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“Well,” Aziraphale licked his spoon and set it on the edge of his plate with a little wiggle of pleasure.
“Well,” Crowley leaned back in his chair, holding his wine glass loosely by the stem. “You’re looking very satisfied, Angel.”
“Mmm,” agreed Aziraphale, tossing down his napkin and rubbing his belly under the table. “Immensely.” He watched Crowley swig from his glass. “What shall we do now, my dear?”
“Well,” drawled Crowley. “If you’re absolutely certain you’ve finished having your way with that spoon,” he paused to enjoy watching Aziraphale roll his eyes up at the ceiling. “We might go and have ourselves a glass or two of something.”
“A glass of something like the one you’ve got in your hand, you mean?”
Crowley looked at the glass, “Perhaps not exactly like it. But not entirely unlike it either.”
“I’ve got lots of something not entirely unlike it,” Aziraphale offered. “If you’d like to follow me home.”
“I’ll do you one better,” said Crowley. “I’ll give you a lift.”
…
“You’re right, Angel” Crowley announced, finishing his first glass of Aziraphale’s lovely Chateauneuf-du-Pape. “This is much nicer.”
“Well special occasions,” Aziraphale poured him a second glass. “Maybe this glass will disappear a little slower, mm?”
“It goes off, you know. You can’t just keep it for a hundred years like it’s one of your old books; it’ll turn to vinegar,” Crowley gulped a little more wine rather pointedly.
“It wouldn’t dare,” Aziraphale swirled his glass serenely and sniffed it.
“It goes in your mouth ,” said Crowley helpfully. “Is this a special occasion?”
“Yes, dear, I’ve done it before.” Aziraphale sipped, “Special occasion?”
“Yeah, you said the wine’s for special occasions. Have I missed something? You’ve secretly got a birthday or something?”
“Oh!” Aziraphale was going a little pink about the ears. “Did I?”
“Fine, be funny,” Crowley shrugged. “You and your mysssteriesss--whoops,” he covered his mouth sheepishly with his free hand. “Bit early on for that, isn’t it.”
Aziraphale smiled over the top of his glass, “I rather like it.”
“Do you?” asked Crowley from behind his hand.
“Yes, you wily old thing. I like it when you’re unguarded. It’s sweet,” Aziraphale poured Crowley a little more wine.
“Gllfnk,” said Crowley and drank it.
Aziraphale finished his glass also, “I’m in the mood for a change. All right?”
“Erm,” Crowley shifted in his seat and looked about him. “What sort of a change?”
Aziraphale made a gentle sweeping motion with one hand, and the wine corked itself and returned itself to the cellar. His drinks trolley rolled itself across the room and halted just short of the toe of his shiny tan oxfords, “Glenlivet, dear? Lagavulin?”
“Ooo, please. Dealer’s choice,” Crowley pushed up his shades, then took them off altogether and pocketed them. “Is this part of me being unguarded?”
“That isn’t what I meant,” said Aziraphale rather sternly, and Crowley thought that at the right angle, the halo would just be visible.
“Only joking,” said Crowley meekly, accepting the proffered two fingers of Glenlivet.
“Unguarded and drunk aren’t the same thing anyway,” Aziraphale poured himself a little whisky also, still looking stern. Somewhere in the shop, Aziraphale’s fussy little clock chimed ten.
“Is that really the time!” Crowley finished his drink. “Sorry, Angel I’ve gotta dash.”
“You’re leaving?” Aziraphale looked rather startled, “My dear, if I’ve offend-”
“No, don’t be stupid. I’ve just. Got a thing to do.” Crowley set his empty glass down on the drinks trolley and buttoned his jacket. “I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah? We can have breakfast. We’ll do crepes! What did I do with my shades?”
“Breast pocket.” Aziraphale waved impatiently, “You can’t get a decent crepe in London. I thought we were going to spend the evening together.” His eyes seemed to have grown larger and wetter.
Crowley put his shades on, “Well. Yeah, but I’ve just. I’ve got a thing I have to...” Crowley trailed off. He considered it indecent to be well over six thousand years old and still able to carry off pouting. He gave a sort of decision wriggle, “Fine, come along then. Come with me.”
Aziraphale brightened, “I wouldn’t want to intrude.”
“Angel, I really don’t have time for tasteful demuring, so come if you’re coming, because I’ve got to go now.”
Aziraphale came.
“I hope you aren’t thinking of driving,” he remarked when they were out on the pavement. He locked the door of the shop behind them with a backward wave.
“No, we’ll walk,” said Crowley. “It’s not far. Ten minutes maybe.”
“You walk so fast,” complained Aziraphale after four minutes. “You’ll give me indigestion with all this running about. Your legs are longer than mine.”
“A tiny bit maybe,” said Crowley, but he slowed obligingly anyway.
“Where are we going anyway?”
“You’ll sssss,” Crowley paused to collect himself, “We’ll be there in a bit. You may as well find out then and ssspare me the trouble trying to des--er explain it.”
“Oooh,” said Aziraphale eagerly. “Is it dangerous?”
Crowley laughed, “Do you want to be in danger, Angel?”
Aziraphale considered that, “Been a bit quiet lately.”
Crowley shook his head, still laughing, “You’re ridiculous. Hang on, here we are.” They came to a stop outside of a purple door with Alpha Centauri etched on it in small gold letters.
Aziraphale looked at Crowley, “What is this place?”
“Just one of my cultivated little corners of London. It could almost be quite your sort of place actually, Angel. I think you’d really enjoy the regulars. Sssshusssshhh a moment, will you? I’m working on a cossstume change here.” He screwed up his face and shivered as his form shifted a bit. Not much of a change, really but for the helmet. Bit of gold shimmer in his suit. It’d look excellent under the lights, though, and that was the point.
Aziraphale looked him up and down, “You’re a…?”
“Spaceman.”
“Of course. That explains the gold motorbike helmet.”
“It’s a space helmet! And it’s a costume; it wouldn’t protect my head at all in a motorbike crash!”
“Why’s your visor screen shaped like a heart?”
Crowley slid up his heart-shaped visor up to glare at Aziraphale, “Camp!”
Aziraphale nodded, “Of course. I should have known.”
He shut the visor again, “Right, I’m really late, so I’ve got to go in. Wait a moment and then come in through this door; don’t follow me. If you tell them at the bar that you’ve been invited by Mr Crowley, they’ll look after you. And one last thing, Angel: I’m not Crowley in here, all right? Just call me the Sssspaceman.”
“But wh-”
“Fun!” shouted Crowley over his shoulder and dashed off down the alley next to the nightclub.
Crowley sauntered onto the little stage and slid onto his piano bench. He went straight into Starman without an introductory word, and the chatter of the crowd faded as they realised he’d arrived. Typically he sang looking out at the audience, but he felt strangely nervy that night and kept his eyes fixed on his piano.
When Crowley’s first song was finished, he chanced a look out into the club and spotted Aziraphale at the bar, chatting to Amir and Curtis. Aziraphale was bathed in a beam of pink light from the galaxy projected on the ceiling, and he seemed to glow in it. He held an equally pink cocktail in his left hand and his ring glinted when he brought the drink to his mouth. Aziraphale spotted Crowley looking at him and raised his glass with a slightly ironical bounce of an eyebrow as if to say, Don’t let me keep you, dear. Excellent advice.
Crowley tore himself away from Aziraphale and looked over the crowd. It was a good night. Most of his regulars--Maryam had her arm out of the cast but Shreya was still hovering anxiously near her like a very smitten hummingbird-- and quite a few new faces, “Good evening, everyone. Welcome back or welcome aboard, if you’re new here to Alpha Centauri. Lovely to have you for our little night of celessssstial harmoniessss,” Crowley paused at that, glad for the visor hiding his heating face. “Erm ah anyway. As I’ve kept you all waiting so long already, let’s get back to it, shall we?” And he went into The Final Countdown with unprecedented vim.
All the songs in Crowley’s set were what Aziraphale would have called ‘bebop’ in a disdainful hush, so Crowley’d not much hope that Aziraphale would actually enjoy the music. But every time Crowley glanced back at Aziraphale, he was rapt, eyes shining.
Giddy on his angel’s smiles, Crowley finished his set with a rather crooning rendition of Rocket Man. At the point in the lyrics where Crowley sang, I miss the earth so much/I miss my wife , he paused in his playing for just a moment to point into the crowd at Aziraphale, “That’s you, Angel.” There was a smattering of murmurs and titters in the crowd as they shifted about to look and see who the Spaceman might have been pointing to. Crowley kept his eyes fixed on the piano til he reached the end and invited the audience, as he usually did, to sing along with him, And I think it’s gonna be a long long time …
Crowley shut his eyes to let the voices of his audience to roll through him. And it really did feel like celestial harmonies, in the best way. All of them singing together, united in purpose and joy for a finite moment that seemed as if it could have stretched out into eternity. When Crowley opened his eyes again, he saw that even Aziraphale was singing, and he felt so aglow that he was sure he must dazzle to look at. That much happiness, surely must be divine and burn too bright to bear.
Crowley rose from the piano as the last note faded, and when he addressed his audience, his voice had the tiniest wobble in it, “You’ve been absolutely sssstellar. Goodnight,” and blowing them a kiss through his helmet, Crowley ran off the stage.
…
In the alley, Crowley adjusted his form to disappear the helmet and regain his usual black suit.
When Aziraphale joined Crowley, he was swaying a little under the effects of a series of those pink cocktails that Crowley happened to know were called The Influence of Venus, “That was splendid, my dear!”
“Oh, do you think so?” asked Crowley, grateful for the darkness hiding his blushes.
“Absolutely!” Aziraphale hooked his arm through Crowley’s and started them off. Back toward the bookshop, Crowley noted, though it was after midnight. “Such a delightful singing voice you have; I never knew! And your stage presence! They loved you!”
“Thanks, Angel.”
“You will have me back some time, won’t you?”
“Do you want to come back? Turn up whenever you’d like, Angel. It’s second Fridays, and it’s meant to start at ten o’clock.”
“Of course I want to come back, my dear boy!” Aziraphale let go of Crowley to gesticulate expansively. “It was intox-” Aziraphale had turned on the spot as he spoke and was on the point of stepping backward off the kerb, straight into the path of a very reckless cab that had just come whipping round the corner.
Crowley dived after Aziraphale and caught him about the waist, pulling him back onto the kerb, “For Heaven’s sake , Angel! You nearly gave me heart failure! When are you going to learn to half look after yourself, mm?”
“Oh!” A watery smile chased away Aziraphale’s startled expression. He pressed a hand to Crowley’s chest and clutched at his lapel, “Well, I have you.”
Crowley felt a hot shiver run through him like a sting of electricity and after a moment of heady confusion, found himself looking into his own face. His expression was soggy with affection, and he could still feel his heart racing, and the whole effect gave him such a shock that he started back with a little cry.
“Did you do that on purpose?” asked the Aziraphale that looked like Crowley.
“Of course not!” Crowley looked away, because his own face was far, far too much to look right at, still half pissed and giddy with the adrenaline of performing. He felt rather naked without his shades, so he took Aziraphale’s spectacles out of his breast pocket and put them on. “I was going to ask you if you did it.”
“It was just an accident, then,” said Aziraphale in Crowley’s voice, still sounding rather suspicious. “No matter. Shall we just switch back, dear?”
“Yeah, let’s get on with it,” said Crowley, offering his hand. Aziraphale clasped it.
Nothing happened.
“Angel?”
“I’m trying!” said Aziraphale fretfully. “I think. I think it’s the alcohol. I’m too drunk to swap, oh Crowley, I’m sorry!”
“‘S’all right, Angel,” Crowley soothed. “Relax, that won’t help. Let’s just sober up, then.”
Aziraphale took a deep breath, “Yes. Let’s.” In the window of the shop they were standing outside of, Crowley caught sight of the reflection of his own face screwed up in concentration as Aziraphale tried to banish the liquor from his body. Aziraphale let out a breath in a gusty sort of wail, “Oh, I can’t! I can’t find anything in here, Crowley! I don’t know what I’m doing!”
Crowley stroked Aziraphale’s back--well his own back--still trying to look away, “It’s all right; it’s all right. Try clicking.” He clicked his own fingers in demonstration.
Aziraphale clicked expertly, but still nothing happened.
Crowley could feel tension rising in Aziraphale, “It’s okay, maybe just try a different miracle. Cocoa! Get yourself a nice relaxing cocoa, mm? Lots of marshmallows.”
Aziraphale tried again, “Bugger! Nothing at all! What about you?”
Crowley found that he could not produce a cocoa either, “Shit.”
“Oh Crowley, what are we going to do?! Not that I don’t like your body, but it isn’t mine!”
“Yeah, Angel, I know what you mean.” Crowley considered, “Let’s just have a sleep and swap back in the morning, when we’ve sobered up, all right?”
“Oh!” Aziraphale heaved a little sigh, “Of course! We’ll be sober in the morning, won’t we.” He laughed nervously, “No need to panic.”
“That almost never helps,” agreed Crowley.
…
They went back to the bookshop, and Crowley insisted on ascending into Aziraphale’s little flat above it so that he could fix Aziraphale the soothing cocoa that had been beyond them on the street.
“There you are, Angel,” Crowley pressed Aziraphale’s favourite winged mug into his hands. “One piping hot cocoa with far too many marshmallows. Mind you don’t sssscorch my tongue.” He flopped into one of Aziraphale’s armchairs.
“Thank you my dear--ooh,” Aziraphale yawned mightily and sipped the cocoa. “It feels dreadfully heavy in here. Is it always like this? I don’t remember it from before.”
Crowley smiled, “You’re tired. Or I’m tired. Long day. You’d better put me to bed before I keel over into that cocoa.”
Aziraphale looked a little puzzled, “Put you to bed or put me to bed?”
Crowley pondered that question unsuccessfully, “Er, let’s both go.”
“Right-o,” said Aziraphale. He took a long sip of his cocoa and rose. “Hmm,” he said thoughtfully looking at the very distinctly singular bed.
“I’ll ssssleep on the floor,” offered Crowley at once.
“Dearest,” said Aziraphale, with a note of serene amusement. “I hope that, after six thousand years of friendship and more importantly, as you are currently quite literally inside me, you are not suggesting that lying next to each other and going to sleep would be uncomfortably intimate for me.”
“Fllnkgk,” said Crowley and counted himself lucky to have managed it.
“I’ll sort you out some jim jams,” said Aziraphale, drifting toward his dresser.
“I wish you wouldn’t say jim jams with my mouth,” Crowley called after him weakly.
Aziraphale only chuckled fondly and returned a moment later with an extremely old-fashioned cream-coloured all in one sort of thing draped over one arm and a long blue night shirt draped over the other, “Which do you prefer, dear?”
Crowley looked from one to the other in horror, “Are those about a thousand years old?”
“They’re Victorian, actually. The pinnacle of human endeavour. When it comes to sleepwear anyway. Which one?”
“Ergh. Nightshirt,” said Crowley, reluctantly accepting it.
They undressed for bed back to back. It’d been a very long time since Crowley had actually wrestled with buttons with his actual fingers, and Aziraphale’s clothes seemed to have so many of them. Crowley shed bow tie, jacket, shirt, vest, trousers with the speed and dexterity of the continents splitting from Pangea, then pulled the nightshirt down over his head.
It was quite lovely, actually. Soft and sweet-smelling as though it’d just been laundered and seeming to exude its own warmth like a living thing. He chanced a look over his shoulder, and Aziraphale was doing up the last of the tiny little buttons in the placket of his prissy all in one pyjama set. Despite the fact that it was covering his own off-puttingly gangly body, Crowley rather wanted to stroke the fabric. It looked so thick and cosy.
He tucked his hands behind his back and nodded to the bed, “After you.”
“Thank you, dear,” Aziraphale climbed in on the right, then removed Crowley’s shades and set them on the night table. Crowley felt a little twinge of appreciation for his modesty that Aziraphale had waited til bed time to take them off.
Crowley got in on the left. The bed was deliciously cosy also. Crowley considered himself an expert in the matter, and he’d no idea that Aziraphale’d been hiding this sort of luxury from him all along. Aziraphale switched off the lamp, and they both sank back against the pillows and sighed in unison.
“This is quite the set up you’ve got here, Angel,” Crowley remarked presently. “I didn’t know you liked sleeping.”
“Well,” said Aziraphale delicately. “No, not especially, but. Erm. You know how it is.”
“Do I?” said Crowley, feeling sure that he didn’t. “How is it?”
Aziraphale plumped his pillow noisily and muttered something indistinct about having things nice for company.
Crowley clutched the duvet to stop himself falling out of bed in surprise, “Company, did you say, Angel? Human company?”
“Yes, of course human company,” said Aziraphale a little defensively. “I couldn’t exactly mean any other sort, could I?”
“Oh,” Crowley tried not to sound mortified. “I’d no idea.”
“Not that it’s been recent,” said Aziraphale. He was quiet a moment, “Been about. A hundred and twenty five years, actually.”
Crowley prickled with curiosity at the precision of that figure, but decided he’d best not ask. Crowley shut his eyes firmly and reached for sleep. Sleep withdrew coquettishly, but Crowley continued to lie very still, his eyes shut.
“Crowley dear?” said Aziraphale after a long time.
Crowley marvelled over how Aziraphale had managed to soften and modulate even his own screechy voice into a gentle murmur, “Yes, Angel?”
“Erm. Nothing. It’s silly, never mind, dear.”
Crowley opened his eyes, “I like silly. Go on.”
“Well.” Aziraphale sighed, “I was going to say, when you wanted to run off to Alpha Centauri. Back when the world was ending. It didn’t have anything to do with. That Alpha Centauri, did it?”
Crowley laughed, “No, I didn’t want to escape the Armageddon by going three streets over from your book shop in London. I meant the star, Angel. Well. Stars. It’s a binary star system, but the two stars are so close together that when you see them with the naked eye, they look like one entity.”
“Ohhh,” breathed Aziraphale. “There’s poetry in that somewhere.”
“I’ve always thought so,” agreed Crowley.
“I wish we could see them,” said Aziraphale sadly.
“Not the sort of journey we can make if we want to keep these bodies,” Crowley had always known it, but saying it aloud didn’t make it any less miserable.
“And no chance of being issued new ones now,” said Aziraphale.
“Zilch,” agreed Crowley. “It’s really too bad. It’d’ve been nice to show you what I did.”
Aziraphale shifted in the dark, and he sounded nearer when he spoke again, “What you did, dear?”
“Well, yeah. I built them. Didn’t you ever wonder what I did?” Crowley felt rather reckless saying it. On point of some taboo, “It was my job when I was an archangel.”
“When you were a what?!” There was that familiar screech.
Crowley rubbed his ear, “Didn’t you know?”
“No,” said Aziraphale very quietly. “I never did know. How could I not have known you? I should have. I should have known you.”
“Well,” said Crowley after a pause. “I wasn’t called Crowley or Crawly then.”
“No.”
Crowley did not say what he had been called, and to his relief, Aziraphale did not ask.
“We’d not have got on if you’d known me then, anyway,” said Crowley.
“Whyever not?” Aziraphale sounded sad.
Crowley tried for a joke, “You’re too rebellious, Angel. You’ve got authority problems. Great old archangel thinking he’s someone just because he put up a few galaxies. Nah, you’d not have liked that one bit.”
“You’re teasing me!” Aziraphale objected.
“Well you’ve got to admit you do hate the archangels.”
“Because they’re small and cruel and cowardly. Not because they’re archangels,” said Aziraphale earnestly. “However and whenever we’d met, I don’t think I’d ever have been able to avoid loving you.”
Crowley sucked in a breath and swallowed it like a mouthful of concrete, “You. What?”
Aziraphale didn’t answer. Only felt about under the blanket for Crowley’s hand and laced their fingers together when he found it. Crowley couldn’t bring himself to press the matter. He squeezed Aziraphale’s hand and reveled in the warmth and fervor of the returned pressure.
“Crowley,” said Aziraphale after a bit.
“Yeah?”
“The Alpha Centauri. It’s. Erm.”
“We’re talking about the bar here, right?”
Aziraphale smiled. Crowley could hear it though he couldn’t see it, “Oh yes. Erm. It’s a. It’s one of those. Er. Discreet establishments?”
Crowley laughed, “A gay bar? Yes, Angel, I own a gay bar.”
“Oh you own it? Somehow that’d escaped me. How did you come to own a gay bar, dear?”
Crowley shrugged, “I won it in a bet.”
Aziraphale seemed to consider that, “A temptation?”
“Something like that,” said Crowley reluctantly.
“Ah,” said Aziraphale. “I used to frequent a similar establishment. Well similar in spirit. Rather different in. Aesthetic.”
Crowley laughed, “It’d have to be, wouldn’t it. Do I get to see yours?”
“It burned down,” said Aziraphale quietly. “A long time ago.”
“Oh,” Crowley squeezed Aziraphale’s hand very tightly. “I’m sorry.”
Aziraphale returned the squeeze, “Thank you, dear. So am I.”
…
When Crowley woke in the morning, Aziraphale was still dressed in the all in one pyjama outfit and wearing Crowley’s shades again. He was standing over an ironing board, ironing his suit that, with a twinge of guilt, Crowley remembered tossing on the floor the night before.
Aziraphale seemed to have been storing up tuts til Crowley woke, because he let loose a volley of them as soon as they caught eyes.
“Sorry,” said Crowley sheepishly. “Did it get wrinkled?”
“Wrinkled isn’t the word,” said Aziraphale gravely, spritzing starch onto a trouser crease and ironing more energetically.
Crowley pressed his lips together so that he wouldn’t laugh, “Any such thing as a French press around here?”
Aziraphale waved him toward the kitchen area, “Just in there. Help yourself.”
Crowley got up and wandered into the kitchen to make coffee. He brought a cup over to Aziraphale.
“Thank you, dear.”
“You’re welcome, Angel. Sleep well?”
“Astonishingly well,” Aziraphale looked up from the iron with a smile. “You’re good company.”
“Good. Thanks. Me too,” Crowley sipped his coffee, then set the mug on the edge of the ironing board. “You ready to switch back, Angel?”
“Ready when you are,” Aziraphale held out both hands this time.
Crowley grasped them and almost immediately felt that familiar hot, electric sting. He blinked away a little dizziness and found that he was looking through his shades once again into Aziraphale’s smiling face.
“There you are, my dearest friend,” Aziraphale, reached a tender hand out to cup Crowley’s cheek momentarily. “I’d missed you.”
“I was just going to say the same to you,” said Crowley, knowing with certainty exactly how soggy his expression was. He screwed up his face to manifest his proper clothes, then clicked away the wrinkles Aziraphale had been working on. “Fancy a walk? We could get breakfast.”
“Sounds scrumptious,” said Aziraphale. “Let’s go.”
…
Once they were out of the bookshop, Aziraphale took Crowley’s hand, and they ambled toward the park. It was early yet. The sun had just waked up, and the clouds were still pink, the morning air still sweet. London seemed to have had its face washed fresh and clean.
Crowley felt quite refreshed himself. Aziraphale’s hand in his wasn’t an entirely new development, though it was unusual, and Crowley wondered with comfortable, unhurried affection where this newish sort of touching might be taking them.
“There’s still so much we don’t know about each other,” Crowley mused, not exactly meaning to have spoken aloud.
Aziraphale turned his sunrise smile on Crowley, and Crowley was glad he’d given voice to his thoughts, “I was thinking the same thing, my dear.”
“Aziraphale,” Crowley looked down at their joined hands, gathering his thoughts.
Aziraphale waited a moment for Crowley to continue, his lips parted in evident expectation before he answered, “Yes, dearest?”
“You said last night that it was a special occasion. What did you mean by that? You seemed not to want to tell me at the time.”
Aziraphale nodded, “Oh yes, silly of me. I meant it had been a year since we stopped erm. The end, you know. Rather an anniversary for us.”
“It was, wasn’t it!” Crowley slapped his forehead, “And I went and forgot! I’m sorry, Aziraphale! I’m a rubbish. Erm. Hmm. I don’t suppose. There’s really a word for it. What we are to each other. I don’t suppose anyone’s really been this before,” Crowley raised up their hands between them.
“I think you must be right, Crowley. I don’t think anyone has had quite what we’ve had before.”
“Sobering,” said Crowley, half-joking. He steered them toward their favourite bench and sprawled on it.
“There are a lot of words that are nearly right,” said Aziraphale, gently declining the joke. “I looked into it once.” He sat down beside Crowley. Crowley fancied Aziraphale’s posture was a bit more relaxed than usual. Certainly he seemed to be leaning toward Crowley more than usual.
“Did you?” Crowley took off his shades and pocketed them. There was no one around anyway, and he wanted to look at his angel properly.
“Mmm. Things have changed, I think. Since I did.”
Crowley tipped his head back to bask in the early sunshine, “Funny to think of, isn’t it? Things changing.”
Aziraphale sighed, “Things seemed to have changed hideously fast in the last handful of decades or so.”
“Well I know they’ve changed,” Crowley waved a hand to indicate the park and the world at large. “But you and me. Seems funny to think of us changing. We’re not really meant to, are we? We are what we are. That’s the idea, anyway. Learning and growing, not really a thing for our lot, is it?”
“But isn’t it lovely that we have!” said Aziraphale so sincerely that Crowley had to shut his eyes. “We’ve altered each other. I don’t think I could have been a. Good person. Without you, dear. You keep me on my toes.”
Crowley opened his eyes and gaped at Aziraphale, “You were good when I met you! That was why I. You gave the sword away, because you cared about them. You cared about Adam and Eve. I’d never really. You were the only one I’d met who cared about people as people and not just. Ineffable game pieces or something.”
Aziraphale shook his head, “Even so. I wanted to be right. And that’s not the same as being good, not really.”
“Hmm,” Crowley thought about that.
“That isn’t what I meant, though,” said Aziraphale presently, breaking in on Crowley’s thoughts. “When I said things changed, that isn’t exactly what I meant.”
“No?”
“Things are different between us now, don’t you think?” said Aziraphale eagerly.
Crowley inhaled carefully, “We’re. We’re proper friends now, aren’t we? Not always erm. Looking over our shoulders. No need to pre-”
“Is that all?” Aziraphale reached out and took Crowley’s hand between both of his. “Proper friends? And that’s. The end of it?”
Crowley swallowed hard and swallowed again, “What are you asking me, Aziraphale?”
“I love you,” said Aziraphale. “I want to be close to you all the time. We’re knit together, Crowley. It’s agony to separate!” He paused and looked into Crowley’s face with heartbreaking uncertainty, “Isn’t it?”
Crowley felt very light. He thought probably it was only Aziraphale’s hand tethering him to the bench, or he’d bob off into the sky like a kite on an updraft. “Yes. It is.” He squeezed Aziraphale’s hand. There was a tingle starting in Crowley’s bottom lip. He licked at it nervously, “What do we do about that?” There was a fierce, bright joy burning inside Crowley, and his own happiness was reflected back to him on Aziraphale's face.
“Well,” Aziraphale leaned in, and his delight was radiating from him almost tangibly like heat. “I believe it’s traditional to begin with a kiss.”
So Crowley gathered Aziraphale to him and kissed him, an expansive, edenic kiss. A sunrise of a kiss.