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Crowley absolutely loves Aziraphale.
It’s obvious that he does, any idiot from above or below could see that without the need of omniscience or any other such divine power. It’s written in God’s ineffable plan, etched into the stone as She layered brick upon brick building up the wall around Eden’s beauty, until it was high enough to whisper it to the clouds, who told the stars, who told the sun and the moon. Aziraphale stood unknowingly upon the words as he watched over the Eastern Gate; he took them apart letter by letter making a hole for Adam and Eve to escape their prison, then sewed it back up with his own two hands.
He hates that he loves him. It’s really annoying for him. There’s too much… there’s just too much, all whipping around his head at once. It’s hard to pinpoint any particular thought, all too fast and coursing far too deep in his bones to really pick anything clean to its core.
IlovehimIhatehimAziraphaleangelmyangelpleasestopapocalypseAdamprophecyprophecyprophecyAziraphaleHellIlovehimHeavenIhatehimtoomuchitstoomuch
It’s too much.
It’s just so much.
His brain doesn’t have the capacity. His limbs don’t have the strength, his life doesn’t have the span, his heart doesn’t have the sheer nerve needed to sort, and sort, and sort through all the mess that surrounds him in his perfect and pristine little flat in the middle of London.
Love. It feels strange to say the word. Something demonic in him must be rebelling at the very thought, at the very essence of the concept and it sours on his tongue as he tries to wrangle his thoughts into something with a vague semblance of cohesion. The ends of his nerves feel scorched as he pictures Aziraphale (wing upon wing upon wing upon wing, each marvellous with a flourish of white feathers, pocked like stars with a hundred and a hundred more even whiter eyes), his bones feel fragile to the touch at every instance where the threads of their existence keep tangling together across the course of human history.
Instances, just little instances. Fleeting enough to maybe pique an interest, but frequent enough to leave an impact.
It aches, oh, how it aches. More searing than any drop of holy water could bear to conceive of if it splashed against his skin (by mistake or not).
There’s just so much. So God - Satan - someone - Crowley damned much.
Too much to bear, far, far too much to bear.
It’s a sort of love that’s provoking, a no full stops no commas no capital letters no punctuation a s p a c e s italicised bolded and underlined sort of love that hurts to read it hurts so much to read that you dont want to read it at all and your eyes cant handle it theycanthandleittheycanthandleitbecauseitstoomuchtheresnostoptheresnostopitstoomuchtheresno
Stop.
Crowley stops.
He stops, and he thinks. He lets the words flow back into his head, breathes and lets them in one by one, then two by two (and Oy, Anthony, that one’s going to make a run for it… oh, too late. Well, you’ve still got another one of them).
It’s a love that’s absolute.
Absolute.
It’s not love, not really. It’s just Aziraphale.
It’s not love, Crowley thinks, he repeats to himself over and over again so that it lessens the burn of treading on the holy ground that is a demon teasing such angelic fancies.
It works, enough. Enough is what matters, because enough is enough. Enough capacity in his brain to offer him a lift, enough strength in his limbs to cross the floor of a church, enough time for him to fall in love again and again and again, enough nerve in his heart to cry and to drink and to cry and to cry when the bookshop burns, Aziraphale along with it.
Enough to put himself back together again. Enough to do something about it.
Enough to admit, one day, finally, after everything, perhaps even with words (and wine, but mostly words - well, mostly wine) that he maybe, quite possibly, just a little bit, absolutely loves him.
Just enough.