Chapter Text
It doesn't take long for Crowley to discover Aziraphale's gone out. He wakes up with a begrudging slowness, stretching out and burrowing his face into the pillow, turning over to chase after the heated imprint left on the other side, only to feel something crinkle as it gets squashed under Crowley's head. It transpires that Aziraphale, clearly not wanting to cause Crowley undue worry and not taking the chance that Crowley might miss the note on the pillow, has also left short messages propped against the in-room kettle, placed dead-centre of the plywood desk opposite the bed, and – when Crowley shuffles into the bathroom – inside the toothbrush holder.
Just popped out for a spell, each of these small reassurances read. I'll be back before midday. Xx
There's no name, but it's Aziraphale's without a doubt, the elaborate curlicues and swishes of his copperplate handwriting.
Crowley does not worry. He's getting better at being separate from Aziraphale, at knowing that they can spend time apart without fearing what that entails. He keeps his room pacing to a minimum as he brushes his teeth, he ventures downstairs to the breakfast room and only chugs one cup of coffee to settle his misgivings, even makes small talk with the family on the opposite table. Going back to the room, he manages to focus on one and a half episodes of Come Dine With Me without glancing at the clock with the anxious repetition of a metronome.
The clock ticks on to half ten, quarter to eleven, eleven o'clock. He flicks idly through the flyers and advertising leaflets Aziraphale had gathered like flower cuttings from the front desk, and he plans the day ahead with consideration to the weather forecast.
There's a prim, tap-tap knock, shadowed by a familiar 'hullo!' at about half eleven. Crowley feels relief with the same dizzying wave as if he stood up to fast. He sweeps his hair back, fixing any strands that have strayed loose, and he makes an effort to lean back in the cheap plastic-backed chair by the desk like a man of leisure distracted by his journals, untroubled and unbuffeted by paltry cares, a lofty rise to his head as he swings the chair round.
“Hey you,” he says as a greeting. He sounds, he assesses with some degree of pride, rather suave. As though his mind has only just returned to Aziraphale's absence instead of having been doing doughnuts around the fact since he woke up. “Got your notes. I've been looking at these leaflets of yours. I was thinking, we could go and have a look at the Tower? It's this old ruined fortification, right up your alley, we can go and see how much of the 'historical information' is a load of old...”
He angles his head to glance at Aziraphale, and his suaveness dies suddenly and has a poorly attended funeral as he nearly topples out of his chair. Rallying bravely, he settles for gaping slightly. His words paddle furiously before sinking in his throat. He makes a strangled sound that's only distantly related to language in a second cousin, thrice removed sort of way, and is immediately embarrassed at what his reaction says about him.
It's just that... well...
Aziraphale's changed his clothes. He hadn't brought his coat with him when he left the hotel that morning, the weather only dull and overcast without being too frosty, and for the past few weeks, he's been alternating between a manifested approximation of his old clothes – tatty, beloved waistcoat the colour of milky tea, droopy little bow tie – and what Crowley imagines Aziraphale's pyjamas would have looked like if he'd ever got around to owning any – that is to say, years out of date, terribly unfashionable and only lacking a daft little nightcap because Aziraphale hadn't thought of it and Crowley would have done them both a favour and burned it had he done so. The only genuine articles he owns, are his scuffed but carefully kept brogues, and the coat, scarf and hat Crowley bought in London, which Aziraphale finds any occasion to wear.
It's not that Aziraphale doesn't care about clothes. He's acquainted with the concept of fashion, but unlike Crowley, who is on first name terms with it, he's considered it not really worth his time, and the two have generally kept to different circles and avoided crossing paths. Crowley tends to observe what other people are wearing, and then replicating what they're doing (and, if he said so himself, making vast improvements on it). He likes to look good, takes great pride in his appearance. Aziraphale, in contrast, buys clothes he likes and wears them to the ground, until all the darning in the world won't keep the seams together. They tend to be comfortable, mould around him and quickly become faded with wear; Crowley has always suspected that Aziraphale's essence rusts whatever he wears in the same way salt-water corrodes iron.
But today, he's making an effort.
It would have been the height of fashion if it wasn't about fifty years out of date, but it's all the more endearing for it. Aziraphale's set a laden bag down by the door, which clearly means he's raided one of those out of the way, artfully vintage shops off the side street.
He's dressed up. The shirt, crisply ironed but fast degrading to rumpled simply by Aziraphale's proximity, is a muted grey and white affair, the fabric marked with neat square shapes that are half covered by a dark grey woollen waistcoat. Someone has clearly helped him with the navy tie that brings it together, for the knot is regular and not choked like he usually ends up making them, although it won't remain that way for long by the way Aziraphale keeps moving his hand up to fiddle with it so it sits right. Dark trousers hug his curves, and Aziraphale has clearly laid down the law with his shoes, declaring that on no uncertain terms should they be seen with a speck of mud – they've taken such advice to heart and are now practically mirrors, gleaming with the reflected light of the hotel room. The whole affair is topped off with a sensible tawny brown jacket, a pocket handkerchief peeking out of the upper pocket delicately.
It looks... rather gallant, truth be told. It suits him. Crowley looks him over with a very bold appreciation, taking it all in with a brain-restarting thrill.
But it's his hair.
Aziraphale's hair has always been a) short, b) kept within regulations, soldier-like in its maintenance , and three or c or whatever) has presented itself with the graceful tussled look of a hedgerow worried by a storm or an expanding coral reef. It's grown out a little recently, beginning to curl under his ears, and Crowley has had to restrain himself to making veiled compliments about how well it suits him without hinting to strongly that Crowley likes it, really likes it, imagines it longer, tangling his fingers through it, the locks that would surely tend to curls knotted in his grip. It would be incorrect to say Crowley's been rather fixated on it, but... well, there's not many other suitable synonyms.
Crowley's imagination didn't do it justice. Aziraphale's hair spills out from his head like a careless stream, winding down from his head like foliage with ringlets. It tumbles like a giddy brook, tucked hurriedly behind his ears in tight, scruffy white-blond curls, teasing the nape of his neck, corkscrewing out like it's never met a hairbrush it could get on with. It suits him exactly, softens the lines of his face to give him a romantic air. It's completely different but there's no period of adjustment, no shock as Crowley struggles to reconcile what he's seeing with what he knows. It's perfect.
Crowley's mouth has gone the sort of desert-dry that usually only a thumping hangover can achieve.
He has a lot of things he wants to say but someone's put up an 'out for lunch' sign where his brain should be.
Not that Aziraphale's speaking either. He shifts his weight from one foot to another, holding back a strong urge to fiddle or adjust or play with some part of his ensemble. He hasn't broken eye contact with Crowley but something very British inside him very obviously wants to.
“I...ahem,” Aziraphale says finally, apparently coming to the mortified decision that one of them has to say something and the universe has decreed that it's him. “I was wondering, my dear... If you'd... that is to say, if you'd like... if you'd permit me to take you out to dinner?”
It's not midday yet. Crowley's plan of action before teatime had previously included going to see an old Norman keep, ambling around a museum dedicated to roving Scandinavians and reminding Aziraphale how fetching he himself had looked when he sported a grand beard back in the day, moving on to loitering outside the largest Gothic cathedral in northern Europe while Aziraphale predictably went inside to enthuse about the architecture and stained glass, and he had intended on using this as a bartering tool to get the angel to go to the railway museum with him with minimal fuss.
His plans have now narrowed like the zoom of a camera. He swallows.
Aziraphale is asking him out on a date. He's gotten all dressed up in nice clothes, grown out his hair, and yep – he's even snuck in time for a manicure. He's done this for Crowley. He's standing there, red as a fire engine, looking like a nervous courting teenager, like a sweaty-palmed youth before prom.
Crowley's insides – the parts that haven't been co-opted as circuitry in the connection that's lit up the inside of him like fairy lights - have gone all gooey.
“I'd love to,” he pushes out with a tight breathless sound like his lungs have forgotten that they've meant to have a two-way system going on. Aziraphale's cheeks are still the same colour as someone who has just valiantly chased down a commuter bus in order to avoid being late for work, but on hearing Crowley's reply, he grins, and it illuminates his whole body, his face lit up like a chandelier in a cupboard. All the parts of Crowley that were manning the barricades wave a white flag and go the way of the rest of him, jelly-soft and love-struck.
“I had thought,” Aziraphale says, gesturing to something behind him, “that we could finally make a go of having that picnic?”
Next to the door of the hotel room, a chunky hamper, wicker-woven and held shut with leather straps, sits innocently It's so like the hamper Aziraphale owned at the bookshop, so like the one he packed up ready for their excursion on the Monday after the world didn't end, wanting to start their new life together, that for a moment, Crowley can't speak, but to nod and try not to look too eager about it.
Crowley's outfit, feeling it needs to rise to the occasion, suddenly finds itself much snazzier than it was expecting for a morning stroll.
He follows Aziraphale out of the hotel. The angel carries the hamper in a loose grip, swinging and knocking against the side of his leg. It looks deceptively weightless, although knowing Aziraphale's packing, probably nothing of the sort. He uses his other hand to take Crowley's, and that is how they walk down the cobbled roads, old buildings with modern signs leaning in inquisitively.
It's different than how it's been these past few weeks. Usually, Crowley is the one to brush his hand against Aziraphale's, to slot their fingers together. Aziraphale's advances are subtle and understated, and on the rare occasions he would move first, he would deliberately not look at Crowley while he was doing it, as though prepared for Crowley to pull away if he acknowledged what he'd done. Now, Aziraphale folds his soft fingers into Crowley's grip with all the precision of origami, and he glances at Crowley with such an open look of fondness that Crowley feels his own face redden. He wonders if Aziraphale has been hiding that expression every time he looked away.
The nice weather has turned up, shooing away the overcast morning and scattered spitting rain and encouraging the flourishing of a bright blue sky marred by lazy clouds. Aziraphale points out the architecture as they go, taking winding roads and offshoots of roads and eventually they come away from the main town centre, and their path curves round to hug the reed-lined walk that settles snug along the path of the river Ouse. There are a few bikes, determined looking runners that are trailing the same route as them, but Aziraphale leads them along until it gets quieter and quieter, the surrounding human traffic turned down to background. There's a secluded spot along the riverbank, and from here it's possible to see the extravagant arch of the Millennium Bridge if they crane their necks a bit. The grass is dotted with daisies, and Aziraphale undoes the straps of the hamper and uncovers a tartan blanket which he shakes out over the grass. He kneels down on it, and pats the space near him, gesturing Crowley to join him.
Even if it's not the home-made feast he'd planned before, Aziraphale has quite excelled himself. He unloads artisan selections of cheeses and meats, individually picked pastries presented in their own ostentatious cardboard boxes, little sandwiches with grand fillings already sliced into triangles. There's chutneys and preserves and little bundles of grapes only softly bruised from the journey, and there's even some china plates that it looks like Aziraphale's bought from new for the occasion. And then, from some crevice, because surely the hamper wasn't big enough to store all this and still have room, Aziraphale proudly brings forth a bottle of wine, and lord, there's even a dull smear of dust over it, where had he found that. It looks old and expensive and exactly the type of wine Crowley loves.
“Aziraphale, this is...” Crowley tries to elaborate, but his brain is flitting hither and dither like a bee torn between a few different conversational flowers and unsure where to land. “Wow, this is...” He attempts a third time, allowing his gaze to roam over the man-shaped being next to him, who is currently muttering and patting his pockets for a corkscrew, before he triumphs with a happy 'aha you little rascal!'. “You look... you look really good, angel.”
It's a rather pathetic sentiment that doesn't reflect half of what he's feeling, but Aziraphale meets his eyes, smiles at him.
“And you are handsome as ever, my dear,” he says, and leans in, pressing lips to Crowley's cheek chastely, and then settling back on his haunches and expertly uncorking the wine, beginning to pour it into sizeable glasses that he seems to have miracled from nowhere like he hasn't just committed the metaphorical equivalent of throwing a firework into a goldfish pond.
Crowley's ill-used brain fumbles, and he nearly drops the wine glass when it's offered.
Because Aziraphale is rarely so open as this. Every gesture has had to fight through a series of careful checks and balances before he seemingly allows himself to do anything, and this was true before Roseley Manor, before years of silence compounded these with a fresh crop of new anxieties to wade through. Crowley knows the angel has never been the more affectionate of the two of them; it's never meant that he loves Crowley any less, and Crowley knows this, knows that Aziraphale finds it more difficult to express these sorts of things out loud, with his body, can never do so carelessly quite like Crowley does. Every adoring glance, every gentle touch is hard won, a victory Crowley savours.
And now Aziraphale is here, passing him a laden plate of crackers and sliced meats, shyly trying to find every excuse in the book to touch him, and it occurs to Crowley that he's – rather sweetly, if inexpertly – being wooed.
He pauses, not knowing how to put his words into the correct order, not wanting to offend, to disturb this promising new turn of events.
“You know you don't need to do all this for me, right?” he says. “The dressing up, the grand gestures, the – the...” he tries to say courting, but he can't quite get it out from behind his teeth. “I... you just being you is perfect, you know. ” He trails off lamely, and pushes a stuffed olive into his mouth so he can't embarrass himself any more.
“I want to,” Aziraphale says simply, and his smile looks wider in the unrestrained glow of the sunshine. Humour me, just this once?”
And Crowley can't say no to that.
The picnic is perfect. A veritable feast of culinary joys, all of Crowley's favourites represented and washed down with appreciative sips of the spectacular red wine. Aziraphale keeps finding more morsels to tempt him, and Crowley keeps finding himself being tempted, and it's hard to say no when Aziraphale has rested his fingers almost thoughtlessly on Crowley's hand, when he keeps looking at Crowley like that, with a shining expression unguarded and bold on his face.
They talk for hours. About their usual things, their old debates, their inside jokes, dredging up well-tread anecdotes and disagreeing on the details, but sometimes, at points while one of them is chewing, filling each other's glasses or simply just admiring the unbroken sky above them, it will dip into deeper territory.
Crowley finds himself talking about retirement. About keeping a vegetable garden at the back of the house, maybe some bees. Aziraphale considers taking up knitting for the umpteenth time, determined to conquer his handicraft Waterloo and makes grand promises that Crowley will get a scarf out of the endeavour. He wonders aloud if he should open another bookshop, somewhere in the village perhaps, or if he should just store his books in their library and Crowley teases that there isn't much of a distinction between the options. Their conversation is light, warmed in the spring heat, buoyed by the pleasant aftertastes of spices and meats and wine on their tongues, yet there's a weight to it somewhere. It feels less like mindless chatter and more like – Crowley tentatively capitalises the idea – Making Plans.
They haven't often talked about the future, since they were reunited. It's been more important to treat each day as a minor battle, a small mercy, a fulfilled wish neither of them thought would be granted. When they have talked about the future, it's felt far away, a fun mental exercise to stave off the silences, wondering what it would be like to play human. One day, when everything's settled, we'll have a garden, grow herbs in window pots and keep strawberry plants in the greenhouse. One day, when everything's settled, we'll break out those cookbooks, we'll talk strolls in the local park, we can put those magnets on the fridge and our shoes together by the front door.
Crowley thinks this might be what settled feels like.
The afternoon sidles on. There's a brief interruption of a sunny shower, and Aziraphale tuts despairingly and Crowley gestures for a large umbrella to cover them both, and they watch the droplets striking rings on the river, listen to the patter over their head. It lasts less than ten minutes, because British weather has achieved a great neutrality in being able to be changeable in both positive and negative ways, and then Aziraphale brings out a thermos of coffee and a few biscotti. He's not much fond of coffee, has never taken to it, but he's clearly been asking around because whatever roast he's found for this is divine, and Crowley chinks their cups together, letting the smoky bitter tang linger on his tongue.
After a while, the coffee is finished and Crowley has simply decided that they should continue enjoying the bottle of wine they've polished off, so they do. He hums contentedly, feeling sated and full and with the softest blurry tendrils of the buzz that comes with a good few glasses of alcohol, and leans back on the blanket, one elbow folded under his head, the sunlight playing down on him. At some point, he's not sure when, he forgot to keep his glasses on. He doesn't much find the need, not around Aziraphale.
Aziraphale's taken off his jacket, messily rolled up the sleeves of his new shirt so they bunch around his elbows. He's sat next to Crowley, cross-legged, and he's found some flat stones to try and skip on the river.
Crowley can't help himself, and he closes his eyes, moving his fingers to run through Aziraphale's hair, the curls swaying within reach by a helpful breeze.
“It's gorgeous, he says admiringly, letting his fingers sift through the thick strands like dragging his hand through river water. “What made you decide to grow it out?”
“It was time for a change,” Aziraphale replies, and throws a stone – it flops and sinks with a rather spectacular lack of finesse. “One can get so... trapped in their usual way of doing things. It was the right thing to do.”
His tone has shifted, oddly subdued. Crowley knows he's not talking about his hair.
He opens one eye to look at Aziraphale, who is giving an interrogatory frown to his wine glass like some cuneiform tablet he expects to reveal great secrets. The glass, in a shocking turn of events, is apparently doing its job of holding liquids rather than giving helpful hints, and Aziraphale looks displeased.
Crowley opens the other eye. The silence grows thicker.
“You know,” Aziraphale begins, and he's putting his empty glass down, lying back right next to Crowley, their sides touching, his flyaway hair spilling onto Crowley's shoulder. He threads their hands together ever so carefully. “You know that I'm ever so fond of you, don't you?”
“Hmmm,” Crowley says in agreement. He's not quite sure where this is going.
“That nothing would bring me more happiness than spending the rest of my days with you?”
Crowley angles his head to look at the angel. Who is gnawing his bottom lip. Who, despite his words, which ring through with sincerity, doesn't exactly look happy right now.
“I know, Aziraphale,” he says pointedly, wondering if he'll get to the point now or if they'll have to miss the turn-off repeatedly while Aziraphale makes verbal U-turns in frustration. “You've been wooing me all afternoon. It's been nothing short of delightful. But I can't help but sense that instead of showering me with compliments about how much you love me – although if that was your plan, please carry on, don't let me stop you – you're doing a pretty solid job of skirting around what you actually want to say.”
Aziraphale doesn't even have the heart to deny it. He nods wretchedly, and Crowley waits. Silence reigns for a little while longer as Aziraphale's words stage a hard-fought coup.
“I want to apologise,” he says eventually.
A frown introduces itself to Crowley's face.
“What do you mean?” he says. “Why?”
Aziraphale's answer doesn't get there right away. It takes a few back-lanes and the scenic route, but Crowley keeps quiet, because Aziraphale's voice has suddenly become so full of something that has the consistency of storm clouds.
“I've been thinking,” the angel replies slowly. “About a lot of things. About you and me. About our future together. About my regrets. Well, one gets to thinking as one does and I simply can't shake the idea that...” He's rambling, and he has to reverse slightly. “I keep thinking about how dreadful things must have been for you. All those years when it was only us. The things I said, the... the assumptions I made, the prejudices I held... how uncalled for and unkind they all were...”
“Aziraphale,” Crowley says, surprised. This suddenly does not feel like the conversation he wants to be having lying down. He sits up, feeling his back creak, and leans on his palm. His already occupied hand squeezes Aziraphale's at an attempt at reassurance. “Angel, what are you on about? We were on opposite sides, we... we were at war. A really slow and stupid and passive-aggressive war, but even so....We were categorically told each other was the enemy. I don't see what you're so worried about. You were never cruel to me. I don't think it's in your nature to be. None of the other angels at the Gates ever gave me the time of day, did they? And all that propaganda they fed you, 'bout sides and demons and ineffability, you don't think any of those things now.”
Aziraphale hears him, but he's sitting up as well. His expression looks pained, clashing with the glow of the sunlight, like Crowley just isn't getting it.
“But all those things I said,” he powers on insistently. “About you, about love, and sin. About what you were and what I was and how those things defined us.” He fists and loosens his other hand like he's working out a cramp. It's like watching someone very old and very set in their ways loosening the bricks of their world only to find that one of the walls has been holding back a river all this time. “I didn't mean them, you must know that my dear, I never meant them, not really. But that doesn't.... It doesn't excuse....It doesn't mean they didn't hurt you. And I wish... I wish to apologise for that.”
Crowley sighs. He doesn't know what Aziraphale wants him to say. He's never begrudged the people they were before. He hasn't ever thought of forgiving Aziraphale for earlier slights, because it's never crossed his mind that he needed to.
“We were both wrong about a lot of things,” he says instead. “We both have regrets. It's a very human thing.”
Aziraphale looks at their joined hands.
“It was always me,” he says. It's almost a whisper, guilty sounding, quiet with shame. “It was always me who pulled away. I... I knew what you wanted from us, Crowley. Before Adam Young, before Tadfield, before all that. I knew what we weren't saying to each other, what we both felt...” He trails off slightly before recovering with an added forward push of frustration. “I was foolish,” he says, voice colouring in an ugly, angry shade of recrimination. “I was foolish and scared, and I-I allowed myself to be – to be manipulated by Heaven. I convinced myself that it was better to believe in something that I knew wasn't right, than to take a chance on trusting something that might have been wrong. We could have had this years ago, we could have been like this if I hadn't...”
Crowley squeezes their hands together tightly to bring him back from wherever he's going.
“Aziraphale,” he says, a bit more firmly than he intended. He fixes the angel with an unyielding look. “I'm sure you've been doing a lot of soul-searching, and that's great, that's healthy, but look, you seem to have me as some sort of martyr to your story. And we're equals, aren't we? It's been just us, the both of us down here for six thousand odd years. I'm not going to blame you. If that's what you're looking for here, then, well, tough.”
His tone loses its edges, wavers and slinks into softness again. “We both followed our sides for our own reasons,” he continues. “And yeah, I knew Heaven was bollocks, and I knew Hell wasn't much of an improvement, but you didn't catch me saying no to them, did you? We both followed orders, we both listened to people we shouldn't have listened to. It's not a sin to have been wrong. And look, now, that's all changed. It's different. Better.”
“I suppose it is,” Aziraphale says quietly, a small smile taking root.
“For one thing,” Crowley says encouragingly, knocking their shoulders together. “You told Heaven to sod off.”
Aziraphale colours a dusting of pink, and struggles not to look a little proud of that.
“I did, didn't I?” he says faintly.
“Do you...” Crowley pushes ahead, because now appears to be the moment when they're asking all the difficult questions, and he pushes this one to the front of the queue. “Do you regret it? What you said?”
“I'd do it again,” Aziraphale says.”Without hesitation.”
“Oh. Right,” Crowley says, and he feels slightly pleased in the same way that the Arctic is slightly chilly. “Well, that's good then,” he finishes, completely failing to sound smooth.
He feels an urge to put what he thinks into words, but none of them quite capture the intensity of what he wants to communicate. He bends over instead, letting their foreheads rest against the other.
“I knew what you wanted Aziraphale,” he confesses. The angel doesn't have a monopoly on guilt after all. “I knew what you felt, what we both felt about each other. And I never pushed it.”
“Because you're a good person,” Aziraphale replies, and Crowley shakes his head slightly, because he's sailed past the point, of course he has, and now he has to flag him back down to bring him back.
“Angel, I didn't say anything for hundreds of years. But it wasn't because I was considerate, or because I saw your internal struggles and decided to, I don't know, be the nobler man and push aside my own feelings for the sake of your happiness. You... You say that we could have had this, that if you hadn't been so wrapped up in, I don't know, your duty or your responsibilities or your misplaced loyalties, we could have been together, but that's rubbish, angel. If there hadn't been the whole business with the Antichrist, we would have just kept on the way we were going, saying absolutely nothing. And...” he bites at his lip, suddenly feeling a strong desire to have his sunglasses back on so Aziraphale can't read his expression, pushing through it like struggling through a high wind. “...I didn't say anything, I wouldn't have said anything because I was scared, the same as you. Because... look, it'll sound daft, but we've never been.... I'm just saying you weren't wrong, Aziraphale. Demons, demons don't love. Not because they can't, not because of some stupid whim of biology, but they don't. If I let myself be tempted, if I allowed myself to...” he has to swallow for a moment. “... then no amount of explaining could let me get away with it. I couldn't exactly Fall any lower, could I? And so I told myself that if I didn't belong to Hell, I didn't belong anywhere. For the longest time, I would rather have known that I had them than dare to think I could have you.”
Aziraphale hasn't taken his eyes off Crowley's face. He gives a grave nod, like he understands. He might be the only being in the universe who does.
The conversation goes quiet then, but it's not finished, just slips into a steady lull. Crowley pulls back his head and they sit side by side again. He listens to the lap of the water against the river bank, a distant duck quacking somewhere. Aziraphale rolls a handful of flattened stones in his palm. He stares at the river, rubs his thumb over Crowley's knuckles. The silence is raw, but not in a painful way. It's a silence that's faintly relieved, of two people finally airing things they should have brought into the daylight a long time ago.
Aziraphale skims a stone with his left-hand, and watches it jump on the water once before sinking.
“I would, you know,” he murmurs quietly, to the point of being unheard. “Fall. For you.”
Whatever Aziraphale had being going to say next, Crowley hadn't been expecting that. A quiet, very selfish, very human part of him had always assumed that, when it came down to it, he'd always loved Aziraphale a little more than Aziraphale had loved him.
And here is his angel, dressed up ever so properly in carefully chosen clothes that even now have taken on a scattering of crumbs, holding his hand in the same way archivists and archaeologists and scholars handle very fragile, very old things that they consider priceless and irreplaceable. Failing to skip stones across the slick dark of the river, telling him that he'd deny the grace of Heaven to be with him.
“You can't...” he splutters, almost angrily although he's not sure why, and his hand twitches as though to pull away. “Aziraphale, you can't....”
He doesn't know how to finish that sentence. Say that. Mean that. Want that.
His words die like starved matches.
“Angel,” he says, beseeching. “You don't know what you're...”
“Oh, but I do, my love,” Aziraphale replies. He says it with such a desperately steady fondness. It's not showy, there's nothing about it that needs to prove anything. It's got the constancy of sunrise. Crowley could set his watch by that; he could set his life by that sort of faith. “In that place, for fifty years, I was cut off from His grace. And it hurt, terribly. I knew it was there, but it was out of reach, it was denied me, and when it returned it scalded the skin of my soul and I burned. But I was relieved even so, I had missed it so desperately you see, that it was worth the agony to have it back. But you must understand, my dear boy. I... truthfully, I never thought you would find me. But I never doubted that you would look. That you would search for me, that you would try. I never thought Heaven would come for me. I never thought they'd remember me, they'd search for me. I never dreamt of Heaven. I prayed so hard I couldn't breath, but I never prayed for them.”
“I didn't deserve your faith, Aziraphale,” Crowley murmurs, and Aziraphale looks at him as though confused. Moves his hand to cup the side of his face, smoothing a patch of skin with his thumb.
“But you have always been deserving of it,” he replies tenderly, tutting slightly and smiling like Crowley's said something foolish. “I would not have you believe otherwise.”
“Aziraphale...” Crowley says, and he's not ashamed to notice his voice has gone shaky, that it's hard to keep his composure when Aziraphale is gazing upon him like that, like people look at idols or treasures, exuding such a strong sense of love that even Crowley's duller senses can feel it.
“And if they came back,” Aziraphale presses on simply, “if they asked me to return, and if I was to Fall, I need you to know that I would, my – my dearest love.” He settles another one of those chaste kisses at the hinge of Crowley's lips, printing over the corner like a seal. “I couldn't bear it if you thought yourself anything less than everything to me.”
Crowley's fingers are threading through Aziraphale's hair, bringing their lips together properly then. Because there's knowing something and hearing it out loud, there's having a man-shaped being share your bed and share your home and buy magnets for your non-existent fridge, and then there's listening to him say what you've been holding as gospel truth in your own chest, listening to him when he tells you something like that.
He wants to say it back, tell Aziraphale using their adopted language that he loves him, but his lips are busy and he doesn't need to. Aziraphale knows.
Aziraphale kisses in an intense, scattered way, like his mind's halfway ahead of his body. Crowley scrunches his fingers gently against Aziraphale's scalp, tangled in the curls of his hair, places a hand at the side of his body where his stomach joins to his hip. That seems to do the trick, ground him, slow their motions, and Aziraphale hums and Crowley's lips swallow the sound and for a long time there's nothing at all in the world but this.
The sun warms their backs, the river trickles on. Crowley suddenly feels too exposed out here, like they should be somewhere quieter more secluded.
Eventually, his brain and a minute later, his mouth, manages to croak out.
“Want to go back to the hotel?”
Aziraphale's pulled back, his pupils blown wide in a fetchingly flustered way, and he nods earnestly, babbling a 'quite right, yes, of course, absolutely...' and almost kicks over his wine glass in his eagerness to stand. They pack up and tidy away the remnants of their feast, and Aziraphale keeps shooting contented little looks at Crowley, and Crowley keeps smiling back and being drawn into small, pecking kisses that threaten to linger, and neither of them have quite the self control they usually pride themselves on.
They get back to the hotel in half the time it took them to get there, and Crowley is not ashamed to admit he dropped the key card trying to get it out of his pocket, and Aziraphale's laugh was a ringing undignified snort. Crowley makes a face and sticks his tongue out, and then they're inside the room and the door is locked with a wave, and Aziraphale trips over the clothes bag he left near the door and Crowley can't help but give a vengeful chuckle.
They stand in the centre of the room, slotted against each other for the longest time. Everything slows, narrows, lingering like dust motes in sunlight. Aziraphale angles Crowley's face up to his, and brushes their noses together before he presses his lips to his cheek, his forehead, the dip where his chin meets his neck. Each one precise and careful, individually treated as though each move is incredibly vital, pursued with such sincerity that it makes it difficult for Crowley to remember he has things he wants to do too.
It suddenly feels terribly important for Aziraphale to see him. To know him.
Crowley isn't talking about sex. Maybe he'll suggest it to Aziraphale one day, and they can try it in the same way they'd try a new restaurant together, they'd listen to a concert together. No, it is suddenly critically a priority that Aziraphale sees him, what he is. He's unfolding his wings with a shudder, their expanse blocking out the light of the room, darking it to shadow, and he hisses with something like joy when Aziraphale trails his fingers through the curtain of his feathers. And Aziraphale has caught on to his intent, his own frazzled wings curling around, enclosing them together, pressing them close, and Crowley's dizzy with the tender presses Aziraphale is adorning him with, the way he's holding their bodies together, suspended from the rest of the world.
And carefully, trustingly, Aziraphale looks at Crowley and he starts to shine.
Aziraphale's original form is not human. Neither is Crowley's for that matter. And neither of them really know what they are now, an unpredicted amalgamation of ethereal or occult or human, held in constructed bodies that they've taken as their own. As Crowley moves against Aziraphale, he feels the angel's edges blur slightly, like something seen too close to make out clearly, a light lapping against him like water against a riverbank. Aziraphale keeps his human form, but his outline softens, spilling out like a hallway light under a door. His glow blends against Crowley, and as he kisses him again, the light sweeps around him, into him like sunlight seeping into his pores.
And Crowley lets his own form unwind, like he's loosening his tie, like he's popping a button to let himself breath a bit more. His own greedy light, that is both like and unlike smoke, presses to meet Aziraphale, and they let their edges bleed together like two oceans meeting, and they shine.
Crowley wonders for a surreal moment as he basks in the radiant glow of the light that is both him and not him, if this is what it's always like, but then remembers that no one has ever done this quite like them before. He strokes his fingers through Aziraphale's hair, feels the warmth settle in his lungs, fill him until breathing feels needless, wasteful, sees Aziraphale arch and bask and savour the light he is giving off in kind.
This is what they look like. The things that they are, the essence that makes them up, wrapped up in the bodies that are theirs, the very human lives they're making for each other. They move languidly, trade touches and gestures and whispers as they feel the essence of each other soak in, submerging and mingling and overwhelming the other in a radiant, glorious synthesis. The light that is all at once aziraphale and crowley and them combined, washing over their hard places that are still learning to soften, the parts of them scraped down and worn by a hundred small disappointments, a hundred fears and terrors, the parts of them bolstered by a hundred thoughtless reassurances. The way they have spent years holdings each other up, inviting each other in, in their own ways, to the only home they've both had, that they've made and are making together. The light and their bodies and their feathers touch slow, moving softly like wind rustling over grass. There's finally no need for urgency. They speak, or make sound, or mutter nothings, but it's mostly noise for the sake of it because finally there's nothing else they need to say.
After a time, a long time, the light wavers and they begin to separate, unmerging with an unhurried farewell of feather-light touches. They settle back into themselves, leaned up against each other, and it's a while before either of them can bear to break the fragile bubble of silence.
They don't put their wings away.
They sit down on one bed, Aziraphale with his back propped up by pillows, Crowley with his head cushioned by Aziraphale's lap.
“What shall we do tomorrow?” Aziraphale asks. It's not night, but neither of them feel in a rush to reintroduce themselves to the outside world.
“I thought the tower in the morning,” Crowley says, “maybe the Viking Museum if it's open.”
Aziraphale hums with faint, indulgent interest, and plays mindlessly with Crowley's artfully styled hair, listening as Crowley continues: “Then I'll treat you to lunch, and I thought at some point we might stop by the railway museum.” Crowley timed it perfectly. Aziraphale doesn't fuss or scrunch his nose up in dismissal, he nods, and it's unlikely he heard him, still buzzing as he is with happiness.
“And then after that?”
“Whatever we want.”
Aziraphale hums again. Perhaps thinking of where they might go next, the things they still have to see.
“And then we go home.”
“And then we go home,” Crowley agrees.