asgardchrysalis | [Active/Closed] I've made a huge, tiny mistake

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[Active/Closed] I've made a huge, tiny mistake

Who: Crowley, Aziraphale, possibly Odin
What: Crowley doing something he was told not to do
When: 4th/5th loosely
Where: Aziraphale's room and beyond.
Warnings: In which Crowley nearly dies, briefly.

Like many days before it, it's a slow day.

Crowley has, so far, gotten absolutely nowhere interesting with his research. He's draped backwards over Aziraphale's bed, reading the screen of his fancy not-quite-phone thing that works through the bracelet.

All he has achieved in the short time he's been here is:

- One, ironically align himself with a supposed god of secrecy
- Two, briefly get Odin's attention and a hefty supply of Aziraphale's wine
- Three, work out he can now use an annoyingly limited amount of magic.

He can still say, with extreme confidence, that he hates this. At the very least he might admit he's getting used to it, and having the wine around helps. Thing is, that'll run out. It'll run out and Crowley is running out of ways to distract himself from Aziraphale's reluctance to talk about... things. Things that he's trying to avoid thinking about, since he isn't allowed to talk about them.

The one thing he has going right now is a continued campaign to wear down Odin. Up until now it's been rather one-sided, since after the initial replies he'd largely told him no and ignored him. There's no real harm in trying, though, so for the four weeks or so since he'd first managed to get an answer Crowley has been trying.

Trying in several senses of the word, it might be said.

The rooms are small, Crowley is restless, and his entertainment in short illusions where he restyles himself has already begun to fade. What else is a demon to do?

What he hadn't expected, admittedly, is an actual reply.

He blinks at it -- no benefit? Whatever -- then glances down at his bracelets. He wiggles frantically to sit up and swing his legs off the bed as they start to glow.

"Aziraphale!" he exclaims, clearly excited. "I've done it! Loo-"

Then, in a flash of light, Crowley is gone.

Five minutes pass, and he's still gone. Ten minutes pass. In the arrival room Crowley is, admittedly, more focused on questioning Odin as much as possible than considering returning to Aziraphale. He's a little shaken, but also very indignant.

It did all seem like a good idea at the time.

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Thankfully, Crowley had decided that after that particularly awful night at the castle that he would make himself useful and focus his attention on needling Odin for answers. Answers that Aziraphale had no real expectation of Odin providing, mind you, but it was important for Crowley to experience some of Aziraphale's insurmountable frustrations first-hand. Especially since he was apparently not at all that willing to simply take Aziraphale's word for most of it.

He seemed to maintain his own ideas about how things ought to work and be solved. Since he didn't feel Aziraphale had been doing an adequate job at facilitating their return, he was more than keen to leave Crowley to own his devices and see if he could make any further progress than he had. There was a possibility that he had before, wasn't there? With that being the source of why he vanished in the first place?

Additionally, it also helped that it was something to occupy Crowley well enough to keep him from trying to dredge up old, unwanted conversation. With any luck, Crowley will forget about it entirely—Aziraphale knows he won't, but he hopes that he will anyway. It would be the polite thing to do and Crowley could use a little more politeness.

Especially with all the noise he has been making in his room while Aziraphale has been trying read through one of the books he had borrowed from the library. Crowley has been spending his time both narrating things he's read on the "network" or making general commentary about those said things, and Aziraphale is just about to ask him to not do any the things he's doing when Crowley suddenly flings himself off the bed.

Suddenly, there is light. So, so much light—

—And Crowley is gone.

Everything inside of Aziraphale runs cold, momentarily forgetting how he's even supposed to breathe as icy fear surges through his veins.

"What the fuck," he hisses out, instantly rising up to his feet and knocking his chair down to the floor with a loud clatter in the process. He spends the never several minutes tearing through his room as if he might find Crowley somehow mysteriously lodged somewhere that he shouldn't be and he's praying, praying, that will be the case.

It's not.

Crowley isn't there. He isn't anywhere.

He's gone. Again.

"I've done it," Crowley had said. What he had he done? Had he actually figured it out and the both of them were right about what happened the first time? That Crowley somehow unlocked the secrets and the so-called gods had taken away part of him for it? Was Aziraphale simply the only one stuck here? Was Crowley even going to come back this time?

He presses his palms against his eyes. He needs to find Odin.

Five minutes pass. Ten minutes pass. Wherever Aziraphale may be and whatever he may have tried in the interim, Odin appears silently in front of him not a moment longer than it takes to answer the "last" of Crowley's questions. (He doesn't need to be the God of Knowledge and Wisdom to know there will be plenty more to come.)

"He is safe," Odin offers by way of a greeting, voice even and posture relaxed as ever. Crowley is not with him, however - it seems to be just the god himself. Aziraphale belongs to Odin's god house, even if Odin is not his God, and the angel deserves his chance to ask questions as much as the demon.

So there he stands, facing him with his hands in his pockets, waiting patiently for Aziraphale to do with that information what he will.

Aziraphale has yet to leave his room. He didn't have the slightest idea where he should even attempt to even go in order to reach out to his patron—with the exception of showing up at the castle gates and screaming at someone until something happened. No, no. He had chosen to stay and try to give himself a crash course of how the bracelet's network capabilities were supposed to function. He hadn't bothered to do so for all this time, but there had to be someone he could reach out to through it.

Right?

Turns out, he hadn't needed to. Odin manifests in his wreckage of a room before Aziraphale can properly call for him (yelling Odin's name angrily to himself probably didn't qualify). If he weren't so distraught by this whole thing, he would have counted that as points in Odin's favour. As it were, he's only concerned with the fact that he is here now and saying that Crowley is safe.

But what does that mean? What is "safe" to Odin?

"Safe?" Aziraphale questions, voice definitely shrill. His posture is defensive, body pulled inward, and he looks like he might throw a punch for the first time in hundreds of years. "What do you mean safe? Is he still here? Is he missing parts of himself again? What happened? What did you do?"

Edited (whoops.) 2020-01-07 01:22 (UTC)

The barrage of questions and accusatory tone still do nothing to shift Odin's ever-neutral demeanor. He just waits for the mortal to get it out before supplying coolly, "He wanted information. I gave it to him." An overt simplification of allowing someone to glimpse their own erasure to make a point, but alas. Crowley can explain the rest of it if he'd like to.

"He is alive and all parts are accounted for, aside from the matter of memories he does not have that you seem to retain." Now for this, Odin seems actively curious. Over ten minutes for Crowley to ask his questions, but Odin gained a lot of information from the exercise as well.

"There is no trace of those experiences within him. As it is - and it is not so nearly anywhere else in all of creation - you are the only iteration of any being that currently exists with those memories."

It may sound like perfect nonsense, but in the vast expanse of the multiverse, to be the singular creature that remembers a point in time is beyond remarkable. It's almost impossible. Even when the many details of a timeline change from one to the next, there is still someone somewhere that knows the same thing you do; typically, another you.

But there is no other version of Aziraphale that remembers what happened here in Asgard, and if he were to leave - well, apparently there's a chance no one will. His experiences exist out of time, and it is utterly fascinating.

For being the God of knowledge, Odin sure as Hell isn't doing a great job of actually sharing any. These simple and undetailed answers were not cutting it for Aziraphale. If anything, he was downright entitled to better answers than this. He has already shown an extraordinary amount of patience with Odin and everything else since he had arrived. He has been dealing with it and soldiering onward, but this is enough!

This is enough! This was too far!

Aziraphale smiles, tight and angry, as he makes a frustrated gesture with his now clutched hand. Odin has offered him very little interest except for the part about the memory situation, which Aziraphale thinks is absolute nonsense at a time like this. He's much less concerned with the missing memory and more about the missing demon!

"I'm sorry. Excuse me?" he starts even though his mouth feels like wire.

"I am the only iteration of any being with those memories? You must be joking! There were others, plenty of others, around back on Earth when things happened! Someone else ought to remember! I couldn't possibly be the only one!" Crowley at least has to remember the whole affair at the airbase and then the subsequent happenings in Heaven and Hell eventually. At least that much! What of Gabriel or Beelzebub or Adam himself? They had to remember. What if one of them showed up here?

This wasn't just some invented memory!

"Odin," he continues, trying to take a calming breath. "Why did he disappear like that? The first time and today? You must tell me this much."

"And you have to bring him back here. Now."

There's a long moment of silence that passes - and even just a few seconds wasted is generally too many for Odin's taste. But a long, long moment passes without so much as blinking or breathing before the god says flatly, "All of this -" suspicion, accusation, conspiracy, anger, frustration; a mortal risking the permanent erasure of their being simply to prove a point, "- has been over the matter of a difference in time period?"

The Allfather isn't angry. He's just disappointed. And then he disappears as quickly as he'd arrived, leaving Crowley behind in his place looking by all outward appearances exactly as he had before he disappeared. They can figure the rest out themselves.

Crowley is indeed intact, if a little out of sorts. He stumbles a half step as his location -- for the... third time that day, he thinks? -- abruptly changes without his consent.

This one is, at least, familiar. Aziraphale is familiar, and Odin... isn't here? When he vanished Crowley assumed he might be ending up wherever Odin went. Oh well.

All in all, he can safely say he's fine with this change. Wariness makes his body language tense, and after doing a slow scan of the area Crowley carefully moves toward Aziraphale's bed so he can sit back down. He really does need to just... sit down and breathe, for a moment. To just... recover.

Rooms a bit of a mess, actually. That's weird.

Aziraphale looks angry but he can deal with that in a moment. He probably just needs to work through it a bit.

All things considered, angry is a bit of an understatement. Aziraphale is rapidly approaching the territory of furious and there's no quick way back to normalcy. The only way out of it is going to be through. Too much has happened and there has been no real resolution to it. Not only had Crowley abruptly vanished in what has to have been one of the worst moments of Aziraphale's life, but Odin has chosen to show up afterwards and offer nearly no assistance at all.

What. Was. The. Point?

Odin seemed to care more about the completely wrong part of this and decided he was wasting his time once he realised that Aziraphale wasn't interested in having a fun, jaunty chat about it. What were Odin's priorities? Is this what he had cared about? Is this what warranted a visit over simply returning Crowley back to his room? He doesn't know and he's determined to find out when he hunts down Odin properly later.

Odin owes him some answers.

For now, the only person in front of him was Crowley. It was just Crowley and Aziraphale had so much he wanted to say to him.

"What in the Hell was all of that?" he asks incredulous, the words all but falling out of his mouth.

"Mmmm," Crowley says, "good question. Can I have a drink?"

He thinks, on balance, he deserves a drink. Something steadying. I mean, yes. If you really, really break things down it is entirely possible this might be a little bit his own fault. It is entirely possible he did this to himself.

However, he might have learned something? Might have learned something, although he's still not exactly a hundred percent on if Odin is telling the truth or if it was all a ruse.

He can think on that more deeply later.

For now he needs to quickly compartmentalise that experience, move himself on a little before his brain has the chance to panic over how close he came to simply... not existing.

To, quite possibly, having never existed. Is that what it meant? The things he'd seen, it had felt like he wasn't just being destroyed but also... erased, all the way back through his own history. Which would mean that nobody would have even know he was gone, because he never would have been here.

Definitely a thought he needs a drink to cope with.

As soon as the question leaves Crowley's mouth, Aziraphale's expression hardens. He doesn't want to be angry at Crowley, not after all of that and the deep fear of having lost him, but he can't stop. Crowley is being no more helpful on this front than Odin had.

"Could you— Is that all you have to say for yourself?" he sputters, volume rising. He approaches Crowley then, immediately closing the distance between them as if that might further encourage him to start explaining himself or at least give him sort of answer about what happened.

"You-You just vanished, Crowley!" he continues as he makes an angry flapping gesture with one of his hands.

"You owe me an explanation!"

Aziraphale closes the distance between them and Crowley stays put, sat on the edge of the bed with his hands resting on the sheets. It's an unnatural sort of stillness for him, but he's still not completely recovered from the experience. Even questioning Odin repeatedly hadn't quite made him feel calmer about it all.

Still. There's something familiar about Aziraphale's anger, he can tell where it's coming from. The problem is, he also knows nothing he says is really going to help. Telling someone oh, yeah, well actually I pretty much discorporated myself as far as I can tell and the rest of me nearly got destroyed by a magic tree isn't a recipe for calming them down.

Nnngh.

"Yeah," Crowley says, "and you'll get one. We should probably both have a drink first though."

Which, on the whole, probably also isn't reassuring but it's the truth.

The repeated request only serves to make Aziraphale feel more nervous, fear and anxiety starting to eat up his insides. How bad must it have been for Crowley to require a drink before he could even begin to detail it? Once again, he wonders what in the hell had happened in that moment when the light had consumed him.

Was it disincorporation? Flashy teleportation? Most likely not (not when there usually isn’t any flashes of light for such a thing), but one could hope. It would certainly be the least offensive of the potential answers that he’s conjured up in his head.

“Crowley—” he starts again. He isn’t interested in pouring either of them a drink. Not at this very moment, anyway. He just wants to know. He also wants to yell, but he stamps that feeling down as quickly as it rises within him. His face already feels hot and eyes wet with the threat of tears. “I would-I would really rather you simply tell me now.”

He presses a little further.

“What happened? What did you do?” he asks.

Crowley strongly suspects Aziraphale is going to regret this. He winces slightly, the heat in the angel's expression stirring deep discomfort in his gut, and drops his eyes away awkwardly to the side. Right. Suppose the only way out is through and all, since he's been trapped into this. Maybe he can have a drink after.

"Well," he begins, "I asked Odin to take off the bracelets and he did."

Which is, in fact, a partial truth. Technically, he repeatedly asked Odin to do that over several weeks despite strong protests. Still. He can't exactly partial-truth the results, Aziraphale did see him vanish after all.

"Sort of," Crowley begins, and lifts his hands to bring them together and then slowly pull them apart again. "Discorporated me, I think. Or maybe that wasn't actually the bracelet coming off. Anyway, nowhere to go here so that sort of left me floating in a void slowly unwinding until Odin yanked me out. Bit of an overreaction, really. I just wanted to know what it did. Thought it might unlock those missing memories since you won't tell me."

Edited (oops i wanted this icon) 2020-01-09 21:45 (UTC)

“Discorporated me.”

Those words are repeated over in his head as he looks down at Crowley, momentarily struck silent. There’s too much that he wants to say at once, too much that he wants to do in response, but he ends up doing nothing at all.

At least at first.

It takes him a moment to work out the wire in his lips, reminding himself that he shouldn’t start raising his voice again and that he should try to speak normally to Crowley. This was, undoubtedly, also a horrifying experience for him and he would like to be mindful of that. He would, he really, really would, but it’s also one of the stupidest things that he has heard in quite some time. “Bit of an overreaction,” he echoes. He sounds a little breathless and terse.

“This coming from you? Who has apparently done all of this for the sake of what I won’t tell you?” he asks. It still sounds unreal when he says it out loud. It feels more like some sort of ridiculous joke than reality, but it was real, wasn’t it? This is the reason why Crowley risked his life? Because he couldn’t trust Aziraphale and his reasoning for not telling him?

He lets out a short, breathless, and very angry whuff of a laugh.

“Why don’t I just tell you then?” he finally offers.

Crowley could point out that it wasn't solely that, that he was hoping for the ability to do miracles again. To maybe be able to leave, to remove Aziraphale's bracelets and for them to leave together.

He doesn't, though. He's feeling irritable, from a solid mix of fear and anxiety and embarrassment and exhaustion and probably a whole heap of other things. Bit of a muddle, really. There's a lot that goes on with this properly human form that didn't with his old one. He wishes he could turn things off. He feels defensive.

"Well, why don't you!" Crowley replies, and the irritation is creeping into his voice -- incredulous, challenging. Why won't Aziraphale tell him? Why is he always so stubborn about these things? Why does he always think he knows best, refuse to listen, why --

Why, he wonders, can he just not learn to let it go? Only he knows the answer to that one, too, and it's no better.

The original mistake here was that Aziraphale had been foolish enough to ever bring any of this to Crowley's attention. If he had chosen not to attempt to begin further investigating the issue of his missing memories, they probably wouldn't be in the absolutely absurd situation they're in now. Or maybe if Crowley could just have the sense of mind to learn how to leave something well enough alone—

Aziraphale can already feel a tinge of regret buzzing underneath his skin because he knows that he is right to keep it to himself and knows that he'll only continue to be right, but it's quickly buried underneath his sheer indignation. No, if Crowley wants to know so badly, then he's going to tell him.

"I held your hand, Crowley," he confesses in a near hiss. The sentiment behind that statement is nothing but soft, but the tone Aziraphale says it with is only cross. There is not a trace of affection or fondness behind it. He's just exasperated and tired. Roughly, he swings his hands out then to reach for Crowley's, holding Crowley's hands between his in a similar fashion to how he had held him during the night in question.

It was just this. This was all it was.

This is what Crowley threw himself into the literal abyss for.

"I held your hand on the bus ride back to your place," he continues. If he is going to tell him, he might as well be clear about it and he might as well tell him the whole story. Crowley had gone through such lengths for it, so here it is! Here is what he wanted to know. Here is the big secret. "And then I held your hand through most of the night as we discussed our plan for how we would get both of our sides to leave us alone."

He wonders, distantly, if Crowley will still think that any of this was worth all the fussing he did over it. He shouldn't. He should realise that he has been nothing but a fool and none of this was anything he actually needed to know. This was better off locked away in Aziraphale's heart until another moment arose where he could hold Crowley's hand.

Although, somehow, it doesn't occur to him that he's currently doing just that.

Crowley had, by this point, had several weeks to build up these missing memories in his head. He's gone through all sorts of ideas -- some perhaps more wishful thinking than others, some assuming the worst, some the best. Admittedly, none were quite so simple as this. His brain, circling the concept, can't help coming up with really is that it? If this is all it was, why wouldn't he tell him?

He stares down at his hand, sandwiched between Aziraphale's, and feels a sort of peculiar hysteria wash over him. The irritation he had held onto vanishes quickly in the face of surprise, eyes flicking up to fix on Aziraphale as he explains. His mind is racing ahead with his new information, constructing visuals, picking up minute details like the way Aziraphale's hands feel. It may not be as exciting as he had hoped, but there is still meaning in this. There's still hope, there's still something that could go somewhere if they let it. He wishes he could remember, not just because of how much he dislikes not knowing things but --

Well. Maybe it doesn't matter so much.

His fingers tighten suddenly, gripping on as if he's abruptly concerned Aziraphale might let go and walk away. Which he might. He does seem angry still.

"Err," Crowley manages, "sounds nice."

You know. For how much it can be nice if they were still plotting to try and not both be destroyed by their respective sides. Mood might not have been ideal, all things considered. He slides his eyes back down again, feeling jittery but determined to hang onto this for as long as he's allowed.

"Did think it might be a bit more exciting," he admits, "but probably a good thing I didn't... forget something like that."

You know, something more exciting than hand holding. Which he had hoped might be possible. Which might have been worse to forget.

At current, there is a very high and very real possibility that Aziraphale might let go of the hands in his and walk away. It isn’t necessarily that he doesn’t want to hold Crowley’s hands (he does—very much so, in fact), but he's still angry. He's still so angry at Odin, at Crowley, at this entire place, and everything surrounding it that he's not yet able to calm himself. It's the primary reason why he barely acknowledges that he's holding Crowley's hands at the moment, far too focused on what he's going to do next.

He does have to do something, doesn’t he? There isn’t any choice anymore. He can’t overlook this. He’s already overlooked so much during his days here, but this is well past his limit. Well past, really. This concerns him directly and there is so, so much to be discussed. Crowley owes him more answers than he's already given because Aziraphale still has so many questions he's yet to ask and Odin owes him answers to all of the questions he did ask, but Odin failed to answer.

Actually, Odin owes him a hell of a lot more than that, but that’s to be addressed at another time. Or perhaps all at once. He hasn’t decided yet.

“I wouldn’t have told you about something like that either,” he admits, which is probably a bit too honest and acknowledges that something more than hand-holding was-slash-is a possibility. Unfortunately, he’s a bit too distracted by his own thoughts to give them any proper consideration before blurting them out.

Immediately, he follows up to make sure that Crowley doesn’t get the wrong idea.

“Not that it did, mind you!” he insists, knowing that there was the odd chance that Crowley might get the wrong idea stuck in his head or decide that Aziraphale hadn’t been entirely truthful.

"Right," Crowley manages, feeling a little dazed. "Course it didn't."

At the same time, though. Wouldn't have told you about something like that. Interesting that this is Aziraphale's first response. Not any kind of denial of possibility. Which means -- he doesn't know exactly what it means, It means Aziraphale has at least thought about it, maybe. Considered it possible. In some way, shape or form. That the concept is not alien to him.

This is a lot to process on top of already having a lot to process.

Reaching out Crowley gently rests his other hand on top of Aziraphale's, squeezing it so they're a pile of linked fingers.

"Hey," he prompts softly, "why don't we both have a glass of wine, yeah? Then you can ask me anything you want."

Deal? Hopefully the glass of wine might settle both of them, and then he can pick his way through the minefield of Aziraphale's anger as he questions him about it all.

All of the anger that Aziraphale has been holding tight in his chest, thick and heavy enough that it might have suffocated him, finally starts to diminish. Just a bit. It’s the pair of hands around his and the gentle agreement that Crowley will listen to the torrent of questions he has for him that finally helps dull the flame of his temper.

His eyes flick downward then, looking at their joined hands as he vaguely acknowledges that he’s been holding onto the demon all this time. It’s a true shame that it cannot continue. Not if Crowley truly wants that drink, anyway.

“As you’d like then,” Aziraphale agrees. He gently tugs himself free of Crowley’s grip in the following moment before walking in the direction of his desk. He’s kept everything here, for now, until he can figure out a better arrangement for his things in this cramped space. There’s hardly any room for anything. It makes the mess he had made feel all that more apparent. Grabbing the desk chair by its back, he pulls it upright again in the most nonchalant manner he can manage before reaching for one of the wine bottles.

When he walks back over to Crowley, two nearly full glasses in hand, he realises he’s forgotten to ask an important question during all of the ruckus.

“Do you feel alright after all that?” he asks, extending Crowley’s glass out to him.

Does he feel alright? After all that? Crowley takes the glass and squints at Aziraphale sceptically. He supposes he knows what the angel means, wants to know if there's any lasting damage, but still.

"Feel like I've been temporarily discorporated," he says, and takes a large sip of the wine he's been offered. "Sit down," he adds, because it's better if he does instead of pacing. Crowley's nerves can't cope with hovering over him or pacing just right now. He takes a deep breath, rolls his shoulders a little as if trying to get a grip on himself. Come on, Crowley, get it the fuck together. It was only a temporary discorporation. You're fine now, no harm done. Probably. He squints down at his wrists, shoving up his sleeve to check the stupid bracelet things that caused all the trouble in the first place.

Still intact. Still got the stupid brightly coloured stone typing him to a so called god. He's not quite sure if he feels relieved about that, but it is what it is.

It wasn't that Aziraphale was going to pace, but rather that he thought he could busy himself by beginning to tidy up the disarray of furniture in the room. It would have been something to do, something distracting enough, and maybe it would also help calm his nerves. Nevertheless, he takes a seat on the bed near Crowley—still allowing for a healthy distance between them—after a brief moment of consideration.

He ultimately decides that he ought to ask Crowley to do it instead. Seeing as he had been the root cause of it, after all.

“As expected,” he starts, making a face against the lip of his glass. He takes a drink of wine before continuing, “But is that all? That is, are you otherwise alright?” It’s a bit murky to say that he feels as if he’s been temporarily discorporated and leave it at that. What did it even mean to be discorporated in a place like this? At the whims of Odin and the rest of the pantheon?

Although, mostly, he’s just worried.

Crowley blows out a slow breath, winces a little.

"Think he put me back together right," he says, as if he's not entirely certain. Then again, he's never been an expert on human configurations and he can't control this one at his own whims anymore. He can only say it feels about right and hope for the best. "Alcohol is helping," he adds, because he needs to steady his nerves still and what better way to do that than drinking himself into oblivion?

Well, maybe not completely. Since he has to suffer hangovers now. Human bodies really are such a pain.

Well, that's not reassuring in the slightest.

Crowley doesn't seem certain of his own physical state and there's probably no real way to check. Not beyond the tried and true method of "wait and see", which is most likely their only option. This is the first time that Aziraphale has ever had a truly mortal body and he wouldn't know how to diagnose any issues Crowley might be having if he wasn't able to outright spot them himself.

"Do let me know if you notice anything strange." Hopefully there won't be any need to because Odin had the right sense of mind to ensure that Crowley was put back together again properly, but it still feels worth saying. Aziraphale casts a glance over at him, flicking his gaze over him and his decidedly not empty glass, before pushing forward. He'll wait until at least the first glass is finished before he continues the conversation about today, which leaves only one other question that's lingering.

"Have you ever been discorporated before?" he asks.

It wouldn't be surprising, but he doesn't recall ever being aware of such a thing.

He blinks at the question frowns sideways at Aziraphale and blows out a slow breath.

"Noooo no no," he says, "avoided that. I'd have had to apply for a new body! Paperwork is appalling, not to mention that backlog -- you wouldn't have seen me for a decade, angel, not to mention I'd have had to explain what had happened and that is not appealing."

Just the thought of it makes him take another big sip of wine. Nnngh. This explosion had, at least, not ended with paperwork. Trouble is, he's not actually sure that's any better. He frowns in thought, fidgeting with his nearly empty glass of wine as he tries to settle on how to go about this.

"What do you know," he begins slowly, "about the tree?"

Big tree, magic tree, one everyone keeps talking about. Has a name, but he can never remember it for some reason. Too many letters.

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