oh! oh! because I'm terrible and love to hurt, for the ask meme; 9. Have they made each other cry?
Hi! Good morning <3 I was pretty excited to think about this. It’s under angst, yes, but you know me and my soft heart. Thank you for the ask!
9. Have they made each other cry?
Crying is a funny thing. It’s easy to assume that all bodies are the same, that we all function at something of the same speed. We’re made of the same clay afterall, the same atom-junk, the same starstuff. Why should your body be different from mine?
But they are. Count your heartbeats, count mine. They’re something of the same (something different too).
We have two corporations to consider. Two human bodies. Crowley isn’t good at crying. He wants to. God, yeah, when the muckrot starts just fucking climbing up his goddamn throat and he can feel the pressure of the expanding gasses like a sodapop bottle just shaken up and thrown - yes, he wishes he could. Could spit it out, take the pressure off. Can’t manage it though. Not well, anyway. If he’s properly drunk, he can get a little misty. A bit of a teardrop-pinprick there at the inner corners. His eyes can get red enough, yes. He can let a lot of miserable rot fall out of his mouth too. But crying, no. He’s never really been good at it.
He’s cried once. Just once. Properly that is. There had been a four-minute walk from the bookshop to the pub he fixed in his mind. Crowley had dragged himself down streets with ash still in his hair and still on his face and stuck, stinging, to his goddamn eyes and maybe it had been the ash that had done it, had started this crying shit off. There’s no single tear here, that’s not how this works. Not in truth. Just this red-rimmed awful, just wet-waves to the edges of his sight and fucking ruining what he can and cannot see and getting his eyelashes all fucking damp and he’s so goddamn furious too. Fever-burnt anger, ocean-sunk misery. I can’t find you, Aziraphale. Where the fuck are you? What have they done? Where are you? They fucking took you. I should have been there - I shouldn’t have left. Godfuckingfuckfuckshit. He gets his sleeve out, dark as burnt things. Dark as burnt wood and scorched earth. Fire-ruined paper. Gets his sleeve out and up and rubs the mess away. He doesn’t do this kind of misery well. Not this one. Humor, yes, and anger too. Misery, if he’s left alone for it. This ache. This is something else.
(He won’t talk about it. No, he never will.)
There is another. Aziraphale’s a different sort of creature, though his corporation is human enough too. This is why we must be gentle with each other, understand the ways we’re the same and the unexpected spaces where we are not. Crowley cannot cry. Aziraphale can. Sometimes, it isn’t even sadness. Sorrow is easier, he can expect to sob then. Can prepare for it, take a breath, steady on. So, that’s when he keeps a stiff upper lip, he keeps himself accounted for. (Sorrow isn’t the problem.) No, it’s something else and he never plans for it. Aziraphale can cry and often does. At a movie and a book. At a commercial for one of the programs or other that Crowley’s left on. It’s easy enough to put up a shield for a sword, a vest for a bullet. It’s the other things. A love story, maybe. And weddings too.
There is one notable moment. Let’s look. It is an autumn day. September-mild, the worst the summer having burnt off finally and cool air rushing in. There is the smell of apples and grass. There is the relief of the promise of winter on the back of the wind. Colors are showing here in the park now. Russet-red leaves, (as familiar as something else well-loved, Aziraphale can see the hair in the distance). Oh, and there’s gold in the trees too, also loved. (He cannot see butter-gold eyes yet, he is not close enough. He will get there. Be patient.)The Sedums are bright pink. Aziraphale breathes in the light and the smell of beech and maple. This bit of water happens when he sees Crowley, there in the park in black. Not the usual black. A tumble of dahlias there in the lapel, fitted nicely. Tied up with a ribbon. Roses too. There’s the terror-swallow of the throat. The way the sunglasses are tucked away, nowhere to be seen. Aziraphale breathes, catches himself. Oh, I love you. I always will. You’re the same, aren’t you? You look nervous. I’m nervous too, my love. I knew we’d get there eventually. He does this kind of love well. He’s been doing it for centuries.
(He’ll talk about it. Always and often. They both will.)