Work Text:
To Fly, To Live, To Die
There were many things that proved Aziraphale and Crowley to be very different people: their physical appearances, their vocabularies, their taste in music. But one of the greatest things was, well, their things.
Aziraphale had taken over a week to fully move out of his parents’ house, a process which resulted in three very large suitcases, a carry-on, two stuffed backpacks, seven, (yes, seven ), boxes of books, a trash bag of soft things and a manilla envelope containing important documents and priceless photographs.
The reason this had taken so long was because they didn’t have enough bags for everything in Aziraphale’s room, so he therefore had to make some choices on what must be kept and what could be given away. When Crowley first explained this, Aziraphale didn’t speak to him for the rest of the day.
Crowley’s things had been packed in precisely three minutes.
A couple weeks before the move to Oxford, Crowley had entered his house and announced to his family at large that he was dating Aziraphale. He had been promptly kicked out of the house along with two trash bags of clothes, (if his clothes had fit anyone else in the family, they would not have left the house), and his two most prized possessions: a cardboard box full of potted plants and the keys to his Bentley. If his family had been just a tad bit stupider, they would have attempted to claim the car for themselves, but even the Crowley’s knew that doing so would be pointless. Young Anthony would have it back before the sun went down.
Crowley had a very special attachment to his car. The black 1930s Bentley had first arrived at the used car lot across the street from the local middle and high school when Crowley was twelve years old and he was in love with it. Everyday at lunch he would go and gaze across the street, admiring the glossy paint job and classic lines. It didn’t take him long to figure out that he was not the Bentley’s only admirer. It was on a used car lot, afterall. Every now and again, someone would show up, interested in buying the old beauty, and mysteriously, every time, the prospective buyer would return the next day, apparently having changed their mind, all looking various degrees of terrified. Except for one man who had never returned at all.
By the time Crowley was fifteen, the Bentley was still on the lot and the owner was getting desperate. It just so happened that around that time, Crowley experienced a bit of a windfall. Some ancient, filthy rich distant relative of his had died and left everyone in the family a chunk of change, including Crowley who received a check for ten thousand pounds. Before Beelzebub could even think of claiming ownership over any of his money, the red head was on the lot, haggling with the owner over the price of his soon-to-be car. After little resistance, due to how desperate the poor old man was to finally get rid of the thing, the two agreed on a price of ￡6,666.66 because Crowley thought it was funny. The rest of the inheritance could be used to pay for any needed repairs and the price of a fake ID which he immediately looked into obtaining upon his arrival home.
So, from the age of fifteen onwards, Crowley could be seen driving around town in his beautiful classic car. Beelzebub didn’t really care, (in fact, they rather approved of the law breaking), and none of the police in town were stupid enough to try and arrest a Crowley for something as mundane as underage driving. They knew to pick their battles and this was not one of them.
Of course, what this all meant was that Crowley was a dreadful driver.
“Oh dear oh dear oh dear oh dear…” Aziraphale rarely allowed himself to be driven around by his boyfriend, but there really was no other choice in this case. “Crowley, dear, please remember that there is rather a lot of stuff in the car at the moment. Stuff that includes me .”
As if to prove his point, there was a loud thump from the back seat as the boxes slammed into each other, encouraged by the corner taken at break-neck speeds. Crowley just rolled his eyes. “You’ll be fine, angel. Besides, what do we have that can’t be bumped around a little?”
“Well, let’s see,” Keeping one hand firmly gripped on the car door, Aziraphale started counting things off on the other, “there’s my laptop, my candles, my little ceramic snake, my ramen bowl-”
Crowley lazily waved his hand, clearly dismissing Aziraphale’s objections. “Those are all packed away. They’ll be fine.”
“-and your plants, Crowley.” There was a small pause. Golden eyes flicked sideways behind round sunglasses, seeing one raised platinum blond eyebrow, then with a small sigh, Crowley returned his manicured hand to the steering wheel and eased his foot off the accelerator ever so slightly. No matter how much he terrorized the poor things, Crowley was very fond of his potted plants and wouldn’t stand any harm coming to them. Hopefully, putting them in the trunk for a couple of hours would frighten them into submission rather than encourage any unforgivable wilting.
Crowley swerved from lane to lane, cutting off a number of angry looking drivers. After a particularly close call, Aziraphale whimpered, although the sound was barely audible over a loud horn and Crowley’s shouts. The red-head’s two-fingered salute only encouraged the small Subaru behind them to drive daringly close, (even in Crowley’s opinion), and Aziraphale, looking in the rearview mirror, let out another small whimper. After another quick sideways glance, Crowley let out a small sigh. “Why don’t you find some music to play, angel.”
“Right, music. That’s a good idea.” The sound of tapes clacking against each other filled the car as the anxious passenger shuffled through the options. Queen, Queen, Velvet Underground, The Smiths, Queen… Ah, here we go. Aziraphale pulled out one labeled “Tchaikovsky” and inserted it into the play deck. Something nice and relaxing…
The sudden thumping bass made Aziraphale jump. He glared over at Crowley, who was trying and failing not to snicker at his boyfriend’s reaction, as the stereo sang.
Steve walks warily down the street
With the brim pulled way down low
Ain’t no sound but the sound of his feet
Machine guns ready to go
“This isn’t Tchaikovsky.”
“Right, well, I lost some of the tape cases so I had to improvise.”
“Because you needed even more Queen tapes in here.”
“Precisely.”
Aziraphale rolled his eyes but let Freddie Mercury continue.
Another one bites the dust!
…
The first stars had started to show themselves by the time the Bentley pulled up to the curb in front of their new flat. They had expected to have a very hard time finding a place to live when they had gone looking the month before considering how soon the school year would be starting. Yet, somehow, they had managed to snatch the one bedroom flat for an incredibly good price. Apparently, the previous renters had disappeared rather suddenly and the landlord was desperate to get it filled before the fall. It seemed to be a lovely little flat in a lovely little building that was practically just down the street from the campus. Aziraphale was convinced that some divine intervention had granted them their new home and, despite his normal distaste for all things holy, Crowley was inclined to agree.
Golden light from the setting sun flooded in through the tall windows, giving everything an ethereal glow as Crowley and Aziraphale stepped in. Both stopped in the doorway, suitcases in hand, just looking around, taking in the sight of the first thing that was truly theirs .
By the time they had gotten everything out of the Bentley and up the two flights of stairs, (“How is there no bloody lift?!”) the sky had turned a deep navy, casting the small flat into darkness except for the moonlight filling the kitchen. As most of the luggage had been brought into the living room, Crowley and Aziraphale both found themselves sitting at the dining room table, (it was only big enough for two, but there were only two of them, so that was just fine, wasn’t it?) and looked out the window at what they could see of the street and the sky.
“We finally have room.” Crowley’s voice was very soft, but Aziraphale felt like the words had been whispered in his ear. It was as if the space between them didn’t exist, like they were occupying the same place at the same time, together.
“What do you mean, dear? This is just about the least amount of room we’ve ever had.”
Crowley turned to the warm voice. “No, it’s like we finally have room to… to do what we want. Like we have the room to fly if we wanted to. I feel like I could do anything and I would never hit any walls… Does that make any sense?”
Amber eyes met blue ones, trying to communicate something words couldn’t quite. And there, sitting at a tiny table in a tiny kitchen in a tiny flat in a tiny piece of the world, Aziraphale understood “We have the room to live… and to die.”
“Exactly… Wait, what?”
Aziraphale grinned that warm, beautiful grin of his, finding Crowley’s hands in the dark and giving them a small squeeze. “We have room for all of it. I used to feel like- like- oh, how do I explain this? Like- like my life was this laser beam going through fog, right? It went on forever in a straight line, and I knew this, but I couldn’t see where it ended. I could barely see any of it and as far as I knew, it didn’t matter because it never changed. It just stayed like that until it faded into nothing. But now… now it’s a rainbow. And yes, it has to start somewhere and end somewhere but it gets to be a freaking rainbow . And my life has the room to take up all those chances now. I can see the full arc of it. Does that, um, does that make any sense?”
Crowley sat there in silence for a moment, just staring at how the moonlight danced through Aziraphale’s hair and off of his pale cheeks, being dazzled by his interruption of the moonbeam. Yes, it made sense. It made perfect sense and no sense at all and that was exactly the point.
With a soft scrape of his chair, Crowley stood, hands still in Aziraphale’s. “Care to dance, angel?”
The angel gave a soft smile and allowed himself to be lead further into the kitchen. Crowley was terrible at leading, but Aziraphale let him do it anyway. They mostly just swayed to the beat of the city, their combined breaths creating the melody, the occasional chuckle only adding to their song. And as they danced in the moonlight coming through the grunge on the kitchen window, stockinged feet sliding over peeling linoleum, they both were overwhelmed by that feeling of utter freeness, by the reality of how big their world had just become.
Eventually they made their way out of the kitchen and through the living room, avoiding all of the boxes of Aziraphale’s books with only a little fumbling, and into the bedroom. One dance turned into another as they fell back onto the mattress, all giggles and soft sounds of contentment.
It didn’t take long for Crowley to fall asleep. The drive up, in addition to lugging books up the stairs, had taken a lot out of him, and the lull of the bed and Aziraphale’s warmth proved to be too much to resist. The bag of bedding had been thrown in the room at one point while they were bringing things up, but neither had had the energy or particular desire to make the bed, so Aziraphale carefully got up and pulled the duvet out and over himself and the softly snoring boy next to him. Crowley turned in his sleep to snuggle up against his angel, head on his shoulder and arm draped across his waist. With a smile, Aziraphale reached up to run his fingers through the deep red hair tickling his chin, and within minutes, he was lost in a dream.