Chapter Text
“I’ve never seen you and Crowley fight.” Warlock dug his hand into the bag of frozen (or, more accurately, formerly-frozen) peas that sat between himself and Az on the bench. He pulled out a small handful and shook his wrist, letting the peas settle into his palm before tossing them a few at a time toward the ducks that had gathered by the edge of the pond.
Az frowned at him. There was something heavy in Warlock’s voice, and he was resolutely not meeting Az’s eyes. As Az scrutinized him, Warlock sighed and threw the remaining peas in his hand to the ducks.
“You may not have seen it, my dear boy, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened.” Az kept his tone neutral and settled against the back of the bench, waiting.
“It’s happened, then?”
“Of course.” One of the ducks quacked indignantly, so Az grabbed a handful of peas and tossed them into the grass. “I suppose I would call them disagreements — the word ‘fight’ implies that there were raised voices, and Crowley and I both make a point not to shout. But yes, we have had disagreements. Multiple, in fact.”
“You just…” Warlock trailed off, scuffing the toe of his black boot against the gravel under the bench. “You both just seem to have it together, y’know? You’re the golden couple.”
Az chuckled. “I’m not certain there is such a thing.”
“You know what I mean,” Warlock said, voice laced with more than a small amount of frustration. “He loves you, yeah? Everyone can tell. And you love him, and everyone can tell that, too.”
“Loving someone isn’t contingent upon agreeing with them,” said Az. “Even the happiest of relationships have some degree of conflict. If you can’t resolve it, that’s one thing, and if the majority of the time you spend together is spent arguing, that’s not by any means a sign of a healthy adult partnership. But a certain amount of disagreement is to be expected, and learning how to resolve those inevitable arguments is part of loving someone.”
Warlock kicked at the ground again. “Right.”
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on with Adam, then?”
A silver-pierced eyebrow curved upward. “What?”
“Come now, my dear fellow. I’ve known you long enough to know when you’re dancing around asking me an important question.” Az scattered another handful of peas and wiped his damp fingers on the knee of his trousers. “Out with it.”
“He told me he loved me,” Warlock said to his shoes.
“Oh?”
“I, uh. Didn’t say it back.”
It was Az’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “I see. May I ask why?”
“It’s not that I don’t, you know?” A pale hand buried itself in long ink-black hair, tugging at it. “It’s just… we never did that when I was growing up. It wasn’t a thing. I think my mum said it once or twice when I was younger, but from then on it was sorta just implied.”
“Did you explain that to Adam?”
“I tried.”
“And he didn’t take it well?” Az felt himself frowning. From what he knew of Adam (which, because of Crowley, was quite a lot), this seemed out of character.
“I… no, it wasn’t that. I just couldn’t get the words out.”
“What did you say when he told you?”
Warlock turned the color of a ripe strawberry and said, “I think I said, ‘Oh.’”
“Ah.”
“And he said he wasn’t expecting me to say it back, but I could tell he was a bit sad, so I tried to explain that I wanted to say it back but hadn’t had much practice.” Warlock’s breath was coming in quicker bursts now, and his fingers were drumming on the tops of his thighs. Not for the first time, he reminded Az of Crowley. “But I ended up just saying that I couldn’t say it, and I think he thought that I don’t feel it, y’know? So he said he’d give me some space, and he left.”
“When was this?”
“Yesterday,” Warlock said miserably.
“Have you spoken to him?”
“Texted him this morning, yeah. No reply yet.”
“Ah.”
“I just… I don’t know what to do, Az.”
Az tilted his head back and watched the summer breeze shake the branches of the tree above him. “May I ask you a question?”
“Yeah, ‘course.”
“You said that you don’t not love Adam,” Az began slowly. “But that isn’t precisely an answer to the question of whether or not you do love him, so I think we should start by clarifying where you stand on that whole affair.”
Warlock went as still as a statue. When Az looked over at him, he couldn’t quite tell if he was even breathing.
Finally, Warlock said, “Is it bad if I don’t know?”
Az hummed. “I suppose it depends on why you’re unsure.”
“I don’t know what it feels like to be in love, okay?” The words fell out of Warlock’s mouth in a rush, and he blinked as though he hadn’t quite meant to say them. “Adam’s just… he’s so fucking expressive, you know? He’ll tell you exactly what he’s thinking, and he feels things so deeply, and I can’t understand how he copes with all of that. How is he not drowning in his own head? I can’t make sense of my feelings about, about his fucking music taste, for Christ’s sake. How am I supposed to know if I love him or not?”
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you whether or not you love him,” Az said. Warlock groaned and shoved his face into his hands. “Not definitively, anyway.”
“How’d you know you love Crowley?” The question was muffled by Warlock’s palms, and Az stifled a smile.
“Oh, well.” A duck was starting to waddle close to their bench, looking quite put-out by the sudden lack of treats, so Az emptied the remaining contents of the bag into the grass. “That’s a good question, I suppose.”
“I hate feelings,” Warlock said against his fingers.
“They are rather tricky, yes. As to how I figured out that I love Crowley: I think it started with the realization that every time I thought of my future, he was a part of it.”
“Huh.” Warlock took his head out of his hands. “What else?”
“I should warn you that this is not by any means an instruction manual,” Az said quickly. “Everyone is different, you know.”
“I know,” Warlock said. “What else?”
“Waking up next to Crowley is wonderful in a way that nothing else quite matches,” Az said, cheeks warming at the memory of doing exactly that just this morning. “And the first time I did it, I knew that I never wanted to wake up without him again if I could help it.”
“What else?”
“I want to do things for him, things that make him happy or make him laugh. I want to care for him when he needs to be cared for, reassure him when he needs to be reassured. And when I have bad days, he’s the first person I want to see. When I have a story to tell, he’s the first person I want to tell it to.” Warlock was staring at Az now, a small amount of light rising in his dark eyes. “And when we argue, I want to talk to him about why, and I want to understand what went wrong. And I know that he wants those things, too, so we talk.”
“Oh,” said Warlock.
“The reasons I love Crowley are too many to count,” Az said, giving Warlock’s shoulder a squeeze, “as are the reasons why I know that I love him. But I can keep providing examples, if it would help you.”
“No,” Warlock said, and Az smiled at him. “No, I think… I think I’m okay, yeah. I think I— goddammit. Fuck.”
“You can take as much time as you need to sort out your feelings, my dear, but I do think you ought to talk to Adam about it.”
“I think I’ve got them sorted. Maybe. I hope.”
“Have you?”
Warlock slumped down on the bench with an exaggerated sigh, his head lolling to the side so he could face Az. Warlock’s smiles were often small things (unless he was around Adam or teasing Az), but this one was wider than normal. Shaky, yes, but bright.
“I think I love him,” Warlock said, and to Az’s surprise, his voice didn’t shake. “I mean, look. I dunno if I’m gonna be with him forever, because we’re still young and life can be complete fucking bullshit a lot of the time.”
“It can, yes,” Az laughed.
Warlock smiled still wider. The smile stayed on his face for a mere handful of seconds before slipping away, making room for a far more serious expression.
“But I think— no, I know — I’d like to be with him for as long as I can be.” Warlock looked Az in the eye, steady and sure. “Still, I haven’t got all of the specifics of everything else figured out, y’know? And it’s probably pathetic that I’m only realizing I love my boyfriend while I’m sat here on a bench in a park talking it over with my bloody boss, but. Is what it is.”
“It’s not pathetic.”
Warlock gave another dry chuckle. “Isn’t it?”
“No,” Az said sternly. “It isn’t. We all need people to talk to sometimes, and I’ve told you a dozen times before that I’m perfectly happy to—”
“Be my gay godfather,” Warlock said with a quick upward twist of his lips. “Yeah.”
“Indeed.”
Warlock shifted on the bench once more, hauling himself back up into something that resembled a normal sitting position (and consequently made Az much less worried about the state of the poor boy’s spine). He was quiet for a moment before sighing again and saying, “I still hate feelings.”
“I don’t imagine that particular sentiment is likely to change,” Az said, patting Warlock’s thigh in a way he hoped was comforting.
“Well, fuck.”
Az laughed. “Rather.”
The ducks had finally realized that the two large featherless ducks on the bench were not going to be providing any more peas and had begun to venture back into the pond. Az watched them for a moment. He was sure that he and Warlock should be getting back to the shop — it was almost certainly past time to re-open for the afternoon — but something stopped him.
“He is good for you, you know,” Az said gently. “Adam.”
Warlock groaned. “I know.”
“And I want you to know something very important, alright?”
“Yeah?”
“I am sorry that you haven’t had as much experience with being told that you are loved as you should have done,” Az said, and Warlock stiffened. “But I hope you know that I— well, Crowley and I both, really — love you very dearly.”
“Shut up,” Warlock mumbled. “You do not.”
“I do. I wouldn’t have said it otherwise.”
“Ngh,” Warlock grunted, face reddening more with each passing moment.
“You are a remarkable person, and I am very happy to have you as my queer godson,” Az said firmly, stifling a laugh at the sight of Warlock’s wide-eyed stare. “And I love you like family, do you understand?”
“Huh,” Warlock managed to choke out. “Yeah.”
“Good.” Az nodded to himself, took a deep breath, and continued. “There’s something else I’d like to discuss with you as well, if you’re open to it.”
“Oh?”
“I know you aren’t precisely fond of Alton,” Az said, trying very hard to keep his voice level, “and I wouldn’t be surprised if you decided one day to take your leave of it, but I wanted to make you a job offer.”
Warlock’s brow crinkled. “What?”
“You’ll have noticed, I’m sure, that the sign on the shop says ‘A.Z. Fell and Co. Booksellers.’”
“Yeah.”
“As it happens,” Az said slowly, “there isn’t precisely an ‘and Co.,’ as such.”
“What about Crowley?”
Az chuckled. “He is certainly my partner in life, but not in business. I think the poor man would die if I kept him away from his ovens for more than a day at a time.”
“Mm,” Warlock said, sounding slightly strangled. “Ah.”
“So,” Az continued, “I was rather wondering if you would be interested in a more, shall we say, permanent position at the shop.”
“What?”
“I’d like you to be my business partner, if that’s something you’d be open to discussing further.”
Warlock made a squeaking noise but didn’t reply.
“There is no pressure on you to say yes,” Az said. “It’s merely an offer. And I’m not sure how the legality of it all would work, but I suppose I can ask Anathema and Crowley. They’ve been partners for years.”
“You…” Warlock swallowed hard. “You want me to be- at your shop, you want me to be…?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you know it nearly as well as I do, nowadays. And I’d like to take full days off now and again — take Crowley down to London for a weekend, things like that. Also, I think you have more than earned yourself a raise.”
“Oh,” said Warlock.
“And, in all honesty, I’d rather like to have you around to help with the finances.”
Warlock laughed at that, tight and high. “Yeah. Not great with maths, are you?”
“I am not.”
“Gay of you,” Warlock teased.
“Yes, alright, that’s quite enough of that.” The words sounded like a reprimand, but Az’s grin dulled their sharp edges.
There was a pause, and then Warlock met Az’s eyes once again and asked, “You really mean this, don’t you?”
“I really do.”
“Oh,” Warlock said. “Right.”
“You may have as long as you like to think it over. As I’ve said, there is no pressure for you to agree. It’s simply been on my mind, and I thought I woul—”
“I’m in,” Warlock interrupted. “Yes. Yes, yeah.”
Az beamed. “Are you really?”
“Yeah, Az. Really.”
“Well in that case,” Az said as he climbed to his feet, “we had better get back to our shop, hadn’t we? We’re running quite a bit behind schedule.”
Az had planned to start walking toward the shop, but his attempt to do so was put on hold when he found himself with an armful of dark-haired twenty-something boy. Warlock’s arms were around Az’s shoulders, squeezing tightly, so Az put his own arms around Warlock’s thin torso and squeezed back.
On the walk back to the bookshop, Warlock mumbled, “Oh, shit. Love you too, you know?”, and Az couldn’t stop himself from smiling.
*********
Mornings were soft, sometimes.
On most days, though, they weren’t. Crowley’s alarm would ring out at three-thirty in the morning, and the warm weight against Az’s back would shift away. Oftentimes Crowley would grumble curses as he threw back the covers, the sound shaking Az out of the place between sleep and waking. Az would lie there and listen to the sleep-rough timbre of Crowley’s voice, and he’d smile to himself when Crowley’s lips landed on his forehead (or in his hair, or on the swell of his cheek, or on the corner of his mouth). Crowley always kissed him twice before he left for work: once when he got out of bed, and once when the gentle sounds of his dressing and washing and brushing had gone silent, just before he slipped out the door.
But some mornings were different. On those mornings, the world was warm and soft and clear, and Az and Crowley could both feel it. Crowley would turn off his alarm and curl back against Az, draping a freckled arm back over Az’s middle and pulling their bodies together. He would press kisses to the back of Az’s neck, shoulders, arms. Sometimes Az could feel Crowley’s smile against his skin, the curling crooked shape of those beautiful lips.
They would lay like that for a while, until Crowley knew that he was going to be late, and then Az would turn over in Crowley’s arms and ask if he needed an escort to work. Crowley would grin, bright and tender, and say, “I think I just might.”
Az would crawl out of bed, and he and Crowley would dress together in silence. There were always little touches — Crowley’s hand on Az’s elbow, Az reaching up to tuck a stray curl behind Crowley’s ear, two sets of hands meeting to straighten Az’s bowtie — and Az could almost taste the sweetness of them, like warm sugar on his tongue. They would walk to the bakery with their hands locked together, and when they got to Bentley’s, Az would sit on a stool at the end of a long steel table and watch Crowley work.
Eric was there most days, and Az had gotten to know him a bit better over the course of these soft-feeling mornings. He’d taught Az how to make coffee the way that Crowley liked it, so Az had quietly given himself the job of doing so whenever he was able. Each time that Az accompanied Crowley to Bentley’s, he would excuse himself to the kitchenette and prepare two stainless-steel insulated thermoses of the bitter liquid for the bakers and a large cup of sweetened tea for himself. And then he would go back into the main part of the kitchen, settle himself on his stool, and busy himself with cataloguing every beautiful piece of Crowley.
It was silly, really, that Az was still so transfixed by everything that made Crowley Crowley. Even after all the time he’d been calling Crowley his, after these many months that now had stretched past a year, the sudden rush of joy at the sight of Crowley hadn’t gone away. It hadn’t even faded, so far as Az could tell, and that was something of a miracle. Some part of Az had thought that looking at, being with, and loving Crowley would become mundane, but it hadn’t. These things were normal to him now, yes, and they weren’t notable events by any stretch of the imagination, but still they were far from ordinary. Instead, his heart had decided that urgent flashes of love would be a part of his daily routine, that a dry mouth at the sight of Crowley’s hair would happen frequently, and that the blush in his cheeks whenever Crowley kissed him would burn each and every time. And Az’s heart had determined that things like this were to be expected and not to be worried over, and so the things that Az had thought would become rare had not. They were normal, but they remained extraordinary, and some part of Az knew that he would never cease to be captivated by Crowley.
Today was one of those soft mornings, and Az was fixated on Crowley’s hands. He had always liked them, had spent countless hours studying them, but they seemed to be imbued with a certain type of magic when Crowley was baking. They were the tools that Crowley used to cut and stir and shape and mold and glaze and frost, the conductors that allowed the brilliance within Crowley’s soul to take physical form. Crowley’s hands were gentle and strong, and they made order out of chaos, and Az loved them. He loved that he had held them (and loved that he would do so again). And when he thought of the way Crowley touched him, like he was something precious and beautiful, his heart felt overwarm and tight. Those hands, Crowley’s hands, were the shape of safety.
They were covered in flour at the moment, but Az knew that the skin on the back of them was freckled and scarred and dusted lightly with hair near the wrist. He knew that the fingernails that were buried deep in dough were cut short, trimmed in a rush just yesterday night with a pair of clippers that, as far as Crowley knew, had no particular point of origin (“They’ve always just kinda been there,” Crowley had said once as he tossed them back into a drawer, and Az had laughed). He knew that the undersides of Crowley’s hands carried scars as well, scratching blank lines through his handprints. He also knew that Crowley’s fingers, which were currently patting dough into a flat circle, had the ability to make his heart rate double any time they came into contact with any part of his skin. Whenever Crowley cupped Az’s jaw, brushed a thumb over his lips, rubbed circles into his hip, Az’s heart would take off at a gallop and not slow down until it was near breaking.
Az knew Crowley’s hands like he knew his own, but they were still a hundred kinds of beautiful.
“What are you making at the moment, dearest?” Az asked after a while, setting his now-empty cup of tea down onto the work table.
Crowley’s lips curled upward at the corners. “Scones.”
“Mm,” Az said. “What kind?”
“A few dozen of the plain ones, of course,” Crowley said as he began punching circles out of the thick slab of dough on the tabletop, “and I thought I might put some chocolate chunks into the other half of the mix.”
Az leaned forward and rested his head on his hands, smiling up at Crowley and feeling thrillingly young. “And which variety will I be getting from you this morning, my love?”
Crowley’s cheeks went pink under his freckles at the endearment, and he turned his head away to hide a shy smile. He was, Az knew, just as in love with Az as Az was with him. It was good to know, good to see it written out so plainly on that handsome face.
“Whatever y’want,” Crowley mumbled. He punched circles faster now, moving down the table with practiced ease.
“That’s not how this works, you know.” Crowley still chose pastries for him whenever he came to the bakery. It was tradition by now, sacred in its simplicity.
“I, uh. Hmm.” This last noise was a happy hum, one of the ones that Az knew rumbled through Crowley’s chest and made even the coldest air feel warm. “Regular, then. With cream and jam — Ana made some early on in the week. Strawberry.”
“Just like the first time,” Az said with a small smile.
Crowley’s head snapped in his direction. “What?”
“The first time we met, you and Anathema brought me scones with cream and strawberry jam,” said Az. “I was… well, I was fairly enchanted with you, my dear.”
Crowley huffed out something close to a laugh as he slid round circles of dough onto a large metal sheet. He began to brush them with milk, a crimson blush raging across his cheeks, and Az’s gaze settled once more on his hands.
Across the kitchen, Eric made a scoffing noise. When Az looked over at him, he was sliding rolls of bread into one of the bakery’s three ovens and trying very hard not to laugh.
“Got something to say, mate?” Crowley asked Eric in a near-growl. “Something to add?”
“Nah,” Eric said, flashing Az a quick smile. He’d put dark lipstick on today and was wearing his hair in two spikes that almost resembled bunny ears. “Just that Az must’ve been very impressed by your verbal skills that first meeting, boss.”
“Shut up.”
“I’ve heard the story,” Eric said. “Ana told me the morning after it happened, y’know? And she’s never really dropped it since—”
“Shut up, ” Crowley said again.
“For what it’s worth,” Az said, rising from his seat to rest a hand on Crowley’s shoulder, “I was so taken in with my love’s beauty — those freckles, those cheekbones, those eyes … good Lord — that I forgot to introduce myself.”
Crowley grinned. “You did, didn’t you?”
Az was beginning to regret coming to his defense.
“Yes, but you couldn’t even get a full sentence out, darling,” Az reminded him sweetly, pressing a kiss to Crowley’s shoulder in the space between his own finger and thumb. Crowley’s skin was warm beneath the fabric of his t-shirt. “It would seem that we both made ourselves into fools that day.”
This time, Eric did laugh. “I believe I remember the exact quote of the thing Crowley said, now I’m thinking about it.”
“Shut it,” Crowley said, but there was no sincerity behind it anymore.
“Mm,” Eric said as he closed the door to the oven. He set his hands on his waist and leaned back, smiling. “Ah, yes, the words— sorry, word, of that moment was ‘Scones.’”
“I hate you,” Crowley grumbled.
“You don’t,” chirped Eric.
“Could fire you.”
“Not without cause,” Eric said.
“Bullying?” Crowley offered. “Cruel and unusual punishment?”
“Oh, hush,” Az chided him gently, pressing another kiss to Crowley’s arm. “I thought it was charming.”
Eric coughed, smirking, and Az thought that he might have caught the word “Bullshit” in that cough. Az rolled his eyes, which set Eric off once more into peals of laughter.
Crowley twisted sideways to kiss the top of Az’s head before moving away to slide the tray of scones into the oven. “Thanks, angel.”
The next hour passed quickly. Az returned to his stool and watched Crowley move around the kitchen, fluid and controlled, every motion precise. He was in sharp contrast to Anathema, who barreled through the back door at quarter-past four, a tornado of color and loud noises. She was dragging a shuffling Newt by the hand (Az wasn’t sure if Newt’s feet were actually on the ground at any point — it was as if Anathema was simply yanking him through the air as she whirled around saying good morning to everyone in the kitchen), and Newt gave Az a slightly fuzzy-eyed smile. When Adam entered the kitchen fifteen minutes later, Eric slid a list of tasks toward him and, still smiling, told him to get his ass into gear. Az waved at Pepper and Brian as they walked through the back of the bakery toward the shop in front, and shortly before five, he got up to make himself a second cup of tea.
The first batch of scones had long since come out of the oven. Crowley grabbed one before Anathema and Newt could whisk them away to the front, dodging out of the way as Anathema half-heartedly swatted at his hand.
“We’re supposed to sell those, you know,” she called after him.
Crowley, as usual, ignored her.
The scone was set on a chipped ceramic plate and smeared with a healthy serving of clotted cream and fresh strawberry jam. Az watched Crowley prepare it, unable to stop himself from smiling. And when Crowley set the scone down in front of him with a triumphant grin, the only thing that Az could think to do in response was kiss him, so he did. Full on the mouth, in front of Eric and Adam, but Az couldn’t bring himself to care.
They broke apart after a brief moment, but Az left his hand on the back of Crowley’s head for a few seconds longer. He toyed with a frizzy curl that had escaped from Crowley’s bun, stroking gently over the skin at the nape of Crowley’s neck.
“Nghn,” Crowley said, golden eyes locked on Az’s. The shiny frames of his glasses glinted in the kitchen light. “Uh.”
“I love you,” Az said, feeling the edges of the now-familiar words against his tongue and teeth.
Crowley ducked his head down and kissed the top of Az’s head, his nose buried among white curls. And then he nudged the plate on the table with one long finger and said, “Scone.”
*********
Anthony James Crowley was, in the opinion of some of the villagers of Alton, quite a bit of a ‘flash bastard.’ He drove a motorcycle, wore his red curly hair up in a modern atrocity called a man-bun, and dressed in dark-colored clothes that fit so tightly it should have been impossible for him to get them on and off. He wore gold-rimmed glasses and played classic rock in the bakery he owned with his sarcastic and unceasingly blunt best friend, Anathema Device. He had a loud laugh and a swaggering walk, and he’d once thrown an Austen-era ball for his boyfriend’s birthday. He was a man who, on an aesthetic level at least, did not at all fit into the quiet village he lived in.
Somehow, though, even the people who thought he was flash and strange and noisy came to love him. He was wonderful like that.
Crowley’s boyfriend was his opposite in nearly every respect. Az Fell was a pale-haired former professor who had moved to Alton to open a bookshop and lead a quiet life. He dressed in well-worn fabrics that were dyed in light colors, and he spoke with the vocabulary and cadence of someone twice his age. He enjoyed classical music, hated the taste of coffee, and was fairly soft-spoken and even-tempered. And for some reason, the man he had chosen to spend his life with was Crowley.
The night that Az Fell proposed to Anthony Crowley was devoid of grand gestures and flashy displays. It wasn’t exactly planned, and Az had not gone into the evening with the intention of asking Crowley to marry him. It was a quiet thing, and it was also everything.
Az had been in the habit of reading before he went to sleep for as long as he could remember. This hadn’t changed when he and Crowley had begun to sleep in the same bed; it had simply taken on a new form. Instead of reading silently as he had done for years, Az would pull Crowley’s head against his chest and read out loud.
On this particular night, the book in Az’s hand was Maurice by E.M. Forster. Az was reading slowly, varying his voice to draw distinction between Clive and Maurice as he worked his way through the final pages.
“‘He did not realize that this was the end, without twilight or compromise,’” Az read, and Crowley’s face turned upward, honey-brown eyes studying his face, “‘that he should never cross Maurice’s track again nor speak to those who had seen him. He waited for a little in the alley, then returned to the house to correct his proofs and to devise some method of concealing the truth from Anne.’”
Sighing happily, Az closed the book with a soft snap and brushed his fingers over the cover.
“Oh,” Crowley said softly. “Oh, shit.”
Az chuckled lightly as he set Maurice on the table by his bed and switched off the lamp. The room was plunged into darkness, but Crowley didn’t move to lift his head off of Az’s chest and settle under the covers as he usually did.
“Are you alright, my love?” Az asked, running a hand through Crowley’s curls. They were loose, hanging down past his shoulders, and Az wound his fingers through them.
“Yeah,” Crowley answered after a moment. “Yeah, just… Forster.”
“What about him?”
“He was like us, you know? Queer. But he couldn’t be like we are. He couldn’t have this.” One of Crowley’s hands slipped around to rest against Az’s hip, pressed into it. “And Maurice feels like— I don’t know what it feels like, but it does, you know?”
“I think it feels like looking at his heart,” Az said. He remembered the way that he’d felt the first time he’d finished reading Maurice, and a little part of him was thrilled at the knowledge that Crowley felt it, too.
Crowley nodded. “Yeah, that. That exactly.”
“But it ends well, my dear.” Az stroked the freckled skin at the base of Crowley’s neck, brushing a hand over strong shoulders. “Forster was very intentional about that. He said he wouldn’t have written a book about homosexual love without giving it a happy ending.”
“I know.” Crowley was slightly tense, and Az could almost hear the thoughts crashing about in his head.
“What is it, then?”
“It just feels so impossible sometimes,” Crowley said, a jumbled pile of letters amidst his scattered breaths. “Us, this. It feels like a dream, you know? And Maurice… Forster… it makes me realize why it doesn’t feel real. Because not that long ago, it couldn’t have been real. We couldn’t have been real.”
“Oh, darling.”
“The ending of the book’s all well and good until you realize that it was actually fiction, that people like us don’t get happy endings.”
Az reached over and turned the lamp on again, bathing the bedroom in a warm yellow glow. Crowley was curled into the side of his chest, eyes wide and vulnerable, and Az loved him.
“People like us do get happy endings,” Az said, forcing sincerity and weight behind every syllable. “We do.”
Crowley made a non-committal noise, and the realization hit Az like a truck: Crowley was afraid.
Once, many months ago, Crowley had told Az about his previous relationships. ‘I have a history of people not wanting to be with me publicly. ‘S just what I’m used to.’ And Crowley had gone to therapy, and he’d slowly learned not to accept less love than he deserved, but that didn’t mean that his memories of being kept in the shadows were any less painful. Sometimes (rarely, but still sometimes) Az would catch Crowley studying him, checking to see if his affection was real, and something inside of Az would ache for him.
“Do you remember the night of the ball, my dearest?”
Crowley muffled a snort in Az’s shoulder. “Yeah, ‘course.”
“You said that men like us could have an Austenian romance, even if only for one night.”
“Yeah,” Crowley said again.
“And I am grateful for that night, and I am impossibly in love with you for even having the idea to put it together for me.” Crowley responded with an unintelligible collection of consonants, and Az kissed the top of his head. “But the trouble is that I don’t want one night of romance with you.”
Crowley lifted his head away from Az’s body, head cocked to one side. “What?”
“I’m not asking you to turn our relationship into something from the eighteenth century, darling,” Az clarified. “I’m simply saying that I believe— that you have made me believe, in fact— that men like us can have happy endings.”
“Oh,” Crowley said. “Angel, I—”
Az shook his head and pressed his fingers softly to Crowley’s lips, stopping his words.
“Specifically, my most beautiful love, I believe that you and I can have a happy ending. We deserve one. We should have the life we want, the life that people like us should have always been able to lead. I want that with you, do you understand? I want everything with you, my dear. I want you always.”
Crowley stared at him, mouth fallen slightly open.
“Angel,” Crowley began breathlessly, “what the hell are you on about?”
Without thinking, without giving himself time to wonder if he should say this here, if he should say this now, Az brought his hands up to the sides of Crowley’s face and said, “Marry me.”
Crowley’s eyes went alarmingly wide, and for a fraction of a second Az was afraid that he would say no, that he would climb out of bed and storm away, angry that Az would suggest such a thing.
But then Crowley was climbing fully into Az’s lap, and he was grinning, and he was saying, “Yes, okay, yes.”
“I don’t have a ring,” Az said dumbly. His brain was filled with static because Crowley had said yes, because Crowley was his fiancé now, and what was he supposed to do with that?
Crowley kissed him, crushing a laugh between their mouths.
“I’m serious,” Az breathed when they broke apart, “I really don’t have a ring. I should do, I suppose, but I hadn’t gotten the chance to go down to the jeweler's yet, and—”
“‘S okay.” Crowley’s breath skated across Az’s lips as he spoke. “I do.”
Az jerked his head backward to get a better look at Crowley’s face and wound up slamming it into the headboard.
“You what?”
Crowley’s eyebrows pinched together in concern, his long fingers pressing at the spot where Az had hit his head. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Az said quickly. “You what? ”
“Got a ring,” Crowley repeated, voice nonchalant as he settled back against Az’s thighs. “It’s in my drawer in the dresser. IBring it to you in the morning, if that’s good by you.”
“Wh- how long have you had it?”
Crowley shrugged and looped his arms around Az’s neck. “Couple weeks.”
“What?”
“I had a thing planned,” Crowley said casually. He kissed Az on the forehead. “Should probably text Ana, actually. She can still take some of the stuff back.”
Az flushed. “I’m terribly sorry that I ruined your plans, darling.”
“You didn’t.”
“I did, although I must admit that I don’t regret it.”
Crowley shook his head. He reached for Az’s face, tilting it up toward him.
“This was so much better than anything I could’ve come up with.”
Az’s cheeks felt like someone had lit them on fire. He tried to say something, wanting very desperately to have some clever response to that, but Crowley didn’t give him a chance. Crowley’s lips captured Az’s once more, slotting their mouths together in a kiss that was as tender and certain and all-encompassing as any they had ever shared.
“I love you,” Crowley said after a moment, resting his nose against Az’s forehead. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” Az whispered. He pressed his lips to the underside of Crowley’s jaw, nosing at the freckles there. Crowley shivered. “And I will keep loving you for as long as I can, with all of myself.”
Crowley made a pleased-sounding humming noise, and Az felt like he was flying.
A few minutes later, Crowley slid off of Az’s lap and reached over to turn out the light. This time, he did get under the covers and rest his head against the pillow, pulling Az down with him as he went.
“You’re the one thing I’m sure of,” Crowley murmured. “The one thing in my whole life I’ve ever been sure of.”
Az nuzzled the place at the base of Crowley’s throat. When he had first met Crowley, he had struggled with words. He had stuttered and stumbled his way through the simplest sentences, and yet Crowley had wanted him anyway.
Now, though, in the darkness, Az found his tongue.
“I am sure of you, too, my dearest. And if there is one thing I know for certain about you, wonderfully unpredictable as you are, it is that I am wholly and utterly overwhelmed by you. I am lost in you and all that you are, and I never want to be found.”
Crowley’s skin warmed with a blush, and Az snuggled impossibly closer.
“You sound like a bloody poet,” Crowley said.
Az laughed into Crowley’s neck. “I love you.”
“So you’ve said.”
“I love you.”
“Angel.”
“I,” Az said, wriggling upward so that he could press his lips to Crowley’s. “Love.” Kiss. “You.”
Crowley said it back in a low whisper, lips brushing against Az’s in near-kisses with every word.
Sometimes, Az thought as he turned over and felt Crowley curl against his back, there are soft things. Sometimes there are great loves and unbroken promises. Sometimes there are scones and freckles and kisses.
Sometimes, against all odds, there are happy endings.