When Aziraphale finally came back, Crowley didn’t really much care what he was saying, or mumbling, or choking out, but instead was watching him like a hawk for signs of what he really meant, like he always had, and it was so familiar an action that he almost didn’t even care what he found, he was just so blessed glad to be able to do it again, only what he did find was that Aziraphale was sagging under a despair and a relief so profound that eventually Crowley was satisfied enough to say, “I’m tired. Need a good night’s rest. Let’s pick this back up in the morning.”
And Aziraphale had looked both petrified and grateful, so Crowley had leaned back on the bookshop sofa and gone to sleep. Which wasn’t really a surprise, given that he hadn’t exactly been sleeping well lately, but what had surprised him was that in the morning he’d seen Aziraphale had fallen asleep, too, something he’d hardly seen in their millennia of knowing each other. So he supposed they’d both needed it.
Which was why, when they both woke up around noon, Crowley did something the bookshop had never seen in its decades of existence, because normally they had so many places they wanted to go together, but now all they really wanted to do was stay there, and so he ordered takeaway.
And so there they were, Crowley sat on the sofa and Aziraphale in an armchair, Chinese takeaway boxes scattered on a hastily cleared-of-books end table, with Crowley shoveling noodles into his mouth because he hadn’t realized he’d been so hungry. And Aziraphale was holding one dumpling between a pair of chopsticks, looking like a statue.
“So—” Crowley said, with difficulty around the noodles—how had the angel always managed to talk and eat at the same time, all while looking so prim?—and he’d never gotten the hang of chopsticks. Which, all right, he’d lived in China for a few centuries over the ages, but he’d eaten far less often than humans did, so it still wasn’t all that shameful. “So, what’s next, then?”
“Rather a lot, I’m afraid.” Aziraphale glanced at him when he said it, did that little twitch of an eyebrow he couldn’t help doing sometimes, even when he was squashing everything down inside him, like now, then looked away.
Crowley shoveled more noodles into his mouth. Aziraphale took the history of the world’s smallest bite of his dumpling. Crowley frowned.
“And—er—”
“I wish I could’ve come back to you with it all being finished,” Aziraphale said sadly. “‘Done, I solved it’. Well, I’m afraid I wasn’t all that useful.”
“From what you told me last night, you did loads.” Crowley stared at the dumpling. “Aren’t you hungry?”
“Oh.” Aziraphale grimaced at his chopsticks. “Er. Haven’t really eaten much. I don’t want—uh—don’t want to upset my stomach. You know how it is.”
Crowley just frowned. He took another gargantuan bite. Too big, really. It was all he could do to chew.
“The last thing I wanted to do was to come back to you with more problems,” Aziraphale said wretchedly. “But they just kept getting larger and larger, and eventually it was now or never—and I’m just—I’m just so useless—”
Crowley chewed faster. He really shouldn’t have eaten so much at once. He could do the snake thing, he supposed, but he really didn’t think a big old reminder of how inhuman he was would be quite appropriate, right now. Still, he had things to say, or rather, to interrupt, so he swallowed painfully, made a horrible noise, and finally hissed, “Never mind that, just, let’s just, get through this day, all right? Just one day.”
Aziraphale’s eyes went distant. Crowley wondered if they even measured days, in Heaven. They certainly tried not to think about it in Hell. Aziraphale was still holding that blessed dumpling, hardly touched, with perfect chopstick finesse, and he wished it would fall, just so the angel would have to catch it with his teeth.
“What are you doing?”
“What?” Aziraphale snapped halfway out of his daze.
“What are you—why are you eating like that? Why aren’t you eating?”
“I told you—” the angel said, sounding just peevish enough to spur him on.
Crowley reached over and took the chopsticks from him. Aziraphale sputtered. Crowley gestured with the dumpling. “Why are you being so weird about it?”
“I’m not—”
“It’s eating. It’s food, look, here it comes—”
“Crowley, are you airplaning that dumpling at me?”
Crowley paused mid-airplaning the dumpling towards him. He said, “N-n—”
Aziraphale gave him an icy stare.
“‘Member before it was airplanes?” Crowley said. He smiled. He felt something bubbling up inside him, and Aziraphale, remembering himself and trying to look penitent again, was not going to stop it. “It was trains, for a while, right? ‘Here comes the train, carrying your food.’ Don’t think they ever did that with a horse and buggy, though. S’pose you’d imply the kid was eating the horse, which wasn’t really the thing.”
“Crowley.”
“Before they had food-carrying vehicles, how did they get kids to eat, then? Do you remember?”
“Not really.” Aziraphale looked a bit wretched again. Crowley handed him back his chopsticks, and the angel took them. Took a bite. So small, it could hardly even be called a nibble.
Crowley sighed and leaned back into his own seat. “Anyway, I guess none of it really makes sense. You’d have to eat the whole airplane, too.”
They sat in silence for a while. Crowley took another bite of lo mein. Because of the chopsticks, and his fear, after everything, of what would happen if he dropped food on the bookshop floor, he’d held the whole carton up to his mouth and dumped it in, and now he really was choking, and after a few moments of terrified silence, he gave up and did the snake thing. Dislocating a human-shaped jaw really was less dramatic than when the entirety of you was just a long tube, but he knew it still looked odd. It wasn’t the reason he hardly ever ate in restaurants, but it was a small part of it. When he was done, he clenched his teeth back together and winced in the angel’s direction.
Aziraphale was looking at him with a wistful expression that was part amused and part something else. He said, “I missed you.”
Well. If everything before hadn’t been enough, that certainly was. Crowley said, “Do you at least want to try drinking something? Some cocoa?” and his own voice startled him with its softness.
Aziraphale looked thoughtful. Then doubtful. “I—don’t know.”
“C’mon. I’ll make you some. You’ve got to wake up the stomach with something, right?”
“I suppose—”
“I’ll make you some.” He rose from the sofa with the grace of a marionette being picked up by the strings, which was ironic, since he had never felt less like a puppet. “Be in the kitchenette. Right back. Don’t go anywhere.”
And he left, because he knew he wouldn’t.
When he came back, steaming warm mug in his hands, Aziraphale had put the dumpling away, but the doubt in his eyes had changed to something near hope. He took the cocoa and stared into it while Crowley sat back down. Not all the way, not leaning back into the sofa, but elbows resting on his knees, leaning forward towards the angel. Aziraphale looked at him, and Crowley tilted his head at the mug and raised his eyebrows, just a little. Aziraphale smiled, closed his eyes and, after taking a deep breath, took a sip. Then he winced.
“Too hot?” Crowley said, brows pulling together.
“I should have waited—”
“Here.” Crowley reached for the mug and touched it with his index finger. Then, needing something to calibrate the temperature to, he put his other hand on top of Aziraphale’s. He performed a minor miracle.
He let go, leaned back, and Aziraphale looked at him. He took another sip. The angel closed his eyes and, slowly, drank the whole thing.
When he put the mug down, it was empty.
“Mm?” Crowley said lightly.
“Thank—” Aziraphale started to say, but he shifted, his face a pained grimace. He put a hand to his stomach, waving Crowley off with his other hand when the demon had made a noise of worry. The angel sighed and his face relaxed.
“Did it upset your stomach?” Crowley asked. Again, that soft voice. Croaky with misuse.
“A little.” Aziraphale looked up at him. He gave a watery smile. “It was wonderful.”
Crowley felt his own face doing something. It was something like a grin. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah.”
Aziraphale looked at the remains of the Chinese takeaway. There were still several unopened boxes. With the memory of the angel passed out in his chair, eyes closed, chest moving slowly, Crowley had gone a bit overboard with the ordering. He hadn’t even known the bookshop’s address. Just told the delivery person the street name, and said, ‘Bookshop with a big black car in front of it. You can’t miss it.’ And he hadn’t. It was an iconic duo.
“We could—” Aziraphale said thoughtfully. “We could save those for later, yes?”
Crowley beamed at him. “Yeah. Angel?”
“Hm?”
“Welcome back.”
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Y’ALL I JUST FOUND SOMETHING WILD:
I figured this out by pure accident because musically, I’m not a big fan of Tori Amos’s singing style (I’m sorry 🙁, besides the point though!), so I pulled up the original instead to put on my playlist.
And GUYS. I don’t think “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” is about them at the Ritz together in the 21st century, or at least not at first…
It’s about this.
“A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” originally came out in 1940 by Vera Lynn, one year before Crowley pulled the most romantic ass stunt Aziraphale had ever seen and, let’s be honest, the vibes uh… changed. I mean there was a reason the rumor of them being an item spread in hell around this time.
And that’s not all, the song was actually meant to be part of a musical, on the West End. The place where they made a fond memory together for the first time in nearly a hundred years, took care of each other, trusted each other. Hell, where Crowley and Aziraphale, both friends of the theatre in different ways, probably heard this song about causing the impossible and falling in love just a year prior.
Yah so I’ve FULLY drank my own koolaide and completely believe that they already associated this song with each other. Not only saw it as a fond reminder of that night in 1941, but the quite, gentle reality they might have together someday. But they wouldn’t DARE say that out loud, wouldn’t be ridiculous enough to let themselves hope for it.
I think this was Aziraphale breaking the unspoken rules and acknowledging this thing they share. Him saying “I know, I see you. I hope so too.”
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