Archive of Our Own

269

Valentinus is, as they say, the real deal. Usually these sort require assistance from Aziraphale’s sort, if not from Aziraphale personally. They go round talking about Jesus, spreading the Good Word, as it were, and people expect proof, and so Aziraphale is there to provide qualifications in the form of miracles both minor and major, as well as enabling some mere coincidences. He’d grown rather weary of it, actually, by the time he’d met Valentinus. He welcomed the reprieve, enjoyed watching the man work. Miracles are one thing to perform but quite another to witness, especially when the miracle-worker is a human armed with only a knack for praying. Valentinus won souls in a way most admirable to Aziraphale: healing their bodies. He’d been a physician before taking on the mantle of priesthood, after all; Aziraphale found his specialty of miracles quite clever.

It was so much more than a shame, really, this martyrdom thing.

Oh, Valentinus will be remembered, of this much Aziraphale is certain, because he is determined to do at least some of the reminding. The story of Valentinus will be told for decades, for centuries, until it’s all gone fuzzy into legends and people are believing things that aren’t actually true. But Aziraphale will know that a good man, imprisoned, reached out between the bars, laid his hands over a little girl’s eyes, and restored sight to the jailer’s daughter with naught but a prayer. Aziraphale will know.

He’s clutching a note in his hand, only not sweating through the parchment because, well, this body doesn’t sweat unless he wills it to, does it? It's a terribly convenient convenience, here in the arena, surrounded by the tense heat of bodies of eager humans hungry for the sight of blood. Martyrdom is gruesome under even the most benevolent of Roman rulers, or at least that's what Aziraphale has heard. This is his first time attending one. He wishes he wasn't.

"Bit surprised to find you here," comes a familiar voice from his right. He turns his head to see Crowley, sharp-jawed and hidden-eyed. "This doesn't exactly seem like your scene."

"It's not," Aziraphale confesses, filled to the brim with a shimmering sort of gratitude for Crowley's presence, here and now. "I've never been to one of these spectacles before."

"I don't blame you," Crowley says with a slow jerk of his chin. "I try to avoid them myself. I take it you know him." Aziraphale nods.

"He's a good man," he says quietly. Crowley leans in as if to hear him better, although Aziraphale suspects that he never misses a thing, what with the snakelike senses and all.

"They usually are," Crowley says. "You get a fair few who recant, though, when the heat is on. Can't really blame them either."

"I can," Aziraphale mumbles.

"Well, you needn't worry, angel. History won't remember them at all." Crowley is smiling like he's proud of something. Aziraphale is struck suddenly with the wild notion that a demon might be at least partially responsible for the swift and thorough burials of the reputations and names of turncoat Christians whose existence Aziraphale has never known, even now, already. He blinks.

"I--I do admit I find some comfort in that," he says, turning away from the dark, startling shine of Crowley. "I don't suppose there's any hope for mercy." Crowley scoffs.

"From Claudius the Cruel?" he says. "He's never even heard the term." After a moment, he adds, "I don't suppose there's any hope for denouncement."

"No," says Aziraphale firmly. "Not from Valentinus."

"Then - and I'm regretful to tell you this - he is to die by clubbing," Crowley says, sounding none too pleased by the words.

"And should that fail to kill him?" Aziraphale asks, tense for the answer.

"Beheading," Crowley says with a sigh. "The things humans come up with to destroy one another…Hell couldn't hope to be this imaginative. She made them in Her image and they're capable of all this? I mean, not exactly a resounding compliment. Self-aware enough, though, I guess." Aziraphale cringes.

"It must be part of the Great Plan," he says weakly. Crowley gives a dubious hum.

"Ineffable, to be sure," he says in a low, mocking tone. Aziraphale turns back, but his scowl is cut off by the abrupt crash of music from elsewhere in the stands.

"Oh," he says, distressed. The note in his hand might need to be smoothed out via miracle before he ever passes it on to its intended recipient. "Oh, no."

"You don't have to stay and watch this, angel," Crowley says, leaning closer. "We can just get out of here." Aziraphale shakes his head.

"It feels like something that I should--bear witness to," he says miserably. Crowley frowns. "Besides, I'm to give this letter he wrote to a young girl." He opens his trembling fist and Crowley takes the paper, unfolds it with not insignificant care. "He said she'd be nearby, after all this."

"'From your Valentine,'" Crowley reads, eyes scanning the bottom of the page, over and over, back and forth, until he folds it back up and holds it out to Aziraphale, tucked coolly between two fingers. "Who is she? Julia?"

"The daughter of Valentinus' jailer," Aziraphale answers, placing the letter safely inside his robes. He sighs. "She was born blind. He restored her sight." The crowd around them roars terribly. Crowley fixes him with a particularly grim expression.

"You should pray she doesn't see this."

496

When Crowley set out for the city of Rome, he wasn’t anticipating being there for the declaration of a new Christian holy day, but, well. Best laid plans of snakes and demons and whatnot. Still, he’s not exactly thrilled by the development until he hears what it is, until he knows who he’ll find there, celebrating.

The first Feast of Saint Valentine is quite the feast. Crowley supposes it had to be, if this pope was hoping he could use it to squash any future Lupercalia festivals. Lupercalia was fun. Festivals about fertility often were, but this one was also about purity, about purging evil from the entire city, and while the efficacy of that could well be debated, all things considered, it was the balance that made it so enjoyable. Crowley had never directly participated in any of the festivities himself, but he did appreciate a lot who didn’t need any sort of demonic nudge to inspire them to run naked throughout a city. And then it only improved when they stopped with the human sacrifices.

That’s all over now, though, anyway, or will be within the decade. No one on earth made a more robust pastime of stamping every last bit of fun out of a society quite like the Supreme Pontiffs. They loved reminding everybody that religious persecution could come back into style at any moment, so, best be prepared to die for the faith at any time. Take a day, name it after a martyr, give the people a big feast to distract them from the fact that there’ll be no more running nude in the streets. Yes, the entirety of the recently collapsed Western Roman Empire was becoming a bore, and Crowley was getting a bit antsy for a change of scenery, somewhere beyond the reach of papal authority, but that could wait. It would wait.

He - Crowley, demon of hell, serpent who tempted Eve thereby bringing about humanity’s downfall into sin and destruction - would wait right here, fully clothed on a street in Rome, leaning in the shadows between a cart full of peaches and a pair of donkeys, for hours, days, decades, centuries, another four and a half millennia if he had to, for a sight of his angel.

He should stop thinking of Aziraphale as his angel. Demons are not, strictly speaking, supposed to have angels. But Crowley is not an especially spectacular specimen of hell, and Aziraphale is undoubtedly the best that heaven can offer, and Crowley is--well. It doesn’t matter what Crowley is.

It doesn’t matter what Crowley is when Aziraphale is there, standing at the end of the crowded street, glowing. Balancing on one hand a large plate while he carries a bowl in the crook of his elbow, both heavy laden with meat and bread and vegetables, the angel is presently struggling to reach his coin purse. Crowley smiles, snatches a peach from the cart beside him, and secrets it away in his robes before taking off toward Aziraphale, his focus undisturbed the entire way despite the loud, jostling throng surrounding him. He is, as he has ever been, a moth drawn to a holy flame.

“This one’s on me,” he says as he sidles up to Aziraphale and hands over an uncounted number of coins to the pear vendor. Judging by the elation on the man’s face, he’s overpaid, but that just means he can grab a few more.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale exclaims. He looks pleased to see him. Crowley could curl up and bask in the warmth of it for days. “I didn’t expect to see you here, on a saint’s day.”

“They’re all saints’ days round here as of late,” Crowley scoffs, nodding his thanks to the vendor as he picks up two additional pears. “At least this one deserved the honor, according to you.”

“You remember Valentinus?” Aziraphale asks. He shifts his arm to put his hand over his heart, evidently moved by Crowley’s thoughtfulness, and upends the bowl, sending its contents flying. Crowley snaps his fingers, freezing time as well a colorful medley of carrots, radishes, lettuce, onions, garlic, and turnips. Aziraphale looks both embarrassed and extremely grateful, which gives Crowley a fluttery feeling inside his chest, but he nevertheless glances down the road at its frozen inhabitants and pulls a slight frown. “You didn’t have to do that,” he says.

“You’re welcome, angel,” Crowley says pointedly, taking the bowl from Aziraphale’s arm. “As if you weren’t already using a low grade miracle to keep all this balanced.” He begins picking vegetables out of the air and placing them back into the bowl.

“Yes, well, thank you,” Aziraphale says quietly. “You don’t need to carry it for me. I was managing quite well until you appeared.” Crowley, having ducked down to retrieve a great purple carrot that was perilously close to the ground, stands abruptly upright.

“Does the sight of me throw you off your course, angel?” he asks, plastering a hasty, wide grin on his face. He hopes it’s enough to sufficiently distract from his disgusting bout of eagerness. He hopes he doesn’t sound hopeful.

“I wouldn’t say--”

“And of course I’m carrying it,” Crowley says in a rush. He holds the bowl low against his hip. “You have to carry the bowl for the fruit.”

“Oh, do you have one?” Aziraphale says. “I was wondering - I didn’t want to put the pears in with the onions, but--oh now, really, Crowley. That’s stealing.” Crowley hands him a large empty bowl from behind the next cart over.

“Demon,” Crowley says with raised eyebrows and a shrug. “After four thousand years, I’d’ve thought your expectations would be lower.” Aziraphale makes a disapproving face but takes the bowl anyway, waiting patiently as Crowley tosses in the pears. “Besides,” says Crowley, and then scoops out several coins from his bag and places them precisely where the bowl had been, giving the angel a look. Aziraphale smiles.

“That’s very--”

“Don’t say ‘kind,’” Crowley snaps through gritted teeth. “It’s not all holy men we’re walking amongst.”

“Oh, please don’t tell me there’s something wrong with Gelasius,” Aziraphale says with a frown. “Please don’t tell me that’s why you were here in the first place.”

“Aziraphale, there’s always something wrong with the Pope,” Crowley says, looking at the angel over the rim of his darkened glasses. “And most of the priests. I’d suggest you get used to it now or you are going to have a rough go of it for the next--well, however long the Church endures. But no, I wasn’t here for Gelasius. Just a small temptation for a bishop a few villages from here.”

“Nothing too sinful, I hope,” Aziraphale says cautiously. Crowley shrugs.

“Nothing a bit of sleuthing from the authorities won’t uncover and swiftly deal with.” He reaches into his robes and pulls out the peach. Aziraphale’s entire being lights up even more than usual, as if, in his excited little gasp just now, he inhaled the sun.

“Oh, Crowley,” he breathes, “where did you get a peach?” Crowley grins, proud and warm and appreciated. He jerks his head back over his left shoulder.

“There’s a whole side street of fruit carts down there, angel,” he says, unable to school his tone into something cooler than utter delight at delivering such incredible news. He gingerly places the peach into the bowl that Aziraphale is holding, noting the reverence in Aziraphale’s gaze and storing it away to remember later. “Peaches, figs, currants, strawberries, plums, melons, pomegranates - even medlars.” Aziraphale gasps again and Crowley lets his smile go softer before shaking his coin purse and gesturing behind him broadly. “After you, angel,” he says, but he nevertheless falls into place beside him as they walk toward the promising side street.

620

It’s been beyond long enough now that Aziraphale knows he should no longer be surprised to run into Crowley anywhere, should expect to find Crowley everywhere. It’s only...he really, really did not expect to find Crowley here.

Here, in the Arabian desert. Here, manning a cart in a caravan of traveling merchants. Here, selling dates.

"Aziraphale! Salaam and all that!" Crowley calls from across the encampment where he's lounging in the chair next to his cart. He's waving excitedly, not a bit unlike a lunatic. Aziraphale, half-convinced the long journey in the heat has addled his brain somehow and now this is a mirage, rubs his eyes, and is rather happy to see Crowley remain steady in his vision.

"Salaam to you, too, Crowley," he says when he reaches him, matching the demon's smile easily. "Fancy seeing you here."

"Was just thinking the same about you," Crowley says, staring up at Aziraphale, his arm up to further shield his eyes from the setting sun, casting a shadow over his handsome face. He's clearly been in the desert long enough for his skin to pick up some color; the locals are still darker-toned, of course, but Crowley's certainly tanner here than he could probably ever hope to be in most of Europe. Aziraphale wonders what his eyes look like against this slightly bronzed backdrop. He wishes he could see them properly.

"So," continues Crowley, "what brings you to this neck of the--well, not woods. Palms. Plenty of palms. What brings you to the palms?" Aziraphale worries his fingers in a loose end of the cloth he's got wrapped round the top of his head.

"Well, when I started the trip it was for a particular spice blend I heard is exclusively available in Arabia," he says, "but then I heard about--"

"Would that be this spice blend?" Crowley asks, reaching lazily behind the cart and holding up a bottle. Aziraphale takes it and pops off the stopper before bringing it to his nose. He closes his eyes against the aroma - cardamom, cloves, black peppercorns, coriander, saffron, nutmeg, and cumin blending seamlessly together, a perfect balance that brings out the best of each. When he opens his eyes again, Crowley is staring at him, holding his glasses above his browline, exposing his eyes.

Aziraphale almost has to take a step back at the sight of gleaming amber and shining gold. With his tanned desert skin, the effect is just about monochromatic. The black slits alone stand out, striking and reflective.

"Beautiful," he can't help but murmur, and hopes Crowley thinks he's referring to the spices.

"There's more where that came from," Crowley says, letting his glasses drop down again and jerking his head toward the cart. "I've been stockpiling for you. I recommend that baharat on lamb. You're just in time: they do these roasted lamb kebabs every Thursday; you’re going to get to be here for the whole thing tomorrow. I've also got several bottles of za'atar, if you'd like. Quite tasty on the pita bread, even I can tell that."

"You've been stockpiling spices? For me?" Aziraphale says, surprised.

"Yeah, well," Crowley says with a shrug. "Don't worry - it’s not as if I’ve been stealing it. Not all of it, anyway. Not even most of it. Khadija wouldn't have it."

"You know Khadija?" Aziraphale asks. The name rings out in Aziraphale's chest. He's heard of her so often throughout this trek, more frequently the closer he's gotten to Arabia, to Crowley.

"I work for her," Crowley says, a hint of pride in his tone. He holds out his arms, gesturing to the entire stationed caravan. "She owns all this. Imagine the kind of woman that requires! Way ahead of her time, in my opinion, although that's clearly a good thing. And--" Crowley glances about before lowering his voice. Aziraphale ducks forward to hear him better. "She's a bit saucy! Fifteen years older than Mo and she was the one to propose!"

"’Mo’?" Aziraphale repeats, blinking. Is Crowley really on a nickname basis with the man known throughout the Arabian desert as a prophet, messenger of God, a builder of a new faith?

"Mohammed, yeah," Crowley says. "You should meet him, angel. He'd like you. Loves angels, that one."

"I'm sorry, dear," Aziraphale says, his brow furrowed. Crowley here, as a merchant, friendly with a human of particular interest - this human of particular interest...It’s all a lot to take. "But how--what--I don't understand why you're here." Crowley grins.

“Pull up a seat, angel,” he says, and with a snap of his fingers, a chair appears next to his own. “Did you travel the whole way like a human? Here, have some dates. You’ll feel better.”

“I feel fine,” says Aziraphale, sitting down, but he reaches for his pouch of money anyway as Crowley grabs a small basket from the cart.

“Put that away. They won’t lose a profit,” Crowley assures him, passing the basket over. “You’ve never eaten dates like these, angel.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale sighs. They certainly don’t look like any dates he’s ever eaten. Clearly fresh, every date in the basket is large and plump and ripe, and his first bite only confirms Crowley’s assertion. A thick, chewy sweetness overwhelms Aziraphale’s senses, and as he closes his eyes to savor it, he feels a thirst he didn’t even know he’d been experiencing suddenly and thoroughly quenched. He removes the pit with his teeth and opens his eyes to see Crowley holding out his hand expectantly, his expression inscrutable. Feeling a warmth pool in his belly that he’s more than willing to attribute to the date, Aziraphale drops the pit in Crowley’s open palm before popping the other half into his mouth. There’s a flash of Crowley’s tongue licking his lower lip as he squeezes his fist around the date pit, disappearing it, Aziraphale knows.

“I think they might be onto something with the dates,” Aziraphale says, clearing his throat. “That’s exactly what I needed after a long, hungry day in the desert heat.” Crowley hums.

“Well, they would know best,” he points out.

“So, you were explaining how you came to be here, selling fruit in Arabia?” Aziraphale asks, looking down to carefully select the next date.

“I wasn’t yet, but,” Crowley says with a shrug. “Khadija saved my life--well, saved me from being discorporated in my snake form, which--talk about paperwork, angel. The negotiations it would take to get this body back after that--”

“Why--”

“I was basking, alright?” Crowley says in a preemptively defensive tone. “I fancied a warmer climate, for a bit, far out of the papal reach, and I was there, in the cozy sand, under the hot sun, minding my demonic, serpentine business, and then I almost got trampled by a horse!” Aziraphale looks up, startled. “Lucky for me, Khadija was there. She managed to calm the beast, which let me slither away to safety, lick my wounds, et cetera.”

“You were wounded? Crowley!”

“Not my body, angel, my pride.” Aziraphale rolls his eyes and goes back to the dates. “Anyway, I came back and found her later - as a human, obviously - and somehow she talked me into joining her caravan of merchants.” Aziraphale looks up again.

“How the hell did she manage that?”

“She told me I looked like I needed something to do,” Crowley says. Aziraphale doesn’t need to see his eyes to know they’re rolling. “That was, oh, eleven years ago now?”

“You’ve been here for that long?” Aziraphale asks awkwardly, his teeth clenched on a date pit. Crowley raises an eyebrow, no doubt at Aziraphale’s manners.

“It hasn’t been bad at all,” he says, considering. “I was here when Mo received his first revelation.” Aziraphale spits out the pit as delicately as he can manage, hiding it against the edge of the basket. He looks around the camp, realizing with a surprise that it’s gotten dark, and that the common areas of the camp are suspiciously empty for a group of nomadic people. He turns to Crowley with a question in his eyes.

“No miracle,” Crowley mumbles. “We’ve just--they’ve all been rather down, in recent weeks. Bit somber. Everybody’s turned in early.” Aziraphale nods.

“Is he really a prophet then?” he asks quietly. Crowley makes a funny shape with his mouth.

“Not for me to say,” he replies. “Is Gabriel really appearing to him?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Aziraphale says, frowning. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he sent another angel in his stead, to be quite honest with you. He didn’t appear to Mary, either.” Crowley sits up and removes his sunglasses.

“Really?” he asks. Aziraphale nods grimly. “Glad tidings of God’s own Son?” Aziraphale nods again. Crowley whistles and leans back, taking to twirling the glasses in his hand, the temple tip between his fingers. “I suppose he believes human affairs to be below his station.”

“Just so,” Aziraphale says. “I’m sorry to say that most angels do.”

“But not you,” Crowley says. In the deep blue darkness, Aziraphale can only see the captivating glow of his eyes. Not for the first time, the angel understands why Eve was so tempted.

“They’re God’s Creation, just as we are,” Aziraphale says. “What sort of an angel would I be if I didn’t love them?” He can’t see the details of the soft look Crowley gives him, but it makes light bloom in his chest all the same.

Crowley leans toward Aziraphale then and, with a jerk of his head toward a group of tents on the other side of the encampment, says, “You know, they don’t believe Satan was banished from heaven because he tried to take God’s throne. They think it was because of his disdain for humanity.” Aziraphale considers this. It’s fairly lovely theology, really, regardless of its historical accuracy.

“Well, if that is the case,” he says slowly, thinking of the wondrous and mischievous ways he’s seen Crowley show affection for humanity over the last four and a half millennia, “then perhaps you didn’t Fall as far as you think you did.” It’s the wrong thing to say. Aziraphale knows it immediately, regrets it immediately.

“Fell far enough for it to count,” Crowley mutters, the conspiratorial glint in his eyes vanishing.

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale says at once.

“It’s forgiven,” Crowley says softly, and Aziraphale believes him, if only for the fact that he hasn’t put his sunglasses back on. “Doesn’t really matter anyway,” he adds. Aziraphale blinks. “Whether or not he’s truly a prophet, I mean.”

“Oh,” says Aziraphale. “How do you figure?”

“If enough people believe it - and they do, and more will, besides,” Crowley says, “then...he’s a prophet.” He shrugs. “His message isn’t all that far off from what Jesus was preaching, anyway, back in the day. They’d’ve gotten along.”

“That doesn’t exactly bode well for the rest of his life, though, does it?” Aziraphale says. Crowley frowns, gestures as if to say, You’ve got a point, angel. “Why has everyone been so somber lately? You never said--”

“Khadija’s sick,” Crowley says thickly. He casts a rather forlorn, hopeless look over his shoulder toward the tents. It breaks Aziraphale’s heart. “It’s been getting worse and worse. Prayers are going unheard, and unfortunately I lack the kind of miraculous power that can restore health and prolong human life.” He rubs at his chin. “They say this is her deathbed.” Aziraphale can see, now, a number of shadows moving inside the biggest tent across the way. He looks back at Crowley’s sad face.

“You don’t want to be in there with her, for her final moments?” he asks. Crowley shakes his head.

“She doesn’t need a demon next to her when she dies,” he says. “My presence could only hinder any last ditch intercessions from above.” He turns to look back at Aziraphale. “Twenty-five years they’ve been married. Can you believe that? Monogamously, even. That’s practically unheard of. I know to us twenty-five years is barely a moment, but to humans?” He shakes his head. “If She made them in Her image, why’d She make them so damn fragile? Mo’s going to be devastated.”

He says Mohammed, but Aziraphale knows he means himself.

“You’re going to miss her,” Aziraphale says softly.

“The least an angel could do, with their angelic powers of life-giving and health-sustaining miracles, is give him another few months with her,” Crowley says, deftly dodging Aziraphale’s accusation, which is how he knows it was correct. He gives Crowley a small indulgent smile.

“Big white tent?” he asks, just to verify. Crowley nods, happiness flickering into his eyes. Aziraphale glances at the tent in question and stretches out his hand. With a twitch of his middle and ring fingers, he’s given Khadija another one hundred days, most of them healthy. He settles his hand on the basket in his lap again and raises an eyebrow at Crowley. “I don’t think most demons would deign to miss a human,” he says. Crowley sighs.

“She’ll be my first,” he says, fixing Aziraphale with his amber gaze again. “Usually it’s not humans I miss.” Aziraphale opens his mouth - to say what? He doesn’t know, and he’s frightened to find out - but Crowley cuts in quickly, “Hey, since you’re here, angel, d’you think you can keep an eye on the camp while I sleep for the night? I’m generally in charge of night shift security - volunteered, since I don’t need to sleep, strictly speaking, but I miss a good bit of shut eye. Do you mind?”

“Not at all, dear,” Aziraphale says. He moves his chair closer to Crowley and shifts in his seat, so that Crowley can comfortably rest his head on Aziraphale’s shoulder. Crowley blinks at him, frozen, like he was startled by the movement, but after a moment he relaxes again, maneuvering until he’s curled in his chair and leaning across the arm rests, settling his head where Aziraphale intended.

“Comfortable?” Aziraphale asks pleasantly.

“Yesss,” Crowley hisses. “Good night, angel.”

“Good night, Crowley."

Crowley has been asleep for approximately forty-two minutes, and Aziraphale has eaten precisely two dozen more dates, before it occurs to him that Crowley might be cold. The temperature has already dropped significantly, as it is wont to do when darkness falls in the desert, and he can only assume it will get even cooler as the night progresses. He knows that Crowley isn't cold-blooded, or even, technically-speaking, blooded at all, when it got down to it, but he's always been far more sensitive to the cooler temperatures than Aziraphale. He'd hate for Crowley to wake up shivering, or have a bad night's sleep because he was too cold, and regret ever resting his head on Aziraphale's shoulder to begin with.

Aziraphale can't see Crowley's face properly, from this angle, but he can see enough of it to note the way it makes him feel. Crowley looks peaceful, trusting, safe. So Aziraphale wants to give him that, wants to repay it tenfold, wants to--wants to--

What Aziraphale wants to do is unfold his wings and cover Crowley’s sleeping form with their pure unbreachable protection. What Aziraphale wants to do is something he is not allowed to do. What Aziraphale wants to do is not even something he’s allowed to want to do. And, conveniently enough, what Aziraphale wants to do is also not exactly practical, in the here and now. A person with great white wings is hard to overlook, even in the desert, even in the dark. Any human nearby could catch them. And if an angel - if Gabriel - is really appearing to Crowley’s friend, then stretching out his wings to safeguard and warm a demon is doubly dangerous.

So what Aziraphale does is reach out his right hand and flick his wrist, and then, with the silk blanket he wasn’t holding a moment ago, he makes a sweeping gesture across his own body so that the blanket wraps itself securely around Crowley. He busies himself for a minute with the drapery of it before noticing that the hard arm of Crowley’s chair is pressed against his ribs in a manner that can’t possibly be comfortable. Aziraphale frowns and draws his fingers along the wood, shifting quickly to accommodate for Crowley’s gentle slump when the arm suddenly vanishes. Satisfied that Crowley is warm and safe for the night, Aziraphale returns to the dates, but he only gets through another four before he’s distracted by a perilous idea.

He passes an entire hour arguing with himself in silence and then, finally, in a fit of stubbornness and defiance that he only seems to feel when he’s thinking of the very demon sleeping beside him, he puts his arm around Crowley’s bony shoulders and pulls him closer. He’s an easy, sharp weight against Aziraphale’s side, with steady breath and a beating heart, and it’s only now, with Crowley so near, that he realizes Crowley fell asleep clutching his sunglasses in his fist, which is now pressing hard into Aziraphale’s ribs.

“Oh, my dear Crowley,” Aziraphale breathes out into the cool night air, gingerly taking the glasses from Crowley’s grip and watching as his hand relaxes, “what am I to do about you?”

999

Crowley has only a vague, wobbly idea of where he is right now, which has nothing to do with the amount of alcohol he's imbibed - more than necessary but tragically less than he wishes, at present - and more to do with the fact that, from kingdom to fractured kingdom throughout this tired mainland, every nobleman's court banquet hall looks more or less identical. By process of elimination, he can at least assume it's not anywhere in Al-Andalus, given the government-endorsed size of this holiday for a Christian saint, not to mention the lack of minarets he passed on his walk here through town.

He likes the minarets. He likes the domes and the gardens and the sacred geometry. He missed how all that came about - he’d stuck around Arabia for another twelve years after Khadija died, surprising himself more than anyone else, but Mo’s death had left a power vacuum and, well, Crowley was never worth anything inside power vacuums, which was a good enough excuse for him to tell himself it was about politics and not his own wretchedly humanlike grief. He’d been disgusted with himself for caring so much, had run far and fast until he stood, shaking and shivering in the snow, looking up at the night sky and seeing it seemingly close enough for him to reach up and grasp between his fingers.

Aziraphale, of all Her Creations, had found him screaming questions at the Almighty and wrapped him in a silk blanket and vanished the both of them to some nearby Viking village where Crowley drank until he was warmed from the inside out again, until he was light enough to ask Aziraphale how he could do it, how could he love so much when it just led to pain, as though he had no experience in the matter himself, as though when he said “love” he was talking about these humans he’d spent decades in the desert with and not the angel he’d been desperately, pathetically orbiting for thousands and thousands of years.

He doesn’t remember Aziraphale’s answer, but it doesn’t matter. Love, to Aziraphale, as to all angels, probably, is a blessing. Love, to Crowley, the only demon who even possesses the capacity for it, probably, is a curse.

The point isn’t the angel, though, insofar as the angel is not the point of, oh, every day of Crowley’s life. The point is the location. France, if Crowley’s feet were held to the holy water and he had to hazard a guess, based on the heavy Catholicism of it all. Moreover, the private banquet hall of some duke or count or otherwise self-important bastard with a title and the means, across which Crowley looks, trying to find the man he’s supposed to target with a temptation tonight, and spots the angel.

See? Every day of his life.

Aziraphale is in his feminine form, a rarity, and an unfortunate one at that. It’s been so long that Crowley had nearly forgotten what this body looked like, on the angel. The last time he saw him like this was before Golgotha, before Rome even, down in Athens where Aziraphale had cinched a strophion over the thin and nearly sheer chiton, just under his breasts. That was a terribly hot summer, and Aziraphale thought his garment - for it was, despite the common dress of the time, only one garment, with nothing else under or over - more practical than stylish, and Crowley had stayed in Greece far longer than he originally intended not only so he could spend more time with his angel, but also so he could spend more time seeing his angel like that.

Now, in this region and age more nominally interested in modesty and more practically interested in making women's lives as difficult as possible, Aziraphale's form is buried under a terrible number of layers, making it more or less impossible to make any definitive statement on it besides "busty." But Crowley remembers vivid, exquisite, torturous details: dusky pink nipples so sensitive to the slightest chill that Crowley prayed to blasphemous idols in every temple in town for even just one breeze on any given day; the soft curve of belly filling out the chiton; shapely thighs that Crowley all but literally dreamt of worshipping with his ever-sinning mouth; and the apex of them, white-blonde hair only visible under the beige fabric after a visit to the baths. Satan himself surely couldn't have blamed one of his demons for craving the angel back then.

"Angel," he murmurs, abruptly distracted in the here and now by the sight of Aziraphale across the banquet hall. It interrupts a conversation with a viscount during which Crowley is supposed to be gathering intel about the appearance of the man who would be tempted, but, far from being offended, he merely turns his head to follow Crowley's gaze over his shoulder before turning back with a smile that sets Crowley's teeth on edge.

"Indeed," the man says. "Beautiful, is she not?"

"She is," Crowley says, not even trying to tear his eyes away from the golden glow of Aziraphale's long hair, loose and wavy and partially tied back into an elegant braid that was definitely achieved and held in place by a miracle. He yearns for a lock of it, gets an exclusively lustful urge for a mouthful of it.

"We are not the first to think so," says the viscount, "but unfortunately for us and most other men at this evening's feast, the Duke of Aquitaine has made it quite clear that he is to claim her."

"Has he now?" Crowley asks with keen interest. The title rings a bell between his ears. "Might you point him out to me? I wouldn't want to speak of her, er, divine beauty within his earshot. I'm not looking for a fight on this holy day." The viscount turns again to point a subtle finger toward a dark-haired man wearing an extraordinary amount of maroon on the opposite side of the table. Said Duke is gazing far too lustily at Aziraphale, even from a distance. Crowley feels a surge of likely unearned possessiveness rise up in his chest, the serpent always in him ready to strike.

"Right, thanks," he says, forgetting himself as he simply exits the conversation, leaving the viscount whose name he never did catch scowling in disapproval. Crowley stalks across the banquet hall, his eyes fixed on Aziraphale like a guiding light, shoving his way unceremoniously through little obnoxious knots of people talking and drinking. Aziraphale remains, thankfully, focused on choosing the right vegetables for his feast, and he doesn't even notice Crowley, which works just fine for the demon's plan for a dramatic entrance.

"So, angel, have you given any further thought to my proposal for an, ah, arrangement?" he asks as he takes his place right next to him. Aziraphale jumps, but manages to keep a steady hold on his plate this time.

"Crowley!" he says, his voice faithfully pitched up. He was always better at maintaining that than Crowley was. He sets his plate down on the table. "What are you--no, of course, I haven't. Why--"

"Then why are you doing my job for me?" Crowley asks, raising one eyebrow. Aziraphale balks.

"Whatever do you mean by that?" he asks, tone dropping lower in his offense. Crowley leans in closer.

"The lower downs requested that I come here tonight to tempt the Duke of Aquitaine into an extramarital affair, but it seems you're doing a far better job of that than I ever could," he says.

"The Duke of--" Aziraphale begins to turn his head, no doubt in search of the nobleman in question, but Crowley reaches out before he can think twice about it, his hand coming to rest swiftly on Aziraphale's cheek.

"Don't look over at him, angel," he mutters, guiding Aziraphale's face back toward him. Ignoring the stricken look on the angel's face, Crowley adds, "It will only make him think you want him in return." Aziraphale's eyes go wide; his hand moves up to curl fingers around Crowley's wrist. Crowley swallows and drops his hand, shaking out of Aziraphale's grasp.

"But--he invited me. I'm here as his guest. I'm meant to convince him to build a new church in Loire Valley," Aziraphale says, crestfallen and distraught. "I never meant to--to tempt him into--"

"It's not your fault, angel," Crowley says. The words come naturally, and not only because it's Aziraphale. After all, how many women - and a fair few men - throughout history has he reassured after they've experienced the very worst of men's own creation? Hell couldn't hope to reach the height of evil that human males have conquered.

"Are you quite sure you're not wrong about him?" Aziraphale asks fretfully. "He seemed so pious. Usually I can tell when it's faked, you know."

"Trust me, angel, I know from evil, and his intentions for you are far from holy," Crowley says, glancing at the Duke over Aziraphale's shoulder. He wishes he could whip off his sunglasses and scare the daylights out of the man, but. Well. Paperwork. "If it makes you feel any better, it's not as though he'd be the first pious man to be tempted. Pious men are tempted all the time. Some of them even give into it. Bathsheba comes to mind. Are you going to tell me the great King David wasn't sincere in his faith?"

"Of course not!"

"You are singlehandedly teaching just about every man in this banquet hall what it truly means to break the tenth commandment," Crowley says lowly, impressed, before adding, "And, statistically-speaking, at least three or four of the women." He does not include himself in the count, and not only because he is neither man nor woman. After all, Crowley was breaking the tenth commandment almost three thousand whole years before it was even given. He could teach classes on coveting and do a surprisingly excellent job, provided the subject of the coveting was a certain angel of the Lord.

"It's this body," Aziraphale complains. He looks down at himself and self-consciously pats at the bodice of his dress. "It wasn't--appealing--the last time I brought it out. I'd forgotten that times are changing."

"Yes, and now this body means you've got enough means and land to laze about and read all day," Crowley says, smirking. "Imagine the stir you'd kick up if you left the party with the poor, skinny bastard nobody recalls inviting. Might as well be running off with a serf with an eye condition." Aziraphale rolls his eyes.

"I really can't just leave."

"You can't stay," says Crowley mockingly. "Perhaps you don't remember what happened the last time some human men got their designs on having their way with angels, angel, but I do, and unless you plan on getting in a fair bit of smiting and turning people into salt, we should leave, posthaste."

"The Duke still needs to build that church," insists Aziraphale.

"Well, since you did my job, I'll do yours," Crowley says easily, although it's not without reservation. A demon could get into real trouble, tempting a person to start a church.

"You--you can't do that, surely," says Aziraphale, frowning. "Wouldn't your people take issue with--something like that?" Crowley hesitates, but ultimately shrugs, letting the angel see his fingers twitching in the Duke's direction.

"I can just, you know, still tempt him into extramarital relations on our way out," he says. "It'll all cancel out, or maybe both things will get done. Either both sides are happy or neither are. Fancy that."

"Oh, you don't have to. Let me," Aziraphale says helpfully, visibly cheering. Crowley's wrist tingles where Aziraphale's fingers touched a minute earlier. He watches as Aziraphale makes to reach for a golden spoon from the table, only to twist his hand to the left in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it flash. Crowley, most luckily, does not need to blink.

“There!” says Aziraphale, satisfied and proud, never having taken his eyes off of Crowley. He smiles. “Now he will, perhaps, make one of the two or three statistically-likely men whose eyes I didn’t catch very happy.” Crowley can’t help it: he grins.

“Angel,” he says, thoroughly impressed and charmed, just like he was back on the Garden wall, the moment he was cursed with love. “A pious man in the tenth century? What a thing.”

“You and I both know that piety has nothing to do with it,” Aziraphale says primly. “Before Bathsheba, after all, there was Jonathan.”

“That was love. The lust was incidental,” Crowley says weakly.

“Besides, he doesn’t have to give into it,” Aziraphale continues. “People resist temptation all the time.” Crowley gives a bitter grunt, which Aziraphale seems to ignore in favor of looking sadly down at the plate he’d been preparing. “Oh, but this was going to be a lovely meal.”

“Stuff it in your pockets,” Crowley says, shrugging.

“What pockets? Women’s clothes have no pockets,” Aziraphale says, annoyed. “A major design flaw, with shades of misogyny, if you ask me.”

“Oh, it’s all shades of misogyny, angel, but--” Crowley’s heart races as he dares to lower his hands to Aziraphale’s hips, drawing his fingertips in a slow, short stroke down the sides of his dress at an angle. He nods and glances down at his handiwork. “Those pockets.”

“You are incorrigible,” Aziraphale says, but he seems happy about it. He’s still smiling as he fills his pockets - limited edition, demonically miraculous, bigger on the inside and guaranteed to keep the angel’s whole meal warm and in perfect order until he is ready to eat. Crowley looks away to see the Duke of Aquitaine casting a surreptitious glance toward a blond count currently filling his tankard with beer. He smirks. Aziraphale would never hear it, but Crowley knows, deep down, his angel is a bit of a bastard.

“All packed?” Crowley asks as Aziraphale slips a final plum into his pocket. Aziraphale smiles and nods. “Shall we away, then? Take my arm, good lady, and I will escort thee to Padua."

"Padua?" Aziraphale says, blinking in delighted surprised as he takes Crowley's arm. Crowley glances down to take in the details of Aziraphale's fingers, pale and delicate against his wrist again. He gives Aziraphale a smile.

"Padua," he confirms. "Get you the best bread you've had since that summer in Greece. I know a baker."

1349

Aziraphale finds Crowley, as he knew he would, in a tavern just across the border. He's already dangerously drunk, which, for Crowley, is...well. He's not rambling. He's not yelling. He's not stumbling around in an unfortunate attempt at being gregarious. He is only still, seated at a table in the corner, alone and still and quiet. Still. Dreadfully still.

Aziraphale is, for the first time in many centuries, worried about him.

"Crowley," he says as he sits down at the table. He is, for the first time in many centuries, at a complete loss for words.

"You see what they're doing in Strasbourg?" Crowley says. It comes out flat. That he doesn't raise his head to look at Aziraphale isn't lost on the angel. Crowley always seems to want to look at him.

"I did," Aziraphale says. He hopes it comes out soft.

"They don't even need help," Crowley says. He lifts his head finally, but only to lean back and take a long swig of wine. Aziraphale frowns.

"I know," he murmurs.

"Not a push," Crowley says. "No nudge. Not the tiniest temptation. They just do that. It just comes to them naturally, like She made them that way." Aziraphale cringes.

"I know," he says, though.

"If they're Her Chosen People--if they are so Chosen by Her--why does She let this happen to them? Over and over, this happens to them. Massacre, genocide - there's no word for this yet. But there will be. It's not even the first this year, and it won't be the last. She'll see to that." Aziraphale purses his lips.

"I know," he says, still.

"But that's how I know they are created in Her image," Crowley says bitterly. He sets the bottle down and looks at Aziraphale, finally. "Her cruelty knows no bounds, so neither does theirs."

"Crowley, please, you really can't--you shouldn't--blaspheme in front of me, as frequently as you do," Aziraphale says, feeling unfairly bound by his station, his affiliation. Crowley takes another drink.

"'s'not blasphemy to ask questions, angel," he slurs, lip curling nastily.

"Obviously it is," Aziraphale says quietly. Crowley rips off his sunglasses. His golden eyes are unfocused, but his mind is quite evidently clear. Aziraphale would probably be wise to feel a bit fearful.

"If it really bothered you, you wouldn't be here," Crowley bites out. "You know I’m Fallen. You knew exactly the state I'd be in. You know me better than anyone - better than anyone knows me, better than you know anyone else."

"I do," Aziraphale agrees, "which is why I'm here to take you away." Crowley is silent for a long, terrible moment, during which he just stares across the table, his eyes waffling between hazy and alert. Eventually, he snorts out a laugh that shakes his shoulders.

"Take me away," he says.

"Just so," says Aziraphale. "You shouldn't be alone right now. And neither of us can--can do anything. We can't. It's the--"

"Angel, do not say 'ineffable' or I swear to Satan I will reach over this table and--"

"I wasn't going to say that," says Aziraphale. "I've not said that word in thousands of years, thanks to you." Crowley says nothing. Aziraphale takes that as encouragement, permission. "My point is: we can go off together."

"Where?" Crowley asks, leaning forward. "Where could we go?"

"Anywhere," Aziraphale says. "Anywhere you want to go. Away from here."

"I don't want to go anywhere," Crowley lies.

"Don't lie to me, Crowley," Aziraphale all but snaps. "Don't start now." Crowley sits back in his chair, clearly annoyed.

"Fine," he says. "But don't give me the choice. I can't--I don't--there's nowhere I can think of to get away from all this. It's naught but misery across the board. I hate this blessed century."

"I know," Aziraphale says gently, "but I--I do hope you don't hate me." He watches Crowley's eyes focus and steady themselves, something unreadable blooming in them.

"Not you, angel," says Crowley. "Never, ever you."

"Glad to hear it. I'll be taking you to the Maya civilization, then. That's an entire enormous ocean and rather a bit of land away from this."

"And what, pray tell, is oh so very special about the Maya civilization, hmm? What's put them on the radar of the discerning angel Aziraphale?" Crowley asks. His tone is mocking, but his eyes remain soft, disarmingly affectionate.

"You thrive in the sun," Aziraphale says. "Don't think I've never noticed. It'll be good for you. And I've heard they do a wonderful thing - something called chocolate." Crowley laughs.

"Knew there was something in it for you," he says. "Knew there was a food thing. It's not a sin to admit to a spot of selfishness, angel. Or--maybe it is--"

"I want to share it with you," says Aziraphale, just vaguely unsure. Crowley is in a state. Aziraphale isn't as certain as he usually is of what's right or wrong to say.

He wishes, sometimes - typically in times like this - that he was more like Crowley. He thinks he should be more like Crowley, in times like this. Touched. Impacted. Affected by humanity. It's good to be that way, isn't it? Compassionate. Empathetic. Aziraphale has been, like all angels, although perhaps slightly less so, fairly detached from people. Demons are meant to be, too, he knows, even more extremely than angels. Crowley stands alone, in the thick of it, of humanity's worst, yet he remains with them, almost as if on their side. On his own side.

Aziraphale doesn't want him to stand alone any longer.

"You drink it, I think," he says into Crowley's indecipherable silence. "The chocolate. Hot, with chili peppers and honey. Frothy, creamy. It sounds positively decadent. Not wholly unlike you." Crowley stares at him.

"Right," he says, after a full minute. "And what if I refuse to go?" Aziraphale recognizes it as a stalling tactic, and a weak one, at that.

"Then I shall simply abscond with you," he says firmly. Crowley stares some more.

"Well. I hope you can sober me up, because I certainly don't have the--thingy--what's it called?" In lieu of guessing, Aziraphale reaches across the table and takes his hand. Crowley digs in his fingernails like he's afraid the angel will let go.

It takes some concentration, but Aziraphale successfully restores Crowley to sobriety. He does not let go of the demon's hand.

1390

Of course it would be bloody Chaucer, wouldn't it? Parlement of Foules, indeed.

"Have I mentioned that I hate this century?" Crowley asks loudly as he and Aziraphale wander through a crowd of dancing, clapping people talking loudly of romance.

"Only every time I've run into you throughout," says Aziraphale, but he doesn't sound like he minds.

"Well, good, because I do."

"I, for one, am quite pleased to see a holiday dedicated to love," Aziraphale says, unfazed.

"Romance is not love," gripes Crowley. He should know. He’s only greedy for both.

"Valentinus would be honored, I believe," Aziraphale says.

"Oh, whatever for?" Crowley tips his head down so the angel can see his eyes rolling. "A bunch of young idiots exchanging heartfelt declarations with one another as if they know anything about what 'forever' means when they say, 'I'll love you forever'? Watch. You just watch, angel! Within the easier part of five years, it's going to be nothing but lies being told in an effort to get laid and hearts being broken because somebody forgot and the stale reek of desperation from the ones who don't recognize they're lucky to not be partnered up."

"Oh, come now, Crowley," Aziraphale says, frowning.

"Bloody Chaucer." Crowley just barely manages to avoid hissing as he sidesteps two children chasing each other. "Yes, get in the practice now, wee ones! You'll be doing that the rest of your blessed lives."

"Pardon my friend," Aziraphale says hurriedly, to a woman who appears to be the mother of one of the kids. "He's had one drink too many."

"D'you know what really gets my--oh, what's it? Sheep or something?"

"I'm sure you'll tell me," Aziraphale says dryly.

"I can't, angel, because I don't remember. That's why I asked you," Crowley says with another roll of his eyes. "Anyway, what really gets my livestock is that he's got them all thinking this is how it's always been, that the fourteenth of February has always been a celebration of romance. And they've fully bought into it! As if they don't recall just last year! Imbeciles, the absolute lot of them."

"Perhaps this is how it always should have been," says Aziraphale. "As I said, Valentinus would be delighted for his name to be associated with love--and romance."

"You'll be singing a different hymn once money gets involved, angel," Crowley assures him. "A crass overcommercialization awaits."

"Oh, I do hope you're wrong," Aziraphale says.

"Pray for it, if you're so inclined," Crowley says with a raised eyebrow. "But you know I'm right, angel."

"Nevertheless," Aziraphale says kindly, "happy Saint Valentine's Day, Crowley."

Nevertheless, Crowley is happy.

1586

Crowley loves a dramatic entrance. Aziraphale has no idea where it comes from. Demons, on the whole, tend to be more inclined toward a general sort of lurking, some slinking about, lots of hiding in the shadows and a bit of squirming underfoot. The forces of evil are, largely, meant to go unseen.

Crowley’s entire aesthetic, however, lends itself thoroughly to a caricature of evil: he slinks, yes, but he makes sure he's seen slinking; he lurks, yes, but he takes care to have witnesses. He'll hide in the shadows only to step out into the light with intentional slowness to ensure his presence isn't overlooked. He left squirming on the ground behind in the Garden, with only a few exceptions, but now all the slither is in his gait. Crowley doesn't enjoy sneaking as much as he enjoys getting caught sneaking, exactly when he intends, and he is very good at it. Sinfully good, one might even say.

He loves sneaking up on Aziraphale in particular, smooth and shrouded, and giving the angel a fright with his sudden voice. It's become almost a game now, after five and a half millennia: a tiny, deeply insufficient microcosm of the forces of heaven and hell. Unfortunately for heaven's hosts, Aziraphale has been losing miserably for the last two dozen or so centuries. He's got no hope of catching up at this point. Hell will simply win this one.

It's really more a matter of pride, then, when Aziraphale spies movement in his periphery across the courtyard and instantly straightens his back, like a prey animal sensing a predator without realizing, except in this case, the predator is not dangerous so much as...well, a nuisance. At worst. The point is that thousands of years of evolutionary conditioning has led to this: the moment when, in the imperial Mughal courtyard of Akbar the Great, Aziraphale notices Crowley first.

He can smell that it's Crowley before he actually turns his head to catch sight of him properly. It's not sulphur - Crowley's convinced he carries the scent of hell around with him wherever he goes, but it's not sulphur. Aziraphale has told him it’s not sulphur, repeatedly, yet as recently as fourteen years ago, he remained certain. Aziraphale has had the thought, once or twice, that perhaps if he told Crowley what his scent is, then maybe what it isn’t would stick, but the words for it...well. The words are there, in his mind, his throat, his nose. It's smoke from a bonfire in the clearing of a forest. It's freshly cut thyme drying on a windowsill on a sunny afternoon. It's sour cherries during summertime in Greece. But--he can’t just say those things to Crowley, not without--

The point is: he knows Crowley is there, from the flash of movement in the corner of his eye, from the way his mouth falls open and he presses his tongue out just enough to get a taste of the air in its new scent - thousands of years of evolutionary conditioning - before he ever turns his head to confirm. And when he does turn, it’s subtle, just barely, just enough to see that yes, that is, in fact, the demon Crowley lurking in the shadows, slinking along the wall behind the audience that fills the court. Aziraphale looks away again, smiling to himself, happier now that he ended up with a spot near the back than he was about it this morning. It wouldn’t be polite to carry on a conversation with a friend in the middle of a debate if he were seated any closer; he’d hate to be a distraction to one of the speakers. He keeps Crowley’s sneaking figure faithfully in his periphery, disguising his glances as mere fussing over a smudge near the heel of his left jhuti, or repositioning the fabric of his jama so he can sit more comfortably. From there, it’s easy enough to track his approaching shape in the reflective shine of the marble floor, and just as Crowley steps into the empty space beside him, Aziraphale looks up and says, “Hello there, Crowley.”

“Angel!” Crowley yelps loudly. Aziraphale has precious few milliseconds to enjoy the satisfaction at that - and even fewer to parse out the marvel in Crowley’s voice when he raises his glasses just a bit, leans down closer to Aziraphale’s face, and says in an awed whisper, “Angel” - before he realizes that they have, indeed, distracted the speakers. Crowley, at least, realizes it, too, drops his glasses back into place to hide his eyes and looks out over the confused and disgruntled faces throughout the courtyard. “Right,” he mutters.

“Aziraphale, who is your friend?” comes the calm, commanding voice of Emperor Akbar. Aziraphale jumps to his feet. This is not going as smoothly as he hoped it would.

“Crowley, jahanpanah,” Crowley says, with a respectful nod of his head. Aziraphale throws him a nervous glance, but ends up lingering over the kajal lining his eyes black behind the sunglasses, the long waves of red hair visible under the black silk hood drawn up over his head, the black varnish on his fingernails as he toys with the snake-embroidered hem of it. Aziraphale scans lower, takes in the vibrant dark red of Crowley’s chogha, the pattern that looks like the scales of snakeskin. He’s doing that thing he does sometimes, where he’s just whatever he wants to be, whatever he feels like, self-indulgent to the maximum, and forcing the humans to recognize that the boundaries so many of them place around gender and sex are fluid and flimsy is just an added perk. Crowley is head to toe in black and red, red and black, snakes and ambiguity - a caricature of evil, to be suspected by everyone and therefore suspected by no one. He returns Aziraphale’s look with his own quick one, a secret wink invisible to anyone else.

Oh, Aziraphale thinks if God Herself cracked his chest open right now, all that would come tumbling out into the light would be all the brilliant things that Crowley is and was and will be.

“You should have informed me beforehand that you would have a guest so I could show them a place of honor,” Akbar says. Aziraphale blinks in surprise, turning away from the look Crowley directs at him then.

“Ah, ‘a place of honor’ - that’s more like it,” Crowley murmurs.

“I was not expecting him so early, jahanpanah,” Aziraphale says. “Or at all,” he adds under his breath. He can feel Crowley smirking.

“It seemed he wanted to know about angels,” Akbar says. “I am quite curious on the subject myself. Are you a person of any faith, Crowley?” Aziraphale bristles.

“Please--” he whispers, but Crowley stills him with an unequivocally intentional brush of the back of his hand against Aziraphale’s.

“I know of faith, yes,” Crowley says slowly, a clever sidestep that would be lost on a ruler other than Akbar, who, Aziraphale is relieved to see, smiles.

“We are all here to know of faith,” he says, gesturing to the courtyard. “What say you about angels?” Aziraphale is somewhat alarmed to find that everyone in attendance appears to be enraptured by this interruption. He nudges Crowley’s elbow with his. Crowley hums, low and imperceptible to human ears.

“Oh, I could say a lot of things about angels,” he says. Aziraphale inhales sharply. “But I will defer to the Persian philosopher Sayyid Haydar Amuli, with whom I’m sure you are yourself familiar, unless your reputed partiality to the Islamic mystics is a lie.”

“Overdoing it,” Aziraphale breathes.

“I’ve got it,” Crowley whispers defensively before returning to full volume. “Amuli believed that angels were created as manifestations of those of God’s Ninety-Nine Names which are of Beauty, whereas demons are manifestations of the Names of Majesty.”

“And do you believe that, Crowley?” Akbar asks. “Do you believe demons belong in such a category, with such attributes?”

“Crow--” Aziraphale starts.

“Well, I suppose it depends on the attribute, doesn’t it?” Crowley says, tapping his foot against Aziraphale’s ankle. “Haughty? Sure. We’ll take that.” He shrugs, then looks at Aziraphale. “Domineering? Not so much.” Aziraphale swallows. Akbar laughs, the accomplished sound of it bouncing through the courtyard.

“Aziraphale, you and your friend shall both dine with me tonight in the palace,” Akbar says happily, “but for now, you shall leave together, so that this discussion can continue unimpeded. It will not do to have religious debates disrupt an unexpected reunion of old friends.”

“Yes, of course, jahanpanah,” Aziraphale says hurriedly, and proceeds to all but drag Crowley out of the courtyard behind him.

“I think you just used a measure of your celestial strength on me, angel,” Crowley says as they step outside the palace grounds, rubbing his wrist.

“Did I hurt you?” Aziraphale asks, concerned. He takes Crowley by the arm and spreads his hand over the wrist that seemed injured. Crowley jerks his hand back.

“It’ll take more than a pull through a crowd to do any real damage,” he says, smoothly lifting the hood up around his face again. It must have fallen loose in Aziraphale’s push for a hasty exit. “I was more impressed than anything, to be honest. Don’t you go wasting miracles just to repair the skin of a demon. What would heaven think?”

“Well, I suppose that depends on whether or not the Sufi thinkers are correct,” Aziraphale says with a roll of his eyes, dropping his hands to his sides. He can finally relax.

“I knew you’d appreciate the show,” Crowley says, grinning.

“I can’t believe I finally beat you at this stupid game and you still managed to make a spectacle of us,” Aziraphale says. “Why did you have to yelp so?”

“I didn’t yelp!” Crowley says. Aziraphale finds himself abruptly shoved against the wall, not far from the gate. He sighs. “Demons don’t yelp! How dare you suggest otherwise?! And I only reacted because--” Even through the tinted glass, at this close distance, almost nose-to-nose, Aziraphale can see Crowley’s eyes boring into him, can make out the dark liner around them, cannot help but lick his lips. Crowley takes a step backward, away from him. “Because you’re wearing kajal!” he exclaims. Aziraphale blinks. He’d almost forgotten the question, much less that his own eyes are lined.

“But--so are you,” he says.

“Yeah, but you don’t usually get all--done up,” Crowley says, gesturing awkwardly. Aziraphale catches sight of his black fingernails again.

“Not like you,” he agrees. “Where did you get lacquer for your nails anyway?”

“China.”

“How did you know I would be here?” Aziraphale asks. “Or--” Oh, no. He’s gone and assumed Crowley was here to see him, and not just doing his own demonic job. “Or--if you--I--” he stammers, but Crowley seems not to notice anything amiss.

“I heard tell of a place of period-atypical religious tolerance and a fast-developing food scene,” he says. “Figured your angelic wiles were behind it.”

“Angels don’t have wiles,” Aziraphale says, “and they’re doing it all by themselves, without any help from me.”

“You’ve got wiles if I say you’ve got wiles,” Crowley mutters darkly, one eyebrow raised, before jerking his chin upward, toward the palace. “It’s really all Akbar, then?” Aziraphale nods.

“He’s not like the ones before him,” he says. “He’s open-minded, compassionate, pragmatic. He understands he’s a ruler not just of Muslims, but of all people of all faiths within the empire. It’s really quite extraordinary, especially for the time.”

“They’re writing about him in the Purana, you know. I’m not sure it bodes well for how his own people will remember him,” Crowley says, glancing over his shoulder toward a temple in the distance. He looks up, then. Aziraphale can see the sky and the domes and towers of the palace reflected in his sunglasses. He takes a small step forward, unbidden. Crowley looks at him, tipping his head down so that only Aziraphale’s own image is reflected back at him.

“So you like the public debate and conversation,” Crowley says, smiling again. “I bet you also like the coffee.” With a snap of his fingers, he’s suddenly holding out a steaming mug. Aziraphale beams and takes it from him, closing his eyes to inhale the scent as he brings it close to his face.

“You should try the murgh masallam,” he says as he takes a sip of coffee. Crowley’s true little miracle was, evidently, adding precisely the right amount of milk Aziraphale wanted in this moment. He opens his eyes to see Crowley staring openly at him, or at least as openly as one can stare while wearing sunglasses. “They marinate a whole chicken in ginger and garlic,” he says, clearing his throat, “and then they stuff it with boiled eggs and saffron and cinnamon--”

“They stuff a chicken with its own eggs?” Crowley says.

“Well--” This thought has never occurred to Aziraphale. “Not--not...necessarily….”

“‘s messed up,” says Crowley. Aziraphale sighs.

“You’d like it,” he insists. Crowley smiles.

“Not as much as you, angel,” he says. Aziraphale stares back at him.

The implication is...well, it’s there, but...technically unclear. I might like it, but not as much as you like it, angel, because no one on the planet likes food as much as you do, could very well be exactly what Crowley means. Innocent, as demons go. Nothing Aziraphale hasn’t heard from anybody else before, particularly from Crowley. But...the other option is lovely, too, the I might like it, but not as much as I like you, angel, because I don’t like anyone, or anything, on the planet or throughout the universe or in hell or heaven as much as I like you option. Aziraphale rather thinks Crowley might mean that one.

“You should stay,” he says, “after dinner. Even if Akbar doesn’t extend an invitation for you to quarter in his palace, I can--we can--I can open lodgings in the area.” He takes a long sip of coffee, always a good excuse to stop talking, to let words settle. Crowley’s expression doesn’t change for a long moment, and then he frowns, deep and regretful. Aziraphale raises his eyebrows in surprise.

“Oh, angel,” Crowley says, almost mournfully, “why’d you have to say that to me the first time I actually have plans in the very near future?”

“Plans? What plans?” Aziraphale asks. Crowley groans and, after what appears to be an immense effort, looks away.

“I’ve got to go back to London, day after tomorrow,” he says.

“London? Why?” Crowley groans again. He pushes the hood back, running his fingers through his hair. Aziraphale grips the coffee mug very tightly.

“I wrote a play,” Crowley bites out. “I wrote a play and I need to foist it off onto someone else.”

“You--wrote a play,” Aziraphale says. It’s too much to deal with - Crowley and the coffee and the play. He snaps his fingers and vanishes the coffee.

“Yes.”

“Alright,” says Aziraphale, trying to focus, “what--”

“‘The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus,’” Crowley says in a rush.

“Doctor--What, that legend about the German fellow?” Aziraphale asks. “Is--Crowley.” He frowns. “Crowley, is this play a--a demonic work?”

“Well,” Crowley says, finally looking back at Aziraphale, cringing a little, rocking his hand side to side. “I mean, technically, since I’m a demon and it is my work then I suppose yes, it is a demonic work. And, alright, yes, perhaps it has the workings to conjure a few real demons once or twice during a performance but only a few and only a few times - ever - but--” He shrugs and gives Aziraphale a hopeless look. “Mostly it was just, you know, good to get it out.”

Aziraphale stares. He has no idea where to even begin. For a few seconds, he has only questions echoing in his mind. Was this an assignment from hell or your own idea? How long did it take? Can I read it? Why this story? Why this medium? Why London? What do you mean it was 'good to get it out'?

"Oh, where'd your coffee go?" Crowley asks anxiously. He opens his palm and a new mug appears, full again. "I made it too hot last time. Sorry, angel. This cup should be better."

Aziraphale has dozens and dozens of questions, but only one imperative.

"You should stay," he repeats, soft and imploring. "I know you've missed the sight of minarets. It'd be a shame to see so little of them before you're off again." He isn't sure if it's enough, but Crowley smiles, small and secret.

"Alright, I'll stay for a bit," he says easily, the reflection of Aziraphale's face alone in the surface of his sunglasses. "I'd hate to miss more of the minarets than I absolutely have to."

1601

"Tomorrow is Saint Valentine's Day--"

"Oh, come on," Crowley groans, throwing his head back dramatically. Aziraphale elbows him harder than necessary.

"She's grieving!"

"And I a maid at your window, to be your Valentine--"

"You knew this bit was in there when you bade me waste a miracle on it," Crowley whispers loudly, annoyed. "You tricked me!"

"Crowley! Shush!" Aziraphale whispers back. Crowley catches another elbow in his side.

"I can't believe I did this for you. I can't believe I made this one the most popular."

"You made it the most popular? My dear, I only wanted--"

"This is no ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ - let's just be clear on that!" Crowley says. "Ophelia is no Beatrice."

"Of course you'd prefer Beatrice," Aziraphale says.

"And that Hamlet--he is no Benedick." Crowley crosses his arms, petulant.

"He's also no Dr. Faustus," says Aziraphale under his breath. Crowley perks up.

"Ah, but she could be," he whispers, snapping his fingers right in front of Aziraphale's face. Onstage, Ophelia pauses in her mad rambling.

"Why this is hell, nor am I out of it," she says suddenly.

"Crowley!" Aziraphale says, loudly this time, scolding. Crowley makes a big show of yawning.

"Wake me when she drowns or whatever tragic fate is sure to befall her," he says. "That kind of thing never happens in the funny ones." Aziraphale scowls at him and snaps his own fingers.

"--am not tormented with ten thousand hells, in being deprived of everlasting--all will be well. We must be patient."

1835

"Let us endeavor to solemnize our minds that we may receive a blessing, by calling on the Lord," says Smith, before bowing his head. Crowley rolls his eyes and steps up next to Aziraphale.

"Will you be doing the blessing, then?" he whispers. The angel jumps, spins wildly to face him, and grabs hold of his arm. In an instant that may or may not include the sound of the flapping of wings, the two of them are outside the little wooden house, mere feet away from the steps leading up to the porch.

"You must stop doing that!" Aziraphale says. Crowley grins.

"Then you must stop making it so fun to be hauled out of places by you, angel," he says delightedly, raising an eyebrow and glancing meaningfully down at Aziraphale's hand still on his arm. Aziraphale drops his hand hastily, which is resolutely not what Crowley intended, but he does--he does blush, which is--oh, it's really something.

"For the record, no, I was not here to perform any blessings. I was merely sent here to keep an eye on them, these Latter-Day Saints," Aziraphale says, smoothing down his waistcoat. Crowley follows the movement with his eyes, not for the first time thankful that his angel stumbled upon an aesthetic last century and formed a firm attachment. Fussy as they are, he's glad for Aziraphale's standards, if they keep him looking like this, confident and sweet and a gift.

He doesn't fit in here in the States, of course, among these wannabe frontiersmen. Go west, young man, and all that, is not Aziraphale's scene. Then again, Crowley, ginger-haired and wiry and clad in all black, doesn't exactly fit in, either. Call it a microcosmic parallel to heaven and hell.

"What are you doing here anyway?" Aziraphale is saying. "Another temptation?"

"Not yet," Crowley says, although he might have set his sights on that Brigham Young already. Time will tell. "No, I've just been asleep for a few decades and woke up wondering what was going on stateside. Thought I'd pop over to take a look. It's quite drab here, isn't it? Where even are we?"

"They call it 'Ohio,'" Aziraphale says wearily.

“Oh-hiii-ohhh,” Crowley drawls, trying to see how it feels in his mouth. “Oof. Bleak.” Aziraphale glances over his shoulder and tugs at his shirt collar. Crowley narrows his eyes. “Alright, angel?” An anxiety rises up in him suddenly at the thought that perhaps Aziraphale is being monitored, that one of his colleagues from upstairs will see them together, acting so friendly and familiar, and Aziraphale will be punished because of him.

“Yes,” Aziraphale says, looking back at him and giving him a reassuring smile. Crowley relaxes. “There’s an apple orchard just over there, behind the schoolhouse. Would you--would you like to take a walk with me?”

Something inside Crowley’s chest blossoms, as if everything in there wasn’t burnt out long ago. He swallows, licks his lips, and inclines his head toward Aziraphale, pushing his sunglasses down his nose to look at him over the metal rim.

“You still trust me around an apple tree, angel?” he asks, his voice shockingly smooth. Aziraphale smiles indulgently but rolls his eyes.

“Oh, what’s the worst that could happen to me?” he asks.

“You could Fall,” Crowley says, immediate and serious. As it always does every time he has it, the chilling fear of the idea grips his insides, stifling and killing whatever bloomed there moments ago. He can imagine terrible, heinous things - it’s part of his job description - but he’s never been able to think of anything worse than Aziraphale Falling.

Aziraphale reaches out instantly, wrapping a gentle and steadying hand around Crowley’s forearm, and says firmly, “I won’t Fall, Crowley. Come. Let’s go for a walk.”

Arm in arm, they slowly make their way through the orchard, which is so large Crowley suspects the angel might be miraculously extending it as they continue. When Crowley reaches a lazy hand up to grab an apple as they pass under its tree, he grins at Aziraphale’s disapproving tsk.

“Don’t see any signs that say ‘Don’t Touch,’ do you?” Crowley asks. He tosses the apple to Aziraphale, who catches it with surprising deftness. “Besides, I figured you wanted one, but just felt like you couldn’t steal.”

“Doing all the dirty work for me, then?” Aziraphale asks, one judgmental eyebrow raised.

“Only since the Garden,” Crowley says. “The First one, I mean. Not this one. Or the hanging ones in Babylon.”

“Oh, I do miss the hanging gardens,” Aziraphale says wistfully. He looks around before waving his empty hand over the ground beside the tree. A blanket falls perfectly over the grass. “Shall we sit?”

“Tartan, angel? Really?” Crowley drops to the blanket with ample grace.

“It’s stylish,” says Aziraphale, following suit. Crowley leans against the tree and watches Aziraphale take a bite of the apple. Fall for me, he thinks, hopeless. He turns away, resting his head back against the bark, his eyes closed as his tips his face toward the sky.

“I think this variety is meant for making cider,” Aziraphale says. “It’s not bad, but a bit too tart to eat.”

“What variety do you prefer?” Crowley asks. Aziraphale hums.

“Ooh, I ate a lovely Norfolk Pippin in England a few years ago,” he says after a few moments. “Crisp, sugary. A perfect dessert apple, if one really wants to call an apple ‘dessert.’”

“I take it you don’t,” Crowley says. He snaps his fingers. He doesn’t need to open his eyes to know that the green apple in Aziraphale’s hand has suddenly acquired a reddish blush and some minor russeting. “There you go, angel.”

“Crowley, you indulge me,” Aziraphale says softly. Crowley’s chest clenches as he hears him take another bite. Fall in love with me, he thinks. "Thank you," says Aziraphale. Crowley can't bear it.

"You really have to give it to humans," he says, opening his eyes and jerking his head toward town, "the way they're constantly reimagining and reinventing things, even religion. You'd think they'd get tired. Heaven, I get tired. But not humans! Humans never tire. It's brilliant, really, what they come up with to put their faith in. Even the really out there stuff - and, I don't need to tell you, there has been some really out there stuff."

"Can I tell you something that might be blasphemy?" Aziraphale asks quietly. Crowley turns his head so fast he actually feels a twinge in his neck.

"That's my favorite kind of something to be told, angel," he says. Whatever this is, it's going to be good. Aziraphale gives him the tiniest flash of a smile.

"I think I like it better here," he says, "than I did in the Garden." Crowley takes a breath, inhales the confession slowly as he thinks about what the angel means by it.

"Yeah, that makes sense," he says, slow and careful. Aziraphale is looking at him with something akin to trepidation in his eyes. "There's more things here that you like, for a start. No books in Eden. No symphonies. Very limited variety of food."

"The company is better as well," Aziraphale says. Crowley blinks at him.

"Well, yeah," he says, feeling a bit foolish. "You know, you don't need an excuse to boast about your accomplished human friends. Who's it this time? Some poet or novelist or chef--"

"I was referring to you, Crowley," Aziraphale says with an affectionate roll of his eyes. Crowley removes his sunglasses.

"What?"

"You are the better company to which I was referring," Aziraphale repeats. "Truthfully, I don't think--I don't know if I need much else than, well, this. Right here." Crowley stares.

"You're saying you'd rather be in this garden, right now, than that one?" he asks. He needs to be certain.

"This is an orchard, not a garden," Aziraphale says, because Crowley knows he can't help it. "But regardless, it doesn't have to necessarily be this garden. Just--any one with you in it." Crowley's heart is pumping very fast.

"I was in the First one, angel," he says, unable to keep a slow smile from winding its way onto his face. "Rather famously, I might add."

"Yes, but you weren't in your human form, were you?" Aziraphale says. "I couldn't talk with you, or--or--eat apples with you." He's blushing again. Crowley's never seen his cheeks go so pink. Almost as pink as his mouth.

"Right," Crowley says, feeling very much as though someone is in the unnerving process of yanking the tartan blanket right out from under him. "So. Better company, then."

"And, ah, less supervision," says Aziraphale. He's staring at Crowley, and heaven, that's a thing, isn't it? Crowley isn't sure the angel's ever stared at him like this before. He at least hasn't allowed himself to be caught at it.

Crowley can feel his heart beating in his throat as he leans in close to Aziraphale, not to imply anything - honestly - but simply to ensure he's heard clearly when he murmurs, "Fewer signs that say 'Don't Touch.'"

Aziraphale's eyes go wide. He takes in an audible breath, looks down at Crowley's lips as he licks his own. Crowley can't breathe, is thankful he doesn't strictly have to. He cannot take his eyes off his angel. He knows they must be widened, too, and yellow, yellow, yellow. Aziraphale looks back up to meet them again.

"Only the invisible ones," he says, sounding, at least, deeply regretful. "The ones we know are there, even if we can't see them."

Crowley blinks once, twice, then sits back. The spell is broken. The moment has passed. Aziraphale has deemed him unworthy, and so he is.

"I'm--" Aziraphale starts, but then apparently thinks better of it, for which Crowley is grateful. He's already fighting his instinct to disappear. If the angel apologized, he might cry. "What's next for you, after you leave here?" Aziraphale asks instead.

"Just woke up from a thirty-year nap," Crowley says with a shrug. He feels like he’s defying something, but he has no idea what it could be. "Might go back to sleep for another couple decades." It wasn’t his plan fifteen seconds ago. Aziraphale huffs out a little laugh.

"Sleep," he says, the eye roll more in his voice than on his face. "You’ve no need for sleep."

"You’ve no need for food," Crowley points out, snatching the apple from Aziraphale's hand. He rubs his thumb lightly over the flesh of it, where Aziraphale has bitten. It’s as close as he’ll ever get to the angel’s mouth, now, isn’t it? "We each have our human vices."

"Food is not a vice," Aziraphale says stubbornly.

"Pleasures, then. Human ones,” says Crowley. He tilts his head to look at Aziraphale. “Come back with me. Try it out,” he says, increasingly aware that he is all but begging. “I can make a compelling argument for sleep, if it’s good company you so require.” Aziraphale looks away.

“I have a bookshop to run,” he says.

“Oh, come on,” Crowley laughs. “You never want to open it to the public anyway.” Aziraphale sighs.

“My side will notice if I just go missing for twenty years.” Crowley frowns.

“Is there anything I could say that would tempt you?” he asks in a pathetic whisper. Aziraphale looks at him again, his expression uncharacteristically difficult to read.

“It’s not for lack of temptation,” he says. Crowley sighs and leans back fully against the tree once more. A silence envelops them, uncomfortable in a way a silence between them hasn’t been since Babylon. All along the orchard, birds stop singing. Crowley doesn’t know if that’s his doing or Aziraphale’s.

“Can we--can we set a date and location to meet again?” the angel asks eventually. “Before you go back to sleep?”

“St. James Park?” Crowley suggests. Aziraphale nods.

“When?” he asks. Crowley shrugs. He looks down at the apple in his hand, at his thumb pressed against teeth marks.

“Pick a year and all,” he says, because it’s up to Aziraphale. It’s always up to Aziraphale.

“I don’t know,” Aziraphale says, making a disgruntled sort of face. “Third of June, 1862?”

“It’s a date,” Crowley says with a nod, then wishes he hadn’t.

“Shall I urge you to set an alarm so you don’t sleep right on through it?” Aziraphale asks, smiling like it’s a joke.

“Don’t need an alarm for you, angel,” Crowley says, smiling himself, brittle. “We both know I’ll come when you call.” He holds out the apple to Aziraphale to take back, and thinks, Fall, fall, fall.

1868

The villagers call it a miracle, the relics arriving in town on Saint Valentine's Day.

The villagers are, of course, correct.

Aziraphale has been in Roquemaure for two months now. Technically, he supposes, he wasn't required to stay. He knows the higher ups expected him to pop in a couple of months ago, enable the miracle, and leave quickly. He likes to see these kinds of long-term miracles through, though. Besides, it's been quite awhile since he was in France.

It's calmer now than last time. Less rioting. Less upheaval. Less beheading.

Less Crowley.

Six years is certainly not the longest Aziraphale has ever gone without seeing or speaking to Crowley. They went almost a thousand years once, at the beginning, after the Garden. They’ve gone six centuries in the far distant past, and six decades slightly more recently than that. Six years, to an angel and a demon, is nothing. Six years is barely a blink. Six years is barely half an unnecessary breath. Six years is nothing.

But these six years….

Crowley’s silence shatters glass.

He’s probably only sleeping, which is more get-under-one's-skin irritating to Aziraphale than any alternative. It means Crowley is experiencing a peaceful slumber while Aziraphale is left to feel the residual pain of their last meeting alone. It means that nowhere else is Crowley to be found, feeling equally morose and guilt-ridden and anxious. Crowley isn’t anywhere wanting to apologize or forgive or make up. It’s just Aziraphale, dreadfully alone in the world, suffering by himself.

Or perhaps Crowley is awake. Aziraphale can’t be sure without going to his flat, which he is not going to do. Perhaps Crowley is awake and going about his life, not speaking to Aziraphale and doing just fine for it. Perhaps Crowley doesn’t consider them friends anymore. Perhaps Crowley no longer--

Aziraphale can’t consider it for too long, what Crowley might not do anymore. It wouldn’t matter anyway, even if the worst was indeed true. He may not stand by his every word but he stands by his decision. He could never, ever, ever take part in something that would cause such utter destruction to Crowley as holy water. He can’t believe Crowley could even suggest it to him, that he would even ask it of him, knowing--

But he doesn’t know, does he? Aziraphale’s never told him.

It seems unfathomable that Crowley wouldn’t know, but every time Aziraphale has looked back and taken stock of each moment he’s spent with Crowley since the Garden wall, it is, most unfortunately, the sole reasonable conclusion. Of course he doesn’t know. The way Aziraphale has treated him in the past, the things he’s said to him, the constant reminders of their differences - of why Crowley is different - and their afternoon in the orchard thirty-three years ago…Well, it’s no wonder Crowley was so perfunctory and formal when they met in St. James Park. Clearly it was meant to be a goodbye, and so it has been, and now Crowley is done with him, which is fine. It's helpful, even - convenient! - because Aziraphale should be done with Crowley, too, should have never even begun.

Aziraphale sighs. He shouldn’t be occupying his time or thoughts with this, with Crowley. Not right now. Not when his miracle has been completed and he can go home, back to London and Soho and his poor neglected bookshop. He hardly has an excuse left now for heaven, if they were to ask what the hell he was dawdling for, but. Well.

The relics do belong to Valentinus. He can’t just leave without paying his respects.

He isn't expecting more than a dozen people at the church. The religiosity here, as everywhere else in France, leaves quite a bit to be desired, and these relics are here as an eleventh hour intercession for the town's blighted vineyards. Aziraphale is anticipating the priest, a few nuns and altar boys, and the landowner who trekked all the way to Rome and back to make good on a prayer. He's expecting to slide in somewhere in the back rows alongside the handful of faithful elderly parishioners who've come to appreciate the sporadic Sunday attendance of the eccentric man who's watching over the flower shop after the owners suddenly decided to realize their recent dream of wintering in New Zealand.

He is not expecting the church to be so full that it's standing room only. It looks like every person in the whole town is here, praying, peaceably queueing toward the relics at the front of the church, beseeching God to heal their vines, to resurrect that which makes a dying village die. Aziraphale joins the crowd wordlessly, drawn as he is to it, and looks all around him, taking in the townspeople's collective devotion and hope.

By the time he reaches the altar, he's so moved he can scarcely think, but he pushes through it. Staring down at the bones of an old friend, he thinks of Valentinus reaching through bars to heal a young girl's eyes, penning an encouraging letter to her just before he goes to meet his death. He thinks of Crowley standing beside him in that arena, bringing him comfort in his time of distress simply by being there, working without recognition to make Aziraphale happy. He thinks of the blight infecting the vineyards, brought from the States inside vines that were supposed to enhance an already suffering livelihood.

The relics aren't intended to help. They're not meant to work. Roquemaure is supposed to die.

But Aziraphale wasn't supposed to give away his sword. He wasn't meant to become best friends with Crowley. He wasn't intended to take the love he was created for and apply it to a demon.

If Crowley were here with him, as he has been on so many previous Saint Valentine's Days, then he would perform his own miracle. He would justify it as demonic - "Successful vineyards mean more copious amounts of wine in the world, angel," he would say, "which can only lead to more nights of drunken debauchery" - and change the white to red as a personal preference. He would save this town and swear it was unintentional.

Aziraphale touches the femur, the tibia, the radius. He cups his hand around the epiphysis of the ulna and pours his angelic power into it - the part of his power that revives dead animals, that extended the life of a remarkable woman in the Arabian desert by a few months just because his friend asked him to do so. It will take a bit of time, enough to ensure suspicion isn't aroused, but Roquemaure will be saved. A wine label will be named after this day, after this saint.

It will be red.

1920

They agreed to meet this time - in front of a church, no less - so there went the element of surprise that so flatters Crowley's affinity for dramatic entrances. The most he could do was all in his body and clothes, and luckily, the time and place and other such circumstances suit his needs very well, and Aziraphale - in womanly form again himself, long-haired and thick-thighed and soft-bellied - takes one look at him and inhales audibly, clicks his tongue, rolls his eyes, and utters, far too deep for what would match his body, "Oh, good Lord."

Crowley - small-breasted and dark-lipped and glittering with mischief disguised as sin - grins. Meeting up with Aziraphale hasn’t felt this satisfying since the Reign of Terror. He’ll live off of that oh good Lord, for centuries if he has to. Adjusting the loose top of his dress and swiping aside his bobbed red hair, he winks. Aziraphale might not be able to see it behind his glasses, but Crowley knows he’ll sense it.

"There's my angel," he says cheekily. "Only you could make that phrase sound like a complaint to Head Office."

"I've half a mind to formally submit one," Aziraphale grumbles, his voice returning to a higher pitch, but softens immediately thereafter. "It's good to see you, Crowley. I--I've missed you. I thought you might not come."

"Angel, we've been over this," Crowley says with an arched eyebrow and an indulgent smile. "I'll always come when you call. And this time you literally called."

"I can always miracle the telephone out of your flat if you don't--"

"Don't you dare," Crowley says. "I like it. It was just, you know, a confusing way to wake up from a fifty-eight year sleep. Went to bed without a phone, woke up to one ringing. It was all rather--discombobulating. I forgot we were technically in a fight until I hung up." He winces. He’s not sure if they’re acknowledging that or pretending it didn’t happen.

"I wondered," Aziraphale says apologetically, though, Crowley notes, not apologizing. He tucks a curl of his radiant blonde hair behind his ear. Crowley allows himself a moment of distraction in following the angel’s movement, in wishing he could ghost his mouth over the shell of Aziraphale’s ear. "You seem in good spirits, though. I take it you slept well." Crowley blinks.

"I take it you've never experienced a depression nap," Crowley says darkly, then shrugs at Aziraphale's raised eyebrows. "I've had worse."

"Well, thank you for meeting me," Aziraphale says with a small, uncertain smile. "You--you don't have to stay, if you're still angry--"

"Angel," Crowley says plainly, "it's--" But he doesn't know if any forgiveness is necessary, and he certainly has nothing to apologize for, so. "I'm staying. Chicago is where it's at these days, I hear. American women seem poised to get the vote, after all. You know how I enjoy the kind of chaos that sort of thing engenders."

"Good word use," Aziraphale says begrudgingly, which makes Crowley grin again, sticking a forked tongue out between his teeth just to see the angel roll his eyes before continuing. "That's why I'm here, by the way. Heaven is getting a bit--tetchy. I'm to take notes on the League of Women Voters rally and report back--"

"What in Satan's name are they getting tetchy over?" Crowley asks, bending over to lean his elbows on the fence. Aziraphale frowns, his blue eyes scanning the angle of Crowley’s body. Crowley raises an eyebrow.

"Suffrage," the angel says in a flat, unimpressed tone, dropping the feminine voice altogether. Crowley hums in understanding.

"Ah, yes. They never did warm up to democracy or representative governments, did they?" he says. "Not really their style, everyone having a voice."

"I just don't understand the problem!" Aziraphale exclaims, to Crowley's absolute surprise. "What is the point of voting at all if everyone doesn't get a say? And that's not to mention the fact that this is only for women who--well, who look like you and me! God knows how long it will be before African-Americans--"

"So skip it," Crowley says.

“What?”

“Skip the rally, angel,” says Crowley. He twists around so that his back is to the fence, rests his elbows back and leans, pushing out his chest. The hemline of his dress is already above his knee, and even more of his bare skin is exposed when he places his foot on the bottom fence post. Aziraphale’s eyes flicker downward for the briefest moment. Across the street, a man whistles. Before Crowley can even open his mouth, and without even looking behind him, Aziraphale snaps his fingers. The man’s shoes catch fire.

“I can’t just skip out on work,” Aziraphale insists, but there’s a shake of hesitation in his voice that tells Crowley to try again.

“Oh, come on, you can just lie in your report. They’re not going to know the difference,” Crowley says, sparing a glance for the man across the street. Other men have managed to put out the flames, but now the shoes are flaking off, the smell of burnt leather in the air.

“Well,” Aziraphale says, considering, “that is...very likely true.”

“Let’s go do something frivolous,” Crowley says. “Something that frivolous women do. You can call it research if you’d like. You can report back to heaven that suffrage will never happen here because so many ladies just want to--I dunno--go shopping and giggle.”

“You think we should skip the rally to go shopping?” Aziraphale says.

“Well, we’re not going to take that bloke to hospital,” Crowley says, nodding across the street. Aziraphale finally looks over his shoulder, only to roll his eyes when he turns back. Crowley smiles. “Anyway, yes, shopping. I’ll take you shopping, angel. We can get you blended in round here a bit more, if you’re interested.” He removes his sunglasses and lets his eyes rake down Aziraphale’s frame.

“Oh, please,” the angel mutters, flustered. Normally Crowley likes to enjoy any time he manages to make Aziraphale blush, but for now, he prefers the alternative view. His curves are hidden under loose, long, pastel pink silk but Crowley still remembers. He always remembers. He licks his lips as he looks up to meet Aziraphale's eyes again.

"Hemlines are fast-rising, angel," he says lowly.

"I've yet to see anyone whose dress is as short as yours," Aziraphale scoffs. Crowley grins and puts his dark glasses back on.

"What can I say? I'm ahead of the curve."

"You are the curve, my dear," says Aziraphale, and Crowley thinks, Yes, yes, I am your dear. I am yours.

"That may be the nicest thing you've ever said to me," he says, sticking his human tongue between his teeth. "For the record, angel, there is and never has been and never will be anything wrong with the way you look, in any form you take. Don't let humans or any other principalities make you feel otherwise."

"Thank you," Aziraphale says, then, abruptly, "I like what you've done to your hair." Crowley shakes his head, feels the smooth strands fall over his face, stopping bluntly right under his jaw.

"Could take you to get your hair cut instead, if you like," he offers. As if possessed, he reaches out then, and Aziraphale doesn't stop him, so he curls a bit of the angel's hair into a ringlet round his finger, holds it there for a fraction of a moment.

He hasn't felt Grace since his Fall - that's what they took from him, from all the demons, that's what makes them Unforgivable - but here, in front of this churchyard in Chicago, he knows that's what's pouring onto his skin. It should terrify him. It should make him drop his hand, back off. It should push him out of love the way he was pushed out of heaven. He hopes it gets under his fingernail instead, never to be scrubbed out, always making this one tiny part of him thrum with this vague burn.

The sound of a rabble bleeds suddenly onto the street from several blocks away. It's a noise that Crowley knows all too well, one he's inspired, once or twice. It's the sound of protest, of practical rage, of a boiling point. The suffragettes don't ask questions, never did. They just demand, always have. Perhaps that's where Crowley went wrong.

"Oh," says Aziraphale fretfully, looking over his shoulder. The hair round Crowley's finger unfurls itself as it falls gracefully away. Crowley's fingernail stings. "I really should--"

"Come on, angel," Crowley says, a last ditch effort. "Last time we were together on Saint Valentine's Day, we were in this country - not even very far from here, I might add - you dragged me through an apple orchard."

It's a nice way of not saying what he really wants to say, which is, Last time you battered my burnt out heart and here I am still, back for more. Never let it be said that demons are sadists by nature when Crowley is here, ready and willing to walk into the church behind him, barefoot, if this angel before him asked. He's aching to crawl down the aisle on hands and knees, to lick the floor, to lay himself out on the altar as a sacrifice to the God that pitched him into hell, if it's what Aziraphale wants.

"They weren't even very good apples, were they?" Aziraphale says pleasantly. It's a nice way, Crowley supposes, of saying the truth, of saying, I don't want you.

"Please tell me there are better eats here," he says, giving a lazy twitch of his hips. Aziraphale doesn't even look.

"There are! Chicago is going to become known for its food scene, I just know it," the angel says excitedly. "There's a restaurant down by the Loop - The Triangle - run by an Italian immigrant called Toffanetti. The man stands in the window carving sugar-cured hams!" Crowley can't help it, the impressed face he makes.

"That's rather brilliant marketing," he says.

"And," Aziraphale says, lowering his voice, "I know a speakeasy not far from there." Crowley beams.

"Oh, you have missed me," he says. "Hope you don't mind a stop along the way, though. I hear Fannie May Candy store is the place for buttercreams, and I recall you're quite fond of those little things."

"Oh," Aziraphale says, sounding both distressed and pleased, not to mention distressed about being pleased. "Crowley, you don't need to buy me anything. It's my turn to treat you to lunch, after all."

I would buy back the stars I made in the sky for you, Crowley thinks. I would get a real human job and work however long I'd need to earn enough real human money to bargain with the Almighty for you and your soul. I would give it all to you in pennies and beg you to try to purchase my freedom from hell if it meant I would be enough for you to want me. Name the price and I will find a way to buy your love.

"Nonsense, angel," Crowley says, grinning. "Consider it my demonic contribution to the ever-increasing crass overcommercialization of this holiday."

1981

Aziraphale knows this isn’t Crowley’s sort of film. Aziraphale knows the sorts of films Crowley enjoys: slick-haired spies, double crossings, guns blazing. Crowley had taken him to see a James Bond film back in 1973, only to usher him out halfway through because, he said, “You just looked like you weren’t having a good time, angel,” which was a very polite understatement. He’d been hesitant then, two years ago, when Crowley turned up eager to take him to the cinema again, but he said, “You’ll love this one, angel, I promise you,” and he was right. Earlier today, when Crowley barged into the bookshop and said, “There’s a sequel, angel, get ready for a caper,” Aziraphale didn’t even hesitate to hurry the few customers out and turn the door sign to CLOSED.

Crowley’s gone and bought them a popcorn and a bag of Skittles, ostensibly for them to share, but when they get to their seats in the center of the theater, Aziraphale opens the Skittles bag to find it full of the black currant flavor only, which Crowley doesn’t like.

“Funny, that,” Crowley says. “Go on and pour them into your popcorn, angel.”

“That seems a frivolous miracle,” Aziraphale says, raising one eyebrow as he does what Crowley suggested, always open to trying a new treat.

“Nah, I changed all the bags to that flavor only,” Crowley says cheekily. “It’ll ruin several people’s film-going experiences. Just not yours.”

“Oh, this is an incredible flavor combination, Crowley,” Aziraphale says after eating a handful of the popcorn-Skittles combination. Crowley hums happily. An unpleasant thought suddenly occurs to Aziraphale. “You don’t think this will be the last film with these puppets, do you?”

“What makes you say that, angel?”

“Well, when we saw the first one, it was a full house, but now there’s only you and me,” he says, glancing worriedly around the empty theater. From his left, Crowley makes a satisfied little sound.

“So it is,” he says slowly. “Seems almost miraculous.” Aziraphale gives him a sidelong look, trying to keep the smile from his face and failing terribly. Crowley shifts in his seat until he’s turned to face Aziraphale more than the screen, leaning in close and snaking his arm round the back of Aziraphale’s chair. “Think of it this way: now you can enjoy the film without all the loud, disruptive families everywhere.”

“I don’t mind families,” Aziraphale says, slightly affronted. “My side highly approve of children’s films and--and family-friendly events--”

“They wouldn’t if they knew family-friendly events is one of mine,” Crowley says in a dark tone just as the lights dim. “No arguing, angel,” he says, tapping Aziraphale once on the shoulder. “Just watch the film.”

Aziraphale thinks he might enjoy The Great Muppet Caper even more than he did The Muppet Movie, although it’s difficult to untangle his impression of the film from the presence of Crowley beside him, watching him through dark glasses. Crowley told him, centuries ago on a pirate ship when they were both drunk on rum and decidedly not doing their jobs, that seeing delight on his face warmed Crowley deeper than the fires of hell ever could. Aziraphale can’t help but think of it now, during the quiet moments scattered across the film, when he becomes aware again of Crowley’s eyes on him and his laughter and applause. Every so often he can see the sharp knife glint of Crowley’s smile from the corner of his eye, and each time his heart races and cracks.

“What an unbelievable coincidence,” Miss Piggy says to the camera, after a motorbike comes rolling out of a truck to a soft stop in front of her in her hour of need.

“She rather reminds me of you,” Aziraphale says out of the side of his mouth. Crowley’s laugh is abrupt and loud in Aziraphale’s ear. It makes him smile.

Afterward, as they walk out to the Bentley, Crowley says, “What would you say to a spot of dessert, angel? Real dessert, not cinema sweets. There’s a little place in Hyde Park serving raspberry crème brûlées for Valentine’s Day. They don’t close for another hour.” Crowley looks at him across the table, over the rim of his sunglasses, as he eats, and Aziraphale tries with great difficulty to focus on the sublime custard instead of the path Crowley’s thumb is making up and down the handle of his coffee mug. He knows that Crowley thinks this is easy for him, this resistance, this rejection. He’s terrified of how easily Crowley would have him, if he let show that he struggles.

“I can dim the lights and sing you songs full of sad things,” sings the Bentley’s radio as Crowley drives back to the bookshop. Aziraphale stares down at his hands in his lap, thinks of the song in the film they just saw, in the scene where Miss Piggy and Kermit danced slowly and fell in love. His hand had itched, then, to reach over and grab Crowley’s, the one that wasn’t hovering inches away from Aziraphale’s shoulder. There’s the same itch now, to let his hand rest on Crowley’s leg, to touch the soft ginger hair at the nape of Crowley’s neck.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says. Crowley hums acknowledgment and twists the volume knob down. “I’ve been wondering...are these--are these dates?” He risks a look at Crowley’s face and sees only the strange shadows that streetlights form over his features. It’s so rare that Crowley guards himself around Aziraphale, but this is always what it looks like: an immediate shuttering, a leather jacket hiding the heart on his sleeve, a pulling away of the cards in his hand.

He learned it, the angel is ashamed to say, from Aziraphale.

“These are whatever you want them to be, angel,” Crowley says carefully, keeping his gaze steadfastly on the road. Aziraphale silences his own sigh and looks away.

Crowley thinks this is easy. Crowley thinks he can make things so just by willing them to be. Crowley thinks the only thing standing in the way of the two of them being together is Aziraphale.

Whatever Aziraphale wants - Doesn’t he know it’s not as simple as that? If Aziraphale could just have what he wants....

It’s unfair, the way he treats Crowley, but it’s unfair, too, the way Crowley keeps forcing his hand. It’s unfair, the way Crowley feels free and brave enough, over and over and over, to pry open his ribcage for Aziraphale to see his name written on the beating heart there. If Aziraphale showed Crowley the cracks in his own, the fissures and fault lines, Crowley would see his name spelled out there, too, in the sigils of a language that Crowley might not even be able to read anymore. If Crowley knew it was there, if Crowley knew...he wouldn’t stop until the truth of it destroyed both of them.

And Crowley would get it worse than Aziraphale, wouldn’t he? My lot do not send rude notes, he’d said, way back in the eighteenth century. Aziraphale is starting in heaven. The most they could do is push him down. The worst he could do is Fall. Crowley, though, can’t sink lower. Unwanted by both hell and heaven, he would have nowhere to go. He’d be destroyed, the holy water given to him by Aziraphale used against him - they’d find that poetic, wouldn’t they? The thought makes Aziraphale sick - and there would be nothing left of him, no proof he ever existed.

Aziraphale won’t be part of something so dangerous for Crowley, nothing so destructive. But he’s not oblivious. He’s not unfeeling. He knows every rejection breaks Crowley’s heart. He knows, though he’s desperate to pretend he doesn’t, that will destroy Crowley eventually, too. He just doesn’t know how to soften the blow, how to make Crowley understand.

“What I want isn’t--” he starts. “--that is to say...I need them not to be.”

“Alright, then they aren’t,” Crowley says smoothly. Aziraphale looks at him. “It’s just two old friends commemorating the death anniversary of somebody one of them knew once.”

Aziraphale looks at him.

Aziraphale looks at him as intensely as Crowley looked at him throughout the film, start to finish. Crowley stares solely at the road rolling out before them, his gaze not shifting even when he reaches out to twist the volume knob again.

“I’d like for you and I to go romancing,” the radio sings. “Say the word: your wish is my command.”

2003

"--look, the point is not the Malfoys! The point is: Hogwarts houses. Now, I, obviously, am a Slytherin. What say you?"

"Crowley," Aziraphale says, sounding utterly lost but satisfactorily amused, "I have absolutely no idea what you're saying."

"Spoken like a true Hufflepuff," Crowley says, unimpressed and unsurprised and having already reached a conclusion.

"Of course, dear," says the angel indulgently, bending down a bit further to peer at the bottom shelf of the display case. "And one of the snickerdoodles, if you please," he says to the young lady behind the counter.

"You still have one left," she says as she places the snickerdoodle cupcake into the half-dozen box.

"Ah! Well, then, a devil's food cake, for my friend here," Aziraphale says, flashing Crowley a sly smile. Crowley rolls his eyes.

"Funny," he says flatly.

This year they've ended up meeting in New York. Crowley was asked to tempt a local congressman to accept an invitation to the bedroom of a woman planning to blackmail him, and Aziraphale, assigned to bless the very same woman with sudden financial stability so that she wouldn't feel the need to blackmail the very same congressman. So, naturally, after arriving and comparing notes, they decided to do nothing at all, opening up a four-day vacation, during which Aziraphale confessed that he recently changed his mind about cupcakes, and now here they are.

Magnolia's Bakery at 11 in the morning on a Friday is full of harried nannies with their charges, trendy twenty-somethings who reek of desire to prove they are very cool, and teenagers who should be in school. All of them have been eyeing Aziraphale and his outfit with confusion and judgment from the moment the two of them walked in, and Crowley is just about ready to shield the angel with his demonic wings and scream at everyone in this blasted bakery. Instead, they all abruptly remember appointments they have several neighborhoods away. By the time Aziraphale has paid for his half-dozen cupcakes, he and Crowley have the whole place to themselves.

"Oh!" Aziraphale says in pleased surprise. He gives Crowley a grateful smile and Crowley stores it away like a squirrel to remember later. Pathetic.

"I can't believe you've never read these books," Crowley says as they take a seat at a small table by the window. "That's all you do, is read. Well, and eat. 's that the vanilla on vanilla, then? How is it?"

Aziraphale nods, his mouth full of cupcake. Crowley has never accomplished a temptation more harrowing than the stray buttercream smeared along the Cupid's bow above the angel's lips. Crowley wants to lean over and lick it and keep licking.

"It's perfectly lovely," Aziraphale says finally, dabbing at his face with a crumply paper napkin. "Fluffy, light, sweet - everything a cupcake should be." Crowley raises an eyebrow.

"And yet?" he prompts. He knows a dissatisfied Aziraphale when he sees one.

"And yet," Aziraphale sighs dramatically, "I long for more adventurous and interesting flavors. The classics are wonderful, of course, but I'm sure they can, in fact, be beaten." He looks down into the box. "Hmm. Perhaps the snickerdoodle is up to scratch."

"So what flavors would you like to see?" Crowley asks.

"Oh, I don't know," Aziraphale says.

"You do!" exclaims Crowley, his voice coming out in a delighted growl. "Tell me, angel. You've been imagining your ideal cupcake selection. I just know it." Aziraphale flushes and Crowley's heart skips. He leans forward to rest his elbow on the table, his chin in his hand, enraptured.

"I think a nice salted caramel would be a fine start," Aziraphale says, pausing as he unwraps the snickerdoodle cupcake in his hands. "Some citrus flavors - I'd be interested to see a pink grapefruit frosting, for example, or lime. Even just on a vanilla cake base, that would be appealing." Crowley nods, encouraging. Aziraphale smiles. He puts the snickerdoodle cupcake down.

"Coffee with dark chocolate ganache," he continues dreamily. "Earl grey tea with raspberry Swiss meringue buttercream. Chocolate and peanut butter swirl with marshmallow frosting. And that's not even getting into the wide world of flavorings that cocktails have to offer."

"Is that so?" Crowley says, intrigued. He's not much of a cupcake person - not much of a food person at all, really - but he'd consider reconsidering his stance if he met a really good boozy one. Aziraphale grins and leans forward, placing his hands daintily on the table.

"Just think of the possibilities, dear," he says, lowering his voice like he's sharing a mischievous secret. "Piña colada cupcakes - coconut cake, rum and pineapple buttercream." Crowley grunts his interest and approval. "Margarita cupcakes - vanilla cake infused with tequila and lime frosting made infused with--"

"More tequila," Crowley says in a hushed tone.

"Precisely!" Aziraphale says happily. "Mimosa cupcakes made with orange cake and champagne buttercream. Mojito--"

"Mmm," hums Crowley. He loves a good mojito. Aziraphale's smile brightens even further.

"And," he says, leaning ever closer to Crowley, "just imagine: a red wine chocolate ganache." Crowley imagines. Crowley imagines it tasting breathtakingly delicious, like an absolute revelation on Aziraphale's lips as he kisses it off.

"Oh, angel, how can you say such things to me when you've only got boring vanilla and devil's food cake in there?" he says pitifully, playing it up with a pout. Aziraphale shrugs and sighs again.

"Humans are supposed to be the ones with imagination," he says, disappointed. He picks up the snickerdoodle cupcake again and takes a bite. Crowley watches his expression change as he chews. "Hmm. Not bad," he says after a minute, "but still, all in all, rather boring. I don't see why you're surprised about the books, by the way. You know I don't read much new fiction, Crowley."

Crowley blinks. Right. Hogwarts.

"Well, take it from me, someone who never bloody reads books: you're missing out," he says, leaning back in his chair. "There's fantastic characters in there, and this last one - oh, the series has taken a turn for the darker and, let me tell you, things are about to get very exciting."

"Isn't there a fifth book coming out this year?" Aziraphale asks.

"In a few months, yeah," Crowley says. "It's been years since her last one. Lucky I only just read them, otherwise--"

“I’ll put in an order for my shop,” says Aziraphale thoughtfully. Crowley raises his eyebrows and fixes the angel with his most wicked grin.

“Come to think, I would love to get my hands on a copy a bit early.”

“Not a chance, Crowley,” Aziraphale says. His stern tone has Crowley shifting in his seat. “You’ll get your copy at midnight like everyone else.”

“But I can get it at midnight at your shop,” Crowley says, half a question. Aziraphale smiles at him.

“Of course. I’m just ordering the one copy, after all.”

I love you so much I think I would actually die from it if I were human, Crowley thinks. I love you so much it’s a disease, it's a tumor. I love you so much it makes me sick, he wants to say. Instead, he drums his fingers on the table with intent. If his angel wants access to more clever cupcakes, then his angel will get access to more clever cupcakes.

He senses it immediately, an accidental overdoing it. It’s the same feeling he got in 1601 when the angel wanted him to save that damn Shakespeare tragedy. He glances out the window, his eyelid twitching behind his sunglasses. Nothing looks different out there yet, but it will soon, and it will for quite a long time, and everyone will wonder what the heaven sparked it all to begin with.

On the list of low-grade yet everlasting evil Crowley has sown in his time on earth - a list which includes boy bands, Coachella, and, yes, family-friendly events - he thinks there’s a real chance that the impending cupcake trend might end up being the worst.

2015

They agreed to five years. Aziraphale wishes they hadn’t agreed to five years, but he’s trying to find the joys in it.

He likes gardening, for example. It makes him think of the Garden, a half dozen millenia ago. Nothing needed tending to then, of course, and anything that did fell under the purview of Adam and Eve. He was only on guard duty in front of an apple tree, pretending he didn’t notice the sudden appearance of a snake circling the trunk, and behaving as if his stepping away at a pivotal moment when Eve was so close by was unintentional and not part of a Plan. He’d given away his sword partially because he felt guilty, like he lied to them and let them down. That, perhaps, should have been his first clue that his loyalties might, one day, fall into question.

He caught the snake, more than once, winding its way all the way up to the top of the tree, peeking its head out between branches, gazing skyward.

“What are you looking at?” he asked the snake, once, softly so as not to spook it. The snake looked at him. It couldn’t talk, and yet Aziraphale still asked, “What are you looking for?” and didn’t get his answer until about eighteen centuries later.

“But--the humans can’t see that far away without help,” he said, indignant on the snake’s behalf. “They might not be able to see your work for--for another eighteen centuries! For millennia, perhaps!”

“Yes, angel, but I know they’re up there,” the snake said, not quite a snake anymore, with his arms pillowing his head, lying beside Aziraphale atop a grassy hill somewhere in Asia. Light pollution hadn’t been invented yet, and neither had anything Crawley could use as sunglasses. When Aziraphale turned his head, he could see the glittering amber-gold of his friend’s eyes, the stars above them reflected in their smooth surface.

“But you can’t see them either,” Aziraphale said in a sad whisper.

“Don’t need to,” Crawley said, letting his head fall to the side so he could look at Aziraphale, and look at Aziraphale, and look at Aziraphale.

He never stopped looking at Aziraphale.

So. Yes. Now. The gardening is alright. He...doesn’t dislike Warlock. He doesn’t have to spend terribly too much time around Tad and Harriet, which is considered a joy because he does dislike them. He, ostensibly, gets the honor of influencing the Antichrist toward the side of Goodness and Light. He gets to experience lovely moments like the one last week where he’d taken Warlock aside after finding him wandering the grounds alone after dinner, brought him to the telescope hidden at the northwest corner of the garden, and told him to look up.

“Aren’t those stars beautiful?” he asked in his West Country voice.

“They’re brilliant,” Warlock said.

“Warlock,” Nanny Ashtoreth said, flat and chronically unimpressed, appearing behind them. “It’s time for bed.”

“Have you seen these stars, Nanny?” Warlock asked. “Come look.”

“There’s nothing worth seeing up there, Warlock. Not when the whole earth is yours to conquer,” Nanny Ashtoreth said firmly. Aziraphale couldn’t see it, what with the sunglasses and it being dark outside, but he knew nonetheless that Nanny Ashtoreth was giving Brother Francis an extremely dry look.

This is what Aziraphale can’t determine should be counted as a joy or not. Crowley is nearby, always, never further away than the opposite corner of the grounds. They’ve not been in this close proximity for such a prolonged amount of time since the Garden, yet the distance between them is as profound as if they were on opposite ends of the world. Far from the relief he’d quietly expected to feel at being, technically, not himself, at being human, at not having the heavenly host to answer to regarding Crowley, instead he feels even more constrained by the roles they’ve chosen for themselves, for what the circumstances require. And the worst of it is that Aziraphale can’t even ask Crowley if it’s just him.

They agreed to five years and it’s not even been two and Aziraphale is clinging desperately to what he can steadily count as joys.

A joy: it is Valentine’s Day and he has been tasked with the landscaping for the Dowlings’ garden party.

A joy: the kitchen and dining room are full of platters of sweets and desserts, all red and pink and white, many of them shaped like hearts.

A joy: an introduction to a most sublime confection he’s never seen before, a childhood favorite of Tad Dowling’s, made from egg whites and corn syrup and sugar.

“Sneaking sweets, Brother Francis?” comes the voice of Nanny Ashtoreth from the doorway. Aziraphale turns, caught with his mouth full. Nanny raises an eyebrow. “I bet I could have you fired for that.”

“Would you like to try one, Nanny?” Aziraphale asks, his accent uncomfortable, still, between his teeth. “It’s called a divinity.”

The slightest, briefest quirk of one corner of Nanny’s mouth renders Aziraphale entirely unable to not smile. She walks toward him slowly, hips tight and controlled, no hint of the sway and saunter so characteristic of Crowley. The closeness to Brother Francis, though, of where Nanny stops - that’s completely Crowley. Aziraphale takes another of the nougat-like treats between his fingers and holds it up, reaches out, readying for the sweet torture of seeing Crowley part his wine red lips and stick out his tongue for the divinity. He’s not expecting Nanny’s hand to dart out, to strike him like a snake, to grip firmly and squeeze. Aziraphale nearly drops the sweet in his shock.

“Are you trying to feed me grace, angel?” sneers Crowley in a snarling whisper - for it is Crowley in this moment. Aziraphale blinks, allows himself to drop the character as well. He shakes his head just once, just barely.

“You don’t need it, Crowley,” he says quietly. Crowley’s fingernails are polished red where they dig into Aziraphale’s skin - red as blood, red as the apple that drove them all out of Eden.

“Would it make me good enough?” Crowley asks, his voice hardly more than a breath. “Even if I just--if I just wanted it, would that make you--would it make me--worthy?”

Aziraphale stares at him, mouth agape, horrified. I love you so much it terrifies me, he thinks. I love you so much I would Fall for you. I love you so much it makes me speechless.

“You don’t need it, Crowley,” he says again, and what he means is, There has never been anyone more worthy than you. If you knew how much I love you, it would kill you, it would ruin you.

“Obviously I do,” Crowley says, but he releases Aziraphale’s wrist. “Go on, then.” Aziraphale doesn’t hesitate before dropping his hand, a silent refusal to hurt Crowley like this again, to shatter both their hearts, right here and now. He’s done it so often since the Beginning that he’s lost count. He can’t do it again. Not today.

Crowley snaps back into character like an elastic band.

“I’ll call the staff in to collect these sweets for the party,” Nanny Ashtoreth says. “I suggest you make yourself scarce, gardener.” With that, she turns and leaves, her hips tight and controlled.

If you knew how much I love you, it would ruin you, Aziraphale wants to say.

Go on then, angel, he knows Crowley would say. Ruin me.

2020

It took all of six weeks for them to decide to move out of London and in together, except it didn't look like all that. It looked like Crowley slinking into the bookshop just before closing, finally saying what he'd been rehearsing alone to the walls of his flat for weeks, which was, "I've been thinking, er, about moving. Out of London, I mean." It looked like Crowley trying to goad Aziraphale into asking him to stay, into a confession. It looked like a test.

But Aziraphale only looked at him and smiled and said, "Yes, I was thinking we could relocate to Tadfield.”

"What?" Crowley said, very eloquently.

"Or at least South Downs. We are, technically, Adam Young's godfathers, after all, and we've got a bit of time to make up. Also, it’s an international dark sky reserve!” Aziraphale said. Crowley stared, his mouth open.

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Well, we’ll still have to bring the telescope, of course, but you’ll be able to see your stars and nebulae,” said the angel. He smiled pleasantly, mildly, like he wasn’t upending Crowley’s entire day, entire life. “You can point them out to me. I’ve only seen them in that astronomy photo book I gave you a few years back.”

“I’ll bring them down for you to see up close, if you say you want me to,” Crowley blurted out, then, unable to push the words back into his mouth, rushed instead into, “So, just to be clear, we’re both going?”

“Yes, of course,” Aziraphale said, at least having the decency to pretend he hadn’t heard Crowley’s desperate stumble. “In fact, I dare say there’s a cozy two-bedroom cottage in Tadfield whose owners have just decided to move to Costa Rica and are now looking to sell.” Crowley couldn’t help it, then. He met Aziraphale’s smile with his own grin.

“Well, good, because I’ve not let any place since 1586 and I’m not too keen on retreating from homeownership,” he said.

And so, together, they moved. Together, they easily shared their space. Together, they celebrated Halloween (a specialty of Crowley’s, naturally, who put on cheap, store bought devil horns and handed out full-size chocolate bars along with small but quite illegal firecrackers to the few trick or treaters that Eden Cottage got), winter solstice (at the invitation of Anathema Device and Newt Pulsifer, for Jasmine Cottage was just down the way, and by then Pepper was ankle-deep in Wicca anyway and pulling Adam and Brian and Wensleydale along into the puddle whether they liked it or not, and, as it turned out, Crowley and Aziraphale were more or less godfathers to all of the Them, and couldn’t be sure if that was because Adam willed it so or if it was just how adults being adopted by local kids worked), Christmas (a specialty of Aziraphale’s, naturally, who did all of his holiday miracles from the warmth of the cottage, standing by the window, drinking mug after winged mug of hot cocoa spiked with rum), and New Year’s--

Just the two of them then, atop a hill outside the village. Crowley, his sunglasses left in the car, directed Aziraphale’s gaze through the telescope to the nebulae he created another life or two ago, and Aziraphale said, “Stunning, my dear,” in a breathless voice of wonder that made Crowley wish the angel was looking at him.

Crowley preened but said, in faux modesty, “They’re alright,” and Aziraphale did look at him then.

“Better than anything I ever did back then,” he said. With a snap of his fingers, an arrangement of pillows encased in black satin and tartan fleece blankets settled over the bonnet of the Bentley behind them.

“What did you do?” Crowley asked, walking smoothly backward to hop onto a blanket. He beckoned Aziraphale to follow him, and Aziraphale did, shrugging his shoulders.

“Nothing,” he said, as he laid down rather more primly than Crowley had, but nevertheless beside him. Crowley looked at him, his brow furrowed.

“But you must’ve done,” he said. “They issued you a great flaming sword. They sent you down to earth. That’s a huge responsibility there.”

“It’s precisely because I did nothing that they did all that,” Aziraphale said. “It wasn’t like I was busy or doing anything important or interesting up there. They sent me here because I wasn’t anything special.” Crowley’s jaw dropped.

“‘Not anythi’--Aziraphale!” Crowley exclaimed into the starry night, sitting up and turning round to look down at his angel, who was staring up at him with an expression of faint surprise. Crowley shook his head, tried to calm down. “Aziraphale,” he said, must quieter but just as firm, just as vehement, “you’re the worthiest of while they ever had to offer. You’re the greatest thing She ever created. You are the best thing that ever came out of that place.”

Aziraphale’s face softened at the words. Crowley could see the easily visible stars above them glittering in Aziraphale’s eyes and wished they were his stars instead. I’ll do what I said, he thought. I’ll pull my stars and nebulae down until they’re all you can see. I’ll pull us both and our cottage up to them. Say the word. Say the words. I’ll rip their galaxies apart for you with my teeth and teach you how to make your own from the remains of mine.

“From where I’m lying, my dear,” Aziraphale said softly, looking up at Crowley’s yellow eyes as if he could see magnificent gold in them, “I believe there is a credible argument to be made that I’m not.”

--and yet Crowley wakes up in February, another day closer to losing his fucking mind, because they still, somehow, for reasons Crowley cannot possibly fathom, haven’t said it.

They still haven’t said it.

Crowley leans against the wall at the edge of the corridor and the den, watching Aziraphale mist water over the fiddle leaf fig sat on a stack of old books. He sighs, quietly in the back of his throat. His hard work with the houseplants, the groundwork that took decades, has all been ruined. The angel’s gone and made them soft, got them knowing the difference between love and fear, got them wanting gentleness and care. There’s no reasoning with them now. This was exactly why he kept Aziraphale away from them for so long; he knew Aziraphale would do to them what he’d been doing to Crowley for millennia.

“I’ve got some errands to run, angel,” he says, a blind-baked plan forming in his head. Aziraphale turns around to face him, sunlight bleeding in through the window behind him, lighting him up. Crowley grabs his sunglasses from the table by the front door and shoves them onto his face.

“What sort of errands?” Aziraphale asks. “Surely it can wait until after breakfast.”

“Demon stuff,” Crowley says with a shrug. “Who else will contribute as well as I to the crass overcommercialization of today?” Aziraphale tries to scowl but, adorably, fails.

“I think they manage that quite well enough on their own,” he says.

“Nah, they need my demonic help, angel,” says Crowley, “otherwise names on flowers will never get mixed up and two young women who deserve better will never learn their horrible boyfriend is cheating on them.”

“How on earth is that ‘demonic’? You’re doing them a great service,” Aziraphale says, smiling.

“It’ll be hell for him,” Crowley says, heading for the door.

"You'll be home for lunch, though, won't you?" Aziraphale asks. Crowley stops with his hand on the door knob.

"Do you want me to be home for lunch?" he asks, then, panicked, "Shit. Did we have plans, angel?" Etch them onto my skin next time, he thinks. Carve a calendar into my chest with the tip of a quill made from one of your feathers.

"No, not at all," says Aziraphale, "I just thought--well, I thought we might--I thought we might have that picnic this afternoon." Crowley blinks. A bad memory of a hazy minute in his car in Soho creeps into his mind. That picnic.

"Of course," he says, opening the door. "Be home no later than 1."

A quarter of an hour later finds him having accomplished his name-switching promise and standing in the shop next door to the florist, with lighting that hurts his eyes, staring at a huge shelf full of stuffed animals. His gaze darts between the white bears with halos holding little shiny red hearts and the red bears with devil horns holding little shiny red hearts. He picks up one of each and looks down at them in his hands.

You're My Angel, says the angel bear's heart. It's got wings.

You Light My Fire, says the demon bear's heart. It's wearing a black cape.

He looks up at the shelf, at the pair of completely normal teddy bears that come as a set, with magnets in their plush noses. He looks down again at the bears in his hands and raises an eyebrow. A moment later he feels an ever so slight but undeniable weight added to them. He holds them up and brings them toward one another slowly. He smiles when they get close enough for the magnets to work, for them to kiss.

"Fuck's sssake, I'm pathetic!" he hisses to himself before stalking over to the till.

He pops over to some nowhere town near Avignon next. He buys two bottles of the 1941 St. Valentin wine directly from the winery - he’s never had this label before but he’s heard good things, and the name lends itself to Aziraphale being a sentimental sap, so even if it’s bad, it will still serve Crowley’s purposes nicely.

It’s a flower shop right over in Avignon then, where the owner gives him an unimpressed look when he asks if they have any bouquets that say, I’m sorry for loving you so much. He has to do a Google search on his phone - Aziraphale went through a flower language phase in the mid-1700s and, despite his protests, still hasn’t quite left it - but he asks for a quick arrangement of gloxinias, jonquils, and white violets scattered among two dozen magenta and scarlet zinnias, with one red rose in the center. There’s nothing in there that apologizes, but he doesn’t think Aziraphale would want him to apologize anyway.

He goes to Paris for two gigantic boxes of decadent chocolates before leaving France for Chicago, where he buys two gigantic boxes of buttercreams. In Padua, he buys a key, antique and golden, and then he sits in his Bentley, parked just outside South Downs, with his forehead pressed to the steering wheel, breathing. This is happening. It is going to happen. Crowley is going to purge six thousand twenty-four years of love and affection and undying devotion from his soul and all he can do - all he can do - is hope Aziraphale is ready to hear it, wants to.

It takes a minor-ish miracle to tote everything into the cottage, and a slightly more major one to get it all through the doorway, but he manages to burst into the den at half past noon. Aziraphale sits on the sofa, fussing over the contents of the comically huge picnic basket before him, and when he looks up to see Crowley, his initial delight quickly falls to confusion.

“Crowley, what--”

“Flowers,” Crowley says after whipping off his sunglasses, holding out the large bouquet. Aziraphale blinks.

“Oh, I--”

“Take the flowers, angel, there’s more coming,” Crowley says. Aziraphale stands and takes the flowers, his brow furrowed.

“Thank you,” he says, almost a question.

“Chocolates. Buttercreams. Wine,” Crowley says, handing over the sweets and alcohol.

“Crowley--”

“Ugh.” Crowley groans, looking down into the gift bag hanging from his fingers. Instead of shoving it toward Aziraphale, he reaches in and pulls out the stuffed bears instead. Aziraphale raises his eyebrows. “These--” Crowley says. “This--they--they’ve got magnets in their faces--”

“What?”

“--so they can--” he brings the angel and demon bear close together again, lets the hidden magnets do their work to seal their mouths together. “Kiss. They kiss. Here, take them, please. There’s one mo--”

“Crowley, what is all this?” Aziraphale asks, ignoring, for now, Crowley’s outstretched arms. Crowley sighs.

“It’s a question, angel,” he says. He shakes the bears in his hands, out toward Aziraphale. “Will you be my Valentine, Aziraphale? Even if you won’t, will you just--take the bears, please. Just for now.” Aziraphale steps forward and does as Crowley asks, his arms now overflowing absurdly with cliche gifts. Before he can say anything else, Crowley pulls the key from his jacket pocket and presents it to Aziraphale. “It’s not how you deserve it--I should’ve gotten a velvet-lined box--”

“Is that a Saint Valentine’s Key?” Aziraphale asks.

“Yes.” Aziraphale looks up at him.

“Crowley,” he says carefully, “this is for epileptic children.”

“Yeah, well, it’s also--” Crowley groans and sighs again. He drops the hand holding the key to his side while the other goes to grip punishingly at his hair. “Aziraphale, you...unlocked my heart. That’s also what this is. You unlocked my heart and now you have the key to it to--do whatever you want with it. It’s yours. I’m yours, angel. I’ve always been yours. I mean, talking so sweetly to a snake in the Garden--that was bad enough, but--the moment you said you’d given away that sword...Hell never had a chance with me.”

Aziraphale stands there, silent and stunned, blue eyes wide and beautiful. Crowley slowly drops his hand from his hair, twists it in the hem of his t-shirt instead, and keeps talking.

“I tore apart reality for you on that air base because you said you wouldn’t speak to me again, and I know it was just--it was just a fact of the matter at hand, but--the thought of it was just--unthinkable! And it’s been almost a year and we live together and I still--I haven’t said it! I still haven’t said it, so I’m saying it now: I love you,” Crowley says, blinking at the revelation of it, how freeing it feels just to say it out loud. “Fuck. I really do. I’m sorry I’ve waited so long to tell you that every single blessed and wretched moment I have spent on this earth has been for you - thinking of you, trying to get back to you, memorizing you, wanting you, yearning for you, loving you. Loving you, angel, so much I could crumble under the weight of it.”

Aziraphale continues to stare, open-mouthed, speechless. It truly does feel like purging, though, for Crowley, who nods at the angel’s silence before going on himself.

“And you know the thing that really gets me? The thing that really gets me is I know you love me, too.” Aziraphale blinks in surprise and Crowley points at him with the key. “Yes, I know you do. I know you, angel! I know you better than anyone - better than anyone knows you and better than I know anyone else - and you haven’t said anything either, and I can’t believe--” He lets out a deep exhale, turning the key to his own chest and shaking his head.

“I’m not the brave one. Of the two of us, I’m not the brave one. I’m the runner - I wanted to run away to the stars and just have you all to myself for the rest of time but you wanted to stay and fight for--for the world, for us, maybe, for this--and so I did. And I--angel, I can’t believe you’re letting me just--just twist in the wind like this, but I’ll do it. I’ll do it for you. I’ll always do it for you, anything for you, anything you ask….” He glances down as he trails off, realizes abruptly that he’s still holding the key.

“Right. So, the point is: it’s not much, my heart,” Crowley says quietly. “I know it’s not. It’s cold and hard and--all twisted and blackened and burnt from the Fall. But it’s yours. I’m yours, Aziraphale. I’m all yours. And I’m only asking one thing,” he says, holding the key out to Aziraphale again, his voice softened to a whisper. “Oh, angel, I’m begging you to tell me the truth. Even if you don’t want to be with me, even if I’m not good enough--I can deal with that, I can--just please tell me the truth. Tell me you love me.”

Aziraphale doesn't say anything for a long minute. He stands so still that Crowley thinks he's accidentally stopped time for the angel. But then Aziraphale lets out a loud breath and says, "Oh." He bites his lip. "Well," he says, "would you like to go for that, er--that picnic?"

Crowley feels a tiny moment of being punched directly in the gut, but it's so fleeting that it fades almost immediately. For he knows Aziraphale better than anyone, knows what his eyes look like when things aren't going according to plan, when things go rather pear-shaped. His angel doesn't do anything by halves. His angel pushed him away repeatedly in the name of protecting him. His angel lied to God in the Beginning and became a conscientious objector in what was supposed to be the End. His angel picked up a gun and pointed it at a child. His angel had a plan today, involving a long overdue picnic, and Valentine's Day, and Crowley.

And his angel likes pears.

Crowley flicks his wrist slightly. Two perfect pears appear in the picnic basket. "Yeah, alright," he says, putting his sunglasses on again as Aziraphale finally reaches out to take hold of the key.

At the park, which is fairly populated, given the day and all, Aziraphale sits down on the tartan blanket and opens the basket.

"I didn't pack any pears," he says, befuddled.

"I did," says Crowley. He also packed figs and honey, but Aziraphale won't find those until the fourth time he reaches into the basket.

"It might not surprise you that I had some errands of my own to run this morning," Aziraphale says after he finishes an appetizer of warm, flawless risotto. Crowley knows it's warm and flawless because he actually took a bite. He hums but says nothing, waits - as he always has - on Aziraphale, who fumbles around in the picnic basket for a moment before bringing out a gift bag. He hesitates, not looking at Crowley, and then finally turns to face him again as he hands over the bag.

“It’s not, er--” he starts. Crowley raises his eyebrows at him, pausing to let him speak. He doesn’t want to open the gift until Aziraphale gives him the okay, doesn’t want to mess up this backup plan. “Will you please remove your sunglasses?” Crowley does, wordlessly, and Aziraphale gives him a small smile before gesturing to the gift bag. “You went above and beyond. I--I should have done the same, but--I didn’t want to scare you,” the angel says. Crowley reaches into the bag and pulls out--

A stuffed gorilla with a shiny red heart sewn to one hand. WILD THING I THINK I LOVE YOU, says the heart. There’s a sticker on the other hand, one that invites Crowley to squeeze it, so he does, and a guitar lick rings out from the stuffed animal.

“Wild thing, you make my heart sing,” plays the gorilla in Crowley’s hands. “You make everything…groovy.” Crowley bites back a laugh. “Wild thing, wild thing...I think I love you.” Crowley snickers, holding back a genuine, honest-to-Satan giggle, and looks up at Aziraphale to see him wearing a nervous expression, biting his lip and fidgeting.

“Aziraphale, this is properly insane,” Crowley says with a grin. “Where did you even get this? They stopped selling these in 1999.”

“I bought it in ‘96,” Aziraphale says, visibly relieved that Crowley doesn’t seem angry or disappointed. “On this day, in fact. I was--well, I don’t actually know what I was thinking. I saw it in a shop and it was so, so absurd, and it made me think of you because little speakers in stuffed animals was one of yours, and we had a--well, we had a date, two days later, even though I still couldn’t call it that, for the opening of Muppet Treasure Island, and I thought it would make you smile.” He sighs, his voice going soft when he says, “I only ever want to make you smile, Crowley. You always save your best smiles for me, the most honest.”

“But you never gave it to me,” Crowley says. “You’ve been keeping it all this time?”

“I was afraid,” Aziraphale says sadly. “Crowley, you--you are the brave one. You may not have ever said the words until today, but you’ve been--” He swallows, looks down, sighs, looks back up and meets Crowley’s eyes. “My dear, you must know how I feel for you,” he says, and Crowley does.

Crowley does know. He’s known it since the orchard in Ohio, but he probably knew even before that, just hadn’t uncovered it yet. It probably wrote itself into his marrow as he took human form the first time. He used to think it was a curse, to be in love with an angel, another punishment from the Almighty, or maybe even from Satan. It was his very own apple, Aziraphale dangling from heaven in front of him, a great DON’T TOUCH sign right there where he couldn’t ignore it. A big YOU CAN NEVER TOUCH HIM sign. A terrible DOESN’T THAT JUST KILL YOU sign.

But if Aziraphale loves him, too - and Crowley knows he does, he knows Aziraphale better than anyone, better than he knows anyone and better than anyone knows Aziraphale - it can’t be a curse. It can’t be the wrong thing.

“Say it,” Crowley whispers. “I need to hear you say it.”

“Crowley, dearest,” Aziraphale says, and then his expression changes abruptly as he catches sight of the bottle of wine resting against Crowley’s knee. He snatches it up, looking in amazement at the label. Crowley blinks.

“Er, angel?”

“You went all the way to Roquemaure for this?” Aziraphale says. He looks up at Crowley. “You went to Roquemaure for this!”

“It was nothing,” Crowley says with a shrug, feeling like he’s missing some vital information. “It’s just France. I’ll go to Mars if there’s something you’d like up there.”

“I miracled this wine into being!” Aziraphale says excitedly. “Did you know? It was--well, it was when you were napping, after our fight in St. James Park. I was in this town and their vineyards were dying and there were relics of Valentinus and I missed you and I--I turned it red, because I was thinking of you. It was white before. The relics weren’t even supposed to work but--well, I guess I’ve always done many things I wasn’t supposed to do.”

“You’re what an angel should be,” Crowley says, shaking his head and grinning, utterly besotted. “Oh, angel, there’s nothing in the universe or heaven or hell that I love more than you.” Aziraphale smiles at him, soft and sweet, the bottle of wine slipping from his hands.

“I love you, Crowley,” he says. “I always have.”

Crowley always thought it would hit him differently, when the angel finally said it. He thought it would feel like a gunshot, or an anvil, or a punch. He thought he would start spontaneously crying. He thought he might even turn back into a snake, like the opposite of a fairy tale. But he looks like a person still, he remains dry-eyed, and instead of sudden shock and harsh pain, he feels...complete, inevitable, like he’s finally finished the inexorable crawl to a finish line that was always in the hazy distance.

His angel loves him and they are ineffable.

“You once said you didn’t think it was possible for me to do the wrong thing,” Aziraphale says quietly. “Do you still believe that?”

“Yes,” Crowley says immediately, “with all my cold heart.”

“I hoped you did,” Aziraphale says with a smile. “That’s how I know this isn’t wrong.” Crowley lets out a laugh at that.

“What am I? Your moral compass?”

“Perhaps,” Aziraphale says, shrugging a little.

“That might be dangerous, angel,” Crowley says, leaning back against the tree behind him. He feels so much more relaxed now, having said it, having heard Aziraphale say it.

“You’re not dangerous,” Aziraphale says. “You’re mine.” He reaches out to stroke the hair around Crowley’s ear. Instantly overwhelmed, Crowley closes his eyes at the touch. He swallows, bites his lip.

“Why did you bring us out in public for this, angel?” he asks, wanting desperately for Aziraphale to keep touching him, to touch him everywhere, to never stop.

“So I could tell you what I needed to say without getting too easily distracted by all the kissing I want to do,” Aziraphale says matter-of-factly. Crowley opens his eyes.

“No one’s watching,” he says lowly. Aziraphale rolls his eyes and looks somewhere over Crowley’s shoulder.

“Anathema and Newt are just over there,” he says.

“No one who might care is watching,” says Crowley. Aziraphale looks at him again, a mischievous gleam twinkling in his eyes.

“R. P. Tyler’s always watching,” the angel says. Crowley feels the corners of his mouth twitch, despite himself.

“No one upstairs or down is watching,” he says. “They’ve wiped us clean off their maps, angel. We are non-entities to them. We can do whatever we want.” He wraps his fingers around Aziraphale’s wrist and pulls Aziraphale’s hand out of his hair, brings it to his mouth so he can brush his lips over the knuckles. “That being said, I know I’ve gone too fast for you, in the past, so I’ll let you drive.”

“I don’t have a license,” Aziraphale says after a moment. Crowley smiles against his fingers before releasing his hand.

“Neither do I. I’ve waited millennia. I’m in no real rush. Just being with you here is enough," Crowley says, and he's surprised to find, after ages and eras of wanting more more more of Aziraphale, that it's true. He rests his head against the tree and closes his eyes, is about to request that Aziraphale say the words again, but then he feels his jacket and shirt collar being tugged carefully aside, and the gentle press of lips to the skin of his shoulder. He gasps at the contact, opening his eyes to see Aziraphale shifting closer to him, stretching out his legs in front of him on the blanket.

“It’s not true, those things you said about your heart,” Aziraphale says quietly, “about it being blackened and twisted. It didn’t burn. It’s never burned.” Crowley swallows, feeling like a stone is lodged in his throat.

“Angel, you don’t have to--”

“You gave it to me,” Aziraphale says, looking into Crowley’s exposed eyes. “I know the truth about your heart. You gave it to me eons ago on the Garden wall, didn’t you? I should have been protecting it all this time - it was such a precious gift - but I’m ashamed to say I haven’t. I know it’s been broken and bruised. I take responsibility for that. I’ve hurt you - I thought I had to - but I hope you can forgive me what I consider to be my worst transgressions.”

“Aziraphale--” Crowley starts. His eyes sting. Aziraphale puts up a placating hand.

“What I’m trying to say is: I know your heart better than you do, Crowley,” he says. “You haven’t seen it properly in ages, but you’ve shown it to me over and over, for six thousand years. I know what it truly is.” He rests his hand on Crowley’s knee. Crowley looks away and, mercifully, Aziraphale lets him.

“Your heart,” the angel continues, “is tender, and heavy, and beautiful, and warm, and whole. It just needs a bit of care.”

A soft sob escapes Crowley. He turns back to Aziraphale, his yellow eyes wet, gasping for steady breath, and Aziraphale is there, steady now, steady for him.

“Will--will you--” Crowley tries, choking on the words, on the possibility. “Will you--” Aziraphale leans forward and takes Crowley’s face in his gentle hands.

“Yes, my dearest love,” he murmurs. “Of course I will. I will care for your heart for the rest of our lives, for the rest of time.”

Crowley, overcome with love and promise and eternity, lunges inelegantly forward and kisses Aziraphale. The angel’s lips are soft against his, soft and yielding and warm and kissing him back. Crowley’s hands tangle themselves in Aziraphale’s hair as his mind reels. This is what lips are for, he thinks, licking lightly into Aziraphale’s mouth, swallowing down his answering pleased hum. This is what my lips are for. This is what this body is for.

They end up on the ground, Crowley above Aziraphale, kissing him without need or want for breath. You are who my body is for, he thinks, and time stumbles away, or stops, or mutes itself, or else Crowley just loses track of it, and eventually Aziraphale smiles against his mouth and mumbles, “I thought you were in no real rush.” Crowley laughs with the angel’s teeth nipping at his bottom lip.

“Suppose I lied,” he says breathlessly. “I am a demon, after all.” He backs off anyway, though, sits back up, back on his heels, slowing himself down. He grins at the sight of Aziraphale looking up at him, flushed and beaming.

“Oh! I’ve got another Valentine’s Day gift for you,” Aziraphale says, sitting up and reaching into the picnic basket again to pull out a large cupcake - very chocolatey, Crowley can tell, topped with red frosting and decorated with stupid little pink candy hearts.

“Devil’s food,” Crowley says dryly as he takes the cupcake from Aziraphale. “Aren’t you clever?”

“It could be angel food with just a thought, if you prefer,” Aziraphale says with a smile, but Crowley’s already eating it, and getting frosting smeared ridiculously on the tip of his nose for his trouble. Before he can wipe it off, Aziraphale leans forward and kisses it away, pulling back and smiling still. “It turns out the crass overcommercialization of this day is good for something.”

“Would you like the rest?” Crowley asks, holding out the half-eaten cupcake in the same loose-wristed way he held out an apple in Ohio, a mug of coffee in India, a date in the Arabian desert, a peach in Rome. It’s the same way he’s been imploring Aziraphale to take from him through every empire they’ve seen rise and fall. But Aziraphale shakes his head once, blinks, and the cupcake in Crowley’s hand is now white and noticeably lighter - angel food. Crowley smiles and takes another bite of it himself. It might be the only food he’s ever finished with Aziraphale around. It feels like a gift, like being given something precious, like taking from his angel for once. It feels like taking Aziraphale’s heart into himself, into his own, and knowing that it’s his.

It feels like biting an apple in a Garden.

“They make you forget love, when you Fall,” he says suddenly, his fingers gone sticky with sugar. Aziraphale gives him a sharp look. “It’s a side effect of them - heaven - taking back your Grace. Technically, it’s a mercy. It’s supposed to viciously hurt a demon to remember the very concept, much less to feel it,” Crowley explains. He looks down at cupcake in his hand. “The way you spoke to me when I was just a snake in the Garden, and then your kindness on the wall...You’re the only reason I know love, Aziraphale. Because of you, I was able to love earth. Humanity. My Bentley.”

“My dear,” Aziraphale says, “have you been in pain this whole time?”

“Six thousand and twenty-fours years of it,” says Crowley, finishing off the cupcake rather messily.

“Crowley, I’m so sorry,” Aziraphale says in a broken voice. Crowley shrugs and shakes his head, looking back up at his angel.

“I beseeched Her to take it from me again,” he says. “I used to pray for it. I begged to forget - it hurt so much. Looking at you was excruciating, but--” he laughs, because now it’s funny. “--but I couldn’t ever bear to look away from you. She didn’t listen. Couldn’t hear me anymore, I suppose. It’s alright, angel,” he says, taking in the concern on Aziraphale’s face. “I was able to get used to it eventually, mostly. I could almost ignore it after awhile, as long as I, you know. Just stayed away from you.” He shrugs again. “Which, of course, I never could. I never wanted to.”

“Does it hurt you still?” Aziraphale asks quietly.

“No, it doesn’t hurt anymore. Not now that I know,” Crowley says reassuringly, licking the remains of red buttercream frosting from his fingertips. He smiles at Aziraphale. “Happy Valentine’s Day, angel.” Aziraphale smiles back at him, soft and loving, and it feels like Grace returning.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, my dear,” the angel says before kissing Crowley again, licking into his mouth.

“Knew you’d want to taste the frosting, you insatiable--” Crowley’s delighted accusation is cut off when Aziraphale pushes him onto his back, all but crawling on top of him. Crowley lets out the wildly liberated laugh of the unencumbered, and when Aziraphale’s mouth moves lower, teeth grazing at his jaw, he sighs and throws his head back, hitting something soft and, suddenly, mysteriously, loud.

“Wild thing, you make my heart sing--”