Happy Holidays, Elvendork Lee!
Title: Pharaoh’s Secret
Recipient: elvendork_lee
Author: keksdiebin
Rating: T
Notes: Happy holidays, dear recipient, and thank you for this lovely prompt: Aziraphale & Crowley, as platonic or as shippy as you like, being protective of each other. The actual level of danger is yours to do with as you please.
Summary: The events of the Ten Plagues haunt them through the millennia.
The darkness came so suddenly Aziraphale didn’t even have time to land. Sand and stones welcomed him back on the ground. Panting he spun around his axis in search for the moon and stars. But they were gone. The sky looked as if million of candles had been blown out all at once by the breath of a giant.
Brushing sand off his robes, he tilted his head and stared upwards with a defiant expression nobody could see.
“Let there be light,” he demanded.
But there was no light - no matter how often he repeated those words.
By the time he went quiet coldness had fallen, every inch of his body and breathing proved to be difficult. It is widely known that angels are made of light. Only a few know, however, that they are as blind in the dark as they are vulnerable.
To Aziraphale, this had never been a problem as long as a few stars and fireflies were around. But a situation like this one - utter Darkness - was something different. If he ever had to explain it to a human he’d probably say that it felt like hanging at the gallows in the winter whilst slowly bleeding to death.
But he hadn’t reached that point yet. There was still enough time to get back to the city. And he had to get there. Apparently the other angels were up to something he wasn’t supposed to know about. It explained why they had sent him on this stupid mission in the first place.
The thought got him to straighten and send out his wings. To his relief, they gleamed faintly in the darkness. He had no idea how long this internal light would last, but decided to think about that only when it became necessary.
The night air stung in his eyes as he pushed himself off the ground. He might not be able to see but he could smell, hear and feel the city in the distance. His remaining senses allowed him to carry on. But as he got closer, they seemed to be failing him as well. There was no other explanation for the sensations he caught.
The wind was cold and wet. It carried the scent of something sickeningly sweet and the sound of million tiny wings and silence and sobs.
By the time he arrived, his breathing had become infrequent and he could barely keep his balance because he was shaking so badly. He found their headquarters deserted and turned midair for a different direction. Luckily, he knew this way by heart.
At the palace he managed to produce a weak, smoky flame with a torch he found in the entrance hall. In the fleeting light, he saw the bodies of servants and animals on the floor, their faces blackened by pox and pestilence.
The torch fell from his hands as he rushed along the corridors. He tried to shout, but sometime during the last centuries he must have forgotten how to speak without air in his lungs. It didn’t matter. Speaking and breathing were the least of his worries right now. For the first time since he could remember the golden door leaves of
the hall were closed and he almost slammed into them. There was no light from within.
He’s a demon, he reminded himself, rubbing his eyes mechanically, don’t forget that. Never forget that.
He pushed the door open. The glow in his wings flickered when a hiss welcomed him from the other side of the room.
“Crowley,“ he whispered. “Oh, Crowley, I am so - ”
There was not enough yellow in the eyes that stared at him and they blinked too fast for a snake. The silky head that melted against his palm quashed the remainder of his hope. It was one of Crowley’s pet panthers. The only survivor judging from the lifeless forms that surrounded them.
Aziraphale knelt down to meet the cat on eye-level.
“Do you know where he is?” he asked over her frantic purring. “No? Not for some time? But you weren’t here the whole time, weren’t you? Yes, I know... I’ve seen them and I’m so sorry...”
Deep sadness surged against him and was met by almost no resistance. In this merciless darkness the shields that guarded his telepathic receptors from overload also seemed to be weakened. And crumbling fast.
To his horror he could already feel the emotions of more than twenty other beings in the surrounding area. They pattered against him like icy raindrops from every possible direction. Once the shields were gone he’d be soaked from head to toe in whatever the people of Egypt were feeling - with “whatever” being the highest concentration of gut-wrenching despair mankind had experienced up until now.
That’s why the other angels are gone, he realized. They knew they wouldn’t survive long in a place like this. They brought all these things upon them and… left.
“Despicable,” he whispered, “You despicable cowards.”
The hair on the cat’s neck rose under his fingertips and it reminded him why he had come here at all. His heart went from burning to sinking in less than a second.
“Crowley.” He clenched his fists and staggered. “Good Heavens what have we done…”
One beat of his wings brought him to a smashed window at the ceiling. Only weeks ago they had watched the sun rise from this spot. Today he senses nothing but gloom and the wind that carried the stench of hopelessness.
But this time he couldn’t stop breathing. This time, his mouth and lungs filled with the polluted air - and he yelled for him.
***
Three thousand years later he got an answer.
“Blessit, Aziraphale, wake up. I’m not going anywhere!”
Cool hands were shaking his shoulders and his eyes snapped open. It was dark outside but every candle in the chamber seemed to be burning. He tried to sit up and quickly abandoned the idea.
“See,“ he rasped. “That’s what angels get for falling asleep.”
Crowley conjured a goblet and filled it with water before holding it to him. Aziraphale closed his eyes and emptied the goblet in one gulp. It helped clearing the taste of blood from his tongue.
“I didn’t know you had nightmares.”
“Well, apparently I do.” He tilted his face to return the unblinking gaze. “I am sorry if I woke you.”
Crowley only shook his head. He looked pale and wide-eyed.
“You… called for me. In your dream.”
Aziraphale rubbed his temple and suppressed a sigh.
“Bad memory. Something I’m trying to forget.”
“Are you? Then you’re doing a lousy job.”
By now, Crowley was so close to him that a few dark strands grazed over Aziraphale’s forehead. Absentmindedly, he raised both hands and pushed them back where they belonged.
“That might be true, but talking about it won’t be helpful either.”
Crowley narrowed his eyes.
“So you’re not planning to tell me?”
“I’m afraid not.” Aziraphale rose to his elbows when Crowley turned away. “Now, now, don’t be so sore-headed about this, my dear.”
It took him a moment to understand Crowley’s reply over the crackle of the fire.
“I thought we were past this.”
With his chiselled profile and hair shining in the firelight, he looked like the dream of every court lady (and that’s what he was in twenty-three kingdoms at least). Without averting his gaze, Aziraphale got to a sitting position as well.
“We are past this. And that’s exactly why I don’t want to harp on about it.”
Crowley crossed his arms and exhaled.
“I take that I didn’t show up then. In your memory.”
“No.” Aziraphale said deploringly. “Not for some time.”
The flames flickered with relief when Crowley aimed his glare at a more resistive target.
“You even stopped breathing for some time!”
"Err… yes.” He shrugged as noncommittally as he could muster. “I suppose that was part of the dream. Could we change the topic now?”
“And you said something in Babylonian. You haven’t done either in centuries. Not since at least -”
“Crowley, stop! I’m not going to give you any more clues. Why can’t you simply accept that I don’t want to discuss this with you? According to the Arrangement it’s my right to keep secrets as long as they are not connected to any current mission of mutual concern. You yourself wrote that paragraph.”
“I know,” Crowley hissed. “That bloody thing.”
Aziraphale stared at him.
“Why does this bother you so much? Only yesterday you thought it was a brilliant idea.”
"Well, yesss -” Crowley scowled, tongue flicking against his lower lip. "Yesterday I didn’t know you had secrets like that.”
“Oh, so you only included that rule to guard your own secrets?” Aziraphale could help but smile at him weakly. “I am sorry the whole scheme backfired so soon but you should have known that it goes both ways.”
Crowley blinked for the first time in weeks and bent closer again.
“I’ll tell you one of my secrets if you tell me yours.”
His pupils were widened in the semi-darkness, and Aziraphale found no trace of the wolfish smile and slyly raised eyebrows that usually accompanied his attempts at seduction. The way he studied him today got Aziraphale to sink deeper into the backrest of the bench - mentally thanking the Lord for the fact that Crowley had no idea what this look could do to him.
“It’s an interesting offer,” he acknowledged. “But I’m not risking another bargain with a cheater like you. You might just tell me a silly little secret in return or even make one up.”
Crowley’s jaw tensed but he didn’t turn away. Instead, he shifted, settling both hands on the armrests of the bench.
“All right, then,“ he said. “I’ll keep my silly secrets, and you keep yours. But for the record.”
Aziraphale tilted his chin, refusing to move backwards any further from the slender body that had him trapped against the cushions.
“What?”
“I don’t know what kept me from showing up.” Crowley tightened his grip until his knuckles were showing. “But it was because I couldn’t hear you. There is no other way, Aziraphale. If you ever call for me like that again and I hear you…”
“I know.” Aziraphale combed his hair back, this time lingering a little longer in the glossy warmth. “I know, Crowley. And me too.”
***
The door was gone. He walked around the room at least five times with his hands pressed against the walls, the sharply edged fissures leaving scratches on his palms. He tried to make the walls disappear but nothing happened. He flew in circles, searching for an opening in the ceiling. He slammed against the windows at full force - all to no avail.
The panther mewled and cowered on the ground. Her panic followed him through the hall along with the sadness and anger of Crowley’s neighbours. And the swarm of shadows was growing. He tried to shake them off but they always came back to him.
During his seventh attempt to escape, he was hit by such a strong wave of loneliness that he lost his sense of direction and scraped against a wall. Pain shot through his right shoulder blade even before he came crushing on the ground. Breathing shallowly he wreathed and tried to rise to his knees. The glow in his injured wing was
fading before his eyes and another wave of despair surged over him. Hundreds... no thousands suffering souls.
Somewhere in his back, the panther seemed to be suffocating and Aziraphale also escaped a quiet choking sound.
It was so dark.
***
This time it took longer for the effects to wear off. It was still pitch-black and he yelled for light and Crowley in every language he knew. Once he reached Spanish, his vision had returned and he found himself lying on his back surrounded by the most elaborate chalk circle he had ever seen. It consisted of so many twirls and orbits he felt like the sun of an overprotective universe. And Crowley was pacing dangerously close to its border.
“Junction,” he hissed, “Next to your left ear.”
Aziraphale rolled to his side. Powdery whiteness stuck to his palm, and the demon was at his side before his shaky fingertips threatened to smear the cut again. Numbly he felt his head roll over the crook of an arm.
“Say something,“ Crowley demanded, his voice muffled by several layers of feathers and fabric. “For crying out loud, Aziraphale, can you see me now?”
Aziraphale nodded diligently against his neck.
“I’m sorry,“ he croaked. “I really should give up drinking.”
"No, you should give up lying. You’re pathetic at it” Crowley tilted his chin until their gazes locked. “You haven’t had a drop of wine in weeks. At least not with me.”
“I’m not a liar,” Aziraphale murmured. “I just don’t remember when…”
“Hey!”
The grip around his jaw tightened and forced his eyes to open again. Crowley’s hands were uncharacteristically cold, and also trembling.
“Don’t fall asleep. Not while the circle is open.”
With effort Aziraphale turned his head and stared at the network of lines and tokens.
A number of epiphanies hit him faster than he could blink.
“Demons... Masters of nightmares… you think your side is behind this?”
“Mine or yours. You only woke up when I finished the outer line.”
Further study of the circles got Aziraphale’s mouth to open in surprise.
“A Demon and an Angel Trap... you locked yourself out and me in.”
“That was a side effect I had to accept.”
Aziraphale stopped staring at this strange masterpiece and focused on its creator instead. Finally the echoes of tortured humans and cats had faded and he was capable of thinking straight again. But these thoughts quickly landed him in an even more confusing maze.
“Good heavens, why would they send me nightmares like that?”
“I think I know why,” Crowley said. “It was the same dream you had after the Arrangement, wasn’t it?”
“I guess” Aziraphale murmured, “You could say it was the sequel.”
Crowley’s eyes flickered.
“So every time you fall asleep you relive something that happened in the past?”
“No, not every time. Only after special occasions. Like the Arrangement and, er, yesterday.”
“The day before yesterday,” Crowley corrected him mechanically. “You think…”
“Yes.” Aziraphale said. “A bit late but very creative, don’t you agree?”
He tried to sit up, and winced so violently that Crowley’s hand sprung from his waist to the back of his neck.
“Angel, what’s wrong?”
He looked so alarmed that Aziraphale scrambled to his knees despite the numbing pain in his wing.
“Nothing,” he lied, “Just an aftermath of the dream. It was quite, well, vivid.”
“No kidding.” Crowley furled his own wings and got to a cross-legged position that looked suspiciously comfortable. “In case you haven’t noticed, Aziraphale, you’re still trapped in here. And I’m not going to let you out until you tell me about those bloody dreams of yours. In detail if you please.”
Aziraphale straightened and shot him a disapproving glare.
“That’s not exactly fair.”
“Demon,“ Crowley reminded him. “So, why don’t we start at the beginning?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You prefer staying in here then?”
Aziraphale tensed and glanced around the room. It looked like the cellar of a former monastery. Cold, windowless and filled with the scent of decay. He imagined himself in here. All his powers rendered useless. Trapped for weeks and months. In the dark.
“No!”
Crowley was too surprised to hold him back when he jumped to his feet, heartbeat roaring in his ears. He clenched his fists until the wounds on his palms opened again, sending trickles of blood over his palms.
“You can’t keep me in here!”
“Angel, don’t - “
Crowley leapt up but his hands grasped at nothing. The backlash of the circle was so strong that Aziraphale bounced back all the way to the other side. Gasping he regained his balance and took another run-up. This time Crowley got in the way and caught him around the waist with unrelenting strength. He seemed to be talking to him but Aziraphale couldn’t understand a single word. His vision was darkening and he lashed out wildly against the agile limbs that held him back.
“Let me go!” In his panic he lapsed seamlessly from Spanish to a completely different language. “How dare you do this to me again? ”
Despite his struggle Crowley spun him without effort, his eyes yellow and piercing.
“What did you ssay? ”
“We both now this isn’t first time, don’t we? ” Aziraphale spat and tore at his
hands. “It was you back then. It was your palace!”
He was released so abruptly he stumbled backwards. Crowley had been pale before but now his face looked downright bloodless. The way he stared at him brought Aziraphale abruptly back to his senses.
“Oh, dear,“ he gasped out. “I didn’t mean to… I shouldn’t have…”
The demon blinked and turned away, further blurring the lines under his soles.
“Crowley, wait.” Still fighting for breath, Aziraphale stumbled after him. “Look… that’s why I didn’t want to talk about it. Don’t you see what is happening? It’s more than punishment. They’re trying to turn us against each other!”
He caught Crowley’s sleeve before he could leave the inner circle.
“Dear,” he whispered. "Please, don’t let them.”
Crowley had stopped, but he didn’t turn back to him.
“That’ss up to you, Aziraphale.”
“Good,” Aziraphale replied fiercely, “because I refuse to be manipulated by them. I’m no longer angry at you. Not when I’m in my right mind. If it weren’t for the dreams the whole episode would be dead and buried.”
“You’re not?” Crowley asked, still facing away from him. “How come?”
“Call it angelic forgiveness if you like.” Aziraphale stared at the blood that was soaking Crowley’s embroidered sleeve and slowly let go of him. “If you must know... it’s the angels I can’t forgive.”
Crowley’s hand curled into a fist and Aziraphale felt coldness seep through him like a sudden rain front. He rarely caught any of his emotions and the ones he got were hopelessly encrypted.
“You have to stop thinking about them.” Crowley said darkly. “They were only doing what they had to.”
“I know.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I promise I’ll try to forget. And now let me out of this trap. My wings are killing me.”
The invisible barriers vanished at once and he sighed with relief when his healing powers kicked back in. The sound of Crowley’s footsteps echoed through the room and he opened his eyes, swaying lightly.
“Where are you going?”
Crowley still wasn’t looking at him.
“Businesss.” He stood at the door, his profile sharp against the blurry background. “We’ll be in touch. And in the meantime… don’t fall asleep.”
They met again three years later. The demon sneaked up to him in a crowded street and slipped something on his wrist. At first a chill crept over him but the dull substance adopted the warmth of his body rather quickly.
Ignoring the humans around them, he stopped and studied the bracelet with secret admiration. It must have taken months just to gather the material.
“Let’s just pretend it isn’t there, all right?”
Crowley tossed his head back and flashed him a smile. Despite his indifference to those kind of things Aziraphale couldn’t help but notice that his clothes looked a bit outdated. He lagged behind the fashion for about… three years.
Awestruck Aziraphale touched one of the rings that clung smoothly to his wrist.
“You shouldn’t have.”
Smile deepening Crowley nudged his shoulder.
“There’s no need to get emotional, angel. You better be concerned about my ulterior motives.”
After a moment of silence Aziraphale nudged him back.
“Do you genuinely assume you can make me believe that you’re acting out of spite?”
“Selfishness,“ Crowley corrected him. “I couldn’t let them keep me away from my favourite enemy, could I? And now come on. You look awfully sober and I know just the right place to change that.”
The place turned out to be a luxurious little apartment in the centre of Barcelona and, while resisting Crowley’s attempts at getting him drunk, Aziraphale fell for another carefully planned temptation.
The next day he awoke at sunrise and stretched like a cat before noticing the yellow gaze that must have lingered on him for quite some time.
“It worked,“ he said and put out his hand to him, gratitude and another warm feeling spreading through him. “Thank you, my dear...”
He didn’t take the bracelet off for the next four hundred years and - despite the growing number of lapses his superiors might consider deserving of punishment - the dreams never returned.
It took them until the Apocalypse-That-Wasn’t to get on to their secret.
***
This time he knew it was a dream. He remembered how they had pinned him against a bookshelf while one of them ripped Crowley’s bracelet off his struggling wrist. Their leader Melachiel had whispered something about unfinished business and hit his temple until he toppled down to the ground.
That’s where he found himself in his dream as well. He tried to cling to this memory but it slipped away when he heard the whimpers of the cat. She was dying of course.
And she wasn’t the only one.
The emotions that rained on him turned into hail, then into storm-tides. Aziraphale heard them rumble from the distance before they crashed into him. He clung to the dead cat, to her fading softness and warmth, and sobbed.
An ignorant observer would say that he didn’t move during the next minutes and hours. That he remained perfectly still. But in his mind he was drowning.
Death came quickly over Egypt and took the panic of his victims with him. But the feelings of the bereaved remained and rose beyond measure. Their shock surged over him, quickly followed by a consumptive grief that bordered on insanity. But worst of all was the loneliness, because of this external feeling that he had an internal
twin.
All his prayers fell on deaf ears. His brothers had abandoned him like they had abandoned the people of Egypt. Only the Chosen Ones would survive. He had guided and defended Abraham’s children for centuries. He had kept Jacob out of trouble. He had protected Joseph during his enslavement. He had smuggled Moses in the royal family to soften the Pharaoh’s heart. He had obeyed to every order and rule best as he could while trying to keep the surrounding humans from harm.
And this was the thanks he got. They had unleashed the Plagues on Egypt without even consulting him. They had overlooked and deserted him.
These thoughts ignited a spark in him that developed into a weakly flaring blaze. It was this anger that saved him from losing himself in the darkness. By the time the storm had ebbed away he lay as still as the panther, the light in his uninjured wing now with a reddish tint.
When the doors swung open he didn’t raise his head. He heard footsteps and a hiss -
this time from the right person.
“Angel?” A hand touched his shoulder and flinched back with another hiss.
“Aziraphale, look at me.”
He turned his head and tried to crawl closer to him.
“Can’t see you,“ he whispered. “Where were you?”
Crowley’s fingers wrapped around his elbows and dragged him to a sitting position.
“What do you mean, you can’t see me? The sun just rose! You have to get up or they are leaving without you.”
“Then let them leave.”
Crowley shook him so fiercely that Aziraphale’s teeth clattered against each other.
“Shut up, you ssstupid angel! Do you hear yourself talk? You don’t mean that! ”
There was something in his voice that sounded surprisingly like panic Aziraphale noticed with detached fascination. After the last hours he had no sympathy left. Not even for him.
In fact, he felt next to nothing right now. Compassion, kindness, love… Even those feelings that were expected from an angel had been consumed by the darkness. There was only dread left and a weak, seething anger that kept his inside from cooling off entirely. It also gave him the strength to struggle against him.
“Stop it.”
“The Hell I won’t! How dare you give up like this after everything that happened? Can’t you see what your side did to this land? And you won. Congratulations.” Crowley’s voice was shaking. "Now get up and finish what you started.”
Aziraphale straightened and shoved him back. A narrow streak of light had appeared in his vision.
“I didn’t do any of this. I would have tried to prevent it for all its worth if I hadn’t been locked up in this wicked place of yours!”
The silence that followed confirmed his assumption.
“It was you,” he choked. "You made the door disappear.”
“You activated an Angel Trap when you stepped in here. I thought you had left. How was I supposed to know that you’d come here of all places.”
Aziraphale’s vision was clearing and he could see Crowley kneeling next to him. A broad collar covered his chest and both arms were adorned by golden bracelets. He must be looking at him - but Aziraphale couldn’t find his eyes in the twilight.
“I wish you had caught them instead of me,” he whispered. “I wish you had trapped them in here and torn them to pieces and -”
“Careful what you wish for,” Crowley cut in breathlessly. “Aren’t you forgetting they were just doing their job?”
“Were they?” he said. “You didn’t see them when they came here three months ago. They were bragging about our new Weapons from dusk till dawn. They couldn’t wait to give them a try. Why do you think they send me searching for Moses on the wrong side of the desert? They knew I would try to spoil their little demonstration of power. Don’t tell me that‘s not exactly what it was. We have other powers of persuasion. Powers that don’t kill civilians and… innocent animals for Heaven’s sake! Don’t you see, Crowley? They didn’t destroy this land because they had no other choice. They did it because they wanted to.”
With every word, his surroundings seemed to grow brighter. But the world didn’t look like he remembered it. It was sharper and more saturated. Grimly he noticed the red light spreading from his wing over his whole body. Wrath was such an exquisite emotion.
“Do you know where they went?” he asked icily. “Tell me.”
There was a moment of deep silence. Then he was pinned to the ground, his wrists held in an iron grip. He didn’t know livid demons could be so beautiful from up close.
“I don’t know where they are,“ Crowley said. “But I’m going to tell you something else. Something you forgot to consider. And I want you to listen very closely.”
He had the eyes of someone who was about to slaughter a lamb, and Aziraphale started to writhe beneath him.
"I don’t want to hear it. Crowley.”
But he got silenced by a hand that was pressed to his mouth.
“They didn’t have a choice,“ Crowley breathed against his ear. “It was the only way to convince the Pharaoh.”
Aziraphale bit his fingers and suppressed an angry sob.
“How would you know?”
He tried to ignore how quiet Crowley’s whisper had become. How maddeningly gentle.
“Because I was with the Pharaoh while it happened. I was the one who told him not to let them go.”
***
The angels were still there when he woke up, forming a silent circle around him. Disappointment was written on their faces despite the tears that ran over his own. No one spoke when he reached for a bookshelf and pulled himself up.
“So,” he said as matter-of-factly as one could between barely stifled sobs. “Are we done?”
The tallest angel stepped forwards and buried a hand in Aziraphale’s right wing. It gave a wince of pain but the red light had faded long ago.
“The Lord moves in mysterious ways and so do you, Angel of the Flaming Sword. We didn’t expect you to be so resilient.”
His subordinates followed his example until Aziraphale found himself pressed against the bookshelf again.
“But maybe we need to be more patient,” Melachiel mused, raising his other hand. "Third time is the charm… isn’t that what your precious humans like to say?”
The realisation of what they wanted to do hit him like a bolt of energy. One frantic beat of his wings sent a shower of encyclopaedias over them, and in the emerging mayhem he managed to break away. But half-blinded as he was they caught up to him before he reached the door and clutched at his wings, ripping feathers out in handfuls. Aziraphale yelled with pain and turned to kick at them. But two more angels appeared at his sides and yanked his arms downwards. He was outnumbered and he knew it. Not long and he would be asleep again, reliving agonies of the past for all eternity. Because he’d never give them what they wanted.
Then the light went off.
His attackers froze and tumbled away from him, huddling together in a cluster of panicked orders. Out of nowhere an arm snaked around his waist and pulled him backwards.
“It’s all right,“ a familiar voice whispered into his ear. “I’ll get you out of here.”
Aziraphale had to close his eyes for a moment and slumped against him, his knees weakening with relief. Another arm appeared and drew him closer. Nearby, the other angels were reeling in the dark.
“How‘s the taste of your own medicine, you bastards?”
“Who’s there?” Melachiel asked sharply. “Take your spell from us!”
Crowley led him away slowly until Aziraphale felt the Trap behind his back.
“You wait until Doomsday for that,” he hissed. “You know… the next one. We’ll make sure it lies far in the future.”
The barrier broke and Aziraphale was pulled over the line before it closed behind them again. The angels felt the disruption and darted towards the light cone of the door, their leader at the head. His ice-blue gaze jumped from Crowley to Aziraphale and back to Crowley.
“You!” Melachiel stared at him with a stunned expression before his voice turned into acid. “Oh, demon, now it all makes perfect sense. Especially what you said to me. All this time and you never told him. How… endearing.”
Crowley slammed the door in his face and dragged Aziraphale away from it. It took him all the way to the car to process what had happened.
“You know him?”
He saw Crowley’s expression in the streetlight and sank deeper into the passenger seat. Neither spoke until they reached the apartment. There Aziraphale sank on a white leather couch and watched how Crowley paced through the room before coming to a stand in front of a window.
“What now, my dear?” he asked quietly. “We can’t lock them up forever.”
He saw Crowley’s reflection in the window. But he was wearing his shades which reflected the prying glass right back. It was an endless range of mirror images - each one smaller and more unreadable than its predecessor. Suddenly Crowley looked like a stranger, and that thought was scarier than all of Aziraphale’s nightmares taken together.
“You said you wouldn’t let them do this. Now look at us.” He wanted to sound accusatory and ended up being barely comprehensible. “Liar.”
Trembling, he unfurled his wings and wrapped them around himself, almost wishing his colleagues would see him now. Maybe then they’d believe how effective their Punishment was.
Numbly, he registered how Crowley sank down next to him.
“You’re right. I lied to you.” Between his feathers he caught a glimpse of pallid cheekbones. “And now it’s catching up to me.”
Aziraphale raised his head from his arms.
“Let’s ward it off, then.” Hesitantly he wrapped his wing around Crowley’s shoulders. “Together.”
Somehow this caused Crowley’s face to fall. He pressed a hand against his eyes, the shades cutting into the bridge of his nose.
“You don’t understand.” he said in a tormented voice. “I can’t tell you.”
Aziraphale pulled him closer until Crowley’s hair brushed against his jawline.
“You can tell me anything.” He reached for his face and pulled his hands aside. “I thought we have established that.”
Crowley allowed him to take his glasses off, but sprung forwards before their gazes met. The elegance of his motions didn’t conceal how fervently he was holding on to him.
“Mind if I tell you like this?”
Shaking his head Aziraphale wrapped both arms around his hypothermic winter body.
“I don’t mind at all.”
“Brilliant,“ Crowley rasped. “It’s not like we have a choice anyways… bless it all. You’ve heard that bastard Melachiel, haven’t you? I know him from the times of the Plagues. He showed up with a bunch of minions a few days after your went on your trip to the desert. At first I thought they were set on killing me but it turned out they had a much better plan. You got it right back then, Aziraphale. A demonstration of power is useless without a surviving witness. So, they made me watch them one by one, the Plagues of Blood, Frogs, Lice, Flies, Pox, Boils, Hail, Locusts and Darkness.”
By now, the speed of Aziraphale’s heart had at least doubled and he felt Crowley’s hand comb through his feathers - not knowing who he was trying to sooth.
“They took off,“ Crowley continued. “One day before the final plague. I was trapped in a ruin jusst like you. An old woman found and freed me when it was over.”
Aziraphale grabbed his shoulders and held him away at arms’ length, blurry shadows darting through his vision.
“That means you never spoke to the Pharaoh. Why did you pretend it was you who tempted him? Crowley, I was so angry and disappointed… I didn’t speak to you for a century!”
“I know.” There were marks around Crowley’s eyes and if there had been any white in them it would have been reddened too. “I wanted you to be angry with me.”
Aziraphale shook his head, struggling for words.
“Why? ”
“Let me finish.” Crowley rested his icy chin against his shoulder and waited until Aziraphale returned the gesture. “I overheard a number of conversations while they held me captive. Most of them bored me to death but sometimes it was worth listening. Sometimes they talked about you. How unpopular you were with the management floor because you had a soft spot for humans and how pleased Upstairs would be if someone found a convenient way to get rid of you. Too bad angels aren’t allowed to run around and kill each other.”
“Yes,“ Aziraphale said through gritted teeth. “What a shame.”
“One day they dropped the topic and never spoke of it again,” Crowley’s arms tightened around him. “I thought they had abandoned the plan… until I found you.”
Aziraphale stared into the distance, unable to handle the speed at which his thoughts were racing. It felt like a domino reaction, with the difference that the dominos weren’t dominos, but millennia-old assumptions on which his whole world had been built.
“It was them,“ he said blankly. “They trapped me. But why -”
Another domino tipped over. Fell.
A harsh noise escaped him that sounded like the laughter of a maniac. It caught in his throat when he noticed Crowley staring at him with widened pupils.
“Just give me a moment,“ he said between shallow breaths. “There’s no need to look as if the world is coming to an end.”
His attempt at standing up was thwarted by snakelike limbs and a pleading hiss that was barely intelligible.
“Screw the world, Aziraphale. That’s not what I’m worried about.”
Without thinking he turned and wrapped arms and wings around him. Crowley’s face felt even colder than before.br>
“I’m sorry, my dear, sorry…” He found a bluish hand and covered it with his own. “I had no idea. You really thought I’d fall because of this?”
After remaining stock-still for a moment, Crowley’s fingers turned and laced into his.
“You didn’t see yourself back then,” he whispered. “You showed all the symptoms… You were so angry.”
Shuddering, Aziraphale remembered the red glow in his wings and how his surroundings had changed all of a sudden.
“So you decided I’d better be angry with you. That’s why you lied to me.”
He felt Crowley shrug helplessly between his arms.
“It worked, didn’t it?”
Yes, it worked, Aziraphale thought with astonishment. Just like your bracelet and magic circles and all those things you came up with just to protect me from those dreams.
He buried his face against his shoulder and hugged him back so fiercely that Crowley’s collarbone cut into his temple. Again, he felt something like laughter rise in his chest.
“You once said… I should be concerned about your ulterior motives.”
“I told you,” Crowley slid downwards to meet him on eye-level, “It was an act of pure selfishness.”
“Well, then I like it when you’re selfish, dear. It seems to involve me being safe and sane.”
And an angel, he realised.
Something in his expression must have betrayed how overwhelmed he was, because Crowley bent closer again.
“What?” he asked softly.
“There’s one more thing,” Aziraphale said much more smoothly than he felt. “Something I want to know before we decide what we do with a bookshop full of angels.”
Crowley grimaced.
“Do we have to?”
“I’m afraid so. I know how it feels like to be trapped in the dark and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”
Yellow eyes narrowed, flickering with age-old fury.
“There aren’t thousands of dying people in Soho right now.”
“That’s true,” Aziraphale admitted, the memory causing him to shudder again.
“And they have each other.” Crowley’s hand skimmed over his injured wing and left a trail of healthy feathers where the others had torn at him. “You were alone.”
Brushing his wing against his hand, Aziraphale bend closer until their foreheads were touching.
“I’m not alone tonight.”
Their next hug made him skid along the backrest of the couch until he landed on his back with Crowley on top of him.
“Don’t leave now,“ the demon murmured into his hair. “There’s a flashlight in your desk. It’s not our fault if they’re too stupid to make use of it. Besides, there was sssomething you wanted to ask me.”
“Ah, yes…” Aziraphale took his face into his hands until they were looking at each other. “I still don’t understand what Melachiel said back in the bookshop. What did you tell him that suddenly made sense to him?”
“Oh that,“ Crowley said, his face warming underneath Aziraphale’s fingertips. "I thought you weren’t interested in my secrets.”
“Well, I didn’t know you had secrets like that.”
“All right,“ Crowley’s eyes met his again and he looked so focused that Aziraphale’s smile began to falter. “You see, Melachiel got quite personal back then. He mocked me for enjoying my deployment on Earth. He said I was a pathetic excuse for a demon for getting so attached to… things. And he promised that the plagues would take everything I loved in Egypt away from me. And he made sure that’s exactly what happened. The palace, the Nile, my pets … they plagues took them one by one.”
“I know,” Aziraphale whispered miserably. “I watched your panther die.”
Crowley gulped and nodded.
“Melachiel came back shortly after the Tenth Plague to check on me. That’s when I told him something that must have bugged that bastard for centuries.”
Aziraphale moved his thumbs over Crowley's cheekbones, his heart jumping in his chest.
“Told him what?”
Crowley leaned into Aziraphale's hands and returned his gesture with the hint of a smile.
“Everything. But not everyone.”
Happy Holidays, elvendork_lee, from your Secret Writer!