Happy Holidays, chayaasi!

[waxbean]

Title: Ode On The Death of a Favourite Angel (Drowned in a Tub of White Wine)
For: chayaasi
From: inabathrobe
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Islington, having escaped from its prison beneath London, becomes the target of everyone's favorite (now semi-retired) occult duo. (Crossover with Neverwhere.)


Before there was a city there, before the Romans had built a village, the angel lay beneath the earth. It remembered the waves and the light and the air, and it dreamt the music of the spheres and, sometimes, the world. As it lay in its prison, the world above changed, and it felt itself to be forgotten.

But not forever.

Long after it had lost track of the time it had spent in the deep dark cave below the world, it had a visitor. It had been alone, and then he had appeared. He was a different sort of man from the ones it had known when it had walked the lands above, but he was no man at all. The visitor introduced himself as Aziraphale, an angel, and the angel in the darkness did not offer its name for it knew itself to be known among all angels, even the lowliest of the low, even the one who walked the earth and tried to force men to remember their god.

Out of hospitality, the angel underground offered the angel from the world above some of the Atlantean wine, the only reminder of its days above under the sun. It held the glittering bottle, lit with an internal brilliance, close to its chest as something precious and delicate. It was still one of twelve then, not so precious as the final bottles would be, but it held it close nonetheless.

The angel from above said, "Oh, yes, thanks. A spot of wine would do me wonders." It poured the angel a glass and itself one as well. He sipped at the liquid inquisitively. "I brought you something." The angel below tipped its head to the side as if to inquire as to what the angel above could possibly have thought that it might need in its subterranean prison. "It's here somewhere. Um." It watched distastefully as he fumbled about, looking for the gift. "Ah, yes." He proffered a fig.

"I do not require sustenance."

"Er. No. I suppose not." He drank the wine in silence after that. It ate the fig, which was sticky and sweet. It did not thank him. "I should go, really. I've got, well, thwarting to do, haven't I?"

"Yes."

"Ah. Er."

"You know the way out?"

He nodded and saw himself out. It could taste the fig for many days afterward, reminding it of Atlantis and the golden days above and the bitterness of human kindness. It set the wine away again and it did not watch for visitors. After that, the angel from above did not come back, but the angel below was certain that they would meet again.

-

In the village, the two gentlemen who had taken the old Smythe cottage were much talked about, even after they had been in residence for the best part of a year, for several reasons: firstly, they were clearly sexual deviants of the most loathsome kind, which was a source of unending interest to Port-on-Dale's old bitties, and secondly, they were the only new neighbors since the Thompsons (then Mr Thompson and Miss Lewis) had moved there in 1986. They might have given up talking about them if they had not been so obviously trying to cover up their romantic connection and if there had not been such a scandalous age difference between the two. The elder gentleman was easily fifty years old, though Mrs Skinton (who ran the little lending library on the town square, which the elder gentleman was frequently to be found in at weekends) said that he must have been five years older than that at least. The younger gentleman looked as though he might have just finished university, although someone said that he had made his fortune in the stock market after working as an investment banker for a number of years. Regardless of where the money had come from -and there was some argument amongst the village gossips as to who of the two was providing for whom- it was clear from the vintage car parked in the gravel driveway that money was no object for the two gentlemen at Smythe cottage.

Since they had moved in, the younger fellow, whose name was something like "Cowlee," had had a greenhouse added onto the back of the cottage. There were rumors of a library that filled the entire second bedroom, which no one believed was getting any use as a bedroom anyway. Within a week of the greenhouse being finished, even though it was just beginning to get cold, it was filled with plants that appeared to be flourishing. It was almost as peculiar as the time when the other gentleman, Mr Ziraphale, had helped Mr Goodman (the greengrocer, shot in the war, and he'd never been the same since) across the street after he'd lost his cane and he had over the next few days shocked his wife by finally managing to walk without it.

It could not be denied that the two fellows were rather queer.

They were excellent customers, though, faithfully buying more expensive wine, gourmet coffee, overpriced organic produce, and books of all sorts than the rest of the village combined. In fact, Mr Ziraphale was such an avid buyer that his interests had begun to dictate the weekly purchases of the only bookstore in the village. Although he special ordered a great number of the books himself (there was a never-ending stream of deliverymen at the Smythe cottage), he seemed to enjoy getting them from Alan Richards who, normally irritable at the best of times, had been forced both to take a liking to him and to regularly admit him to his bookshop, which had never before kept regular hours of any sort. It seemed to be open whenever Mr Ziraphale came down to the village to do his shopping.

Mr Crowley was a more infrequent visitor of the village high street, somewhat wary of the villagers, and in their humble opinion, far too uppity for his own good. He was clearly posh. It was offensive to their good old-fashioned country morals. No one needed to wear snakeskin shoes when it was raining cats and dogs. It was just ridiculous. He was, however, the one who bought all the wine, which, although hardly a niche industry, was a much appreciated and rather impressive flow of cash into the village.

No one knew exactly what they had done before they had come to the village, but the children speculated wildly that they had been spies and, now retired, lived together because they were the only people who knew their secret identities. Although the independently wealthy businessman and his young lover theory was popular with the village gossips, it was widely generally accepted, the story having been put about by Mr Ziraphale himself, that they were old friends who, after too many years in the city, had disentangled themselves from their respective businesses (Mr Ziraphale having been an art dealer and Mr Crowley having been a partner in a law firm) and moved to the country to settle down.

Spies or no spies, they had given no one the slightest bit of trouble after they had lived there for five years. In the fifth year after their arrival, the thick layer of complacent normalcy that surrounded the village of Port-on-Dale was disturbed by another new arrival. The shock of another set of new residents in so few years was too much from them, and from the start, there was a general dislike of the Ashtons. The wife was an American and something of a homebody, and her husband worked in the city and was only spotted in Port-on-Dale at weekends.

Elsa Ashton was a thin woman who was not particularly feminine but not particularly masculine either. She tended to dress in white, even when it was bound to get dirty in the after-rain muds. She was particularly tall, but wore heels that added three or four inches to her height, allowing her to be easily spotted in any crowd, no matter how thick. She had shockingly blonde hair that verged on white. There were speculations that she had left a modeling career in London because her husband had felt that she had become (hem) too weight-conscious. No one saw Mr Ashton enough to remember what he looked like. He might have been tallish and dark-haired, but he might as easily have not been.

The Ashtons were of particular interest to Mr Ziraphale and Mr Crowley who, beyond their own experience, had never yet witnessed newcomers in the village. There was something particularly sad about watching Mrs Ashton making her way down the high street, ignored by the same people who had always been terribly friendly to them, and Mr Ziraphale had said to Mr Crowley that they really ought to make the poor woman feel more welcome.

It was a comment that he would later regret.

-

They had run out of tea, and he had needed to replenish their stores because Crowley's plants had begun to lose leaves unexpectedly and his fury and their fear were potent enough to put Aziraphale on edge just being in the cottage. He had come home from shopping in the village to find the greenhouse door swinging open. Entering through it to chide Crowley for leaving it open, not because someone would steal anything -goodness knew there wasn't anything to steal, really- but because it was not the sort of thing that their sort of humans would have done, it had been only to discover that Crowley was not in the greenhouse. He had set his parcels down in the kitchen and begun to worry that something might really be wrong when someone had walked into the kitchen.

"Oh, thank goodness. I was about to send out a search party-"

"Aziraphale."

It was not Crowley. Oh, it was definitely not Crowley. Aziraphale turned around and stared at Gabriel, filling the little doorway between kitchen and living room, low enough that Crowley would hit his head on it on occasion, his wings brushing the ceiling. Aziraphale tried to cobble together a story in his mind, anything to explain why he was cohabitating with a demon. "Oh, Gabriel. I wasn't expecting you." No, he had nothing.

"I had hoped not to have to make this visit."

Aziraphale felt the beginnings of a story coming together, something about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer. He wasn't sure that he dared such blatant cheek with an archangel, though. "Er. Yes. Well." He suppressed the urge to offer him tea. The instinct to act like the sort of human he pretended to be had gotten stronger since he and Crowley had started living with humans who knew them again.

Gabriel ducked and entered the little kitchen, his wings spreading almost to the corners of the room. "Unfortunately, here I am. -Aziraphale, what is this?" He gestured at the toaster that one of his wings had knocked over.

Aziraphale scrambled for an explanation. "It toasts bread. Um. I felt that it enhanced my disguise."

"Yes, very well, very well," Gabriel said impatiently. "We have a problem, Aziraphale. A serious one. I do hope that you are prepared to take care of it. There was some- debate Above about your suitability for such a task."

Not Crowley, then. Good. Aziraphale smiled beatifically. "Oh! No, yes, of course. Of course, I can deal with it. I'm sure it'll be no trouble at all."

"Excellent. I am afraid that the angel Islington has- escaped its prison beneath the city of London. With your experience with humans, He thought that you might be better prepared to cope with any possible eventualities than anyone else."

"Naturally," Aziraphale said, finally sliding back into his angelic temperament. "After six thousand years, my expertise can hardly be doubted."

Gabriel's expression, poorly hidden because he did not have Aziraphale's six thousand years' experience at deception, seemed to say that, actually, there had been a good deal of doubt about Aziraphale's expertise. "You will be expected to track it down and- eliminate the threat to humanity. Are we clear?"

Aziraphale raised an eyebrow. "Not quite."

"Aziraphale, I think that you know what I mean. Preparations must be made for the doubtless consequence of Islington's escape." Gabriel coughed. It was oddly human and a little frightening. Gabriel produced a sword from the ether, and in the half-dark kitchen, it began to flame eagerly. It looked surreal and out of place in the little Sussex kitchen. Gabriel thrust it at him. "Take it."

Aziraphale did. Gabriel disappeared, and the air slamming into the void that he had left put out the flaming sword. Aziraphale stared at it, given to him as a tacit order to kill a fellow angel. He remembered an afternoon spent underground, drinking a funny sort of white wine. It had seemed so harmless, quiet, subdued, self-assured, a little bit sad. He had not liked the angel Islington, but-

The sword burst into flame in his hands, and he heard the door slam. "Hello, Crowley."

"You'll never believe what just happened to me in the car." Crowley sauntered into the kitchen, sunglasses slightly askew on his nose, a bag of gardening supplies resting on one hip. "I just talked to- What in the world is that thing doing in here?" He skittered back, looking warily at the sword.

Aziraphale forced it to go out, which it did reluctantly. "I had a visit from a friend."

"Ah. Yes. I thought it reeked of sanctimoniousness in here."

"Crowley, please." Crowley raised an eyebrow as if to remind Aziraphale of their long history of mutual Gabriel-loathing. Aziraphale in a better mood might have conceded that Gabriel was something of a prat and made a tasteful pun. Aziraphale was not in a good mood. Aziraphale had been in a better mood after the library at Alexandria had burned down. "I am going to make myself a cup of tea and sit in the library with a book, and you are going to leave me alone."

"Uh."

Aziraphale gestured at the countertop, and a steaming cup of Earl Grey was suddenly sitting on it. "Go taunt a begonia or something." Clutching his cup of tea, Aziraphale left the kitchen, trailing something a little short of actual rage but not by much.

-

Crowley, stunned, stood in the kitchen, awash in the wake of Aziraphale's huff. He might have been more annoyed with the angel if he had not had a fairly good idea of what had transpired in the kitchen. He had had a terse message from Below that there was some trouble coming and Crowley was to take care of it in the simplest way possible.

Which, in Hell's expert opinion, was murder.

Crowley had a fairly large number of compunctions about most of his assignments from Hell (at least, the more specific ones; he rather liked living on Earth), but this one took the cake. It probably did more than that. It probably obliterated the cake. There probably never had been a cake. Islington had probably destroyed the cake before the cake ever had been.

Setting his purchases down on the kitchen table, Crowley sank down into a chair. He was a dead man. Islington was a dead- something-or-other. Angel. Islington was a dead angel.

And, more importantly, when Dagon had told him that Heaven had sent Islington to wreak beneficence on the world, Dagon had been wrong. All Hell was probably wrong. They probably had no idea that He had not ordered Islington's release. Escape. Islington had escaped. It had escaped from a prison that He Himself had created for it, and now an agent from Heaven and an agent from Hell had been sent to see that it would not need to be imprisoned again.

Crowley didn't kill people. It wasn't his job.

Aziraphale clearly wasn't keen on it, either. It came to him that they could handle it like they had Armageddon, try to strategically diffuse both sides' plans (which once again conveniently coincided), and let Islington just go on living. But the baby Antichrist hadn't had a vendetta against the human race or several thousand years of pent-up rage to get over. The baby Antichrist also hadn't known who they were. And their plan hadn't exactly succeeded then, either, at least, not in the way they had hoped, and Islington wasn't likely to come up to Crowley, turn itself in, and set things right. Even Islington couldn't bring Atlantis back, not that it mattered much anymore.

Of course, when it drowned the British Isles, Crowley would be a little less complacent. He liked the British Isles. He liked the people on them for one thing. For another, it would be hard to transport a greenhouse worth of plants across the English Channel in the middle of a tsunami. He wasn't sure they would fit into the Bentley.

Crowley gulped, straightened his sunglasses, and wondered if he dared to ask Aziraphale right then what Gabriel had told him. Probably best not to. Crowley, who would have liked to have napped in the sun for a few hours, skulked off to the greenhouse to threaten a few plants, which was almost as good.

-

Aziraphale sat in the library, watching the sword as it lay on the coffee table, glinting threateningly. It made the air buzz and hiss a little as though it were fighting with reality for its right to exist. He hadn't used it in thousands of years, and he had no intention of starting again now. Aziraphale had never liked killing fallen angels, although he had chosen the right side in the end and done his share of fighting. He would do his duty by Heaven and by humanity, of course (and it wasn't as though he really had a choice in the matter), but he would do it without relish.

Next to him, the teacup smashed itself on the ground, spilling very neatly. Aziraphale waited for a total of thirteen seconds, carefully composing a look of cherubic innocence, tinged with confusion, and preparing to fuss.

Then, Crowley turned up. "Aziraphale?"

"Oh, no, don't worry, don't worry. It's just the cup of tea. Oh, gosh, it's gone all over the rug. Be careful where you step; the cup broke." All atwitter, Aziraphale dabbed at the wet rug with his handkerchief (robin's egg blue and newly created from the firmament as of its production from his pocket). "Do you think it will stain?"

Behind him, Crowley crossed his arms and looked down his nose at Aziraphale, stooping on the carpet. "Angel."

Oh dear. Perhaps he had gone too far. "Yes, my dear boy?"

Crowley made a complex wiggly gesture in the air, and Aziraphale's knees tingled a little as the cup reformed itself from the shattered fragments on the ground and the tea disappeared from the rug. "What do you want?"

Aziraphale blinked at him with total incomprehension. Something in Crowley's expression made Aziraphale's question die on his lips.

"I am going to go back to my plants in a moment and you will have to pretend to break something else to get my attention again if you don't just tell me what-"

"Do we have any sea salt left or only the iodized kind?"

Crowley threw up his hands. "I don't know."

"Oh, more's the pity. Well, I'm sure that I can find anything I need in the kitchen. Thank you for your help with the tea," Aziraphale simpered. Crowley shot him a bewildered glare before he stalked out of the library, looking, if possible, crosser than he had when he had walked in. Aziraphale was almost certain that whatever Crowley had been told (probably over the CD player or the car radio) had had to do with Islington. And yet what would be the harm in telling Aziraphale that he had been set to kill a fallen angel?

Unless Crowley was supposed to help it. No, surely, if that were so, Crowley would tell Aziraphale. Crowley was just as fond of humans as Aziraphale was. They had both worked so well together the last time- But that was a long time ago. Something had changed.

Aziraphale realized that he was scared. And Crowley was scared. And Gabriel- That was what Aziraphale had recognized as peculiar: fear. It was in his every movement. Gabriel was terrified. Aziraphale sat himself down in his favorite armchair and tried to remain calm.

It wasn't easy.

Eventually, Aziraphale got up and went into the kitchen to find out if there was any sea salt left. There wasn't. Aziraphale huffed, made a pointed comment to himself about certain demons' abilities to do the shopping without being asked, and taking his wallet, which was admittedly empty but good for making humans feel comfortable around him, set out for the shops.

-

The village high street was not particularly fancy, and the greengrocer's on it was not particularly fancy, but Aziraphale was not looking for anything particularly fancy, leaving this, instead, to Crowley who regularly came into the greengrocer's, poked about, sighed a lot, and left empty handed. Aziraphale had seen him do it. It was horrifying.

Aziraphale found the sea salt after a little bit of searching. He picked out the smallest container of it, still a good deal more than he needed, and considered if there were anything else that he could pick up. Some chocolate biscuits perhaps. A new and exotic box of tea. A nice red for the two of them to share that evening.

When he turned the corner from the tea and coffee section to the wine and liquor, he was suddenly confronted by Mrs Ashton, pouring over the white wine selection with an intensity that Aziraphale found surprising because he would not have thought her to be much of a wine drinker. Moreover, she always made him secretly uncomfortable. He coughed politely. "Good afternoon."

She did not turn away from the wines to say, "Oh, Mr Ziraphale, you startled me." She had a strange, thin, unidentifiable accent, which definitely wasn't American like she said it was. He liked to pretend that it sounded German, so that he wasn't left trying to guess what it was. There was something disconcerting about her ability to consistently leave him grasping at a thought that he couldn't quite reach. For that reason, he had never liked her, which perhaps exaggerated his irritation at her not bothering to turn around. Ignoring her as best he could without having anything in particular to ignore, he sifted through the red wines, looking for something that would do. They tended to be cheap and to taste cheap, but he was here, and a trip to the specialty shop a few shop fronts down would mean an hour invested in listening to the proprietor, Mrs Houghton, talk about anything he tried to buy. Besides, it would probably be something else by the time he got it home anyway.

"You should try a white sometime," she said without prompting. "The Argentinian ones are excellent." He turned to her and stared. "Anthony says that he buys whites and you don't drink them."

Aziraphale flushed. He felt that he had somehow been found out in some secret vice that he hadn't known he had had. "Oh, no. I suppose I don't."

She seemed to reach some sort of resolve, plucking a bottle of white wine from its fellows with long, thin fingers. She turned to him finally to say, "Good afternoon," and, with that, she walked off. Aziraphale stared. He had always thought she was a bit mad.

-

After he put the rest of the groceries away, Aziraphale took the salt and a bottle of vodka that Crowley had bought on some long ago trip to the (now former) Soviet Union and which Aziraphale had found hiding in a cupboard some months before and had been conniving to use. He puttered about the rest of the house, trying to find as many sacred objects as he could. If humans had a tendency to hang on to objects to which they had even the slightest emotional connection, Aziraphale tended to hang on to objects with any sort of divine connection whatsoever. It irritated Crowley to no end, but that was what he got for living with an angel.

When Aziraphale had collected every cross and rosary and Bible (except the irreplaceable ones), he began on all the miscellaneously occult objects that littered the house: horseshoes, rabbits' feet, a bezoar, some interesting spices, a votive candle, a broomstick, part of the charred remains of the Nice and Accurate Prophecies, shoes that had last been worn in Jerusalem. When he had managed to collect everything with even the slightest tinge of occult or religious power, he put the delicate items into a rucksack and the rest into a rubbish bag.

He didn't bother to tell Crowley he was going out. Adding the sea salt and the vodka to his rucksack, Aziraphale began walking into the woods. Just in case, he took the flaming sword with him, letting the feeling of it joggling against his hip remind him of its presence with every step.

-

Crowley felt the change in the air when Aziraphale left. It was a bit peculiar, but Crowley was happy to be rid of the low grade itching that accompanied the surplus of divinity that Aziraphale insisted on hoarding in their home. He hoped that Aziraphale had not decided to put a salt circle around the cottage. It would be just like the angel to forget that a being other than himself lived there and would want to be able to leave as he pleased.

Clipping off a dying twig from an otherwise happy ficus, Crowley tried to take his mind off of Aziraphale trying to save them from Islington. Crowley would think of a way to save them (Aziraphale, Crowley, humanity, and all the rest). He would. It would happen right after he decided what he was going to say to Islington when it found him and tried to kill him. Crowley decided to have a cigarette on it, produced a hopefully-less-than-ultimate one from the pack in his blazer pocket, and stepped out of the greenhouse to smoke it. The plants didn't need all that tar getting into their precious little chlorophylls. Aziraphale hadn't gone to the trouble of all those anti-smoking publications for Crowley to expose his plants to secondhand smoke after all. In fact, they had had a sensational row over where in the house they were allowed to smoke (certainly not near any plants or books) a few weeks after they had moved in, and the end result had been that they weren't allowed to smoke inside at all, though both of them did so discretely when the other wasn't looking.

Crowley made a mental note to smoke in the library sometime that week, just to annoy the angel. He walked out of the room, found what he was looking for in the kitchen, and returned. Then, he rolled back the oriental rug, revealing the aging wooden floor boards beneath. It would do. With the packet of white chalk, he began to draw out a rudimentary map of the countryside they were living in on the ground, adding details after he had drawn the initial shape, rivers and hills and townships appearing. When it was finished, he began to draw an immense, complex design around it, long passages in an ancient and dead language weaving together to form the prescribed pattern. The chalk lines seemed to move when Crowley looked at them out of the corners of his eyes. He tried not to think about what he would have to do after he finished it. It was going to be a long night.

-

A few miles away, Aziraphale was contemplating giving up on walking, ruining the nice suit he was wearing, and flying the rest of the way. He knew that he was getting close and he wasn't willing to risk revealing himself unless he had a good reason to. He could feel the spot (the final resting place of a uncanonized martyr whose bones had still half-consecrated the area) only a little way off, so it probably wasn't worth ripping through the several hundreds of pounds that he had spent on the suit to get there any faster.

When he reached the clearing, he made for the patch at the center of it where there was nothing growing from the earth. He set his bags down and began to pile the objects on top of the bare place, stacking them on top of one another into a rickety pyramid of sorts. It rose up almost four feet when he was finished, a little Christmas tree angel perched on top. Steadying a Gideon's Bible that was threatening to fall, he muttered a few words over the entire mess. The air shivered. He produced the bottle of vodka from his bag and unscrewed the top. With loving care, he did his best to cover the entire pile with alcohol. When the bottle ran out, he took out the salt, using it to draw out a circle almost all the way around the pile, which glinted slightly in the growing darkness. He left just enough space open in it that he could step out of the circle.

He set the salt down, pulled a cigarette pack out of his coat liner pocket, tried not to think of the dangers of forest fires, and lit it with the engraved ivory handle lighter that he carried. He smoked thoughtfully. He remembered what Atlantis had looked like when Islington had finished with it. He could remember the devastation, the loss of life, the countless bodies, the sunshine on the waves as they lapped over the land. Crowley had been there. They had drunk together for the first time that day. It was the first time Aziraphale had drunk Atlantean wine.

When his cigarette was almost down to the butt, he threw it onto the pile. It caught on fire in a flash, and he watched the flames engulf it all. He bent, picked up the salt, and completed the circle. Then, Aziraphale put the salt back in his rucksack, which he slung over his shoulder. The smell of plastic and paper and leather burning was acrid on the clean night air. It would burn for a long time and smolder long after that. Although the odor could only carry so far, Aziraphale thought he could smell it until he reached the cottage.

-

Crowley was sitting in the living room, halfway through a glass of white wine when Aziraphale came home. Aziraphale walked into the room, probably planning to say good night. Crowley, who had been staring at the design as it writhed against the bounds of reality, looked up at Aziraphale. Aziraphale looked down at him.

"I'll get the candles," Aziraphale said softly.

So Crowley would get the knife. Strictly speaking, it ought to have been a silver one, but anything sharp and efficient would work. He picked the sharpest one in the kitchen, a little serrated knife that would cut cleanly without too much pressure. It glinted in the morning sunlight. Feeling a little sick, Crowley returned to the living room. Aziraphale had already placed the candles, one at each of the cardinal compass points to which the map itself was carefully oriented, and was waiting.

"Aziraphale."

Aziraphale stuck out his right hand, soft, plump, uncalloused, nails clean and short, just as they had been since Crowley had known him. There was not a mark on it. It was trembling. Crowley steadied it gently in his right hand and held the knife in his left.

"Are you sure?"

Aziraphale squeezed his hand and nodded and looked away, fixating on the begonias just outside the window. Crowley swallowed. He gripped the knife. He cut through the flesh with a single heavy stroke, going too deep. He heard Aziraphale's hissing intake of breath and watched the skin: for a moment very pale and then very red. He held the angel's hand over the map and let it bleed onto Dorset.

After a full minute, Crowley let go of Aziraphale's hand, and Aziraphale yanked it back. Crowley watched the map, waiting for a change. It remained unchanged at first, but then the blood began to move, settling on where they were in Sussex. Crowley blessed. "It didn't work."

"What do you mean?" Aziraphale said, sounding a little panicky.

"I mean that it's telling me where you are."

"Well, I think we've got a more pressing problem."

"What?" Crowley snapped, turning on Aziraphale who was still clutching at his injured hand.

"I can't fix it."

Crowley blinked, put two fingers on Aziraphale's hand, and cursed it better. Nothing happened. Crowley looked at the hand as though it had grown an extra finger.

"Have you ever done this before?" Aziraphale asked.

"Oh, yes, last time, I mutilated my other angel friend. He was just fine."

"Crowley, this isn't funny."

"Put pressure on it."

"I am. It's not just a little nick; you cut almost to the bone."

"I thought you would heal it and be fine!" Crowley snarled, throwing up his hands. "This is ridiculous."

"I need a bandage." Crowley cursed one into existence. "Wrap it around my hand, please." Crowley did.

"Better?"

"Yes." Aziraphale added, "Now, if you'll kindly not try to kill me again, I'm going to leave you to enjoy your clever idea."

Crowley admired his handiwork: Aziraphale's bandaged hand, the blood slowly seeping through it, the chalk on the floor, the blood mixed into the chalk, the bloody knife sitting on the end table. Unable to look at it any longer, Crowley followed Aziraphale out of the room.

He paused in the hallway, listening to the sound of the tap running and Aziraphale bustling about in the little used bathroom. Suppressing a sudden pang of guilt, walked quickly and quietly down the corridor to Aziraphale's bedroom. The door was shut but not locked. He stepped in, went to the armoire, and opened it. He parted the ranks of Aziraphale's endless suits and fumbled for the panel that hid the secret compartment. Aziraphale used it for anything he felt needed hiding from Crowley: French cigarettes, bottles of brandy, jelly babies, that sort of thing. The panel finally came loose in his hands.

And, of course, flaming swords.

Crowley set the panel down, removed the sword, wincing as it singed his fingers, and put it down on the bed. It burst into flames, burning gently, and the counterpane caught alight beneath it. Blessing, Crowley returned the panel to its proper place and spread the hangers out evenly in front of it again. Picking up the sword, he cursed out the fire on the bed. At that moment, he heard Aziraphale's footsteps and, realizing he was moments away from discovery, took to his heels. The window suddenly unlatched, he opened it, sprang through, and shut it behind him. He stepped out of view of the window and leaned against the side of the house. He heard Aziraphale shut the door and enter the room. He was whistling the tune of a 1940s pop song. Crowley looked at the sword and felt shame.

A heavy rain had just begun, and he was quickly soaked through. Much as he did not want to be messing about in that weather, he could hardly take the sword with him. Resolving to stash it somewhere along the way and pick it up again on his way back (the rain being a likely sword-thief deterrent), he skirted around the house and got into the car, starting it on the second try.

He drove down the dirt drive and took a left where it met with the unpaved gravel road that ran past the cottage toward the village. He drove too quickly for the weather, ignoring the road turning to a muddy track beneath him. He kept the car from stalling through sheer willpower alone. He peered through the murky, rain-streaked darkness and hoped that any luckless pedestrians out in that weather had the good sense to stay out of his way.

When he reached the spot where the pasture beyond the trees could be seen from the road, he pulled over onto the shoulder, running the Bentley half into a ditch to do it, and turned the car off. He wrapped the sword in his coat and, taking it with him, he got out of the car, locking it with a gesture behind him. He leapt over the ditch and began to pick his way through the wooded patch. The trees were not terribly dense there, but they were close enough together that caught an unexpected branch in the face. He healed the thin cut in an instant. Then, he turned around, broke the offending branch off the sapling, and felt a little bit better. He made it through the remaining feet of forest without incident, only to discover that nearly an hour of heavy rains had turned the pasture into an enormous field of mud. Resigning himself, he stepped into it, feeling his feet sink into the ground.

When his snakeskin (nominally) shoes had become thoroughly caked in mud and his knees were beginning to protest against the cruelty of unanticipated overuse, he took the sword out of his coat and stuck it into the muddy ground. The mud made a sucking noise, and it sunk into the ground a few inches, but stood very upright, glimmering even in the little light that the stormy night provided.

Pulling his coat on over his soaked button-down, Crowley turned his back on the damned thing and began the miserable walk back to his car.

-

Since the burning, the house had felt barren. It was not so much emptier, but the palpable feeling of hominess that Aziraphale had carefully cultivated was gone. So was Crowley at least for the time being; he had heard the sound of the Bentley's engine starting. Aziraphale poured himself a glass of red wine, took his reading copy of Teleny from the bookshelves, and settled into his pet armchair to read and try to relax and maybe wait up for Crowley.

-

Islington was oblivious to the rain and the wind. Its feet were coated in mud, but it did not seemed to be slowed by it. It cut its way through the woods, felling any tree in its way, refusing to deviate from its course. As it walked, the winds rose to tornado pitch in its wake, its robes billowing behind it. Buffets of wind snatched at its hair and tore at its clothes. At last, it emerged into a field, shorn close to the ground by grazing animals, empty under the cloud-covered sky.

In the center of the field, there was a sword.

Islington paused, sunk ankle-deep into the mud. It opened its wings, ripping through white fabric. They were enormous and ill-kempt. The winds caught under them, and it was made airborne. It flew through the air, the rain like bullets hitting its wings. It landed with some difficulty.

It reached out and tentatively grasped the pommel of the sword. Then, it gripped it and wrenched it from the ground. The blad sizzled in the air. Islington looked up at the sky. A bolt of lightning came down and struck the sword, which caught alight. There was a smell of sulfur in the air. Even in the rain, the flame did not go out. The angel stood in the center of the field, head tilted back, the water running down its face.

In the darkness of the storm, it laughed.

-

Crowley turned over in his sleep, flinging one arm out and waking himself up. He blinked owlishly in the darkness, realizing that he was alone in bed. She appeared in the doorway then. He murmured her name sleepily.

"I'm sorry I woke you." Her fingers, damp, run through his hair, and she curled up next to him.

"You're freezing. Where'd you go?"

"The bathroom. Go back to sleep."

He did.

-

Toward the end of his third glass of wine, Aziraphale realized what the blood must have meant. He needed to tell Crowley. Crowley was gone. Instead, he told his fourth glass of wine, drinking as he sung along spiritedly to an aria in his best falsetto.

-

Crowley came home the next morning. The sword had not been where he had left it, and whoever's hands it was in, he hoped they went to Hell. The first thing he did was put a Bowie album on their record player and play it at maximum volume. That was the sort of mood he was in. This effectively roused Aziraphale who teetered into the living room, gave him a look, and asked if it was really necessary to play bebop so early. Crowley's answer was yes.

"Anyway, I think your choice of song is a little too pointed."

"The title's from a poem. I thought you'd like it."

"I don't. 'S too much. I can't take us being the dead at this hour." Aziraphale made a cross expression, although Crowley rather thought he was putting it on for Crowley's benefit. "Besides, the poem is better." Aziraphale steadied himself with a hand on the back of an armchair.

Crowley waited for Aziraphale to ask him why he had been out. Aziraphale didn't. Crowley eyed Aziraphale who was swaying slightly as if in a light breeze. "Are you drunk?"

Aziraphale looked at Crowley with what might, under other circumstances, have been a withering glare. Instead, it was a slightly cross-eyed glare. "No, of course not. I haven't had anything to drink since the sun came up." Aziraphale put his hands on his hips, set himself off balance, and caught himself before he fell by grabbing hold of the mantelpiece.

"You're drunk. It's nine in the morning."

"You stayed out all night!"

"I- Well-"

"Besides, my hand hurt," Aziraphale said accusatorily.

"Look, I'm sorry about that-"

"And you were with a girl, weren't you? You know we're not supposed to get involved with them."

"How do you know- I wasn't- It is my job, angel, to get involved in their lives, and would you please keep your sanctimoniousness to yourself?"

"You should be ashamed of yourself!" Aziraphale gestured too widely, stumbled, and fell none too delicately to the ground. Crowley, ever chivalrous, did not catch him. " 'M too drunk for this." He sobered up, stood, and brushed himself off. "I cannot believe that you would do that to an innocent human," Aziraphale said, "and there is a lipstick stain on your collar."

Crowley flushed, and the lipstick stain disappeared. "I'm a demon, remember?" He was embarrassed, which didn't happen very often. It was unlike him, yes, and he did feel bad (well, not that bad), but Aziraphale didn't have to be so blessed angelic about the whole thing.

Aziraphale sat down, miracled a cup of tea into existence, and sipped it. Crowley watched the thought, "This isn't as good as if I had really made it," go through his head. Then, Aziraphale, recollecting something that he had tried to forget, said, "It's Mrs Ashton, isn't it?"

Crowley stared at his lap.

"That's how she knew I didn't drink the whites, which you don’t normally buy because you know I don't like them. That's why they've been appearing in and disappearing from our cellar with such wonderful frequency, isn't it?"

"Yes." Crowley looked morosely out the window, unable to so much as look at Aziraphale, much less look him in the eye.

"She's married, though I suppose you think that's a point in your favor. Just doing your job, etcetera, etcetera."

Crowley smiled thinly because, for this at least, he had an answer. "Have you ever met Mr Ashton?"

"No, of course not," Aziraphale snapped. "I've seen him around their house, though, at a distance. Once or twice."

"Well, would you know him if you saw him?"

"I suppose. You know, tall, dark hair, handsome-ish, not very particular. Dresses well, though."

"I think he dresses very well."

"You would."

"What would you say I look like, Aziraphale?"

Aziraphale stared at him. "Oh, I don't know. A bit, well- Crowleyish."

Crowley stared at him in incredulous disbelief. "Would you say that 'Crowleyish' is tall, dark hair, handsome-ish, not very particular, dresses well?"

"And wears sunglasses," Aziraphale added. "Are you telling me that you've been pretending to be that woman's husband all this time? -Does she know?"

"What do you mean, does she know?" Crowley half-shouted. "Yes, she bloody well- Aziraphale, please."

"Does she think she's got a real husband running around?"

"No. Yes. I'm not sure. I don't think so. Does it matter?"

Aziraphale goggled at him. "You're not- You're terrible."

"Oh, I know. We do strange things for love."

"Don't give me that nonsense," Aziraphale said sharply. "You know we can't."

At this, Crowley laughed. It sounded sharp and angular and awful. "Aziraphale, have I ever told you how I fell?"

Aziraphale turned a mottled red and clamped a hand over his mouth. Muffled, he said, "You weren't one of the Grigori."

"No, I wasn't. Oh, honestly. What do you think I am?"

"A demon who is- sleeping around with some poor human girl who doesn't know any better."

"Well, we've got contraception now, haven't we? Who knows what would've happened if we'd had condoms way back when! I mean, He might not ever have noticed. Or turned a blind eye to it, anyway."

"Crowley, stop being horrible on purpose."

"Like you're sssuch an angel yourssself," Crowley hissed. "Now, ssshhut up and lisssten." Aziraphale's knuckles turned very white as he clenched his hands around the teacup. "When I was an angel ever so long ago, I was terribly good. I knew Right from Wrong, Good from Evil, all that jazz. -It means 'etcetera,' angel." Aziraphale shut his mouth, swallowing the question he had been about to ask. "Anyway, I met an angel, and what with one thing and another, well-" Crowley smiled secretively and watched Aziraphale shift uncomfortably. He reveled in it. "I didn't do it on purpose. The falling from grace or in love. It was a slow and seductive process, and in the end, both things seemed natural enough.

"Only I fell, though. My friend, well-

"Aziraphale, I'm supposed to kill an angel," Crowley said, suddenly changing the subject. "Know anything about that?"

Aziraphale stared at Crowley. "No," he said shortly. Aziraphale stood up abruptly, instinctively pulling his injured hand close to his chest, and left, holding his teacup in his shaking left hand.

Crowley tried not to let the anger ebb, clinging to his fury with Aziraphale's presumptive moralizing. His eyes felt on the kitchen knife, the blood on it now dried, still sitting where he had left it the night before. Crowley picked it up very delicately with two fingers, walked it to the kitchen, and dropped it with distaste into the sink. He held it under the faucet, seeing red in the water that flowed into the drain.

He heard Aziraphale put on Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries." It was oddly suited to the morning, still dark with the rain that hadn't let up since the night before. He pressed wet fingers over his eyes and groaned. This was not turning out to be a good week.

He heard the door behind him open and shut. Swallowing his pride, he said, "Look, Aziraphale, I am so, so sorry."

A hand touched his cheek lightly. "So am I."

-

Aziraphale sat in the library and did not cry. There was something terrible in the revelation that someone whom he had thought a friend, someone he lived with, someone he had known for six thousand years, had managed to keep a secret from him for so long. He ignored the little internal voice that reminded him that he had had a feeling that something was wrong for a good long time and hadn't wanted to notice. Crowley hadn't told him, though. That was what mattered.

Crowley was the enemy. Aziraphale had forgotten.

And the blood meant that Islington had found them. He had known that it would. Aziraphale had tried to dull their presence a little by eliminating the excessive divine energy, but there was no way to hide an angel and a demon from a supernatural being determined to find them. And Aziraphale was sure that Islington would start with them. It would know that they had been instructed to kill it. Crowley and himself out of the way (and, in Aziraphale's mind, this was not merely the temporary inconvenience of disembodiment, but, rather, total destruction of both of them through any means possible), Islington would kill as much of humanity as it could before trying to take over Heaven. In this last, at least, Aziraphale was assured that it would fail.

Unless Crowley had been told to offer it the backing of Hell.

Aziraphale eyed his wounded hand, feeling the sting of pain that should not have been there shoot through it. It couldn't be the first time that Crowley had performed that ritual; he must have done it plenty before the Arrangement. He ought to have known that Aziraphale wouldn't be able to heal himself. Aziraphale began compulsively trying to reason away the obvious, but after a few minutes of frantic scrambling for an explanation, he conceded the inevitable: Crowley needed him out of commission and out of the way. And his right hand was, admittedly, his sword hand. Hoping for the best, Aziraphale wiggled his fingers. The pain that ran through them and up his arm was enough that he had to sit down.

Through his daze, he heard Crowley put on their best recording of "Ride of the Valkyries." He made a face. It was hardly the time for Wagner. Crowley needed to learn what was an appropriate volume, besides.

When he had recovered enough to stand, he decided to see if he could manage the sword with his left hand. Angels were not strictly limited by biological handedness after all, although fighting with a real sword would require real skill and he wasn't used to using his left. It didn't make much of a difference after so long, though, because he hadn't used a sword in years and sword fighting was not, in fact, like riding a bicycle. (It involved far fewer wheels for one.) He stood and, cradling his right arm, walked over to the armoire. Pushing the tweed suits aside, he opened the compartment at the back. It should have had a sword in it.

It didn't.

Only Crowley could possibly have known it was there, and what Crowley would want with the damn sword -besides to make Aziraphale completely helpless in the face of certain death (or at least certain Islington, which was probably worse)- was beyond Aziraphale. Aziraphale, furious, stormed into the corridor.

"Crowley!" He stood in the hall, fuming, waiting for Crowley to appear and then waiting for Crowley to shout and then waiting for something, anything. "Crowley?" Silence, except for the quiet sound of the record player trying to play past the end of the record. It was unlike Crowley not to change it to the B side. Aziraphale walked down to the living room and stuck his head in. The room was empty. The design was still in place, although the materials to clean it were sitting on the floor. Aziraphale took two steps into the room and looked at the design. The blood was moving, pulling itself apart.

Then, with a bang, the window flew open, and a breeze blew out the candles, scattering them across the floor. Rain poured in through the window, smudging the edges of the chalk design nearest it. Aziraphale crossed the room and shut the window with some difficulty, latching and locking it. He went into the kitchen and turned on the little radio. There was a great deal of static coming through, but it was clear enough to make out "inexplicable weather phenomenon" and "sudden collision of warm and cold fronts" and "microburst" and "flood warning." He turned it off when a local clergyman came on air to talk to the radio personality about whether the storm could possibly be the work of a vengeful god wreaking havoc on a sinning public. It was close, Aziraphale thought, but although God was many things, chief among them ineffable, He did not break His promises and He had told Noah that the great flood would also be the last flood. In this, as in so many things, Islington clearly did not agree with the Lord.

Aziraphale needed a drink before he tried to stop a crazed renegade angel from destroying Crowley and the world. He walked into the kitchen to pour himself a glass of wine. It was a mistake.

The kitchen was a mess of broken glass and blood. The sink was still running. The knife they had used earlier was stuck into the countertop, red with fresh blood. There was a hand print on the butter-yellow wall across from the sink and one on the kitchen table, not yet dried. Both of the cane-back chairs were broken, their legs smashed off and half splintered. Two wine glasses were smashed on the ground, their stems broken off.

Aziraphale's attention, however, was caught by the hole in the wall, maybe three inches long and less than an inch wide. The wood had splintered around it, and the drywall was singed. The window next to it had been shattered and gaped open, water pooling beneath it. Hesitantly, Aziraphale walked over to the window and peered out.

His sword was sitting in the little winter-empty flower plot beneath the window sill. There were a few feathers lying on the soil, but most of them were stuck to the sword itself, which, because it was sheltered from the diagonal rain by the windowsill, had not had the blood washed clean from it. Aziraphale reached down and picked it up off the ground. He took it into the kitchen and set it down on the counter next to the sink. He used the ring finger of his left hand to wipe off some of the blood. Bracing himself, he licked it.

It curdled on his tongue, reacting to what passed for saliva in angels. He spit into the sink to get the taste out of his mouth. It had to be Crowley's blood.

Aziraphale heaved dryly over the sink, forgetting that he didn't have a gag reflex. When he felt better, he tore off a few paper towels and set to washing the blood and feathers off the sword as best he could.

In the sink, there was a gold wedding band.

Suddenly, it all fell into place. He wasn't even sure Crowley knew. He felt sick.

-

Crowley felt oddly warm. He had half expected not to wake up again. With his tongue, he found the split in his lip. He cursed it away with half a thought and a wiggle of a finger. He heard footsteps and opened his eyes to see who it was. He was blindfolded. He felt cold fingers on his cheek and heard his name (his old name: one he hadn't heard in a long time) said in a familiar voice.

"Islington."

"Yes."

Crowley groaned. "You should've stayed away."

"What is your friend going to do to me? Is he going to torture me with classical music?"

"Why do you hate Aziraphale?"

The hand cradled his cheek, and Crowley realized that his wrists were bound when he tried to slap it away. "He sees you every day, and to him, it does not matter. He takes you for granted. Do you know what I would do if I could see you every day?"

"I think I remember."

"Do not pretend that you are unmoved by the memory." The mattress beneath Crowley shifted. Islington must have stood up.

"Why exactly am I bound and blindfolded?" Crowley said irritably.

"You would leave me if you could," it said very quietly. Crowley guessed that it was across the room by then.

Crowley did not point out that most people would run away from kidnappers, no matter who their kidnappers were, doubly so if said kidnappers had brutally assaulted them. "Could I at least lose the blindfold?"

Footsteps and the black cloth band over his eyes peeled away. He blinked in the sudden light, and Islington's face slowly came into focus a few inches away, watching him nervously. Crowley stared at it. "Elsa?"

Islington gave a crooked smile and said in Elsa's voice, "Anthony?"

"You bloody bastard. You absolute and complete- I can't believe you." Crowley's hands strained at his bonds, wondering if he could curse them away without Islington noticing. "You're insane, do you know that? For three months, you let me fuck you as a human and think that I was actually in love with her. I lied to Aziraphale for her- for you."

"You were always good at lying for me."

Crowley's bonds winked out of existence. He launched himself at Islington and slapped it hard across the face. Islington hissed, cradling its cheek and turning away from him. Crowley stood, moving toward Islington, some idea of revenge in his head. The angel turned back to him. Crowley saw it cringe away from him. He advanced on Islington predatorily, preparing his assault, his wings, torn and encrusted with dried blood, spreading from his bare back. Islington was not helpless, he reminded himself. Islington had deceived him for months. Islington had made him fall. Islington was still an angel and Islington was evil and Islington was standing only feet away. Islington could be made to pay. He grabbed Islington by the shoulders and kissed it hard on the lips.

Crowley was not very good at justice.

Islington was warm and alive and there with him. It smelled the same, not so human as it had for the preceding weeks but not so different either, and it tasted like white wine and Atlantis and the memory of sunshine. Its hands clung to Crowley's upper arms as if to keep him from escaping.

Crowley forgot to breathe.

"Oh, bugger."

Crowley broke away from Islington in an instant. Aziraphale's timing was impeccably as always. He was holding the sword, burning brightly, clutched in his left hand. Crowley knew what this looked like. (It was exactly what it looked like.) Aziraphale would guess as much because Islington was not letting go of Crowley and Crowley was not exactly struggling to get away.

"Um."

"Get away from it, Crowley."

"Um."

"It's trying to destroy the world and take control of Heaven and remake humanity in its image. It's insane." Sounding unconvinced, Aziraphale added, "And it will fail, just like Lucifer failed."

"All correct, except one." Islington whispered to Crowley, "Our image."

Crowley swallowed dryly. He wondered what happened to demons who betrayed their official orders, fraternized excessively with the enemy, and attempted to overthrow God. Well, besides being given their own little domain within which to wreak out horrifying tortures to their hearts' content, along with a prominent place in scripture.

"Don't believe it," Aziraphale said, but Crowley could tell that he was shaken. Crowley was shaken. Islington was not shaken because Islington, as always, was making the rules.

It grinned slyly, a thin, maniacal smile that did not reach its eyes. "What do you think you are going to do with that sword? You cannot possible intend to kill me with it."

"And why not?"

"Whatever crimes I may have committed, whatever punishments I may have suffered, I am still an angel. You cannot kill another angel without falling yourself," Islington said. Crowley watched Aziraphale's face fall. "What? Did Crowley not tell you why he fell?"

Aziraphale looked at Crowley. Crowley did not look at Aziraphale who he suspected was seriously reconsidering whether Crowley deserved saving, let alone a thousand years of sort-of-friendship, sharing a home, and the armchair in the sunny patch.

Islington stroked Crowley's hair. "He deserved it."

"Gabriel told me-" Aziraphale broke in.

"He was always so sensitive to other people's plights," Islington sneered.

Which Islington was, of course, and that was why it had not let Crowley fall, abandoned and alone, but had taken some sort of responsibility, and if he had not attained His pardon (for such things were unattainable), had fallen at least with him. Yes.

That was precisely what Crowley did not remember happening.

"Aziraphale, put the sword down," Crowley said. Aziraphale stared at him. Crowley repeated himself slowly and clearly. He liked to think that Aziraphale did it because he trusted Crowley, but the look in his eyes suggested more that Aziraphale had given up all hope, which did not exclude the possibility that Aziraphale would do something really and truly stupid in an attempt to save the world.

Somewhere in the house, the wind broke a window. Crowley saw lightning light up the sky. The power went out, plunging them into darkness, lit only by the glow of the sword. Islington let go of Crowley and lunged toward Aziraphale. Seizing its arms, Crowley forced it down onto its knees, keeping hold of its wrists.

"Come over here and spit in its face."

"Crowley?" Its voice was soft and tremulous, and Crowley fought down the nausea that was surging up in his stomach.

Islington struggled in his grasp, and Crowley's grasp on it loosened. Islington yanked away from him, kicking his knees out from under him and feinting for the sword. Crowley lunged forward, grabbing its shoulders and yanking its head back. Crowley kissed its lips with an affection that he had tried to convince himself he did not feel. Wide grey eyes, full of hatred, stared up at him.

"Aziraphale. Do it."

Aziraphale, seeming to come alive again, crossed the room. Standing over Islington, he spat with the dull hatred of an angel frightened and betrayed.

And, in Crowley's hands, Islington writhed. It screamed, a low and horrible wail, and it did not stop. It began to melt. Blonde hair frizzled and burned. Its pale luminescent skin peeled away to reveal something awful and ancient, bubbling and smoking and in pain. It shrieked and moaned. Sometimes, it called Crowley's name. It was burning his skin, and the pain in his fingers reminded him of the pain of crashing through the spheres and-

"Crowley, let go of it," Aziraphale said softly, touching his elbow. Crowley didn't. Aziraphale bent and pried his fingers as best he could with only his left hand. "You have to let go now." Crowley looked up at Aziraphale, and Aziraphale looked away. "Crowley, please."

He let go.

They watched Islington flicker and fade and reappear, screaming again, unwilling to leave the world it had hated so dearly. Slowly it collapsed into the carpet until all that was left was a nasty burn mark on the carpet and a few blonde hairs. Turning away, Crowley threw up. "Oh dear." Aziraphale touched his back. "Are you-"

"No, I am not all right."

Around them, the storm began to calm, moving beyond the point of crisis and beginning to die down. The power flickered and returned. Aziraphale put the sword out with a gesture. "Crowley?"

"Ngh."

Aziraphale steered Crowley over to the bed and sat down next to him. Crowley stared at the brown patch on the carpet. Aziraphale tried not to look at it. "Stop it. You'll only make it worse for yourself."

"We just killed-"

"Yes."

"Islington."

"Yes."

Crowley made a noise that Aziraphale pretended was not a sob.

"It was trying to destroy the world. All of humankind." Aziraphale forced a cup of miracled tea on Crowley and sat next to him. Crowley rambled. Aziraphale listened diligently, but knew that he would later pretend not to remember any of it. After a while, Aziraphale said, "Oh, hush." He gave Crowley a handkerchief, lacy, robin's-egg-blue. "Come on. It's not the end of the world."

Crowley looked up at him and laughed.

-

Aziraphale, holding two glasses of red wine, stood in the doorway of the greenhouse. It was humid and at least forty degrees inside. From somewhere inside his tropical paradise, Crowley said, "Get in here before you let all the heat out."

Aziraphale stepped inside and shut the door behind him. "Where are you?"

"Second palm tree on the left?"

"Oh, haha. The usual palm tree. Very clever, Miss Chiltern. I was wondering where my omnibus of Wilde plays had gone." Aziraphale tread carefully over the path of moss and rocks. About halfway down the greenhouse, Crowley was carefully pruning a bonsai tree, his latest project in an attempt to distract himself with the greenhouse, under one of the new palm trees. Aziraphale skirted around a planter of cacti and sat down next to Crowley, offering him one of the glasses of wine. He took it in one hand and continued snipping at the miniature tree. "Oh, good grief. Leave the poor plant alone."

"It grew a shoot. It knows it isn't supposed to." Crowley sipped at the wine and took a vicious snip at the bonsai.

"Drinking and operating sharp machinery is not advisable for your health," Aziraphale said, confiscating the pruning shears. Crowley grumbled. Aziraphale produced a pack of cigarettes and pulled one out.

"Oh. Oh, no. Absolutely not. Put that away."

Aziraphale pulled out his lighter, lit the cigarette, took a drag on it, and passed it to Crowley.

"I am going to burn down your library, angel." He smoked sulkily, drinking between puffs. "Did this wine used to be something else?"

Aziraphale coughed and didn't meet Crowley's gaze as he said, "No, of course not. What stuff." Aziraphale made a pass for the cigarette, and Crowley pulled it away from his fingers. "Grocery store white."

"Ugh, it has the vile miracled taste to it."

"Really?"

"No." He let Aziraphale steal the cigarette out of his hand. "So I want to buy one of these plants that, every hundred years, has a flower that smells like rotten meat. Is that okay?"

"I want a wine cellar."

"Deal."