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And perhaps it’s because he looks back that Aziraphale falters.
The doors shut behind him slowly, encasing him, and he feels the false breath that he spent decades mastering falter. The stutter in his mouth is cold, unwelcome, and his lips are dry. Far too dry for someone who doesn’t even need hydration. He wonders if it’s just too long being native that he feels this way. Stuck. Lost.
He wishes the elevator would jam. He wishes he could pry open the door and run to him, the demon stood there waiting. He saw him. Waiting by the car, as corporeal and as real as they come. And he knew how he was looking at him, even though he wore those ridiculous glasses. Those ridiculous, gorgeous glasses that he enjoyed looking into more than his eyes.
Was Crowley hoping he’d turn around? Run to him, press their lips together again, beg for forgiveness that he knew he’d earn in the flap of a bird’s wing? Maybe Aziraphale was, still is, hoping for the same thing. The elevator begins to shake to life, and though there is a body so close, he has never felt so distant.
Lonely. He’s already lonely. He knows where loyalty gets him, knows how unforgiving and how terribly cruel it can be. He feels like a fool. Of course he is! What was he thinking with this, in reality? Was he going to fix every problem known to Heaven, Hell, and all that lie in between? He shuffles his feet. There’s no going back, now.
“Stop the lift,” he says, quietly, but the Metatron hears him, undoubtedly. He knows that this feat is impossible, yet that word has never stopped him before. He almost trips at the sheer force of the stop.
“What is it? Did you change your mind already?”
“No,” Aziraphale says. “Well, suppose I did, would I be allowed to back out of this contract?”
“Not officially, no,” the Metatron says with a slight bit of whimsy to his voice, as if bemused. “You would desert your post, and abandon all hopes at ever returning to Heaven, while being loathed by all celestial realms.”
Aziraphale stays still. He tries to conjure what this would mean in the back of his mind, when all he can think of is Crowley. Crowley. If he abandoned this post, without saying much else, they would know why and who and where to go to find him. Though he’s sure the pain of trying to drag him back is much less than brushing everything under the rug and finding a new Archangel.
The two of them would be right where they left off, traitors of the highest degree. They would be just as they were, on their team, their own team against everyone else. The thought brings a smile to Aziraphale’s lips. He knows just how much trouble the two of them cause, and despite all reservations and attempts at calming it down, oh does he love it. The thrill, the companionship, the love.
Love. That’s the word, the endearment that’s been circling around him for decades, the tug in his chest whenever he even so much as caught a glimpse of Crowley, even thought about him for too long when he was across the world. It plagued him as loneliness once, manifested itself as love with one quick, unreal breath. He looks at the door to the elevator, the space the doors meet intangible but all he desires to break.
“I need to get off,” he says. He can hear the raised eyebrow. “I need to get off, right now. You are… out of your head, sir.”
“You will be worse off than you were before.”
“Well, so be it! You and your second coming can… can… I suppose you can stick it right up your backside!”
He eyes the Metatron for his reaction, but his face is unreadable. Aziraphale feels his heart sink as, for a moment, he thinks that he has just imagined the past minute of conversation. But then the elevator starts, and instead of rising, the atmosphere rushes to his ears as they plummet back down. Back to Earth. Back across from the coffee shop.
“You disappoint me, Aziraphale,” the Metatron says as the doors open and Aziraphale ushers himself out. He dusts off his jacket. “I expected you to be back on our side after all of this. You could have done great things.”
“I already am,” Aziraphale says. “Congratulate Michael for me.”
“Oh, I promise. I hope you’re not throwing all of this away just for some whirlwind romance.”
“Not quite, I’m afraid,” Aziraphale says. “I did that during the first apocalypse.”
The elevator doors slam. Aziraphale searches the street to find the Bentley, hoping it’s not too late. He is ready to fall to his knees and wrap his arms around Crowley and beg, beg, and beg that he forgives him for even thinking he could leave him. The thought weighs heavily on his shoulders. There’s no place he would rather be, than here.
The car hasn’t left yet, and he feels completely empty as he makes his way towards it. He knows that the Metatron is back on the trip to Heaven, knows those gates have been locked behind him so truly now that if he even thought about returning he would be punished. He wouldn’t be surprised that, if for telling the Metatron where to stick his silly plan, he would lose all consciousness and celestial abilities within the minute. But before that, he has someone to see.
Crowley is watching him from the front seat, expression completely clear. When Aziraphale tries the door to sit next to him, to slide in, he is happy to find it unlocked. He takes a minute to sit himself comfortably, and shuts the door, before Crowley starts the car and he’s on the move again. Really, he would love to sit down and discuss this over tea, but that’s not Crowley’s M.O.
“Where are you going?” Aziraphale asks. Crowley scoffs, but it’s not mean, nor is it harsh.
“I’m taking you to that Italian place you like,” he says, as simple as that, as if it was as obvious as the alphabet. “You had a sudden realisation, or something? That’s why you came back?”
“Something of the sort,” Aziraphale says as they turn a corner. He wonders if Crowley has already forgiven him, but he doubts it. Not after almost leaving him like that, for that, when all he wanted to do was tell him that he loved him. Or, at least that’s what Aziraphale assumed was happening. He’s still not entirely sure.
“Yeah, I bet,” Crowley says, shaking his head. “You never know what you want, you do, Aziraphale. You’ll only be here for a few days before you change your mind again.”
Aziraphale looks out of the window. It’s lonelier here than in the elevator, but he knows he has to submit himself to this. He needs to make this right, needs Crowley to allow him to try and shift the tides. He knows it will take forever, but he has time. He has him.
“I doubt that very much,” Aziraphale says as they drive past a small, pink tea shop. They went there once, and never again since. Their attempts at a herbal remedy were far too bitter for his taste, and Crowley didn’t think much of their taste in 90’s pop music on loop. “You know I made a mistake.”
“You did. You had me thinking you really were that stupid,” Crowley says with a laugh, but this time it is mean. “I don’t know how it took you ‘til you were halfway up to realise.”
“I suppose I was still a little mindless after that kiss.”
Crowley stays silent, and Aziraphale taps his fingers against his knees. He wants to ask him why, but that is a stupid idea. He wants to ask him for another, and maybe that one is slightly less idiotic than the last, but the timing is weird and he is beginning to doubt every move he has ever made again.
He was right, Crowley. He is nothing short of an indecisive mess when it comes to anything at all. He flickers his eyes to watch Crowley grip the steering wheel. Well, almost anything. There’s a decision that lies here that he could not for an instant let go, as stupid as he was to try just moments ago. There’s a being here who he can’t let slip away again.
“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale says. “Truly. I don’t… I really don’t know what came over me.”
“You thought you had a chance to do something right, and after everything you put yourself through, you wanted to take it,” Crowley says. Aziraphale blinks. “I know you, you daft sod. Don’t think I don’t.”
“You know me perhaps better than I do myself.”
“Yep,” Crowley says, popping the ‘p’ and sighing. “I knew you’d come back, too. Just didn’t think you’d be that quick.”
“How long were you giving me?”
“Couple of years, then I would’ve moved on,” Crowley says, tilting his head with each word. “There’s plenty of angels looking to rendezvous with me, I would have found someone else.”
“If that were true, you wouldn’t have ended up with me of all beings,” Aziraphale says, and Crowley grins. “Wouldn’t you have preferred anyone else’s company?”
“Suppose I would’ve, a few centuries ago. But you grew on me.”
“Quite a lot, it seems.”
“Oh shut up, Angel.”
Crowley finds a place to pull in, off a busy road and down an alley. He parks the Bentley and puts his hands in his hair, ruffling the red curls and not paying too much attention to the angel sitting beside him. He’s trying to find something to say, something deep like he tried to say earlier, before Aziraphale just had to interrupt him with the worst news of his life.
Before he convinced him he didn’t feel the same way, that he would drop him in a heartbeat if it meant some sort of higher power. What a joke he must appear to Crowley. Abandoning him then, then returning and trying to laugh about it like it was no big deal. What they had been through kept them together, it made them who they were, and it was a fool’s game to leave.
He hated himself for it, but if Crowley gave him a few years, then maybe he would forgive about two minutes.
“I sort of want to get on my knees and beg you to forgive me.”
“I wouldn’t pass up the first part, but there’s nothing to forgive. You were caught up in something, and then I… unloaded that on you. You’re fine.”
“No, I’m not. You gave me your heart and I threw it away like it was nothing.”
“Don’t wax poetics at me, now, come on. Like I said, I knew you’d come back.
“But I didn’t,” Aziraphale says, quietly, but Crowley hears, undoubtedly. “I didn’t know what I had, or what you meant to me until I was about to leave it all… you, me, us… that’s what I want. Not some silly archangel position.”
“You came back, and that’s all I care about, now. It’ll take a while, but I can’t stay mad at you because you took a little while longer than I did to figure things out. If I did, we wouldn’t have made it this far.”
Aziraphale smiles. His chest is lighter, and he’s remembering to let his breathing come out in nice, even huffs. “No, we wouldn’t have.”
“So you’re sure about this? About us?”
“I think it’s the first time I have been truly certain of anything.”
“Well, I look forward to the second.”
“Oh, I think I know that one, Crowley.”
“Surprise me.”
So Aziraphale leans in and kisses him back.