Work Text:
Aziraphale looked over his notes with growing concern.
This couldn’t be right, could it? He'd been on this planet for over two thousand years. Still, it seemed despite the good he tried to influence on the human beings living on it; the worse life on Earth got for them. There seemed no end to the growing angst. The hatred. The blame. Society was shattering into fragments of glass, likely to be crushed into sand, if it didn’t bind back together into one race again soon.
Aziraphale couldn’t put his finger on when things started to go wrong. Evil became powerful and greed was its new religion. Corruption, its new faith. He'd asked Crowley if any of it might have been Hell's doing but Crowley always swore to him no matter what wickedness he used to try come up with, back when he worked for Hell, it was always far overshadowed by the darkness found within Mankind itself.
As though thinking of the demon made him come alive, Crowley stretched out across the chair he’d earlier nodded off on and looked over at Aziraphale with soft yellow eyes. “S’up dearie?” Crowley yawned. He’d been having such a lovely dream. He’d been back in the Garden of Eden, feeding his favourite angel slices from a blood red apple. How he missed the Garden sometimes. From the first moment his scaly head erupted out of the ground, he’d known the garden was a beacon of light against the growing gloom outside. And below.
“How did you manage it?” Aziraphale asked him suddenly.
Crowley sniffed, confused. Manage what? He looked around him. “Well, I just sort of curled up and closed my eyes...”
“No, not that!” The angel couldn’t help his small smile spreading as he continued. “How did you manage to work with such downright evil all the time? The expansion of it? How did you manage with human beings that were more repulsive than Lucifer Himself without going insane with the rage?”
“Oh... That!” Crowley frowned. He didn’t like thinking back on those days. He’d worked so hard for the last few years to try and blank out most of the centuries when he’d been forced to do his duty to the bidding of The Pit. Ever since they’d saved the world from darkness twice, he’d hoped to enjoy more of a life in the light of his angel. But he should have guessed that Aziraphale would eventually grow curious about the darkness. Given the escalation of political villains in the news lately, it made sense that even angels couldn’t ignore the Hell on Earth for much longer.
“Well,” Crowley began. He didn’t want to hurt anyone ever again. But he knew that Aziraphale needed to know the truth. That every single member of mankind has the capacity for good... And for evil. And it wasn’t just within mankind. Even their very own creator was far from innocent. To the ever-growing heartache of the masses. Great Flood aside, God sat back and watched while Her little ant farm experiment seemed to be turning in on itself.
“You remember back in Edinburgh?” Crowley asked cautious as he sat up, crossed-legged on the armchair. “You once told me that poor people have more capacity to do good because they start off with nothing. I didn’t believe you but the more I think about it, the more sense it makes now. Cos, most people born into riches are the very opposite of that. They're far more likely to end up damned because they started off with everything. So, they never grew up with the concept of giving anything away. Of sacrifice. They can’t imagine what it’s like to have nothing at all. They aren’t held accountable for what they say or do when they start saying or doing the absolute ruddy worst of things. In fact, some are even worshipped for it! They don’t know how to truly suffer until they get Down There. And ONE thing that made it all, being a demon I mean, what made it worthwhile was making sure they all learned”. He pointed at the floor and winked.
“And they all do, don’t they?” Azi asked him worriedly. “All the bad ones do eventually make their way down there and... they're learning? None of them accidently ended up... Up?” He pointed up at the ceiling ominously.
Crowley’s brow furrowed. “Whatcha mean?”
“Well, have any of the bad ones ever ended up accidently Upstairs? I mean, most of us angels aren’t really all that angelic anymore. Less and less so over time, I daresay. Even I’m not all that innocent anymore!” A delicious pink blush blossomed delightfully up Aziraphale’s spine and into his face as he remembered, with longing, his spiritual passion in bed just the night before. He coughed awkwardly as a lazy carnal smile crossed Crowley's face, proving he’d rightly guessed Aziraphale's meaning. But he let the blushing angel continue;
"I’ve not always been the best of angels. You once said yourself. I’m “just enough of a bastard”. So, what if the balance tipped and Evil found its way up to Heaven? What if any good souls were punished later on and got sent Downstairs? I mean, you’ve told me all about how jampacked it is down there. But Heaven is a ghost town in comparison! You saw it when they thought you were me. Where did all of the good souls go? Is there even any left living on Earth anymore these days? I’m finding it harder to keep the faith lately. Faith in Mankind.... In God... Even in myself!”
Crowley rose up from his chair and moved quickly to cross the room in two long strides to Aziraphale's side. He let his hand slide softly down the angel’s cheek and was pained to find himself wiping away a lone tear with his thumb. He coiled himself round Aziraphale's chest as he sat, feather light, across his lover’s lap and cupped a cheek to bring Aziraphale's stormy blue eyes back up into the sunshine bright yellow of his own. “Hey,” He hissed gently. “You are all the good this world NEEDS! I only said you’re enough of a bastard because you’re kind enough and honest enough and GOOD ENOUGH to know that the bullshit Heaven comes out with is 99% rotten. Dy’know, I’ve loved you from the very moment you told me you’d given your sacred sword away for the good of Mankind?”
Azi sniffed and smiled. “Really? You did?.. Funny, I think I fell for you in that moment too.”
Crowley lifted his head from the angel’s chest. He’d been mesmerised for a moment by the rhythm of Aziraphale's celestial heartbeat. “Yeah?” He grinned.
“Yes,” Aziraphale whispered. “I mean. I think it was the very moment you asked me if you’d done the wrong thing. I just found it so delightfully strange! That a demon could be so worried about doing something incorrect. But I suppose I didn’t realise it was love until nearly two millennia later. When you handed me my books after saving them from that bomb blast.”
“Exactly me point!” Crowley snapped suddenly, excited. “You didn’t ever need to compel me or miracle me into anything good. It just OOZES out of you! You being you made a demon like me do a nice thing! You’ve made me want to be good ever since I first met you on the walls of Eden. And if you can work that magic on me without lifting a finger... Well, then my faith is in you to make this world truly good again. MY faith... is in YOU. Always has been!”
Aziraphale nearly cried again. Crowley could say the most poetic of things without trying sometimes. Ironic, it always took a demon to lift his spirits. But he wouldn’t have it any other way. He stroked Crowley’s hair that'd grown back to the long luscious locks of the biblical days ever since their move away from London.
Even though neither of them could catch such a contagious disease; they’d both agreed they needed to get out of the city. After watching Parliament turn into a playground that let children rule the roost, Aziraphale grew sorrowful to the point of being grief-stricken. So, Crowley insisted, as neither of them worked for their spiritual realms anymore, they needed to get away from the city and 24/7 misery. The threat of Mankind falling to a virus had faded. But the evil that men do was never-ending. So, they’d agreed that relocating to the countryside was the right move. The peace did them both some good but sometimes it still felt like a holiday. Like they were neglecting important work which needed doing.
Crowley was right. Aziraphale couldn't deny how Crowley showed him time and time again how much he wanted to change. It'd been his initial reason for seeing if Crowley would rescue him from the Bastille. But what Crowley didn't seem to notice yet was he'd already taught Aziraphale long ago that sometimes evil deeds mustn't go unpunished. Which is why Aziraphale hadn't argued when the guard was dragged to the guillotine in his stead!
He leaned down to kiss his beloved demon deeply. Crowley felt his body mould further into his angel but was stopped when his eyes were lifted upwards. The heavenly lights in Aziraphale's eyes shone like the faded memories of stars as Crowley held his breath in worship. “We have work to do!” The angel gasped as he winked down at him.
The demon nodded in understanding and winked back. "Thy Will be done!"