faemused | AZIRAPHALE GET IN THE TIME LOOP!!!

In hindsight, although every aspect of the plan had seemed like a good idea at the time, Aziraphale probably ought to have thought it through more.

The first spark of the plan had taken hold during one of the endless meetings he was now required to attend. Despite his overt objections (and some subtle behind-the-scenes sabotage), Heaven as a whole was proceeding with the Second Coming; if they could still be talked out of war, his chances were becoming vanishingly small. Aziraphale brought his knowledge of human bureaucracy to bear to delay as much as he could, and used his new access to search Heaven’s records for anything that might help, and hoped. But even a Supreme Archangel could only do so much.

And he was alone now.

He felt that loneliness keenly, burning along his lips and tingling under his lapels, day after day. You idiot echoed under the stiff silences or clipped reports from his coworkers. Everything in the bright blank offices of Heaven that even remotely resembled something earthly in nature reminded him of nightingales. Regret crept up on him in waves.

But when Michael and Uriel presented their plans for Judgment Day, he knew he had to act.

In the event of their all-but-assured victory, the other archangels had declared, every former angel who had joined with the forces of Hell would be struck from the Book of Life. An eternity in Paradise had no room for dissenters, troublemakers, or malcontents; a refusal to repent meant erasure from existence. Only one side could win, after all. Only one side was worthy of persisting into infinity.

As they droned on, Aziraphale’s heart clenched tight around a sharp stab of panic. Crowley. He won’t exist. He will never have existed. I have to stop this. I can’t let them do this. Not to him. Not after everything.

(Not after that kiss, not after oh God at last, oh God not now, how dare you, not like this, not with the Metatron right outside the window, oh God but how I want this, how I want, how I can’t—! Not after realizing what had always been between them, and that he would have to refuse it to keep Crowley safe.)

Through the rest of the meeting, and for what felt like an eon of human time afterward, Aziraphale kept quiet, retreating into his own thoughts. He drifted from the meeting back to his office—just as empty and white as the rest of Heaven—with his heart pounding and his brain spinning.

He didn’t want the End of Days to happen at all, but he especially couldn’t bear the thought that Crowley would be gone. Not just gone: erased. And though the closest thing he had to an instinct was screaming at him to warn Crowley… there was an entire structure of fears and anxieties pinning him in place, keeping him stiff and silent in his chair. What if ran him through, keeping him at his desk for hours on end, a butterfly held down with its wings open but unmoving.

Everything would have been so much easier if Crowley had only agreed to come with him. To accept his offer of safety, of being together, of not having to live under Hell’s yoke any longer.

Which was how the idea eventually began to coalesce in his head that possibly, possibly, if he got to the Book of Life before anyone else, he could rewrite Crowley’s name in it. Or at the very least change his status so he was formally on Heaven’s staff and thus protected from the coming purge. Surely that would be better than total non-existence.

And, surely, acting now would be far better than letting the plans go through. He had been a coward during too many moments in his existence; he could be brave now. He would have to be.

Trembling with his own recklessness, Aziraphale made his way to the Celestial Archives. His new access privileges meant that none of the lesser angels on guard duty gave him more than a brief look and a nod when he passed by. His heart, still bound in a human corporation, beat so hard and fast he thought he might burst; he had to keep his fists clenched at his sides to hide the way his hands shook with panic and shock at his own audacity.

The Book, naturally, had its own room, with its own pedestal. Not especially large, and not much different from the rest of the bright open-concept spaces that made up Heaven’s head office, but somehow the very aura of the place felt subtly unlike the rest of Heaven. For one, the Book itself looked… well, like a normal book. Like many of the books in Aziraphale’s collection, actually: bound in pale leather that had faded slightly with age, the ends of the spine just a little ragged, the edges of the pages glowing with something more than gold leaf.

He thought of all the books still on Earth in his shop, the place he’d painted with the warm shades of Crowley’s hair and eyes, and took a deep breath.

Aziraphale reached out and took the Book with both hands.

And the instant he opened it, an alarm sounded.

Something between a klaxon and an accusing shout, with a touch of the Heavenly choir mixed in, so loud he could feel it in whatever part of his angelic spirit contained anything like a spine. Already he could hear a rising tide of sound beneath the alarm—other angels on the move.

He was caught.
Was he?
No. I can’t. I’m not giving up on this.
What would Crowley have done?
What would he do?
What did he do last time?
Stopped everything.
Time.

He’d never done it before. But before now, he’d never needed to—except once, or maybe twice, and Crowley had done those anyway.

How did he do it—?

There had been something in his other hand that day. Some sort of whatchamacallit crank [footnote: Otherwise known as a starting handle.] he’d taken off the Bentley. That gave Aziraphale a mental image to hold on to, to try and imitate.

With the part of himself that was more than the earthly plane, he reached out and up. Grasped for anything that felt big and solid enough to stop time.

The universe juddered, a lift on unsteady cables. Aziraphale imagined taking firm hold of the starting handle to turn it, the power within him straining to move the fabric of reality in a way it never has before

and then

clickclickclick
a rasping, a groan, resistance
clickclickwhirrrrr
holding on tight even blasted by strange fire
pulling against a colossal force
a wild scream breaking loose
the world dissolving into sand flowing and hissing
sweeping back
and back
and back
whirrrrrrrrrrrrrchkchkchkchk
clunk.

With a sharp gasp Aziraphale jolts back to awareness.

He’s not in the Archive. His hands are empty—flat against the smooth insubstantial surface of a Heavenly conference table. He’s sitting, prim and straight in his too-pale suit, with other angels on his left and right.

They all turn to look when he inhales. Even Michael and Uriel pause, the flow of their presentation broken, a slide labeled JUDGMENT DAY ROTAS (NOT FINALIZED) not yet populated with glowing text.

“Supreme Archangel?” Uriel asks, regarding him with distrusting eyes. “Something you’d like to add?”

“I,” Aziraphale attempts, his throat dry. “Sorry, it’s just—didn’t we already—?”

Everyone’s staring.

Dizzy, he grasps at composure. “I—it’s—it’s nothing. My apologies, I—I must have been distracted. Briefly. Please, continue the presentation.”

There’s a long beat of uncomfortable silence before Michael lifts a hand, prompting the celestial screen behind her to fill with text.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

duckshaveears

Every day is the same lately, and that's fine. After all, Crowley's taken steps to make sure it's a good day, with a good night to follow.

He's left London, for a start. Left the entire bloody island. Long overdue, really. London has its points but Albion is perpetually cold and damp. He figured that out back in 500 AD; ridiculous to let himself ignore it all this time.

No, this place is much more his style. All sorts of mischief to get up to in Monte Carlo, all sorts of temptations. He's smack dab in the middle of the international byword for the extravagant display and reckless dispersal of wealth and he fits in like a needle among pens. Hell might not be paying his bills anymore but humans are so very easy to manipulate. So forgetful when it comes to things like the fact that the man (-shaped being) staying in one of the most luxurious hotels on the French Riviera can offer hasn't actually paid for his penthouse suite.

And there's vice everywhere. He's surrounded by a constant wash of Lifestyles Of the Rich and Dissipated. He barely has to lift a finger, though he does, and often. There's endless entertainment to be found in the casinos, making sure a roulette ball sticks at just the right or wrong moment, or that a slot machine offers a jackpot to someone who looks like they'll do amusing things with a sudden big break. One day he bankrupts an oil magnate and the next he helps an aged sex worker win ten million, just because it pisses off her escort, to say nothing of the casino. Lots of fun to be had.

And during the day he can lounge by the pool, basking in the sun, conveniently ignored by everyone except for the waiters who bring him endless snakebite cocktails. He can swim in the ocean when he wants, tie a moray eel into a knot to confuse a scuba diver, emerge sleek and dripping and snap himself into a tuxedo and spend an evening at one of the best opera houses in the world. He can take his Bentley and break in to the Grand Prix and outrace all the Ferraris. Loads to do and all the time in the world to do it in.

He doesn't think about how much time that is, or anything he left behind in London, or anything that left him behind in London. Not a bit. He also doesn't think about the fact that for the most part he doesn't do any of these things, aside from messing around in casinos and drinking on the beach. And the basking, he does the basking. If he can get enough sunlight maybe it'll fill the holes he doesn't think about.

Every day is the same lately, and that's fine.

Just fine.

From:

confoundthemighty

The first time through, Aziraphale thinks he might simply have had a premonition about what might happen if he’s not careful about this plan.

After stumbling out of the meeting, he triple-checks the security on the Book, and much to his chagrin finds an alarm he ought to have disabled. Since he now has administrative privileges, he switches it off about ten minutes before he heads into the Archives.

But as soon as he opens the Book of Life, reality begins to wobble around him in a way that makes his soul seasick. Again there’s that strange grinding sensation, something beyond sound or thought that makes his consciousness seem to be trapped between the gears of some massive thing in a way that prevents it from doing its job. The immensity of time and space catch on him—the nobody who became Supreme Archangel, the wizard who fooled monarchs with close-up magic, the fool who let love drive him to desperation.

Everything stops.

He’s somewhere else now. It’s a somewhere he recognizes, much to his own surprise: when Crowley stopped time for Adam, they ended up here, all three of them. An endless stretch of pale desert, almost without color, under a bright sky.

Except this time Aziraphale has nothing else to distract him from seeing the desert itself.

Distant among the dunes are a number of grey and brown shapes. When he concentrates on them, they grow clearer: they’re smallish walled spaces, many with tiny flashes of green peeking through and above the walls’ edges.

(Hasn’t he been somewhere like this before?)

Curious, Aziraphale lets himself drift towards one—he doesn’t seem to be tethered to his human body here, and can move as lightly as smoke. He rises, straining to catch a glimpse of what this set of walls contains…

Then he’s back in the meeting, listening to Michael and Uriel go over their plan.

The second time through, Aziraphale is actually somewhat frightened. Perhaps he shouldn’t touch the Book at all. Instead, when the meeting is over, he goes straight back to his office and immerses himself in research—sterile, unhappy research without all the physical thingness of books that he loves, but it has to be done. He doesn’t stir from his desk, except to glance at his pocket watch, which is still set to Greenwich Mean Time.

Almost exactly forty-six Earth hours later, the grinding and lurching in reality starts again, and Aziraphale is back in the meeting.

The third time through, Aziraphale leaves immediately after the meeting to head to the Observation Deck.

He has to find Crowley. Crowley will understand what happened. Maybe they can even come to some sort of an understanding.

The first place he checks isn’t on Earth at all; he directs the screen he’s put himself in front of to show him Alpha Centauri. Both relief and pain weigh on his heart when he realizes Crowley isn’t there—only the bright-and-dark presences of another angel and demon canoodling in blissful ignorance.

(Privately, bitterly, Aziraphale wishes he and Crowley could have beaten them to it. Not that he ever wanted to abandon Earth, but something smarts terribly about seeing someone who’s been a frankly awful boss end up effortlessly happy. It’s a petty, human sort of resentment, and Aziraphale feels brief and intense flashes of guilt over harboring it.)

He spends hours surveying Earth. London first, just to be certain he’s left [footnote: And to sneak a look at Whickber Street, just in case.], then on to other major cities. There are hot spots all over the world where a demon might make mischief. Not that he can find much mischief of a nature other than human, wherever he looks—certainly there are individual demonic projects here and there, but he knows Crowley’s handiwork, and he doesn’t see it.

Eventually he zeroes in on Monte Carlo. His first glimpse of a familiar lean figure in a casino makes his heart jump so hard that for a moment he thinks the whole mad loop is starting again—both his human body and his soul react so strongly to the sight that it almost seems like the universe might be preparing to rearrange itself.

Once he’s composed himself—no mean feat, considering the riot his circumstances and his first sight of Crowley have started in his whole being—he slips into an empty lift, heading for Earth.

The doors open into one of the brightly-lit, gilded corridors of the Casino Monte Carlo.

From:

duckshaveears

Crowley's bored, but at least he's bored in bad company with good alcohol. There are worse fates. He could be Down Below, for example. (Or Up Above. But he's not thinking about that, or anything connected to it)

It's another evening of messing around in the casino, and he hasn't really found anyone entertaining to toy with so far this evening. He's sticking by the roulette wheel for tonight; last night he played Blackjack and had to use a few miracles to prevent himself getting kicked out after using a few other miracles to change cards so he kept winning. No one can accuse him of manipulating the roulette wheel, even when he does. Handy, that.

He's not in a mood for attention, however, so he keeps his winnings modest, just enough to cover all the alcohol.

There's a lot of alcohol.

It's a fine art, he's found, having just enough to keep himself mellow and distracted, and not so much that he starts ranting or manically causing trouble. Or worst of all, getting all maudlin and trying to tell his troubles to someone. Ugh. Not a mistake he'll make again. (for the fifth time)

So he's just idly looking around when he catches a glimps of pale, pale, pale blonde hair.

It's an unusual colour but not unheard of, even here. Loads of women dying their hair as blonde as possible to show off. He's long since stopped doing double-takes whenever he sees the right shade. (He tells himself that, anyway)

So it's a surprise when this time the blonde hair is actually attached to Aziraphale. The clothes are wrong, the aura is a bit altered, if he could scent him across the crowd no doubt that'd be different as well: colder, tinged with that ozone tang of Heaven, all of it. Crowley would still know him anywhere, at once. The expression of concern and worry buried underneath a deliberate facade of calm is as familiar to Crowley as...as something really, really familiar.

Crowley immediately looks away and starts walking towards the other end of the casino, hiding himself in the crowds. When he can he'll loop around and get out. Whatever conversation the Supreme Archange is looking to have, he wants no part of it. No part at all.