Chapter Text
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“Do you—erm,” Crowley said with a hint of reluctance, “want to take the car again?”
‘Why don’t you take a train? You love trains,’ he’d told him once just to wiggle out of the prospect of Aziraphale driving the Bentley.
The demon hadn’t exactly been off the mark with his assertion back then since that specific means of transportation had come up in a few conversations over the centuries (or since trains had been invented, to begin with). What Crowley didn’t know was that most of those mentions had been rather observational on Aziraphale’s part, expressed to make either a particular point in a discussion, or as an allusion to something fascinating he’d read in a book that he’d felt desperate to share with Crowley.
Truth be told, despite being an entity with a debatable capacity for emotions, Aziraphale considered trains inherently romantic. How could he not? Sequestered in a compartment of the carriage with the endless stretch of railway tracks and the soothing thrum of wheels underneath, one could hardly fail to sense its magic. Engaged in a pleasant conversation, one could soak in the comfort of one’s company with little distraction, aside from the glimpses of scenery rolling by.
For someone who had never set foot on a train, Aziraphale was convinced it to be more than a mere flight of his fancy.
Old-fashioned as he was, he secretly believed that in those moments strangers happened to strike up relationships they hadn’t anticipated before their journey while travelling companions who already shared a bond of some sort grew yet a tad closer. The earthly magic of a railway adventure would catch them off guard, fizzling in the air like bubbles in a freshly poured glass of champagne. But over the sounds of the vanishing spacetime across an evolving landscape, no one noticed it.
One could hardly find that kind of magic in a car (what with Crowley’s less-than-safe driving proclivities).
“Come with me,” Aziraphale blurted out before he managed to give it a proper thought. His whole being lit up with anticipation. “I realise a holiday book festival isn’t quite your scene but—”
“I thought you didn’t want me there…”
“—we’ll leave Bentley at home and go by train… What ?”
One of Crowley’s eyebrows arched over the rim of his shades before he snatched them off his face to give Aziraphale a pointed look. “Why on Earth would we do that when we have a perfectly nice car at our disposal?”
“Because—” he started, but one half-formed reason on the tip of his tongue refused to be forced past his lips.
Perhaps, over time that aching feeling beneath his breastbone was getting harder to ignore, and as satisfied as Aziraphale was with their current arrangement, he sometimes wondered if there could be more to it.
Perhaps at this stage, he felt inclined to find out.
“Because you know how I love trains,” he ended up saying, “And besides… I’m rather in the mood to try something new.”