If The World Is To Fall

Chapter 3 - In which The Demon Crowley visits The Angel Aziraphale

Aziraphale was busy in the bookshop, not selling books, as usual, when he heard the bell signalling the arrival of a potential customer.

"I could've sworn I locked the door..." Aziraphale muttered, turning to explain that the shop was, in fact, closed. "Apologies, but it appears we're closed-"

"As if the lock would've kept me out." A familiar voice replied.

"Crowley!" Aziraphale lit up in delight and he shot a beaming smile at the demon, who in turn grinned back.

"What's up Angel?" The two polar opposites settled into some friendly banter. It was moments like this that Crowley really savoured, even before the Armageddidn't.

The sweet sound of Aziraphale's laughter, giving out a slight echo as it bounced around the walls of the bookshop. What Crowley would do to hear that forever.

But right now, it was just the two of them. And that was enough.

=====

Briar was used to being alone. He'd been alone his whole life, even before his father had thrown him out of the house. To be honest, he'd never really been a father to him anyway. He hadn't even given the child a name, for crying out loud!

And now it was happening all over again. Anthony had left and he was pretty sure he was never coming back. The perks of having abandonment issues.

At least there was food, right? But what if Anthony comes back and then throws him out for touching his stuff? But what if he doesn't come back? Surely a little bit of food would be okay...

Briar doesn't touch anything edible.

Okay. It's alright. He'll be back. There's no way he'd leave a young, defenceless boy all alone for a long time, right? Why would anyone do that?

But his father did...

Briar started shaking. He wasn't very good at being on his own. He mustn't be very good in general. That's why he was abandoned. Oh lord, he was a terrible child, no wonder nobody wanted him. Tears sprang to his eyes and he buried himself into the blankets of the toppled fort, feeling his eyes flutter closed.

This was the warmest he'd been for a while. Usually he was stuck outside, but now he was in Anthony's house and he always kept the heater really high.

Anthony was nice to him. He even gave him some cool sunglasses to match. Well, he didn't really give them, they fell out of his pocket, but he was allowed to keep them!

And he let Briar have a warm bath! A bath, not a shower, a really long bath for as long as he wanted! He couldn't understand why Anthony was so nice to him.

He hadn't done anything particularly good. He hadn't been well behaved, jumping on furniture, but Anthony still treated him like he was the best kid in the world.

...

It made him feel special.

And now he didn't want that taken away from him.

Briar whimpered slightly and pulled the blankets up further, cradling the soft toy bunny in his arms, the one that Anthony had bought him. The sheets smelled like Anthony. Like fire but not the nasty kind. Kind of like a campfire, which was nice.

Briar liked campfires. He'd been camping once. It was fun, he basically got free reign (because his family didn't give a shit about where he went). But when it was time to leave, he was forgotten, and had to make his way back home. Luckily it wasn't far - he just couldn't seem to understand that he was purposely left there.

Anthony smelled like campfires. He was like an Angel. He'd told Briar not to call him that but he did it all the same.

Anthony the Angel. The Angel Anthony.

Briar liked that. He liked it a lot.

He fell asleep to the comforting thoughts of Anthony the "Angel", unaware that the demon was doing more that any Angel would ever do (apart from Aziraphale, for obvious reasons).

=====

Crowley enjoyed his time with Aziraphale. He enjoyed how the Angel would get so nitpicky over the most random of things, and the pair would have a good laugh about it. He enjoyed everything that Aziraphale did, he loved everything Aziraphale did.

He loved everything Aziraphale did.

He loved everything the Angel did.

He loved the Angel.

Crowley loved Aziraphale.

Although he had spent many years denying his feelings of affection for the Angel, he knew them to be true. He had always felt a connection to the unusual Angel, ever since the Garden of Eden.

Something intrigued him when Aziraphale told him he'd given away his flaming sword, against God's great plan. It was for good, but all Crowley heard was that he went against Her Great Plan and he was smitten.

An unusual Angel.

His unusual Angel.

Crowley smiled at the thought. Unfortunately, he had no idea whether Aziraphale knew about his feeling (the Angel could sense love, but Crowley had no idea if he could sense the love of a demon), or whether he reciprocated them.

While he was wrapped up in his slurred thoughts, something reminded him of his flat, and he sobered up faster than he ever had before, leaving Aziraphale rather tipsy and confused.

Briar.

"I, uh, I gotta go, Angel. I'll see you later." And he was out of there before Aziraphale could reply. By the time he'd sobered up as well, the demon had gone.

=====

When Crowley had got back to his flat, the first thing he did was find Briar, who was currently huddled up in the living room in swaddles of blankets.

However, he was shaking, most likely from a nightmare.

Crowley couldn't allow that. So, slipping back into his faze Nanny Ashtoreth, he began to hum to the poor child, who fell back to sleep peacefully curled into Crowley's side. Crowley allowed himself to smile, looking down at the boy with nothing less than fondness in his eyes (although they were still covered with his shades).

He knew he had gotten attached.

And Crowley really didn't mind.