Chapter Text
The bookshop is burning.
In between flames, the brief snatches of visible air shimmer, so choked with violent heat that they ripple and warp. Fire tears through the rafters, eats the dust. Writhes and sizzles and resculpts Crowley’s most precious memories into steaming ash. The Chesterfield pops and spits, leather splitting into deep fissures. Windows shatter into sand. The whole building roars.
Crowley roars louder.
He shovels armloads of burning books aside, digging his way into the heart of the shop, fuck fuck fuck Aziraphale– his pulse is explosive, a booming in the back of his throat, in his head, behind his eyes; if his pulse could speak it’d say no; howl it, primal - no no no NO- he pushes collapsing shelves aside and wrestles debris out of his fucking damned way and he’s going as fast as he can but his knees feel as old as time and the flames keep on scything the place to shreds all around him and he’s–he…
There is a frantic pounding coming from Aziraphale’s back room.
Crowley hurtles towards the closed door, throwing his full weight at it and screaming for Aziraphale. He shoves and he kicks and he hits and he screams and screams and screams, and Aziraphale is right on the other side of the door, and the door won’t open and the fire has just about gutted the entire shop by now, and–
And.
And the smell is all wrong.
Funny, really, that Crowley’s not noticed until now.
It doesn’t smell dry and sharp, the way burning paper and wood ought to.
It smells thick and dense and murky.
Like sulphur.
Like Hell.
And within a microcosm of a second, Crowley’s panic crescendos to a million fucking megavolts. He tries for a miracle, but the mind-numbing terror that’s suddenly clamped around his brain makes it impossible to focus . It wipes all the occult out of him, leaving just a person , a weak, pathetic mortal , sobbing and quivering as he slams his entire body against the door over and over again (please Aziraphale please I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry–)
From a trapped room engulfed in hellfire, Aziraphale begins to scream.
The important thing to note, here, is that Crowley knows that it’s not real.
This isn’t really happening.
Just like it hadn’t really happened last night. Or Tuesday of last week; it hadn’t been real then, either.
You’ve probably heard people say to pinch yourself. If you think you’re dreaming, pinch yourself, and you’ll wake up.
But it doesn’t really work like that for Crowley, and he’s not 100% sure if that’s because he’s a demon and pinching is solely a human strategy, or if it’s because the whole thing is just some rubbish people say.
Sometimes, Crowley does try to pinch himself. Sometimes he even twists. Digs in his nails until he draws blood. It never does any good.
Sometimes, Crowley’s not even really able to move. He’s frozen, watching in immobilised horror as it all plays out around him.
Bit tricky to pinch yourself when you're paralysed.
And sometimes…there’s a rare occasion where Crowley doesn't know. Sometimes his dreams are so visceral, so completely all-consuming that he's totally disoriented when he wakes up. Cold sweat, shaking, throat dry as he blinks the crumbs of it all away. Drags a hand down his face and tries to squeeze the fluorescent streaks of panic out of his blood.
He's gotta hand it to his subconscious; the hellfire is new. Clearly the writer's strikes have been resolved and he's got a full team hard at work in his brain. Fuck.
Once he's jolted awake and choked through his first few lungfuls of air; once he's sat and stared at the sheets for a while and tried his damnedest to sweep away the sounds of Aziraphale's dying screams, he takes a breath, and he takes stock.
Firstly: a cautious glance around reminds him that he is in Aziraphale’s upstairs bedroom. In Aziraphale’s bookshop.
The bookshop is not on fire.
There are crocheted blankets, well-loved and all variations of the same hideous beige (not according to Azirphale, who insists that each has its own unique colour; nutmeg and cinnamon and latte and hazelnut, and of course they’re all food names, what else does Crowley expect?). There are stacks of books and soft, squashy pillows, and a few of Crowley’s plants have migrated to the shelves and window sills in there, tendrils winding down to the floor. It’s dusty and warm, and it glows. Like a fresh, baby galaxy.
Cosmic latte. The colour of the universe.
It’s safe. Crowley is safe here.
Next, Crowley will listen out for Aziraphale. He’s usually pottering around in the shop. He’ll listen for the soft pad of his footsteps, or the whistle of the tea kettle, or maybe the sound of him talking quietly on the phone.
Usually, Crowley will hold his breath for this part.
He always feels a bit stupid once he’s let it out again.
It’s safe. Aziraphale is safe here.
Finally, Crowley will get up.
He’ll swallow back the nightmare, ignoring the way it gets stuck in his throat like a horse pill. Peel himself out of bed and demand that his limbs stop trembling. Get dressed, fix his hair, paste on an expression of effortless confidence. Sometimes remind his legs how to swagger. Maybe do a few practice runs. Then pop downstairs to kiss Aziraphale good morning.
And that’s that.
It’s fine.
It is.
Honestly, it’s…far more manageable now than it was… before.
Before Aziraphale had come back.
For a while, Crowley had given up on sleeping altogether. It just didn’t seem worth it. He’d wake up feeling…just. So horrifically human. Numb and confused and uncomfortably sedated, but somehow with his heart practically vibrating with fear at the same time. Like he’d had a cocktail of adrenaline and pure ketamine pumped through his veins in his sleep. It made him feel nauseous. Whoever heard of a demon having nap time and waking up dry-heaving and gasping while typing up a Reddit post?
(The Reddit post had read as follows: r/askdocs: Insomnia/Night Terrors - Should I [M/6000+] try melatonin, edibles or therapy? ).
He’d had all sorts of nightmares back then.
Some of them keep coming back, even now. The bookshop fire is one of them.
Aziraphale leaving him is another.
Crowley knows, now, after several very long, very choked up, and very shouty conversations, that Aziraphale had felt just as abandoned by Crowley that day as Crowley had felt by Aziraphale. He knows. They'd been speaking the same language, but different dialects.
But a couple of months ago, before Aziraphale had come back (before The Talks, the translations into the same dialect, the tears, the apologies, the second kiss - fuck, the second kiss, the bookshop and the bedroom and Aziraphale's hands in his hair and…)
Before all that.
Crowley hadn't known.
Hadn't understood.
Not properly.
And his dreams had been…genuinely diabolical. Before.
Aziraphale shoving him away with a look of disgust.
Aziraphale's gaze growing cold, hostile. Crowley grovelling, begging Aziraphale to stay. To love him.
Aziraphale's frosty, derisive laughter.
Aziraphale striding into the bookshop and telling Crowley about The Metatron's offer, only…without the jittery excitement, without the pleading warmth in his eyes. Standing tall and proud, mouth pinched and such vitriol in his tone that Crowley has to shut his eyes against it. He explains that he's leaving. He says nothing about Crowley coming too. Crowley doesn't ask.
Aziraphale returning after a brief stint in heaven, actually coming back , Crowley's heart positively soaring, anticipation building. There will be stony silence and probably a great big yelling match, but after that there will be talking, real talking. Crowley will be able to breathe out again. He knows he will.
But Aziraphale returns with something sharp and malicious in his eyes, and a vial of sharp, malicious clear liquid in his hands.
His heart drops.
But it’s okay.
Crowley just hopes he'll be quick about it.
(He never is. Not in any iteration.)
Crowley is the one who goes fast, after all.
Aziraphale prefers to take his time.
Crowley wants to say that his nightmares have died down a bit since Aziraphale’s return. He wants to say that, and so he does. Some days he’s almost able to convince himself that it’s true.
Aziraphale doesn’t know.
Crowley doesn’t want him to know. He knows Aziraphale still carries the guilt of their separation with him, wears it like a war wound, even though Crowley is absolutely at equal fault. Sometimes, something’ll come up. Casually. Sometimes Muriel will drop round for a visit, little black notebook in hand, and chirp something-or-other about ‘Crowley and Muriel’s Bookshop Era’.
“Gosh, I don’t think I’m quite ready to try wine yet, thank you. I’ve only just got my head around tea! Is there even any wine left in here, Crowley? I thought you drank just about all of it the first week after Aziraphale left!”
And Crowley will see it flash for a moment in Aziraphale’s eyes, before he squashes it back down. That peek-a-boo anguish, the shame and regret, the way he smiles his way around it like a bad parallel park. Trying not to let Crowley see.
Crowley can only imagine how much worse Aziraphale would feel if he knew that Crowley has had bloody nightmares about his little jaunt to heaven.
And that they’re. You know. Still happening.
He doesn’t want that.
He wants to just…move on . Enjoy what they have together now, what they’ve always had but just been too afraid to claim.
He wants to be an us.
And they are , make no mistake. Crowley would give the whole finale full-marks, if not for the dreams. Hell and Heaven mind their damned/holy business these days, after the whole kerfuffle of The Second Coming that never fully came to fruition. It’s just Crowley and Aziraphale now. And occasionally Muriel. And Nina. And Maggie. And sometimes Adam, who every so often sends Crowley tiktoks that neither he nor Aziraphale understand.
But it’s mostly Crowley and Aziraphale, Aziraphale and Crowley. It’s books and coffee and hours equally divvied up between Michelin star restaurants and greasy spoons. It’s knowing smiles and entwined fingers and laughter so hysterical that their lungs squeak like balloon animals as they try to inhale.
It’s also mouths.
It’s hands. Hips.
It’s lovely .
So Aziraphale…doesn’t have to know. It’s actually really convenient that he doesn’t sleep, come to think of it. That after holding Crowley for a couple hours or so in the bookshop bedroom, he quietly peels himself away and leaves Crowley to sleep in peace.
That’s…good. That’s a good thing.
Crowley will not ruin this.
Crowley’s subconscious just…needs to sec to catch up with all the recent developments, that’s all. The nightmares will die off. He’s sure of it.
And he’s right, in the end.
As usual, things tend to work out for Crowley.
It just…doesn’t happen in quite the way Crowley expects it to.
It begins in void white.
Blinding.
Aziraphale is there.
His face is taut. Pained. His eyes well up but he’s trying to remain strong.
His wings are outstretched, and the feathers rustle anxiously. He looks pale; sickly.
Something is wrong. Something is more wrong than anything has ever been. Ever.
Crowley is…
Not really sure where he is, to be honest. It’s like he’s on a different plane; like he’s watching something play out on the telly, eyes held open with matchsticks and powerless to intervene.
Aziraphale is pleading with someone, but he sounds far away and Crowley can’t make out the words. Just the tone, high and desperate (work with me we can be together I need you, I need you I need you I need you–).
He pleads, begs, even as the tips of moonlight wings begin to blacken; to burn.
His head whips around and suddenly he’s looking at Crowley; right into the core of him, tears finally spilling over. It’s not accusatory, the expression, not placing any blame.
Just…devastated.
It’s the worst thing Crowley’s ever seen.
He reaches frantically for Aziraphale, grabs for him, but his arms snatch at empty air no matter how hard he tries. He opens his mouth, but all that escapes is the most pitiful whimper.
Aziraphale’s eyes flutter skyward.
There’s nothing up there.
He starts to Fall.
And then…
Then…
There’s an ellipsis. That’s the only way Crowley can describe it, really.
The ellipsis is a human invention. A terrible one, Crowley thinks.
You see, just because Crowley isn’t very bookish right now doesn’t mean that’s always been the case. Now there’s Instagram and VR headsets and Amazon Prime.
But, for a long time, there wasn’t. There were…just books.
Crowley used to read, before he had better offers, is the point. He’s existed for over 6000 years; he’s dabbled in just about every human pastime to exist. He’s obviously picked up a book or two. He’s familiar with metaphors and sonnets and purple prose. He can identify dangling participles and bad hyperbole.
And he’s very familiar with the ellipsis.
It’s always felt vaguely mocking , to Crowley. Condescending.
Like. Oooh. What will happen next?
It’s a pause. A fade-out. A drift away. It ends a sentence, kind of, but with a feeling of being unfinished. Incomplete.
Like a thought that dissolves into a ‘tune in next time’. Wait and see.
That’s the exact feeling that Crowley gets. One moment, Aziraphale is Falling.
And the next, the dream ends…
Emphasis on the …
The image of Aziraphale is smoothed out like wrinkles on clothing. Dot (the edges of Aziraphale blur) , dot (a calming dark begins to filter in), dot (there is nothing).
There is nothing.
The image flickers out, as does the all-consuming horror of it all.
It doesn’t… feel finished.
It feels like, in some other dimension, Aziraphale is still Falling .
But Crowley can’t see it anymore.
Still…unsettling. But better.
All Crowley can see is seamless, quiet dark.
It feels vaguely warm, in the nothing. Calm.
Safe. Like a bookshop bedroom.
Like cosmic latte.
Crowley drifts.
Sinks.
And soon enough he’s bobbing back to the surface again. Blinking blearily into the sun filtering through the window and listening out for Aziraphale downstairs.
He’s slept through the night.
No more dreams.
He still feels Aziraphale’s Fall sort of…stamped on his brain. But it’s like…like the print of it has been smudged. Ink streaked across his frontal lobe. It’s less clear than it should be, mostly overshadowed by that strange, soothing nothingness that had taken over.
He goes through his usual morning routine, feeling a little distracted by the whole thing.
It just had felt. Odd. Different. He’d assumed that when the nightmares eventually began to dissipate it’d be more like. Maybe less often over the course of a fortnight. Then less in a week.
Not just. A dream abruptly dissolving mid-way-through.
He finds Aziraphale downstairs, poring over some almanac, a cup of tea already going cold beside him. Crowley miracles the thing up by a few degrees, then gives it a firm warning not to go cold again (the teacup begins mentally drafting the scripts for its two-part apology video). He slumps himself over Aziraphale’s shoulders, wrapping an arm around his chest and dropping his chin to rest on Aziraphale’s head.
It’s all very nonchalant and cool of him, honestly.
It’s not clingy, if that’s what you’re thinking.
Aziraphale lets out a soft hum and tilts his head towards Crowley. Crowley lifts his chin to let him.
“Hello, dear,” he murmurs. “Sleep alright?”
“Mmf,” says Crowley, but that’s because his mouth has decided it’s busy doing something else right now, thanks very much.
Aziraphale smiles into the kiss, turning fully in his chair so he can lean right into it, running his hands slowly down Crowley’s arms to cradle his wrists. He sighs, and between one kiss and the next, he breathes, “Oh, good,” in response to something Crowley hasn’t said.
It doesn’t strike Crowley as unusual that Aziraphale seems relieved.
When Crowley’s spent a few hours not-kissing Aziraphale, and then he is kissing Aziraphale, he feels relieved too.
It doesn't seem odd.
Not yet...