Disclaimer:Not mine. Pratchett and Gaiman's. Yus.
Feelings
sugahcat
Crowley didn't know what to think anymore. The world had nearly ended, and that tended to give you a fresh perspective. Just because he was a demon and the end of the world was a) what he'd been working toward and b) really wouldn't be more than a minor inconvenience to him, it didn't mean it hadn't made him have a good, long think about things.
The thing in this case was something that he'd actively avoided thinking about for a long time now.
Himself.
Crowley was a demon. He wasn't exactly the perfect demon. He was too nice for that, but he tried to get on with his job the best he could. Maybe what he did was 'wrong' but for a demon it was the right thing to do. This was one of the reasons that he had avoided thinking about this very often - it tended to give him a headache. The main reason he tried to avoid thinking about himself though, was because of the way he had made someone else feel.
Making someone else feel bad and hurting them was the right thing for a demon to do, and when that someone was an angel, a demon should probably be practically gleeful. But Crowley wasn't. It hurt him.
It had been a long time now since the Fall but it was still the clearest memory Crowley had. Though he'd listened when the Morningstar had spoken, and had thought on the words Lucifer had said, he had never done anything. He'd stood on the fringes of groups of angels as they talked in hushed voices about the unfair distribution of power and about free will. And in the fight between the angels who had fought for God and those who fought for Lucifer, he had stood on the sidelines. Not because he was afraid to fight, or because he intended on claiming he had been behind whoever won all along but because he genuinely didn't know which side was right. In the end it didn't matter. He Fell anyway.
It had hurt, but not as much as seeing the pain on Aziraphale's face the first time the angel had seen him in his demonic form. And even that hadn't hurt as much as seeing the angelic face dirtied by the ugliness of anger. He had tarnished Aziraphale's soul by Falling and making him angry. He couldn't blame him for the resentment the angel felt toward him. They were soulmates - the other half of each other. The one they should have shared existence with. But he had Fallen and they could never be together again.
The way he felt about Aziraphale had never changed. Even though he was a demon and shouldn't be able to love, he still felt it as strongly as ever. He wanted to protect the angel and one of the reasons that he had wanted to avert the Apocalypse - though he'd never admit it - was because Aziraphale loved the world and it's people so much. If he could do something, anything to avoid pain being caused to the angel, he would. As they had sat there, drinking wine and watching as American military ran around trying to find out what in hell had just happened, Crowley had looked at Aziraphale and felt happy. For the first time since the Fall, he'd truly been happy.
Just him sitting beside the angel on the Earth that still existed was enough to make him happy. When Aziraphale hadn't been looking, Crowley had almost - almost - found the courage to tell the angel that he still loved him. But in the end, Aziraphale had looked back at him and he'd just smiled and stayed silent. It was probably for the best. Whatever else angels and demons were supposed to do, they weren't supposed to be in love. So Crowley had kept his feelings to himself, the world kept on spinning and the angel continued smiling. And Crowley was happy.