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An angel and a demon sat facing each other like any other day in their unending lives. The two had settled into a comfortable rhythm, a new sort of normal where their lives were completely intertwined, though neither spoke of it. Perhaps it was the freedom allowed by their realisation that they no longer cared about the consequences, or perhaps it was pure necessity after 6,000 years of carefully forbidden "friendship," but neither of them had the slightest inkling to carry on as they had before, running into each other only every few weeks or so.
And so they were, as they had been for most of the past six months, sitting across from one another in Aziraphale's bookshop. The angel was seated on his desk chair, which had perfectly moulded to the shape of him after all these years. He held a mug of tea in his hands, a subtle reminder to keep his hands to himself while he watched Crowley.
Crowley had launched into an epic monologue about entangled particles. His own mug had been set aside so that he could better illustrate the point. With his hands free, Crowley gesticulated wildly, trying to convey the vast possibilities posed by two particles that remained intertwined no matter the distance between them. Aziraphale wasn’t sure what exactly he was supposed to gain from this display but found it amusing nonetheless.
"So you see, angel, it's incredible! By acting upon a particle, the other is stimulated and reacts the same way! It's worked across thousands of miles without any decrease in the strength of the reaction, so who's to say how far it could go? You could poke a particle here in Soho and cause a reaction in the Sombrero Galaxy!"
Aziraphale didn’t quite share Crowley’s enthusiasm for the topic. Physical laws were one of the few that Aziraphale had no problem breaking, and Crowley could literally stop time. They weren't bound by the same rules as humans, but that didn't seem to dim Crowley's enthusiasm in the slightest. The demon continued to wave his arms wildly, trying to convey the potential applications of such a discovery, including smaller computers, cryptography, and good old-fashioned chaotic intervention in the cosmos.
Aziraphale stared back at him, not processing Crowley’s words. He was too busy staring at the way his hands moved and admiring the passion coming across in his voice. He was never more enamoured with the demon than when he was on a passionate tirade. Even if the topics didn't particularly interest Aziraphale, the way Crowley spoke about them did. The way his yellow eyes lit up when prompted with the right question, the cadence of his voice when explaining the issue at hand and why it was a "hill he would die on," so to speak.
Aziraphale watched long fingers trace quantum ties in the comfort of the dusty bookshop. This speech was a full-body effort, making it all the more ironic that Aziraphale hadn't registered a word Crowley had said. He was so caught up in Crowley's movements, in the soft hiss that caught on the demon’s tongue when he spoke the word "particlesss," the hands that had abandoned the mug in favour of making a point, and Aziraphale wished that he could instil this kind of passion in Crowley, be the focus of his undivided attention, capture his body and spirit, share an impassioned breath of air, lean in and…
“I wish you would kiss me,” Aziraphale said and immediately clapped a hand over his traitorous mouth.
The words had slipped off his tongue, coming from some presumably subconscious brain that had decided now was the time to make its entrance. Though Aziraphale had always believed Freud to be a hack (he'd seen the way he swooned over his mother, after all), he felt a new sense of admiration for the "Freudian slip."
Crowley stopped mid-sentence. This was a first for them both because Aziraphale had never admitted his feelings to Crowley, while Crowley had never been propositioned in the middle of a discussion about particle physics. Crowley’s hands, which had only a minute ago been stand-ins for the sun and distant planets, remained frozen in the air, a sort of absurd puppet show. He blinked markedly and stared at Aziraphale, presumably waiting for his brain to catch up with Aziraphale’s admission.
Aziraphale, just as stunned himself, contemplated taking it back. He thought about pretending he had never said anything or chalking it up to a joke. But in the end, he turned back to what he knew: manners.
"I'm so sorry I interrupted, my dear. That was quite uncalled for. May I ask that you repeat your thoughts on the Higgs boson discovery?"
Crowley gaped at him. “How am I supposed to go on talking about bloody physics when you say something like that?”
“I don’t know!” Aziraphale fidgeted with his hands. “It just sort of…came out.”
“Came out,” Crowley repeated, expression unchanged. “That’s the kind of thing that just ‘comes out’ when someone starts talking to you about the mechanics of the universe?”
“Not ‘someone.’ Just you.” Aziraphale felt rather put out all of a sudden. It didn’t help that his face had gone rogue in betraying his embarrassment, bright red as it was.
“I can’t help it,” he continued. “You just looked so…so…”
“Kissable?” Crowley smirked at him, seemingly enjoying having the upper hand. “Because you did mention something about how we should kiss, angel.”
“Passionate!” Aziraphale exclaimed. “You’re just so excited about the discovery, and it’s been a while since I’ve seen you this excited about anything related to astronomy. Not since…”
He trailed off, but Crowley’s expression fell as he caught Aziraphale’s meaning.
“Since before the Fall,” Crowley finished.
They were quiet for a moment before Aziraphale decided he needed to speak up again, if only to get Crowley back to talking about whatever he had been talking about. Quarks, maybe? Something about computers?
“Not that you haven’t been passionate about other things!” Aziraphale looked pained. “Just…you don’t often talk about the stars and all that, and I happened to quite enjoy seeing your face light up so much.”
Crowley said nothing but took a sip of tea, eyeing the angel warily.
“I wasn’t trying to be improper,” Aziraphale insisted. “All of a sudden I just had the inclination that I desperately wanted to kiss you.”
Crowley still said nothing, and Aziraphale suddenly wished he had taken it back.
He looked down at his tea and offered, “It’s probably on account of the alcohol.”
“You’re drinking tea, angel.” A hint of a smirk played on Crowley’s face, and Aziraphale was relieved that he didn’t look upset. He decided to run with it.
“I meant figuratively, of course. The way you speak about such things is sort of inebriating on its own.”
“Is it, now?” Crowley bit his lip to keep from laughing. Aziraphale, unable to handle the tension any longer, got up and started to pace.
“Perhaps not in a literal sense, but you get so involved with what you’re discussing that your eyes light up and you smile brighter, and your hands move so frantically that it’s almost dizzying, while I’m just sat on the sofa trying to follow your train of thought, which hasn’t always been easy, of course, though it’s easier now because we’re on the same side, that I find it hard to focus on what you’re saying because I’m so busy thinking about how happy I am to see you like that and how I wish I could see you so unguarded more often, though if you have a guard up it’s probably because in the past I haven’t always been forthright about how I cared about you or our friendship or—"
Aziraphale failed to notice Crowley’s approach during his monologue. At once, he felt a tap on his shoulder and turned, finding himself momentarily captivated by golden yellow irises. The two of them were so close that Aziraphale thought he could feel Crowley’s pounding, yet totally unnecessary, heartbeat.
“No need to get so worked up, angel. If you wanted to kiss me, all you had to do was ask.”
With that, Crowley grabbed Aziraphale’s lapels and yanked him forward until their lips met.
After only a few seconds, Crowley pulled back. Aziraphale gasped lightly at the loss of contact.
“Too fast?” Crowley asked, a tinge of fear in his eyes.
“Not fast enough,” Aziraphale responded and closed the gap again.
He gently wrapped his arms around Crowley’s back and pulled him closer. Even though neither had done much kissing in their lifetimes, the mechanics of it seemed rather simple. As the kisses grew hungrier and more desperate, Crowley moved his hands to Aziraphale’s back, pulling their bodies flush. The kiss grew more heated, a steady crescendo that came to a head just as the two pulled apart.
“Well, that was certainly a thing,” Aziraphale said rather primly.
Crowley burst out laughing, and it was only a moment before Aziraphale cracked up himself.
“I can’t believe I actually said that,” Aziraphale managed between laughs. “I was so improper!”
“I’m a demon, angel. Improper suits me,” Crowley said with a wink.
“Indeed.” Aziraphale gave him an obvious once-over and winked back. “I rather think most things suit you.”
“You flirt!” Crowley exclaimed before leaning in again. “Out of everything I’ve done,” he said between kisses, “all the rescues, all the miracles, it was physics that made you swoon.”
Aziraphale pulled back for a moment, and Crowley’s face fell. “Did I say something wrong?”
Aziraphale laughed. “Of course not. Something you said just made me wonder.”
“Go on then.” Crowley poked him gently in the chest. “Tell me what you’re wondering about so that I can talk you through it. I’d rather like to get back to the part where you were kissing me.”
“You kissed me first!” Aziraphale exclaimed, then shook his head. He extracted himself from Crowley’s arms and began pacing again. Crowley winced at the sudden distance between them.
“It doesn’t matter. My point is, you mentioned rescues, correct? And miracles?”
“I did.” Crowley eyed him suspiciously.
“No, none of that,” Aziraphale said, pausing to look at him. “I’m not going to say anything that’s going to pull the rug out from under you, so don’t look so concerned.”
“The longer you go on without telling me, the more concerned I get,” he retorted.
“Fine, fine.” Aziraphale acquiesced and stopped in front of him again. “It just occurred to me that you never really told me how you always knew where to find me all these years.”
Crowley looked exasperated. “That’s it? You suddenly want to know how I always manage to get you out of trouble? I’m more than happy to discuss that at literally any other time, angel, but right now,” Crowley leaned in, “I’d like to get back to where we were.”
“I desperately want the answer.” Aziraphale cupped Crowley’s cheek and gently held him there. “My dear, how did you always know where to find me? Was it a miracle?”
Crowley chuckled. “A miracle. As if Hell would approve of me abandoning my temptations to rescue an angel.”
“But how then? My dear, how did you always know where to find me?”
Crowley frowned for a moment, then leaned in to kiss Aziraphale’s nose. “I don’t know. I could always just sort of feel it.”
“Feel what?” Aziraphale rubbed his thumb across Crowley’s cheek. “My presence?”
“Something like that,” Crowley admitted. “I don’t how it works, but I could always just sort of…tell when something bad was about to happen to you. Like someone pressed a button and my head would suddenly scream, ‘Go save, Aziraphale,’ or something like that.”
“Crowley…” Aziraphale cupped his hand to Crowley’s other cheek. “Are you telling me that I’m your other quantum particle?”
“I said nothing of the sort,” Crowley insisted. Then his eyes lit up. “So you were listening!”
Aziraphale ignored him and went on. “Do you know what this means, Crowley? We’ve been tied together throughout time and space! We’re two halves of the same whole! We’re—”
“If you say ‘ineffable,’ I’ll never kiss you again,” Crowley said.
“You wouldn’t dare,” Aziraphale tutted. “Besides, I wasn’t going to say ‘ineffable.’ I was going to say that we’re—” he paused a moment for effect “—entangled.”
“If you like, we could be entangled right now,” Crowley said with a smirk.
“You’re incorrigible.” But Aziraphale kissed him anyway.
Some hours later, after the two had managed to make it to Aziraphale’s bed, the two of them lay across from one another. Aziraphale ran his hand up and down Crowley’s side, while Crowley simply stared at him.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Aziraphale finally ventured.
“It just occurred to me,” Crowley grinned, “that if you got this excited when I talked about quantum physics, how are you going to react when I bring up electromagnetism?”
“We’ll just have to see, won’t we,” Aziraphale said. “But for now, I’d be perfectly content for you to continue telling me about the universe.”
“I’m looking at it.”
Aziraphale glared at Crowley, who burst out laughing. Soon, Aziraphale couldn’t help but join in.
“You fiend,” Aziraphale said in a tone of admiration that did not match his words. “What ever will I do with you?”
“Too bad you’re stuck with me,” Crowley said. “Quite literally.”
Aziraphale smiled. “Quantum entanglement or not, I wouldn’t have it any other way.”