Work Text:
A Little Too Well
In a cottage near the sea...
Aziraphale was in his favourite armchair, reading a book while his forgotten cocoa grew cold, when he felt a familiar flash of love.
"Did you feel that, Crowley?" he called out to the plant room.
"Again? Really?" Crowley stepped into the corridor holding a plant mister, looking puzzled. "What are we this time? Aardvarks?"
Aziraphale closed his eyes to feel the love more fully. Crowley came to sit on the arm of Aziraphale's chair. He placed his hand on Aziraphale's shoulder and planted a loving kiss into white curls.
"Hmm, not aardvarks, no. Are you sure you don't feel anything?"
"No. Well, let me concentrate." Crowley said, sliding off the chair's arm and into Aziraphale's lap. He rested his head on Aziraphale's shoulder and tried to sense anything other than his immediate comfy surroundings. "I mean I feel your love, sure. Nothing more than usual though. Otherwise, all I can sense is... books? We're surrounded by those. Don't tell me we're books, angel. Books aren't even alive!"
"Not books, dear, no. Humans again, and if I've got a good 'read' on things, ha, then I do believe we are in a bookshop. Not the bookshop, of course, but a bookshop somewhere. It's too small to be a library, and not set up like a house."
Crowley sat up enough to look Aziraphale in the eyes. "Well humans in a bookshop is way better than when we reincarnated as the apple and the avocado."
Aziraphale laughed quietly, rubbing a hand over the small of Crowley's back. "Yes, it's always more interesting when we find each other as humans. Thankfully the fruit era was short-lived. Though it could be fun if we come back as a pair of pears one day."
Aziraphale grinned at Crowley, who rolled his eyes and started to stand.
"At this rate, I expect we'll cycle through every living option eventually," Crowley said. "It figures that we decided to create a new universe and it worked a little too well. Millions of universes, trillions of usses, and destined to find each other every time."
"We're stronger than we ever knew, darling, and we've had the pleasure of seeing ourselves fall in love countless ways over the eons. Shall we have a peek at our new selves?"
They walked together to the mantel where there were two snow globes. One had their beloved bookshop and Bentley inside, and the other contained the cottage and garden they now called home.
Aziraphale carefully lifted the bookshop snow globe and turned it upside-down once, twice. In the swirl of little fake snow, a looking-glass image appeared of two men chatting inside a small bookshop.
Sure enough, one bore a striking resemblance to Crowley, and the other had the look of Aziraphale.
"Aziraphale," Crowley said slowly, "What has happened to your hair?"
"You don't like it?"
"Nah, didn't say that. I'll get used to it."
"Just as you say. You look very dashing with those spectacles."
They watched and listened as the snow globe versions of themselves finished an awkwardly adorable conversation.
"Well at least they're not starting out as enemies this time. Remember when they met as neighbours and pranked each other until they figured themselves out?" Crowley said fondly.
"I remember it all too well, dear. I seem to have a harder time when they're enemies. It hits a little too close to home, you know. Even the times when they do realize early on, there's usually something in the way, keeping them apart. Like when you had the vineyard and I was the wine blogger just a few years ago, that media company made a right mess of me." Aziraphale reminisced. “We’ve had quite enough of that opposite sides nonsense already, haven’t we darling?”
"True, but it's not always like that. Remember when we were penguins? You felt that flash of love on day one when we hatched in neighbouring nests and we were together for every day after. Maybe nothing will get in the way this time," Crowley finished quietly, nodding at the snow globe. "Look, you're chasing after me."
Aziraphale stood in front of Crowley, leaning back against his chest. He set the snow globe back on the mantel and reached to pull Crowley's arms around them both as they watched contentedly.
"Asa's a new one," Aziraphale said, after hearing himself say the name to the Crowley in the snow globe.
"'So I can ask you to dinner,'” Crowley mocked the line from the snow globe conversation. “Wow, very smooth Asa."
"Oh no," Aziraphale groaned with a cringe. "Well, at least it seems to have worked."
"Of course it worked! Looks like we've got ourselves a dinner date tonight, angel."
They had agreed not to meddle with the universes anymore, and especially not with the human versions of themselves. So they stayed in that night to have their own dinner date in celebration of a new pairing, and checked on the new couple through the snow globe occasionally.
"Oh, I think they'll be very happy together, Crowley, don't you?" Aziraphale said as he set down his fork.
Crowley lifted his nearly empty glass from the table. "Of course they will, angel. They're us."
"Very true, dear." Aziraphale lifted his own glass in a toast, "To us."
Crowley smiled softly as their glasses touched. "To all the usses, angel, forever."