Chapter Text
Angels don't sleep.
At least, that’s what most of them would tell you. For most angels couldn't imagine ever feeling the need to shut themselves down the way fragile humans did, to open their orderly minds to the unpredictable whims of the world of dreams.
Of course, Aziraphale wasn't most angels. His peers would have been baffled, and perhaps a little horrified, to discover that sleeping was one of the earthly pleasures he'd picked up over his millennia spent minding humanity, along with marshmallows and bath bombs.
Over the past eleven years however, Aziraphale hadn't gotten much sleep. There was nothing quite like an impending apocalypse to keep one up at night, not to mention all the time he'd spent looking after Warlock. And then of course there had been the matter of planning something of a coup against the combined forces of Heaven and Hell, which had taken more than a little doing.
So when all was said and done, after all the fuss about the end of the world and kidnapping and witches and swapping bodies, Aziraphale had never been quite so ready for a good night's sleep. Lunch with Crowley at the Ritz had turned into an afternoon stroll with Crowley around the city though, which had then become drinks with Crowley at one of their favorite old bars, and it was rather late by the time he finally got the chance.
Choosing to remain a little tipsy, he returned to the tidy flat tucked overtop his miraculously restored - did it count as miraculous if it was the work of the Antichrist? He should ask Crowley, that seemed like the kind of thing he'd have an opinion on - bookshop. He went to the bedroom he'd used so sparsely in recent years, and a contented smile curled his lips.
Lining the walls were shelves full of some of the treasures he'd collected over the years. Things that might have seemed meaningless to the casual observer, but that marked one angel's millennia spent watching over humanity.
He had a jar of sand that had once been part of Eden’s walls, the first block of carved wood used in printing a book, a bundle of desiccated reeds that had once been woven into a basket sturdy enough to carry a baby along a river. Also present was the scalpel a British doctor had used to test a cowpox inoculation, a battered doll that had been presented personally to Aziraphale by a solemn-eyed little girl over a thousand years ago, and a goldfish that didn’t realize it should have been dead for decades, swimming in circles around the same plastic bag in which it had been won.
Among the reminders of humanity rested another memento, a single feather of a color that seemed at once the darkest of blacks and yet capable of shining with the light of a million galaxies. Aziraphale felt his gaze linger on the feather, and he reached out a hesitant hand. It was the oldest thing in his collection, but he didn't worry about the years weakening it.
He'd had it with him since the beginning, that first thunderstorm over Eden. It was the only thing Crowley had left behind when he went to follow Adam and Eve on their journey into exile.
All those millennia ago, Aziraphale could never have guessed how much the demon with the jet wings and golden eyes would come to mean to him. And yet, even back then, at the beginning of it all, something had drawn him to Crowley. The merest hint of what was to come.
Shaking his head, Aziraphale withdrew his hand and turned away from the shelf with the feather.
We're on our side, Crowley kept telling him, and Aziraphale knew it to be true. He still believed in his mission, in the Almighty Herself, but Heaven as an administrative body could bugger off. An angelic lifetime was a long time to spend believing in something though, and it wouldn't be easy for him to let go of some of his old hang-ups.
Aziraphale had quite a bit of practice pushing Crowley from his thoughts, and by the time he was settled into his cozy bed for a well-earned sleep, he had almost completely rid his mind of the demon. Unfortunately, his subconscious didn't seem to have been briefed on the plan.
One of the things Aziraphale had always liked most about sleep, aside from the positively transcendent feeling of waking up without an alarm or any immediate needs to attend to, was dreaming. Everything in dreams was so charmingly improbable; enough like real life to be interesting, but without all the cumbersome rules and expectations and humans being nasty to one another. Aziraphale also happened to be the one to discover that angels dream in five dimensions. Not that he considered this a discovery; having never had a human dream, he didn't realize his were any different.
Normally, his dreams were of relatively mundane subjects. A flight through the cosmos, perhaps, or winning an argument with the rude gentleman who unfortunately owned one of the best restaurants in London. One of his favorite dreams featured a rainy night spent tucked away in his cozy backroom, a cup of cocoa steaming away at the perfect temperature in his hand while he read, a black and red serpent coiled in a lazy heap by the fire.
Still, it seemed fitting that after the end and subsequent reboot of the world, his dreams wouldn't be quite what he'd expected either.
There was laughter echoing in his ears, familiar as the sunrise and yet different somehow, more carefree and content than he had ever heard it. He looked to his side and smiled at the sight of Crowley doubled over, head in his hands as he shook with mirth, and was pleased with the knowledge that he'd been the one to make it happen.
Then he was lounging sprawled on a grassy riverbank, a book in one hand and the other stroking absently over the thick red hair of the demon using his belly as a pillow. The sun was shining down on them both, and he basked in the contentment emanating from Crowley as he soaked in the warmth.
He was running, faster than any reasonable person should have to. Crowley was half a pace ahead of him, cackling, his whole face lit up with mischief as he cast the occasional glance at the angry mob that seemed hell-bent on catching up to them.
He was standing on a sloping hill, an arm wrapped around his middle, a chin resting on his shoulder, as they peered up at the dazzling blanket of stars stretched overhead and a soft voice murmured to him stories about their creation.
Aziraphale woke altogether too early in the morning, hands over his heart. Even in consciousness, he thought he could feel the warmth of another hand there, cupped in his own.
The sensation faded as he tried to grasp at it though, and Aziraphale was left baffled and aching for reasons he wasn't quite sure he wanted to understand.
He sat up on the edge of his bed, mouth dry as he tried to make sense of that incomprehensible barrage of dreams. Without meaning to, his eyes found the shelf that held Crowley's feather, as if it could be blamed for the episode. But that was ridiculous. It had been there for centuries, and never in all the time he'd been sleeping had Aziraphale ever felt something like that.
So why now? Was it that he had finally broken so many rules that this last one had stopped mattering to his traitorous subconscious?
Rules, after all, had kept Aziraphale from acknowledging the feelings he'd had for years. Well, feelings was perhaps not quite strong enough of a word. It had taken until last week for the gap between knowing this and admitting it to finally begin to close. Was his subconscious trying to finish the job?
Sighing, Aziraphale rubbed at his eyes. There was no job to finish, if he was honest with himself. He was in love with Crowley, had known it for longer than most of today’s humans had been alive. He didn’t need the reminder, which meant this was something else.
Wish fulfillment, perhaps? A definite possibility, perhaps even a probability. But…but what he had never even allowed himself to consider was the possibility that his sentiments might be reciprocated.
For so long, only madness and heartache had existed down that road. Even if Crowley had felt the same way, then what? Friendship with a demon was one thing, but to be in love with one…no, Aziraphale hadn’t been able to think like that. Not until the End of Days had ripped away so many illusions and forced him to confront some hard truths.
And now that it had…
Aziraphale shook his head. He was being ridiculous. He knew Crowley cared for him, but surely that was all it was. He was still an angel after all, and Crowley had never made a secret of his disdain for Heaven.
So. A subconscious manifestation of his own feelings. That was all the dream had been.
Thus reassured, Aziraphale got up and started his day. He wanted to do a full inventory of the bookshop, to make sure that being willed back into existence by the Antichrist hadn’t muddled anything up. Not that he thought Adam would have made any negative changes on purpose. He really was a good boy, as it turned out - everything Aziraphale and Crowley had hoped Warlock would be when they'd set out on their misguided endeavor as godfathers. But the boy didn't exactly know much about the proper setup and maintenance of a centuries-old bookshop, and it wasn't out of the question for him to have gotten some of the details wrong when he'd put it all back together.
But even as he worked, as he puttered and cataloged and made sure everything was in the proper place, his thoughts kept returning, again and again, to his extraordinary dreams. He beat them back more and more savagely each time, and was in the middle of one particularly pitched battle when the ring of his telephone nearly sent him jumping out of his newly-restored skin.
There were any number of people who could’ve been calling. Aziraphale had curated a number of contacts in the world of antique books, and it wasn't unusual for him to hear from one of them. He also got contacted every once in a while by someone who had heard he was among the best in the world at acquiring rare books, and had a specific request for him. And more and more frequently, he was getting calls from people who didn't seem to know who he was at all, but wanted to sell him all manner of things he didn't need, or inform him that he’d been chosen for a free cruise.
But as the phone continued to ring, some part of Aziraphale knew it wasn't any of those people on the other end of the line.
He only hesitated a moment before picking up the receiver.
"Hello?"
“Still in one piece, then?” It was Crowley’s voice, because of course it was, and Aziraphale tried not to examine too closely the flurry of different emotions that swept through his chest at the sound.
“Quite. Haven’t seen so much as an angel food cake.” Which was no great loss, really. Aziraphale didn’t care much for the dessert, much to Crowley’s ongoing amusement. “I daresay our plan has worked marvelously.”
“I think we’ve tempted Fate enough for this century, don’t you?”
“Must you always be so pessimistic?”
“It’s called being realistic, actually, and apparently yes, because my partner refuses to be anything but a relentless optimist.”
Oh. Aziraphale rather liked that word. Partner. It could mean so many different things, from bank robbery to courtship, but all of them put him and Crowley on the same side.
What had once been a terrifying prospect had become a reality that left him with a warm feeling inside.
*****
Crowley had apparently just called to check in, and they didn’t stay on the phone much longer. Nerves were still understandably raw after their would-be executions, and Aziraphale suspected it would be some time before either of them stopped looking over their shoulders entirely.
He elected not to sleep that night. He told himself that it was because he didn't need to, because he'd gone many long years without sleep before, and a single day and night may as well have been the blink of an eye. Besides, he did have quite a bit to be getting on with. Several new books had appeared on his shelves, and he wanted to track down their providence. Not to mention that he'd let the place go a little in his concern over the impending apocalypse, and he had a good deal of dusting to do. These were the sorts of things that were best done during the nighttime hours, so that his days could be spent attending to customers, when there were any.
His ability to lie to himself had been sorely tested over the past week though, and he knew he was avoiding sleep because it was the only surefire way to avoid dreams. There had been quite enough confusion in his life of late, and he didn't need to be piling on. Whatever his feelings for Crowley were, it was hard enough understanding them when he was awake. His subconscious could simply wait its turn.
Which, of course, was why it made absolutely no sense that the first thing he did the following morning was pick up his telephone and ring the number he'd memorized.
"Aziraphale?" Crowley's voice asked after only a ring and a half. "Everything okay?"
Having never had occasion to discover the wonder of caller ID, Aziraphale couldn't help being a little pleased that Crowley had known who he was right away. Although it was a sorry state of things, that a call from him prompted immediate concern for his safety.
"Yes, yes, quite all right," Aziraphale assured him. "I was just thinking, since we're already defying Heaven and Hell and all that, it seems to me that further..." his lips twitched. "Further fraternization isn't likely to get us in more trouble than we already are, and…” Here he paused, feeling as though he was teetering on the edge of something important, something he couldn’t take back. Screwing up his courage, he forged ahead. “Well, we never did have that picnic..."
He waited, unaccountably nervous. It wasn't as if this was the first time he'd reached out to Crowley for a rendezvous. Despite the positively dreadful things he'd said out of fear, the two of them were good friends, and had been for quite some time now.
Apparently, he needn't have worried.
"Yeah, I could do with a picnic," Crowley said, and Aziraphale hoped he wasn't imagining that he sounded a bit pleased. "So long as you're not cooking."
It was a fair condition. For as much as he loved experiencing all of the world's culinary wonders, any and all of Aziraphale's attempts to recreate them himself had been catastrophic. Still, just because it was true didn't mean he needed to be reminded of his failings.
"You know, I wasn't going to, but just for that, I think I'll bring along one of my famous strawberry currant Swiss rolls."
"Oh, come on, angel, don't." Crowley sounded vaguely panicked now. "Famous for what? Being classifiable as an instrument of torture?"
Aziraphale was glad for the distance between them that hid his smile from Crowley. It would have made it much harder to pull off a scolding tone otherwise.
"I think I've changed my mind. I'd rather have lunch by myself than endure such rude and baseless remarks."
"Mhm. I'll pick you up in an hour."
Crowley hung up, and Aziraphale realized he was still smiling like an idiot. He hurriedly put down the handset and went to assemble a picnic basket for two.
*****
It wasn't until Aziraphale climbed into the Bentley, his stomach swooping as though he hadn't done it a hundred times before, that he realized they hadn't specified a destination for this outing of theirs. Wherever it was, they were going to get there fast.
He was a little startled to realize that he didn't mind their lack of destination. It would have been wildly inaccurate to say that Crowley had never steered him wrong, but for all his grumbling, Aziraphale still trusted him behind the wheel.
"St. James?" Aziraphale asked.
"Thought we'd try for a change of scenery this time. Get out of the city for a bit."
"More or less exotic than Tadfield?"
Crowley shot him a glare that could be felt even through the tint of his glasses.
"Ah. Not ready to joke about that yet. Noted."
"Are you?" Crowley sounded surprised. "I figured you'd be a little more put out by the whole thing, to be honest."
Aziraphale gave that a bit of thought.
"Hm. You know, it's actually a bit...well, freeing, I suppose. One spends so long worrying about something, it becomes worse than the thing itself."
"So, getting discorporated, mucking up the Apocalypse, Heaven and Hell trying to execute us; you're saying all that was a bit of a let down?" A bemused smirk played at the edges of Crowley's mouth, and he took his gaze off the road for a worrying amount of time to look over at Aziraphale.
"Your words, not mine."
The smirk blossomed into a full-blown grin, and Crowley shook his head.
"You are an odd one, angel."
Aziraphale tried not to look too pleased.
*****
The day hadn't been planning on being beautiful when it dawned that morning, but it didn't dare interfere with the plans of Heaven and Hell's most wanted. So the sun was shining down on them and the skies were a clear, crystalline blue when they finally pulled into a carpark that was really little more than a large patch of gravel set away from the road.
Aziraphale hadn’t been paying much attention to the scenery as they drove, not wanting to be unsettled by the sight of it whizzing by at speeds never intended by God or nature. He looked now though, as Crowley led him to the head of a path that sloped down a gentle hill.
They stood at the top of a verdant valley that was nestled comfortably between rolling mounds of earth. A shallow stream splashed and bubbled happily through its center, and there were trees dotted along the water’s edge, their leaves shining like emeralds in the sun.
The air radiated…peace. Not the kind created by a lack of noise or other people, but the kind that went much deeper, so rare in a land that had been contested over and over throughout history. This was the kind of peace that could only be born of never having seen battle or bloodshed, or the scourge of illness and grief.
Somehow, throughout all of history, this little pocket of creation had remained unsullied by conflict. That seemed a miracle as powerful as any Aziraphale could perform.
He felt Crowley’s eyes on him, and a hint of something that felt suspiciously like anxiety emanating from him as he waited for a reaction.
"It's lovely," Aziraphale declared, smiling broadly as he took in their surroundings. A gentle breeze ruffled the grass and filled his nose with air fresher and sweeter than any that could be found in the city.
"Thought you might like it." Crowley’s shoulders had relaxed, and he sounded pleased with himself. Aziraphale felt his smile warm.
They settled down in a spot by the creek, close enough to hear the cheerful bubble of its passage over the rocks. Knowing how Crowley liked to sun himself, Aziraphale had positioned them away from the shade of the trees along the bank.
"Oh, are you trying to prove a point now, is that it?" Crowley complained when he spotted the blanket Aziraphale pulled from the top of the picnic hamper. "Force me into contact with as much tartan as possible?"
Aziraphale attempted to give him a severe look, which he probably didn't quite manage.
"No," he said primly. "I am simply choosing to ignore your baseless prejudice against it, and using what I would have anyway. Besides, this is the Clan Lumsden tartan, and they were lovely people. I blessed their chief's son, and they couldn't have been sweeter about it. Always set a place for me at their table, and a number of them even named their children after me."
"What, you're telling me there were a bunch of tiny little Scots running around named Aziraphale?"
"Er- well, no. I told them my name was Ailsie."
Crowley laughed, one of the real ones that always managed to warm something deep inside Aziraphale.
"But, if you do so strenuously object to my choice of blanket, you are more than welcome to sit on the ground."
This earned him a roll of the eyes that was palpable even through darkened lenses, but Crowley made no further protest.
As they settled down, Aziraphale was struck by a powerful wave of what the humans had named deja vu. One of his strange dreams had featured a spot quite like this one, he realized. One where Crowley had been draped over him in a luxurious sprawl, radiating lazy bliss as Aziraphale stroked his hair. There had been the same feeling of untouchable peace in the air, the same warmth of comfortable companionship.
The comparison practically screamed at Aziraphale as he sat beside Crowley, and he hurried to place the hamper of food between them. As if that would help him beat his thoughts back into something resembling rational order.
Aziraphale hadn't made good on his threat to cook something, so the spread was quite an impressive one. For a while, things were normal again as they both tucked in and lost themselves to the distraction of a good meal. Well, Crowley seemed more taken with the selection of wines Aziraphale had brought along, but that hardly seemed an important distinction.
They settled into an easy conversation about some of their respective exploits in a wilder Scotland than today's. It lasted until the food was gone, and a good amount of the wine with it.
But then it lulled into a natural silence, and the danger returned. With a contented sigh, Crowley flopped backward and stretched, his body rippling just a touch too languidly to look entirely human. Aziraphale’s eyes fixed on the motion, and he swallowed.
Once again, that dratted memory came back. He wondered what it would be like to recreate it in reality, to have Crowley relaxed against him like that, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. His fingers seemed to hum with the memory of running them through Crowley's hair. Would it feel the same in person as it had in the dream?
"Okay, out with it."
Aziraphale jumped as he suddenly found himself under the irritated scrutiny of the demon at his side. Damn, had he been staring? Well, how could he not, with those kinds of things running through his poor head?
"Out with what?" he asked, hiding a wince at how breathless he sounded. He'd always been positively dreadful at lying, and Crowley knew him better than anyone else on Earth or in Heaven.
"Whatever's got you staring at me like I'm some kind of- of Christmas ham.”
“I-” Aziraphale shifted, orienting his whole body to face towards the stream in front of them instead of his companion. He would have tugged at his lapels, had he been wearing a garment that had any. “I’m doing nothing of the sort.”
"Yes you are, you're ogling."
"Angels do not ogle." Indignation made him forget his intention not to look at Crowley anymore, and he swiveled back around. "I was merely observing. Am I not allowed to look at you anymore? Or have you suddenly developed an allergy to the direct gaze of a heavenly being?"
Crowley stuck his tongue out at him, its forked end hissing through the air. Aziraphale rolled his eyes, and tried not to find it charming.
“I do hope the air tastes like swamp water,” he said severely, knowing how sensitive Crowley’s serpentine tastebuds were.
“Nah. Pollution’s not got their hands on this creek yet.” Crowley gave him a lopsided grin and clicked his tongue. “The minnows in it have got a touch of scale rot though. Seems like the kind of thing any decent angel would be concerned by.”
“Well, I’ve recently been quite reliably informed that I’m not a very decent angel.” Still, Aziraphale snapped his fingers, and every trace of illness was gone from the stream. It was also now host to a somewhat confused population of jellyfish. Aziraphale had stumbled across the creatures in an old nature program once, and thought them simply fascinating. No one had bothered to make clear to him that they only lived in oceans, so these particular jellies would find themselves miraculously suited to their new environment.
“Oh, I could’ve told you that ages ago.” Crowley’s smirk was more than a little lecherous, and Aziraphale felt his face heat.
“Hush, you,” he said, and flopped onto his back so he would have an excuse to look at the sky instead of Crowley.
It seemed a minor miracle in itself that Crowley actually listened, and a silence fell between them that wasn’t as comfortable as it should have been after all their years of knowing each other. Aziraphale wished he knew how to fix that.
He could have said something, of course. After everything that had happened at that American airbase, consorting with a demon seemed a relatively minor offense, in comparison. But Aziraphale had used up quite a bit of courage on the whole Apocalypse thing, and the rest of it on inviting Crowley on this outing, and he thought he might have to let the supply built back up a bit before he had enough to spare on a conversation about feelings. Feelings he'd been wrestling with for decades, centuries.
Of course, the thought of feelings he'd just as soon avoid brought to the fore of his mind another set of them.
The ground felt suddenly cold against his back as his mind drifted to the End of Days. So many truths had been revealed that day. Not just about Heaven and Hell and the nature of humanity, but about Aziraphale himself. Truths he just as soon would have gone the rest of his existence without knowing.
Aziraphale closed his eyes against the beauty of the day, for it no longer fit his mood. A darkness had opened up inside him, and it threatened to swallow him whole.
"I was ready to kill that boy, Crowley."
The comment had come out of nowhere, and it was met with silence. Aziraphale squeezed his eyes shut tighter, until he felt Crowley shifting beside him, and couldn't stop himself from taking a peek. Crowley had propped himself up on one elbow, and his expression was sober as he studied Aziraphale. He didn't seem surprised by the comment, nor did he need an explanation.
"I was the one who asked you to," he said after a moment.
"Yes, but-" Aziraphale stopped, but he'd said enough.
"But what? But I'm a demon, and you're an angel?" Crowley's expression was as ineffable as the Almighty's twice-bedamned plan just then. "Doesn't work like that."
No, it didn't. Aziraphale knew that now, no matter how hard the lesson had been to learn.
"But you only asked because you knew you couldn't do it yourself. You knew I could, when it came right down to it. I'm not quite sure I like what that says about me."
Crowley sighed, and flopped back down onto his back. They were both silent for a moment. The sunshine felt a little more anemic than it had a minute ago, but Aziraphale didn't close his eyes against it this time.
"You used to be a soldier, Aziraphale." Crowley's voice was gentle now, in a way that made Aziraphale think of a bus stop in the middle of the night. "Not just that; you were a commander, had a whole platoon of angels following you. You were the one who had to make those kinds of decisions. If you hadn't, it could've gotten the angels you were responsible for killed."
Startled into once again forgetting his moratorium on eye contact, Aziraphale turned to look at Crowley. He didn't think they'd ever talked about this before, not in such stark terms. To Aziraphale, it had always been too much of a reminder of what they were. They'd fought on opposite sides of the universe's first war, and it had been a brutal one.
War is hell, the saying went. It was more right than most humans knew. War wasn't just hell, war had created Hell, and filled it with demons.
Aziraphale supposed that if he'd thought about it too much, he would have found it hard to believe that Crowley didn't harbor at least a little resentment over the way he'd been treated. But he didn't know how to ask about that, so he returned to the matter at hand.
"That wasn't me," Crowley went on, his expression darkening with some long-buried pain. "I wasn't responsible for anyone else, I was just- hurting. I didn't- the other rebels, I wasn't fighting for them."
Abruptly, Crowley averted his gaze. He'd been leaning towards Aziraphale like they were two kids tented under a blanket fort, up past their bedtime and swapping the secrets of the world. Now though, he shifted away, his body straightening as he rolled onto his back. He crossed his arms over his belly, and Aziraphale could see his throat working.
"I wasn't fighting for anything." His voice was little more than a whisper now. "I just wanted to make the pain stop."
Aziraphale's heart squeezed in his chest, so fiercely it stole his breath. So rarely did Crowley let this side of him show, that it was too easy to forget its existence. To forget how terribly he'd been hurt, at the beginning of it all.
He reached over, tentative, and laid his hand gently on Crowley's forearm. It occurred to him then that he'd never asked Crowley why he rebelled. It wasn't exactly the sort of thing that came up in casual conversation, but still...6,000 years was a long time to know someone, and it wasn't as if he didn't care. Perhaps he'd been afraid of the answer, afraid it would be something that made it harder to care for who Crowley was now.
Before he could say anything, Crowley shook his head and returned his focus to Aziraphale. His expression had smoothed over a little, and if there was any pain lingering in his gaze, it was hidden behind his glasses.
"Anyway, that's how I knew I could ask you," he said. "You've stood for something your whole life. I knew you'd be stronger than me."
"Oh, I don't know about that." Aziraphale squirmed uncomfortably. The way this was going, he almost wished he'd just started the other conversation about feelings. “You’re the one who convinced me to choose the right thing to stand for.”
Crowley opened his mouth to say something, but then couldn’t seem to find a thought willing to come out. So they returned instead to doggedly avoiding their emotions like the proper British gentlemen they occasionally pretended to be.
*****
Mercifully, the conversation turned to lighter topics after that. But Aziraphale couldn't forget the things Crowley had said, nor the way he'd said them.
That night, after Crowley had dropped him off at the bookshop with a casual wave and a squeal of tires, Aziraphale decided to try sleeping again. He was still more than a little unnerved from the last time, but perhaps it had been a mere fluke. A byproduct of all the stress of recent weeks having lowered his careful barriers.
And perhaps…well, perhaps there was a part of him that hadn’t minded the dreams so terribly much. Perhaps there was a part of him willing to put up with the confusion they caused if they also let him catch a glimpse of something he doubted he could ever have in life.
It was harder to fall asleep this time around, knowing what might be waiting for him. Aziraphale’s belly was gripped with a combination of trepidation and anticipation, and neither were ideal for rest. After almost an hour of lying in his rarely-used bed and waiting for unconsciousness to take him, Aziraphale resorted to a miracle - only a little one, really - to help things along.
The room had few adornments and no appliances save a very archaic stove, but it was unmistakably a kitchen. A long wooden table in the center of the room was littered with eggshells and dirty bowls and vegetable peelings, and a clear spot at the end held only a steaming dish of…well, something vaguely brown. Crowley held a spoon over this dish, which accounted for the look of utmost trepidation on his face. A look that was plainly visible, for there was no barrier over his lovely golden eyes.
“You do know that if this poisons me dead I’ll have to explain to my people why I ate something so clearly toxic,” he said, shooting a glance at Aziraphale.
“You wound me, my dear. As if I would ever let anything happen to you.”
Crowley tried to scowl, but his eyes had gone too soft. He pulled a face instead, muttered something uncomplimentary, and shoved the spoon into his mouth. A moment later-
“Gah, blistering Satan, this is- how can you be such an expert on food but so bloody terrible at making it?”
“Oh dear, is it dreadful? I thought I-”
It was raining, harder than he’d seen since the Flood. Normally he might have done something about this, but he was too distracted by the screaming argument in which he was currently engaged. He had no idea what they were fighting about, but Crowley was standing five feet away from him and shouting, and he was shouting right back, and his blood was humming with fury and passion and something that felt like righteousness but was probably closer to petulance.
“-could’ve gotten yourself killed, you stupid, featherbrained choir boy-”
“-control me, I still have a job to do and you’ve never had any respect for-”
Bony wrists were pinned beneath his hands, a naked body splayed out below him. Breaths coming in stuttering gasps, his whole body alight with a feeling like he’d never known.
“Aziraphale- angel, please-”
He silenced Crowley’s whimpered supplication with a kiss as he moved inside him, bringing them as close together as he could while they both still maintained physical forms. Crowley’s wiry legs were wrapped around his waist, urging him closer still, and Aziraphale’s entire being was awash with heat and pleasure and need-
He snapped awake in a different bed, quite alone. Breathing like a spent racehorse, heart stuttering and stomach in knots.
Aziraphale hadn’t gone to sleep with any genitalia to speak of, but the passionate desire of his dream must have driven his subconscious to will some into existence. Now he ached with hardness, with the need to touch and be touched. He bit his lip hard enough to bruise, and furrowed his brow in concentration, and the physical problem vanished.
But the emotional fallout could not be so easily dismissed.
Finding himself unable to remain in the bed, Aziraphale rolled to his feet and began to pace the small area of his bedroom. When that also proved unsatisfactory, he retreated instead to the kitchen, intending to fix a calming cup of tea. When that too was fraught with reminders, he stomped out to the back alley behind his bookshop, where he’d never had occasion to spend a single moment with Crowley.
It didn’t help much. His mind was still racing, his heart along with it.
Could Adam have done this? They'd known that reality had reset, of course, but did they truly understand what that meant? Could the changes the boy wrought on their lives extend further than repaired automobiles and buildings and the banishment of sea monsters? Perhaps he’d sensed how deep Aziraphale’s feelings for Crowley ran, and put reality back together such that…
Aziraphale clutched at his head.
No, that didn’t make any sense, and he knew it. Adam was a child, couldn’t have cared less about the interpersonal melodramatics of a couple of ancient celestials.
This was all Aziraphale, it had to be. He’d finally given himself permission to love Crowley, and his mind was supplying the rest. It was just doing so with rather a bit more…enthusiasm than he would’ve chosen consciously.
Slumping against the miraculously clean brick behind him, Aziraphale vowed to himself to avoid sleep from here on out. Not just because the depth of his fantasies frightened him, although it did. But it also felt…dishonest, like a violation, to participate in such dreams about Crowley without his friend’s knowledge or consent.
Even if he didn’t sleep for the next six millennia though, Aziraphale knew he wouldn’t forget what he’d already seen.