Work Text:
help me hold on to you
The sun has come out again. And one angel and one demon stand together on a Soho street, a coffee shop to their left and a bookshop on their right. The cars haven’t returned to London yet, and privately they both are unnerved by the quiet and the sudden brightness of the sun after so many dark days. But somewhere in the distance, a bird makes a hopeful trill. It might even be a nightingale.
Crowley cannot take his eyes off Aziraphale. He can barely dare hope that it’s over now and he’s itching to check that Aziraphale is okay. They’ve never really hugged before, Crowley realises, but he very much wants to in this moment. The desire to rage and fume is there too though; two parts of him fight another, invisible war. He almost wants to take a swing at Aziraphale, he wants to howl at him and he wants to kiss him furiously and weep in his arms. There feels like an eternity of feelings rolling through him and it takes every ounce of self-control to hold back and simply study Aziraphale with his eyes.
Aziraphale for his part, looks remarkably calm. His eyes no longer blaze purple, but there’s a feeling of distrust that lingers in the pit of Crowley’s stomach. He doesn’t quite trust anything yet: not Aziraphale, and certainly not his own emotions.
Aziraphale meets Crowley’s eyes and tilts his head, a wordless gesture, and the two walk into the bookshop. The door is ajar but it’s quite well-preserved considering. Crowley watches as Aziraphale’s face brightens at the sight of his books and a bit of the anxiety compressing his chest eases. He hasn’t sold a single book in three years; Aziraphale would be proud.
“You looked after it,” Aziraphale is proud, as he looks between stacks of books and Crowley. “I did worry, you know.” He pulls a face. “Muriel…”
Crowley makes a noise of agreement, wandering further into the depths of the shop. The truth is he had nowhere else to go. The memories from the front room haunted him nearly to the point of destruction so he hid upstairs, lurked in the corners and discouraged customers when Muriel would occasionally flip the sign. He says nothing of this to Aziraphale. He says nothing of his darkest moments.
Crowley turns back towards Aziraphale, shifting from foot to foot, unable to even consider sitting. “So now what?”
“I do believe I owe you an apology,” Aziraphale says. There’s a forced lightness to his voice. “I could do the dance?”
Crowley rolls his eyes before removing his glasses, placing them on the nearest stack of books. “Don’t think the dance is quite going to cut it, angel,” he says. “Three years can be a long time.”
“Oh, well, um… wine? Or, we could do the Ritz?”
“Is the Ritz still standing?”
“Yes,” Aziraphale says. “I made sure of it.” He says this excitedly as though expecting praise.
Crowley huffs. He knows Aziraphale is trying and maybe he should try too. There is a plain opportunity here for a new start and clearly Aziraphale wants to take it. But the memories of their last conversation here are fresh and raw as though no time has passed. And Crowley finds it still hurts, and trust is hard to rebuild. Things fell apart, they fell apart so hard and Crowley knows they can’t easily go back to how they were.
“You can’t just expect, you seriously can’t just expect-”
“I know,” Aziraphale says quickly, seriously. “I only…” Aziraphale closes his mouth, opens it and then quickly closes it again. Any calm is vanishing rapidly. Crowley watches, eyes narrowing slightly, as the angel fidgets; watches closely as Aziraphale’s hands adjust the cuffs on his coat, his bowtie; watches as the now-blue eyes skit from side to side, up and down as though seeking an escape.
“Oh spit it out, angel,” Crowley snaps, anger threatening to surface.
Aziraphale looks at him then and doesn’t look away. “I…” he pauses and swallows and stands a little taller, steeling himself. His voice comes out as a whisper. “I want to try again.” He wobbles a smile, hesitant, and hopeful. “Let’s try again.”
“No.” The word is out of Crowley’s mouth before he can give it second thought.
“No?”
Crowley shakes his head and steps away, snorting a laugh in disbelief, his head falling back as though gazing up at Heaven. “No, no, no…” Aziraphale follows him and doesn’t hesitate in taking Crowley’s hand in his. Crowley wrenches it away. “No,” he repeats, aware it sounds almost childish.
“Crowley, please.”
“I said no,” Crowley hisses, glaring.
Aziraphale’s face slips. “But-”
“No, you don’t get to decide that,” Crowley snaps. “You left me. You left us. You do not get to come back now and-” He stops and makes a noise of rage. “You don’t get to even suggest things like ‘trying again’. It’s been three years, angel. Three years I was kept in the dark and I didn't know if- Three years that felt like an eternity. You don't get to decide now.”
“So you get to decide it?” Aziraphale says, waspishly. “That hardly seems fair.”
“Well usually people decide things together, but there hasn’t been much of that recently,” Crowley snarls. “You made the call when you just decided I could join you in Heaven. No discussion about that now was there.”
“Of course there wasn’t,” Aziraphale shoots back and Crowley sees a glimpse of how Aziraphale was as Supreme Archangel. “You didn’t want to discuss anything as I recall.”
“If you honestly thought I’d join you in Heaven-”
“I meant,” Aziraphale says. “I meant, you only seemed interested in forcing yourself on me.”
Crowley’s knees buckle slightly.
He thinks it would have hurt less if Aziraphale had picked up that flaming sword of his and just run him through with it. Because how can he even explain? Because, the thing is, Aziraphale is right. That kiss (if one could call it that) had been a misjudged, last-ditch attempt to change his angel’s mind and it hadn’t worked. And Crowley’s spent a good portion of the last three years replaying the scene in his mind, burning with shame and regret, and wishing he’d done it differently, wondering if it would have turned out better if he’d been softer, if he’d been reasonable and not succumbed to anger.
Aziraphale suddenly looks remorseful too, as though he can read Crowley’s emotions like an open book upon his face. “Crowley, I didn’t-”
“You're right though.”
“I didn't mean it like that, I know you would never...”
“I would never have been able to stay in Heaven,” Crowley interrupts quickly, changing the subject. Almost mechanically, he puts his glasses back on – a protective barrier between himself and this conversation. “I couldn't have gone with you. I would have fallen again and Hell would never have let me go.”
“I would not have let that happen,” Aziraphale says, following Crowley's subject change with only the briefest hesitation. “We could have rebuilt it together, made the rules together. It would have been-”
But Crowley is shaking his head again. “And I still wouldn’t have wanted it. I wanted the world. This world, you idiot, Earth and this wonderous galaxy,” he waves a hand around encompassing not just bookshop but all beyond it. “We already made this world together, angel, you seem to forget. And I wanted to share it with you!”
“I didn’t forget. But Heaven was going to be bet-”
“Better? Really?” Crowley’s eyebrows dart upward sceptically. “And how far exactly did you get in making Heaven better than Earth?”
“Well, not very,” Aziraphale admits. “But I didn’t have you!”
Crowley never did see the Heaven that Aziraphale ruled, but in his mind it’s very similar to what he remembers just with slightly more tartan and a little more Tchaikovsky.
“None of this mentions the war you nearly brought upon this planet, by the way,” Crowley continues.
“But there wasn’t a war,” Aziraphale says, thrown slightly.
“Didn’t stop your lot trying.”
“Nor yours!”
“Mine?” Crowley isn’t sure if Aziraphale means Earth or Hell.
“Well, anyway, it was all part of the plan. There was no war. We stopped it.” He gives another hesitate smile. “We stopped it. It was just like I intended. Surely, you see that. Crowley, please.” Aziraphale is pleading now, hands twisting together, face earnest and desperate like he has utter belief that if he can say the right words, Crowley will come round.
“A plan you failed to tell me about until the last minute,” Crowley says.
“I needed it to be believable, I needed you safe, I needed-”
“Stop,” Crowley cuts him off, and it’s an instruction to himself as well. Because his mind is wanting to pull him in all directions and he’s not sure he can trust himself to say or do the right thing.
“But it’s true!”
Logically Crowley knows Aziraphale must have planned something, but he also knows that Aziraphale meant it when he said he wanted Crowley to join him in Heaven as an angel. And maybe there was a plan before Aziraphale made that offer but Crowley thinks it came after, when Aziraphale looked around Heaven and realised it wasn’t what he thought. It shouldn’t matter really, after all they’re both safe and Earth is safe, and life is continuing. But it does matter.
“And when exactly did you come up with this clever plan?”
Aziraphale’s face shutters, and that is really the only answer Crowley needs. He slowly shakes his head. “Go, please.”
“I made a mistake,” Aziraphale says with urgent softness. “We both made mistakes.”
“Go,” Crowley can’t listen anymore.
“Metatron was just so… convincing,” Aziraphale continues and with a slight frown, he shakes his head slightly, as though trying to shake off a fog.
“Metatron was just a fuckwi-”
“Crowley!”
“Angel! Please go.”
Aziraphale looks around, perplexed as Crowley’s words sink in. “Go? From my bookshop?”
“I think you’ll find you don’t have a bookshop anymore,” Crowley says. There’s no harshness in his words, it’s matter of fact.
“Oh…” Aziraphale fumbles for words. For a brief moment, Crowley thinks he will argue some more, but then the fight leaves him visibly. “Yes, quite right I suppose.”
“Right.”
“I’ll just go then.” Aziraphale turns, looking as broken as Crowley feels. He makes it to the door before pausing and looking back. “I am so sorry, my dear.”
“I forgive you,” Crowley says simply.
And maybe Crowley regrets those words because he immediately wants to take them back at the look of devastation which flashes across Aziraphale’s face. But then the door is closed and Crowley is alone and no one is there to see the tears that leak from behind his dark glasses.
~ *XX* ~
Aziraphale lasts a day and a half.
Crowley is relieved because he wasn’t sure he could stand it much longer himself.
He supposes Maggie and Nina gave the angel a pep talk. He knows Aziraphale ended up back at their flat above the record store and knowing the angel was so close yet so far was slowly driving him insane. Until now, because Aziraphale is on the bookshop threshold, having somehow managed to open the door even though Crowley knows it was locked.
“Crowley?” Aziraphale calls.
“Here,” Crowley says it casually as though he hasn’t been lingering in the dark by the door waiting for this moment.
“Oh,” Aziraphale seems startled to see him. “Um, can we talk?”
Crowley considers turning him away again, he’s still hurting. They're both still hurting. Only there is a familiar ache in his chest that tells him he can’t let Aziraphale go. They are nothing if not drawn to each other. “Right,” he says.
“Well, look, I’ve been, uh, reliably informed that we don’t really talk about the important things.”
“We don’t,” Crowley agrees. “We didn’t until it was too late.”
“Don’t you think we should try and change that?”
Ironically, Crowley can’t find the words just at that moment, so he steps aside to let Aziraphale in. The angel enters cautiously as though fearing another eviction, but when none seems forthcoming, he bustles towards the back room and returns surprisingly quickly with a cup of tea and a glass of wine.
“Ta,” Crowley says, taking the wine.
The settle on opposite ends of the sofa, and Crowley tries to pretend the silence isn’t awkward. He hates that it’s awkward. He wants to cry. But then Aziraphale begins talking, his voice soft and hesitant but growing stronger as he goes.
Crowley listens, never interrupting, and realisation slowly dawns on him that by avoiding this conversation for so long, they misunderstood so much. And when Aziraphale stops and Crowley takes his turn to speak, he can see the same realisation dawn on the angel’s face too.
~ *XX* ~
The sun has come out again. And one angel and one demon are inside a Soho bookshop. Outside, the street is bustling and sunlight streams in through the window, creating a halo around Aziraphale’s white-blonde hair as he sits in his armchair, a book forgotten beside him as he looks up at Crowley, who is proffering a teacup.
“Thank you, my dear,” Aziraphale says and Crowley perches on the arm of the chair.
There’s a moment of calm which Crowley has missed. He’s relaxed, and he’s not put his glasses on once all day. For the first time in a long time, it hits him that this could be it for the rest of his existence. They no longer have to hide, or fight. They can be an us. It’s the happiest thought he’s entertained for a long time.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Aziraphale asks.
“Hm? Oh, just appreciating this peace.”
Aziraphale smiles and places his teacup and saucer down on a side table before turn to look up at the demon again. “Can I ask you something?
And Crowley knows exactly what Aziraphale wants to ask but he thinks answering before it’s actually posited is perhaps a little rude. “Sure,” he says, aiming for nonchalant.
“Can we try again?” True to his word, Aziraphale asks this time, leaves it up to Crowley. There’s no pleading in his tone either. It’s a simple question and Crowley knows that if he refuses, Aziraphale will still be there. He knows that if he refuses, Aziraphale will not push. But he doesn’t want to refuse anymore. If Aziraphale wants to try, then Crowley is right there with him.
“I’d like that a lot, angel,” he says, smiling down upon Aziraphale’s face, admiring the way it lights up at his words. The armchair is probably too small to accommodate them both, but by some minor miracle it suddenly is and Crowley slithers down to sit beside Aziraphale.
“Are you sure?”
Crowley cups Aziraphale’s face by way of answer and gently brings their foreheads together carefully like he’s holding glass. Physically, it’s the closest they’ve been these past few months. Oh, there’s been other touches: fingers grazing, shoulders bumping, a guiding hand on the small of ones back, little movements as they become familiar with each other again.
“Could I kiss you, angel?” Crowley breathes.
Aziraphale responds by weaving a hand through Crowley’s hair bringing him close enough to touch their lips together. It’s soft and hesitant and Crowley breaks away not daring to risk. But Aziraphale follows him, kissing him again with a little more firmness and Crowley makes an embarrassing happy noise because this time it’s Aziraphale who makes the move to clutch at Crowley’s lapel and press him closer.
“This is how I wanted it, you know,” Crowley says a little later.
“Wanted what?” Aziraphale sounds pleasantly dazed.
“Our first kiss,” Crowley says, pulling away a fraction to look earnestly at Aziraphale. “I’d pictured it for so long, but it didn’t happen right that first time. I hurt you.”
“I hurt you too.”
And just like that, it's all water under the bridge. Crowley presses a kiss to the corner of Aziraphale’s mouth. “Let’s never do that again, hey.”
“Never.”
“Ever.”