Chapter Text
The clock on the wall ticks louder than usual.
It ticks,
And ticks,
And ticks..
The clock was no louder than usual nor any different today, but Crowley is sitting still.
He rarely does that.
He had draped himself over what he had claimed as his armchair listlessly like a cat in the backroom of Aziraphale’s bookshop, glasses off, eyes shut, but not asleep, never asleep. He was just exhausted after the events of the day. At least him and Aziraphale had gone for an alcoholic breakfast after the disgruntled demons and angels had returned to their haunts.
Aziraphale watches him intently from the other side of the room, pretending to reread the page of some old novel he’s already read four times in the last hour.
There’s something about the silence between them tonight. Not strained, not uncomfortable, but too full of things unspoken. It made Aziraphale feel restless.
Crowley exhales. It’s not quite a sigh, but it’s close enough that Aziraphale finally speaks, his voice tight.
“You’re thinking too loudly. Are you trying to be irritating?”
Crowley laughs dryly. He could sense Aziraphale’s unease. “Hard not to. You’ve gone quiet.”
“I’ve been quiet before.”
“Not like this.”
Aziraphale sets down his book. There was a certain vulnerability in Crowley’s eyes. Were they having this conversation now? He wasn’t ready. But Crowley had been waiting for more than long enough, always waiting for him to catch up.
“I suppose I’m... considering the future,” he said quietly.
Crowley opens his eyes, looking up at the angel. “That’s dangerous.”
“Is it?”
Crowley sits up slowly, leans forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped together like prayer, though he’s never prayed. Not once. Not after..
“You know what I’m thinking?” he says.
Aziraphale doesn’t answer. Not because he doesn’t want to, but because he is afraid that he does.
“maybe we made a mistake.”
it hangs there, cruel and heavy, not quite falling, not quite shattering, a glass vase suspended in its fall. Aziraphale flinches as if the words physically burn him like hellfire.
“We?” he says, quiet, neutral, non confrontational.
Aziraphale always seems to distance himself from his emotions when things got too raw or honest.
Crowley swallows. “Fine. Me. Maybe I made a mistake, thinking…” He falters for a moment before he regains his composure, his voice more bitter than he intends. He could already feel Aziraphale pulling away from the conversation. “Thinking we could have this. Be this. Whatever this even is to you.. To us.”
Aziraphale takes a breath that tastes like burning paper and tears. He walks to the window but doesn’t look out; it was really just an excuse to not face Crowley. The lights of Soho glow against the glass like distant stars, unreachable. He couldn’t help but remember him, Raphael. Hed loved the stars.
“You always knew it couldn’t last.”
“I hoped it would.”
Aziraphale presses his fingertips to the cool pane. “All things end, Crowley. You know that better than anyone.”
“I know,” Crowley says, softer now. “But I thought... maybe not us.”
That, finally, turns Aziraphale around. “There’s no us. Not really. There never could be. I’m an angel and you’re a demon. There’s no changing that.”
The worst part is, he says it gently.
Crowley laughs again, this time sharp and cold. “Right. Just centuries of maybes and almosts. Of saving each other in ways that don’t count. Not to you because im not holier than thou.”
Aziraphale steps forward. “They do count. You know they do.”
“Do they?” Crowley stands, and suddenly there’s too much space and not enough air. He’s falling, always falling. He grips the armchair for support. “You’re the one who’s always halfway out the door. One foot in Heaven, one foot in this blasted bookshop. Never both with me. Never seeing more than a demon and seeing me ”
Aziraphale doesn’t respond, not right away. His silence is a quiet apology he won’t say aloud. He can’t apologise; he’s not in the wrong. The only thing he’s done wrong is not stop entertaining these silly ideas sooner.
Finally he finds his voice again, he says, “I loved you.”
Crowley goes still. He wasn’t falling now. He’d already hit the ground. hard.
“…Loved.”
Past tense. As if it’s a mercy. As if it’s cleaner that way.
Aimé, amato, querido, sarang, grá, geliefd, dilexit,
loved..
Crowley shakes his head once, like he’s trying to dislodge the word. “Right. Well. I guess that’s it, then. I don’t think this is something we could ‘agree to disagree on’ .”
He turns to leave.
“Crowley—”
But the door opens. The door closes. Like how aziraphale had softly closed the door after leaving it just ajar to wait outside of for 6000 years. He had broke the vase
The shop is silent again.
And Aziraphale, left behind, stands among the ghosts of books and moments, clutching at nothing.
Outside, the rain begins to fall.
The rain is relentless. It comes down in sheets, silvering the streets and blurring the glow of the shop windows. It should be comforting. Rain always has been, in some way. An old friend, washing things clean.
But not tonight.
Rain had brought them together in the beginning and yet it had solidified their divide as a physical manifestation of it in the end. It had been raining that first night too, though it felt different then—gentler, almost warm. They’d shared Aziraphale’s wing, shoulders brushing, laughter bubbling between them like something new and fragile. It was new and fragile, everything was back in the garden, so many firsts together. The sun had shimmered, not from divinity or heavenly light, but from possibility.
Now, the rain feels heavier, like it carries weight instead of water. It pools in the gutters, seeps through seams, soaks to the bone. Every drop seems to echo the silence between them, each splash a reminder of what’s been said—and what hasn’t. They no longer walk close together, no longer share cover. Separate umbrellas, separate paths.
The storm that once felt intimate now isolates. The rhythm on the rooftops is no lullaby but a warning. Memories rise with the mist—of hands held, of promises made over centuries. And just as quickly, they vanish into the haze.
He imagines Crowley, somewhere out there, drenched and furious and alone.
He wants to go after him.
He wants to take it back — the past tense, the resignation, the fear.
“Loved.”
“i said loved ” he whispered to himself
He doesn't cry. Not yet.
Because the thing about eternity is: it teaches you how to endure.