Chapter Text
There's a curious thing that happens when you enter your old hometown. The years seem to melt away, time clenches its fist, and you can almost feel your younger self stir in its weighty fingers. Or so Aziraphale feels on the slow, quiet train journey through the idyllic countryside, back to Tadfield again.
The miles slip away in blurs of rolling green hills and blue skies and reawakening pain.
But he won't dwell on that, won't allow himself to dwell on that. He's going to put on a smile, read his paper, and try to look on the bright side.
The bright side is that he's coming back, back to the quaint little village where he grew up, back to his beloved childhood home, and back to his family, after so many years of lonely holidays and long nights and wondering, despite himself, how they're all getting on without him.
He's being welcomed into the fold after fifteen years away. And, as he's got no other fold to be welcomed into, he's willing to put the past aside. Or try to, anyway.
Alright, so his stomach is clenching and unclenching in anticipation, and he hasn't really read a word of the newspaper he's crinkling in an iron grip, but that doesn't mean anything. He'll have plenty of time to get his feelings in order in the three days before the family retreat and wedding. That's why he's come early, he reminds himself, because he'd suspected this would happen. Besides, he has a mind to visit his old haunts. A few days of reacclimating to Tadfield should be more than enough to prepare him to see his family again.
He's booked a hotel a town away. Somehow, he can't face the idea of spending an unnecessary night in Tadfield proper, but the tiny village a few miles over had seemed, in his safe London flat, like an appropriate enough distance.
The train arrives just after sunset. Aziraphale collects his luggage and steps out into the village.
It really is tiny. City life has unaccustomed Aziraphale to the lack of people, the lack of restaurant options, and the stars beginning to show in the darkening sky. There is one main street, one café, and one pub. The pub happens to be right next door to the only hotel in town.
"Perfect," Aziraphale thinks. A pub is just what he needs at the moment, and maybe a bite of something.
He strolls down the quiet street, checks in to the quiet hotel, and deposits his luggage in a quietly cozy hotel room. Then, he's off to the pub, and what a relief that is.
It's just as unfamiliar as the rest of the village. A few people mill around the bar, chatting and drinking in little groups, but it's nothing like the boisterous place he sometimes frequents at home when he forces himself out of the house. Even the music is older, playing lowly in the background.
He takes a seat in a far corner and peruses the grubby, tattered menu.
"Shepherd's pie," he thinks, "That sounds good enough."
Just then, the bartender comes up. Aziraphale is prepared to give his order when he happens to look up and catch the man's eye.
The man's golden eye.
Aziraphale's mind goes blank. He drops the menu. He forgets whatever foolish thing he was going to say. All he can do is stare, speechless.
The man is staring back, a look of pure, stunned bewilderment on his face.
Aziraphale is the one who breaks the silence that stretches like a taut rope between them.
"Well, I'm back."
"Aziraphale?" The word comes out in one quivering breath.
Aziraphale would know the voice that matched those eyes anywhere, has dreamed of it often enough, even after all this time.
"Crowley?"
"What are you doing here?" The question isn't hostile, isn't angry, just confused.
"A long story, that. I might ask you the same."
"A long story."
"Touché. Do you-do you have a moment," Aziraphale hazards
Crowley's eyes have not left Aziraphale's face. He looks like he's seen a ghost. Perhaps he has, in a way.
"Shift's over in an hour. Give me till then?"
As if Aziraphale could dream of doing anything else.
"I'll be here," he says faintly.
Crowley nods, turns toward another patron calling for him, pauses. "It's good to see you, angel:" he says, and his voice is rife with sincerity.
Aziraphale gives him a wan sort of smile. "And you, my dear Crowley."
Aziraphale doesn't even mind that Crowley has completely forgotten to take his order.
An hour flies by quicker than Aziraphale expects. He sits nervously on the edge of his stool and watches Crowley pour out drink after drink. He can't seem to take his eyes off him, riveted to his every movement.
The feeling is apparently mutual. Crowley does not smile. He does not make small talk with the drinkers. He wanders around as if in a daze and whenever he gets a spare moment, his eyes fall right back on Aziraphale.
Aziraphale tries to smile, tries to reassure him. "I'll still be here when you've finished," over the gentle murmur of voices, wonders if Crowley can still read him well enough to understand.
Then, the time's up and Crowley is sliding onto the stool across from him and he's brought Aziraphale's favorite drink and suddenly their face to face with nothing but the bar and the years between them.
"So," says Crowley.
"So, indeed," says Aziraphale.
"Alcohol?"
"Alcohol."
* * *
"Let me get this straight," says Crowley, gesturing wildly with his glass, sloshing a bit of his drink over the side in his consternation, "You're telling me Gabriel's finally found somebody he loves more than himself?"
"Crowley, don't," Aziraphale says, sipping daintily at his second or third (he's rather lost count) drink. They've been talking and drinking steadily for the past two hours or so.
"It's true and you know it."
Aziraphale can't deny it, not now, now that he's buzzing, on the edge of tipsy. "Apparently so. It shocked me as much as you, I can tell you that."
"I still can't believe he's found anyone who'll have him, with that stupidly smug face he's got."
"Crowley, that's-that's…"
"True?"
"I was going to say horrible but…"
Crowley grins. "But true?"
Aziraphale can't help it. He giggles into his glass. "I shan't say either way."
"And he has the nerve to ask you to the wedding? After everything he…" the amusement drains out of Crowley's face, to be replaced by anger.
Aziraphale pats his hand before he thinks better of it. "Never you worry. I've forgiven him."
"Forgiven! Forgiven! There's no forgiveness, angel. Not for what he's done. Never. Why?"
Aziraphale shakes his head. Even he doesn't really know, if he's honest with himself. "He apologized," he says simply.
"I don't care if he wept and begged for mercy. I would have told him just where he could stick it," Crowley says, voice bitter with resentment.
"Crowley!"
"Well, I would. And you should, too. It's not too late."
"It is. As I was saying, that's why I'm here. A weeklong family retreat in the old house and then the wedding after."
"And what a joy that will be, I'm sure."
"I have to hope, Crowley. I have to hope he really is sorry. They're the only family I've got."
Crowley takes another swig of his drink. "You said he apologized?"
Aziraphale blushes. "Well, not exactly in those words."
"What exactly did he say, then?"
Aziraphale's blush deepens. Out of all the people in the world he could have ran in to, he's gone and found the one person from his youth he most hoped and dreaded to see, the one person who knows him enough to know how much this hurts.
"He er he…" Aziraphale can't believe he's face to face with the subject of he and his brother's very stilted, very awkward conversation. "He said-said Icouldbringmyhusband if I wanted."
"He said what?"
No alcohol in the world is enough to quell the rush of anxiety and embarrassment flooding through Aziraphale's bloodstream. "He said-he said I could bring my-erm-my husband. I-I suppose I took that as an apology, of sorts."
Crowley drains his glass in one mighty gulp. His face goes rather red. "Your-your husband?" He looks wildly around, like he suspects anyone in the pub could be Aziraphale's potential husband or he's expecting a strange man to come waltzing up to their table at any moment with a ring on his finger. "I don't see a husband. Where is he? Did you leave him back at the hotel? Is he late? Has he left you? Is he a nightmare to bring to social gatherings? Because if he's late or left or something, he isn't worth a…"
"I'm afraid that's the problem, rather," Aziraphale says, stopping Crowley short.
"What do you mean?"
Aziraphale wants to crawl out of his skin. He wants to run out the door. He's terribly afraid he's on the verge of hysterics. "I uh I don't have one. A husband, that is."
"Oh." Is that a flash of relief flickering across Crowley's face? No, it can't be. Not after all this time.
"Only, my dear brother seems to think I do."
"Oh."
Aziraphale feels he's not impressing upon Crowley just how uncomfortable their present predicament is.
"He-he seems to think it's-it's you."
"Who? What?" Crowley splutters.
"My husband," Aziraphale says slowly and carefully, "My brother seems to think it's you."
"Oh."
They sit in silence for a while, drinking their respective drinks, avoiding each other's eye.
"And what did you say to that?"
"Well, nothing, actually. I never got the chance to correct him as he hung up the phone straight away. So, I suspect he'll be expecting me to bring someone along."
"To bring you along," Aziraphale corrects in his mind, but he can't say it aloud. The air is too thick with tension already.
"I could have been, once," Crowley says, taking Aziraphale fully off-guard. Crowley's choosing to stare into the bottom of his empty glass. Aziraphale is choosing to stare at Crowley.
It's true enough. Fifteen years ago, a lifetime, an eternity. Aziraphale feels his eyes begin to mist, is glad Crowley's not looking at him.
"That you could have been," Aziraphale says softly. He clears his throat. "Or… my brother seems to think so, at any rate. Well, he thinks you already are."
"Your brother. I have things to say about your brother," Crowley practically hisses.
Aziraphale knows the venom in his voice, has felt it himself, once or a thousand times. But venom never breeds anything but misfortune, especially for them. It isn't worth their effort.
Gently, he places his hand atop Crowley's. "Don't worry about him…"
Crowley glares but does not move his hand away. "M not. M worried about you, angel. I don't like the idea of you going back into that den of vipers alone."
"I'll be perfectly alright, Crowley," Aziraphale says, "I'll just tell them my darling husband is so very sorry, but he couldn't make it."
"You'd lie?"
Aziraphale blushes. Again. "It wouldn't be a lie, not a real one. Nonexistent husbands can't make family events. Technically true."
"Only by a technicality."
"I live and die by technicalities, my dear."
Crowley laughs.
Aziraphale aches. It's been fifteen years since he's heard Crowley laugh, fifteen years since he's heard Crowley do anything at all. It tears at a wound in his chest he'd thought long healed over.
"That you do."
They fall quiet again.
"What if," says Crowley hesitantly, still refusing to meet Aziraphale's eyes. Aziraphale knows him when he gets like this. He's about to be vulnerable and doesn't want Aziraphale to draw attention to it. "What if you didn't have to lie?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"I mean, they already think it anyway. What if we just… let them go on thinking it."
"Think what, Crowley?"
Crowley says something so rapidly that Aziraphale can't make it out.
"You'll have to slow down, dear. Now, what were you saying?"
"What if I really was your husband. Could be nice. We could catch up. And you wouldn't have to go it alone."
"You'd marry me for just one week?"
"Well, it doesn't have to be legally binding."
"But wouldn't that be a lie?"
"Oh, no. You never lie, angel. It would just be a technicality."
They exchange a smile.
"Oh, Crowley. I could never ask that of you."
"You're not asking. I'm offering."
"Why? Why would you do this? For me?"
Crowley gazes at him for a long moment with an unreadable expression. "You know, if you think about it, you're really doing me a favor."
"I am?"
"Sure you are. See, if you don't agree I'll drive myself mad worrying what those bastards are saying to you. This way, I'll know, and instead of worrying, I can be properly angry."
"So I won't look the fool in front of my family and you…?"
"Can watch your back, just in case. Come on, angel. I know your family. How they are. I'd make a good fake husband. Just what they always wanted for you, eh?"
"I'm quite sure they never wanted any sort of husband, good or bad, for me."
"Well then, the bar is already in hell. Can't get much worse. And at least you'll be wedd, good and proper."
"Crowley!"
"I'm serious."
"And you think we could fool them?"
"Why not? We have the credentials."
It's the second time Crowley has referenced it, their brief—union and Aziraphale doesn't know how to feel about it. On one hand, Aziraphale would be lying if he says he hasn't thought about it, shed tears over it, even fantasized about it a few, daring times. But on the other, there's a plethora of good reasons why he hasn't come back to Tadfield or the surrounding area, and near top of that list is Crowley, is the old shame and humiliation and sorrow that comes with even the thought of him, that's returning now, here in this dingy pub.
He'd thought he'd conquered that old war within himself. He's much more open than he used to be, much more free. He even puts up a flag on his window in June, now, and once, he went into a bookshop and sifted through the LGBT romance section.
But it's different, seeing Crowley as he is now. Older, like Aziraphale himself. He's no longer the boy of Aziraphale's childhood or the beautiful youth of his teens. They are both worn down and weathered, like books with cracked spines and fraying edges. And knowing what they could have been, what they almost were-
It's a painful thought.
"I suppose we do, at that."
"Why don't you think it over," Crowley says, "And we can meet for breakfast in the morning. If you want to."
"I want to," Aziraphale says quickly.
Crowley smiles, a little flash of a thing. "Then let me walk you to your room and I'll see you at eight tomorrow."
"Crowley, really, you don't have to do all this," Aziraphale says, getting to his feet.
"I know." He holds out his hand anyway.
Aziraphale takes it.
It feels different than the hand he used to hold in the garden on long summer evenings. It's larger, rougher. Aziraphale wonders what Crowley has been doing, all these years, how he's filled his days in this small corner of nowhere. He had always had such big dreams of getting out. It seems unfair that Aziraphale should be the one to do it and not him. But that's life, he supposes. Unfair.
They walk out into the cool autumn night. It's just a short stretch to Aziraphale's door where Crowley leads him.
"Thank you, Crowley," Aziraphale says. They're standing at the bottom of the staircase that goes up to Aziraphale's room. "And-and good night."
"Any time," he says, "Good night, angel. See you in the morning."
Aziraphale turns to go.
Crowley calls him back.
"And angel?"
Aziraphale can't help responding to that old nickname. "Yes?"
"It really is good to see you."
There's a lump in Aziraphale's throat. He blinks. "You too, Crowley. You too."
Then, before he can break down in front of his oldest friend and one-time lover, he scurries up the stairs and into the shelter of his room. He can feel Crowley's eyes following him as he goes.
But Aziraphale doesn't even get privacy in his own room. He's just slumped on his bed and buried his face in his hands when his phone rings.
He looks down at the bright screen in the dark hotel room, and for one brief, brilliant moment, he imagines it's Crowley. But, as far as he knows, Crowley doesn't have his number.
And sure enough, it's only Gabriel.
With a sigh, he answers.
"Hello? Gabriel?"
"Aziraphale! How the hell are you?"
"I'm-I'm alright. How are you?"
"Absolutely fantastic."
"Alright?" Aziraphale wrinkles his nose. He can't see why Gabriel is calling so late. Or at all.
"Hey, you're still coming, aren't you?"
Gabriel doesn't know that Aziraphale's come early It's Friday. He's not due till Monday. He'll have the weekend to prepare himself.
"Yes."
He just wants to go to bed.
"Great, great. I just wanted to make sure, you know? Given how prone you are to running away, haha."
Aziraphale lets out a little puff of air. "I see."
"And Aziraphale," Gabriel says, "Promise me you won't make a scene."
"A scene?" Aziraphale feels like a broken record.
"You know how you get. So dramatic. But I can't have anything ruining my special day."
"Of course not."
"You're bringing that Crowley, aren't you?"
This is the moment of truth. This is the point, sooner than Aziraphale would have liked, when he has to make a decision. For both of them. And he's tired of running.
"Of course. He is my husband, after all."
Not a lie. Just a technicality.
"Well, I'm sure I'll be delighted to see you both."
"Right," Aziraphale says tightly. He's still a bit effected by the drinks.
He needs to get off the phone before he says something even more ridiculous such as: "Funny time to be delighted for me." Or perhaps: "It's been fifteen years. Why have you invited me into your life now?"
"Well, see you soon, Aziraphale," Gabriel says.
"See you soon," Aziraphale says and hangs up before he lets any of his true feelings show.
He collapses in his bed but does not sleep.
What can he possibly tell Crowley tomorrow morning?
"The truth," he decides. Whatever happens next, they're in it together.