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“Come up for a minute?” Crowley asks, rocking onto the balls of his feet. “Or-- for a drink?”
He’d driven Aziraphale to his building, this time, rather than taking him home. They normally drank at the bookshop, in the very cozy back room. Aziraphale hasn’t spent a lot of time at Crowley’s flat, but ‘cozy’ isn’t the word.
Still, the invitation has his heart rising up in his throat, has him tingling pleasantly, and so he agrees, humming to show he’s paying attention as Crowley rambles nervously about how he’s wanted to do something new, how the place has been in a bit of a rut the last twenty years or so, how he’s been redecorating.
The flat is still what it is, each room a block of concrete and sometimes also glass, but he’s painted the walls white, he’s put in marble tile flooring. It’s…
It’s certainly brighter than it was.
“You don’t like it.” Crowley’s expression sags into a frown, and his whole posture with it.
“I didn’t say that! I didn’t say that!” Aziraphale says quickly. “It’s much less dark. Less, er… dank, that’s-- that’s nice.”
“You hate it.”
“No!”
“You do. Stupid…” Crowley groans. “It’s all… wrong.”
“It’s not very you. It’s… a bit…”
He doesn’t mention Heaven, but then, he doesn’t need to. It’s too empty, too clean, all right angles and gleaming white.
“Show me the rest.” Aziraphale pushes on, when Crowley says nothing. “I’ll… get used to it. Er, I mean-- If you want to have me over, I’m sure I will. It’s not as if I was used to the old way.”
“No, no, it’s all rubbish.” He groans some more, but he leads Aziraphale through the most of the rest of the flat, and it’s not all so bad. The plants are beautiful, and Aziraphale feels much more at ease around those. His kitchen is very nice, and in the living room, he’s added soft throw pillows to his rather uncomfortable-looking sofa, and a chunky knit blanket.
“Is that…?” Aziraphale steps up to the lectern. It can’t be… the last time he’d seen it, it was rather on fire. Where had Crowley had it tucked away when he was here before? Aziraphale circles it. There’s a coffee table book open on the lectern, a couple more on the coffee table itself-- Crowley may insist he doesn’t read books, but art… art he has. The one on the lectern is something to do with renaissance art, on the table there are a couple more modern artists represented, one of beautiful gardens, another is pictures of space…
“I can run you home if you like.” Crowley coughs, and gestures to the rather elegant bar he’s installed against the wall. “Or… you could-- you could stay for a drink. Or you could stay… for a few drinks. And then I could just run you home when we’re done with drinks and decide to be sober again. I mean, whatever you like.”
“I think a little after-dinner drink wouldn’t go amiss.” Aziraphale smiles brightly, and perches on the sofa, which is still not terribly comfortable, but… well. The throw pillows help.
He never does see the rest of the flat, but it hardly matters-- it would just be Crowley’s bedroom and bathroom, he imagines. He and Crowley drink, and flip through pictures of paintings together a bit, and eventually they make the decision to sober up, and Crowley takes Aziraphale home. The sun is coming up on them as he walks him to his door. It’s a lovely morning.
---/-/---
“I’ll be out of town a couple days. Just… er, letting you know. Dunno, in case you tried calling and you didn’t get me, it’d be because I was off. Not-- not in any danger, and not, you know… sleeping for a week.” Crowley announces, running a hand through his hair. He does not add ‘or a century’, and Aziraphale bites back the urge to do so for him. It’s been long enough, he’s more than made up for that… They’re even now, one way or another.
“It can’t be work, since we’re… erm, free agents. Tired of London?”
“Nah. Just… just got to see a man about a dog.” He looks fixedly at the corner. “Well… A change of scene’s not a bad thing, long as we’ve been here-- don’t you think? I mean, aren’t there other places you like? Places outside London?”
“Of course. I like a great many places. It’s just a couple of days?”
“Yeah. We’ll do lunch when I get back, how about?” Crowley smiles, and it’s the sort of smile that usually melts Aziraphale’s anxieties-- or increases them, depending on what Crowley’s trying to convince him of… but a lunch date sounds quite nice.
Plans.
Lunch plans of a regular not-a-romantic-date variety.
A friend date.
---/-/---
Crowley is scowling at a furniture catalog when Aziraphale joins him in the park, having gotten his call about meeting up for lunch. There’s no reason Crowley couldn’t pick him up at the shop every time they go out, now, but there’s something about meeting up first, something about their bench. About watching the way Crowley basks when the sun is out-- and no one is watching nowadays, if some small miracle nudges the clouds away just for a little bit.
“What’s that, dear boy?” Aziraphale asks, settling beside him, and casting an eye over the catalog from a polite distance. He’s well aware that if he were the one with the catalog, Crowley would be leaning over his shoulder to look. He doesn’t think he’d be bothered half so much as one ought.
“Nothing. Just… sofas.” He scowls harder, and tosses it down onto the bench, in the space between them.
Aziraphale picks the catalog up. There’s a very baroque and very plush sofa, in black silk. There’s a modern leather thing in white which seems to be all angles and no padding. There are several rather uninspired ones in varying neutrals, none of which have any personality, but all of which fill the very basic requirements of being surfaces to sit upon. Some of the pages are dog-eared, but Aziraphale wouldn’t know which pieces of furniture on each page happened to be approaching Crowley’s stringent standards.
“Oh, that one’s nice.” He says, flipping the page and finding a rather lovely fainting couch. Modern-ish, but lovely. Crowley leans over to see which had caught his attention.
“You think?”
“Well-- of course it wouldn’t fit in my place, but yes.”
Crowley hums, and stares hard at the picture.
“Are you still redecorating?”
“Something… something like that.” Crowley nods, the motion a bit more jerky than usual, his expression strained.
Oh. The thought hits Aziraphale with a sudden force-- Crowley is Nesting. But for someone? No-- no, surely… surely if there was someone, Crowley would confide in him! As a… sort of biological clock thing? The very notion of a biological clock in a demon is absurd, but so is the very notion of Crowley having designs on someone and not so much as mentioning it over drinks. And even if he had, they’ve burned all their bridges, there… there is no one.
For himself? Perhaps that’s the likeliest thing of all, that he merely has the urge after years of living in a showroom more than a home, to have something cozy and nice for himself, and he’s a bit hopeless at it. After all, it wasn’t unheard of, the nesting impulse being less than connected with… mate-finding. It’s just rare that it wouldn’t be all about that. But Crowley has always been different, hasn’t he? And who could he possibly be after? No one, that’s who. Or surely he’d have said! It’s nesting, then, and not Nesting, a small but all-important difference. He’s doing it to please himself, he must be. Only in all his years, he’s never thought about comfort, he’s never thought comfort was something he could seek, and now they’re free and he can, he can shed the act of keeping up appearances and find things which please him. Well, lucky for Crowley, Aziraphale is practiced in creature comforts. And he knows Crowley’s tastes.
“This is nice.” Aziraphale points out a sofa not too unlike the one in his own back room, Crowley’s favored nap spot. Leather, but very cushy, a bit on the traditional side but not too much so-- next to Aziraphale’s, at least, it looks modern. “A bit more you?”
Although… he thinks it is a very, very, very dark navy, and not a true black.
“Do you like it?” Crowley asks, peering at the page.
“I think so, yes.” He nods, and tries to be happy with the satisfaction of having advised a friend.
“Hm.”
---/-/---
Crowley sometimes disappears for a day or two, and comes back and meets Aziraphale for lunch, and never talks about where it is he goes.
That is worrying, Aziraphale thinks. When it’s been three trips and he’s never said anything about where he goes and what he does, it’s concerning. And then it’s five trips, and six, and...
Is there someone? But there can’t be! He knows Crowley’s opinion on… consorting with humans that way. He wouldn’t, any more than Aziraphale would. Is he meeting someone? But who could he possibly…
The more Aziraphale thinks about it, the worse he feels. But whenever he asks Crowley how his trip was, he barely gets a word for an answer. Does Crowley even go anywhere, or is it a cover story because he’s bringing someone to his flat and he doesn’t want Aziraphale to interrupt his rendezvous? But he can’t possibly trust someone from either side…
Of course, Aziraphale can well see why he’d want to hide it if he was, but he… he wouldn’t, not after everything they’ve been through. He wouldn’t lie to him about that! They’re only friends, he’s accepted that, but they are friends. Best friends. Crowley would be honest with him.
Friends.
He’s accepted it, but it stings a little, now and then, when he thinks that there’s someone else, that Crowley is keeping it from him. Because the affair is dangerous? To spare his feelings?
Of course… to spare his feelings. Because he knows, and how long has he known? Maybe he hasn’t always, but he… he’s realized, at some point after the world didn’t end, he’s realized that Aziraphale is in love with him and that’s why he’s been strained lately. Well, they would move past it, they’ve all the time in the world to move past it, but he hates that things are awkward now, he hates that Crowley feels the need to keep secrets, to leave him worrying.
He finds himself fretting when Crowley arrives on a Sunday morning-- pre-arranged, but for what purpose, Aziraphale doesn’t know. He’s been off on another one of his little trips, which he’s sure to not wish to talk about, though there’s nothing else to talk about, because all Aziraphale has done while he’s been gone has been to worry about him. To wonder about him.
“Angel.” Crowley greets brightly, bouncing into the shop. The nerves are there, the awkwardness, the awful weight of his knowing… but it is a game attempt at casual and friendly, and same-as-always.
“Hullo, Crowley. Did you have a pleasant time?”
“Hm? Yeah. Yeah. Actually… about that. Er-- d’you… do you like the seaside?”
“Yes.” Aziraphale blinks, surprised. “I haven’t been in an age. I certainly do, though.”
It’s been… near to seventy years since he has been, but he’d liked it so much the last time. He’s always been fond of coastal towns, of views of the sea, of the feeling that comes when boats pull into port, when loved ones reunite, or even just strangers finding common ground together, and the relief that settles over a place when weary travelers settle for a restful sleep at the end of a journey, and the hope that goes with every boat to set out again. And the joy of holiday-makers, that as well. Children playing, lovers walking arm in arm, older folks settling in for a peaceful, relaxing day, the happiness they all radiate… the satisfaction of fishermen bringing in a good catch, and the way people flock to the sea when they need a balm for their troubles, and the way the sea provides…
“I thought we might go.” Crowley’s smile is tight, hopeful. “Find a nice place for lunch, or even… dunno. Take a hamper if you like. Spend a bit of time watching the waves roll in. Share some wine or… something, dunno. Dunno. Anything you like.”
“Is that where you’ve been disappearing to?”
“Yeah. Sort of. Er-- Well, I’ll show you. Just… a little road trip, the two of us. It’s not Alpha Centauri, but-- er. Yeah. Maybe just as well?”
“The two of us. That sounds lovely.” He nods.
He locks up, and Crowley opens the passenger’s side door for him, and the drive is speedier than it has any call to be, but… but it’s pleasant. It’s just them. And whatever it is Crowley’s been doing off at the seaside, he’s invited him to join in now, and there won’t be anyone else to spoil it. Just friends is fine, if they can still have this.
“Before we look for a lunch spot or go down to the water, I thought-- Do you mind a little detour?” Crowley asks him, the Bentley slowing down at last to a reasonable speed. “I want to show you something. To, ah… explain all those trips.”
“Of course. I’d love to hear more about them.” Aziraphale says, and tries to calm his racing heart. Crowley had said this would be the two of them, surely he won’t spring introducing a lover on him, surely… surely there’s not really someone else.
And yet… and yet Crowley drives them right up to a secluded cottage, parks right there and offers him a hand out. Who are they visiting?
It’s a lovely place. Charming, even. White walls, ivy climbing up one side, just creeping around to the front, and a greenhouse at the other side. Green shutters on the windows, green door. A brass door knocker shaped like an ouroboros. Crowley doesn’t bother knocking, which goes to show how comfortable he is-- he simply opens the door and ushers Aziraphale in.
“It’s not finished, of course, but-- well… but you’ll let me know what you think, yeah?” He motions for Aziraphale to take off his coat, takes it from him and hangs it on one of the pegs near the door-- and there’s a shelf above them where he sets his glasses, before placing a hand at the small of Aziraphale’s back to escort him for a tour.
“I’m sorry, is this-- is this cottage yours?”
“Well…”
“Are you leaving London?”
“I-- I don’t really know.” Crowley’s anxious smile falters. “Easy enough to go back and forth, anyway. Why, do you hate it?”
“No-- dear boy, I’ve hardly seen any of it, I couldn’t begin to give an opinion. I just… This all seems so sudden, you never mentioned buying a cottage. You never mentioned… leaving.”
“No, not-- not leaving, angel. Come and see the place, then. I-- I really hope you’ll like it.” He steers Aziraphale through the first door on the right. “This was supposed to be the formal dining room, but… well, when am I ever going to need a formal dining room? So I thought I’d make it a bit of a gallery. I thought I’d work on that. Again, it’s early days, but…”
“It’s a lovely start, though.” Aziraphale says, moving around the room to take it all in. There’s a beautiful tapestry up on one wall, with a unicorn. There’s a painting of a tree, wildlife nestled in fruit-laden branches. There are curio cases-- one is a glass-topped display table rather than a cabinet, its velvet bed holding glossy black feathers, old coins, silver spoons… One of the cabinets is empty save for a single silver snuff box, heart-shaped, the engraved scene on the top in good condition-- a bit of places where fine detail has been rubbed away over the years, but not much.
“Do you like it?” Crowley asks, suddenly at his back again, one hand gentle on him.
“It’s a beautiful specimen.”
“It’s yours.”
Aziraphale turns, startled. “What? Crowley, I couldn’t--”
“You collect them, I don’t.”
“But-- but--”
“It’s yours.”
“I don’t think I have any space to put it.” Aziraphale admits, with a soft laugh.
“Well… then you can keep it here. You could keep anything here. That you didn’t have room for. That you wanted to display, that you’ve got… shoved into boxes and in the back of the closet. I mean, you see how much empty space I’ve got. Got loads of empty space. But-- but it will belong to you, even if it stays here.”
“Oh-- Crowley, that’s so sweet of you! Really it is!” He turns, hand fluttering up to his heart as he meets Crowley’s eyes. “That’s so lovely!”
“You like it?”
“Yes, its wonderful, dear, thank you.” His hand comes to rest on Crowley’s arm a moment, and Crowley smiles at him. Still nervous a bit, but warm.
“The kitchen’s through here.” He coughs, gesturing to the other door. “It’s a nice kitchen. I mean, I think-- I think you’ll find it nice.”
It is, Aziraphale has to agree. Warm dark wood from the countertops down, but the counters themselves and everything above is white-- here, the white is not overwhelming, not cold. It merely brightens the space. And the upper cabinets are glass-fronted, showing off dishes and glassware. It strikes a fine balance between modern and cozy. There’s plenty of room in the glass-fronted cupboards yet, another work in progress. There’s an electric kettle sitting out on the countertop beside the fancy espresso machine. There’s a tin of Aziraphale’s favorite lavender earl grey, next to Crowley’s box of russian caravan. There are fresh herbs growing on the windowsill behind the sink. It looks like a very pleasant kitchen to work in.
From there, Crowley leads him into a sun room, where there’s a little table for two, and a beautiful view of the sea, beyond the garden-- well, he imagines it will be a garden, at any rate, once Crowley really settles in… it would suit him, to have a garden. Aziraphale can’t begrudge him that. And yet… to buy a cottage, without saying so, to… to move away, it’s a weight on his heart to think that he couldn’t just call on Crowley at any time and see him…
“Figured this’d be all-- all I’d need for a dining room.” Crowley says. “Wouldn’t expect to entertain much. Just… just a chair for you and one for me.”
“Oh.” And suddenly it’s as if the sun shines for him alone. Aziraphale runs a hand over the back of one chair, looks around just to be able to avoid letting Crowley see how affected he is-- he’s being foolish, he just knows it, and yet… a chair for him, it feels… It’s something.
There’s the bar he must have moved here from his flat, gleaming and lovely and stocked with bottles and glasses. There’s a china hutch, holding a nice tea set, one that doesn’t seem very Crowley at all, all white and gold, and a second tea set that seems much more Crowley, with a little black Japanese teapot and two little cups with a serpent motif. And a picnic hamper…
“You like it?”
“It’s beautiful, dear-- yes, yes, very much. You must get fantastic light in here at the right time of day.”
“Sun doesn’t aim directly in but yeah. Not as warm as the greenhouse but it’s warms up nice. And… haven’t done anything with the downstairs bath, but-- well, come and have a look at the sitting room, yeah?”
Crowley’s hand returns to the small of Aziraphale’s back, as he guides him out and across the hall. The sitting room is cozy indeed-- a bench at the window that looks out onto the front, a piano at the other end of the room, and the dark navy leather sofa he’d pointed out to him in the furniture catalogue, a pair of overstuffed armchairs flanking it, a nice big fireplace… a pouf in place of a coffee table, a couple of Crowley’s coffee table books there, and a tray to be able to set a drink there safely. His sketch of the Mona Lisa hanging over the mantle, the walls are a pleasant green, and there are a few mostly empty bookshelves. There’s a vase in one corner, bearing what Aziraphale realizes are three handsome primaries from some previous molt. Nesting. It would be… presumptuous of him to touch. The urge is there just the same.
And between the fireplace and the vase in the corner, there’s a step up, and a pair of white french doors, gauzy curtains attached to the other side obscuring the view through the glass panes.
“Oh, you’ll like this!” Crowley says, and he jogs over to open the door, to give Aziraphale a hand, as if he needed to be steadied for a single step up. Aziraphale is glad to have a steadying hand, when he steps up into Crowley’s library.
The shelves are empty, of course, but they’re built in, beautiful… just waiting to be filled, and there’s the lectern, bearing one of the coffee table books-- The Big Book of Astronomy. There’s a roll-top desk pulled up to the window, and everything else is shelves… and there on the desk, a single black quill pen, a bottle of ink, some nice paper.
There’s a fainting couch, too-- not the one from the catalogue, an even nicer one, upholstered in rich paisley chenille, deep red, bolder than the shade that covers the walls-- well, what wall there is that isn’t taken up by the clean white shelves. A side table with a reading lamp, a lower table to set a cup of something on… an extra cushion on the desk chair, a throw blanket folded over what little back the fainting couch has… such a warm and cozy space, Aziraphale can’t help but mentally fill those shelves with his own beloved books, can’t but imagine moving himself right in.
“I could use help padding it out, of course, but-- I mean-- You like it?”
“It’s wonderful.” He shakes his head, awed, and turns back towards Crowley. “My dear fellow, it’s… it’s simply marvelous. All of this…”
He doesn’t dare ask. But Crowley takes his hand again, with an aching tenderness, and it makes it very difficult not to hope.
“Come and see upstairs?”
Aziraphale nods.
Crowley points out where there’s additional storage beneath the stairs, as he escorts him up, solicitous, never leaving his side, never not touching, and he shows him another room that’s just for storage, an unused hall bath, his office-- the beautiful red marble-topped desk, the throne he uses for a desk chair. The view of the garden and the sea.
It’s with one hand at the small of Aziraphale’s back and the other holding his, that Crowley finally escorts him to see the master suite. It’s all for him, it has to be-- the chair Crowley had said was his, furniture chosen to suit him, the snuffbox, the library and all of the empty bookshelves? He can tell himself not to hope, and yet if he looks at it logically, Crowley must have made this nest for him.
Then he steps into the bedroom and it must be so.
The bed is enormous, it takes up much of the room, an enormous duvet over the black silk sheets, pillows of all shapes and sizes… but it’s not the bed that holds Aziraphale’s attention. The bed may dominate the space, but it’s the statue that truly dominates the room. It’s there across from the bed, and something about it feels like a shrine.
There’s another window seat, there are more bookshelves-- a couple of books on them, this time. Botany, astronomy, Shakespeare. And yet Aziraphale’s eyes keep returning and returning to the statue. To the tension and the expressions and the wings…
“What do you think?” Crowley asks, breathless.
“Oh my…” Aziraphale reaches up, very nearly touches the stone face of the demon on the plinth. Pulls back at the last moment and feels rather lightheaded. “Oh… oh, my…”
“Is it too much?”
“Perhaps it-- perhaps it’s a bit…” He swallows.
“Because I could move it down to the gallery. There’s space.”
“Perhaps.” Aziraphale nods. His knees feel weak. Only Crowley’s grip on his hand and the steady touch to his back keeps him upright.
“There’s a bath. And a walk-in closet. Plenty of room, I mean, you know… to move stuff in. And… Did you want to see the rest?”
“Please.” He nods. Everything feels unreal, he feels as if he’s moving underwater, as Crowley shows him the walk-in closet, where he owns relatively few real things, things he doesn’t merely miracle on and off. A closet with more than enough room for all the real things Aziraphale wears.
And there’s a bath, with an absurdly luxurious shower, and a marble tub big enough for two, and all around the tub there are oils and bubbles and salts, and it’s lovely, it’s all lovely, it’s all…
His, if he wants it.
And oh, how he wants it.
“I like it very much.” He says, just barely says, his voice cutting out as he turns and rests his hands on Crowley’s chest. “It’s-- it’s wonderful. It’s paradise.”
“You could stay here.” Crowley licks his lips, nervous.
Aziraphale nods. “Please.”
“You could--” And then his voice catches, he swallows.
“Please.”
“Aziraphale…”
“I accept, Crowley, I accept.” He throws himself into Crowley’s arms, clings to him. He’s shaking, he thinks, or Crowley is, or they are, but Crowley holds him tight in return, his nose presses against Aziraphale’s temple and he can hear the trembling sharp inhale. He can feel the briefest flicker of a tongue just close enough to his skin to drink in the scent of him.
“Stay.” Crowley sighs. “Your home, your home, yours… made it for you. With space for all your favorite things and-- and with space around us, just space… now no one’s watching us, we can-- we can be alone here. We can be alone…”
He only lets go of Aziraphale so that he can hold his face between two hands that, yes, shake, just a little. But Aziraphale is shaking, too. He holds fast to Crowley’s wrists and melts into his open palms, to the cool spread of elegant, long fingers. And Crowley’s nose digs into the soft, round curve of Aziraphale’s cheek, and his breath is soft and warm…
“It’s wonderful.” Aziraphale closes his eyes and basks in the feeling of belonging. Of being courted and claimed-- well, not claimed, not yet, but… surely that’s next?
“And you want to be?”
“Oh, yes…”
“With me?”
“It’s all I want. All I’ve ever-- and things were so complicated, and I was so worried-- so worried I could lose you, love…” He turns to kiss the heel of Crowley’s left hand, then his right.
“You won’t.” Crowley promises, and peppers his face with kisses-- quick, sharp little things, as if compelled by unspeakable need to cover every inch of him before he can stop to focus on any single kiss. That done, he takes Aziraphale in his arms again, stands with him cheek to cheek a long moment.
“Crowley, I--” Aziraphale blushes. Crowley pulls back at the sound of his name, fixes him with unblinking golden gaze, with eons of love and desire suddenly bared to him. “I’ve accepted. Er, that is… shouldn’t we… make it official?”
He coughs delicately, when Crowley doesn’t reply, when Crowley merely stares at him as if he’s some new and wondrous vision.
“Official?” He says at last.
“The nest.” Aziraphale’s eyes flicker back towards the door, and through it, the bed. “I mean, shouldn’t we?”
“Oh. Ohhh.” Crowley nods, but he nods as if he’s only seen the motion described in books and never had any practical experience, overshooting the gesture somewhat and then going very suddenly still and fixing Aziraphale with an even more intense look. “Now? I mean-- You want to, you would? With me?”
“Well, who else?” Aziraphale titters nervously. Glances once more towards the bedroom. “Yes. Of course.”
“Not because it’s the done thing, not because I’ve nested-- because you want me?”
“I’ve wanted you rather a long time.” He admits, his hands smoothing over Crowley’s lapels to keep them from twisting nervously about themselves. “But I do think it’s significant you’ve-- that you did all this for me. I wouldn’t call you nesting inconsequential to my decision. I… I had thought you preferred being only friends.”
“... How could you think that?” Crowley asks, with a very honest confusion.
“I don’t know. Perhaps because you recently said we were friends.”
“Well… yeah. We are-- were-- still are, actually, friends, but that doesn’t mean we can’t also be other things, it certainly doesn’t mean I haven’t wanted-- bloody h-- someplace, Aziraphale, I didn’t think I was being subtle about it. I just thought… I thought maybe you… Maybe if I could get it right, doing things the old-fashioned way… maybe it’d be what you needed, to choose being with me over being afraid.”
“All you ever had to do was ask me. Well-- er, barring a couple of… of spectacularly bad times for it, at any rate, but-- but I’ve always been ready to choose you. I just never dreamed you were serious about me, this way. And sometimes… sometimes I was choosing you, when I said no to something dangerous. You must know that, mustn’t you? That I was always choosing you, even when I wasn’t choosing being with you.”
Crowley cups his face again, one hand this time, the other arm still tight around him. “Yeah. I know. You didn’t make a secret out of it, when you worried for me.”
“You’ve always been so reckless…”
“Me?”
“Yes, you.”
“Excuse me, but I think you might just have written the book on reckless!”
“Not-- not with the… eternal core of my being, Crowley, I have more sense than that.” He frowns, wide-eyed. “I wouldn’t be cavalier with that! And now, I-- well! I’m just very glad Hell’s decided to ignore some things. I couldn’t bear their coming after you again. And I’m so, so tired of saying no, when I want to say yes.”
“Self-denial has never been your strong suit.” He chuckles warmly and kisses Aziraphale’s cheek-- slow, this time, and gentle. “You smell incredible.”
“Oh, go on and make fun. I have exercised incredible self-denial, I’ll have you know. Do you know when I might have been in your arms, if I hadn’t been? If I had allowed myself to think of love, if I had let myself know my own heart sooner than I did? You have stirred me from the start.” He wraps his own arms around Crowley. “If we had been free, if we had not been angel and demon in the garden, I-- I might have asked what those feelings could mean.”
“Love at first sight?” Crowley teases-- only, there’s a rather tremulous, wet thickness to his voice for it to be teasing.
“I don’t know if I believe it was that. But… I know that I felt new things when you looked at me, and when you spoke to me. It’s had enough time to become love. I suppose I wouldn’t have pursued anything then if you didn’t ask it first, but… Why, when did you first--?”
“Oh, I was right with you.” He nuzzles his way down to Aziraphale’s neck. “Mind, I thought love was a distant memory for me when I came up that first time, but you… you sparked something, at any rate.”
“We have now. We have us. Please… take me to bed?”
Crowley takes the request literally, hoisting Aziraphale up into his arms and striding to the bed, angling them carefully so as not to hit him against the doorframe, dropping him down into the soft haven of pillows and duvet.
It feels right. It feels dizzyingly, shockingly, beautifully right. He’s breathless already, they’ve not even touched, not… not like they’re going to. He feels enveloped by love, not in the way his angelic empathy has often allowed for, not human love, but personal, white-hot personal love, Crowley’s love. Crowley’s nest, made for him… Crowley standing over him at the foot of the bed, stone wings spread behind him, a sight that has Aziraphale slightly slack-jawed.
He looks attractively predatory, intent. Aziraphale couldn’t be more excited to be his prey.
To be his mate.
It is old-fashioned, Nesting, mates, all of it-- Aziraphale remembers when it went out of fashion-- though as far as he knows, no partnerships were dissolved, no nests disbanded, just because it stopped being the done thing. There had just been worries, after the War, about personal relationships, about what it could mean to elevate just one someone too high above the rest… and there were few angels so committed to the idea of a lover that they would go against the grain looking for one, when it was no longer Done.
There was Aziraphale, of course, but he hadn’t had anyone Upstairs he’d set his cap on in those days. He’d merely liked the idea of someone courting his favor, and then he’d told himself it was probably sinful to think too much about it. What was his favor, after all, to be worth courting?
But Crowley had courted him… slowly, over the years, their association became a bit less business, a bit more personal, but even when Crowley had stuck carefully to the safe subjects of their respective work, he’d been flirtatious at times. Charming, even gallant. And then… then came the lunches and the dinners and the theatre… and now, a nest of their own.
“Angel…”
“I’m yours.” He nods.
“Mine.” And Crowley pounces.
He undoes button after button, kissing Aziraphale all the while, undoes his tie and gets his waistcoat and shirt and trousers all open. Only then does he give a frustrated growl, snap his fingers, and banish every last stitch to the walk-in closet-- his own, as well.
“That’s better.” He purrs, nuzzling at Aziraphale’s throat once more, this time with no shirt collar to get in his way. “Mine… and-- Aziraphale… yours.”
He guides Aziraphale’s hand to press to his heart, at that, pulling back to meet his eyes.
“Mine.” Aziraphale smiles. “Goodness, look at the two of us…”
“I am looking.” Crowley leers, playful. Nips at his lip when he kisses him again, sits back to give Aziraphale a proper view.
It’s a very pleasant view, not that he hadn’t known as much. His slender body, lithe and flexible, the strange way he seems to wear a human body-- even in this shape, there are times when he is so strongly serpentine that any human who looked too closely for too long would find themselves beset with a creeping discomfort, but Aziraphale has always found him so graceful, like this, so beautiful… He knows what Crowley is. He wouldn’t ask him to be otherwise.
He touches him, tentative, feels firm rippling muscle beneath his fingertips, too-smooth skin. The rapid rise and fall of breath, the even thud of his heart, its pace human. For Crowley, it’s racing. And Crowley touches him as well, hands reverent over soft flesh, squeezing, soaking up warmth.
They come together slowly, find a rhythm where their bodies can rock together, find a way to maximize the contact between them. Every kiss erases a little more of the old fear Aziraphale is ready to shed, there’s no room left for it-- there’s room only for Crowley, wonder that he is. Crowley, Crowley, Crowley… the nest he’s made, the bed, his love made real… Physical, tangible, a warm, safe place that means Crowley loves him. It’s that love that drives his pleasure, as much as the physical act, it’s the feeling of lying on this bed that was prepared for him, made soft and cozy and so unlike how it had been when he’d seen it once before. Not that it hadn’t been the softest thing in Crowley’s flat, but it hadn’t been like this. Not with so many pillows, not with a duvet that feels more like Heaven than Heaven. Everything about it is like being held safe, and he feels so impossibly loved…
They shift around a bit after, Crowley arranging the pillows, spending a miracle to clean them up and another to move the duvet from below them to above them, and Aziraphale happily settles with his cheek over Crowley’s chest, where he can feel his heart slow to its usual indolent pace, each beat a comforting sound, solitary and resonant.
“We could have a picnic at teatime…” Crowley yawns. “If you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind.”
“I just… I’d rather sleep a bit, if I can entice you to ssstay.”
“With you? Forever.” Aziraphale smiles. With Crowley’s heartbeat to soothe him, he might discover what this sleep is all about...