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Outside the bus windows, everything is quiet, the row of lights passing in a swish against the black-blue backdrop of night.
There's soot and dirt digging under Crowley's fingernails, the smell of charred leather and boiling oil still clinging to the insides of his nose. Everything feels awful, yet everything is right. Right.
He doesn't dwell on the warm weight at his side, the cream pull of a known magnet, so he fidgets with the seam of his jacket, a thread gone loose on a sleeve. Little things. Grounding things.
"Honestly, I never expected for us to come out of it alive," Aziraphale says, face guarded in a soft profile. "I-- I'm not quite sure what comes next." His hand is tense around the curve of his thigh, a small twitch where thumb meets forefinger.
"No worries, angel," Crowley says, wanting to reach. To comfort in a way that has pulsed under the stretch of millenia. "We'll figure it out together. It's alright."
Aziraphale is too close. The wavelength of Crowley's yearning mounting in crests, peaking in frequency as some sort of twisted Doppler effect, crashing higher and higher as the bus tumbles in the road, pressing them together.
The weight of their proximity sidling over unannounced.
Crowley remembers each almost caress, each wayward touch; the light flick of a hand, the swift brush of a robe. He remembers when he first found out. When he realized the smallest graze of skin to skin, was enough to make Aziraphale melt, to send him reeling with sigh after sigh slathered with relief.
The ways of Heaven, he supposes; corporations as barriers between Her Grace and everyone else. Don't waste it, Aziraphale, don't sully the temple of your celestial body, Gabriel would've said.
It's cruel.
Crowley adroitly finds ways to offer it relentlessly through time. One touch here, another soothing one, there. Never pushing.
'Oi, that seems heavy, angel, let me help.'
'That's-- that's not a moustache, that's a sham it's what that is. I'll draw it for you… there, see? Much better.'
'Sloshed as a pirate you are, angel, oh, ngk, watch it! Let me-- yeah, hold on. I won't let you fall.'
You only need to ask.
"Everything alright?" He says.
Aziraphale doesn't turn, stormcloud countenance steered ahead. "Yes, quite."
You're so strong, angel.
"You do know Heaven isn't looking right now, right?"
No answer.
"They have bigger problems in their hands. Imagine having to send-- wait, how many choirs were there? Well, imagine to tell all those feather-brained bastards-- not you! I'm not talking about you!" Crowley peers over his glasses at Aziraphale, brows knitted together in chastising fondness. Yeah. He can work with that. "Anyway. I mean it was going to be their biggest day off since literally ever. Change air for once. And now is off. That can't be nice."
Aziraphale smiles. It's barely there, but it is. "No, I guess not."
A halted breath stretches, the road, smooth underneath them.
Aziraphale fits his hand into Crowley's own, closes his fingers around his and Crowley's sinews pulse, ready to never let go.
There. It wasn't that hard, wasn't it?
His flat looks dreary at the fawn of darkness. Crowley steps ahead, watching for a smudge made of Ligur, but finds nothing there.
Odd .
"D'you want tea?" Crowley asks.
"Yes, dear. Tea sounds perfectly fine."
Crowley offers him the cup and sits, painstakingly close, his hand clenching and unclenching chasing that ghost of a feeling.
"Feel better now?"
Aziraphale takes a sip. "Yes, much better. I think... I've almost cracked what Agnes meant in that cryptic message of hers,” he says slowly.
"You did?" Crowley's brows jump passing the line of his shades.
"Oh yes. See, it's quite simple actually. Just a clever piece of fancy legerdemain!"
Crowley nods, arms crossed over his chest. "Cool, cool, erm, and what's that exactly?"
Aziraphale tuts. "Oh, here let me show you." He sets his cup aside and his whole bright joy gets snuffed out in a second. " Oh ."
"Oh? What's-- er, is it, is it something wrong?"
Aziraphale takes a long look at his hands, an unhinged expression behind his guarded eyes.
"I don't-- it may break a bit of a boundary," he says, with an uneasy titter.
"Tell me what to do and I'll do it, angel. Anything." Crowley's words are heartfelt in a way that's wholly new. Gleaming. No need to hold back now. No need to mask and fear for the keen tone to seep through. If tonight is all he has before being dragged down to Hell with no prospect of return, then he'll make it count. There will be no Orpheus for him.
Aziraphale nods, and then whispers. "Give me your hands."
Crowley's eyes go wide behind his glasses, his joints stiff just when he needs them loose. Corporations are a pain in the arse. He doubts for enough of a fraction of time and Aziraphale's mouth slants in an unhappy manner.
"I'm-- I'm sorry Crowley, it's just for the sake of the prophecy--"
"Hey, hey, angel. It's fine," Crowley says, securing Aziraphale's hands in his own. A whole quake of a shudder rolls over angelic flesh, tendons, and clothes in its wake; Aziraphale heaves a deep sigh in content. "You do know you only need to ask. Just-- Anything. You just need to ask it of me."
Aziraphale's shoulders shift, the weight of his hands more real in Crowley's own, both of them aware this is not about an augury anymore. The words dance between them, their harmonics bouncing still, trapped in the grey concrete and slopes of street light barging in uninvited.
"Crowley, I--" Aziraphale's mouth clenches thin, a wavering lilt pervading throughout the stretching silence. His gaze slips upwards, not quite reaching Crowley's. Desperate. Trapped. And then finally softens, blue chased away by black. "I wouldn't know how."
An angel who has questioned Heaven, cutting them off with well placed words, brilliantly corded thoughts. An angel who questioned without Fall.
You can, angel. If anyone can, that’s you.
Crowley cups Aziraphale's jaw, idly thumbing the swell of his cheek. A millennia of hard-won trust slots in place when Aziraphale burrows his face deeper in Crowley's warmth.
"Anything," Crowley rasps.
"Can you--" Aziraphale cracks. He closes his eyes, and his mouth curls in a pleading smile that tugs at Crowley's heartstrings. Aziraphale craves. Craves for something Crowley can't quite place.
And then it comes.
"Let me hug you-- just once ."
Forever , Crowley thinks and opens arms thin as spindles catching Aziraphale that tumbles forward without any needling. And he feels as fragile as glass, too easy to shatter right now, so Crowley is gentle, arms hedging softly. He hears the dampened hitch of a sigh, of a sharp breath pressed against his shirt. Sand colored coat woven under black fabric. Arms beneath arms and white-blond hair tickling a flushed demonic neck. Crowley has given Aziraphale his heart, would give him his life, will give him a hug, a kiss. Whatever he asks.
“Just-- just a bit more,” Aziraphale says, the vibrato of his plea rumbling close, words crushed against Crowley’s collarbone. “Just-- please .”
Crowley relishes the balmy feeling as the snake he is, Aziraphale whole the perfect sun-warmed body to rest, like his favorite windowsill back in the bookshop. But a hundred times better.
“Whatever you need, angel. Whatever you ask,” Crowley says, heart hammering away. Aziraphale tilts his head to meet him, and presses soft lips against Crowley’s own. Nothing more than a peck, to then rest again in his arms. “I’m all yours,” Crowley whispers in his ear.
A broken-off sound between them. A muffled sob that inches to a laugh.
Aziraphale falls…
Falls apart in Crowley’s arms.