Chapter Text
Aziraphale slips up while they’re three sheets to the wind, of course he does. It’s incredible—centuries of swallowing down his feelings as though they’re hot coals, learning to live with the burn in his throat and chest, and then the words come out without so much as a by your leave.
He imagines, in his idle daydreams, that when he is ready, he’ll express his ardor for Crowley in an eloquent declaration. Words that a character in one of his favorite books might say.
Aziraphale has always had a soft spot for that clever Jane Austen, and he thinks of Captain Wentworth’s lines in Persuasion: “You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me that I am not too late, that such precious feelings are gone forever… I have loved none but you.”
Yes, something in that vein will do nicely.
In a couple centuries, Aziraphale thinks hopefully, he'll be brave enough to say the words.
The world failed to end six months ago and now Crowley is sitting outside the bookshop in his Bentley, honking his horn to the tune of “Under Pressure” while Aziraphale straightens his bow tie.
“Really, my dear. What’s the rush?” Aziraphale asks as he slides into the passenger seat. “Oh! You are quite dashing tonight.”
It’s true. Crowley does look wonderful in his smart black suit and skinny tie. He’s grown his hair out past his collar again, which always gives him a roguish air that Aziraphale finds rather alluring. And well—it’s not just the tailored clothes or the grooming, Aziraphale realizes. It’s the fact that Crowley looks happier these days. His posture relaxed, his sharp features breaking into a wide smile more easily. The force of that unadulterated joy directed at him makes Aziraphale's knees go a bit wobbly.
“Thanks, angel,” Crowley says. He’s not wearing his sunglasses in the car, though Aziraphale knows he’ll put them on again when they get to the restaurant. His eyes are warm and golden as they pan over Aziraphale’s impeccable three-piece suit, which he last wore to a literary gala in the late 1940s. “You don’t look half bad yourself. Cream’s your color.”
There’s something in Crowley’s gaze and the teasing lilt of his voice that isn’t new, exactly, but is more pronounced now that neither of them are worried about displeasing their superiors. Aziraphale sometimes thinks that if they were humans, this would be something close to flirtation or courtship. But as they’re an angel and a demon, he thinks it’s just… well. Ineffable, really.
He smiles and settles back, taking care to click in his seatbelt even though Crowley always grumbles about how offensive it is, and “of course I’d never let anything happen to you angel, not on my watch.”
“Off to dinner, then?”
“Yeah. Three-star Michelin restaurant,” Crowley says with a wicked grin. “It’s a miracle that I was able to get us a reservation. Someone must have had to cancel at the last minute.”
“Oh, you fiend,” Aziraphale says, when what he really means is, thank you, you beautiful creature.
After dinner, they end up back at the bookshop and Aziraphale discovers a case of Domaine Dujac that he picked up the last time they were in France. They proceed to get completely sloshed.
“We stopped tha- th’pocalypse thingy, didn’t we?” Crowley says, waving a hand expansively. “Wahoo to us!”
“It’s an anniversary,” Aziraphale agrees, taking another swig of wine. “Six months! That’s…”
“Half a century?”
“You’ve got time all mixed up again,” Aziraphale giggles. “Half annum. Year. Oh dear, isn’t that a strange word? Yeaaaaaar.”
“Welllllll. Adam stopped th’pocalypse anyway. You helped ‘n all. I did some stuff, I s’pose, but mostly I was a useless demon. Crying in the pub. How m’barrassing.”
“That’s not true,” Aziraphale says, frowning as he sets his glass down on the side table. He misses by a wide margin but the full glass of wine knows better than to fall and break on the floor. It does a hasty readjustment and ends up on the side table, on top of a coaster and well away from any books. “You were instrumentous… very important, my dear boy. More so than me.”
“Naaaah,” Crowley says. He’s lying back on the sofa and Aziraphale can’t see his expression, but he can hear the pained grimace in the demon’s voice. “I’ve never been any use to anyone, really.”
It should be noted that Crowley sometimes (but not all the time) becomes a bit morose and self-critical while he’s drunk. It should also be noted that Aziraphale always becomes quite dramatic when he’s drunk. The combination can make for nights that go from melancholic to obscenely theatrical.
“No!” Aziraphale cries out. He struggles to sit upright in his armchair, but unfortunately overshoots and ends up on the ground in an undignified heap. “You can’t say things like that, Crowley. I won’t let you!”
Crowley howls with laughter.
“What are you gonna do?” he says, rolling over onto his side so he can watch Aziraphale struggle on the floor. “Fall out of a chair and crush me into silence? That’ll shut me right up.”
“I’m being serious!” Aziraphale says. His eyes feel wet. He must convince Crowley that what he’s saying is wrong, that Aziraphale would never describe him as useless. Essential would be a better word. Crucial. Crowley is—Crowley is the linchpin that holds Aziraphale’s entire universe together. Surely the demon knows that by now.
“You’re being terrible- no, not terrible. You’re the opposite of that, but you’re being terribly unkind. You’re not useless or bad or anything, not because you’re… demonal- demonical, demonically? A demonic being. Stop being mean.”
Crowley has stopped laughing and is regarding Aziraphale with a strained expression. He sighs.
“M’not being mean to anyone else though, am I? S’just some stuff about me. Telling the truth. I’m not very useful, just kind of hang around. Get in with the wrong crowd. Get in your way. You’ve always been the clever one, angel.”
“Don’t,” Aziraphale grinds out, crawling across the carpet towards the sofa because he doesn’t think he can manage walking on two legs at the moment. The world is too… swirly. He reaches the side of the couch after what feels like an age and grabs one of Crowley’s hands, squeezing it hard enough that the demon lets out a little gasp. “You’re not allowed to say- you’re not allowed to say things like that about my boyfriend. Bad things. It makes me angry.”
Aziraphale lets out a sigh after having delivered that speech and sits back on his haunches, one hand fumbling over the glasses on the coffee table before landing on the half-empty bottle of wine. There, he thinks with drunken satisfaction. He’s gotten the point across, hasn’t he?
“Ngk.”
Crowley makes a strangled noise and Aziraphale turns back to him to find that the demon is sitting up, his posture rigid and his expression slack with shock. His mouth is quite literally hanging open as he stares down at Aziraphale.
“Er,” Aziraphale says, befuddled. He holds up the bottle of wine. “Did you want some more?”
“Azsssiraphale,” Crowley hisses out, then clears his throat and tries again. “Angel. Did you… do you… what did you jussst call me?”
There’s a note of hysteria in Crowley's voice that sets off alarm bells in Aziraphale’s mind. Because obviously, Aziraphale said something untoward while he was sozzled; he’s done something to make his dearest friend uncomfortable. But what could it be? All he was trying to say was that he disapproved terribly of Crowley saying unkind things about his—
Oh. Oh no. Aziraphale drops the bottle of wine, which somehow lands right side up instead of spilling all over the rug. His own words ring in his ears as he feels the blood drain from his face.
You’re not allowed to say things like that about my boyfriend.
He called Crowley his boyfriend. Out loud! Without the two of them ever having talked about it, or kissed, or gone on a proper date. Aziraphale, reckless besotted angel that he is, got inappropriately drunk and confessed his deepest wish and now Crowley is gaping at him as though he's grown two heads.
“Angel.”
The sound of Crowley’s voice—pleading and confused—is more than Aziraphale can bear. Things have been going so well since the world failed to end; they’ve seen more of each other than ever before. Most evenings after Aziraphale closes up the bookshop, he comes into the back room to find Crowley already there, sprawled on the couch as though it was made for him. And now Aziraphale has gone and mucked up all that hard-won ease and closeness by calling his demon (no, not his demon, that’s the sort of thinking that got him into this mess in the first place) his boyfriend.
As though he's a pubescent human. Couldn't he have at least had the sense to use the word partner or beau?
“I have to… oh, will you look at the time!” Aziraphale says, standing up unsteadily and brushing invisible lint off his waist coat. He can’t look at Crowley. He can’t look at anything but his own hands as he chatters on. “You know, my dear, I just remembered that I have a thing—an appointment that I’m late for. Feel free to stay as long as you want. I’ll see you later! Tally-ho!”
Aziraphale can feel, rather than see, Crowley push himself off the couch, and can sense that the demon is reaching out a hand. He takes several steps backwards and hits the edge of the coffee table hard, letting out a cry as pain blooms over his knee.
“Wait, Aziraphale, are you alright—”
But Aziraphale doesn’t wait around for Crowley to finish his question. He squeezes his eyes shut and thinks, anywhere but here. And with a cold whoosh of miraculous power, he finds himself far, far away from the bookshop.
“Well,” Aziraphale mutters as he sobers up. He winces and rubs at his knee, pressing a bit of healing magic into the tender flesh. “That could’ve gone better.”