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"And you're sure you'll be all right on your own today?"
Crowley pulls his phone away from his ear and stares at the screen for a moment before replying. "Yeah, sure."
"See you tomorrow, then," Aziraphale says, a little too quickly and way too cheerfully.
"Yeah," Crowley says, and pokes at the phone's screen to end the call.
He's standing outside the bakery a few blocks away from Aziraphale's bookshop, holding a coffee and a bag of fresh pastries, and trying to process the fact that Aziraphale--steadfast, routine-loving Aziraphale--just cancelled their plans for the day.
It's not that changing plans is particularly unusual--they often swap or postpone lunches or trips in favor of other activities--but in the six-thousand years they've known each other, Aziraphale has never, ever flat-out cancelled anything. And certainly not in the last year-and-one-day since The End That Wasn't--since Heaven and Hell essentially stopped paying attention to them. They've had the freedom to be a capital-C Couple, and it's been better than Crowley ever could have imagined. Well, up until about four minutes ago, anyway.
Today is Wednesday, which is usually spent lollygagging in the bookshop over flaky pastries and warm beverages for hours, discussing lunch plans for so long that they become dinner plans, and then eventually ending up on Aziraphale's sofa under the pretense of watching a movie or listening to a record, curled into each other like vines. But since last night was the anniversary of averting the Apocalypse, and they had spent the evening mostly in Crowley's flat--kissing, and then drinking, and then kissing some more with renewed intensity--Crowley had planned on a quiet lunch and then maybe an early trip to Kew Gardens (which they usually reserved for Thursdays). Aziraphale had seemed perfectly fine when he left around 2AM--maybe a bit bleary-eyed, but Crowley had assumed that was the after-effects of sobering up from the wine. An assumption, it turns out, that may have been very wrong.
Crowley gets in his car and starts mentally kicking himself for not mentioning his alternate plans on the phone, but he hadn't expected the phone call and then didn't want to ruin the surprise, just in case. He tosses the bag of pastries on the passenger seat, and places the coffee cup in the newly-materialized cup holder. At this point, he would normally shift into gear, turn left, and be at the bookshop in a few minutes. He turns right, instead.
He intends to wind aimlessly through the streets of London, as a bit of a distraction, but then the storefront of a curry restaurant (where Aziraphale first suggested they were on a date) whizzes past him. He shoves down whatever unpleasant feeling was about to come up and continues on until, not ten minutes later, he sees an art gallery (where they held hands and debated the merits of modern sculpture for an entire afternoon, several months ago). He grits his teeth, and then after a few blocks, there's a tea room (where they kissed in public for the first time). He's almost convinced that the Bentley is taking him past these places on purpose and is about to scold it, when he comes upon a tiny cinema (where he had been so distracted by Aziraphale's delight that he can't even remember the name of the film they watched) and realizes that he and Aziraphale have frequented nearly every business in this neighborhood in the last 12 months. This would normally be a pleasant trip down Memory Lane, but now Crowley feels like his insides are being scooped out, a little at a time.
He glances at his watch. It's been almost an hour since their phone call, and he hasn't stopped thinking about Aziraphale once. He catches sight of the bag on his passenger seat, which has a slowly-spreading grease spot and can see, in his mind's eye, the two of them in the back room of the bookshop: him drinking coffee and nibbling half-heartedly on a croissant; Aziraphale carefully tearing off and eating tidy little pieces of his pain au chocolat between delicate sips of earl grey; both of them playfully debating whether they want to go out for Italian or Korean.
He decides, rather hastily, that instead of mulling over the million reasons why Aziraphale might be upset with him, he should probably just go talk to him. He makes a U-turn across 4 lanes of traffic, narrowly avoiding no less than three collisions, and moments later, pulls up outside the bookshop. He grabs the bag and his coffee (still warm), and slams the door shut behind him. He would normally just walk into the shop, but the Closed sign is up, so he decides to knock instead.
"We're closed!" comes Aziraphale's voice, pleasant but clearly annoyed.
"It's me," Crowley says. They're the first words he's spoken in 60 minutes, and his voice sounds as thin as he feels.
The deadbolt on the door clicks.
Crowley expects Aziraphale to be in the middle of something very important: negotiating a new acquisition over the phone, perhaps, or filling in his ledger with uncanny precision. For a brief moment, he even thinks the terrible thought that maybe Heaven finally came to collect, but after he gives the air a cursory sniff and finds Aziraphale is the only angel in range, that idea, thankfully, vanishes.
Aziraphale, it turns out, is simply standing, in the middle of the atrium, wearing his glasses and his most well-worn cardigan. "Hello, Crowley."
Crowley means to very calmly explain what his alternate plans had been for today, but something about Aziraphale's tone is off. He sounds more anxious than usual (which, admittedly, is not very anxious at all nowadays). So instead, he jumps right to: "What's wrong?"
Aziraphale shakes his head, indignantly. "Nothing's wrong."
In the past, they would go back and forth like this for several minutes, sometimes hours, before the truth finally slipped out. It was a familiar little dance that let Aziraphale still feel like he wasn't spilling his secrets willy-nilly, to a demon, of all people. But those days are long gone, and they're partners now. They share things. They don't lie to each other. He could say all this but decides to summarize by saying, "It's just us now, Aziraphale."
Aziraphale shifts his weight from one foot to the other. "You won't be cross with me?"
"Of course not." He hasn't been angry with Aziraphale for over a hundred years, and even that was just a small spat in the grand scheme of things.
"I didn't want to, erm. Disappoint you."
"Disappoint...me?" Crowley says, genuinely confused. Disappointed doesn't even make the top 100 feelings he's had for Aziraphale, ever.
"Look, last night was--" Aziraphale pauses, swallows, clearly ruminating on the particularly fervent makeout session they had several hours ago, "--a lot."
Crowley's stomach drops. He knows that Aziraphale is sometimes less tolerant of physical affection, but he's always very careful. He thought he was especially careful last night, but now panic claws at the back of his throat. "Did I hurt you?"
Aziraphale stammers wordlessly for a moment before saying, "Oh, no, darling, nothing like that." Darling. He's trying to be polite, bless him, and soften the blow to Crowley's feelings with a term of endearment. Crowley, who is by now used to the full-force pettiness and impulsiveness that Aziraphale has embraced this year, will be having none of this politeness.
"Then what is it like?" he presses.
"I was just a bit overwhelmed and--"
"You could have told me--" Crowley starts, but Aziraphale plows on.
"--and I wasn't sure I was up for more of the same--
"--I wasn't going to--"
"--and so I decided it would be best to--"
"For Satan's sake, yesterday was special, Aziraphale!" Crowley shouts, a little louder than he means to.
"I know!" Aziraphale says, sternly. "And the fact of the matter is that I love you very much but I just needed a little break today!"
Crowley feels as if he's been slapped. He knows, intellectually, that Aziraphale loves him, but knowing it and hearing it are two very different experiences. Forming more than two words seems like an insurmountable task, but after a full ten seconds of nearly unbearable silence while a tight-lipped Aziraphale stares at him, he manages to squeak out a feeble, "You do?"
It takes Aziraphale a moment to realize which part of his statement Crowley is referring to, but when he does, he drops his shoulders and rolls his eyes. "Of course I do, you silly old snake."
"You jusssst...you never..." Crowley's face feels like it's on fire.
"I thought it might be..." Aziraphale's voice trails off. "Difficult for you to reciprocate?" he continues, cautiously.
"Difficult for--" Crowley splutters "--you think it's difficult for me to love you?" He sounds a lot more offended than he intends, because Aziraphale surely knows the feeling is mutual, doesn't he? It was so obvious, it's been obvious for years, for decades, how could he not know? "Angel, it's the easiest thing I've ever done."
Aziraphale's face has gone from a slightly nervous grimace to a self-satisfied smirk in just a few seconds, and it makes Crowley's heart flip upside-down. "I meant that it might be hard for you to say it but I'm fairly certain you just did."
"Oh," Crowley says, unhelpfully, but he's afraid that if he says any more that he'll melt into a puddle of goo on the floor, which would be even less helpful.
"Right," Aziraphale says, as punctuation, and then presses his lips together, a little nervous again. "I'm sorry if I worried you."
Crowley shakes his head, choosing not to detail the last hour he spent in his car. "You can just tell me next time, all right?"
Aziraphale sighs, and nods, his anxiety deflating a bit.
"Right," Crowley says, gathers himself up (as he feels like he's been flung about the room a bit), and turns to leave. Might as well give the angel what he wants, after all.
Except that he makes it maybe one step towards the door before Aziraphale says, "Where are you going?"
Crowley turns back, feeling slightly off-balance. "I thought you said--"
"I know what I said," Aziraphale says, fidgeting with his hands in front of him. "But now that you're here, I..." Their eyes meet, briefly. "Isortofdon'twantyoutoleave," he mumbles.
Crowley heard every word, but he can't help teasing a little. He tries very hard not to smirk when he says, "Pardon?"
"I have a perfectly nice sofa right next to my desk," Aziraphale explains, as if Crowley hadn't been in every corner of this shop hundreds, if not thousands, of times. "Whatever you were planning on doing for the rest of the day, I'm sure you can do it there."
"I'm sure I can," Crowley says, smoothly. "And, I mean--" he gestures with the bag of pastries that is somehow (miraculously, perhaps) still in his hand with the cup of coffee "--this pain au chocolat certainly won't eat itself."
Aziraphale's eyes light up, and his face breaks out in a genuine, relaxed grin. "I'll put the kettle on."
Crowley starts walking towards the office, but before he can get very far, Aziraphale takes hold of his elbow, and kisses him on the temple. "Thank you for being so good to me, dear."
Being called good is something that Crowley is still getting used to liking, but this time feels better than all the rest. But he would rather walk straight into the Vatican than say that, so instead, he just mutters, "Shut up," and follows Aziraphale into the back of the shop.