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Morning in the cottage was Aziraphale’s favourite time of day. He loved the complete and utter peacefulness of this new life.
While it was still night, but the sky was beginning the gradual colour changes heralding the dawn, he slipped out of bed, taking care not to wake Crowley, and padded downstairs in his slippers. Time to put the kettle on and make a pot of tea.
Shortly afterwards, the cat returned from her nightly explorations, having seen a light in the kitchen window, and Aziraphale put her breakfast down for her, trying not to trip over her as she wove herself excitedly through his legs. They would have to think of a name for her, eventually.
Aziraphale opened the internal door to the garage, stepped inside and turned the light on. Crowley kept a very tidy garage, and the light flickered as it revealed neatly arranged tools, pots of paint, buckets… and an old friend.
Aziraphale patted the Bentley’s roof.
“Good morning, dear,” he said, and the Bentley’s lights flashed sleepily. Aziraphale leaned against the car’s chassis companionably. “How do you feel about a trip to the seaside soon, hm? I think that would be simply marvellous.” Aziraphale patted the roof once more and left the Bentley to doze in peace.
The birdsong outside was getting louder, turning more into the kind of raucous dawn chorus that reminded Aziraphale of centuries long gone, when you could hear such loud birdsong in London. By the time he’d begun his long residence in the bookshop, it was a thing of the past.
The full-throated melodies brought back memories from so many other places he’d lived and occupations he’d had. He’d been a merchant, a bishop, a knight, and for a long time a monk, and the birdsong spoke to him of all those times. He drifted backwards through time, reminiscing about his many different roles and lives. He could almost hear the sounds of horse and cart rumbling over cobbled streets, or, older memories still, the bleating of goats in their pastures on the hillsides around Ancient Rome.
Aziraphale remembered. He remembered the humans most of all. Humans he’d loved, humans he’d admired: poets, lovers, soldiers, children. Religious figures, and those who were rather more secular in spirit, and now that very recent phenomenon, avowed atheists. There had been some in the last category who were very dear to Aziraphale. He missed them all, but he was so very glad to have known them.
This was the time between Midsummer and Lammas-tide, so the days were long and dawn had come early. Aziraphale rather fancied sitting out in the garden, with a book at hand for when the light was enough to read by. Crowley had put a bench along the side wall of the cottage for this very reason. The air was lovely and cool, and there was an extra freshness to it from being near to the sea. Aziraphale popped his cardigan on, and his warmest socks, and shuffled into his garden shoes – they were ideal for spending time in the garden; comfy and informal (but not too informal, of course. He had standards.)
As he sat on the bench (which was their bench now, and would always be), he breathed deeply and then filled his strictly unnecessary lungs with the invigorating breeze, and marvelled at the promise of a new day.
This was another of the reasons Aziraphale loved mornings in the cottage – each new sunrise reminded him what a blessing it was to witness a new day at all. To see the fingers of light peek over the curve of the Earth again, and know that they would keep doing so for the natural lifespan of the solar system was something he would never take for granted. Crowley, Muriel, Jesus, Adam and the humans – and Aziraphale, too – had fought hard for it. Each sunrise was a gift, and especially a gift from his friends and someone who was more than a friend.
The poets had sung about rosy-fingered dawn, and now it would always be this way, for as long as the human race was there to appreciate it.
Aziraphale felt a slight shift in demonic energy from inside the cottage, which he’d come to recognise as a sign Crowley would wake up soon, and he got up, went back into the kitchen and poured another cup of tea from the pot. He took it upstairs and left it on the bedside table. The cat had decided to sleep on Aziraphale’s side of the bed, incongruously mirroring the curled up lump of former demon under the covers on the other side.
Aziraphale smiled at the sight.
That was the thing he loved best about mornings at the cottage, above all others. Crowley stayed. Aziraphale didn’t have to wave goodbye to him at the end of a wonderful night of drinking and conversation any more. Crowley was still here the morning after, every morning that came after every night, because they shared this place: this cottage, this garden, this bed. They shared this life.
Aziraphale retreated quietly downstairs, leaving Crowley to wake up in his own time. As he sat at the kitchen table, he thought of their last stand against Heaven and Hell, and how Jesus had been about to sacrifice Himself again to save humanity again, until He realised that there was a much better way. Jesus had learned about Aziraphale and Crowley hiding Gabriel with their joint miracle, and had understood immediately why that miracle had been so shockingly powerful.
(When He explained it to Crowley and Aziraphale, things had become somewhat awkward. Still, Aziraphale treasured that knowledge even more than the world they had saved with it.)
They hadn’t spoken about it since, but Aziraphale could see the evidence every day. It was in the silences between them, it was in their kisses, in their disagreements, in their going out and their coming home. When Aziraphale returned from an errand in the village and Crowley greeted him with a nod, not looking up from his phone.
“There’s tea if you want it,” he would say, pointing to a fresh pot on the kitchen table. And Aziraphale heard clearly the meaning running underneath: There’s love if you want it. Aziraphale felt it all around him.
That evening, after a little sojourn to the local pub, which turned out to offer several very expensive fine wines of which the staff were previously unaware, they returned home to the cottage. They walked back along the quiet road that led uphill hand in hand, as was their habit. The summer evening sky seemed to go on forever, and swallows fluttered and dived in the endless blue above them.
“Crowley, dear fellow,” said Aziraphale as he held the garden gate open for him, “let’s sit on the bench a while, shall we?”
Crowley grunted and moved his head in a way that signalled agreement, and followed Aziraphale, spreadeagling himself on their bench.
Aziraphale sat down next to him and leaned into his side. Wordlessly, Crowley draped his outstretched arm over Aziraphale. They watched the sky turn from blue to gold to pink, and Aziraphale turned to Crowley, seeing the evening light mirrored in his golden eyes.
“Dearest. I’m tremendously sorry I haven’t said this before – although there were times I wanted to, times you deserved to know… but it used to be so dreadfully dangerous, and I’ve never stopped being afraid for you, and…and Jesus might’ve spoiled it a bit, but…” he reached up to stroke Crowley’s cheek. “Anyway, I wanted to tell you how I feel. Properly. Crowley, darling, I love you.”
Crowley put a slightly trembly hand over Aziraphale’s where it rested on his cheek and swallowed noisily.
“Knew that. ‘Course,” he said croakily. “Love you too, Angel.”
And Aziraphale leaned in and kissed him.
Aziraphale could admit that he was normally a tad dramatic about kissing Crowley – it was all very new and exciting to him and perhaps he was a little aggressive in his enthusiasm for it. But this was a different kind of kiss, patient and tender, Aziraphale waiting to feel Crowley’s response and savouring it, the two of them moving together unhurriedly, the barest brush of tongues.
It was the kind of kiss that said, Welcome home.