Work Text:
Aziraphale was baking sourdough.[1] He was also humming to himself, a habit that he had found helped somewhat with staving off feelings of loneliness. Sound — even if he was the one making it — made it just a bit easier to imagine there was someone else around.
Not that Aziraphale had reason to be lonely today; lockdown in the bookshop had taken a significant turn for the more enjoyable since the beginning of October.[2] Now, the humming was simply a habit, and a subconscious way for Aziraphale to express that he was in a good mood. Having company was good, especially after months with virtually no company,[3] especially when that company was Crowley.
He was still humming as he emerged from the kitchenette, leaving the sourdough in the oven. Humming, he rounded the corner to ask if Crowley wanted tea.[4]
“Wrong key.”
Aziraphale stopped and considered the demon slumped on the back room sofa. The fact that Crowley was slumping was not in itself anything out of the ordinary,[5] but something about the way he was slumping — perhaps the set of his shoulders, perhaps the angle of his neck, perhaps something else altogether, quite indefinable — gave Aziraphale pause. “Pardon me, dear? What was that?”
Crowley didn’t raise his head. “It’s called Canon in D. What the heaven do you think you’re doing, putting it in B-flat?”
Carefully, Aziraphale sat down next to the demon on the sofa. “Well, you know, dear,” he replied, keeping his voice light, “Johann was a fine young man,[6] and I certainly respect his choice of tonic. It’s simply, you understand, transposition sometimes adds some— some piquancy. I am particularly partial to F-sharp myself, but one really must mix it up every now and again to keep the progression from becoming too tedious.”
He waited for any kind of response or acknowledgement from the demon. None was forthcoming.[7] There was a brief silence, then Aziraphale inquired mildly, “Is there something the matter, my dear?”
Crowley still did not move, unless it were to fold even further into himself. “Just gonna sleep another decade.” His voice was muffled by his knees.
Oh dear. This was worse than Aziraphale had guessed. Crowley was quite fond of sleeping, true, claiming sloth to be something of a hobby, but he’d only just woken up from a five-month nap. And as a rule, threatening to sleep for a decade tended to be a sign that something was seriously bothering the demon.
…And these days, there was only one being around for Crowley to be bothered by. Aziraphale swallowed around the plummeting of his heart. He ought to have known better than to think Crowley would really be able to stand being cooped up in the bookshop with a poor excuse of an angel for weeks on end. Whatever the demon might have said or believed, six thousand years of an Arrangement simply did not translate to quarantine-readiness.[8]
“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale stammered. “If you aren’t happy here, I— I understand. And, of course you’re welcome to sleep if you would like, or” — he made himself say it, dreary as it was to face the prospect of the bookshop empty once again, without even the promise of July to keep him going — “to leave, if you want. But, but, I’ll try to stop the humming… or if it’s too much sourdough, you have only to tell me…”
That got Crowley to sit up and frown. “Huh? Don’t be an idiot, angel. ‘S nothing to do with you.”
“Oh.” That was a relief, such a strong rush that it took Aziraphale a moment to return to worrying: if the problem wasn’t his fault, whose was it? He dithered, unsure whether or not it would be intrusive to ask again, thought it probably would be, then ended up asking anyway, “I’m glad it’s not to do with me, and you needn’t answer if you don’t wish to, but… is something else wrong, dear?”
At first he didn’t think Crowley was going to answer. Then the demon shrugged and made a noise that might have been a laugh, except that there was nothing at all amused about it. “Nah, nothing’s wrong,” he snapped, and swiped roughly at his eyes. “There’s a plague — virus, pandemic, whatever they’re calling it these days — it’s been going on for months, no sign of stopping, thousands of humans are dying, Pestilence must be having a real coming-out-of-retirement party. That’s all. Everything’s just dandy.” His voice cracked.
Crowley returned his head to his lap, then swung upright again, yellow eyes glaring through slitted pupils. “We[9] stopped the apocalypse! We saved the world, Aziraphale, it’s not fair! They were supposed to be okay! At least for a damn century or so! And now, now, this…”
Oh. Aziraphale could have kicked himself for not realizing. Of course the demon would be grappling with the same things and thoughts and feelings with which Aziraphale had spent the past several months (while Crowley was asleep) trying to come to terms. Over six thousand years, they’d both seen humanity through a lot — some of it much, much more depressing than the current situation — but having seen it all never stopped it from hurting. Especially now, still so soon after they’d so drastically and definitively taken a stance on the side of humanity.
Aziraphale wished he’d succeeded in coming to terms with it, or at least that he’d found a coping mechanism more effective than avoidance.
He also wished he knew how to make his best friend feel better. “I’m sorry, Crowley,” he said softly.
“I said, ‘s not your fault.” Crowley grunted. “‘Sides, I’m a demon, probably should be celebrating, right? Mass suffering and conspiracy theories and death and all. Ligur used to get a kick out of that kind of thing.”[10]
“Yes, but you are not Ligur, dear,” Aziraphale pointed out.[11] “And I know you never enjoyed plagues."[12]
“Yeah, well. Can’t corrupt souls if they’re already dead, that’s all.”
Aziraphale sighed and offered an arm, extended along the back of the couch. Crowley leaned back into it, and the angel could feel the tension in the demon’s shoulders. He curved the arm more fully around Crowley’s torso and felt some of the muscles relax just a tiny bit. Aziraphale struggled to figure out what he should say.
“They’re amazingly resilient, humans,” he tried, finally. “They’ll make it through. They always do.”
Crowley gave another grunt.
“They’ve been through worse. And now they have all their newfangled medicine and science and whatnot to help them, they can do so much more than back in the old times. They’re so good at learning about things nowadays.”
“Mmhm.”
“They survived the Black Death.”
Crowley barked another abrupt, absolutely humorless laugh. “Not helping, angel.”
Fair point, Aziraphale thought, and winced at his own ineptitude. If one of his arms hadn’t been otherwise occupied, he would have wrung his hands. The fourteenth century had been rough on both of them, but Crowley had taken it especially hard. Why had Aziraphale mentioned it now, of all times, when all he wanted to do was help Crowley feel better? “I’m sorry,” he said again.
“‘S okay…” Crowley turned within the curve of Aziraphale’s arm so he could look the angel in the face. “Aziraphale? You don’t have to make everything better, you know.” He said it gently. “It’s okay for it to not be okay. Sometimes. Doesn’t mean I like it, but it is what it is, you don’t need to…”
The demon didn’t finish the sentence, and Aziraphale’s heart twinged. “I know that. And you’re right, it’s not okay at all, none of this is. It’s unfair, it’s terrible. It makes me miserable too. It’s only…” He took a breath and admitted unhappily, “I just don’t like you to be sad. I want to help, but I— I don’t know how.”
Crowley made an unintelligible sound, his mouth twisted slightly, and he blinked rapidly a few times[13]. He looked away. After a moment he moved his own arm to wrap it around Aziraphale’s waist, pulling them closer into each other. “C’mere, angel.”
Aziraphale willingly let himself be pulled, tightening his own arm accordingly. They breathed in company for a little while. Then Crowley said quietly, “You do help. You are. A lot. This, it…” He let out a gust of air. “That is, it makes me feel… less… more… better,” he finished, self-consciously.
“Oh, Crowley…” Aziraphale’s voice suddenly didn’t want to cooperate with speaking. He cleared his throat. “I’m… glad. It makes me feel better too. Very much so.”
“Mm.”
They sat there in more companionable silence, comfortably holding and leaning on each other.
“You know, you’re right too,” Crowley murmured, a few minutes later. “I suppose that’s why we saved the world, isn’t it, really? So they get the chance to make it through. They always do, in the end.”
“They do, don’t they? Yes.”
Aziraphale sighed. Crowley did the same.
The beep of a timer from the kitchenette roused them. Aziraphale ignored it for a minute, then Crowley nudged the angel. “You should probably get that. Don’t want the shop burning down again.”
“I suppose I should.” Grumbling, Aziraphale extracted his limbs from Crowley’s. “Would you like some tea?”
“Nah, I’ll just watch you.”
“All right, dear.”
The angel heaved himself reluctantly off the sofa. He was halfway across the room when Crowley called, “Have you tried putting it in Locrian?”
Aziraphale huffed a laugh and went to check on the sourdough, trying his utmost not to mentally transpose Pachelbel's Canon into the devil’s mode.[14]
Footnotes
1 Again. Aziraphale had gotten a lot of sourdough-baking practice over the past few months. To be precise, this was the 37th sourdough recipe he had tried since March. Some of the recipes were significantly worse than others, but since Aziraphale generally assumed they would turn out tolerably well, they generally turned out tolerably well.[return to text]
2 Angel and demon had agreed that, it being permitted to go out wearing masks — and Crowley having, after all, fully self-isolated for well over the recommended two-week period — the slithering-over-to-hunker-down option was now both acceptable and desirable.[return to text]
3 Unless you counted young wannabe burglars as company. Aziraphale didn’t; giving them a talking-to and cake had been pleasant enough, but it wasn’t company.[return to text]
4 He knew the answer would most likely be “Nah, I’ll just watch you” — Crowley was not much of a tea-drinker — but every once in a blue moon the answer was yes, so Aziraphale always made sure to check, because it would have been a real shame to miss the blue moon.[return to text]
5 The jury was still out as to whether or not bad posture was a sin, officially, but it certainly wasn’t a virtue.[return to text]
6 Although Aziraphale had found the wine that the elder Pachelbel sold in Nuremberg rather disappointing.[return to text]
7 Not even a scathing remark regarding the tedium of Pachelbel’s progression. Crowley didn’t play cello, but he was pretty much on the same page as Rob Paravonian on the subject of I-V-vi-iii-IV-I-IV-V.[return to text]
8 As if there were any such thing.[return to text]
9 Or Adam, technically speaking.[return to text]
10 Crowley did quite like conspiracy theories himself, and had planted a fair number of his own invention over the millenia. But it spoiled the fun when people died because of the theories.[return to text]
11 Aziraphale was very grateful for this fact.[return to text]
12 As a matter of fact, Aziraphale didn’t either.[return to text]
13 Crowley did not usually blink much. Strong emotions were, however, the exception to this rule.[return to text]
14 For the brave and the curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_28qwtFP7A4. [return to text]