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Finally, thought Crowley, ear squashed against the door jamb.
He zipped back across his kitchen to stand at the stove, trying out a couple poses before settling on Jaunty Worktop Lean. Every cell in his body felt tense (which was frankly unacceptable and he'd be having a word with them later about it).
He tried to appear focused on scrambling eggs as the door opened.
"Morning, angel.”
A few strategic seconds lapsed before he glanced up — wouldn’t want to seem too eager, obviously — and he was immediately grateful they had. Crowley shuddered to think of what embarrassing sound would have escaped him had he been attempting to speak at the moment.
Aziraphale stood slumped in the kitchen doorway, wearing a set of pale blue pajamas that somehow managed to look as Victorian as the rest of his wardrobe. His eyes were only half open and his hair stuck out at odd angles.
It had to be the most adorable thing Crowley had ever seen in his immortal life.
He had a habit of thinking so every time he saw Aziraphale, but this time he meant it even more than all the other times he’d meant it.
Aziraphale blinked twice. "You're cooking."
"Oh? What gave it away?"[1]
"The cooking bit. I didn't know you could do that." Aziraphale sounded almost grumpy about it as he plodded to the kitchen island and took a seat.
"I don't, usually. Had a few years to practice while you slept in."
"A few years?"
"Relax!” Crowley tried not to laugh at the horrified look on Aziraphale’s face. He really did. “I'm only joking, angel. It's eleven."
"Oh," he sighed. "Good."
"I just get up early some days.” Crowley picked up another pan with one hand and shook it to flip its contents.[2] "Pancakes? They've got blueberries in 'em."
"Yes." Aziraphale went ravenous in the eyes like a cat catching sight of a particularly juicy mosquito. "Honestly, who do you think I am?"
Crowley grinned and retrieved a plate from the cupboard. "I'd hoped you'd say that. Bacon and eggs too?"
"Crowley. Darling. These questions are wasting my valuable eating time."
"Apologies, your highness, I'll get on that right away." He loaded the plate with food from each pan, then grabbed a fork and small bottle of syrup. "Brunch is served."
Crowley had barely set the plate down before Aziraphale started on a pancake. He leaned back against the worktop, chewing his lower lip.
He'd put far more effort into this than he cared to admit. The idea had come to him the night before, almost immediately after suggesting Aziraphale stay over — the first time he had since Armageddidn’t last week. Crowley had risen obscenely early this morning to fetch the ingredients and, you know, learn to cook.
That had been about five hours ago.
He'd spent the remainder of the time practicing these same foods over and over, miracling the completed batches Satan knows where and starting again from scratch as he attempted to nail the timing and consistency. He felt like he'd fully gotten the hang of it by around hour three, but that was no reason to stop striving for improvement.
And now Aziraphale was eating it. He was eating it and his eyes were widening and his expression was shifting from gleeful to confused.
Shit.
"This is the best pancake I've ever had," he said.
Crowley winced. It didn’t crush him, because demons do not sustain deep emotional damage over the quality of their homemade pancakes, and especially not because the angel they have a crush on doesn’t like them.
But it did hurt a little bit.
“Yeah, I mean ob- obviously,” Crowley stammered, "I've literally never made one before now, so I… wait-”
"Best,” Aziraphale repeated, taking an enthusiastic second bite. “I’m so impressed! You really learned to make these this morning?"
"Oh! Well, I'm - glad you like it. S'probably the ingredients.” Crowley shoved his hands in his pockets, or at least what would fit of them. “I got that fancy flour, y’know, the hand-ground… stuff.”
Aziraphale, incredibly, put down his fork. He smiled in a manner that was both immensely fond and slightly patronizing. “It’s not the ingredients, my dear. It’s you.”
Crowley pinched his lips. His whole body went warm in a distinctly un-reptilian way, including a faint blush on either cheek, he knew. The betrayal.
“Mm,” he said eloquently.
Aziraphale’s grin widened. “You’re not going to eat anything?”
“Nuh. Full. Taste-testing and whatnot.”
“Then come and sit next to me, won’t you? You’re too far away, my dear.”
Crowley froze. They couldn’t have been more than two yards apart. Hardly far by their usual standards. But Aziraphale had invited him closer, just… because?
Just because.
He’d take it.
Crowley circled the island and took a seat to Aziraphale’s left, feeling some small echo of what he had the day they met. The uncertainty of it, the cautious optimism. Only this time he’d been invited. And he didn’t think he loved an angel — he knew.
"That’s better," Aziraphale hummed.
“Mm.”
Funny. Crowley could have sworn he spoke English.
The next five minutes or so passed in relative silence, unless you counted Aziraphale’s borderline pornographic sounds of enjoyment, which Crowley absolutely did. It was all he could do not to lean so far toward the angel he fell out of his chair.
To see Aziraphale happy was always a pleasure, but to be the direct source of it felt… disturbingly fulfilling. It had all the thrill of performing favors and dashing rescues with none of the James Bond factor, yet somehow it was better.
Crowley really was going soft.
Maybe that was okay. Maybe it was alright that it brought him boundless, completely undemonic joy to care for Aziraphale, so long as he was allowed these moments now and then. He could love him for a million years and never want for anything. He could handle this.
Aziraphale put a hand to Crowley’s arm, squeezing lightly. “You’re so good to me, dear. Such a treasure. I’ve no idea how I got so lucky.”
He couldn’t handle this.
“Um-do-you-want-a-drink?” Crowley scrambled toward the cupboard without waiting for an answer.
“Ah- water would be nice.”
“Got it.”
Crowley grabbed two cups and filled them under the tap. He slid a glass to Aziraphale across the island, sending water sloshing over the rim, then took a long drink from his own. Keep talking, you daft-
“So, is this my ‘morning after’ breakfast?” Aziraphale said pleasantly.
Crowley coughed the water back into his cup, in a very cool way. “‘scuse me?”
“I don’t believe I stuttered, my dear.”
“And I don’t believe that phrase means what you think it means.”
“Oh, doesn’t it?” Aziraphale’s eyes twinkled. “Perhaps you can find a way to make sure I’m speaking correctly.”
Crowley’s hand shot down to the worktop, a vain attempt at stability now that the world was shifting beneath him — now that Aziraphale was- was propositioning him for-
“Are you kidding me?” Crowley breathed. "Angel, you don't know what you're asking."
Aziraphale huffed. "I absolutely do know what I'm asking, and you are being rather dense about it, to be frank. I was quite disappointed by the lack of rude interruptions last night. Considering."
Aziraphale took a sip of water, like they were chatting about the fucking weather or something and not how he wanted to be ravaged by a demon.
"Considering?" Crowley parroted weakly.
"Considering the implication of your invitation."
"'Stay?' Aziraphale, that hardly carries an implication."
"You'll recall that you caressed my thigh as you said it."
"To keep you from walking away from the sofa! It was at eye-level!"
"And the look in your eye at that level was rather desirous, if I may be so bold."
"It wasn't!" Crowley realized belatedly that his voice was high and frantic.
"Oh." Aziraphale pushed the remaining contents of his plate around with his fork, no longer meeting Crowley's eye. "Well. That’s…” He cleared his throat. “I apologize for presuming."
It struck Crowley that he'd been arguing against his attraction to Aziraphale as a reflex and had consequently given him the literal most wrong impression anyone has ever had, ever.
"I love you."
Okay so maybe now he'd over-corrected.
Aziraphale's fork clattered to the table as he looked up. "Can you repeat that? I don't believe I heard you correctly."
Crowley briefly considered saying “I love stew” or some shit but no, Aziraphale had definitely heard him.
"Uh. I love you."
"See, I must be hearing things," Aziraphale said, sliding from his chair and circling the island toward Crowley. "Because I believe I just had a spirited debate with you about whether you wanted to sleep with me, and your position was a vehement no."
"Didn't say that. Said it was unintentional."
"I see." Aziraphale stepped closer and began to walk two fingers up Crowley's chest. "And your intention now?"
"Whatever you want," he breathed. "Anything. You can do anything to me."
Aziraphale paused. He cocked an eyebrow. "Anything?"
"Anything."
He stared at Crowley, then leaned in and gently kissed his cheek.
It was warm. Aziraphale's lips were warm. Which Crowley knew, now, because they'd been on his face.
He kissed Crowley’s temple, then his ear, his neck-
"I adore you," he whispered, sending goosebumps across Crowley's skin. "I love you, and I admire you, and I want you to take me right here in your kitchen because I believe I've waited quite enough."
Crowley was moving on pure instinct now, his brain having short-circuited at the first few words alone. He took Aziraphale's face in his hands and kissed him deeply.
Aziraphale whimpered, pulling Crowley close by his lapels and knocking them both back against the kitchen island. Crowley didn't spare a thought for his bruising legs — all he could conceive of now was Aziraphale. The feeling of his hair between Crowley's fingers, the taste of him, the scent — paper and sandalwood and burning food. He felt like a burning food, burning food, burning food-
Crowley launched for the stove and extinguished a flame he'd forgotten to turn off ages ago. Process of elimination said the charred bits in the pan were once eggs, which he waved away with a miracle, alongside the smell.[3]
He turned back to Aziraphale, whose hands were still level with Crowley's chest and lips were still wet from Crowley's tongue. Aziraphale who was wearing pajamas in his kitchen and who loved him.
The prophecy book was gone. But all at once Crowley saw his future extended before him anyway. He and Aziraphale waking up together in a cottage somewhere, or blathering on about which wine would pair best with the dinner he had in the oven. Every day, sharing a life, sharing a garden… Warmth surged in his chest.
He could love him for a million years and never want for anything.