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Aziraphale opens his eyes and is promptly overtaken by a sense of terror.
“Where am I? What happened, what -- ?!” He bolts upright, taking in his surroundings.
“It’s all right, angel,” comes a low voice. Aziraphale feels a warm, familiar hand gently squeeze his shoulder. Relief courses through him and he sinks back into what he realizes is Crowley’s bed, vanishing his angel wings, which had erupted when he awoke in distress, so as to better settle among the pillows.
“Did I -- fall asleep?” Aziraphale asks incredulously. Crowley is perched cross-legged on the bed next to him, in only a black t-shirt and a pair of tightly fitting briefs; Aziraphale instantly gets the impression this is for his benefit, as Crowley likely wouldn’t be wearing anything at all if home alone.
“You did. Only for a couple days, I woke up myself just a few hours ago.”
“But I never sleep!” Aziraphale’s wings shoot out again, forcing Crowley to scramble closer in a very ungainly fashion or be knocked off the bed, “I don’t like it, I don’t -- it’s never -- ” Aziraphale is beside himself, but as he begins to wake up, he’s realizing that nothing very bad has happened after all and perhaps he’s only a bit distraught because he’s still waking up. Crowley seems to have arrived at this same conclusion, giving Aziraphale a solid pat on the knee now that he’s sure he’s not going to be flung off his own bed by a rogue angel wing.
“I know, angel. Whereas I wouldn’t mind dozing through a couple decades, though I haven’t done it in quite some time myself. It’s not that surprising though, is it?” Aziraphale watches as the demon gives a great snakelike stretch, lithe muscles shifting beneath thin skin. “We’ve had a heaven of a day, hadn’t we?”
“Yes,” Aziraphale mutters, rubbing his eyes, “yes, I rather suppose we have.” He blinks a few times, and when the room comes into focus, he finds Crowley smiling at him, a soft smile with his lips gently parted. It’s not one Aziraphale recognizes, not a trace of a sneer in it. “What?” he asks, suspiciously. “Is there -- oh goodness, do I have one of those marks on my face from a crease in the pillow that humans always get --” He puts his hand to his cheek.
“No, angel,” Crowley says, still smiling. “It’s just. I reckon the sleep did you a bit of good, didn’t it?”
And indeed, now that he has shaken off the disconcerting notion of actual slumber, Aziraphale does feel rather rejuvenated.
“Perhaps,” he replies evasively, “though I can’t see myself making a habit of it.” Despite this, he’s realizing that Crowley’s bed is actually disarmingly pleasant, a very satisfying interim between squishy and firm and decked out in deliciously silky covers. Aziraphale bounces a bit despite himself, and Crowley’s eyes widen. “What now?”
“Well,” Crowley blinks. “We did it, didn’t we? Saved the world?”
“Oh, that!” Aziraphale swallows and ceases bouncing; he’s been dreading this since they left the Ritz. “Well, yes, we have, but I’m afraid it’s not that simple, is it? I mean, they’re certain to be after us eventually, aren’t they? It’s only a matter of time -- ”
“I know,” says Crowley, “but we haven’t had time in eleven years. Quite a bit longer than that, really. It’ll probably take them another couple centuries to get their business together and figure out what’s next, ineffably and all that. You know how slow the paperwork gets, especially when no one wants to admit how it ended.”
“Well -- well yes, it probably won’t be for another few centuries, but -- ”
Crowley takes a deep breath, then takes Aziraphale’s hand. He’s done this before, of course, but usually only when he’s yanking the angel out of imminent danger, or drunkenly, for emphasis, but this is something else entirely, something...soft.
“If it were up to you, you’d spend those next few centuries worrying about it,” Crowley says. “I’m not going to let that happen.”
Aziraphale blinks at him.
“What do you mean? Of course it’s up to me -- what are you on about?”
“Aziraphale.” Crowley says his name like it’s a holy thing. Which it is, of course, but nothing Crowley says can be, so it’s really quite a feat. “It’s like you said. It’s a matter of time, right? And what are you going to do in the meantime? Keep performing little miracles even though you know the bosses upstairs wanted to destroy everything on the planet?”
Well then. Aziraphale could feel his cheeks turning quite red.
“I don’t perform miracles just for them, I do it because it’s the right thing to do!” It’s almost a snap, the way it leaves his mouth, but he doesn’t pull his hand away.
“Yes, angel, I know.” Crowley swallows, like he’s fighting with himself but really wants to say the words. He turns his gaze upward, revealing the expanse of his throat. “I -- I don’t want you to stop performing miracles. I know you do it for the right reasons, and not the “right” reasons,” -- he doesn’t remove his hand to make the airquotes, but Aziraphale hears them anyway -- “but the actual, truly right reasons.” He lowers his gaze to the angel again, and Aziraphale can feel such unbridled sweetness coming from him it almost takes him aback. The next words come out quieter than anything he’s ever heard Crowley say. “I just want you to do them with me.”
Aziraphale has no idea what expression has presented itself on his face. His hand is getting quite warm beneath Crowley’s palm.
“With you?”
“Yes, Aziraphale, and I’d appreciate if you clued in a bit quicker!” Crowley’s voice raises, frayed with passion. His cheeks have gone remarkably scarlet; it clashes awfully with his hair. “I’m tired of only seeing you every few years; we don’t have any of our respective higher ups to report to anymore. We’re free, at least until the next apocalypse, and in the meantime, I can’t think of anything I’d rather do in this entire Satan forsaken universe than explore it with you.”
A ringing pause fills the room. Aziraphale takes several deep breaths as the weight of this sinks in, the undeniable truth that every feeling he has suppressed, explained away, and outright buried is not only valid but perhaps entirely, vehemently reciprocated.
“If you’re going to say no, though,” Crowley growls, worrying his hair with his free hand, “hurry up and do it already because I’d rather not waste any --”
Crowley doesn’t get to finish his thought, because Aziraphale has pressed their mouths together with such force it nearly knocks them both off the bed.
“You absolute darling,” Aziraphale manages, when he bothers to catch his breath. “I can’t believe it.”
“Can’t you?” Crowley murmurs, his voice muffled with his lips pressed into the curve of the angel’s throat.
“Oh, be quiet,” Aziraphale thinks he says, though it might not have left his mouth at all, he is experiencing a sort of encompassing bliss that is partly due to Crowley’s body pressed against him in a kind of thrill of relief, and everything else to do with the words with me, with me, with me.
“I won’t,” Crowley says, running his hands through the angel’s hair, “not ever.”
“Thank God,” says Aziraphale, and he pulls the demon close, with absolutely no intention of letting go.