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Aziraphale is reshelving an armful of books left on his wooden step ladder by a careless customer when he glances at the volume he’s shelving, sees Novel of the Year! glaring at him in bright gold letters, and realizes why the date had snagged at his memory this morning. It was one year to the day since the world hadn’t come to an end. He sits down on the stepladder with the books on his knees. ‘Well.’ He says to the empty shop. ‘Well.’
The same thought occurs to Crowley as he’s standing in Seven Dials, considering a theatre marquee and whether or not it’s worth the effort to introduce a typo. ‘Well. Shit.’
On the other side of a bookshelf, the front door of the shop jingles open. Aziraphale leans slightly to the right and catches a glimpse of the balding ginger head of a neighborhood regular, George, who can manage a perusal of the latest acquisitions on his own for a few minutes at least. That’s a relief; Aziraphale doesn’t want to chance standing up when his legs feel wobbly.
A year. An entire revolution of the earth around the sun.
And nothing’s changed.
Crowley’s so distracted by the shock of the remembrance that he leaves the marquee unmolested and actually pays for an espresso at the cafe beside the theatre. He picks a side street and walks, sipping at the coffee until the cup is empty and a few more times because he forgets it’s empty.
The end of the world was supposed to change things. The fact that it hadn’t happened didn’t seem to make much difference at all.
‘Nothing’s ... changed,’ Aziraphale mouths soundlessly to himself, trying the idea out to see if airing it helps make sense of the unaccountable ... regret? … that’s washed over him. How could he possibly regret that they managed to stop the apocalypse? Hadn’t the whole point been to stop change, stop the world as they knew and loved it from divinely-mandated expiration? So that they could go on knowing and loving ...
Oh.
Crowley isn’t at all surprised to look up and find himself in front of the bookstore. It was even odds it would be there or the park bench. Where else does he ever spend time?
‘Angel, I-- oh.’ He isn't expecting an actual not-Aziraphale person to be there, but there's an elderly man with a fringe of bright ginger hair around a very bald head and a pair of half-moon spectacles halfway down his nose.
The man tilts his head back slightly, eyeing Crowley through the lenses rather than over them. ‘Oh, it’s you.’ Having come to that conclusion, he turns his attention back to the book in his hands.
Crowley blinks, unsure whether to be upset or amused. ‘Sorry, am I interrupting you?’
‘No, but -- d’you think you could tell your friend I left cash on the desk?’ He fishes a crumpled tenner out of a pocket and waves it at Crowley before dropping it on top of the scree of papers on Aziraphale's desk. ‘I’d wait but I’m late to meet my daughter.’
‘Yeah -- sure -- what’d you buy?’ Crowley asks, almost automatically as the man walks past him. It’ll be the first question Aziraphale asks.
The man gives him a slightly offended look. ‘None of your business, lad!’ and slams out the front door.
Distantly, as if he’s under water, Aziraphale hears Crowley’s voice and another voice in response to it: must be George although why he’d be chatting with Crowley -- The door jangles again and there’s a slight pop of air pressure as Crowley steps into Aziraphale’s space. Not unpleasant. Familiar. Beloved.
He gingerly smoothes his palm over the dust jacket on the cover of the book that’s top on his stack. A mid-twentieth century history of Cornwall, he notes, dimly. He recalls purchasing it for 50p at a charity shop in Tadfield during one of their visits. February. He remembers it had been snowing, wetly, and Crowley had insisted they stop at the Costa Coffee for hot chocolates, encouraging the girl at the counter to top them both with extra whipped cream and then nicking Aziraphale’s cup to suck off a good bit of Aziraphale’s cream once he’d finished his own.
‘The chap at the door gave me this,’ Crowley says, appearing at the end of the aisle with a coffee cup in one hand and waving a tenner in the other. ‘Wouldn’t tell me what it was for. Rude.’ He moves down the aisle until he’s standing just a step or two away from Aziraphale’s step stool.
‘George,’ Aziraphale supplies, looking up at him and feeling winded. ‘It’ll be -- it’ll be one of the new French histories.’
‘They write new ones now? What will they think of next.’ Crowley flourishes the note in Aziraphale’s face. 'What d’you want me to do with this?’
‘Oh -- whatever you like.’ Aziraphale waves a hand, still looking very closely at something in the middle distance.
Crowley shrugs and pockets it. He’ll use it later to buy something for Aziraphale anyway, so it hardly makes a difference. ‘You all right? S’not like you to leave the shop unprotected.’
‘Mm.’ Aziraphale nods slowly.
‘Hot chocolate?’ Crowley takes the lid off and waves the full cup carefully under Aziraphale’s nose. ‘Your favorite.’ It hadn’t been but hot chocolate is a step up from burnt espresso.
‘Oh...yes, thank you.’ Aziraphale takes the cup absently.
Crowley shoves his hands in his pockets for lack of anything else to do with them. ‘It -- er -- occurred to me. Earlier. What today is.’
‘Yes.’ Aziraphale nods again. ‘To me, too.’
He takes a sip of the hot chocolate. It’s rich and sweet with just a hint of cinnamon, the way Aziraphale himself makes it when they need a little something to warm them up on a cold winter evening. Had Crowley purchased it with him in mind? He cannot immediately identify why the thought flusters him. He’s observed for centuries that Crowley does little things like this, things that make Aziraphale aware that Crowley pays attention. But coming on the heels of Crowley acknowledging the date makes it feel like something of an anniversary gift.
Crowley had barely acknowledged their survival at all, one year ago today, when the bus come to a stop outside of the shop and disgorged them onto the pavement. The Bentley, as restored as the bookshop, sat waiting. As the bus pulled away, Crowley had stalked over to it and run a hand over the roof from windshield to boot. Kicked a tire. Then shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at Aziraphale over the car roof.
‘Well,’ he’d said. ‘What do you say, angel. Fancy lunch at that place ‘round the corner this Thursday?’
Aziraphale, who could still feel the imprint of Crowley’s jacket on his cheek from where he’d dozed off on the ride back to London, had felt both reassured and crushed by the invitation. He stood on his side of the road, hand on the doorknob of the shop’s front door, and couldn’t think of what else to do.
‘Thursday. Yes. Let’s.’
Crowley watches Aziraphale sip at the hot chocolate and damns the angel’s ability to maintain a perfect poker face. ‘Good?’
‘Mm.’ Aziraphale swallows and runs the tip of his tongue over his lip, then smiles at Crowley. ‘Delicious. Sweet of you to remember how I like it.’
Crowley clears his throat and digs his hands further into his jeans pockets. The last thing on this damned planet he needs is to start getting stiff because Aziraphale said thanks for some cocoa. ‘Thought maybe you’d want to ... do something.’
‘Do something?’ Aziraphale echoes, cradling the cup in both hands.
Crowley shrugs. ‘Well. Seems worth remembering. Y’know.’ He pulls one hand free and flourishes it, lets the molecules spark around his fingertips so he traces glitter through the air. ‘The day the world didn’t end.’
‘Because of us,’ Aziraphale says softly, lifting the cup again and inhaling the steam.
Crowley’s heart does something physiologically unlikely and he resists the impulse to smack his chest. What is he even doing here? He’d just started walking, let his feet choose the path, and ended up ... here. He always bloody well ended up here. And just because a year ago he’d been daft enough to think perhaps here might change ... he’s here again.
Crowley doesn’t respond and Aziraphale looks cautiously up from his cocoa.
‘It was a very nice lunch,’ he says, testing out the words. ‘That Thursday. I had prawns.’
Crowley shudders. ‘Bottom feeders.’ His shoulders ease. ‘But if I remember, the wine you selected made up for that.’
Aziraphale smiles, in remembrance. They had lingered on that beautiful summer afternoon until the dinner crowd began to trickle in and the waiter hovered meaningfully by their table after clearing away the second round of dessert plates. Aziraphale had wondered, feeling the pleasant magnanimity that came with drinking two bottles of wine with one’s dearest friend on a gorgeous summer day, if perhaps they might now-- But there his imagination had failed him.
He’d blinked at Crowley, casually sprawling as much as the tiny al fresco patio could accommodate, and thought that he simply ought to be grateful that Crowley was interested in continuing their friendship. Crowley had seemed remarkably at ease, in fact, all afternoon -- happy, even. Carefree was a word that came to mind although Aziraphale was too tipsy to decide whether the word meant something Crowley was or something he himself was feeling. They had been through too many near-misses not to appreciate the fact that now they had a chance to continue. To exist. Together. How incredibly freeing a thought that was.
And yet Aziraphale’s mind had drawn an absolute blank when he presented it with the opportunity to express an opinion or two about what, exactly, they were now free to do.
A year later, he feels none the wiser.
Except.
‘Crowley,’ he says, before he can think too hard about it. ‘Crowley, what would humans do. On a significant anniversary like this?’
‘Er.’ Crowley’s brain locks up, just slightly, just enough that words seem inordinately difficult. ‘Get sloshed?’
Aziraphale nods and puts the cup of hot chocolate down on a nearby shelf. ‘Yes, but -- well, not to put too fine a point on it but we do that fairly frequently any way.’ He smiles at Crowley. ‘Not that I'm complaining, mind you.’
‘No,’ Crowley echoes.
‘And the same with a good meal, really. There must be something else.’
‘Um -- throw a party?’ Crowley hazards.
Aziraphale frowns. ‘Us and four twelve-year-olds? I don’t think so, no. Charming though they are.’ He lets out a long breath and brushes invisible dust off the cover of the book in his lap. ‘It just seems -- it seems as though -- there should be -- as though we should be doing something -- different.’
Crowley swallows. ‘As though things should be different, y’mean.’
Aziraphale purses his lips. ‘I said what I meant, Crowley.’ He brushes away more invisible dust, then looks up at Crowley. ‘Didn’t you ever think that? After last year? Everything went back to -- just the way it was before and --’
‘Aziraphale, what are you talking about?’
Aziraphale wishes he knew. If God Herself had strolled into A.Z. Fell, Booksellers that morning and asked him how he was enjoying life here on Earth he would have answered without reservation that the post-not-apocalypse life had everything to recommend it. His bookshop. Global cuisine and beverages -- including hot chocolate -- for every occasion. The wonders of modern communication that meant he was, just the day before, able to locate an obscure reference for Anathema at the British Library and send pictures of the relevant footnote from his mobile to hers! The fact that not a day goes by when he doesn’t have a text or a picture or a phone call or a visit from Crowley.
‘I should have invited you in, that night,’ is what he blurts out.
Crowley tweaks the chair from behind Aziraphale’s desk a little nearer because he needs to sit down. ‘After the prawns, you mean.’
Aziraphale shrugs. There’s a slow flush of pink rising up from his collar. ‘Yes. And…’ He pauses, licks his lips again and if he keeps doing that Crowley’s attention is going to be shot for the rest of the day. ‘...and any other night. Really. If I’m being honest.’ He looks up, pushing his shoulders back so he’s sitting straight and Crowley recognizes the position: Aziraphale Being Brave.
And whatever expression is on his face isn’t the right one because Aziraphale’s expression is solidifying. ‘No! No, don’t do that.’
‘Do what?’
‘Do ... that.’ Crowley waves at Aziraphale and then hunches into himself dramatically. ‘You do this thing like you want to make yourself invisible. I hate it.’
‘Ah. Oh.’ Aziraphale freezes in position and looks slightly bewildered.
Crowley sighs and yanks off his sunglasses, pinching at the bridge of his nose. ‘What do you mean: You should have invited me in. Because. I mean. I know what I mean when I think that but --’
‘You think that?’ Aziraphale interrupts, the pink flooding back into his face.
Crowley swallows. ‘Yeah.’
‘That -- I should have invited you in or --’
‘Bloody hell, angel, does that matter?’
Aziraphale feels the ripple of energy that means Crowley is feeling strongly in some way and he takes a careful breath. He can’t taste the energy as Crowley can, but after six thousand years (plus one) of feeling Crowley’s emotions, Aziraphale’s grace is responsive enough that he can separate anger from fear and excitement from ...
He blinks.
Excitement from Aziraphale.
He’s never stopped to think about what it means that Crowley has a feeling that Aziraphale associates with himself.
He’s never stopped to think about what the qualities of that feeling might be.
He licks his lips before speaking, and notices the slits of Crowley’s pupils expand in response. He does it again.
‘You thought about it. Think about it. About me, inviting you …’ Aziraphale pauses, because the thought is so new he barely has words for it, and because he’s invited Crowley over hundreds, thousands, millions of times and clearly neither of them are talking about that sort of invitation. ‘... you, inviting …’ He moves the books off his knees to the floor. They’ll still be there to put away when he comes down to reopen the shop in the morning.
Crowley’s close enough that all Aziraphale really has to do is slide off the stepladder onto his knees -- never mind the grit on the floor -- and he’s close enough to reach up and slowly, slowly -- Crowley doesn’t pull back and seems, in fact, to have stopped breathing, possibly also circulating blood -- put his palms against Crowley’s chest, either side of the vee where the top buttons of his black button-down shirt has been left unbuttoned.
‘Crowley,’ Aziraphale says. And then, because it’s the only other word left in his head: ‘Yes.’