he wakes and all is well: a Good Omens Valentine’s Day oneshot
I volunteered to be an emergency match for @goloveday and got to write a small gift for @btab66 It’s a little piece of fluff that I had fun writing and hope you enjoy!
Title: he wakes and all is well Fandom: Good Omens Pairing: Ineffable Husbands (Aziraphale/Crowley) Rating: G Word count: 1k
Read it on AO3 or below the cut!
Aziraphale wakes up. He’s not used to waking up, not yet, because he is not used to sleeping, but he thinks that he could grow to like it, because sleeping means listening to the deep rhythm of Crowley’s breath until all is serene and still, means all of his senses being filled with Crowley at the start of every day.
He’s warm, because he wakes up in the flannel sheets they bought together, Crowley and he, and they had bickered about colors and patterns before coming to agreement: warm ivory sheets and duvets as deep as the night sky.
Sunlight is streaming in through the open window; it must be nearly noon, and that reminds the angel of just how late they’d stayed up the night before, drinking and playing chess and fibbing outrageously about their own past involvement in historical events. The night before that it had been tapas and a debate about which Shakespeare theories had the least merit. The night before that had been silence and firelight and warm blankets.
Crowley isn’t there, but that is alright. The warmth of him lingers in the sheets, the scent of him is wrapped around Aziraphale like an extra blanket. And Aziraphale can wake up to his absence without dread, these days. His fears have subsided in the face of long years of habitual contentedness and safety.
And he smells pancakes. Neither of them has any great culinary expertise, but it has been pleasant to start learning together. Attempts which Aziraphale would have found tedious on his own become delightful when Crowley sneaks up behind him for a hug or holds out a spoonful of whatever they’re making for him to try. So now they mostly eat breakfast at home, and mornings stretch later and later into the day, and everything is perfect.
Aziraphale gets out of bed and pulls on his dressing gown as he makes his way to the kitchen. It’s a funny thing: he would bet that he’s spent more time in his living quarters in the past four years than in the previous two centuries combined. They’re small but have never once felt cramped with Crowley here. Sharing a home with his love is a luxury Aziraphale is sure can never lose its luster.
In the kitchen, American pancakes and a cup of tea are waiting for Aziraphale, piping hot—as they no doubt would still have been even if it had taken him hours longer to leave bed.
“Morning,” says Crowley. He’s propped up inelegantly at the other side of the table, both hands wrapped around a mug of coffee.
“And to you.”
Aziraphale sits and begins eating.
Crowley watches him.
Crowley often watches him—has been watching him since the Very Beginning, to the point that Aziraphale finds it impossible (not to mention distinctly unpleasant) to imagine Earth without Crowley’s watching. Aziraphale is, by this point, something of a connoisseur of being watched by Crowley, of the ways in which Crowley watches him: for the pleasure of a lovely thing to look at (which is flattering); to look for signs of weakness as he presents some argument or plan (which is now mercifully rare); to wait for something (which had used to flummox poor Aziraphale until he learned that the demon loved him back); to see if Aziraphale is going to ask.
He seems to love being asked. Crowley had been very forward about the whole Arrangement—perhaps as a matter of necessity—but Aziraphale has learned over the millennia that Crowley loves to wait, loves to be asked, invited, welcomed.
And Aziraphale does so love to indulge him.
“My dear,” he says lightly after a sip of tea. “This breakfast was such a lovely surprise to wake up to.”
The demon only makes a noncommittal noise, but there is nothing that Aziraphale has studied as much as Crowley’s face: the demon is holding something back.
“May I know the occasion?” he asks.
There—there’s the moment of indecision, of Crowley warring with himself over whether to preserve his aloof facade. But Aziraphale knows the demon will give in.
Not without a struggle, though: “Do I need an occasion to make breakfast?” Crowley asks.
“Goodness no,” says Aziraphale. “All the same…” he lets the sentence trail off to nothing, leaves his words hanging in the air like an invitation, and returns nonchalantly to his breakfast.
Not even a minute later, Crowley appears to give up. “It’s our anniversary,” he blurts out.
Aziraphale smiles. “Is it?”
Crowley is forever finding anniversaries for them. The anniversary of the Arrangement, of their first drink together, their first shared meal, their first night sleeping side-by-side. The anniversary of the night that Crowley rescued Aziraphale’s books during the blitz. The anniversary of the first time they fed ducks. Sometimes Aziraphale suspects that they’ll get to a point where not a week passes without an anniversary of some sort, some little celebration that Crowley has invented for them, because Crowley remembers. He hoards their milestones like a dragon’s treasure. If Aziraphale had known that before, it would have been heartbreaking. Now, though—now, when they are safe and able to celebrate anything they wish—it is a delight.
“First date,” Crowley says.
“That can’t be right. Our first date was in September, four years ago.”
Crowley shakes his head. “Not like that. The first time we made an actual plan to see each other, without the excuse of the Arrangement. Didn’t just...find each other.”
“When—oh, do you mean the theatre?”
The demon nods and rewards him with a little smile.
“Gracious, how long has it been?”
“Dunno,” says Crowley. “Just remember the date.”
February 14, 1895, Aziraphale thinks it was—one hundred and twenty-nine years. The opening of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest at St James’s Theatre. He’d never thought of it that way before, but Crowley’s classification of it as a date makes sense: the very first time they’d shed the careful pretext of the Arrangement or of happenstance. Not the first step, certainly, but an important step on the road that has led them here: to breakfast in the late morning sun, to nights spent close and cozy.
“That one was your idea,” Crowley says.
The first time Aziraphale asked.
“Well,” Aziraphale says, “you always did like the funny ones.”