Chapter Text
Two Years After The End of the World
It had been a long time coming, but when the hired moving van pulled up to the little cottage by the coast, Crowley let out a satisfied sigh. The Bentley was parked already in the garage that had most graciously been found on the property, despite not having previously been present. Crowley had refused to use her to move everything down from London. The pocket in spacetime needed to fit all their boxes in the backseat would have played entirely too much havoc with her frame, he felt, and he wasn’t taking chances, not after All That Business some years since. So they’d hired a van which was barely bigger than the Bentley and fit in as many plants and books and clothes and furniture as they wanted into the back of it. The van could probably take that level of wobbliness. And if it couldn’t, Crowley was significantly less concerned.
They had originally neither of them had any intention of moving in and unpacking the human way, because it sounded like such a bore. But it was still easier to miracle things if you could see the place they were going to, so hauling them down semi-manually it was.
“Here we are, angel,” Crowley said, vibrating with nerves. It had felt unimaginable when Aziraphale suggested a place of their own, not too long after the world hadn’t ended. That had been a couple years ago as they had both considered the idea and bandied it about. After all that trouble, they had seen much more of each other than ever before, rarely going so much as a day without a meal or a walk or a conversation shared. They each kept their own space, but finally, they were friends. Proper friends, who didn’t need to worry about being seen in public, or being seen in public too often, or seeming to have prior acquaintanceship of one another if they were seen together in public.
It had all been sort of exhausting, the last two millennia with Aziraphale, not least of all because Aziraphale tended to vacillate wildly between letting his guard down and shoving Crowley away out of nerves. Crowley had tried not to take it personally. He hadn’t always succeeded.
No, the last several years had been much better.
And, yes, sometimes Crowley thought about, oh, holding Aziraphale’s hand. Or Aziraphale’s arm snug around his chest. Sometimes he even thought about hugging Aziraphale. He’d been so bold to think about what it might be like if the angel kissed him no more than half a dozen times or so.
But mostly he enjoyed the company and didn’t dwell on such thoughts. Casual touch, especially between men, had quite fallen out of fashion. Any physical contact was liable to be laden with meaning and Crowley would not go so far as to presume such meaning might be entirely welcome.
“Here we are indeed. Jolly good!” Aziraphale said, beaming at Crowley from the passenger seat. Crowley loved him so much. He said the stupidest things. Oh , he wanted to hold his hand.
As ever, he channeled it into saying something sort of inane, moving the conversation along.
“So…in we go?”
“Indeed,” Aziraphale breathed.
And then, they spent the day moving in, in their own way. They took a wander through the empty rooms, then started snapping.
Aziraphale set up the sitting room first, with the bookshop’s squashy sofa, a couple arm chairs, and soft lamps for reading. Crowley got the kitchen in order, arranging the pots and pans the way he liked them. He’d been getting into cooking recently, much to Aziraphale’s delight. They went around the house like that, snapping a painting into place there, a table there. Aziraphale set up a room to be his library, and Crowley sorted out the conservatory. Each of these last tasks rather swept them up into their own world, and by the time they emerged, bleary eyed and blinking at each other in the sitting room, it was just beginning to go dark outside.
“Right,” Crowley said, “So it’s just the bedroom situation and returning the van.” He lifted his finger to snap his bedroom to rights and return the moving van to the van hire it came from.
At the same exact moment, Aziraphale did the same. Well, Crowley hoped he’d only seen to his bedroom, and not fussed with the van as well. If he had, well, it was probably fine.
(Aziraphale had meant to take care of the van as well as his own bedroom, of course. The van in front of the house vanished discreetly, and via the force of two miracles, two vans showed up in the car park, some fifty-odd miles away. Both vans were rather confused, but not as confused as the young man who worked for the car hire place would be when he took inventory the next morning.)
“Job done!” Aziraphale said. He clapped Crowley on the shoulder awkwardly. Crowley’s shoulder felt warm where Aziraphale had touched it. He did not think about it.
As they were both feeling peckish, they went into town for a bite to eat. They found a delightful little spot which Aziraphale declared “sure to become a regular haunt of ours” to the waiter, who, bless them, listened and nodded along to Aziraphale’s litany of praise with a smile that was only slightly strained. The whole time, it kept occuring to Crowley how odd it was to be out of London together. They were used to being together in London, but rarely went on excursions together. And here they were, new town, new house, new shared life. He wasn’t really sure what to do with it yet.
As he drove them home from dinner, Crowley realised he’d developed an acute case of the willies. Rather than weaving his way through central London, it was round the winding country roads, with very little light to guide the way. He was driving them home , to their home. Not to Aziraphale’s bookshop, in for a nightcap, and back to his expensive flat. Home. It felt like he was pulling up to a holiday home, but he knew that once they got inside it would be full of both of their things.
In they went, hanging up their things in the entryway with their elbows knocking. Crowley could hardly breathe.
One of them made the customary noise about a bottle of wine to finish off the evening, and the familiarity somehow calmed Crowley to the point that he was lulled into what would eventually reveal itself to be a false sense of security. Their sitting room at the cottage was different of course, but Aziraphale’s armchair and Crowley’s settee were present. There was Aziraphale’s wine glass in his hand, there was a reliable bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape produced with a twinkle from Aziraphale, there was Aziraphale’s hair glinting in the soft light. Aziraphale, Aziraphale, Aziraphale. Things were different, and they were the same.
And then it slowly became time for bed, and things took a turn.
Crowley made his way to bed first, and Aziraphale uncharacteristically offered to tidy away the wine glasses and bottle. Of the two of them, Crowley was the one most particular about tidiness. Perhaps Aziraphale was just showing a thoughtfulness of shared living spaces, Crowley mused as he wandered down the hall to his bedroom. He was sleepy enough, and the wine had helped, and he was bravely turning in for his first night in the new house with Aziraphale only just across the hall. He wasn’t even really that hung up on it. He was mostly thinking about the rest of his routine. The first order of business were his cosy black silk pyjamas.
He opened the door to his bedroom and stopped short.
When he had set it up earlier, he’d miracled firm instructions for the large bed to set itself up with the white linen sheets and the charcoal grey duvet.
The large bed was there, but it had three times the usual amount of pillows, which had a distinct squashy quality rather than the firm one Crowley preferred. The colour scheme for the duvet was right on, but the pillows were all covered in Aziraphale’s signature tartan.
A terrible idea struck Crowley just then.
“Ngk,” he said.
He wandered further into the room. In the corner, Crowley’s devastatingly cool original Barcelona chair had a crocheted blanket thrown over the back of it, and an aggressively orange Chesterfield sat next to it, as if ready for easy conversation.
“Okay,” he said. He turned around. A gigantic wardrobe took up more of the wall than should have been possible: half of it was all clean lines and modern design, and the other half was dripping with wood carvings that would have pleased Victoria herself. He opened one of the doors tentatively.
His clothes and Aziraphale’s. In the same wardrobe.
“Angel!” he screeched, before he could think better of it.
Aziraphale called, “Coming, dear!” and as Crowley listened to his feet padding closer and closer, he wished he would have just kept his mouth shut. He could have just miracled his things to a different room. Perhaps there was still time…?
“Crowley? What are you doing in my…bed…room…” Aziraphale trailed off somewhat pathetically as he came through the door and surveyed the mutt-like interior decorating.
“So,” Crowley said, sitting down on their – their!? – bed weakly. “I, ah. I thought you would have preferred the one with the view of the garden. So I meant to take the one on this side.” He’d been pretty pleased with the idea of working in the garden, making it a beautiful paradise, all just so Aziraphale could admire it from his bedroom window.
Aziraphale was gazing around the room as Crowley had, taking in all the ways their belongings had joined up in a mish-mash.
“Oh, Crowley,” he said, half distracted still. “That was good of you, wasn’t it?”
Crowley usually didn’t let allegations of goodness get to him anymore, but being somewhat stressed as he was, it did poke at him a bit. “It’s just a bedroom view, ‘s nothing, really.”
“Of course, I wanted you to have the garden view,” Aziraphale said, wandering over and sitting in his squat little chair. “So I thought I’d take this room for myself.” He smiled wanly over at Crowley. “We both must have set our things up in this room in the very same instant. What a pickle.”
“Gosh,” said Crowley. It really was a pretty thoughtful gesture, the idea that Aziraphale wanted him to have a nicer view.
“We shall have to do something about it, of course,” Aziraphale said. “The wardrobes alone have merged in the most appalling way.” He clucked his tongue at them and there were two wardrobes sitting next to each other, rather than one particularly confused conglomerate.
“Well, you should have the garden view, of course,” Crowley said quickly. A sense memory of the warmth of Aziraphale pressed to him, and the abrupt loss of that warmth, filtered through his mind. He stuffed down such unhelpful thoughts.
“But my dear,” Aziraphale said. “I couldn’t think of depriving you. No, you must have the garden view.”
They stared at each other, squared off. They were both on the stubborn side. Crowley usually won out. Which meant separating their bedrooms and sending Aziraphale’s belongings across the hall. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to win this time, if that was what was on the table.
“We-ell,” he started, stretching the word unreasonably as he tried to sort out where he was going with this. “I did hope you’d want to see the garden. I had some ideas just for you, you know.”
Aziraphale softened a bit. “That’s ever so thoughtful of you. You know I love to admire your work.” Then he frowned. “But Crowley, I must insist!”
“Wasn’t quite through,” Crowley said, and his heart was pounding in his chest. “Because, you know, angel, how nice it is when you get your way.”
Aziraphale’s eyebrows wrinkled in slight confusion. “Which is why you ought to have the nice view, yes.”
“Or…” Crowley trailed off. His throat felt so tight he could hardly get the words out. It took a minute to unstick it.
“Or…?” Aziraphale prompted. His eyebrows were raised now, and he had that dear soft “dawning comprehension” look that Crowley liked so much.
“Well, I’m thinking,” Crowley said. “If I want you to have the room overlooking the garden. And if you want me to have it. Suppose.” He swallowed and his throat clicked a little. “Suppose we both did.”
“ Oh ,” Aziraphale breathed in what looked like utter delight. “Suppose we did. That would certainly solve that problem.” He peered at Crowley. “That is, if it is something you wanted?”
Crowley nodded, with his lips pressed together. He didn’t think he had any more words for the moment. He’d done a lot.
“We’ve shared a room before, of course,” Aziraphale said, really taking to the idea. “It will be just like old times’ sake. But for our time together, now.” He raised a hand to snap his fingers, but hesitated. “Of course, we could share a room without sharing a bed, you know. Two twins, or what have you. Is that still in fashion? I’m afraid I wouldn’t know.”
“Can do whatever you want, angel,” Crowley told him. If Aziraphale didn’t want to share his bed anymore, that would be fine. He would get over it. The sense memory of being wrapped in Aziraphale’s arms in the middle of the night felt like it was taking over his brain. He wouldn’t get over it.
“I know it’s desperately important to you to keep up with the times,” Aziraphale said.
“Sleeping together,” blurted Crowley, interrupting whatever barely logical monologue had been on its way. “That’s what people do. Anymore. One bed. Nobody’s in the little beds. Sleeping together. Done thing.”
Before he could worry that he had unfairly pressured Aziraphale, Aziraphale’s face had been covered with one of his bright beaming grins. “How perfectly lovely,” Aziraphale said. “That’s settled, then. We shall share the room overlooking the garden. May I?”
Crowley could hardly believe this turn of affairs. He nodded, quickly.
“Stand up, then.” When Crowley did as he was asked, Aziraphale stood up himself, snapped, and the bedroom sorted itself out across the hall. “Come along then, dear. Let’s go to bed.”
Crowley thought he could hear a faint ringing noise between his ears. Let’s go to bed. He hadn’t heard those words from Aziraphale in centuries. And here they were, walking to a shared bed.
A shared bed had not meant much, back in those days. Not like now. Now sharing a bed meant something, it wasn’t just what you did for warmth and practicality.
A shared bed in a shared bedroom was something for married people, these days. Or for people who may as well have been married, in any case.
It seemed as though Aziraphale did not know that? As though the implications of Crowley’s half-baked, impromptu plot had completely passed him by?
“Darling,” Aziraphale said. He was suddenly right in front of Crowley. Crowley looked at him, feeling like a startled cat.
Aziraphale reached a hand out and laid it on Crowley’s upper arm. “Please, will you come to bed? Unless doing so would make you unhappy?”
He shook his head. “Not unhappy. Very happy, me. This works out.” He started walking. Aziraphale’s hand dropped to his mid-back and stayed there as he ushered Crowley across the hall. Crowley felt it was a mark of accomplishment that he hadn’t started whistling like a teakettle, his nerves were so high. Aziraphale never touched him this much. They hadn’t touched really in centuries. Nobody touched anymore. Had kept up with the times, they had. But here they were.
The bedroom, set to rights on purpose this time, still featured a mix of their desired aesthetics, but in a more intentional way. Crowley noticed that tartan still seemed predominant. He wasn’t too nervous to note to himself that he might need to do a spot of redecorating, just to get the proportions right. But it was good enough for now.
“Let’s get into our pyjamas and then we’ll settle in for our first night in our home,” Aziraphale said, his voice all but caressing each word. He held Crowley’s eyes for a significant moment before scurrying off to his wardrobe to collect his night clothes.
Crowley’s back felt cold where Aziraphale’s hand had rested when he showed him across the hall.
Aziraphale undressed, and Crowley stared, rudely. Aziraphale was beautiful. His neck was beautiful, and it was a lot more visible now that his bowtie was gone and his collar was unbuttoned. His forearms and oh for someone or other’s sake his elbows were nice to look at, somehow? Those were on display too. Crowley hadn’t got to see his elbows when they’d shared a bed centuries ago. Those undershirts went down to the wrist. Not modern undershirts. Full frontal elbow.
Aziraphale undid his braces and let his trousers fall to the floor and Crowley squawked, there was no other word for it.
“Oh dear – are you quite alright?” Aziraphale asked, turning around to look at Crowley in just his undershirt and boxers and hanging his trousers up carefully.
“Married!” Crowley said, keeping his eyes on Aziraphale’s, away from his boxers, or his stomach, or his chest hair (!!) , or his elbows.
“Sorry?” Aziraphale asked, looking troubled.
“You know that, right?” Crowley asked.
Aziraphale looked more troubled. “I know…what, exactly?”
“Married people buy a charming little cottage together,” Crowley said. Well done, Crowley.
“Well,” said Aziraphale, squirming a little. He just kept standing there in his boxers, as if he had no qualms being so underdressed. Maybe he wanted to kill Crowley and keep the bedroom to himself. “Often, yes. But friends buy houses together, sometimes.”
“Married people sleep in the same bed. In the same room. In the charming little cottage they bought together.”
Aziraphale’s face was unreadable. “I suppose…”
“Friends might buy a house together but I don't think they do that. Sleep in the same bed. Usually.”
Aziraphale frowned. “Some friends do, you know. They’ve got a name for it these days and all, queer something. Those were the nice girls who rented the flat next door. They did. Friends and all and commitment and – and in only the one bedroom. They were lovely people, you remember them, surely. So. It’s fine. It’s normal.”
“Sure it’s normal,” Crowley said. “It’s very, very normal. Beautiful. Very beautiful. Absolutely. The only thing is. Are we that? We can be that. We can. I just. Need to know?”
Aziraphale turned away from Crowley, but not before Crowley noticed the blush on his cheeks. He pulled on his pyjama trousers. “I don’t see why not,” he said. Crowley felt his stomach drop. If he was being terribly honest, that was not exactly what he had been hoping for. But it was Aziraphale. He would accept, whole heartedly and very gladly, whatever the angel would give him. It was already so much. He had perhaps been greedy, first with the house, and then pushing for the shared bed. Platonic life partners was already fulfilling. It was enough.
Aziraphale had not finished, though. “Of course we’re that. You’re important to me. I’m important to you.” He harrumphed – harrumphed ! – and started fastening the buttons on his pyjama shirt, his once-again clothed elbows flapping about aggressively. “We can sleep in the same bed if we jolly well like to.”
This was characteristic of an Aziraphale Bluster. He never Blustered unless he was covering something up.
“Right,” Crowley said, a foolish hope coming over him and making him speak more freely than he had hitherto. “Right, we can do that, and it can be because we’re important to each other, right, but we can be important to each other because we’re very best friends and that’s all and that’s enough, or it could be different, we can be important to each other because we’re married. ”
Aziraphale had not yet turned around. Crowley wished he would. He hoped he hadn’t miscalculated.
“Married people…” Aziraphale trailed off. “Married people often love each other. Romantically.”
“Yeah,” Crowley agreed. “They do.”
“Can you… do that?” Aziraphale’s voice was barely a whisper.
“Yeah,” Crowley whispered back. “I can. …what about you?”
“I can,” said Aziraphale, so quietly Crowley could hardly hear. “And…do you?”
“Please could you turn around?” Crowley asked him. He had rather not say it to Aziraphale’s pyjama clad back.
Aziraphale turned around.
“I do,” Crowley said, feeling terrified and extremely brave all at once.
“I do too,” Aziraphale said back.
They stared at one another.
“May I kiss you?” Aziraphale asked.
“Yeah,” said Crowley.
They kissed and it was extremely satisfying. It was also a little awkward, as neither of them had done such a thing before, and it took some negotiating of nose positions, breathing, and so forth. But they sorted it out enough and were overcome by the sensations that they ended up in their bed, pressed up against each other with their clothes discarded all around, until things reached a natural peak, as it were.
Afterwards, the room felt incandescent, lit only by a very faint bedside lamp, bathed in a soft yellow glow. They laid in bed together, naked under the sheets together for the very first time, curled in facing each other. Aziraphale’s face enchanted Crowley, all soft and still with a little sweat dotting his hairline and with fine eyelashes framing his eyes which were smiling sweetly at Crowley.
“I love you,” Aziraphale whispered.
“I love you,” Crowley whispered back. It felt like maybe Crowley was dreaming, but he was almost certain he wasn’t. He committed it to memory, one way or the other.
“Do you know what,” Crowley said, a few moments of gazing and sweetness later.
“What, my dear?” Aziraphale asked.
“I think,” Crowley said, slowly and softly. “I am feeling sort of cold.”
Aziraphale grinned. “Perhaps we had better be pragmatic about that,” he said. “Turn around, if you’d be so kind.”
Crowley would. He was known for being kind, after all.
Aziraphale snapped the light off, and they were once again enclosed in darkness, just the two of them in bed together, but this time in their bed. Aziraphale’s arm closed over Crowley’s chest. Their bodies tucked together, skin pressed against skin. Crowley felt warm all over.
Aziraphale pressed a kiss to the back of Crowley’s ear, and Crowley shivered and gripped the arm Aziraphale had wrapped around him.
“Goodnight, my dear,” he said, pulling Crowley close.
“Goodnight, angel.”
All wrapped up in one another, they fell asleep.