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Aziraphale learned several things over the oysters. The first was that Crowley did not care for them at all.
"Wha th'ffuck eh 'AHT!?" Crowley choked out accusingly, spitting the offending once-chewed clump of shellfish into the floor. Wasteful, Aziraphale thought primly, even as he attempted to politely hide his amusement at his dinner companion's sputtering behind his hand. He was inordinately pleased with himself for getting Crowley to come along with him, especially given the way his approach had begun. He rather deserved the aardvark comment, he thought, though he would certainly never admit that aloud to Crowley, who was now drinking his wine as if it were the antidote to a particularly potent poison.
Crowley's cup hits the table forcefully and he jumps as if he didn't intend for that to happen, but quickly schools himself back to as casual an air as one can after finding something repulsive in their mouth while draped over a chair in an utterly confounding position. His posture had shifted smoothly through the meal, away from the hunched shoulders and downward turned face and into something more like an easy comfort. It made Aziraphale feel a little warm to think about, that he was able to lift the demon's mood with such a simple thing as wine and chatter, so he very firmly wasn't thinking about it whatsoever.
The second thing he learned was more of a confirmation than a revelation. He hadn't been imagining it. Crowley had been watching him eat, and the tinted lens of his glasses had done nothing to hide the intense expression on his face; lips parted just enough to betray the slack of his jaw, eyebrows to his hairline, tension in his shoulders. He'd also gone very quiet until Aziraphale had huffed at him and offered him a shell. "I brought you to share them, dear boy. You haven't even so much as glanced at them and I've had four." It had seemed to snap Crowley out of whatever tangent his mind had gone down, and he'd snatched it too cooly from Aziraphale's hand for the action to be fueled by genuine nonchalance.
"You made them look so good," Crowley said a little too loudly, and Aziraphale's suspicion had been confirmed. "Tricked me, is what you did." He slid the platter closer to Aziraphale with the tips of his fingers and refilled his cup with wine that certainly had not been in the jug a moment ago. Then he smirked, just a little, and in an unexpectedly soft voice said "More for you, angel."
Aziraphale was very firmly not thinking of that, either. His corporation's heart had done the most uncomfortable fluttery thing in his chest, rather unbidden and highly surprising, and that was quite enough of that nonsense.
Crowley also learned several things over the oysters, and the picture they painted as he pieced them together was beginning to edge towards alarming. He'd learned, for example, that Aziraphale would actually laugh at bawdy jokes, provided they were good enough. Had a laugh specifically for them in fact. He giggled- giggled! so hard he had tears in his eyes!- behind his hands, both of them, like he could hide how funny he thought it was, until he gave a single dainty snort and finally floated back down. He'd learned that Aziraphale had put practice into remembering the change to his name, even if he slipped the 'a' back in once or twice after a few cups of wine. Crowley had been pleased enough with Aziraphale's affirmative hum when he'd told him in the first place, and here Aziraphale was correcting himself the very few times he slipped. He learned what it looks like when Aziraphale eats oysters, which taught him the rumors he'd heard about them being an aphrodisiac might have been true after all. He had just assumed they meant the person ingesting them would be the one under their spell, and hadn't that been a trip. It should be illegal, those low little moans of pleasure as he swallowed, the little wiggle of satisfaction a punishable offence. He learned, as if for the first time over again, that he liked the angel's voice. Liked it quite a lot.
Crowley had gladly allowed Aziraphale to chatter nearly the entire time, moody unwillingness to talk slipping comfortably into a contentedness to listen over the course of the dinner. His voice was melodic and sweet in cadence, eager to talk and earnest, dancing along passionate rambles and it had made him wonder, briefly, if the angel was lonely. It wasn't a thought he liked examining too closely. It raised the volume on the alarm bells by a notable margin, and he swallowed it back with his wine more than once.
Aziraphale was currently in the middle of a long but deeply fascinating story about his recent attempts to procure some incredibly rare reading material, and Crowley was entranced. "So I told them as much, and they tried to tell me they had no such thing, that it didn't even exist! The fool they took me for, Crowley, honestly! As if I wouldn't have done research on it's whereabouts! But then when I tried to reason with them, ask if perhaps I could look for myself, with all assurances I would take the utmost care, they- they- o-oh." He stopped, glancing away and back again and wringing his hands. His voice is quiet when next he speaks, and all he says is, "I- I'm sorry." Aziraphale's hand is steady when he reaches for his glass, but the drop in his mood paired with the color his face has gone, the sudden silence, is too much.
"What for?" Crowley asked, genuinely confused. Had he not been acting attentive enough? He wanted to know how he finally got the thing, dammit.
Aziraphale chuckles weakly. "I've been prattling on, dear. I... well. I know I talk too much."
"I was listening," Crowley says, straightening up a little in his chair to face Aziraphale more directly. More alarms echo in his skull and suddenly there's a pit in his stomach, but he can fix this. "I was." Has he always spoken this softly?
"Oh, I don't doubt you!" Aziraphale says hastily, a small but genuine smile flickering across his face behind his cup., and Crowley believes him, which makes him relax a little. "But I've been told so, and I have no reason to discredit the, er... source of the information."
The fierce streak of protectiveness that blazes through Crowley at that moment pushes his heartbeat into his ears. Unfortunate, really, because it causes him to miss his final warning round of alarms. "Who told you that?" He's going to kill them.
"Oh... well, everyone." Aziraphale says it dismissively, with a sniff and a flap of his hand, but looks away as he takes a drink, blue eyes gone dark with an obvious past hurt. Crowley's chest tightens at the sight. Who is 'everyone'?
"Hey," he says, more gently than he knew he was capable of being. Aziraphale glances up and meets his gaze through his glasses. "I don't think you talk too much, Aziraphale."
The angel's eyes light up like the dawn and crinkle at the edges when he smiles at that, beaming with relief and gratitude. "No?" He's radiant, and Crowley wants to destroy anyone who ever made his angel doubt it.
Shit.
"No. I was listening." Crowley couldn't breathe right now even if he actually needed to.
Shit, shit, shit.
Aziraphale sighs prettily and glances away, then back again with a flutter of his eyelashes. That look is going to be trouble in the future, he can feel it. "Well. That's very ki- I mean, I'm- Thank you, Crowley." His cheeks are rosy and he looks so happy, as if he'd just been given the Sun wrapped up in a pretty ribbon on a whim, and Crowley realizes with terrifying clarity that if Aziraphale asked him to, he'd fetch it with minimal complaint for just a moment's glance of that expression. "I'm glad to know I wasn't boring you."
Boring him? Who could possibly bear the weight of crushing that delight in his voice? How do they live with themselves? Crowley can't fathom it, not with how much he loves it about him.
Oh no.
Crowley needs to leave and he needs to leave now. Now, before he thinks the word again and damns himself a second time. Aziraphale clears his throat, suddenly shy, glances out the window at the darkening sky and gasps. "Goodness, it's already night! Why ever did you allow me to keep you so late?" His voice softens as he smiles another dazzlingly sweet smile at Crowley, and Crowley's heart decides it lives in his throat now.
I love him. Fuck.
Just as the thought takes hold, Aziraphale makes an odd face and puts his hand on his chest, tilting his head as if listening for something. "Do you feel that?" Crowley manages a shake of the head in response and Aziraphale shrugs. "Well, I suppose you wouldn't," he says easy as anything while some automatic part of Crowley's last few still-functioning braincells try decide between 'What was it?' and 'What the heaven is that supposed to mean?' He can't force either question past the lump in his throat. He's desperately trying to remain calm on the surface as he hysterically wonders if he's actually, physically managed to dislodge his heart and if that's a thing that can kill him. It feels like it can. He can't decide if he wants it to or not, which option might be the closest to mercy, and decides instead to stand. He knocks the table with his knee as he does so and blesses under his breath for rattling everything around, startling Aziraphale as he reaches for another oyster.
"I have to leave- go. I need to go, now," Crowley splutters, inching away from the table, hands behind his back to try and hide the tremble wracking him head to toe. "Uh, thank you. For the oysters."
Aziraphale blinks owlishly at him, lips pursed for a moment. He supposes they have been here a while, after all. Certainly longer than he had initially intended for them to be. He hopes that's all it is. "Thank you for the company, my dear," he says cordially, and is startled again when Crowley audibly swallows, snaps a bag of coin into existence and onto the table, and then bolts like a skittish kitten without any further ado, very nearly plowing down a couple entering the restaurant in his haste.
Crowley makes it back to his room in record time. He can breathe again, finally, his corporation finally deciding to obey the command for air, but it does jack shit all to calm him. It feels like his entire torso is in a vice, and he can single out the panic dripping into his veins as he tries to remember how to control his corporation's background programs to shut his stupid, flighty heart down for a minute and think. He slams his way in, leaning bodily against the door as it closed and forcing himself to take a long, shuddery inhale before sliding down to the floor.
That's not fair. The thought is desperate, pleading. Come on, really? How is this fair?! Just as he thinks he has his breathing back down to normal he bursts into manic laughter, letting his head thump solidly against the door behind him once or twice. Of course this would happen to him. Of course it would. When did this even happen?
The Snake that was his Grace oh so helpfully supplies an answer to this line of questioning.
Oh pleassse. You've been hisss sssince Eden.
Crowley can't find the energy to argue that. He knows it's true the moment it slithers against his panic dazed brain. Wonderful. Just perfect.
Is this just an extra layer of punishment? he thinks at no one in particular. Not like anyone would answer him anyway, even if they could hear. I was as bad as all that, was I? I deserve this!?
Crowley finds that even through the panic and anger bubbling up in him, he still wants to tear whoever told Aziraphale to keep his joy to himself in half, and accepts his fate.
Aziraphale picks up another oyster and looks at the couple Crowley almost mowed down. They're happy, a steady love rippling off of them. It's lovely, but not the sudden, intense wave of it that struck Aziraphale a few moments ago seemingly from nowhere. His center is still tingling from it, but it has dissipated quickly enough for him to write it off as some passing burst. These things do happen from time to time. As he tips the shell to his lips he puzzles over the abrupt end to what had been such a lovely dinner, wondering why on Earth Crowley had paid when he'd been invited along as a treat and then left so suddenly. He'd seemed rather distressed, too, come to think of it. Aziraphale decides to ask after him next time they cross paths.
About an hour later, once he's had a nice walk back to his lodgings to mull over the situation, once he's settled back into his room with the treasure he never finished telling Crowley the story of, after he's elbow deep in translations and hitting his stride reading, the answer hits him squarely in the face and he nearly topples out of his chair.