Chapter Text
Crowley keeps slipping through his fingers like oil. Every time he almost gets a fix on him, sees a familiar flash of red hair, swirl of dark clothes, feels the electric static of Crowley’s being, the demon flees. It takes months for Aziraphale to pinpoint him again. Focusing on the occult beings essence and scanning in wider and wider circles, often having to leave the earthly plane while searching. He knows that he shouldn’t (He also recognizes that he probably shouldn’t even be able to do this. That he shouldn’t be able to find Crowley’s essence out in the world. But he doesn’t look too closely at That.), Crowley has made it blastedly clear he wants space, but it’s been ten years and enough is enough. The bloody coward. If he would just stand and face him, if they could just talk.. Aziraphale joins his corporeal form once again and slumps heavily against his desk, exhausted.
His mind wanders unchecked, flashes of a memory so vivid he can taste the demons mouth on his own, desperate and crushing, too much teeth, his own cheeks wet from the others tears, his hands full of lithe body, spread across Crowley’s muscular back. His own lips responding his heart quickening and the feeling of Crowley’s body pressed firmly against his own for a few desperate seconds before Aziraphale had realized, before his brain caught up to his heart and he had shoved the demon away. Crowley had stumbled at the abrupt distance and actually fallen, sprawled across the floor shocked and a bit dazed, staring up, “Angel?” his voice rasped, tears still streaming down his cheeks.
The confession Crowley had made moments ago careening around Aziraphale's skull like a wild cannonball, destroying every capable brain cell left to him. He wanted to lunge at Crowley and pin him to the floor right here in the middle of the bookshop and see just what it would feel like to finally, finally give into his own desires. He wanted to scream at Crowley to make him understand what he was risking, that he was risking himself, that he would be obliterated if Hell found out. He settled somewhere closer to the second.
“What on earth, were you thinking ??” He glared down at Crowley, who was still sprawled on the floor “What if someone had been paying attention?!”
Crowley’s hooded eyes jerked up, a sliver of hope far too clear in his amber eyes, he heard the distinction, he wasn’t being rejected outright. He scrambled to his feet, his arms reaching, touching any part of the angel he could, settling his hands on Aziraphale's folded forearms stroking circles with his thumbs, trying to reassure his angel.
“I don’t care, Angel, this isn’t.. I’m not," he looks down, fighting the urge to stop talking and walk out. "I'm not... Fraternizing with you... I love you. Have done for centuries and I’m pretty sure you love me too.” He glances up from his hands on the angels arms and stilled his thumbs searching the others face for some clue, some hint he's not wrong. Aziraphale raised his chin infinitesimally, trying to steel his eyes against Crowley’s stare, and knowing he was failing. He couldn’t lie, not to Crowley, not about something like this, so he sidestepped instead.
“Crowley they would Destroy you !” Unfolding his arms and grabbing the others forearms for emphasis. “They wouldn’t just stick you in some pit for a thousand years, they would tear you apart piece by piece before ending you completely.” He steadied himself gripping his friends arms tighter. ‘What would this world be for me without you?’ He wanted to say it, but his coward tongue stayed still.
“You aren’t saying no...” Crowley smiled, wide, hopeful.
Aziraphale huffed and drew away, his arms cold where the others fingers had been, turning his back on his friend. Crowley pushed back into his space, circling him, always orbiting him.
“I have a plan” he whispered, leaning his forehead against the angels shoulder, hands ghosting around his middle to hold him so softly, barely there. Aziraphale closed his eyes and fought the desire to lean into him. “The holy water..”
"I won't give you a suicide pill, Crowley!"
"That's not what I want it for, Angel. I have a plan, I..." Aziraphale cuts him off before he can explain.
“Are you going to fight all of heaven and hell?”
“I would... for you”
Aziraphale jerked, surprised and Crowley pulled away, orbiting again.
“I would” He stated it as a challenge, looking at Aziraphale, eyes full yellow, seeming to chant ‘say it back, say it back, leap with me’.
“You can’t say things like that!” Aziraphale paled, pulling back and glancing to the ceiling(Glancing up to heaven. Trying to see if anyone was listening.). “You.. you don’t mean that. I can’t go against heaven! Crowley I’ll...”
Fall... and then where will that leave us? I can’t protect you then... the silence mocks him.
Crowley suddenly found the box of chocolates (It had taken Crowley 2 hours after their encounter in St James park to work up the nerve to buy the chocolates, an apology. It had taken him a week to bring them to Aziraphale.) on the angels desk extraordinarily interesting, he sighed and pressed his hands against his eyes “right..”
Crowley’s eyes rake over Aziraphale, he can almost feel the heat of them on his body, starting at his shoes taking in every millimeter of his corporeal form, staring past it into the ether and taking in that as well. Fixing every detail firmly in his memory, holding the others gaze and watching those eyes of every color, swirled blue, green, and brown. Crowley nods and takes long steps towards the angel closing the space between them, and Aziraphale steps back once hesitantly. Crowley pauses and then slowly raises his hand in the inches between them fixing the angels bow tie, straitening it and pressing the end back flat. His fingers delicately trail a line from the tie up his throat to gently, gently cup his cheek. Aziraphale's eyes flutter shut and he lets out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding. The touch vanished and when he opened his eyes he was alone.
Aziraphale opened his eyes, memory receding, his cheeks damp with his own tears this time, starring down at his empty fingers. Crowley wasn’t the coward... he was.