it with-"
Aziraphale swatted at him playfully. "Oh! Do shut up."
Crowley nuzzled under his ear. "Would you like to make another universe with me this morning?" He murmured, his smile widening when he saw how much he could still make him blush after all these eons.
"Certainly not," the love of his life protested, while pulling him into the softest of kisses. "I quite like this one."