Work Text:
“That’s the point. No nightingales.”
Crowley has only ever felt loss like this once.
It was after the Fall, and Crowley was empty. His senses were still coming back, blunted by the impact and the fire and the pain, and his mind had shut down from shock. He could barely feel the wind on his burnt skin as it drifted through the skeletal remains of his wings, couldn’t see the beauty of the night sky as he looked up at it from his spot on the Wall surrounding Eden. He’d been ordered to tempt Eve, and he would, eventually, but he couldn’t very well do that if all he could hear in his ears was ringing and the sound of his own screams, now could he?
He’d never see his nebulae again. And even if he did, they were no longer his, not really, they were Her’s. He’d put his entire being into the creation of the stars, all his love and his time and whatever hopes and dreams an angel could have (they told him angels didn’t dream, and maybe that was true, but as a demon? All he can do is dream), and they’d been taken away from him. Losing the stars is a little like losing a limb, tendons and bone and starlight cut away from him without mercy and without hope of ever getting it back.
And so he stood on the wall, left alone with nothing but his thoughts, miles and miles away from the only thing he’d ever really loved, and he couldn’t even cry; his tear ducts had cauterized. There was just nothing.
This is worse.
So, really, Crowley has never felt loss like this, because if losing Their love and the very bloody universe that he’d poured his entire self into is like losing a limb, then losing Aziraphale is like losing his very soul, ripped away when it was never meant to be apart from him in the first place. After 6000 years, Aziraphale has become the only constant Crowley has, the only thing that makes sense to him, and if he leaves then Crowley might as well just give up now, because there isn’t anything else for him.
He’d Fallen because he couldn’t believe that the universe he’d helped craft with his own hands was going to last 6000 years— how could something he’d loved that much last so little time?
(How could the being he’d loved that much leave after they’d only just found their footing?)
“You idiot. We could’ve been… us.” The words cut his tongue as they crawl out of his mouth but he can’t stop himself because if he doesn’t blame Aziraphale, he’s going to sink to his knees and beg, beg him to stay with him and love him and he can’t handle the fallout of any of that.
(They say pride goeth before a Fall, but he’s been there and done that and his pride is still very much intact)
Aziraphale looks away. He looks away, and Crowley feels the whole of the universe slip out from underneath his feet and he scrabbles with bloody fingertips to hold on. This is it. If Aziraphale leaves for good then he takes the whole of Crowley with him; there’ll be nothing left. Crowley is desperation poured into an empty body, and that’s what makes his next decision so very simple.
He kisses him.
He marches right up to Aziraphale, fists his hands in his lapels, and kisses him.
(He is Falling. He is Falling and Falling and Falling and he isn’t sure if he’s ever going to stop)
He’s dreamed about this for so long, but this is never how he’d imagined it. Firstly, he’d never have expected to make the first move (Aziraphale had only needed to say “you go too fast for me” once), and secondly he’d severely underestimated the circumstances in which it would happen. And thirdly, Aziraphale is still. Too still. His hand flutters loosely on Crowley’s shoulder, but his body is so stiff and his lips are too still. Shit. Shit, shit, shit, this was a bad idea, shit—
And then Aziraphale kisses him back.
Like the flick of a switch, Aziraphale surges up and anchors his hands in Crowley’s hair, and Crowley is done for. A desperate sound escapes his throat as the floodgates open, tears streaming down his face without his permission, but he keeps holding on. He keeps holding on because if he lets go then Aziraphale is going to slip away from him; if this is the last time he’s ever going to hold Aziraphale, he needs to make this count. He sobs and grips Aziraphale tighter, like he can merge them together, one body, one mind, one soul. If this is what humans risk their lives and limbs for, tear apart their lives for, then Crowley understands why they do it. He wants every bit of it.
Aziraphale’s mouth is hot, like a brand, like the sweetest Heavenly fire, and his hands pull so gently at Crowley’s hair. Crowley has never needed to breathe, not really, but he finds himself gasping anyway, opening his mouth to breathe Aziraphale in, to steal everything that Aziraphale is and keep it safe inside his chest (would that Crowley could live in Aziraphale’s mouth, would that he could burrow into Aziraphale’s chest and find a home in his heart). Aziraphale makes a wounded sound and responds in kind, tilting his head and deepening the kiss even more, pulling Crowley forward until they’re falling into the armchair by Aziraphale’s desk, Crowley straddling Aziraphale’s lap. He’s not sure how long they stay there, kissing, touching, holding, but he knows he never wants it to stop.
“Please,” Crowley begs, breaking the kiss to press a line of them down Aziraphale’s neck. “Please, Aziraphale, angel, don’t leave me. Stay with me. I’m begging you, stay. ”
“Oh, Crowley .” Aziraphale gasps and pulls Crowley back up, brushing a hand through his hair and just looking at him. They’re both panting, chests heaving, their corporations forgetting for a moment that they don’t need the air. Aziraphale’s face falls, the anguished expression somehow familiar, and Crowley’s heart drops into his stomach. “Crowley, I—”
“I love you,” Crowley blurts, slipping to his knees, pride be damned. He grabs both of Aziraphale’s hands and presses them to his face, unable to stop the tears spilling from his eyes. Somewhere along the line he’d lost his glasses, and everything that he is is on display for Aziraphale, flayed open and vulnerable. “I am in love with you, and I have been since the very first moment I saw you, since you watched the stars fall with me, since you stood next to me on the Wall and shielded me from the rain. And I’m so, so tired of pretending I’m not.”
(This is the undeniable, ineffable truth of the universe: that Crowley loves Aziraphale with every bit of him)(It is knit into the fabric of his being; stardust and Aziraphale)
Crowley scrubs a hand across his face, and takes a deep, shuddering breath. “You are the only thing in the last 6000 years that has ever mattered to me, Aziraphale. I’d Fall over and over again, just to even spend a minute by your side, just to get you to smile at me. And I can’t—” his voice cracks, and he swallows around the lump in his throat— “I can’t lose you. I won’t survive it.”
Aziraphale looks stricken, and it’s then that Crowley remembers where he’s seen that expression before; the day Crowley asked him for the holy water. A moment of deep and utter grief, indecision between the safety of what he knows, what he is allowed to do, and the peril of throwing himself into the unknown. “Oh—” he looks at the door, then back at Crowley, tears welling up in his eyes. “Oh for Heaven’s sake, come here.”
Aziraphale wraps his arms around Crowley, and it’s like a dam breaks. Crowley sobs and buries his face into Aziraphale’s neck, letting the pain and stress and fear of the last 24 hours leech out of him, limp in the arms of the being he loves most in the universe. Aziraphale’s hands rub up and down his back as he falls apart, and he kisses the top of Crowley’s head, soft and (dare he think it) reverent. “I love you,” he shudders, sobbing harder. “I love you. Stay with me.”
“I have to go,” Aziraphale murmurs into his hair, sweeping a hand up his back, caressing the bumps of his spine. “They need me. I can help.”
“I need you,” Crowley whimpers, digging his fingers into Aziraphale’s shoulders and shoving his face deeper into his neck, like maybe if he wraps himself around him tight enough it will convince him to stay. If they stay here, then Crowley can pretend it will always be like this, with Aziraphale’s arms around him and his lips pressed to Crowley’s hair. “Please don’t leave.”
Crowley would beg on his knees for the rest of his existence if it meant Aziraphale would stay. He’d sublimate himself to him over and over again, and he’d do it happily if it meant they’d be together.
Aziraphale is quiet, holding Crowley together even as he attempts to fall apart at the seams. He cries until he can’t cry anymore, until he’s just an empty shell left. Crowley is exhausted, limp and drained of all energy, but he can’t let Aziraphale go without trying to keep him. He doesn’t know how long they sit there, the only sounds Crowley’s ragged breathing and sharp sniffles, but it’s enough time that he’s sure the Metatron is wondering where they both are.
“Okay.”
Crowley’s heart stops. He can’t bring himself to pick his head from Aziraphale’s shoulder, for fear that if he does, Azirapahale will disappear forever. “What?” he asks, his voice thick and watery. Damn it all, if he starts crying again he’s never going to stop.
“Okay,” Aziraphale repeats, guiding Crowley to look at him. His eyes are red and watery, but so, so blue, and Crowley feels like he’s looking into the center of the universe. “I’ll stay.”
Crowley sobs, and more tears spring to his eyes, streaming down his face. “You will?”
Aziraphale cups Crowley’s face with his hands and places the most gentle of kisses to his forehead. Crowley thinks that he must be dreaming. “You love me,” he says, as if that’s the only explanation he needs. “You love me.”
And really, what can Crowley do? Not kiss him?
Crowley bends down and Aziraphale surges up, the both of them meeting in the middle. Crowley groans and holds on as tight as he can as Aziraphale takes the lead, giving Crowley everything he ever wanted. Aziraphale is warm and soft against him, the feeling of his chest underneath Crowley the only thing he ever needed.
Some time later they stop, enough time having passed that the sun is starting to set, and the Metatron has most definitely returned to Heaven. They’ve moved to Aziraphale’s room upstairs, Crowley resting his head on Aziraphale’s chest as his angel plays with his hair, soft and sweet and safe. They’ve been sitting in silence for a long time now, but it isn’t a painful one. It’s one born of knowing each other for thousands of years, and Crowley is comfortable in it, protected by it.
“I love you, angel,” he says, because he doesn’t want a day to go by where Aziraphale doubts it. He wants to go to Heaven and take them all by the shoulders and shout his love until they just leave them both alone. He wants to go to Alpha Centauri and carve the words into the stars.
Aziraphale presses a kiss to the top of his head. “I love you, Crowley. I’m sorry I never told you.”
Crowley makes a wounded sound and surges up to kiss him, soft and gentle and sweet. They kiss for an eternity and not enough time at all, before they break apart and just breathe each other’s air.
“It can’t always be like this,” Aziraphale says eventually, nudging a finger under Crowley’s chin and tipping it up so that their eyes meet. “They’re going to try to stop the world again. And if we do nothing, they’ll succeed.”
“I know,” Crowley says, swallowing around the lump in his throat. “But we can stay like this for a while, can’t we?”
Aziraphale makes a sound that’s halfway to a sob. “Of course, my dear,” he says, pressing a kiss to Crowley’s lips, soft enough to break him. “And we’ll always have each other, won't we?”
Maybe the world will end. Maybe Heaven will win, or Hell will win, and everything around them will cease to exist. Maybe they’ll end up running to Alpha Centauri, or maybe they’ll fight. There's really no way to know, not when the universe is so damnably (beautifully) ineffable. The one thing that Crowley knows for certain, deep in the very marrow of his bones, is that he and Aziraphale will continue, tethered together by fate, love, and starlight. And maybe even Her, although he's not quite willing to give Them the credit.
He and Aziraphale are forever. No matter what happens.
“Yeah,” Crowley murmurs, lying back down on Aziraphale’s chest and closing his eyes, lost in the sound of a heartbeat that doesn’t need to exist and the feeling of fingers running softly through his hair. “We will, angel.”
And somewhere, somehow, a nightingale starts to sing.