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Aziraphale and Crowley are riding the bus in silence, hands clasped together, when Aziraphale speaks up. “I want to go to the bookshop.”
Crowley turns and tilts his head. Was he in denial? “Angel, I thought I told you...”
“You did. I want to see it myself. I’ll be up all night thinking about it if I don’t.” He looks into Crowley’s eyes. “Will you go with me?”
His breath catches in his throat and he shifts to look out the window at the cars zipping by. “You don’t have to ask me something like that,” he says.
“But I am asking.” Aziraphale thinks to when Crowley asked him much the same question, albeit in regards to a place much farther away. He repeats himself, “Will you go with me?”
The demon releases a slow sigh that collects on the window pane as a patch of fog. “Yes. I’ll go with you if you want.”
It wasn’t the enthusiastic answer Aziraphale had been rather hoping for, but he felt satisfied enough. He could have said no. I wouldn’t fault him if he had said no.
Crowley wanted to go to sleep, was the truth of the matter. He wanted to go back to his flat and see his plants and his throne and then fling himself into comfortably familiar black silk sheets and sleep for at least a few hours, sleep for as long as he reasonably could. He would go with Aziraphale anyway.
It wasn’t that Aziraphale’s tone said that he really truly wanted Crowley to come along. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be alone, and it wasn’t even for the simple matter that he wanted to be with Aziraphale in case something happened.
Crowley wanted to go with him for support. They’d been to hell and back (literally) and Aziraphale going to see his home and livelihood burned to ashes wasn’t going to be easy on him. Crowley wanted to go with him so he would have a hand to hold, a shoulder to lean on, if he decided he needed it. He would be there.
The bus stops in Soho and lets them off at the curb. Aziraphale stares up at the shop. Crowley stares up at the shop.
It looks perfectly fine. Not a trace of smoke or blackened wood, no shattered windows or broken doors. It looks as if nothing happened at all.
Crowley feels a gentle squeeze and looks down to their clasped hands. He realizes he isn’t sure if they’d been holding hands the entire time since they’d gotten onto the bus, or if Aziraphale just now linked their fingers together again.
“I don’t understand. it was- angel I was here! Everything was on fire. Everything was gone.”
Aziraphale’s expression seems to be trying to do many things at once, finally settling on relieved after a minute. "Suppose Adam fixed more than we thought." He cautiously opens the door and pulls Crowley inside. The demon reaches for a light switch and before he can illuminate the place, Aziraphale pulls him into a tight hug, face pressed against his shoulder.
“What’s wrong?” crowley asks quietly, settling one hand against his back and letting the other pet through blonde curls.
Aziraphale leans into him. “Nothing. I think right now, everything is okay.”