you'd like to stay in heaven (but the rules are too tough)

are you hurting the one you love

Sorry for missing a week!! I was with my partner last week and I don't get to see them in person all the time so I was a bit distracted from my posting...

Friday the 13th, 2033

"Well..."

As soon as Aziraphale trotted out that well..., Crowley knew he was in for some very bad news. Aziraphale did not even try to object to Crowley's accusation that he loved Heaven more than he loved Crowley. (Well, admittedly, Crowley didn't say it in exactly those words, but it was pretty close. Which is to say, it certainly counted as the same thing.)

Instead, Aziraphale's mouth snapped closed, and he pulled his head back a little, the way he did when something surprised and did not please him. It had always, until that point, been a very endearing habit. It was a very bad sign now.

"Well?" Crowley demanded, "What's that supposed to mean?"

Aziraphale coughed and glanced away from Crowley. Again. There wasn't anything to look at around the room: it was all high ceilings, dark walls, one long, glossy table and a chair that got more and more ridiculous the more Crowley thought about it. There were houseplants through the doorway, but Aziraphale wasn't facing the right direction to see them anymore. He was staring at the stone walls as if he had never seen obsidian before and had suddenly discovered a need to study it.

"Heaven wanted to know who we got," Aziraphale began.

Oh, no. Oh no, oh no, he didn't.

"You didn't," Crowley said in disbelief. "Satan's sake, you wouldn't."

Aziraphale looked pained.

Oh, please, Crowley wanted to say, if you were sorry about doing it, you wouldn't do it.

"I..." hedged Aziraphale.

"You did," Crowley said. Still with disbelief—it had not faded. Rather than fading, it grew with every passing second, and right along side it, stinging, irrepressible hurt.

"They asked," Aziraphale mumbled defensively, and then, more clearly, "Plenty of angel've got demons for a match. It makes sense."

Crowley set his jaw. It felt loose and unhinge-y, snake-like. Hell, why was he such a demon? It wasn't fair. He'd never signed the papers to become a demon. Nobody had read him a list of rights, or something. He wasn't even good at it. "I bet they loved to see my name on your arm."

"They asked!" Aziraphale frowned severely. "Should I have lied to them?"

Oh yes, Crowley had been right. Heaven liked truth. Or maybe, Heaven only liked truth when it served its purpose: that thing, the Greater Good he always heard about.

"You've lied to them so many times before!" Crowley spread his hands again. "Go ahead, tell me they didn't love it. What'd'ya get, a promotion?" He wiggled his hands sarcastically. "Management position? All your past crimes stricken from the record?"

Aziraphale huffed. "I didn't do it for personal gain! Really. Who do you think I am?"

"Whaaa–oh I don't know. My enemy?" Crowley pushed again, masochistically, "Come on, tell me. Did they throw you a 'Welcome back into Heaven's good graces,' party?"

"If you must know," Aziraphale said, sniffing, "they said they had always thought I was a good angel, deep inside, and they were wrong to worry that I was straying."

"Good for you," Crowley hissed. He actually hissed. He hadn't felt that hiss-y in several thousand years.

Crowley had very commonly wished for Aziraphale to come visit him in his apartment. Not that his apartment was anything particularly attractive to an angel, he suspected, but he thought it had its own charm. It was very dark and empty, sure, very demonic and not very angelic, but it also had the most gorgeous plants in the country. It had quite clean-lined architecture. There was a chandelier. Angels liked shiny things, or at least, Aziraphale did. When Crowley invited Aziraphale over, he had imagined the two of them walking around is green room, Aziraphale's hands clasped behind his back politely. They'd order food out. Maybe Aziraphale would miracle himself an elaborate white chair to sit opposite Crowley's huge black throne.

Now, all Crowley wanted was for Aziraphale to leave his flat as quickly as possible and, if this was the nonsense he was going to insist on uttering, possibly never speak to him again. Or at least, give Crowley's heart a century or two to recover.

At least they were both standing up. Crowley wasn't sure when that had happened. They were having a full body argument, complete with clothes-smoothing (Aziraphale) and swaying and throwing arms wide to punctuate points (Crowley), sometimes accompanied by steps forward (Crowley) or steps back (Aziraphale).

"Let me get this straight," Crowley said. The tears were long gone; now his eyes burned with something very different. He was glad he had his glasses on, or else Aziraphale would be able to see the unsightly way the whites of Crowley's eyes had been swallowed by the sharp piss-yellow of his snake eyes. Yet another reminder of Crowley's unnatural demonness. "You would rather be their lapdog than my friend."

A bad choice of words: Aziraphale's mouth pulled into an even tighter line, and he snapped, "We were never friends. We were unlikely allies because we both happened to oppose the end of the world. Now, I would appreciate it if you stopped implying I've sold you out to the bad guys. You—and your—your group—are the bad guys." He straightened his already straight coat. "And besides. I don't see any point in pursuing something that's destined to end up in flames."

"They could have flubbed the names," Crowley shouts back, but it hardly seems to reach Aziraphale's ears at all. "And what about loving Earth? You loved Earth, and you always knew it was going to end in flames."

Aziraphale huffed, smoothed his lapels one more time, and turned towards the door. "We didn't say anything about love," he said.

And of all the things that afternoon, that was the one that stung the most. Sure, yeah, Crowley was never going to be—ah—romantically involved with Aziraphale. It was an impossibility and Crowley had accepted that long ago, somewhere in the fourteenth century. Satan, how he hated the fourteenth century. But he figured Aziraphale loved him, at least a little bit, as a friend. Didn't he? What was six thousand years of lunch and exchanging favors and meeting in parks to surreptitiously exchange information while feeding ducks if not love?

Crowley waved his hand, and the door swung open. He nearly waved his hand and shoved Aziraphale out the door, but Aziraphale stepped out the door himself, looking severely offended, as if he hadn't been the one saying they weren't even friends and they never loved each other and by the way he had a promotion in Heaven because he was Arch-Enemies™ with Crowley and he actually believed in it.

"By the way," Crowley said, feeling like his tongue was forked, like his teeth might be leaking venom, "I have been in love with you for six thousand years."

Thanks for reading you guys!! Love you!

—tigerlilycorinne