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The first time, Crowley bolts.
By God, Satan and the Universe, he did not mean to. Surely, when the angel you started falling in love with six thousand years ago (and whom you have never stopped falling in love with) finally, finally, closes the eternal space between you with unbearable slowness and a look of longing on his face that might bring Kings and Queens and Whole Nations to their knees, the last thing you ought to do is move away.
His knees feel weak as he staggers, flees, towards his Bentley, leaving behind a flabbergasted, confused, and suddenly very lonely angel. Why? Why why why, Crowley, you bastard, he thinks to himself, all the while putting his foot down on the gas as if he was looking to break the Guinness World Record of Fastest Coward Alive.
He drives for a long time, leaving behind the city boundaries and the Dark Sigil Odegra, where he circumvents a traffic jam long enough to earn him another commendation. He drives South, to the sea. For a moment, he considers driving onwards, sending the Bentley along the ocean floor until he’d resurface either in the Netherlands or in Hell. But he brakes and gets out of the car and feels like screaming.
The second time Aziraphale looks at him like That, like he is worth more than a lifetime supply of 1811 Chateau d'Yquem and the original Gutenberg Bible and a million sushi platters at Sukijabashi Jiro combined, less than a fortnight has passed.
Crowley thought he was prepared. He is not.
He doesn’t think he ever will be. Because he suddenly feels a panic so big he flinches and knocks over a pile of books, mumbling words that never even make it to his own ears, words that evaporate in the space between them, as his feet carry him out of the door.
This time, he is sure he saw Uncertainty flash across the angel’s face. No, no, anything but that, Angel. Please.
It scares him, the possibility of being loved back; it scares him so much.
After six thousand years, you get used to it. You resign yourself to the Infinite Limbo, the Almost, the More Than Nothing, because it’s not bad. It’s good, really. Just being together feels good and right and like Home. But then you look at the humans and their stupid Love and you want it, just like you want their fashion and their inventions and, especially, their cars.
And any unspoken desire takes root so deep in the heart that it grows back no matter how many times you try to trim it down, to decimate it with the plant shredder of your soul.
The third time, Aziraphale finds him at his flat. He says nothing as Crowley opens the door, but oh, his eyes speak for him. They say so much at once that Crowley can barely keep up.
But most of all, both of them, the angel and the demon, look desperate.
“Crowley,” Aziraphale breaks the silence, and with it thousands of years of a different kind of silence, “I must… you have to kn– we have to…”
Exasperated, the angel pulls a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket, and as he nervously straightens it out Crowley realizes it must be a letter, and despite himself he almost laughs, a mad kind of laughter that bubbles up his throat. But he holds on to his last sliver of sanity as he watches Aziraphale opening his mouth, closing it, looking away and back again and finally, with an audible, desperate sigh, stuffing the letter back into his pocket.
“I came to tell you just one thing, really.” Aziraphale fidgets, finally straightening his back and taking a deep breath.
From somewhere deep inside him, Crowley produces a “Hgk?” which he manages, through performing a minor miracle, to make sound like (a soft, very soft) “Go on then, angel.”
“I’m ready now,” Aziraphale says, and Crowley feels like crying.
His hand grips the doorframe tighter, but this time, he does not run. (There is nowhere to run. He always ends up back with him, in the end.) When, against his own expectations, he does not slam the door into Aziraphale’s face but remains standing there, trying to look Cool As A Cucumber, the angel brightens, slightly. Hope is a strong and inherently good feeling in any human, but an angel’s hope is enough to end wars.
(Literally. Somewhere in ——, an entire people suddenly lay down their weapons and wonder why they ever picked them up in the first place.)
“I’m sorry I go so slow,” Aziraphale mumbles, carefully taking a step forward to touch his fingertips to Crowley’s cheek, eliciting a low hiss. “But I’m ready now… to match your pace.”
Crowley says nothing, because he doesn’t think he can. All his willpower, all his focus, is centered around just Being, and he feels like he’s drowning, but in a good way. (Is this how whales feel? He wishes he were a whale, with a brain so big it might be strong enough to comprehend the Love of an Angel.)
He forces himself to lift his gaze and when he does it’s like turning on a flashlight in utter darkness. It’s like the true Blue produced only by the Interference of Light.
Crowley realizes something: Aziraphale looks scared, too. But the angel is braver than he is. Despite the uncertainty in his eyes, Aziraphale lets his gaze drop, and Crowley licks his lips. He moves forward less than the fraction of an inch: an invitation that Aziraphale–finally, finally–readily accepts.
Softly, the angel touches his lips to the demon’s. For a perfect moment, he lingers. Then, just as softly, he pulls back.
They look at each other, noses touching, each other’s breath on their lips.
Oh.
Crowley breaks. He pulls Aziraphale back in like he is the world’s oceans and Crowley is the moon. He still feels desperate, but it’s the best kind of desperate, the I Can’t Get Enough Of You kind of desperation that he thought he had known before but realized he had only grasped at.
They cling to each other, kissing and kissing again until they slowly come to a rest, breathing hard. Aziraphale rests his forehead against Crowley’s.
“Oh,” he breathes, and sounds as shaky as Crowley feels. They look at each other and–they can’t help it, they start laughing.
Crowley isn’t afraid to be loved back at all, he realizes. He was afraid of Not being loved back, a fear that feels so small in the light of This Moment that it’s as ridiculous as Ducks With Ears.
“You do go fast, dear,” Aziraphale says breathlessly, and smiles. Crowley grins.
“Angel, I go down like a lead balloon.”