Crowley opened his eyes on the first day after. He stared at the ceiling. At least there was a ceiling here.

It was quiet. Far too quiet. He wasn’t sure if he liked it. After the scores of demons and angels that came to raze the earth together, he didn’t think he could get used to the change. It had been so loud for so long.

Now he sat in silence, after Heaven and Hell had come to destroy the world. If he moved, he could see anything. Crowley didn’t want to. He was too afraid to look. But he didn’t want to close his eyes again. If he did, he might go back to sleep and he was scared of what the world would be like if he slept through it again.

“Crowley?”

A warm voice. Movement as he sat down on the bed. The smell of some hot chocolate.

For a moment, he thought it might be a hallucination. He didn’t want to look. His eyes betrayed him anyway.

Aziraphale smiled, looking more tired than Crowley had seen him in ages. “I thought you might take longer,” he admitted, voice tight as though he had everything buttoned up tight.

“Longer?” Crowley asked.

“To sleep.”

Crowley sat up. The room was nice. Not how Aziraphale would have miracled it, but that just told him the angel hadn’t made it nice.* They had found it that way. He remembered how it just so happened to be available when he couldn’t force himself to take another step. How Aziraphale had talked to the people there as though nothing was wrong. How…

“We did it?” Crowley couldn’t have sounded more uncertain if he tried. And he had had uncertainty a lot during his existence.

“Found a hotel during the busiest weekend in the country? Yes, we somehow managed.”

He didn’t know if Aziraphale was being deliberately obtuse or not. “Why is it so quiet?” he demanded.

“Oh, I thought you would want to sleep for longer,” Aziraphale repeated.

Crowley stared at him, unmoving.

Aziraphale looked aside. “I sound proofed the room. I thought you might want it… quiet.”

It hit him that Aziraphale might want it quiet. And that he had stayed. And that Aziraphale had decided on a hotel rather than anywhere else that would have been more permanent.

“You weren’t going to leave me?”

The words sounded stupid coming out of his mouth.

Aziraphale looked (rightfully) insulted.

Crowley grimaced. “Not… exactly what I meant.”

“I gathered. Would you like to try again?”

It had started haughtily, but Aziraphale couldn’t keep it up. The earnestness in his expression, the dullness in his eyes. So tired, despite not needing, not wanting, to sleep.

“I didn’t think it was possible to say this, but I’ve never been more happy to see you in my life.”

That was not what Aziraphale had expected. The smile that broke out made up for the silence. Crowley didn’t care if he could hear the rest of the world or not.

“We did it,” the angel- Aziraphale said softly.

And the demon- Crowley? Well…

“We have all the time in the world,” he said. Whatever that meant they would find out together.

---

*Well, liveable. Normal.