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„I love you.“
They were lying next to each other, staring at the ceiling. The words were the first any of them had spoken after getting off the bus. Crowley had taken off his glasses, tie and jacket, had just dropped them to the floor as he had walked along the corridor of his apartment, had stepped through the bedroom-door and had simply collapsed, as he had been, onto the large bed. Aziraphale had followed after him, his mind blank and feeling terribly empty. In the face of what they had been through during the last hours, there had been nothing sensible left to say, and they had shared a comfortable, but completely exhausted silence.
If he had been able to, he would have added tears into the mix of grime and sweat, with which they were currently staining Crowley’s expensive sheets – a hilarious stray thought floating through his brain, worrying about fabrics when there was literally everything else to worry about. He felt entirely too human and unable to do anything about it, but his body had nothing left in it, so no crying, even if he had welcomed it. Eventually he had opened his mouth to openly acknowledge the only thing, that was still there, that had always been, and still was his constant. He had spoken, for once unfiltered, just because it had felt like the only thing, that really needed to be said. That needed to get out to become real enough to hold onto, now, with everything else, that had been familiar, gone.
Crowley turned his head to look at him, and for once, also, neither of them looked away. They allowed to see each other. No jokes, no alcohol, no pretenses.
I love you. The words hung heavy in the air between them.
„I thought, I had lost you“, Crowley whispered finally into the silence of the room. It sounded awfully raw and broken.
He had grieved him, the angel realised. And he was terribly scared of it happening again, as it probably would soon, as it was bound to happen in any case, at least, wasn‘t it? I have found I cannot live without you, and now you know. The demon had never seemed this helpless before, this vulnerable.
They were facing each other at this point, having turned onto their sides, still not looking away. Aziraphale wasn’t sure what of everything he felt was his own anymore, wasn’t sure what of everything he saw in those wide serpent eyes was the demon’s. It didn’t matter. There was nothing to explain or deal with, it just was, and so he just let it be. Their hands found each other‘s, their fingers entwined. This was, how they would stay, for the rest of the night, maybe their very last night, the last one of too many to count. It still wasn’t enough. It would never be.
„Why?“ The demon asked and Aziraphale thought about that for a very long time. There was an unspoken horrible idea underneath that question, which hurt. „You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.“ He answered eventually and pressed his other hand gently against the demon’s chest. „Especially in here.“ He sighed at Crowley‘s expression. „I really wished, you could see yourself with my eyes. But if I were to answer that question once and for all, if I‘d dig down to the very core of it, I would say: I love you, because I have to. There is no 'why' about it any more than there is a reason to why things fall downwards. “
„But there is a reason“, the demon said. „It’s natural law.“
„Exactly“, Aziraphale smiled at him and Crowley frowned. „Because you are what you are?“ Of course, he was an angel, his nature was to love, but that was so besides the point, it almost seemed ridiculous.
„Because of what I wouldn’t be“, he clarified. Alive. Something remotely sensible. Whole.
Crowley pulled their entwined hands to his chest and held them in place above his heart. There was a small smile on his lips. „Right.“
He still held them, when Aziraphale watched him fall asleep, felt his breathing even out beneath his hand and his troubled features relax. The most beautiful thing, he had ever seen. Against every logic he found, that in just this very moment, he was happy. Unconditionally and absolutely, terminally happy. He pulled his wings into existence and wrapped them carefully around both of them. He would fight Heaven and Hell to his last breath for the world that beat steadily under his fingertips. But if this was going to be the end, so be it. Now, tomorrow or when Time was over - they would still be holding each other’s hand, whenever it happened. And nothing else really mattered.