The Bentley screeched to a halt in front of the bookshop and the yellow lines on the curb curled away dutifully. Crowley wasn't even sure he'd done it this time. Maybe they'd just gotten used to it.
At any rate, it was a smug and energetic demon who threw open the closed, locked, and dead-bolted door to Mr. Fell's Children's Book Emporium and marched into the back room.
"And I think you have something you wanted to say to me, Aziraph…"
Aziraphale wasn't alone. Sitting in the small kitchenette in Crowley's usual chair was a brunet wearing the exact suit and fedora that the demon had imagined almost a week earlier when he'd heard that voice on the phone. The archangel's bright blue eye twinkled up at him. The… other one was covered by the brim of the hat. Crowley was grateful for small favours.
"Hey!" exclaimed Haniel. "What's the story, morning glory?"
He was doing that voice thing again. Crowley's knees went weak and he collapsed into a chair that Aziraphale only just had time enough to produce.
"I, uh," this was not as confident as he'd hoped to sound. He crossed his legs uncomfortably. Aziraphale was just smiling at him, which didn't help. "I figured it out. And since Aziraphale and I had an agreement…"
"Did you, my dear?" Aziraphale interrupted. "Haniel and I were just discussing how long that might take."
Crowley growled. "You're both bastards, you know that? But I worked it out. I rejected Gabriel."
Aziraphale paled. "You got all the way to Gabriel?!"
Haniel just laughed. "All right, Mr. Abercrombie. I'll bite. What's the scoop?
The serpent leaned back in his chair, considering what to say. "At first I thought it was all about the sex. Like being cock-teased for a couple of days makes the blow job even better when you finally do come. Role-playing, toys, erotic touch, using all your senses, all those kinds of things."
Haniel nodded, unphased. But Aziraphale was growing steadily more red as a flush crawled up his fair, round face.
"I mean, taking Jeliel there in the dirt, just sliding right inside like he'd been waiting for me, or Jophiel filling me, claiming me completely across his desk for all the world to see, I felt like…"
There was a pained squeak and demon and archangel turned to look at Aziraphale who was gulping scalding tea. "Can… can we move on, if you please?"
Crowley smirked. "You don't know what you're missing."
There was a prudish angelic glare. "I won't be tempted by the likes of you."
"All right, fine… So, I figured the lessons in being a better lover were just sort of pleasant side-effects. The whole Host wouldn't work together to teach me to be a good lay." Actually, he still sort of suspected that they would, but Gabriel had shook his head, so Crowley didn't bring it up here. "I sat around a while and thought about it," with a good bottle of wine, "and figured it all out. This whole little challenge thing was about love, not sex, so there had to be deeper meanings there. I worked them out, too. Love, and by extension, sex, is about paying attention to your partner's needs and wants, having things in common; it's about giving and sharing and communicating and shit like that. So you were able to use sex to give me my true lesson and now that I've figured it out, Aziraphale has to call me a master tempter."
"But…" began Aziraphale.
And then Haniel was laughing. The sound echoed through Crowley's ears, reaching down to the base of his brain and flipping every lever marked 'turn-on'. He squirmed in his seat until the Lover finally stopped.
"You're a card, sunshine. A real genius. But that's not what love's about. You're gumming the works with all that modern relationship nonsense. Those things are swell, boyo, but they're not love."
Crowley hit the table, rattling the tea cups in their saucers. "Dammit! Then are you going to tell me or not?" he demanded. "Because I'm fine with sleeping around more if that's what it takes. I'll do a hundred angels - a thousand – until I get this!"
Aziraphale went white just for contrast.
Haniel's expression went blank. "You mean that, kid?"
"Yes, I bloody well mean it!"
The archangel gave Crowley a searching look, normal blue eye glancing across the sharp planes of the demon's face before Haniel slowly tilted his fedora up to reveal the dark eye underneath. It was solid black, with no pupil, or if there was one, no one could tell where it began. Light and dark, joy and despair; there were two sides to love. It could be the best feeling in the world and it could cause the worst destruction. Haniel, the physical representation of that force, could be both, and Crowley quailed as the Lover looked at him.
Apparently satisfied with whatever he saw, Haniel tipped his hat back over his eye and smiled gently.
"Love," he said without preamble, "is simply caring about another person's feelings as much as you care about your own. It is no more or less than that."
"That's too simple," Crowley protested.
"Why didn't you sleep with Gabriel?" Haniel retorted.
Crowley rolled his eyes. He'd been over this before. "He obviously didn't want to. I'm not a rapist."
Aziraphale murmured something that sounded suspiciously like, "You could have fooled me." Haniel and Crowley ignored him, locked in a steady gaze.
"Did you want to?"
"Of course I fucking wanted to!"
"Oh, for goodness sake, Crowley…"
"Then that was an act of love."
The demon froze. He spoke very carefully as if the words could hurt him. "I'm… in love… with the Snob?"
"I doubt it," Haniel chuckled. "Being 'in love', that is, specific romantic love, is caring about one person's feelings as much as your own and above anyone else's. Do you care about Gabriel's feelings more than, say, Aziraphale's here?"
"No."
"Then you're aces, kiddo. That's all there is to it."
"No," said Crowley again. "That's not all there is to it. What was all this business with demons not able to understand if it's that simple? Why was half the Host lined up to fuck me, besides the obvious?"
Haniel sighed. "We set you up to take the fall. We made you the patsy. That what you want to hear? Aziraphale kept telling us that if any crumb could get it, it'd be you. You think the rest of your fink pals could understand? When have those pills ever given a flip about anyone other than themselves? But you cared. And you proved it. This is going to sound off the cob, but you're the butter and egg man. We're sorry we had to chisel you to get the bulge, but the filly's still got her sword, you know."
It took a while for Crowley to decipher the seventy year old slang. His forehead creased in concentration as he translated it mentally "So you're telling me this was all to get an advantage for Heaven in the War? To find out if demons could actually feel love?"
"You shred it, wheat," said the Lover unrepentantly. "Seems you can."
"You could have just bloody well asked," the serpent muttered. "What are you going to do now? Try to seduce the whole Horde?"
"All right," interrupted Aziraphale. "That's enough of that kind of talk. Now who's for some more tea?"
"Hit me, Joe."
Crowley's cock twitched and the demon sighed. "Just, you know, out of sheer curiosity… What's Gabriel's kink? What did I miss out on?"
"Wings," Haniel grinned.
Crowley's head hit the table with a loud thump. "Fuuuuuuuck."
