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Outside the Globe Theatre
London
1603
“Aziraphale, what does love mean?”
The question caught the angel quite off-guard, so much so that he nearly tripped on the very air and staggered in his step, grasping at Crowley’s arm for balance. Crowley watched him right himself with some amusement and met Aziraphale’s embarrassed pout with a smirk.
“Whatever do you mean, Crowley?” Aziraphale replied, linking their arms as they continued to walk down the amicable, if stinky, streets of Elizabethan London. “As in, Heavenly love?”
“I just mean…” the demon squinted to the sky a moment as though placing his thoughts just so. “The way the humans use the word seems so inconsistent and variable. One moment you love your God, the next you love your cat. I suppose that’s just English for you; I still don’t understand why this language, of all the languages, had to gain traction recently. Guess ‘cause England keeps invading everywhere. And Spain, too.”
“Do get to the point, dear.”
“Right, right, well, the thing is, the Greeks had all those different words for love, yeah?” Crowley didn’t seem to actually need a response, but Aziraphale nodded, nonetheless. “Storge, agape, eros, blah blah, so on. But in English, it’s just love. I mean, look at any of Shakespeare’s plays. Like, in Merchant of Venice” – which they’d just come from a viewing of – “men are saying they love each other left and right, yet they don’t go swooning and mooning like Othello and Desdemona or even bickering like Benedick and Beatrice. Yet those couples also say they love each other. How do they know the difference, do you suppose?”
“Well, love can have different meanings for the context,” Aziraphale responded thoughtfully, contented to meander their familiar philosophical debates on humanity, ones that followed their conversations since the Earth’s conception. “And it changes with the age, as you well know. Love can be romantic, or it can just be between friends, or even for family and for pets and for objects. And the Almighty, of course.”
“Right, okay, I know that, but how do the humans know which is which?” Crowley countered. “Adam and Eve knew right away, but then, not like they had a lot of options.”
“Well-“
“Plus, I mean, come on.” Crowley gestured wildly with his free hand. “Antonio and Bassanio – there’s no way that was platonic love, Antonio is head-over-heels from the start! And yet it doesn’t go anywhere because bloody Europe and bloody Christianity.”
Aziraphale tsked but otherwise didn’t rise to that bait. Christianity had morphed into something else entirely since it’s early formation and neither demon nor angel wanted much to do with it, even as they tended to blame one another for how screwy it’d turned out by then.
“Well,” Aziraphale hummed noncommittally. “Perhaps it was confusing because they know it’s dangerous for them to love each other. They can’t make their love known, which makes it difficult for the audience to see. It was likely intentional on William’s part.”
Crowley nodded slowly at that. “Right, there’s that. But they do still love each other, and it’s definitely romantic, right? At least, it certainly is for Antonio.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Come on, angel, weren’t you paying any attention? From the start, Antonio was willing to give anything for Bassanio, all the money in his purse or whatever. And then when it’s time for the pound of flesh business, he willingly submits so as not to get Bassanio in trouble after already literally giving up his body for the man. He cares for him and makes himself available, even when helping Bassanio in securing a marriage with someone else, just to keep Bassanio safe.”
Aziraphale hadn’t considered that but agreed when hearing it described just so. “True, but what of Bassanio? He’s clearly likewise infatuated. That much was even more obvious.”
Crowley raised his eyebrows, turning his head from their path to give the angel a disbelieving look. “How so? I mean, I agree that he cared for Antonio, but it seemed to me like Antonio did a lot more. That’s what’s confusing me, I guess. Antonio loves Bassanio more than Bassanio loves Antonio, but do they love one another in the same nature? For Antonio, it’s certainly romantic, but…”
Aziraphale shook his head. “No, Bassanio is definitely just as in love as Antonio is, romantically. He just couldn’t show it as much. What was it he said in the court scene? ‘I am married to a wife which is as dear to me as life itself, but life itself, my wife, and all the world, are not with me esteemed above thy life. I would lose all, ay, sacrifice them all here to this devil to deliver you.’ That was clearly romantic.”
“Of course, you have it memorized,” Crowley muttered, more bemused than annoyed. “But how can you be sure it wasn’t just him being protective of a friend?”
“He said he cared more about Antonio than the woman he married, Crowley.”
“Okay, fair. But he still married her.”
“He didn’t even know Portia. It was a marriage of convenience and climbing the social ladder.”
“Still…”
“It’s not as though he could have married Antonio! Not with the way Europe is with same-sex couples.” Aziraphale frowned, halting their walk to let some children run past before continuing. “Something else to miss about Greece, I suppose, aside from the language. Not that they married then, either, but it wasn’t such a taboo. Sappho was a lovely woman. I only met her a couple of times, but her writings were wonderful. I do wish more of her work had been preserved.”
Crowley barely seemed to hear this, his mind elsewhere as they ambled without much of a destination. “Do you suppose Bassanio knows that Antonio loves him in that way?” Crowley asked after a couple of minutes. “Or is he just totally oblivious? He seems oblivious.”
Aziraphale looked at him softly, pausing their steps. “I think he knows. But does Antonio know how Bassanio feels, I wonder?”
Crowley looked at him like trying to solve a riddle of sorts, blinking a couple of times. “I… suppose he does. That line was pretty telling, now that you say it.”
“That’s good, then,” Aziraphale replied, gaze lingering on the sky as Crowley continued to stare at his profile. “So long as they both know. Even if they can’t do anything about it, or act on it.”
“Angel…” Crowley seemed to want to say something but ultimately aborted it, turning up to follow the angel’s eyes. “Yeah, you’re right. So long as they know.”
They stood in silence for a time. Eventually, Aziraphale turned to his companion. “Huh.”
Crowley cocked an eyebrow. “What?”
“You look like an Antonio, actually.”
Crowley blinked at him with genuine surprise. “Do I, now? How’s that?”
“Not sure. But it would suit you, were you a human.”
Crowley shrugged. “Could use it as an alias, I guess. I will say, though,” he looked Aziraphale up and down slyly over his glasses, “You don’t look a bit like a Bassanio.”
Aziraphale wrinkled his nose, but he was still smiling. “Certainly not.”
~
“Anthony?”
“You don’t like it?”
“Oh, I didn’t say that. I’ll get used to it.”