#trusting crowley

“Crowley,” he called again, softly, as one final attempt. He considered removing the sunglasses for a better look, to be sure one way or the other. But that wouldn’t necessarily give him a clearer answer and it’d run the risk of consequently waking the other up.

So, as there was still nothing, except perhaps for a slight further opening of his mouth, Aziraphale let out the softest, most unobtrusive yet longest of sighs. For all its smallness, however, it was heavily laced with relief.

Now all he had to do was somehow manoeuvre himself out from underneath the lanky body and lay him out on the sofa as though he’d been sleeping on that all along. But that shouldn’t be much of a problem. He’d done that before, after all, and the residual heat of his body on the seat would help convince the demon’s body that it’d been lying on that all along.

It took a bit more effort than usual, mostly because he was even more hyperaware of everything he did and how it might give the whole thing away.

Eventually, though, he managed to do it and clear his normal seat without sending any book tumbling to the floor, which he was rather proud of. With the way the evening had gone, it would just figure that he’d sent them crashing – and they were quite rare and precious books, too. But no, there was no papery carnage to be had this time.

He even found a blanket to drape over the sleeping figure and had managed to settle himself down in his own armchair with a book in one hand and a careful cup of tea, as he hadn’t been able to face a cup of hot cocoa right then, in the other.

In fact, so long passed before Crowley began to stir that Aziraphale had managed to not just pretend to read but actually become engrossed in what he was reading. That wasn’t to say he’d managed to push the whole incident out of his mind, because he was absolutely certain that the day that he managed that would be the same day he actually got hold of “The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter”.

Crowley woke with a serious of small noises that might’ve been annoying to others but which Aziraphale normally found rather endearing. This time, however, he didn’t hear them and didn’t otherwise notice the motions the snake went through as he woke up.

He did clock the somewhat mussy-sounding, searching call of his name, though, and couldn’t help the small extra beat of his heart at the thought that the first thing out of Crowley’s mouth when he woke was his name, even if it was probably merely because he’d fallen asleep in his bookshop and didn’t know where the other was.

“Take your glasses off, you’ll be able to see everything much better,” he said, not looking up from the page. Studiously so, one might say. He didn’t need to see the lanky body slowly wake up and not just because he knew well enough what it looked like.

“Don’t want to. Far too bright as is,” answered Crowley, a slight hiss to his voice. However, he didn’t sound quite as drunk or even as hung-over as one would expect with the amount of alcohol he’d downed. Or perhaps it was more that he didn’t sound as tired as he ought to, given the fact that he’d only just woken up.

Aziraphale didn’t notice that.

“Well, if you will drink that much…” he chided as he turned a page. He conveniently forgot to say anything about how much they normally drank or how much he himself had consumed.

The ginger, however, didn’t.

“You drank more than I did!” Crowley said and whether that was protest, accusation or indignation wasn’t at all clear. “And you had booze in your dessert!”

That last part definitely was accusation. He’d sat himself up at that, the blond could tell by the creak of the sofa and the soft noise of the blanket shifting.

“That hardly counts. You’re supposed to have alcohol in a trifle, it really isn’t a proper trifle without it.”

Aziraphale still didn’t look up from where he was reading his book. At least, ostensibly he was reading it. In reality, he’d stopped being engrossed in its plot and not purely because he had to carry on a conversation with Crowley at the same time. He could multitask in such matters rather well after so much practice. That he chose to block out the rest of the world to focus on his reading was another matter entirely.

Just because he was no longer engrossed didn’t mean he was going to look up, however. He was quite content where he was, thank you ever so much. Ahem.

“But you picked one that had kirsch in the trifle and the cherries on top were soaked in it, too.”

That he was almost entirely coherent now Aziraphale wasn’t surprised by. He’d undoubtedly pushed both tiredness and hangover out with a small miracle or whatever was the demonic equivalent.

But it was nice to fall into something as ordinary as their normal chat, even in its good-natured quibbling form, and he grabbed at it gratefully, in the hope that if he worked hard and kept things bottled up and under mental lock and key far better than he had – preferably, he never got drunk around Crowley again, either – then things could continue like this between them forever. Which would be all that he could wish for, really.

“And as I recall, you stole most of those cherries, one of them off my very fork.”

The smirk the demon had had when he’d done it, too – and the fact that it was a small smirk hadn’t diminished it in the slightest, either.

At long last, he managed to turn a page. Now just to remember what the last paragraph on the previous page had been about. Something about…about…

His view of the page was suddenly obscured by locks of shoulder length red hair. Then the rest of his vision was filled up with the visage of Crowley who was rather too close for comfort. Especially as he was at the perfect closeness for a kiss.

Aziraphale immediately reared his head back a fair bit and did it quickly.

In the back of his mind was the thought that it was good his panic to keep from overstepping – and why was it suddenly so constantly difficult to refrain from that when it wasn’t even as though it was a recent development, even by their standards? – could look as though he was just shocked at Crowley disrespecting personal space.

“You still drank more than me,” drawled Crowley, as though that somehow concluded the argument.

“Well, then I guess what we can conclude from that is that I hold my alcohol far better than you do,” Aziraphale replied, a tad sniffilly, trying hard to ignore the desire to…well, so much, really, it was hard to keep track of.

But Crowley only grinned.

“Hah! As if. You forget that I know you, angel, and I remember…” He paused, at first just frowning. Then it became his whole face that scrunched up for a beat, two.

“Excuse me,” he said around a noise that might’ve been a suppressed burp.

“Really,” Aziraphale said, sounding for all the world like a mildly scandalised housewife from the fifties. But then, Crowley did excuse himself, that was, well, something.

“Your blessed cherries,” Crowley said, stifling another one. “Trying to make a run for it. Oh, Satan…”

He pulled away, looking genuinely uncomfortable, one hand finding the lower half of his abdomen – calling it a stomach or belly seemed almost wrong when it was rarely anything but concave – while the other stayed in the vicinity of his mouth.

Concerned, Aziraphale closed his book and put it away.

Then he handed Crowley a glass.

The demon stared at him for moment but took the glass without comment and downed its contents.

Without question, either, Aziraphale realised a little belatedly. He could’ve filled that to the brim with holy water – not that he ever would, mind! Just the thought of it was abominable and made his insides churn and writhe. What had been in the glass was water and something to calm the stomach whatever ailed it. But the point was that he could have done it, and Crowley would’ve drunk it, without hesitation or question.

His heart was beating painfully in his chest as he watched Crowley let out a sigh of relief, the pain not entirely bad.

This. This right here, the trust in him, the inclusion, the care and all the rest. Wasn’t this worth the heartache, the troubles and the pining?

What an absolutely silly question.

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It wasn’t long after that, about a year or so, that Crowley got his assignment to deliver the Antichrist to his foster parents and the countdown to Armageddon officially began.

Well, technically, of course, that countdown had begun the moment Earth had been created, really, but the home straight, as it were, had arrived and as always in such circumstances where you’re mainly sure you didn’t want to reach what lay at the end of the countdown, time seemed to pass just a bit faster.

At the same time, though, the fact that it all ticked down to an endpoint, the endpoint, you might say, made things take on a new importance along with the urgency, and thus it felt slower, somehow. As if the world was being run at eight-tenth of its normal speed. Or perhaps that was just wishful thinking.

The fact that they were trying to prevent it from happening at all didn’t make much of a difference in that scenario, unfortunately.

What it did do, however, was push Aziraphale’s fears about what he’d done and whether he’d made a complete mess of everything into at least a modicum of background.

Having the demon somewhere in the world, safe and sound even if Aziraphale would never see him again because of what he’d revealed, however inadvertently, was preferable to have him discorporated or outright destroyed through Heavenly means when the battle, the war finally arrived.

Even in the scenario where it was Hell who won the war – and Aziraphale couldn’t help feeling awful and terribly guilty for even contemplating that possibility, because he shouldn’t – there was no guarantee he’d be safe or even come out of it alive.

No, preventing Armageddon had…further benefits than making sure the Earth and its inhabitants didn’t perish in the struggle between Heaven and Hell to see who was, ultimately, the deserved victor.

But the fact that it’d been pushed into the background in favour, if such it could be called, of more worldly concerns did not equal that they were gone or even that they would stay in the background. Of course not.

The first time they surfaced was while they were both ‘employed’ by the Dowlings to look after little Warlock.

He had feared that it would happen sooner, to be perfectly honest.

When they had, in their attempt to cope with the fact that the End of the World had gone from some nebulous future point to an actual, concrete time of roughly eleven years from then, begun to drink, Aziraphale had a few extra issues to deal with. Such as the panic over drinking with Crowley again and the determination that nothing would pass his lips, never mind allow either of them to fall asleep. The fear that being drunk would loosen their tongues, too, and that either would let something slip that they shouldn’t.

Even so, the drink was very much needed in light of what he’d learned, and he couldn’t help the almost copious amount that he downed.

Thankfully, though their talk was decidedly drunken and just a bit silly despite the seriousness of the situation, there was no mention or even hint of Aziraphale’s confession. As for the risk of falling asleep drunk, that was thankfully taken care of by his need to sober up in order to cope with what they were talking about. And Crowley following suit, of course. Most definitely.

In the intervening five years, until Warlock was, they felt, old enough to have a nanny that could also function as a governess and could teach him thoroughly, they saw each other, yes, to find out whether there were any more murmurings from below or above and keep notes on how the ambassador and his wife was handling their little hell-spawn.

Granted, they did also go out to purely enjoy themselves sometimes. Aziraphale wasn’t quite able to enjoy it all as he normally did, at least not for the first two or three years, but after nothing seemed to come of it, he began to relax just a little.

And they were busy with other stuff, too. Impending Armageddon ought really to either speed every activity on earth up as things needed to be wrapped up and everything made ready for the rush or come to a grinding halt as there was no longer much point to try and enact anything. It would be like ordering a buffet option five minutes before closing.

But looking after the Antichrist, balancing out the influences, that brought them into closer…not exactly contact, as there wasn’t too much reason for a nanny and a gardener to interact, but certainly proximity and for a longer period than they ever had. They even did interact from time to time. Of course, they were careful to keep their talk strictly professional, well, mainly, and most certainly didn’t discuss the nature of their little charge while either Warlock or his parents could overhear.

Sometimes, however, Aziraphale thought there was an odd cadence to Crowley’s voice when they talked that was new. It was only occasionally but it happened while in-character as Ashtoreth and Brother Francis – and well, he would have to admit that the slight burr in the softened nanny-voice was…quite lovely – as well as when they otherwise met up and regardless of the circumstance, Aziraphale was still able to detect it.

The oddity mainly came from it seeming to be, of all things, something like optimism, like hope. It wasn’t exactly beaming but it was there, a soupçon infused in many other expressions and tones. Which would make sense if it related to how things seemed to be working, that the heavenly influences really were balancing out the hellish ones, which seemed to the blessed case, rendering the child wonderfully normal.

Crowley had voiced the thought that perhaps he was too normal a few times already but Aziraphale had resolutely pushed the idea aside.

Though he could admit he was hardly an expert, Aziraphale didn’t think the optimism and hope was to do with their apparent success. It felt unrelated to it, among other things because it appeared at occasions and in conversations that had nothing to do with the little boy they were looking after.

It wasn’t only that, either. If it had been purely that, Aziraphale might’ve been able to write it off. As what exactly, he wasn’t sure and didn’t dare examine, in case that it crumbled before him, when he thought that it was in fact solely that.

What was in addition was the occasional long stare from equally long distances that seemed incredibly thoughtful for the demon’s normal range, visible through the sunglasses, and didn’t stop when the blond caught it. Not immediately, anyway, as if Crowley didn’t mind being caught watching. Once or twice there was even just the hint of a smile, highlighted by bright lipstick when nannying, that hadn’t even a hint of a smirk in it.

There was also the fact that he sat himself closer than he’d done before or moved so that he was almost, almost touching the blond without quite getting there and even that sometimes, very rarely, Crowley would open his mouth when there’d been silence between them, and start to ask a question, only to seemingly think the better of it and shut his mouth, then often enough start talking about something else entirely. Sometimes he wouldn’t get further than a noise before he clammed up.

That last part was in itself not really odd but in conjunction with the other things and the fact that they were all rather new additions…

Whatever the actual reason for it, it made the angel’s fear that something must’ve gotten through to the demon of that confession while he slept despite everything, and he was telling him that he knew ratchet right back up.

Aziraphale’s hands bunched into fists against his thighs as he sat in his chair in the bookshop one evening and contemplated it. He wasn’t exactly keen on doing it, but he’d put it off for a long while by that point and it was starting to affect him.

But no. No, that didn’t make any sense. Why would he wait this long to start giving him hints if he’d remembered all along? Or perhaps a better question, if he’d only just remembered or pieced something together, was why he was hinting at it in the first place? Why not confront him outright? It wasn’t as though Crowley could ever be termed as ‘shy’, was it?

It was simply Aziraphale’s paranoia doing the talking and nothing more. Yes, that was it.

However, that left the question of why he’d then been doing all of those things. What other possible explanation could there be? It was hard, to say the least, to think of any that would fit the criteria.

You could always ask Crowley, an inner voice suggested. Be the one who confronts him.

Oh, yes, and how would that look? ‘Crowley, I believe you keep doing this and that and so on, little things that add up to something else, I feel. It’s not that I don’t trust you, but I cannot help but be worried and slightly unsettled.’

Yes, that’d just work outright marvellously, wouldn’t it?

Especially seeing as ‘unsettled’ only worked as something not completely horrible, coming from an angel to a demon, when it was used in the context of Aziraphale’s fears and worries. Which was exactly what he was trying to hide.

Using other words wouldn’t work much better either, he felt, because he was, implicitly or explicitly, saying that he was keeping Crowley under observation and monitoring their conversations and for what?

No, there was a number of reasons why that could be construed wrongly. Nor was it as though he was likely to get a good explanation or even an explanation at all out of it. Even if that was the case, the risk to reward was quite disproportionate.

What should he do instead, then?

Oh, he didn’t know!

His closed hands slid down his thighs then back up in frustrated fear and apprehension.

Why had he done it? No amount of alcohol or even the combination of Crowley’s presence in his lap and copious amounts of alcohol should be capable of sending his guard down so fully as that. He should have known better. Should’ve been able to stop his mouth – and his hand!

That was another issue.

In comparison to six millennia, five years was, well, the blink of an eye, really, if even that much. Add to that that Aziraphale had, when the circumstances were right – whether that was by his choice or not was another matter – quite the crystal, almost eidetic memory, and you ended up in a situation where certain moments still felt as though they had only just happened.

Perhaps it was also the fact that it hadn’t been some random person he’d touched. It was Crowley.

Yes. That most certainly made a lot of, if not all the difference.

But he could still feel at least a phantom of that cheek underneath his fingers, the thick, red hair between them and it made him ache, in more ways than one.

That brought him back to the question of why he’d done it. He’d known that it was a bad idea from the off, had always managed to curtail any inclinations to take it where he so wanted but couldn’t take back.

The worst part was…he had no answer. Not a one.

Even after spending what felt like hours on it, he was getting nowhere except feeling further sense of misery about it all.

Then he sighed deeply and got up from his chair.

He would have to be back at the Dowling house in just a few hours, in full smiling buck-toothed ensemble and with a disposition to match as he nudged the actual hell-spawn towards something more…divine, and he did have some actual work to do before then.