DISCLAIMER: Good Omens is very much the property of person's other than myself. Please do not sue me. I'm just a poor little social worker trying to make her way through this cruel world with nothing more than a laptop and a dream. ...And, you know... a few other necessary things like toilet paper, running water and all the other benefits I am able to enjoy. Point being is that I would like to CONTINUE with enjoying them, so please be so kind as to not sue me and take my toilet paper away. Namaste :)
A/N: As always, thank you so much to everyone who is reading and following. Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year!
~X~
~Monday, April 8th - 2019~
A.Z Fell and Co's, London Soho
Nine months to the Apex...
Crowley wasn't at all sure what to make of it.
Having taken the corner on two wheels, he had rocketed up to the curb bordering the bookshop and beheld a sight he would never have put money on having ever come to pass.
The Archangel Gabriel and the Seraphim Sandalphon, two of the utmost venerate and powerful representatives of Heaven, had but moments earlier, burst out through the antique double doors, arms shielding their heads as a veritable deluge of condiments, cutlery, plates, pots, pans and third editions rained down upon them like a vengeful fire from above. Hot English mustard exploded from its glass bottle as it bounced off of Gabriel's pristine coat, teacups shattered into shards around their feet and pages ripped free from books adhered themselves to whatever sticky mess they could lay claim to.
GET OOOUUUUUUTT! Came the booming sound of an angelic voice pealed directly from the cords of its temporarily unbridled Celestial spirit. It would not have been heard by any of the humans what loitered nearby but was thunderous to the preternatural ears of the nearby angels and demon. Crowley had never heard Aziraphale round off like this before. It was both awesome and terrifying (and actually sort of arousing) in the same instance.
"Got quite a few more stones than what I remember." Sandalphon remarked, scraping what looked to be the remnants of coffee cake off of his shoulder and flicking it onto the ground. Unholy shit. Aziraphale HAD to have been in a mood if he'd gone and hurled leftover desert at the pair of smug bastards.
"Nothing for it. Persistence is a virtue, after all. Or key, one or the other." Gabriel stated, straightening the lapels of his mustard stained coat. Neither of them had taken notice of the Bentley parked just offside of them. Nor of the demon what was currently circling its bonnet. "We must force him to listen. By guns blazing, if necessary. Come."
A lot of thoughts went through Crowley's head. They dimmed exorbitantly however, whence compared to the rage of emotion that currently flooded in and otherwise drowned his more often than not prevalent common sense.
The bookshop wasn't just Aziraphale's safe space. It was THEIR safe space. For over two hundred years it had been their sanctuary from most everything; the place they could retreat to and be completely and authentically themselves. Crowley had likely slept there and walked it's stuffy little halls much longer than he had his own fancy flat.
Seeing it burn had been more than enough. But now...now these two presumptuous bastards had the audacity to stroll on in, guns blazing so they said and rip the sacred, unspoken walls of Aziraphale's sanctuary from the angels hands.
They could take a lot from them. But they would not take this.
Crowley was not a fighter. He wasn't in a corner. But his fangs were out nonetheless. He felt venom in his veins. And he prepared himself to bite.
A bite what came in the act of circling about so that he was now installed firmly between the two angels and the doors of the shop. A bite which came, much as a snakes, faster than the eye could track. A bite which was delivered in the form of an expensive snakeskin boot, lodging itself firmly into the waiting clutch of the Archangel Gabriel's 'pornography' region.
"Get back to Heaven, sunshine." Crowley hissed, lips peeled back from his teeth as Gabriel collapsed sideways onto the ground, instantly regretting his decision to have applied male genitalia upon arriving on earth. It was a rather appropriate reflection as to how far ahead he had planned (or rather, how far he had NOT planned ahead) which saw Crowley the imminent recipient of a fully shouldered haymaker from Sandalphon, which knocked the demon into an ungainly pirouette and pitched his glasses clear off of his face.
He had copped most of the fist direct to his kisser, but it was still quite enough force to ring his bell. Enough so that he thought he was imagining the fist that zeroed in just shy of his right ear and connected with Sandalphon's pointed chin.
Aziraphale's strategy was for the most part defensive when it came to confrontation. But he'd had a terribly dreadful last couple of weeks. And now his home had been invaded, he'd feared his dearest most companion dead at the hands of demonic insurgents and, having stepped outside to ensure that the itinerant trespassers had indeed 'buggered off', witnessed said dear companion being struck with quite enough force it would be a blessing if it had not sheared any of his lovely teeth out of his head.
This was an angel pushed most assuredly to the edge of his considerable restraints. He had dealt with any such number of impertinences, inconveniences and otherwise malice intentions concerning his fellow angels, but to see one of them lash out at Crowley was where he most assuredly and incontestably drew the line.
It was a good solid left jab. It was all that was needed. The act of his having done it at all had shocked the designer trousers near off of Gabriel's legs. Or might have done, if his legs weren't currently pressed together so tightly it would have made the act of shirking his trousers in any way shape or form a distinct impossibility.
The punch had been enough to set Sandalphon back a few steps. Aziraphale kept his fists up, prepared for retaliation. Crowley had his fists up too. He wasn't doing a very good job of it. He was chesting up slightly off to the left of where the angels were currently standing and his thumb was inside of his fingers rather than the outside of them. He whirled them about in a manner reminiscent of what a drunk person might look like if they were attempting to milk a cow, head clearly spinning from the aforementioned strike Sandalphon had levelled upon him.
It was still very brave where Crowley was concerned and Aziraphale couldn't have imagined feeling any the more proud of him then he did in that very moment.
"How... dare you." He said at length, dropping his fists and straightening his vest with all the fussy austere of someone who hadn't just been hurling half of his walk in pantry out through the door of his shop. "It's not enough that you kidnap me, attempt to execute me by way of Hell fire, talk down to me for over six thousand years but now you see fit to intrude upon what little I have that is ostensibly mine and assault my dearest companion. I might have tolerated your contumelious ways in the past, but I am no longer your agent with which to treat as you see both fit and unfit to do so. This is my home." A darkness seemed to steal in around him, a sapping of the light which he otherwise might have so naturally exuded. "You will never step foot in here again. Never without my permission."
"Aziraphale..." Gabriel had finally managed to climb to his feet, leaning heavily on Sandalphon's shoulder; who was dabbing at a split in the corner of his lip with his handkerchief. Crowley swayed drunkenly over, parking himself in front of Aziraphale but wobbling about as though he were in fact six bottles in and the worse off for it. Aziraphale took him by the shoulders and eased him back so that he was by his shoulder, rather than dangling out there like a loose tongued fool with a hair trigger on his brain. "We... ooch... why, why, WHY did the Almighty consider these things a clever feature?" He actually spat off to the side, having coughed up something rather unsightly from the depths of his human body. Cleared his throat before continuing. "We need to talk. That's all."
"You got a funny way of asking nice for things. Don't go breakin' in to someone's house first... without knocking. Rule of thumb." Crowley said, swaying a finger about in the air in the somewhat vague direction which encompassed the presence of Gabriel and Sandalphon. Aziraphale took Crowley's hand out of the air and dropped it to his side, giving it a tender squeeze.
"You have nothing to say that would be of interest to me, Gabriel. Though if you feel it ever so important, you will find a contact number in the window. I suggest you write it down, learn to use a telephone and make use of it. You are not to come to the shop again unless invited and..." He raised Crowley's hand, gave a firm pat to the fingers what were looped now resolutely about his own. Unified in the face of their mutual enemies. "Be so kind as to inform Crowley's former associates that they are to keep well shot of him in the future. You would do well to heed the same advice. I suggest you take your leave now, gentleman. My hours of business are well over for the day and I have quite a bit of cleaning up to do."
Both Gabriel and Sandalphon looked very much as though they wished to argue the point. Together they were more than certainly a match for the likes of Aziraphale and Crowley (particularly where Crowley was concerned) but the point of the whole matter was to get the pair of furloughed agents on side, not piss them off past the point of no return.
Neither of them had forgotten Aziraphale's resistance to Hell Fire, either. How he had spat it across the room at them, close enough to near discorporate their celestial eyebrows. He was clearly unpredictable at best and had learned quite a great deal of tricks from his demonic companion. Pushing the issue further was hardly likely to end well for either party.
"Very well." Gabriel said, attempting to maintain some composure whilst battling the irrepressible desire to keep a hand cupped about his much regretted private parts. "I will contact you by..."
"Telephone device." Sandalphon contributed, passing a finger over his lip and healing over the thick band of swelling which had appeared in the past few moments.
"Telephone device and we can... try again. Perhaps in a more civilized fashion."
"Yes. Perhaps." Aziraphale said, sounding rather more salty than he could ever remember having done so in the past. He was vaguely aware of the fact that he still had a hold of Crowley's hand and the demon had not yet pulled away. It helped. The contact. It likely also helped with keeping Crowley standing up straight. He was still swaying like a slender reed caught in harsh crosswind.
Gabriel and Sandalphon departed by way of the right hand street; Gabriel just about bent in two as he went. Crowley took a few steps after them, letting go of Aziraphale's hand to do so. He shot a very smarmy look at their distant backs, wobbling about on his feet.
"Sure showed 'dem, eh?"
Aziraphale gave an indulgent chuckle. "Yes. Yes, we certainly did."
Crowley spun back around to face him, still weaving about like a dandelion stalk. "You all right? Dey didn't... do anything?"
"I'm fine, I'm not the one who got clocked in the face. You should really sit down before you fall and hit your head on the concrete."
"It's... I could hear all this yelling over the phone. Things getting thrown around." Crowley glanced about at the scattered mess currently taking up residence on the sidewalk outside of the book shop. He glanced back up at Aziraphale, looking slightly impressed. "That was all you?"
Aziraphale kept a very straight and civil face as he placed his hands into the small of his back with all the gentility of an upper class gentleman inviting a prestigious guest into the parlour.
"It's been a rather stressful last couple of weeks. I might have gotten a little... crabby."
Crowley chuckled, nearly tripping up over his own ankles as the world took to swaying about him. "Boy, when you cut loose angel, you sure don't do things in halves." His knees buckled a little and he pressed his fingertips to his temples as his vision swung like a pendulum. "Bless does that Sandalphon pack a punch."
"Of course. All angel's do. Our fists are powered by divine justice." Aziraphale scrunched his nose a little, reaching over to take Crowley by the inside elbow. "Come inside. I'll tend to your lip."
Crowley allowed himself to be guided inside of the shop like a little boy being taken to the toilet by his father. It was chaos most everywhere you looked. It seemed as though Aziraphale had forcefully ejected the entire contents of his kitchen out into the inside of the shop proper. Some bookcases had fallen down, likely in an attempt to squash the pair of trespassing angels and there were scattered pages, spilt liquids and food stuffs splattered hither and thither and yonder.
"You really went all out."
"I had a lot of... feelings to work through." Aziraphale remarked lightly. It made its point, however and Crowley felt the sharp end of it stick tightly into the edges of his heart. He went to say something, what he wasn't quite sure but Aziraphale made no attempts to drive that point in any further and instead led Crowley over to perch on the settee, kneeling before him.
"You must have made good time getting across the city." He said, taking Crowley's chin lightly between his thumb and fingers and turning his head from side to side. The split to his lip was opened significantly wider than Sandalphon's had been but it would be an easy enough fix. He hesitated however, finding his eyes locked on the swelling, at the bleeding cut running through it much as the demon's pupils branched down the centre of his large eyes.
That very lip had been pressed between his own no less than a week earlier.
Aziraphale felt a stirring.
"Had five cop cars on my arse by the time I hit town. Had to bust all their computers and mess with a few memories so they couldn't track me down after. I lost 'em good enough. More scared I was gonna get here too late." Crowley paused, taking note of Aziraphale's staring. They made ever so brief eye contact, which Crowley broke by looking away; clearing his throat with embarrassment. "So um... had Hastur and Lord Beelzebub waiting for me by the car when I finished work."
"Yes. So I gathered." Aziraphale said, shaking himself out of his trance like state. And then, because Crowley looked at him with some confusion, added: "You must have dropped your phone what with all the excitement going on. I could hear Lord Beelzebub's voice. You were... fighting in the car? There were all these awful noises..."
"Yeah. Yeah, they dropped themselves into the passenger seat. Sorta like what you..." Crowley cleared his throat again, thinking better of making this particular allusion at the last moment. "Anyway. I got the passenger door opened and managed to kick them out."
Aziraphale's perfectly groomed brows graced the lines of his forehead. "I'm sorry, you... you kicked them out?"
"Into the side of a tree, yeah. Think I broke every bone in the bastards ribcage. Least I hope so."
"And then you came here and... launched your foot into Gabriel's..."
"Bollocks. Yep." Crowley said, popping the P. They were silent a moment, with Aziraphale focusing attention on the healing of Crowley's injury. When the angel's palm had crossed over his vision, Crowley was a little surprised to see Aziraphale now descending into peals of genuine mirth.
"All the things you might have done and that was your first instinct!" He chortled, climbing to his feet and shucking off his dinner coat. He continued to chuckle as he made his way over to the coat rack, sliding on his grey cardigan instead and pulling out the sleeves so that they sat comfortably. "Kicking Lord Beelzebub into the side of a tree and driving your boot into the Archangel Gabriel's scrotum. You are most certainly a force to be reckoned with, Anthony. J Crowley."
"Says the angel who just about decimated his bookshop evicting two former work colleagues." Crowley said glancing about and pulling a face to see something which looked distinctly liked treacle leaking off one of the wall mounted lights. Aziraphale sighed, wringing his fingers together as he glanced anxiously about the trashed interior of the shop.
"I did get rather carried away, didn't I? I was... I was so angry with them and after hearing what was happening over the phone, I was terribly distressed about what was happening to you."
"I'll help you clean up." Crowley offered, climbing up out of his seat and rolling up the sleeves of his jacket. Aziraphale noticed that the demon was missing some buttons off of the front of his shirt, which as a result hung open almost all the way down to his navel.
"Did Lord Beelzebub do that?" He asked, gesturing vaguely towards both the shirt and the bare chest of which it was doing ever so poor a job of covering. He felt the slightest blush alight to his cheeks. It would seem Crowley hadn't put a singlet on underneath today, perhaps having eschewed it after getting changed out of his work uniform.
Crowley glanced down, taking stock of the state his shirt was currently in and gave an offhand sniff.
"Well, ya don't reckon I go around with it looking like this on purpose, do you? This ain't the seventies anymore, angel."
Aziraphale smiled, picking up some books off of the floor and sliding them back onto shelves at random. Apart from his First Editions, this was primarily the operating standard of A.Z. Fell's Rare Book Dealers and so he was not at all bothered by anything being out of order. He knew quite well how to find whatever it was that required finding.
"Well, in any event, I wouldn't want to be keeping you." He kept his eyes focused on the task currently at hand. Easier of course than getting his hopes up and much preferable to Crowley witnessing his anticipation. "I'm sure you have enough business of your own to be getting on with. Besides... it's quite true that I'm the one who made the mess."
Crowley shrugged. "Already outrun half the London police force and copped a smack from an angelic heavyweight for you. Hardly think a bit of light cleaning is going to make much of a difference." He made his way over to the double doors, peeking out to make good and certain no one was watching and then snapped his fingers at the mess currently adhered to on the ground. Splintered glass shards formed back into bottles, complete with the condiments of which once called them home and zipped back through the air to reinstall themselves in Aziraphale's pantry and refrigerator alike. Books scooted back through the doors out of sight, pages reinserting themselves from where they had been forcibly ripped. Food reformed, reassembled and restacked itself. Plates became whole, cutlery flipped itself back into its drawers like a scene from Beauty and the Beast and bookshelves rose up off the floor, bringing their collapsed paper and leather charges with them.
"Bippity-boppety-boo." Crowley said, flashing Aziraphale a wink as he waved his hands about merrily in the air; the gesturing demonstrably unrequired but more so as to amuse himself in the process of getting shit done. Aziraphale smiled, permitting himself the use of a little magic as well and before long, the bookshop was looking quite as cluttered, stuffy and homely as it ever had been. Even the treacle had been long since sheared off of the wall mounted light fixture and returned to the jar from whence it had been dramatically flung.
"Many hands do make for light work, so they say." Aziraphale said, taking one last look about to make good and certain that everything was in its proper place. He turned back to Crowley, who was sliding his jacket sleeves back down. It seemed a shame. Something about the way his forearms were exposed struck Aziraphale as being strangely... attractive. "Thank you."
And there he was smiling so beautifully and with such genuine gratitude that it sent Crowley's heart to racing. He didn't even have his glasses with which to shield his embarrassment; they'd been knocked off outside somewhere and he hadn't bothered with chasing after them whilst he was doing the cleaning.
"Ain't nothing." He said, flipping up his collar and staring uncomfortably off somewhere to the left; consumed by interest at the very little that was going on outside of Aziraphale's study window. He felt ever the more uncomfortable when his human stomach emitted a loud, unmistakeably hunger related grumble.
"Have you eaten much today?" Aziraphale asked, thinking it might have been one of those questions Crowley would single out as being particularly stupid. Sure enough:
"If I had, do you suppose my stomach might be making those sorts of noises? I'm either hungry, or something else rather alarming is going on."
"No need to get ornery. I was going to offer to make you a sandwich."
"Really ought to get going." Crowley swayed a shoulder back towards the door, making very little concerted efforts in fact to extract himself from the situation. It was easier to stay away when he wasn't face to face with Aziraphale; feeling the warm pull of his presence, the draw of his kind smile. Once caught up in the wake of it all, he could feel himself being inexorably drawn in; such as a boat caught in the grip of a tidal pool.
It would be the smart thing to do. To leave. It would be better for the both of them.
"Please. I owe you for the clean up. Why don't you just stay long enough have a bite to eat and a drink? Then you can at least be on your way with a full belly."
Crowley didn't of course need to eat. It was habit, more than anything. Besides, he had food at home. He certainly had more than enough alcohol. Alcohol enough to contend with most any bottle shop within a twenty mile radius.
But if he went home he himself would have to cook something. He supposed he could pick up dinner on the way but still... why turn down the offer of a sandwich? Aziraphale might have been a very mediocre cook, but he could pile up the components of which to create an especially delicious sandwich like no other. Plus, he kept the very best bottles of wine in the shop; those special vintages that he and Crowley collected throughout the years and had agreed to keep in the back room for those special occasions what required liquid libation of the more reposed variety.
He knew he was bandying about any number of reasons to accept the offer but none of them were anywhere near quite as true as that which was currently swaying him with greatest propensity still.
He missed Aziraphale.
He missed the bookshop.
He missed the everything about them.
He wanted to stay. Even just a half hour longer.
"Got any good reds you don't mind cracking?"
Aziraphale smiled with pure radiant happiness, warmth flooding out the tight feeling what had held sway over his chest those past few months. "I've got that lovely bottle of Graham that you picked up some months back. I shouldn't mind 'cracking' that at all."
Crowley made himself at home in his usual perch in the corner settee. It had been two months since he had sat there but the material still adhered to the shape of his body as though it were in fact a lover embracing him after so long apart. He didn't sling his legs up and make himself especially comfortable. He knew that if he did, he likely wouldn't be getting up for some time and this was a risk he couldn't permit himself to take.
"What do you suppose they wanted?" Aziraphale called out from the kitchenette, taking out bread which had only just been returned to the breadbox and spreading on butter which had been magically scraped off of the wallpaper.
"Checking up on us, maybe. Not sure. Keep your wits about you though, yeah?" Crowley sniffed the air, pulling a face at the lingering hint of Gabriel and Sandalphon's mingled musk's. Too bad there was no supernatural deodorizer what could mute that cack out. "Can't be coming to your rescue all the time."
"No. No I suppose not." Aziraphale chuckled. He paused, midway through stacking a selection of salami and swiss cheese. Should he chance sharing just a little of what he was feeling? "It's..." He swallowed. Chanced it. "It's so lovely to hear your voice."
"… It's good to hear your voice too." Crowley admitted, something what was a little tender leaking into his tone. He didn't turn tail and charge out of the bookshop howling bloody murder, which Aziraphale considered a very good thing.
"Are you well?" He asked, tugging the cork out of the bottle of Graham and pouring a generous helping into two matching glasses.
"Well as can be keeping. Jeanie had her baby so I've been keeping busy hours at work." He glanced up as Aziraphale wandered out from the kitchenette, passing him over the small plate on which his stacked sandwich had been set and the glass of red. He returned briefly to fetch his own before settling down into his study chair, as per their tradition. "Don't think Hell ever kept me so busy as this job. It's been good though. Old Gretch keeps me on my toes."
"I'm sure she does." Aziraphale said, feeling ever so chuffed and relieved and tickled by the fact that they were, much as they had always been, back in the routine what was ever so effortlessly their own.
They talked for a while in this casual vein; touching on Crowley's work life, Aziraphale's business. Spent a good old while laughing over the rambunctious exchange between the angels and the demons and wondered just how embarrassed both parties must have felt to have been outdone by the likes of such reportedly substandard creatures as Aziraphale and Crowley.
They didn't speak about the kiss. It was starting to feel rather to Aziraphale as though it might very well have been a bizarre dream that he'd had. He was happy as such to go about pretending that it had been nothing more the concrete than this. For a while there it was as though... nothing at all had happened. They were, much as they had ever been. Relaxed and happy. It was wonderful. It was a relief.
It was... somehow disappointing.
"How about you?" Crowley eventually asked, as much of the conversation had been dancing about the borders of their work and the encroachment of their once respective agencies. "You doing okay?"
"Oh, yes." Aziraphale smiled, sipping from his now nearly depleted glass of red wine and tilting his head from side to side to form an agreeable gesture. "You know me. Just puttering along as I do."
"Keeping tickety-boo?"
Aziraphale laughed. "Quite." He paused a moment. Considered. The feelings what he had kept at bay over the past half hour popped to the surface like a balloon what had been held underwater by hands unseen and suddenly released. He couldn't understand why. Why it was happening but... but his lip had started to tremble. There was sadness welling up. And anger and... resentment. "Well… not quite. Not really. Not tickety-boo at all, really."
Crowley knew quite well the look what was springing into full bloom on the angel's face. It was telling enough that his smile had disappeared, for it was almost always a natural constant. "Aziraphale-"
"I heard you got into a fight." Why, why? WHY was he doing this?! Things had been going so well, WHY was he ruining it?! "Not... tonight, not with that lot but with... with a human. While you were out drinking."
"Who have you been talking to?" Crowley asked, eyes narrowing suspiciously. Aziraphale barrelled on ahead, not paying the question but a jot of attention.
"It's not like you at all. You hate conflict. I just don't understand why you would go and do something like that. And with a human of all things!"
"One of the work girls has been onto you, haven't they? Who was it? Alice?"
"I'm not at liberty to betray my sources." Aziraphale said. "And I was the one who got in contact with her."
It had taken him ages to learn how to use that Facebook messaging thing and he was rather the proud for having muddled it out without Crowley's assistance. Judging from the annoyed look on the demon's face however, this was not something that he was going to celebrating the achievements of anytime soon.
"Oh, so stalking me now, are you? Great job you're doing at respecting my wishes."
"Because your wishes are stupid!" Aziraphale yelled, shocking himself quite as much as he had indeed shocked Crowley. He had gotten to his feet at some point and was standing over the settee, feeling every raw inch of emotion he had otherwise sequestered, come spilling out as largely unfiltered as a creature such as Aziraphale was capable. "Here I am, day after day worried sick about you and you won't touch base, you won't communicate with me. What else am I supposed to do? Just sit around waiting to find out that you're dead?!"
"Well whatever it is you choose to do, maybe don't go and involve my work colleagues in our personal affairs, that might be a good start!" Crowley shot back, also on his feet and still clutching his glass of red, which he swigged from between exchanges. He tried to keep some space between them. It was clear that getting too close when their emotions were this high was a recipe for... well, any number of things. Things he wasn't sure they ought be introducing at this delicate juncture.
From a corner of Aziraphale's brain came a tiny, irresolute voice, screaming for him to shut this entire exchange down now before something was said which could not be unsaid. But he just couldn't seem to stop. There was something stronger at play here. Keeping all of this pain, frustration and anger cooped up inside of himself these past few months, coupled with the loneliness and the waking of unfamiliar tides of desire and longing, was altogether too much. He had missed Crowley beyond the point of being able to tolerate it and resented him all the more for having brought him to a place such as this. To have brought them both to this awful place.
"Well I would have hardly have felt the need if you had just bothered to get in contact with me! And just so as you know, your work colleagues are worried about you too." This certainly had something of an impact on Crowley, whose eyes widened ever so slightly; uncertainly. "They say you're drinking too much and going out all the time and… well the fighting!"
"Un-bunch your feathers, it was hardly a fight." Crowley said, taking another gulp from his wine. "I outran him eventually."
"I just think that given the change in circumstances… what with…" Aziraphale gestured vaguely towards the street, taking a few deep breaths so as to try to ease the flush of adrenaline out of his system. "-that lot popping up again, that it would be prudent of us to work through whatever it is that we are going through and stand as a united front. Can you imagine the damage they can do if we were to remain divided like this?"
"We're not divided, Aziraphale." Crowley said, softening. He had a look on his face, as though he might very well have liked to have crossed the room and brought himself closer. But he kept his distance. "Regardless of what other difficulties we might be experiencing, I will always be in your corner. Hiding behind your back most likely, but I'll always have your back, so to speak. Nothing changes in that regard. If you need me, I'll be here."
"I need you now." Aziraphale murmured, his voice cracking with emotion. He couldn't quite believe that he had said such words out loud. He had never felt the more desperate however. He knew in that moment that he was about to go there. To stumble onto the thing they had both been avoiding discussing the whole while they'd sat there; playing happy families.
"And I need time to pull my head together. I'm not quite there yet. You're going too fast for me, right now."
"Crowley… we… you kissed me."
Aziraphale knew right away that he had managed to say something wrong again. Crowley was giving him that sad, knowing look; the one which said that the angel was looking at things from a skewed angle and it was altogether much too expected.
"Yeah. I kissed you. That's what I'm trying to get my head around at the moment." He swilled the last little snifter of wine about the base of the glass before knocking it back. He set the glass down upon the table bordering the settee and gave Aziraphale a small, supportive smile. "… Call me if the big wings start hassling you again."
"Crowley, please-"
The look which he now chanced Aziraphale with spoke of the ever truer nature of the demon's desires. Wanting to cross the room, rather than light on out into the waiting grip of the night. To purvey tender words and touches, to hold and to be held. To kiss and to take that kiss to depths so far uncharted, to surrender to the grip of that foundling thirst, fuelled by coals which burned ever hotter in the core of his being and stoked fire to the kindling heaped in upon it.
It was a fire what might burn apart the very essence of what it was that made Aziraphale so utterly desirable and appealing and beguiling to Crowley. His eternal temperance, his unsullied enthusiasm for what goodness was on offer in the world, his... for lack of a better word, innocence.
Crowley permitted himself but a moment longer to glance his eyes over Aziraphale's form; to commit it to memory. The angel stared back at him, lips pressed together so tightly they formed a line so straight and thin it might have resembled the slice of a sharp knife into the side of an apple. His fingers twined together. He wanted to go to Crowley, pull him in out of the doorway and bring him into the fold of his arms. Make him stay, work through it, talk through it.
Kiss him.
And those spikes, ever present stole up inside of him and slammed into his mind with such ferocity that it near knocked the fledgling formation of desire into a thousand tiny pieces.
I can't. How could I possibly...?
I want to. I want to feel that again.
That ever so sweet ache in my chest. Our palms upon one another's faces. Our breaths stealing in over one another's lips, burying deep within our lungs.
The touch of his tongue...
Aziraphale hesitated, struck numb beneath the violent, conflicting nature of his thoughts and his desires. Crowley, tired and frustrated, shook his head.
"You can't do it, can you? You can't even take that one step."
To Aziraphale it was like a cord had suddenly wrapped itself tight about his tongue to form a complicated knot. He wanted ever do desperately to say something, to do something. To take that step and prove to both Crowley and to himself that things could change. And they could change for the better.
I want this. Please don't go. Please don't leave me alone again. I'm dying more inside every day for being without you.
You are what is most dear and precious to me. You are irreplaceable. I'm nothing without you.
I will go with you. Anywhere you want to go. However fast. At whatever ridiculous, break neck speed you deem fit. You have been ever so patient and I know that. I see that. And I'm sorry I made you wait so long, I'm sorry that I've hurt you, I'm sorry that I'm worse than a terrible fool, that I have been negligent and selfish and loyal to all the wrong person's and all the wrong causes and that it is you who has always forgiven me for that, even though you are a demon and I am supposed to have been the divine one.
I am not ashamed of you. I am prouder of you than you will ever know. Every day I look at you and I am astonished and smitten and utterly undone by everything that you are and everything you do.
You are not just the great love of my life, you are the only love of my life.
The words would not come.
He could not speak.
He could not move.
The fear gripped everything what was not the well from whence his emotions sprang, gripped them with iron claws and sank deep. Pain and sickness welled up in his chest, that failsafe going into survival mode once more.
Do not turn your back on Heaven
There is but one true love and that love is to your God
You will damn yourself
He is Fallen
He doesn't love you
He wants you to fall
He's deceiving you
Tempting you
It's what they do
The apple
Just like the apple
Crowley could sense Aziraphale's struggle, though he hadn't a true understanding of just how painful and complex the degree of that struggle was. He wasn't feeling quite as charitable as he might ordinarily have felt where the angel was concerned, but simply all the more exhausted than he could remember being in a long time. Frustrated by it all, helpless in the face of Aziraphale's hereditary prison, he sighed; a sigh which eased out not even but a bare inch of what he was feeling inside and crossed over to the entryway.
"Take care of yourself, sweetheart." He said, giving the angel another small, all the sadder smile, as he pushed through the right hand door and allowed it to swing slowly shut behind him.
Aziraphale felt a scream welling up inside of him, one which he had heard before but had quite usually had the presence of mind to contain. Not this time. As the claws eased out of his body, contented it seemed in having prohibited his taking action when the demon was in the room, the locks which had slammed shut on each particular lid of Aziraphale's emotions snapped through and everything contained therein came pouring out like water loosed from an overflowing dam.
"Stupid, gormless-" He flung his glass, still not entirely empty and it smashed apart on the corner of the nearest bookshelf. "-BASTARD!" He yelled, directed not at Crowley but rather at himself. Uncharacteristically unconcerned with the spattering of red wine now adding itself to the various stains having previously been left behind by Crowley on some of his less careful nights, Aziraphale sank down into his study chair, slamming the heel of his hand into his forehead.
"What is wrong with you?!" He sobbed, tears streaming down his face. Why was he so insistent on having to ruin things for himself? Why couldn't he just act on what it was he was feeling? Grant both he and Crowley what it was that they both clearly wanted?
Tell him that he loved him. Loved him quite every bit as much as Crowley loved him.
Wanted him, just the same.
Why?
From outside, Crowley had heard the smash, had heard the yelling and it startled him quite as rightly as it ought to have done. He could never have envisioned Aziraphale doing such an uncouth thing as pitching a glass across the room.
He thought about going back inside. Thought better of it.
No, he decided, sliding on into the Bentley and using the key this time to get it started. He peeled away from the curb, dashing his fingers about his own eyes as he did. Knocking those awful, pointless and insulting tears away as best he could. I can't be the one to take those steps forward on his behalf. Not anymore.
Aziraphale had been firmly rooted in place for so many thousands of years. Resistant, as was his nature, to any change that might threaten that to which his spirit was so ever acutely accustomed.
The only means forward, Crowley knew, was for Aziraphale now to move towards him.
To match his speed.
And meet him where he had been so patiently waiting for all those six thousand years, since the angel had held his hands between his own, sheltered him within the canopy of his wings and prayed for absolution on his behalf.
I have loved you so very long, Crowley thought, reaching into the compartment on his console where he kept his spare sets of sunglasses and sliding on another near matching pair to those he had lost earlier. I can wait longer still. However long it might take for you to reach that place of peace, Aziraphale. I'll not push you there. I'll not rush you there. I'll simply wait for you there.
Just take that one step forward.
And the rest will follow.
Crowley spent ever so long during that car ride across town, trying to convince himself that it was but a matter of perhaps a little more time, so far as Aziraphale was concerned. Just a little more time.
He could not however shake the persistent and heart breaking thought, the one which he unintentionally felt ever the more convinced of by the moment, that time was not of the essence so far as this was concerned.
That for six thousand years, both he and Aziraphale had been riding completely different waves. He thought that their waves would eventually crash upon the shore of the same beach. It seemed more likely by the moment, however, that theirs were tides what were taking them in separate directions.
And Crowley felt himself stranded upon that distant shore, the one of which Aziraphale would never set foot, watching the waves carry the person he loved further adrift by the moment and who made no efforts to turn the keel and fight against the flow of the tides.
Just like in Heaven all those thousands of years ago, Aziraphale was letting his fingers slip slowly through his own. Directed still by the inert designs of the realm to which he no longer owed allegiance but what still held indisputable sway.
Aziraphale would not fight for Crowley.
Not in the way that truly mattered.
And that was what even a demon found so very hard to forgive.
~X~
A/N: If you enjoyed, please feel free to share the whys, or if not, the why not's. You may favourite and follow. Or you may send an offering of a small goat and a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc which retails at anything ranging from twenty-five pounds to thirty-five pounds. Well fancy, I am.
Thankyou as ever for joining me, my lovelies. Feel free to hook back in the next chapter, where Aziraphale gets ever the more drastic in his attempts to repair his relationship with Crowley, whilst their former associates reassess as to how they might set up a meeting with two very emotional beings who are just as likely to throw hands with them, as they are to... well, reel off and kick them in the nuts.
Until then and with all my infernal love,
~MadamMortis~ xxx ooo