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Crowley was giddy.
In any other circumstance, he would have withered before using that word, but right then, right there, he was giddy and unabashed.
Armageddon: averted. Aziraphale: alive. Heaven and Hell: off their backs. Dining at the Ritz: done and dusted. And now he found himself lounging in the backroom of the bookshop with his favorite angel (favorite anything) in the world, drinking without fear of being caught.
He couldn’t ask for anything more. His angel was alive, his angel didn’t hate him, and for the first time in millennia, he felt genuine, unrestrained contentedness settle into his bones.
Feeling riotously happy, he looked over at his angel (who was presumably mid-rant about something book-related) and sighed, “I love this.”
Aziraphale started. “What was that?”
“Just…no more fear, y’know?” Crowley replied, taking a sip of his drink. “We can just…be. And no one has any say in it but us. I just love it. It’s like free will, in a way.” He smirked at the thought. “I finally get to indulge in my first temptation! Ha!”
Aziraphale looked strangely somber, studying Crowley confusedly. The demon blinked in reply, lifting an eyebrow in question.
“Why do you…say it like that?” Aziraphale asked at length.
“You’re gonna need to be more specific, angel.”
“Saying that you ‘love’ it. This.” Aziraphale sighed. “Demons can’t love, so I don’t know why you’d say you can.” At Crowley’s dumbfounded expression, he barreled on anxiously, “Not that I blame you, of course. It’s not like it’s something you can control. I’m not criticizing you. It’s fine. I was just asking a question, but you certainly don’t have to indulge my impertinence.”
Crowley leaned forward, drink forgotten. His voice came out unusually soft. “Who told you demons can’t love, Aziraphale?”
The angel raised his eyebrows at him incredulously. “It’s common knowledge, dear.”
“Heaven, then?” he surmised bitterly.
Aziraphale pondered this. “I suppose so. I was told of it when I was stationed on the Eastern Gate. Told all about demons, though I quickly found that…not everything I was told was exactly true.”
Crowley dragged a hand over his face with a disbelieving, amused groan. “So, you’re telling me that your basis in believing that demons can’t experience love is Heavenly propaganda from over sixty centuries ago that is at least partially untrue? That’s your reliable source of information, angel?”
Aziraphale squirmed uncomfortably. “That’s not all, of course.”
“Oh?”
“Well, you know I can sense love!” Aziraphale said heartily. “And I’ve never sensed any from you or any other demon I’ve briefly encountered.”
Crowley’s face screwed up in confusion. “So that’s what you meant, back when we first went to Tadfield? Before the girl tossed herself in front of my car-“
“The girl you hit-“
“Gesundheit. You said-“
“Flashes of love,” Aziraphale confirmed with a small smile at the memory.
“-That you couldn’t explain it, least of all to me,” Crowley continued despite the interruptions. “This is what that was about?”
“Well, yes.”
He knew that demons could love. Not only because of his obvious firsthand experience but because demons were specifically trained to resist the Virtues in the same way angels were taught to repel the Sins. Of course, demons could love, just as they could be patient or kind or selfless. The whole point of what made a demon a demon was the fact that they were choosing to turn their back on the Virtues – and one could hardly choose to do so if they didn’t have a choice.
But what Crowley didn’t get was why Aziraphale wouldn’t be able to tell.
He grimaced and was suddenly very, very glad of it.
Aziraphale had returned to his drink in contemplation while Crowley appeared to have some sort of crisis on the sofa. Neither was sure how to proceed with this topic and Crowley briefly entertained the idea of letting it go, but his insatiable curiosity wouldn’t allow him to do so. Eventually, Crowley looked up. “Okay. Okay, so, you can’t sense love from demons. Maybe it’s because you believe they can’t feel it, so you’re in denial?”
Aziraphale straightened his posture primly at this and replied in an offended tone, “What a thing to say! I do believe demons can’t love, because they can’t!”
“Because you can’t sense it?” Crowley pushed irritably. “Bit of a catch 22 there, angel.”
“Crowley, what are you trying to say? Just use your words, would you?”
“Demons can love, Aziraphale. I can love, anyway. The other twats probably have never bothered. Not a good look for them.” He leaned back in the cushions and folded his arms in exasperation. “I love my Bentley, and my plants, and – hey, I may or may not have risked everything to save the bloody planet, so it could be I’m maybe a little fond of it, do you figure?” he drawled sarcastically.
Aziraphale was staring at him wide-eyed, mouth agape. “So…so demons can love, then,” he said simply after a long pause.
“Yup,” Crowley popped the ‘p’ and adjusted himself to sprawl out more on the sofa, one leg over the back and the other trailing on the floor, twisting his spine in a most serpentine fashion to continue his alcohol. He didn’t really know what else to add and left Aziraphale to stew in his thoughts.
After a few minutes of mostly comfortable silence, Aziraphale asked, “I believe you, Crowley, I do, but if that’s the case, why have you never mentioned it before?”
“Really, angel?” the demon replied. “I didn’t even know you thought that, for a start, but further, when, exactly, would you see that come up in conversation?” Nevermind that he’d been steadfastly avoiding discussing anything close to romance since Rome.
Aziraphale raised his eyebrows. “We have six thousand years of conversations behind us and I know for a fact that it could have come up well before now. But I still can’t see why I wouldn’t be able to sense it…”
Crowley shrugged. “Dunno. Like I said, could be denial, or it could just be a demon-angel thing. Like how demons can’t actually use our powers on angels.”
Aziraphale chuckled. “I can’t believe it took me a thousand years to believe that you weren’t trying to seduce me. I just assumed all demons would tempt angels to Sin.”
“And I can’t believe that’s the Sin you latched onto, considering how I’ve always encouraged your Gluttony, angel,” Crowley responded with a wink.
Aziraphale tried to pierce him with a disapproving gaze, but it was somewhat ruined by the fact that Crowley had happened to supply the wine they’d pulled from the cellar this particular evening, and paid the tab at the dinner they’d just had.
Instead, Aziraphale set aside his glass of said wine and made an extremely concentrated expression, like he was solving a complex riddle or trying to use a flip phone.
“What’re you doing?”
“I’m trying to sense your love, dear,” he said as though that should have been perfectly obvious. “If it was simply because I was rejecting it, then I should be able to if I look for it, I imagine.”
Crowley bolted upright in alarm, standing in his haste. “No! No no no, you don’t have to do that!”
“Whyever not? I want to.”
His heart was suddenly beating far too fast and he felt lightheaded. Aziraphale was going to figure it all out, would see his pathetic bleeding mess of emotions. “Dammit. No, angel, you seriously shouldn’t-“
Aziraphale gave a sudden gasp, like a weight lifted from his shoulders, and he made eye contact with Crowley’s behind askew sunglasses. His eyes said all there was to know. Crowley groaned and immediately covered his face his hands as he burrowed into the sofa, knees drawn up as he hid his reddening countenance.
“Crowley, you-“
“Yeah, yeah! Okay, congrats! Now you know!” he huffed, absolutely refusing to let the anxiety bleed through his voice and vaguely proud his voice didn’t crack. His whole body was shaking, and he couldn’t seem to stop it. “Bloody idiot, yeah? Fell in love with the first angel I saw, the first person to ever treat me kindly. Total pushover and the most pathetic demon to ever exist. That’s me, hello. Brilliant. Fuck.”
“Crowley, I-“
“Yup, that’s all.” Crowley stood very suddenly, untangling his limbs, being sure his sunglasses were shoved closely against his face. He tried to force his expression into something more neutral that the deathly afraid, heartbroken one he knew he had now, but the effort was futile. “See you never, angel.” He made to stalk very rapidly out of the room.
“Crowley, please.”
And that was it, wasn’t it? This stupid angel had his heart all tied up in strings like a puppeteer, and all he had to do was tug a little and Crowley was all his. Through micro-expressions, those puppy dog eyes, through the word “please” that was typically implied but now found itself hung in the air one letter at a time. The demon stopped abruptly in his tracks, his back to Aziraphale, and waited for the guilty verdict as he focused on trying not to hyperventilate.
“Crowley, I’m sorry,” Aziraphale started to say, but Crowley cut him off again.
“You don’t have to say anything, an- Aziraphale, okay? I get it,” he breathed out quickly, tumbling over the words. “You’re all nice and kind and perfect so you’ll try to comfort me, but it’s fine and I’m fine and I’m just gonna go, and we can pretend it never happened, or I can get out of your hair and you don’t have to see me again. Whatever suits you.”
His throat clenched up and he took a deep, shaky breath, all out of words and bravado.
He heard Aziraphale standing up from his armchair behind him, the soft clicks of his heels on the hardwood as he crossed the room until he stood in front of the demon. Crowley tensed. Aziraphale’s expression was equal parts bewildered, amazed, and, confusingly…relieved.
“My dear…I had no idea,” he breathed out, strangely reverent. “You feel so much, so deeply. I don’t know how I never saw it.”
Crowley couldn’t reply but pressed a hand into his chest as though it might stop his corporation from betraying him in thin, raspy breaths.
Aziraphale placed a hand gently on Crowley’s shoulder and the demon felt relaxation shudder through his bones as the angel pulsed a thread of calming angelic grace through him. “Hey, it’s alright. Breathe,” he murmured gently, his voice as calming as his healing touch, so the demon did. “I feel the same way, Crowley. You don’t have to feel ashamed about it. It’s reciprocated.”
The demon immediately stopped breathing entirely and he jerkily tore his sunglasses off to reveal blown-out pupils, his amber irises consuming the whites of his eyes. Aziraphale was staring at him with all the gentle kindness that an angel was meant to have, an ethereal affection and regard that took the strength out of Crowley’s knees as he wobbled slightly. “You…don’t mean that,” he said, voice shaking as much as his body.
“Breathe, Crowley,” Aziraphale reminded him, and the demon obeyed. Their lungs didn’t need the air, but they’d already gone native, after all – it was a comfort to breathe because it was familiar. “I love you as well, dear. I have for a long time, but…” His face screwed up painfully and his next sentence came out hoarse. “I thought it was impossible for you to love me in return, so I didn’t say anything.”
Crowley involuntarily, but not unwillingly, leaned forward until their foreheads pressed together, and he closed his eyes to take multiple deep, calming breaths. It was too much; this was too much. There was no way Aziraphale meant that. Not really.
But then Aziraphale was kissing him, tasting of cocoa because of bloody course he did, and Crowley figured that maybe that was good enough reason not to doubt.
After several minutes, they broke apart, neither entirely aware of when they had wrapped the other in an embrace, bodies flush as their cheeks – and equally as amenable to the development. Crowley let out a wheezy laugh.
“You bastard,” he said fondly as he remembered what words were. “I was supposed to kiss you first, you know.”
Aziraphale quirked an eyebrow, and at this proximity, Crowley could see the twitch in his lips. “Is that so, dear?”
Crowley nodded and swallowed over the lump in his throat. Big, scary demons don’t cry, least of all from joy. “In all my dreams…er, imaginings, or, well, ah. I just figured I’d kiss you, not the other way around.”
“I never could resist a temptation, my dear.”
Crowley closed his eyes and leaned their foreheads into contact again. “You tempted the Tempter of Original Sin in like, thirty seconds, angel. That’s gotta count for something.”
Aziraphale utterly beamed at him. “Took you maybe forty-five, so I suppose I get the point there?”
Crowley’s heart leapt in understanding and relief. “Sure, angel. Sure.”
They held each other, letting the development of the last few minutes settle in. Millennia had built up to this, and yet, it had all come about so simply, so naturally. It felt so incredibly right.
“Speaking of, can I tempt you to a picnic tomorrow?” Aziraphale asked eventually, drawing back enough to see Crowley properly and give him one his heart-stopping smiles, eyes soft and pliant with adoration. “I believe I promised you one.”
Crowley couldn’t help the mischievous grin that crawled across his face as he felt himself fall for the angel all over again. “Temptation accomplished.”