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Falling hurts, or so some people have implied. Nothing particularly hurts about sauntering vaguely downwards, though.
Although the landing’s still a bitch, of course.
Crowley doesn’t remember much of whoever he was before he was Crawly, except that he asked far too many questions and hung a few stars and was definitely not called “Crawly”. Presumably he wasn’t snakey or slithery, either. Nothing special or surprising there. He doesn’t worry about it, generally, because obviously one doesn’t go a-sauntering if one is pleased with one’s lot in life. Existence. Whichever. But whatever he’s forgotten, it can’t have been that important.
“I should think you’re quite important,” Aziraphale says, sipping his cocoa, and Crowley sprawls back on the sofa and takes off his glasses just to make sure the other can see him roll his eyes dramatically as he groans.
“I am myself, angel,” he says. “Obviously can’t forget being myself, can I?”
“You just said you had,” Aziraphale says.
“Hardly,” Crowley says.
“Is that why you’ve changed your name so many times?” Aziraphale asks curiously.
“Twice! I changed it twice!” Crowley says indignantly. “And the one time was just adding things!”
“That’s two more times than anyone else of our stock I can think of,” Aziraphale says, taking another sip of cocoa. Crowley scowls at him. Their stock. They’re not drunk enough for this nonsense, by which he means they’re not drunk at all. Again: Aziraphale is drinking cocoa.
“It’s still hardly many,” Crowley says, tucking his glasses into his jacket pocket. “It’s just, what, it fits in better among the humans and all.”
“But it’s your name,” Aziraphale says. “Not, you know, an alias.”
“So?” Crowley keeps scowling. “What’s the difference?”
“Quite a lot, I should think,” Aziraphale says. “Doesn’t it feel different to you?”
“Would I ask if it did?” Crowley says, and Aziraphale looks thoughtful.
“Have you ever had a proper alias, come to think,” he says. “I’ve always assumed you must’ve gone through a few, but I can’t say I remember any.”
“I’ve got a name, what do I need with a bloody alias?” Crowley says. Aziraphale raises his eyebrows at him.
“I’ve found them quite useful myself,” he says. “Can’t go around telling just anyone one’s true name, after all.”
“I literally can’t tell anyone my true name,” Crowley says. “Whatever it was.”
“So that is why you keep changing it?” Aziraphale asks.
“Twice!” Crowley throws his arms up in exasperation. “Twice, in six thousand years!”
“Thrice, I should think,” Aziraphale points out. “Technically.”
“The first one doesn’t count, I don’t even remember it!” Crowley says in exasperation, leaning forward and draping his arms over his knees. “What was I supposed to do, go by ‘hey you!’ for the entirety of human history? Is that what you would’ve liked to be calling me all this time?”
“I’m just saying,” Aziraphale says. “It does seem as if it should count, if we’re counting.”
“You’re the one who’s counting!”
“Well, then I’m counting it.”
“Aziraphale!”
“Crowley,” Aziraphale says primly, taking a sip of cocoa. Crowley makes a face at him.
“You’re ridiculous,” he says. It sounds fond, which is terrible. They’re definitely not drunk enough for that.
“Look who’s talking,” Aziraphale huffs. He sets aside his cocoa. Crowley thinks about slithering up him and curling up along his shoulders. He thinks about sinking his teeth in. He thinks about how much Aziraphale likes so many indulgent, softly hedonistic human things, and if he’d like—
Oh, he is nowhere near drunk enough to be having that thought. Alcohol poisoning could not get him drunk enough to be having that thought.
He doesn’t even know if he’d like anything like that, for starters.
It’s just, he’d like figuring that out with Aziraphale.
Oh, nowhere near drunk enough.
“Where’s the alcohol?” Crowley asks. “We’re too sober.”
“Really, we don’t always have to be drinking when you’re feeling vulnerable,” Aziraphale huffs.
“I am not feeling vulnerable!” Crowley hisses at him, teeth baring into fangs. Aziraphale looks unconvinced.
“I do have a lovely merlot in the back,” he says speculatively, miracling up a pair of wine glasses.
“I was more thinking tequila,” Crowley says, counter-miracling a bottle.
“Well, if you insist,” Aziraphale says, holding out a wine glass. Crowley pours tequila into it. Possibly too much tequila, but really, is there such a thing? He thinks not.
It’s very good tequila, so . . .
They drink, which is a good idea. Crowley doesn’t think about names anymore, because really, what’s so odd about going through a few of those? And A. Z. Fell and any variations thereupon aren’t any less names just because they’re aliases, no matter what Aziraphale thinks the difference is.
There isn’t a difference, obviously.
“I did get used to it, you know,” Aziraphale says, then chuckles. “Though for a while there I was expecting you to have a new name every time I saw you!”
“It’s really not that big a deal,” Crowley says. Aziraphale hums, and takes another sip of tequila. Crowley drains his wine glass.
“If you say so, my dear,” Aziraphale says. Crowley’s black little heart skips a few beats and he tries to take another drink but is thwarted by his empty glass. He glares at it, and it refills in terror. He takes a very long drink. “Do you suppose we could work it out?”
“Work what out?” Crowley asks blankly.
“Your true name,” Aziraphale says, and Crowley rolls his eyes again and slings an arm over the back of the sofa.
“It was my true name,” he says. “Hardly counts anymore, does it?”
“I don’t know.” Aziraphale gets another thoughtful look on his face. “Do you think so?
“I know so,” Crowley says. “No one’s used it in all of human history, for one thing. I’d bet no one’s even spoken it since I Fell.”
“Well, we don’t know that,” Aziraphale says. “You never know what people might be talking about, after all.”
“Your lot talks about fallen angels, now?” Crowley says, for some reason a little nauseous at the thought.
“I mean, I don’t think so,” Aziraphale says. “At least, not as water cooler gossip. But surely whoever you were’s come up a few times by now.”
“I Fell,” Crowley says. “Why would anyone remember what we were like before we Fell? There were so many of us. Twenty million damned divine beings, split into ten million divines and ten million damned.”
“Yes, that is odd,” Aziraphale says as if he’s agreeing with something. Crowley squints at him.
“Odd?” he repeats.
“Yes,” Aziraphale says. “How it split so nicely down the middle like that. The divine and the damned, and all. I’ve never really thought about it before.”
“Never?” Crowley says warily.
“No, never.” Aziraphale frowns, then just shrugs. “I suppose I’ve been thinking a lot more lately.”
“Don’t think too much,” Crowley says. “You wouldn’t want to end up like me, after all.”
“Just for thinking?” Aziraphale says.
“Thinking leads to wondering,” Crowley says. “And wondering leads to questions.”
“Well, I can hardly ask them anyway,” Aziraphale says. “She isn’t taking anyone’s calls at the moment, after all.”
“Isn’t listening, you mean,” Crowley says. But all the same—“Just don’t think about things like that. Can’t have you crashing through the floor, imagine the paperwork.”
“Does Hell have paperwork?” Aziraphale asks.
“Not really, but I bet they’d come up with some for you,” Crowley says. “After all, how long has it been since we had a proper Fall?”
“I don’t know, how long?” Aziraphale says. Crowley shrugs expansively.
“Not my department,” he says. “Can’t say I’ve heard of any lately, but it’s not as if I’ve been all that in the loop up here.”
“Can’t say I have either,” Aziraphale says, thoughtfully.
“More tequila?” Crowley says.
“Oh, I couldn’t,” Aziraphale demurs, already holding out his glass. Crowley likes him so much.
“Well, don’t let me tempt you,” he says, already filling it. Aziraphale lets out a little laugh that makes Crowley’s chest feel painful and tight.
“You said you hung some of the stars?” Aziraphale asks.
“Some,” Crowley says.
“Well, there can’t have been too many angels who did that,” Aziraphale says.
“Aziraphale,” Crowley says. “Twenty million angels.”
“Still,” Aziraphale says reasonably. “It must be a much smaller number than the full twenty million. I certainly never hung any stars.”
“So what, you want to pop up to Heaven and check the employment records?” Crowley asks.
“I suppose that wouldn’t work, would it,” Aziraphale sighs, shaking his head. “Best to keep leaving them be, and all.”
“They did tell you to shut up and die,” Crowley says.
“Bit not good, yes,” Aziraphale says in dissatisfaction. Crowley finds his talent for alarming understatement charming, if ridiculous. Ridiculously charming. Ugh.
He’s really not made for things like this.
“A bit,” he says. Aziraphale drinks. He does too. They don’t talk for a little while.
“Seems like an important job, though,” Aziraphale says. “Hanging the stars and all.”
“I mostly just remember the making part,” Crowley says, and Aziraphale starts.
“Making?” he says.
“Well, yes,” Crowley says, frowning at him in confusion. “Had to make the things to have anything to hang, didn’t I?”
“Crowley,” Aziraphale says.
“What?” Crowley’s frown deepens.
“I know who made the stars, Crowley,” Aziraphale says. Crowley stiffens, his hackles prickling in alarm.
“Don’t tell me,” he says immediately. “I’m not—don’t tell me.”
“I wouldn’t,” Aziraphale says gently. “Unless you asked.”
“I’m not asking,” Crowley says. He wants to clamber up the sofa. He wants to crawl to safety. He wants—
“I know,” Aziraphale says. “But I know who made the stars, and I know which one of them Fell.”
“Only one,” Crowley mutters, a little hysterically. Of course. Of course only one. Couldn’t even be two, no, couldn’t even give him that small scrap of mercy.
“Yes,” Aziraphale says, setting aside his wine glass. Crowley should’ve miracled them stronger tequila. “Only one.”
Crowley gets up. He paces the room. Aziraphale watches him. He paces the room again. Aziraphale keeps watching. He can’t decide if he feels comforted or cursed. Of course, though. Of course Aziraphale would know who he’d been before.
“Did you know me then?” he demands accusingly, whirling on his heel to face the other. “Did you know me before the Garden?”
“No,” Aziraphale says. “I saw you, once or twice, but only from a distance. Someone else told me your name. I believe they were—”
“I don’t care,” Crowley says. “If you never met me, how do you know, then?”
“Lots of people know who made the stars, Crowley,” Aziraphale says. “It’s not a secret.”
“Well it bloody well should be, apparently!” Crowley thunders, stamping a foot. Aziraphale looks put-out.
“Well, don’t blame me that it’s not,” he says, and Crowley collapses back onto the sofa with no small amount of distress and throws an arm over his eyes. He used to be an angel, yes, of course he always used to be an angel, but he didn’t always used to be an angel Aziraphale had known. Known of. Knew of! Since when had he been that?!
Since always, apparently, but still.
“You’re awfully upset,” Aziraphale says.
“I’m not upset!” Crowley wails.
“Of course not,” Aziraphale says. “You always get drunk and cry all over my sofa.”
“I am not crying,” Crowley says witheringly, whipping his arm away from his face to glare at the other. His glare is terrifying, thanks to millennia of practice. Aziraphale is unimpressed, thanks to millennia of knowing him. The bastard.
“Is it really so bad if I know your name?” Aziraphale says.
“Not my name!” Crowley hisses, rolling off the sofa and baring his teeth at him as he rears up to his full height all fangs and scales. Aziraphale puts a hand on his chest, looking appalled.
“Crowley, really,” he says. “Do I go around flashing all my eyes and wings at you every time you upset me?”
“I am not upssssset!” Crowley snarls at him. Aziraphale huffs at him.
“You’re hissing at me,” he says disapprovingly. “When have you ever hissed at me and not been upset?”
“Plenty of timessss!” Crowley says. “I’m drunk, I hisssss when I’m drunk!”
“Yes, and you’re usually upset, too,” Aziraphale says. “We certainly don’t drink tequila when you’re in a pleasant mood.”
“We never drink tequila!” Crowley says.
“This is at least the fourth time this millennium,” Aziraphale says. “You just always pass out after and then I end up with a cranky demon sleeping it off on my floor for the rest of the weekend.”
“Cranky—?”
“Yes, cranky,” Aziraphale repeats with another huff. He picks up his wine glass again and takes a long drink. Crowley sputters, with no idea what to say. He’s not cranky. Demons don’t get cranky, demons get wrathful and spiteful and murderous, and then they—they wrath and spite and murder! That’s what they do!
Aziraphale is insufferable.
“You’re insufferable,” Aziraphale says. Crowley makes an outraged noise. “You are. It doesn’t change anything if I know who you used to be, it just means I know something else about you.”
“I was probably terrible!” Crowley says. “I Fell, of course I was terrible!”
“I have no idea,” Aziraphale says, taking a sip. “As I said, we never met personally. If we had, it certainly would’ve come up before now.”
“Six thousand years, and all this time you’ve known my name!” Crowley says.
"Oh, so now it is your name?” Aziraphale asks. Crowley bares his fangs at him; Aziraphale sighs. “Crowley . . .”
“Azzzzziraphale.”
“Crowley.” Aziraphale frowns at him, setting aside his wine glass again. It’s mostly empty. Crowley doesn’t feel the good kind of drunk; just the stupid one. “I told you, it doesn’t change anything. After everything else we’ve been through together, you’re worried that knowing a name you haven’t gone by in millennia will make me stop liking you?”
“Yessss!” Crowley hisses, then balks. Oh, he should have stayed sober. “No! It’s not that!”
“Then what is it?” Aziraphale asks, and Crowley doesn’t have a proper answer. Or any answer at all, really.
“It’s not that!” he repeats stubbornly, because that’s the best he has. Aziraphale sighs again, then gets an irrationally fond look on his face. Crowley is immediately suspicious.
“Come here, Crowley,” Aziraphale says, and it’s wrong but hearing him say his name is—it’s just—it’s better, hearing Aziraphale say his name. He feels better.
So of course he goes. Aziraphale holds a hand out towards him and he stumbles drunkenly into his reach and Aziraphale grabs his hand and just—squeezes. Grips it. Holds it tight. Crowley bares his teeth, but they aren’t fangs anymore, and Aziraphale doesn’t pull him down but he ends up collapsed in the other’s lap all the same. It is a terrible idea, and certainly not what Aziraphale meant when he said “come here”, but it’s what happens all the same.
“There you are,” Aziraphale says, keeping his grip on Crowley’s hand with one hand and putting the other on the small of his back. Crowley wants to slither up him; wants to wrap around his neck and cling. He might be clinging a bit as it is. “I told you, I won’t tell you if you don’t ask.”
“I’m not asking,” Crowley says, picturing Aziraphale calling him some other name and barely repressing a cringe at the concept.
“And I’m not telling, am I?” Aziraphale squeezes his hand again. Crowley should bite him. He’s not sure in which way he means that.
“Okay,” he says.
“Okay,” Aziraphale says. Crowley buries his face in the other’s shoulder and curls around him in the best imitation of a knot that a very flexible human body can produce, and maybe a little bit better than that, and Aziraphale keeps holding his hand. Crowley’s aware of his other hand, obviously, but not as aware as he is of the one he’s holding his own with. That’s the one that really matters.
This is too much closeness, he thinks, and clings to Aziraphale all the tighter. There’s not a thing about this either Hell or Heaven would like, and not a thing either of them can do about it. Not now. Not ever again.
Aziraphale strokes his back and squeezes his hand, and Crowley clings to him.
The world almost ended. They were there for it. They helped it not happen, at least a little bit, and they even survived it.
Aziraphale is the only friend Crowley’s ever had, or at least the only one he remembers ever having.
“Tell me,” Crowley says quietly, not lifting his head, and Aziraphale murmurs his true name into his ear.
It’s . . . not what he would’ve expected.
“You’re joking,” he says, leaning back.
“Would I lie to you, my dear?” Aziraphale asks.
“Apparently!” Crowley tugs anxiously at his tie, then slips his glasses back on. “That’s not me. For one thing, humans know about him. How would they know about me, I Fell before they even existed.”
“I don’t know,” Aziraphale says. “I don’t know precisely how trustworthy one could consider what humans do and don’t know, though. You know, with things being as they are. And with them being, well, human.”
“They call him a saint!” Crowley says. “A healer!”
“I’m only telling you what I know,” Aziraphale says. “Raphael was the only angel who made stars that fell.”
“Raphael,” Crowley fumes. “An archangel! The healer! The patron of the blind, and travellers, and—and marriage, for Hell’s sake!”
“And happy meetings, or so I once heard,” Aziraphale says.
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Crowley says.
“Nothing,” Aziraphale says. “But we did run into each other an awful lot over the centuries, didn’t we.”
“Not particularly happily!” Crowley says.
“Luckily, though, one might say,” Aziraphale says. “Words change their meanings, you know.”
“You’re mad!” Crowley throws his arms up, nearly hitting Aziraphale in the face. Whoops. “The angel’s finally snapped, lost it, gone around the bend. I’m trapped on Earth with a madman in a bookshop!”
“I am not mad!” Aziraphale sputters indignantly. “You asked and I told you!”
“But Raphael, Aziraphale!” Crowley protests. “Of all the angels! Raphael! Going around curing illness and smiting demons! I’d never live it down!”
“Live it down?” Aziraphale cocks his head, and Crowley . . . pauses. Alright, so he doesn’t really have to care what Hell thinks of him anymore, but . . . well . . . but.
“I am not a healer,” he says feelingly.
“Well, that was a long time ago,” Aziraphale says. “I don’t have a flaming sword anymore, do I?”
“That’s different!”
“Is it?”
Crowley grabs the tequila bottle and takes a long drink. Aziraphale waits patiently. He’s taking all this much too well, Crowley thinks accusingly. He’s taking Crowley much too well.
He’s still in Aziraphale’s lap, and Aziraphale doesn’t seem to mind at all.
“We’re on our own side now,” Crowley says.
“Yes,” Aziraphale agrees. He’s the only friend Crowley’s ever had. Maybe Raphael had others, hung around the wrong people, but Crowley has only ever had Aziraphale. Crowley is the one who’s been Aziraphale’s friend, even when Aziraphale didn’t want to admit it. Raphael is some distant stranger who made stars and asked questions a long, long time ago.
Crowley is the one who’s been left with the answers or the lack thereof, and this Earth, and Aziraphale.
He takes another swig. Aziraphale takes the bottle from him and refills his wine glass. Crowley thinks about kissing him. Six thousand years and then some and he’s never seen the attraction, never bothered, but oh, right now . . .
Aziraphale sets the bottle aside.
Crowley clings to him.
“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, and it’s better. They’re so close. They’re so close, and they’re their own side.
“That’s my name,” Crowley says, and Aziraphale catches his hand again and squeezes it.
“I know,” he says.
“Does it matter?” Crowley asks abruptly. “That I changed it?”
“No, my dear,” Aziraphale says, lacing their fingers together in a very unfamiliar way that Crowley likes very much. “You can change it as many times as you like. Just tell me what it is.”
“I will,” Crowley says, gnawing on his lip. “I’ve always told you.”
“I know,” Aziraphale says again. “I appreciate that.”
“Good,” Crowley says, and finds some way to wind tighter around him. Aziraphale keeps holding his hand. Crowley’s holding his hand too, he supposes.
Is definitely.
Raphael. Of all the angels he could’ve been; of all the stories humans could’ve made up about him. Really?
She must think this is funny, somehow, he thinks accusingly. This is ineffable enough that She must.
“I definitely never cured the blind,” he mutters under his breath, dropping his head to Aziraphale’s shoulder.
“Oh, it’s very nice,” Aziraphale says. “They don’t always need it, of course, but the ones who do appreciate it very much. Makes one feel very useful.”
“Of course you have,” Crowley says derisively.
“Well, it’s come up a few times,” Aziraphale says. His other hand is on the back of Crowley’s shoulder blade now, right where the wing would come out. Crowley is unnecessarily aware of this fact. “Are you sure you haven’t, though? Wasn’t there that one time, with the Arrangement? Tobiah, was it?”
“Tobit,” Crowley remembers with a grimace. “Tobiah was the son, I think. But I certainly didn’t call myself Raphael when I did it!”
“Perhaps that’s just what they heard, then,” Aziraphale muses.
“This is your fault!” Crowley realizes indignantly, straightening up in the other’s lap and jabbing an accusing finger into his chest. “I do a minor miracle or two to save you some fuss and you go and get me sainted! Under a name that isn’t even mine!”
“Would you rather be Saint Crowley?” Aziraphale says.
“Aziraphale!” Crowley says, horrified.
“It’s probably for the best, is all,” Aziraphale says. “I don’t know how you could’ve spun that one downstairs.”
“I can spin anything,” Crowley says. “I’d say I was suckering them into worshipping false idols or something.”
“False saints, though?” Aziraphale asks skeptically. “Is there such a thing?”
“I’d have invented it!”
“I imagine you would have, wouldn’t you,” Aziraphale says. He strokes the back of Crowley’s shoulder absently. Crowley’s wings nearly pop out unbidden, and he has to bite his cheek to stop himself making a noise that he really never would’ve lived down.
“You’ve given me a reputation,” he accuses, and Aziraphale raises his eyebrows at him.
“Perhaps if you’d been a little subtler . . .” he says, trailing off meaningfully. Crowley scowls at him. “You’ve always managed subtlety well enough as a demon, after all.”
“Putting a little bit of evil into the world is easy,” Crowley says. “Ruin one person’s day and the ripple effect brings half of humanity closer to Hell. Good is something people have to see with their own eyes, and get cited and sourced and verified! Literally, in that case!”
“You had to cite your miracle?” Aziraphale says, looking baffled.
“The seeing, angel!” Crowley says in exasperation.
“Oh, right.” Aziraphale frowns thoughtfully. He strokes his shoulder again. Crowley bites his tongue this time, with unfortunately sharp teeth. “Well, it’s not so bad, is it? Being known by humans?”
“You and I are dangerously well-known these days,” Crowley says.
“Not so bad, like I said,” Aziraphale says agreeably. Crowley did not mean that at all, but he’s fairly sure Aziraphale knows that already. He makes a face at him on principle anyway. “Always such a fuss.”
“I am not fussing,” Crowley grumbles, re-burying his face in the other’s neck. Aziraphale is warm and comfortable and a good place to be, so it’s not worth complaining more than that. Aziraphale makes a little humming sound and strokes the back of his neck. Crowley does not make any sounds about that.
“Just a bit, my dear,” Aziraphale says. Crowley bites him. Not particularly hard or anything, but he does. “Oh!”
“Not even a bit,” Crowley grumbles around a mouthful of Aziraphale’s jacket. Aziraphale pets his neck again, and he tightens his grip on him. It’s that or make a noise, and he is very much not making a noise about this. Ever.
They sit there like that for some time, Aziraphale in his chair and Crowley in his lap and both all tangled up together. Crowley can’t imagine a better place to be, personally. They could just stay here for a few years, as far as he’s concerned. Why not? They saved the world, and survived saving the world. They’ve earned it.
Well, he’s earned it. He’s not sure if Aziraphale likes it as much as he does.
He hopes he does.
“Which stars did you make?” Aziraphale asks eventually, tugging lightly at the back of his hair in a way that makes Crowley’s spine melt.
“We could be here all night, me answering that,” Crowley says.
“I don’t mind,” Aziraphale says, and very obviously wouldn’t. “I have a few books of star maps. They’re quite interesting.”
“Shall I sign my work, then?” Crowley drawls, and Aziraphale titters. Crowley likes him so much.
“Tell me about them, Crowley,” Aziraphale says, so Crowley does. It really might take all night, but who cares? They’ve got all the time in the world, after all, and that’s a lot more time than it used to be.
Aziraphale listens, and keeps holding his hand through it all. Crowley could talk much longer than all night, under such circumstances.
At least, as long as Aziraphale keeps calling him by name.