Archive of Our Own

Do you know I could break beneath the weight

Of the goodness, love, I still carry for you?

That I'd walk so far just to take

The injury of finally knowin' you?

- Hozier, "Unknown / Nth"

As he straightened his bowtie, Aziraphale could feel his heart pounding and willed it back to its usual rhythm.  He took in the comforting sight of the bookshop, just as he had left it.  A part of him had not expected to see it again.  He could feel Crowley’s familiar presence beside him.  Mission accomplished.  “Well, that was-” he began, but he snapped his mouth shut at the sight of Crowley’s expression.

“Absolutely the most insane, reckless, foolish thing you have ever done,” Crowley spit through clenched teeth.  Struck by his tone, Aziraphale silently studied him.  The white and gold he had cloaked himself in had vanished on the tumble back down to Earth.  His ruby hair stood in disheveled peaks, and a red line of seared, blistered skin stretched across the base of his neck.  Aziraphale reached out a hand, wanting to heal him, but Crowley batted it away.  “Leave it.”

Wincing, Aziraphale withdrew his hand.  How insensitive of him.  Of course: he hadn’t considered that an angel’s touch was probably the last thing Crowley wanted right now.  “So sorry.”

“Are you?”  Crowley tilted his head like a curious dog.  “For what, exactly?”

For what my kind- what they did to you.  For mucking things up enough that you had to go there in the first place.  He choked down the words that would place the blame on himself.  No longer was he one of them; no longer should he feel responsible for their decisions.  He had explained the risk thoroughly to Crowley when he had volunteered to sneak up there.  Logically, he knew all of this.

Still, when he imagined the angelic golden shackles on Crowley’s delicate wrists, the blinding bright pain some angels could cause with the touch of one fingertip, guilt twisted sharply in his gut.  He knew what they were capable of.  He had experienced it once, a long time ago, before they had discovered that stern letters and passive aggression created a similar effect with less mess.  It had left him jumpy, his mind in a fog for months after.  “I shouldn’t have presumed that… Well, you will need time, I imagine, to… readjust, after what they put you through.”

With a hollow laugh, Crowley shook his head.  “You don’t see it at all, do you?”

“See what?”  Aziraphale scanned Crowley quickly from head to toe, fearful he had missed some worse injury.

“What if that hadn’t worked, huh?  What if they had caught you?  You weren’t exactly subtle.”

“Well, they didn’t.”

“Do you know what they call you up there?  What they talk about doing to you?”

Aziraphale glanced down at his hands, lips pursed.  “I have to say I don’t particularly care anymore.”

“Right.  Exactly.  There it is.  You don’t care.”

“Am I supposed to?” he asked.  “I thought you’d applaud me for turning a deaf ear.” 

None of this was making sense.  Going no contact with their head offices had been Crowley’s idea.  “Better for both of us,” he had claimed.  “If they didn’t already get the memo, they should when they don’t get an answer to their next one.  We deserve some peace and quiet, right?”   Unfortunately, that peace and quiet had come in the form of a global pandemic that had swept the world indoors.  With Crowley napping at his own place, Aziraphale had been left alone with his thoughts and books.  For once, he had allowed himself to briefly hope that fantasy could become reality in the silence they had fought to secure for themselves and the world.  Stuck by himself in his resurrected bookshop was not at all how he had hoped to spend their hard-won time.

At first, he had found his mind drifting to Heaven, imagining all the ways in which their names were being shouted, snarled, spit out, whispered, until one day, he had realized he had stopped wondering about them at all.  He had felt a little proud at that.  Places reopened, Crowley awoke, and then Gabriel turned up, mind wiped clean except for vague, infuriating clues, and somehow, they had found themselves here: scrambling yet again to stop yet another war that could destroy everything.

Now, Crowley wanted him to care what the angels thought of him?  Not knowing what else to do, Aziraphale gestured toward a chair.  “Please, sit.  You should rest a little.  Let me get you a stiff drink, and we can-”

“No,” Crowley interrupted forcefully.  Tension lined his face, from the set of his jaw to the corners of his eyes.  “We need to talk about this.  Now.”

“Okay.  About what?”

“About what?” Crowley echoed, starting to pace in a semicircle around him.  “About you popping up to Heaven while they’re preparing for war.  No disguise.  No back-up plan, I assume, not with me in chains and Muriel reassigned who knows where and ‘Jim’ still useless as ever.  Without any sort of weapon, I’d bet.”  He paused just until the small nod of Aziraphale’s head confirmed it.  “Right.  Well, they have weapons.  Loads of them.  Saw them myself.”

“I assumed as much, but I was not going to wait until they had seriously hurt you, or worse, to-”

“I knew the risk.” 

Crowley stilled and breathed deeply, pulling off his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose.  His eyes fell shut. 

Aziraphale tried to catch up: he was angry because his plan was less than genius?  Crowley was the Bond fan, not him.  He hadn’t had much in the way of time or resources to work with, either.  If he were to be completely honest, he would admit his mental energy had been at a minimum, as well, drained by the effort it had taken them to get this far in unraveling this mystery and the work of juggling his growing anxieties about the future.  His plan had been simple, yes, and foolish, definitely, but it had worked.  Now, he needed to tend to Crowley’s wounds: physical, first, and then, if he were lucky and gentle enough, mental, too.

“We talked about this,” Crowley said.

“Yes, I know I agreed not to follow, but what was I supposed to do, Crowley?  Let them torture you while I sat here sipping tea and reading the papers?”

At that, Crowley lifted his head, and Aziraphale could see the deep exhaustion in his eyes.  “Yes, angel,” he said softly.  “That is exactly what you were supposed to do.”

The anger that had left Crowley’s words now tinged Aziraphale’s as he responded: “You should know better than to ask that of me after… after everything we have been through.  Together.  You are being unfair.”

“And you are being purposefully obtuse.”  Crowley tossed his glasses aside and stepped closer, shoulders squared, counting his points on his fingers as he made them.  “You assumed they had weapons.  You had none.  You knew they consider you a traitor.  You had no plan except to find me, free me, and get me back here.  You knew they had tried to burn you into oblivion last time you were up there.  You knew they were preparing for war.  Against us.  Against everybody.”

“Yes.”

For a silent moment, Crowley searched his eyes, leaving him feeling exposed, a moth with its wings pinned open under the entomologist’s light.  He reminded himself he was safe, always had been safe, in Crowley’s hands.

When Crowley spoke again, self-restraint and fear threaded through every syllable.  “We both know you went up there not expecting to make it out.  And yet, you went.”  He lifted a hand, let it hover in the air between them, just in front of Aziraphale’s chest.  The skin of his wrist was raw and blistered; Aziraphale’s fingers twitched with the desire to heal.  “We need to talk about that.”

Lips pressed tightly together, he turned his face away from Crowley.  How could he talk about something he had hardly acknowledged himself?  A bitter seed, planted deep within him long ago — by the flood, or the crucifixion, or the plague, or God’s never-ending silence, he didn’t know – growing in the darkness, feeding on every disappointment, every lonely evening, every veiled threat from a fellow angel.  Wouldn’t it be easier… Why do you stick around if…  What good are you in the face of… He’s not your friend, and he certainly doesn’t feel… For so many centuries, he had ignored it.  Usually, it was easy; sometimes, it was not.  Only Crowley could keep it at bay when all else failed.  Crowley, who had the same poison rooted in him.  (It had blackened the ink that had written “Holy water.”)  Crowley, who recognized it now because he knew it all too well.  Why, then, did they need to bring it out into the light?

“Can we not just be grateful that we did make it out?” he asked, voice wavering.

“No.  Because this isn’t over yet.  And I can’t… I can’t have you risking yourself again like that, Aziraphale.  Don’t you understand?”

Tears threatened to form.  He swallowed thickly, and, needing a distraction, picked up the plate Gabriel must have left out with one bite of scone still on it.  Wiping the crumbs from the table, he admitted, “These days, I hardly feel like I understand anything at all.”  He moved toward the back room.  Crowley sidestepped into his path, stopping him with open palms raised.

“Please.  Just-”  Gentle fingers took the plate from his hand.  “If you understand only one thing, it has to be how much I need you here.  Unharmed.  Safe.  It must be obvious.  You’re so clever, and I do a poor job of hiding it.  I know I do.”  As if trying to hold him in place, Crowley laid a heavy hand on his shoulder and ducked his head to meet his lowered gaze.  “Aziraphale.”

Normally, Aziraphale found his optimism inspiring, even charming, but now, it was as if he were on the deck of a sinking ship, feet in freezing water, asking him to choose not to drown.  Shouldn’t we just jump?  Save ourselves the anxiety of the slow descent?  He sighed.  “I… I would very much like to stay here, with you, but I may not have a say in the matter.  You know as well as I do that we lucked out of Armageddon, and I sincerely doubt we will be so lucky again.  I- I made such a terrible mistake, and now things are in motion that are bigger than us, and I- We can’t- If there is a war…”  The rest of the sentence crumbled under the weight of the memories that swept over him: legions of angelic soldiers; flaming weapons in clean hands; orders, righteous and terrible, given in his voice; the frantic blur of battle and the sudden silence of the lost.  He only realized his hands were shaking when Crowley took them in his.  The enveloping warmth grounded him enough to find the words to ask, “Do you remember the last one?”

“Mm.  Not much.  I wasn’t…”

“On the front lines?  Leading others to violent ends?”

“Don’t do that,” he said with a sad shake of his head.  “Don’t blame yourself.  ’S all different now.  You are.  Different.”

“I won’t do it again, Crowley.”

“I know.”

“I refuse.”

“You won’t have to.”

“But I might.  And I couldn’t.  Not if you… Not even if you weren’t there, but especially if you were.”  Would some higher power strip them of their impossible, unnatural free will and force them back onto their old sides?  Would he see flashes of fire-red hair from across the field of battle and be unable to stop advancing?  Or would they be on their own side, with their small band of rebels and humans, facing all the rest of Heaven and Hell?  Which one of them would have to watch the lights in the other’s eyes flicker out?

“Angel,” Crowley said firmly, “it will not come to that.  I promise you.”

Aziraphale’s breath caught in his chest.  “I want to believe you, but you cannot know that.”

“Okay, fair.  Then I’ll tell you what I do know.  You are not the angel that fought in that war, not anymore.  No matter what happens, I will not let them get to you.  We’ll figure out something.  We always do.  Sure, we don’t get it right the first- the first hundred times, but… I can actually promise you this: I will do everything in my power to keep that war from happening and to keep you from having to set foot on any battlefield, etherial or earthly, ever again.”  Crowley steadily held his gaze as he pledged himself with a sincerity that struck deep in Aziraphale’s chest.  Yes, Crowley would do everything he could.  Would it be enough?  “But you have to help me here.  Don’t throw yourself into danger without caring if you make it out.  Please.  I…”  He paused, searching for the right words.  “The first time, when this all went up in- When I thought I’d lost you… Well, didn’t go to the stars, did I?  None of this matters without you.  Don’t you get that?”

Yes, Aziraphale knew exactly what it felt like to have the merit of the universe rest on the presence of one other person, but, for all the thought he’d given it, he could not truly understand why.  Why Crowley?  Why him?  Why this desperate need, deeper than the marrow in his ageless bones?  Crowley watched every question cloud his expression, let out a frustrated growl, grabbed his lapels, and pulled him forward into a crushing kiss.

At first, he could do nothing but fixate on the press of Crowley’s lips on his; then, the closeness of him flooded his senses, jolting him enough to tilt his chin and return the kiss, fingers clutching at the sides of Crowley’s jacket.  This was why: the heady rush of the energy beneath his skin surging forward to meet Crowley’s own, familiar yet forbidden.  And this: the soft smile that dawned on Crowley’s face as he pulled away, blinking slowly as if lingering in a fading dream.  Angels knew love, yes, but never like this, an undeniable summoning of the very center of him, a piecing together of two halves.

“Oh, my dear,” Aziraphale whispered reverently as he cupped Crowley’s jaw in one steady palm.  “Now I do.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

As confirmation, he leaned back in, needing to kiss him again but hesitating at the last second, battling time-worn restraints of his own making.  Could he really, finally, make this choice he had been longing to make every day for the past century?  The air between them vibrated with invisible charge, as if a storm were about to break.  Crowley’s words echoed in his mind: “none of this matters without you.”  Aziraphale let himself fall, and it was not one of fire and brimstone but of rain, the overdue release of something life-sustaining to those living in drought.  He closed the distance between them once more and kissed him lightly, at first, without urgency.  With a strangled whimper, Crowley parted his lips, welcoming.  All doubt in him fell away.

A crashing sound from above them made them jump, shattering the moment.  “As much as I wish to stay right here doing exactly this, I suppose there are other things that demand attention,” Aziraphale said with thinly-veiled annoyance.

“Ngk.  Huh.  He’s…”  Crowley seemed to struggle to retrieve words; he still had a death-grip on Aziraphale’s clothes.  “Fine.  Ssstay.”

After an unhappy glance upward, Aziraphale returned his focus to Crowley.  “I am sorry to have worried you so.”

“Shh.  No.  Nothing to be sorry for.”  He could see the concern lingering in Crowley’s eyes.  “Just… Y’know.  Look after yourself.  Please.”

“I will,” he promised.

Something told him this new development would not rid him of those dark feelings, but it did cast a far-reaching light in the depths of him, where they hid.  Knowing, with certainty, how much Crowley cared for him, knowing how right it felt to share breath, to touch without restraint, filled him with wild hopes for their future.  Perhaps there would be no war; perhaps they could stop it.  Or perhaps he could bring himself to fight for their side, and win.  Some day, maybe, they could finally free themselves from the fury of Heaven and Hell and simply be, together.  That hope was reason enough.

“Look.  We will get through this.  Just like last time.  In the meantime, well, I’m here.  We can, uh, talk more.  If you like.  Might help.”

He nodded. “I would wager we both have quite a lot we should get out into the open,” he said as he set a hand on Crowley’s chest, an inch below the burn mark.

Aziraphale watched as Crowley grimaced, readied words of protest, thought better of them, and sighed, shoulders slumping.  “Yeah, okay.  You’re not wrong.  But my stuff can wait.  You need to hear what I found out while I was up there.  And apparently make sure he,” he pointed to the ceiling, “hasn’t broken anything important.”

“Soon,” Aziraphale said.  “First, I would like to take care of you, please.”  At Crowley’s raised eyebrow, he patted his chest.  “Heal you.  You must be in pain.  It won’t take but a moment, and I’m afraid I really won’t be able to focus on anything else until it’s done, so have a seat.”

“Fine,” he surrendered, rolling his eyes and collapsing onto one end of the sofa.

Aziraphale sat down next to him.  “May I?” he asked, fingers hovering over the buttons of his shirt.  Crowley nodded, then tipped his chin up to give him room.  This close, Aziraphale could feel his exhale ghost over his hands, and he found his attention drifting back to Crowley’s lips, which quirked up at the corners after a moment.

“Distracted, angel?”

“Yes, actually,” he admitted.  “Hold still.”  He gingerly laid his fingertips down on the blistered area and began to channel energy there.  While he worked, he allowed himself to speak his mind, emboldened by the past few minutes as if each had been a long sip of expensive wine.  “I confess that it is awfully distracting, being this close to your gorgeous features.  Being allowed to touch you.”

“Allowed?  Hghk.  Always allowed.  Ha- Have been.”

Aziraphale swallowed thickly, forcing down a rising tide of guilt and regret.  “I know that now, and plan very much to reward your patience and make up for lost time.”  With a throaty noise, Crowley shifted, sinking deeper into the couch.  “Keep still.  Almost done.  You are doing so well.”  He lifted his fingers and found healthy, healed skin under them.  Before he turned his attention to his wrists, he looked up and noticed Crowley’s face was flushed.  “Are you alright?  Did I hurt you?”

“Hm?”  Crowley inhaled sharply.  “Nnn… no.  Yes.  Didn’t hurt.”

Realizing he was the cause of Crowley’s flustered state, Aziraphale chuckled as he took Crowley’s hand in his.  “Am I being too bold?”  Crowley shook his head no.  “Good, because it’s all true.”  Aziraphale wrapped his fingers around Crowley’s wrist, healed the skin there, then lifted his hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to his knuckles.  “After I finish,” he said as he moved his attention to Crowley’s other wrist, “you should get a good night’s sleep.  You must be utterly exhausted, and we can reconvene tomorrow to discuss how to move forward, once you’ve spent some quality time with that sinfully expensive mattress of yours.”

A grunt of disagreement escaped him, and he looked surprised by it, then cleared his throat.  “Sure.”

“Do you…”  Aziraphale felt a blistered area smooth over under his finger.  “Do you not want to sleep?  I could… Ages ago, I was fairly practiced in the art of influencing dreams, as you may recall.  I could try tonight, for you, if you’re worried that you might-”

“Nah.  Not worried.”  The stiff line of his shoulders betrayed him.

Aziraphale met his gaze, trying to glean what concerned him from the depths of his golden eyes, but all he found was something untold.  “Crowley, I can’t imagine how drained you must be after what you endured up there, and I know you mustered up quite a lot of courage earlier, so I shouldn’t ask for more, but… I can tell something is troubling you.  Could you tell me what it is?”  He gave Crowley’s hand a squeeze, the physical healing done.

With a grimace, Crowley looked away.  “Can’t sleep in the bed.  Bed’s gone.”

“Your bed is… gone?  Where did it go?”

“Dunno.  Dump, probably.  Sold?”  He shrugged.  “So, no expensive bed.  But I can go.  Sleep, I mean.  Yeah.  So you can,” he waved a hand in the air, “sort him out,” he concluded bitterly.

Aziraphale could tell he wanted to end the conversation, but he couldn’t move past the lack of details.  “You… sold your bed?  Why?”

“No.  Not-  I didn’t.”

“Someone else sold your bed?”

Crowley groaned and took his hand out of Aziraphale’s grasp to scrub at his face.  “Yes.  I assume.  Unless the new tenant wanted to sleep in someone else’s bed like blessed Goldilocks or something.   Let it go.  I’ll,” he moved to stand, but Aziraphale stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

“New tenant?  So, you… moved?”

Crowley sat in silence for a moment, then hummed in agreement.  “In a manner of speaking.”

“Where to?”  Crowley didn’t answer.  Aziraphale’s eyes widened as he remembered something.  “Hang on.  Your rent.  They paid it, didn’t they?  You said that once.”  Still no response.  “Did they stop paying?”

“Yup,” Crowley answered, popping the ‘p.’

“Oh!  Oh dear.  I hadn’t even considered that when we agreed to cut our communication with them.  It does make sense, I suppose.”

“No work, no paycheck.”

“Then… where are you living now?”

Again, no answer.

“Crowley?”

He opened his mouth, likely to sidestep the question in some biting way.  Aziraphale slid his hand down to the space between his shoulder blades, rubbing gently in what he hoped was a comforting manner.  It elicited a deep breath from Crowley, then a huff.  “No rent on cars, is there?” he said flatly.

“What…”  His jaw dropped.  “Crowley!"

“It’s temporary.”

“I should say so!”

“Not a big deal.  More important things to worry about right now.”

“It is a… a ‘big deal!’  You are living in your car?  You must have been terribly uncomfortable, trying to rest in there.”  He imagined Crowley attempting and failing to stretch his long limbs out along the car’s back seat.  He shot him a stern look.  “I don’t understand why you didn’t just tell me.”

“And add another concern to your list of Things To Fret About?  I am fine.  I have the Bentley.  Certainly have slept in worse places over the millennia.”  Again, he tried to stand. 

Again, Aziraphale stopped him.  The solution was clear.  “Well.  I am concerned you would keep a problem so significant and so easily remedied from me just to spare me a little worry, but that’s a conversation for another day.”

“Easily-?”

“You’ll want to gather your things, I assume.  I could miracle them up if you don’t have the energy, or you could pop there and fetch them.”

Crowley arched an eyebrow.  “My things?”

“From your car.”

“To do… what with them?”

“Bring them here, of course.”

Crowley’s mouth hung open, and he shook his head jerkily.  “Nn-”

“Won’t take no for an answer.  Don’t even try to argue.”

“But-”

Resolutely, Aziraphale stood.  Many decisions made him hem and haw, pause and stew over a growing mental pile of consequences that could come if he did the wrong thing, but this was not one of them.  Having him stay here made perfect sense, really, in many different ways.  “If you try to sleep in your car one more night, you will force me to send it somewhere it will never be found.  Probably wherever that I sent that electronic book you gave Gabriel.”

“Kindle.  I still say that was a nice gift.”

“Please.  You knew exactly what would happen to that infernal device when you purchased it.”

“Smart way to keep him occupied.  Have to give me that.”

“He is residing in a space that houses almost every book worth reading!”

“Figured you wanted him staying very far away from your books, after the Cocoa Incident.”

Aziraphale took a very deep breath and counted, in his head, down from three.

“Anyway.  This is your place,” Crowley said, intending to conclude their previous argument.

“With a perfectly good bed that I do not need.”

“Jim-”

“-can sleep on the sodding sofa, for all I care.  He’d probably relish the sensory experience of throwing one’s back out.”

A bit of pleasure flashed across Crowley’s features at that, then it was back to embarrassed stoicism.  “The car-”

“Crowley,” he said firmly, holding out a hand.  “I must insist that you stay here.  Not only will you rest much more peacefully, but I can keep an eye out for you.  Cross your safety off my list of, what was it?  ‘Things to Fret About?’”

Crowley cycled through consonant sounds in weakening protest, finally quietly saying, “just for tonight.”

At that, Aziraphale felt a pang of disappointment.  The feeling surprised him until he realized that he could not remember the last time he had actually wanted Crowley to leave his presence.  Especially now that he knew exactly how right it felt to be close to him.  “My offer has no end date, but I also understand if you need your own space-”

“No.  Not that,” Crowley scrambled to correct him.  “Don’t want to be a burden, or… overstay my welcome.  Assume… anything.”

“Go too fast?” Aziraphale’s mind added.  He allowed himself to consider that humans usually approached these milestones with caution; a first kiss was typically followed by many others, and quite a bit of time, before they shared a living space.  For all their enjoyment of human pleasures, though, they were far from human.  Beneath their corporeal forms burned an unearthly energy, and Aziraphale’s reached constantly for Crowley, two magnets drawn together by invisible force.  Crowley belonged wherever Aziraphale was.  He always had.  Speed was inconsequential now.

Besides, going comfortably slow was a privilege reserved for people with time to spare.  Aziraphale had no way of knowing how much sand still sat at the top of their hourglass.

Knowing this, he took a steadying breath and did something that still felt slightly dangerous, despite recent practice: he voiced his true feelings.  “You could never be a burden to me, Crowley, and you will always be welcome wherever I may be.  If you are assuming you can end any search you may have going for a new place, you would be correct.  Unless, of course, you want a new place.  However, what’s mine is yours.”  While Crowley blinked and processed, he moved his outstretched hand an inch closer.  “Please say you will stay.”

“I…”  As he waded through the mental fog to find the words he needed, Crowley took his hand and finally stood.  “You are… too…”  He shook his head and switched conversational tracks.  “Don’t want a new place.  Want this.  You.  If you’ll have me,” he added hastily.

“Nothing would make me happier.”  He drove the sentiment home with a kiss to Crowley’s cheek.  “Now, go fetch your things.”

“I should warn you: it’s all plants.”

You would save the living things first, he thought fondly.  “Not a problem.”

“A lot of plants.”

“Good thing I have a lot of windows.”

They both glanced at the nearest window.  “You also have a lot of books.  In the windows.”

With a thoughtful hum, he said, “we shall find room somehow.  Come on, I’ll help you carry them.”

At the Bentley, Crowley loaded Aziraphale’s arms up with plants, some so tall they obscured his vision.  The plants didn’t seem any worse for their time spent in the car; he wasn’t sure the same could be said for Crowley.  How long had it taken him to notice this major change in his life?  Had he really been that preoccupied with trivialities like rent collection and tenants’ love lives?

“Got ‘em?” Crowley asked.

“Um, yes, but I can’t quite…”  He struggled to shift the tallest, leafiest ones so he could see in front of him.  He heard Crowley chuckle, then two pots were lifted from his hands, and he could once again see the road before him.  “Thank you.”  Helping, as always: Crowley never failed to find ways to make the path a little clearer, his journey a little easier.  Yet Aziraphale had let him sleep in his car for who knows how long, utterly failing to notice that he needed the helping hand this time.

“I'll just take two trips.”  With his foot, Crowley nudged the Bentley’s door shut.  Arms full of greenery, they stared at each other a moment.  “Told you,” Crowley said quietly, noting but misinterpreting the concern on Aziraphale’s face.  “A lot.  Not too late to rescind your offer.”

“No!  No, you and all the plants are still very much welcome to stay.”

The corner of Crowley’s mouth twitched.  “Even if they have to sit on top of piles of books to get some light?”

“I… I don’t think-”

“Leave little water stains on the covers each time I water them?”

Looking upward, Aziraphale channeled the last drop patience he had left after a trying couple of days and said calmly, “You’re not going to get me to change my mind by making empty threats, dear boy.”  Crowley half-heartedly frowned in response.  “We can find a suitable home for each one.  Together.  Even if it means doing some rearranging.”  I will make space for you.

At those words, the teasing glint in Crowley’s eyes faded to an affectionate warmth.  “Together,” he echoed.  “Okay.”

“After you,” Aziraphale said, and Crowley looked both ways and headed for the bookshop door. 

Some seeds were bitter, yes, sprouting poison vines in secret places, but others, Aziraphale thought as he surveyed the miniature garden in his arms, grew green, hopeful things.  Stems that could soothe and heal.  Leaves that stretched toward the sun.  They were some of the first life on Earth, and they had survived flood and drought, battle and bloodshed, pollution and industry, adapting in clever ways to whatever humans threw at them.  He could see, now, what drew Crowley to them, beyond nostalgia for their earthly beginning.  Perhaps the plants held some hints for how to not just survive, but to grow.

“Oi, angel!”  Crowley’s voice broke his meditative state.  He looked up to take in the sight of him, precariously balancing too many pots in his long arms, holding the door open with one cocked hip.  The soft glow of his shop’s lights caressed wine-red hair and spilled out onto the street corner.  Ours, he corrected himself.  “You coming?” Crowley asked, a faint smile on his lips.   Mine.

“Yes,” he answered, stepping carefully off the curb and then picking up the pace toward all he considered home.