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It was about 4 a.m. and Aziraphale was sat in his book shop, with a mug of cold cocoa. In his hand was a handkerchief with Victorian lace and embroidered flowers which he was using to delicately dab at slightly tearful eyes. A large, slightly dusty anthology of poetry sat before him, turned to “Let the more loving one be me” by W.H. Auden. It might be concluded that the poetry had moved Aziraphale to tears, however, a more accurate reason was that Aziraphale was painfully, really terribly, horrifyingly In Love.
Love was not a terribly new phenomena, the concept of Love had existed long before Azirphale had existed, and Romantic Love had been around for almost 6000 years. It should also be mentioned that Aziraphale had knowingly been in love for several decades already. And unknowingly, for several centuries before that. However, for the past 11 years, the impending doom of the Earth (and all Earthly goods, most importantly Sushi), had done almost enough to fill most of Aziraphale’s time so he had less time for moping and reading poetry about unrequited love.
Aziraphale had done a great deal of moping (although he wouldn’t of called it that) in the late 19th Century when Crowley had been taking one of his naps. He had not been aware of the reason he felt so melancholy at the time. An astute observer of several millenium (or any immortal being who wasn’t Totally Blind and had a brain) would have realised that when a certain demon was comatose, Aziraphale became somewhat sulky. One would not have enjoyed knowing him during the 14th Century, when, towards the end of it, Aziraphale had become positively cantankerous as Crowley’s nap approached it’s 9th decade.
Therefore, his current mood was a bit surprising. Any right-minded person would be celebrating; the world hadn’t ended, his bookshop had not burned down, Crowley and he had not been removed from the plane of existence by heaven and hell. But after having dinner at the Ritz with Crowley, the last week alone at his bookshop seemed somewhat... disappointing.
After all, Aziraphale mused, they had been so close for the past 11 years that the sudden loss of contact was always going to hurt a little bit. Or a lot.
He sighed sadly as he imagined what might have happened if he’d said yes to Alpha Centauri. He had wanted to. He had wanted to say yes desperately. But the paralysing fear of heaven coming after him had prevented him. He realised he had yet to apologise to Crowley for refuting him, and so rudely too.
Aziraphale rubbed his eyes and closed Favourite Poems Throughout the Ages. He decided to visit Crowley in the morning, with a good bottle of wine, perhaps an invitation to lunch and an apology. That would give him several hours to work out what to say.
After a bit more mulling it over, Aziraphale’s thought had strayed from just thoughts of apologies into more dangerous territory. He couldn’t bear it any more, he would just have to tell Crowley how he felt. Like how the Bible said to tear your eyes out if they caused you to sin, maybe if Aziraphale just told Crowley, and rip his heart out and serve it to him, still beating, it would stop. Maybe this feeling would stop.
————————————————————-
Meanwhile, in a flat in Mayfair, a large quantity of plants were trembling as a human shaped being paced along them.
“Is that a spot?”, Crowley said quietly with a sharp edge to his voice, “Is that a spot I see?”
“Now, I thought you knew better than this.” He picked up the Rubber plant in question, and left the room, leaving an ominous gap between the Cactus and the Zanzibar Gem.
In the past week, all of Crowley’s plants had almost doubled in size. One only needed to step into the flat to smell the terror coming off them in waves. They were the most verdant plants in all of England though, and as long as Crowley saw results, he couldn’t be convinced that his method wasn’t effective. Even if he had to replace plants fairly regularly as they had a tendency to die of fear.
It is possible that in the aftermath of Armageddon-that-wasn’t-actually-Armageddon-but-almost-was that Crowley had taken to terrorising his plants with a fevour and zeal that, if turned to global issues, could have solved climate change, world hunger and negative effects of gentrification. It is also possible that this was Crowley’s outlet for a great deal of sexual frustration.
Crowley had very carefully, squashed up all romantic feelings towards Aziraphale in a box in his chest, with three padlocks, a ten foot wall, barbed wire and several vigilant guards some centuries ago. Somehow though, due to nearly losing Aziraphale altogether, several feelings had managed to escape leading him to do stupid things like suggest they run away together. He was still mentally berating himself for saying this, the image of Aziraphale’s face when he’d suggested it burned into his memory forever. He had regretted the words as soon as he’d spoken them, not that he hadn’t meant them, but because after Aziraphale had already said he went too fast.
Oh than night in the Bentley, Crowley grimaced when he thought of it. He had offered Aziraphale everything he could have and it had felt like Aziraphale had walked over him. No, it had been worse. As if Aziraphale had walked over him, and then ran him over with a steamroller and reversed over him for good measure. Demons, as a general rule, cannot love. Nor do they paticularly want to receive love. Crowley was the exception in both instances.
“Come off it”, he muttered to himself, “you’re a demon, unloveable is in the description.”
Crowley’s face fell as he contemplated that he might have ruined everything by suggesting Alpha Centauri. He decided to leave his plants be for a day or to which would provide him adequate time to get back to his usual self.
“And don’t think this means I’m going soft either” he said, scowling.
He settled down into a sleek, modern sofa. Almost everything in Crowley’s flat was sleek and modern; he surveyed it all impassively. A heavy weight settled in the back of his throat, and he shifted several times trying to find a comfortable position. Crowley looked out of the window to the grey London sky. It was night but the sky was still bright from light pollution. He couldn’t see the stars from London anymore.
Crowley had loved the stars for much longer than anything else. He had created most of them after all; his precious jewels that littered the sky. Cities that everyone had thought would be eternal had risen and fallen, people had been born and died, great tragedies and wonderful masterpieces had been created and then forgotten. In the 6000 years the Earth had rotated, there had been 3 constancies: Crowley, Aziraphale and the stars.
———————————————-
Crowley was raised from his reverie several hours later by a rapping at the door. He opened it to find Aziraphale stood there, beaming brightly and holding a bottle of Perrier-Jouёt, ‘Belle Epoque’ Brut.
“Christ angel, that’s a £350 bottle of wine. What’s the occasion?”
Not that Crowley minded when his favourite person turned up on his doorstep carrying alcohol. Aziraphale’s smile seemed to falter, even if only for a moment.
“Oh, um,” he stumbled, as if he hadn’t previously been aware that he was carrying wine worth an exorbitant amount of money.
‘You are not a coward,’ Aziraphale told himself. He started again, in a more confident tone.
“It’s an apology. For how I reacted about Alpha Centauri. And at the bandstand.”
Crowley felt his heart stop beating and forgot how to breath. It was quite good that neither of those bodily functions were strictly necessary for him. Aziraphale carried on blithely unaware that he had momentarily caused Crowley to stop functioning.
“You are my friend and I do like you. I hope you never thought otherwise”
Crowley managed a choking sound in agreement.
“And I’m afraid I find myself rather ignorant about... well, everything regarding friendship Crowley because you’re my only real friend. And I wanted to go with you to Alpha Centauri,”
Crowley pulled a slightly shocked look at this, and his surprise made Aziraphale feel slightly nauseous with guilt.
“Oh my dear, of course I wanted to come with you but,” Aziraphale ignored the stinging, pricking sensation in his eyes, “but I was so terribly afraid. So afraid of heaven, and Michael, and Gabriel and what they would do to me, but more importantly what they would do to you.”
Crowley had the panicked realisation that, if he was going to have this conversation with Aziraphale, he really couldn’t be sober. He reached for the ‘Belle Époque’ Brut and wordlessly went into the kitchen with Aziraphale following behind.
Crowley poured himself a drink and gulped down the wine eagerly. Once he had drunk it, he realised he should have savoured it more. Aziraphale’s face didn’t convey what he might have been thinking, but as he raised his own glass his hands trembled.
“My dear,” Aziraphale continued uncertainly, “during the past week I’ve been thinking.”
‘Satan’s mangled bollocks’ Crowley thought, ‘this is it. He never wants to see you again.’
“I can’t go back to the way things were before.”
‘Shitshitshitshit. He’s remembered you’re a demon and can’t stand to be around you.’
“And well,” Aziraphale looked nervously towards Crowley’s face. Crowley braced himself and prepared for the impact of Aziraphale’s rejection.
“Well there isn’t really any other good way to put it. I suppose the correct phrase is I’m in love. With you I mean, it’s not as if I’d be in love with anybody else. Have been for quite a long time. 1943 to be exact. Do you remember? Crowley?”
Crowley’s grip around his wine glass had tightened until the glass shattered and wine had gone everywhere. Little rivulets were running down his arm up his shirt sleeve.
Aziraphale continued:
“Of course, I understand that you don’t feel the same way. So please don’t feel, um, obligated to reciprocate or anything. I promise I can control myself. And I know it’s no use saying I hope this won’t change anything between us but, I just... oh never mind.”
He stood up to leave and raised a hand to wipe away the tears that had begun to trickle down his cheeks. An overwhelming sense of shame for being so pathetic overcame him.
Crowley’s brain then had the useful idea to start working again, and he found his mouth able to form sentences.
“Wait!” He called.
Well, it was almost a sentence at least.
Aziraphale turned with pink cheeks and watery eyes.
“What the ever loving fuck did you mean by saying I didn’t feel the same way?” Crowley said.
Aziraphale felt something akin to hope flutter inside him. He told it politely to bugger off.
“I meant, that it’s fine that you know, you don’t, um, love me” Aziraphale said quietly. In actual fact, it wasn’t really fine at all, but Aziraphale had a talent for denial.
This was also rather the wrong thing to say to Crowley who then begun an impassioned speech that lasted 10 whole minutes.
“I don’t love you! Angel, I’ve loved you since the very beginning, since Eden. I’ve been head over heels, irrevocably in love with you. I invented being in love. All this time, I’ve tried to keep you safe. And happy. Do you think I just turned up in Robespierre’s jail during revolutionary France? Or that the Church during the Blitz was a coincidence?
For the past 6000 years, you have kept me in the most exquisite agony, Angel. I know that I’m fallen, and a demon, and unlovable but don’t you dare think that I can’t love. I feel like I’m going to discorporate sometimes when I look at you.”
(Crowley had in fact, spontaneously combusted once, when he watched Aziraphale eat an ice lolly for the first time. Aziraphale had been rather confused about what happened.)
“I have been yearning for you for 6000 years. I have felt my body straining from not being close to you.”
“Aziraphale,” Crowley finished quietly, “there isn’t anybody who could love you more than I do.”
The silence hung heavy in the flat, smothering them. Until Aziraphale’s lips twitched and muttered
“Isn’t that slightly blasphemous?”
At which point Crowley surged forward and kissed Aziraphale. Their noses bumped slightly until Aziraphale tilted his head slightly. Crowley felt as if he might be dying, but at least he would die knowing how Aziraphale’s plump lower lip felt pressed up against his own.
Aziraphale’s hand came to rest at the naps of Crowley’s neck, tangled in his hair. Crowley pressed closer to Aziraphale, wanting, please, to be closer still.
He broke away with a breathless gasp, and buried his head into Aziraphale’s coat, eyes squeezed tightly shut.
“Oh my darling” Aziraphale murmured, kissing the shell of Crowley’s ear, “I’m sorry that it took me so long to realise. I’m sorry I wasn’t braver sooner. But I’m here, I’m here now.”