Work Text:
In the Beginning
Now, God, in Her endless, timeless, reallyterriblylong existence, had had some frankly disastrous ideas.
Platypi, for instance. God honestly couldn't recall what She had been thinking with the platypi.*
*Considering the Greek origins of the word, the correct plural of "platypus" is, in fact, "platipodes". And God getting that wrong was really only the tip of the disastrous iceberg here.
Or the time Her hand had slipped and suddenly there was evolution.* Blimey, what a mess that had been.
*She had sold it to Her angels as a joke, and was fervently praying (to, well, Herself) that a punchline might eventually present itself.
But the soulmates. She was very proud of the soulmates, had it framed on Her cloud and everything. Smashing idea, absolutely brilliant, and no faults whatsoever.*
*Any angel who had ever implied otherwise found themselves spontaneously enlisted in the freestyle sulphur-pool diving competitions, and found the Heavenly Gates mysteriously locked upon attempting to return after.
Well. Maybe a little fault, but that had very easily been remedied.
You see, just because She has made someone absolutely perfect for you in every way doesn't mean you always recognise them. In fact, the early stages saw not a single couple among the test platypi matching up correctly, and God had been so, so close to scrapping the idea.
(Soulmates, not platypi. If only She had scrapped the platypi...)
The solution had been simple, easy, perfectly infallible, and God wished She had been the one to come up with it.*
*She had been, for the record, and if any demon said otherwise, well, demons were dirty, rotten liars, and Lucifer especially.
God did what any mother sick of things getting mixed up would do, and did the soul-essence equivalent of stitching your child's name into all their clothing.
This resulted in every being created to date, and all thereafter, to bear a little golden mark on their left hand - or equivalent appendage - by which they might recognise their Fated Other of Divine Ineffability; usually their name.
God was extremely pleased with Herself when Adam glanced at the writing on his hand, then at Eve, back at his hand, at Eve again, until, finally, the penny dropped.* It worked!
*The Esteemed Reader might argue that this was no mark of quality, seeing as the two had quite literally been the only humans in existence, and finding their soulmate wouldn't have involved much guesswork; so God would have been better advised to run further experiments among the Angelic Host.
The Esteemed Reader would be absolutely correct in that, and they may have a gold star if they so wish.
After the successful mating of souls, things went downhill rather fast, but, well, all part of Her Ineffable Plan.
(...wasn't it?
Oh, She really should've written it down somewhere...)
In the Garden, shortly after the Beginning, 4004 BC
To those among the Esteemed Readers already doubting the true effectiveness of soulnames, we present Exhibit A - and C, if you'll pardon the pun - in the following.
On a wall of the Eastern Gate persuasion, one of Her angels was standing and adjusting a thin white glove on his left hand.*
*This would become a quite common practise among celestials and humans alike. These names were, after all, extensions of one's soul, and one did not bare that willy-nilly.
Aziraphale had a soulmate, like everyone; their name was carved gently along the space between knuckles and wrist, and Aziraphale would sometimes slip the glove half off and trace the cursive.
"Careful. Or it'll rub off."
Crawly, the Serpent, and also alarmingly dashing demon - nobody had told Aziraphale that he would be DASHING, oh, he'd been woefully unprepared for that - was smirking sideways at him, shielded by Aziraphale's wing.
On his left hand were some wrappings that looked like bandages dipped in Hell-tar.
Aziraphale tsk-ed, but self-consciously pulled his fingers out from under the fabric.
"I really don't think I the Almighty made that possible. Soul-names aren't cheap rub-on tattoos*, Crawly."
*Just like lead balloons, rub-on tattoos had not been invented yet; Crowley had, in fact, been talking about a very plump type of Eden bird, and Aziraphale was referring to the type of stardust-henna markings that had been a bit of a fashion in the old days in Heaven, and we hope the Esteemed Readers forgive us for translating for their convenience.
"Besides." Aziraphale sniffed, and pulled his robes tighter around him - they were getting quite sodden. "It's all meant to be, mark or not."
"Ineffable?" Crawly raised an unreasonably attractive eyebrow. Really, a briefing on the visual charms of demons would've been greatly appreciated!
"Naturally. All Her plan."
Crawly grinned. "Met yours yet, have you?"
"Oh, goodness, no.* You?"
*Aziraphale had looked, of course. But the Heavenly Host had not yielded results so far.
"Me!? Nah. S'no rush, is there?"
Aziraphale hummed, and then made a much softer and altogether embarrassing sound when Crawly maneuvered a wing to softly settle closely around him.
(If he was still shivering, well, then let us only say that the rain was not to blame anymore.)
"Bit strange, the Almighty giving us soulmates, too - us demons, not us-us. Wasn't that the point of the Fall, making 'em miserable down there?" Crawly mused. "Seems counterproductive, assigning perfect lovers."
"She'll have Her reasons." Aziraphale muttered, a little curtly, and, there in the rain, wrapped in the Serpent's wing, he ran his fingers over his mark again.
From the very corner of his eye, he saw Crawly doing the same.
On Top of the Ark, 3004 BC
Centuries later, Crawly was once more curled up under an angel's - oh, AN angel, who was he kidding, the angel, his angel, the one angel who mattered - wing, shielded from the rain; only, this time, he was also curled around a skin of palm wine, and the surface beneath him was shifting constantly.
Aziraphale primly plucked the wine from Crawly's tender embrace, and raised it to the Heavens. "To... to... Crawly, Crawly, wha- what should I drink to?"
"To... to the Flood." He hiccuped. "And... and rain bows. M'sure they'll be worth it!"
"...shuddup." Aziraphale pouted, and drank without embellishments.*
*It had gotten quite difficult to defend the Almighty's decisions after all the drowning had started, and Crawly nearly pitied Aziraphale for trying.
The first attempts at honeycoating had been nothing short of depressing, honestly.
"Angel?"
"Hm?" Aziraphale shifted a little on the wooden roof of the ark, and under the old blanket covering them both where wings could not reach.
"Need to... to assssk you sssssomething."*
*Nerves and alcohol tended to bring out Crawly's serpine accent in full force, and he was currently under the influence of copious amounts of both.
Aziraphale gestured for him to go on, and Crawly's eyes snagged on the white fabric of his glove.
"Been... been wondering. Sssoul-names."
"Yes?"
"They... ngk. They don't change, do they?"
Aziraphale put on a frown that was half concentration and half consternation (and maybe a hint of constipation if you squinted.)
"I've never h-heard of 'em changing." He replied slowly. "Why? Did yours change?"
"Nah, nah." Crawly replied quickly. "Mine's always been the ssssame. Only..."
He grabbed the wine skin. He was sitting on a flimsy wooden nutshell in the middle of the greatest bloody lake in history, and had a difficult and potentially life-changing topic to discuss, you didn't get through this kind of thing sober.*
*Crawly hadn't been sober since Aziraphale had landed on the roof next to him with a "how are you, Crawly? I brought wine", but in his mind, sober was synonymous with not drunk enough, and he definitely, definitely wasn't.
"If you. You change your name." He began haltingly. "Wha.... wha' happensss to the name on y'r mate?"
Aziraphale's expression scrunched up further.
"Weeeell..." He said, and then paused so long Crawly feared he'd fallen asleep. "T'soul-name... s'not what people call you. S'what's in your soul."
He made a fancy movement that ended in placing a hand right over Crawly's heart.
"Here."
Crawly swallowed. Glanced down at the white glove on his black garments. "So. So. If I changed..."
"So, so, I suppose..." Aziraphale babbled on, blissfully ignorant of whatever Crawly had meant to say. "When a, a young w'man s'born and her, her parents think she's a man, jus' because she has... ah, t'dangly bits, you know, an' give her t'wrong name - terribly stuck on all tha' gender down here, aren't they? - but, but! She's... oh, I dunno, Rahel in her soul. Then the name says Rahel."
"Bloody complicated." Crawly - who, as the Esteemed Reader will surely know, did not feel like a "Crawly" in his soul - muttered. "Wha' if her sssoulmate meets her, asss, asss, Ismael. An' doesssssn't know that she'sss their Rahel."
"Rahel knows." Aziraphale answered practically. "She's got the name of them, too."
Crawly clenched his hand to a fist, tar bandages cutting into his fingers.
"But maybe she'ssss afraid." The demon that wasn't really Crawly said, curling into Aziraphale's side and watching the endless rain fall. "That ssssomething went wrong, and s'not requi... rick... rekwit... s'not felt back, too. Wouldn't trusssst God to arrange it all perfect inna thousssand years."
"Then..." Aziraphale took a thoughtful swig of wine. "When she. She finds t'name, Crawly, t'name in her soul. And tells them that. Then they'll-" He hiccuped. "They'll know."
Crawly nodded slowly.
And then he closed his eyes, and listened to the rain, bandaged hand cradled to his chest.
It was still raining too strongly for rainbows, but sure enough, there was one brewing on the horizon, ready to arc across the sky the moment the sun came out again.
Sometime In Between, ~BC?
The Esteemed Reader may already have their suspicions, so allow us to confirm them:
Crawly's soul-name, the mark that signified the one he would love above all else, who was perfect for him in every way, the other half of his soul, spelled out "Aziraphale" in fanciful cursive.*
*Whenever he looked at it, he thought he could see a glimpse of Heaven in his periphery, all golden light and pure bliss, but without God ready to open the trap door underneath him.
The first time they had met, on that wall, Crawly hadn't thought much about the angel before him in relation to the name on his hand.
He had introduced himself - no reaction - and figured that had been the end of it.
The first time he had read the name "Aziraphale" on something not his own skin had been the memo issued to him after the whole apple business, listing the Principalities guarding the Gates in a footnote.
And Crawly had seen "Aziraphale" written there, in the traditional Hell-font*, on grimy paper half-eaten by mould, and his non-heart had plummeted in his chest.
*Imagine comic sans, in all its infuriating, ghastly glory; now multiply the effect by ten, wrinkle the paper, and add very, very poor spelling abilities.
This is still not quite encompassing all the horror of a Hellish memo, but we're getting there.
His soulmate. An angel.
And whatever was written underneath that glove, it wasn't "Crawly".*
*He'd considered, for a while, Aziraphale simply hiding it from him, refusing to have a demon for a soulmate; but no, that disinterested smile at his introduction had been real.
Aziraphale couldn't lie for toffee, silly, lovable bastard.
And thus it had come to pass that Crawly fully accepted that Crawly was not him, and set out to change it.
(There was always a chance it was a one-sided soulbond, of course - those happened, no matter what Heaven's propaganda machine said - but if there was even a hint of a chance that he might introduce himself to Aziraphale anew, and see his face spark with pure delight, saying "oh, my dear boy, I had hoped it was you!", then...
Any trouble he went through for that would be worth it.)
The Crucifixion, 33 AD
Crowley stood in the evening sun at Golgotha, and felt so very, very tired.
In one day, she'd lost a dear human friend - or near as, considering good ol' Jesus was the son of God, and scheduled to be resurrected in a few days - and all hope in regards to Aziraphale.
Crowley, she'd told him, and that was it, the name that resonated, that felt right, like the demon, the person she was.
And Aziraphale hadn't so much as blinked.
Maybe it was time to leave the Holy Land, leave it all behind, go to visit... oh, the Picts or something. Rome, perhaps, to start with. Some faraway planet, it didn't matter much.
Just away.
Claudia's Wine Amphora, cheapest house brown in Rome, 41 AD
"Oysters?" Crowley raised one eyebrow, and set his cup down.
"Oysters." Aziraphale confirmed, and gave him the kind of puppy-eyed look that would keep a thousand ships un-launched in their harbours, and that Crowley realised in this very moment he would never be able to resist.*
*Except once, in 1982, when Aziraphale asked whether he might not be allowed to drive the Bentley for once, and Crowley had been forced to put his foot down.
"Fine." Crowley allowed, and threw a handful of sesterces onto the bar. "Lead the way."
Relief blossomed on Aziraphale's face, and together they made their way out of the little inn.
Crowley wasn't one for oysters, honestly, but if it made Aziraphale happy... he'd been quite rude, what with the aardvark and all.
Really, he shouldn't have snapped at him so. It wasn't his fault, after all.
No, that blame lay with God, who had unthinkingly assigned Crowley's heart to an angel, and never even considered the simple fact of existence that angels did not have demons for a soulmate.*
*This was untrue. Plenty of angels had soul-names containing a dread sigil or two; they simply didn't acknowledge it, and claimed their souls were bound to God instead.
(God, meanwhile, was flattered of course, but also more than a hint uncomfortable with this development, which She blamed largely on the platypi.
Why? Well, the Esteemed Reader is surely aware that God places blame in mysterious ways...)
Besides, Aziraphale was his soulmate, and Crowley was slowly realising that it was in more than just name.
Every smile, every pensive look, even the moments of denial and blind parroting of the Heavenly Doctrines; Crowley cherished them all.*
*He made fun of the parroting, yes, but in a loving, supportive way, rather than, say, sending him a cockatoo as a Christmas present, no matter what the shipping receipt from December 1978 said.
"So. How have you been, Crowley?" Aziraphale smiled warmly. "It really is a shame we meet so rarely, is it not?"
Crowley made a noncommittal sound, taking care to squash any treacherous dreams of regular interaction between them that statement conjured up.
(Aziraphale surely meant it in the manner of a placid housewife telling her mother-in-law that oh, she really must visit more often!!!, and Crowley would be an idiot to take it on face value.)
"Oh, besides, I've been meaning to ask." Aziraphale stopped suddenly in the middle of the road, nearly tripping up an aged poet who was going to channel this interaction into some particularly rude epigramms. "You were gone so soon after the poor boy's crucifixion, and I never got the chance. About your soul-name..."
"Hngkh!" Crowley responded eloquently, heart stuttering to a complete halt in his chest. Was... had he... maybe...
"You mustn't talk about it if you don't have to!" Aziraphale corrected himself quickly. "Only, we've discussed name changes, and... look, dear boy,* I'm not an idiot. You were rather obvious."
*Crowley's heart let out a single weak beat at the endearment, before falling silent again.
"Was I?" Crowley croaked.
This was a dream, it had to be. Impossible, that Aziraphale might finally, nearly a decade later, speak the words Crowley had yearned to hear for centuries.
"Naturally. I'd been waiting for you to change your name after the conversation on the ark, rather transparent, that." A twinkle in Aziraphale's eye. Surely, his next words would be 'I had hoped it was you', he would take off his glove, reveal "Crowley" there in fine lettering...
"And, who is it?"
"Who's what?" Crowley breathed, trembling with anticipation.
"Your soulmate!" Aziraphale exclaimed. "I know we ought not, er, interact socially all that much, but I would dearly love to meet them!"
"Ah." Crowley said, a cruel, hard penny dropping and crushing his heart under its weight. "No."
"...no?" Aziraphale's face fell.
"Don't... don't think it'd be wise." Crowley felt a little sick. "Actually... sorry, I don't feel so... ought to go lie down."
"But, Crowley-"
"W-we'll have oysters sometime else, I'm sorry angel. You, you go alone." Aziraphale attempted to seize his arm, but Crowley quickly disentangled himself. "Vale!
"Vale..." Aziraphale muttered, confused, and more than a little hurt.
No oysters were eaten that day.
The Royal Court, sometime in the 500s
Aziraphale smiled quietly as he bowed to the happy couple, whispering a little Blessing under his breath.
"I wish you all happiness, my Lord, my Lady." He added, louder, and delighted at the young queen's smile.
"We thank you, Sir Aziraphale." The King acknowledged, and with that, Aziraphale was given leave to melt into the crowds and do as knights usually did on these occasions.*
*Well. The usual modus operandi involved drinking, eating, and tremendous amounts of what a gentle, reserved soul like Aziraphale, might daintily call "making new acquaintances", the last of which he obviously did not engage in.
Aziraphale had only just gotten his goblet filled, and a hollowed out bread with soup, when a dark shadow slid up behind him, and muttered "I give them two years at most." as he indicated the happy couple.
"Cra- Crowley, goodness!" Aziraphale could help himself, he smiled. Oh, the old serpent had grown on him, and after their conversation in Rome, he had feared so terribly... "I rather thought you would not try to seek me out again, after-"
"Ngk." Crowley fidgeted with the covering of his hand, a dark doe-leather glove where once the tarstained bandages had been. "Sorry. Had to leave. Mouse gone down the wrong way, took a couple centuries to digest."
"Oh dear." Aziraphale patted his shoulder to indicate his compassionate inclination. Demons probably weren't so good at recognising genuine care and comforting, one had to be clear with them.* "I am sorry to hear it. Better now?"
*Crowley stiffened under the touch, but Aziraphale, angel and dreadfully bad at picking up on DIScomfort, failed to notice.
"All better." Crowley assured him, and surely it was only Aziraphale's imagination that made it sound a little bitter.
"Now, what were you saying about the bride and groom?" Aziraphale nattered on. He had to keep the conversation going, what a dreadful shame it would be to meet Crowley again after so many centuries, only for him to slip away again so soon. "Two years... until their first child?"
Crowley looked over at him, surprised... and broke out in laughter.*
*Now, normally, Aziraphale would rejoice at seeing Crowley light up like the sun itself and voice his amusement in a more palpable manner than wry little smirks, but this was a miserable sort of laugh, that stemmed from a miserable sort of place.
"Oh, now what?" Aziraphale grumbled.
"They're never going to have a child, angel. It's not going to work out." Crowley was still chuckling, but defeated and with little mirth. "I give them two years until a scandal, or a tragedy, or a scandalous tragedy. Tragic scandal?"
"Nonsense! Look at them."
Aziraphale gestured at the handsome king, wise and powerful, and his beautiful wife, sweet and kind, and the perfect picture they made together.
"Besides, she is his soulmate." Aziraphale added. "It will be perfectly-"
"She's his, yeah." Crowley snorted unelegantly, and took a swallow from his goblet. "He's not hers."
"What!?" Aziraphale's head whipped around, and had he been any less shocked, he might've been transfixed for a moment by the rather dashing figure Crowley cut in a dress.*
*Aziraphale largely stuck to male clothing of the eras, for the simple fact that life was oftentimes much easier if you gave humans the impression of having male genitalia; Crowley seemed to prefer a more varied approach, and it was doing Aziraphale's poor heart no good.
"How would you even..."
"Her glovemaiden is a gossip." Crowley replied simply. "...or, well, at least she can be Tempted into gossiping."
"Ah."
"Same thing, really. Just means they're gossips at heart."
"Hm." Aziraphale frowned. "Unrequited soulmates... I've heard of such things, but doubted..."
"Oh, they exist alright." No, no, definitely bitter now. "More common than Heaven would like you to think, too."
"Well, I see now where your demonic soul leads you astray." Aziraphale primly tugged at his embroidered sleeves, revelling in his angelic superiority. "You forget love, Crowley. They married despite the, ah, unfortunate state of their bond, had love enough to overcome that. Mark my words, they will be very happy."
"Nah." Crowley grimaced. "Bonds like that, they never work out. Her real soulmate will come along, Aziraphale, he will. And that'll be it. She might love him to desperation now, but the instant the one whose name she bears comes strutting in here, it's over."
Crowley sighed bitterly. "A few years, maximum."
"Don't be like that." Aziraphale huffed and elbowed him. "You pessimistic old snake, you."
"Realist, angel. There's a difference."
"Or so the pessimists say..."
Crowley scoffed. "Which position do you actually fill in this court, knight or jester?"
"Oh, har har, Crowley." Aziraphale rolled his eyes gaily.*
*And we do not mean this in the happy sense. We mean that Aziraphale's exasperated rolling of the eyes could not have read as more indicative of an, er, lance-enthusiastic bed-jouster if he had been wearing actual rainbows and rode a unicorn to battle.
"Really, my dear, there's no reason to fret so. Whatever would make you think they will not be happy, even if they do not both have each other's name on their..."
"Personal experience." Crowley blurted out, and then pulled a grimace like he thoroughly regretted that decision.
"Oh." Aziraphale's heart stuttered out a little ungainly beat in sympathy. "Oh, my dear, I am so sorry to hear it!"
This explained Rome, the strange reaction, the visible hurt in Crowley's eyes. How dastardly Aziraphale's words must've hurt him, ripped into the fresh wound of rejection and liberally spread salt over it.
"Don't." Crowley hissed, and burrowed his head so deep between his shoulder blades professional excavators might be required to unearth it again.
"Are you... well, are you sure your soulmate does not..." Aziraphale tried. He couldn't NOT aid Crowley in this endeavour. The thought of his dear demon in misery ached deep within his soul.
"Not seen their name." Crowley shrugged. "But it's not Crawly, and not Crowley, either."
"Ah." Aziraphale's heart broke for him. He himself might still be searching for his mate, that deceptively simple name etched into his skin, but the sting of longing was a mercy against the agony of being so cruelly rebuked.
"Perhaps... Perhaps they are simply not in a position to say?" Aziraphale fidgeted. "They recognised your name, but gave no sign of it?"
"No." Crowley sighed. "The things that- no. Even if they were a decent enough liar, they would never be that cruel."
A silence hung between them, dark and heavy and infused with bitter hurt.
"Maybe you're right, angel." Crowley muttered tiredly. "M'probably projecting. I'm sure they will be very happy, and for many long years."
Aziraphale nodded worldlessly, and when a toast was called out, they both raised their goblet, and said, in unison:
"To King Arthur, and Queen Guinevere."
(The Esteemed Reader should know how the rest of this tale comes to pass, and know that Crowley had had the right of it.
Not all stories may have a happy ending, and Aziraphale was quite naive still in that regard.
He would learn.)
A Performance at the Globe, about 1000 years (and then some) later
Crowley sat in the globe theatre - in the back, out of the trajectory of rotten food - and was very hard trying to appear like he wasn't crying pathetically.
Considering Aziraphale had discreetly passed him about three handkerchiefs in varying degrees of ghastly embroidery, he was not succeeding.
"It's not a gloomy one, Crowley." Crowley muttered under his breath. "You'll like it, Crowley. Love story for the ages, Crowley."
"Well." Aziraphale wiggled a little uncomfortably in his seat. "Dear William clearly didn't let me read the final draft. I promise it was much cheerier before revisions!"*
*Aziraphale could've sworn that Romeo and Juliet had lived happily ever after, and that the whole tragic soulmates subplot had not featured into it nearly as much.
(This was mostly due to him struggling with Shakespeare's handwriting, and the subsequent misreading of "poison" as "platypus", which he had taken as a somewhat convoluted metaphor indicative of a happy ending.)
Crowley sniffled, and, when the play was over, booed the playwright, as was his right.*
*Shakespeare, who had based the majority of the play on a maudlin worst-case-scenario Crowley had outlined while extremely deep in his cups, was entirely unsurprised, and only shot him a smug grin.
"I apologise, my dear." Aziraphale fretted, and Crowley's priorities rearranged themselves from outlining the play's faults with due vitriol to making the angel smile again.
"Ngk. S'alright." He handed Aziraphale back his handkerchiefs. "Not your fault he's a bit of a hack, old Willy."
"Oh, but I meant to treat you, as thanks for Edinburgh... and I, er, drag you into a play that..." Aziraphale was plainly trying to find a tactful way to say 'pours salt and vinegar into the festering wound that is your rejected-by-your-soulmate heart', and failing spectacularly.
"...is rubbish?" Crowley took pity on him.
"Er. Yes."
"It's fine, angel. It really is." He and Aziraphale let themselves be swept out of the theatre by the masses, and towards the nearest alehouse. "Can't be miserable about it forever, can I?* I've made my peace with it. S'alright."
*Crowley did, in fact, intend to be at least a hint miserable until the end of days, but at least he very nearly had Aziraphale admitting they were friends now, and regular meetings. That had to be enough.
"Oh, that is terribly inspiring of you!" Aziraphale awarded him with the soppy-eyed kind of glance you gave a terribly sick orphan child when it bravely smiled up at you through the pain.
Crowley winced a little. "Yeah, thanks."
He waved at the alehouse's owner for something that may or may not be a halfway-drinkable ale, depending on the hour of day and what fluids the owner had available to stretch the hops, and they sat down at the table together, while the actors and other viewers began celebrating the fact that they'd miraculously remembered all their lines while half drunk by getting more drunk.
"I wouldn't know how to do that." Aziraphale confessed quietly, worrying with the hem of his glove. "I am near glad I've never met mine, if only not to be rebuked."
He threw a careful glance at Crowley. When he got an encouraging - if slightly pained - smirk rather than renewed tears, he continued on. "I'm... I am thinking it might be a human. They call humans such names these days - have for a while, even - and, well, a wholly different host of problems might arise from that."
"Hm." Something treacherously like hope sparked in Crowley's chest.
Once the renaissance came around, and it became somewhat customary for humans to have names that were not simply Albert of London, son of Albert of Also London, Crowley had looked into getting himself a first name. Just because.*
*He was even considering a middle name, just to be thorough.
Now, hope, hope was a dreadful thing, really. False promises, silly ideas, and Crowley had vowed he'd not fall for it again.
Anthony* was part of his cover, really, at heart and soul he was Crowley, and he doubted Aziraphale could ever have...
*Leo had helped pick it out, dear old Leo, though he'd suggested Lisa first, which... had had its appeal, yes, but Anthony Crowley just rolled off the tongue much better.
....except.
Maybe.
He could.
"What's it, then? Something fancy?" Crowley said with strained casualty. "Ethelgard? Francesco?"
"Ah, no, it's really-"
"Simple? Bob?"
Say it, angel. Say Anthony, make my millennium. Please.
"Oh for goodness sake, Crowley!" Aziraphale huffed. "Just say you'd like to see!"
And with that, he pulled off his glove; and, in the middle of a rowdy alehouse two pints and an unkind word about someone's mother away from a brawl, showed Crowley the writing on his hand, the name of his soulmate, who might or might not be out there, waiting for him.
And Crowley saw all his fondest hopes and dreams shattering before his eyes.
The soul-name did not read Crawly, nor Crowley, nor even Anthony.
Looping gold script glinted in the faint candlelight, and it spelled...
"Raphael."
"You, you needn't show me yours, of course." Aziraphale added quickly, perhaps taking Crowley's shattered silence as discomfort. "I only thought... Crowley, if we are to be in this together, Arrangement and all, I would rather not keep secrets from you. There he - I rather presume he, what with those silly naming conventions, if it truly is a human - there he is. My Raphael."
Crowley had never hated a name so fiercely before.
He could cheat, change his name to "Raphael Crowley", trick Aziraphale into thinking it was a reciprocated soulbond, except no, he couldn't. Couldn't do that to Aziraphale, who had his Raphael somewhere out there, and shouldn't be burdened by a lovesick snake desperate for scraps of his affection.
And Raphael, Raphael was not him, he knew that with a certainty that nearly made him sick.
"Raphael." Crowley croaked, his tongue writhing under the word. "Sounds angelic to me."
"Ah yes, see, I thought that too, for a while." Crowley wished he could purge the image of Aziraphale stroking his thumb ever so gently over the name from his mind. "Only, I've been looking, Crowley, I have been, and I've yet to meet a Raphael in Heaven. I am only left to assume, but assume I must - so, human. Earth. It's rather unlikely he's in Hell, after all."
"Yeah. Yeah, unlikely." Crowley muttered.
"Absolutely unthinkable!"
"Unthinkable."
"An angel with a demon for a soulmate, what would the world be coming to? Nothing good, that's what!"
"Soulmate... good. Yeah."
Crowley was dying on the inside, and wanted nothing more than just lie down under the table and die on the outside, too.
"More ale?" Aziraphale asked, seeming to pick up vaguely on Crowley's discomfort, sweet, blind idiot that he was.
"Much more." Crowley said miserably.
That evening he mentally dug a grave in his brain, and gently laid all his hopes and dreams to rest.*
*A bit of a morbid picture, the Esteemed Reader will agree, but Crowley was in the kind of dour mood that was usually only found in gravediggers, insurance salesmen, and clowns with their makeup off, so it only figured he would choose a rather maudlin metaphor.
This foolishness had gone on for long enough. Time to close the soulmate chapter and move on.
The Best Crêperie in France, 1793 AD
Now, the first thing Aziraphale would like to make clear to the Esteemed Reader is that he had NOT let himself be caught on purpose, that his stay at the Bastille had been entirely unplanned, and that he would never do anything of this sort with the sole purpose of catching Crowley's attention.*
*He wasn't anything near that desperate. And besides, Crowley could easily be reached by pigeon, or messenger lad, even if he rarely read his mail - which consisted mostly of advertisements for Scarlet Pimpernel memorabilia and political propaganda featuring some rather crude cartoons of the current royal.
That said, Aziraphale had never been one for letting an opportunity slip by untaken.
Crowley had been there, had ever so kindly busted him out, as the young 'uns would one day say, and nothing more natural than inviting him along for a quick meal, and perhaps a bit of wine, pop back to England for a show, ask him to stay over for the night...
Oh. Oh gracious, no. Aziraphale was getting ahead of himself. Nothing of that sort, no.
He often felt like he ought to start reprimanding himself for the dreadful conduct he was involved in, since Heaven never would - if they got wind of it, Aziraphale would be very luck indeed to escape with his life, not even mentioning his angelic status unrevoked.
Really, canoodling so with a demon, and wearing his best silk shoes in the hope they might - except, Aziraphale reminded himself sternly, he had not been aiming to interact with Crowley at all, so he had certainly not picked a fancy outfit and loitered on his way to the crêperie, had he.
No, perish the thought.
And it was silly, these games he was playing. Crowley had no interest in an angel, obviously, and Aziraphale...
Aziraphale had Raphael, wherever he was waiting for him.
"And it really will rub off." Crowley interrupted his roaming thoughts, very gently tugging his hand away from his glove. "What are you fretting about now, angel?"
"Oh, it's a general kind of frettage," Aziraphale lied quickly.* "In the soulmate sense."
*Telling Crowley the truth about his silly little flirting games was out of the question. It was nothing serious, just a little indulgence of Aziraphale's, and what a shame it would be to destroy their friendship over it.
"I figured." Crowley still looked uncomfortable, as he always did when the topic of soulmates arose, but bravely soldiered on. Such a good, kind man, ignoring his own discomfort for Aziraphale's sake. "Checked the Great Plan recently and it's, what? Only 200 years to go? Not much time with your Raphael, angel."
"No. No, not much." Aziraphale agreed quietly. "But, well, nothing for it. At least I've had you to keep me company in the meantime, eh?"*
*Some part of Aziraphale politely suggested that it would take Crowley over Raphael any day, but Aziraphale squashed it down.
"So you have." Crowley was smiling, but it was the kind of smile that seemed nailed onto a face, and did not fit properly into its nooks and crannies. "Any luck f-finding him, yet?"
"Are you having a bit of a cold?" Aziraphale frowned. "You sound quite choked, my dear."
"Ngk," Crowley said, and repeated his question.
"I've been trying, naturally." He huffed. "One would think the name Aziraphale was enough of a rarity to..."
"Never thought of changing it?"
"Hm? Oh, oh no. Never. It's my name." Aziraphale knew that with the kind of certainty he usually only awarded to unmistakably true things like the sun rising in the East, the theory of relativity, and the fact that gorillas built nests.*
*They did, it said so in Heaven's Helpful Handbook for the Avenging Angel, a publication which yet had to let Aziraphale down.
"I could." Crowley said, and then clamped his mouth shut so tightly Aziraphale feared for his lips.
(They were quite lovely lips. Er. Objectively speaking. Aziraphale would be quite sad to see them go.)
"Yes?" Aziraphale nibbled on his sinfully delicious crêpe. If it truly had been the aim of this endeavour - which it WAS, Aziraphale forcefully reminded himself - it would have been worth it.
"Help. I could. You. Me. With... that."
"I'm afraid I don't follow, dear boy."
"Oh for... I'll help you, angel. With finding your Raphael."
"Help me!?" Aziraphale startled. "Why?"
"Because." Crowley grimaced. "Because... the Arrangement. I have a vested interest in keeping you happy."
"Oh, but you needn't-"
"And. Hng. I. I want you to be." Crowley looked away. "Happy, I mean."
Aziraphale melted like a piece of chocolate left on the windowsill while one went over to France for a flirt and dinner.*
*Note to self: clean windowsill.
"That's terribly sweet of you." He told Crowley warmly, putting a hand over his fidgeting fingers.
"Oh, shut it." Crowley grumbled, and, speaking of sweet, ordered Aziraphale another strawberry crêpe.
Sometime In Between, early 1800s
Crowley, the Esteemed Reader was surely aware, had a habit of self-sacrifice when it came to certain angels with certain names sadly NOT on their hands, and he solemnly vowed to deliver on this promise.
While Aziraphale built up his bookshop, Crowley travelled around London, around Britain, Europe, the globe, using every demonic trick at his expense to detect Raphaels, and trick them into revealing their soul-names.
It was a job - repeat it until you believe it, just a job, a task like any other - and one he was getting quite good at.
So good, in fact, that Dagon noted that his travel expenses report and the souls delivered in his name didn't quite match up.*
*That is to say, statistics still listed only one soul (partially) from the middle ages, when Crowley had taken over for Mephistopheles on one of the Low Unholy Days, and he was officially granted commendation for ensuring 1/10000th of Dr. Faustus's soul.
Crowley's methods, as ingenious as they were, did not show up in the paperwork yet.
Crowley needed insurance.
(And it WAS for insurance. Never once did it occur to Crowley to have a Holy Cocktail when Raphael finally surfaced.
Well. He'd had the thought. But it was discarded almost as soon as it formed in Crowley's head. Even if he was not Aziraphale's soulmate, he was still his friend, and Crowley would never, ever do that to him.)
He'd given the angel his heart.
Surely, Aziraphale could spring for a little flask of water, in return.
Couldn't he?
A Flat Somewhere, 1862 AD
Crowley curled up in his bed, bitter tears of frustration streaming down his cheeks.
Deserved him right, for thinking he would ever get anything other than refusal from Aziraphale.
Deserved him right.
The Discreetest of Gentlemen's Clubs, late 1800s
Aziraphale stood in a corner, doing his level best to take the term wallflower as literally as he possibly could - that is, to say, meld with the floral-patterned tapestry as inconspicuously and quietly as he could.
This had been a mistake, and Aziraphale had known it would be a mistake from the moment he had stepped into the Gentleman's Club so discreet a significant number of its members had never heard of it*, but Aziraphale was a stubborn sort of bloke, and wouldn't take "actually... no" as an answer - not from himself, at least.
*These members only knew that a not negligible chunk of their wealth disappeared every month, but since it could hardly do their reputation any harm, being rumoured to partake in a club so ridiculously expensive, they simply let it.
Crowley wasn't around. Had gone off to God knows where - except, if God knew, She wasn't telling - and no new reports of Raphaels around the globe, no dinners, no Arrangement matters, not even a "how do you do" as they passed each other in the streets.
Ludicrous, was what it was, Aziraphale thought, personally. Over a bit of water! No, Aziraphale would not cave. Crowley wished to no longer entertain their relations, well, good riddance to him, good riddance! Aziraphale would be better off without him!
(At this point in his thinking process, Aziraphale had needed to produce a handkerchief and surreptitiously wipe his eyes, which he'd clearly gotten some dust into.)
As for the search for Raphael, Crowley had been a significant help, certainly, but Aziraphale could just as well find him alone - and then he would never introduce them, serve Crowley right for being such a... such a dreadful ass, yes, Aziraphale might as well say it if he was already thinking it!*
*Aziraphale's thoughts were indeed quite concerned with Crowley and asses, but the Esteemed Reader might chuckle to know that we do not mean the horse-like animal...
These Discreet Clubs were where Britain's elite found their soulmate, should their soul-name and their own body appear to share a gender - really, what a dreadful, unnecessary fuss, Aziraphale despaired over mankind sometimes - and Aziraphale had been quite confident he would find the man, sweep him off his feet, and then they would have a suitably grand wedding in some lovely little countryside church, and even if Crowley were invited - which he would not be! - he would have to stand outside and watch Aziraphale be happy without him, because it was not like Aziraphale missed him ardently every minute of every hour they spent apart, oh no sir!
That, at least, had been the plan.
Only, now he was standing here, in this Discreet Gentlemen's Club, and his stomach was rebelling quite forcefully. His eyes would not get in contact with any of the men here, his mouth was being extraordinarily contrary and would not address any of them, and Heaven Forbid his legs carry him on the dance floor!*
*Or even the dining room, re: roiling stomach.
Aziraphale found he did not want to find his Raphael quite as much as he had assumed, and really, there was a century yet to go, why the hurry? And weddings, weddings were ever so expensive... besides, most of the men here held estates. He would have to leave his bookshop to be with them, oh, that would not do, not at all.
Perhaps he simply ought to slip out. Cancel the club's membership, buy himself a lost folio or two with the money saved, and try to call upon Crowley again.
Yes. Yes, that was what he ought to do, Aziraphale was quite firmly convinced now.
He very slowly inched his way towards the door, throwing a last wistful look at the entwined couples dancing in the room.
He would've liked... before the argument, or if they were altogether different men - were men at all - so that he could kiss a red-haired gent's hand and lead him in the kind of step angels could not dance*, and perhaps earn himself other kisses, 'ere the night was over...
*Any dance step, really. Angels could mess up anything, even a simple box step. Uriel had electrocuted herself once while attempting the Electric Slide, and that had served as lesson enough.
Oh yes.
Aziraphale would've liked.
"If you'll pardon me..." a man sidled up to him, and Aziraphale did his best to not flinch too overtly.
"In my experience, only two kinds of men get so intimately acquainted with the wallpaper at social gatherings: those who pray none will ever approach them, and those who pray for the exact opposite." Well-to-do, a writer by the notebook clamped under his arm and the inkstains on the sides of his hands. "Forgive me, but I have spent the entire afternoon wondering which you might be."
"The, ah, the former." Aziraphale stammered, throwing a mournful glance at the exit the man was barring him from, too effectively to be coincidental.
"Oh dear." The man smiled, with no uncertain measure of charm. "You've just lost me a guinea."
"Who were you betting against!?" Aziraphale startled, hoping quite fiercely he had not been subject to the Club's gossip.*
*Angel Or not, Aziraphale placed great value on reputation.
"Myself." Boyish charm, with a quite wicked note. "I cannot bear to loose against a lesser man than I, so I never bet against anyone else!"
That actually startled a laugh out of Aziraphale, which had not been coaxed forth in over a decade, not since Crowley had unceremoniously dropped out of its owner's life.
"Oscar." The man held out a hand. "Author."
"Aziraphale," Aziraphale replied, and noted the slightly disappointed flicker in Oscar's eyes. "Bookseller."
(In the club, it was customary to introduce oneself by first name, so mates might have an easier time of finding each other.)
"How... outlandish." Even though Aziraphale had not been all that Oscar had been hoping for - as opposed to Aziraphale, who had breathed a small sigh of relief when the man had turned out to be named anything other than "Raphael" - he did not break off conversation, as Aziraphale had seen some other men here do. "Quite peculiar. Your soulmate should have little trouble locating you!"
"Oh, he has been taking his sweet time..." Aziraphale replied, only a hint too tartly.
"The man is a fool then." Oscar seemed unfazed. "An intriguing name suggests an intriguing mind, which makes for a good mate - and an even better friend."
"One can tell writing is your profession."
"I would not have it any other way."
They stood in silence for a while.
Aziraphale wondered if he might have just made a friend.
"Now, I may be blunt here.. only, for a self-avowed misanthropic, you appear far too enraptured by the dancers." Oscar finally mused. "Would you care to partner with me for a waltz or two?"
"What!? Oh, oh no, dearie me, no!" Aziraphale spluttered. "I've one left foot and another going entirely the wrong direction, me and dancing, gracious no."
"Well, you must learn the gavotte then. Simple enough, and does wonders against the pangs of spurned love."
"Spurned- I am not-" Aziraphale sputtered. Preposterous idea, as if he and- no, no, that wasn't what he and Crowley were about at all. "I fear you are entirely mistaken, Oscar."
"Naturally." The man replied airily, indicating that he believed that he was right on the money, personally. "So, gavotte?"
Aziraphale would not meet his soulmate in the Gentlemen's Club; he would, however, make some friends, eventually learn the gavotte, and acquire a number of signed first editions, which ultimately made the entire enterprise worth it.
(Even more so than Crowley's grimace would once he was told that Aziraphale had been doing just fine without him, thank you very much, had even made other friends, and would NOT be requiring Crowley's company any longer.
...unless, of course, Crowley had nothing whatsoever else to do, in which case Aziraphale would magnanimously invite him to dinner.
Maybe a moving picture, too.
And a bottle of wine.
The night would be still young, after all.)
The Ruins of a Church, during the Blitz, 1941 AD
Aziraphale stood in the ruins of a church, books in hand, and felt himself plummet from Grace with the speed of the numerous bombs still impacting around town.
For the first time in centuries, his heart held something other than the vague, formless shape of Raphael.*
*Well. Actually, if Aziraphale was entirely honest with himself, then Raphael had always had reddish hair, and golden eyes, and was rather on the slim side, but that was purely coincidental.
The shade of his soulmate had faded away, to be replaced by the sharp, crisp lines of Crowley's grin, the laughter in his eyes, the way he swayed, sometimes, like a curious snake, and, oh, oh, Aziraphale understood.
It was Crowley. It had always been Crowley, it was...
No. No.
It ought to be Crowley.
It was Raphael.
Aziraphale peeled back his glove, everything he was and would ever be yearning to see another name there, but no.
Raphael.
Crowley, Anthony J. Crowley - why had he not changed his name to Raphael, why!? - had rescued him, had rescued his books, and earned himself Aziraphale's heart fair and square...
...and yet, some man with Aziraphale's name on his hand had a better claim to it.
It wasn't fair. Oh, it simply wasn't fair!
A spark of angelic fury went through Aziraphale, and with one snap of his fingers, explosions echoed overhead, and all was silent.
No more bombs.
The planes of the Luftwaffe had spontaneously decided they felt much more comfortable being firey explosions, and good riddance, Aziraphale thought grimly, left hand clenched tightly, leather cutting into his skin.
For one shining moment, he wanted to smite London, smite the whole blessed world, until it was all ruins and pillars of salt, because how dare She be so cruel to him, Aziraphale had always served Her faithfully - even though Crowley made a strong case for the opposition more often than not - how DARE She assign him the wrong mate, how-
"What are you waiting for, angel?" Crowley called over his shoulder, and Aziraphale startled back to sanity.
A better reality in which I may love you, and you love me back. In which there is no Raphael, and no whoever has a claim on you, only you and me and a love we both share.
"On my way." Aziraphale responded wretchedly, clutching his books to his chest and hurrying after him, this demon he loved and could never have.
Oh, it simply wasn't fair!
A Bentley in the Middle of Soho, 1967
"I'll give you a lift." Aziraphale could feel Crowley's gaze on him, heavy and intense. "Anywhere you want to go."
And Aziraphale very nearly said yes.
It was all he'd been wanting since that night in '41, since much longer if he was entirely honest with himself, and oh, how he wanted it...
For a brief moment, he indulged the fantasy, of letting Crowley drive them back to that flat of his in Mayfair, and do unspeakable, wonderful things on any horizontal surface that presented itself - and perhaps against a few vertical ones, too - and whispering tender confessions into each other's skin.
Except.
Except that couldn't possibly be what Crowley had offered, could it?
And, and even if it had been...
No. No, it couldn't be. Crowley was a romantic at heart - he was, Aziraphale knew - and enamoured with the concept of soulmates. Even if his soulmate did not want him, which was indicative of spectacularly bad taste, if you asked Aziraphale, Crowley would never just proposition people willy-nilly.
Most likely, it was some strange sort of fugue state. Aziraphale had just handed him a flask of Holy Water, after all, Crowley might not be in his right mind.
Yes. Yes, that would be it. Temporary insanity. Poor chap, and poor Aziraphale for getting caught up in it so.
For believing in a dream for a single, shining moment.
"You go too fast for me, Crowley." Aziraphale whispered, hoping it was enough in terms of explanation.
One last, mournful look, and then he slipped back out into Soho's neon night, leaving the love of his life with the means to destroy himself in a heartbeat, and hoping desperately he'd made the right decision.
Aziraphale missed the good old days sometimes, when right and wrong had... well, not been much simpler, if he was honest; but love had been.
Raphael had been oh so easy, the perfect, destined, Heaven-given match, and Crowley was... none of these things, and yet preferable in every way.
"Oh bother." Aziraphale muttered unhappily, and tugged his coat tighter around himself.
Somewhere out there was a soulmate he no longer wanted, just behind him was the demon he loved but could never have, and the End of the World was drawing steadily closer.*
*Only a few decades to go now... really, Aziraphale could've sworn there had been at least a century to go last time he checked!
Wasn't it dreadful, how time went and flew away the moment you weren't looking?
If Aziraphale were even a little bit knowledgeable in music, he might've recognised the tune warbling out of a little radio amidst a gaggle of rather, er, eccentric children of the night, as Buddy Holly's "Everyday".
But, as it was, he merely noted absentmindedly that bebop was being played, and went on his miserable way.
(Come what may, crackled the radio, as an angel pretended steadfastly it was merely the cold night air driving tears to his eyes, and a demon leaned his forehead against the steering wheel, gloved hand clutching a thermos. Do you ever long for true love from me?)
The Dowlings' Garden, with very little time left to go
"You know..."
Nanny Ashtoreth was perched delicately on the garden chair, one eye watching Warlock fuss on his play blanket, and the other focused on Brother Francis with something quite hesitant in its gaze.
"I'd bring him up neutral on my own, too." She muttered in her warm Scottish burr. "If... if you had more important business to attend to, angel."
Francis plucked the decorative stalk of wheat from his mouth and squinted at her. "What do yer mean, ma'am?"
"Look, if... if we don't manage. Worst case, bear with me." Ashtoreth glanced to both sides, and then, hissed in her usual voice: "Aziraphale, you've only got ten more years. Your... your Raphael. You should go look for him again. Time's ticking down and you... well. You needn't be stuck here, looking after this brat."
Warlock made an unhappy little sound, and Ashtoreth was immediately at his side, cooing lovingly at him and making a very poor show of keeping up the dismissive attitude.
"Crowley, my dear." Brother Francis put one hand on her shoulder, the compassionate eyes all Aziraphale, even though the underbite muddied the waters a little. "There's no need for that. Warlock is our shared responsibility, and I would never dream of being so selfish as to leave you alone with him."
Ashtoreth nodded, gently cradling Warlock against her chest, and Francis went back to making a mess of the tulips.*
*Aziraphale, who rarely encountered trees in a pre-paper state, had unsurprisingly little affinity for gardening, and his workday usually ended with a murmured "oh, sod it" and a quick miracle.
Unsaid words hung heavily in the air above them.
I've made my choice, Aziraphale wanted to say. And I chose you.
I want you to be happy. Only happy. Crowley wanted him to know. I'm the selfish one for yearning even though you don't belong to me.
Nappy, Warlock thought forcefully, and when that had no effect, he wailed quite pointedly, which incidentally made him the best communicator in the garden - including Brother Snail, who was keeping his tax evasion scheme from Sister Slug, as well as an affair with Sibling Caterpillar.
The Bentley, with even less time left to go
"Bookshop?" Crowley asked.
"Yes please." Aziraphale nodded, still a little pale after Crowley settling their argument about doing 60 miles in outer London, hands-free.*
*Speeding in a vehicle that had been built pre-seatbelts had the delightful side effect of passenger seat angels being thrown against the driver and grasping them in their panic, which Crowley took full advantage of.
"Crowley?"
"Hmm?"
"You. Well. It's the Apocalypse."
"Spot on, angel." Crowley quipped sarcastically. "There's a gold star in the glove compartment, if you want it?"
"Oh, hush, you incorrigible serpent." Aziraphale huffed. "I only meant to say... well. Do you regret it?"
"Regret what?"
"Oh all that... that soulmate business. You've been dealt a bit of an awful hand, haven't you? Even if... even if you aren't their soulmate, do you wish you'd spent more time with them? Wish you'd be with them right now? Maybe... maybe if you'd explained..."
"Aziraphale?" Crowley said. "Shut up."
"Oh! Oh, apologies. A sore topic, of course, I-"
"I'm exactly where I ought to be. Like you are. S'alright."
"Yes. Yes. It's very brave of you, you know. Commendable. To choose to run around the countryside with me, rather than be with the one you love most."
"Ngk," Crowley said, and a post box only very narrowly managed to relocate itself a few feet to the left to avoid being clipped by the Bentley.
"Focus on the road!" Aziraphale gasped, and if he clutched Crowley's thigh a little, that was purely coincidental.
In Front of a Burning Bookshop, only a matter of hours, really
The firefighter sighed, scratching his head, looking down at the sodden, miserable man he'd pulled out of the burning bookshop.
Soulmate, he knew the signs. Happened more often than you'd think, barging right past with no care for their own life, right into the flames, screaming for their other half; any firefighter needed to be ready for such things, and even though people frequently took him for a chartered accountant or something equally boring,* he was, actually, a rather good firefighter.
*Yes, he had indeed started his career as a chartered accountant, but hoped to work his way up to lion taming eventually, which he figured would be quite easy to do if you went there over investment banking, firefighting, and wore the right hat.
Now the skinny man in the strange suit was shivering under a trauma blanket, cradling his gloved hand to his chest and numbly staring at the flames.
The worst hurt was yet to come, the firefighter knew. First time taking off the glove, and a colourless scar where the name of your beloved used to be. He'd seen it with Stephen's wife, God rest 'im; hadn't had the heart to look until near two months later, and even then broken out into tears immediately.
Poor chap, the firefighter thought.
With the fire under control - and the bookshop only ash and cinders - he walked over to the miserable mess sitting on the footstep of the ambulance.
"It'll be alright." He droned, neither as reassuring or as gruffly authoritative as he might've liked. "Even if it feels like it now... it's not the end of the world."
The man peered up at him.
Took off his broken sunglasses.
(Strange eye condition, the firefighter noted.)
"I suggest you call in sick for the day." The man said, and there was something empty in his words, indicative of a soul suddenly left without its other half.
"All of you, go home!" He shouted at the array of firefighters, onlookers, and the occasional rubbernecker. "Got a soulmate? Children? Pets? Go be with them in the time you've got left, because, let me tell you, the world IS ending!"
Mad with grief. Tragic, tragic.
"Sir, please-"
The man shrugged him off with uncanny strength, considering he had the built of an al-dente pasta dish.
"Gotta go. Enjoy Doomsday." The man smiled,* waved with his ungloved hand, the other clutching a scorched book to his chest, and stalked off to his car.
*Crowley's smiles were usually feral little things, when not directed at Aziraphale. This one was constructed solely of despair, and liberally dusted with tears.
The firefighter shook his head. Tragic.
And then he took out his phone, dialling a number.
"Mum? I think I'll come over for supper. ....no, no, it's fine, I'll take the rest of the day off. Yes. Yes, I'll drive carefully. Hm, dreadful weather, yes. Ta."
It couldn't hurt.
Just in case.
It really was storming something fierce.
The Apocalypse, the very last Saturday
The world was ending.
Ground shaking, breaking apart beneath them, and suddenly Aziraphale was there, grasping Crowley's gloved hand in his own, fingers digging into his flesh so hard they might've broken skin without the fabric in between.
"Crowley..." Aziraphale muttered, too soft considering the urgency in his eyes, and Crowley squeezed his hand back just as tightly. "If we... oh, if we don't... I'd rather like you to know that, ah, that I've always thought that... somewhere deep inside... there was a spark of goodness in you."
"Oh, shut up." Crowley attempted a glare, but it had about as much heat behind itself as a penguin on the north pole, cold and miserable and very confused as to how it had gotten there, seeing as penguins lived on the south pole.*
*This concludes the national geographic part of our programme, and we shall return to our regularly scheduled fic shortly after the conclusion of this footnote.
"Aziraphale?" Crowley added, after a moment of clutching at each other, and fearing for their life, as you do at the end of the world. "You're a right bastard."
"...thank you, dear boy...?"
"But..." and here, Crowley would've added 'but you're MY bastard', or something to that effect, and revealed his shameful secret of loving Aziraphale, his soulmate, at long last.
Except Adam chose that precise moment to give his rather negligent biological father Hell,* so those words remained where they had been stuck in Crowley's throat since millennia ago, which was getting quite uncomfortable as time went on.
*Lucifer was not in the habit of being the one who Hell was given to, and found he didn't really like being on the other side of that conversation.
Sometime In Between, apparently NOT the very last night
There would be opportunities to confide in each other.
Passing a bottle back and forth, trying to ignore the indirect kiss; in the bus, their hands lying back to back between them on the seats, in a mockery of holding each other; and in Crowley's flat, in those long, endless hours of staring at a scrap of paper.
Neither Crowley nor Aziraphale took any of these opportunities, and they slipped away untaken.
A Demon's Mayfair Flat, Sunday morning
"Has it wor- oh, bloody Hell, that's strange." Crowley cleared his - Aziraphale's - throat. "Bit like I've trespassed on a holy site, and trust me, I know the feeling."*
*Aside from the church in 1941, Crowley had stumbled into a Shinto shrine in the 16th century, only to be chased out by a rather incensed Kami - though he and Ugajin had made up since, and still met up for sake some years.
"Oh my." Crowley's body squirmed and wiggled uncomfortably. "Dear, how in Heaven do you move in pantaloons this tight?"
"Panta- okay, okay, you've got to update your vocabulary if you want to pass as me."
"Right-ho."
Crowley grimaced. "Yeah no, try again."
Aziraphale scowled, altogether too fond for Crowley's face, and took a few tentative steps, only to promptly acquaint his face with the carpet.
"Oh, come here." Crowley held out his hand, offering to pull him up.
Aziraphale didn't take it, frowning at the pale white glove on the hand that was technically his own.
"Check my soul-name." He said suddenly. "If there is any indication of the souls our bodies truly contain, this will all be for naught."
Crowley very nearly blurted out 'why don't you check your soul-name', but it made sense. Crowley knew both their names, Aziraphale only his own.
He peeled the glove back, Aziraphale peering up at him.
"Raphael" was etched into skin that was not his own, but his for the time being, and Crowley had a desperate need to scratch it off.
"It's yours." He turned his hand around so Aziraphale could see. "And - angel?"
"Yes?" Aziraphale was already fiddling with his glove, as was his habit.
"Don't... don't check mine. Yeah?"
"Of course not, dear boy!" Aziraphale huffed, and Victorian Indignation really wasn't a good look on Crowley's face. "What do you take me for?"
"A nosy angel." Crowley tugged him upright. "Who can't leave well enough alone."
"I never!"
"Yes, you ever." Crowley corrected. "But don't worry. I lo- like you anyway."
(And wasn't that just a bit too close to the Truth, the big one, which Aziraphale must never know about...)
The Stairway Elevator from Heaven, timelessness
Aziraphale sunk to his knees - well, technically Crowley's knees - in the grimy elevator, and couldn't believe his luck.
He'd done it. The Apocalypse, averted; Heaven and Hell both off Crowley's back, and likely his own, too.
They were... free. A strange thought, that. A scary thought, the more Aziraphale considered it.*
*In true angelic fashion, Aziraphale had never been entirely comfortable with free will.
He'd always thought Sartre had had the right of it, "condemned to freedom" and existentialism and all.
(Crowley had thought Sartre a hack. Hell was many things, but other people only marginally featured into it.)
Or maybe it was just Crowley's body, which generally seemed quite tense and on edge. His hands had been subtly shaking since...
Since...
Aziraphale gazed down at Crowley's delicate fingers in pitch-black leather, and a terrible, terrible thought came over him.
He would be taking an awful liberty. He oughtn't. No. A downright invasion of privacy, Crowley would tell him in good time - or never. It scarcely mattered. This person did not want Crowley, after all, would never take him away from Aziraphale. Knowing their name wouldn't change a thing.
Curiosity killed the cat, discorporated the angel, and did a number of other very unpleasant things should Crowley ever find out Aziraphale had gone behing his back so. It wasn't worth it, no matter how much he wanted, needed to know. He'd promised, after all.
He shouldn't. He wouldn't. He mustn't.
And yet, he did.
Berkeley Square, the first Sunday of many yet to come
Crowley sat on meeting spot four-and-a-half's bench, in Aziraphale's soft, comfy body, and was getting extremely antsy.*
*His antsiness far exceeded anything usually seen in humanoids, and, in fact, an ant which happened to be passing by pointed a feeler at him and told its fellow ant to look and "see how it's really done."
(Aziraphale would proceed to become something of an icon in ant culture, and be very confused by the little heaps of crumbs ant-fans would leave on the counter of his bookshop.)
Now, rationally, he knew that Hell would likely conduct a mock trial, and if the centennial Hell Award* ceremonies had taught him anything, this could take anything from six hours to a year-and-a-half, and more if something went catastrophically wrong with the catering.
*Crowley had continuously won the "Most Dangerous Noodle" Hellie, right up until the Spaghetti Monster had crept up from the Pit, after which the title tended to change hands/spaghetti appendages every 100 years.
Irrationally, however, Crowley's head was spinning with horror visions of Aziraphale in the fires of Hell, screaming in agony and never, ever to return; which made him understandably uncomfortable.
"CROWLEY!" Someone - well, his own voice, so he supposed it had to be Aziraphale - shouted, and time froze around him.
"Azira-!" Crowley beamed - this body tended towards the broad smile and chipper demeanour - but the smile slid off his face quickly.
"Crowley!" Aziraphale stood fuming above him, towering over the bench in Crowley's lanky body. "You... you..."
It took Crowley a second to register that he - his own body - was no longer wearing the glove, and Aziraphale was cradling his left hand against his chest with the other, the letters brazenly spelling "Aziraphale" with no shame or regard for Crowley's plummeting heart.
"Ngk. Angel." He stammered quickly. "It's okay! It's okay, I don't expect anything, demon's honour, I would never. I'll help you find your Raphael, and I, I promise I'll never-!"
"Raphael!" Aziraphale exclaimed, on the edge of hysterics. "We are NOT discussing bloody Raphael, Crowley!"
He grabbed Crowley's arm, and suddenly they were changed back again, with all the grace and finesse of Aziraphale bungling through the three-cards-trick.*
*And, do you see your card? Do you see- oh, oh bother, don't look, don't look, give me a second, oh my, see, swapped!
They blinked at each other, finally with their own eyes again, and the fury went out of Aziraphale.
"I am your soulmate." He said, murmured it really, with a reverence he had never used even for the name of God.
His hand reached out, thumb stroking over the lettering on Crowley's skin.
"I am yours."
Crowley swallowed hard.
"Aziraphale." He said, and he would be brave, he'd do the right thing, even if it broke his heart. "You're not. You're Raphael's, and Raphael is yours. He's the one who's perfect for you, I'm just-"
"Bah!" Aziraphale snapped, and it felt like he was tempted to add a 'humbug!' "Where has he been then, Raphael, in all my 6000 years on earth? Where has he been during the Apocalypse, during the French Revolution, the Flood, and WHERE was he in 19-bloody-41 when I ran into a churchful of frankly idiotic Nazis and fell in love with the demon who saved me!? Not THERE, that's where he was!"
"Hng." Crowley answered eloquently.
"Crowley, I swear to you, on anything you want me to swear, if this, this damned name..." Aziraphale ripped off his own glove, Raphael glinting in the sunlight. "If THIS is what has kept us apart all this years, oh my dear, I will burn it off with Hellfire, don't think I won't!"
Hands coming up, cradling Crowley's face like a precious thing, touching the telltale tear making its way down Crowley's cheek.
"I love you, Crowley." Aziraphale said solemnly. "And if She honestly thinks that anybody but you could be the one who completes my soul... well, then I'm entirely less surprised by the mess that was made of the Ineffable Plan!"
He paused.
"And platypi. Those were equally ill-advised."
"But... angel..." Crowley croaked.
"Hush now, you silly, silly demon." Aziraphale smiled fondly, leant up, and gently kissed him.
The world fell away beneath Crowley's feet, and for a moment the universe opened up around him, and he was the sun and the moon and alpha centauri and Jupiter and even a negligible little meteor hurtling eternally through the sparkling emptiness - and just before he collided with some nameless, faraway planet, Aziraphale's arms caught him, wrapped around him, and Crowley should never feel so loved again, even if he existed until the very last stars blinked out.
They parted after an endless instant.
"Oh." Aziraphale looked as if he would rather like to fuss with something, if he wasn't fully occupied holding Crowley in an upright position.*
*Legs were for people who hadn't glimpsed eternity in a kiss mere seconds before.
"Oh my. That was... rather."
"Ngk." Crowley agreed, and they both slumped down heavily on the bench, as much as they could without letting go of one another.
(Aziraphale self-consciously disentangled one hand to snap the park back into time, but immediately took hold of Crowley again after.)
They sat in stunned silence for a while.
"Angel?" Crowley finally ventured, and was quite pleased with his voice cracking only a tiny bit.
"Yes, my dear boy?" Aziraphale asked warmly.
"If. If, say. You ever, hypothetically, meet Raphael-"
"Oh darling, really-"
"Let me finish, if you meet him. What... what would you..."
Aziraphale huffed. "If you're asking whether I would callously abandon you, the answer is obviously no."
He tightened his arm around Crowley.*
*A young medium passing by thought she could see a glimpse of angel wings around the couple on the bench, but attributed this to the three espresso shots in her latte and continued on her way to work.
"I would instead very kindly inform him that he is, to date, 6000 years late when it comes to appearing in my life, and that would be that."*
*Realistically, if Raphael truly appeared, Aziraphale would likely also ask him to please sod off right this instance, before he made the love of Aziraphale's existence feel dreadfully and unfoundedly insecure; but Aziraphale felt the polite version encompassed his point well enough so that there was no need for elaboration.
Crowley ducked his head, and looked extremely pleased.
Aziraphale couldn't help but kiss him again; and their fingers tangled around each other, golden writing obscured entirely by their touches, which was just as well.
In the end, what was a name against love? An Ineffable Plan against Free Will? God Herself against humanity, and the one angel and one demon who stood beside them?
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing at all.
An Epilogue
The Esteemed Reader may harbour a distant suspicion in regards to the name Raphael, and a Fallen angel whose soul might still bear a long-extinguished name, spelled out on his soulmate's skin and confusing matters terribly by virtue of being wiped from angelic memory.
The Esteemed Reader may ask us whether this is the case, expect a revelation of the sorts as conclusion of this tale.
But the truth is, not even we know whether Raphael is angel or demon or human or something altogether else, and whether Aziraphale was meant to choose Crowley all along.
And furthermore, we say it doesn't matter.
A love chosen is no weaker than a love destined, and Aziraphale would be very cross with you for implying otherwise.
Perhaps Raphael Fell and hit the ground a serpent.
Perhaps Raphael is somewhere up above, roaming the Heavens still.
Perhaps Raphael is the young waiter serving Aziraphale and Crowley the next time they attend the Ritz, laughing and visibly in love.
But Raphael was NOT Crowley - at the very least, not anymore - and that was all that mattered to Aziraphale.
(We apologise to the Esteemed Reader for being so vague; but, as God might have realised when She first came up with the disaster that are soul-names, love is a fickle thing, unsuited to concrete labels, and inherently vague.
One might even say, it is entirely Ineffable...)