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“Let’s go.”
“Go where?”
“The bookshop, of course. We should reclaim it. You’ll need your home back.”
Aziraphale was back on earth.
To be fair, he hadn’t been away for long, but long enough for Crowley to have multiple breakdowns and decide the rest of his lonely life would be absolutely miserable. Luckily, they had reunited that same day, after a few very long and very lonely hours for the both of them. So, apologies had been made and accepted, embraces and tears had been shared – but things still felt a little off. Because they were.
A lot had happened that day. Jim had become Gabriel again, only to leave behind his heavenly duties and run away with Beelzebub. Aziraphale had almost accidentally started a war after the Shopkeepers and Street Traders Association meeting he had hosted had turned into a Jane Austen-themed ball and then into the battleground of a demonic attack. After those things had been sorted out, Aziraphale had been offered to take over Gabriel’s place as Supreme Archangel, which he had accepted, leading to his and Crowley’s fight, topped off with a rejected kiss after Crowley had finally managed to somewhat explain what had been going on deep down inside for millennia. Then, Aziraphale had almost went to heaven, only to realise his mistake and come back immediately, but Crowley had been gone already, having driven off in his car to speed away his hurt. Through some miracle, their paths had led them both to St. James’s Park in the end, where they had reunited and made peace – and kissed, for real this time.
Aziraphale had of course reclaimed his bookshop after he and Crowley had made up. Muriel had been quite surprised to give up their duty this soon, but all the happier to have some company, since naturally, Aziraphale and Crowley couldn’t just have kicked them out.
That’s right, Crowley was staying there too. Obviously. It was his only home. And to Aziraphale, it was much less of a home without him there.
There was just one small problem…
“Well.” Aziraphale stood before the absolutely wrecked sofa, his fists placed firmly on his hips. “I’m afraid there were some casualties in the fight with those demons…”
Crowley nodded slowly, his arms crossed. “Looks like it.”
“Either way”, Aziraphale continued with a sigh, “your sofa is gone, I fear.”
Crowley’s eyebrows shot up, arches above his sunglasses. “My sofa? Since when is it my sofa?”
Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “Since you’ve claimed it? By sleeping on it and frowning at everyone else who even dared to sit on it?”
He still remembered a frightened Gabriel – well, Jim – well, Gabriel, but not really Gabriel – anyway. He still remembered his unexpected visitor making sure to never come near said sofa when Crowley was around and hurriedly picking up stacks of books he had placed there to sort as soon as he heard Crowley clear his throat behind him.
Crowley remembered too – he was quite fond of the memory. “Ah, yes.” A smirk curved his lip as he tilted his head amusedly – and admittedly rather contently. After all, Gabriel had deserved to be bossed around by someone else, for once. “I wasn’t aware that counted as claiming it, but I’m not gonna refuse.”
Aziraphale chose not to comment on that remark. “Anyway, we both know how much you enjoy sleeping, so you’ll need a replacement.” He was just thinking out loud at this point, to keep Crowley from going on a rant about how Gabriel had had no right to even enter the bookshop, much less stay there and make himself at home. They had been through this topic often enough the past few days. “Muriel is having the guest room, although they probably won’t use the bed, if we’re being honest. Still, I’d hate to take it from them. It’s a matter of comfort, you know…”
His arms had fallen to his sides, and he was tapping a pensive finger against his thigh.
Crowley was listening patiently. If his angel needed to ramble a bit to find a solution he deemed fitting, then so should be it. Crowley was fine with watching the magic unfold – the soft wrinkles of deep thought, the twinkle in Aziraphale’s eyes, the restless turning of wheels behind their pupils.
“We can get you a new sofa, or even a proper bed. I’m not using a miracle for that one, though. You know I don’t like using miracles on the bookshop. So, it’s going to take a bit.” His gaze found the ceiling, maybe in search of an answer. Like Crowley, Aziraphale enjoyed sleeping – but he didn’t do it as stubbornly as the other. Sleeping nearly every night meant less time for reading, and Aziraphale didn’t like to have less time for reading. Besides, reading was also a means of relaxation. So, a few hours of sleep every other night were just fine. “You could just use my bed meanwhile, if you don’t mind. I rarely ever sleep, anyway – though I enjoy the dreams.”
Still, he had to admit that whenever he didn’t get enough sleep for a longer while, he got a bit stressed or even anxious, and it was harder to concentrate. Of course, Crowley was all too aware of that, so Aziraphale quickly made sure to prevent a counterargument. “I mean, I know how you always say I should sleep more, but a few days will be just fine. There!” His gaze jumped back to Crowley. “We have a solution!”
Only now did Aziraphale see the fond smirk on Crowley’s face. He had taken off his sunglasses and was looking at his angel with sparks in his eyes. “Sure. But no.”
Aziraphale blinked. “What?”
“Well, about what you just said. We could do that, yes, but I know how stressed out you already are after… everything.” His voice turned softer for the last half of his sentence. He didn’t bother to specify what he was talking about. They both knew all too well. “So, not going to happen. You need real good a nap, angel.”
“Hmph.” Aziraphale pursed his lips. “Fine, whatever.” Suddenly, he tilted his head with squinted eyes. “Oh! Huh… well. Well, yes. It’s quite fine. Perhaps.”
Crowley raised his eyebrows, barely containing his laughter. “Now, what’s going on in that brilliant head of yours?”
He earned a cheeky little smile in return. (“Just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing.”) “Nothing at all, my dear. You’ll see soon enough.”
Those were two very contradictory answers, but Crowley chose to take them as they were. “Alright. So, tea?”
Aziraphale’s smile grew warmer. “Oh, yes! What a wonderful idea!”
Though not exactly tense, the atmosphere between them still felt a bit… weird, in the silence while they drank their tea. For good reason. To only sum up the changes in their relationship: in a single day, Aziraphale and Crowley had almost made their friendship a romantic partnership, but broken up before they had actually gotten together, then had had a fallout after a quite major fight but made up at nightfall, with a proper kiss and everything.
So, no wonder things felt a bit weird right now. But they were trying, both of them. And maybe, for now, that was just enough.
After a quiet tea break to calm down together, Aziraphale had muttered something about a thing he needed to do and gone upstairs. Crowley hadn’t questioned him and instead had sprawled across one of the chairs, which had luckily stayed unharmed in the fight against hell’s army of demons. He let his eyes wander across the familiar shelves, hundreds of books from every century, and towards the windows. It was pitch black outside and the glass was reflecting the dimly lit room wherever it wasn’t hidden by curtains.
The night seemed pleasantly tranquil.
Though somewhere deep within, something dark was pulling on him (a constant he had grown used to over the centuries), Crowley’s heart still felt unusually light and there was a funny buzzing inside his stomach, which brought back unpleasant memories of a trillion flies in the tight space of his beloved Bentley. He pushed the thought away. This felt much different – pleasant, for starters. Warm. And bright – maybe even bright enough to banish the darkness for a while. All in all: like Aziraphale. – Actually, yes, it kind of felt like some bit of the angel had left a trace on Crowley’s soul.
He didn’t know what to make of that thought. So, he got up to go look for his angel.
As always, the wooden stairs creaked a little every few steps. The scent also changed as he got to the upper floor. Up here, it was a little cooler and smelled a little softer, somehow. All the books, the tea, the cookies and pastries Aziraphale kept down there, even the outside world which came in through the occasional visitor or simply an opened window – they all had their own unique scent, and everything mixed up perfectly to a scent-cocktail of the warm and comfortable atmosphere of a bookshop that wasn’t actually a bookshop.
The upper floor, on the other hand, had no such variety and instead offered the scent of fresh bedsheets, different kinds of wood, and cozy evenings with a good book, a bar of chocolate and a cup of calming tea.
Although the door to Aziraphale’s bedroom was open, Crowley knocked quietly. He could hear him rummaging through a wardrobe inside. “You in there?”
“I am, come in!”
Of course.
Crowley let himself in but stopped in the doorway as he saw Aziraphale, already dressed in his faded light blue pyjamas, sticking in a wardrobe with his entire upper body. “Uh… need some help?”
“No, no, thank you.” He straightened, a bright smile on his face – and an almost mischievous spark in his eyes. “Actually, your timing is perfect!”
Crowley raised his eyebrows, waiting for whatever would come next. In no way could he have prepared for the ember-red garment Aziraphale proudly held up.
“Ta-da!”
Crowley squinted. “What’s that?”
“Pyjamas!” Aziraphale had expected some confusion, and so he had come prepared. “You see, I came across this really nice fabric on some market back in the early eighteenth century, and the colour reminded me of a very special someone, so I couldn’t help but get it made into something wearable.”
Crowley’s expression was caught somewhere between amused, perplexed and deeply touched. Maybe he might have said something, then, but Aziraphale wasn’t done yet. “Now, the texture doesn’t really work for anything other than cosy wear, and I just couldn’t imagine you in a screaming red robe, so I ordered it to be made into pyjamas instead.”
He beamed at Crowley. “They’re really soft! And short-sleeved, because you don’t get cold so easily, and you’ve complained about blankets being too warm. And look, they’ve even got thin golden embroideries!”
He traced a finger along said embroideries excitedly.
“There’s just one thing… because of course, I couldn’t get you to give me your measurements, it was supposed to be a surprise. So, they might not fit perfectly, I’m afraid, since I had to get them tailored from memory. But you’ll just have to try them on and see. I mean…” Now, he looked at Crowley questioningly. “… If you want…?”
At this point it should be said that Crowley had only ever worn pyjamas when he had stayed over at Aziraphale’s. The pure ridiculousness of getting a matching set of sleeping clothes had never once been tempting to him.
Aziraphale, on the other hand, had fallen for sleeping fashion a long, long time ago. There was just something comforting about laying down your everyday businesses together with your everyday clothes, and putting on soft nightwear instead, coloured in gentle beige or pastel yellow or dusty blue or cloudy white, with stripes or dots or flowers or clouds. He even had one especially fancy dark blue set with silver stars on it. Tonight, he had chosen one of his favourites, a blueish pair of pants and shirt, with the latter even having a little white-framed pocket on the left side of the chest.
Still holding up the pyjamas he had bought three centuries ago, Aziraphale was waiting for Crowley to answer.
And Crowley didn’t let him wait long. “You bought these three hundred years ago? And you’ve kept them in your wardrobe ever since?”
Aziraphale nodded. “It never quite seemed to be the right time to give them to you.”
“Fair enough.” Crowley walked up to his angel and took the pyjamas. “They are quite soft.”
“I know!”
The sheer excitement in Aziraphale’s voice sparked a smile on Crowley’s face. “Yeah, I guess I’m gonna give them a try. Thanks, angel.”
The smile he got in return was so breathtakingly bright that Crowley could feel the heat rising in his cheeks.
“Oh!” Aziraphale said, pointing to the door. “There’s a mirror in the bathroom, you might want to check how well it fits.”
Turning towards the bathroom, Crowley nodded. “Right, I’ll be just a minute.”
Aziraphale was sitting on his bed, his back leaned against a pillow he had put up against the wall, a book on his lap which he was trying to read. That was much easier said than done, though, considering his head was still swimming from the day’s events.
Crowley seemed to have forgiven him for now, but Aziraphale wasn’t sure if he was just too exhausted at the moment to be mad any longer and their peace would crack the next morning. At least he now knew that not all was lost. Crowley still had every right to be mad, but they had found common ground: their love for each other. And that was much more than what Aziraphale had dared to hope for after their fight.
Admittedly, he hadn’t gotten very far in his book when Crowley returned, dressed in his new (though considerably old) darkish red pyjamas.
“So, what do you say?” said Crowley, spinning a little to each side. (Unintentionally gracefully, as Aziraphale thought.)
“Oh, I think they fit you perfectly!” replied Aziraphale truthfully. Neither of them was as surprised about that fact as they might have been, considering Aziraphale had had them tailored for Crowley from memory. “How do you feel?”
Crowley nodded, a rather content expression on his face. “Yeah, they’re quite nice, really soft and light. And the measurements were quite on point, I have to give you that one.”
Though he was proud to hear it, Aziraphale felt his cheeks flush. “I’m happy you like them.” And he really was. He had waited three centuries to finally give Crowley this very special gift. To see it had been a success definitely made it worth the wait.
He drew a breath – “Well, now that you have fitting clothes…” – and patted the bed beside him with shy eyes and an inviting smile.
Crowley stared back at him with furrowed brows, a little befuddled. “You mean…?”
Aziraphale shrugged. He could feel his heart pounding. “I thought we might share, you know. Your sofa is destroyed, and my bed is easily big enough for two, so… I mean, not that you have to or anything, but-”
Right there, Crowley interrupted him. “Quit talking and move your legs aside, angel.”
And with that, he climbed into the bed, careful not to crawl across any of Aziraphale’s body parts. He noticed his stomach felt funny again.
When he reached the other side, he saw that Aziraphale had already prepared a second pillow and blanket. Crowley looked up with a smirk. “You weren’t actually expecting me to say no, were you?”
Aziraphale couldn’t supress his pouty smile as he admitted, “No. Not really, to be honest.”
Crowley laughed silently, putting up his pillow against the wall next to Aziraphale’s. With a tired sigh, he let himself sink against it while lazily pulling the blanket halfway across his legs.
“Hm”, Crowley mumbled. “This is nice.”
Aziraphale carefully put a bookmark in his book, closed it, and gently laid it beside him on the bed. (On his right, of course, since Crowley was sitting on his left.) “It is.”
They fell silent for a long minute. Finally, Crowley said, “So, now what?”
Aziraphale nodded slowly. “Now what…”
Neither of them cared to pretend that they could just go to bed and actually fall asleep. Too much was still going on in both their heads.
Crowley hummed thoughtfully. “What do you usually do when you want to sleep but can’t? Probably read a book, huh?”
Again, Aziraphale nodded. “Yes, I read. Or I get up and have a cup of calming tea, but we already did that.” A small smile sneaked onto his lips. “Sometimes, when it’s especially bad and I really want to sleep, I even write diary. Or, when the cause of my sleeplessness is annoyance, problem-letters.”
“Problem-letters?” Now, that sounded intriguing.
“Well, yes. When someone is really going on my nerves or being exceptionally bad.”
Crowley couldn’t help but laugh at the thought of a sleepy but angry Aziraphale sitting at his desk in the middle of the night, dressed in his matching pyjamas, furiously writing unnecessarily formal letters to the causes of his annoyance.
“Wow”, he laughed, “what a gift of a mental image!”
Aziraphale shrugged it off, but something about his expression seemed almost proud.
“And do you send them to their addressees the next morning?”
“Oh, no!” Now, he was looking at Crowley with wide eyes. “I don’t write them so I can send them. Those are just for me. I usually burn them right away.”
“Well, that’s disappointing.”
“Would you rather have an angel sending out letters of fury?”
“I don’t know, maybe! How furious are they?”
“Oh!” Aziraphale seemed a bit embarrassed now. “I mean, it depends.”
Although deepening this topic might have led to something interesting, Crowley didn’t want his angel to feel uncomfortable, so he changed it back to what they had been talking about originally.
“Okay, so fury-letters –”
“Problem-letters”, Aziraphale corrected him.
“Right, problem-letters. And reading, and tea. Anything else?”
“Sometimes, cookies. Or I call you.” Aziraphale’s gaze strayed off, looking at something only he could see. “After we’ve said goodbye, I sit at an open window and watch the stars for a while. Marvel at their beauty…”
“Hmm”, Crowley concluded. That did sound like Aziraphale. And it was something Crowley could understand all too well. “You know, I’ve always liked the stars.”
This smirk again. “Oh, I know. I still remember our very first meeting.”
His eyes met Crowley’s, and for a long moment, they just stayed like this, looking into each other’s eyes, reminiscing about that small moment in this vast universe, just the blink of an eye in the grand scheme of things. It had meant the world to them. And it had set the start for an unlikely but millennia-long unbreakable bond.
Crowley didn’t need to say that he remembered, too. He could see Aziraphale knew he did. His head was filled with memories of him and his angel, good ones and bad ones and all the ones in-between.
Finally, Aziraphale looked away for the briefest of moments, only to smile and look back up at Crowley. “And you?”
Crowley blinked, unable to avert his eyes. “Huh?”
“What do you do when you can’t sleep but want to?”
“Oh.” He blinked again and managed to tear his gaze away from Aziraphale. “Um.” What had the question been, again? Ah, right. “Er, usually I… go outside, walk around for a bit. Water the plants. Stare out the window or at the ceiling until my eyes fall shut. Or I come over.”
When he looked at Aziraphale again, the angel was still smiling. “I always liked those little unexpected visits deep at night, you know.”
Crowley smiled back at him. “Actually, I thought so.”
Again, silence fell between them. They both let their eyes wander across the room without really seeing anything. They were too busy savouring the moment, being this close other, speaking volumes without words.
After a while, Aziraphale gave in to an impulse he had been trying to supress. His heart beating loudly, he slowly skidded over to Crowley, closing the distance between them. He could feel Crowley’s eyes on him, but he didn’t dare to look up. Instead, with a tender but timid little sigh, he let his head sink onto Crowley’s shoulder.
It may have looked like a relaxed position, but Aziraphale’s shoulders were tense as anything. Suddenly, he felt Crowley shift very, very carefully. Oh no. Had this been a mistake? Should he retreat? Nervously pressing his lips together, Aziraphale tensed up yet a little more as he was trying to figure out what to do next – until he felt Crowley’s arm around his shoulders.
With one relieved breath, all tension left his body, and Aziraphale let himself sink deeper into the embrace, hiding his smile in the crook of Crowley’s neck.
Crowley, on the other hand, had been too surprised to react immediately to Aziraphale’s approach, but upon realising the angel’s intentions, he had been more than happy (although a little flustered) to comply. That being said, he hadn’t been prepared for the feeling that overcame him now that Aziraphale’s nose was touching his neck, his breath sending shivers across Crowley’s body.
He swallowed dryly. The way Aziraphale’s warmth was extending to him was more than just physical. He could feel his worries fade, his happiness grow, his heart beat faster, taking his emotions flying.
Breathing in Aziraphale’s so familiar scent, he closed his eyes, leaning closer as best he could. To Crowley, the angel was warmth, and he was light, and he was all that was good, and his embrace felt like home – and perhaps that was the most fitting description for the unending love he had for Aziraphale.
Suddenly, there was a hand on his chest (causing Crowley to sharply inhale and hold his breath), and then it slid to his shoulder as Aziraphale’s entire upper body lowered itself onto Crowley (which made it impossible not to let out a long, relieved sigh). With a fond smirk, Crowley gently laid his arms around his angel. The grasp on his shoulder tightened, and a strange feeling spread in Crowley’s stomach, erasing his smile. Something didn’t feel quite right…
“Hey, angel”, Crowley said quietly, his voice soft. “You alright?”
Aziraphale didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he drew a shaky breath, followed by an equally shaky puff. Then, finally, he nodded slowly, his head rubbing against Crowley’s chest.
Crowley frowned. “Sure about that?”
Silence. Another trembling breath. Crowley gave him the time he needed to collect himself.
Aziraphale waited another long moment before he very quietly said, “Oh, Crowley.”
Just that. It was enough for Crowley to realise: Aziraphale was crying.
Having not the slightest idea what he was supposed to do or say, Crowley just did what came natural to him. With a soft sigh, he raised one hand to Aziraphale’s head and gently ran his fingers through his incredibly soft hair.
“It’s okay, angel”, he whispered. “I’m here. I’ve got you.”
Aziraphale needed a minute or two before he raised his head carefully, making sure that Crowley wouldn’t feel the need to move his hand from there. He tried to look at Crowley but ended up glancing at him from the side instead, tears still running down his cheeks.
“I was very scared today”, he began quietly, “when I couldn’t find you anywhere. I thought… well… I worried that… what happened today… was too much to forgive.”
His voice faded to a whisper at the end. He could feel Crowley’s eyes on him but couldn’t bring himself to meet their gaze. Especially not after he felt Crowley’s hand slide down to his neck and rest there, pensive and unmoving.
When Crowley spoke, his voice was still as soft as before – but there was a somewhat defeated undertone to it. “You thought I had run off to be eternally mad at you?”
It did not exactly sound like a question, yet Aziraphale felt the need to answer. “Well… no, not that, but… maybe…” With a frustrated sigh, he admitted, “… I didn’t think at all, really.”
“Mmh.” For a moment, Crowley was silent.
“Tell you what, angel.”
The suddenly encouraging tone of his voice finally gave Aziraphale the strength to look up, tears in his eyes, their stains on his cheeks. When their gazes met, something in Crowley’s expression softened. “I don’t think I could. You know, be forever angry at you.”
He sighed heavily, breaking eye contact. “Believe me, I tried very hard to be very mad at you today, but… well… it just wouldn’t really work. I was mad, sure. At myself, most of all. At the universe, too. Heaven and hell – especially heaven though. But not at you. Never for long, at least. Just couldn’t do it.”
Too stunned to speak, Aziraphale decided to stare at Crowley with wide eyes instead. Maybe that was the impulse for Crowley to continue, though he still didn’t look at Aziraphale.
“There’s one more thing… something else. Um…”
Shit, how should he put this?
“When you… I mean, when I… er, well…” He let out a frustrated groan. Why in the name of heaven and hell did this have to be so hard?
“What did you mean?” he finally blurted out, looking straight at Aziraphale, who flinched a little at the directness. “When you said you forgave me, what did you mean? Forgive me for what?”
“I…” Aziraphale’s lips opened and closed again. A few times. (Like a fish, he might have thought, had he not been so busy thinking about something else.) In the end, he decided to sit up, which put an end to their embrace – for now. His voice sounded very small when he continued. “I’m not sure…”
Crowley moved his head with a disappointed grimace. “Oh, c’mon, angel. There’s gotta be something better than that.”
“Yes. Of course. And I’m sure there is.” Aziraphale dug around in his brain, searching for answers he hadn’t even given himself up to this point.
“When I accepted the Metatron’s offer”, he slowly started to voice his labyrinth of thoughts, “I thought… well, I thought I was doing the right thing. And then I came to you, and I expected you to be happy that we could do this together – you know, change the system; heaven and hell, and everything. What we always wanted. But when I told you, and you were so devastated, I didn’t know anymore…”
At a loss of words, his voice tailed off. Good thing that, as so often, Crowley came to his rescue. “… If it was really the right thing.”
The smallest smile curved Aziraphale’s lips. “Yes.”
“Hm.”
This time, it was easier to speak. “And then you were talking about running off together, after I had just received an offer to bring change to the very system you wanted to run from. And it just…” Again, a speechless pause – one for Crowley to fill.
“It didn’t match.”
“Exactly.” His heart already felt a little lighter.
Crowley had a very pensive crease on his front. “Because you saw the system as already changed, and I couldn’t even imagine that to ever happen.”
Aziraphale nodded with new hope. Should there really be a way for Crowley to understand? “So, from my perspective, you weren’t suggesting running from all that is wrong today. To me, you were asking me to run from all that could be right tomorrow.”
“Mmh.” Crowley kept looking at him with that frown.
Aziraphale fidgeted, sitting up a little straighter and closing his hands in his lap – which, given the basically non-existent distance between him and Crowley, meant that they were touching Crowley’s thigh, as he was oddly aware of. “So, that’s that.”
“I see.” Crowley was waiting for something. Aziraphale could see it on his face. He could even feel it, as if the temperature had changed. But of course, he knew what that something was: a continuation of his explanation, since the most crucial part was still missing – the ending.
“Right.” Aziraphale drew a deep breath. “And then… well, your speech, it… that came very unexpected, and it was even less expected how those were my own thoughts, which I had ignored, suddenly spread out before me so clearly and painfully obviously. It meant I couldn’t ignore them any longer. And that was all a bit…”
“…too much, yes. I understand that now.” There was no accusation in Crowley’s voice. No annoyance. Not even the hint of it.
“Yes, thank you.” And Aziraphale meant it – with all his heart.
In the silence that followed, it was more than clear to both of them that they weren’t just talking about Aziraphale’s statement any longer. The “I forgive you”. What had happened right before that had snuck into their words without ever being named.
Finally, Aziraphale tried to draw a conclusion. “There was nothing to forgive, really.” His eyes were looking at the bed, but they weren’t focusing – he was seeing something very different. “I just didn’t know what else to say. Or do. I was too overwhelmed by everything. Forgiveness had usually always been a good idea, so… And then again, you wanting me not to do what I thought was the right thing…”
He sighed. “I don’t know. It was the only thing I was capable of doing, saying that I forgave you for something not even I could understand. I guess…” Now, he looked up at Crowley with an almost apologetic smile. “…yes, it was all a bit much, and when…” Almost unconsciously, his gaze flickered down at Crowley’s lips for a moment. “When you kissed me, that came… completely out of the blue for me.”
They were so close. If he were to lean just a little forward their noses would touch.
Crowley could hear his own heartbeat. Something deep inside him wanted to be angry again – at himself, for having been so reckless. But then again, they wouldn’t be where they were now if he had done anything different. And so, with a sigh, he let go of the knot of feelings forming in his stomach and instead muttered, “’m sorry, angel.”
Aziraphale lightly shook his head. “Don’t be, my love.”
My love.
Crowley gulped down a tornado of emotions threatening to drive both the heat to his face and tears to his eyes. His lips parted to let out words that couldn’t form themselves. So, they closed again.
Aziraphale’s smile was warm, and bright. It spoke of everything good this life had to offer, every little thing that could be so easily overlooked. His smile saw them all, marvelled at them, cherished them. And it saw Crowley – with everything there was to him. Every bad habit and evil deed, every fight, every misunderstanding; just as it saw every good intention, every sacrifice and compromise, every little thing Crowley himself had trouble seeing, or admitting.
Finally, realisation dawned on Crowley: Aziraphale hadn’t wanted him to come back to heaven and be an angel again so that Crowley would be good again. To Aziraphale, Crowley had always been good enough just as he was, despite and because of all those little things.
But he hadn’t been good enough to heaven. Aziraphale had never wanted to change Crowley. He had wanted to change heaven, with Crowley at his side. Together, as always. Because heaven failed to see Crowley as Aziraphale saw him, and that, to the angel, proved the system was flawed and needed to be changed.
Crowley hadn’t noticed how his mouth had curved into a smile of his own, one that was no less bright or warm. He didn’t need to notice, though. Aziraphale was seeing it, and its love reflected in his eyes.
“Oh, Crowley.” This time, the words weren’t spoken through a veil of tears. Nevertheless, due to Aziraphale being overwhelmed with emotions, they were just as quiet.
“Aziraphale…” Crowley replied breathlessly.
Unconsciously at first, their faces had moved a little closer. Crowley’s breaths were shallow, and his lips had parted to let them out. Aziraphale’s eyes flickered towards them again, if only for a split second. Then, they were too close to see anything but the other’s closing eyes – and just a moment later, their lips were touching.
Without thinking, as if it had done so a thousand times before, Aziraphale’s hand moved upwards to rest on Crowley’s chest, right above his thundering heart, his fingers digging into the soft fabric of Crowley’s new pyjamas.
Crowley’s hand, though, remembered where it had been mere minutes ago and found its place on Aziraphale’s head, fingers burying themselves in his fluffy, white hair as Crowley ever so gently pulled him closer to deepen the kiss. Aziraphale leaned in willingly.
To them, the world stopped spinning. There was neither time nor distance, only them and the whirlwind of emotions quickening their heartbeats. Their bodies were one. Their breaths were in sync. Inside them was all that was light and all that was warmth. And a millennia old longing that was finally allowed to surface.
They were together. And that was all that mattered.
When they at last broke apart, both were a little out of breath. Through a haze of fuzzy feelings, Crowley opened his eyes to look at his angel, only to realise Aziraphale had done the same.
Aziraphale’s cheeks were flushed. In his eyes were sparks that might have rivalled the sun. On Crowley’s face, a small, gentle smile had made itself at home – a smile that filled the entire room, embracing them both in its warmth. His gaze was so full of love that Aziraphale might have worried he would melt, had he not been so busy staring tenderly at Crowley.
“Hm”, Aziraphale sighed happily. His hand was still resting on Crowley’s chest, and he wasn’t planning on removing it from there any time soon. Below his fingers, he could feel Crowley’s beating heart, the drumming against his palm delicate as a butterfly’s wings.
Crowley’s smile turned to a smirk when he said in a slightly hoarse tone, “Who taught you to kiss like that, angel?”
A shrug was his answer. “I do think a little more practice might be required, though. You know…” He winked. “…because you’re never really done learning.”
Crowley’s quiet laugh was caught somewhere between surprised and pleased – mixed with a bit of shyness coming from below the shell of the nonchalant demon. “Well…” But the silver-tongued serpent was at a loss for words. And so, he did what seemed the most logical.
Since his hand had slid down to Aziraphale’s neck, he let it run across the angel’s face gently, until his thumb found Aziraphale’s cheek, where it softly moved up and down. His angel’s gaze was tender – and expectant. Crowley took it as a yes.
Once more, he gently pulled Aziraphale closer. Their lips found each other easier, now, in a kiss so soft that for the moment, and for many moments after, the day’s fear and pain and anger was forgotten.
This night, neither of them worried about bad dreams – and rightfully so, as they would know the next morning. From time to time, one of them might have awoken and opened his eyes, only to spot the other and fall asleep again with a dreamy smile – but that is not for us to know. Not now, at least; maybe another day…