Easy

by mozbee

Summary:

While driving to his father's funeral, Aziraphale stops for the night at an inn, indulges in a rather whirlwind sexual encounter, and plans to take his leave very early the next morning.

And then the snowstorm hits.
Or:
What to do if you're accidentally stranded with the person you weren't supposed to see again: A Guide by AZ. Fell

Notes:

Title taken from The Commodores 'Easy' which has some Aziraphale-specific lines as relating to this fic.

“I don’t normally do this,” Aziraphale gasps as he succumbs to the hands wandering across his body.

“So you’ve said,” the man kissing his neck points out. They both exhale shakily when he opens Aziraphale’s trousers and palms his cock. “Sure you’re up for it?”

Aziraphale chuckles, and it morphs to a shuddering groan. “Oh, yes…”

He’s being spontaneous and it’s equally terrifying and exhilarating.

Look at me, Aziraphale thinks giddily as he sinks to his knees before his partner. I’m having casual sex!

See, these sorts of things don’t happen to people like Aziraphale, this wild, anonymous grope fest against an inn room door. It’s passionate, it’s fiery, it’s normal.

Aziraphale would like in one thing to be normal or at least some semblance of it. And engaging in a one-night stand while on the closest thing to a holiday he can get is something a lot of normal people do, and really, he’s had sex before, but always in the context of a relationship.

Now he’s being touched and tasted by someone whose name he doesn’t even know.

It’s exciting, he tells himself when he feels himself ready to panic. You always say you’re terrified of something when really you mean excited.

Deepthroating proves to be distracting to any more in-depth thoughts, and Aziraphale focuses on the actions, listens to the delicious soft moans he’s pulling from his partner, and altogether gets back in the moment. He doesn’t want to miss a second of this.

 

Aziraphale wakes up in weak sunlight and upon remembering last night, wishes he didn’t remember last night. He’s faced with his partner, the slim redhead with knobby knees who apparently sleeps with his rump in the air.

That can’t be comfortable, Aziraphale thinks, and then he looks like a spike in a graph.

Neither of them bothered to dress after successful mutual orgasms, but where Aziraphale is nude and snug under the heavy duvet, the other man is a goosepimpled molehill.

Aziraphale has seen enough movies to know proper etiquette following a one-night stand, and he tries to dress as quickly and quietly as he can. He gives up one sock as lost and is scouring the small room for his bowtie when the man shifts and snorts in his sleep.

Aziraphale freezes, heart pounding as he looks to the bed, the acute angle of a man covered with the duvet as best as Aziraphale could manage. He feels like he’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, in the middle of committing a wrong and being caught, no way out. It’s embarrassing.

He forfeits his bowtie in favour of getting out of there, sighing as he walks the short distance to his own room, thinking of nothing but packing his bag and leaving. He’s at least three hours from his destination, and he may as well get an early start. Aziraphale tells himself he’s not at all running away before the other man can wake up and therefore avoid seeing him or talking to him, in an effort to squash down the memory of last night as quick as he can.

Because yes, it had been nice. Its been some months since he last had sex and he’s missed it, and his partner had been so passionate, giving and taking with equal pleasure, and if Aziraphale had been able to leave it at that, things would be fine. But Aziraphale may as well have wandered into the Feelings field with a ten-foot butterfly net and swooped his way through a particularly bright cluster.

That’s why you don’t do casual sex, he reprimands himself as he makes his way downstairs, suitcase in hand. Because you make a big deal out of it when all they wanted was a shag.

Aziraphale sets his suitcase down out of the way by the stairs, and goes into the restaurant to find the inn’s proprietor, Mrs Tracy Shadwell. She’s lifting a chair from its upside-down perch on top of a table.

“Oh, good morning Mr Fell! Sleep well last night?” Tracy smiles at him when he starts moving more chairs off of the other tables scattered through the small space.

Aziraphale had fallen asleep with his nose buried in the dip between shoulder and neck of his partner. He remembers that as Tracy waits for an answer, and fears his face is on fire.

“Y-yes,” he says, hopefully casually. “Thank you. Is there tea—”

He’s cut off by the front door of the inn blasting open, snow whirling in eddies around the heavily cloaked figure of Tracy’s gruff husband, leaning a shovel against the door and slamming it behind him.

“It’s no use,” he declares, tugging off his cap and gloves. “Hope ye weren’t planning on going anywhere, laddie,” Shadwell adds as he clomps past Aziraphale to stand in front of the blazing hearth.

“What do you mean?” Aziraphale asks. Shadwell scoffs as Tracy brings over a cup of tea.

“Seems we got dumped on in the night, shut the whole village down below from what we’ve heard,” Tracy explains. “Roads are impassable. Lucky we’re well stocked on supplies.”

A ping of anxiety in his gut has Aziraphale crossing to the window, and he looks out at white.

“Oh, goodness,” he says. He turns to his hosts, Tracy cooing over Shadwell’s frosty nose and ruddy cheeks. “You say the village is shut down?”

“Yes, though even if it weren’t we’d be quite left to our own devices up here anyway,” Tracy says. “There’s no vehicle in the village that could make it up our hill, and I don’t imagine anyone wants to brave a foot of snow for an hour’s trek.” She sighs, absentmindedly rubbing Shadwell’s shoulders. “Price we pay for our isolated haven. But no matter!”

Aziraphale turns back to the window, to the snow blowing about fiercely outside. No matter indeed, he thinks glumly. Gabriel will have his head if he doesn’t make it out of here on time.

“Now, while all of our guests are stuck here—oh, good morning, lovebirds!”

Newt and Anathema, a friendly young couple on their honeymoon, are descending the stairs, Newt red-faced at Tracy’s greeting.

“Can you believe the snow?” Anathema asks, grinning as she comes to stand next to Aziraphale to peer out the window. “Geez, I’ve never seen so much at once! Is it the kind you can throw snowballs with?”

“Nay, it’s a load of powdery bullshite,” Shadwell grumbles.

Newt is beside Anathema, holding his own steaming cup of tea. “It snowed like this once when I was a boy,” he notes, passing his wife her coffee. “School was shut down for almost a week.”

“A week?” Aziraphale repeats, feeling a little light-headed. He can’t be here for a week. He needs to be on his way today, he shouldn’t even have stopped last night but he’d been tired and less than eager to get to his destination. Gabriel’s ire, a constant flame in the back of his brain, intensifies. Aziraphale has to call him, explain what happened, and see if he can find some other way out of here.

“Excuse me,” he tells the others, and slips away to the other side of the staircase he’d traipsed down, which separates the restaurant from the cozy sitting room, littered with armchairs and deep couches by a second fireplace. He’s just taken his mobile from his pocket when footsteps on the stairs make him look up, and he freezes.

His partner is coming down, hair neatly brushed, sunglasses pushed up in his hair in deference to the soft lighting. Aziraphale swallows hard; he’d meant to be long gone before the other could see him again, especially now in the full light of day.

He catches sight of Aziraphale and grins, a little quirk to his lips, and seems to be about to head over, so Aziraphale quickly holds up his mobile, giving an apologetic smile and turning his back. He sighs with relief when he hears him go to join the group in the restaurant, girds himself, and calls Gabriel.

His brother picks up after the third ring. “Hello?”

“Ah, good morning, Gabriel,” Aziraphale says. “How are you—”

“Where are you?”

“Um, well, on my way, as I’d said yesterday, only there’s been a bit of a hiccough—”

Gabriel sighs so forcefully Aziraphale fancies he can feel his hair being blown about in it. “Of course, there has. What is it this time?”

And, all right, that’s fair; Aziraphale has never been known for his punctuality, Gabriel is right to be frustrated rather than surprised.

“I had to stop for the night, just outside of a little town called Tadfield—”

“Tadfield?” Gabriel repeats. “Aziraphale, that’s at least three hours from here. I thought you were going to be here by noon. That’s what you promised.”

Aziraphale cringes. “Yes, and I am really quite dreadfully sorry, only it seems the weather has taken a turn for the worse—”

“You’re calling off seeing your family because of, what, flurries? You already lied about coming straight here, stopping overnight—”

“It’s more than flurries, Gabriel,” Aziraphale says, putting a hand on his stomach as it roiled under sour waves of anxiety. “If you’d check the weather, you’d see the snow—”

“All I know is, you put yourself first, as usual,” Gabriel cuts in. “Get here when you can, if you can be bothered.” He hangs up, leaving Aziraphale to grip his mobile in trembling fingers, equally angry and upset, both because he, as usual, let Gabriel say what he wanted and kept his own thoughts tightly tamped down.

Coward, he thinks bitterly, pocketing his mobile and turning around. He jumps when he sees his redheaded partner standing just behind him, holding two cups.

“Tracy said this was yours,” he says, and holds out one cup, Aziraphale’s tea.

“Thank you,” Aziraphale nods. He’s uncomfortably aware of every single movement of his body, even the unconscious ones. He feels he’s being pulled apart under a soft gaze.

“Some snow, eh?” Aziraphale says, immediately feeling like an idiot, and furthering that feeling by gesturing out the window, as if the snow could be anywhere else.

“Yeah, it’s great,” the man grins. “Can’t go anywhere for a day or two.”

“Why is that great?” Aziraphale asks.

“Ah, I’m due at this God-awful work conference, yearly thing, waste of time all around.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale says, and sips his tea. It’s warm, not hot, and his lips twitch at this offense. He’s also at the moment having a very clear memory of the other man trembling under his touch, and the sound he’d made when he climaxed.

“…or home from here?”

“Hmm?” Aziraphale knows his cheeks are red and fiercely wills them not to be. “I’m sorry, what were you saying?”

“Just asked if you were going off on holiday somewhere or heading home.”

Aziraphale can’t do this, he can’t stand here and talk to this man who is only looking more handsome with every new angle of light catching the wave of his hair and the glint in his eye. He wants to take him to bed again, and then he wants to have breakfast with him, and sit on one of the couches near the fire, holding hands while the snow falls around them.

“I’m sorry, I have to make another call,” Aziraphale blurts, and he leaves his tea on an end table, careful to set it on the coaster, and slides past the other man, to hurry up the stairs to the privacy of his own room.

Aziraphale gets to the top of the stairs and is halfway down the hall when he hears, “Mr. Crowley!” He glances down, and sees his partner turn and respond.

Crowley, Aziraphale’s heart sighs.

Crowley! Aziraphale’s brain laments.

He doesn’t want to know his name, doesn’t want to get to know everyday things about the man, that feel intimate, even more so than what they’d done the night before.

Aziraphale unlocks his door and goes inside, slumping in the armchair next to the window. He tugs back the curtain, the landscape of pure, untouched white nearly blinding as the sun continues to rise.

It really would be beautiful if it wasn’t fucking everything up.

 

After realizing he has no one to call, Aziraphale decides to go back downstairs, but only after ten minutes, to lend believability to his excuse of a phone call. He’s sitting in the armchair, going through as much of the BSL alphabet as he can remember, when there’s a knock on his door.

When he answers it, it’s to Crowley on the other side, and he’s holding up a familiar suitcase.

“Left this in the lobby,” he says, and sets it on the ground between them.

“Oh,” Aziraphale says, and looks at his suitcase, hoping for a hint on how to proceed. Nothing.

“Um,” Crowley says, and Aziraphale looks up, “I’m Anthony Crowley, by the way, know we didn’t exactly get around to introductions last night—”

Last night Aziraphale’s mind says dreamily, and suddenly he’s on his knees with Crowley’s cock in his mouth, holding narrow hips tight.

“Ah!” Aziraphale says, hoping to startle himself away from the arousing but unhelpful thoughts. “Ziraphale,” he adds, at the look on Crowley’s face. “My name, that is. Aziraphale.”

“Well,” Crowley sticks a hand out, “I know you’ve held my dick before my hand but—”

Aziraphale gasps and flushes, and Crowley cackles.

“Sorry!” he gasps, dropping his hand. “Didn’t mean to say that, just nerves, sorry.”

“That’s all right,” Aziraphale says, with the experience that this phrase suggests all business is concluded and let’s all be on our separate ways.

“If you want breakfast, it’s on.”  Crowley takes a step back.

“Do they have any idea how long we’ll be stuck here?” Aziraphale steps out into the hall, following Crowley along the corridor. Crowley shrugs.

“They haven’t had this much snow before, apparently there’s a plow that will work its way here eventually but this remote inn isn’t a high priority.”

“What if there’s a, a medical emergency?” Aziraphale asks as they descend the stairs.

“We’ve got a well-stocked first aid kit, Mr. Fell, don’t you worry about that,” Tracy says from where she’s sat with the rest, at a long table stacked with steaming breakfast dishes. “If it’s something major they’d be able to get a helicopter out.”

“And I’m a nurse,” Crowley says from his seat. Aziraphale gapes.

“Are you really?”

Crowley narrows his eyes, expression stiff. “What, you don’t think someone like me could be a nurse?”

Aziraphale shakes his head, mortified. “No, no, that’s not at all what I— it’s just such a difficult job, I can’t imagine actually doing it. It’s very impressive.”

Crowley bats away the words like a cat would a foil ball. “S’just a job. Get you seeing humans as numbers instead of people if you’re not careful.” He bites into a slice of buttered toast, effectively shutting down any chance of elaboration.

Anathema waves Aziraphale over and he sits with her, before he can look at Crowley and see an invitation in the lift of a brow.

“Where are you supposed to be going, Mr. Fell?”

“Oh, please, call me Aziraphale,” he tells Newt, and makes sure to include Anathema in his smile. “Um, well I was supposed to be visiting family…”

“You don’t sound happy about that,” Anathema says.

Aziraphale chuckles at her bluntness but doesn’t otherwise respond. He tries to live by the adage if you can’t say something nice don’t say anything at all.

“We’re on our honeymoon,” Newt says, as he has done approximately 38 times since Aziraphale met him the night previous, “so we were on our way to Stonehenge, for the winter solstice.”

“That the one with the naked dancing?” Crowley asks.

Newt flushes. Anathema rolls her eyes.

“That’s the summer solstice. We’re not freezing our nips or tips off, solstice be damned.”

Aziraphale chokes on his toast. He hears Crowley laugh again, and it’s horribly endearing.

You’re so fucked, he tells himself morosely.

 

Aziraphale is restless, sitting by one of the front windows, book open and forgotten on his lap. No matter how many times he looks outside, the view remains the same winter wonderland holding him hostage.

Newt and Anathema took Tracy up on her offer of a board game, and sit in the corner in front of the fireplace, game pieces spread out before them. He tries not to stare too obviously, tries not to let the jealous ember in his heart flare at their easy camaraderie, at their young love, at finding each other when they did so they won’t ever be 47 and still painfully alone.

He twists his gold ring around on his finger, one short of the finger he’s dreamed of wearing one, when Crowley drops into the chair across from him.

“Penny for ‘em,” he says, crossing one long leg over the other. Aziraphale is stuck in a moment, remembering the miles of bare skin under his trousers, hot and pliant under his hands. He’s got a scar just above his left knee that Aziraphale wants to ask about.

Not your place, he reminds himself.

“Oh, just thinking of the futility of man vs nature,” Aziraphale says, and Crowley nods thoughtfully.

“Hits different when you’re held at its whims, eh.”

They’re interrupted by Shadwell clomping past, bundled up against the weather. Aziraphale is eager for the distraction, something to keep his mind off of the line of Crowley’s neck and how it had felt to press his lips there.

“Is there something I can help you with?” Aziraphale asks, following Shadwell to the front door.

He grunts, tugging his cap lower on his head. “I’m going out to be chopping wood, nae for a magical wooded walk,” and he gives Aziraphale a onceover, successfully conveying his disbelief that Aziraphale has ever done a chore in his life. He yelps under the blow Tracy delivers to the back of his head, cowering under her glare.

“Hold your tongue, or you’ll be finding the door locked behind you for the night.” Tracy turns her back on a chastened Shadwell, smiling at Aziraphale. “I could use a hand in the kitchen, if you’re looking to keep busy.”

Aziraphale nods gratefully, embarrassed by Shadwell’s remark but too afraid to retreat to his room, as is his usual solution when confronted in any context. He doesn’t want to see the others’ reaction to the slight, doesn’t want to see the agreement on their faces.

He follows Tracy behind the bar and into the kitchen, a warm space filled with stainless steel countertops and an enormous cooktop.

“I’ve been taking some inventory, trying to plan our supplies out,” Tracy says as she leads him over to a walk-in pantry. “I’m in the middle of perishables. If you could just count and keep tally of the tins in here…?”

Aziraphale nods, eyes roving the tall shelves. He can easily make a day out of this, and perhaps by the time he emerges some of the snow will have melted and he’ll be out of here in the morning.

Tracy brings him a notepad and pen, along with a tumbler of whisky.

“I am sorry about Mr. Shadwell,” she says. “There’s a reason he stays behind the scenes here, rather than mingling with the guests. I’ll give him a good seeing-to when he’s back in with your friend.”

Aziraphale chokes on his sip of whisky. “M-my friend?”

“Oh, Mr. Crowley,” Tracy says, and nods out the window at the back of the kitchen. Aziraphale follows her gaze, and sees Crowley with a small axe struggling through the snow behind Shadwell. He’s a striking black line against the snow, red hair the only shock of colour on the monochromatic landscape.

“We’re not friends,” Aziraphale says reflexively, and as a reminder to himself. They’re not friends, and they’ll never be more. He flushes when he realizes Tracy had definitely seen how close the two of them had sat while they drank, and couldn’t possibly have missed them going upstairs together.

“Apologies, Mr. Fell,” Tracy says. “I know you only met him last night but you seem the type to make friends wherever you go.”

Aziraphale snorts, missing the look she gives him.

“Tell me more about your family you’re off to see,” Tracy says, voice pulling him away from the window and his ogle of Crowley’s body. Aziraphale goes back to the pantry, pulling a face.

“For that, dear lady,” he drains his tumbler, “I’ll need a refill.”

 

Aziraphale ends up spending the rest of the morning in the kitchen with Tracy. They finish their inventory, which helps assuage his fears of starving to death, and they finish the whisky, which helps the ache in his chest when he sees Newt gone out to help Shadwell and Crowley.

“I’ve never been a man’s man,” he drunkenly explains to Tracy as she attempts to roll croissants for their lunch. “No one has ever gone oh, let’s, let’s see what Aziraphale thinks, let’s ask Aziraphale for help.”

“But you’re so smart!” Tracy exclaims, cheeks pink. She’s got dough streaked through her hair and is losing her battle in pastry forming.

“Book smart,” Aziraphale concedes glumly. “Not much cause to be going ‘round offering in-depth literary analyses or ruminating on the fall of the Roman empire.” He gently shifts Tracy out of the way to try his hand at twisting the dough.

“Well, I have to say, as someone who had a taste of every kind of man in her youth, there’s not much staying power in brawn as there is in brains,” Tracy says.

They both jump when the door swings open, and Anathema wanders in. She stops when she sees their ruddy cheeks and the disaster croissants on the baking tray.

“You mean I’ve been drinking my lunch alone when I could’ve been in here?” She picks up the whisky bottle, nearly half-full when Tracy had brought it out, now with a few drops swirling about the bottom.

“Oh, goodness, where has the time gone?” Tracy says, and bustles about the kitchen, putting together huge sandwiches, hands holding a knife steadily, not an inch of liquor influencing her cutting and spreading.

Aziraphale forces through the fog in his head, a sense of urgency filling him, and he groans aloud when he remembers.

“’Scuse me, meant to make a phone call,” he says to the women, and shuffles off into the pantry for some privacy.

Aziraphale steels himself for his forthcoming conversation with Gabriel, knowing his brother will be irritated but, surprisingly, not overly bothered by that. He dials, and braces himself.

“Where are you?”

“Gabriel,” Aziraphale smiles, because one of them ought to be pleasant, “I was just calling to update you on the situation.”

A beat, while they both wait for the other to continue.

“Well?” Gabriel snaps, never known for his patience.

“Ah, well, I suppose there is no update,” Aziraphale muses. “The snow is still here, my car is still buried, and I haven’t sprouted wings in the last three hours, so…”

Aziraphale holds the phone away from his ear with a wince. Gabriel always hates it when he’s flippant.

“Well, I am dreadfully sorry about the weather,” Aziraphale says once the tirade has ended. “I’ll be there soon as I can.” He’s not surprised to find Gabriel has already hung up, probably right after he’d finished his spiel.

Aziraphale comes out of the pantry and drops his mobile to a flour-dusted countertop. He looks up to see Anathema and Tracy staring.

“What?”

“Are you all right?” Anathema asks.

“Yes,” Aziraphale says, because it’s the polite thing to say, in response to a question only asked for the same reason.

“Are your plans so horribly buggered up being stuck here?” Tracy asks sympathetically. “The bloke on the other end sounded awful upset.”

“Oh, that’s Gabriel,” he says. “He’s always like that.”

“Man’s gonna scream himself into an early grave,” Anathema mutters.

Aziraphale chuckles. “Yes, he’s actually become insufferable since he took to living in America eight months out of the year.”

Tracy cackles as Aziraphale flushes, belatedly realizing his slight and giving Anathema an apologetic look that borders on manic. He’s really quite flushed.

Anathema rolls her eyes, slapping down yet another perfectly formed croissant on the baking tray. “Believe me, the ridicule is well-deserved.”

Anathema decides the three of them will take their lunch in the kitchen, giving Tracy and Aziraphale each a no-nonsense look and a minibar bottle of scotch. Tracy carries a platter of sandwiches out to the main room for the others, while Aziraphale and Anathema compare the America she’s lived in to the one Gabriel paints a picture of whenever he’s at his most boastful.

Aziraphale eats with the two women, a callback to his school years, when the boys he wanted to sit with made him too flustered to be casual around, and the rest were too threatening to be friendly. He’s always been more comfortable with women, probably because he doesn’t care one bit about trying to be sexually appealing to them.

He’s still tipsy as he eats his sandwich, and at ease around Tracy and Anathema, so he’s caught off-guard by the change in topic of conversation.

“I mean, a lot of my friends still don’t get what I see in Newt,” Anathema says. “Like, because he’s such a typical Brit, or like what you’d expect if you only ever read Bridget Jones: pale and polite.”

Tracy snorts, covering her mouth with her napkin. “But there’s something else that attracted you?”

Anathema grins, swirling a crust of bread around in a puddle of mustard. “He’s just, he’s literally the kindest person I have ever met. He’s so patient with me, and he makes the stupidest things funny, and I always thought marriage was just another box to check but, I dunno,” she shrugs, “having that commitment with someone, the idea that someone has every intention of literally spending the rest of their life with you, by choice…”

Tracy sighs. “I know what you mean. Me and Mr. Shadwell, complete opposites, but we just work together. It helps to find a balance, I think.”

It would have been splendid if things had been left there, but then seemingly as one they turned to Aziraphale.

“Don’t look at me,” he says when he sees them looking at him, “I’m alone.”

“Are you looking?” Anathema asks neutrally. Aziraphale shrugs, playing with his orange rind.

“It’s the dream I guess, but, well, that’s all it’ll ever be.”

He’s met with twin expressions of dismay.

“Don’t say that!”

“It takes time to find Mr. Right.” Tracy gasps and covers her mouth, giving Aziraphale an apologetic look, but he waves it off.

“I truly don’t believe my sexuality can be called into question,” he says. “I squat to fit into the stereotypes.”

“Why do you think you won’t find anyone?” Anathema asks.

“Let’s see, 47, haven’t dated seriously in five years, and getting worse for the wear every passing year.” He raises his water glass in a toast. “I long ago stopped being the catch of the day.”

“Excuse you,” Anathema says, giving him a onceover. “You have any idea the sophisticated daddy vibes you give off? You look like a hug wrapped in positive reinforcements.”

“I don’t know what mirror you look in, lovey, but don’t sell yourself short like that,” Tracy says. “You’re an attractive man, and I don’t just mean physically.”

Aziraphale is thoroughly embarrassed by this point and eager for a change of subject. “Yes, well, I had better…go. Let me just…help with the clean-up…”

Tracy takes his plate from him with a kindly smile. “That’s all right, dove, you go off, you’ve helped me enough today, thank you.”

And because he really can’t stomach anymore pity, Aziraphale gladly takes the opportunity to flee.

 

At dinnertime, everyone sits at the biggest table, and it lends a familial air to the room, everyone sat around close, passing plates and malformed croissants. Aziraphale is next to Tracy, Anathema on his other side. He tries not to read into the look on Crowley’s face when he’d walked in late and seen Aziraphale already surrounded. He knows what he wants it to mean. Knows what it never will.

The conversation flows easily, for veritable strangers. Newt brings up his honeymoon seven times over the course of the meal, and Crowley tells a joke so filthy even Shadwell’s cheeks are red after everyone’s done gasping and laughing.

Crowley is so handsome it hurts. Aziraphale has tried to find an unflattering angle to view him in, and so far has found none. It’s doing nothing to help with the memories of last night, of catching Crowley’s profile in shadow, watching him tense and then release under the build-up of pressure. Aziraphale wishes they could have another night like that, even just one more.

He sighs to himself as he stabs a roasted potato with his fork. Who is he kidding? He’s already imagined a reality where he dates Crowley, where they come to dinner and hold hands across the table, visit mutual friends, take a day to see London like a tourist would. It’s pathetic. He’s pathetic.

“Would anyone care for an after-dinner drink?” Tracy asks. “No no,” she stills them with a smile when they all make a move to clear the table, “Mr. Shadwell is in charge of the clean-up. Everyone else who cares to may retire to the sitting room.”

“Oh, maybe we could play another board game,” Newt suggests as he pulls out Anathema’s chair. Tracy beams.

“That sounds lovely. I’ll just get Mr. Shadwell started in the kitchen and be right out to join you. Everyone having a drink? Aziraphale?”

He looks up, having been lost in self-recriminations for the past few minutes. “Oh, ah, no, thank you. I’m actually thinking of heading to my room early.”

He remembers last night, Crowley leading the way upstairs, stopping to pin Aziraphale to the wall just out of sight of the bar below, and kissing him deep and dirty. The feel of the other’s hands tugging his shirt from his trousers, passionate and consuming, a fleeting act that he very much wishes he could reenact.

But Crowley had spent some time around him today, got to see what Aziraphale looks like in full light. There were no coy shadows to hint at his stomach, or make his crows’ feet alluring instead of ancient, nothing to hide his constant anxious fidgeting, a physical betrayal of how his thoughts run rampant through his head.

Aziraphale knows that he looks every bit the fat fussy middle-aged man he is. He knows he isn’t the sort of person someone like Crowley would go for, that last night had been a simple matter of needs met. It’s not like Crowley had any other option, out of the two married men and the bachelor.  Aziraphale doesn’t mind being someone’s ‘just because’. Not when it let him, for a few hours at least, pretend that he was just someone’s.

He’d had Crowley once, and that even was more than what he deserved, a brush against the sun. Crowley has seen his imperfections now, and it’s uncomfortable to be around him knowing he’d gotten through the carefully crafted layers.

This is why you don’t do casual, Aziraphale tells himself. He’d trusted a complete stranger with himself, to see him at his most vulnerable and take no delight in his weakness.

It was a mistake, he can see that now. Not for how Crowley makes him feel, no; he hasn’t once given Aziraphale a nasty look, but for how it makes him feel. Gave too much away, irretrievably.

He sits in his room alone, regretting ever leaving his home when he receives a late-night text from Gabriel, short and to the point.

We’re burying him tomorrow with or without you.

Good, Aziraphale thinks savagely. I don’t want to be there anyway, I don’t know why I ever bothered trying to be there.

He tells himself he’s mad instead of upset, and it works for a while, until he opens his trusty flask, and then he’s a weepy mess, full of regret and self-recrimination.

This is why you’ll always be alone, he tells himself harshly. You’re too much for anyone.

Depressed, self-deprecating, gone to seed physically, probably not far off mentally; yes, he really has it all. What man wouldn’t be falling all over himself for a chance?

He’s roused from his scotch-tinted thoughts by a knock on his door. He glances at the cuckoo clock mounted on the wall, surprised to see it’s nearly ten. It would appear he’s been stewing in his own unkind thoughts for hours.

In a mirror image from this morning, Crowley stands in the hall, looking sheepish.

“Hey,” he says, after Aziraphale just stares at him for too long.

“What have I forgotten this time?”

Crowley’s brow wrinkles. “Er, forgotten?”

“First you brought me my tea, then you brought me my suitcase, so, just wondering.” Aziraphale sends up a mental thank you to the makers of scotch, providing an alternative to growing balls for centuries. Liquid courage is still courage.

Crowley laughs a bit. “Just, missed you at the games, thought I’d see if you were still awake.” He holds up a sleek bottle. “I have liquour.”

Send him away, right now.

Aziraphale stupidly says, “I have clean glasses,” and that’s that.

 

They never do get to Crowley’s alcohol, being rather occupied with sucking face the moment they’re sat next to each other on the bed. In Aziraphale’s defense, he doesn’t have one. He’s alone and feeling more lonely than ever, it’s cold upstairs away from the fire, and Crowley is very clearly willing.

They fuck rather enthusiastically, and when Aziraphale wakes up, he’s in his own bed with a long arm around his naked waist. The bedside lamp is still on, cheerily revealing the time to be halfway between midnight and too bloody early. Aziraphale takes care to roll over gently, so as not to jostle the sleeping man pressed up against him.

It’s different now, knowing this is Crowley, Crowley who is a nurse and rather defensive about that fact, Crowley who wields an axe as comfortably as Aziraphale does a fork, Crowley who is quick to laughter and free with it.

It was easier when Aziraphale’s only point of reference was “him”, when he didn’t have a name floating around his head, tickling his tastebuds, begging to be owned. When he couldn’t imagine a name on his lips in the morning, settled into a routine as coffee is made and faces are shaved, bickering over who showers first.

Aziraphale wants to be mad instead of sad, so he glares at Crowley and thinks uncharitable thoughts.

Probably dyes his hair.

Bet he doesn’t wash his hands after using the loo.

His nose is pointy.

All this achieves is Aziraphale feeling like a heel and like he ought to apologize to Crowley when he wakes up. Instead, he slides out from under the arm around him, opting for just the provided dressing gown to sit in at the desk, his well-loved notebook open in front of him.

He writes, a handful of fleeting thoughts that had come and gone mid-coitus. It’s horribly sappy but it’s a start: his next book is a romance, something he’d agreed to in a generous advance haze, and he’s not above calling on real-life experiences. It’s easy; he just pretends his feelings for Crowley are reciprocated, and the happy ending writes itself.

Aziraphale has countless protagonists living his own dream life; so long as he makes their physical description different, he can live out fantasies in his own literature, where he always gets the man, where his vulnerabilities aren’t seen as weaknesses but as a stepping stone to greater truths. Where he’s loved unconditionally.

His hand falters on the page when he hears shifting on the bed. He slides the pen between the pages and closes the notebook.

“Alright?” Crowley asks groggily. “Christ, time’sit?”

Aziraphale looks over his shoulder, to see Crowley sitting up against the headboard, scrubbing his eyes, hair tousled in equal parts from sleep and Aziraphale’s fingers. His heart twists at the sight, imagines what it would be like to have Crowley as a constant, on purpose rather than by chance.

“Just after two,” Aziraphale replies, swallowing when Crowley stands, carelessly baring himself as he casts about for his trousers.

“Your room is colder than mine,” Crowley grouses, pulling on his turtleneck with a shiver. He nods at the desk. “Sorry, did I interrupt?”

“Oh, no,” Aziraphale says, tucking the notebook a bit further back on the desk. “Just…midnight musings.” He shudders to think what Crowley would do if he knew what Aziraphale had been writing, if he knew the secret, sad thoughts he harbours for the two of them.

Aziraphale scoffs inwardly. As if there would be a two of you.

“I don’t suppose the snow has melted in the last couple hours,” Aziraphale says, to help break away from his unconscious study of Crowley, which did nothing but remind him yes, Crowley is still handsome and off-limits.

Crowley crosses to the window, twitches the curtain back and wrinkles his nose. “Still heaped about. Least there isn’t any more coming down.”

“I thought you were reluctant to attend your work conference,” Aziraphale says. Crowley lets the curtain fall back into place.

“Yeah, but for you, the sooner you’re out of here the better, yeah?” He drops back to sit on the edge of the bed, slender and dark. Aziraphale is horribly conscious of how he must look schlumping about in his dressing gown, and he tries to arrange as much of it over his bare legs as he can. Crowley follows the movement and Aziraphale hopes fervently that the other man can’t see the veins in his legs or the perpetual sock lines dug halfway up his calf.

“Unfortunately.” Aziraphale nods. Crowley’s brow wrinkles.

“How’s that?”

“Oh,” Aziraphale waves him off, “just a bit of an unpleasant task ahead.”

“Visiting family, was it?” At Aziraphale’s look Crowley raises his hands. “Don’t mean to pry, I’m just nosy. Also, can relate to not wanting to go home to see the family.”

Aziraphale sighs. “It’s…” While it’s true he would love for nothing more than someone to talk to about his situation, that person can’t be Crowley. They hardly know each other! That’s not something one shares willy-nilly. It’s not as if Crowley cares anyway, he’s just asked to be polite. “It’s nothing, really. Just being dramatic.”

Crowley doesn’t look convinced but he doesn’t push. “Sorry for falling asleep on you, I was spectacularly worn out.”

“Oh, not a problem,” Aziraphale says. “I’m sorry, I should have woken you.”

Crowley waves him off. “It’s all right.”

“I imagine you’ll want to be going,” Aziraphale adds, so Crowley doesn’t have to. He’s gotten very good at recognizing the signs when someone is tiring of him, and he’s always done his best to be the one to break things off, to give them an excuse to grab hold of and take their leave, so they don’t feel rude and he pretends he doesn’t feel pitied.

“Uh—”

“It’s all right,” Aziraphale echoes Crowley’s words. Now that Crowley’s departure is so near, Aziraphale is hyper aware of how he must look sitting hunched at the desk. He’s always had terrible posture, a fact much bemoaned at family dinners, his mother sighing at him through the five-course meal. It’s just easier, more comfortable, to sort of shrink in on himself, maybe not be noticed as much, talked to as often, because he’s rubbish at socializing.

“Okay,” Crowley says after a moment, and grabs up his socks and shoes. “Um, thanks—”

“Don’t mention it,” Aziraphale says quickly, feeling very much like a toadstool under the perusal of a sleek raven. He stands and needlessly leads the way to the door. “Goodnight.”

Crowley bobs his head at him, smiling faintly. “Night. See you at breakfast.”

Aziraphale closes and locks the door behind Crowley. He doesn’t get back in the bed, doesn’t want to feel the dip in the mattress, or the residual body heat. Crowley is lithe but he feels like a furnace, heat pouring off him when he’s pressed against Aziraphale, or laying close under the heavy quilt. Aziraphale sits in the armchair by the window, tugging the curtains open.

His room, like all the others, overlooks the massive garden, that falls away to a forest with tall trees, bare and dark in the snowy landscape. The moon is shining brightly on the fallen snow, a silver tinge outlining the wood shed and every snowdrift. Aziraphale looks outside and doesn’t think about what would have happened if Crowley had stayed the night. He doesn’t imagine the conversations they might have had in an intimate setting, when they aren’t surrounded by the others or actively engaged in sex.

Aziraphale steadfastly thinks of nothing at all, while he waits for the bed to grow cold. He doesn’t look into the reason behind the warm tears sliding down his cheeks, just wipes at his face with a tissue and blows his nose.

See you at breakfast.

Crowley’s parting words ring in his ears and Aziraphale scoffs. What, as if he of all people would miss a meal?

The thought is as ugly as it is familiar. Aziraphale looks down at himself, wrapped in a dressing gown that leaves no illusion as to every roll and dip he has. He puts a hand on his stomach, grimacing as his fingers find his rolls, his abdomen cushioned by one too many biscuits and second helpings. His chest is generously padded, had in fact resulted in a bra being stuffed in his PE locker more than once in his school days. And now here he is, still fat, still unpleasant to look at, gratefully accepting pity sex because it’s that or nothing these days.

Aziraphale does not get back into bed. He does not go to breakfast in the morning. He spends this time wishing. Wishing he was home, wishing he looked like anything but what he does, wishing he was someone else, someone who could have a man like Crowley. Since he’s wishing for all things unattainable, he wishes for a home in the country, with plenty of land and plenty of love. He wishes he could learn to bake, he wishes he could have someone to bake for, he wishes desperately for someone to be his.

But if wishes are horses, his have all been sent to the glue factory.

 

It’s nearly ten in the morning when there’s a light knock at his door.

“Mr. Fell?”

Aziraphale hurries to open the door. Tracy gives him a quick smile.

“Good morning, love, feeling all right? I wasn’t sure if you wanted to eat but—” she holds up the small tray that bears a bacon sandwich and cup of tea. Aziraphale’s heart sinks into the stinking quagmire of guilt that happily takes up space inside his guts.

“Oh, I am sorry, I didn’t mean to inconvenience you,” he says, fretfully wondering how much of a tip he should leave when he checks out. “Really, I’m fine, you didn’t need to go to the trouble.”

Tracy peers at him, brow furrowed. “You do remember you’re a guest at my inn, don’t you? Room service is not the definition of ‘above and beyond’.”

Aziraphale sighs, picking at a hangnail. “No, of course I do, I simply meant—”

He’s drowned out by a great clatter from the first floor, then a gaggle of excited voices. He and Tracy exchange a look and he follows her quick march down the hall to the staircase.

“Oh lord, what’s happened?” Tracy asks, sweeping down the stairs and sliding the tray onto a nearby table. Newt is sprawled on the floor, white-faced and wincing, Anathema knelt next to him oozing sympathy.

“Took a long walk off a short pier,” Shadwell grumbles. “Here,” he says to Newt, shoving a throw pillow from one of the couches under Newt’s head.

“What—”

“He was changing the lightbulbs,” Crowley says from where he’s crouched at Newt’s feet. “Stepped right off the chair.” He’s got the hem of Newt’s pants lifted around his left leg. He looks up at Newt. “Got yourself a real clean break in the ankle.”

“I’ve never broken a bone before,” Newt says dazedly from the floor. “Is it meant to hurt this much?”

“No, it should tickle,” Anathema snaps, then sighs and squeezes Newt’s hand, looking at Crowley. “Can you help him?”

Crowley settles back on his heels and stands. His knees crack when he straightens, a sound Aziraphale recognizes.

“I can splint it, so he doesn’t knock it around too much. That and some decent painkillers will hold him til he can get to hospital.”

Tracy hurries back from the kitchen, a first aid kit in hand. “We’ve never had cause to use it but it’s fully stocked.”

Crowley takes it from her with a nod and riffles through. “It’s decent.” He pulls out a small bottle and squints at the label. “Ibuprofen is expired though. D’you have any more?”

Tracy nods. “Yes, in my cabinet.”

“Nay,” Shadwell interrupts. “I pulverized it.”

“You…pulverized the ibuprofen?” Crowley repeats. Shadwell nods.

“Aye.”

“Why?”

“For the moles,” Shadwell says.

“Sorry, love, I’m as clueless as you are,” Tracy says apologetically to Crowley’s slightly desperate look.

“I don’t suppose either of you packed any,” Crowley says, glancing between Aziraphale and Anathema. Aziraphale shakes his head; all he’d packed was a rumpled suit -navy blue but he didn’t own a black one- his pajamas and a book.

“I can at least get an ice pack,” Tracy says. “I’ll call down the village, see where they are with clearing the roads. Maybe they can clean off our hill so you can get to hospital.”

“Right,” Crowley says to Newt, “best to avoid moving around too much, so pick now: we keep you on the couch or up in your room.”

Newt leans against Anathema, upper lip shiny with perspiration. “Um, up in our room, I suppose. I’d rather not be on display like a lobster in the market.”

“Pain makes him loopy,” Anathema says when everyone takes too long to respond.

“Also, it hurts, very much,” Newt says, and he’s gone pale. “It’s a possibility I may—”

He faints. To her credit, Anathema doesn’t react except to make sure his head stays pillowed on her lap.

“He’ll be okay,” Anathema tells Crowley, who lurched forward when Newt passed out. “He also faints when he sees blood.”

“Can we move him or should we wait for him to wake up?” Tracy asks, hovering nervously with an ice pack in hand.

“It will be easier to move him when he’s conscious,” Crowley says. “Less chance of banging his ankle about, though we aren’t doing him any favours letting him sleep on the floor.”

“I can wake him,” Anathema offers. She leans down and says into Newt’s ear, “Why do you call your car Dick Turpin?”

“Oh, it’s actually very funny,” Newt says, blinking his eyes open. “He was a highwayman…” he trails off when he sees his wife’s fond smile, and blushes. “Fainted again, did I? What was—” he winces suddenly. “Oh, right. Broken ankle.”

“Let’s get you settled upstairs, mate,” Crowley suggests. “I’ll brace your ankle for the trip, then you just keep it up.”

Aziraphale stands back and feels generally useless as Crowley splints Newt’s ankle with Anathema’s help. Shadwell has stomped upstairs to rearrange the furniture in their room, and Tracy is in the kitchen putting together a convalescence tea. Aziraphale hovers, desperate to be of some use but afraid to get in the way of anyone who actually knows what they’re doing.

“Right,” Crowley says, rocking back on his haunches. “That will hold you for a quick hop up the stairs.” He stands, Anathema on Newt’s other side, and they each give Newt a hand and slowly try to ease him to his good foot.

Newt stands, swaying against his wife. He’s pale again, and sweaty, and has his teeth clenched. He keeps his sore foot dangling above the floor.

“Cripes, this smarts,” he gasps.

“Blood rushing back in,” Crowley says. He readjusts Newt’s arm around his shoulder. “Let’s make it upstairs and you can lay down and put it up.”

Aziraphale hurries forward and pushes the gathered tables and chairs back a few feet, widening the path to the stairs. Crowley gives him a nod as the three of them take a slow step forward. Newt gives a little hop that is visibly painful, and then another before shaking his head.

“Never mind,” he says, voice tight. “See if we can make it to the sofas, I’ll never make it up the stairs like this.”

Anathema watches him worriedly, chewing her lip. “Are you sure? The bathroom is closer in our room.”

“Unless one of you can carry me upstairs, I’m sofa-bound,” Newt says through gritted teeth. “That hopping is going to kill me.”

Aziraphale perks up. He sees Anathema give Crowley a contemplative onceover, but the nurse is already shaking his head.

“Patient transfers are my bag when we’re talking gurney to bed or bed to chair,” he says. “I don’t trust myself not to fall down the stairs.”

Anathema nods, Newt sighs, and Crowley gets in position under Newt’s arm again when Aziraphale plucks up the courage to speak.

“Um, if I may be so bold?”

They turn and look at him, and he nearly falters under their gazes, never a fan of being the centre of attention, but pushes on after a look at Newt’s miserable countenance.

“I could help return Mr. Pulsifer to his room, if that’s still the preferred destination.”

Newt grimaces. “Thanks, Aziraphale, but every step makes me feel like I’m going to pass out.”

“Again,” Anathema adds helpfully, and Newt turns and gives her forehead a peck.

“Again,” he echoes.

Aziraphale nods. “Yes, I quite understand, it does look horribly painful, but, er, well, just to say if you were serious about being carried up…”

He trails off, forcing himself not to blush when they all look him over head to toe.

“I may not look it but I am quite capable of heavy lifting,” he offers as Tracy swings back out of the kitchen with a tea tray.

“I can attest to that,” she says as she walks past. “Had him moving casks for me yesterday, barely broke a sweat!”

“You are pretty strong,” Crowley says, then flushes, evidently realizing, much the same as Aziraphale, that he’s only seen Aziraphale’s strength in bed and perhaps that isn’t the most pertinent information to share.

Anathema watches Tracy go up the stairs and turns back to Aziraphale. “Promise you won’t drop him?”

Aziraphale stands straight and bows his head at her. “I give my word.”

Newt looks at his wife, and she raises her eyebrows and gives a little shrug, clearly leaving the decision in his hands. He turns back to Aziraphale and nods.

“All right. How do you want me?”

Aziraphale and Crowley do an admirable job of not looking at one another or otherwise reacting to hearing Crowley’s words from last night echoed back in a much less sexually charged situation. Aziraphale sits on a chair closest to Newt.

“This may sound strange, but on my lap, please. Sideways, if you can.”

Newt is helped to limp over to sit as asked on Aziraphale’s lap. He looks distinctly uncomfortable and keeps his arms plastered to his sides.

“Now, if you don’t mind, one arm about my neck,” Aziraphale says. He wraps his left arm around Newt’s back. “I believe you are more than familiar with the term bridal style by now.”

Newt’s eyes go wide. “Yes, but—” he grips Aziraphale’s shirt tightly—“always on the other side of it.”

Aziraphale smiles and carefully slide an arm under Newt’s knees. “Premise is the same, except now you just hang tight.”

He stands, slow, careful not to jar Newt, and is relieved at how easy it is to hold such a gangly-limbed fellow. Aziraphale gives Newt a moment to settle, and at his nod, begins a slow walk to the base of the stairs. He’s careful to watch his step, to walk up sideways so Newt’s ankle stays clear of the banister on either side. It’s an easy climb physically; really, it reminds Aziraphale of moving into his bookshop’s flat, hefting boxes of cast iron kitchenware up the narrow staircase.

Tracy holds the door to the newlyweds’ room wide, and Aziraphale deposits Newt carefully on the bed, pulling his arms away gingerly and then leaving the others to tend to him. Shadwell is stoking the fireplace while Crowley helps Newt settle on the bed when Aziraphale takes his leave, Tracy close behind him.

“My, what a bout of excitement,” she says, following Aziraphale down the stairs. “The poor dear, I hope we can get him out of here sharpish.”

“What if we were to call for help, won’t an injury make him a priority?” Aziraphale asks. Tracy sighs.

“Perhaps if he was in labour, or someone was in dire need of having a knife removed from their belly they’d send the helicopter,” Tracy says. “It’s not a serious enough situation to merit that. No ambulance is going to make it up our hill til its been cleared, either.

“Now, Mr. Fell, you never had your breakfast, there’s porridge left over, or I can make you a nice omelette…”

“Oh, no, that’s quite all right, madam, thank you.”

“Nonsense,” Tracy says with a smile. “We can’t do much else, no point skipping your breakfast. I’ll call down to the village, see what’s going on with the plow.” Tracy disappears into the kitchen, muttering to herself and leaving Aziraphale wishing he’d just gone back into his room after helping Newt.

It’s nearly eleven. Aziraphale swallows hard and pats his pockets for his phone. He feels weighed down by dread, dread that has abruptly grabbed onto the bottom of his heart and dragged it down. His father is likely buried by now, or about to be. Gabriel has always been annoyingly efficient; quick morning burial followed by a reception, everyone off home by noon.

He’s going to be furious, Aziraphale thinks miserably. He sits in the front room, staring out at the drifted snow causing so many problems. Ordinarily he loves snow, and this crisp white landscape is a far cry from the dirty, polluted snow lining the London gutters. He wishes he could look outside and see the beauty in the rawness of mother nature, rather than imagine the lecture Gabriel no doubt has in store for him.

Crowley drops into the armchair tucked in under the window, directly in Aziraphale’s line of sight.

“How’s Newt?” Aziraphale asks. Crowley grimaces.

“Be a lot better if he had some painkillers,” he admits. “Pain tolerance is not a thing he’s ever learned.”

“Tracy said she doesn’t think they’d send a medical helicopter to take him out,” Aziraphale says, and Crowley shrugs.

“Doubt it, his best hope will be by road.”

“And it’s not much of a hope, I’m afraid,” Tracy says, approaching them with two steaming cups of tea. They each thank her as they take their drinks and she sits on the opposite end of Aziraphale’s sofa.

“Still not getting the roads cleared?” Crowley asks. She shakes her head.

“Apparently, the snow plow went off the road and had to be towed out,” Tracy says. “Imagine that. And now they’ve fallen behind everywhere and still haven’t even got to Tadfield yet.” She nods out the window behind Crowley. “At least there isn’t meant to be any more snow, but what we got is going to be sticking around.”

“Well, that’s my plans scuppered,” Crowley says, sounding not the slightest bit put out.

“Have you talked to your Gabriel, love?” Tracy asks Aziraphale.

“My—oh, my brother.” Aziraphale shakes his head. “No, and I expect I’ll be hearing about that.”

“Surely he can understand the weather is what’s held you up,” Tracy says.

Aziraphale takes a quick sip of his tea, and manages a small smile. “Yes, well, if it were him, it wouldn’t have happened to him, because he would have left earlier, he wouldn’t have stopped here, he wouldn’t have made every mistake I did.”

Aziraphale winces and sets his tea down, giving Tracy an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, my dear, I didn’t mean to imply your lodgings are in any way a mistake.”

Tracy smiles. “No offence, love. And if this Gabriel can’t wrap his pigeon brain around the fact that fourteen inches of snow can bring a country to a standstill, then don’t drive yourself barmy trying to reason with him.”

Aziraphale actually giggles, because he’s previously thought that Gabriel was rather bird-like: needlessly aggressive, easily ruffled, and doomed to die in his office car park. Tracy winks and turns to Crowley.

“How is he?”

“The sooner we can get him something for the pain, the better,” Crowley replies. “That’s pretty much all a broken bone is, painkillers and rest, let the body do the work.”

“Oh! I have good news,” Tracy says, beaming. “I was talking with Deidre Young, she’s the village emergency liaison, and I told her about what happened with Mr. Pulsifer, and she said her son Adam has a drone he can use to fly some medication to us!”

Aziraphale frowns while Crowley looks impressed. A drone? What on Earth is that in this context?

“Its got the range?” Crowley asks. Tracy shrugs.

“Deidre said Adam is certain it can make the journey. If he sticks to the road he has a straight shot here.”

“All right,” Crowley says. “Worth a shot, anyway.”

 

“All right, Adam, whenever you’re ready,” Tracy says.

“Roger that!” Adam’s cheery voice comes from the speakerphone. “Rescue Op 001 initiate!”

Tracy covers her mouth to stifle a giggle. Crowley grins at Aziraphale, an easy, familiar thing that makes Aziraphale cross. He’s going to miss it when it’s gone.

“I’m on a south heading,” Adam announces. “I’ve gone over Mr. Crichton’s garden and am now making my way down Hogsback Lane.”

“We’re keeping watch for you,” Tracy says. Indeed, the three of them are crowded around the front window, looking over the cars half buried in snow in the front lot to the crest of the hill, falling away to the winding road that meandered its way down to the village proper, interspersed with trees clumped together along the edges. When Aziraphale had followed the butcher’s directions to the inn after stopping in Tadfield, exhausted from hours in the car, he had felt he was being set up, being sent to the haunted inn at the top of the hill, craggy trees lining the drive.

The trees he can see from the window are no less craggy, but under a covering of pristine snow, they seem more welcoming than anything. He watches along with Tracy and Crowley, glad for something to take his mind off the angry text message from Gabriel. He hates how much it upsets him, to have disappointed his family, even knowing what they think of him. His father wouldn’t have cared if Aziraphale had been there or not, Aziraphale thinks. Dying is no excuse to try to fix a broken relationship. The time is when both are thriving, alive, and have to live with their words.

Easy to say I love you or I’m proud of you if you’re just going to keel over in a few days. There are no consequences for your words. Everyone becomes brave when they’re at death’s door. No, if Aziraphale had actually made it, it would have simply been for closure, though whose, he can’t say.

“I’m at the foot of the hill,” Adam says suddenly. “It’s getting harder to see, there’s a lot of blowing snow.”

“Just straight up if you can, love, you’re doing so well,” Tracy encourages.

“And when you land it here, don’t go flying off too quick,” Crowley adds. “There’s a reward for those who assist in medical emergencies.”

“Wicked!” Adam cheers through the phone, and his mother’s voice is heard muffled in the background. “I mean, it’s not necessary, of course. Doing a good deed is all the payment I need.”

“Of course, a principled fellow such as yourself,” Crowley agrees, even as he unfolds a ten pound note from his pocket and snaps it to crispness, grinning at Tracy and Aziraphale.

“Urgh, my principal is awful,” Adam says. “My friend Pepper says he’s an automaton of the institution.”

“Think you’ll find most adults are,” Crowley says, and glances at Aziraphale. “There are some exceptions.”

Aziraphale tunes the chatter out, steadfastly facing out the window as his cheeks burn at the thought of the implication of Crowley’s words and look. Why does he feel so off-balance around the other man? Is it because Crowley is his first casual sexual encounter since he’d sworn off them a decade ago? Aziraphale is going to drive himself mad trying to exorcise Crowley from his thoughts when he leaves this inn, whenever that may be.

“Crowley?”

They all turn to see Anathema halfway down the stairs. Her face is pinched with worry.

“Newt needs, um…” she trails off, looking at Tracy and Aziraphale, who both immediately turn back to the window and talk, pretending they can’t hear Anathema mutter about the toilet while Crowley strides over to the stairs, to follow her into her room.

“There’s a lot of wind,” Adam says, voice tight. “I’m having a hard time staying on course.”

“If you can’t get any further—” Tracy begins, then Adam cuts her off.

“Bollocks!” he cries, and Deirdre is heard sharply telling him off. “Sorry, mum. Mrs. Shadwell, I’ve been blown into the birches, the picture’s gone all fuzzy, all I can see is white.”

“Oh Adam, you did a wonderful job, thank you so much for trying,” Tracy says. Aziraphale nods along, too tongue-tied around children to offer any verbal encouragement but wholeheartedly agreeing with the assertion, despite still being rather lost on what exactly is a drone.

Adam mutters dejectedly and Aziraphale leaves Tracy to comfort him. His stomach rumbles and it occurs to him that it’s early afternoon and no one has had lunch. He glances at Tracy, still on the phone, and makes for the kitchen. He walks in on Shadwell perched on a countertop, eating a raw tomato.

They stare at one another for a moment, Shadwell with tomato juice dripping into his beard, and Aziraphale says, “Perhaps you’d like some sandwich to go with your tomato.”

 

Aziraphale makes a platter of sandwiches, easy and quick, because even with Shadwell sitting with him not protesting, he feels a bit odd to take over someone else’s kitchen, especially that of a place of business.

He remembers that Newt doesn’t like anything but Worchester sauce, keeps the pickles away from Crowley’s sandwiches, and toasts Tracy’s bun. Yesterday’s lunch of the same was enough for him to memorize everyone’s preferences, and that’s why he hands Shadwell a plate with an open buttered bun slathered with mustard and topped with roast ham and a slice of cheese.

Shadwell takes it with a grunt, dropping the remnants of his tomato on top before closing the bun and squashing it together. “It doesn’t surprise me that you know your way around a kitchen,” he mutters after taking a bite. Aziraphale doesn’t know if it’s a dig at his weight or his homosexuality, but he smiles all the same.

“And it doesn’t surprise me that you would eat a sandwich that’s fallen to the floor.”

Shadwell’s brow contorts and he stares at the sandwich on the plate in his lap. “What do you—”

Aziraphale neatly smacks the sandwich from the plate to the kitchen floor, making Shadwell squawk. Hands shaking, he manages to pick up the tray stacked with sandwiches and push his way through the kitchen door to the dining area. He sets it down on the nearest table with plates and napkins, then loads up one plate with a handful and carries them upstairs. He knocks on the half-open door of Newt and Anathema’s room.

“I don’t mean to disturb you,” he says when Anathema comes and pulls the door wide. The door to the room’s toilet is closed, Newt and Crowley nowhere in sight. “Just thought you might be peckish—”

Anathema grabs one of the sandwiches and bites into it, nearly half of it gone in one go. “I was starving,” she says through a mouthful. “Oh my god, you angel.” She tugs him into the room, steering him to drop in the armchair by the bed, sandwiches sliding around the plate.

“I just wanted to drop these and run,” Aziraphale says. He can hear some thumps and bumps from the bathroom, and is torn between offering help and leaving. Anathema sits on the bed, polishing off her sandwich.

“Thanks a lot, I know it’s just a sandwich but Tracy is a master,” Anathema sighs. Aziraphale smiles and nudges the plate on his lap.

“Plenty more where that came from,” he says, and stands. “I really should leave you to it.”

Anathema is already picking through the other options, setting Newt’s favourites to the side. “This definitely isn’t how I expected my married life to start,” she says quietly. Aziraphale glances at her, her expression dull now compared to when he’d first entered.

“Well, it’s not so bad as all that, is it?” he asks, perching on the edge of the armchair. Anathema gives him an incredulous look.

“How is spending my honeymoon trapped in a serial killer’s dream home with my laid-up husband not bad?”

“Well,” Aziraphale says again, trying to collect his tumbling thoughts, “you still had a lovely wedding. I know the charm of the inn may have suffered a bit in our forced prolonged stay, but it really is in a wonderful setting. Tracy is so kind and, really, all of our needs are being met wonderfully.

“As for your husband’s accident, it will grow to be something you can look back on and laugh,” Aziraphale concludes. “Together,” he adds with a lump in his throat. Cripes, spending this much time around married couples is starting to depress him. He’s always been aware of his solitude, but since coming to the inn, each reminder is a sharp pang of his ongoing one-man show.

He looks up at a soft touch on the back of his hand. Anathema is smiling at him.

“You’re right,” she says. “Nothing is ruined, I just succumbed to dramatics for a minute there.”

Aziraphale smiles back and pats her hand. “No harm in that.”

They both look up when the door to the bathroom swings open, Crowley supporting a pale-faced Newt back to the bed. Anathema stands.

“Are you all right?”

“Just jostled it a bit,” Newt says, trying and failing to sound casual, voice tight and face pale. He sits on the bed and holds a hand up to stave off Crowley. “Not yet.”

“You should keep it up,” Crowley reminds gently, but backs off. Anathema nods.

“I can sort him out when he’s ready. Thanks.”

Crowley and Aziraphale take their leave, closing the door behind them before going back downstairs, to sit with Tracy by the fireplace in the front room.

“Still keeping watch?” Crowley asks, sitting on the sofa. Tracy glances from Aziraphale to Crowley. Aziraphale shakes his head; he hadn’t updated Crowley on the crashed drone.

“Had a bit of a run-in with mother nature.” She gives a short sigh. “He wasn’t quite halfway up, got blown into the trees. Pity, too, seeing as he’d cleared the bit of road with the worst drifts.”

Crowley makes a face. “Too far to walk to grab it?”

Tracy shudders, nodding out the window. “I wouldn’t walk off the top of this hill for fear of not finding my way back. It’s whiteout conditions, and you wouldn’t want to risk sliding into the creek down near the bottom, and good luck seeing it until you’ve stepped in it.”

Crowley sighs, leaning back against the armchair, eyes closed. “Can’t believe I didn’t pack anything,” he mutters.

“Is he very badly off?” Aziraphale asks, then flushes, because he’s seen Newt for himself, knows this isn’t a picnic for him.

Crowley rubs the bridge of his nose. “I mean, a broken ankle, in these conditions, isn’t exactly life-threatening, but he’s going to end up getting a concussion the next time he faints from the pain. She wasn’t kidding when she said his pain tolerance was non-existent.”

“Ice and a tensor bandage only go so far,” Tracy guesses sympathetically, and Crowley nods.

“Yep.” He’s tense, mouth pulled down in a frown. It strikes Aziraphale then, what kind of a nurse he must be, to have this level of compassion for a near-stranger, to be so obviously bothered by his inability to help more. He has a shameful moment where he’s jealous; of Newt, stupidly, being the focus of Crowley’s care and attention, capturing his thoughts.

Get over yourself, Aziraphale scolds himself mentally.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” he asks. Crowley sighs and shrugs.

“Can you pull painkillers from the ether?” He gives Aziraphale a small smile and pat on the back. “I’m off for a nap.” He bobs his head at Tracy and disappears up the stairs.

“I’m going to play with some recipes in the kitchen, see if I can’t spice up dinner tonight,” Tracy says, getting to her feet. “I could always use some company.”

Aziraphale tears his gaze away from Crowley’s last steps up the staircase. “Hmm? Oh, no, I think I may lie down myself, unless you need help…?”

Tracy shakes her head. “You go on, love, you’ve been a great help today.”

Aziraphale mentally scoffs, but just smiles at her as she sweeps past him on her way to the kitchen. The inn is quiet, only the crackle of the fire interrupting the howling wind outside. He feels restless, trapped, too many days stuck in one place. It’s different when he’s at home, happily sequestering himself away by choice, when he spends four or five days inside and turns his nose up at the outside world.

And to be trapped with others, when his uselessness is most obvious! It’s mortifying. He’s a writer, not a rugged mountain man out to conquer nature and save the settlement. He can’t chop wood, can’t hunt and trap animals if the situation becomes dire. It’s embarrassing, being the most useless one in the inn. Oh, but he’d made sandwiches, yes, he’s a real hero.

Aziraphale has always been a sucker for punishment, especially when he’s wallowing as he is now; true to form, he fishes his phone from his pocket and reads over Gabriel’s last message again.

You’re a selfish bastard you know that? You never appreciated anything Dad did for you your whole life, and now you can’t even be bothered to say goodbye. I hope you enjoy your solitude in London, because as far as I’m concerned, that’s all you deserve.
I don’t want to hear from you again.

As before, a sick feeling washes over Aziraphale, starting at the back of his neck and spreading, a chill down his back. His fingers are clammy, numb, unresponsive; he’s always overreacted, always been too emotional, and his body is eager to help, making his fingers tremble and his lungs feel as if they’re working at half capacity. Aziraphale has never had the stomach for confrontation; he’s always been one to sit down and keep his mouth shut whenever someone has him in their sights. Arguments with Gabriel or their father have never been more than one of them snapping about something and Aziraphale nodding, hoping supposed acquiescence will quell the tide. He really can’t abide shouting.

And look at you now, he thinks furiously to himself. As gutless as ever.

Aziraphale stands, leaving his phone on the arm of the chair, the tempest inside of him competing with the wild winds outside. He’s trapped, in the inn, and as himself. The same old Aziraphale as always, year after year. Happy with who he is, until he stops to think about it. He wants to be more, but for him, he needs someone else for that. He’ll not find the meaning of his life on his own.

He allows himself one wistful thought of Crowley being that someone. Crowley is someone Aziraphale can imagine fitting in his life, but that’s only because Crowley is the most recent person he’s imagined doing so. He’s always had the ability to squint at his current partner and see their lives together, extrapolating significance from minor events and applying that to the bigger picture. Once a writer, always a writer, he supposes.

Rapid footsteps rouse him from his thoughts. He looks up to the second floor, watches Anathema knock on Crowley’s door, hears snatches of worried voices once Crowley answers, and then the two of them rush back to Anathema’s room. Tracy is busy in the kitchen and Shadwell is likely doing something manfully while insulting every tool he owns.

And Aziraphale is standing in the front room, doing nothing, being…

Selfish. The word from Gabriel’s text whispers in his mind. Selfish. He does put himself first, doesn’t he? As if he’s some man-about-town who deserves early consideration. He could’ve visited his father more often, could have tried to have proper conversations with Gabriel. He could have tried to make a proper go of it with the family he has left, now down by one. He doesn’t want to imagine what his mother would say if she were alive still.

“Selfish,” Aziraphale mutters to himself, grabbing up his phone and shoving it angrily in his pocket. He’s stuck in his head now, arguing with Gabriel mentally, an old technique to let him vent without irrevocably damaging his relationship with his brother. What does Gabriel know anyway? When has he spent any time with Aziraphale since their childhood, when they last shared a home? Aziraphale didn’t even know who he was back then; he’s changed in ways he’d never imagined, most notably being open about his sexuality, and unapologetic about that openness. And if that is an aspect that makes him selfish, then so be it.

Crowley clatters down the stairs, and Aziraphale keeps out of sight as Crowley goes into the kitchen. He sighs to himself, thinks maybe he will retire to his room, see about straightening out his thoughts, perhaps have a drink to give them a really dramatic tint.

“…supposedly healing properties and anti-nausea,” Tracy is saying, leading Crowley out of the kitchen, clutching jars of what looks like dried herbs. They don’t notice Aziraphale tucked away in the corner of the front room, and soon the door upstairs opens and closes swiftly, but not swift enough to keep Aziraphale from hearing a pained cry.

Aziraphale all at once sees the solution to several problems.

 

It is cold outside, a sharp, stinging sensation that starts with his cheeks and spreads its chill over his forehead, icing the tip of his nose. The sun is out but it is muted, surrounded by threatening grey clouds. Aziraphale thinks it might not be so nasty outside if it weren’t for the wind, fierce and merciless, piercing right through his coat and jumper.

The snow is deeper in some places than others, but it always engulfs his boot with every step, sometimes deep enough to spill over the top and dribble down against his sock. It makes him curse every time, which does help settle some of his inner turmoil.

So, he didn’t go to his father’s burial. But he had tried, he had intended to go. That’s why he’s stuck here now, in an inn at the top of a hill, forcing himself on an unsuspecting chap, getting his feelings all over the place.

“Stupid, really,” he says out loud, just to feel his warm breath puff over his lips. He nears the lip of the hill and shrugs his coat higher, clasping the hood shut tight under his chin. “Screwing your way across the country, where are your priorities?”

Aziraphale stops, looking down at the village of Tadfield below, snow-covered and quiet, Christmas lights twinkling merrily throughout the town. He glances behind him, at the hulking inn set against the backdrop of the forest, and shivers against the wind, icy fingers sliding under his collar. He peers down the hill, trying to see if he can spot the silver birches where Adam thought the drone had been lost. The forest that borders the eastern side of the hill is tall and thick, climbing the side of the hill to grow unfettered beyond the inn. Silver birch trees interspersed with conifers, but there’s a clump of the birch that stands out starkly, almost at the bottom of the hill, scraggly tops a blur in the heavy grey of the sky. There.

Aziraphale starts his descent, and with the first step he’s blasted with an icy wind that makes his eyes water and the tears freeze. The road is buried, and he’s up to his knees in an instant. There’s ice underneath, making him slide and skid every other step. The hill he drove up three nights previous was winding but gradual, already with a dusting of snow but by no means treacherous. Now he’s seriously contemplating sitting on his bum and sliding down, were it not for the snow that is all-too eager to soak his pants. Aziraphale shifts to the left side of the hill, the same side that the forest grows along. The wind is harsh, blowing from the east, but it softens marginally when it has to first cut through the forest to get to him, instead of battering him about on a wide-open plain.

His toes have gone numb; no amount of wiggling does anything but let him feel how cold the insides of his boots are. Aziraphale tucks his gloved hands under his arms, rubbing up and down to help his fingers. They aren’t nearly as cold, undoubtedly a benefit of not being stuck in wet socks, but they’re still colder than Aziraphale would like, as he would like his fingers to not be cold at all. He quickly whips his arms out for balance when he trips over some unseen thing under the snow, and goes down in a heap, arms uselessly splayed out.

Aziraphale groans and sits up, knees aching from taking the brunt of his fall. He shivers, as snow skitters down the back of his coat, hood knocked off in the fall, and gets to his feet, pants clinging to his legs, cold and uncomfortable. He hobbles a few steps carefully, after furiously flipping off the pathetic scrub brush that had caught him up, lying in wait for him under the snow, and hopes there’s enough of the drugs for him to have one or two.

 

“It’s a good thing you started so early,” Aziraphale says, picking his way down the hill. He’s fallen three more times and his pants have gone stiff. He can’t feel his toes, his knees hurt, and his chin and nose are frozen. He is trying very hard to stay positive.

The sun is still out, though its been drifting over the forest as Aziraphale trudges his way down the hill. The copse of silver birch trees is just ahead, and, if there is a God, the drone will be, too.

“I wonder how big a drone is,” Aziraphale says, trying to distract himself from the frigid wind that has picked up, with less tree cover down closer to the bottom of the hill. He shivers in his coat and manages to avoid another fall as he comes level with the birch trees. There are maybe a dozen of them, white bark pale and smooth, and no drone. Any bit of colour on the snow is easy to see, even an acorn making an impression in the sea of white, and Aziraphale sees nothing.

He edges his way around the trees, keeping his eyes peeled for anything that looks like it flew here with the help of a child. He steps carefully, afraid of stepping on the drone and crushing it, turning the pills into powder to be soaked up by the snow. He feels his heart give a little gallop of relief when he circles the copse of trees and sees patches of snow tossed up, and, just barely visible, a black tip peeking out from the piled snow.

 

“Not quite from the ether, but I trust they’ll do,” Aziraphale says through chattering teeth, pushing the bottle into Crowley’s hands. He already passed off the drone with a warped wing to Tracy, and is drawn to the fire like a moth. His shivering is increasing tenfold, now that he feels the warmth of the fire, like his body is shaking with relief at not being in icy snow drifts anymore. Crowley doesn’t even acknowledge the medicine, an indecipherable look on his face

“Are you fucking insane?” Crowley demands, shoving the bottle at Tracy and grabbing Aziraphale by the arm. “D’you have any idea what kind of danger you put yourself in, wandering out there alone without telling anyone?”

He drags Aziraphale to the fireplace, pushing him into the armchair closest to the flames. “You need to get out of these clothes and in a hot bath.” He drapes a blanket around Aziraphale’s shoulders, asking after tea from Tracy.

Aziraphale’s feet and fingers are frigid, frozen stiff and making him afraid to bang them off a corner lest they snap off. His shivering has increased tenfold since he entered the inn, and the temptation to throw himself into the centre of the fire is growing.

“It was just a quick jaunt,” Aziraphale stutters through trembling lips. Lord, even his mouth is cold!

“A quick jaunt to an early grave,” Crowley snaps, and Aziraphale is lit from within, a familiar irritation stirring in his gut.

“You don’t know what you’re doing, Aziraphale,” Gabriel sighed, and pushed him out of the way.

“Let your brother do it, I don’t want to waste time,” Henry said, and steered Aziraphale out of Gabriel’s way.

“I’m not some helpless moron, you know,” Aziraphale says. “I was perfectly capable of walking down a hill, and besides, young Newt needed some relief—”

“Not at your expense!” Crowley says. Aziraphale stands, trying to look as dignified as he can wrapped in a heavy pink blanket.

“I don’t believe that’s for you to decide.” He looks at Tracy, coming from the kitchen with a tea tray that holds a pot, mug, and hot water bottle. “If you don’t mind, I’ll bring that to my room.” He feels a flash of anger when she first looks at Crowley, as though asking for permission.

“The fire’s out in there, but I can get Mr. Shadwell to build it back up if you give me a minute.” She sets the tray on one of the tables and smiles placatingly at him. “Why don’t you enjoy your tea down here and by the time you’re finished, your room will be nice and cozy for you?”

It’s a reasonable offer; his nose feels like it’s about to fall off and the warmth of the fire is intoxicating, urging him closer. Then he sees Crowley’s almost imperceptible nod, and the rage kindles anew.

“No, thank you,” he says stiffly, pulling the blanket from his shoulders and pushing it at Crowley. “I would rather have privacy.”

All that, he thinks miserably as he climbs the stairs to his room. He went out in the unforgiving winter landscape, put up with stinging ice pellets and soaked socks, all for the benefit of someone else, and while he never expected accolades, at least he could have been spared the humiliating dressing down.

“Treat me like a child,” Aziraphale mutters under his breath as he shuts his door firmly behind him. It’s freezing upstairs away from the fire, the room dark in the early winter night. Aziraphale stands in front of his fireplace shivering and glaring, the idea of crouching down to stack wood and light it sending tremors through his already exhausted frame.

But he refuses to go back downstairs to be coddled by Crowley, so he goes into his washroom and turns the taps on the bath, steaming hot with a trickle of cold so his skin doesn’t slough off when he gets in. He’s selfishly hoping Tracy will bring his tea to his room when there’s a knock on the door, and he answers in just his bath robe, praying for a quick interaction because he’s still so cold.

Crowley stands on the other side, brow pinched as he looks Aziraphale over head to toe. “You need to get your body temperature back up,” he says by way of greeting, inviting himself and his tea tray in.

“Make yourself at home,” Aziraphale mutters sarcastically as Crowley putters around the room, doing just that. Crowley gives Aziraphale a dark look.

“Why don’t you get in the tub before you lose any fingers or toes? I’ll get the fire going.”

“No, thank you,” Aziraphale says firmly. “I’ll get it on my own.”

Crowley shakes his head and crouches in front of the fireplace, sifting the ash flat before setting a silver foil packet of fire starter on top then reaching for kindling.

“Just get in the bath.”

Dismissive; he’s so dismissive, not even looking as he orders Aziraphale about, so sure that Aziraphale will do as he’s told, like he knows how spineless Aziraphale is, has always been, and it’s too similar to his childhood that Aziraphale sees red.

“I don’t need your help!” Aziraphale snaps. “I may not have done it your way, rappelling down a mountain from a helicopter or something, but it’s done, and I, as an adult, made my own choice and I will suffer the consequences.”

He strides to the door, hands shaking as he tugs it open and glares at Crowley. “Now, kindly get the fuck out of my room.”

Crowley’s head whips around and he stands, staring at Aziraphale, mouth slightly agape. “Hang on,” he says, raising a hand placatingly, but the dam had burst with the utterance of fuck, and Aziraphale is helpless in the deluge.

“No, you think I’m a bumbling, helpless crackpot who couldn’t find his way out of a paper bag!” The distinction between Crowley and his father, his brother, is getting hard to see. All he can focus on is being found lesser, lacking, a familiar hurt that rears its head as rage.

“I don’t think that at all,” Crowley says, brow furrowed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“I don’t need to hear it in so many words to know what you think,” Aziraphale says. “I’ve always been rather good at filling in the blanks.”

“Seem to be a deft hand at putting words in other people’s mouths, too,” Crowley says, hackles raised. Aziraphale bristles.

“Then why don’t you remove yourself from the situation and resume speaking for yourself!”

“Fine!” Crowley snaps, tossing the lighter onto the coffee table. “Dunno what I was worried about in the first place.”

“Well, when it occurs to me, I’ll be sure to tell you,” Aziraphale says snippily. Crowley pulls a face at him as he walks past, and Aziraphale shuts the door firmly behind him.

“Arsehole,” Aziraphale mutters, and turns to go into the washroom, thoroughly miserable as hindsight creeps up on him like the hot water up his chest as he sinks into the tub. He’d just had to go and project messily all over Crowley, when the poor man had just been trying to help.

Aziraphale shivers at the thought of going back out to the room with the fireplace still cold and dark, adds more hot water and hunches into himself until only the tops of his knees and head are above water. The tips of his fingers and toes sting as they sit in the hot water. His shivering is coaxed to a stop, his aching muscles relaxing as he soaks. He closes his eyes and tips his head back, glad with all of his being for having made it off that dreadful hill.

Aziraphale sits up suddenly, head heavy and eyes half-open. Had he fallen asleep in the bath? It feels like he’d just blinked but the light outside of the small, high window in the bathroom shows night has set in, rather than the lilting twilight he’d entered the bath under. He swirls his arms; the water is tepid, and he forces himself to pull the plug and wrap himself in his robe rather than give into temptation and change out the water and resume his listless soak. What else has he got to do in this godforsaken inn? The thought of being here another day, two days, is vastly unappealing.

Aziraphale gives himself a shake, stares blearily at his reflection in the round mirror, and decides getting drunk is the best way to end off the day. He tugs open the bathroom door and stops short when he sees the roaring fire, his face already warm from the ensuing heat.

Crowley is setting something on a cushion near the fire, nearly pressed up against the screen, then he straightens and turns, facing Aziraphale, mouth a flat line.

“Don’t worry, I’m going,” he says, “and I’m not going to apologize for coming back inside even after you kicked me out because you need a warm room to come out to.”

Crowley makes to move past Aziraphale, taking care to step wide enough that their shoulder don’t brush as he walks to the door, when Aziraphale speaks.

“A caregiver above all else,” he says, only half to himself. Crowley stops, turns back and Aziraphale faces him.

“What, you think because we fought, I’m not going to give a shit about your health?” He looks as irritated as he did when he’d first said I’m a nurse and thought Aziraphale didn’t believe him.

“No,” Aziraphale says, “it doesn’t surprise me at all that you’d still think about my wellbeing.”

Crowley doesn’t like the tension between them any more than he does; Aziraphale can see it in the faint look of hope that manifests when Crowley isn’t snapped at or thrown out again. He wants this resolved as much as Aziraphale does.

“Always,” Crowley says, taking a step closer. He nods at the fireplace. “Your pajamas are warming up by the fire.”

“Thank you, Crowley,” Aziraphale says, and is flooded with relief when Crowley smiles at him, just a bit. Aziraphale retrieves his pajamas, sticking his hands between the fire-warm folds and looking over his shoulder at Crowley, whose turned his back respectfully and stands halfway to the door and to Aziraphale, as though waiting for something; a hint, perhaps, as to which way he should linger.

Aziraphale dresses quickly, shivering even with the fire crackling away in front of him when his skin is bared in increments, only for seconds, but it seems his body is easily able to recall the frigid winter weather that had so trounced him. He pulls on his wool socks and settles on one end of the small couch in front of the fireplace.

“Crowley,” he calls. Crowley turns instantly, sees the edge of the blanket Aziraphale is holding up in invitation, and crosses over without hesitation, pressing against Aziraphale and making sure the blanket kept out even the slightest idea of a draft.

Aziraphale is tired. His body hurts in weird places, and when he closes his eyes, he sees an endless sprawl of white. His heart hurts, from the turmoil that’s enveloped him since Gabriel called with news of Henry’s passing. He’s wrung out, but this man sitting next to him, Anthony J. Crowley, deserves the last of Aziraphale’s energy.

“I’m sorry for what I said to you,” Aziraphale says, watching the flames steadily. He sees Crowley look at him but keeps looking forward. “I didn’t mean any of it, and it was unfair of me to dump that on you.”

“Thank you,” Crowley says. “I don’t think anything like that, you know.”

“I know,” Aziraphale sighs. “I just…the last few days have had me on edge, and I’ve been stuck in my head a bit, I’m afraid. Rather took it out on you.”

Crowley shrugs. “Everybody has hard times. Doesn’t make them bad people.” He’s holding Aziraphale’s hand under the blanket, and gives it a light squeeze. “This have to do with seeing your family?”

Aziraphale wrinkles his nose and Crowley huffs.

“Figured as much. Talk about it?”

Aziraphale is tired. His body hurts in weird places, and when he closes his eyes, he sees an endless sprawl of white. His heart hurts. He’s wrung out, but in the face of Crowley’s offer, it suddenly doesn’t seem insurmountable. It may help, to relieve himself of some of his burden. But how to begin?

“My father died,” Aziraphale says, and he has to stop and swallow hard, blink harder, because that’s the first time he’s said that out loud. He feels Crowley shift beside him, worries he’ll lose it at physical comfort and hurries on, to erase the remnants of his last words.

“I didn’t know he was sick. No one told me,” Aziraphale says. “Oh, I didn’t call, either, and really, I should have made more of an effort, instead of just assuming an 86-year old man would be fine eternally, but I just get so caught up in my life, and writing, and it’s not fair to expect someone else to reach out all the time—”

His vision’s gone completely blurry by this point, tears streaming freely as he parrots Gabriel’s hateful words, right after he’d so coldly informed Aziraphale that Henry was dead. It hurts because Gabriel was right, but even accepting that doesn’t change anything. Aziraphale can’t bargain his way out of the reality where his father died and no one told him for two days.

Crowley’s got an arm around Aziraphale, and has pulled him flush against his side, rubbing his arm.

“That’s sick, that really is,” he says, voice low. “Your brother sounds like an evil prick.”

“But he’s right,” Aziraphale sobs. “I only ever think of myself, I moved away from home, I left my father, I focused on my life—”

“You’re meant to,” Crowley says firmly. “You’re the only one providing for your future, right? You have to put yourself first.”

Aziraphale pulls free to bury his face in his hands, feeling utterly wretched. He manages to settle, and takes his handkerchief from his pocket to dry his eyes.

“The worst part is I don’t even care,” he admits lowly. “I haven’t had anything but an antagonistic relationship with my father since I was a boy. I… I was really only going to shut my brother up.” Aziraphale sighs and dabs at his eyes again. “I’m sorry about that,” he tells Crowley once he’s sure his voice isn’t shaking.

“Don’t be.”

Aziraphale huffs, twisting his handkerchief between his fingers. “I can’t imagine you’d want to spend time with a, a blubbering excuse of a man.”

“Been doing a lot of things I don’t normally do these last few days,” Crowley says.

Aziraphale winces. Tell me you don’t fuck old fat guys without telling me, he thinks meanly.

“What?” Crowley asks.

Aziraphale looks at him, sees Crowley frowning. “What what?”

“The face,” Crowley says. “The one you made, what’s that about?”

“What face?”

“The—” Crowley imitates him, badly. “Like you were about to spew on my boots.”

Aziraphale wrinkles his nose. “I would do no such thing.”

Crowley won’t be deterred. “You do it a lot, think mostly when you think no one’s looking.”

Aziraphale frowns a bit, and shakes his head. “I don’t—”

“Think I recognize it,” Crowley adds. “Looks awful familiar.”

“What does?” Aziraphale asks. Crowley looks at him steadily.

“Self-loathing.”

“…ah,” Aziraphale says, feeling awkward. It seems a bit personal, such an observation. But then, really, what interaction of his with Crowley hasn’t been personal to date?

“I know how hard it can be to tune out the mean voice in your head,” Crowley says. “You’re stuck with it all the time, yeah? You drop something and it says you moron. Turn left instead of right and it tells you how goddamn useless you are. Bit of a mess builds up in your home and you’re a lazy idiot who will never amount to anything.

“The trick is,” Crowley goes on, over Aziraphale’s silent and steady look, “pretend it’s someone you hate saying those things to you. Someone you think is a real wanker, someone you would love to tell to fuck themselves with a kumquat.”

Aziraphale blinks. “A kumquat? Not an eggplant or something?”

“You want it to be as uncomfortable as possible,” Crowley replies with a grin. “Nothing worse than a kumquat.”

“You speak from experience, I gather,” Aziraphale says. Crowley’s ears go red before he squawks a protest.

“No, it’s just science!” he says, refusing to meet Aziraphale’s eye. After a moment he gives Aziraphale an exaggerated side-eye. Aziraphale feels his lips twitch at the look. Crowley bulges his eye out, making Aziraphale snicker, then Crowley laughs, and they lose themselves in the hilarity.

“Go on,” Crowley encourages once he’s finished snort-giggling (and it should be unattractive, on anyone else it would be, but oh, Aziraphale finds it hopelessly endearing). “Someone you hate.”

Aziraphale sighs and thinks, an incident from his childhood almost immediately popping to the forefront of his mind. He looks at Crowley.

“Understand that this isn’t hatred, as I really don’t think there is anyone I genuinely hate—”

“Right angel you are,” Crowley mutters.

“—but Elton John would never find himself on my Christmas card list,” Aziraphale finishes. Crowley raises a brow.

“What did Elton John do to you?”

“Well, he— and understand, this is from my childhood— but he never answered my letter,” Aziraphale says. It sounds trite, but at the time, some thirty-odd years ago, it had been his single biggest disappointment. Crowley clucks his tongue.

“Rude,” he decides. “So, the next time that little voice is getting you down on yourself, what’re you going to say?”

Aziraphale frowns. “I don’t really talk to it—”

“Fuck you, Elton!” Crowley cries, startling Aziraphale, who manages a weak nod and fist punch.

“Yes, quite so.”

Crowley shakes his head. “I wanna hear it from you.”

“Um,” Aziraphale says, and clears his throat, “fuck you, Elton.”

Crowley gives him a flat look. “Yeah, I really felt the verve in that. Look, it’s not about being loud.” He shuffles closer, gives Aziraphale the same sort of look he’d done the nights previous. “It’s about…passion.”

Aziraphale shivers under the look. Crowley notices and grins.

“So how would you verbally wreck Mr. Elton John, hm? When he says you’re lesser, when he says you aren’t worth it, when he says you’ll never be good enough—”

“Fuck you, Reginald!” Aziraphale cries, and Crowley whoops.

“That’s it!” he encourages. “And if he says—"

There’s a knock at the door, short and sharp. Aziraphale flushes as he belatedly realizes just how loud he’s actually been. He answers the door, Crowley curious behind him.

“Hi, I’m in no way kink-shaming, just kink-asking why you’re being so goddamn loud at midnight.” Anathema is dressed in sweatpants and a slouchy black sweater, and looks ready to eviscerate someone.

Aziraphale and Crowley share a glance.

“Therapy?” Crowley offers.

Anathema grunts. “Try alcohol like the rest of us.” She shuffles back down the hall, Crowley and Aziraphale muffling giggling snorts behind their hands as they shut the door, quietly, and go to sit together on the bed.

“Can I be honest?” Crowley asks. Aziraphale nods.

“Of course.”

“When you went to find the medicine, and I realized you were gone, I was worried,” Crowley says. “I was worried, and I didn’t know if I had any right to be.”

“Well, you didn’t know where I was, and nobody on holiday wants to have to deal with a missing, likely dead fellow,” Aziraphale offers, but Crowley shakes his head.

“I worried about you like I would about a partner.” Crowley suddenly seems to find great interest in a hangnail on his left thumb. When Aziraphale doesn’t say anything he grits out, “I didn’t feel like I had the right.”

He faces Aziraphale, swallowing hard. “I know all we’ve done is slept together a few times but…it could be more.” He straightens his shoulders. “I want it to be more.”

Aziraphale worries his lip between his teeth. “I do too, but I’m just not sure what my wife would think.”

The look on Crowley’s face is one Aziraphale wishes he could immortalize. Aziraphale manages to look properly worried for only a scant few seconds more before his lips twitch. Crowley notices and he gives Aziraphale an open-mouthed look of shocked outrage.

“You absolute bastard!” he cries, but there’s a gleam in his eye that speaks of his appreciation for a good joke, a gleam Aziraphale sees until he’s suddenly thrown on his back, wild red hair in his face as Crowley leeches onto him.

“It’s something you’re going to have to get used to,” Aziraphale says through a mouthful of hair, “because that’s who I am and I don’t fancy changing for anyone.”

Crowley waves a hand dismissively. “Come as you are, that’s the only you I’d like.”

Easy words said with no thought to an underlying meaning. Aziraphale is tired. He’s hurting in weird places, and he’s wrung out. Right now what the man sitting next to him deserves is a pliant and quiet bed partner. Aziraphale closes his eyes as Crowley lays an arm over him and snuffles against his neck, happily surrendering to the exhaustion that pulls at him.

 

Aziraphale wakes up to a gentle dabbing at his neck. He blinks his eyes open, and stares up at Crowley, frozen above him with a guilty look on his face.

“What is it?” Aziraphale asks, looking at the small towel Crowley holds.

“Nothing,” Crowley says quickly, then sighs. “I was just cleaning some drool off your neck. Sorry.”

“My dear,” Aziraphale says, waiting for Crowley to look at him, “your drool is hardly the most scandalous thing you’ve dripped on me these last few days.”

Crowley laughs and kisses him, before Aziraphale can raise any half-hearted protests about morning breath.

“I was down the hall already, to check on Newt,” Crowley says when he pulls back. “He said he slept an entire seven hours without waking because he jolted in his sleep.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale says with a smile, “that’s wonderful, I’m glad he was able to get some relief.”

“Thanks to you,” Crowley says, giving him a nudge. Aziraphale waves it off.

“Either way. Have you seen Tracy yet?”

Crowley shakes his head. “Was about to wake you up when I saw the, er, wet spot.”

Aziraphale pushes the quilt off and shuffles to the side of the bed, stepping into his slippers. He’d rather cowardly gone to sleep instead of addressing Crowley’s declaration last night, about wanting to…what? Pursue a relationship? With Aziraphale? Watching Crowley, Aziraphale can tell the same is on his mind, in how quickly the other moves about the room, chattering away.

“Crowley,” he says, reveling in the rush of fondness that fills him watching Crowley still, all his focus redirected onto Aziraphale.

“Yeah?”

“I do, too,” Aziraphale says and, to his credit, Crowley doesn’t pretend to not know what Aziraphale means. He looks at Aziraphale intently.

“Yeah?” he says again, and Aziraphale nods.

“Yes, very much so.”

“Well,” Crowley says, and falters.

“It has been some time for me,” Aziraphale goes on, “since a relationship and all, I mean. I may take some time to—”

He stops when Crowley puts a gentle finger to his lips. “No caveats,” he says, “just us.”

Aziraphale feels warm all over at the look in Crowley’s eye. “Just us,” he agrees. Crowley smiles.

“And your wife,” he adds with a grin, and Aziraphale laughs until he can’t anymore, Crowley pressed up against him.

 

They go downstairs for a late breakfast, holding hands as they enter the dining area. Tracy and Shadwell are playing cards at a table, and she looks up with a smile when they approach.

“Good morning comes with good news, loveys,” she says. “The village streets are being plowed as we speak, and then us.” She sets her cards down and stands. “What are you two in the mood for? I’ve got some leftover waffle mix if you like, I can just turn the press back on.”

“Let me give you a hand,” Crowley says, giving Aziraphale a quick kiss on the cheek before sweeping past Tracy towards the kitchen. She gives Aziraphale an exaggerated wink and follows Crowley, leaving Aziraphale alone with the ever-glowering Shadwell.

The man stands and stops in front of Aziraphale, eyeing him up and down. “Wouldn’t have expected it of ya,” Shadwell grumbles, and then nods at Aziraphale, clapping his shoulder before stomping past to some unknown destination.

“That’s just because he doesn’t know you,” Anathema says, startling Aziraphale badly. She stands beside him, appearing out of nowhere, chewing her way through an enormous waffle. She quirks a brow at Aziraphale standing with his hand on his heart.

“Yeah, I wasn’t surprised at all when they said what you did for me,” comes Newt’s voice, muffled and in the direction of Anathema’s pocket. She takes another bite of waffle then holds a finger up as she digs around in her pocket, pulling out her phone triumphantly.

Newt peers at Aziraphale from the screen, grinning when they make eye contact. “Thanks a lot, Mr. Fell, you really saved my life.”

“Oh, please, it’s Aziraphale, and really, I just went for a walk—”

“Yeah, down a treacherous hill in the middle of a blizzard,” Anathema says.

Aziraphale shakes his head. “It was hardly snowing—”

“With whiteout conditions and rabid wolves,” Anathema says loudly over him. She pokes him in the chest with one bony finger. “Hero.”

Aziraphale rubs his chest. “What are your plans for after this? Once we’re clear, I mean. You missed the celebration at Stonehenge, did you not?”

Anathema nods and shrugs. “Once Newt gets patched up, we’ll just take a scenic trip home. There are other solstices.” She smiles at Aziraphale. “And I’m sure one day, this will all be hilarious.”

Tracy and Crowley come back out bearing a plate each, Crowley walking over to set the plate down at the table nearest Aziraphale. He pulls the chair out for Aziraphale, smiling as he gives a little bow.

Aziraphale sits with Crowley next to him, Anathema and Tracy across from them with Newt propped up against the creamer. The unsettled, nauseous feeling that’s made its home in his gut over the last few days has withered away to nothing, pushed out by the constant happiness that fills him whenever Crowley laughs or Anathema cracks a joke.

These are the sort of people he should surround himself with, people who look at him and see Aziraphale, flaws and all, and don’t think he needs to update or improve himself. For the first time in a long time, Aziraphale doesn’t feel like he’s observed and found lacking. It’s a heady realization, considering how this trip had played out in his mind once Gabriel first called.

Gabriel will have to be confronted at some point, Aziraphale knows, but the thought doesn’t fill him with the same dread it would have done even a week ago. He’s got someone in his corner now. He looks at Crowley, engaged in some kind of picture taking competition with Newt and doesn’t stop himself from reaching out to take his hand. Crowley squeezes back before looking at Aziraphale, a silent question in the uptick of his brow.

Aziraphale smiles and Crowley grins, and Aziraphale thinks if he has days ahead of him filled with that grin, that laugh, that rakish hair, well. The future can’t come fast enough.

Notes:

This is one I really wanted to finish, after starting the damn thing in December. I had a lot of fun with it and for once, I don't feel like I rushed the ending. Let me know what you thought!