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Crowley feels numb.
He’d always thought the worst of it was when he fell: being stripped off what he thought was the core of his being, his purpose, his meaning.
This is worse.
It’s nothing like that.
It was awful, of course, like fire, hot and liquid and all-consuming; a rage that had coursed through his veins for hundreds of years, a fury that had taken an unbelievable amount of restraint, not to use it to burn whatever was in hundreds of miles of his vicinity.
But right now, he feels—absolutely nothing.
He is empty, weightless, like a shell that might blow away with the slowest wind; even the weight of the boxes of his plants that he drags upstairs to his flat does not seem heavy enough to keep him on this earth.
He closes the door behind himself and lays his back against the dark wood. This is not the first time he’s lost Aziraphale, and it’s stupid, and dark, and twisted, even for a demon, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if he felt as devastated this time as he did before? Sobbing his sorrow out, shaking and screaming, cursing heaven and hell, clawing at the walls, wishing that he could rip his own heart out and smash it to pieces.
A single tear.
He doesn’t even have a single tear.
He goes over it a million times, like it’s a movie playing back inside his head: Aziraphale walking back inside, smiling wide and melting Crowley’s heart like always; Crowley watching him, with his heart pounding in his ears, listening to Aziraphale talk about heaven, his eyes sparkling with the thought of Crowley becoming an angel again. He thinks about his own little speech which was too little, too late, begging Aziraphale to tell him that he would refuse Heaven’s offer, that he would pick him, choose him, want him above everything else.
Oh how pathetic he is.
Of course Aziraphale would not pick Crowely over Heaven.
He can still feel the burn of Aziraphale’s lips. Despite the icy nothingness inside, he can still feel the solid of Aziraphale’s body against his own, the taste of coffee and almond syrup between his parted lips, the scent of his cologne coming off his skin.
The want, the heat, the desperate plea; it’s all there right before his eyes.
But he can’t feel anything right now. Maybe this is how death feels, he thinks, sinking down the door. Maybe he’d died when he kissed Aziraphale, when Aziraphale did not kiss him back.
He doesn’t know.
He doesn’t feel anything.
***
Hours pass by.
Days.
Might be a hundred years and it’s all the same to Crowley.
He moves from his bedroom to his office to his living room, matching where he sits with where the sun is in the sky. Sleep would be a blessing, he thinks, as he fills the watering can to water his plants. A minute of peace, of not thinking about Aziraphale’s last words, stopping the echoing of I need you—
There is no sleep.
There is no blessing.
He remembers everything, every single damn moment, like it’s all happening before his eyes all over again, and that’s not even the worst part.
The rage and the sorrow and the utter devastation of knowing that he was not good enough is somewhere right beneath his chest—he knows it. It’s feeling like a heavy rock pressed between his heart and his airways, constant and annoying and terrible, but somehow Crowley can’t reach it.
He knows, from first hand, painful experience, that it’s supposed to get better, slowly, but still, if he manages to let it out. To crack open the mass and let it cut through his inside, leave him bruised and bloody, in fat ugly tears—that it would start to go away, or at least open up some space inside his chest, if he manages to just feel the pain.
He just can’t.
The only thing he can do, all day, every day, is to watch himself kiss Aziraphale, over and over and over again, like he’s outside his own body.
He knows that he has to let his heart explode into a million pieces, to bleed out, he knows, he fucking knows.
But he can’t.
He just can’t.
***
It’s late at night.
One night after the battle of the bookshop, or a thousand Crowley can’t tell, when there is a knock on the door.
Fantastic.
The last thing he needs right now is an annoying bottom of the pit demon to bug him about going back to working for hell, or worst, informing him of the second Armageddon, that he needs to somehow fight Aziraphale—
Fuck no!
“Go away,” he grumbles, walking toward the door. “Go away, go away, not now—” he says, swinging the door open before stopping dead in his tracks.
Has he finally fallen asleep? Is he dreaming?
The man standing right at Crowley’s door, with a faltering smile, his hand still raised in the air to knock some more, cannot be Aziraphale.
“I—I suppose I will go now—” the man—who sounds awfully like Aziraphale too—says, turning on his heels half-heartedly. “I—yes. I shall—”
“Aziraphale?” someone asks, who has to be Crowley, not that he remembers deciding to say a word.
“In the flesh,” the guy at the door says, gesturing at himself as if a magician has just conjured a whole person out of thin air.
Crowley lets out his breath, grimacing; it absolutely is Aziraphale.
“Can I—can I come in?” he asks, with half a sad smile, and Crowley’s heart clenches at the sight, like it’s any other day, like Aziraphale is sad over a page in one of his books that is slightly crinkled, and all Crowley wants to do is to make it go away.
“Yeah—yes, of course,” he says, stepping away from the door to let him in.
“I’m—I’m sorry to drop in unannounced, I suppose I could have—” Aziraphale steps in and closes the door behind himself “—gone to the bookshop first to call, but—” he trails off, his smile disappearing altogether. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright. What brings you here, straight from heaven?”
“You,” Aziraphale says quietly.
Crowley feels the heat that curls in his gut and spreads on his skin. “What can I do for you, Angel?”
“Oh, Crowley.” Aziraphale shakes his head. “I know it’s too much to ask, but—”
“Oh just get on with it,” Crowley says gently. “Does heaven need some dirty work done unofficially? Has the 37th level angel sold any of your books, because I will—”
“No, no, Crowley, nothing like that—I—” Aziraphale says, running a hand in his curls.
“What?” Crowley asks, clutching his hand, not to reach over and smooth the curls back in place.
“I wanted to ask you to forgive me,” he says, barely a whisper. “You—you were right, you—” he raises a hand, putting forward a foot “—you were right—” he brings the other hand forward, switching his feet “—I was wrong, and you—” he does the turn, the little curtsey “—you were right. You were right Crowley, you were right—”
Crowley watches Aziraphale, as he curls into himself, voice breaking, shoulders shaking, and he has to press his nails into his palms, to pace back and forth in the small space of his entryway to keep himself from wrapping his arms around those shaking shoulders, from wiping those tears away.
“Very nice,” he says instead, as even as he possibly can. “But not good enough.”
Aziraphale looks up at him with shiny eyes. “Oh?” he says miserably. “I know, I messed up, I—I should have—I should have—but—you’re not forgiving me?” A tear rolls down his cheek, his bottom lip trembling.
Something is throbbing inside Crowley’s veins.
The pain and the rage and the heartbreak is washing him over, the weight he knew he was carrying in his chest exploding into pieces breaking him apart.
“Oh, Angel,” he says shakily. “What should you have done?”
Aziraphale looks lost.
For a moment, Crowley wonders if he’s finally pushed too far, if Aziraphale will just go now, forever, if he should—
For just one moment.
Then Aziraphale’s fingers curl into the lapels of his jacket. He leans in tentatively—as if he’s waiting for Crowley to push him away—slowly, gently, and then he’s close, so close, staring into Crowley’s eyes, brushing his nose against Crowley’s nose, before his lips find Crowley’s lips.
Aziraphale kisses Crowley.
It’s shy and soft, and oh, so gentle, warm against Crowley’s lips, but it’s fire in Crowley’s veins, sparkles, thunder through Crowley’s core. Crowley eases his curled fists, brings up his hands to card his fingers through Aziraphale’s hair. He parts his lips, because he knows that he wants more, more of this, more of him, and shudders with the first touch of Aziraphale’s tongue.
This, this is how it’s supposed to feel.
The way his breaths come short, the way Aziraphale’s panting into his mouth, the way Crowley can feel the little tremors in Aziraphale’s body with every little touch against his skin.
“You were right,” Aziraphale says against his lips. “You were right.” he takes Crowley’s bottom lip between his, nibbling at it. “I was wrong, I was so wrong, and you were right.” He presses his forehead to Crowley’s, breathing in. “I love you, Crowley, I always have. I never thought you’d love me back, ever, and the Metatron—” He breathes out. “Please, Crowley, will you forgive me?”
“Yeah, yeah, of course I do. How can I not?” Crowley doesn’t know when he’s started crying. All he knows is that his eyes are blurry with tears; that the weight that was about to suffocate him for good is melting away. That he has Aziraphale in his arms, that he gets to kiss Aziraphale, again, and again, and again. He presses their lips together, just to make sure, and Aziraphale kisses him back, firm and real. “Just us?” he asks, smiling against Aziraphale’s lips.
“Just us.” Aziraphale says and kisses him again.
A nightingale starts to sing.