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“Well,” Aziraphale said, “it seems we’ve come to a decision.”
Crowley felt like he was being torn apart from the inside and the outside simultaneously. I just got him back. He just came back to me, and now you’re taking him away.
Except for once, this wasn’t Her fault. Or maybe it was. Maybe all of this had been part of the Plan. Maybe She had orchestrated it all, the Arrangement, the Apocalmost, the two of them standing in this room, by the tree, where it had all started, where it was all going to end.
Crowley was so tired.
All he knew was that he had the chance to do what felt right, in this moment. Aziraphale had been right – you couldn’t run off to have cocktails on Alpha Centauri if you knew you had the opportunity to change things.
Why did it have to be us?
Crowley nodded at Aziraphale. He couldn’t speak.
“I suppose we should, ah. Go back in there.”
Not yet, Crowley wanted to say, wanted to scream, wanted to scratch into the damned Book of Life itself. Give us more time. Six thousand years and it wasn’t nearly enough time. Not when it started getting good.
“Uh huh,” he said. His face felt numb. His eyes hurt, but he wasn’t going to hide behind his sunglasses, not when it might be his last chance to look at his best friend. That face. The face that had haunted him, followed him on a wild goose chase through centuries of dancing around each other, his antichrist, his messiah, his angel.
Aziraphale cracked a tiny smile. “My dear,” he said, “Going back in there is going to require moving.”
“Fuck moving,” Crowley said. He didn’t even know what that meant. It was all so unfair. All he’d ever wanted was for things to make sense. When had that turned into becoming a martyr? There had to be a line somewhere, but he didn’t know when he’d crossed it. “I don’t want to go. I fucking love it here. Music and drinks and – and fucking people, and –” He choked. “I guess we won’t miss it, huh? I wonder if it hurts, ceasing to exist.” This had been his idea. He had no right to fall apart like a child about it.
It just hurt so much.
Aziraphale was looking at him sadly, pity in his perfect eyes. “Oh, fuck off,” Crowley said bitterly. He was still so angry, and that was the very worst thing of all, that even now, in these final dwindling moments, he was still angry. Angry at Aziraphale for leaving him. For coming back and assuming everything could go back to normal. Angry at himself for snapping up whatever crumbs Aziraphale was willing to feed him for six thousand bloody years.
“You fuck off,” Aziraphale said softly, and kissed him.
Aziraphale’s lips were so soft.
His face was so warm.
Crowley had never kissed anybody before Aziraphale. He’d had plenty of opportunities, sure, but he’d known he would never love anybody the way he loved his angel. Why pretend? It would have felt like a blasphemy too horrific even for him.
Back in the bookshop, Aziraphale smiling at him and ripping his entire self to shreds with his words, Crowley had known he wasn’t going to win. He’d known kissing Aziraphale wouldn’t make him stay. But he couldn’t have lived with himself if he hadn’t tried. (In a way, they’d made the same choice.)
All that to say – Anthony Crowley’s first kiss had been a hopeless one, a desperate one, throwing himself at his angel because there was nothing left to ruin. Graceless, messy, and bruising.
This was equally desperate. Equally messy. Crowley didn’t know what to do with his tongue. He didn’t know what to do with his hands. He wanted to turn into a snake and crawl into Aziraphale’s mouth, be warm and safe and hidden forever. He wanted to bite Aziraphale’s entire head off. He wanted so much and there was so little time, so little time left –
Aziraphale pulled away, putting his hands on Crowley’s cheeks. His eyes were damp and shining. He was radiant. Fucking holy.
“Hush, darling,” Aziraphale said. “It’s okay. We’re going to be okay.”
“We’re not,” Crowley said. His throat hurt. His teeth made a horrible clacking sound and he realized he was shaking. “We’re done. No more dinners at the Ritz. No more fucking nightingales.”
Aziraphale wrapped his arms around Crowley. Warm. Safe. “Shh. We’re alright. Just breathe.” The angel’s voice trembled, but he was still trying to comfort Crowley. In the last moments, before the end, he was being strong for Crowley. It hurt so much. Crowley sank his teeth into Aziraphale’s shoulder and screamed.
Aziraphale kissed the top of his head. “It’s okay. In a minute, we’re going to leave this room, and we’re going to go back into the bookshop, and everything will be normal. No God, no Satan. All the books will be full of words. We’re going to drink massive amounts of alcohol and hot cocoa, and we’ll talk, really talk, until it’s morning.”
Crowley couldn’t speak. He held onto Aziraphale like he was drowning in his own tears.
“You’ll ask if you should be getting home, and I’ll tell you to stay. We’ll go to bed, and we’ll cuddle up all nice and cozy, and go to sleep.”
“You snore,” Crowley said, muffled with his mouth still in the fabric of Aziraphale’s jacket. Fabric hurts your teeth if you bite too hard, he’d learned early on. It had never stopped him.
“You’ll fall asleep anyway, you sleep like a rock and we’ll have been awake for so many hours. We’ll wake up, and I’ll make tea, and we’ll listen to music and decide what we want to do next.”
“Bowling,” Crowley murmured. He didn’t know why he said that. He’d never cared much about bowling one way or another.
“Perfect,” Aziraphale said. “You’ll have to remind me of the rules. It’s been quite a while. And then after bowling?”
“We’ll get lunch.”
“What will we have for lunch?”
Crowley closed his eyes tight. “Crepes.”
Aziraphale laughed. “You don’t like crepes.”
“I like them when I’m with you.”
He could feel his angel’s smile without looking. He didn’t even know himself as well as he knew Aziraphale. He didn’t know himself at all. Six thousand years and he’d never gotten the chance.
“Crepes, then.”
They stood like that, arms wrapped tight around each other, like two stars orbiting so close they looked like one. Neither one moved for a long time.
Finally, Crowley took a deep breath. “We should go.”
Aziraphale sighed. “We should.”
They looked at each other. They looked out the window. Just taking in the view one last time.
“It was a good universe,” Aziraphale said.
“I had a good time,” Crowley said. “It was a good run.”
They kissed one last time. It tasted like burnt peppermint and tears. They took each others’ hands and walked together back into the bookshop.
It wasn’t worth it all. Nothing could be worth it all.
But it was good, in the end, if not happy.
In the end, it was nice.