Side Mission

Part 3

So I lied... One more short part after this one. :) This chapter: kissing.

When Crowley dared emerge in the morning, after some really interesting dreams, Aziraphale was reading at the table with those precious spectacles on and it was unfair, completely. And he also looked... melancholy. Crowley felt an undemonic stab of guilt. He hadn't thought twice about going to Aziraphale over this whole Antichrist business. Who else had he to turn to? Now he was dragging Aziraphale into yet another unfair situation, living together in this village in ways that were really going to be impossible to put in a memo to Gabriel.

Still, Aziraphale chosen Crowley. Maybe not completely, maybe not enough to admit that he didn't want Heaven to win. But Crowley knew Aziraphale could see through any threadbare temptation he could come up with, and had been quite aware that he had chosen to help Crowley thwart the Antichrist rather than support Heaven's plans. Crowley had just, as was his job, supplied the excuses to do what Aziraphale really wanted to do, which was choose Crowley. Which gave Crowley fierce delight, and also an uncomfortable, heavy ball of remorse in the pit of his belly.

Aziraphale looked up, and smiled, and the sunshine of his smile went through Crowley like he was made of glass, lit up, illumined, and just for a moment, beautiful enough to be looked at by the best damn angel in the world.

"Good morning, my dear husband," Aziraphale said, as if it was a sweet, delicious joke between the two of them.

Crowley grinned like a dizzy idiot. "Mornin', me old pot and pan," he said, and went to make coffee and toast. He realised after he plated it that he'd forgotten to plug the toaster in, but it was beautifully golden all the same.

"I think we should have a morning off," Aziraphale said presently, looking at the buttery crumbs on his plate as if wishing he could gather them up on his fingertip and lick them off. Crowley wished he would, too. "A honeymoon of sorts."

Fuck. "All right. What d'you want to do?" That sounded good. Casual. Not shaking at all.

"Oh, I don't know. The usual. Come out to the garden." Somehow the fifty-year-old Armagnac Crowley had stowed in the cupboard was between them, and there was nothing to do but sit in the sunshine and talk and laugh and get drunk and forget everything but the pleasure of being openly beside Aziraphale, in—or rather outside—their own house. They were sitting closer than usual, and Aziraphale's warm, padded thigh was pressed against his lean one. It would be easy, so easy to pull Aziraphale onto his lap and feel all that wonderful weight on his thighs, or climb onto his incredibly comfortable-looking lap. But it was rural England in the twentieth century, and Crowley had never dared clamber on Aziraphale's lap or pull him onto his even when it was more socially acceptable.

He would enjoy what he had. They were together, and he was happy, and he wasn't going to think about the end of the world in this perfect moment. When it was time for Starbreeze's party they would have to sober up and go back to work, but for now, he would argue with Aziraphale about whether penguins could fly — "stands to reason, they're birds—" and enjoy the way the laughter lines moved on the angel's face and wish this would last forever.

I love you, he thought, watching Aziraphale wave a finger in the air, tracing a somewhat wobbly line as he made a point about aerodynamics. I love you so much. I know you can't feel the same for me, but I think you are fond of me, and that's enough. I'll save the world and your precious humans, for you if not for anything else. I'll keep you out of Heaven where you'd be miserable, and with me, where you can relax and enjoy the world and be happy.

Hugo Johnson has to be the right child.

"This must be your husband, Aziraphale!" Starbreeze said, as if it was just an ordinary thing to say. Crowley was going to discorporate. Aziraphale had his hand on Crowley's elbow and was beaming around as if it delighted him entirely to be seen as married to Crowley, and it was almost too much.