Work Text:
you smiled (and it broke my heart)
-
When Crowley cited the M25 as his greatest achievement, he wasn’t lying. He was genuinely proud of the soul-draining river of grey tarmac that encircled the capital.
But there were a few projects where the aim wasn’t solely Evil. As an unspoken part of the Arrangement, there were a few projects that were more neutral. They still inspired chaos, he was a demon after all, but they could inspire both joy and sorrow, harmony and disunity. Often, these projects encompassed disciplines in which Aziraphale had absolutely no interest. They were things that would never cause such outright evil as to require the angel to intervene. They cancelled out, though perhaps still gave Evil an edge. Crowley had a feeling Aziraphale did something similar in things the demon had no interest. (The main example he could think of was the bloated bureaucracy that surrounded academia and the honourable pursuit of knowledge. Crowley had no hand in that. It was much too subtle for your typical denizen of Hell, yet it was a true work of such demonic genius that still could never quite fully undermine the good that stemmed from research.)
Though he was never vocal about his neutral projects, Crowley was very proud of some of them. His favourite of these projects was something he perhaps liked better than anything he’d ever done that was truly evil.
The Eurovision Song Contest.
It was brilliant: an annual event based on unity and international cooperation (Good), that though supposedly apolitical, inspired political, factional voting that always annoyed the big countries no-one liked (Bad). Oh and this was all distilled through the medium of clunky lyrics, key changes and glitter. (In theory, there was nothing intrinsically evil to this, but Aziraphale did so hate pop music, and anything done to annoy Aziraphale was technically evil without being Bad. And anyone who has listened to Eurovision music can agree that it’s never actually good. His favourite part to it was rewarding the use of violins when he manipulated the voting. The pained look on Aziraphale’s face when he heard his favourite instrument set to pop music had made the whole endeavour worth it. (Coincidentally, Crowley may have been responsible for the oversaturation of a certain piece Aziraphale had once enjoyed by a certain Pachelbel. This had the added benefit of inspiring great resentment in cellists, which was always worth the trouble.))
Each year he made a point to watch, with an inspired collection of European alcohol and his computer at the ready for any last minute scheming. This had been set up so flawlessly now, that he could generally leave the humans to their own devices and just enjoy watching the spectacle unfold.
Aziraphale had shown no real interest in it before, but in the aftermath of Armageddon’t, they’d been spending more time together, and so Crowley had managed to wheedle the angel into joining him for the evening with a promise of some fine French wine and tapas from the fusion place round the corner. (Fusion food had been another of Crowley’s ideas. Some of it was delicious, of course, but the reactionary looks of horror when people saw what happened when hipsters got a hold of their traditional foods definitely placed fusion food under Bad. The cronut was the best example of this. It pissed off the French to no end. The name was awful. And it was just completely unnecessary.)
Aziraphale did not enjoy the experience, mind, but afterwards, when they were both pleasantly hazy with wine, he had described the experience as ‘interesting’. Crowley had counted that as a victory. (It is important to understand here, that Crowley did understand why he felt proud that Aziraphale did not hate Eurovision (in fact a few days later, he was certain he heard the angel humming a few bars of ‘Love, Love, Peace, Peace as he pottered about his shop), but it was not a thing that he ever acknowledged as it resulted in much confusion and an unpleasant ache in his chest.)
Even later in the evening, as the two sat in a companionable silence, Aziraphale’s face had flickered from drunken amusement to something rather more pensive. Crowley, who had been watching the play of light from the muted television as it danced colours across the planes of his face, noticed the change immediately.
Aziraphale attempted a smile for him, but it was too sad to really be a smile. (Over the course of millennia, Crowley had grown quite familiar with the angel’s smiles. From the reluctant ones that tweaked at his lips after an off-colour remark from the demon, to the full-blown beatific expression of pure angelic joy that did strange things somewhere in the vicinity of Crowley’s stomach. He knew Aziraphale’s smiles. This was not one of them.)
“I’m thinking of closing the bookshop,” he said.
Crowley frowned. “Why?”
“Oh you know, I think I might like a little break from London.”
“Where will you go?”
“I was thinking maybe the coast somewhere. I haven’t been by the sea in a long time. It will be nice. Refreshing.”
“That sounds nice,” Crowley said, without meaning it at all. His insides felt like they were freezing, crumbling and snapping all at once. “I could look after the shop while you’re gone? Save you the trouble of closing it.”
Aziraphale patted the air beside his knee, then his knee gently.
“That’s quite alright, my dear,” he said, “But I’d like to take my books with me. Can’t have a bookshop without books.”
Crowley decided not to comment that not even the angel could possibly take all of his books with him. In fact, he decided not to say anything.
He hadn’t been aware Aziraphale had even been thinking of moving. He had not seemed ill-at-ease with the capital. He still indulged too much on food, still gently tossed bread to the ducks in St James’s Park, still frequented a number of wine merchants and would then casually mention to Crowley that he ‘just happened across a bottle of Pétrus ‘05 and wouldn’t it be a shame for us not to drink it, my dear boy?’ Crowley was not an idiot, he knew that one did not ‘just happen’ across a bottle of Château Pétrus. (Crowley had forgotten something. What Crowley had forgotten was that, about twenty years ago, when they were halfway through a bottle of Bordeaux red, he’d mused that he should like to try a Pétrus. This was rather like 1937, when Aziraphale had absently mentioned a desire for jamón ibérico and had then been very confused when Crowley had disappeared for a week, only to reappear, slightly singed, with a huge leg of ham, and muttering something about crêpes.)
So the news was somewhat of a shock. Crowley did not like being blindsided. He had no time to sift something through his head and process it into an acceptable emotion. It made him feel altogether too human.
“You’ll come to London, right angel?” he said. “I don’t think there’ll be world-class sushi or another Ritz on the coast?” (The unsaid part was that there wouldn’t be a Crowley on the coast, but that was going into Very Dangerous Territory; a place in his mind that looked rather like the soft golden light of afternoon filtering through dusty shop windows, but was actually strewn with emotional landmines. Crowley was far too tipsy to venture into Very Dangerous Territory and come out unscathed, as opposed to metaphorically blown to smithereens.)
Aziraphale smiled that sad little not-smile again, but he did not answer the question.
Not long after, Aziraphale left.
Crowley remained on the fancy white sofa, staring unseeingly at the window as the sky lightened to a sickly yellow dawn.
-
Crowley liked to drive.
Driving was an absolutely superb invention.
It required minimal effort on his part. He used it to clear his head, let the thoughts pass through without holding up each one for careful scrutiny, he had a road to keep clear for himself, so it would not do to have any great introspection going on.
One morning later that week, after breakfast at the Ritz where they talked without saying anything, he set off in his Bentley.
He paid no real mind to where he was going other than ‘North’.
It was quite some time later, after Crowley realised he was somewhere along the A82 in Scotland and still not feeling any better, that he decided he did not want to clear his head of Aziraphale anyway.
He kept driving, however. The gunmetal clouds loomed ominously overhead, sinking into the cracks and crevices of the mountains that surrounded him as he passed through Glen Coe. He had not been up this far in a long time, not since he’d had the Bentley, and he soon found himself thinking that he should definitely come back.
In some of the ancient lore of Scotland, the mountains had been created by Beira, the Queen of Winter, a one-eyed giantess that stalked the land, at once creating and destroying, neither Good nor Bad, and definitely never ineffable. Crowley had learned to appreciate the mythologies of the world from Aziraphale. The angel regarded them with academic curiosity, the demon liked to reimagine himself as someone other than Crowley, the Demon who sauntered vaguely downward after a few too many questions. He could be the rather more neutral, Crowley, God of All Those Minor Inconveniences, that Don’t Always Ruin Your Day, but Definitely Make it Worse. Aziraphale would be the God of Books, Tweed, and French Pastry and there’d be no such thing as sides. (Since he was a demon, his mind liked to ruin things for him, and it occasionally did this by pointing out that, in the tradition of far too many pantheons, he and Aziraphale would probably be brothers, which, well...ew.)
By the time he’d passed Fort William, the sun was beginning to set and he realised he had no idea how long he’d been driving for, but it was fast approaching ten o’clock and he hadn’t so much as stopped. With a sigh, be pulled into a lay-by, getting out of his car to stretch his legs and wonder where he was actually going.
A little memory, rose unbidden in his mind. It featured a despondent look, an empty bottle, and a dusty shelf.
“Fuck.”
He was going to the Isle of Skye. It wasn’t a conscious decision he’d made, but it had happened around the time he realised he was in Scotland. It was still a decent drive on the winding country roads. They were very picturesque roads that looked better in the daylight, even if Crowley didn’t need it to see. Crowley also didn’t need sleep, but at that moment he felt oh-so very old, with a bone-deep weariness that tugged and frayed at his edges. He lay down across the back seat and he slept until dawn.
The following morning brought the kind of weather Crowley liked to avoid in London. Up here, however, in a different country so very far away from the pollution that blanketed the capital in a suffocating smog, the gentle white mists hung gently in the air, cooling the skin and clearing out the lungs. Soon, he could pick out the salt in the air, and it lingered as he crossed over the bridge to Kyleakin and headed westwards.
It still seemed too early for the distillery to be open, so he drove past it until he reached a small beach carved into the craggy rocks. The mist persisted, seeping into Crowley’s suit and contributing to a pervading sense of dampness. (This was an emotional dampness, that could also be expressed in terms such as muddled, soggy, just on the miserable side of apathy and bleh.)
A salty wind pulled as his hair and his tie, attempting to tug them along as it danced with the top layers of sand across the beach. It was refreshing, like an exfoliant for the soul, that buffeted away all the dirt and dead matter, and left him as just a being on a beach.
Maybe once Aziraphale had moved, he could come up here. A change of scenery was probably a good idea.
Maybe, just maybe, he could convince Aziraphale to come to Scotland with him. They could find a cosy cottage somewhere like Ardnamurchan or Durness. A quiet existence of salt and sea and steel-grey skies. He snorted at his own foolishness.
He bought six bottles of the 25-year-old, single malt whisky, and another ten of the 10-year-old. The woman in the distillery shop had raised her eyebrows as he’d brought them over to the till, three bottles at a time. She was mildly confused by the London yuppie-looking type who had strode through the doors the instant they’d opened the shop, wearing sunglasses and an air of despondency that jostled uncomfortably with his self-assured, confident manner.
“Big night?” she asked dryly.
He smiled wanly. “A friend is moving away. He’s a fan.”
The woman looked at him, making him feel awfully small for an ancient occult being. He got the sense that when he used friend, she understood what he meant by it. (Friend, by Crowley’s mind, was too human a word to describe the deep, enduring bond between the angel and himself. It was too small, too narrow in scope for how he felt. Love was a word that was closer, but it scared him. And even then, it was still a little too...mortal)
“Well he’s lucky to have such a thoughtful friend,” she said, as she offered over the card machine. Her eyes said something completely different. Crowley ignored it.
-
The following day, at some point in the afternoon, Crowley pulled up outside the bookshop. He entered with the whisky in a wooden crate. Aziraphale was sat behind the desk, nose buried in a book. He blinked up as Crowley, stalked towards him and deposited it unceremoniously on a chair, then turned to go.
“Crowley!” he called, sounding both delighted and surprised.
The demon paused, half-turning around, but fixing his gaze on a shelf of Romantic poetry.
Aziraphale stepped over to the box and pulled out one of the bottles.
“Oh, Talisker!” he said, “I’ve run out.”
“I know,” said Crowley. “Think of it as a leaving gift.”
Aziraphale’s face was unreadable, but it made something inside Crowley break. (Hint: the expression was due to the same something breaking inside Aziraphale.)
“I’m not leaving yet.”
Crowley shrugged, rotating slightly to look at the shelf of Russian literature somewhere to the right of Aziraphale’s head.
The angel looked down at the bottle in his hands and frowned.
“Is this from the distillery?”
Crowley shrugged again. “I happened to be in the area.”
“You happened to be on the Isle of Skye?”
“I went for a drive.”
“To Scotland?”
Crowley finally looked at Aziraphale’s face. He was smiling, but it wasn’t amused or skeptical like he was expecting. It was sad. Not one of those sad not-smiles, a genuine, sad smile. It made his eyes glisten and his face crumple strangely. It was a smile Crowley hadn’t seen before. He didn’t know what to do.
So he left.
-
Two days later, Crowley burst into the bookshop.
Without preamble, he declared, “I’m moving to Durness.”
He was gone before Aziraphale could so much as blink.
-
That week, the lifts broke in the Shard, 10,000 people had the doors shut just as they reached the Tube, the Central and Jubilee lines suffered unspeakable delays and both the EE and o2 mobile networks went down for an hour every day.
(Elsewhere, a little, inconsequential bookshop in Soho stayed mostly closed. When it did open, the few customers found an owner that wavered between solemn and snappish.)
-
“This is ridiculous.”
Crowley just blinked as a blustering, rain-soaked angel entered his flat. He closed the front door and leant back against it, to stare at Aziraphale dripping onto his hardwood floor.
“Crowley, you are not moving to Scotland.”
“I am.”
“You can’t.”
“I can.”
Crowley did not know why they were having this conversation. He did not want to be having this conversation. He also did not want to have the conversation he actually wanted to be having. (That didn’t even make sense in Crowley’s head, so don’t worry.)
Aziraphale seemed to deflate. His face crumpled. (This was not the conversation he wanted to have either.) Crowley made an abortive movement for Aziraphale’s shoulder, but just dropped his arm to his side. He stayed quiet as the other sighed.
“It’s too far away.”
Anger bubbled hot beneath Crowley’s skin. He did not quite know why it was there, but it was a welcome break from the confused sadness he had felt up to this point, so he clung to it. He loomed over the angel.
“Too far away from what?”
“From me.”
Aziraphale’s eyes went wide, as if that was not the answer he had intended. (It was not, but he didn’t have another answer and so the truth came out. That happens sometimes.)
Crowley did not like hope. Hope was scary and bright and something that did not suit him. It made his body feel too small. It almost made him feel… Good. (It also made him feel good, but good and Good are two different things to a demon, and it is the latter which poses a problem.)
“You’re leaving too, Aziraphale,” he said coldly.
Aziraphale nodded, smiled that sad, wet smile again, and left.
Ten minutes later, Crowley figured out what it meant.
Crowley smiled.
(It was a pity there was no-one there to see, it was a lovely smile.)
-
The door to the bookshop slammed open. Crowley stood panting in the doorway.
“I love you.”
Aziraphale had frozen upon the step ladder. He blinked, then after a moment, he smiled. It was another new smile, but this time Crowley did not run away. It was the most beautiful, perfect thing he had ever seen.
-
There’s a little cottage on the coast (not too far from London), that sits on a cliff overlooking the sea. It’s overgrown with the greenest ivy you’ve ever seen.
An angel and a demon live there.