“I feel as though we’ve gotten away with murder,” Aziraphale whispered, eyes wild and giddy in the low light of Crowley’s apartment.
They had ridden the bus back from Tadfield in silence, taking turns watching the sky, streets, and manholes for suspicious activity. Through some telepathic agreement, they had refrained from even looking at each other until Crowley had locked and bolted his apartment door behind them. Now, curiously unable to look anywhere else, Crowley felt his serious thoughts turn slippery and slide away like a bar of soap when you grip it too tight in the bath.
“Funny that,” Crowley answered. “We stop a war and save seven billion humans from being boiled like lobsters, and we feel like the bad guys.”
“Don’t you dare make me hungry for seafood at a time like this, Crowley.”
A beat of silence, and they both dissolved into a muffled cacophony of giggles, snuffles, and one extremely undignified snort that Aziraphale would never admit to.
“We need to plan,” Crowley wheezed.
“We need to plan.” Aziraphale nodded. “And we need to drink. Wine, preferably. Madeira even more preferably.”
“Why?”
“Higher alcohol content.”
Crowley leveled him with a flat look, amusement definitely not dancing at the edges. “No, why do we need to drink? Shouldn’t we be taking this seriously? We’ve got all of Heaven and Hell coming for us at any moment.”
“Exactly,” Aziraphale said. “We’re certainly not going to find a solution to this while sober.”
He watched as Aziraphale turned on his heel and strode toward the kitchen. Crowley was thankful for it too. Otherwise, he was sure he would have let out the words that he had held in for so long.
Everything felt like it was unraveling. His car. His walls. His sanity. The Great and/or Ineffable Plan.
“I found a 1932 Malmsey back here,” Aziraphale called. “And look, you have chocolate truffles.”
He let them unravel.
***
Later that night, after getting thoroughly drunk and regretfully un-drunk again, Crowley lay in his bed, facing the window and the Inevitable Consequences he knew were creeping closer by the second. He turned, eyes flicking over an uncharacteristically unconscious angel next to him. That Aziraphale only put up a moderate fight to sleeping (“I’ve already slept this century. I’m not a child.” “Don’t make me use my Nanny Ashtoreth voice.”) spoke volumes of how much the past few days had taken out of him too. Crowley’s heart–or whatever was still in there–ached for what Aziraphale must be feeling. After 6,000 years, the grief Crowley felt for his own faith in Heaven still bloomed like a bruise just beneath the surface. Yet despite everything, Aziraphale lay beatifically against Crowley’s black satin sheets, golden white hair like a bursting star in the night sky.
His hands ached to reach for him, pour his own light into him as he had kindled the flames in the cosmos. He had enough. He was sure he still had enough.
Softly, into the air between them, he let the words go.
“Stay,” he said. “Please, stay.”
