Aaah! So many great prompts!!! I wanna ask them all! But I'll chose just one right now. How about 70 (for ineffable husbands of course)
Hoooo boy thank you so much for the prompt request! hopefully this will do it justice!
70. “After everything we’ve been through, you still don’t think that I love you?”
It had been such a normal night, really. Wine, food, long discussions of playwrights who had long since passed on and far too many movie references that went right over Aziraphale’s head.
“So you’ve seriously never watched James Bond?” Crowley asked, sounding far more scanalized than any demon had a right to sound. “Seriously?”
Aziraphale shrugged. “I read one of the books-”
Before he could even finish his sentence, he’d been cut off by a long, drawn out groan from Crowley.
“That’s not the same thing! I love you, angel, but we really need to get you up to date with today’s media.”
Aziraphale froze, staring at Crowley in shock. Crowley, meanwhile, seemed to not even have noticed what he said, instead gearing up for another long rant about whatever movie it was that Aziraphale must see.
It shouldn’t be strange for friends, especially friends who’d known each other as long as they had, to say they love each other. And maybe to other people, it wasn’t. But neither one of them even regularly acknowledged their feelings of friendship for each other, much less something as deep as love.
It was Aziraphale’s turn to cut Crowley off now.
“I love you,” Aziraphale said. He could feel his face heat up, feel the still semi-shocked expression and smile that was slowly forming on his lips as he watched Crowley for a reaction.
The reaction had been almost instantaneous.He froze, his rant about how cool James Bond was long forgotten.
“You don’t love me,” Crowley said, his words bitter and harsh. It was strange to hear that tone coming from Crowley, who was usually rather optimistic for a demon (or for anyone, for that matter, no matter how much he denied it).
Aziraphale blinked at him, clearly trying to process his words. “What do you mean?” he asked.
A bitter laugh fell from Crowley’s lips as he leaned back into the couch, his eyes completely obscured by those blasted sunglasses. “Exactly what I said. You don’t love me. You can’t.”
Frustration rolled off of Aziraphale in waves. “Now listen,” he said, pushing himself up out of the chair he was sitting in. His wine glass wobbled, threatening to spill red wine all over some of his books that were stacked there, but a quick miracle prevented it from happening. He couldn’t even tell if it was from him or Crowley.
“What on Earth would make you think that I couldn’t love you?” Aziraphale asked. He leaned forward, hoping that a different angle might allow him to peek behind Crowley’s glasses, but he had no such luck.
Crowley seemed hesitant to answer. He let his head dangle over the back of the couch, and his neck seemed long and almost broken at the strange angle. Flashes from the Garden came to Aziraphale, just the quick glimpses he’d managed to catch of Crowley in his snake form before he’d introduced himself to Aziraphale.
“Dunno,” he said, though his tone seemed to imply otherwise.
“After everything we’ve been through, you still don’t think that I love you?” Aziraphale asked softly.
Crowley stiffened and lifted his head back up to look at Aziraphale. He didn’t seem to be angry or hurt or anything else just sort of… empty.
“I know you care about me,” Crowley said carefully. “You would’ve smitted- smote- whatevered me long ago if you didn’t.” He picked at the black nail polish on his fingers, just to give his hands something to do and his eyes somewhere else to look other than Aziraphale. “But that’s not the same thing as love.”
Aziraphale knew that he had been less than kind to Crowley during different parts of their relationship over the years (what, with pointing out the fact that he was a demon with a startling amount of regularity), but he’d had his reasons for doing so. Part of him had done it because he’d believed that that was the way it was supposed to be, different sides, mortal enemies all that, while another part of him had believed that he would be saving Crowley if he’d done it. No one in Hell could accuse him of anything if Aziraphale made sure that both of them could keep up appearances.
But still, to hear that Crowley didn’t even believe that Aziraphale could possibly love him hurt him far more than he would care to mention.
They’d left Eden together, witnessed civilizations rise and fall, sailed the high seas for each other with pirates, and just recently, discovered that they’d lost the antichrist, found him, stared down Death and the literal Devil, evaded Heaven and Hell, and started the rest of their lives together.
Didn’t any of those things mean something to him?
His hands reached out to grab Crowley’s, to wrap them within his own so that he could squeeze them tight and hopefully make the idiot understand.
“Crowley-” he said, his voice cutting off about halfway through his name. “I love you. I have loved you. I will always love you.” His thumb ran across the back of Crowley’s hand, tight circles that he used to try and convey all of his words to the demon. “I’m sorry if I ever made you feel like I didn’t or that I couldn’t possibly. Because it’s you. It’s only you, and it’s only ever been you.”
Watching Crowley absorb his words was a bit like watching a computer buffer on the slowest internet settings possible. Eventually, his brain seemed to catch up with everything else, and he leaned his head forward to rest it on top of their intertwined hands.
“When did you realize?” Crowley asked, his voice cracking. Aziraphale could tell that he was crying, or at least near tears, but he didn’t call him out on it.
“I think I realized it somewhere during the eighteenth century,” Aziraphale said. “I was so scared to lose you after you mentioned wanting Holy Water and I think that’s what fully made me realize it.” He squeezed Crowley’s hands again, feeling his own face began to heat up. “Do you remember that night in the church? With the Nazis?”
Crowley snorted, a wet sounding snort that spoke of tears. “Yeah, how could I forget? Your dumbass almost got us both discorporated.”
Aziraphale sniffed and turned his nose up just a bit. “I’m not the one who dropped a bomb on us, my dear.”
“If I hadn’t, we would’ve died either way.”
“Even so!” Aziraphale said, bringing the conversation back around. “That was the night that I realized you might actually love me back. Or that you at least cared for me far beyond what I had always assumed you did.”
“For Somebody’s sake, why’re we such idiots?” Crowley asked, lifting his head up so he could meet Aziraphale’s eyes.
Aziraphale, finally having enough of not being able to see Crowley’s eyes, reached over and gently took his glasses off. His yellow snake eyes stared back at Aziraphale, tears still falling from them as a small laugh came from him.
He’d planned to answer Crowley, really he had, had thought up a million and one ways to say they weren’t stupid or anything, but all thoughts immediately went out the window as he stared at Crowley.
Without even planning to, he leaned forward, his lips coming to rest gently against Crowley’s. It was soft, so light that he wasn’t even sure that he was actually kissing him at first, until Crowley reached over and pulled him in closer.
He couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across his face when they broke apart, and from the look on Crowley’s face neither could he.
“I love you,” Aziraphale said, putting as much love and adoration into those three words as he possibly could.
“I love you, too, angel.”
And they came together again, their lips pressing close as the night went on. Later, Crowley will remember what he had been trying to say about James Bond and Aziraphale will lean over, and kiss him just to distract him again. And it will work.
