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Aziraphale didn’t mean to eavesdrop. He was quite against eavesdropping, in a broad moral sense. But he was against a lot of things in a broad moral sense that he indulged in on the regular. Eavesdropping wasn’t one of those things—mostly because he didn’t tend to be very interested in the day to day chatter of the humans, and rather liked tuning them out to dive into a good book. It just happened to be something he found himself doing at the current moment, much like one finds themselves humming a tune or daydreaming. Well, maybe not quite so innocent. Not that daydreaming was always innocent.
He stilled in the doorway, something fond filling him at the sounds of the voices filtering in from the other room. His hands gripped the tray of drinks. It had taken him longer than anticipated to retrieve them, but he was tired and couldn’t justify the miracle. He’d made a cocoa for himself, a chamomile tea for Anathema, and a lemonade for Crowley. He didn’t know how Crowley could drink lemonade so late at night. He was probably going to miracle some bourbon into it, Aziraphale thought. Bourbon was, according to Crowley, the one thing Americans had gotten right.
“I just don’t know if it’s worth it,” Anathema was saying. It was clear from her voice how much she’d cried in the last few hours, and how she wasn’t done yet. “I helped save the entire world. Why is this so hard?”
“I think most humans would agree saving the world is much easier than dating,” Crowley responded.
“It’s stupid. It’s just so stupid. It- I—” A frustrated growl left her throat. There was a beat of silence, and then a meek voice. “I really liked her.”
“Yeah,” Crowley said, sympathetic.
“Is it?”
“What?”
“Worth it?”
A deep inhale, the exhale loud and slow. “Dating? Probably not, no.”
A noise, like she was going to respond.
“But—” Crowley cut her off. “Love? The real thing, not … not Hallmark, you know, but … When you really love someone?” The couch let out a creak. “Yeah, I think so. Yeah, it has to be, or what’s the point?”
Anathema sniffled. “Yeah.” For a moment, silence. Aziraphale’s grip on the tray only tightened. “I just … How can you be sure? I don’t- I don’t mean to call you out specifically or anything, I’m just- You know- Heartbroken breakdown mode. It does things to you.”
“No, it’s fair. It’s fair.” Crowley’s S’s lingered in the air. Aziraphale could hear the tension in those S’s. “I just- I mean … You can’t live for 6,000 years and not learn a thing or two.”
Anathema hummed. “That’s kind of- I mean, it’s a cop out, whatever, but—”
Crowley let out a frustrated growl. “I- Okay. Are you going to make me say it?”
Aziraphale leaned closer to the doorway as the silence stretched. He imagined there was some sort of exchange in their expressions, but he couldn’t be sure.
“I just … see the way you two look at each other,” Anathema said. She sniffled, and the couch creaked again. “Dance around each other. Act like you’re the only two people in the world.”
Aziraphale’s cheeks flushed. He should probably stop listening, he thought.
He didn’t.
“We don’t,” Crowley said, entirely unconvincing.
Anathema snorted. “It’s not a bad thing. Well, I mean … it can be frustrating to watch, but … It’s also sort of the only reason I haven’t completely given up yet, you know?”
“Glad to be an inspiration,” Crowley griped.
There was another long stretch of nothing, just the soft sounds of moving fabric, some silent exchange.
“If you say anything, I’ll drop you right through the floor,” Crowley eventually relented.
“There’s no basement.”
“That’s not where I meant.”
Anathema made some strange noise. It took Aziraphale a moment to realize it was supposed to mimic a zipper. To be truthful, it was getting harder to focus on the conversation, and impossible to focus on anything else. His heart was thudding. He was aware of that distantly. His ears were burning. He could barely feel them. He’d been alive for 6,000 years, but he didn’t think anything had ever been more important to him than hearing Crowley’s next words.
A sigh. “There’s some people—and you’ll meet them from time to time, and you’ll think it happens way more often than it does in truth—that, when you’re around them for long enough—and sometimes the ‘long enough’ is years, or months, and sometimes it’s a day—that when you know them, when you’re around them, when you really see them … There’s this quality, you’ll know it, that—” A beat. “Some people are hard not to fall in love with.”
There was a moment where he was sure Anathema was processing that, because he himself was still processing, was pulling apart the string of words like putty and thinking, surely, he didn’t mean …?
“Yeah,” Anathema said after a moment. “Yeah.”
Before he knew it, Aziraphale was outside, out in the backyard, taking in deep gulps of the perfectly seasoned air. It was Fall, and the air was chilly, and it stung his lungs a bit each time he breathed in. His heart was racing, and so was his mind. It kept starting and restarting, circling like a drain around, Surely, he didn’t …? Surely, he didn’t.
The drinks, gone mostly a neutral temperature by now, were abandoned on the faded brick of the patio. He sat down heavy on the garden swing, looking up at the darkened sky. Far away, the starts glittered and shone, and Aziraphale had never felt more seen or more terrified.
Love. That’s what they’d been talking about, they’d been talking about love. And then they had talked about Aziraphale, and Aziraphale and Crowley, and somehow his brain couldn’t draw the line between point A and point B. It felt like point A was right there, right in front of him, and point B was 6,000 years away. He could start drawing the line, but he couldn’t see where it led.
He didn’t know how long he sat out there, thumbs twiddling, shoes scuffing on the brick as his feet swung. His gaze flitted from the stars to Anathema’s little flower garden, idly tracing its way around the yard, down the lane, not really seeing anything, not really focusing. He got so tired of thinking that he quite forgot to do it altogether. Shock, the humans might call it. He was in shock.
“Angel?” Crowley called, and it broke him out of his reverie so hard he got a little breathless. The swing creaked as he jolted. Crowley peeked his head out as the door opened. “Oh, there you are. What happened to getting drinks?”
“I- ah—” His eyes darted away. “I heard a noise. Outside. Came to investigate and got distracted. It’s such a lovely night.”
Crowley hummed, turning his face toward the sky.
“How’s Anathema?”
“Finally fell asleep, poor thing.” Crowley stepped fully outside, one hand coming up to rub at his back. “Carried her up to bed. Heavier than she looks; I’m not 1,000 anymore.”
Aziraphale let out a laugh, though it was breathless and pitiful.
“Are you ready to go, angel? Or did you want to sit out here and stand guard all night?”
“Never was one for that,” Aziraphale said. “No, let’s head home- er- You can drop me off at the bookshop, I mean.”
Crowley nodded and inclined his head towards the front of the house. It was a testament to his tiredness that Crowley didn’t say anything as they cut through the yard, gathered themselves in the Bentley, and started to drive. The radio stayed off. Aziraphale was glad for it, in part, and also dismayed. He wasn’t one for the music, whatever the Bentley decided it would play that day, but it at least would have given a cover for his silence, for his intentional and measured breaths, for the way his hands shook.
“Crowley,” he started, and he hated already that he had opened his mouth to begin with. “It was very sweet, what you said to her.”
“Hm?”
“When I went out for drinks, I mean.”
Crowley’s grip on the steering wheel tightened. He’d always been pale, but Aziraphale could see the bones of his knuckles press white against his skin. He should stop now, stop while there was still some ambiguity to what he’d meant. Save both of them the embarrassment. Yes, he would stop now, then.
“About there being people you can’t help falling in love with,” he continued. His mouth clamped shut. Betrayal. Complete and utter self-betrayal.
Crowley didn’t respond, but he could hear his swallow.
“I just- It was very sweet, is all I mean. I think she needed to hear it.”
The engine revved as the car began to pick up speed.
“And it’s … well, it’s alright, is what I’m trying to say, if that’s why you said it. Really, it’s fine. I shouldn’t have been listening in the first place, I do apologize for that. But I’m just- Well, I won’t be offended if you wanted to take it back. Not to Anathema—to me, I mean. I know it wasn’t meant for me. She really has been struggling lately, she has, the poor girl, and sometimes you say things as a kindness that you don’t really mean and—”
“I meant it,” Crowley cut him off.
Aziraphale’s teeth snapped together.
“Oh,” he said.
There was a moment of silence, not one of exchanged glances or of comfortable shuffling, but tense. They didn’t look at each other, just stared ahead at the road.
“I didn’t mean for—” Crowley stopped. His hand rose only to slap at the steering wheel. “Shit.”
Aziraphale’s ears were burning hot. “I’m sorry—”
“No, I just—”
“I shouldn’t have brought it up—”
“No, it’s—”
“I should have kept my mouth shut—”
“It’s just anticlimactic, is all.”
Aziraphale stopped. His hands ached from how hard he’d been clenching them.
“It’s just …” Crowley waved his hand, lip curling. “Six-thousand years. I thought there’d be- Oh, I don’t know. Fireworks, maybe. A hot air balloon. No, maybe not a balloon. Would be stupid, with the wings and all. I don’t know. Champagne, at least.”
Aziraphale stared hard down at his hands, twisted together in his lap. He took an even, measured breath. “I got you a lemonade,” he said, and immediately hated that that’s what had come out of his mouth. “Didn’t make it to you, I’m afraid.”
“Well,” Crowley said. He let the word hang between them. “Hound’s out of the bag.”
“I think it’s supposed to be ‘cat’.”
Crowley spared him a glance.
“’Cat’s out of the bag’.”
“Oh.” His head tilted, considering. “No. Not scary enough.”
Aziraphale let his thumbs rub together. “I’m sorry you find this scary,” he said.
“’S bloody terrifying,” Crowley murmured, voice low. “It always is, I think. But, I mean- 6,000 years.”
Aziraphale nodded, taking in a deep breath. They weren’t looking at each other, still. “I do- um—” He cleared his throat. “I do too, you know.”
“Hm?”
“Love you, that is.”
He wasn’t sure if the car would accelerate, if Crowley would try to outpace the feelings trapped inside it, but it didn’t. The Bentley sailed smoothly, and the radio stayed silent.
“And, I mean, not in the—” he continued. “Not in the, you know, sacred, angelic way. I love you in the way I love all things, yes, but it’s also … Well, I think you put it nicely, actually, when you were talking to Anathema. That some people just have a certain quality, and you fall in love. That’s what I mean, that I’ve- Well, somewhere along the way, it seems, I couldn’t help but go head over heels.”
Crowley swallowed. His body was still taught, but loosening. “What do we- uh- do with that?”
Aziraphale pushed out a little sigh, one of consideration. He took a moment to think about it. “I think,” he said, “that, for now, for right now … We slow down a bit, so we can roll down the windows. It’s such a lovely night, after all.”
Sure enough, the Bentley slowed. Aziraphale wasn’t sure if it was Crowley obliging or the Bentley itself.
He reached over to crank down his window, Crowley doing the same. The crisp night air filled the car, and Aziraphale got an unobstructed view of the glittering night sky.
“And then, I think,” Aziraphale continued, “that you ought to hold my hand.”
Crowley released a breath, quick and through his nose, and Aziraphale thought it might be a laugh. He examined the outline of Crowley’s face as his hand extended between them.
Crowley didn’t move at first. But, from what Aziraphale could see in the dim light around them, it looked like he was fighting off a smile.
“S’ppose it wouldn’t be the worst thing,” Crowley mumbled, and reached out.
Their hands linked. Aziraphale’s was warm and Crowley’s cool, and their fingers fit together, one and one, two and two, just so. Aziraphale pulled their conjoined hands closer to him, to rest on his leg, a little possessive.
“Anything else?” Just a hint of teasing.
“I have some champagne at the shop.”
“Do you?” Crowley asked.
“No.” Aziraphale’s lips pulled up. “But it’ll be there by the time we get back.”
“Yeah.” Crowley didn’t look at him, but he was smiling, too. Trying to fight it, obviously, but smiling. “Yeah, I suppose I have time for that.”
“If nothing else, we have time,” Aziraphale said.
And above them, the star’s light giggled, because they’d been watching it all, right from the beginning, and they knew. They’d seen the first night in Eden and they would see, tonight, through the windows of the bookshop, a toast.
To all that time, they’d hear. To us.