Chapter Text
It started the same way as most nights had that summer – with a vintage Bentley cutting through the city at a speed that was, in Aziraphale’s humble, pedestrian opinion, rather obscene.
Crowley sat behind the wheel and grasped for Aziraphale’s secret hipflask, the one he locked away in a safe whenever he returned home. His parents didn’t mind him drinking, as such, as long as it was wine or possibly a cider, but this was most definitely not the case. A hipflask, or any other sort of alcoholic paraphernalia that drifted beyond a wonderful vintage or a champagne flute, spelt Trouble (with a capital ‘T’, yes). But it had been a gift from Crowley for his eighteenth, and he had treasured it for just over five months now.
He watched his friend’s lips reach out in pursuit of its contents and noticed the lightest drop of alcohol lingering at the corner of his mouth. Though his head swam and his cheeks were warm and his body felt light, almost weightless, practically free of all consequences, Aziraphale stopped himself from reaching over and wiping it away with his thumb. He wasn’t that drunk yet, and most of him hoped he never would be. Crowley was practically a grown man, a few months his senior, in fact – he could take care of himself.
Sure enough, Crowley swiped the droplet with the back of his hand and passed the hipflask over to him. Aziraphale took a long swig and left it resting by his side.
Friday nights were always pretty restless in London. He drank in the sight of the masses advancing towards the next pub or club in sight as he glanced out the window, humming thoughtfully beneath the blare of the radio. Ladies with long hair and short skirts and wonderful laughter that sounded like birdsong went past in a blur, accompanied by men who swaggered on by in their similar shirt-and-smartish-trousers uniforms, carrying a bottle of beer like it was naturally fused to their hand. They all looked beautiful, he mused as Crowley raced ahead of them. Beautiful people, each and every one.
“So where are we going tonight, my dear?” he asked. There was already a light slur to his voice that he hadn’t picked up on.
Crowley had noticed, but chose not to say anything about it.
“Not sure, really,” he mumbled. His own speech wasn’t exactly perfect, either. “Thought we could have a bit of a drive around before we settle anywhere.”
Aziraphale hummed again. Usually – ‘usually’ meaning ‘in a more sober mindset’ – the thought of being in a car with Crowley driving for more than ten minutes would have undoubtedly brought him to tears. Based on appearance and upkeep, the Bentley was quite obviously Crowley’s most prized possession, and probably always would be… but if the quality of his driving was anything to go by, you’d think he had a dozen replicas of the car collecting dust in his garage. It was truly a miracle he hadn’t killed anyone yet, and an even bigger miracle that he hadn’t had his driver’s license revoked completely.
This wasn’t the first time he had climbed into the passenger’s side with a less-than-sober Crowley waiting at the wheel. As ghastly as it sounded (and even felt; he’d never tell Crowley any of this), he appreciated the vaguely-inebriated driving more. Part of him supposed that even Crowley knew drink-driving was a Bad Thing, and so took most precautions to be sensible in order to avoid attracting the attention of the police. Or, you know, crashing the car. It didn’t stop him from putting on his seatbelt, or frantically screaming at him to watch the road when the need arose, but he generally trusted his friend’s responsibility more after a few drinks.
Which, he was certain, made him a rather terrible person.
“We didn’t get invited to anything tonight, did we?” Crowley asked suddenly. Aziraphale frowned.
“No… I don’t think so, at least. Why do you ask?”
“Dunno,” Crowley shrugged. “Can’t shake the feeling something’s happening later.”
“Later than this?” Aziraphale smiled, gesturing toward the clock on the car radio. 00:15 glared back at them both in a red-orange hue. When Crowley shot him a look, he had a quick run through his rather limited memory for a more satisfying answer. “It’s not that ABBA vs. Queen night that you and Newt were going on about, is it?”
He wasn’t too familiar with recent music; he liked Queen well enough, he supposed, because Crowley played so much of them, but ABBA was a totally foreign concept to him. He’d agreed to go along to it regardless, because despite the sneering and the mocking comments pelted in Newt’s direction, he knew that it was something Crowley very much looked forward to.
“Nah, that’s next week.” Crowley sniffed. “Whatever it is, it’s getting on my bloody nerves.”
“Well, you know what you have to do,” Aziraphale replied. They both looked at each other. His eyes crinkled and sparkled under a passing light as his lips lifted into a bright smile. For once it hadn’t occurred to him to tell Crowley to keep his eyes on the damned road. “Not think about it.”
He laughed at his own joke that wasn’t quite a joke. Crowley huffed and turned his attention back to the street ahead, but Aziraphale watched the way his lips quirked into a slanted, lopsided grin. The sight made his head swim and his cheeks flush with heat; he rolled the window down and let the summer air dance across his skin.
A siren wailed past – an ambulance, if Aziraphale’s eyes weren’t mistaken – and Crowley tailed it straight through the red traffic lights. He threw back his head and laughed as somebody far behind them beeped their horn at him, and Aziraphale found himself smiling softly, even though he knew he shouldn’t. His friend was drinking his way towards his peak, he found, heading for the point where he let loose a little more and lost a little part of that snide, stoic attitude he liked to hide behind. He watched as a pale, slender hand reached out for the volume dial and cranked it a little higher. Another wry smile captured Crowley’s mouth.
“If you knew this one, you’d like it, angel,” he said with a shrug that wasn’t completely dismissive.
Crowley’s Bentley, a 1933 model, of all things, was pristine and intact and very nearly perfect. The only imperfect part of it was the CD player, which its previous owner had immediately warned him of.
Some years ago, when the previous owner had a modern CD player installed into the car, the Bentley had swallowed a ‘Best of Queen’ album and, for whatever reason, refused to spit it back out. It was the only choice of music when playing a CD, and so it was either that or risk the radio.
Crowley probably could have fixed it himself if he’d put his mind to it, but he hadn’t. The sounds of guitar solos and operatic crescendos and Freddie Mercury’s fantastically unholy voice had grown on him more than he’d care to admit. But tonight the radio was on – for now, at least – and Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart mixed wonderfully with the constant rush of air blowing through the open windows.
Needless to say, Aziraphale wasn’t familiar with the song at all, but he rather liked the way Crowley’s profile looked when he tilted his head back and sang along at the top of his lungs. He was shouting more than anything, really, in a cacophony that would have been distasteful if he’d been anybody else. But he wasn’t. This was Crowley. A sliver of red light ran along his neck and glared in the reflection of his sunglasses so most of his exposed skin dripped with vibrant colour. The barest hint of a smile lifted his mouth as he sang to the ceiling of the Bentley, accompanied by a look of youthfulness which sauntered vaguely across his face.
Aziraphale found that his chest ached quite a bit after watching him. This was Crowley, you see, and he was the most beautiful person Aziraphale had ever known.
Not that he would ever tell him that, of course. He might have his moments of naivety, even gullibility, every now and then, but that didn’t make him stupid.
The song seemed to finish just as quickly as it started, and the Bentley cruised on to another song that was also unfamiliar to him (although Crowley had quickly snarled and twisted the volume down as soon as the next one started playing). For a moment the pair of them sat in near silence, though their minds were alive and filled with wild, drunken ecstasy. Aziraphale was confident they had no idea where they were going to end up that night, but for once he simply didn’t care. He just wanted – needed, really – to have this drive, and to feel that gentle companionship that one gets when they just know they’re around the right person.
They cruised past a billboard that stretched high above them, advertising some sort of designer cologne or other. Aziraphale drank it in slowly, taking in the muscles that looked as though they’d been carved rather than simply developed; the strong jawline and the artful smattering of stubble gliding along it; the intense eyes, the full lips, the perfect nose – all the implications of the ideal man.
“Like what you see, then?” Other than the faintest slur, Crowley sounded very much sober. The thought of Aziraphale finding that pretentious bastard attractive sent a sharp sting of something perilously close to jealousy straight through his heart. With the classic killer smoulder and the stupid number of muscles (ridiculous, if you asked him), the billboard man was pretty much everything Crowley wasn’t, and couldn’t be. He recalled the model’s intense stare, so dark and mysterious and infuriatingly symmetrical, and subconsciously pushed his sunglasses further up his nose.
The bitter edge to his voice was lost on Aziraphale, who merely sighed.
“No, no,” he said wearily, but a wistful look crossed his face nonetheless. “I was just thinking of how nice it would be to look like that... or similar, anyway.” His eyes wandered down to his soft stomach. He poked at it, his mouth pouting in a way that Crowley would have described as ‘adorable’ if that word were part of his vocabulary. But there was a sadness there, too, plain to see, almost literally written across his face. “Must be nice, hm? Being rich and beautiful. Quite a peaceful life, I’d imagine.”
“What, that?” Crowley waved a hand behind them. He wrinkled up his nose. “Don’t be stupid. I look like a piece of wet string most of the time but at least I’ve got a bit of bloody personality. Bet he’s a right bore in real life.” They shared a soft smile at that. When Crowley next spoke, he found his heart pounding away beneath his many layers of clothing. His voice was too calm, too nonchalant, but a light tremor wobbled through the words that followed nonetheless. “Anyway, you’ve got nothing to worry about. You’re way better looking than any model I’ve ever seen. You’re real, angel.”
He knew that Aziraphale didn’t know how to take compliments, which was why he hardly ever gave them out – he tried not to overstep any boundaries in that respect. But this time, through the boy’s flustered mumbling and gentle protestations, he caught the glimpse of an awed smile out of the corner of his eye, and the flushed red hue of pleasure blossoming on Aziraphale’s face. Crowley mentally gave himself a pat on the back, feeling quite satisfied with himself and how the night was going so far.
A moment’s silence passed between them. Aziraphale’s skin was still hot to the touch; he kept pressing the back of his hand against his cheek and doing a terrible job of pretending he wasn’t blushing.
The next time Crowley opened his big, stupid mouth, things went slightly pear-shaped.
“So,” he said, a little more casually than was needed to sound casual, “how you feeling about results day?”
Aziraphale’s heart promptly stopped and his brain short-circuited almost immediately.
“Um.” He choked on unspoken words for a moment, simply opening and closing his mouth and looking very much like a fish. Crowley raised a single eyebrow as he umm’d and ahh’d and stumbled over his thoughts as they struggled to leave his mouth. “Uh, yes, well, you know- it’s, um – I suppose we’ll have to see what happens on the day, won’t we?” A dry, unconvincing chuckle rose clumsily in his throat. “Why? How are you feeling about it?”
Crowley spared him a long look that bordered along the line between concerned and unimpressed (if such a line were ever to exist, that was). “Probably a good deal better than you,” he said bluntly. “What’s the matter? Every time someone brings up A-levels you just… I dunno, go into some kind of anxious state of shock.”
Aziraphale didn’t know what to say, because what he wanted to tell Crowley was simply not allowed. How was he supposed to say ‘Crowley, dear chap, I’ve got a few reservations about applying to Oxford and Cambridge and the like because I’m no genius by any stretch of the imagination and I feel like my successful run with the interviews and applications and whatnot is some huge build-up to my moment of complete and utter failure! Oh, and since we’re on the subject, I have some doubts about leaving London because I think I love you and the thought of not constantly being by your side just so happens to be eating me up from the inside’?
He supposed he could say it like that, but even if he could work up the courage, he figured Crowley would probably crash the car if he put it so… insensitively. So he shrugged and mumbled a little more before coming up with something else.
“Just nervous, really,” he said. “I’m a bit… scared, I suppose, that I’m not going to get into Oxford.” He stared off into the distance. “My heart’s been set on going there for years, Crowley. And then there’s everything else that comes with leaving. My family, my friends, my home, and -“ with a panicked glance in Crowley’s direction and a short breath he added “-you, everything I’ve ever wanted has been here and now there’s a chance I could be walking away from all of it.”
By this point, Crowley had parked up on a street corner and killed the engine. He was watching Aziraphale intently from his side of the car, so closely that the boy could see his reflection in his sunglasses. At the sight of that look, Aziraphale faltered, and glanced down at his lap to find his hands absently wringing themselves together.
“Oi. Angel. Listen to me.”
Aziraphale glanced up. His eyes met Crowley’s – or rather, where he knew Crowley’s were hiding beneath his lenses. He didn’t know what to say, so he simply didn’t. For once, he let his friend do the talking.
“No matter what happens on Tuesday, you will be fine. You’re always banging on about how everything happens for a reason, it’s all part of one big plan-“
“An ineffable plan-“ Aziraphale interjected quietly, and Crowley nodded.
“One huge ineffable plan, right, very big and very ineffable, so who’s to say that when Tuesday happens and you do get into Oxford, or you don’t, that it isn’t simply a small part of your own, individual path?” He paused to get a good look at Aziraphale’s face. He looked a little less worried now, and just a tad more thoughtful. Crowley’s fingertips tingled with the urge to reach out and touch his face. “Look, no matter what happens, things will work out for you. They have to, alright? We’ll make them work.” A rare, gentle smile flitted across his mouth, and Aziraphale found himself reminded (at a rather strange time, to say the least) that Crowley was a lot more drunk than he was letting on. “And if they don’t, and Oxford and Cambridge and even London just fall away, or crash and burn at our feet, I’ll drive us elsewhere. We can leave it all in dust and go somewhere else, together.”
Together? Together. Together, together, together… Aziraphale’s mind became a mantra of the same word, over and over and over again. Crowley’s words, though kind and endearing and really very helpful, hadn’t completely quashed the anxiety that burdened the back of his mind… but that one word, together - as in, not leaving each other, standing as one, uniting against whatever the world could throw at them – it sounded quite magical when it rolled off Crowley’s tongue. Quite magical indeed.
The car had fallen completely silent. Aziraphale smiled gently, resisting the urge to reach out for Crowley’s hand. In his state, he felt a light sheen of tears coat his eyes, and let out a light laugh that sounded a little like a sob as he wiped them away.
“Thank you,” he said.
“It’s not a problem, angel.” Crowley’s voice was so soft and sweet that it almost sounded like somebody else entirely; he was so used to the sarcasm and dry wit that made him roll his eyes and scold and even sometimes laugh when he knew he shouldn’t. The gentle kindness beneath his tone now made Aziraphale feel as though he was melting and bursting apart at the seams in the best possible way. “I’ve always got your back, no matter what. And wherever you end up after you get your results back, I’ll be right behind you.” He paused, and a cheeky grin lit up his face. “On weekends, at least. I’ll probably have a course of my own to attend for most of the week, but I’d happily come to visit you whenever I could.”
Another pause, and then, with a voice so soft it barely qualified as a whisper, he added: “You’re my best friend, Aziraphale.”
Aziraphale’s face shone at this; he practically beamed at Crowley, too happy and too drunk to care about holding back, and wiped away at a few more tears in his eyes. His worries weren’t quite gone yet, but they were fading slowly. “And you’re my best friend, my dear.”
They sat in that same silence for a moment, but their words seemed to float around the car in a lazy sort of echo, reverberating what had already been said. The pair of them quietly basked in what they had said, letting the warmth and love wash over them (though they both tried to convince themselves it was platonic – purely platonic - love that lingered in the air). Crowley found himself focused on the wonderful curve of Aziraphale’s top lip while his friend toyed with the idea of removing those blasted sunglasses so he could see his wonderful eyes. Neither of them had the courage to move and actually do something about it, so instead they sat in a tableaux of a classic teenage love story, both gazing at the other in awe and wonder, both equally afraid to take the first step forward.
The image shattered shortly after, when – to their collective surprise – Crowley’s phone rang.
They stared at the screen with equally confused looks on their faces. A rather unflattering picture of a girl Crowley reluctantly called a friend popped up on the screen.
ANATHEMA calling…