The Known/Unknown Quantity

Chapter 92: Counting the Cost

Chapter 92: Counting the Cost

They both turned toward each other then. Crowley muttered. "Well, this isn't getting us anywhere."

"Agreed."

They fell into heavy silence for a while. Then Crowley chuckled. Aziraphale stiffened. "What's so funny?"

"You, me, this whole situation!" The demon leaned back and rolled with the wave of laughter. "The ludicrousness of it all."

"Of what?"

"An angel constantly vying to stand in for a demon's whipping."

"That's not the case at all!"

"Then whot it is, Aziraphale? If not that, whot it is?" The humor raced from his tone. His voice became flat as a pancake. No accusation. No sympathy. No heady moment waiting to spring at the answer. Just a simple inquiry.

He waited while the angel escaped his nerves and actually considered the truth. And when a familiar look crossed the Aziraphale face, he asked with gentleness and love this time:

"Would you take my suffering for your own, if you could?"

The angel clinched his hands and closed his eyes, his expressions tangoing around again. Then at last, he resolved to admit, and not omit.

"Yes, Crowley," he affirmed, opening his dancing eyes. "I would take your place, if ever I could."

"I didn't take the carpenter's offer. What makes you think I would take yours?"

The angel sat back, sagged, recalling, recollecting. The carpenter. The homeless man. The Son of God sent to hell to cause the same ruckus as he had with the merchants at the temple. Understatement, that.

The memory of the whole event caught them both in its grip for a time, but then Aziraphale perked up, and touched Crowley's knee, awakening him. "We had different reasons, that's why."

Crowley leaned back further.

"As the good book says, his offer was for those who had sinned and fallen short of the glory of God."

"And?"

The angel merely looked at him.

Crowley frowned. "You wanted to right a wrong."

Aziraphale fidgeted, then nodded solemnly, his hands clasped between his knees.

"You think your God made a mistake?"

"No everything done in her name was of Her, sweet boy, nor does it continue to be."

"And not every suffering I've experienced was a result of these things, angel."

"I know."

"Sometimes they were a direct consequence of things I had done, and even then they weren't necessarily punishments, but instead a natural process of cause and effect. And sometimes, well, shitty things just happen."

"I know this as well."

"And yet still, you would be my defense lawyer, my bail-payer, or my proxy?"

The angel nodded. Crowley looked away into the dark.

Then without turning he asked," Remember when we switched bodies? And you asked what your punishment was?"

"An eternity in the deepest pit."

"You really thought that might happen?"

"I was looking at worst case scenarios. But if it had come to that..."

Crowley turned around then.

"Then, yes," Aziraphale said promptly, "I was ready."

Crowley took off his glasses then. His eyes were enormous. "I don't deserve you, angel."

"If I believed that, demon, I wouldn't be here, saying these things to you."

"Never take my wounds. I'm not commanding. I'm pleading. NEVER TAKE MY WOUNDS."

"I won't. But only because you asked."

"Aziraphale."

"Yes?"

"I wouldn't ask, if I thought you deserved them."

Crowley reached out and gripped his hand, and the angel responded. They didn't hug, they didn't kiss. But the act of hanging tightly to the other one's fingers sent forth a more resounding feeling of solace than any other touch could achieve.

It brought smiles to their faces, smiles nearly as old as they were, and knowing.

A few minutes past, and then Crowley wondered out loud,"What state my flat is in these days? Those plants—"

"You've been miracling them water every day since you've been gone, haven't you?" the angel grinned wider. Crowley showed his teeth.

"Woll, still, wouldn't hurt to go up and check on things. Like those plants."

"Or a safe behind a painting?"

"Why not? Night's still fairly young."

"I don't know if I should go."

"You baffle me, angel. I just left myself wide open. What's your excuse now?"

"Oh, if you must know, the others want to keep an eye on me."

"Well, they're part of OUR SIDE, now, aren't they? We'll take one of them with us."

Before he could even get up, the witch was standing right there, the mirror items bundled in her jacket. The two of them boggled at her.

"How the hell did you get here that fast!"

She flipped her hair back. "I was already coming out here to get you," she said by way of explanation. "Was going to suggest it anyway, since the flat is the only safe place to look at that seventh item of yours?"

"How did you know we were even planning to look at it!"

"You're both very silly, and very predictable."

"Silly?" the angel balked, insulted. "I'm not silly!"

"Naw, but I'm very silly."

"Crowley..."

"Infuriating, more like it," the witch interjected, motioning to the Bentley. "Now, can we get a move on? I'm human and therefore freezing, and I'd like to get this over with as soon as possible. And from the way you drive," she glowered at the bemused demon, "we should be there and back before I've so much as sneezed."