Work Text:
They say that drunk words are sober thoughts.
Aziraphale had never been sure he’d believed that. Humans did love a good bit of poetic symmetry, as blameless as they were for it. But mortal beings also flattered themselves wise to all of the world, and created thoughts and theories to comprehend the vast miraculousness of it all. They believed the world revolved around them. And, for a time, it did. It would. But one day, it would not.
Sayings, or idioms, were a form of comfort to humans. They created clever speeches that would trek forwards into centuries to come with the same, stoic words that had fallen from some sagacious fool’s lips. It was a coddling, of sorts, to humans: to pretend they could see the future, or predict everything. Though no experience would ever stay unique for long, neither could those phrases be unfailingly, and always, true.
In the pristinely-kept A. Z. FELL & Co bookshop, gold-trimmed and composed, sat two old friends, sharing one bottle of wine. They were the most particular and oddly-met of the sorts: an angel and a demon, at such a comfortable peace with one another that one might even say it was a sort of natural element for them.
Though you might assume, at first, they’d be on the fleet from Heaven and Hell due to their charming alliance, that was not such a case. They had thwarted both realms now twice over, and seemed to fear no issue, no interference from their former employers. The divinities were still watched by the incessant eye of God, and Satan. But they were completely unbothered by it. They both knew their lineup on the list of concerns, and it was exhilarating how many times they’d come close to hitting the top.
The last that Aziraphale had heard from Heaven had been when a job offer had been made. The position of the Supreme Archangel, in place of the absent Gabriel, who had gone off to galavant with his newfound lover, Beelzebub. It had been an inspiration, truly, how quickly they had done it. Not the offer, of course, but the couple themselves. A Sin and the Supreme Archangel, angel and demon, a match made in… well, nowhere. It was an unlikely pairing that had surprised everyone.
Though, funnily enough, Aziraphale and Crowley had been doing it for years. They just hadn’t known it.
When the proposition was raised, Aziraphale was shocked. Past it, in fact. He was astonished, utterly bewildered. Only a fool would ever turn such an enticing offer down.
“No, thank you.”
Metatron had blinked, struck dumb. “I’m sorry?”
“Though your offer is kind,” Aziraphale quickly and gracefully composed his words. “I am afraid I must turn you down on it.”
Metatron spluttered. “But– but you would reign so much power.” He scoffed, a winded breath. “You would be several insurmountable steps closer to God.”
“Right.” Aziraphale did not want to appear rude, but he was merely indifferent to the situation, to the proposition. “And I’m sure someone else could fill the role quite nicely.”
The Metatron huffed again, an attempt to laugh with a throat much too dry. “You would have the right to carve the path of humanity and Heaven as we know it.” His coffee sat, now dejected, on the quaint table before them both. “Do you not comprehend what is being surrendered to you here?”
Surrendered. Aziraphale lifted his hands from his lap, folded them neatly as he set them upon the table.
“I do.” He had said, simply. “It seems I simply have no taste for it. Not at all.”
He began to stand, nodding a farewell to the immortal. “Thank you for your kind offer.” A polite smile shed to the bewildered man. “And best of luck to your search.”
Aziraphale sat now, contemplating the rush of it all. It swirled by in fanciful colours, the events that occurred thereafter.
When Aziraphale had returned to the bookshop, Crowley had been writhing with anticipation, words he couldn’t say if he stopped. So the angel had listened, had heard Crowley in all his nervous mumbling.
“Ah– I, uh, we’ve known each other a long time, and,” Crowley had swung his arms impatiently, teetering from tiptoes to heels in an awkward display of anxiety. It was rare that he ever got like this. In fact, Aziraphale couldn’t name the last time he had been.
The demon had continued. “Well, I– I’d been suppressing a lot of… things I’ve been long overdue to say. Secrets I just can’t keep from you because…” He paused, stilling his movements, but fidgeting with his hands. “Because you’re my friend, whether I like it or not– whether Heaven or Hell like it or not. And I suppose I just have to– to fucking get it on with, because if I don’t say this, I think I’ll turn myself inside out—”
“Crowley,” Aziraphale had cut in, taking a few steps forwards to placate his distressed friend. He set a settling hand on the demon’s shoulder. “Please, calm down. I’m listening. Take your time.”
A look had flashed in Crowley’s eyes, visible even behind the glasses with the way the light caught him from the side. He inhaled, though he barely showed it, and nodded, absently sucking his bottom teeth in apprehensiveness.
“Right, I– I just…” Another breath drawn. He exhaled so quietly that the angel wouldn’t have noticed, if it weren’t for the way his chest trembled as he had let it go. “You go too fast for me, sometimes. I can’t keep up with you, can’t tell you the things I wish I could just bloody spit out.” A tremor of self-directed anger growled in his tone at the last words.
“We– we’ve known each other since I created those blasted stars, beautiful as they are. It may have only been a moment, but– but I remember it best of all.”
A moment had nagged at the back of Aziraphale’s mind: a montage of every time Crowley had muttered a “do I know you?” or a “have we met?”. He’d said it countless times, that Aziraphale knew for sure. But for each time, he had never once said that to the angel himself. Had never shaken his head blankly at a memory that Aziraphale resurfaced. Crowley always seemed to remember, so long as it pertained to Aziraphale.
The angel had nodded, not daring to say another word and break the spell, the miracle that seemed to be slowly forming over them like a dome. The eye of a storm.
“For six-thousand years, we’ve been absently chasing each other around the world.” Crowley’s voice cracked, just slightly, but he either didn’t notice, or didn’t care. Couldn’t care. “Watching life live and die, witnessing history, and I just can’t find it in me to give a shit about anything else. About those remarkable humans we’ve met, about Hell, or about Heaven. About wine, or food, or– or our ‘duties’ as divine beings.” At this, Aziraphale managed to stifle an impending hitch in his breath. “All I’ve ever found myself caring about, is– is you. Us.”
Aziraphale wanted to pull those wretched glasses from his face, see his eyes, right then. But that thought didn’t linger long, when Crowley drew another shakier breath.
“Aziraphale, we’ve been on our own side since we first met.” And, oh, did the angel like how Crowley said his name. “Whether intentional or not, we have been. Undeniably. Truthfully.”
“Ineffably.” Aziraphale added, a small smile pressed to his lips knowingly.
And, thank whatever it was — certainly not God Herself, but the light, perhaps — for the bit of visibility that the lenses could share of Crowley’s eyes. Because they softened, ever-so-slightly, and fixed so devastatingly gently on Aziraphale’s gaze. Though he didn’t smile, his expression had already said enough.
He swallowed, nodded. “Ineffably. For six-thousand years, I’ve been doing everything for you.” The demon said, throat rippling with another imbibe. “Not for Hell, and certainly not to pull my punches and be virtuous. Every moment I spent away from you meant less to me than the smallest thing that’s ever happened when we were near each other.”
Crowley paused, and Aziraphale knew that his point was coming across, finally. He could see the waves of fear and relief washing at the demon’s expression in asynchronous turns.
“The fact is that, for six-thousand years, I’ve been in love with you.” The words came like a flood of warmth, not destructive, but enveloping and pulse-raising. “And– and I tried not to, for all I was worth. I pushed it away, and pretended it wasn’t there. I didn’t want to ruin you, or lose you. I didn’t want to see you get hurt, or pull away,” and at this, he had scoffed in his melancholy tone. “Because I’d sooner see eternity end before I let any harm come to you.”
In that moment, there had been a beating of blood, a stretch of silence. In just mere moments, the angel was reaching up assuredly to remove the glasses from the demon’s face, watching as the sheer anxiety and understanding mixed within him. He let them fall from his hand, neither flinching at the soft sound of the clattering on the bookshop’s floor. They didn’t seem to notice. Much less care.
No words needed to be spoken as the heartbeats grew louder, as the silence grew stronger. Crowley inhaled again, and spoke Aziraphale’s name. Then they pressed forwards.
It was tender. Not rough, or raging, as he had foolishly thought it would be. There was so much fervour, and a building sort of passion to it, but he didn’t feel overwhelmed. Not by Crowley’s actions, at least. Though his heart jumped, hammered against his corporal ribs like a newly freed bird, a spike of euphoric joy shooting through him at once. Crowley had exhaled, then, instead of desperately gasping for air. Aziraphale swore his heart leapt into his throat, then, and would have filed a complaint of a faulty physical body, if it hadn’t been so natural. It was all so… indescribably right.
There are many emotions that humans will never comprehend, wordless feelings that just cannot be pinpointed in any description. Such a sensation was this.
After the kiss came a long conversation, followed by more kissing. There was enough time for them, now. They didn’t have to be so tedious. And, for the record, they weren’t going to be. Both had decided to use their eternities for what wasn’t said, something they imagined would be bitten back between clenched teeth for all the rest of time, ‘til the very last star flickered out in a supernova, ‘til God snuffed out the existence of all for the hell of it.
But here, now, they were sharing a good bottle of wine. Cheap, sure, but you couldn’t go wrong with a classic pinot noir. Neither were drunk, simply loosened by the rush of the hearth-like taste of the liquid. It was a drink that had been made by some wise mortal that Aziraphale couldn’t remember at this nearly-inebriated moment.
“D’you still ‘ave that tapestry?”
Crowley’s inquiry sparked Aziraphale’s laxed attention. “Hm?”
“Y’know,” he prodded further, waving a hand vaguely. “The one from that weaver, back in Greece that one time.”
Recognition clicked into place. “Ah, you mean in 326 B.C?” He sipped his drink, inclining his head. “Yes, I still keep it in storage.”
Crowley tsk-ed his tongue in thought, tipping his head back from his greedy, horizontal drape across the couch. “Lovely woman who weaved it, she was. Awfully nice, and smart, too.” He furrowed his brows, unblocked by the lack of his usual shades. “What was ‘er name, again?”
The angel thought for a moment. “Althea, I think.”
Crowley snapped his fingers. “That’s right,” he declared, affirmed by the memory of Aziraphale. “You should hang it up somewhere in ‘ere. It’s much too pretty to be gathering dust in some box.”
An agreeing sigh. “You’re absolutely right.”
There was a comfortable silence in the room as Aziraphale took another sip of his wine. It didn’t last long.
“When did’jou first fall in love with me?” Crowley asked.
Aziraphale drank in the sip quickly, in surprise. He paused as it rushed down his throat, burning this time due to him nearly inhaling it in his unpreparedness.
The demon looked up, craning his neck to better see his companion. “Angel?”
“Ah,” the angel pressed a hand to his mouth, recollecting himself. “Yes, I heard you.”
Crowley waited for a moment. When Aziraphale caught his lambent, yellow gaze, he raised his brows expectantly. “Well?”
“It– I don’t exactly know,” he admitted, forehead creasing in thought. “I suppose I simply sort of… always was, somewhat. It only grew stronger over time.”
He shifted, thinking harder. “Though, I confess, there was a moment when I knew all too well.” He didn’t miss the way Crowley was watching him, as if he was the only thing interesting in the entirety of creation. It was a look Aziraphale had long known well on the demon’s face. “I had always suppressed it, wrote it off as some spurious thing. Back then, I wasn’t one to risk all too quickly.” Aziraphale hummed, mulling over the details. “But then, you did something for me that made me realize that I… I simply couldn’t avoid it anymore. I lost all interest in feigning indifference to it.”
Crowley curled a brow, curiously. “When?”
Aziraphale felt himself flush at the memory. “1941, if memory serves.”
A look passed over the demon’s face, like an elated recognition. “In the church?” He blinked, amazed. “During the bloody Blitz?”
The angel nodded. “You– you saved my books, Crowley.” He reminded. “You cannot deny that it wasn’t incredibly thoughtful.”
“Awh,” Crowley rebutted, waving his free hand, the one that wasn’t cradling his alcohol lackadaisically. “Wasn’t that big of a deal, angel.”
“Well, it was to me.” Aziraphale protested. “I had been ignoring any notion of my feelings for you, but you– you just came in and… and I just couldn’t help but feel a sort of hope.”
Crowley’s mouth opened, perhaps to rebuke the romance of it all, but he faltered. In his serpentine eyes, Aziraphale could see the thoughts swirling like unmixed wine. Sure, Crowley was snarky, a tad esoteric — but at heart, he was a true romantic, for the right people, the right person. The right angel.
When he said nothing, the former continued. “Right then, I stopped denying it. Thus began my slow, but sure, climb to disobedience. Wouldn't have traded it for the world.” He drank the wine once more, shallowing it with every sip. “And you?”
Crowley, gaze fixed intently on the angel, had obviously had other things on his mind; a trance broke over him at the prompting. “Hm?”
“When did you fall in love with me?”
For a moment, Crowley deliberated, tipping his head back in his customary way. “Hate to steal your answer, angel, but I’d have to say it’s been an undefinable amount of time.” He shrugged. “Just didn’t know how to not.”
Aziraphale knitted his brows. “How do you mean?”
Crowley hissed inwardly, sucking air in from between clenched teeth. “Can’t really explain it. Think I knew, fully and honestly, from Eden, I suppose. Maybe it was more of a crush.” He considered more. “Rome was when I knew something was up. Couldn’t get my mind off you, no matter how irritating it became.”
He lolled his head to the side, facing Aziraphale in his customary spot in the cushy desk seat. “Then, there was the holy water.”
The angel made some sort of amused sound. “Good lord, the holy water.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Crowley dismissed, waving at the blossoming look of smugness and nostalgia on Aziraphale’s face. “But, if anything, that was my… ‘moment of hope’, or whatnot.”
He drained his glass, the stain of red liquid still trailing after the rest of it in his cup. He set it carelessly upon the dainty side table beside the couch, knowing his hand was steady enough to keep it upright, as long as he kept his wits about him.
Looking upon his beloved companion, Aziraphale thought back to the offer that had been placed in front of him on that fateful, and long, day. With a point of reference here, right before his eyes, he was sure that he would not have taken that job, not with the outcome of Crowley being able to just… be there, with him. As they were. Nothing more had to be achieved.
After all, they’d spent six-thousand years pining. Anything was good enough, if it meant there was an ‘us’.
“If you could go back and change anything,” Aziraphale wondered aloud. “What would you?”
Crowley thought, long and hard, gaze fixed aimlessly in the air. The angel considered as well, but in the span of the silence, he began to form his answer. He opened his mouth to speak, then hesitated. But only for a moment.
“Would you?”
The demon twisted his lips in a deliberate sort of way, the reply coming smoothly at the vaster option. He shook his head. “Nah,” he decided. Then he turned to his side, gaze flicking to Aziraphale, and holding fast there. “Would you?”
The angel met his gaze. “No,” he smiled. “I don’t think I would.”
What is it, that humans say about such a subject? Only fools fall in love?
Another idiom, a sentimental sentence that was easy to remember, and even simpler to disobey. Hypocrites were made, whoever spoke the words aloud and meant them. They were fools for even believing such an untruth.
But, perhaps, it is best to be a fool, than so impassively wise.
𓆩♡𓆪
It was a nice day.
The sunlight, fresh and full in the antique bookshop, reached towards the bookshelves with its warm fingers, falling upon certain ones, and casting short shadows upon others. A neatly arranged desk, courtesy of Crowley — who claimed it was no big deal — stacked with piles of books which Aziraphale hadn’t been able to get his hands on, hadn’t been able to read. Again, a passive gift from a beloved someone, who had insisted that they hadn’t been that hard to find, angel, and it really was nothing. The gestures hadn’t gone unthanked, or unkissed, and he certainly hadn’t forgotten the dues he planned to pay.
Aziraphale was arranging the books, now. Mending the messy aftermath of Gabriel’s amnesiac episode, which had led to the sorting of the books by the first word in their transcription. Though he appreciated the thought immensely, the angel figured it was best to not confuse those who entered and actually planned on finding anything.
He was just placing a copy of War and Peace in the respectively assigned Historical Fiction section, when the clacking of footsteps sounded saunteringly behind him. As expected, and hoped, a pair of arms snaked around Aziraphale’s middle, holding him tightly in such a natural way that the joy might have killed him if he were mortal. Thank God he wasn’t.
“Angel,” Crowley prompted, murmuring over the other’s shoulder. “Are we out of whiskey?”
A surprised chuckle sounded from said angel. “My dear, it’s nine in the morning.”
The demon, in turn, scoffed, and loosened his grip on the other, presumably to roll his yellow eyes. “Well, ‘m not gonna drink it now,” he supplied, as if it were blatantly obvious. “‘S for later.”
Aziraphale hummed, half-agreement, and a knowing half-disbelief. He spotted something out-of-place upon the shelf, and moved a hand to fix it. With the other, he reached up and set it gently upon Crowley’s hand, which had shifted to glide up onto the angel’s shoulder just moments before.
“I’ve been thinking lately, Crowley,” Aziraphale began, eyes tracing the bookshelf absently.
“Mm, yeah?” He murmured, his usual aloof tone drenching his words. Though the demon could always sound uninterested, feigning blankness when there was really boredom, that wasn’t always the case. At least, not when he was with Aziraphale. “‘Bout what?”
“About taking a vacation.”
He could feel Crowley still with interest. “Oh?” He tilted his head upwards, watching where Aziraphale’s hand moved against the weathered spines of the books. “And where would we be going?”
He felt his heart stumble against his ribs, in a customary way. We, the angel’s mind echoed. Ever since he had rejected the offer, however enticing, they had affirmed that they were, undoubtedly, a pair. A couple, nonetheless, but a team, a unit. Wherever one went, the other would follow. As eternity had been, a longstanding game of cat and mouse, an incessant round of tag. They had already done it for six-thousand years, what was the rest of eternity to that?
Aziraphale paused, though he knew good and well that the location had long been branded into his mind, ever since the beginning of it all.
“I was thinking,” he began, nonchalantly. “Perhaps Alpha Centauri?”
The presence of Crowley wrapped around him like a serpent in coils was suddenly as cold blooded as it would have been had he been embraced by a true serpent. The demon was suddenly motionless, completely and utterly still. An automatic anxiety flared in Aziraphale’s chest, as was natural. Was the idea long outdated? Did he read the signals wrong, and trigger an old ache, a bruise that had not yet healed to a single press? He would have fretted for longer, if it hadn’t been for the demon’s ability to react quite quickly.
“Lord, Aziraphale,” he breathed, voice surprisingly melancholy. “I love you so damn much.”
At that, the angel felt a smile cross his face at the words. Honestly, Aziraphale didn’t truly care about where they’d go, as long as they went together. All he’d ever wanted, really, was to make Crowley happy. And, well, it wouldn’t hurt to see those beautiful stars again, with the more breathtaking being who’d created them.
A hand on his other shoulder signaled him to turn, and he was met with bright eyes and an even more radiant smile. There you are, was the thought he bit back, though it wasn’t something he needed to hide. It was simply something that need not be said.
The angel would be the first to admit that, surely, he was quite touchy himself. Always looking for some way to feel, to make contact and affirm their presences together, though he was always acutely aware of it. But he had been fortunate enough to learn of Crowley’s tendencies himself: a clingier person than you’d expect, to the right one, of course. He didn’t just go around, generously doling out his affection. That seemed to have always been strictly reserved.
Crowley was on him in mere seconds; arms wrapped around him tightly, pressing sweetly thorough kisses to the angel’s face, his lips. He laughed, giddy with the prospect alone. Aziraphale decided, or rather reaffirmed, that it was a sort of excitement that he was insistent to see on the demon again. A thousand, six-thousand, times more.
In his glee, Crowley spun them as he held the embrace fiercely, without fear of losing it to treacherous timing, or ill fortuity. He leapt back, still clutching his angel tightly, and grinned wider, if somehow possible.
“I fucking love you.” He repeated, the verve unfaltering on his face, in his stance.
With a laugh that, perhaps, he might have stifled modestly had they still been God-revering deities, Aziraphale returned the glowing smile. “I love you too,” then he added, “Crowley.” Because he was beginning to learn the masterful art of words, the ways of unnecessary reassurance that it was just them, and no one else could compare.
And maybe, just maybe, because they were a pair, a couple, who were on a side of their own.