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As far as perilous situations went, standing red-faced in Aziraphale’s dark bedchamber with an increasingly impish angel surely did not make the top ten list, but Crowley was increasingly willing to take the oath and make a passionate argument to the contrary.
“Like this?” Aziraphale asked, holding up a mid-Victorian nightgown, offensive with lace and scandalously short for it. It would barely skim the shorter man’s calves, he thought, increasingly hot and bothered and mad about it.
Crowley gathered himself together enough to choke out some vaguely dissenting syllables. “No, not like that, and I don’t ever want to hear the story behind that cotton monstrosity. I meant something like this.”
With a flourish, he clad himself in his preferred black silk pyjamas. He displayed them proudly for a moment, preening before the mortification set back in.
How the heaven did we get here, he wondered vaguely. Lockdown the second was shaping up to be even more of a ball-ache than the first one, mainly because Crowley was, temporarily and against all his better judgement, awake. He had been somewhat gratified, a few hours ago, to discover that Aziraphale had not managed to maintain his straightedge haughtiness in his absence.
“My dear, I’ve utterly annihilated Julia Child, Nigella, Delia, Shizou, Mrs Beeton, and every single Be-Ro book, and I’m seriously reconsidering your earlier offer…”
“Ah, yes, my offer to help you off celebrity chefs.”
“No, your offer to keep me company!”
Crowley had grumbled and groaned about it, of course, then he’d dressed, grabbed an obscenely expensive overnight bag, packed it with a few good vintages, and drove the few blocks to Soho whistling Mozart’s Liar.
He’d found the bookshop in a state of unusual disarray. Not unusual in that it was disarrayed, but that the disarray was not entirely of Aziraphale’s own twisted design. Stacks of books lay anxiously across the shop floor, creating a perilous bibliophilic maze, with various antique doo-dads waiting around corners to bugger the big toe of any demon or mortal foolish enough to enter. Crowley raised his eyebrows at the dusty angel who ushered him in bodily, right as the inimitable tang of burnt sponge cake wiped the smile off his face. His eyes watered spontaneously.
“Thanks ever so for coming, I knew you’d be a good sport. Just going a little bit doo-lally in this shop by myself all day,” Aziraphale had rambled, “no customers, no Crowley, altogether too many baked goods – if you can believe that.”
Crowley had shaken his head incredulously. Dumping his overnight bag by the nearest quivering pile of literature, Crowley had taken a good hard look at Aziraphale’s twitching fingers, which worried the long-suffering waistcoat repetitively, along with his dishevelled hair and the noticeable pulse in his left eyelid, and rolled his sleeves up.
Now here they were.
Aziraphale must have been driven to distraction to agree to give sleeping a go. Only, now they were both anxious, and Crowley was beginning to lose his nerve.
The angel was looking at the demon and his pyjamas up and down coquettishly. Crowley blessed under his breath.
Give me strength!
“Menswear has become so predictable,” Aziraphale sighed happily. “Not that you don’t wear it well, naturally. You could wear a bin liner and look lovely. A bit of colour wouldn’t go amiss, though.”
“If you start lecturing me on my fashion choices, I’m leaving. A bit of colour wouldn’t go amiss. Honestly. Pot calling the kettle…cream.”
The angel just rolled his eyes, and, with a flamboyant gesture, he found himself in a matching set of pyjamas, though his were soft brushed cotton in off-white.
“There,” he announced. “Now we look like salt and pepper shakers.”
Crowley groaned. “Right. Let’s do this, then. Come and lie down.”
He reclined back onto the creaking mattress of Aziraphale’s annoyingly comfortable Queen-sized bed with a harumph.
Aziraphale miracled some remaining folios away, presumably to somewhere just as inconvenient, and took the remaining portion of the bed, deftly smoothing back the duck-egg blue quilt. Little white feathers escaped it in a puff of air.
“I’m not a complete amateur,” he insisted. “The nineteenth was a long century. Suppose I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.”
Crowley cut him off with a long whine. “Nuh, angel! Don’t want to hear it, remember? If you ruin sleep for me, I’ll never forgive you.”
Aziraphale leaned back against the plump pillows, pouting. “Well, anyway, I have slept.” He said, a little smugly.
“And?” Crowley prompted.
A small frown appeared between the angel’s tawny eyebrows. “I had an unpleasant dream.”
“And that was it? No more sleep? Virtue is ever-vigilant, even when it’s really, really tired and clearly going mad?”
“Well, it was very unpleasant.”
Crowley stares a bit, before accepting that this is perfectly logical to Aziraphale, giving him no choice but to shrug and accept it. Stretching, he shucks off his glasses and leans away to place them on an ancient nightstand. They make a dull, familiar sound.
I could get used to this, Crowley thought, then froze, He turned back stiffly to his face strange bedfellow.
Aziraphale is watching him openly, his trademark unease noticeably absent. He folds his hands across his stomach, looking up expectantly at Crowley. The demon’s presence seems to have soothed him. A flicker of satisfied kindling touches oxygen and ignites in Crowley’s chest.
I did that, he thought.
He’s struck, not for the first time, with the desire to reach out his thumb and smooth away the remnants of Aziraphale’s distress. He presses his fingernails resolutely into his palm instead.
“Nightmares can throw a bit of a wrench in things, I grant you. But there is a flipside. Trust me, dreams can be very pleasant.”
Aziraphale’s lip twitches and Crowley blushes sharply.
He clears his throat. “As I was saying. You just need to relax properly. Switch off the chaos in that old noggin for a bit.”
Crowley rocked forward slightly, unfurling his long, thin fingers enquiringly. “May I, um?”
For one long second, Crowley feared he’s made a terrible, terrible mistake. Aziraphale was looking up at him, totally baffled, possibly one micro-expression away from horror. Disgust could be milliseconds from appearing on those open, trusting eyes.
Cold fear clawed at Crowley’s heart. He was going to be sick, leave the country and never show his greedy, needy face ever again, get stunningly drunk until he could bear to face Aziraphale again, and change his hair. In that order. He might even get a completely new identity. Perhaps Alistair? No –
Aziraphale interrupted his doom-spiral with a small, merciful nod. An incomprehensible smile spread across his features, and he wiggled further into the bedding, spreading warmth like the Sun.
“Oh, uh, alright then.”
Gently, he starts exploring that buttery, unkempt hair, revelling in its softness. Hardly daring to breathe, he allows his fingers to scrape, feather-light across the angel’s scalp.
For a moment, Aziraphale is still, thoughtful. Then he seems to melt into Crowley’s touch, a deep, pleased hum emanating from his chest.
Emboldened, Crowley pads his thumbs across the angel’s temples. It must be his imagination, but Crowley could swear he felt the engine beneath them purr and quieten. A brief respite on soft skin and curious fingers continued on their journey, mapping expressive eyebrows and bridge of the upturned nose before retreating once more into downy hair, which glowed softly under the dim yellow gaslight.
“This ok?” Crowley’s voice came out too quiet, too vulnerable. He swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing. Somehow, without warning, a grand gesture, or even noticing, they’d crossed a line. The line was so old, no one could quite remember who’d drawn it first. But it had been an unwelcome, if necessary, party in their relationship – and their Arrangement, which was just a euphemism for said relationship, as these things go – for thousands of years. Crowley’s right hand trembled lightly, coming to rest on the golden crown of Aziraphale’s head.
“Yes,” the angel sighed, eyelids flickering. “You were right, this is pleasant.”
“Just making you comfortable,” Crowley monotoned.
“I haven’t felt this comfortable in, oh, aeons.” He peeked up at Crowley. “I have no idea what you’re doing, but it’s quite marvellous. You must teach me.”
“Yeah, maybe another time, angel,” Crowley placated him. “Now, shush. Trying to help you sleep.”
Aziraphale wriggled contentedly under the touch, moaned obscenely, and snuggled into the cradle of Crowley’s arm.
The demon squeaked, arm immobilised mid-pet.
Aziraphale’s brain caught up with his body somewhat belatedly. He looked up a little guiltily but did not pull back. In the spirit of being a good sport, and an awful romantic, Crowley didn’t either.
“I’m sorry, dear boy. Don’t know what compelled me. Your magic fingers, probably.”
Crowley blinked, unable to dignify this with an answer. Then, abruptly, he began to laugh, shoulders shaking silently with mirth.
That was all it took. The worried look left Aziraphale, his shoulders softened, and they howled like naughty schoolchildren, caught whispering at the back of the class.
“Nah, it’s fine,” Crowley managed, between snickers, “s’good. Thank you. You can have my magic fingers anytime.”
“Crowley, stop,” the angel wheezed, tears beading at the crinkled corners of his eyes. He covered his mouth, uselessly pressing back against the giggle that shook through his body.
Feeling utterly unhinged, Crowley covered his eyes, scrubbing at the liquid that had dared accumulated there.
Stupid, human bodies, he thought. Stupid, human hearts.
Tension banished, Aziraphale reached up and peeled the hand away from Crowley’s serpentine eyes. He squeezed it between both of his own.
“It really does mean a lot to me, that you came. I…I missed you.”
Half an hour ago, Crowley might have sarcastically replied, “course you did,” or something equally half-hearted, while desperately burning the comment into his not-insubstantial long-term memory. This time, he just smiled. Allowed the moment to wash over him, safe in the knowledge he couldn’t forget it if he tried. It was real, they were real. They were alive. They were safe. They’d survived 6000 years of occult (and celestial) micromanagement, an aborted apocalypse, and they’d bloody well survive a few months of lockdown, too.
“You too, angel,” he said at last. “Glad you called.”
Aziraphale smiled beatifically. “Well, Mrs Beeton was starting to talk back to me.”
Crowley resisted the urge to swat him, settling for a hard nudge and a long shhhh. “Close your eyes. M’ not letting you talk your way out of this one. You said some sleep could do you good, yourself. Said it couldn’t hurt, remember?”
“Crowley?”
He looked down, momentarily frightened to see the angel serious again. “Yes?”
“Could you, I mean…it’s silly, really.”
Crowley leaned back upon his left elbow, tasting the worry emanating from the angel in hair-like tendrils. “What is it, ‘Ziraphale? You can tell me.”
“I know,” Aziraphale squeezed his hand again. “It’s just…would you mind terribly staying awake? If I fall asleep, I mean. I’m sorry, Am I ruining sleep for you? I shouldn’t have asked.”
Crowley frowned, shaking his head slowly. “No, angel, forget that. It’s fine. Only, you really wouldn’t mind me just laying here with you, while you sleep?”
“Ah, no, horribly selfish of me. You’re quite right, I’m only worrying over nothing, as usual.”
Crowley shushed him. “That’s not what I meant. I’ve just got up from an eight-month nap, Aziraphale, I’m good. Happy to be here, keep you company, y’know. If it’ll really help you relax for once…Yeah, just, thanks, I suppose.”
“Whatever for?” Aziraphale whispered, unblinking.
“For asking?” Crowley mumbled, following the rise and fall of his friend’s chest with carefully nonchalant interest. “For trusting me.”
“My dear boy,” the angel’s warm palm found his cheek in the dark, “always.”
Chasing warmth, Crowley nuzzled it.
“What’ll help?” he asked quietly. “What’ll it take for you to close your eyes and sleep, right now? If that’s what you still want to do.”
Aziraphale nodded imperceptibly. “I do. And you’re helping me enormously. I can only hope it’s not too much of a bother.”
“How many times, angel, it’s no bother at all. Nothing I like more than a comfy bed, ‘cept maybe a comfy angel – don’t even think about repeating that to anyone! Now, tell me how else I can help you.”
“Dear, sweet serpent,” Aziraphale said, eyes twinkling as Crowley grimaced into his palm. “You could tell me a story. That way I’ll know you’re awake.”
Crowley huffed half-heartedly. “A story? Don’t you have them all memorised already?”
“Not all of them,” Aziraphale retorted, “just some Austen here, Heyer there. You know, the classics –”
“I meant,” Crowley interrupted, helpfully, “what story can I possibly tell you that you don’t know already?”
“Oh, well, all good stories are meant to be told and retold. Nothing new under the sun, and all that. They’re timeless like that. Like us.”
“Yeah?”
“Anyway, I’m sure you have plenty of stories I’m not privy to. What about these marvellously pleasant dreams of yours? Could you tell me one of those?” He tapped playfully at Crowley’s snake tattoo. Crowley frowned.
“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale lowered his hand. “That was rather a personal question, wasn’t it? You needn’t tell me.”
Crowley shrugged, looking around them at the dark room, watching moonlight stream through the threadbare green velvet of Aziraphale’s curtains. “Think we’re a bit past that now,” he commented.
Aziraphale gave him a questioning glance.
He smirked. “I’m in your bed, love.”
The angel lit up with a smile, the special, bright one he saved for when Crowley surprised him. It sent sparks along Crowley’s veins, sending a short, sharp kick to his useless heart. It beat fast anyway, thrilled.
“Goodness,” Aziraphale beamed, “you make it sound quite exciting.”
Bless it, the angel never ceased to surprise him either. He was absurd. And terribly endearing. (And just a bit bad).
“Quite exciting enough, for now, I reckon,” Crowley said through closed teeth, “now do you want to hear this dream of mine, or not?”
“Oh yes,” the angel replied, eyes lighting up. “If you really don’t mind awfully.”
“I said it’s fine. Now close your eyes before I blindfold you – don’t start! Cheeky bugger,” Crowley muttered, fondly brushing hair off the angel’s forehead. “So, I have this recurring dream. I’m in the Bentley – ”
“Naturally.”
“Do you want to hear this or not? Right, so I’m in the Bentley. It’s summertime. Lockdown’s over, no more plagues, I’m leaving London.”
Under his fingertips, Aziraphale’s eyebrows furrow. Crowley allows himself to smooth them down, petting lightly.
“The back seat is filled with my plants,” he ploughs on. “Then I look over and I…I see you.”
Beneath his touch, the angel vibrates with emotion but keeps his eyes resolutely closed. Crowley is so grateful he could kiss him.
“You’re in the passenger seat,” he says. “You smile at me, and I know, I just know, that wherever we’re going, we’re going together. Just like I know that there, in the boot, is one hundred or so of your favourite books.”
Aziraphale’s lips twitch irresistibly upwards. “One hundred and fifty?”
“Yeah, if you like,” Crowley blinks back tears. “Hundred and fifty.”
His hand comes to rest on Aziraphale’s pyjama-clad chest. Beneath it, he can feel the steady thrum-thrum-thrum of his heart. Then it leaps musically.
Because of me, Crowley realises.
He closes his eyes, willing himself to continue. His throat feels thick.
“So, you, me, my plants and your books, are driving away from London, city in the rear-view mirror, getting smaller and smaller. And outside, the streets are getting greener and greener. A new Eden. There’s just us, nobody else. No fear. No uncertainty. Just…just.”
He can’t say it. His wretched tongue has betrayed him again.
Something bumps his forehead. Crowley opens his miserable eyes to find the angel nudging him gently with his nose, before laying neatly back down again.
“Love?” He suggests.
Crowley can only nod, basking in the tender affection laid bare on his angel’s face. The only angel whose opinion means a damn to him. Only person.
“Yeah.”
Aziraphale glows. “Thank you,” he says.
“What for, angel?” Crowley sniffles, hiding a smile badly.
“Sharing your dreams with me. For trusting me.”
“Oh, of all the corny – course, angel. Anytime.”
He lay back, then. Allowed his head to drop to the pillow beside Aziraphale, still on his side so he didn’t miss a second in this precious, liminal space.
“I would, you know?” Aziraphale murmured, watching him.
“Huh?”
“Leave London with you. Make our own little Eden, somewhere quiet.”
Crowley can’t look again. “It was just a dream, ‘member. You’re getting sleepy, I can tell. Drifting into dreamland.”
“Maybe so,” said the angel, “but it’s true, nevertheless.”
Crowley snorts quietly. “Only you could say nevertheless properly this close to falling asleep.”
“Look at me.”
Crowley burrows his head into Aziraphale’s shoulder, “nuh.”
“Crowley, please, look at me.”
His voice is low and urgent. Crowley obeys, arriving, soundly on his elbow again.
“M’ looking, angel.”
“Look closer.”
Crowley does so, concerned now.
Softly, softly, Crowley’s face falls into a cradle of Aziraphale’s making, before those careful hands move like air down his face, neck, chest, arriving smoothly at his lapels. Aziraphale’s eyes open, blinking dreamily, look once to check Crowley knows what he wants to do, twice to check it’s welcome. No kiss was ever more so.
Deceptively strong, Aziraphale closes the gap between them with one firm pull on his silly silk pyjamas. Their lips meet, just for a moment. Crowley’s mind goes white. Blessedly blank. Nothing else matters, not a bloody thing but this.
The kiss ends with a little puff of air from Crowley’s lips as he falls back onto the pillows, staring. He feels wide awake and brand new. He’s never felt older in his life.
“Oh,” he exhales. Oh. “I see.”
Aziraphale wiggles closer, tracing patterns on his chest and shoulders. “I liked your dream.”
“Me too.”
“I might see about having it too. Perhaps I could go through some finer points, look at some properties. You could join me?”
Crowley leaned back and fixed him with an incredulous stare. “You want to pick out China patterns with me in your dreams, literally?”
“Well,” he said calmly, “I have some perfectly good China downstairs, but it couldn’t hurt to run through some décor ideas together before we start narrowing down the real estate.”
“Now I’m scared,” Crowley said.
Aziraphale poked him. “It could be fun.”
“Hm,” he considered this. “Dream-melding. You sure? Thought you wanted me to keep watch while you slept.”
Aziraphale thought about this. “Yes. I thought I did. Now I wonder if maybe I wouldn’t feel safer if you came with me?”
“Sure. I mean, we’ve already switched bodies, why not poke around in each other’s heads too?” The evening's events have left Crowley spacy and pleasantly careless. He can still taste Aziraphale’s kiss. He touches a hand to his lips.
Yep. Still there.
“No, nothing so aggressive as that, dear. I’m envisioning more of a meeting of minds; or souls if you like. Seventh alternative rendezvous? An appropriate place to rest and recuperate, don’t you think?”
Crowley smiled. “Yeah? I think I’d like that.”
“Good.” Beside him, the angel settles in again. “Tomorrow, we can start on the real thing. Pool our resources, make phone calls, that sort of thing. Then it will be just you, me, your favourite plants and two hundred or so of my most favourite texts. A new Eden. How grand!”
Crowley clucks. “Does that make us Adam and Eve?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. All I know is, we don’t have to be The Angel Aziraphale and The Demon Crowley anymore. We’ll just be us.”
“The artists formerly known as the Guardian of the Eastern Gate and the Serpent of Eden.”
“Precisely. Whatever that means.”
Bravely, he thought, Crowley snuggled closer into Aziraphale’s embrace, enjoying the heat of his plush body. He pressed a daring kiss to the fuzzy hair of the angel’s chest. It tickles.
“I suppose it means, yes. I accept. Let’s meld minds, bodies, horribly clashing furniture, anything you like. I’m yours.”
The enormity of this admission hits them both at once.
They pause, breathing slowly together.
Crowley licks his lips, shy again. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing, by the way. Keeping me talking, making my heart go all beat-y so I can’t think straight. I wasn’t loomed yesterday.”
“I’m cherishing you, dear. I’ve waited an eternity to hold you like this and tell you I adore you.”
“And you’re distracting me from – wait. You adore me?”
“Yes,” said Aziraphale simply. He looks shocked at his own audacity, but he smiles sheepishly at Crowley all the same.
“Angel,” Crowley's mouths, “Angel. I can’t believe this! After all this time. I hoped, dreamed, even bloody prayed, but I can’t believe it! Isn’t that just like me? Do you have any idea how much I love you? Trust me, I’m going to spend the rest of my existence trying to show you how much. Even when you drive me spare with your fretting, your dubious and specific morals, or your God-awful human magic shows, I won’t stop. You can’t get rid of me, you hear me, angel? Never! I think I’m having palpitations, maybe you should hit me. Or pinch me. Or something. Aziraphale?”
Crowley looks up. The angel has fallen deeply, unmistakably asleep, a serene smile on his lovely, self-satisfied face.
“Oh, you bastard,” Crowley murmurs. It is Fond with a capital F.
Only one thing for it, he decides. Carefully, he lays back down beside the love of his life, closes his eyes, and follows him to oblivion.