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Crowley needs to go home. He has to be up for work in less than eight hours, and he’s still here, in the dust and warmth of the bookshop, sipping his one glass of wine (he’ll be driving) and listening to Aziraphale talk. In the last hour, he’s heard about the weather, the process of drying and roasting coffee beans Aziraphale saw on a trip to India once, the true meaning of Hamlet. And, in turn, Crowley has ranted about the weather, gorillas, back to the process of drying and roasting coffee beans, and onto bananas.
“I need to go home to bed.” He points out as the current topic of stately homes fades out. He hasn’t had much to contribute to that one, but he’ll listen to anything as long as it comes out of that angelic mouth. “I’ve got to be back out there at seven.”
Aziraphale’s expression of disgust is practically audible.
Crowley snorts. “Yes, well, we can’t all laze in bed until the middle of the day.”
“I open at 10am.” He’s all righteous indignation - dropped jaw, wide eyes.
“Which is the middle of the day.”
“Actually, even if you count seven as the start of the day–”
"Actually… " Crowley mimics him, waggling his head. They can’t start debating this now, he’ll be here until the early hours of the morning again. Crowley shuffles forward in his seat, raises his long arms over his head in a graceless, yawning stretch. “No, I’m going.”
“Must you?”
There is an awkward silence. Crowley wonders what exactly he means by that. He’d stay all night if he could, he’d stay forever, but… They don’t do that.
* * *365 DAYS EARLIER* * *
Crowley smashed the portafilter on the waste coffee bin as loudly as possible. He had been waiting for this moment all morning, since he pulled up his coffee van outside the bookshop, and he took great joy in slipping the folded papers out of the back pocket of his jeans and leaning around his current customer to shove them at the newest queuer. The bookshop owner.
The man took them automatically, politely, eyebrows up to his hair at the unexpected move. Crowley was a little smug as he finished making a cappuccino. And then he let himself look, actually look, at his new nemesis, and it all went a bit tits up.
The odd charm of the man seemed to have a detrimental effect on Crowley’s ability to speak. His jumbled words came out a bit… ragey. “I. Those are my permits. I have. I’m allowed to be here. I applied and everything. If you’ve got a problem with it you’ll have to go through the council. I’m not moving.”
Oh god, he was gorgeous. All rumpled professor, elbow patches and bow tie, hair fluffy like the world’s poshest blow dried sheep, and eyes like the seas off the Maldives. An actual Italian Renaissance Angel. Crowley wanted to hate him immediately; he was ready to fight for this squat, as he’d had to fight for all his others. Why couldn’t the enemy have been a crotchety old lady? Crowley liked hating those.
“I know what you’re going to say,” he pushed on. (Clearly, what he was going to say was along the lines of ‘Please move this monstrosity away from my shop before it discourages my high class clientele with its mere presence.’ )
“I was going to ask if you make hot chocolate, or is that offensive to a professional barista?”
Oh. That was… unexpected. So was his voice, soft as the rest of him. Crowley cleared his throat and tried to recover his usual suave cockiness. He failed. He managed perhaps a grunt at best. Luckily, although his brain had apparently juddered to a halt, his body capably took over and made the best damn hot chocolate he’d ever made. Complete with whipped cream and luxury marshmallows and obnoxious organic chocolate sprinkles.
“Thank you, my dear.” The man took the cup, brushed the pad of his index over Crowley’s fingers, gave a kind smile. “I’m Aziraphale, welcome to Greek Street.”
* * * PRESENT DAY * * *
The silence goes on a little too long for recovery. There’s nothing for it, and Crowley has to take the brave way out. He clears his throat and heaves himself up to stand. He does that everso British brush down of his thighs, as if he’s been munching on biscuits and made a mess. Not that Crowley eats biscuits or does anything so undignified as cover himself in crumbs. Clears his throat again. “Right, well. I’ll see you tomorrow, I imagine.”
He grabs his coat from the radiator where it’s been drying all evening. It’s a warm hug, sliding his arms into the sleeves, pulling it close around his ribs. Not the hug he wants, but the only hug he’s going to get.
“Yes, yes, I’m sure you will.” Aziraphale glumly grumbles. “Mind how you go, my dear, the weather is awful. Let me see you out.”
* * * 364 DAYS EARLIER * * *
Anyone would think the December weather would reduce custom; clientele rushing past his van with heat and shelter in mind, buying their coffee from somewhere with a roof, at the very least. Instead Crowley was rushed off his feet, people grasping for any chance at warming their hands, their mouths, their bellies.
“I’m sorry, do you have the correct particulars and permissions to park this trading vehicle here?”
Crowley turned to find Aziraphale, a large tartan umbrella held aloft, a wicked smile on his face. The little shit. He had slipped around the small barrier shelf Crowley put between himself and the customers, and now stepped gracefully into his space. Crowley’s space. Right… there. He held his umbrella a little higher to cover the both of them.
“Without the relevant permits and papers I’m afraid I’ll have to–”
“Do you want a coffee or not?”
Aziraphale’s grin was so cheeky that Crowley felt the impact of it in his chest. “Bribery and corruption, I should report you to the authorities. Extra frothy please.”
Crowley was protected by Aziraphale’s awful umbrella while he made the coffee. And then while Aziraphale drank it. The vicious, icy rain was now bouncing merrily off the taut fabric, no longer slicing at Crowley’s hands, his face. It was quite mesmerising. Not the rain, but the way Aziraphale tipped his head to watch it. The curve of his cheek was like poetry, the upturned sweep of his nose like art, the purse of his lips… Crowley was just done for, really.
“I’m closed on Sundays,” Aziraphale said suddenly, as if by way of explanation. “I can shelter you as long as you need.”
Well, fuck.
* * * PRESENT DAY * * *
Aziraphale stops Crowley with a gentle hand on his elbow, reaches to the coat hooks beside them, and retrieves his own scarf.
It’s pale blue, summerbright sky blue, morphing into turquoise in the warmth of the shop lighting. The colour of Aziraphale’s eyes. It’s also so very soft as he wraps it around Crowley’s neck, takes the opportunity of him standing there, so still in his shock, to cross the ends over and tuck them jauntily into a loose knot.
“There,” he says, satisfied, patting the bundle of wool. “Now I’ll be reassured that you’re nice and warm out there.”
Crowley thinks his brain might have melted, he can feel it running down, pooling in his throat, his chest. His nostrils flare as he sucks in a desperate breath, and he realises the scarf is flavoured with Aziraphale’s cologne.
It isn’t just raining outside, he discovers as the shop door is opened for him, it is absolutely pissing it down. Ice-cold, slashing December rain, chunks of ice mixed in for fun. Crowley hesitates before stepping out. In fact, it’s not even a hesitation; it’s a full wimp out. He fiddles with the scarf as an excuse, weaves the tasseled ends into the collar of his coat.
Beside him, Aziraphale shuffles forward to peer out of the open doorway. The face he pulls at the weather is the same face he pulls when he’s let his coffee go cold and then forgotten and taken a distracted, full mouthful - nose wrinkled in disgust, eyes squinting at the world that has so cruelly betrayed him.
As if to shield each other from the elements, they step both closer together, arms brushing.
* * * 304 DAYS EARLIER * * *
“Oh, my dear, come in. You must be frozen!”
“Oh, um, thanks, I just, returning your–” Crowley stopped there, because Aziraphale had taken hold of his hand and he was being led into the cosiness of the shop. He was steered towards a big old-fashioned radiator at the back of the shop, turned and nudged gently to sink into the sofa beside it.
“Can I get you a warm drink of some sort? I won’t offer coffee, because I expect you drink too much of it and my skills at making it will likely offend.” He added in a stage whisper, “It’s instant .”
Crowley winced, equally theatrically, and was rewarded with the smile he had wanted, had aimed for. Curve of pink lip, flash of white teeth, rounded plump cheeks. He let it warm him up a little, glowing in his chest while he watched Aziraphale bustle about chaotically. He moved books and papers from the low table in front of them, turned on a lamp, dithered about with the throw on the back of the couch, all the while glancing repeatedly at Crowley from the corner of his eye. Nervously perhaps. What had he to be nervous about?
Finally he stopped moving and stood, with his hands together in front of him, practically wringing his own fingers. “But I have tea or cocoa?”
Crowley didn’t like tea. Or cocoa. “Either is great, thanks.”
* * * PRESENT DAY * * *
A little too close maybe, because when Crowley turns to him, suddenly there are only inches between them. And Crowley is stuck for words again, because while those inches are very small, they are also very big and not at all what Crowley wants to be between them (which is nothing).
“It really is raining cats and dogs out there, isn’t it?” Aziraphale says quietly, barely loud enough to be heard over the vicious slashing of the hail against the pavement.
"S'just rain, Angel,” Crowley mumbles. Also quietly. The mood feels taut and heavy and he doesn’t want to crack it with his words, his voice. He doesn’t dare to move.
“You could always…” Aziraphale apparently doesn’t have the guts to finish that sentence, that offer.
Crowley quirks an eyebrow at him, lets his lips quirk up in a tiny twist of a smile, encourages him to finish. Leans in a little to catch the words. He's waited a whole year for them, a lifetime it feels like.
"i just don't like to think of you out there in that cold and wet, driving home without being able to see, getting all cold and wet and the roads are all slippy and it's dark and cold and wet–"
"You said that bit already."
"And cold," Aziraphale repeats quietly. His eyes flicker down to Crowley's mouth, study the soft smirk there.
"And wet?" he teases.
But Aziraphale isn't listening anymore. And Crowley doesn’t really care.
They meet in the middle, the centre of those few inches. A gentle kiss, hesitant and a little shy, until Crowley lets go of the moan that’s caught in his throat. And then it gets a bit deeper, a little frantic. His hands catch hold of Aziraphale, one clutching at the hem of his waistcoat and the other sliding up the side of his face, cupping his round jaw with long fingers. He feels the silk satin of blond curls against his fingertips.
Finally they separate, and Crowley lets himself get a little lost in those warm ocean eyes.
“You could always stay at my place,” Aziraphale offers.
Crowley answers by pulling Aziraphale into another kiss, and shutting the door behind them with a careless kick.
