Chapter Text
Here’s the thing: Crowley doesn’t mind working at a coffee shop. (He minds the coffee shop he works at, sure. It’s dingy and dirty and when Aziraphale asked for marshmallows there weren’t any. It’s a hellhole.)
He doesn’t mind whipping cream and smiling at customers and pouring coffee and scribbling names. He doesn’t mind his coworkers (really — they’re rough but real and he appreciates that) and he doesn’t mind the long walk from his apartment. He doesn’t even mind the way the shop always seems to smell like dead rats.
He just doesn’t like it.
Crowley had already liked enough things — loved enough things — in his pre-Aziraphale life to know that this wasn’t something that, uh, sparked joy. He knew there was a lot to be desired from a career and that Fire and Brimstone Café wasn’t delivering anything except a scanty paycheck. And that was okay, pre-Aziraphale.
Now that he has Aziraphale, things are different. Now he knows what it’s like to wake up happy. Now he knows what it’s like to feel like there is possibility and promise . Now he knows what good feels like, which means that now he knows just how miserable he is at Fire and Brimstone, and he is beginning to feel stuck.
He can’t just leave. He has rent to pay, even if the apartment the rent is paying for is crap and the landlord kind of hates him. He and Aziraphale just started dating, for real for real, and he’s not about to ask the absolutely perfect angel (he still can’t believe Aziraphale likes him) to stick around while he’s unemployed.
(And if he’s been thinking about the drawings that he stashed away a long time ago, if he starts working on a couple of story ideas and sketching things to match, it’s not a big deal. Not important. Nothing to see here.)
Once ideas are planted in one’s mind, they have this awful habit of sticking there, and that is exactly what the idea of searching for new employment does in Crowley’s. What’s worse, it has the audacity to grow into the idea of searching for employment in his field of interest . Absolutely ridiculous. He can’t go back there. He doesn’t have what it takes, or they would have kept him, no matter what.
And so he takes orders and washes tables and makes coffee, and it’s fine.
It really, truly is, because he has Aziraphale, and even though he’s only had Aziraphale for a few months he would rather die than go back to living without him. He’ll work in trashy cafes forever if it means that he can keep experiencing the absolute joy it is to be Aziraphale’s partner.
Take, for example, what’s happening tonight. Crowley is sprawled out on the sofa in Aziraphale’s flat. (Which is cluttered and crowded and absolutely glorious. It always looks to Crowley like the bookshop is flowing over into the living space. There are books on the counter, books on the coffee table, books on the — shocker — bookshelves. He usually has to shift some books off of the couch onto another surface to sit down, and Aziraphale always seems mortified, but Crowley is perpetually charmed.) Aziraphale is making tea, and Crowley is playing Candy Crush on his phone. It is disgustingly domestic and Crowley loves it.
“Peppermint or lemon?” Aziraphale asks from the kitchen.
“Peppermint,” says Crowley.
“Excellent,” says Aziraphale, and drops a teabag into the devil mug that he bought from the cafe.
(It was a fundraiser and Aziraphale, as Crowley has come to learn, is absolutely uncontrollable when he’s at a fundraiser. He goes thoroughly mad. If Crowley wasn’t mildly terrified of Fundraiser Aziraphale, he’d find it amusing and attractive.)
“Thanks, angel,” says Crowley as Aziraphale sets his mug down, and then he turns bright red.
“Of course, dear,” says Aziraphale, taking a seat and smiling knowingly into his own cup, which has angel wings.
(Aziraphale says lots of things like that. Dear. Dearest. Dearheart. Darling. Crowley can never quite handle them, just like he can never quite handle calling Aziraphale “angel.” He’s working on it, but it is thoroughly overwhelming. Lucy would… well, what Lucy would do is neither here nor there.)
“Are you working tomorrow?” Aziraphale asks.
“Yep,” says Crowley, doing a half sit up and a spinal twist to grab his tea without actually standing up. “Why?”
“How would you feel about some dinner?”
Crowley doesn’t feel one way or another about dinner , but he feels very strongly about dinner with Aziraphale .
“Sounds great,” he says. “What time?”
“When is your shift over?” Aziraphale asks, and the fact that Aziraphale is willing to adjust his schedule for Crowley’s is enough to make tears well up a little.
“Eight,” says Crowley, trying to play off the almost-tears as the tea being too hot. “It’s late, I know, so — ”
“Not at all,” says Aziraphale, smiling. “I will gladly wait for you.”
That makes Crowley feel many things, so he just makes a noncommittal sound and takes another sip of tea.
*
He should have known that he wouldn’t be out the door by eight.
He had hoped that having told Bee that he needed to leave early would be enough for them to fight for him, but, alas, he was mistaken. He had also hoped that the cafe wouldn’t be busy, which seems like a reasonable request given its unsavoury location, but that didn’t happen, either.
His phone buzzes in his back pocket and he slips into the break room to check it.
Aziraphale, 8:04 PM
Good evening, darling! I’m waiting outside your building. :)
Crowley curses under his breath. There are — he cranes his neck — ten customers left, and much as he dislikes Hastur he’s not going to leave him to serve them all by himself.
Crowley, 8:06 PM
Sorry, angel
Busy shift
I’m going to be late
Head on up to my flat if you want, the code is 666*
(Lucy had thought it would be funny and none of the other residents had put up a fight.)
Aziraphale, 8:06
Excellent! I’ll see you soon. <3
Crowley blushes at his phone for a while before Hastur shouts at him and he jogs back out to help pour coffee.
*
Aziraphale is sitting on his couch when he walks in and he wonders what it would be like to walk into Aziraphale sitting on his couch every time he enters his flat.
But that’s a thought for later.
“Hey, angel,” he says, feeling the stress of the day already sliding off of him.
“Hello, dearest,” says Aziraphale, beaming, and he stands up and wraps his arms around Crowley, who has to blink rapidly against this onslaught of affection. It’s heavenly, but embarrassing. He clears his throat and steps away.
“Ready to go?” he asks.
“Yes!” says Aziraphale, grabbing his coat (which looks like it belongs in the 1900s and has never yet failed to make Crowley shake his head and then smile). “Let’s be off.”
In the elevator on the way down, he takes Crowley’s arm.
“Darling,” he says.
“Ngk — I — yes?” says Crowley, who has not yet learned to be thoroughly cool when Aziraphale calls him things like “darling.” (Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to bother Aziraphale, who leans his head against Crowley’s shoulder, which makes Crowley’s heart beat faster.)
“Who drew that piece you have hanging on your wall?”
Oh, that’s scary. Because Crowley isn’t sure if Aziraphale is asking because he hates it, because he likes it, or for some other reason, so he studies his feet as they make their way out of the elevator and onto the sidewalk.
“It was, uh, me. Why do you ask?”
Aziraphale stops dead in his tracks, and the gasp he takes in is so high-pitched and loud that Crowley jumps, and he shakes Crowley’s arm.
“Crowley!” he all but shrieks. “You never told me you could draw!”
And just like that, Crowley is smiling. Kind of against his will, but he’s not going to complain when Aziraphale is looking at him like he just said he used to build stars, and talking a mile a minute.
“Oh, my dear, you have such a gift! I had no idea you were so talented!”
“You, uh, like it?” Crowley asks, because it’s Aziraphale and he can’t help himself.
“I absolutely adore it,” Aziraphale gushes. “You are an incredible artist, Crowley.”
Crowley coughs a little, because he doesn’t know how to handle it.
“‘S not a big deal,” he says. “Just something I used to do.”
“Well, why on earth did you stop?” Aziraphale demands, and Crowley actually flinches under the onslaught of memories.
You can’t draw, Anthony.
I don't know why we hired you.
You have until the end of the day to clear out your desk.
“I… um… I…” Crowley tries.
This is difficult. He wants to tell Aziraphale everything, and be open, and do the communicating thing that relationships apparently need in order to flourish. But the words get stuck in his throat. Talking about his failures has never been his favourite thing.
“It just wasn’t working,” he says, and Aziraphale, though clearly unsatisfied, drops it.
“Well, I’m amazed,” he tells Crowley, who smiles at him and opens the door to the restaurant and resolves to ignore the itching in his fingers. Aziraphale is worth it.