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“I love you,” Aziraphale tells him, and it’s sort of embarrassing because Crowley’s feeling especially unattractive today, wrapped in multiple thick scarves the angel carelessly miracled up for him. He may be a demon, but coldness has always found a way to seep through his scales and into his demonic bones. Crowley's about thirty-two point seven percent certain that dear old Mum had something to do with this.
“W-w-what brought this o-on? Are you- are you dying or s-s-something?” he manages to grit out between his clacking teeth. A chill crawls up his spine and he shivers violently. Sod being cool, sod being unflappable -- he tucks his icy hands in his armpits, buries his red, red nose in the red and black tartan Aziraphale’d lovingly wrapped around his neck. It smells like apples and cinnamon and Aziraphale, and he can’t help burrowing deeper in its folds.
Aziraphale throws him a look that isn’t quite You’re being insufferable, but seems a bit like a very fond Must you?. “Crowley-”
“I-I’m s-s-serious!” Crowley cries, now hopping a bit to keep himself warm. He’s read somewhere that this helps somewhat. A few pedestrians side-eye him, shuffling away in their cozy coats and suitably warm boots as they traverse the frozen wasteland that is St. James. Why Crowley thought it would be a brilliant idea to stroll through the park on a snowy day remains a mystery.
Aziraphale sniffs, put out. “Honestly, Crowley, must we always need a reason to say so?”
Huh. “We h-hardly say it!”
An eye roll. “You hardly say it.”
“I-i-it’s not-” Aziraphale must have miracled Crowley’s jacket -- it’s suddenly quite warm without the unfashionable bulkiness of winter coats. Right, fashion, that’s why Crowley’s willing to put up with this hellish weather in this hellish city in tight jeans, flimsy jackets, and his beautiful slush stained boots. “Thank you,” he tells his angel with an ease that would’ve been entirely nonexistent five decades ago.
Aziraphale beams. Crowley’s learned early on in their… well he supposes they’ve got a certain sort of relationship now, haven’t they? Something so human and warm in a way that heaven and hell never really got around to being.
Anyway.
Crowley discovered maybe a week or two after the first time they kissed that Aziraphale 1. Quite likes being right, 2. Is fond of doting on Crowley as much as Crowley is obsessed with spoiling him, and 3. Loves drawing out niceties from him. Crowley would’ve thought there’s some trickery involved in that last one, some angelic manipulation from the way Aziraphale would bat his eyes to the way the wrinkles in their corners crinkle so charmingly when he’s especially pleased, but he knows that he himself has got his own weakness.
And.
Well.
Making Aziraphale happy has always been something that makes him well happy too.
“I love you,” Aziraphale says again as he fixes Crowley’s scarves so they hang warm over his chest.
“Angel,” Crowley whines, embarrassed by the flush heating up his face.
“There’s nothing wrong with saying it, you know,” Aziraphale says, looking up at him through his lashes. They’re dark, like his eyebrows, and so unbearably pretty. “Multiple times, even.”
Crowley huffs in the scarf. “S’pose,” he grumbles.
“And I don’t really- I haven’t got a good enough reason to tell you, except that I’m just completely in love with you,” Aziraphale goes on, and oh Someone, Crowley feels like the thing in his chest that may or may not be a heart will burst with all the racket it’s making. “Isn’t that enough?”
Another miracle, this time to line his beautiful boots with something warm and soft. “S’just no one really says it like,” Crowley gestures vaguely around Aziraphale, “like it’s this simple thing.”
“People say it all the time.” Aziraphale cocks an eyebrow. “And it is that simple.”
“That’s not true.”
“Well it is,” Aziraphale insists stubbornly anyway. He’s done fussing with the way Crowley’s cool, decadently warm coat falls over his chest, but he’s kept his hands on its lapels anyway, patting ever so gently. “Especially if the person you’re saying it to is someone you absolutely love.”
“Pfft,” Crowley says in place of something adequately embarrassing. “Well, I don’t,” he says after Aziraphale draws away to smooth his own coat and rest his hands over his belly, “say it so easily.”
“How very British of you,” Aziraphale teases.
“Shut up,” Crowley says with as much heat as his frozen ears.
“I’m not asking you to say it back,” Aziraphale goes on, smiling at Crowley in that sweet unassuming way of his that he’s got to know makes Crowley weak at the knees.
Crowley frowns anyway. “But it’s sort of unfair, isn't it?”
Aziraphale shrugs, the motion so alien for someone who isn’t really one for such frivolous movements. It draws Crowley’s eyes to the line of his thick lovely shoulders, and for a moment, he’s lost to the memory of draping himself over those just this morning, in the warmth of the bookshop. “If you think so.”
“I don’t think so,” Crowley says, falling briefly into Aziraphale’s posh accent, “I know so.”
“Well I,” and here Aziraphale lifts his upturned nose even higher, the cute bastard, “dont. Think so, I mean. I suppose, I just want to tell you; let you know how much I love you without some huge life threatening thing out to tear us apart.”
“Ugh angel,” he moans, turning away to hide his rapidly reddening cheeks, “I know you know that I know. And I know you know that I- well…”
Aziraphale’s sweet smile turns understanding. “I know.”
“It’s not easy,” Crowley repeats.
“I know.”
“And you must- I do try.”
“I know”
“But I- Well.”
“I feel it,” Aziraphale says. He points at himself. “Angel, me. I’m a being of love and you-” He beams so wide Crowley fancies the world has suddenly gone a bit brighter. “Your love is so warm I can feel it.”
“Angel,” Crowley says so softly that Aziraphale can’t possibly have heard it over the beating of his own infernal heart.
Aziraphale nods in understanding, and although he looks like he very much would like to say something, he takes Crowley’s hand in his own warm one instead, swinging it gently between them as they continue to make their way through the park.
Snow starts falling around them, and as much as Crowley loathes winter and the whole sneaky wintry cold thing, he can’t deny how absolutely lovely it is. St. James is now draped in a white-blue carpet, little icy particles twinkling like daytime stars on the ground. The lake gleams like a dangerous thing, and Crowley fancies twirling Aziraphale around in it like a gorgeous, suave demon (not that he isn’t already, but twirling- well anything graceful really is something he’s struggled with as a man-shaped thing. Maybe he can twirl Aziraphale as a snake?).
More than this, the beauty of a white stretch within such a grey city, more than the unending sky that weeps crystals, it’s this complete warmth, this coziness that seems to envelop every person caught in the soft snow. There’s a sort of a holiday camaraderie this time of the year, a beautiful wholesome niceness that annoys Crowley, even though he can’t quite deny the soft something in him that blooms whenever Aziraphale smiles at these small acts of kindness.
He stops Aziraphale next to a tree, pulling him behind where there aren’t really a lot of passersby milling about. He draws their interlocking fingers close, kissing each knuckle, and leaning closer still, he presses a soft one on the swell of Aziraphale’s cheek. His angel giggles as he pushes Crowley away with a hand on his chest, chiding him with a fond, oh you cheeky demon, you. With a naughty grin, Crowley darts, kissing his jaw with a loud smack before nuzzling his cold, cold nose into the folds of Aziraphale’s own ridiculously thick tartan scarf.
It too smells like apples and cinnamon and Aziraphale.
“I suppose I-” he says over Aziraphale’s delighted admonishing of his cold face. The angel pauses, tilting his head curiously at him. He gulps. “I might as well, tell you, err.”
Aziraphale smiles gently at him. “You aren’t required to-”
“Love you!” Crowley blurts out, his cheeks suffused in embarrassed heat. He clears his throat. “Me, I mean. Me- I love you.”
“Ah.” A lovely blush blooms on Aziraphale’s face, and he dips his head down even as his lashes flutter in the coy way Crowley knows he absolutely knows drives the demon crazy. “There you go.”
“Immensely even,” Crowley goes on because pleasing Aziraphale has always made him happy.
“Quite right.”
“I’ll give you the moon, if I could.” He can’t, but he’s certain he can give him a little star, if Aziraphale so wants one.
“Well, that’s-”
“I’ll kill for you,” Crowley says, “kill everyone for you, even the ducks.”
Aziraphale rolls his eyes. “No, you won’t.”
“No, I won’t,” Crowley agrees. He hates killing things, especially ducks.
“But I,” Aziraphale reaches up to caress his face, thumb stroking a sharp cheekbone, “I appreciate the sentiment.”
Crowley turns his face to kiss his palm. “Thank you,” he says, a smile lifting the corners of his mouth, “for not letting me embarrass myself entirely.”
“Oh, hush,” Aziraphale says. “Now,” he grasps Crowley’s hand, and, the demon’s not entirely sure he miracled it up, but their joined hands are suddenly ensconced in the loveliest pair of warm gloves, “shall we return to the bookshop? I believe we’ve mulled wine waiting for us at home.”
With a final, grateful peck on Aziraphale’s cheek, Crowley says, “I love you.” Because Aziraphale’s right, it gets easier to say it everytime, especially when one says it to the being one loves in all of creation.
Delight shines from Aziraphale’s eyes. “I love you too.” Crowley nudges him bashfully, and Aziraphale beams sweet and so ridiculously lovely.
Ignoring his squawk of surprise, Crowley grabs him by the waist twirling him as gracefully as he can -- which is not at all -- and they fall on the snow, a mess of limbs and laughter. Despite the snow tumbling down his scarves, the cold finding its way through the opens of his sleeves and his collar, Crowley reckons he’s never felt this warm, as if he’s glowing where his heart is. He rolls over, to drape his arms over Aziraphale’s happily wiggling form.
He smells like apples and cinnamon and Aziraphale.