Archive of Our Own

It ends, as it began, with Aziraphale standing alone in front of an elevator.

Oddly enough, once the doors close, the conveyance itself seems rather obscured; as if he might have a difficult time summoning it again. Not impossible, precisely, but rather more of an effort might be required than before.

That is something to be considered another day.

This day, this one endless, boundless day, is drawing to a colourful close in a beautiful red-gold sunset, instead of the fire and flood which had drenched its cloudburst skies not six hours before. So many things have gone wrong today; but at long last, this one all-important thing has gone right.

For perhaps the only time in a very long life, Aziraphale is absolutely, wholeheartedly confident that he has done the Right Thing.

All he can do now, is hope that the personal cost has not been too high. It is for that reason he stands here, back where it all started, and ended, and started again, and ended again. Uncertain if asking for one more resurrection today, of all days, is perhaps asking a bit too much when the world has already been granted such a merciful reprieve.

But no; before the bookshop, demurely parked over the double yellow as if it owned the space (and since London's entirely ineffable public parking system was created by Crowley, decades ago, perhaps it does), the Bentley sits. Either waiting for its owner, or left behind by it.

Either way, that is rather more an olive branch than Noah's dove ever carried.

The car's glossy bonnet receives a gentle pat as he passes. "Hello, my dear," he murmurs, hoping to convey love even if she likely has absorbed some (not entirely undeserved) resentment from her owner toward him, over the last few years.

A faint hiss from the never-used radiator follows his steps toward the door, but she also rolls a few inches closer to the kerb, which would seem to be a good omen.

Though the sign has been set to Closed for days, the lock on the door has been broken for as long, thanks to the week's events. The mechanism has held fast against prospective thievery solely by the expectation that if it did not perform its duties, broken tumblers or not, it would face divine archangelic wrath and possibly the same fate of the occult and ethereal entities who had thought breaking the lock would be sufficient to gain entry, just after midnight last Friday evening.

The ancient lock vastly prefers its present, non-incinerated state, and so has performed admirably despite technical difficulties.

But locating a locksmith has been non-existent on the list of priorities this week, and that is just as well, because the state of things would be quite hard to explain to a human, and Aziraphale is rather low on power, heavenly or otherwise, at present; even his willpower has been nearly exhausted by far more important things. He expects the shop to be nothing short of a mess. Heaven and Hell had not been respectful in their arrivals, to say the least.

But inside, the chaos which had been left behind in their hasty flight from the place days earlier, errant Christ not-child in tow and the forces of Light and Darkness combined mere minutes behind, has been set to rights. The faintly smoky trace of demonic miracle now lingers in the air, as familiar an undercurrent as the milieu of dusty books and ancient parchment.

The slightly charred rugs have been repaired and restored to their proper places, the scattered books reshelved, a small pile of them with damaged spines set aside on the worktable used for repair and rebinding. His desk and all its paperwork has been put back in order, having taken the worst of the damage from the broken windows, but the shades over it, like all of the windows, have been drawn, setting sunlight slanting through the edges in narrow slivers across the floor. The noise of the street is more muffled than it should be, the tick of the antique clock — now also repaired — the loudest sound within.

The outside world has disappeared, at least for now.

"'S not perfect, but I figure you'll spend the next month holed up in here getting re-acquainted anyway."

Crowley leans against the Historical Fiction, hands in his pockets. His glasses, broken hours ago halfway across the city, have not been replaced; and he is looking everywhere except at Aziraphale.

"You stayed," the latter says, a little disbelieving.

"Nyeh." Crowley clears his throat, pokes at a dust bunny on the floor with one toe. It valiantly stands its ground. "Don't have to sound so surprised about it."

Aziraphale's chuckle is a little too unsteady to sound like real amusement. "I certainly wouldn't blame you. You'd be more than justified in washing your hands of…well. Everything, really."

"Yeah, well." Crowley finally looks up at him, eyes glinting gold in a stray sunbeam before sliding away again to drift over the nearest shelves. "You still owe me a dance, y'know. Thought I'd cash in before taking off."

"Oh, dear." He wrings his hands. "Crowley, I really don't think that ridiculous apology dance is anywhere near sufficient to —"

"Not the apology dance, you idiot." Amusement softens the slight sting of the words. He pushes off the bookcase with an elbow and slinks through a couple stacks of books toward the desk.

"Then I don't quite follow you—"

"Someone," Crowley emphasizes, still advancing, "at some point, in the last few centuries, learned something other than that ridiculous gavotte, and never said a word about it until we were up to our necks in a Jane Austen cosplay."

He stops, a few feet away, eyebrows raised in expectation.

Aziraphale swallows.

"Crowley," he says quietly. "You just said it. None of that, nothing that happened that night, was real."

"It was as real as you wanted it to be. Very real divine intervention, that."

"It didn't make it right."

The memory isn't exactly something to be proud of, given how important they both know free will is, how important choices are, to humanity. His well-meaning actions had been a terrible misstep that night, in more than one way.

Perhaps it is the road to heaven that is paved with good intentions.

"I overstepped," he continues firmly. "One can't just, can't just…."

"Make a grand gesture the other person isn't prepared for, and think it'll fix everything?" Crowley finishes, with a pointed look. His lips thin. "Yeah. Learned that loud and clear. The hard way."

Oh.

For a moment, only the clock ticks in the silence, steady and unwavering and endless.

Crowley rocks on his feet for a moment, hesitant, and then his hand darts forward like a striking viper. It snags Aziraphale's and he starts to walk backward, tugging gently.

"You're not the one, or at least not the only one, who needs to apologise," he says quietly. "So dance with me, Angel."

And just how is he supposed to resist that temptation?

Somewhere behind them, Aziraphale's old gramophone is abruptly summoned from a years-long hibernation and begins playing a tune it's never heard before but likes very much. Slow and stringed, without distracting lyrics.

Once they're free of the rug with its potentially dangerous sigils painted below, and an inconveniently placed sunbeam has obediently relocated itself to a more convenient location out of the eyes, they end up in something that Aziraphale would hardly call dancing, more like a loose embrace with some swaying involved.

But it is rather nice, and so he says so.

"Mm." Crowley's eyes are far too close, at this range, and far too knowing. "Not big on physical contact in Heaven, are they."

"No."

Where once he might have tacked on a justification about such carnal human pleasures being unnecessary for a place of divine love and perfection, he now doesn't bother.

"How long were you up there, anyway?"

"I wasn't exactly keeping track." Something in his voice must give him away, because Crowley's right eyebrow inches upward. "Time works differently Above and Below, you know that."

"Been about three years on Earth, give or take," Crowley agrees, in what Aziraphale assumes is supposed to be a neutral tone. (It is not, but it's probably supposed to be.) "Sound right?"

"Ah. A bit longer than that, then."

"How much longer?"

"Oh, well. Not certain, really." Aziraphale chuckles nervously. "So much bureaucracy, you know, lots to do. No one keeping track of the chronology except the scriveners —"

"How long, Aziraphale."

"I don't know," he retorts, with a hot, quicksilver anger that seems as shocked to find itself spoken as he is to feel it leave his lips. "And given you decided to opt out of attendance in the first place, you really don't have a right to inquire."

He hates it as soon as he's said it, but he did say it, and when is he going to stop doing that?

He watches Crowley's jaw work in silence for a moment, then slowly unclench. He shakes his head. "Not going to apologise for that one," he finally says, expressionless. There's a razor-sharp edge of ice at the end, and Aziraphale hates it, so very much. "Not now or ever."

"I know."

"And you know why. 'Least, I thought you did."

"I did. I do," he hastens to clarify, and is horrified to hear the words are rather too close to weeping than he should ever prefer to be. "I mean. Oh, Crowley, I — "

"Okay, it's okay." Crowley interrupts him before he can spiral further. The sheer kindness of it is enough to bring him to actual tears, hastily blinked away before they can be seen. "I get it, Angel," he adds, as they slowly sway in place, focused only on this fractured moment. "It messes with your head, when it's that long. I —"

He bites off the rest of the sentence, and Aziraphale knows, he knows, what that horrible second half would be. However awful Heaven is, Aziraphale has also been to Hell, and knows the other side of that coin is unfathomably worse.

"I get it," Crowley finally repeats, after a moment. It's small and pained but so, so understanding, which is almost worse.

The music subtly changes under silent demonic threat, something less classical and more folksy, with Eastern influences. It produces an odd, fleeting sense of mild homesickness, for shared centuries gone by; when the world was at the same time so much simpler, and yet so much more complicated.

"Anyway," Crowley then changes the subject with the delicate subtlety of a brick to the face, but Aziraphale appreciates the distraction. "Dancing. You like?"

"Dancing seems a bit generous an appellation, given the lack of structure. But yes, it's rather…intimate, without requiring much concentration."

"Mmhm. 'S called slow dancing. One of mine, actually."

"Oh?"

"Yep. First step on the road to temptation for stupid kids at school dances. Lust of the eyes, eventually leads to lust of the flesh, all that."

"I see."

Crowley's snort reverberates through both of them. "Until your lot mucked it up with the American fundamentalists, started telling them to 'leave room between them for the holy ghost,' or some shite. Ruins the anticipation, a bit."

This time the chuckle is genuine, even if it's directed more at his shoulder than anything else. "Yes, quite."

"Be better if you weren't stiff as a plank. Relax, Angel," Crowley murmurs against his temple.

Not quite hidden under the music and creak of the shop settling, his unsteady exhale is still loud enough to be audible.

Crowley's steps falter for a fraction of a second, and then, sighing, he shakes his head and stops trying to lead. They are barely moving right now than anything resembling formal dancing, but that isn't at all unpleasant.

"Satan bless it," Crowley mutters, after the second barely audible sniffle. "Turn off the waterworks, yeah?"

Aziraphale's brow rests briefly on his shoulder. "I just...feel as though I've made rather a mess of so many things, you know?"

"Hardly." Crowley's huff of disbelief ruffles his hair. "Heaven had no idea the wolf they let into their sheep-fold with you. I hate to say it, but you were right. Things were different with you in charge."

Aziraphale winces. Different and better are not necessarily synonymous, and he suspects the heavenly host would say they are mutually exclusive. But he has yet to answer to the Highest calling, and so perhaps there is some truth in what Crowley says.

Perhaps all along, the answer was hidden in plain sight, only obscured in shades of gray.

"World's been saved, everyone's got their marching orders. Permanent ones, this time. All worked out, didn't it?"

"Not all of it, no," Aziraphale says, and the words fall like lead balloons. "One rather important detail, I think, still to determine."

"Yeh. Suppose." Crowley jaw clenches for a few seconds. "Guessing you want to have it out now, then, eh."

"Don't you?"

"Well, I was planning on staying pissed off at you for at least another week," Crowley grumbles. Exasperation wars with affection on his face before the latter finally emerges, a reluctant victor. "But I never have been able to stand seeing you cry. Manipulative bastard."

Somehow, that doesn't do anything to stop the crying.

"You need to know," Aziraphale says, two handkerchiefs and a few awkward minutes later, as the music changes again. This time to something classical; Schubert, perhaps. It's been a while, so he can't tell right off. "That everything I said, that day — all of it, it all came out so terribly wrong."

Crowley's non-committal myeh is enough encouragement to continue.

"I know that what you heard, is that I only wanted us to be together if we were both angels, both in Heaven."

"A bit." Crowley sounds quiet, but not angry; just contemplative. "'Least at first. But I know what you meant."

"Do you?"

"Well, yeah. Same song-and-dance as always, wasn't it? I wanted us together, even if it meant hiding forever. You wanted us safe, so we'd never have to hide again."

He nods.

"You're so clever, Angel," Crowley admits. "Always had contingency plans on contingency plans, but you're rubbish at sharing them. I should've known that."

A heavy exhale. "You're right. On all points. I know that I've treated you terribly at times, all these centuries —"

"None of that, now." Crowley's arm tightens a bit around his waist. "Everything you've ever done has been to keep us both safe for the long game. I've always known that much, at least."

"Have you?"

"'Course." Crowley's lips twist in a bitter not-smile. "You can sense love, Angel. Demons can sense fear. I knew."

"Oh." That makes sense, in a way. Aziraphale is rather grateful they aren't looking at each other for this bit, because it's difficult enough to do whilst staring at the dust cavorting in a slanting sunbeam. "But that isn't an excuse! Because it shouldn't make a difference, you know. The Book itself says, 'love casteth out fear'."

"Blegh." Crowley's voice in his ear is nothing but affectionate. "The verse says perfect love casts out fear. New Testament somewhere. I think."

"Yes, the first personal epistle of John. In the 1611 English translation, at least."

"Not like I read the thing after the Church discarded the Apocrypha. Those were the best bits." Crowley ignores his nose-scrunch of disagreement. "But the point is, nothing in the world's been perfect since Eden."

Aziraphale blinks for a second, because that actually is true.

"I made sure of that, if you recall. Bang-up job, if I do say so."

"I do not say so, but you certainly did."

"If anything, I brought it on myself, a bit. I know I wasn't careful enough, all those years. Hell caught on more than once, but fraternizing's a lot easier to explain away to my lot than yours."

Aziraphale does not want to think about what those conversations likely entailed.

Crowley's hands, resting until now easily at his waist, shift slightly, fingers twitching with nervous tension. "Either way," he continues, a little too quickly, "I never blamed you for being careful. Heaven says 'be not afraid' all over the blessed place and then builds a half-dozen religions built on fear of divine judgment. And I can't blame you for wanting to do the right thing, that's all you've ever wanted to do. You're too good for them, Aziraphale."

"Be that as it may. Fear is not sufficient excuse for hurting you. For leaving you." For choosing the wrong side, and not for the first time.

"Ehh. You've never done that without good reason," Crowley says. "I wallowed for about a week, and then started thinking. Realized pretty quickly that the Metatron just played us both like a borrowed fiddle."

"Of course you did."

"I'm guessing heaven was terrified about that miracle we did together?"

"Yes, I realized that almost immediately."

Much as he has always been a bit too naïve about the innate Goodness of Heaven, Aziraphale is not, as some might presume, a fool. He had been under no impression that the Metatron actually thought him capable of managing Heaven, and knew there was only a small chance that he was being asked to oversee the Second Coming due to his experience with the Earth itself and the aborted Armageddon. The far more likely scenario was that Heaven wanted him off of Earth, and preferably separated from Hell's equally loose cannon of an agent on said Earth.

If Crowley had accepted the offer to return to Heaven, not only would he have been guaranteed safety from Heaven's retribution, but he would definitely have foiled what Aziraphale suspected was the Metatron's intentions of separating them. But that had been a very, very small shot in the dark, and while Aziraphale had been far too hopeful, in retrospect, he should not have been at all surprised Crowley never even entertained the idea.

But it had become incredibly obvious, incredibly quickly, that Aziraphale's suspicions were correct. No one in the Heavenly host, the Metatron included, actually believed he was the correct person for the job, and this was clearly just damage control.

Unluckily for them, Aziraphale has been finding and exploiting loopholes on Earth for millennia. That was their undoing, in the end.

And in the end, it had been fortuitous indeed that Crowley was still a demon, and he an angel; because he suspects two parallel forces would not produce the same level of power required to perform what their opposing forces did today. That, undoubtedly, was what the Metatron had been fearing all along.

Now, Crowley mutters something very unflattering about the archangel hierarchy, which Aziraphale chooses to not take personally. "I'm still pissed off about how you went about it, mind," the demon adds. "But I knew pretty quickly it wasn't about me."

"But how?"

"The shop told me."

Aziraphale takes a step back and peers at him in confusion. "What?"

"Well, not in words. I don't think she's achieved sentience or something, like the car." Crowley looks around, as if considering for the first time if that's even possible. "Wait, do you think…?"

The bookshop wisely stays silent, for now. It likes being underestimated, and it has Seen Things.

Crowley shrugs. "Was the warding, that did it," he says. "I came back a month later, can't remember why. Muriel was out somewhere. Was surprised the shop let me in, key or not."

"But it's always been warded to let you in," Aziraphale protests, tugging him a little closer as they move back into motion. "I made certain of that from the beginning."

"Yeah, but the warding failed when we were gatecrashed by all remaining archangels and various powers of Hell that night. Not to mention someone setting off a blessed halo indoors," Crowley says dryly. "Wards were non-existent when you left for Heaven."

"Oh, I didn't even think…"

"You were too distracted to do much, I figured, yeah." Crowley has the grace to look a little ashamed. "My bad. Would've served me right to be bounced on my arse."

Aziraphale's hand on his back swats gently. "Oh, stop."

"Anyway," Crowley continues, now with a hint of a self-satisfied smirk, "the Metatron. Not my biggest fan. If that wasn't clear."

"It was rather obvious," Aziraphale says, trying not to laugh. "I still don't quite know why, but I can extrapolate from context."

"That's ancient history." Crowley's voice goes a little dark. "But given how much he hates me personally, I figured when he fixed the place for the handover, he'd make sure I was barred for good."

"Oh, I don't think that's possible, given the…well. The measures I took when I first warded it, over a century ago." Aziraphale's cheeks flush a light pink under Crowley's pointed look. "I was quite thorough. I doubt even the Metatron would have been able to override the foundational spellwork. I don't think he has the imagination, to be quite honest."

"You were terrifyingly thorough. Where the hell did you learn some of that blood magic?"

"Funny you should phrase it like that."

"Funny?!"

"Really, dear." Aziraphale shrugs, unconcerned. "I have connections everywhere, when it comes to old books."

"Old cursed books. Books that shouldn't have been anywhere near an angel to begin with because they're too dangerous."

"They weren't near me very long, just long enough to do the job. They've long since been disposed of."

"You're an idiot."

"I am resourceful. Do you know how difficult it is — and how long it takes — to create a safe haven for a demon — who isn't a very demonic demon, by the by, which makes the warding ever so much more difficult — in a building on Heaven's books as a divine embassy, without consecrating the ground or inadvertently blessing the water pipes?"

"Well, I know now!"

Crowley's hand on his shoulder threatens to split the shoulder seam. Having endured far more stress over the last couple of centuries, the seam knows better than to permit such a mundane thing as fraying to occur.

"I thought it was just a loophole that let me in. Why the heaven didn't you ever tell me you'd turned this place into a literal sanctuary, specifically for me?"

"I thought you knew! Why didn't you tell me you were living in your car since the lockdowns started?"

Crowley grinds to a halt and blinks at him for a second, wide-eyed. "I thought you knew," he repeats slowly, as if the echo is only just now registering.

"Oh, no."

"We're both idiots, aren't we."

"It would appear so," Aziraphale agrees, a little ruefully. As their steps have slowed, his hands have drifted between them, coming to rest on Crowley's chest. "All these years," he murmurs, smoothing out the wrinkled black shirt, "and we still haven't learned to properly talk to one another, have we."

The iron that had been keeping Crowley's spine semi-straight seems to disappear, leaving only exhaustion behind.

"We talk, Aziraphale," he says, and he sounds so tired. "Just…always about everything except what matters."

"Oh, my dear."

"I — I've tried, I really have." A gentle hand hesitantly lands on his face, and he leans into it, eyes fluttering closed. "But…'M always too late. Or too early. Too something."

"Too brave," Aziraphale replies quietly. "You've always been so much braver than I, Crowley."

Crowley's eyes open, and he shakes his head fiercely, hand closing around Aziraphale's wrist. "Don't say that. That's not at all what this is."

"But you are! All this time —"

"All this time, Angel, the only thing I have ever had left to lose, is you." The words are razor-sharp, angry as a kicked hornet's nest. "You've always had a hell of a lot more to lose. Apples and oranges, you can't compare the two."

"Perhaps you should, though," Aziraphale whispers.

"Don't be daft." Crowley vents a mangled noise of frustration, and then gestures over his shoulder at the silence. The record, which had ended a moment before, suddenly finds itself turned over, and also a completely different song than any which have ever existed in its inventory. It doesn't bother questioning this.

"D'you think I don't know about that warehouse in Liverpool where you've dumped every book on demon summoning you can get your hands on over the last few centuries, so the humans can't find that knowledge anymore?"

Crowley's voice is low, almost reverent in his ear as they resume a slow, lingering, not-anything-resembling-an-actual-dance.

Somehow, this time there's no awkward fumbling, and no confusion about who leads.

"Think I didn't see the report on how many demons you smited back to Hell from London in the late 1800s?"

"But —"

"I'm not stupid enough to think they're still steering clear of this city because of me, Angel."

Aziraphale looks a bit mortified. "There was imminent global war, and you were sleeping off a tantrum over holy water." He ignores the indignant hiss that last receives. "I thought Hell might be recalling you, testing the waters with replacements. I got a bit carried away."

"My point is," Crowley continues, ignoring him, "even with everything to lose, your first instinct is to be a Principality, a guardian. To protect. Mine? Mine's to run. Flight over fight every day of the week, me."

"Not when it matters. No, I won't hear of it. You always come back. That takes courage, Crowley."

"Yeah, well. Doesn't change the animal instinct to run and hide. Nothing brave in that."

"I think," Aziraphale muses, after a few moments of gentle swaying silence, "that perhaps we are both looking at the same thing and trying desperately to call it courage, when it's always just been survival. From both our sides."

"Mmyeah. You could be right."

"I generally am, you know."

"You're inssssufferable."

"That too."

"Crowley."

"Hm?"

After arguing over the next song, a very chaotic attempt at a waltz that ended in nearly falling over and taking a stack of biographies with them, and a laugh about the old days, they've finally settled back into slow dancing, a speed that seems to suit them both just fine.

"Now that all is said and done?" Aziraphale's tone has lost the lightheartedness and takes on a wistful note, frayed at the edges like a well-worn blanket. "I do owe you a real apology. Several of them, I rather think."

"You really don't."

"An explanation, then. At the very least."

"You saved the world from the literal Judgment Seat today, Angel. If that's not sufficient explanation, I dunno what is."

"We saved the world."

"Yeah, well. It's our world now, isn't it? More ours than Hers, at this point, if you go by how much care's been put into it. Someone's got to speak for the humans."

"They spoke quite well for themselves today, didn't they? Humanity has always been so much more clever at that sort of thing."

"Some of them, yeah." They've migrated across the bookshop as they've been wrapped up in each other, unintentionally moving deeper into the shelves. Crowley's eyes wander over his shoulder to one of them nearby. "Austen was on the money, at least," he observes, almost too careful. "Pride's always been an easy one for my lot. Goes before the fall, and all that. I've…I've brought a lot of pride to the table, over the years."

"And I've come with a truly dreadful amount of prejudice, haven't I."

"Prejudice isn't a sin, Angel. I would know."

"Oh, but —"

"Nope. Not one of the Seven Deadlies, or the Big Ten. It's practically built-in angelic programming, straight from the top." Crowley clicks his tongue bitterly. "She's had Her Chosen People from the very beginning. Not to mention Her chosen angels."

Aziraphale looks up at him, fire in his eyes, hands tight in black lapels. "Then She is wrong, and I am no longer one of those angels," he declares, and even as the words leave his mouth he can tell that they are being Heard, Recorded, Recognized — and absolutely nothing else.

He has not Fallen; nor has he been Judged. He has been allowed Free Will, like the humans, and his choice has been acknowledged; that is all. Her Son had said the Truth would set them free, long ago; and perhaps it really has. Several thousand years too late, but better late than never.

But his poor Crowley's eyes are wide with something far too much like terror to be tolerated in this sanctuary. "Don't say things like that out loud," he rasps, fairly shaking under Aziraphale's gentle grasp. "Not even here. It's not worth the risk."

"I believe it is, though."

"Why now!" The words are snarled, accompanied by a clawing grip that is almost painful.

"Because," Aziraphale says quietly. "I am no longer afraid."

"You should be." It is a low rasp, almost drowned in the music still playing in the shelves. "You really should."

"But I'm not. Not of that, anyway."

"Of what, then."

"Of doing the wrong thing. Oh, not in heaven's eyes," he specifies, with a rueful half-smile. The words aren't as steady as he would like them to be as he explains further, "The wrong thing here. With our side, Crowley. With us."

Oblivious to this, Crowley is silent for a second, brow wrinkling and unwrinkling, and then he exhales slowly, as if physically breathing out the tension, or perhaps the uncertainty. Or maybe, just the realisation that nothing is happening; the ground is not opening to swallow Aziraphale for his words, his wings are not aflame. They are, indeed, permitted this. The apple is in hand, and it is up to them what they do with the knowledge.

And oh, this is far more terrifying to Aziraphale than facing down their old Head Offices had been, scant hours ago.

"Nnh. Okay," Crowley finally continues, in a more calm tone. "And why would you think there was even a wrong thing to do, here?"

"Because…" Old habits choke the words in his throat, but it is time to cast out fear. "Because, if I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more."

The clock loudly ticks off three painful, heartwrenching beats.

And then, barely audible, Crowley says, halting, "But you know what I am."

"I do know." Aziraphale's hand is gentle at his cheek. "And I have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other would have."

"You're ridiculous," Crowley mutters fondly, and it sounds like say it again. "Emma, really."

"You don't read books," Aziraphale points out, the very picture of angelic innocence. "So how would you know it was Emma."

The bookshop absently notes a mental threat to burn the offending volume for its unwitting betrayal of Crowley's worst secret sins, and discards the threat as a non-starter, because anyone who has purchased twenty-three different fire extinguishers for the building is not going to light a match within three hundred meters of any book contained therein.

"I should have known, though," Aziraphale muses, watching with fascination as Crowley's face steadily turns the colour of his hair. "Emma, of course. You would like Austen's funny one."

"I ssswear to sssssomeone, Aziraphale —"

"I do think Persuasion might be more apposite in our case, though. And it is rather a favorite of mine."

"If you start quoting Frederick bloody Wentworth —"

"'I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach,'" Aziraphale continues, completely unperturbed. "Tell me not—Oh really, dear, don't take His name in vain. He was dreadfully kind to you today. Now, where were we?"

"I am about to walk into traffic and discorporate myself."

"Ah yes. 'Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever.'"

A strangled croak interrupts him this time, and he is kind enough to pause.

Crowley exhales, a little unsteady. "You made your point. Whatever it was. Can't we skip to the end?"

"Oh, but I'm quite well-read in so many excellent passages," Aziraphale says, gesturing around at the shelves with the hand that is still unoccupied. "And I don't believe in abridged novels. So I don't think I will."

"What."

"I'm not going to stop," he clarifies politely. "So I'm very much afraid you're going to have to stand there and listen…or find some way to make me stop."

As his brain chooses that precise instant to almost visibly reboot, Crowley forgets that, unlike snakes, human bodies have eyelids and need to blink.

"Jolly good." Aziraphale clears his throat, trying not to laugh. "Now, let's see…ah yes, this is a lovely bit. 'I offer myself to you again with a heart —"

Well, that cream-colored bow-tie is more a dusty ochre after today's battle, and a Heavenly construct anyway; nowhere near as comfortable as his well-worn earthly versions. So perhaps it's only fitting it meets an inglorious end being accidentally crushed by fumbling demonic hands.

He had been woefully unprepared for their first kiss, such as it had been, and while he had thought himself more ready this time, it would appear he is very much not. Nor, it would seem, is Crowley, because the startled inhale when Aziraphale's hand slides around his waist and the way he arches into the touch spark thoughts that he has honestly never had before.

Sweet as it is, it hasn't gone on for nearly long enough, in Aziraphale's opinion, before Crowley reels backward with a heave of breath, slitted pupils blown wide. Unstoppable demonic force promptly meets immovable object in the form of the nearest shelf of books, resounding with a dull clonk.

Not exactly the reaction Aziraphale was hoping for, but he thinks the swearing is actually directed at the bookshelf rather than the kiss, so that's something. (The bookshop would like to point out for the record that it is not responsible in any way for anything that has happened in its shelves, past or present.)

"Oh, dear. What on earth's the matter?"

Distraught, Crowley shakes his head as if to clear it. Or diagnose a concussion. "Didn't ask. Again. I just —"

"Succumbed to temptation?" Aziraphale supplies, with a small, pleased bounce. "That was the end goal, yes."

Crowley makes a sound vaguely like a bespotted ficus being shoved in a sink disposal.

"Well, really. I thought it was rather well done."

Crowley still looks a little dazed. "Er. Yeah. Good job. Top tier."

"Oh, good." He beams. "Then I'd very much like to try again. When you're ready."

That seems to snap Crowley out of it, because he surges forward again, and they meet in the middle like two covers of a book finally being joined by an endband.

"Are you sure?" It's barely a shared breath between them, but there are literal centuries of questions hiding in its shadows. "Angel, are you sure?"

"Quite sure." For perhaps the first time, but then again, he suspects there will be many such firsts in the years to come. "I am terribly sorry it took me so long to catch up. But I am very sure. And —"

Well, words are unnecessary right now, anyway.

Their first kiss had been a veritable tempest of negative emotions barely held together with a thread of something softer; there had been something, but it was buried under so much anger and hurt and fumbled desperation that it had been all but invisible. Like the proverbial candle under a bushel, guttering out under the destructive power of a cyclone. Their second, just now, had been much more pleasant, though more like a summer storm, rolling in and out in moments, startling and refreshing but over in the blink of an eye.

But this?

This…must be what it is supposed to feel like. Not a hurricane or summer squall, but a gentle spring rain. The kind of rain that dances on flowers and green grass and smells of petrichor, the kind that lingers in the air for hours afterwards, as if reminding the world that it was here at the beginning, and will return when needed most. The kind that is always familiar, yet always leaves the world fresh and new. The kind that makes taking shelter under a canopy an act of kindness, not merely survival.

The kind that feels like coming Home.

The gramophone suddenly finds itself playing Etta James' At Last, even though Aziraphale has never purchased such a record and Crowley would jump in a baptismal font before admitting he even knows the song exists.

Perhaps the humans have been on to something all along, this very specific, physical method of showing love. The rest of it all has always seemed rather too messy to justify the amount of work involved, physical and emotional. Though there is certainly time to revise that conclusion too at a future date, if desired...Strange, the idea that after so long, there is time — and freedom — for that now. For anything and everything, now. It is equal parts terrifying and thrilling.

Occult and ethereal corporations don't actually require respiration, technically speaking, but one does acquire habits over the millennia. And it is the tiny, barely noticeable hitch of breath against his lips that gives him pause now. Crowley feels his hesitation immediately, of course, and tries to hide a sniff as Aziraphale pulls back just a fraction, allowing their foreheads to rest against each other for a moment instead.

"Ssshut up," Crowley mutters, ragged, into the space between them. His eyes are clear, but there are definite traces of moisture clinging to his lashes.

For once, Aziraphale actually does keep quiet, because this seems like an extremely fragile moment, balanced like paper-thin Murano on a glass-blower's pontil.

Finally, after what seems like hours but is really only a few seconds, Crowley's hands slide from their previous tangle in the fine hairs at the base of his neck to his shoulders. "You can feel it, can't you?" he asks, almost desperately. "Angel, tell me you can feel it, please, because I can't — I don't know how —"

"I can," he answers softly, immediately, because he would — he will — do anything to never hear that uncertainty again. "Darling, I always have, I think. I just didn't realize what it — what it even was, until quite a bit more recently. It had always been there, you see. The whole time."

Like the proverbial frog in a pot of boiling water, so to speak, not realizing the temperature until it was far too late to escape; Aziraphale had never realized that the normal state of affairs was, in fact, anything but normal. He, a being of love, never actively noticed this very specific one until its absence. Peripherally, yes. In an abstract sense, an angelic sense, yes. But in totality, not until those elevator doors had closed, and the combination of unfiltered Holiness and demonic heartbreak had been the equivalent of an emotional ice bath that drowned it completely had he actually comprehended it.

Cut off from what had been, until that moment, an ever-present warmth, he had been abruptly confronted with its chilling opposite. As darkness is defined as the absence of Light, so this one angel found himself defined by the absence of decidedly non-angelic Love.

It had been there, in that elevator, that the whole thing suddenly became crystal-clear, illuminated as if lightning flashed upon a landscape. What had previously only been a righteous crusade suddenly became a multilevel chess game, and one he was determined to not simply survive, but to win.

Because it was only at that moment that he physically felt what it might be like to lose not just the Earth, but the world.

"Eheh, well." Oblivious to this painful memory chain, Crowley's ears flush an even darker shade of scarlet. "'S what happens when it's at first sight. Or something."

Aziraphale can't repress the smile. "Really? I was a bit of a mess at the Beginning."

"Yeah. A gorgeous mess." Crowley's eyes crinkle with amusement at the corners. "The only angel I know of after the Great War who had the nerve to set his weapon down and lie to God's actual face about it."

"Oh, please don't remind me."

"And the Metatron thought putting you in charge of Heaven itself was going to work out for him." Crowley cackles a little, and finally lets himself be pulled into the tightest hug Aziraphale can manage.

"Angel, how could I not fall for you. I didn't stand a chance."

"Did She plan it this way, do you suppose?" Aziraphale asks, two bottles of pre-War Domaine de la Romanée-Conti and half a bottle of petrol station tequila later.

The wine, because Crowley has apparently stashed a small liquid fortune all over the world through the years, and the tequila because Aziraphale's cellar had become an unfortunate casualty of the aborted Second Coming, and Jesus was rather out of practice in the art of alcoholic alchemy.

Also, the tequila was all Nina had had in her flat when they stopped by, and she insisted they take it as a thank-you, of sorts, for ensuring Maggie's shop survived the angelic host landing on the premises earlier in the week. It would have been rude to refuse, and Crowley was fascinated by its, directly quoted, 'notes of nail polish remover'.

The shop has been fully put to rights, they have checked in with the other denizens of Whickber Street, Crowley has popped back to his flat to make sure it's still standing. Standing might be a generous term for its condition, but his plants are far too hardy to let a little light arson kill them, and that's all that matters. For right now, the Bentley is guarding them, and if Aziraphale has his way, the flat will be consigned to Hell forthwith, and good riddance.

"Eh?" Crowley belatedly surfaces with a grumble from where he's half-asleep in front of the electric heater Aziraphale installed a couple years ago in the back room in lieu of a drafty fireplace.

"Planned the fate of the world as a lever, with us as the fulcrum? To be the balance for freedom of choice all along?"

"Eugh." Crowley's expression twists as if he's bitten into an underripe kumquat. "Hope not. And considering how incompetent we were in the dry run, I doubt it."

"Or that was the purpose of the 'dry run'. Armageddon being planned to the letter like that. To test us, for the main event."

"Maybe." Crowley looks into his glass as if the answer is floating at the bottom. "But She isn't much for blurring lines in the first place. I'd like to think this one's all us, Angel. Just us learning from the humans. Making our own choices. Having the free will to make those choices."

"Hm. Shades of gray."

Crowley snorts. "There's a book for your shop."

"Over my discorporated body." Aziraphale's shudder is palpable. "Was that your influence?"

"Me? I've got better things to do than inspire books being written, thank you very much." He tilts his head back over the arm of the sofa to smirk at Aziraphale upside-down. "Those E-readers you hate so much, now. That was me. You pissed me off in the early nineties, can't remember why."

Aziraphale looks at him primly over the rim of his glass, but says nothing.

"Wot."

"Did you create them to get people to lose interest in books, or to lose interest in trying to buy them? Because I distinctly remember complaining vociferously about an influx in customers whilst we were preparing to head to the Dowling estate."

Crowley hisses something unintelligible into his own wine glass and slithers down into the sofa cushions.

Honestly, how he hoodwinked Hell for literal millennia is a multi-Lazarii miracle in itself.

"I thought it was rather sweet, you know."

A vague retching noise drifts over the sofa arm.

Aziraphale hides a smile and, after miracling a book in hand, joins him there for what he hopes — has faith — is the first of many very quiet, peaceful evenings.

Because, as it happens, he now knows there is quite a difference between feeling love, and feeling loved.