Chapter Text
“Great. Just excellent,” Crowley muttered.
“Well. I suppose things could be–”
“Don’t you dare ,” Crowley hissed. “How could this possibly be worse?”
Even in the minimal lighting, Aziraphale visibly balked at the murderous look that was surely accompanying the tone in Crowley’s voice. “I- at least it’s not… on fire?”
Crowley laughed humorlessly, a derisive exhalation through the nose. They were still pressed together, and as Crowley realized this, he scrambled to move further into the cupboard. Unfortunately, the ceilings were somewhat low, and the back of the demon’s head met a beam with a resounding smack. “ Fuck.”
Aziraphale rushed towards him, but Crowley extended his arm in warning. Aziraphale grabbed his hand. “Are you alright?”
The truth is Crowley wasn’t actually in much pain at all. It was an injury that bruised the ego more than the body. The kind that added to all the embarrassment, rage, and other negative feelings floating in his chest. The kind of injury that makes you say “Just my luck, huh?” Instead of saying this, Crowley muttered, “‘m fine.”
Aziraphale must have taken this as a good sign somehow, as he pushed forward – verbally, though, respecting Crowley’s wishes, not physically. “I was saying we should talk, Crowley.”
“We can talk after we get out of here.”
“You know you won’t do that. You’d have kept ignoring me, if not for the child’s little scheme.”
Crowley ignored the delighted, fatherly tone to this last part in favor of scrutinizing the lock, which of course thereby proved the angel’s point. This was hard to accomplish, however, with the lock being situated at hip level, and with Aziraphale still mostly in the way.
“You just had to be the hero.”
Aziraphale bristled. “I beg your pardon?”
“ Ohhh, don’t KILL the poor thing! ” Crowley pitched his voice in an imitation of the angel. “You simply couldn’t let a single creature be harmed–”
“I wasn’t the one who climbed in here first, I think you’ll find!” Aziraphale interrupted. “And it’s not my fault you forgot to pay attention to what Charlie was doing, or to take stock of your surroundings.”
“Oh, should I be sorry for thinking of their safety? Not like you’d know anything about that.”
Aziraphale seemed like balloon about to burst, if a balloon could burst from a mix of frustration and shame and who knows how many other emotions. “I was only trying to HELP!” He cried, wringing his hands.
Crowley’s lips twisted into something between a smirk and a sneer. “Aren’t you always,” he replied. “That’s you, Aziraphale, always trying to help. Well, why don’t you actually help for once, and get us out of this? ” Crowley gestured wildly at the locked door.
Aziraphale didn’t respond immediately, which should have warned Crowley he wouldn’t like what was coming next.
“You can’t avoid me forever–” Aziraphale started, and that did it. Crowley rounded on the angel – well, as best he could in such a tight space.
“Oh, you mean like you’ve been doing for the past fifteen years?”
“That was different! I couldn’t leave my work unfinished!”
“Oh yes, your work. Goodness knows we can’t let anything get in the way of you and your precious work .”
“Well… yes, that’s exactly it.”
Crowley would have been pacing if he could, but settled instead for running a hand through his hair. “You still don’t get it, do you? Your work is a choice. You chose to go back to that place, just like I chose to tell my people to stuff it.”
“I couldn’t really just tell Heaven to ‘stuff it,’ Crowley–”
“Yes, you could! You absolutely could have, but you didn’t , did you?” Crowley was practically steaming. “You had every opportunity to stay here. To stay here WITH ME. But you made your choice. You chose what you really wanted–”
“Crowley, I went back there for you !” Aziraphale blurted. “ That was my work. That was why I couldn’t return before, because Heaven wasn’t ready. It wasn’t… perfect enough.”
That caught the demon’s attention. Hearing his angel even insinuate that Heaven was anything less than was… “Perfect enough?”
Crowley met Aziraphale’s eyes as best he could in the dark. A dark that was exacerbated by his glasses. He tilted his head back a little and tried to peer underneath his lenses. “What are you talking about?”
“It wasn’t – it isn’t – perfect enough… for you.”
Crowley leaned closer, trying to read the angel’s face through his darkened lenses. He didn’t quite know what he was looking for, but then Aziraphale reached for the frames, extending one hand slowly as if asking for permission.
Everything in Crowley screamed not to let that barrier go away, that last vestige of protection against… against what? The look in Aziraphale’s eyes? He never stood a chance.
Somehow the angel could sense this, and removed the glasses, throwing them to the floor behind them.
Crowley averted his gaze, determined to still be angry, despite the choirs singing in his head at Aziraphale’s last confession. “I… I thought your work was the child? Looking down from on high and all that?”
Aziraphale tenderly cupped Crowley’s face in his hands, forcing their eyes to lock once more. “I came back for the child, yes. But Crowley, you must understand, I stayed there for you! I was always going to come back for you.” Crowley felt his breath stutter. “God, I missed you,” the angel said, and with that, he pulled Crowley down into a searing kiss.
Legends have it that before a baby is born, they contain all the knowledge in the universe. However, at the moment of their birth, an angel kisses the baby right on the spot above their upper lip and below their nose. This kiss causes a baby to forget all this knowledge and wisdom in order to experience life anew. Crowley had always meant to ask about the logistics of such an act, as kissing every baby as they are being born seemed rather involved and messy.
The minute Aziraphale’s lips met his, however, Crowley was faced with a similar sensation of his head going completely empty of all thought, which rather inhibited his ability to question anything. Anything besides Is this really happening? Or, more pressingly, How do I keep this going?
Crowley realized he had been standing in shock for what may have been a hair too long, as Aziraphale was beginning to pull away, the beginnings of a stammered apology on his lips. He was still so close that every syllable brushed against Crowley’s mouth. He shivered, suddenly jolted back into his body. He felt in the darkness for Aziraphale’s lapels and pulled him back in. Aziraphale floundered for a moment before a hand wound its way into the demon’s hair.
The kisses were clumsy, and somewhat imprecise – no . They were human. And Crowley was enthralled. These were not the chaste kisses of an angel. There was an urgency to them that could not come from someone who had eternity. Crowley’s hands went to the angel’s glorious waist, releasing a puff of a gasp from Aziraphale. Crowley took advantage of this moment to deepen the kiss, sending his tongue darting outwards like… well, like a snake.
Aziraphale graciously (or perhaps very very willingly) allowed Crowley to take the lead, a power which the demon wasted no time in abusing. He traced his angel’s perfect teeth, something he had desired since at least the storming of the Bastille. Aziraphale whimpered and shifted his head, causing those exact gorgeous incisors to brush Crowley’s tongue. Crowley felt his knees buckle slightly in a moment of rapture. He held onto Aziraphale’s jacket for dear life, pawing at his shirt collar. Aziraphale took this as a sign to move his attention from Crowley’s mouth, instantly finding the spot where jaw meets neck, the spot where Crowley had dreamed of the angel kissing him since Job. Crowley’s head fell back, his breathing ragged. A scrape of those cunning teeth at his jugular had Crowley choking out a moan. Aziraphale shivered against him at the sound and began to lathe the spot with attention. The inferno in Crowley’s chest sparked and crackled. He pulled the angel back to his mouth, searching for his lips in the blasted darkness.
“Wanna see you,” he murmured, reveling in the noise that escaped Aziraphale at those words.
“I…oh! I can arrange that,” Aziraphale suddenly shuffled backwards, raising his hand as much as he could in the cramped space. “Let there be light!”
The tiny lightbulb in the cupboard flickered on, bathing them in a dim yellow glow. They both flinched slightly, eyes sensitive to the change of light. Aziraphale was absolutely disheveled, his lips bruised and his tie having come completely loose around his neck. When had Crowley done that?
They locked eyes in the miracled light, each searching the others’ face for something inarticulable, a quiet smile playing across both their lips. Crowley admired how the warm glow lit up the angel’s hair, his skin – thank goodness they weren’t trapped in that darkness anymore.
And then Aziraphale’s face froze, pinching in realization. Instantly, the same thought struck Crowley’s mind, and he was sure his expression was a similar one of understanding. He raised his hand. Carefully, slowly, not breaking eye contact, Crowley snapped once, grimacing at the doorknob, or perhaps his own fingers.
The cupboard door unlocked with a click, and a scraping could be heard on the other side.
“Did you–?”
“We could have–”
“This whole time!”
“...Oh dear.”