"There you are," Aziraphale said, glaring at Crowley. Crowley turned from the shop window he'd been staring into to look at Aziraphale.
"Oh," he said. "Hi."
"It's one thing to have a few days' holiday," Aziraphale said. "I did say I wouldn't mind. But when you leave me to do your work as well as mine for weeks without a word, I think that's carrying things a bit too far. I mean, there's such a thing as consideration --"
"Sorry," Crowley said. He didn't look sorry, but then he never really did. "I was afraid of something like this."
"Like what?"
"It's a bit embarrassing," Crowley said.
Aziraphale tried and failed to think of something Crowley would consider embarrassing. "I am the soul of discretion, I'm sure," he said, which was true at least in the sense that anything that would embarrass Crowley was probably not something Aziraphale would care to repeat.
"I have amnesia."
Aziraphale stared at him. "You have what?"
"Amnesia," Crowley said. "See, I'm sure we work together, but I'm not even sure what kind of work we do, and I'd say I'll come back right away and do it, but I probably don't remember how. My analyst says it's all to do with subconscious resentment of the pressures of modern society, for whatever that's worth."
"It's what ?"
"It's probably Freudian. Or whatever's in these days. Listen, since you actually know where I work, maybe you can tell the boss that I'm having a bit of a mental health problem--"
Aziraphale restrained a shudder at the prospect. "I don't know what kind of silly game you're playing--"
"No, seriously, amnesia. It happens, apparently."
"To humans, possibly--"
"There you go, then."
Aziraphale stared at him. "Surely you don't expect me to believe you believe you're human?" he asked finally.
"Huh?"
"You're a demon," Aziraphale said carefully. "As if you don't know that."
Crowley looked at him without speaking for a moment. "And I thought I had mental health problems. We actually work together?"
"Well, only in a manner of speaking," Aziraphale said. "More at cross-purposes, really, except for the Incident."
"What are you, a priest? Or, no, let me guess, you're an angel."
"Of course I'm an angel."
Crowley pushed his sunglasses down his nose and gave Aziraphale a long look over them with yellow eyes. "Angels have wings," he pointed out.
"This isn't the time or the place," Aziraphale said.
"Of course not," Crowley said, with a bright smile. "You just go on about your ... angel business ... and I'll go back to shopping, and no harm done." He turned and started to walk away.
"I'm not in the mood for games," Aziraphale said, but Crowley didn't turn around.
Aziraphale caught up to Crowley the week afterwards in a little sidewalk cafe. He sat down without waiting to be asked. "You do not have amnesia," he said, glaring at Crowley across Crowley's plate of pasta.
Crowley put down his forkful of shrimp. "You again," he said. "Who are you this week, Napoleon Bonaparte?"
"Very funny," Aziraphale said. "I won't keep doing all your work forever, you know. What do you intend to do, claim that you forgot you were supposed to report to ... whoever it is you report to?" He had a fairly good idea, but wasn't about to say the names aloud.
"I'll sort it out," Crowley said. "What am I supposed to be doing, anyway? Just curious."
"Tempting people into sin. Making people unhappy. Keeping people from getting any real work done. That sort of thing."
"Sounds like my ex-wife."
"You don't have an ex-wife."
"I might have an ex-wife. My analyst says I have issues with trust." He speared another shrimp with his fork. "Besides, surely you're not in favor of me tempting people into sin and all that. You being an angel and all."
"Well, I won't keep doing it all myself," Aziraphale said. "Unless you're willing to let me have a few weeks holiday, which I must say I feel is well overdue."
Crowley put down his fork again. "You're an odd kind of angel."
"So you believe in me?"
"No, I just believe you've got some really impressive delusions. I mean, someone should write this up for one of those pop psychology magazines."
"I suppose that's where you got the idea for amnesia? Popular magazines?"
"Never read them," Crowley said.
Aziraphale shook his head. "I can't stay," he said. "Some of us do have work to do."
"So," Crowley said as Aziraphale stood up. "What's your name, angel?"
"I thought you thought I was deluded."
Crowley smiled speculatively. "That's not necessarily a problem."
"Let me know when you get tired of this," Aziraphale said. "We'll do lunch, assuming you're still in any condition to do lunch after your people get through with whatever it is they do to people who play silly buggers with them."
Crowley turned up at the bookstore a week later. Aziraphale was dusting the books. They weren't in fact dusty, but he found it restful after a long day spent talking the owner of the shop across the street out of pressing charges against the silly girl he'd caught at petty theft, and in fact into offering the girl a job.
It seemed the least he could do after tempting the girl to steal in the first place. Aziraphale was aware that the game he played with Crowley was always less a game of chess than a rather destructive form of double solitaire, but handling both sides himself brought it home to him in a way that wasn't particularly comfortable. He had a headache. He could have stopped having it if he wanted to, but he felt like having a headache.
The bells at the door jingled.
"Hi," Crowley said, looking around as if he'd never been in the place before. "This is where I used to work? No wonder I have amnesia."
"This is where I live," Aziraphale said. "It is most emphatically not where you work, unless you count distracting me as work."
"I found your card," Crowley said, taking it out and frowning at it. "It was the only one I seem to have bothered to hold onto when I had this little breakdown. You're the only person who seems to have bothered to look for me, so I thought it might add up to something."
"You're being very persistent about this," Aziraphale said. He frowned at Crowley. "What's the matter with you lately?"
"I have amnesia," Crowley said, very flatly and clearly. "What part of that have you not understood? I mean, I realize I'm expecting someone who thinks he's an angel to act like a rational person, but --"
It occurred to Aziraphale that Crowley didn't look at all like he usually did when he was being a bastard just to see if he could get away with it. He looked more like he did when things were going badly and he was about to start yelling at people so no one would know he was panicking. Aziraphale took a deep breath and reminded himself that despite everything he knew about people, it was sometimes worth considering the chance that they were telling the truth.
He waved a hand, and the door of the shop obligingly locked. Crowley gave it a suspicious look. "Have a cup of tea and tell me about it, then," Aziraphale said.
Crowley turned up his hands with a helpless shrug. "Do you have anything stronger?"
In the back room of the shop, Aziraphale poured two glasses of brandy. Crowley took one of them and gave a lustful look to the other one. Aziraphale picked it up pointedly. "So. I suppose there's no point in asking what you were doing before you found yourself in your current condition."
"Before I lost my memory, you mean," Crowley said. "You make it sound like I'm pregnant." He let out his breath in a frustrated hiss. The yellow gleam of his eyes was showing over his sunglasses. Aziraphale wondered how he could possible believe he was human.
"Before you lost your memory, yes."
"I have no idea," Crowley said. "One minute, who knows? The next, I'm sitting there in the Bentley wondering where the hell I'm going. I had to look in my wallet to figure out where I lived, assuming it is where I live, and not the flat belonging to some poor bastard I murdered in some really unpleasant way--"
"If killing people gave you amnesia, you'd have had it years ago, my dear," Aziraphale said dryly.
"Is that supposed to be reassuring? Who the hell am I?"
"I'm sure you know what it says on your driving license."
"A.J. Crowley," Crowley said. "If that is my real name, which I'm beginning to seriously doubt. I'm beginning to get the impression that I'm not a very nice person." He took the sunglasses off, frowning at them. "Is it drugs? I'm having a hard time picturing you as my underworld contact, but ..."
"I am not your underworld contact. Very much the reverse, in fact. I am, in fact, an angel--"
"Yes, we've been through that, you should try taking something for that--"
"And you are, in fact, a demon."
For a moment Crowley's expression was completely unreadable. "I don't believe you," he said finally.
"You have to believe me, dear boy. It's true."
"No, I don't."
"Yes, you -- look, this is silly. I'm going to straighten this out," Aziraphale said, and waved his hand. Crowley watched his hand curiously.
"Is that supposed to do something?"
"Don't you know?" Crowley shook his head. "You're not cured?"
"Is this faith healing or something? You're not going to start rolling your eyes back in your head and speaking in tongues, are you?"
"It's a miracle," Aziraphale said, a little testily. He waited expectantly for the light of restored memory to dawn.
"It's not a very good one," Crowley said after a minute.
"No, apparently not." He waved the same hand experimentally over Crowley's glass, which obligingly refilled with brandy. Crowley raised an eyebrow.
"Neat trick."
"It's not a trick," Aziraphale said. "It's a miracle."
"What's for dinner? Loaves and fishes?"
"I could send out for something."
"The Miracle of the Take-away Menu," Crowley muttered, but he stayed for dinner, even if he was uncharacteristically quiet while he ate it. Afterward Aziraphale made tea and laced it generously with more brandy. Crowley sputtered a little at the first sip but didn't comment, even when it must surely have been clear that the cup was not emptying as he drank.
Aziraphale watched Crowley's eyes turn even brighter yellow as the brandy took effect, and tried to think. Miraculous healing hadn't worked. There weren't exactly specialists for this kind of thing, or at least, there were, but he didn't think he could very well approach them. Anyhow, he didn't think it would be a good idea for Crowley to interact right now with the sort of humans who knew enough about demonology to be of any use. Someone would end up in trouble.
Someone might well be Aziraphale. They'd both gotten away more or less cleanly from what Aziraphale thought of now as The Incident, but he didn't think their working arrangements would stand up to much scrutiny by either set of powers that be. And even if Crowley wound up the only one in serious trouble, the idea of having to put up with someone new after all these centuries--
"You're not really listening, are you?" Crowley said accusingly over the rim of his largely alcohol-filled teacup. "I'm a boring demon, am I?"
"I'm sorry," Aziraphale said.
"Never apologize," Crowley said. "I never do." He stared into the cup. "I mean, I never do. I'm not sure I even know how. And I look at people in shops and I think about ways to make them miserable, and I don't even know them. And my analyst says it's all to do with repressed anger and I just need to get in touch with my true feelings, but what if these are my true feelings? What if I find out who A.J. Crowley is and he's an utter bastard?"
"Well, what if you do? The world isn't all sunshine and bunny rabbits, you know."
"Funny thing for an angel to say."
"You really do have amnesia," Aziraphale said. Crowley looked at him rather sharply, and put his teacup down. Aziraphale wondered exactly what he saw.
"You really are an angel."
"I told you I was."
"I thought you were deranged."
"No, I'm afraid that's you."
"I'm scared," Crowley said, and then made a drunken lunge at Aziraphale and kissed him, knocking his teacup over in the process. Aziraphale hung onto Crowley to the extent required to keep them both from tipping over backwards and tried to figure out what the etiquette of this sort of situation was.
"I don't think you're quite yourself," he managed, loosening Crowley's death grip on the front of his shirt with one hand.
"I know I'm not myself, that's the point," Crowley said. "It'll take my mind off not being myself." He kissed Aziraphale again, rather more successfully. It seemed unfair not to make the effort to appreciate it, but he wasn't sure Crowley would ever forgive him if he did.
"You'd never be able to look me in the eye again, dear boy."
"I'm not interested in your eyes."
"Crowley!" Aziraphale pushed him away. "We'll get this sorted out," he said more gently. "Without either of us doing anything we'll regret."
"I don't expect you have many regrets," Crowley said. He let go of Aziraphale's shirt front and waved a hand drunkenly over it, smiling a little as the wrinkles unwrinkled and the tea-colored blotch disappeared. "There. Good as new."
"Better, my dear," Aziraphale said. "Now, why don't you --" He started to say sober up , but that would have meant undoing the evening's work and having a frightened, cold sober, and probably furiously embarrassed amnesiac demon in his shop, and he didn't feel that would be fair to the books. "Why don't you get some sleep?" he suggested instead. "It'll probably all look brighter in the morning."
"I could do that," Crowley said. He looked around as if expecting to find a bed next to the teapot.
"My bedroom is upstairs. Don't mind the -- well, on second thought, let me just go up and -- I don't really sleep very often myself, you can get a lot of work done when it's quiet --"
"Sure," Crowley said, with a crooked smile. "Show me your bedroom."
Aziraphale cleared the books off his bed and restored the sheets to something resembling their original state before dust and newsprint had taken their toll. Crowley climbed into bed obediently, quite a lot of his clothing disappearing in the process. Aziraphale hoped he could figure out how to bring it back when he sobered up.
"Are you sure you don't want to join me?"
"I'll just be downstairs," Aziraphale said. "Trying to figure out what we can do about your memory."
"My memory, right." Crowley didn't look entirely thrilled. He curled up in bed, pulling the sheets over his shoulder to drape down his back like the fall of white wings. He closed his eyes. "I still don't know your name," he said, after a long enough silence that Aziraphale had thought him asleep.
"Aziraphale," Aziraphale said. "Go to sleep, now."
He made his way quietly downstairs and sat down at the table staring at the overturned teacup for a while. Then he went out into the alley, locking the back door of the shop carefully behind him, and made his way around the block to where the Bentley was illegally parked. He plucked the traffic citation from the windshield and tossed it aside; he didn't have time for that sort of thing.
He slid in behind the wheel of the car gingerly. He still didn't feel used to horseless carriages, even ones with as much personality as the Bentley had acquired over the years. He patted the dashboard soothingly.
"I expect you know where all this began," he said. "I have my suspicions, but I don't know . So why don't you show me where you were just before Crowley came down with his attack of amnesia, and you shall have a nice -- a nice -- a nice bit of petrol," he finished rather lamely, on the grounds that a bran mash and a rubdown were probably not quite the thing.
He pulled the car away from the curb, aware that he was driving quite badly and hoping that there wouldn't be too many miraculous escapes required before he reached his destination, whatever that was. There was no point trying to get it from Crowley's head. Anything that could give a demon amnesia would have thought to cover its tracks. He just hoped that no one had thought about the car.
The steering wheel developed a definite tug to the left, and he turned left, to the sound of horns blaring, and then signaled the turn as an afterthought. The car purred along happily for a while, and then the wheel tugged to the right. It worked well enough as a system, although it was a little tricky trying to keep his mind on the road and on encouraging an inanimate object to have a mind of its own at the same time.
After a while, though, it got much easier. Aziraphale knew the way to Lower Tadfield himself.
He pulled over in front of a familiar house and got out of the car. There was one light on in the window, and one car parked in front, a rather sporty one that Aziraphale didn't remember Mr. Young owning.
"My father's not here," Adam said. He was sitting on the front steps, looking up at Aziraphale without surprise. "I'm just here to look after things while he's on holiday. Why don't you come in?"
Inside the house was more or less as Aziraphale remembered it, although it had been years since he had last been there. They'd meant to keep an eye on Adam, but there was always so much to do. He couldn't remember how long it had been. Three years? Four? The house was both neat and a bit apologetic-looking, as if the patterned furniture was trying to hide against the patterned wallpaper.
"Not in here," Adam said. He led Aziraphale through the house into what must have been his room. Inside everything looked a bit realer, although it was only a boy's bedroom, with tattered posters on the walls and a shelf full of old books standing beside a neatly-made bed. Adam looked around with an odd smile.
"I'm really too old for all of this now, but they like to keep it the way it was."
"I suppose you must be," Aziraphale said. He did hurried mental arithmetic, and then frowned and did it over again. Had that much time really gone by?
"It's been ten years," Adam said, and then smiled his startlingly beautiful smile. "Have you been having fun?"
"I've been working," Aziraphale said.
"I'm not entirely sure what for."
"Because if I didn't, someone else would have to."
"Maybe," Adam said. "You don't know."
"You know why I'm here."
"You want to know what happened to your friend." Adam shrugged. "He came by to see me. He remembers more often than you do. He wasn't very happy. And I thought he deserved something better than his car back."
Aziraphale had expected something like this, but he still had to take a deep breath before he spoke. "What happens when he doesn't report back to his superiors?"
"Oh, I'll take care of that," Adam said airily. "They don't really like talking to him, anyway. I can keep them happy."
"For how long?"
Adam shrugged again. "I don't know. How long have I got?" He smiled again, just as beautifully but not as sweetly. "I don't expect you to answer that, of course."
"I don't know," Aziraphale said.
"I expect you don't know what happens when I die, either. If I do."
"If anyone knows -- other than Him, of course -- they're not telling me."
"Well. However long, then. I expect maybe he'll get tired of it sooner or later, and I can put him back the way he was."
"No, my dear," Aziraphale said, more gently than he wanted to. "It won't do."
"Why not? He doesn't really like all that messing people around. He doesn't like remembering things that hurt him. Why should he have to just so you two can play a little game? I imagine you're getting along fine on your own."
"Even if this were an acceptable arrangement in the long term -- and it most emphatically is not --"
"If you're worried about your people finding out, I can take care of that, too," Adam said. "They're all easy to make see what they want to see."
"--even if it were," Aziraphale went on relentlessly, "this still won't work. He is still a demon. He will use his powers -- which I notice you've left him --"
"He's still a demon," Adam said. "He just doesn't remember being a demon."
"You'd think it would be obvious."
"People don't think that way. You know that."
"I do know. And I also know this: he will use his powers. He will hurt people. But this time he won't be able to tell himself he's just following orders. He'll just watch all the nastiest things he wishes for come true. Do you expect he'll like that any better?"
"He could try being nicer to people, then."
"He's a demon. Demons aren't nice."
"I thought you people were all about getting second chances."
"My people believe in forgiveness," Aziraphale said. "But you do actually have to be sorry."
Adam frowned. "I like Crowley."
"I like Crowley, too," Aziraphale said, suspecting that Adam could hear the vast weight of sorrow in the words, and for once not caring. "But this can't go on."
"You could keep him out of trouble."
"By lying to him? By telling him he's human and I'm his -- what?"
"Whatever you wanted," Adam said. "Some lies are better than the truth."
"That's your father talking."
"Maybe so," Adam said. "I'm only human." He met Aziraphale's eyes for a long and unsettling moment, and then looked away. "You win," he said. "I'll put things back the way they were. Not even any better," he said, the corner of his mouth quirking a little at Aziraphale's unspoken admonition. "Just the way they were. Does that make you happy?"
"It's for the best," Aziraphale said.
"What about you?" Adam said. "You never come to see me." He stepped closer, his gold hair shining in the lamplight. It felt uncomfortably like being inside a candle flame. "Are you afraid of me?"
"Yes," Aziraphale said honestly.
Adam smiled. "You shouldn't be. I like you, too."
"I don't want to forget who I am, thank you."
"No, I don't think that's what you want," Adam said. "To be free to do what you want, maybe."
"We all have choices," Aziraphale said. "I've made mine, and Crowley has made his. And now I really must go back and see if there's anything left of my shop."
"It'll be fine," Adam said. "He'll just sleep until morning, and then wake up and remember -- do you want him to remember everything?"
"Maybe not everything ," Aziraphale said, aware as he said it that he was giving in to temptation.
"He'll just remember that he was teasing you, then, playing at having amnesia, and he'll be very satisfied that he's pulled one over on you. Will that do?"
"As long as there's no repeat performance on your part."
"Well, it didn't work," Adam said. "There's no sense in doing things that don't work over again. I should at least think of something else to do next time." He smiled to take the sting out of the words, and then put his hand on the back of Aziraphale's neck and kissed him, warm and sweet. He tasted like apples.
When Aziraphale got home, Crowley was sitting with his feet up on the table reading a lurid paperback that Aziraphale didn't remember stocking. "Where've you been, then?" Crowley asked without looking up.
"Oh, out for a drive," Aziraphale said.
Crowley looked at him suspiciously over the top of the book. "You didn't buy a car, did you?"
"No, dear boy. I borrowed yours. I'm sure I mentioned that you always let me borrow it. Of course, you may not remember--"
"You know, about that," Crowley said very quickly, "I think my memory's starting to come back, and I'm pretty sure I never said anything about you laying one angelic finger on my car --"
"It's fine, my dear," Aziraphale said. "Just a couple of very small scrapes --"
Crowley made a strangled noise and leapt for the door.
"I'm glad to see you've made such a good recovery," Aziraphale said from the doorway, watching Crowley fuss over the car. Crowley glared at him, and Aziraphale smiled. "I'm sure the car will be fine," he added. "You'll soon have it back the same as ever."
"Yes, but I'll know the difference," Crowley said, and for once Aziraphale didn't really feel he could argue with that.
written by Penknife
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