Archive of Our Own ^beta

Land.

It’s such an enticing concept, Crowley thinks. It looks a bit like the sea, from what he’s seen, but without water. And with rather different plants. And animals. Alright, maybe it doesn’t look very much like the sea at all. Most beings seem to be somewhat attached to the land floor - is that what it’s called? Must be, like their version of sea floor - like corals, except for the birds. Birds fly like the fish swim, unattached to anything. The freest of all the land beings, they must be.

And there’s the insects, of course. A lot of them can fly, too, but Crowley rather thinks they seem like krill, and he’s unsure of their ability to survive long. So small, so fragile.

No, birds must be the freest of the land beings. But it’s not birds that Crowley is watching from that familiar rock a little ways from the beach. It’s never birds.

Well, mostly never. Almost never. More often than not, it’s not birds.

Alright, he likes birds. Specifically, he likes ducks - to live like that, able to spend so much time in the water but still fly, and be able to venture off into the land as well… that must be quite amazing. So yes, he does spend quite a bit of time watching the ducks, occasionally shouting from hidden places for people to stop feeding them bread.

But it’s not really ducks that intrigue him, and they’re not what he’s watching right now.

“You’re going to get yourself in trouble,” says a voice from somewhere behind him, accompanied by a small splash of water.

Crowley makes a face. “Nah. Not going to see me, are they? Humans, they’re almost blind at night. Makes you wonder how they get along, when that’s like half the day. Do they just stumble around in the dark? What happens when it’s winter and the sun goes down at like… three in the afternoon? Doesn’t rise until eight in the morning?”

A body pulls itself next to him, and Crowley smiles over at his friend.

Always eager to point out that he shouldn’t be doing what he’s doing, and yet always happy to join him, Anathema. He’s not sure what he would do without her.

“They seem to manage,” she says, shrugging slightly. “I think they just walk around with lights.”

“Won’t be reaching here, so we’re fine,” he offers.

Anathema shakes out her hair behind her, saltwater dripping onto the rock. It’s cold, Crowley notes, and it’s funny how these are things he only notices when he’s been out of the water for a while. How wet the water is, how cold, how the salt sticks to his skin, sand somehow always everywhere. It just seems natural, when he’s in the water. Outside of it, it’s almost uncomfortable.

The cold isn’t enough to bother him, though, just enough for him to be aware of it. He suspects no sane human would venture into the water without a good reason, though, with these temperatures.

So, again - quite safe.

“You know the stories,” Anathema reminds him. “Merperson gets too curious about the shore, starts hanging out close to the humans, and the next thing you know…”

Crowley rolls his eyes. “Come on, you know that’s just stories. I mean, yeah, it might have happened once or twice, but they just say these things to stop us from getting too curious and risking actually interacting with the humans.”

“Possibly,” offers Anathema, and when he glances over at her, she’s smirking the smirk of someone who knows exactly the buttons that she’s pressing.

He laughs and shoves her back into the water, which she repays by grabbing into his arm and pulling him in with her.

The water isn’t cold anymore - it’s cool, it’s pleasant, like a balm to his soul. He wonders, for a second, how he could ever think about being away from this. He’s made for the water, isn’t he? He has a tail, he has gills that come to life whenever he’s submerged, his eyes are adapted to the saltwater and the dim lighting of the ocean floor. And humans? They stumble around on two little sticks, they’re stuck with really only two axis of directions they can go, and they’re just constantly dry.

It must be awful.

But then his head bobs out of the water again, and he can see the lights in the distance, hear the sound of the humans laughing, music coming from one of the buildings the little village has. And he wonders - he wonders what they’re like, he wonders about life on land. He wonders what it’s like to walk on two little sticks, and never be able to leave the land floor, and be constantly dry.

“Your book ever say anything about the land?” Crowley asks after a moment.

Anathema swims to his side, and he can feel her shake her head, body turning slightly with the movement. “No, I don’t think so. Agnes isn’t always very clear with what she’s saying, and there’s things no one really understands yet, but… I don’t think she’s ever talked about the land.”

He hums vaguely. “Pity.”

Suddenly, there’s a hand on his shoulder - gentle, but commanding his attention. “You shouldn’t go, you don’t need Agnes to tell you that.”

“I mean,” says Crowley, wrinkling his nose, “don’t I? Come on, don’t tell me you’re not curious. We can only ever see it from a distance, and there’s already so much there. Just… makes you wonder, doesn’t it? How much more there is inland? And yeah, I probably won’t ever be able to see that, but… could see more. Could talk to one of them. I just - I don’t really see what’s so wrong about that.”

“Beelzebub would be furious, for one,” points out Anathema.

She does have a point, but, “when aren’t they furious? Can’t very well build my life around trying not to piss off someone who’s just constantly looking for reasons to be pissed off.”

“Yeah, but this time they have a point. You know our history, you know about the War. Merpeople versus humans, and we lost. Agnes… talks about another war. A big one, like… the war to end all wars. There’s not a lot of detail, but it kind of sounds like it’s going to be us versus them again, and it’s going to be - horrible. Devastating.”

“Thought she didn’t talk about the land.” Crowley raises an eyebrow at her.

Anathema sighs. “Fine, maybe she does talk about them a little. But it’s nothing good, Crowley. It kinda looks like they’ve forgotten about us for now, so maybe we should keep it that way.”

“You know Beelzebub wants war, don’t you?”

There’s a moment of silence, then Anathema nods. “Yeah. I know. They say… they say it’s what has to happen. That nothing was settled last time, and all of this, it’s just been the break between one war and the next. And what Agnes says, it does - I can’t say that their interpretation doesn’t make sense.”

“Right. So doing what Beelzebub says, it doesn’t mean that we’re avoiding war, does it?”

A glare, but slowly, Anathema nods. “Fine. I guess… it doesn’t.”

Crowley grins.

She splashes water at him, and he splutters as he dives back under water, swimming a circle around the rock only to propel himself out once he’s behind her and fall back with an enormous splash.

Anathema laughs.

He laughs.

For a moment, everything seems… perfect.

But this is here, far from their normal lives, far from Beelzebub and Hastur and all the other Dukes. This is here, where they’re not even meant to be, just a stolen moment of peace, a stolen moment of joy. This is how they’ve been living, stolen moment to stolen moment, piecing together enough of a side plot to their lives to keep them interested, to keep themselves going forward.

It’s exhausting. It’s not enough.

The laughter dies down.

“You know,” says Anathema, and he can hear something in her voice. It’s not worry, exactly - apprehension, perhaps. “I know you’ve been coming here for ages, just watching them. But every time you came here, I just - I never felt like you were actually going to go and actually get any closer. I never felt… like this before. Like you’re teetering on the edge of something, you know?”

“Are you trying to ask me if I’m actually going to do it?”

A moment of hesitation, then Anathema nods. “Yeah. I guess I am.”

It’s a difficult question.

It’s all been building up to this, Crowley supposes. All the little visits, all the time spent on that rock, watching the humans - it’s been building up to what may very well be the biggest decision of his life. To risk it all, or go back to his life under the sea and try to forget his curiosity, try to forget the humans living their lives so close, yet so far away.

Perhaps he should know the answer. Perhaps he should’ve always known the answer.

And perhaps he does, but he’s not ready for it yet. So Crowley sighs, and runs a wet hand down his wet face as though that would do anything but somehow put more sand on his skin. “I don’t know. Been thinking about it.”

“Yeah,” says Anathema, “I thought so.”

There are a lot of things that Aziraphale misses about London.

The shop would probably be the biggest thing on the list, of course - he’s brought most of his books with him to Edinburgh, but it’s just not the same, having them crammed into his home rather than on display on the shelves of his shop. But there’s more, really. Edinburgh is… smaller. It doesn’t have all the little restaurants that Aziraphale has come to love, or the stores, or - well, his life, he supposes. It has other restaurants, and other stores, but they’re not his.

And, of course, Edinburgh has another huge downside when compared to London.

Edinburgh has Gabriel.

Aziraphale has been trying, very, very hard, to keep an open mind about the situation. To remind himself that his brother only called him home because he cares, and he wants to keep him close in the eve of whatever it is that’s meant to happen. He’s been terribly secretive about it - they all have, really - and if Aziraphale is being honest, he has to admit that he doesn’t much care. They can keep their secrets just as long as they leave him out of whatever this business is.

Gabriel, Michael, Uriel, Saraqael - they always handle this kind of stuff, the big things, as they usually call it. Aziraphale has, as a general rule, been left to wander the world as he pleases. He did a lot of traveling when he was younger, but now he’s been mostly happy to settle down in London with his shop. It hardly ever sells anything, but it’s never mattered. The allowance that his family sends him has always covered any and all expenses.

But now he’s in Edinburgh, and big things are happening, and he’s just…

A fish out of the water, he supposes as he gently nudges one such fish back into the sea.

That’s one of the few things that he has to say he’s preferred about Edinburgh - the sea. There are no beaches near London, nothing like the coasts of Holyhead where he spent so many childhood summers - and other assorted holidays, too. He’d forgotten, almost, what it’s like to stare out into the ocean, that endless vastness. It makes him feel… small, but in a good way. Like his problems can’t possibly be that big, for there’s so much out there.

And it makes him feel, really, like he could escape. Like he could head out into the sea and just keep going until he reached land - be it Iceland, or Greenland, or the polar ice caps that make up the Arctic, he could go and at least he wouldn’t be where he is anymore. He’d be far away from Gabriel and Michael, far away from his family.

It’s silly, that fantasy, of course.

It’s silly to want to escape at all. It’s really hardly that bad, and he has a duty to his family. A duty to all the good that they do. They’re involved in so many charities - he’s worked with several of them, as a matter of fact. He frequently coordinates donations, speaks at fundraisers, he does… good. All thanks to his family, all thanks to the opportunities they throw his way. So really, he shouldn’t want to escape.

It’s silly. He should appreciate what he has.

To get so maudlin just because they uprooted him from his life in London is really rather unfair of him, is it not? They’ve given him so much.

Aziraphale sits down on the sand, and tries not to think about how it’s ruining his trousers. He just needs a moment, a moment to catch his breath, breathe in the sea air, and tell himself that everything will be quite alright.

As he closes his eyes, he hears the sound of approaching footsteps, sand crunching under feet, and suddenly, someone’s settling next to him.

Aziraphale opens his eyes, and finds his lips pulling into a smile as he spots Maggie next to him.

“I thought I might find you here,” she says, pulling her knees up to her chest.

“Yes, I… I needed to get away. I’m not sure from what, if I’m being honest, but… I suppose you could say that the sea called to me,” he offers, and lets out a small, tired laugh.

Ever since he’s arrived in Edinburgh, he’s done… nothing, really. Mostly, he’s just been wandering, somewhat aimlessly, and he has to say that he doesn’t like that. No, he likes having his own little place where he feels safe, where he has a purpose, even if that’s a bookshop that doesn’t sell any books. He knew what to do, there. He opened the shop on his own erratic hours, and he spent the days reading, renovating books, tracking them down.

Maggie used to own the record shop next to his own shop, and they would spend some time together, talk, discuss their businesses and the others in the street. It was nice.

She’s followed him to Edinburgh since his leaving and his family selling the building forced her out of her own shop, too, so at least he’s not alone, but it’s not the same.

He can tell that she’s struggling, too.

“Do you ever look out there and think… I wish I could just swim away?” she asks.

Aziraphale nods. “Frequently.”

His fingers find a small shell that’s been trapped in the sand by the lowering tide, and he uses it to trace patterns on the ground, lines upon lines writing out secret languages and nonsensical drawings. The wind picks up again and it wipes them all away, like nothing was ever there in the first place.

Ominous, part of him thinks.

Reassuring, thinks another.

He wonders if his life in London was wiped away that easily. Does anyone other than Maggie even notice any change? His store has never been all that big, and he’s always liked it that way, but now it makes him wonder.

It doesn’t matter, it’s done. He should be listening to Gabriel and just trying to rebuild his life in Edinburgh.

It’s just difficult, he thinks, when every other thought he has is just it’s not fair, it’s not fair, it’s not fair.

When all he really wants to do is to get away, to get into the water and let it take him where it will. He can’t do that, of course. He shouldn’t even if he could, he’s just… overreacting. Gabriel means well, as does his whole family, just look at all the good that they’ve done - why would it be any different when it’s him, the second youngest?

They’ve always been so kind to Muriel, too.

“You know,” he says after a long moment, “when I was growling up, in the place we spent most summers, there was this beautiful beach.”

“Yeah?” encourages Maggie.

Aziraphale nods. “Yes. It’s this town in Wales, on an island. Holyhead. My family has owned quite an estate there for a long time and they always took us back there during the summer. It was easy enough to just set us free and let us run wild, I suppose. We called it Heaven, when we were kids. A play on words, as I’m sure you can see, but also… it was quite a nice place. I suppose it felt like Heaven to us. And this beach, we used to play there all the time. It was still quite cold, but we were children, it didn’t much matter to us. And I remember I used to sit on the rocks, watching the horizon, watching the ships disappear off into the water, and think… I’d quite like to go where they’re going, someday.”

Maggie smiles, and she nods her understanding. “Is that why you went to college for marine biology?”

“I suppose in part, yes. Gabriel didn’t want to humor my… literary tendencies, as he called it. He said it was a dead end, professionally, so he would only let me minor in English, not major.”

“Well, I think it was a good choice. Yours, not Gabriel’s. There’s so much out there, isn’t there? So much about the sea that we still don’t know, don’t understand.”

Aziraphale nods. “Quite. I suppose I might get back into it, now that I’m here. Right next to sea again, and no shop to mind. It makes sense.”

“It sounds like a good idea. You should go out and do something. It’s… tempting, isn’t it, to just sit there and be mad at the world for what it’s done? But it’s hardly going to get us anywhere.”

“Yes, I suppose so. I haven’t worked in the field in years, I hardly know where to start, but… I might as well try. How about you, dear? Have you found something yet?”

A shake of her head, and Maggie sighs. “No. I’ve never really done anything but work at that store. It was my mother’s before me, and my grandfather’s before her. I grew up there. It was… really hard, saying goodbye.”

“I’m very sorry, dear. If there was anything I could’ve done…”

She smiles, and gives his hand a small squeeze. “I know. It’s not your fault, Mr. Fell, you’re an angel. It’s just… going to take me a little longer to find myself, but I’ll get there. And in the meantime, you’ll look for something you can do in marine biology?”

Aziraphale nods, and he lets his eyes drift back to the sea. “Yes, I will. Who knows, maybe I’ll find something interesting here.”