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As human businesses go, Crowley has developed quite the soft spot for Give Me Coffee or Give Me Death– not that he would ever admit it. The name has a sort of dark and sarcastic vibe that he thinks matches Nina quite smartly. Which is why he continues to frequent the place.
Certainly not because he needs the caffeine, or enjoys the company of the two women who spend most of their days there behind the counter, gazing longingly into each other’s eyes. Crowley’s happy for them, he is. At least love is working out for some people on Whickber Street.
This afternoon he finds Maggie and Nina talking in hushed whispers behind the counter, recovering from the mid morning rush.
“I’m alright, angel, you can head back to your shop now,” Nina insists, leaning over and leaving a small kiss to her cheek before she looks up and sees Crowley there.
Maggie blushes wildly, looking over at him as if she’s been caught red handed doing something she shouldn’t. She begins to say something, before a small commotion draws her attention. Elsewhere in the middle of the shop there’s a minor spill, so she quickly grabs some towels and slips away from behind the counter, stepping around to assist a customer out of his line of sight.
“Since when did you start calling Maggie angel?’” Crowley asks in disbelief.
Nina tucks her thumbs into her belt loops, leaning forward with a coy smile, “Couldn’t think of a better word for her, could you? She’s practically sunshine incarnate.”
Crowley turns around to get a look at Little Miss Sunshine herself, she’s in the process of assisting an older woman who’s spilled her coffee all over. She moves gently, gracefully, her smile never wavering once.
“I call Aziraphale angel because he’s an actual angel, you know that right?”
“Sure, I know that now,” Nina shrugs, she begins making another coffee after Maggie silently gestures the woman’s order to her. “But it’s not like you lot own the word, it’s a very popular human term of endearment.”
That stops him in his tracks, “A what?”
“Term of endearment?” Nina looks at him as if he’s daft, she finishes pouring almond milk into the cup and slides it across the counter to Maggie. “You know, the words you use to refer to the people you love?”
That doesn’t make any sense to Crowley. Why would humans use the word angel to express love? Especially when there are so many other, better, words out there to begin with. Perhaps he’s biased, seeing as he’s never met an angel he actually tolerated besides Aziraphale. In fact, all the other angels he’s ever known have been proper pricks. But to humans apparently ‘angel’ is synonymous with holy, good, innocent, and—he supposes, ‘sunshine.’
“Six thousand years and I’ve never heard anyone use that as a term of endearment besides myself,” he informs her, because he has it on good authority that this simply cannot be a thing that humans do. Surely he would have heard of it by now.
“Really?” Nina laughs at him, clearly enjoying this revelation a little too much, “You’ve been calling him angel in front of everyone all this time and you’ve never once stopped to think that might be why people assumed you were an item?”
“An item,” Crowley scoffs, hating that phrase. The memories of Aziraphale’s conversation with Shax come flooding back in a rather unpleasant way. “Can’t two eternal beings minding their business do anything these days?”
“Minding your business?” She raises a brow at him, practically scoffing. “Is that what you call drowning us in a rainstorm, locking us in the shop with a power outage, and forcing us to live out a Jane Austen novel?”
Crowley shakes his head, “The ball was entirely Aziraphale’s idea, I didn’t even know Jane was an author until very recently.”
“Point fingers all you want, you two are terrible at minding your business.”
“But that’s why you work so well together,” Maggie points out, turning to him with a frankly terrifying gleam in her eye. A gleam Crowley has come to recognize over the last few weeks as the two women insisted on giving them a taste of their own medicine.
“Your girlfriend stole my term of endearment,” Crowley pouts, crossing his arms and leaning against the counter. “I practically invented that one, been using it for him since the Earth was created.”
“Oh don’t be jealous,” Maggie smiles, patting him on the back as she circles around the counter. “You should be glad it’s caught on so well.”
Nina wraps her arms around Maggie’s waist, “C’mere angel,” she pulls her in close, leaving a kiss to the crown of her head.
Crowley can’t stay bitter about this forever, especially not when this was his plan all along—to get the two of them together. He just can’t help but selfishly want that for himself, too.
When he gets out of his own head, he’s just in time to see Maggie resting her head on Nina’s shoulder. Her eyes drift slowly from him, over to the door and then she clears her throat, “Speak of the devil.”
He raises a brow at her.
“I mean, not—” she sighs heavily, “Speak of the angel we were just speaking of.”
Sure enough, Crowley turns to the door just in time to see Aziraphale step through the threshold, looking jolly as always.
“Angel,” Crowley feels like the word gets stuck in his throat.
“Well hello Crowley, I didn’t expect to find you here,” Aziraphale does look surprised, pleasantly so. He looks curiously between Crowley and the two women who are still standing attached at the hip behind the counter. “Hopefully I’m not interrupting anything, Muriel and I were re-alphabetizing books and I was in need of a pick me up.”
“Not interrupting anything at all!” He’s trying hard to keep a blush from growing on his face, hating the way his voice rises several octaves.
As long as he plays it cool there’ll be no way for him to pick up on their previous conversation. And as long as that doesn’t happen—
“Would you mind grabbing the oat milk for me, angel?” Nina asks with one last brush of Maggie’s hand. She turns back to Aziraphale then, “I assume you want your usual.”
“Yes, that would be perfect,” Aziraphale nods, smiling back at the both of them. “And perhaps a regular hot chocolate for Muriel? Bless them but they do not know how to handle most human beverages yet.”
“Coming right up,” Maggie confirms, having returned from the back with a new oat milk carton.
Crowley’s eyes have yet to leave Aziraphale, trying to analyze him for the slightest change of body language at witnessing the familiar nickname used between the two women. Surely if Crowley himself didn’t know about the term of endearment, Aziraphale couldn’t either.
Maggie and Nina work perfectly together, as if this is a little song and dance they’ve been doing for ages—rather than only a month. Crowley doesn’t realize just how thick Nina is laying it on until about the third time she refers to Maggie as ‘angel’ in the course of making two drinks.
“Are you alright, angel?” Nina inspects the rather minor looking burn on Maggie’s hand after they’ve served both drinks up. “I can run and get the first aid.”
“Oh I’ll be just fine, love,” Maggie insists, turning back to Crowley with a wicked grin on her face. “Anything else you need from us? We wouldn’t want to keep you and your angel from the shop for too long.”
Crowley really feels his face start to burn, looking back over at her with gritted teeth. “I’d say you’ve done quite enough for me today,” this sarcasm earns him a concerned look from Aziraphale, so he swallows his own words. “Thank you, both.”
Holding Muriel’s drink in one hand, he grabs Aziraphale with the other and practically pulls him back out across the street.
“I’m so glad things are working out for them,” Aziraphale smiles, taking a sip of his coffee before he turns back to Crowley. “Partly thanks to us, I’d say.”
The last place Crowley wants to do this is on the front step of the bookshop. But he doesn’t see any other way to get it out in the open between them, and the last thing he wants is Aziraphale to be disillusioned any longer.
“Angel,” Crowley begins, fear gripping him in a way it never has before. “I feel I have to tell you that our interference in Nina and Maggie’s love lives was not very well received. And ever since then they’ve been attempting to trick us into talking to each other about our feelings—to give us a taste of our own medicine, as it were.”
Aziraphale nods slowly, quiet for a moment too long until he finally speaks. “And has it been working, do you think?”
“Well how should I know what’s working for you?” He groans, wishing he could slither away and never return.
“Is that what the whole ‘angel’ business was about back there?” Aziraphale questions, eyes shining under the sunlight in an infuriatingly beautiful way. “I do think it’s quite sweet.”
Crowley stops in his tracks in front of the shop, “Oh not you too!” He scoffs, wishing he could disappear right about now.
“Angel has been used as a term of endearment amongst humans for years, though I’m sure you were responsible for starting that particular linguistic trend.”
“You really think?”
“Someone throughout history must have heard you calling me angel, in the way that you do, and probably started using it in their own way—long before Nina anyways.”
“In the way that I do?” Crowley hisses, wondering if it’s too late to jump into traffic.
A small smile blooms on his face, “Like I’m someone you’re endeared towards.”
“Well, I,” Crowley feels an uncomfortable heat rising in his chest, “I mean, you are. Someone I care about very much.”
“I know,” Aziraphale looks practically radiant, taking a step closer to Crowley. “And you, my dear, are someone I care about, very much.”
“I’ve been on the brink of telling you I love you just about every day since Gabriel and Beelzebub left.”
The words escape him before he can think better of them. He fights the instinct to stop time around them, swallowing his own fear and staring Aziraphale down. There’s no point in trying to deny it now, no turning back.
“Only since then?” Aziraphale hums, “I’ve been fighting the urge since you stepped foot in that church for me in 1941.”
Suddenly it feels like a competition.
“No, you idiot,” He gets rather defensive, “I’ve wanted to kiss you for six thousand years.”
“And why haven’t you?” Aziraphale pouts, looking actually offended.
“You said I was going too fast for you!”
“Yes, well, it’s all been a bit overwhelming,” He admits finally, “Coming to terms with love, a bit different from the books.”
“Maybe it’s time to stop comparing everything to the books,” Crowley suggests, hyper aware of how close the two of them have drifted over the last minute or so. “And start living it.”
Aziraphale thinks on it for a moment, looking rather nervous as he looks over his shoulder. What he’s looking for, Crowley couldn’t parse. None of the passersby are paying them any attention, everyone always has places to be.
“I’ve never kissed anyone before,” it comes out as a whisper, as if he’s ashamed.
“I haven’t either,” Crowley admits, earning him a rather shocked look from Aziraphale. “But it can’t be too hard, can it? The humans seem to have it all figured out.”
“I don’t think they have anything figured out, not really,” Aziraphale says, doing his best to not sound nervous—Crowley wonders if he sounds the same. “They’re just good at pretending they do.”
“Maybe we should too,” Crowley swallows, hard, “pretend like we know what we’re doing.”
“Alright, I mean, I wouldn’t be opposed to…” Aziraphale stumbles over his words, eventually giving up halfway through his thought. He reaches forward cautiously and removes Crowley’s sunglasses, folding them gently and tucking them into his pocket.
For a moment, everything feels suspended in time—though Crowley knows he’s not responsible for that, not this time.
The pure adoration in his angel’s eyes is something he’ll never get tired of. He reaches up with his one free hand, grabbing the side of Aziraphale’s face and holding him there a moment to admire him. “I’m going to kiss you now, hm?”
“Yes,” Aziraphale nods, “I mean, yes please.”
And so he does. Slowly, carefully, leaning in and finally taking Aziraphale’s lips in his own. It’s a bit clunky, but ultimately soft and sweet and everything Crowley didn’t know he needed.
Just beyond them, the bookshop doors creak open. Out of the corner of his eye Crowley spots a little Angel standing on the threshold.
“Oh!” Muriel exclaims in spite of themselves.
Will wonders never cease? He can’t believe that after all these years the moment is about to be broken this way. But then—
“You brought me hot chocolate from Nina’s, how kind of you!” They reach forward and grab the cup from Crowley’s hand, saying nothing else before returning into the shop and shutting the door behind them.
Crowley laughs against Aziraphale’s lips, pressing into him further and wrapping his free hand into the angel’s soft white hair, fingers mussing with his curls.
Somewhere across the street, a certain shopkeeper wolf whistles their direction.
“Get a room you two!”
“Nina!” He’s certain Maggie is dragging her back inside by the arm, scolding her the whole way. However their laughter is audible even then.
Breathlessly—he wasn’t aware he needed to breathe, after all this time—Crowley steps back a fraction just to look at Aziraphale. To take in the sight of him in the midst of what so far has been their most intimate moment.
“That was better than in the books,” Aziraphale informs him shyly, face flushing a bright red.
Crowley bites his lip, trying not to let that go straight to his head. “Could’ve done without the interference of certain passersby,” he shoots a glare back across the way where Nina and Maggie are still gawking at them out the window.
“You love them, don’t bother trying to deny it,” Aziraphale sounds especially angelic this way, his voice low and full of love.
“I love you,” Crowley corrects, eyes wandering back to him now, “I tolerate them.”
“I love you too,” Aziraphale beams, the words sound almost strange, coming from him. As if he’s still getting used to the way they sound out there between them. “Shall we go back in now? I fear that leaving Muriel unattended for too long could mean disaster for my books.”
As if on queue, a loud clatter echoes from somewhere in the depths of the shop. Aziraphale’s eyes go wide, and with a sigh, Crowley flicks his hand to throw the shop doors open and inspect the mess that will surely be awaiting them on the other side.
It’ll be hard work, he figures, putting the place back together after all of Gabriel’s shoddy attempts at alphabetizing.
Somehow, though, he wouldn’t have it any other way.