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“I don’t hear anything.”
Aziraphale concedes, at the edge of exasperation. And Crowley feels it too. Every attempt to appeal to Aziraphale, every way he has ever learned to sway him until now, has failed. He is running out of options. Maybe sentiment will work.
I’ve got nothing left to lose that I don’t stand to lose already…
“That’s the point. No Nightingales.”
This lands. But perhaps too hard, as Aziraphale’s face falls from of resolute conviction, to what looks like a mildly sickening shock. The sincere ache from evoking that particular song is palpable. It is Crowley after all, who introduced Aziraphale to music, another earthly luxury. He knows the Nightingale song is theirs and every time it plays, the Angel thinks of him.
After so much time, if I can’t get through by now, what was it going to take?
The thought of these moments being the last moments with Aziraphale is more terrifying than falling from Grace. Aziraphale was the only soul between all of Heaven and Hell who saw the good in him, who uplifted his natural penchant for understanding instead of condemning it, or corrupting it. And for all that, all Crowley ever wanted in return was to be an Us with his Angel.
“You idiot. We could have been… us.”
The Angel winces as every word exchanged in the last few minutes between them accumulate and break over him. Tears begin to pool in those pale blue eyes (1) and Aziraphale turns away, to his left. Crowley has never made Aziraphale cry before. An instant guilt swells and mixes with the intense urge to comfort. He has always been able to comfort with words, but words, it seems, have failed him this time. His silver tongue was no use, unless…
Crowley strides across the room and grabs Aziraphale’s jacket lapels as he pulls him in swiftly for what he hopes to be “one fabulous kiss” (2).
It’s all so fast, so unplanned, and then time almost stops. The whole of their beloved earth finds a new axis on which to spin (3). He would have stopped time for real if it had occurred to him, but the novel sensation of an embrace is overwhelming; the utter closeness, the contact of skin, the pressure created between their earthly bodies. This is new. This is wholly uncharted. He can vaguely remember the first time he indulged in earthly matter, human wine, but it has nothing on this moment, right here.
It occurs to Crowley, he has never been this close to anyone before. The smell of Aziraphale, the taste of him, the tactile softness of lips on lips, unknown until this moment, sending dazzling, undulating shivers, like waves of unfolding nebulae across his body, flooding his senses. He never knew humans could feel all this, all at once. Form shapes nature (4), and they have been in human form for a very long time.
Crowley suddenly feels each of Aziraphale’s hands settle on his back and press down in a tentative, reciprocating embrace. He pulls the Angel into him even more. The heart in Crowley’s corporation leaps as though his wings have just opened on the inside.
It’s working!
But just as soon as the weight of being underneath Aziraphale’s hand is there, it disappears.
Hold on for just one more second. Please don’t pull away…
Crowley releases his grip on the lapels and Aziraphale steps back.
He was skeptical about the ox rib at first, and then loved it. It just took a moment… That moment will happen. It will… right now. It has to…
Crowley is nearly holding his breath as he watches Aziraphale struggle to articulate.
“I….”
Yes. Aziraphale, get there. Please.
But the Angel’s face turns, like spoiled wine; a furrowed brow. The pain in his eyes glows and the expression Crowley feared most, stays resolute.
“I forgive you.”
“I don’t hear anything.” And he really doesn’t, other than the clock from behind him that beats out its familiar, steadfast pulse.
“That’s the point. No nightingales”
A sharp pang leaps up from Aziraphale’s chest. He always associated that song with Crowley since he first heard it in the 1930’s with its chaste yet undeniable affection. It all felt so terribly human, but he had long ago accepted with delight, the power that human music had for evoking emotion. He adored it and indulged in it. The way he saw it, they were the Angels dining at the Ritz. Even if Crowley was a demon, he was an Angel once, and why not again!
Why not come back with me? Can’t he see I need him! I cannot decline the invitation to make changes, do good. Real, true good… together.
“You idiot… We could have been…us…”
We still can! You stubborn Demon…You’re the one who said Nightingale! You must feel it. Let’s be that, in Heaven!
A terrible hopelessness washes over Aziraphale. He is being rejected by the only soul who ever saw him for who he was and never faulted or chastised him for it. The one who answered the question “what am I?” when he felt certain the answer was a Fallen Angel (5). Crowley had always been able to grant him grace that seemed lacking in Heaven. It was Crowley who could pluck him from the edge of despair, Crowley who made sense of things when Aziraphale could not. With every inevitable toll of the clock, it all slips away. Crowley is slipping away. Everything Aziraphale has felt for so long for his Demon, is real and they both knew it and is about to become one more thing that comes to pass.
Aziraphale’s eyes prickle and sting in the most acutely uncomfortable way. By instinct, he turns away, to his left, because to his left is where Crowley always is, but finds emptiness.
He could hear the gentle thud of Crowley’s footsteps approaching him. There is a tug on his jacket lapel as he realizes with almost no time to process, Crowley has grabbed him and turned him forward. Aziraphale is as close to Crowley as he was that one time in Tadfield, the closest they had ever been… and then Crowley gets closer.
There are many things Aziraphale has put to his lips. Many things he has experimented, tasted and gorged on, while occupying this human corporation. But Crowley’s mouth was not one he ever thought was attainable.
Was this not everything he had been casually daydreaming about everytime they were together, especially these last few decades? But this right here, right now, was not Jane Austen. Not in the acceptable slightest. Crowley is holding him so firmly, pressing each other together. Aziraphale always thought lips were meant to feel gentle, kissing always looked so tender.
Form shapes nature, and Aziraphale’s form takes over for a moment long enough to breathe in the smell of Crowley and feel the warmth that radiates off him. The Angel is lost between the confounding recognition that this feeling, right here, superseded every earthly delight he had ever engaged with, and the forceful, rushed desperation of this sudden and unexpected communion. He is suddenly and awkwardly aware of his hands, more specifically not knowing what on earth to do with them.
Hold him.
He rests his palms against the back of the demon. Immediately, Crowley presses closer into him, and Aziraphale lifts his hands away. This was all too much.
It’s too… it’s a temptation! But...
He wants it, but can’t… He wants to embrace Crowley and keep the two of them together, at their closest, but he can’t give in like this… what kind of Angel is he, why is Crowley doing this? A knife’s edge of anger towards Crowley for pushing him this far, prods in Aziraphale as the Demon’s grip relaxes and they fall away from each other.
Aziraphale feels his face screw up in the torment of this fresh temptation. The requited yearning has been fulfilled, and the sweetness is too sweet.
Oh Crowley… I don’t understand what just happened (6), because, I shouldn’t want to know what a Demon feels like, or whether I like it or not, and now… now I know, and it was…
Crowley stands on the rug covering the portal between their polar opposite worlds. Even adorned with those opaque glasses, it is the most vulnerable Aziraphale has ever seen him. He has the strong urge to comfort, but is still reeling from Crowley’s kiss which momentarily unhinged his own sense of self and is actively plunging him into the deepest most delicious temptation he has ever experienced.
Do it again… please, do it again… (7)
Aziraphale finds himself stuck between the desire to get a grip on these overwhelming human emotions with his superior ethereal will and the desire to comfort his beloved Crowley, who should have known better than to push him so far like that. He couldn’t help but feel betrayed by it all, but he must rise above…
How can I resolve this?
“I… I forgive you.”
Might have been a bit sharp, that.
Forgiveness lands on Crowley, not as the grace an Angel bestows on the wretched, but as a cold punch to a soul laid bare.
It is “fraternizing” in St. James Park.
It is “not another word” spat out through medieval armor.
It is “it’s over” at the bandstand.
It is “nothing lasts forever” just moments ago.
It is the shades of gray segregating back into staunch black and white.
It is ending the universe after only 6 thousand years and all the stars that will never be born.
Crowley has more than half a mind to turn heel out the door. The bookshop has never felt so cold.
Don’t bother with your patronizing forgiveness. I didn’t do anything wrong.
“I don’t want it.” Crowley growls.
“What?”
“Don’t forgive me for that.”
“How can I not? Crowley, you, we just… you just!”
The Angel stammers, but the Demon stays resolute.
“And I am not sorry.”
“You tempted me!”
Crowley tips his chin down in defeat, his lips curl up as though wincing from a precise unseeable pain.
“Is this my fate? Hmm? Always presumed evil. That…” He composes himself enough to look back up at Aziraphale as he gestures to the air between them, as though it is more distinctive from all the other air around them, now that it holds the fresh memory of a kiss. “... that… was not evil. That was not a temptation. Aziraphale. I… rrrgh… What have we been doing for the last few days, ehh? I mean, with the humans… I thought, I thought you thought… with rainstorm and the dancing…and the whatever-bit-on-the-side-thing that’s not a thing…”
Aziraphale has gone from his most defensive to his most confused state, trying to keep up with Crowley’s rambling, and failing. The betrayal he was feeling moments ago is swept away in the levee break of Crowley’s attempt to explain.
“...What bit on the…”
“...These sodding humans are better at damnation than… gahhhh… for Satan's sake. I don’t know how I could be any clearer!”
“Clearer! You’ve not been clear at all!”
“What do you want from me? And don’t say to come to heaven with you.”
“Why not.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not.”
“Because.”
“Crowley!”
“Because I love you you idiot! I…. Aziraphale, there's love here.”
“You, you love me?”
“Quite some time now.” He says on an exhale, as though he is delivering news of a terminal diagnosis.
“Since when?”
“Ehh, since…eewwwn.” he mumbles.
“Come again.” The Angel takes a curious step forward, his brow raised in gentle encouragement at Crowley who is back to staring at the floor.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“On the contrary, I believe it matters a great deal.” Aziraphale takes another step closer.
“Really?” Crowley asks the floor rhetorically, with a slight tone of spitting self depreciation.
“Really.” Aziraphale says earnestly, in a voice just above a whisper.
Crowley lifts his gaze to realize Aziraphale is standing in front of him again, like a cautious doe braving an open field.
“Please tell me.”
A sigh, and then, “I think, I thin it started in Eden.” Crowley concedes.
“Eden! But that was...”
“Yea…”
“...So long ago now...”
“...Not that long ago. Doesn’t feel like it really, considering…”
“What was it?”
“How do you mean?”
“Was there a, umm, a moment? Humans sometimes refer to there being a moment…” Aziraphale slows his words down to the crawl like a car around a blind turn, “... a moment when one knows they’ve fallen in love.”
Crowley breathes heavily out of his nose as the memory lights up, never too far from the front of his mind, and the smallest smile cracks across his face, “Yea.”
“Yes? That really happened to you?”
Aziraphale is careful to keep his words and tone as reposeful as possible. He does not want to frighten this moment away.
Crowley nods in confirmation to the human quirk of love-falling. “It was when you said…”
Crowley stops mid sentence. Aziraphale is gently removing Crowley’s glasses revealing his lustrous eyes, brimming with unfallen tears. He watches with mild shock as Aziraphale pockets them. It feels as intimate as kissing.
“Please continue. What did I say?”
Crowley blinks a few times and gathers himself up again, “...It was when you said, you gave away your sword.”
“Really?” The Angel cannot help but smile. “And that was it then?”
“Don’t make fun of me.”
“Not at all.” The Angel leans his head over ever so slightly in a bashful shrug, eyebrows raised. “For me it was when you saved my books during the blitz (8)."
Aziraphale’s words hold themselves in the thickness of the air. Crowley is dawned on.
“Wot…” Crowley fears he may have lost his breath forever and that a dumbfounded utterance was the last thing he will ever manage to say.
“ ‘Fraid so. That was, well, I do recall telling you back then, how kind that was. I couldn't say back then, how much that meant to me. Such a small thing.” Aziraphale heaves a sigh, releasing his own confession gives him new room to breathe. “But, that was it.”
“What are you saying?” Crowley’s voice returns with a surge of confidence, laced with his old hint of suave curiosity. His eyes gleam with the anticipation of discovery.
“Are you going to make me say it?” Aziraphale does not break eye contact.
“Ohh, I’m going to have to insist, ” Crowley smiles and wrinkles his nose, “that you do.”
They are standing as close to each other as they had been moments ago when they embraced. And they both know it.
“Crowley, I… will you… do it again?”
“Do what, Angel?”
Aziraphale rests a hand on Crowley’s chest.
Crowley inhales a small sharp breath, holding on desperately to his cool.
“Please?”
“Please what? You need to say it.”
They both hold the smallest of smiles, and the deepest of breaths as the space between them decreases to the size of a secret, of a whisper, of a single breath.
“Will you please, do that again?”
“Say it Angel.”
“Can we kiss again?”
“Why?” He is a Demon after all…
There is no more space between them now than the space it would take for them to dance together on the head of a pin.
“Because Crowley. I love you.”
A Brief Epilogue
It has been a long time now since Muriel, with unintentional success, dispatched the trench coat clad Voice of God back to heaven when they gleefully reported that through the window they saw, “the traitor and the demon are pressing each other’s faces together!" The view had earned the same expression Muriel had regarding the notion of sipping a cup of tea. No thank you!
For days or weeks or months now, Crowley and Aziraphale have been in the back of the bookshop, in the private upstairs quarters of the bookshop, in the aisles of the bookshop, on the roof of the bookshop, in the Bentley parked outside the bookshop… finding the borders to each other's comfortability in the way of physical affection. They have all the time in the world now.
“Hang on!” Crowley pulls away from his compromising position under Aziraphale's certain and unwavering embrace. “The blitz you say!”
“What’s that?” Aziraphale blinks in surprise from the sudden mood change.
Crowley sits up “You only felt love for me after the blitz, we’ve been here for six thousand years!”
“No! Well I mean, yes. I look…” Aziraphale stutters a bit, then sits up next to Crowley and wipes away some moisture from around his mouth with a conveniently on hand handkerchief. “...in all earnestness…”
“I should hope so, Angel.” Only half teasing.
“Crowley,” Aziraphale cups the side of Crowley’s face in his hand, recognizing immediately that his demon needs some reassurance, “remember when you were building the Nebulas?
“Yea..."
"While the whole of the universe, blossomed, I could barely keep my eyes off you.”
“So?”
“So,” Aziraphale drops the hand cradling Crowley’s face and in one graceful movement, wraps an arm around Crowley’s hip and pulls him back into alignment, corporation to corporation, “I have always loved you. It was just, when you saved the books, that whole night actually, it became something real.”
A curled lip and pensive growl escapes “Right.”
“Is this not enough for you?” Aziraphale nudges his nose against the demon’s cheek. The playfulness gives escape to a rueful smile in Crowley’s expression.
“Give me eternity, it won’t be enough.”
“What a romantic.”
“Shut up.” They fall back down together, into each other; their love for each other expressed by physical action swirls around them like an atmosphere, built of accidental unmitigated miracles. They are creating a world of their own, where they can be an eternal Us.