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

it was something you could not stop

Sorry for missing a couple weeks! It's been a busy holiday season, flying home and everything.

Friday the 13th, 2033

Aziraphale was stammering on Crowley's doorstep. One moment, he was fuming, saying I'm an angel this, you're a demon that, storming out the door, and the next, he was standing on Crowley's doorstep, gaping, as if it was the end of the world, again, and they'd just come across aliens, or Atlantis.

"Crowley," was the only semi-intelligable thing he said. The rest of the things out of his mouth were just vaguely English sounds: I—wh—we—yo—wh—?

"You must have known," Crowley said, affecting a bored air. It was very hard to do—after confessing one's love to one's best friend of over six thousand years, one does not usually find themselves extremely capable of affecting a casual and uncaring attitude.

"Known," Aziraphale echoed incredulously. The blood had left his face; his cheeks were absent of all color. Crowley imagined he looked much the same.

"I've never been very good at hiding it," said Crowley, still flatly, devoid of inflection. "What with saving your stupid hide every two minutes and asking you to lunch with me every time I see you."

"Known," Aziraphale said again, and then, "In love with me," and then, "No."

"No?" Crowley repeated. This time, despite his best efforts, his voice did pitch, rather wildly. "What do you mean, no? Yes, I do love you."

"No, I didn't know that," Aziraphale clarified, sounding as if he was dying slowly and painfully.

"You're blind as a bat," Crowley said. "Blinder. Plenty of bats can see quite well, really. You're blinder than a blind bat."

Aziraphale wasn't listening. "Crowley," he was saying. "Shouldn't we talk about this?"

"No, don't start." Crowley began to retreat back behind his front door. Confessing one's love is a very emotionally exhausting activity and he wanted to sleep forever. He wanted to cry in private, since apparently, Crowley cried. "I already know what you think."

Aziraphale fussed with his clothing and then wrung his hands in front of him. "Perhaps that was a bit hasty of me."

"Perhaps so," Crowley agreed, "But what's done is done."

Aziraphale looked stricken. "Wh-I—"

Crowley wanted Aziraphale to leave, and to be done with this conversation entirely, and to not have to think about how Aziraphale didn't say it back and had, in fact, told him there was no love between them.

"Goodbye, now."

"It doesn't have to be done," Aziraphale said, finally picking some words to say coherently, "At least—don't you think we should have a conversation first?"

"No," Crowley said, "What's the use if we're just going to be enemies the rest of our lives anyway? Or—I suppose, always have been and always will be."

Aziraphale didn't seem to have anything to say to that.

Crowley wished he did. Crowley wanted Aziraphale to say, we're not enemies. We don't have to be. He wanted to Aziraphale to step right back into Crowley's apartment and demand that they remain friends inspite of everything.

But then, why would Crowley being in love with Aziraphale change anything for Aziraphale? They still had each other's names on their left forearms. That hadn't changed.

Aziraphale was an interesting angel. He was a very good angel, if you looked at it one way: he truly loved the world, he loved humanity, he would do anything to make the Earth more lovely for them. He fixed bikes and brought dead doves back to life, he blessed people with dreams of the things they liked best. He was very good.

But, according to Heaven, he was not very Good. He ate food, he had his terrible magic act. He liked to drink and collect books and live. He enjoyed life too much, took too much pleasure from it. Heaven wasn't big on excessive pleasure.

Aziraphale, he was always very sensitive about this. Crowley thought it was the very best thing about him. Aziraphale seemed to think of it as a failure of sorts, a failure of his character, a failure of his job as an angel. He hated to let Heaven down, to not abide by Heaven's decree.

Crowley had always known this.

Crowley thought rules could stick it somewhere the sun didn't shine.

Aziraphale was a stickler for the rules, not because he believed in them so much as he thought that he should believe in them. He could be tempted on the little things, and oh, did Crowley try his hardest to tempt Aziraphale on every single little thing he thought he could get away with.

But this was different.

This was not a little thing.

This was hereditary enemies, and they'd put it in writing.

So no, Aziraphale did not take anything he had said back, and no, he did not step back into Crowley's apartment and say they could simply ignore the names on their arms. He stayed right there on the porch, stammering.

"Crowley," Aziraphale said again, reproachful. And that was really the straw that broke the camel's back—what did Aziraphale have to be reproachful over?

Crowley shut the door in Aziraphale's face.

Then he opened the peephole and pressed his mouth to it. "Don't call!" His voice scraped his throat. "I won't pick up! And I won't even think about you—I mean it this time!"

It was just as much of a lie as the first time he said it.

I hope you enjoyed!! There's only one chapter left....

        —tigerlilycorinne