Chapter Text
“It would be a nice change, for both of us! You know how much I’ve wanted this job, Anthony,” Aziraphale spoke. He was using that tone again. The one that was similar to the tone that a mother would use to keep her child from being a nuisance.
“You know what I think about you leaving that change for you. You know you can’t leave the bookshop! You depend on it!” Anthony looked more desperate than usual. For what, Aziraphale wasn’t quite sure. What wasn’t he telling him?
“Just…tell me you said no, please.” the taller of the two begged, his gaze intense as he stared down at Aziraphale. Anthony was met with silence.
“Tell me you said no!”
The silence engulfed the table now, suffocating the both of them.
It was finally broken by a laugh from Anthony’s lips. Not a happy one—off at a different table, on a different day, maybe—but not here, not at this one. It was a broken laugh. One that made the silence feel almost comforting. Aziraphale wanted to go back to the silence.
“You know what? Forget it, angel. I’m happy for you, I really am!” he sounded as if he was mocking him, “But this?” he gestured between them, “Is over.” “Don’t bother coming back.”
——————
As Aziraphale watched his dear friend walk away that night, he didn’t realize that it would be the last time he saw him for years. But those years dragged on like centuries. He liked the new job, sure, but he didn’t love it. He was a CEO and everything! Face of the company after the last one left for family reasons. Something about how he had left to be with the CEO at the rival company. Even if he had stayed, everyone looked down upon the previous CEO now. Even bringing him up was a dangerous feat. And here Aziraphale was, in a position he hated, in a job he hated, and in a company he hated.
But he had one thing to look forward to: the holidays.
It’s not like he didn’t like Wales! He loved it. It was beautifully green and lush, there seemed to be castles at every turn, and the weather was nice. There were mountains and the beaches were just lovely, even if Aziraphale had never visited them personally. He was always too busy with work. And Nefoedd, the town he stayed in, was just as charming, and probably one of the only other bustling cities besides Cardiff there, and it was quite the tourist attraction considering the name meant “heaven” in Welsh. But he had been getting antsy from staying so long there. So, he had decided to get into his car and take a little drive—little, in this case, was an hour and forty minutes (the appropriate length for all the best movies, in Aziraphale’s opinion)—back to his hometown of Soho.
But of course, on the way there, his car just had to inevitably stop. Stepping out into the brisk snow, he tightened his tartan scarf slightly and peeked into the bonnet of the car. He had no idea what he was looking for! He wasn’t one for fixing cars, always preferring to get them fixed at auto shops - his medium was more literary than anything. He sighed, running a hand through his snow white curls upon his head, noticing now they were getting longer. For a few minutes, he stood on the side of the road, waiting for any cars to drive up. When some did, he’d wave desperately, but most drivers ignored him or waved back, not understanding. He sighed exasperatedly before a car pulled up. But not just any car. Not an SUV, or a Cooper. No.
A black Bentley.
And not just any Bentley. A 1926 Bentley with a plate that read “NIAT RUC.” (It was curtain backwards. Aziraphale had this explained to him in grave detail when he made the mistake of asking about it. It was a Monty Python reference.) Aziraphale knew no one else of a Bentley with this caliber except for the last person he wanted to see.
Anthony J. Crowley.
——————
Crowley was going to propose that night.
Aziraphale and him had been an item for at least 6 years at that point, and they had known each other since high school (Though in high school they were more sensitive about their relationship. Different groups and all. You understand, the perfect little mold of obedience could never be seen with the rebel. Not back then.). And Crowley had loved Aziraphale (Still loved Aziraphale). He was everything that everyone who looked at him expected that he would stay away from in a man. He seemed almost angelic compared to Crowley; white-snow colored hair, rosy lips, rosy cheeks, blue eyes, and he dressed vaguely like a grandfather. White or blue collared shirts underneath brown sweater vests with nice shoes and khaki pants, perfectly buttoned jumpers layered over the top. And the tartan - it was omnipresent, whether it was a bowtie, or socks, or any accessory really, it was always there somewhere in his outfits.
But Crowley loved that about him. He loved his personality too; soft, gentle, caring, but strong and stern when he needed to be. He was perfect, and he always brought the best out of Crowley. He compared him to an angel for a reason.
But they hadn’t always been helplessly in love with each other. That wasn’t the case at all. They had their ups and downs before they had gotten together. Like when Crowley was trying to get Aziraphale to go on their second date, the angel said, “You go too fast for me, Crowley,” and left him there in his car as the man walked home. He never walked home and they both knew that. But he had that night.
But what really got him was the night he told him about the job. Ever since Aziraphale had left for Nefoedd, he was torn. He knew the other wasn’t coming back. He gave away the bookshop they had spent so much time together in. The bookshop the angel used to own, had tended to like his own child. He was gone for good and he was well aware of such things, but he couldn’t help but keep festering on it.
So today, he had decided to go for a little drive out to Scotland. He had always liked it out there, so why not go visit? Get his mind off of things. On the way back, he had passed by a soft yellow Volkswagen Beetle—a rare find these days, he thought blankly—but something then had popped out to him. The plate read “JNE ASTN.” Crowley knew well enough that it wasn’t just any yellow Volkswagen Beetle with a plate that alluded to the late author of one of the greatest romance novels of all time; this was Aziraphale Fell’s car.
And if none of the previous things were obvious to him, the angel he had loved—what felt like eons ago—stood on the side of the road, flailing his arms about, looking distressed. Crowley couldn’t help but laugh to himself before pulling over behind the yellow Beetle. He popped the door open and fixed his sunglasses, closing the door and strutting over like he was some kind of fashion model.
Crowley leaned up against Aziraphale’s car, his arms crossed and staring at him in silence for a moment. Eventually he spoke up, “What are you doing out here?”
Aziraphale was fidgeting with his hands. He was nervous. Why?
“My car broke down on my way back to Soho,”
“And why were you going there?”
He glanced off to his shoes for a moment, seeming to squirm under Crowley’s piercing gaze, “Well…Christmas is coming up, Crowley. I wanted to visit my friends.”
“Uh-huh.”
Silence stopped their conversation that they barely had in the first place.
“Did you call a tow truck?” Crowley asked.
“No.. my phone just died too.”
How convenient, Crowley thought, rolling his eyes behind his dark sunglasses. “Get in the car,” he gestured to the Bentley.
“Wh— why would I do that? You could be kidnapping me for all I know!” Aziraphale spoke incredulously.
“Why the hell would I kidnap you? Am I really a stranger to you, Aziraphale?”
Aziraphale sighed and he decided that Crowley was probably right, opening his Beetle’s door and leaning inside to get his valuables and locking up his car. Crowley looked away to not check him out, a nasty habit of his he knew about and didn’t want to relive at the moment. He didn’t know what he was thinking, helping Aziraphale after they broke up and everything. Aziraphale hated him from what he knew, so he was shocked the other didn’t just wait for another car. Eventually the other got inside, putting his suitcases in the boot of the car before getting into the passenger’s seat. The ride to Soho was mostly quiet, except for the soft sounds of Queen’s “Thank God It’s Christmas,” coming from the Bentley’s radio.
Crowley had never really liked Christmas. It wasn’t really his thing, and his family was always in a bad mood during the holidays (they were in a bad mood all the time, but particularly around this time) so he never had those family traditions with gifts, trees, cocoa, none of it. Young Crowley just listened as his schoolmates talked fondly of all the gifts that Santa had gotten them with misery. The specific thing he remembered from this time of year when he was young was when he had made the mistake of asking why the other kids got Christmas presents and he didn’t. He frowned a little at the thought, rubbing his cheek at the memory of the burning there from a slap to his face by his mother.
But even when he had moved out, he didn’t make a conscious effort to celebrate. He didn’t even know where to start. Well, until he met Aziraphale. He, on the other hand, loved Christmas. Aziraphale had loved working where he had so much because the Shopkeepers and Street Traders Association had a tradition where they would deck all of Whickber Street with holiday cheer down the whole street for 12 days leading up to Christmas. There was tree lighting, a Christmas Market, free cocoa from Give Me Coffee or Give Me Death, and much more. When he and Crowley had their first Christmas together, Aziraphale insisted on doing all of these events with him, saying it would be fun.
Even though Crowley had complained at most of the events, he had the best Christmas in his whole life. And it was made even better by a small kiss they had shared. And yet, they had broken up at Christmas too, which made him lose his fondness for the whole thing. He had actually started to like it back when he was with Aziraphale, and then when he finally left him for that stupid job, Crowley hated the holiday even more now. Anytime anyone was being romantic during the season, whether in public or on those dumb rom-coms on that blasted Hallmark Channel, it made him awfully angry. So much so that he couldn’t help but hurl his nearby decor at the television. He was thankful for Black Friday only because he could replace those shattered televisions for a cheaper price.
Starting the car and grabbing his phone from one of the center cup holders, he eyed it as he sped down the highway—albeit slower than before, but still quite fast. He punched in a number for a towing company and then casually put the phone up to his ear. As he listened to it ring, he glanced at Aziraphale for a moment, “Charger’s there,” he said with a gesture of his head in an unclear direction except to Aziraphale. The other, having been broken out of a trance of staring at Crowley, scrambled a little to grab his phone charger and push it into the port on his phone. He then set it down on one of the cup holders, noticing a stray receipt shoved inside.
Carefully plucking it out without the other noticing, (such things were easy considering he was preoccupied with talking to an incompetent receptionist at a towing company to take care of Aziraphale’s car whilst swerving around a few cars—one of which being a red truck hauling a Christmas tree, which Aziraphale found so darling that he didn’t notice the other’s noise of disgust.) he quickly shoved it into his pocket, deciding it would be best if the other didn’t catch him and if he looked at it later, he’d avoid being caught, of course.