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It comes easy as breathing*, this new territory they have entered, this new life they’re building together. Of course, even pre-Apocalypse, they’d always danced around each other in a perpetual sort of orbit, but they’re doing it consciously now, they’re doing it with intention.
And the thing is, at first, Aziraphale had thought it would be hard; he’d thought, after 6,000 years of denying and pretending and holding at arms length, this kind of change would take everything he had. But, as most things do with them, all it takes is a bottle of wine and a little bit of stubborn determination, and then it’s just…
Just, this.
Only, well, there’s nothing really just about it; it’s easy, but it’s… substantial. Important. A shift of the tectonic plates beneath their feet.
They settle around each other like this is always how it was meant to be, like they were cut out of the same section of the universe, built of the same cosmic firmament, and this coming together is just fitting themselves back into where they belong, where they’ve always belonged.
And, oh, Aziraphale has suspicions, about Ineffable Plans and love and the Almighty, that he’s refused to give voice to until now. A part of him thinks it really was Planned this way all along. A part of him thinks, there’s no way he and Crowley could keep getting away with this if they didn’t have Her divine approval, in some form. It’s a silly thought, but it’s a nice one, all the same.**
Planned or not, they’re here all the same. It was easy to settle in together, to tweak routines until they fit neatly together, all bundled up into one life shared by the both of them.
They spend more of their shared time at the bookshop, certainly, but Crowley still returns to his flat each day to water his plants, and sometimes Aziraphale will go with him and they’ll stay a night or two there.
In just a handful of months, it feels like it’s always been like this.
Kissing Crowley hello and goodbye and good morning and good night (or any other time they so choose; a lot of their kisses don’t need reason or explanation, they just do it because they want to) becomes second nature. Taking Crowley’s hand when they stroll through St. James’ park, or down the street, or where they rest on top of the table when they’re out to eat is as habitual as, well, any number of human things, eating, drinking, breathing, that really aren’t that habitual for angels or demons, but it’s just a turn of phrase, really.
The point being, it all just feels so bloody normal. It’s absolutely marvelous, honestly. They have 6,000 years to make up for, after all.
Like tonight. They get dinner and head back to the bookshop after, which is not exactly anything new. They’ve been doing this for decades, centuries, dining together and returning to the shop for wine and conversation.
Only this time, when they get in, and Crowley all but throws himself down on the sofa, Aziraphale doesn’t take his customary seat in the old armchair. Instead, he joins Crowley, settling into the vacant cushion beside him. Crowley makes himself comfortable, turning sideways to lounge against the armrest, swinging his legs up onto Aziraphale’s lap, and Aziraphale lays a hand on Crowley’s knee.
And all of that, that’s new, but it doesn’t feel odd. It feels like they’ve been doing this for centuries, rather than weeks.
And that’s not to say that all of this, this new ground, isn’t absolutely enchanting. Aziraphale’s heart doesn’t need to beat, but it flutters away anyway, a giddy little feeling at the contact.
Crowley hums, leaning his head back and dropping his glasses onto the floor behind him. It seems like a careless gesture, but it’s anything but. Crowley’s never careless about his eyes; this is deliberate, he’s choosing to be vulnerable here.
Aziraphale smiles. Crowley doesn’t usually keep his glasses off unless he’s very, very drunk or he’s at his own place. This is another new development, keeping them off here, at the shop, around Aziraphale, while they’re both still sober. A development the angel quite likes.
“You’re staring, angel.”
“Yes,” Aziraphale agrees easily.
Crowley goes a bit pink and prods at Aziraphale’s thigh with his toes. “Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” he quips.
“But I quite like looking,” Aziraphale tells him, “although I will take a photo, if you’d let me. It would be nice to have some pictures of us around. Isn’t that something couples do? Keeps photos of each other in the home?”
Crowley lifts his head up, looking at Aziraphale with unblinking eyes and brilliantly pink cheeks. A lovely little tick of the human body, blushing. Even if a circulatory system is mostly superfluous to angels and demons, Aziraphale’s glad for it at the moment.
“I, uh,” he starts, then he clears his throat, tries again. “Really? Even though I’m a fiendish demon and all that?”
Aziraphale stops himself from rolling his eyes, but it’s a near thing. “Oh, come now. You know very well how I feel about you.”
Crowley smiles, slow and beautifully devilish. “Why don’t you remind me.”
So Aziraphale does. He will, as many times as Crowley wants him to, because he can now. He places his hands on either side of Crowley’s face and meets his eyes. “Crowley, you ridiculous old serpent, you marvelous, beautiful creature, I love you above all else,” he says, matter-of-factly.
Crowley’s smirk fades, replaced by something much softer, almost reverent. “I. I love you, too,” he finally manages to get out.
Love is, surprisingly enough, a four-letter-word that Crowley takes no issue with.
“I know,” Aziraphale tells him, with a smile, tracing his thumbs along Crowley’s lovely cheekbones. Crowley’s tone had been light when he asked for the reminder, playful, even, but a memory comes to Aziraphale’s mind, anyway: Crowley, laying his heart out bare, and Aziraphale, terrified, all but telling him to bugger off.
“My dear,” he starts, “you know. Oh, you know, I didn’t mean it, right? When I said— when I said I didn’t like you? You know I was just scared, right?”
Crowley frowns. One of his hands comes up to circle around Aziraphale’s wrist. For a moment he worries Crowley’s going to pull his hand away, but he just leaves it like that, thumb feather-light on Aziraphale’s wrist. “Yeah, I know.” He nods. “Don’t worry about it. We were both. Well. Uh. Panicking, pretty much.”
“Yes, but still,” Aziraphale lets go of his face and takes Crowley’s hands, instead. Marvelous things, hands. Especially Crowley’s hands, all long-fingered and gentle in his own.
Crowley has always been better at showing his love than Aziraphale; in grand gestures and in small, everyday rituals that just say love, love, love.
And Aziraphale… Well, before the world didn’t end, he’d been too afraid to even admit they were friends. Of course, he’d done it to keep Crowley safe, to keep him from being destroyed, but even that doesn’t make Aziraphale feel any better about hurting Crowley now that the danger has passed for good.
“I need you to know, just how much I really do care for you, it’s— well, there aren’t words for it, really.”
“So forget the words,” Crowley says, leaning in, then stopping with his lips barely a centimeter shy of Aziraphale’s own. “Just show me, instead.”
Aziraphale doesn’t need to be asked twice.
—
Just show me, instead.
The words kind of… stick with Aziraphale. Of course, he shows Crowley how much he loves him everyday. Or, he’s fairly certain he does. He hopes he does, anyway. But he thinks it would be nice to be sure, to do something to truly show Crowley just how much he wants him in his life, how much he loves being together. Over the millennia, Crowley has made countless gestures like this. Just once, Aziraphale wants to return the favor.
An idea comes to him barely over a week later.
It starts as just a passing thought, when Aziraphale’s reading and Crowley’s tucked up against his side, dozing peacefully. He thinks, this is what he wants it to be like, always. He looks at Crowley, warm and content, and thinks, I never want to be apart from him.
It’s not exactly a revelation. It’s not as if, after being in love with Crowley for upwards of six millennia, it’s just now occurring to him that he wants to be around Crowley. But with it comes another realization; there’s really nothing holding him back anymore.
There’s no reason Aziraphale can’t just, just ask Crowley to stay, for good.
Of course, they’re already practically there. They haven’t spent a night apart in some time. But there’s still something appealing about making it official. They found a home in each other long ago, so why not find home with each other, as well?
From there, the idea really takes root.
But Aziraphale is not an impulsive being; he can’t just walk up to Crowley and say let’s move in together out of the blue. That would be much more Crowley’s style. Aziraphale has to think things over, come up with a course of action. Has to find a way to properly show Crowley how much he wants this, how beautiful it can be.
So, Aziraphale starts planning.
—
He hits a snag almost right away, but that’s why he’s decided to take his time with this, isn’t it? In case something comes up that needs a bit of a workaround.
See, Aziraphale’s first thought is that he should just ask Crowley to move into the bookshop with him, permanently, bring all his things over and start using the flat upstairs properly as their home. But then he thinks, that’s hardly fair, is it?
Why should he ask Crowley to give up his own flat, the space he’s been making his own for the past century and a half or so? Just because Aziraphale, er, doesn’t quite fancy Crowley’s sense of interior design doesn’t make it any less important to Crowley, and Aziraphale can’t just ask him to give it up like it’s nothing, try to fit himself in around Aziraphale’s two centuries of clutter.
And at the same time, it would hardly be fair for Aziraphale to give up his bookshop. For one thing, he’s pretty sure there’s no amount of miracling that will make all his books fit anywhere in Crowley’s flat, and for another, well, it’s just the same problem but in reverse.
For awhile, Aziraphale finds himself at something of an impasse. He’s not sure how to go forward from here, and it takes him a couple days to figure it out. He thinks about it whenever he and Crowley aren’t together, because whenever Crowley is with him he’s much too engaged to fuss about living situations.
The solution is quite simple, but it takes Aziraphale longer than he cares to admit to come to it.
Why can they not just… find someplace new? It won’t be like giving anything up; it will be like. Like finding a home all their own, someplace that could be equal parts Crowley and Aziraphale, someplace they can make theirs together over the decades or centuries or however long Crowley will have him and this hypothetical home stays upright in its foundation.
It feels right, and for all that Aziraphale doesn’t rush into anything, his first instinct is to tell Crowley. Crowley is just… who Aziraphale wants to share things with. He wonders how lovers ever keep anything from each other, when all he wants to do is go to Crowley with this right away.
Alas, that would kind of ruin the surprise, the grand gesture of it all, so he manages to keep his mouth shut, for the time being.
—
“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, one evening, the pair of them nestled up together in Crowley’s enormous bed.
The demon makes a vague sort of humming sound, eyes closed contentedly but paying attention.
“What if we went for a drive tomorrow?” Aziraphale suggests.
“Drive?” Crowley mumbles. “You hate my driving.”
“Yes,” Aziraphale will admit to that much. “But I rather fancy a trip to the country. It should be lovely this time of year. Everything has just started to bloom, and it will be so green. And you just can’t get any kind of fresh air here in the city.”
“The country,” Crowley repeats, lazily. He exhales softly against Aziraphale’s shoulder. “Not Tadfield, I hope? Had ‘nough of that place for the next few decades.”
“No, I wasn’t thinking Tadfield.”
“Good.” Crowley hums again, and Aziraphale can feel him smiling against his skin. “Yeah, sure. Wherever you want to go, angel.”
“Anywhere except for Tadfield,” Aziraphale corrects.
“Yeah.”
“Lovely.” Aziraphale smiles, combing his fingers through Crowley’s hair. “I was more thinking somewhere near the beach, anyway.”
“Beach. Beach is nice…” Crowley trails off, and he’ll be asleep in a moment. He’s only keeping himself awake now to humor Aziraphale, so Aziraphale drops off into silence in order to let Crowley rest.
Aziraphale never particularly cared for sleep before he started sharing his nights with Crowley. Sure, he’s not opposed to it, and sometimes a solid few hours of rest is just what he needs, but he’d just as soon stay up through the night.
Sleeping in the arms of someone you love makes all the difference, though. For the past few months, Aziraphale has found great joy in sleeping beside Crowley, tangled up together, all fondness and warm bodies. Even if he doesn’t sleep, just being in bed beside Crowley for these handful of hours is a dream.
But tonight, Aziraphale doesn’t sleep. He can’t, really. After Crowley drifts off, Aziraphale stays up; he tries to read, a bit, but he’s too distracted, so instead he just spends the night watching Crowley, one hand still buried in his hair and the other resting gently on his back, where he occasionally rubs faint patterns with his fingers — not enough to wake Crowley, mind you, but sometimes Aziraphale just can’t resist, wants to touch as much of Crowley as he can.
The next day, they pack a lunch*** and pile into the Bentley.
Crowley throws one of his arms around the back of the seat, and, by extension, Aziraphale’s shoulders. Aziraphale can feel his fingertips brushing against his shoulder and it brings a smile to his lips. He’s done a lot of smiling in his time as an angel, but his smiles since he and Crowley started their, er, relationship**** have been much more frequent and much more sincere than they ever used to be.
“Where to, angel?” Crowley asks, turning to look at him as he gets the car started and peels away from the curb. “Anywhere in particular you have in mind, or shall I just drive ‘till see waves?”
Aziraphale has a very particular destination in mind, has an address, even, but he can’t tell Crowley yet. He has a Plan.
“Oh, I’ve heard lovely things about the South Downs; don’t think I’ve been out there, at least not anytime in recent memory.”
He glances at Crowley, but Crowley just shrugs, giving one of those fond little smiles. “Sounds good to me,” he says, and then they’re off.
Crowley obligingly drives a little slower than he cares to***** on the way out, as the drive is really rather scenic. They pass some lovely sights on the way, none of which Aziraphale actually sees because he spends the whole time subtly (or so he hopes) staring at Crowley.
Over the past handful of weeks, Aziraphale has spent a good deal of time searching for the perfect home. He even went so far as to boot up the computer he usually only uses to file his taxes and balance the shop’s finances to scour real estate listings On Line.
It had taken him ages to find the perfect place; he’d spent a good deal of time looking for places in London, but nothing had really felt… right. So then he’d broadened his horizons, and finally, he’d found it.
Crowley parks the Bentley on the outskirts of the village on Aziraphale’s instruction. Aziraphale climbs out of the car, and gives himself a moment to watch Crowley’s profile as he pulls himself out of the car. “Shall we take a walk?” he suggests, crossing in front of the hood to be at Crowley’s side. “See the village, perhaps?”
“Sure,” Crowley says easily.
He takes Aziraphale’s hand, and Aziraphale laces their fingers together. Crowley tries to hide his smile, but does a bad job of it. Aziraphale doesn’t even try; as far as any of the resident humans are concerned, they’re just any other couple out for a stroll.
Crowley lets Aziraphale take the lead, thankfully. Aziraphale meanders a bit, like he’s no destination in mind at all.
Aziraphale has only been here twice before: once to tour the cottage, and again to sign the papers and make everything official, but he knows where he’s going, can follow the love in this village like any other markers on a map.
Although Aziraphale came here with ulterior motives — although he’s reluctant to phrase it like that; a mission of love, is more accurate, and it just sounds better — they take the time to see the village.
They walk down a path and through a field and then into the village proper, the sun shining on them like a blessing. They stop in a little bakery in town, even though they brought lunch, because Aziraphale just can’t resist. He gets an almond croissant and Crowley gets a complicated coffee drink with more vanilla and caramel than actual coffee and a dark chocolate biscotti, which they take with them to go. Crowley glues a handful of coins to the sidewalk as they go, and Aziraphale stops a woman’s bag from splitting open outside of the shop in the middle of town and spilling her groceries all over the pavement.
All in all, it’s a lovely morning.
Finally, sometime in the early afternoon, Aziraphale stops, smiles serenely at Crowley. “How about we pop down to the beach? Maybe have that lunch we packed?”****** He suggests.
He doesn’t miss the sidelong glance Crowley throws his way out of the side of his sunglasses. Yes, yes, Aziraphale is acting a bit out of character, he knows; normally he just makes eyes at Crowley until he takes the hint. All this prodding is very much not him.
But all Crowley says is, “Whatever you say.” He stops, twists his head around, points. “Think it’s back that way a b—”
“Oh, no,” Aziraphale says, tugging him along again. “I know a shortcut, don’t worry, dear.”
“Shortcut?” Crowley grumbles, making one of those, those ridiculous faces he makes that Aziraphale adores so much, nose all scrunched up and brows in some odd fusion of raised and pinched together. “Have you ever even been here before? How can you have a shortcut?”
Still, he lets Aziraphale pull him along.
What an odd world, with demons going around trusting angels. Or, at least one demon trusting one angel. Perhaps they’re the exception that proves the rule, Aziraphale thinks, or perhaps it doesn’t matter what they are, and they just trust each other because they know they can.
Aziraphale leads Crowley to a little cottage nestled at the end of the lane. His heart does a funny little dance when he sees it, and, oh, he’s always been one for nerves, but really, he knows he doesn’t need to be afraid around Crowley, and he wishes they’d just, just — just bugger off and let him be.
The worst that will happen is that they’ll just go back to their lives as they are, which is absolutely lovely as it is, so there’s certainly no need to be anxious.
Of course, unbidden bouts of anxiety are one of the many things Aziraphale has picked up from humanity over the years, so no amount of reasoning with himself has ever done him any good.
Instead, he just focuses on the good — the quiet anticipation, the love that’s almost palpable in the air between him and Crowley, and beauty of the day around them and the cottage itself.
It really is a gorgeous place. No matter how nervous Aziraphale is for Crowley’s reaction, he’s even more excited to just show it to Crowley, to finally share all of this with him.
“Ah, yes. Just through here,” Aziraphale says, giving Crowley’s hand a little tug towards the gate of the cottage’s front garden — their front garden.
“Angel,” Crowley says, “what’re you doing? You can’t just—“ Aziraphale unlatches the gate and pushes it open, pulling Crowley through. “This is trespassing, Aziraphale,” he protests, even as he follows Aziraphale anyway. “And it’s not that I don’t approve, strictly speaking. I mean, I am still a demon. But we’re on holiday today, aren’t we? And— Whose house is this?”
That’s when Aziraphale stops, right outside the front door. He turns towards Crowley, takes both his hands and holds them gently.
“Ours,” Aziraphale says, gently, looking into Crowley’s eyes. Or, he hopes he is; hard to tell with those glasses in the way. “If you’d like.”
Crowley opens his mouth, makes a sound that might’ve been words, if you cut out all the vowels.
“Before you say anything,” Aziraphale runs a thumb along Crowley’s wrist, “will you hear me out?”
After an agonizing couple of seconds, Crowley finally nods.
Aziraphale nods back, and then he takes back one of his hands and slips it into his pocket, pulling out a brand new key ring. He could just miracle the door open, but using keys just feels… more permanent, more real. This is the first time they’re here together, it feels like he should do it properly.
Crowley stares, first at Aziraphale and then at the keys in his hand as he unlocks the door and pushes it open, ushering Crowley inside with the one hand he’s still holding onto.
“So I’ve been thinking lately,” Aziraphale starts, letting the door shut behind them. He leads Crowley down the short entry hallway, not daring to look at him until he’s gotten the hard part out of the way. “Quite a lot, actually. About, well, about us. And I think, well. I want to be with you, always, so I was thinking. That is, I wondered if we might, you know. Move in. Live together. Here. If that would be something that interests you.”
The living room is the first stop on Aziraphale’s tour; it’s spacious, with big bay windows looking out on the front garden and hardwood floors. It’s all dark cherrywood and mahogany, rich reds and browns, earthy and warm; a middle ground of aesthetics, hopefully.
Before Crowley can say anything, or before Aziraphale can lose his nerve, Aziraphale continues. “See, it’s a bit bigger than your flat, and certainly bigger than the shop. More fitting for two, I think.”
Aziraphale takes Crowley into the kitchen, next; it’s connected to the living room via a small dining room. “I do hope this is, er, modern enough for your liking. I’ve been told it’s been redone recently, and the previous owner assured me granite countertops are all the rage these days.”
Goodness knows neither he nor Crowley ever cook, but Aziraphale has seen Crowley’s flat, and he knows he likes things up to date and sleek as can be. The stainless steel appliances are certainly not to Aziraphale’s taste, but that is the nature of compromise, right? He knows Crowley probably won’t be the biggest fan of the wallpaper, even though Aziraphale finds it absolutely darling.
“And, oh,” Aziraphale perks up, pulling Crowley along again.
Through the kitchen windows there’s a view of the back garden. In the distance, beyond a collection of sprawling dunes, they can even see the sea. Aziraphale knows there’s even a path that leads right down to the beach out the back garden, but he’ll save that for another day. If all goes to plan.
“The back garden is just lovely, and it’s very spacious; there’s so much green, it’s like a mini Eden. Now, granted, it is a bit overgrown at present, but I’m certain you could whip it into shape in no time.”
He chances a glance at Crowley, then, but Crowley’s looking out at the garden when he does, so Aziraphale looks away again.
“Right!” Best to keep moving; if they stay in one place too long, Aziraphale might give himself time to let nerves creep back in. “This way, now.”
The cottage isn’t huge; only one story, six rooms, if you can count the first three as separate rooms, four if you look at them like one big main room, but it feels endlessly huge in comparison to the shop or the flat, and with all these windows, inviting the sunlight inside to open the space up further.
“There’s a bathroom, of course, this house was built for humans,” Aziraphale explains, heading down the hallway off the side of the kitchen now. “Not of much import to us, I suppose, but the bathtub is quite large.”
Big enough for two to share, Aziraphale can’t bring himself to say, and just pulls Crowley along instead, not looking at him. “And, oh, the study. Has a home library, plenty of space. I don’t believe it will fit my whole collection, but I’m sure it could be persuaded to hold a decent few, and there’s plenty of room for extra bookshelves in the bedroom.”
He doesn’t mean to stop for long, but Crowley does, anyway, peering into the study and giving it what Aziraphale assumes is a thoughtful inspection. It makes Aziraphale’s heart ping.
“Alright, come along,” he says, getting Crowley going again. And the end of the hall is the bedroom; where Aziraphale finally stops. There’s little planter boxes outside both windows with strawberry plants growing with wild abandon. Aziraphale has a vivid picture in his head, can see himself reaching out the window and picking them in the morning, sharing them with Crowley.
His cheeks heat and he looks away. “We can keep the bed in here; we could bring yours, if you like, I know it’s bigger than mine, or we could buy a new one? Or even miracle a new one, if we can’t find one that fits right.”
Crowley nods, vaguely. He slips his hand free and walks slowly into the room, stopping to stand in the middle of the room.
Aziraphale follows him in, wringing his now-empty hands together without Crowley’s fingers between his own to keep them occupied. “Of course, if you don’t like it, or if this—“ he gestures vaguely, indicating the room and himself— “isn’t something you want to begin with, or, or if you don’t want to leave the city, of course we don’t have to. I suppose I really could have checked with you first. And I suppose we could have just, moved into your flat, and maybe I could’ve used the bookshop as a proper shop instead of spending twenty-four hours a day there, but.
“But this just felt better, I think, and oh, I really did want to surprise you, to be the one to make the romantic gesture for once. And, well, you were the one who told me to forget the worlds and just show you how much I love you. So. Here we are. And, you see, this way neither one of us will feel out of place, like we’re trying to force our way in somewhere we don’t really belong. We can decorate so we both like it; we can, we can find a nice middle ground, a sort of… gray area of our own, if you will. We can — if you’re amenable, of course — we can make it a home, our home, together.”
He looks up at Crowley face, finally, and smiles; it’s shot through with nerves, yes, but it is genuine. There, he’s doing it, he’s laying his heart out, just as Crowley’s done so many times, and as anxious as it makes him, it feels good, too. Love, given and received, is always a comfort.
There’s a moment, a beat — just a second, really, no matter how long his anxiety stretches it out in his head — of silence, and then Crowley reaches up and slowly takes his glasses off.
His eyes, Aziraphale is startled to realize, are shining with love and wet with unshed tears.
“Crowley,” Aziraphale starts, but Crowley cuts him off with a shake of his head.
“You—“ He starts, and then stops, clears his throat, and tries again. “You… You want to live here. With me. You want to live with me?”
If Aziraphale actually needed to breath, he would find himself in a bit of a pickle right now, as the ability deserts him for a moment. “Oh, goodness, of course I do. I’d like nothing more. As long as that’s something you want, as well?”
Crowley makes a strange sort of choking sound that might’ve been a laugh, or at least his best attempt at one, if all that emotion wasn’t getting in the way. “Please, I’ve loved you for six-thousand-years, I want whatever you’re willing to give me.”
And that’s the thing, isn’t it? Aziraphale wants to give Crowley all the things he hasn’t been able to in the six millennia they’ve known and cared for each other.
He takes Crowley’s face in his hands. “Everything,” he murmurs, “Crowley, I want to give you everything.”
Crowley doesn’t seem to know what to say to that, so instead he just drops himself into Aziraphale’s arms, wrapping his arms around Aziraphale’s waist and burying his face in Aziraphale’s shoulder.
“You bought me a cottage,” he says, weakly, muffled by Aziraphale’s coat.
“I bought us a cottage,” Aziraphale corrects, gently, one of his hands in Crowley’s hair and the other wrapped around his shoulders.
“You bought us a cottage.”
Aziraphale threads his fingers through Crowley’s hair. “I did.”
Crowley pulls away, after a few moments of silent comfort. He sniffs, and wipes at his eyes with the heel of his hand. “You didn’t have to, y’know,” he says, fidgeting with his glasses, considering slipping them back on. In the end he slips them in the pocket of his jacket. “You could’ve just told me to kip on the couch in the back room and I would’a been fine with that.”
“But I don’t want you to just kip on my couch, dear,” Aziraphale reminds him, “I want to make a home with you.”
Crowley whines, actually whines, and his eyes go misty again. Funny, Aziraphale has always figured he’d be the crier out of the two of them, but Crowley has always been full of surprises, he supposes.
“Is that a yes, then?” Aziraphale asks, tentative, despite, well. Everything.
“Is that a— Yes, of course it’s a bloody yes!” Crowley says, “Aziraphale. Angel. I— This— You—” He just shakes his head, apparently reaching the limit where human vocabulary ceases to describe whatever it is he’s feeling at the moment, so instead he just swoops in and kisses Aziraphale soundly until neither one of them can even hope to form anything resembling a proper sentence.
The kiss ends, regretfully, and leaves Aziraphale feeling a little unsteady on his feet.
“You’re really okay with leaving London?” Crowley asks, voice soft, eyes full of wonder. “The bookshop? You’ve had it for over two centuries. I know how much you love it there.”
“Two centuries is hardly a blip against the other sixty of them I’ve been on this Earth, and what I love about it is the life you and I have built around it.” Aziraphale tells him. “Besides, with a private library, I’ll no longer have to worry about the possibility of actually having to sell any of my books.”
“Yes. A bookseller, selling books, fancy that,” Crowley teases.
Aziraphale shakes his head, but he smiles fondly all the same. “And you? You’d leave London?”
Crowley shrugs half-heartedly. “Aziraphale, I only ever settled in London ‘cause you did first. I’ve just been following you all this time.”
Aziraphale covers his heart with one of his hands, dangerously close to getting a bit misty himself now. “Crowley,” he breathes.
Crowley ducks his head, scuffing his boot against the hardwood floor. “Yeah, yeah. I’m very romantic and hopeless and lovestruck. Whatever. Let’s not make a whole thing about it.”
Aziraphale smiles so, so fondly. “Alright, alright,” he relents. “Well. We still have a picnic on the beach waiting for us.”
Crowley nods, slowly. “We could go to the beach,” he says, “or… Or we could stay here, eat out front, in the shade. Grass looks nice. Soft. There’s a, I mean. did you notice—”
“The apple tree?” Aziraphale’s smile softens even more, which seemed impossible a second ago. “Yes, I noticed it.” It’s one of the reasons he’d settled on this cottage when he was browsing properties; maybe he’s an old sap, but it just feels, it feels—
“It’s almost too perfect,” Crowley says.
“Almost,” Aziraphale agrees. “But I think it’s just the right amount of perfect.”
Crowley leans in and kisses him again, gentle and lingering, and when he stands back he’s got the basket on his elbow, miraculously transported here from the Bentley’s backseat.
“Let’s eat, angel,” he says.
Aziraphale takes Crowley’s other elbow, loops his arm through it. “Let’s,” he agrees, and lets Crowley lead him out to the garden.
* Pretend celestials need to breathe for this simile. ↑
** It is also, technically, correct. If there’s one thing the Almighty has always been a fan of, it’s ineffability, and if there’s one thing in this universe that is truly indescribable, too grand, too much to ever be put into words, it’s love. After all, would a demon really just be allowed to saunter back into Heaven without Her knowing? ↑
*** Not the first picnic they’ve gone on, since the day the world didn’t end, but Aziraphale feels the same swooping feeling in his stomach he got before that one, all the same. ↑
**** Aziraphale still isn’t sure what to call this thing that he and Crowley have; humanity just doesn’t have a word in any of its many languages that can truly encapsulate what they are to each other. Boyfriend doesn’t seem like enough, and he can’t use husband, as they aren’t married (yet). He’s quite fond of partner or lover, the former used more frequently in public and the latter more so when it’s just the two of them, but he’s still searching. And then there’s Crowley, who, when faced with the same problem, had just decided on soulmate and called it a day. ↑
***** Which is to say, he goes about 85 MPH, or roughly 136 KPH, since they are in England. ↑
****** The aforementioned lunch is still back in the Bentley, not daring to spoil even as the car’s interior heats in the midday sun. Neither one of them have any desire to carry it with them all day, so instead the plan is to simply will it to them when the time comes. ↑