Work Text:
Back in Aziraphale's bookshop on Friday night, a custom they had had since at least the 1940's, two man-shaped beings were a bottle of wine deep. Adam had, thankfully, been kind enough to leave cases of the good stuff. They'd just been arguing about something, but Crowley had lost the thread a few minutes ago after telling Aziraphale to stop talking so he could think, which hadn't worked at all.
"Crowley, do you remember when we were driving to Tadfield to find Adam?" Aziraphale asked, apropos of nothing.
"Considering that was about a week ago, yes?"
"I said I couldn't explain the feeling of love there, especially not to you."
Crowley scowled, swirling wine in his cup. "I remember," he said, avoiding making eye contact of any kind and gritting his teeth. The taste of Aziraphale thinking he couldn't feel love wasn't going to wash out any time soon, not with ten bottles of wine. Well, maybe with ten bottles of wine, because then he'd at least be unconscious and not having this conversation.
"Before you hit that girl–"
"She hit me!"
Aziraphale sighed but plunged on, "Before we had an accident," he said, "you were going to say something."
"Oh. Right."
"Do you remember what it was?"
"No," Crowley said, lying through his teeth. Aziraphale looked at him flatly, in that very exasperated way of his that could make Crowley confess to anything. Well, almost anything. Crowley crossed his arms. "You're insufferable. Fine. I was going to say, 'Do you mean like in 'When Harry Met Sally'?"
"I'm not familiar–"
"Of course you're not," Crowley said, which had the effect of Aziraphale bristling and huffing. Crowley didn't mean to be condescending. It was more of a general, "Why should anything be simple with you?" statement than a "You know nothing about popular culture" statement, but Aziraphale would have found a reason to be offended by both sentiments. Crowley moved his glasses to rub the indents they left. "It's a movie. It came out last year, in the summer. I saw it when we were still offering tutelage to the young Not-Antichrist. Billy Crystal?"
Aziraphale shook his head.
"Meg Ryan? Nora Ephron?"
Another sigh, another shake of his head.
"Don't worry about it, then, angel."
"No! I–I would like to understand. I don't think I was being fair to you."
Crowley blinked, then blinked again. One blink per day was typical; two blinks in 5 seconds only happened once in a blue moon. "Are you apologizing to me?"
"Perhaps? It's just… you were better with him. With Adam, I mean." He sighed, running a hand over his waistcoat. "I haven't given you enough credit over the years."
Crowley felt touched, genuinely, though he tried to hide his smile by taking another long sip of wine. "You're usually preoccupied with being high and mighty. Self-righteous." There Aziraphale was, bristling again, pursing his lips. Dammit. Crowley changed tactics. "Do you... want to see it?"
"What kind of a movie is it?"
Crowley rolled his eyes. "A war movie, Aziraphale, what do you think? It's a romantic comedy."
Aziraphale grinned at him. "You took your time off to go see a romantic comedy?"
"You shut your mouth. Do you know how many times I've had to watch My Fair Lady because of you?" Crowley snarled and curled up, but Aziraphale put his hand on Crowley's knee and Crowley sort of–as much as he ever did–straightened out again.
"I do want to see it."
"We're watching it at my place, where the telly doesn't have a dial and shows full color."
"I have a color telly!" Aziraphale retorted.
"Yeah, the first one off the line, and my hand fits over the screen!" Crowley said, arms flung out. He gave up and collapsed into a slinky pile again. "Listen, do you want to come over or not?"
"Seven o' clock tomorrow?"
"It's a date," Crowley said, and then wished he could vanish entirely.
He could theoretically, but it wasn't worth the effort.
--
So here Crowley was, outside of a Blockbuster, hands in his pockets. Technically, he was on a permanent ban list from Blockbuster due to his excessive late fees, but that was a problem for other people. Finally tired of the cold, he busted into the door. He saw what he wanted immediately, and was glad they still had a copy. (It hadn't been there a few minutes before, actually–Crowley had just firmly expected it to be there.) He picked up the VHS with its stupid, worn out jacket and turned it over and over in his hands. This was stupid. This was one of his stupidest ideas since rallying chorus teachers to buy kazoos, which he now had to hear from downstairs at all hours of the day. How did he even get bullied into this? Just because Aziraphale felt bad about telling him he couldn't love or whatever.
That blasted idiot. Crowley couldn't feel love in a general radius like Aziraphale could, which he secretly imagined as a kind of beeping radiation sensor, but that didn't mean he couldn't feel it at all. He prowled up to the counter like he was holding a blue movie and not something with "A comic valentine to love and friendship" written on the back. The counter staff wasn't there, so he rang the bell about 15 consecutive times until a teenager with pock marks got behind the counter, glared at him, and rung him up. He grunted as he snatched the movie back off the counter, skulked out, and hopped into his Bentley. It had decided right now was the perfect time for Freddie Mercury to croon Somebody to Love at him. He was going to have to have a stern talking to with his Blaupunkt later.
He came back to his flat, plopped the movie down by the VHS player and sat on the couch for ten minutes, the chair for ten minutes, the ceiling for ten minutes, and repeat. What if Aziraphale sat in the chair? he thought. That wouldn't do at all. He considered sending it into another dimension, but that method always had a way of coming back to bite him, so he did the sensible thing and miracled it to his bedroom. Only the couch and entertainment center remained.
He heard a knock on his door at 6:55. Damn him, Crowley thought, as if he would be any calmer in another five minutes. He opened it, trying to look relaxed and Cool but really looking like he could use a chiropractor.
"Hallo," Crowley said, accepting the bottle of wine from him and setting it on the counter. Aziraphale was positively radiant this evening, actually wearing color, though it was just an emerald waistcoat and bowtie matched with his usual tan. This did not bode well for the romantic movie to be any less awkward than it was already going to be.
"Hallo, my dear. Could you get us glasses?"
"Yes." If his ill-executed suaveness couldn't get him through the night, alcohol was usually the champion. He got them both glasses from his cabinet, popped the cork, and poured them both a glass.
Aziraphale looked around his flat, puzzled. "Wasn't there a chair last time?"
"A chair?" Crowley said without turning around, a touch too incredulous and defensive.
"Yes, a chair! One of those modern, big ones. I could have sworn there was one."
"Oh, that chair. Yes. It had to go. Fleas. From that stupid little chihuahua across the hall." Crowley was glad he was still wearing his glasses because his eyes were doing a whole dance behind them.
"Oh. Well, I hope she got an exterminator for you."
"She did." Crowley sat down with him, handing him his glass. "Not half bad, that lady. She always gets my mail for me when I'm away." In return, Crowley took care of her plants when she was away, though he would never tell Aziraphale that. "Her dog is stupid, though."
Aziraphale sipped, amusement in his eyes above the glass. "I don't doubt it, dear boy," he said. "Are you going to turn on the film?"
"Right. Hold this," he said, even though there was a perfectly good coffee table in front of them. He took a breath as he slid it into the player. Was this going to be too obvious, why he liked this, why it gave him that feeling of love Aziraphale thought he couldn't explain? He prayed to someone that Aziraphale would be oblivious as usual. Typically, it was a safe bet. In any case, the MGM lion roared, and he went back to his seat, taking his wine glass back from Aziraphale.
For a while, it was nothing special. Just a movie. Sally honking the horn did remind him of how impatient Aziraphale could be, though, which made Crowley snort. He felt tendrils of anxiety creeping at his edges, hyper-aware of what Aziraphale was doing. Each sip, each shift of his body, all had meaning to Crowley that he couldn't define. He just wanted Aziraphale to like it. Or at the very least, appreciate it. At some point, Aziraphale laughed, and though Crowley had not been processing the movie for several minutes at that point, he also managed a laugh to save face.
"Harry is a prick," Crowley said as Harry said men and women couldn't just be friends.
"I think he has a point. In all my years around gay men, so many friends end up sleeping together. Obviously, sometimes not, but as a generalization, it rings true. I've consoled many a heartbroken fellow."
Crowley, dumbfounded, opened and shut his mouth, looking from the screen to Aziraphale like a tennis match. "You–ng–what?"
"Shh," Aziraphale said with a creased brow of annoyance, as if he had not a second ago casually dropped a bomb. He did not comment further, turning his face back to something inscrutable. Crowley stared at him for another few moments before reluctantly turning back to the screen.
Silence cast over them for a while, and then Harry and Sally stood next to each other on the airport conveyor line. Sally gave him a definitive, dramatic goodbye, but both of them were still heading in the same direction.
Aziraphale chuckled and turned to Crowley. "Do you remember… oh, where was it?"
"Cardiff. When we were both heading back to London." Crowley knitted his eyebrows, mentally grasping at straws. "What were we fighting about?"
Aziraphale also looked befuddled. "I have no idea."
"Huh." Crowley settled back into the couch, watching Marie lament about her married man boyfriend. A few minutes later, "Llywelyn Bren! Something about him–maybe whether he should have been pardoned?"
"He definitely shouldn’t have been drawn and quartered."
Crowley winced. “We agree on that.”
Quiet settled again. The nervousness seeped back into Crowley, but Aziraphale was, as usual, rigid as a stone except for the occasional sip from a glass. He was like that whenever he was engrossed in anything, so Crowley took it as a good sign that he was at least entertained. But, unlike when he was reading or listening to the radio, his eyes were soft and a smile tugged at his lips every so often. It was so endearing that Crowley forgot to focus again, glad he was behind Aziraphale and that he couldn't notice him peering.
Poor Sally. She was trying so hard to make a move on Harry this time around, inviting him to dinner. "Are we becoming friends now?" Harry said. Crowley was reminded of several different moments in his and Aziraphale's shared history, like ships passing in the night. (More accurately, like two drunken moose attempting to pass each other on a one-lane road.) Crowley convinced himself long ago that Aziraphale's general obliviousness was an act, encapsulated perfectly by a recent moment when Aziraphale said "Oh, dear! Look at the time," as soon as Crowley had worked up the nerve to put his hand in Aziraphale's while they were at some American art gallery. It had been about six o' clock, the museum closed at nine, and neither of them had to be on duty until the morning. Utterly embarrassing. They hadn't spoken for a week after that.
Crowley curled up as the intense memory of mortification electrocuted his insides and went back to stealing glances at Aziraphale instead. "Casablanca. You made me watch that a million times, too, you sadist."
"It's a good story," Aziraphale commented, sounding a bit sad. "It makes me wonder how things would have turned out, if we had been brave." His eyes were fixed on the television screen, and there was a depth to what he said Crowley tried desperately to parse. We in a worldly, "we the people" way, or we as in himself and Aziraphale? Or worse, was he doing that thing he did where he tried to implicate Crowley in something that only Aziraphale felt? And what kind of brave? Saving second World War refugees brave, or… something else? He could eat himself alive on this path, so he crossed his arms and watched, letting himself scoff at the next scene and slowly relax.
This whole ordeal would have been worth it just to watch Aziraphale develop a faint patina of red as Sally pretended to have a loud, drawn out orgasm in the restaurant. Aziraphale didn't say anything, though. He even laughed when the other woman said, "I'll have what she's having." Aziraphale's constant little surprises never failed to impress.
When Harry and Sally started singing “The Surrey with the Fringe on Top”, Aziraphale hummed along and Crowley watched him mouth the words, too. All of it, connected with his earlier bombshell, led to one conclusion.
“Oh, my God,” Crowley said.
Aziraphale looked at him, visibly irritated by his interruption. “What?”
“You really are gay. Like. Really gay.”
“My dear, that is only news to you.”
Many, many centuries of information flooded into Crowley’s mind at the same time. He’d known, vaguely, but never laid everything out on the table. Greece and being far too into Achilles and Patroclus. Rome with Nero. His love of Shakespearean sonnets. The gentlemen’s clubs. Later, nightclubs, as Aziraphale didn’t sleep much. Maybe even gay bars? And now, Broadway musicals. It was hard to see how a person changed when you knew them so well. Crowley was aware what other people thought, of course. He had always considered it accidental instead of, apparently, completely intentional.
He sat in stunned silence for a good while, considering in a general way exactly how much of a stupid idiot he was for not having drawn this conclusion sooner, or having thought to ask. It wasn’t that Aziraphale was gay. It was that he had the possibility of being personally invested in someone else. And that he shared that much more with humanity, more than Crowley had realized before.
Crowley had a bad habit of not letting things lie. His arms were folded defensively over his chest. “Are you… actively gay?”
“Shh,” Aziraphale said again, without turning to him.
“No, I’ll rewind, answer the question.”
Aziraphale picked up the remote and paused the movie himself. He sighed. “What do you mean?”
Crowley made some hand gestures not unlike Harry pounding the air with his fist to mean sex.
Aziraphale’s lips quirked at the corners. “Ah. My dear boy, I don’t kiss and tell.”
Crowley was going to explode. “You don’t–oh, my God,” he said again. “I would have told you!”
“You wouldn’t have. You never told me about Leonardo. You have that sketch,” he said, pointing at it across the room.
“Oh, we didn’t–” Crowley started, devolving into making the hand gesture again. “I mean, he made a pass, but I turned him down.”
“How noble of you.” Aziraphale sipped his wine and picked the remote up again.
“Don’t you dare start it again. What about you?”
“What about me?”
“You–you have signed books! First editions, from Marcel Proust, known homosexual.”
Aziraphale snorted but he was turning red, all the way up to his ears, his skin changing from umber to sienna in a matter of seconds. It was subtle, but Crowley knew what he was looking for. “What does it matter to you, anyway?” he asked.
“It doesn’t! You’re just being all… dodgy about it.”
“I have my secrets, and you have yours. Though, it sounds like you don’t have many,” Aziraphale said, entirely too smug and amused.
Crowley ground his teeth and drew his knees up. Aziraphale started the movie again.
The movie unpaused on Sally, crying about Joe getting married while throwing around Kleenex. Her hair looked exactly like Aziraphale's did when he let it grow out. The same tight curls, the same bounce, although the angel wore it better because his white curls were natural, unlike trendy perms. Crowley took a breath, because he could not think about how soft Aziraphale's hair would feel in his fingers right now. But it was hard to still feel angry, even if Aziraphale was a sneaky git.
And then, distraught voice messages Harry left reminded him of all of those letters he'd sent Aziraphale after a particularly bad tiff about fate, ineffability, and a need for holy water. But Crowley had given up before getting a response and slept through the 19th century instead. Maybe that was the problem–that Harry kept trying until Sally answered but he hadn't. Oh, but surely he'd made up for it by now, finding him at the end of the world, et cetera. And Aziraphale would have responded the same way if he'd ever sent a letter back–a terse, polite, but firm shut down. That would have been way worse, he figured. He would have slept even longer, until the air raid sirens got unbearable.
The profession of love was almost unbearable for Crowley, causing many an uncomfortable wriggle. There was so much about Aziraphale that he knew, and he also knew he loved every single little thing, even the bastard parts. Especially the bastard parts, which reminded him Aziraphale wasn't perfect, was so close to human. Two years. Harry had only known Sally for two years. That was nothing. That was a snap. He'd grown so accustomed to Aziraphale that he couldn't imagine life without him, and a fresh flash of panic crossed his mind when he realized he'd almost lost him. But he was here beside him, close enough to feel his body heat, which helped him calm down again. Aziraphale, for his part, seemed nonplussed by the confession. On screen, Sally and Harry talked about their wedding, about coconut cake with chocolate sauce, and the movie ended. Crowley flicked it off with the remote, the apartment now dark except for Crowley's dim lighting.
“Well, Crowley. Thank you for having me over. I liked that more than I expected to.”
Crowley couldn’t help but smile at his slight. Aziraphale had gotten good at ribbing, and he was pretty sure that half of the time it was unintentional. “Thank you for your trust in my taste.” Aziraphale beamed, the sarcasm seemingly going straight over his head. “Another bottle of wine?”
“Sure, why not? I’ll get up this time.” Aziraphale got up unsteadily, flushed and smiling, and tottered over to the kitchen.
Crowley looked at the dregs of his cup and had his second revelation of the night. "You're Sally," Crowley said.
"What?" Aziraphale crossed the room, handed Crowley his glass of wine, and sat back on the couch, leaning further back to match Crowley’s posture.
"You're Sally! The way she orders. Her, you know, general personality. High maintenance. Curly blonde hair. And her eyes are like yours."
"My eyes aren't blue," Aziraphale said, turning to look at him.
"But they're big and bright like that, even if they're amber. Doe eyes." Aziraphale had wide doe eyes right now, so Crowley pointed at him. "Just like that!"
"Amber, hmm? Not just brown." Aziraphale softened, and Crowley wanted to bolt out the door immediately. "No one has ever told me that."
"Oh."
A beat.
Crowley picked it up again. "What did you think about it?"
Aziraphale hummed, pursing his lips as he considered it. "I think they got it backwards. The whole–" he gesticulated in a general, tipsy way, almost but not quite sloshing on the couch, "–drama with them sleeping together. It could have been avoided if they had simply said 'I love you' first."
"But didn't they already say I love you? In a thousand little ways." He gulped, but thank Somebody Aziraphale didn't notice.
"No, they were just friends." Aziraphale sipped thoughtfully from his glass. "I suppose it wouldn't have to be I love you. They could have said anything, just so they knew it wasn't just… you know. Sex. That it meant something."
Crowley put his feet on the coffee table, stretching out. He shrugged. "So? They made a mistake. They're human. They got to it eventually. Isn't that what matters, that it worked out in the end? I think that's compelling. That they had to keep trying." He was drunker than he thought, blabbering on like this, before he remembered something. "That feeling of love, that I wanted to show you. Was that like Tadfield?"
"No," Aziraphale said. "It's like something quite different." Crowley froze and stared. He got a view of the back of Aziraphale's head, of his perfect, wild curls, because Aziraphale was poised on the edge of the couch like he was ready to stand up. Crowley sat up with him, stomach like a stone, searching for something in Aziraphale's face. But as usual, he was unreadable, staring off into the middle distance, perhaps at his sink.
"Aziraphale?"
Crowley watched Aziraphale's fists tighten so much his nails had to be biting into his skin. Aziraphale turned, smiling, lips twitching at the edges. "I don't want to get it backwards with you," he said, softer than Crowley had ever heard him speak. His eyes were still so bright and beautiful.
Crowley leaned up, seizing his face, and kissed him for all he was worth, letting the tension spill over even though Aziraphale, damn him, wasn't kissing back. Before he lost his nerve, he said, "I love you, Aziraphale. Is that playing it straight?"
Aziraphale looked mischievous as he smirked. "Not exactly," he said, before wrapping his arms around Crowley's neck and kissing him harder. Crowley's back hit the couch with an oomph and Aziraphale's earnest forcefulness made Crowley squeak against his mouth.
"I love you, too, Crowley." Crowley looked up, eyes wide, as Aziraphale touched the side of his face with the back of his hand so tenderly that Crowley wanted to weep. And, Somebody damn it, he was tearing up. Aziraphale was, too, though, so that was alright. They kissed more, and Crowley tried not to pour his whole heart into it, to hold some reservation, but all the love he’d been holding in leaked out of him like a sieve.
“Should we get more comfortable?” Aziraphale asked eventually, idly petting his hair.
“Like, a bed comfortable?”
Aziraphale’s eyes crinkled and he nodded. Crowley was up before Aziraphale changed his mind, but Aziraphale, equally eager, beat him to the door. It wouldn’t budge.
“Is it locked, dear?”
Crowley, shocked into remembering events two hours previous, hung his head and muttered to the floor. “It’s the chair.”
Aziraphale, to his credit, rolled his lips together as he tried not to laugh before he finally caved. “I knew you had one. ‘Evil plants the seeds of its own destruction.’”
“Oh, don’t quote yourself, bastard. I changed my mind. I’m not sleeping with you.”
“How much do you mean that?”
“Not at all,” Crowley responded with a grin.
Aziraphale raised an eyebrow, and then forced the door open with incredibly sexy brute strength Crowley had only ever seen glimpses of. Aziraphale caught him up in a kiss, his hands everywhere at once. They waltzed into the bedroom, and Crowley blindly caught the door with his foot to shut it.