This fic was originally posted on my tumblr in response to a prompt by the lovely deanbeltingbohemianrhapsody
"Come on, I think you'll really enjoy it if you give it a try!"
"I've dated humans before," Aziraphale informed the voice on the phone, "and it never ends well. Plus, why would I trust the Antichrist to set me up with someone I'd actually like?"
"He said he'd pay for the food…"
"Oh, all right. But I hope you've warned this fellow that a second date is not guaranteed."
Aziraphale slammed down the receiver to his telephone. He'd only answered it because Crowley was the only one who had his number, but somehow that irksome Adam Young had acquired it. What was the Antichrist doing, setting up blind dates for angels? He'd said it was in thanks for the whole End of the World thing, but that had been a full decade ago — for humans, that was a long time to remember a favor in need of repaying.
Oh dear, he'd hung up too soon — he should have told the boy to make it clear that stepping inside for a nightcap and…other activities after the date were off the table as well.
How had the Antichrist gotten his number, he continued to ponder as he got himself ready for the evening. (He was dressing up just enough to be considered decent for a fancy restaurant, but no more than that — he didn't want this date of his getting any ideas.) Had Crowley given it to Adam?
Crowley. The very name was a pang in his corporeal form's too-human heart. Ever since he'd developed certain feelings for his counterpart…
Feelings, he reminded himself sternly, that would never be requited. Crowley was a demon, after all, what could he know of love in any of its forms?
This blind date might be a good idea, after all. Get his mind off of preposterous dreams.
He showed up at the restaurant a full three minutes late, just to make it clear that he was not overly keen about this whole thing. And yet when he was shown to the table that had been reserved for him, he found it unoccupied.
Damn. Now he was the pathetic, overenthusiastic loser who'd arrived first.
He sulked at the table, playing his fingertips along the delicate design of the rich tablecloth and staring out the expansive window overlooking one of the wealthier sections of London, blanketed in snow.
His wine glass had been refilled twice before he heard a loud gasp. His date, he presumed. Steeling himself for a human of mediocre build and brains, he looked up.
"Crowley? What in Heaven's name are you doing here?" He gaped at the demon, who was clad in what the angel recognized as not Crowley's first, nor his second, but his third-best suit.
"I…er…blind date," the demon choked out, his usual suave self apparently swallowed up in the same brand of bafflement that currently had Aziraphale's head spinning.
"With…whom?" Aziraphale asked mechanically.
"I don't know, Angel, that'ssss why they call it a blind date, isn't it?"
"Pardon me," Aziraphale responded coldly, not appreciating his counterpart's sarcasm. "Well, you'd best be off to your own table then, my date is bound to arrive any minute now."
"I'd love to," Crowley said, maintaining his sardonic tone, "but you see, you appear to be sitting at the table reserved for me and my date."
"Waiter!" Aziraphale called out, deciding to clear this up once and for all. "I take it this table was reserved under two names. Tell me, what were they?"
"One Mr. Fell," the waiter who had answered the summons replied, "and a Mr. AJ Crowley."
"Well, that can't possibly be right," Aziraphale said, the cogs in his brain catching and screeching to a stop.
"You're bloody kidding me," Crowley exclaimed. "That bloody…when I get a hold of him…"
"What?" the angel asked, peeved that Crowley seemed to be making more sense of this situation than he was.
"Adam. He's the one who set your blind date up too, right?"
Ah.
"That little bastard…"
Ten minutes later, their orders taken and the safe-wall of their menus whisked away, they were both carefully directing their gazes out the window or around at the other diners. Crowley was drumming his fingers against the table, and both sipped periodically from their wineglasses.
"I just don't see why he would do this," Crowley suddenly said, making Aziraphale jolt — a drop of wine sloshed from the glass in his hand and onto his waistcoat; he glared at it until it had the decency to vanish. "I mean, I guess it's meant as a joke, but it's hardly funny; or a wile, but it's not that evil…"
"It is a little malevolent, at the very least," Aziraphale replied, keeping his gaze fixed on a pair of walking humans hand-in-hand in the street below. "Pairing us up, when clearly we have very different motives and expectations for our romantic encounters."
"What is that supposed to mean?" Crowley demanded. "Oh G—Someone, is this about your bloody 'demons don't feel love' belief again?" The demon's fingers curled into a fist, scrunching up the tablecloth beneath them. "Because how long do you have to know me before you figure out what a load of bollocks that is?"
"What on earth do you mean?" Aziraphale asked, forgetting himself and looking directly at Crowley for the first time since he'd sat down. "You…why, my dear boy, I know you like to think you can do anything humans can do, but love just isn't —"
"You know nothing, Angel, nothing, about the depth of my love." Crowley was leaning forward in his seat, golden eyes glaring into Aziraphale's. "Of how bloody much I've loved, how bloody many people and creatures and things, since stepping onto this blessed planet. You don't know how intensely I feel, about this Earth and its people and you — fuck."
Aziraphale gaped at Crowley throughout this heated monologue, taking his counterpart in as he never had before. It took him a full ten seconds to comprehend what that last sentence meant, and then his heart halted in his chest before zooming into overdrive.
"Crowley, I…"
"Look, Aziraphale. I get it." Crowley was staring down at his own hand, balled up on the tablecloth. "I know you don't feel the same way, I know you'll never believe me when I say I can love. But you know what? I don't give a damn what you think."
The demon stood up so forcefully he knocked his chair backwards and sent his wineglass toppling, splashing scarlet across the white tablecloth.
"Crowley, wait!" Before he had a moment to think it through, Aziraphale seized his companion's arm. The demon froze. "Please," he said in a small voice. "I…Sit down, won't you? Don't we…have a blind date to finish?"
Crowley stood very still, looking down at the plump hand clutching his sleeve, and the anger faded from his golden eyes. "We do."
"Good. Because here comes the waiter with our entrees."
An hour later, Aziraphale scraped the last of his pudding from its lacquered bowl and licked his spoon with a contented sigh.
"Aren't you going to ask for the check?" he asked his counterpart, who was leaning back in his chair with the dreamy grin of someone altogether sloshed.
"What?" Crowley said, striving to focus on Aziraphale's face. "Why should I pay?"
"Adam promised you would!" Aziraphale protested.
"Adam said you would!"
"Well, I didn't bring my purse with me."
"So what, you're an angel…just miracle up some money to pay with."
"That goes against my principles, and you know it," Aziraphale harrumphed.
"Fine, then, let's just…slip out of here."
If they hadn't been beings possessed of ethereal and occult powers, respectively, there'd have been no way they'd have made it out of the restaurant without rousing the suspicion of every staff member they passed: tipsy as they were, they fell over things, giggled, and hushed one another every step of the way. But as it was, they escaped the establishment without incident, and stepped out into London's snow-strewn streets, laughing and clinging to each other.
They walked along the road towards St. James's Park, illuminated by halos streetlights and headlights. Aziraphale slipped his hand into Crowley's without thinking; it had been a while, but it felt like the most natural thing in the world to do.
"Angel, you've got to tell me," Crowley broke the silence as they leaned against a bridge's railing, looking out over the pond. "Do you…do you feel about me the way I feel about you? Just, be straight with me, all right, once and for all."
Aziraphale did not answer for a minute, letting the silence stretch between them as he gazed towards the stars twinkling faintly through London's smog above.
"Well," he said at last, "if it's a straight answer you'd like, I'm not sure I can give you one. Not with those new-fangled terms humans have for what it means when you like someone of the same gender — given also their perception of what our genders are, that is."
"Oh, you arse!" Crowley guffawed, shoving Aziraphale off the bridge and into a snow-bank.
"So," Aziraphale said, when they had helped each other up from the ground several minutes later and had brushed the slush and snow off as best they could, "What do you say we go back to your place for a nightcap?"
"Angel, you read my mind."
Aziraphale stayed for much more than a nightcap.