Chapter Text
There was something particularly intriguing about Earth Crowley realized a few centuries ago.
Unlike other demons, who only periodically came to the surface to involve themselves in human affairs, he had more freedom of choice among humanity than he ever did below them. Or, at the very least, he had the illusion of freedom and choice. It was due to this illusion that he rather liked what Earth offered. However, while he’d never admit it to Aziraphale or himself, he still questioned whether any of his actions were his own, or if they had already been decided as according to the “Great Plan.”
Crowley had plenty of theories regarding said Plan - most of which he was wrong about. However, he was entirely right about one variable in all of them. Choice.
For example: Crowley, the angel, always had two choices, no matter what Crowley, the demon, believed. In this life Crowley, the angel, chose temptation. Yet in another world, Crowley, the angel, chose another path. And from that path sprung many more. The option of choice led Crowley, angel and demon, through many lives. The choices of this demon-Crowley led him to this precise moment: going seventy-six miles an hour down a cobblestone road on a mild night, the Antichrist in a wicker basket in his back seat, and Bohemian Rhapsody once again on the radio.
“Shit, shit, shit!” Was muttered through gritted teeth, “Why did it have to be me?”
Because you decided to make them love you down there, came a little voice from the back of his mind. Once, he called it conscious. Now, he calls it Aziraphale (Minor).
The task was easy enough: deliver the Antichrist to the little church down the road, watch the child until his eleventh birthday, trigger Armageddon, win the inevitable war to follow. All under one condition: don’t fuck any of it up. Easy .
It’s with a labored breath that he pulls the Bentley over just before the final turn around the hill. And it’s on this side of this road that this demon-Crowley makes a critical decision.
In another life, he makes a different choice. In this other life, he may follow directions perfectly, delivering the child to the proper room with the proper corrupt family, and Armageddon goes off without a hitch. In another other life, perhaps he arrives at the church a little too late, loses the child, and Armageddon only nearly happens.
But in this life, Crowley gets an idea. It’s a bad idea, even by hell’s standards. Thus, it’s one of his best.
He shifts gears, cranks the radio loud enough to drown out the cries from the backseat and tires screeching against cobble road as he turns the Bentley around and drives straight towards Soho.
~
It’s approximately twenty-eight minutes until Monday’s evening becomes Tuesday’s morning when the silence filling the bookshop is interrupted by the shrill ringing of the telephone.
Aziraphale has half the mind to ignore the caller; it’s not that he disapproves of curious customers after closing hours, just ones which call this late and require him to set aside his current novel.
Hello, thank you for calling. I’m afraid we’re closed, if you have any inquiries on the titles we have in stock, feel free to call back at a more reasonable hour, is what he plans to say as he places the phone against his ear. What he manages to say is, “Hello,” before a familiar voice stumbles over.
“Oh good, you haven’t left yet. Open the door for me, will you?”
“Crowley?”
“Who else would call you this late? Hurry up.”
“You know, it wouldn’t harm you to say please.”
“You don’t know that.” Aziraphale permits a long enough pause for Crowley to huff and say, “Angel, please . I can’t be out in the open too long.”
Aziraphale would hang up the phone with satisfaction then, if not for the tone of his friends voice. If he didn’t know better, he would call it fear. It takes a moment for him to cross the bookshop, unlock the doorknob and unhinge the chain. Crowley gives him less than three seconds to step back before he enters, the door swinging open and then locking shut with a snap of the demons’ fingers. A perfected trick made with hesitant movements.
“What’s going on?” Aziraphale first questions. His second inquiry is brought about when Crowley responds to the first by placing a wicker basket on his desk. Aziraphale isn’t quite sure how he missed the object before, whether it was another trick or concern tunneling his focus. “What’s this?”
“Oh, that!” Crowley makes a broad gesture with his arms as he settles into Aziraphale’s chair. “Just a little something for our picnic.”
“We’re having a picnic?”
“No, not really, I meant…” Crowley halts, lets his mouth play catch up with his reeling mind, “The picnic. I owe you a picnic from ‘67. For the...you know. Insurance.”
“Crowley, I’m not following.”
“The insurance the, Satan’s sake, the water.” Aziraphale hushes him as Crowley barely gets the word out. “Calm down. If anyone was paying attention to us right now, we’d already be in deep trouble.”
“What do you mean?”
“Open the damn basket.”
Choosing to overlook the crude word choice, Aziraphale does as requested and cautiously lifts the baskets’ lid. It’s contents are a rather pleasant surprise from his imagination.
“Well. Hello there.” Aziraphale smiles at the infant wrapped in red cloth. The kind of smile Crowley’s become comfortable with; ethereally bright, and warm, and welcoming. It took two centuries for Crowley to gain, as he called it, an immunity. “Crowley,” he continues, still smiling, “why did you bring me a baby in a basket?”
It would’ve been so easy to lie. It’s in his nature to. It would’ve been simple to say, “His parents were killed in a fire,” or, “I found him on the side of the road.” But, given this seemed to be a night for unusual events, he gave an unusual answer: the truth. “I didn’t know where else to go.”
Aziraphale looks back to him in that moment, joy now replaced with confused concern. “Nowhere else? Where were you suppose to go?” Crowley shakes his head at the bombardment of questions, “Whose child is this?”
“There it is! The big question.” Crowley shoves himself out of the seat, taking place besides Aziraphale. “This child,” he lazily leans his hip against the desk and crosses his arms across his chest, “is none other than the spawn of my boss.”
“Boss?” Aziraphale repeats, focus shifting between the child and Crowley. As understanding dawns upon him, he jumps away from the basket as though he’d been burned. “You...you can’t be serious, Crowley.” He denies, “You can’t expect me to honestly believe that child is the...the-“
“The Antichrist.”
“You don’t have to say that.”
“Would you rather prefer ‘prince of darkness?’”
“I’d prefer ‘baby!’”
Exasperated, Crowley obliges, “Okay, fine. This is the baby of Satan.”
“Good Lord.” Aziraphale isn’t sure when he began pacing but he’s not sure he could stop now. “So, hypothetically,”
“Nothing hypothetical about this situation, angel.”
“Maybe not.” Aziraphale’s pacing quickens, “But, you don’t have any proof. And I don’t know if you’re lying about this.”
“Lying?” Disbelief tangles itself in Crowley’s tone and expression. Pushing off the desk, he takes strides towards Aziraphale and removes his black-tinted glasses. “Look at me.” He states, taking the angel by his shoulders to restrict his movement. Crowley's eyes must have been hypnotic, Aziraphale has always thought. Part of a demon's lure, perhaps. But regardless of the reason, his mild panic seizes as he holds Crowley's gaze. He feels frozen under it. Frozen, but ultimately calm. “I wouldn’t lie to you about this. Hastur gave him to me. I was in charge of delivering him to a church near Tadfield.”
Aziraphale tears away from golden eyes to look over Crowley’s shoulder. The basket is a lot more active now, due to their raised voices. “So. Why aren’t you in Tadfield?”
“Well dear friend, it’s been a weird night. I started thinking.”
Yes, Aziraphale thought, quite a strange night indeed.
“I like this world. And if it’s supposed to run its course and end naturally, that’s fine by me. I just really don’t want to be the catalyst for that event.”
Crowley’s self-inflicted revelation is interrupted by a sudden, sharp shriek from the basket, followed by hiccuping sobs. With a heavy shrug, Aziraphale removes himself from Crowley’s grasp and takes careful steps back towards his desk. He examines the child closer when he lifts the lid this time. He expects some inhuman physicality - horns, glowing eyes, hooves. The reality is rather unexciting compared to those expectations.
“This is the creature that's supposed to bring about doomsday?” He questions, lowering his hands into the basket as though he were handling poisonous snakes.
“Doomsday, Armageddon, the final battle between Heaven and Hell. End of the world is whatever you want to call it. But there will be no more antique books, or little shops that know your name, or alcohol and...angel, he doesn’t even have teeth yet, he can’t bite you.”
“Just taking precautions.” Aziraphale speaks softer as he lifts the sobbing child out of the basket. He’s careful to keep the blanket as tightly enveloped around the baby as he can. Cradling his head in the crook of his arm, Aziraphale’s charm appears to already be working, for the child’s sobs begin to soften. "Perhaps you should take him back.” Aziraphale keeps his words quiet and tone uplifted, as to not give away the rather dreadful context they carry.
Crowley, instead, snaps back, “I’m sorry, do you want me to start Armageddon?”
“Of course not! I like my bookshop and stores that welcome me by name! And I like humanity, truly.” Aziraphale frowns, “But we’ve known it’s coming. It’s suppose to be part of God’s-“
“Great Plan, of course.” Crowley runs a hand through his hair, gripping a few locks in frustration. “But how do you know this Great Plan is the same as that, whatever you call it, Ineffable Plan?” Aziraphale opens his mouth to push back, but finds a lack of argument there. “How do we know that Doomsday isn't supposed to be thwarted as according to the Ineffable?”
“We can’t question the Lord’s Plan, Crowley.”
“We don’t even know the Lord’s blasted plan!" The angel hushes at Crowley's tone, "Aziraphale, we have two options here-“
“We?"
“You became part of this the moment you smiled at him. Either I take that baby to a specific location at a specific time to ensure the world’s destruction, or…”
“Or?”
“Or...something else, I don’t know! But there has to be another option besides standing aside and letting the world come to an end!”
Aziraphale cradles the child closure to his chest, trying not to disrupt his ease into slumber. “You’re...you aren’t suggesting,” his tone falters just slightly as he tries to vocalize his worry, “that we kill him, are you?”
Crowley hesitates to disagree. “Not right away. That was Plan K.” He attempts a joke. In response, he gets the expression. Eyebrows just slightly raised, mouth pressed in a tight line that's just slightly crooked upward, and should his hands be free he would place them on his hips.
The expression Aziraphale shares with Crowley is one they've come to call 'mocked disappointment.' That, as an angel, Aziraphale should absolutely disapprove of whatever it was Crowley had done or said. However, it was deep down that Aziraphale did find it a bit funny. “Then what are you suggesting?” He asks.
“That we use nurture over nature. Something to cancel out my influence. If he’s raised overwhelmingly good, maybe when he grows into his power he won’t use it to-“
“Destroy the world.” Aziraphale finishes, “But that would require us finding a couple who could undoubtedly shield him from your negative influences.”
For the second time that night, Crowley has an idea. And it’s not a bad one; it’s terrible. So terrible, it just may work. “Almost like an angel.”
He sees Aziraphale’s entire body tense up the moment the words leave his mouth. “No.” He immediately replies, “No, Crowley, absolutely not.”
“Well, do you have a better plan?”
“I cannot raise the Antichrist!”
“Don’t think of him as that, then. Think of him as just a baby!”
Their argument begins to rouse the child, who had finally been able to settle into sleep for the first time that night. At the first sign of waking, both men silence themselves and wait with hushed breath for the baby to settle again.
“See?” Crowley all but whispers, “You’re already wonderful with him.”
“Crowley…”
“Aziraphale. This could work. I can keep an eye on him and keep my office under no suspicion. And if you’re raising him with me, you’re doing your job and interrupting my evildoing through the power of parenthood, or whatever.”
“Parenthood.” Aziraphale almost smiles at the title, though he catches himself. “I suppose this would follow the guidelines. We’d be cancelling each other out, again. Additionally, it would be best for Heaven to have a pair of eyes on him. If we can prove that a child of evil can be persuaded towards the light, that may even prevent another war entirely.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.” Crowley says, “One step at a time, angel. First step, make sure this baby doesn’t become evil incarnate.”
Aziraphale looks to the child now sleeping soundly in his arms. “We’ll be like his fathers.” He states.
Crowley noticeably flinches at the name. “Godfathers, maybe. Or uncles.”
“Godfathers, then.” Aziraphale negotiates, giving Crowley that blinding smile again.
“A demon, an angel, and the Antichrist. One big happy family, huh?”
“For the world’s sake,” Aziraphale says, “we’ll have to be.”