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History was made by writing things down. Easy enough.
A simple reality that Crowley gathered quite early on, and it was rather on brand for humankind. What with how tacky and unreliable the method was.
A few tweaks here and there, a couple of embellishments smack in the middle, and you got yourself a selling story. Not necessarily a plausible or even a favorable one, but that has never been the point, has it? Truth matters very little when perception is the main dish to be served. Though calling it a serving would be far too generous, given that it has often been shoved into people like spears.
Sometimes, accompanied with literal spears.
And under all those piles of spears and dusty ancient paper, hidden between the lines and most likely in a language no creature could ever perceive, was probably the truth. There was a lifetime not so long ago actually, in which Crowley did seem to have come rather close to having it all figured out. Except the very next instant, something in existence shifted. And it couldn't have been described as anything short of the universal spear of the truth suddenly turning into a spade and wacking him over the head.
For one moment he was sitting in the backyard of his lovely countryside house, looking up at the stars while holding his darling husband's hand. And the next, he was in a bookshop —
No. Back at the bookshop. One confused demon, an equally baffled angel and no bill or a waiter to complain to.
"What." Crowley rasps out, because he's always been eloquent like that.
"Oh this is… well I'll be damned." Aziraphale breathes, throwing a fervent look around. When his eyes land back on Crowley, he immediately sags in relief. "How did we—? Was it you—?"
"'S not me. I don't think." Crowley says and staggers forward when Aziraphale begins taking his own shaky steps towards him. "I think someone's clonked around with time."
"Have they?" Aziraphale says around a shaky, hopeful smile. He looks close to tears. "Weird business that. Time."
Crowley sniffs and tips his head back so that he is facing the ceiling. The yellow ceiling of his beloved bookshop. He swallows back a whine.
Fuck. He is going to cry, isn't he? First seconds back in his old corporation, and he's going to embarrass himself in front of his angel first thing.
Very on brand for him, too.
"Tell me about it. Time's a funny thing, I've always said that!" Crowley throws himself into a ramble, because that's what he's always done when all else failed him. "It's even funnier when it happens to people who haven't the foggiest idea how it works. Some humans haven't even bothered much about any amount of time longer than an hour. Have you heard that silly verse they used to sing to measure the time needed to boil an egg —"
"My dearest." Aziraphale cries, putting an effective end to Crowley's tirade. Because he says it right against Crowley's shocked mouth. And Crowley may not have had a very successful career as a demon, or a very long one as a human, but he's not an idiot, thank you very much.
When his one true love is kissing him, he happily shuts up and kisses back.
"Darling. Dearest. Beloved." Aziraphale murmurs between kisses across his lips and cheeks, seemingly unable to tear himself away further than a breath. "Oh, my Crowley…"
"I have no idea what's happened, angel." Crowley says, equal parts elated and terrified. Petrified for their future, for - oh Jesus, if the thought doesn't already send a treacherous rush of thrill through his ancient soul - for them.
Not the rushed twenty something year human trial run of it. A real, proper, eternal them.
"We'll figure it out. We always have." Aziraphale all but coos at him, smoothing his fingers back and forth against the wet streaks runnig down his cheeks. The angel is crying too, but Crowley's hands feel too shaky to manage anything beyond clutching Aziraphale's jacket and pulling him closer, and closer, impossibly closer still. Until he is crowded against the nearest bookshelf and being kissed within an inch of his life.
He hopes Aziraphale never stops kissing him like this. Half-precious and half-crazed with hunger. He hopes Aziraphale never stops kissing him, period.
The disgruntled noise he makes then, is quite understandable, for Aziraphale does, regrettably, pull back. Followed by a breeze of angelic laughter and then two petal soft kisses against his eyelids.
When he flutters them back open, Aziraphale is already looking into his yellow eyes as if they are his very own suns rising with new hope.
He huffs, somehow still embarrassed, even after everything. His well-kissed lips twitch up into a crooked little smile that Aziraphale immediately begins tracing with his index and middle fingers. Claiming it for himself as well, Crowley realizes and shivers, very pleased.
Looking his angel boldly in the eye, he kisses the wandering fingertips.
Aziraphale's love-drunk expression falls. Crowley's heart chills over.
"Angel, what's wrong?"
"I'm so sorry." Aziraphale all but sobs out. "Even at the very end, after how brave you were, I couldn't … you deserved a better parting kiss than that, Crowley. You deserved so much more than that!"
All of Crowley's fear leaves his aching chest in a sigh. This silly, lovely angel.
"Angel, we were married for decades long after that." Crowley mumbles, cheeks flushing at the recollection. He doesn't remember their lives as humans in great detail. Not as such. But the knowledge of it is there in his consicousness all the same, solid as anything. And if he did manage to pull a few precious snippets along into this reality, then it's only for him to know and cherish.
Not that it wasn't 'them proper' in the other reality, but it wasn't exactly them, either.
Realities are even more complicated and annoying than time, Crowley decides and instead wraps his arms around Aziraphale's shoulders in comfort. Better things to do with his reality and time now, anyway.
"Still." Aziraphale insists, looking equally flustered at the reminder. "I should've kissed you as passionately as you did. It's just that, under those circumstances —"
"Too crowded and too much pressure, I get it." Crowley jokes, leaning down to drop a kiss of his own on Aziraphale's nose. Which scrunches in response adorably. And then his face smoothes into an entirely too serious expression for the occasion.
Crowley, too, straightens a little from his usual slouch.
"Crowley, I need you to understand." Aziraphale says, cupping Crowley's face in-between his hands. "There isn't a reality in which I would've kissed you, and then chosen the rest of the blasted universe over you. Walking away that first time was torture enough."
Crowley feels unmoored. A lost boat cut loose to drift into the ocean. He hears, distantly, a car horn and the shout of a passerby down the street. Neither clarifies the situation.
"What." he gasps out, jaw clicking and breaths coming a little labored now.
"I knew it was always going to be you who saved the world." Azirapahle makes that sympathetic cooing sound at him again, as if that will somehow take his pain away. "My brightest, kindest star. The best of us all. The one to make an impossible choice. It was always going to be you, darling."
Crowley begins shaking anew. His fingers curl almost painfully onto Aziraphale's shoulders, and if it hurts, the angel doesn't show it.
"What are you talking about? You were the one going on and on and on about how everything was bigger than us. All you wanted was to save humanity —"
"For us." Aziraphale breaks in, smoothly. "I didn't entertain the possibility of us not seeing it through even for a moment. It would've been an unthinkably cruel fate. And need I remind you, that you were always insisting on running off together. If anything, I assumed that's what you'd choose."
Aziraphale halts mid-breath and huffs out a small laugh. A delayed realisation finally dawning on him.
"In fact, I think I hoped you would." Aziraphale says, an impossible lightness coming about his corporation at the confession. He looks even more sparkly and dazzling than when he was appointed archangel.
Right, Crowley decides, his angel has officially lost his damn mind.
"Have you lost it?" Crowley asks, just to make sure. He is still unable to make head or tail of the entire conversation. "So what, you're saying you would've been happy to live forever without anything you loved? No humans, no books, no music! I mean, forever doesn't seem to last as long these days, but still."
Aziraphale laughs again, brighter and more certain this time. Draws him into a kiss and then touches their foreheads together.
"Crowley," Aziraphale breathes against his mouth, and Crowley shivers. "You heard Her. I can be selfish and prideful. My love for you has been the messiest, silliest and apparently the most predictable thing in the entire universe. But, it has also been just as steadfast. I would've been happy to exist in our not-bookshop in no-time, in the middle of nowhere and nothing, just arguing and wasting eternity with you. As long as that were what you had chosen for us."
Crowley all but crumbles.
"Angel…" he whispers, fresh tears rolling down his cheeks.
"Did I say the wrong thing again?" Aziraphale asks, quick to wipe his tears.
"I love you." Crowley says, in lieu of a response. Unable to bear another moment of not saying the words.
How did he live so long by showing it in all possible ways but words?
Aziraphale lets out a shaky exhale and breaks into a relieved smile. Accompanied with the little wiggly dance he does when he is particularly happy. Crowley's heart almost bursts from adoration.
"Oh darling, how I love you!" Aziraphale declares, blissfully unaware that each term of endearment has Crowley effectively weak at the knees. "I promise to do right by you. Not a single moment of us together will be taken for granted."
Crowley hums, something light and almost teasing shining in his eyes now.
"Dunno, angel." he drawls, fiddling with Aziraphale's bow-tie. "Y'already seem to have done a good job this recent time."
Aziraphale blinks and at Crowley's pointed gaze downward, takes a closer look. The golden wedding band around Crowley's ring finger seems to glow just a little brighter under his raptured attention.
"Oh…" Aziraphale breathes, eyes suspiciously misty. He swallows and bows his head a little to press a lingering kiss against the ring. Pale blue eyes meet yellow, when he says. "Then, I shall endeavour to do a 'better one' this time around."
Crowley smiles, big and wobbly. Knowing himself he will probably cry again soon.
"I trust you will, angel. I trust you will."
They can't bear to part from their embrace for a long time. Hours, if not days must pass in between more whispered confessions and promises, when Crowley thinks he hears a distinctly feminine voice laughing.
He has the unexpectedly hopeful premonition, that it might be laughing with and not at them.