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Crowley is not happy.
He can’t pinpoint the exact moment where everything went pear-shaped, but he knows that it is currently shaped like a pear.
It all started when that man started hanging around the bookshop.
Look, Crowley is a reasonable guy. Crowley knows that Aziraphale has friends that are not him. Crowley is absolutely fine with that. He has friends that aren’t Aziraphale, too. (Although most of his friends are usually bartenders and most of his friends don’t feel quite as charitably about him as he does about them. And usually he doesn’t feel as charitably about them sober as he does drunk. But that’s not the point .) Crowley actually likes coming into the bookshop and seeing Aziraphale chattering happily about books or something to one of his people. What Crowley does not like is idiots that come into the bookshop and stay in the bookshop for hours on end. He does not like morons that monopolize his angel’s attention so long that Crowley often ends up going home without Aziraphale saying anything more to him than “Good morning,” and “Leaving already? Have a good afternoon, then.” Crowley does not like James.
And he and Aziraphale were just starting to fully embrace their newfound freedom from Heaven and Hell, too. They were spending more time together than ever before, often finding themselves in each other’s company for most (or all) of the day. Crowley had even, on several memorable occasions, been invited to stay the night. Aziraphale had retrieved dusty blankets (no tartan, Crowley was pleasantly surprised to note) from a back room and tucked him in on the sofa, shushing all protests. (“You can’t drive home in this state.” “I can just sober up, angel.” “No, no, dear boy, you’ll stay. I won’t hear another word against it.”) It had all been quite lovely.
And now here’s James, tall and slim and smiley, and Aziraphale will go on and on about how he’s “enchanted, simply enchanted, such a lovely young man,” and Crowley listens to him and feels old and ugly and boring.
But life goes on. Crowley is not about to begrudge Aziraphale anything that brings him happiness, even if it leads to the erosion of his own. After all, he’s the one that Aziraphale chooses to take to sleek sushi bars and crowded cafes and tiny Caribbean places tucked into strip malls. Aziraphale isn’t asking James to spend the night on the bookshop’s sofa when he’s tipsy. Crowley doesn’t see Aziraphale and James going on walks in St. James’. (Crowley admittedly gets a little grouchy about the park after this whole development. James is ruining his life .) And when he’s being reasonable he thinks about the fact that two months’ worth of friendship can hardly replace six millenia’s .
Except…
We’re not friends , Crowley!
Fraternizing . Spat like a dirty word.
There is no our side!
Were they friends? Were they, perhaps, really truly enemies that whole time? Not on Crowley’s side, obviously, but was Aziraphale thinking he actually was a foul fiend all those years?
That makes Crowley feel a little woozy and a lot unhappy. Maybe Aziraphale thinks that his and James’ friendship is equivalent to his relationship with Crowley. Maybe he thinks that his relationship with Crowley is less .
That is far too much, and Crowley launches himself up from the sofa with a sort of wild hysteria.
“Leaving already?” says Aziraphale, sounding disappointed.
“Sorry, Mr. Crowley,” says James, sounding genuinely apologetic, and isn’t that just terrific , James is apologizing without pointing out that he’s apologizing, whoop-dee-doo for James, what a lovely young –
“’S fine,” Crowley snaps, making the words more forceful so he doesn’t hiss them. “Just got a, a thing. To do. Ciao.”
And he stomps out the door, feeling rattled and irritable and inadequate.
Aziraphale is kind enough not to mention Crowley’s outburst the next time they go out for lunch, but he does keep eyeing Crowley with a concern that looks so soft and real that it makes Crowley’s skin crawl. He tries to drown the feeling with his pina colada, although he’s never been the biggest fan of pineapples. They hurt his tongue.
“But enough about me,” Aziraphale says, interrupting himself in the midst of a rant on the proper care and keeping of books and how nobody knows about those things these days, “how are you , my dear?”
And bless him if the my dear doesn’t throw Crowley for a loop. Aziraphale has been using those words, together, at him with frequency, and they still knock him off balance every time.
“’M fine,” Crowley mutters, taking another sip and feeling it sting. “’Ve been doing some freelancing. Stuck some coins to the ground, that sorta thing.”
“Ah,” says Aziraphale, smiling fondly, and the fondness works its way into Crowley’s head and makes everything fuzzy. “And the plants? How are they?”
“Good,” says Crowley, touched by the fact that Aziraphale even remembers that he keeps plants. “They’ve been behaving, lately, so. That’s good.”
“I’m very glad to hear it,” says Aziraphale, smiling broadly, and Crowley has just started to bask in it properly when he continues, “You know, James keeps – ”
And there it is, pouring icy water down Crowley’s back, reminding him that he’s been around for years and James hasn’t and so James is so much more exciting –
“Which is, I think, why I love him,” Aziraphale says casually, jerking Crowley back to the conversation so abruptly that he bangs his knee on the table leg.
“Oh,” he says without realizing he’s saying anything. His head spins and his knee aches and this is not what he wanted from lunch today, learning that Aziraphale… this is not what he wanted.
“Crowley?” says Aziraphale, sounding concerned, and Crowley is tired of Aziraphale being concerned for him, especially if he’s going to be more concerned for James .
“Fine,” says Crowley, standing up from the table and tossing some cash onto it. “Here, on me. Lunch is. Um. Got to go do a. Mblrk.” And he leaves, and no sooner has he gotten into his Bentley than he starts crying .
“’M a mess,” he blubbers into the wheel, “a bloody mess, no wonder Aziraphale – ” but the words catch in his throat and he can’t say them. It’s fortunate that the Bentley can run on her own, more or less, because otherwise he would almost certainly have crashed it on the way home. As it is, there are a few narrow escapes. They make it back to his building, and Crowley sits in his car for a while, appreciating the feeling of being… maybe not loved. Maybe the Bentley doesn’t love him. But she doesn’t hate him, either, and he thinks that she’s glad that he’s the one that bought her, what, ninety years ago (she’s extra glad of this every time they pass a junkyard and one of her siblings is rusting in a corner), and Crowley would honestly take neutrality at this point, anything to remind him that he’s not totally awful.
The stairs take a while to get up, because he’s not running off of the strange, cold, twisted adrenaline that sometimes happens when you get very bad news. He’s just tired, and devastated, and somewhere in his mind is the thought that he wasn’t even really listening and he might have misunderstood, but that just gives him hope and hope is not what he needs right now.
The thought occurs to him, halfway between the front door and his bedroom, that he could make James’ life miserable. Just a little, just as a retribution for the misery that James has brought Crowley. It doesn’t cheer him up, exactly, but the idea does bring him a grim sense of satisfaction.
He doesn’t want to put the curse (and, okay, it’s not really a curse , more like a blight, really, an inconvenience, you know) on James directly, because that feels… well, just a little too much. So he decides to put it on the person Aziraphale loves most, with the level of unpleasantness corresponding to the intensity of the love Aziraphale has for that person, because then it’s Aziraphale’s fault, really, and he knows that Aziraphale wouldn’t like this but he doesn’t care , he’s a demon, after all, foul fiend, not even friends, and in this haze of unpleasant thoughts he tries to send James a headache. Unfortunately, this intention is hampered by a sudden, blinding migraine, and he tumbles into bed, feeling all-around awful, instead.
This keeps happening. Every time he tries to make James’ life unpleasant, it doesn’t work out. He wanted to put James’ car in the shop for a few days – that wouldn’t be so bad, would it, everybody’s car does that at some point, just stops working for no reason, and then Crowley would have Aziraphale all to himself because James wouldn’t be able to make it – but then the Bentley broke down, completely, just stopped working for no reason, even rusted a little bit, and that was so upsetting that he forgot all about James’ car in the madness of doing everything he possibly could to make his old girl feel better.
And then he thought he’d have James trip, just a little, when he entered the bookshop, just enough to have him stumble, and then Aziraphale would see that youth isn’t everything, even they get clumsy sometimes. Except that as he was planning this, he caught his foot so spectacularly on the doorframe into the bookshop that he wrenched his ankle, and fell so hard that his body was almost as bruised as his ego, and he limped away, reflecting that the only good thing about this was that Aziraphale fussed over him for a very long time, fingers skimming Crowley’s arms and back and legs. It was most enjoyable, and Crowley went home and iced his foot (he’s not using a lot of miracles these days – all his energy is focused on trying {and failing} to curse James) and replayed the feeling of Aziraphale’s gentle touch until he fell asleep.
Fed up with his larger-scale plans being so constantly foiled (seriously, does Aziraphale have a hedge of angelic protection around this guy?), Crowley resorts to smaller, less plaguey and more pesty tactics.
He tries inhibiting James from finding a parking space close to the bookshop (because if he can’t find a parking space he’ll have to park far away and maybe he’ll decide that the walk isn’t worth it), but winds up forgetting about it because his own (somewhat illegal) parking spot has been overrun by construction workers and police officers and for his Bentley’s sake he ends up having to park a considerable ways away and walk, grumbling the whole way, six blocks.
By the time he gets to Aziraphale’s place he is ruffled and sweaty and very very irritated. What is it with all these backfiring hexes? You’d think that he was under a curse! he muses, and then stops dead in his tracks in the middle of the doorway.
Despite his failure to properly prevent James from finding a parking spot, the shop is empty today. There’s only Aziraphale, fussing with some shelving. He turns when he hears the door open, smiling, but stops when he sees the look on Crowley’s face.
“Crowley?” he says, sounding surprised and concerned.
“Agh,” says Crowley.
“You look like you’ve had quite a shock,” says Aziraphale, scurrying over and ushering him away from the door and further into the shop with a hand on his arm. He flips the sign from Open to Closed and guides Crowley into the back room. “Would you like – ”
“I tried to curse James,” says Crowley abruptly, with the swoop in his stomach that everyone gets when choosing to say something that will probably change their life. Aziraphale freezes in the middle of moving some books off the sofa, Jane Eyre and The Merchant of Venice clutched in his suddenly white-knuckled hands. “I tried to curse him because I was jealous of how much time you were spending with him. How much you loved him.” He tries not to sound petulant, but Crowley’s default setting is petulant which makes it difficult.
“Wha… my dear, do – ”
“Except I didn’t really do it right,” he says, barging on with determination. His hands are starting to shake. “I didn’t want to say James’ name, set the curse right on him – seemed too much, you know, too harsh, even though that’s stupid, I’m stupid, dunno what I was thinking – so I set it on the person that you love most in the world. After you said you loved him at that lunch.”
Aziraphale’s face has slackened in amazement, and there’s a swirl of emotions that Crowley can’t identify lurking behind his eyes. He keeps talking, anyway. He’s nearly done.
“Aziraphale, do – ” Crowley’s voice breaks and he finishes the question in a croak. “Am I – Do you -”
“I love you,” interrupts Aziraphale.
Crowley is not sure what he expected to happen, but this wasn’t it. He stares, mouth hanging open, brain scrambling to make sense of the words and finding that they don’t make sense. Not in this context. Not – what –
“I love you,” says Aziraphale again, and the first time he sounded slightly nervous but this time he just sounds… happy. “Oh, Crowley, I’ve loved you for centuries. Didn’t know it the whole time, of course, but it’s always been true.”
“Ngk – mblrgh – you – ” gasps poor Crowley, before ending up with, “True?”
“Yes,” Aziraphale breathes, taking a bold step forwards towards Crowley, and he wants to turn tail and flee but he can’t do that, not when Aziraphale’s looking at him like this, not when there’s a chance that everything he’s ever wanted is in grasp. “Always.”
“I – did – agh,” says Crowley, stuttering, unable to make any words work, impeded by the bucketloads of shock that he’s been doused with.
“I do love James,” says Aziraphale, and he takes another step forward and this time Crowley takes one back. Aziraphale stops immediately. “I love him like a son,” he says, “or, rather, a nephew – I really don’t know him all that well. Maybe the son of a distant cousin…”
“But not,” says Crowley, because fond as he is of the angel’s rambling he doesn’t – he needs –
“Not the way I love you,” says Aziraphale, and this time when he moves forward, much more cautiously, Crowley lets him. “Dearest, I could never love anyone the way I love you.”
“Ngk,” says Crowley. Aziraphale looks at him steadily.
“I’m sorry I made you think that my not loving you was even remotely a possibility,” says Aziraphale. “I assure you, it is not.”
And that does it, that does it, Crowley is crying, he is sinking to his knees and grasping for Aziraphale’s hand and clutching it when he finds it, because Aziraphale loves him. Him. It’s far too much to be borne. No one was made to feel this much joy, pure joy, coursing through them. It burns, how happy he is, it burns brightly, and it’s too much –
“Oh, beloved,” says Aziraphale, kneeling in front of Crowley and gently peeling the demon’s fingers off of his hand. Crowley has a brief moment of panic that he’s already overdone it, that Aziraphale is going to throw him out, but he doesn’t. He reaches out and gathers Crowley into his arms like an armload of laundry and Crowley goes willingly, although he’s trembling, because he’s being held by Aziraphale, his nose is in Aziraphale’s shoulder, his sunglasses are pressing into his eyes, his face is tucked into Aziraphale’s neck, it is all too much –
“I’m sorry,” he sniffles, feeling ridiculous.
“Don’t be silly,” says Aziraphale. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”
“But, but,” says Crowley, who has never had someone tell him that he doesn’t need to apologize and doesn’t know how to deal with that and so racks his brains for something he did do, “but I tried to curse James!”
“Oh, yes,” says Aziraphale, pulling away, and this is it, Crowley thinks, but that embrace was enough to last him a lifetime and he’ll be okay, really, replaying the memory from time to time – “you’ve been hurt in the last little while, haven’t you?”
“Pfffnglmck,” says Crowley, who was bracing so expectantly to be crushed that he is completely unprepared to respond to being handled with care. “What?”
“And if you used the curse I think you used,” says Aziraphale, tracing gentle fingers over Crowley’s face and making Crowley forget how to breathe, “then the intensity of my love was making it even worse for you.”
Crowley wants to ask a lot of things, like “how do you know any demonic curses?” and “intensity?” but he ends up not saying anything because Aziraphale’s fingers slip down his neck and he shivers.
“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale whispers.
Crowley sputters indignantly, because the words really aren’t – they’re not working today.
“Don’t be,” he says hastily. “Nothin’ to – ‘twas my fault, I was the one – ”
“I should have made it clear to you as soon as I possibly could,” says Aziraphale, and his arms have moved down to lock around Crowley’s waist and it leaves Crowley reeling, “that I loved you.”
“Yeah, well,” Crowley says, “Probably should have talked to you ‘stead of tryin’ to curse somebody.”
“Ah, yes,” says Aziraphale. “Communication would be wise, in future.”
Crowley doesn’t know what to say to that, so he just sits there, in Aziraphale’s arms, unsure of what – of how – he’s wanted this for so long but now that he has it he doesn’t know –
“Is anything still hurting?” asks Aziraphale, and Crowley, thankful for some guidance in what to think, shakes his head.
“Nah,” he says, “was… I’ve gone soft, I guess, didn’t send him anything really bad.”
“You just wanted him to trip a little,” muses Aziraphale, “and other things of that nature, I suppose.” Crowley feels a blush travel from his chest to his hairline, but Aziraphale just hums and squeezes him tighter. “My good, sweet, kindhearted demon,” he says fondly, and bless it if that doesn’t render Crowley speechless.
“Afcgheifjc.”
But not soundless. He makes a lot of noises until Aziraphale, smiling, makes a gentle shhing sound. Crowley understands that it’s not because he’s irritated, just because he wants to say something, but he still feels shame prickle at his throat. He’s almost glad of it, honestly. It’s something familiar to grab onto in the middle of this unknown bliss. Bliss is nice, don’t get him wrong, but also incredibly disorienting.
“I’ve been thinking about kissing you for a very long time,” says Aziraphale. “1941, I think, is when I started yearning for it, though I’d started thinking about it before that.”
Crowley’s brain has long since given up on trying to make sense of anything coming out of Aziraphale’s mouth, so he just listens dumbly.
“I’d quite like to try it now,” says Aziraphale, shifting so he’s a little more comfortable, “if you wouldn’t – that is – ”
And Crowley melts , because his angel is almost as nervous as he is and his angel wants to kiss him and before he can think about it he surges forward and plants a long, lingering kiss to Aziraphale’s mouth. He pulls back, dazed, eyes opening before Aziraphale’s, and he can appreciate the beauty of him, the soft perfectness, but then Aziraphale’s eyes are opening and there’s something in them that makes Crowley want to throw himself off of a very tall tower because it’s pure love and it’s directed at him and he doesn’t know – he can’t –
“May I take your glasses off?” asks Aziraphale. “Only they seem like they might – logistically speaking, you know – ”
Crowley has got them off his face before Aziraphale can finish speaking, and then it occurs to him that Aziraphale asked if he , Aziraphale , could take his glasses off, and what if he’s upset, what if he’s disappointed –
“You’re beautiful,” says Aziraphale, cupping Crowley’s face in his hands, and Crowley scrambles after his thoughts but quickly gives up on catching them. His eyes, which closed when he felt Aziraphale’s hands on him, open almost of their own accord, wanting to look at his angel’s well-loved face. “Breathtaking,” whispers Aziraphale, and Crowley, who has always thought his eyes “strange” and “unpleasant” and “ugly” because that’s what he’s always been told, finds himself blinking back tears. “Oh, my darling, I love you,” breathes Aziraphale, thumbing them away, and then he pulls Crowley into a kiss that is so tender and gentle that Crowley is crying again . Aziraphale breaks it, eventually, and Crowley hurriedly wipes his eyes.
“Should get jealous more often, if this is what happens,” he says, trying to sound lighthearted and failing. He has too many feelings happening to sound lighthearted, he thinks.
“Or this could happen all the time, regardless of whether you’re jealous or not,” says Aziraphale.
“Ngk. Or that,” agrees Crowley.
He tucks his face against Aziraphale’s shoulder again, without permission, this time, feeling drained and strange and happy. Aziraphale makes a pleased sound in the back of his throat and smooths his hand down Crowley’s back. A shiver makes its way down his spine, again. He’s very tired.
“I love you, too,” he says. “In case you didn’t know.”
Aziraphale presses a kiss to the side of his head.
“I know,” he says. “You’ve been showing me ever since we met.”
“Oh,” says Crowley, and Aziraphale sounds so fond that he thinks he might be crying again. “Good.”