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“Thank you ever so much for letting me stay at yours tonight, dear,” Aziraphale said, reaching out to touch Crowley’s shoulder gently.
Crowley grunted, shrugging just slightly. His head was bowed, his movements slow and sluggish, his hair still a little damp and wavier than usual, a streak of engine grease on his cheek. “’s not like I was going to turn you away, angel,” he muttered. They walked slowly away from the unofficial bus stop just outside of Crowley’s flat block, and when they reached the door Crowley held it open for him.
“Thank you,” Aziraphale said again, anxiously straightening his bowtie. He was, truly, very grateful that Crowley was letting him stay, but the fact that he didn’t have anywhere to go anyway was… not something he particularly wanted to dwell on.
“Lift’s this way,” Crowley said gruffly, beckoning him across the lobby of his swanky building. “Unless you want to take the stairs.”
“No… no, the lift is fine,” Aziraphale replied faintly. He hadn’t been to Crowley’s home since he had moved to Mayfair in the 1980s, but knowing the demon his flat was on the top floor.
Sure enough, when they got in Crowley jammed the button for the penthouse before crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back against the wall. Aziraphale did his best not to stare at the lines of his friend’s neck as Crowley rested his head against the wall, his eyes closed behind his battered sunglasses. He busied himself with taking stock of himself, frowning disapprovingly at a smudge on the collar of his coat, checking his fingers and toes to make sure they had all been returned to him properly when Adam had given him a new corporation.
The lift doors slid open several floors under Crowley’s, and two young women got in, holding hands and giggling. “Oh, hey, AJ,” one of them said, flashing a grin at Crowley. “You going out clubbing tonight as well?”
Aziraphale could just barely see Crowley crack one eye open. “Huh?” he mumbled. “Uh. No. Going up.”
“Oh, whoops,” the other woman said. She gave Aziraphale a curious once-over. “So, are you angel, or darling?”
Crowley made a sound like he was choking on his own spit. Aziraphale blinked, politely confused. “Pardon?”
The first woman slung an arm around her partner’s shoulders and gave him a grin. “Oh, AJ’s always on about his darling and his—”
“Right,” Crowley said, snapping his fingers. The lift’s doors opened on his floor, despite the fact that it had been two floors below a moment before. “Have a good night, ladies,” he said briskly, grabbing Aziraphale’s hand and leading him out of the lift. “Next time, pay attention to whether the lift’s going up or down.”
“Good night, AJ,” one of the women called even as the doors closed again. “Have fun!”
Crowley didn’t answer, fumbling for a set of keys he had somehow jammed into his minuscule pockets. “What were they talking about, Crowley?” Aziraphale asked curiously.
“Don’t worry about it, angel,” Crowley muttered, his hands shaking so badly that he could barely get the key in the lock.
Aziraphale reached out and gently helped him, unlocking the door. “I suppose I’m flattered that you talk about me to others,” he said absently, handing the keys back to Crowley and following him into his flat. “Because I would be angel, I expect. But who’s—”
They walked briskly down the hallway until Aziraphale’s instincts tingled, and he reached out to grab Crowley’s arm just before he stumbled over the threshold. He stopped short just beside Crowley, and stared with horror down at a pile of clothes that reeked of burnt demon and divinity.
“Oh, my,” Aziraphale said faintly.
“Right,” Crowley said. He blinked down at the dirty, damp coat on his floor. “Uh, that’s Ligur.”
“Crowley,” Aziraphale whispered, his voice trembling with barely repressed horror. “Oh, Crowley—“
Crowley set his jaw, and took a large step over the puddle and into his office. “I had no choice, angel,” he snapped. “It was me or him. You wouldn’t have liked him anyway, wish I had gotten Hastur as well—“
“Oh, Crowley, no,” Aziraphale said hurriedly, edging around the ex-demon to catch his darling’s shoulder. “I’m— you could have been hurt,” he said, his ears ringing. “If you had gotten any on you—“
Crowley shrugged him off, his expression horribly unreadable. “There’s no need to speculate,” he said. “It’s fine. I’m fine.” He tossed his keys on the desk and pulled off his sunglasses, running his fingers through his hair. “Listen, angel,” he said with a long sigh, his shoulders slumping. “Um, do you want to, I don’t know. Shower, take a nap, eat something? Anything I can get you?”
Aziraphale blinked, cast another glance over his shoulder at the puddle Holy Water. “I’d like to clean that up, if you wouldn’t mind,” he said. “I don’t like the thought of there being a veritable lake of Holy Water lying around when you’re so—“ He cut himself off, pursed his lips.
Crowley squinted at him. “So what, Aziraphale?”
Careless, Aziraphale wanted to reply. Exhausted, worn out, at the end of your rope and scraping the bottom of your barrel of power, the least collected I’ve seen you in several hundred years. “Tired,” he finally said.
Crowley’s glare intensified, and he scratched at his tattoo. “I’m fine.”
Aziraphale sighed silently. He had been close with Crowley for thousands of years, he could tell by the way Crowley held himself, the tension in his face and shake in his voice, that he was utterly exhausted. “There’s no shame in being tired, Crowley,” he said softly. “You did… well, miraculous work today. Far more than I think most people could conceive of. Stopping time? That takes an enormous amount of energy.”
The corner of Crowley’s mouth lifted in the tiniest hint of a smile. “I know what you’re doing, angel, don’t think I don’t,” he said. “You’re not a very subtle flatterer.”
Aziraphale shrugged. “Don’t you want to shower?” he said temptingly, widening his eyes innocently. “Take a nap for an hour or two? I would say you’ve earned it.”
Crowley deflated, pressed his lips together as he glanced around his office and avoided Aziraphale’s eyes. “Yeah. S’ppose so.” He shrugged out of his singed jacket, tossing it at his ridiculous throne, and then said resignedly, “You promise you don’t mind?”
“I promise I don't mind,” Aziraphale replied earnestly. He was willing to say almost anything, if it would get poor Crowley off his feet for just a little. The demon very clearly needed a nap.
“OK,” Crowley sighed. “Um. There’s probably some food in the kitchen, might even still be good.” There was a little flicker of demonic energy, and Aziraphale frowned at the power expenditure.
“You go shower and rest,” he said. “I’ll wake you up in a few hours so we can talk about Agnes Nutter’s last prophecy.”
Crowley’s face fell. “Right. Right.” He looked like he was almost going to change his mind, insist they figure out their plan now, but Aziraphale hurried him to the bathroom before he could object.
Once Crowley was in the bathroom and Aziraphale could hear the shower running, he relaxed a little. His first order of business was to take care of of the puddle of Ligur and Holy Water. He vanished the whole thing with a few miracles, and then wiped down the area with a wet paper towel just to be sure.
When he was finished, he ventured into the kitchen to find a tin of the exact kind of tea he liked and a slice of cake in the fridge. In spite of himself, Aziraphale smiled slightly. Crowley, even when he was exhausted and stressed and tetchy, was such a sweet demon.
Aziraphale brewed himself some tea and ate the cake (a little stale, but that didn’t put him off too much) before returning to Crowley’s bedroom with the warm mug still cupped in both hands. He found Crowley sitting on the edge of his bed in just a tank top and a pair of boxers, scrolling through something on his phone with a frown.
“Dearest,” Aziraphale said quietly, rounding the bed to stand in front of him. Crowley looked up. He looked even more tired now that all the ash and grease was washed off his face, and with his hair wet and ruffled rather than perfectly coiffed like normal he looked far less like a cool demon and far more like a scared human.
“Hey, angel,” he said. “I’ve gotten about two thousand notifs from Hellmail, the whole bureaucracy’s falling apart. It gave me an idea about how we might use Agnes’s prophecy, actually, there was a whole thread from a few lower demons about possessing humans to restart the Apocalypse—“
Aziraphale dared to sit beside him on the bed, gazing questioningly at his phone. He knew Heaven logged his miracles with the Celestial Cloud, and last time he had dropped by Gabriel had unsubtly hinted that he ought to get a Godphone™ to receive his assignments more efficiently, but he didn’t know much about how Hell communicated with their operatives. He had rather been under the impression, actually, that they tended to hijack whatever electronic was closest.
“What’s your idea, dearest?” Aziraphale asked. He offered Crowley a sip of his tea, and Crowley absently waved it off.
“No thanks, caffeine doesn’t agree with me before bed,” he said. “And, ah, the idea. Ngk, uh. Gotta sleep on it. Sounds crazy, don’t think I could put it into words that make sense right now. I just—“ He let his phone drop on the silk bedspread and rubbed a hand over his face.
“Of course,” Aziraphale said. “I’ll think about it too, maybe we could compare notes when you wake up.”
Crowley flopped back. “Right.”
Aziraphale sighed, stood up as Crowley wriggled under his covers. He closed his eyes, and he looked so cozy and sweet that Aziraphale almost had to physically restrain himself from giving him a goodnight kiss on the forehead. Not only would that be taking advantage, he didn’t even know if Crowley would be as interested in that sort of thing as he was. Besides, they had so many other things to worry about, it was ridiculous to even contemplate—
“Sleep well, my dear,” Aziraphale said, heading for the doorway. “I’ll get you up in a little bit.”
“You can come rest as well, if you want,” Crowley said softly, and Aziraphale paused just before he was about to leave. “Hng. I just,” Crowley added hastily. “Mean, bed’s big enough for the two of us. Probably even four people. If you wanted to have a lie-down. That’d be fine with me. Wouldn’t stop you.”
Aziraphale’s heart panged. “Oh, Crowley, it’s alright,” he replied.
It was kind of Crowley to offer, but he didn’t think he would be able to take lying in Crowley’s bed with him, not after everything that had happened. He needed some time to process, some time to mull over the events of the day. Some time to figure out, now that Heaven and Hell might finally be off their backs, what he and Crowley could be to each other. Aziraphale knew what he wanted, of course, but that didn’t mean—
“I don’t sleep much,” Aziraphale said, and then added, “I’ll see you in a few hours, my dear.” He gently closed the bedroom door behind him and hurried back to Crowley’s office before he was tempted to change his mind.
Aziraphale settled himself in Crowley’s throne, sipping at his tea. Absently, he dried off and folded Crowley’s jacket with a miracle before setting it aside, and then leaned back and studied the space around him.
There was no denying the fact that Crowley’s flat was chic and modern, but it was also rather… cold. Almost impersonal, or it would have been but for the little touches of Crowley all over the place. Just in the other room Aziraphale could see hints of green, and he had heard enough about Crowley’s plants to expect that that was his friend’s supposedly unruly garden.
There was a small bookshelf in one corner of the office, and Aziraphale set his tea on the desk before wandering over. He wasn’t snooping, exactly, because snooping would be very unbecoming for an angel. He was just looking. Curiously. It was only to be expected, Crowley had gone sixty centuries insisting that he didn’t read, so it was only natural that Aziraphale might want to know what books he had decided to keep around.
He crouched with a small huff, and scanned the bookshelves. There were several religious books, surprisingly, texts from dozens of world religions. The next shelf held the complete works of Shakespeare, sticky notes poking out of a few of the books, but Aziraphale resisted the temptation to look at what passages they were marking. That, he knew, would be an unequivocal violation of Crowley’s privacy. There were also a few shabby prophecy books, titles Aziraphale recognized from his own collection. The third shelf was stuffed with gardening manuals, car magazines that appeared to date back to the 1950s, and a few astronomy books.
Aziraphale smiled fondly, straightening and returning to his tea. He spotted a pad of paper beside the ansaphone on Crowley’s desk, and smiled. “Ah,” he murmured. “Wonderful.” He could do as he had promised and brainstorm about Agnes’s prophecy while Crowley napped. And it would be enormously helpful in organizing his thoughts if he were able to write them down.
Aziraphale pulled the pad of paper towards himself, and then looked around for a pen. There weren’t any on Crowley’s desk, and Aziraphale almost snapped his fingers to summon his favorite quill pen from his own desk back at the bookstore before he remembered—
Aziraphale swallowed hard, blinking back sudden tears, and took a few deep breaths. Right, no bookstore. All of his pens had burned down, along with his couch and his desk and all of his thousands of—
Aziraphale forced himself not to finish that thought, and got up to walk distractedly around the desk, opening the top drawer to look for something to write with. To his frustration there was a pile of paper clips and several hundred little paper bits from an emptied hole puncher, but no pens. Aziraphale tugged open the second drawer with barely stifled frustration— it had quite honestly been a very trying day, and everything was suddenly piling up, and he was very close to crying for no good reason.
Luckily, there was a box of pens in the drawer, and Aziraphale seized them with a triumphant cry, so excited that most of them spilled out. “Ah! Oh, dear,” Aziraphale murmured, shuffling through the drawer to gather up the excess pens and stuff them back into their box. As he scrabbled for the last pen, though, his fingers brushed against something… velvety?
Aziraphale paused. Very slowly, he put the box of pens aside and sat on the floor. He glanced around guiltily, as though Crowley would wake for anything short of a stampede of elephants through his flat, and then carefully opened the desk drawer a little wider and poked around in its corners. His fingertips found the velvety thing again, and with great care Aziraphale pulled out a small box covered with dark blue velvet.
Aziraphale stared down at the box, his heartbeat thundering in his ears. He had seen this kind of box before, of course, and he knew what was usually inside them, but surely—
Aziraphale carefully popped open the box, and his jaw dropped when he saw the ring inside. It was— Crowley had— he had an engagement ring? Because this was very, very clearly an engagement ring, round and gold and surprisingly simple given the demon’s usually ostentatious taste.
Aziraphale quickly closed the box again and stuffed it back in the drawer, his mind whirling. Why in the world would Crowley have an engagement ring? Had it been given to him, or had he— had he gotten it to give to someone else?
Aziraphale exhaled slowly, and stood up with a soft grunt. With slow steps he rounded the desk again and sat down heavily in Crowley’s throne, thinking hard. As far as he knew, Crowley wasn’t seeing anyone. Especially not anyone that would propose to him. Or that he would propose to. Granted, it wasn’t as though they spent every single second of their lives together, but he and Crowley had been in almost constant contact since the Antichrist had been born. Surely Crowley would have mentioned—
And, in all honesty, Aziraphale had rather thought, well… sometimes he did sense little flashes of love from Crowley, flashes that lined up with Crowley smiling at him, or doing him a favor, or even just spending time with him. And, of course, when Heaven and Hell had always been watching they never would have been able to do anything about it, but still… Aziraphale had rather thought maybe, maybe, in some far-off future, that he and Crowley might be able to— hold hands, at least. Hug. Maybe kiss, given a few centuries.
But if Crowley had an engagement ring, well… there was no way it was for Aziraphale, that was certain, because they weren’t even together! So Crowley must have someone else— Aziraphale fought down the sick, very unangelic jealousy in the pit of his stomach. After all, the thing he wanted most in the world for Crowley was that he be happy. And if Aziraphale had hoped that that happiness might include him, well…
Aziraphale’s brow furrowed as he suddenly remembered with a flash what the two women in the lift had said— they had asked if Aziraphale was ‘angel’ or ‘darling’. Aziraphale was reasonably sure he was ‘angel,’ Crowley called him by his title more often than not, so that must mean that someone else was ‘darling.’ Someone that Crowley had been planning to propose to, evidently, if he had an engagement ring stashed away in his desk drawer.
And then.
And then Aziraphale remembered with a sickening jolt something else Crowley had said.
In the bar, before they had gotten to Tadfield and before Aziraphale found a body to contain his incorporeal self... Crowley had been blind drunk. The kind of drunk he had been during the Spanish Inquisition, or the Crusades, or large portions of World War Two once his side had sent him over to Germany. The kind of drunk he only got when he was grieving.
Aziraphale swallowed hard and set his mug of tea down with shaking hands. I lost my best friend, Crowley had all but sobbed, and at the time Aziraphale had assumed that best friend was him (he considered Crowley his best friend, after all, because who else was there after six thousand years?), but what if he had been wrong? What if Crowley had another best friend, or rather, a lover, that had perished in the madness before the Apocalypse?
Aziraphale choked on a sob, filled with heartbreak— for his own feelings, to be sure, but also for Crowley. The poor demon must be devastated, and he had had to choke it back for the sake of the world, and now—
Aziraphale took a deep, shuddering breath and grounded himself. He was the worst friend in the world, wasn’t he? Crowley had evidently lost someone very important to him, and when he had asked for the simple comfort of keeping him company while he slept, Aziraphale had left.
Aziraphale set his jaw, and pushed down his overwhelming hurt. His own feelings for Crowley didn’t matter, not now. He loved Crowley dearly, which meant that he wanted for Crowley to be happy. And if that was with someone else, someone he had lost— Aziraphale would be a friend and provide a shoulder to cry on. He stood with a firm nod and drained his tea, leaving the mug on the desk before heading back to Crowley’s bedroom.
The room was dark when Aziraphale cracked the door open, but almost immediately Crowley asked in a groggy voice, “’Sit time t’geddup?”
“No, dear,” Aziraphale said, guiltily checking the time. They still had several hours to dawn. “I, just. Thought I might come in to sit with you for a little while?”
Crowley made a sleepy noise of assent, and Aziraphale stepped into the bedroom. He paused a moment to let his eyes adjust, and then focused on the bed. Crowley was still curled up under the covers, in more or less the same position he had been in when Aziraphale had left, but now he was rubbing at his eyes and blinking hard as though to try to wake himself up.
Aziraphale padded over and delicately sat on the edge of the bed. Crowley twitched the covers a little and then said, his voice a little hoarse, “Why’d you change your mind? Thought you didn’t sleep.”
Aziraphale swallowed hard, tried to figure out how to approach what he wanted to say. He couldn’t exactly come out and say, Crowley, dearest, I love you but I’ve just figured out that you’re in love with someone else, and I’m terribly sorry you’ve lost them, could he? Instead, he reached out and gently brushed his fingers over the back of Crowley’s hand. “It just… occurred to me that you might not want to be alone,” he replied softly. “And that I was being a bad friend.”
Crowley frowned. “You’re not a bad friend, angel,” he sighed, and then twitched the covers again so that there was enough room for Aziraphale to get into bed if he wanted. “D’you wanna lie down, or…?”
Aziraphale carefully toed off his shoes and shed his jacket before stiffly getting into bed with Crowley. If this was what his friend needed for comfort—
Crowley studied him, his eyes glinting even in the dim room. “What’s the matter, Aziraphale?” he said quietly.
Aziraphale frowned. “I—“
“I can tell,” Crowley murmured. “Something’s got you worked up.”
“Well, this whole thing,” Aziraphale started crossly, his voice rising with his agitation, words tumbling out unbidden. “The world got saved more due to luck than to anything we did, and now we’re in hot water with Heaven and Hell, and my bookshop’s burnt down, and your Bentley’s blown up, and your poor darling's—“ He cut himself off with a wince.
Crowley's brow furrowed. "My darling?" he repeated. "Aziraphale, what in bloody Heaven are you on about."
"Oh, dear, I'm sorry," Aziraphale breathed. "I'm so sorry, my dear, I truly didn't mean to bring it up, I don’t want to make you feel worse— you probably don't want to think about it, and dearest, I know how hard the death of a human can be sometimes— oh, if they were a human, I suppose I don't—"
"Aziraphale," Crowley said again. "What. The fuck. Are you talking about?"
Aziraphale squirmed uncomfortably. "I, er," he said, and then sighed. "I'm sorry, Crowley, I didn't know you were seeing someone," he said quietly. "If I hadn't I wouldn't have— well. Anyway. I wish I could have met them before they passed, dear, they must have been incredible to capture your heart."
Crowley had a remarkably confused expression on his face. "Am I— Am I still asleep?" he said. "This is like that dream I had after eating those bad sprouts. You're not making sense, Aziraphale. I'm not seeing anyone."
Aziraphale frowned. "But you... in the lift, those two women," he started.
Crowley shook his head vehemently. "I don't date humans," he replied. "Doesn't seem fair, being immortal. Not that I care about fair, mind, I'm a demon. But. Still. Wouldn’t want to, anyway? Not when I’ve got—”
"But in the bar!" Aziraphale exclaimed, sitting up in bed, and Crowley followed him a little jerkily. "You were so upset, you said you'd lost your best friend!"
"I was talking about you, you idiot!" Crowley snapped. "I'd just found your bookshop burned to the ground, couldn't sense your presence on Earth, and I'd thought—"
"Oh, dear," Aziraphale breathed, and really looked at Crowley for the first time. Crowley was gazing at him with wide golden eyes, his face screwed up with frustration, his hair a little matted and flat on one side, and he was as beautiful as he had ever been.
"Oh, my dear," Aziraphale whispered again, and then pulled Crowley into a hug.
Crowley clung to him, shaking slightly. "'M fine," he said, even as he didn't let go. "You're alive, it's all fine. Nothing to worry about. I'd just—"
"So I'm your best friend," Aziraphale murmured wonderingly, and Crowley pulled back with a fondly irritated expression on his face.
"Of course you are," he said. “You’re my everything.” He went bright red.
Aziraphale took a deep breath, hope blooming in his chest. "So, in the lift," he said quietly, "When those women mentioned your angel, and your darling—"
"Both, uh. Ngk. Hm, both, er, both’re you," Crowley managed to choke out. "Um. Guess they were, ah. Confused. Bloody humans, can't get anything straight—"
“I found a ring,” Aziraphale admitted. “In your desk drawer. I wasn’t trying to snoop, I really wasn’t, I just. Happened upon it, I suppose. I assumed, well, that you had a lover I just hadn’t met, that you were going to propose…”
Crowley, somehow, managed to blush even deeper. He made several garbled noises before saying, “That’s, ah. I’ve had that for a while. Pining something awful in, oh, the sixteenth century or something, bought it on a whim. Haven’t had the heart to throw it out. It, ah. I wasn’t ever going to propose to anyone. Not any human, anyways. The only one I’d ever want to spend that much time with is you, but I know you don’t—“
Aziraphale leaned in and shut him up with a kiss.
Crowley made a muffled sound against his lips and then kissed him back, his fingers clinging tight to the fabric of Aziraphale’s waistcoat.
When they parted, Aziraphale leaned his forehead against Crowley’s. “Yes,” he breathed. “If you still want to. Yes.”
Crowley smiled shyly, looking a little overwhelmed. “I’ll ask you proper,” he promised. “First we’ve got to figure out what we’re going to do about— about everything else.”
“Quite,” Aziraphale sighed. He brushed a strand of Crowley’s hair out of his face, gave him another short, sweet kiss. “You said you had an idea?”
Crowley’s smile shifted from adoring to mischievous. “I do,” he said. “And now that I’m a little more coherent, I think it’ll work.” He held out a hand. “You with me, angel?”
Aziraphale didn’t even hesitate before lacing their fingers together. “Every step of the way, my darling. We’ll make this work.”
Crowley smiled, and told Aziraphale his plan.
(The ring appeared again a few years later, of course, along with another to match— they were brought out after a quiet dinner in a cottage and met with a happy agreement and an excited kiss. They shone much more brightly on an angel and a demon’s ring fingers than they had in their stuffy velvet box)