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Crowley saunters into the bookshop, looking carefree and like he just rolled out of bed. Both of these are a lie. Crowley did not sleep last night, and he spent fifteen minutes fixing his hair outside in the Bentley and second guessing himself. But Aziraphale doesn’t need to know that.
“Crowley!” Aziraphale looks pleased to see him. Well, he always looks pleased to see Crowley, but since the Apocalypse-that-wasn’t he seems less guarded with his welcoming smiles.
This is good. It means Crowley finds it easier to go through with his plan, as opposed to scrapping it for a later time, as he’s been doing since they earned their breathing room. Crowey is not an optimist. But his plants haven’t had a spot or a leaf out of place for awhile, and the sun is cutting bright lines through the bookshop, throwing interlocking patches of darkness and light on the floor. He’s just charmed enough by the symbolization he can read into them that Crowley can fake the confidence needed to place the key to his flat on the table at Aziraphale’s elbow.
“What’s that, my dear?”
Crowley freezes, a finger still on the key, prepared to slide it a few inches closer to the angel. He had not anticipated this question. He stutters over the first three “well”s, and eventually stammers out: “Key to my flat. Thought you could have it.”
“Why?” Aziraphale asks, raising his eyebrows as he looks at the key.
Crowley’s face heats. “In case you wanted to borrow a cup of sugar?” His voice raises with the sentence, until he is one step below dog-whistles.
“But my dear, you don’t keep sugar.”
Crowley stares. When Aziraphle turns his gaze up to him instead of the key, he pastes on a grin. “Well, of course not sugar, angel. It’s an expression. But - but if you ever run out of - wine, yes, here, in your bookshop, and you want more, well. It’s bigger than it looks.” Now, why’d he have to slip that innuendo in there? Crowley is going to discorporate himself. “My cellar, I mean. It can hold a lot. More than you’d expect.” Satan, that’s even worse.
Aziraphale huffs. “Crowley, really. If I wanted to raid your cellar I’d prepare you first.”
Crowley’s brain short-circuits. But when it comes back online, he realizes, no, Aziraphale did not just raise the stakes on Crowley’s Freudian slip. He probably just means that he would call ahead and ask what Crowley has on stock. Moreover, he has not made a move to take the key.
“Right,” Crowley says. “Sure, right.” The key is harder to pick up than it was to put down. His fingers keep scrabbling with it, Aziraphale’s amused attention making it more difficult. When he finally manages to wrestle the damn thing up, his humiliation has been tempered into frustration, which is - something.
***
It wouldn’t do to seem too eager, so Crowley waits two whole days before trying again. This time, they are in his flat, using the floor-to-ceiling windows to admire the sunset spread out over the London city skyline.
“Oh, that’s just lovely,” Aziraphale says, sighing, radiating peaceful contentment.
Crowley agrees, though he has not, in fact, been looking out the window, but has been taking the opportunity to watch the way pink and orange stain the side of the angel’s face. In the colorful light his flat is more welcoming that it usually is, and he says, hopefully, “You could come up here whenever you like. Watch the sunset, sunrise, whatever.”
“Why, thank you,” Aziraphale says, smiling wider. “What a lovely thought.”
After the angel is gone, Crowley tips into bed, dizzy with elation.
He wakes in the middle of the night, incensed, when he realizes he never offered Aziraphale the key.
***
Things just go downhill from there.
“I’ve got milk in my flat, if you -”
Aziraphale frowns. “But it would take much less time for me to pop down to the shop on the corner.”
Crowley nods, hopes Aziraphale doesn’t read into the distressed tone of his hum.
***
“So much bustle in Soho these days. Not that I’m complaining.”
Crowley, knowing full well that it isn’t going to work, tries anyway. “Pretty quiet at my place, you know. Modern construction and all.”
“Oh, I don’t mind really. It’s nice to see them all walking around, going about their lives after everything.”
It’s not like he was going to use the fork anyway. Crowley shoves the tines into the meat of his thigh, and smiles at Aziraphale.
***
“But my dear, you said you didn’t want me anywhere near your plants.”
The tartan watering can in Crowley’s flat finds itself back to a garish red, and back on the shelf in the store Crowley liberated it from.
***
“I have umbrellas,” Crowley says. “Lots.” At the moment, he has an entire walk in closet dedicated to umbrellas - but they will not have time to make themselves at home.
***
The worst part is that things are not bad in their little pocket of freedom. Crowley is happy, sitting next to Aziraphale on a blanket in the closest countryside they can find from London. If they’re not at a picnic, they’re having drinks in Aziraphale’s bookshop, at the Ritz, strolling through one of Crowley’s botanical haunts. Crowley is used to being patient, but Crowley is so, so tired and something in him finally cracks.
“And then they actually wanted to purchase a copy, can you imagine?”
“Would you just take it, please,” Crowley says.
“Take what, my dear?”
Crowley swallows, holds his god-blessed key out. “Please, angel. Just -”
Aziraphale looks at it. Fiddles with his waistcoat. Adjusts his bow tie. The Almighty must have sent this overwhelming love to Crowley as a divine punishment. Perhaps as a joke.
“Why?”
“You can’t be serious.”
Aziraphale’s eyes meet his. “Crowley, why?”
Crowley has no idea what to say, but he starts anyway, confident that he can find something by the end. “So that you can -”
“No,” Aziraphale cuts in. “None of that. I am asking you why.”
Crowley swallows. “I’ve told you -”
Aziraphale huffs. Squints at the green hills as though he is insulted by the idyllic countryside.
Crowley lowers his hand, feeling the need to apologize even if he doesn’t understand why. He never knows what he does wrong in these moments. He knows Aziraphale so well, can talk to him about everything except this.
The key feels heavy in his hand. Crowley looks at it so he doesn’t have to look at Aziraphale, and finds himself not much liking it, or this stupid idea. It’s not like Aziraphale would even need a key to get into his flat, if he wanted any of the things Crowley has offered. He could just walk in with a snap of his fingers. Keys are not for beings like them.
Aziraphale sighs. He wraps one of his hands around Crowley’s wrist and plucks it away from Crowley’s fingers. “It’s fine,” he says. Crowley looks up at him. “I’ll take it.” Aziraphale smiles, but it’s thin.
Well, that’s that, then. Crowley tries to feel good about it. “Right. Great. Yeah.”
“Crowley.” Aziraphale strokes his thumb along the inside of his wrist. His voice is low, careful. “Is this key for sugar?”
“Don’t have sugar,” Crowley says. His voice sounds like it’s coming from far away.
“Wine then. Is this a key for wine?”
Crowley shakes his head. He can feel tears starting to form in his eyes. Didn’t cry when he fell, but can’t seem to stop about this angel. Christ almighty, this is humiliating. Perhaps he is right about this being a punishment.
“What then?”
“Because I want you to have it,” Crowley snaps.
“Ah,” Aziraphale says. He slips the key into his pocket. “That’s better. Lovely.”
“Lovely?” Crowley snaps his eyes up. Aziraphale has many different smiles, but the one that Crowley likes best is when so much joy seems to be coming out of his eyes that all he can do with his mouth is turn up the corners. He looks ridiculous.
“Yes,” Aziraphale says, still beaming. “I’m going to kiss you now.”
“You are?”
“Unless you don’t want me to, of course.” He cups Crowley’s cheek. “May I?”
“Sure?”
Aziraphale laughs before ducking his head. Crowley has imagined this moment in agonizing repetition and detail, so yes, he has imagined that Aziraphale would kiss him filthy and firmly from the outset - but it was one of his least visited fantasies. When Aziraphale pulls away, he’s mortified to realize that all he contributed to their first kiss was an open mouth.
“Sorry,” he stammers.
Aziraphale hums and pats his cheek. “Not to worry, we have plenty of time to get it right.”
He looks amused and fond, so at least Crowley doesn’t have to follow through on his initial instinct, which was to slink into the ground back to hell. “Try again?”
This time Crowley at least manages to move his lips, and his tongue. That might only be because he’s shaking so badly that there could be an earthquake beneath them without him noticing, but if Aziraphale wanted him to be suave he could have given Crowley more than ten seconds to prepare.
“Oh,” Aziraphale says, popping up and away from him just as Crowley was working up the nerve to move his hand up to Aziraphale’s coat. “I have something for you.”
He turns away for a moment, long enough that Crowley has time to school his expression from poleaxed to a more sedate shocked. The progress is lost when Aziraphale turns around, holding out an enormous, ornate brass key, which should have been replaced more than a century ago.
“You -” Crowley starts, strangled.
Aziraphale smiles. “You’re not exactly subtle, my dear.”
Crowley pounces at him, and oh, he wishes Aziraphale wouldn’t do that, wouldn’t just go with Crowley calmly when he’s pushed against walls, or down onto the ground. Angels are meant to be merciful, and this kind of trusting behaviour is cruel to Crowley’s stupid, unnecessary heart. So is the way that Aziraphale looks perfectly content, even though one of his shoulders is off the blanket now. He’ll get grass stains in his coat, but he smiles up at Crowley, unbothered.
“You knew, and you let me…” Crowley snarls, heat scorching his cheeks.
“Well it was somewhat amusing, my dear,” Aziraphale says. “The one about borrowing your books - while I was reading, too, you remember - oh, that was -” He cuts himself off, growing serious. He reaches up, smooths a strand of hair that’s fallen down over Crowley’s glasses back into place. It flops down again as soon as Aziraphale takes his hand away, but it still makes Crowley’s throat close. “I didn’t want to take it before you asked properly,” he says. “I know how you can be...”
Crowley bites his lip, imagines endless nights fixating on whether Aziraphale knew what he’d meant or not, convincing himself that the angel really was just coming over to pick up a bottle of wine, to look at the sunset. “ You could have said something,” Crowley gripes, though he spoils it by laying a gentle hand on Aziraphale’s chest, over his heart, just to see what that’s like. He’s warm against Crowley’s fingers even through all his layers.
Aziraphale covers his hand, tangles their fingers together. “I was hoping to say something else,” Aziraphale tells him, squeezing gently.
The shock has worn off some, and Crowley leans down to kiss Aziraphale the way he’s always wanted: soft, just lips against lips. Nothing deeper than that, just a kiss for the sake of it, a kiss that’s enough on its own, that doesn’t ask for more.
“Oh, my dear.” Aziraphale is flushing, and there’s something that Crowley never thought he’d see an angel do. He leans in closer to see if he can make the red on Aziraphale’s cheeks deeper, but is stopped by Aziraphale’s hard hand to his chest. “Wait.”
“Don’t make me.” It’s easier to beg when their bodies are pressed together. “Please, angel, six thousand years, don’t make me.”
“Just a moment, Crowley darling.” He reaches up, runs careful fingers across the frame of Crowley’s glasses. “May I?”
Crowley’s stomach flips as he nods. They were never intended to hide him from Aziraphale, but habits are formed after two thousand years.
Aziraphale smiles up at him while he eases them off, sets them aside, far out of reach and safe. “Crowley,” he says, cupping his face with one hand before sliding it back to tangle in the hair at the base of his neck, pressing Crowley’s hand down harder over his heart with the other. “I love you.”
Consonants form in Crowley’s throat and claw their way out of his mouth. He jerks away, on some old buried instinct that screams that he has to run, that this must be a trap. There’s no way it can’t be.
But Aziraphale’s hands hold him firm. “It’s alright,” he soothes. “It’s alright, I love you.”
Crowley jolts again, nearly tearing away from the hair that Aziraphale is gripping so tightly, like he never wants to let go.
“Angel,” Crowley gasps. “Angel, please I - can’t -”
“It’s fine,” Aziraphale says. He smiles, lets go of the death grip his has on Crowley’s hair and runs soothing fingers through it instead. “You’ll believe it eventually.” He tugs Crowley’s head down, kisses the skin beneath Crowley’s eyes, turns his head so he can press his lips to Crowley’s cheekbone, to his tattoo. “One day I’ll say it and you won’t even notice.”
“Never,” Crowley says. That time will never come, Aziraphale could say nothing but it for the rest of eternity and Crowley will remember ever iteration.
Aziraphale stifles a giggle into Crowley’s hair. “You know, I think I believe you,” he says. Then he lets Crowley go, sinks back into the blanket. His clothes have rumpled, and Crowley watches, adoringly, as Azirapahle smooths out his waistcoat and jacket, manages to adjust his shirtsleeves even though Crowley is still looming over him, close enough to share breath. He wiggles his way back onto the blanket, so that his coat is no longer in danger. “Now,” he says, eyes flicking down to Crowley’s lips. “Where were we?”