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"Crowley, this thought has been nagging at me for days now..."
The angel's velvet voice usually soothed the demon's frayed nerves, worn thin by recent weeks, but not this time. His gaze, normally as pure and radiant as its celestial owner, was clouded with worry, stirring a flicker of unease in Crowley's fiery mind. He couldn't afford to lose focus on the road — no, Crowley had always spat on Heaven's rules, but here the issue circled back to his feathered friend and his infuriating principles, which meant giving in to anxiety wasn't an option. Though it was already clawing at his throat.
"Angel, if you don't spit it out, I can't help you," Crowley said, fingers drumming the leather steering wheel as he shot another concerned glance, twisting his lips into a half-smile, half-snarl. "New Apocalypse brewing? Who's got the itch for war this time?"
The forced cheer eased Aziraphale a touch, but he couldn't miss the fakery in Crowley's expression — six thousand years of companionship didn't lie.
"Thankfully, things are quiet on that front... relatively speaking." The angel's heavenly gaze swept over the perfectly green foliage of the plants on the back seat. "I wanted to ask about your things. Why haul them around with you?"
Crowley's yellow eyes narrowed to barely visible slits as Aziraphale turned to him. He could've sworn his heart plummeted to his boots. No one knew he'd been evicted from his beloved flat a couple of weeks back, that the Bentley had been his home ever since, that these plants were all he'd managed to salvage.
Crowley didn't want pity from his closest friend — his pride wouldn't let him play the stray cat for Aziraphale. The sunglasses mercifully hid his turmoil, a small mercy he was endlessly grateful for.
"Spicing up the car's vibe. Positive vibes, good energies, all that jazz."
A nervous chuckle escaped his thin lips, but Aziraphale just nodded along, bolstering the lie with facts he'd once heard about plants calming the nerves. The angel's naivety and obliviousness played right into Crowley's hands, though it had bitten him in the arse too — over a couple millennia of ignoring his own feelings, thanks to those very traits. Aziraphale still saw nothing in their bond but friendship, or else he was tactfully playing the fool, which was about as likely as Hell freezing over. Crowley's friend was transparent: the darting blue eyes, the faltering speech — no one could miss it after all these years. Crowley kept quiet only for his own sake.
Finally, the endless stream of plant trivia tapered off. Ahead loomed the familiar doors of the bookshop.
"You'd never guess it was a smoldering ruin just recently," Crowley said, catching Aziraphale's displeased look and adding with a grin, "But the old facade's infinitely better."
A smile lit the angel's lips in turn. Warmth bloomed in Crowley's chest at the delighted spark in those blue eyes, vast as the firmament itself.
"Well then, fancy letting me tempt you with a bottle of wine to celebrate the miraculous restoration?"
"Angel, you know the answer — why drag it out?" Crowley drawled with feigned arrogance, inwardly rejoicing at the chance to linger with Aziraphale another hour or two... or the whole night. "Go on, ssseduce me. I'm all yours."
The predictable excuses and apologies for the bad joke followed at once. That was Aziraphale's nature — holy simplicity in all its innocent glory. It amused Crowley, so he kept teasing, prodding the angel into what he thought was gentle self-defense.
The bell above the angel's ginger curls announced the shopkeeper's arrival to the empty room. Books that had been gathering dust alone on cabinet shelves and the vintage side table now greeted them warmly with their colorful spines. Crowley wasn't sure if Aziraphale handled books the way he did plants, but he was certain there was no blackmail or threats involved. The volumes kept their dignified form through the angel's tender care alone.
Memories of the recent fire darkened Crowley's thoughts — smoldering pages, lines dissolving into ash. For Aziraphale, it had been a devastating blow; the demon's neck muscles tightened involuntarily. Punishing the arsonist was still on his agenda.
He sauntered to his favorite armchair, crossing his legs with practiced ease, propping his sharp chin on a sinewy hand — and caught Aziraphale's intense stare fixed on him. A smirk slid onto his thin lips faster than the blue eyes could dart away in embarrassment along the low shelves.
"What've you got for me this time, Angel?"
"I doubt my choice will impress you," Aziraphale said, his unhurried, soft-footed steps reminding Crowley of his heavenly origins — as if the ground beneath him briefly turned to clouds. "You're far more experienced in these matters."
"Is that your delicate way of calling me a sybarite?"
Crowley knew full well it wasn't. But he couldn't resist the chance to needle the angel until a faint blush colored those cheeks.
Crowley knew full well it wasn't. But he couldn't resist the chance to needle the angel until a faint blush colored those cheeks.
"Good Lord, no! I don't... You know I don't think that," A fleeting hurt twisted the angel's lips, gone in an instant as he presented the bottle. "Cabernet Sauvignon, 1789."
Aziraphale was wrong — golden delight flashed in the demon's eyes, his once-narrowed pupils dilating wide. Dryness flooded his mouth, summoning memories of the wine's tangy aftertaste: notes of vanilla, cedar, blackcurrant. The blood-ruby liquid had swirled in his glass at a tasting with a French aristocrat, just before the man's arrest and execution. Crowley had regretted not saving a single bottle, drowning his frustration over his feathered friend in the lot early in the nineteenth century.
"The Great Revolution destroyed countless bottles of this noble vintage. Should I ask whose soul you sold for it?" The bottle weighed pleasantly in Crowley's hands, but his gaze locked on the two heavens now shadowed by his ill-chosen words.
"I—"
"God's angel, I know, I know." In a peace offering, Crowley twirled the bottle by its neck and poured into waiting glasses—a trick picked up in a '60s bar. "To the new old shop, I suppose?"
"To the place that's become home, mon cher," Aziraphale corrected softly, the crystalline clink of glass echoing through the room alongside Crowley's stilled heart.
Home — the word echoed in his fiery skull as the last ruby drop trickled down his sharp chin. Crowley hadn't wanted to admit his flat meant more than a crash pad, but self-deception was over.
"Savoring is the best part of drinking — isn't that what you say?" Aziraphale's concerned gaze traced the lines around the demon's blazing eyes, dropping to the forced smirk on thin lips. "Something's eating at you?"
"Downing the first glass doesn't mean I'm abandoning my principles." Crowley poured a second round, tossing his glasses onto the angel's desk and sipping again.
"You lied to me."
"I'm a demon, after all. It's my job."
The parquet by the armchair creaked faintly. Hands clasped behind his back, Aziraphale tilted his head in appraisal. Close. A couple more centimeters, and Crowley could've caught the notes of almond and lemon drizzle cake in the angel's scent — that innocent yet seductive aura cloaking his earthly form. He'd tracked it for centuries; unmistakable. Just a little more, and he—
"You're contradicting yourself again. Don't those grey tones in your talk mean anything anymore?"
The bitterness in those opposite heavens stung; Crowley never wanted to hurt his angel, not now, not ever. The cream waistcoat and cheeky tartan bow tie filled his yellow view — the gold hue slowly swallowed by shadows from obsessive thoughts screaming in his buzzed head. It was as if Aziraphale meant to awaken every sin Crowley had bottled up for centuries. But those innocent blue eyes cried out otherwise, urging reason.
"Your flat's been given to another demon."
"How did you—"
"Total fluke. Dropped by unannounced, you might say. Lucky I didn't bump into the new tenant, but that's beside the point. Why didn't you tell me? You're practically living out of your car!"
"I always said I love my Bentley," Crowley tried, but the joke fell flat; Aziraphale wasn't backing down.
"That's different, Crowley. Appreciating it and living in it are worlds apart—you know that." Staying put, the angel peered into the demon's golden eyes, half-filled with throbbing pupils. "Why not trust me? Why not ask for help?"
"I don't need your pity, Angel. I'm not some abandoned kitten — I can sort my own messes." With that snapped out, Crowley moved to flee the heated spot, but a hand on his sinewy shoulder halted him.
"We're not strangers, are we? Isn't that what you always say? Isn't it you who keeps trying to get closer? Why wouldn't you want to be under the same roof as me?"
"I couldn't hold back," the demon started, feeling control slip drop by drop, but Aziraphale's voice — once soft, now a shout — cut him off.
"Hold back what? What exactly?"
Skinny hands yanked the angel by his shirt collar, noses bumping sharply.
"Want me to paint it in vivid detail, or will you finally get it?"
Silence froze the scant space between their lips. One spark, one step, one storm — anything — and the gold-flecked gaze would ignite the flame burning inside Crowley, paired with that blood-red hair. But words weren't the final straw. It was the familiar blush painting the angel's cheeks in shy anticipation.
One step.
Just one step, and the last bridges burned. No road back now. Their old friendship dimmed in both their minds — Crowley knew it for certain. He'd always known, and that's why he'd feared even a spark of the fire that would forever alter them. Ruin them.
Lips crashed hungrily into the long-desired ones. Tangy vanilla and cedar overpowered almond and lemon cake, shattering Crowley's brakes. No way back — why not savor the moment fully? Savoring was the best part of tasting, as the angel himself had reminded him.
But all good things end, no matter how desperately you cling. No petty demonic miracle could freeze time, stretch the instant, let him drink his fill of those maddening lips.
Aziraphale's breath scorched his skin. The hands that had gripped his collar fell limp in a daze. Pale cheeks flushed. Only the yellow pupils still quivered with anticipation. Was Crowley afraid? Absolutely. Did he regret it? Maybe later, but not now. The longed-for kiss still burned on his parched lips, vivid in every hue.
Across from him stood the equally flushed angel, heavenly gaze frozen in astonishment — and what seemed like flustered bewilderment. Crowley didn't see the faint tremor in Aziraphale's pale hands matching his quivering lips. He wasn't angry or furious — just confounded.
Minutes of silence stretched into eternity, sharpened by the ticking second hand on the desk clock. Heartbeats merged with time's march — panic threatened cardiac rupture, impossible as Crowley knew it was. But inner dread devoured him doubly as the angel's hand rose to his nose level.
Slap? Fair enough. I deserve it. Closing his heavy lids, Crowley swallowed, bracing for punishment. Seconds passed — one, two — but no blow rained down. Instead, a soft palm grazed his cheek, tucking a ruby strand behind his ear. Yellow eyes flew open in shock.
"Weren't you going to—"
"Crowley, you've stopped understanding me." No reproach in Aziraphale's familiar gentle tone; the demon's heart eased from its agonized tear. "Of course I'm rattled by your... choice. But beat you for it? I'm flustered, not furious, mon cher."
An innocent smile, tinged with shy realization, flooded Crowley's veins with warmth. No looming breakup or angelic offense threatened their bond — it burst like fireworks within. One more push, and sparks would fly not just in golden eyes. Sinking into the chair on jelly legs, Aziraphale shot the demon a sly glance.
"But you've stirred me up proper with your... confession. No idea how to settle my mind and heart now." Mischievous yet bashful lights danced in those firmament eyes, setting Crowley's lovesick heart aflutter pleasantly.
Kneeling before his friend, Crowley wrapped arms around his knees with a mocking yet warm smile.
"And what can I do to make it up to you?"
"A cup of cocoa, perhaps, and we're square, mon chéri."