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Oh, Aziraphale thinks simply. I’m in love with him.
The nearby bombings, only moments before so loud and present, feel distant. The heat of the surrounding rubble and fires only add to the breathlessness of the moment, and what was once a church is now nothing but colors and shapes in his peripheral vision.
Somewhere, Aziraphale could swear he hears the soft twinkle of a romantic violin, or perhaps it’s simply what he feels he ought to hear to accompany his epiphany. He’s read a thousand, a hundred thousand, romantic novels and epics and odes, and knows even vaguely that he is every romantic cliché as he stands among the remains, facing his rescuer, his hero, his heart.
I am in love with Crowley.
In hindsight, it makes some amount of sense, really. Aziraphale is a being made entirely of the fickle, yet eternal, emotion. It is what he bleeds, it is what he breathes out, it is who he is as an existence. A creature built of love, for love, to love.
He loves old books, he loves steaming tea, he loves the café down the street and the woman who sneaks him pastries with a cheeky wink. He loves the way the grass shivers in a breeze, he loves the way humans sigh contentedly when they come home at the end of a long day, he loves the sunset and the sunrise in equal measure. He loves the Earth and God and, well, everything.
Including, apparently, his hereditary enemy, and friend of many thousands of years.
“Angel, are you okay?”
Crowley’s question probes at Aziraphale’s consciousness, so long in his own head he hadn’t realized he was staring. The demon is as handsome as always, clad in pinstriped black and grey, pricks of red hair peeking under a dark hat. Aziraphale suddenly remembers the weight of the bag in his hand.
Aziraphale wants, in that moment, nothing more than to squirrel away in his bookshop for a century and examine his feelings. He wants to pick over every memory with Crowley in it and try to understand how and when this happened.
It’s clear enough that this feeling is not new, only that he has only just come to see it. He yearns to tuck himself away until he knows what to think about this warm heat swelling in his chest.
But Crowley is starting to look concerned and is asking again if he’s okay, and Aziraphale just exclaims what’s on his mind without thinking it through.
“I love you, Crowley!” he blurts plainly, a bit too loud to be anything but frantic and passionate.
Aziraphale has always been terrible at keeping secrets; it’s astounding that he’s managed to keep The Arrangement and his “fraternizing” hidden from Heaven – but when the consequences are that Crowley would be hurt, it keeps his lips sealed. That’s easy. He doesn’t even really have to lie, just exist in half-truths.
But now, whatever consequences lay ahead, the words are out there.
And it is, he admits, very nice to say it aloud.
If Aziraphale had had the forethought to consider Crowley’s reactions to this news – or to consider really anything about the scenario he’s invented – he might have thought of a few possible developments, but none of them happen regardless.
Aziraphale and Crowley stare at each other, Crowley’s jaw hanging open in shock, and a full minute goes by in stunned silence.
Aziraphale waits. Eye contact remains – or at least, blue-eyes-on-sunglasses-where-eyes-should-be, and he doesn’t know what else to say. Finally, the angel steps carefully over the chunks of bombed church, hopping over a small fire, to approach Crowley, who seemingly has neither moved nor breathed since Aziraphale’s declaration. The angel puts a hand on his shoulder, eyebrows knitted with concern, and dares to break the silence himself – though, to be fair, there are bombings in the background. “C-Crowley, dear, are you alright?”
Crowley blinks a few times before focusing on Aziraphale face again.
“Crowley? Breathe, perhaps…”
The demon takes a deep and sudden breath, and instantly his face is flooded with color, his brain registering how to move muscles again. After a few breaths, he musters up some words, hollowly spoken. “Don’t tease me, angel.”
Aziraphale shakes his head fervently, brushing the idea away in an instant – brushing away the fact that this was Crowley’s assumption. He wishes again that he could somehow pause this moment, give himself a second to think this through, but he is acting entirely on love-drunk impulse. It’s too late to back out now.
“I’m not. I’m serious,” Aziraphale says firmly. “I think I have for a long time, but I only just…well, found the words, I suppose. I love you, Crowley.”
Crowley’s body jolts and he steps back multiple feet, breaking the contact, breaking the bubble, exiting the intimate space where, for a moment, only they two existed. “Shit, angel! You can’t just…say it like that! What the fuck?”
With the demon’s eyes covered, Aziraphale feels adrift. He has no idea why Crowley is reacting like this, or what it means. Why Crowley looks afraid – in pain.
I’ve hurt him.
And that is so much worse than if Crowley had laughed him off, had avoided Aziraphale for the rest of his days.
“I’m sorry, Crowley,” he whispers, eyes wide as he takes a step back. He curls both hands to clutch the handle of the leather bag and forces a smile, though he knows it looks pained. It’s not in an angel’s nature to hide love, but he does his best – shoving it down as deep as he can possibly manage, for Crowley’s sake. “I really am. Just…forget I said anything.”
Crowley shakes his head very quickly and sends a purposeful shake through his whole body, as though to wake up his limbs. Turning away with a flourish, the demon says in a rough tone that does not match his swagger, “There’s no way we’re talking about your – how – this here. Let’s go.”
Aziraphale follows. What else is he to do?
The car ride is deathly silent. Aziraphale opens his mouth to speak multiple times, but his companion’s twisted-up expression steals the breath and words he may have used. So, instead, the air hangs tense between them as Crowley drives at an uncharacteristic snail’s pace across London. As though he doesn’t want to arrive where he’s headed.
When the car pulls up outside the bookshop, Aziraphale finally manages to speak. “Would you – shall we – will you come in, then?” he asks.
Crowley seems to have put on a mask of sorts, his face carefully neutral as the oversized sunglasses serve to obscure any fragment of emotion. “Sure, angel,” he replies flatly.
Aziraphale tries to keep every feeling fighting for his attention at bay as he leads the demon through the front room to the back. The sofa Crowley occupied before, back when the shop was new, remains utterly untouched, down to the position of the throw pillows. It is clear no one has used it since Crowley last did, before their fight.
Crowley flops himself on it, propping his feet out long in front of him, watching wordlessly as Aziraphale bumbles to fill a couple of wine glasses. Crowley accepts his with a nod, Aziraphale sits, and the silence settles between them awkwardly.
Aziraphale holds his glass carefully, more to give his hands something to do than anything. He doesn’t drink, though he feels he could use it, but he can’t even really remember what type it is or the year. All he can think about is the hunted look on Crowley’s expression back at the church.
Crowley is on his fourth glass before he rediscovers language functionality.
“So.” He hasn’t looked at Aziraphale at all since entering the building and his voice is empty, devoid of feeling. “What, exactly did you mean when you said…that?” He gestures into the air at the final word, as if to encompass all of Aziraphale’s emotions in a wave of the hand.
Aziraphale swallows. He takes a sip of liquid courage, but it doesn’t help any. It’s weirdly so much harder, here in this intimate, comfortable space, to speak these foreign words. But they’re not foreign, not really – just with a target who can hear them and respond to them. And that’s new. “I…mean that I love you,” he finally manages.
Crowley cringes visibly, jaw set in a grimace, as though Aziraphale is physically harming him by speaking. “And you love everything, so what does it matter?” he spits out.
Aziraphale shakes his head, feeling foolish and absurd. How did he think this would go, when he blurted that out, before? Did he really think a demon – even a demon such as Crowley – would want anything to do with love? And they haven’t even resolved their argument that caused this eighty-year silence.
“That’s not what I mean,” he says quietly, refusing to look up from his glass. “I mean that I am…in love with you, as an individual.”
Aziraphale finds that he is not particularly embarrassed by how he feels. He is someone who loves; it’s not natural for him to feel ashamed of it. Mostly, he’s numb, numb to anything but the love coursing through him and the growing, gaping wound as the adrenaline fades and is replaced with the inevitable sting of…not necessarily rejection. Crowley has not rejected him, exactly. But where there was the warmth of a newly realized love, is now something very cold. Truly, he is just embarrassed about having mentioned it.
Crowley drinks his full glass in one go, fills the glass again, and repeats.
“I-I don’t expect you to reciprocate,” Aziraphale murmurs, anxious at seeing Crowley drink so fast. He’s not usually like that. “I just didn’t think to keep it to myself, but we can just ignore it, and I’ll…” He was going to say he’ll try to forget, but he knows it would be pointless.
Crowley looks more distressed than Aziraphale has seen him in a very long time, perhaps since the Black Death. It’s as though he’s breaking, crumbling on the sofa; physically speaking, he’s half-melted into the cushions like he’s trying to hide from the world, shut it all out. Shut out Aziraphale and his noisy love, his complicated everything. Crowley finally sets down his glass after a long moment and says with certainty, “No, you’re not.”
“Not…?”
“Not in…that…with me.”
Aziraphale’s eyebrows furrow. “I am.”
Crowley tips his hat over on top of his face with a groan pulled straight from the depth of his chest, and Aziraphale can’t help but be struck with how adorable the gesture is even as it makes him ache. “I don’t believe you – you and your – your crush or whatever.” And he sounds disgusted, he does, until his voice lilts toward agitated appeal, tired. “Why would a literal fucking angel…why would you…how could you ever…?”
Aziraphale stares sadly into his glass but doesn’t take a sip, electing to set it aside. He immediately regrets not having something for his hands to fiddle with and rubs the chain of his pocket watch mindlessly. He knows Crowley hates this, hates emotions, feelings; he’s always hated this sort of conversation, never understood what humans felt. But the angel does, strongly. And it hurts.
Crowley takes a deep, shuddering breath. “Tell me what you mean by that,” he says painfully from behind his hat, each word dragged from his vocal cords.
“Crowley…” Aziraphale presses his lips together. He doesn’t know why his friend wants to hear his words, but he will do whatever Crowley asks of him in this moment. He hopes dearly that it won’t hurt. “I’m sorry,” he repeats wistfully, allowing a reckless bravery to guide him, “but I really do love you, even if I know that’s not what you want to hear.
“When – when I say this, I mean it…in every way I could.” Aziraphale smiles wistfully, keeping his eyes steady on the damn hat. “To put it a bit poetically, if you’ll indulge me, it’s as though there is something missing and broken in my life. I go through all my days wondering what’s broken and trying to find it, the piece that has gone missing. And every time we meet, I forget that I was looking for something because I have unknowingly found it again.
“What I’m trying to say is,” he continues, more quietly as the bravery leaks away, the last of his adrenaline dissipating, the love curled tight and defensive, “even though Earth is where I reside, it is not my home if…you’re not on it with me.”
Crowley doesn’t move during this entire speech, hat pressed against his face, the wide brim keeping him tucked away in a pocket of secrecy and darkness. But Aziraphale can hear the raspy breaths, and his heart lurches when he realizes Crowley…is crying.
Regret swells in Aziraphale’s heart, alongside shame and confusion. He wants to move forward to comfort him but doesn’t dare. “I’m sorry, my dear,” he whispers, “for putting you through this. It isn’t fair to you.”
“Stop fucking apologizing,” Crowley breathes out suddenly, syllables choked and muffled by his hat. “D’you actually mean all that? You’re…not tricking me?”
Aziraphale takes a slow breath and exhales it. He doesn’t need to breathe, but it steadies him, nonetheless. “I’m not. I promise.” He waits for Crowley to make the next move.
It takes the demon a couple of minutes to crawl to an upright position, and he finally draws back the hat to set it beside him. The tear tracks on his face are wonky and curved from when he laid down, but now new ones are formed that curl over the gravity of his cheeks. His eyebrows are low and tight.
Aziraphale watches quietly as Crowley takes his sunglasses off, too. A rare vulnerability for drunk nights. Gorgeous melting pots of amber, pupils thick from the darkness they were in moments before, are revealed in dusty midnight florescence.
But what strikes Aziraphale is that his eyes are not filled with rage, or disgust, or confusion. It’s hope.
Aziraphale’s face grows red as they share eye contact, but he doesn’t look away. He wants Crowley to see the truth in his eyes, if he can. Words did not convince him; words have never been Crowley’s thing. Maybe this is.
Aziraphale wonders if it will take a long time for Crowley to come to a conclusion, to find whatever he seeks in Aziraphale’s face, to react to it, and to leave him to wallow in it – but it only takes a handful of seconds.
Crowley breathes slowly, evenly, and says with little strength, “You love me.”
Relief floods Aziraphale’s face, and since he’s seconds from crying himself, he simply nods vigorously.
“You love me,” Crowley mumbles to himself now, eyes closing as though he’s letting his brain register the absurd sentiment, wrapping tendons around it and accepting the knowledge into his bones.
Aziraphale doesn’t know what to do. Something, or everything, in him is hurting. For himself, for his friend. He doesn’t understand what Crowley’s reaction means, why he looks so upset and why his eyes held the smallest glimmer of hope, but it hurts.
It’s too much. He hates all the questions. He wants things to be clear and straightforward, but he can’t help but feel devastated at the confusion of no longer knowing where they stand, all because of his…lapse in judgement. Eighty years of distance, a fight by a lake, a confession in the remains of a church.
Distraught, and tired, and overwhelmed, Aziraphale blinks and lets the tears spill over.
Crowley, opening his eyes, stares as Aziraphale silently lets them travel down his cheeks in two perfect streaks. For a heartbeat, Aziraphale feels frozen and trapped by that gaze, and he feels it may last forever.
And suddenly, Crowley is moved to action. The alcohol drains from his system as he moves across the room, drawn by an invisible force. In two long-legged strides, he stands before Aziraphale, leans over, and tugs him into an awkward, bent embrace. The kind between two creatures who don’t know how to exist next to each other, with limbs that never hold.
And – oh.
Oh.
He had contented himself to a one-sided…something, whatever that may be, during the car ride. He’s settled himself into it in the despair of Crowley’s obvious pain and convinced himself he could handle it in the silence of the bookshop. There was nothing to do but exist alongside the truth of an angel who couldn’t keep a secret.
But that has never been the case.
He would not be the one left waiting for Crowley, could never have been, because Crowley – Crowley has been waiting for him for a long time, hasn’t he?
Time stretches and Aziraphale’s senses dull, all but touch; Crowley’s angular face buried into his shoulder, short red hair soft on Aziraphale’s chin. Lanky arms drawn tight around Aziraphale body, the silk on the back of Crowley’s jacket under the angel’s palms and fingertips.
Crowley loves him back.
Their hearts beat side-by-side, and they do not beat in unison as they do in stories. Instead, Aziraphale’s echoes Crowley’s, then Crowley’s Aziraphale’s, a chase of feelings in circles, woven together. An eternity of emotions to exist in their chests, consuming them.
Aziraphale does not know how long they simply hold each other like that. Eventually, they slip to the floor, still embracing, breathing soft and slow. Crowley clutches Aziraphale to him as though the angel may disappear if he lets go.
Aziraphale is the first to draw back, only slightly, enough to see the demon’s eyes.
There are no more tears, and Crowley is smiling in a way Aziraphale has not seen on him since the earliest days, before their hearts grew heavy with the weight of humanity’s sorrows, of the secrets and fears between them. He is unfettered, unrestrained, teeth and sharp canines gleaming.
Aziraphale releases the hold he has around the demon’s chest to place his hands on his face, thumbing away the drying tears gently. Crowley’s eyelids flutter at the sensation.
Aziraphale whispers, then, a question and a statement. “You love me.”
Crowley grunts. “Bit,” he mutters, and he wouldn’t be the person Aziraphale loves if he’d done anything else, so Aziraphale chuckles in his joy and kisses Crowley on the forehead.
Crowley freezes, utterly stunned, mouth half-open, as though they hadn’t just spent the last however-long letting their souls entwine. Aziraphale almost apologizes, thinking he went too far – human intimacy is so different than that of a more distant plane – when Crowley seizes his face in his hands and kisses his lips hard, a pent-up passion beyond human grasp. And that’s honestly not a feeling he’d considered or imagined, but it’s welcome. Very welcome, in fact.
On a mortal, it’s a kiss that might have hurt, might’ve been too much to feel, too many emotions and years of longing to process. Words become irrelevant and fall short to the yearning and the burst of taking, of accepting, as they let themselves have this, just this. Knowing. But Aziraphale returns the kiss in kind.
It’s not perfect, of course. It won’t ever be perfect, and that’s the beauty of it, the humanity of it.
There’s a lot to face, still; wars and struggles, suffering and pain. People who will not understand, secrets they will have to keep until they cannot be kept. They will say and do all the wrong things, they will burn each other in ways deep and surface-level alike. They will leave scars. There will be deadly adventures and there will be loss greater than either could have anticipated.
It will hurt.
But right now, in this moment, maybe it is as perfect as it needs to be.
And whatever they have to face, they can face together.