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Crowley makes it as far as Hyde Park before he has to pull over, a shuddering gasp he’d been swallowing down surfacing—and before he knows it, he’s bent double in his seat with sobs wracking his entire body.
He has never felt like this. Not when he Fell from Heaven. Not even when the bookshop had burned down and he believed Aziraphale dead. His chest feels like it has been split open down the middle, divested of everything inside. He’s hollow. He has crumbled into nothing. Crowley has to rip his sunglasses from his face, tossing them onto the passenger seat blindly, tears having welled up inside of the frames, and now freely dripping down his cheeks, onto his fingers and palms as he tries his best to chase them away.
He should’ve known. He should’ve fucking known. It wouldn’t ever happen, and now he’s lost everything.
Crowley weeps for what feels like hours. Days, even. He can’t stop. Each time he thinks the pain has dimmed, that he might just be able to continue on without Aziraphale, pick up the pieces of his life and steadfastly march on, he’s reminded of the look of Aziraphale’s face as he’d pulled back from him—shock and unease and a complete unwillingness to—
There’s no use thinking about it, ruminating over it. The bitter disappointment and crippling shame of it all. Crowley sniffs harshly, blinking the wet from his eyes and takes a deep, shaking inhale. He slowly steers the Bentley away from the pavement and drives. He doesn’t know where he’s going, but it hardly matters now.
*
He drives and drives. Through London, then far out into the countryside. He sticks to the speed limit and stares resolutely ahead. He thinks of nothing at all.
Crowley reaches Snowdonia at dusk. It’s quiet. He parks the car, and the familiar hum and rumble of the engine slowing to nothing. It’s silent, now, and the park is beautiful, the clearing giving him the best view of Lake Trawsfynydd. The sight makes him nauseous. It makes him angry. Sad.
He’s moored to his seat. He can’t bring himself to move, to step outside. To feel the breeze on his skin. His hands grip the steering wheel and his knuckles gleam white. The leather groans. He tells himself he doesn’t feel it. He feels all of it.
“Idiot. Idiot,” He curses himself. His voice is a wretched thing, rough and scratchy.
How could he get it so wrong? He had been so certain—but he should’ve realised Aziraphale would always pick Heaven over him. He wasn’t like Crowley, that way. He was still an Angel. Full of love but not quite the right kind. And he was still loyal to Heaven, the idea of Heaven, even after all this time.
Crowley had spent millennia by his side. Aziraphale had spent millennia by his. It had all come tumbling down in less than ten minutes, in the end. Almost anti-climatic.
His limbs are stiff as he forces himself out of the Bentley, the door slamming shut behind him. His shoes scuff along the rocks and pebbles of the car park, then the soft and dewy grass that leads down toward the lake. When he reaches the water, the heavy weight in him drags him down. Crowley sits at the edge, without protest, watching the slight ripples on the surface of the water, and he aches.
“Crowley!”
The voice pierces through his thoughts, but Crowley can’t bring himself to look at its owner. Aziraphale is here, in Wales, calling his name and very quickly making his way to him, stumbling down the incline. Crowley hasn’t been here for very long at all.
“Crowley! I must—oh, I can’t believe—Crowley!” The Angel reaches him at last, sounding frazzled and short of breath. He stands at Crowley’s right for a moment, thighs parallel to Crowley’s head, before he seems to make a decision and drop down beside him, legs criss-crossed.
A silence stretches on. Crowley waits for the ground to eat him up entirely. Maybe he could lie back and let the earth consume him. Turn him into dirt. He’d like that.
“I have many things I would like to say. But I must say sorry first.” Aziraphale is fidgeting, his fingers moving in Crowley’s peripheral vision. “I am so incredibly sorry. For—what I said. For the way I reacted. For saying yes to Heaven.”
Crowley let’s his eyes slip shut and mourns for his abandoned sunglasses. He supposes now that he has nothing left to hide anymore. It’s all out in the open anyway. He’d told Aziraphale everything and he had been rejected for it.
“Unlike you, I have always found it so very difficult to stray from Heaven’s rules and ideas. It is no excuse, but I have been rather slow on the uptake.” The Angel sighs softly. “You are the intelligent one of us both, Crowley. You figured it all out before most. You saw Heaven and Hell for what they really were. What they really are. Metatron offered me the position and—you know, I didn’t even think. And that’s just it. I didn’t think!
For eons I have believed that goodness will prevail. That I could be a vessel for such goodness. And this offer… I thought… I could fix things. We could fix things. We could be together, like you said.”
A breath shudders from Aziraphale’s chest. Crowley bites down hard on his bottom lip when it wobbles. “I realised, however, as I ascended upstairs, that…” A warm finger touches the back of Crowley’s hand, and he startles, eyes flying open. His hand stays rooted to the ground as another of Aziraphale’s fingers joins the mix, softly tracing over the delicate skin there. “I shouldn’t have accepted it. I know I shouldn’t have. I let my guilt of—of being an Angel who questioned God herself cloud my judgement. I saw Metatron’s offer as repentance. For me and for you.”
Aziraphale’s hand is soft and warm when it engulfs his own, their fingers interlocking. He continues, gruff and quiet, like his chin is tucked into his neck, face downturned, “Neither of us need to repent. We have always done the—the right thing. Always. I believe that entirely. You especially.” He sniffs, and Crowley looks over at him with his heart beating wildly in his throat, only to find those striking eyes already watching him, intense and damp. “I doubt I will ever be able to make up for the heartache I have inflicted upon you. I may spend the rest of our immortal lives trying to do so. I am sorry. I am so, so very sorry, my dearest Crowley, I have never wished to hurt you. Not ever.” Aziraphale pauses to collect himself but the tears bubble over anyway. The sight pulls at something deep within Crowley. He watches the Angel with exhaustion draped over his shoulders like a shawl.
Crowley finds his mangled voice. “I love you. I love you. So much, angel. So much. I—I can’t—I need you. There’s no me without—without you. I told you… I told you.”
Aziraphale is suddenly on his knees, hand still linked with Crowley’s, and he’s crowding forward, a frantic energy to him. There are tear tracks on his cheeks. “You did and you were so brave. You are so brave, Crowley, you have always been the most valiant of us both.” Aziraphale’s free hand rests against Crowley’s clavicle, his brow so close to Crowley’s that his wispy curls brush against him. “You told me, you did, and I—I all but rejected you. I was so blind, Crowley, so entirely blind. I adore you, I—” He surges forward, pulling Crowley tight against his chest in a fierce embrace. “I love you. I love you, I do, and I will never be able to apologise enough.”
The dam breaks, again, and they are both crying into each other’s necks, hair, hands clutching clothing desperately. Crowley presses his face against Aziraphale’s heaving chest and says, “I love you. I love you. I love you, Aziraphale.” A mantra, so familiar to him now. Crowley has loved him always. Always.
“Oh, my dear, my love,” Aziraphale gasps. His hands find purchase on either side of Crowley’s head, sliding through his hair. Their eyes meet, and neither of them seem able to look away. Neither of them blink. “I hurt you. I hurt you and I wish I could take it all back. Crowley, listen to me, I love you. I want only you. I will go wherever you go. I will follow you anywhere. I will never leave you again. I love you. I can only hope you allow me to prove it.”
The sun has set and darkness has fallen over Snowdonia. At the edge of the lake, Crowley’s eyes flutter shut as Aziraphale leans forward, head tilting just slightly, and then they’re kissing. Crowley makes a pained sound somewhere deep in his throat, completely involuntary, and Aziraphale’s fingers tremble as they roam over Crowley’s hair, his chin and jaw, thumbs pressing gently against his cheeks. They pull apart only to fall right back in again, lips parting, desperation clawing at them both. They share one, two, three kisses, ten, twenty, thirty kisses, and Crowley eventually detaches himself from the Angel’s lips, pressing their foreheads together, noses brushing.
“Please. Don’t ever—not again. Don’t leave me.”
Aziraphale presses his lips to Crowley’s nose, chin, cheeks, his eyelids. His touch is sweet and lingering and devoted. “I shan’t. I promise you.”
The ache inside him ebbs away bit by bit. Piece by piece. Kiss by gentle kiss.