Sometimes Aziraphale feels old. Or, he feels weary and achy and tired. He is old, that’s for certain, but angels don’t really get old. He’d been wearing this face since the dawn of time, and sometimes his cheeks were plumper or thinner, and sometimes there were bags under his eyes, but it hadn’t aged a day. Sometimes he remembers the inquisitions, the revolutions, the crusades, the war and the horror of it all, and he laments how much his years have let him see.
And then Crowley will do something like start humming. He’s wandering around the bookshop, idly rearranging things. Aziraphale doesn’t have his books arranged by the alphabet or Dewey Decimal–no silly human classification. He’s not an animal, he has a system, it’s just that only he knows what it is. And Crowley, maybe. He seems to have figured it out, or otherwise is using his demonic instincts, because he’s putting the books he plucks from the shelves in exactly the worst place he could put them. Aziraphale would be mad, but it gives him something to look busy doing when customers come in asking questions.
He can’t place the tune. It’s familiar, so familiar, but he can’t place it. He doesn’t realize at first that he’s been following Crowley around the shop, brows furrowed, following the sound like a bee tracking pollen.
Crowley finally notices him, but doesn’t stop, making contact through his glasses as he reshelves a book. The humming gets a little louder, a little more pointed and teasing.
“What is that tune?” Aziraphale finally asks. “It’s driving me mad.”
Crowley quirks a grin, taking a moment before he stops to respond. “Willard Bourke. Pianist. We saw him play in the 70s, in that little tavern, you remember. You thought he was handsome.”
Aziraphale blushes, but, yes, he does remember now. They’d been there for a drink, and Aziraphale had been mesmerized by the man’s deft fingers. “Ah.” Aziraphale clears his throat. Crowley says the 70s, like there’d been only one of them, but it had in fact been the 1770s when they’d heard him play. “I do remember, yes. I thought he’d be famous. Pity no one remembers.”
“We do,” Crowley says, and goes back to humming.
Or that time he stops by Crowley’s flat, just for some tea, just for a chat. He finds Crowley in the middle of cooking, cursing quietly to himself. The demon looks frustrated. He’s positively glowering when Aziraphale enters.
Aziraphale surveys his ingredients, face screwing in confusion. “Whatever are you cooking?”
“Stew,” Crowley responds glumly. “Or, at least, I’m trying to. I can’t get it right.”
“Part of the joy of stew is that you don’t have to get it right.” He waves his hands. “The pot does most of the work.”
Crowley hisses, raising his fingers to rub against his eyes. “No, it’s … It’s a specific stew. I’ve been craving it for ages, but no one makes it anymore. It came with these little roasted dill seed bread balls and …” He cuts himself off.
“Crowley–” Aziraphale squints suspiciously. “How old is this recipe, exactly?”
Crowley sighs, already defeated. “Mesopotamia?” he ekes out, abashed.
Aziraphale laughs. “Oh, good! It’ll be a challenge, then.” He pulls the spoon from Crowley’s hand, taking a sip. “Juniper berries,” he decides. “You need juniper berries.”
Or when Warlock is young, maybe 6, not more than 7, though Aziraphale finds it so hard to keep track. He and Nanny Ashtoreth are sitting in the garden, drawing. It’s one of the rare moments when they’re both calm, worn out from a long day of chasing and yelling and plotting.
Aziraphale pretends to mind his rosebushes, but he’s been watching them for some time. Finally, he breaks and walks over.
“Ah, young master Warlock,” he says, peering over their shoulders. “What a wonderful drawing you’ve done. You like dinosaurs, hmm?”
Warlock looks up, colored pencil held tight in his fist. “Nanny is teaching me about extinct animals. Like dinosaurs and thylacines and unicorns.”
Aziraphale shoots Nanny Ashtoreth a look. She doesn’t look back.
Warlock pipes up again. “Nanny invented dinosaurs, did you know?”
“Did she now?” Aziraphale asks. It’s hard to keep his voice straight, because he knows this to be a fact. Crowley had been quite drunk at the time, but he thought it would be hilarious. “Big ‘ol lizards,” he’d said, “just huge, you know. Like a dragon, but they’ll think they’re real, see. Biggest things ever. ‘ould barely fit in the garden, them. Big buggers.”
Warlock nods. “My favorite is the T-Rex. Nanny says it would eat you in one bite.”
Aziraphale hums, discontented, as Nanny Ashtoreth quirks a grin. He spares a glance at what she’s drawing, and stops. It’s the most beautiful drawing of a passenger pigeon he’s ever seen. The reds and blues of it, every detail in its feathers. They’d seen them together, before, before they’d all gotten hunted out.
“It’s a lovely drawing, Nanny,” he says, voice a little more earnest than he means it to be.
The pencil stops, then keeps going.
Warlock looks up at him again. “Nanny says she ate the last one.”
“I did,” Nanny Ashtoreth responds. “And don’t you forget it.”
It’s the little things, the things that, by himself, Aziraphale might not remember. It’s the feel of the earliest silk, the thrill of his first moving picture, the clamor of a Roman marketplace on a hot day. Aziraphale is good at the experiencing, but Crowley has always been one for the remembering. Things stick with him. Things that, otherwise, would have been lost to time.
They’re curled up in bed, two commas together, and it’s been one of those days. Every shine is the glint of a sword, every wayward noise a battle cry, and Aziraphale can’t seem to stop remembering. He remembers the mess and the horror of it, he remembers the loss. All six-thousand years of loss.
Aziraphale swallows, and he hates how thick his throat feels. “Tell me good things,” he asks, meek, tired, and Crowley hums and presses a kiss into his shoulder.
Do you remember? Crowley asks, and keeps going. Do you remember, do you remember?
Yes, Aziraphale responds. Yes, yes, I do now.
They lay there, and remember together, six-thousand years of good and light, and fun and joy, and it’s easier. It doesn’t take away all the bad that he’s seen, but it’s easier. He remembers the food and the smells and the heavy cotton, and the music and the laughter and his first taste of wine. The bad isn’t gone, but there’s good, too, pushing it’s way in to make room.
Do you remember when we met? Crowley whispers, their hands linking.
Aziraphale pulls them up to place a kiss against his knuckles. It was so long ago, a lifetime, but yes, he does.
