Chapter Text
Aziraphale loved humanity. That was rather the point of him, as an angel, but still. He did, really and truly, love humans. They were creative, and intelligent, and so wonderfully imaginative.
They were also, objectively speaking, horrible for his blood pressure.
Not that he had to have blood pressure in the first place, but he thought it made for a fitting image.
After a full day of dissuading customers, miracling passerbys’ days a touch better, and reshuffling the books for optimal confusion, he was desperately looking forward to an easy night in. A mug of cocoa, an Agatha Christie novel he’d read six times, and possibly, if the stars were in his favor, a late night call from a certain demon.
Ten months since the End Times failed to come on time, and things were good. Things were lovely, things were fine. It was all grand, wonderful, absolutely… tickety-boo.
Alright, perhaps , if he were being honest, he would like it if he and Crowley spent more time together. And he supposed it was possible that he had hoped for their relationship to take a turn after everything settled down.
But then Crowley had slept through most of the autumn, citing exhaustion and a need to “not be on the plane of existence where eleven year olds were better at stopping armageddon than us, angel, I can’t deal with that right now.” And Aziraphale had been fine with that, had given him his blessing, metaphorically, to go and sleep as long as he needed. The shop needed inventory and reshelving after Adam’s attempt at resurrecting it, and it wasn’t like anything much would happen in the meantime, right, dear boy? They would be back to normal right after Crowley’s nap, and no harm done.
He pulled his mug down from the shelf and snapped the hot plate on with a sigh. No sense in wishing for something that wouldn’t happen, was there? At least they still had normal. Normal was a hell of a lot better than nothing.
He was a good ways into the book and a better ways into the cocoa when the phone finally rang, and he couldn’t have stopped his happy little dance if he’d tried. Crowley had been out of town all week, and Aziraphale, quite simply, missed him. His phone didn’t have caller id, since it was, in fact, from the ‘40s, but it wouldn’t have been necessary anyway. The phone knew better than to ring for anyone but Crowley. “Angel!”
“Hello, dear!” Aziraphale replied, grinning like a fool for no one to see, but his joy was cut short when he heard Crowley sputter and choke on the other end of the line. “Are—Crowley are you quite alright?”
“Uh… fine,” he wheezed.
“Are you sure? You sound—”
“Yeah,” he said too quickly. “All good, everything’s good.” He coughed again, and Aziraphale barely resisted the urge to keep questioning him. “So, uh. So how was your day?”
“Oh, it was simply awful ,” Aziraphale answered, happy to be back in their normal rhythm. “You wouldn’t believe how many customers—”
“Good, good I’m glad.”
Aziraphale squinted. “Is… what?”
“And how ‘bout the garden, how’s it doing without me?” Crowley sounded oddly rushed. And weirdly static, like he was reading from a script.
“You—do you mean your plants?” Was he speaking in code? “I haven’t been yet, I’m going to check on them tomorrow.”
“They’re not getting any ideas, then?”
Aziraphale stared at the phone. “Crowley, are you even listening to me?”
“Great, sweeaaahh ngk—angel. Angel, uh. I’ll be home—er—day after tomorrow.”
Aziraphale felt a weight settle in his gut. Something was definitely up. “Crowley.” He was making a deliberate effort to keep his voice steady. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah, I’m almost done out here. ‘S gone well.”
Well that sounded like a yes. But if it was, why wouldn’t he just say it? Unless—
A little bit of panic grabbed at Aziraphale’s heart. Crowley hadn’t responded properly to anything he’d said, the entire call. What if—what if he couldn’t? He could hear other people around, chattering voices in the background of the call. What if Crowley was in danger? What if he needed help, but couldn’t say it aloud?
“Wait,” he said quickly. Aziraphale was a planner, thinking on his feet was horribly stressful, but he had to come up with something. “Crowley, if—dear, if you need help, say, er…” Words, words , what even were words? “Balderdash!” What? “Say balderdash, if, erm, if you’re in danger.”
There was a pause. He heard Crowley take a breath, and then he made Aziraphale’s heart stop. “I, uh. I miss you.”
He couldn’t move. He barely heard the rest of the call, the “see you soon,” the “call you tomorrow,” the “goodnight, angel.” He only came back to himself when the receiver clicked with the end of the call.
“I miss you,” he murmured to himself, collapsing back into his armchair. “I miss you, what—urgh, Crowley. ”
Was that—did he mean it? How did he mean it, was it like the way Aziraphale missed him, like an ache, like a lost treasure? Or was it part of the act? Because there was an act, clearly, it was just a matter of why .
He hadn’t said the word. Hadn’t taken the out Aziraphale gave him, that had to mean he was fine, right? Maybe he’d call back. Maybe Anathema had put him up to it on a dare, maybe he was just drunk out of his head and come tomorrow he wouldn’t remember a thing.
He hadn’t said the word. Aziraphale had to trust him, trust that he knew what he was doing and that he was alright. He picked up his book, though at this point he couldn't have said whether it was a Miss Marple or a Poirot.
He shook his neck out, and made himself focus on the page in front of him. Crowley was fine. He hadn’t said “balderdash,” which meant he was alright. Frankly, if he ever heard the word “balderdash” come out of the demon’s mouth, he would be concerned, he couldn’t have picked a more out of character word. Aziraphale cracked a smile at the thought, though he knew it was a weak one.
Heaven help him, he was a bit of a worrier at heart. And as much as he loved him (and he really did love him), Crowley was not especially good for Aziraphale’s blood pressure.