Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

What one has to realize before one goes on to pass judgment on Anthony J. Crowley is that six thousand plus years as a demon on Earth is a long time. A loooong long time. Long enough to have given Crowley a repertoire of bad habits, some of which he’d picked up from the nastier sort of humans, others still which he’d invented and made a trend of, himself.

But his first crime, his Original Sin, had been asking.

Asking too many questions, voicing out too many doubts, always always asking for too much.

(even when he’d been Falling, Crowley had asked Her. asked for forgiveness. begged desperately for mercy. for a second chance. that had been too much, too, and he’d only Burned all the more as he plummeted down.)

So when he and Aziraphale had gotten together (it was about bloody time, though, wasn’t it? Christ, he’d been pining since fucking EDEN–), when Aziraphale finally took his hand and held his face in his soft-warm palm and kissed him in that clever way that made Crowley gasp and shudder, Crowley bit back his tongue.

Shut his eyes and held on, choking back all the questions building up on the back of his throat.

(since when? how long? why now, angel? angel, why me? angel, aziraphale, are you sure? are you absolutely sure it’s me you want?)

When Aziraphale had finally smiled at him, radiant and ever-bright, Crowley had swallowed back all the things he wanted to asked for since the Beginning. Stopped himself from asking can you do that again? for me, angel? Stopped himself short of begging, please kiss me again. please never stop kissing me. Stopped his stupid mouth from ruining the one good thing given to him again, even though Crowley knew it was only a matter of time before he fucked it all up.

And fuck up Crowley did, one quiet night in, and it had been too cold no matter how many layers he wore and Aziraphale had looked so warm and comfortable on the couch with his blanket and his cocoa and his book–

–and Crowley is left sulking miserably in all his fucking layers, glaring holes at the hard bound cover of Aziraphale’s book in hopes that it’ll catch fire and shrivel up. The only reason he’d given Aziraphale that obscenely fluffy blanket, even made him cocoa, was in hopes that it would convince Aziraphale to put down his book, peer up at him, and say, “Do you want to share the blanket and cuddle with me, Crowley?”

(but that’s too much, isn’t it? Crowley’s asking for too much again, he can’t stop this greed, this disgusting desperation for more more more, he can’t ever be satisfied with one good thing, can he, always has to push until something breaks–)

Aziraphale sighs.

It breaks Crowley’s reverie, and he blinks into focus, looking up to meet Aziraphale’s patient blue gaze. Aziraphale quirks his lips in the tiniest of fond smiles, and Crowley relaxes somewhat. “Did you want something, dear?” Aziraphale asks him.

Crowley parts his lips to speak, hesitates. His mouth runs dry. (too much, his mind screams at him, too much, don’t fucking ask for too much.) 

“S’nothing, angel.” Crowley waves a dismissive hand. “Just looking.”

“Are you sure?”

“Course. Always, that’s–that’s me. Always sure.”

“Alright.” Aziraphale remains unconvinced despite what he says, so Crowley grins at him until Aziraphale softens, huffs out a small laugh, and goes back to his book.

And Crowley is still cold. The grin on his face falls apart.

He looks longingly back at Aziraphale cocooned in the blanket, eyes drinking in the words from the pages, and allows himself this sight, at least. Imagines Aziraphale’s arms around him, imagines them pressed flush and gentle against one another. (too much, his mind never fails to remind him, don’t beg for too much, Crowley, or he’ll get sick of you, too.)

With one last longing look at Aziraphale, Crowley stands and begins to shuffle to the kitchen. Maybe a cup of cocoa would warm him up, even just a little–

The snap of a book closing shut makes him stop. There’s a throat clearing, and then Aziraphale prompts, entirely out of the blue, “Crowley, come here.”

Flabbergasted, Crowley turns. “What?”

Aziraphale only stares at him like a parent would at a particularly dull child. “I said, come here.”

“What for?” Even as he’s putting up a token protest, Crowley goes to him, drawn like a moth to a flame. “What did I do? I didn’t even do anything, angel, I was going to the kitchen–”

“Come here and cuddle with me.”

That makes Crowley stop for the second time around–only this time, his breath is knocked out of him and Crowley can’t hear his thoughts over the roaring beat of his heart. It leaves him to stare dumbly down at Aziraphale, wide-eyed and a little terrified. 

Aziraphale must see it (because of course he does. Aziraphale always sees him, all of him, all of Crowley’s edges and mistakes and too-much-ness, and he never looks away) because he softens then, smiles a touch too sadly as he offers a hand for Crowley to take. "Come here, love.”

Crowley goes.

(Crowley always goes where Aziraphale asks him to follow.)

He’s pulled down gently on the couch and within seconds, Crowley’s surrounded by warm warm warm everywhere, the blankets and the smell of cocoa and Aziraphale’s body pressed up against him so closely, Crowley could feel the planes of his torso fitting perfectly into the softness of Aziraphale’s side even with all the clothing between them. 

Aziraphale tangles their arms together, laces their fingers tenderly. He leans impossibly closer to Crowley until he can press his lips on a sharp cheekbone, once, twice. The ghost of his kiss sears itself like a brand on Crowley’s skin. “Is this what you wanted, Crowley?” 

“I–yeah, yes, yes,” Crowley stumbles over his words ungracefully, his face aflame, his eyes burning hotter and hotter with every blink until all he can see is  a blur and there are tears racing down to his chin. He feels too much, too tender, too soft, too loved and it hurts.

It aches but in the gentlest sort of way only Aziraphale can make him ache, and Crowley is trembling despite all the warmth in his body now. He hides his face against a plush shoulder, and croaks out, broken, “You knew.” 

It’s not a question.

Aziraphale answers anyway. “I knew. I thought you’d never ask, and I found it a shame.” Aziraphale reaches up, brushes away the tear tracks and buries another kiss on Crowley’s hair. “Why don’t you ever ask, darling?”

“Because,” Crowley swallows heavily. (don’t, his mind tells him, don’t say too much. but Crowley is tired of holding back. can’t he have this? hasn’t he Fallen enough for his Sin?) “s’too much, angel. I ask for too much.”

“Oh, Crowley.” A sigh, another kiss on his head. “Crowley, look at me, won’t you?”

Crowley looks up, helpless at the face of Aziraphale’s open adoration. When Aziraphale kisses him, Crowley can only hold on and take as much as Aziraphale is willing to give, and when they break apart, Crowley can only offer a ragged breath to Aziraphale’s small smile.

“Ask me for more, Crowley,” Aziraphale tells him, hushed and certain. He brushes away the last of Crowley’s tears and kisses him vulnerable again. “Always ask me for more.”

“More?” Crowley echoes.

Aziraphale smiles. “More.”

“Alright,” Crowley whispers, and asks, “More.”

Aziraphale gives him more.

Chapter Text

It’s a surprise to both of them that it’s Aziraphale who cries.

When all has been said and done, when the dust has settled and the world has gone back to living like they did yesterday and the days before it, Aziraphale follows Crowley once more to his flat after they’d shared a bottle of wine in his bookshop. 

(they had shared two bottles of wine, actually.)

(three, if Aziraphale is being truthful.)

Aziraphale doesn’t know either why he’s followed Crowley home–but Crowley hadn’t protested, had merely given him a cursory glance and a small, lopsided smile when Aziraphale had sat down on the Bentley’s passenger seat and closed the car door.

He follows Crowley even now, walking into the small kitchenette portion of the flat that Aziraphale hadn’t known existed before. Perhaps it didn’t. Perhaps Crowley had thought it up on a whim, deciding now was a good time as any to have a kitchen as he takes out a glass and fills it up with water, and offers it to Aziraphale.

(Crowley is so amazingly imaginative, after all. none of the other angels Aziraphale knows was quite so imaginative. but lack of imagination had been good, hadn’t it? Heaven didn’t like imagination.)

“Take it,” Crowley tells him, making encouraging noises when Aziraphale only stares at the offered glass. “Just take the water, angel, alright?”

Aziraphale takes it. Their fingers share the barest of touches as Crowley passes the glass to him. (Aziraphale’s hands tremble. why are they trembling? what is he so afraid of?)

“Thank you,” Aziraphale forces himself to say, swallowing heavily. He takes an automatic sip before letting his restless hands steady themselves around the smoothness of the glass. (he takes care not to hold on too tightly–glasses are fragile, after all. breakable. sharp. a little bit like Heaven is.) “I’m not as drunk as you believe me to be, however.”

“Never said you were,” Crowley says without missing a beating, shrugging easily. He takes off his glasses then. Slides it off and leaves it on the counter top he’s leaning against in deliberate, fluid movements. Crowley looks at Aziraphale openly for once, meets Aziraphale’s gaze head on with his lovely golden eyes unwavering.

(he has never told Crowley this–he doesn’t think he was ever allowed to–but the first time Aziraphale’s eyes had landed on Crowley, he has found him breathtaking. lovelier than anything Eden can offer. Crowley is beautiful in his stillness and his recklessness alike, he is beautiful with his passion-fire hair and his languid grins and his honest golden eyes. Crowley can lie all he wants but his eyes. his eyes never do.)

(Aziraphale wishes he could be as honest as Crowley sometimes.)

(Heaven had never really liked honesty either.)

“Aziraphale,” Crowley says. “Talk to me.”

Aziraphale shakes his head as if on reflex. “I don’t think my side would–” His voice wavers to a sudden stop. It dawns to him then, like a slow death. It dawns to him like grief building up on the back of his throat.

(he doesn’t have a side anymore. Heaven is not with him anymore.)

“I–,” Aziraphale fumbles with his tongue the way he had never done before. The words have all left him, betrayed him, like Heaven did. (and really, who is Aziraphale without his words? who is Aziraphale without Heaven? who is Aziraphale now that he’s been left behind?)

“I,” Aziraphale tries once more. 

(nothing.)

There’s a telltale sting behind his eyes and a heavy, hollow pain that grows inside his chest. He looks at Crowley then in sudden anguish, wide-eyed in his helplessness, and when he speaks, Aziraphale’s voice breaks, “I don’t have a side anymore.”

(Azirphale is nothing now.)

It happens so fast. 

The first tears fall unbidden and then Crowley is running to him in alarm as Aziraphale falls and breaks, shatters into a million jagged pieces like the glass he has dropped, as his face crumples into grief and his chest constricts painfully at the force of his sobs. Aziraphale is crying the way he’s never learned to, the way he was never allowed to, the way he never thought he would, but Aziraphale has lost without even being given the chance to fight and Heaven–

–Heaven doesn’t give second chances.

“Angel,” Crowley says, pained. He purses his lips at Aziraphale’s wet hiccups, shushing gently as he gathers Aziraphale up in his wire-lean arms and holds the entirety his agony. Crowley holds him desperately, holds him with such fierce determination, holds him without fear of Aziraphale’s brokenness.

Crowley holds him the way no one in Heaven ever did, and by Someone, Aziraphale aches for it, clinging on so tightly to Crowley’s shoulders. “They left me,” Aziraphale gasps out to Crowley, choking on a sob. Everything hurts–his eyes from all this crying, his throat from all this breathing, his heart his heart his heart is tired from all of this– “They left me, what am I without them?”

“Everything,” Crowley hisses. He embraces Aziraphale just as tightly, one of his hands coming up to cup the back of Aziraphale’s neck, fingers stroking soothingly against his skin. “You–You were everything with them, angel, and you’re still everything without them. You’re–They’re not–you’re better than everything. Better than anything they can ever hope to fucking give.”

Aziraphale only cries harder, holds on impossibly tighter.

Aziraphale cries until his lungs have given out, until his eyes are sore and puffy, and his mouth is tingling from all the shaky breaths he had taken. He cries and cries until the tears are no more, until he has discovered what exhaustion is, until the pain ebbs away into numbness.

And Crowley–

–Crowley holds him through it all, brushing away tears as gently as he can from red-rimmed blue eyes. The mess of glass shards in between them is miracled away with a careless wave of a hand, but Crowley does not do the same with Aziraphale’s broken pieces. He gathers them up carefully instead, puts them back together piece by piece, with one gentle murmur at a time.

And Aziraphale–

–Aziraphale is nothing now. But Aziraphale had been nothing once, before he’d come face to face with Crowley on the Garden Wall and Crowley had talked to him about lead balloons. And here, right now, tucked safely into the spaces of Crowley’s hard edges with Crowley’s voice in his ear, Aziraphale thinks he can be something again.

With Crowley.

(he can be everything again.)

Chapter Text

Crowley is not soft.

He isn’t.

Not for anyone, not for elderly or the unfortunate or the pregnant, or–Satan forbid–children. Not soft for any children at all, no. He’s a demon. Demons don’t go soft for children, shouldn’t even like them at all–except maybe as a preferred target for demonic possessions but that’s a nasty business that Crowley wouldn’t ever be caught doing even under threat of an extremely Hell-ish punishment, and an entirely new topic of debate altogether.

So.

Yes.

Children. Not soft for them.

But the Antichrist isn’t exactly a child, is he? Certainly not any normal child, and if one is going by the logic that the Antichrist, The Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Prince of this World and Lord of Darkness and what-have-you, is Satan’s very own son, then being soft for him is actually a very demonic thing to do.

(not that Crowley is soft for him either.)

But it does help that Warlock Dowling is rather adorable, in that bratty, snot-nosed way most five year-old children are adorable when they’re crying. He’s got on a full quivering pout on his wet face, sniffing and threatening to start up another sob when Crowley comes near his skinned finger with the iodine-soaked cotton swab.

“Nooo,” Warlock whines with a hiccup, stubbornly shaking his head. He’s quite a mess now, long hair stuck to his wet face in a combination of tears and mucus.

“Be a dear and listen to Nanny,” Crowley persuades but to no avail. Warlock only cries again and Crowley works to calm him down once more.

“Gonna hurt,” Warlock says, eyes watery and bottom lip trembling. Crowley absolutely does not feel any sort of heartbreak from this. Any and all sorts of mirroring pouts on Crowley’s face is simply for the irony of it. “Nanny, s’gonna hurt.”

“It won’t, darling,” Crowley shushes gently. Brandishing a handkerchief in one hand, he wipes away the mess from the boy’s face. “It won’t hurt. You can trust what Nanny says, can’t you?”

Warlock hiccups and nods glumly, but remains unconvinced, eyes downcast and nervous. Crowley sighs.

The thing is, alright–the thing is, he can miracle it away, can’t he? It’s just a skinned finger, it’s not like it’s bloody cancer that he’ll be miraculously healing, nobody’d be batting an eyelash if the wound closes itself in seconds. Crowley can just bloody well miracle it away if he wants to, can just pass it off as a magic trick to Warlock.

Crowley can miracle it away. He should miracle it away.

But that’s not how humans work, Aziraphale has said. How would young Warlock grow up to be good–or normal, for that matter, if he thinks all pain can be miracled away, Crowley?

(and honestly, what does Aziraphale know about how humans work anyway? the angel forgets that human hair even bloody grows!)

With another grumbling sigh and the strongest urge to roll his eyes until they reach the back of his skull, Crowley deflates and gets rid of the tempting thought of an easy fix. (imagine that. him, refusing temptation.) He offers the cotton swab to Warlock instead, watches him stop tearing up out of curiosity and question as he looks up at Nanny.

“Here, darling,” Crowley tells him, smiling a little when Warlock reaches for it obediently. “You can try it on me first.” He offers out his hand next, waiting patiently as Warlock looks at his fingers and then at the cotton swab, and then back up to him.

The tears are gone now but Warlock’s wide eyes are still alight with worry as he chews on his lip. “You promise it won’t hurt?”

Crowley nods. “I promise.”

Hesitantly, and with many a glance up at his Nanny’s face for encouragement, Warlock holds Crowley’s hand steady and swipes the iodine along the length of a slender finger, painting it dark–almost red, at first–until it stains the skin.

Warlock looks up. “Don’t sting?” he asks.

Crowley shakes his head softly. “It doesn’t sting.”

“No hurt?”

“Not one bit, my dear.”

This exchange doesn’t warm Crowley’s heart. Absolutely not. There are no warm feelings here, no feelings at all, not even when Warlock nods bravely afterwards, like a little soldier going into battle and declares to him, “I can do it, Nanny.”

Crowley isn’t being unnecessarily gentle when he presses the new iodine swab on Warlock’s wounds–Crowley’s just–he’s just careful, it’s to make it all easier for his job, really, doesn’t want to set off another round of fresh tears, and not because he doesn’t want Warlock to feel even another second of pain.

Warlock’s face pinches a little when the swab goes over his wound but he holds on nonetheless, expression resolute despite his shaky breaths. When it’s all done, he breaks into a slow smile afterwards, looking tentatively up at Nanny for her praise and Crowley doesn’t disappoint.

“There’s my brave boy,” Crowley says, and doesn’t melt when Warlock positively beams at him. 

“Don’t hurt,” Warlock reports with a grin, brandishing his newly disinfected wound. “No hurt, Nanny.”

“Absolutely no hurt,” Crowley echoes back, tapping him gently on the nose and smiling as Warlock giggles. He must see someone else then because Warlock gasps and leans to the side to wave over Crowley’s shoulder.

“Brother Francis!”

“Hello, Young Master Warlock!”

Crowley turns just as Warlock runs to Aziraphale, tackling him by the knees. He watches as they chat in loud voices, both of them so easily excitable and cheerful, and straightens up to stand, smoothing out his dress when they come near.

“Nanny Ashtoreth,” Aziraphale greets, tipping his frankly ridiculous brown hat.

“Gardener,” Crowley replies coolly.

They stare at each other for a moment, both pretending to be ill at ease with each other around Warlock. (of course Aziraphale breaks first. he always breaks first. there’s a tiny, tiny smile playing on his lips and a twinkle in his eyes that he can barely control. it’s the loveliest thing, even with his gardener disguise, and Crowley’s heart absolutely melts.)

Warlock, for the most part, doesn’t seem to notice, and he tugs at Aziraphale’s robes until Aziraphale glances down at him with a smile. “Brother Francis, look!” 

“What’s that now?” Aziraphale bends down gamely when Warlock shows off his skinned finger, grinning when Aziraphale gives an exaggerated gasp at the sight. “Oooh, that looks painful! Did the Young Master cry?”

“No,” Warlock declares proudly, despite the obvious tear tracks on his face. (Crowley won’t admit to this, but he’s proudest about Warlock’s bold-faced lies.) “Nanny said it won’t hurt and it didn’t. We match!”

At that last part, Aziraphale turns to Crowley in question. Crowley shows his iodine-stained finger in lieu of an explanation and feels his face heat at the distinct softness that Aziraphale’s expression takes on, then, looking the way he does whenever he thinks Crowley has done something good.

Thankfully, Aziraphale looks away before Crowley can spontaneously combust right before his eyes and looks down at Warlock with a smile, offering him a row of colored band aids that Crowley sees pop into existence from behind Aziraphale. (oh, but Aziraphale can be such a bastard when he wants to be. Crowley isn’t supposed to perform miracles for Warlock but he can???) “Let’s fix that right up, shall we?”

Warlock squeals in excitement, eyes lighting up. (Crowley absolutely does not find this cute.)

(Later, when both of them have band aids wrapped around their iodine-stained fingers–blue for Warlock, like Brother Francis’s scarf, he says and red for Crowley, like your hair, Nanny–Warlock will come up to Crowley, reach for his finger carefully and place a kiss on it.

“Brother Francis says kisses make it feel better,” Warlock will explain at Crowley’s stare and he will hold up his own for Crowley to kiss and Crowley–

–Crowley will kiss it better. Not out of obligation or any sort of irony, but because Warlock is a boy with wide eyes and too much heart, and he reminds Crowley of  a time long ago, when Crowley had been the same.

And if later, Crowley keeps the band aid and takes care not to wash off the iodine stain on his skin too much, well then. That’s his business, isn’t it?)

Chapter Text

On the midnight of the First Day of the Rest of their Lives, Crowley slithers his way out of his bed and into Aziraphale’s in the darkness. 

“Crowley?” Aziraphale startles, but doesn’t move away even when Crowley stretches out on top of him, tucking his head into the crevices of Aziraphale’s neck and one of his bony hands splaying wide over Aziraphale’s chest, where his heart would be. “I–What, Crowley? Is something the matter?”

Crowley only shakes his head. Under his palm, Aziraphale’s heart beats steadily, and under his touch, Aziraphale is warm and soft and solid and he’s here, he’s here he’s here– “Just let me have this, angel,” Crowley asks silently, desperately, unable to hide the quiver in his voice. Not two days ago, he’d thought his best friend of 6000 years had died. Crowley hadn’t known what to do, then, hadn’t decided whether living on had been worth it without Aziraphale. “Just this once,” Crowley pleads further. “Let me stay. You can kick me out in the morning.”

There must be something in his voice, or something in the tremors of his hand, because Aziraphale’s only response is to cover the hand on his chest with his own, turning his body towards Crowley as he whispers, “Good night, my dear,” and falls asleep.

Crowley can’t bring himself to do the same.

He stays awake instead, counting each of Aziraphale’s inhales and exhales and each of the drums of his heart. He counts the seconds that lay between them, each minute movement that Aziraphale does as he sleeps, and commits to memory the warmth of Aziraphale’s hand over his own. 

When Aziraphale gets cold in the early hours, Crowley pulls the covers around them a little tighter, holds Aziraphale a little closer. Tries his damnest not to think of burning books and of a grief that’s all-consuming, and instead watches the rise and fall of Aziraphale’s chest as he breathes, and lets his cursed body do the same.

Crowley watches on until the skies turn grey outside, until the grey turns pink and then orange, and then indigo. He watches them bleed into each other, these colors that will never quite replicate the radiance that Aziraphale holds but tries so hard to do so, watches the way the first light catches on Aziraphale’s face, on his hair and his brows and his nose, and Crowley tries not to break down in the relief that overtakes him.

So Crowley watches on instead.

Waits for the indigo dawn to arrive, waits for the moment his sleep-heavy eyes open too slowly on the next blink. Waits for Aziraphale’s next inhale. And exhale. And inhale.

Crowley falls asleep just as the sun rises.

.

.

.

On the morning of the Second Day of the Rest of their Lives, Aziraphale wakes up to the light in his eyes and Crowley curled up on top of him, an odd new weight that makes warmth bloom in his chest without having anything to do with sunlight. He looks out to see the sky turn from indigo to orange and then, for the briefest moments, to red, like Crowley’s own hair tickling his face as he sleeps on.

Aziraphale can’t bring himself to wake him up.

So he watches instead and waits, counts the minutes that lay between them and each lovely, even breath that Crowley takes. Listens to each nonsensical murmur, and smooths out each crease of Crowley’s eyebrows with a gentle finger.

When Crowley wakes, he wakes up startled, as if thoroughly surprised that Aziraphale hadn’t kicked him out yet. He grunts, makes a move to stand up and leave, but Aziraphale catches him before he’s able to, holds on to him with a hand around his wrist, pulls him back into bed much to Crowley’s growing question.

“‘Ziraphale?” He croaks out, but doesn’t fight it when Aziraphale tucks him into and around himself, arms winding across Crowley’s lean form and legs tangling over each other.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale sighs into his neck, and delights in the shiver that runs through him, “let me have this, too. Not just once. Please stay.”

Crowley does.

He wraps his arms around Aziraphale, buries his mouth into soft blonde curls as he closes his eyes. Aziraphale goes back to sleep, and Crowley stays.

Outside, the sky turns blue.

Chapter Text

They first experience South Downs during a vacation.

When they arrive for the first time in autumn, the cottage had not been theirs yet–rather, it belonged to one Mr. Graham, whose great great grandmother and great great grandfather once lived in the very same place, and for generations to come, it had transformed into somewhat of a family vacation house and Mr. Graham tours them around with the wistful recollection of many cozy Christmases spent lounging in front of the red brick fireplace with his siblings.

“Ah, yes,” Aziraphale nods sagely. “This place does have a wonderful feeling of love surrounding it. If I concentrate hard enough, I can still feel your great great grandparents’ presences here.”

Mr. Graham pauses, lets out a nervous laugh at Aziraphale’s words. “Y-you can?”

“Oh yes! Very much so–”

Crowley coughs rather rudely by Aziraphale’s side then, smoothly taking Mr. Graham by the elbow and leading them back to the corridor. “A fireplace, you say. You don’t mind showing us how that works, do you?”

“Oh no, not at all!” Mr. Graham smiles a little skittishly. “This way, gentlemen.” 

“Really now,” Aziraphale tuts just as the man disappears around the corner, leaving him and Crowley alone for a moment. “Was that necessary?”

“Was that necessary?” Crowley parrots back in disbelief. “If you keep telling the man his grandparents’ ghosts are still here, you’re in charge of finding us a new house to rent when he refuses to host us.”

“I said the house was loved,” Azraphale defends.

Crowley’s eyes roll behind his dark glasses. “You said it was haunted.”

“I never said–”

“You implied it.”

“But I didn’t!”

“But you did!”

“Oh, whatever,” Aziraphale huffs finally, turning to follow Mr. Graham to the sitting room with Crowley on his heels, pitching his voice high and ridiculous as he mocks oH whATeVer behind Aziraphale’s back.

They rent the house for a week and unpack fairly quickly after Mr. Graham leaves. The place is peaceful once they’re both settled in, quiet but without the feeling of loneliness. It’s isn’t quite perfect–the bathroom door squeaks, and there are dents in the wooden flooring of the bedroom but all of just adds to the charming quality of the house. For a while, they go off in their separate ways, bumping into each other here and there before leaving to discover a new part of the house on their own again. Aziraphale putters around the kitchen for a bit as Crowley explores the small vegetable garden in the backyard that Mr. Graham had showed them earlier. 

It’s late in the afternoon when Crowley finds his way back to him again, shouting for him as if there’s even a possibility that he’d lose Aziraphale in this tiny, tiny house. 

“Angel!” Crowley calls out, barging into the sitting room where he finds Aziraphale nursing a cup of tea. “Angel, there you are! I thought maybe we could–oh.”

Crowley stops in his steps as soon as Aziraphale gestures towards a second cup waiting on the coffee table across him. He blinks dumbly at the drink and then blinks dumbly up at Aziraphale.

“For me?” Crowley asks.

“For you,” Aziraphale confirms.

“Tea?”

“No, my dear,” Aziraphale says, smiling around his next careful sip. “Coffee. You’re not very fond of tea, remember?”

“Right, right, not–not tea, no. I don’t. I-I don’t drink tea.” 

“It’s very well then that I made you coffee instead.” Aziraphale grins.  There’s a lovely growing blush that rests high on Crowley’s cheekbones now, and it makes such a handsome sight of him. Oh, but Crowley looks delightful when he’s flustered. “Won’t you sit with me, darling?”

Crowley sits. 

He picks up the cup in front of him hastily, takes a mouthful of it while Aziraphale watches on, and then pauses at the taste, staring back at Aziraphale. “This is good,” Crowley says, almost accusingly. “You know how I take my coffee.”

“Of course I know,” Aziraphale says. His smile goes tender, softer at the corners. “I do pay attention to the things you like, Crowley.”

Crowley burns his tongue on the next swallow. “You–You do.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale agrees. “Now, what was it you were saying earlier?”

“A walk,” Crowley croaks out. The flush has begun its descent down to his slender neck, and Aziraphale lets out a longing sigh as his eyes follow its disappearance into Crowley’s collar. “That Graham bloke mentioned it earlier, a forest trail nearby. Said it was lovely this time of the year. If-if you want.”

“A walk in the forest,” Aziraphale echoes with a pleased hum. “Well now, that does sound very romantic. We can go after dinner, perhaps?”

“Th-That’s. I’m. Hngh.”

“Crowley?”

“Yes.” Crowley’s answer is muffled behinds his hands, the rest of his face painted crimson now. Aziraphale is willing to bet that the blush reaches Crowley’s chest. “Jesus, angel. Alright.”

“Crowley.”

“What.”

Aziraphale beams. “I love you.”

“Ngk.”

.

.

.

The forest trail is a narrow, picturesque dirt path that leads into the heart of the woods and exits right into the side of the National Park. There are a few people here and there when Crowley and Aziraphale finally reach the beginning of the path. 

Mr. Graham had been right–the woods are lovely this time of the year, almost hauntingly beautiful with their leaves all painted in varying shades of decay, and the path clear of any undergrowth from the chill. The forest smells sharp and cloying at once–like the earth and its slumber, like the frost in the atmosphere that hints of the year’s first snowfall.

It would have been lovelier, Aziraphale muses with a deep urge to sigh, had Crowley thought to wear warmer clothes for this.

As if on cue, Crowley sneezes scandalously loud for the nth time in the evening, ruining any tranquil atmosphere that may have been there once in the forest. The couple near them glances their way and sends Crowley dirty looks that Aziraphale attempts to appease with an apologetic smile.

“I did tell you to bring your scarf, Crowley,” Aziraphale tuts as he steers them away from the other couples.

“It hadn’t been cold earlier!” Crowley argues. “How was I supposed to know it’ll get this cold?”

“Well, we would’ve known, had you let us listen to the weather forecast instead of Queen on repeat–”

“Oh, for Hell’s sake, not this agai–”, Crowley breaks off into another vicious sneeze. Next to him, Aziraphale winces. “Agh! Besides, angel, it’s hardly my fault. It smells like rot in here.”

“How dare you,” Aziraphale gasps, affronted on behalf of the forest. “It smells lovely and earthy, like leaves!”

“Rotting leaves,” Crowley grumbles under his breath.

They bicker as they walk on, and they walk on until the sun sets in the distant horizon, until the night falls around them and the lampposts come to life. They walk on until Aziraphale stops in his tracks and takes off his scarf from around his neck to wrap it around Crowley’s instead, who stares at him in confusion and wonder alike as he shivers in the cold.

“Angel?”

“Let me,” Aziraphale whispers, gently now, without any trace of snark from their earlier conversations. He ties the scarf carefully around Crowley’s neck before tucking it in securely into his coat. When Aziraphale deems his handiwork good enough, he looks up then, into Crowley’s golden eyes behind his glasses and smiles at the expression he sees.

“You’re a right bastard, aren’t you, Aziraphale?” Crowley murmurs, and it makes Aziraphale laugh a little.

“Why is that, my dear?”

“You start up an argument, and then you do something like this, and it makes my head spin.” Crowley swallows, a rueful smile dancing upon his cold lips, and he looks vulnerable all of a sudden, looks as hauntingly beautiful as the forest that surrounds them. “You–You do it so easily, angel, as–as if we’d been doing this all along. You make me feel so much. It drives me insane. You can’t play with my heart like this.”

“Not playing,” Aziraphale breathes out and all the air in his lungs escape as Crowley takes a step closer, takes off his glasses to look Aziraphale in the eyes. It sounds like a promise, like devotion, these puffs of cold air and hushed words exchanged between them. “Never playing. None of this is just playing around, Crowley.”

“I know.” Crowley takes another step, leaves barely an exhale between them. “I–Can I. Can I kiss you?”

Aziraphale’s answer is to pull Crowley down by the scarf, and kiss him until he’s warm. They kiss until the woods fall silent, until the lampposts have reached their brightest and the night falls in love with their bodies. They kiss until they’re breathless.

They kiss until the first snow falls.

Chapter Text

It takes exactly one month before Crowley finally gives in to the urge and makes a garden patch in the backyard of their cottage. 

Aziraphale watches him from the doorway as he works, Crowley in his black gardening overalls with his back to the sun above and his knees on the ground, crimson hair pulled back into a half-bun as he digs slender fingers into the earth and breathes in new life to the saplings he’d bought from the farmer’s market that morning. Crowley coaxes one to take root with firm words and gentle hands that bury it into the earth until the humble green thing becomes one with the dirt and learns to stand without Crowley’s long fingers guiding it.

Crowley wipes the building sweat on his brow and unconsciously leaves a smudge of brown on his skin, looking all the more human for it. There is something utterly beautiful about Crowley when he nurtures something.

(It reminds Aziraphale of a story told to him long ago, about an angel far more ancient than any of them combined when they had been willed into being, whose hair was as red as the sky was blue and whose eyes were as golden as the first suns ever created. Star Weaver, they had called him, The Cosmic Gardener.)

“Anything you need, darling?” Aziraphale calls out, goes breathless with enchantment at the languid grin that pulls on Crowley’s mouth as he glances up. It’s all too easy for Aziraphale smile back, enamoured.

“Just something to drink will be good, angel.”

“Of course.”

Aziraphale turns back to the kitchen, and makes fresh lemonade as Crowley continues to garden.

(They talk of The Cosmic Gardener like a myth to begin all myths. Tailored from God’s own Imagination, this one was, they had said and to all that they said, the new ones had held on. 

”This crimson-haired being, who is he?” the new ones had asked.

“Don’t you know? Don’t you know,” they had said. “He spun all the constellations and the stars together.”

“This golden-eyed wonder, what did he do?” the new ones had whispered.

“Don’t you know? Don’t you know,” they had answered. “He held the galaxies at the palm of his hands.”)

Aziraphale walks toward the garden after a while with a lemonade in each hand. Crowley looks up just as Aziraphale kneels down and joins him on the ground, laughing when Crowley sputters.

“Oi! Your trousers!”

“It’s fine, my dear,” Aziraphale says with a smile. “These can always be laundered.”

“If you say so,” Crowley mutters. “Long as you don’t make me miracle them clean again.”

“Oh hush.”

Aziraphale hands Crowley his lemonade after he’s wiped his hands clean on a handy rag by his side. They clink their glasses together in a mockery of a cheers. Crowley drinks in long, satisfied gulps, groaning in exaggerated appreciation just to make Aziraphale roll his eyes at him fondly.

Crowley goes back to work after finishing his lemonade and lets Aziraphale watch on in wordless silence, looking up every now and then as if to check whether Aziraphale is still paying attention to him.

Much later, Aziraphale asks, in a shy whisper, “Would you teach me, Crowley?”

And Crowley looks up with surprise in his expression, but he never asks to clarify, never asks Aziraphale to repeat himself. Instead, he takes Aziraphale’s hand in his dirt-stained palms and brings down to the earth to work alongside with his.

(From among the new ones, one called Aziraphale had raised his hand and asked softly, “This Gardener, where is he now?”

And from among them, Gabriel the Archangel had laughed. “Don’t you know? Don’t you know,” he had spoken with heavenly judgment, “He fell in love with the earth and thus Fell out of Heaven. Don’t you know, don’t you know, Aziraphale, how ungratefully he had let go of the Cosmos to tend to the lowly brown dirt? How the Star Weaver had chosen Eden over eternal paradise?”

Had he really, though? Aziraphale had always wondered afterwards, wondered until the very moment he was assigned to guard the Eastern Gate and there had met him.

Not the Star Weaver, no. Not the Cosmic Gardener.

But rather, Crowley–Crawly, back then–with his fire-bright hair as red as the as oceans are deep and his eyes glowing golden with starlight.)

Do they know, do they know, Aziraphale wonders then, as his clumsy hands dig the earth alongside of Crowley’s graceful fingers, that the Gardener never stopped loving the stars?

Do they know, do they know, how he still speaks of the Cosmos in wistful murmurs, how he spins green vines of flora around his  fingers in reminiscence of how he spun constellations?

They don’t know, they don’t know, Aziraphale thinks as he stares at Crowley in front of him, their hands and fingers all tangled up in rocks and soil and roots as they place the last sapling down with utmost care, they don’t know that his love for Creation had never been as finite as to choose one over the other and so he had chosen them both, this Star Weaver with too much heart, this being with rust-red hair, this creature with dirt under his fingernails and stardust in his eyes–

–Crowley had loved them both.

The earth and its warmth. The universe and its vastness.

“Good job, angel,” Crowley tells him then, just a touch proud. 

Aziraphale kisses him in response. 

He couldn’t not kiss him, couldn’t possibly resist this temptation. Not when Crowley tastes like lemonade, and smells of grass and sunlight. Not when his hands, rough and brown from gardening, flutter ever so hesitantly over Aziraphale’s face, wanting to hold him without dirtying him.

When they part, Crowley breaks into the gentlest smile.

And by God, does he look lovely, like the universe and all the promises it holds.

Earthly and cosmic, all at once.