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The world hadn’t ended.That had been good.Aziraphale is sure it had been good. He’s quite positive it had been good, in the same way that he’s sure that the sun will come up in the morning and go down in the evening. That the books in his bookshop will still be there, old and settled on their shelves, whenever he pops out for an errand and returns. In the same way that he knows that, no matter what time of day it is, or wherever he is, if he phones the demon, the demon will pick up.That is to say, Aziraphale isn’t sure of anything at all.The world hadn’t ended, but six days ago it almost had—and the demon that he’s phoned up just now hasn’t answered his call. Five calls. It’s been five calls.Aziraphale paces around his shelves. He’s trying to decide if he’s going to ring him again or if he’s just going to give up. He doesn’t like the idea of giving up, especially not now. He doesn’t like the idea of Crowley not answering his phone. He could go there, he supposes. Go to Mayfair, it’s just around the corner anyway, he could walk for Heaven’s sake. He’s been there before, he knows the way. He could pop in, he wouldn’t mention the fact that he’d called five times without leaving any messages on the answerphone. He wouldn’t chide him, he wouldn’t tell him how angry he is that the demon hadn’t picked up. He certainly wouldn't let on how much it had frightened him.It still is. It’s still frightening him.Aziraphale dials a sixth time.“This is Anthony Crowley, you know what to do, do it with style—”
Beep.
Aziraphale hangs up.Perhaps this is what comes of him making an attempt. This is what comes of trying to follow what he’d thought had been explicit directions. He’s always been good at following directions, hasn’t he? He’s been brilliant at it. He’s prided himself with following directions, in the past.Actually, no he hasn’t.Actually, he’s been rubbish at directions ever since the world began.Aziraphale dials a seventh time. He does it with his teeth gnashed together, his lips whorled over top of them. He does it with such force that the old rotary dial would have spun right off its swivel had he not been holding it together with a passive miracle. He unclenches his teeth as the line rings again, but only enough to slide his tongue over the front ones, under his lips. To wiggle his jaw, to loosen it enough to prepare for what he’s about to say.“Do it with style—”
Beep.
“I love you too!” Aziraphale barks into the receiver. “Alright? Now pick up the damned phone .”***There’s something wrong with Anthony Crowley.The world hadn’t ended, and they’d gone to the Ritz. They’d gone to the Ritz a thousand times, they’d gone to tea for hundreds of those, they’d popped open champagne and toasted to themselves for at least half of those times. At least. Why, they’d pulled off the Arrangement successfully for so many years that it felt like they could never have enough champagne toasts to celebrate it. They could’ve toasted with all the champagne in the world, and it wouldn’t have been enough.(And believe them, they’d tried .)They’ve toasted and drunk, and now Aziraphale is beginning to go into detail again about his escapades down Below. He’s recalling things that no one who’d been down there will ever remember; Aziraphale has a flair for the dramatic, it’s true, and he takes to embellishment like a drag queen to sequins. Crowley knows this. He knows this, he knows everything about Aziraphale, and he’s sitting back and sipping his champagne and letting him do it anyway. Letting him indulge in these little pleasures of his–and indulge, Aziraphale does.“And then I said, I said, ‘And another thing, Michael, that blouse is extremely unflattering!’”Aziraphale sits back with a smug look, expecting Crowley to comment on Heaven’s fashion choices. Crowley always has a comment on fashion choices, no matter who’s making them.Crowley smiles over top of his glass, and he says nothing.“And then,” Aziraphale goes on, pushing through this odd silence with nary another examination, “she went off back up the stairs without even collecting the holy water. I think I really offended her, actually.”“I’m sure you did,” Crowley agrees.And then that’s it. That’s it. Crowley sips his champagne again, watching Aziraphale over the rim, and Aziraphale begins to wonder if there isn’t something on his face or in his teeth. It seems like Crowley is waiting for something. He's waiting with a smirk on his face, like the other shoe is about to drop and he’s about to have a bloody field day. Just to be on the safe side, Aziraphale miracles away anything untoward that might be on his face, hair, teeth, or clothing. He glances over at Crowley again.It hasn’t helped.The tea is through. They stride from the restaurant and back down the street, back towards Soho. It seems they are walking today. They could drive, of course, Crowley’s car—which hasn’t blown up, by the way—can always be parked just round the corner whenever they need it. But it’s a beautiful day, the world hadn’t ended, and there is nowhere else they need to be. Just here, walking down the street with each other.Aziraphale feels too happy. He’s never felt this happy before, and he doesn’t quite know how to contain it. It seems to be bubbling over, spilling out of him, seeping out of every pore of his human body. He really does feel lighter on his feet, like there’s a spring in his step, and he has to double check a few times to be sure he hasn’t got his wings out unwittingly. He can’t seem to stop talking. He’s talking and talking, animatedly, endlessly, not even pausing for breath. Talking about anything, everything, the bloody weather he’s talking about, he’s talking about weather in England, about weather in Tadfield, about the little inn they’d driven by on the bus on their way home and how he’d perhaps like to go back there sometime, maybe, someday, just to say hello to everyone again. Maybe at Christmastime. He’s quite sure Tadfield will have another white Christmas this year, and that’s always a merry magical treat “isn’t it Crowley? Why, it would be positively festive, don’t you think?”“Festive,” Crowley says. “Right.”The demon’s hands are in his pockets, and he’s looking at the angel through his sunglasses. He’s still got that smirk on his face, that ridiculous smirk , Aziraphale does not know what that smirk means and why the demon is being so damned quiet. Fashion hadn’t got him, and now not even the mention of holiday festivities, which he loathes, have elicited any sort of impassioned response. He’s barely put more than two words together since they’d toasted with the champagne, and Aziraphale is so happy, he is so very happy, and Crowley’s silence is just positively ruining the whole damned thing.He wants to push him. He needs Crowley to speak. He needs him to speak. He wants to say, You should come with me, we’ll make a holiday of it, we’ll sip hot cocoa with candy canes next to the tree and we’ll wear hand-knitted jumpers and on Christmas Eve we’ll go caroling—oh good Lord, that would get him for certain, Crowley hates carolers—“Maybe I’ll come with you,” Crowley says, thoughtfully. “We’ll make a holiday of it.”Aziraphale walks along next to the demon, his happiness deflating like a popped balloon.***Perhaps if the world had ended, Crowley would still have been normal.Well not, normal normal. He’d have been devastated, sure. There would have been a war. Humans wouldn’t have existed anymore. All the stars he’d built in the universe would have been blown away to dust. But he would’ve still been brooding, wouldn’t he? They’d have watched the burning rubble of the physical world together—together of course, somewhere off in the distance, a couple of outlaws, a couple of defectors, because neither of them had ever been going to fight in any war, especially against each other. They’d have been watching it and they’d have been sad, they’d have both been devastated, but they still would have had each other and they still would have had the knowledge that they’d done everything they possibly could have to stop it.(That’s all one can really ever do in the end, isn’t it?)Crowley would have been sad. He loves humanity. He might’ve even been so sad that he'd have admitted it. He tends to wax maudlin at those types of things: human disasters like wars, like plagues. Any massive event of human suffering usually gets him asking all sorts of existential questions. These are the sorts of little idiosyncrasies of his that Aziraphale indulges, in turn. Aziraphale likes to indulge them. He enjoys watching Crowley’s mind spin down different rabbit holes, corkscrewing every which way, ways that Aziraphale would have never thought of. The leaps Crowley's brain can make from one thing to another! They’re like constellations, almost, collections of dots in the sky that don’t look like anything at all unless you draw out the lines between them.Crowley has always drawn out the lines, and Aziraphale has always loved watching the images come to life.Crowley would have been sad, but he’d have been normal, he’d have waxed maudlin about God’s plan and the meaning of life, and Aziraphale would have indulged him, and they'd have explored the demolished universe together.Aziraphale is trying to remind himself why he hadn’t just gone to Alpha Centauri in the first place.***Sunday is lunch at the Ritz.Monday is breakfast at the café across the street, followed by a tour of the latest modern art exhibit at the Tate. Aziraphale had suggested it, he’d suggested it. Crowley loves modern art—or rather, he loves how much Aziraphale hates it.(Aziraphale doesn’t really hate it, not really, of course he doesn’t. He’s an angel, he doesn’t hate anything. He’s just rather partial to art that actually looks like someone made an effort.)Aziraphale makes sure to voice all of his criticisms, abundantly and quite loudly, as they go through the gallery.“My goodness, well, who knew that painting a single straight line could get you a show in the Tate! Perhaps I should have submitted Warlock’s two-year old scribbles for contention.”“Oh dear, do you think that sculpture was even finished? There must be some mistake. I must let someone know, there’s no way the artist could have wanted them to display it like that .”“Hmm, now, what do you think this piece is saying about the meaning of life? Perhaps that it is ephemeral, that no matter how carefully you prepare, it could still end up in flames? Oh—oh no—I do believe that’s an actual fire extinguisher—”“Mhm,” Crowley says to all of these. Well, not exactly to all of them. To some he says, “uh huh,” and to others, “oh, yeah,” or “right,” and to the rest he doesn’t respond at all.He just keeps looking at him. He keeps looking at him, and he keeps smiling that little damned smile .Two-thirds of the way through, Aziraphale calls it. He can’t look at these pieces anymore, even he’s getting sick of his own opinions. They go to lunch instead, a fish and chips stand he likes down by the bridge, and they eat on a bench along the river (well, Aziraphale eats, and Crowley occasionally sips on his soda). It’s a sunny day, the sunlight is glittering off of the water, there are birds swooping around, there are people out and about. Another beautiful day of the world that didn’t end, and Aziraphale swells with happiness looking at it, thinking of all the life and love that the humans have been able to carry on with because of them, because in some small part, they helped them keep it.And then he turns to Crowley, and he sees him sucking on the straw of his drink and smiling at him over the top of his sunglasses. What? Aziraphale wants to ask, but he doesn’t, because it’s a thing now, isn’t it? It has to be. Crowley is waiting for him to ask, that must be why he’s doing it. It’s a game now. Crowley’s trying to see just how far he can push it, how far can he go before Aziraphale can’t take it anymore. Well, Aziraphale’s going to show him. He’ll show him. He’s good at playing games.“Do you want to catch a film tonight? There’s a new arthouse cinema that’s just opened up, and I’ve been meaning to visit.”“Sure, angel,” is all Crowley says, and his smirk grows just a little bit.They go to the film. They get popcorn—extra butter, of course—and another soda. When the lights dim, Aziraphale pulls a small flask of rum from his inner jacket pocket and nudges Crowley as he spikes their drink.Crowley’s smirk curls to a full smile on one side of his face, and then he settles back to watch the screen.Aziraphale doesn’t particularly like rum and coke. He hates it—er, strongly dislikes it—actually, but he’d thought it would’ve gotten a rise out of Crowley. More of a rise than half a smile, that’s for sure. Crowley knows he hates it, he should have been at least a little bit curious as to why he's done it. Dejected, his soda now ruined, it takes all Aziraphale has not to just swig the remaining rum straight from the flask.***Tuesday, Aziraphale stays in the shop.Crowley stays with him. He shows up in the morning, unannounced and uninvited. This wouldn’t have been unusual, except that Aziraphale had specifically planned not to invite him, just to see if he would show up anyway. Which he has.Unfortunately, Aziraphale is not sure if this proves anything.Crowley meanders around the shelves, peering at the books, checking the spines, occasionally pulling one out to peruse the title. At least, Aziraphale thinks he’s perusing. He’s not quite sure what he’s doing, actually. Crowley has maintained for centuries that he doesn’t read, even though Aziraphale knows that’s utter rubbish, so the fact that he’s walking around the shelves looking like a—like just another bloody customer— sends all the hairs on the back of Aziraphale’s neck standing straight to the sky. If Crowley starts actually reading a book, Aziraphale is really going to, as the humans are fond of saying, lose his shit .Aziraphale doesn’t dare ask what he’s doing, though. He hems and haws instead, fretting over little things in the shop that might not be the same—the new books on his writing desk, for example, or more money in the cash drawer than he was sure had been in there on Saturday evening—and he only glances at Crowley from the side. A side eye, a peripheral glance, and only when Crowley is visible from the maze of shelving.(Sometimes he’s not. Sometimes he’s so far back in there that Aziraphale gets a bit worried about the mechanics of space-time warping around him. There are some depths of this bookshop that not even Aziraphale has descended into in quite a while, and well, it is a holy embassy. That kind of miraculous power has the potential to do all sorts of mad things to the physical world.Maybe Aziraphale should force him in deeper, just to see if it will cure him.)When Crowley passes back around the end of another row of shelves, he’s humming to himself.Aziraphale doesn’t recognize the song. It may not be a song at all, just random tunes from his head, and Aziraphale doesn’t know which would be more unsettling. He clears his throat. Crowley looks up from where he’s pulled a copy of Pride & Prejudice from the shelf.“Do you fancy a cuppa?” Aziraphale asks, just to ask something. He hadn’t had a plan when he’d cleared his throat, he’d just needed to stop the humming somehow. “Or… I think I’ve got some instant coffee, if you prefer.”Crowley hates instant coffee. Loathes it to his core. Although, to be sure, any coffee that Aziraphale makes is always instant. If he hasn’t got the powder in the kitchenette, he just miracles it right up.Crowley folds the book next to his chest and smirks. “Sure, angel. Thanks.”Aziraphale stalks back to the kitchenette, grumbling under his breath.***On Wednesday, Aziraphale gets on with it.This is just how Crowley is now, he’s decided. Perhaps it’s not so bad. Perhaps it’s rather refreshing to have him quiet, and gentle, and polite. They haven’t got into any rows at all since the world hadn’t ended. There have been no barbs, no groans or grumbles, no sharply bitten comebacks. There have certainly not been any eye rolls or head shakes and there have definitely, definitely not been any walk-out-of-the-shop-like-it’s-the-last-time-even-though-we-both-know-you’ll-come-back-in-five-minutes-like-nothing-has-happeneds. It’s nice. It’s nice. It’s very nice.Aziraphale is trying very hard to believe it’s nice.Aziraphale is good at believing things. He’s quite good at it, if he does say so himself. He can believe pretty much anything he puts his mind to if he tries hard enough. It’s one of his best qualities, he’s always thought. Heaven had always thought that too. Gabriel had used to compliment him on it. You’ve got such a strength of faith, he’d say, clapping him on the back. A shining example to us all. Aziraphale is suddenly wondering if that was such a compliment, in the end.“There’s a new patisserie opening round the corner,” Aziraphale tells the demon. It’s the morning, they’re drinking tea in the shop, Crowley has invited himself over bright and sparkling early once again. “I thought perhaps I’d wander over when it opens. Purchase some sweets for the shopkeeper’s meeting this evening.” He sips his tea and nibbles on a biscuit from the tin he keeps on his desk.“You going to the meeting?” Crowley asks.The angel shrugs. “I thought I might. I haven’t been for a few… er, years. Years now, I suppose.” Aziraphale feels a stab of guilt at that, even though he detests the meetings. Every time he goes he’s always left feeling drained. The energy is terrible, honestly, people just go there to complain about each other, and he’d rather do without all the negativity, thank you very much.(It’s definitely the energy that keeps him away. Definitely. It’s most certainly not the fact that the last time he’d gone, the other shopkeepers had made an attempt to get everyone on the street to agree to keep the same hours—and had tried to strong-arm him into doing so, too. As if. As if they could have. Aziraphale had had to banish every single person’s memories of the entire meeting, just to get out of that one.)Crowley would probably love them. “Would you like to come with me?” Aziraphale says, without thinking.The perpetual smile on Crowley’s face goes a little unsettled at this. His eyebrows lift up above his sunglasses. “Come with you? To the shopkeeper’s meeting?”“Er,” says Aziraphale. “Yes?”“Angel.” Crowley leans forward from the sofa with his elbows on his knees. There’s a cup of black tea cradled steadily between his hands. “Why on Satan’s scorched earth would I do that?”“You would love it,” Aziraphale says. This is more of a reaction than he’s gotten from Crowley in days, and, although the angel has absolutely no desire to go to the meeting—and even less desire to bring Crowley with him—he keeps on the thread to see where this goes. “Everyone’s simmering with petty grievances, and they all seem to be emboldened by each other’s airing of them. Like a mob mentality, only small-scale. A low-grade maleficence. Lots of sinful thoughts, some of them even violent. I’ve never seen it get actually violent, but I’m sure it wouldn’t be difficult. Lots of mischief you could make, there.”Crowley stares at him over his cup. His smile shrinks a little, just a little, and Aziraphale feels equal parts triumphant and devastated by it. He isn’t sure if it counts as a victory.“You want me to make them violent?” Crowley says, like he doesn’t quite believe it.“No!” Aziraphale puts his cup down on his saucer. “I just think—well.” Bah. He’s going to have to go somewhere with this now. He reluctantly lets a little bit of honesty creep out of him. Not enough to lose, though. He’s just baiting him, really, he is, he’s not going to lose this game. He’s not. “I think you need something to do.”Crowley looks at him for another moment, then he sits back. He puts his teacup on the side table and settles into his seat with one leg crossed over the other and his arms spread wide over the back of the sofa cushions.“Do you, now?” he says. The smirk is back.Aziraphale tries not to fidget. He tries to keep his expression neutral. Crowley obviously thinks he’s won something here, and Aziraphale is not about to let him have it. “I do,” he says, digging himself deeper down. “You certainly can’t follow me around like a lost puppy for the rest of our days, my dear.”At this, the smile falls away completely. Crowley’s entire expression falls away, and his arms slide off the back of the couch and down around his sides.Aziraphale instantly feels regret. He stumbles to backtrack. “I only mean that you—well, you know. You’ve just been… around all the time, and…” Where am I going with this? Aziraphale wonders in his own head. Where the hell am I going with this? He doesn’t want Crowley to stop hanging around, he only wants him to be himself again.“Sorry,” Crowley sneers, standing abruptly from the sofa. “I didn’t realize I was such a nuisance.” He grabs his jacket off the back of the sofa and stalks toward the door.“Crowley, that’s not what I mean—oh for Heaven’s sake, come back —” Aziraphale stands up too.Crowley whirls around in the vestibule. “I don’t need you either, you know.”Aziraphale stops following him.“I don’t ,” Crowley repeats, showing his teeth when he does it.“That’s not what I meant,” Aziraphale says, quietly. “It’s just that you haven’t been yourself these past few days, and I… I don’t know. I thought you might need to get back into the swing of things. To, you know… find yourself again.”Crowley’s mouth moves without any noise, like he’s got several responses vying for escape inside it. “I haven’t lost myself,” is the big winner. “I know exactly who I am.”“I didn’t mean—”“ You’re the one who doesn’t.”Aziraphale blinks at him. “I beg your pardon?”Crowley looks chagrined, suddenly, like he’s said something he hasn’t meant to. He licks his lips. His expression hardens in determination. “You heard me.”Aziraphale’s mind is blank. It’s blank, there are no thoughts in his head at all. “Of course I… of course I do.”“Then what are we doing here?” Crowley explodes, his face going red under his glasses.“I...” Aziraphale is still searching for something, anything, any kind of comprehension at all, and he’s coming up completely empty. “I thought we… were… I’m sorry, Crowley. I don’t understand what you mean.”Crowley’s chest is heaving. He looks like he’s about to have a conniption. Or like he’s about to cry. Aziraphale isn’t sure which would be worse. “You don’t, do you?”He says it like he doesn’t believe it, and Aziraphale feels some part of himself come loose. Something’s happening. Something bad, whatever game they’ve been playing isn’t a game anymore. Aziraphale’s starting to suspect that it never really was.“I’m—I’m sorry, I really don’t.”Crowley looks at him for a moment. Scrutinizes him, Aziraphale can tell even with the glasses on. He’s chewing on his inner lip, the inside of his cheek, Aziraphale can see the way it folds and scrunches from the outside of his closed mouth.“You don’t—” the demon starts, then stops. “Don’t you want—” He stops again. “You don’t ever want more?” Aziraphale is struggling so badly that he wants to sit again. “More… what?” he asks, wishing he didn't have to.“More than this!” Crowley’s voice has gone up a little, it’s screeching a little, it’s wavering a little too. The complexities of the change do something painful to Aziraphale’s heart.Aziraphale doesn’t want to ask again. He feels so stupid right now, and he doesn’t want to ask again.Thankfully, Crowley elaborates. “You know—” he waves his hands around, gesturing out the window, “going to lunch.”Aziraphale blinks. He blinks a lot.More lip chewing commences. “Going to museums, and films, and new patisseries, and—and drinking tea—”“I...” Aziraphale scrambles to find any thread, any at all, to pull on. “I like those things.”Crowley lets out a breath. There’s something crumbling in his expression, and Aziraphale feels a cold chill start to creep over his spine. “I like them too,” says the demon, like he’s trying to be patient but failing at it spectacularly. It’s the first time in Crowley’s entire existence, Aziraphale thinks, that he’s probably ever admitted it. “But don’t you ever want more?” Aziraphale acquiesces. He can do nothing else. “What do you mean, more?” Crowley lets out another breath. This one is shaking. “Fuck,” he swears, like he's talking to himself. “I like those things, and you like those things,” Aziraphale tries, trying to put it all together, perhaps if he repeats it he can put it together, “and we can do those things now without Heaven and Hell stopping us. What… what more did you want?”Crowley looks at the ground and lets out a sigh. It sounds more like a death rattle than an exhalation. Aziraphale watches him as he does it again and then straightens up to look at him once more.“Maybe a change of scenery.” Crowley’s voice is more normal now, more even… in the same way that a mask is smooth, more static than a real face.Aziraphale is still in shock, but at least this is a thread he can follow. “You want to leave London?”Crowley shrugs, looking out of the bookshop window. “I dunno. Maybe.”“Where do you want to go?”Crowley’s still looking out of the window. His hands are worrying the fabric of his jacket, bunched between them.“I don’t know if I could...” Aziraphale thinks, trying to think, why can’t he think , blast it, why can’t he just think. Please, Crowley, please, please connect the dots, please draw the lines, please show me the picture, the whole picture, so that I can finally see it for what it is. “I like my bookshop.”Crowley’s head whips to him. “I know! I know, angel. I… I didn’t mean forever.”“Oh,” Aziraphale says, swallowing. “Like, erm… like a holiday?”“Yeah,” Crowley says, with a nod. “Like a holiday.”Aziraphale exhales. He wants to feel relieved, like they’re getting somewhere now, somewhere concrete. He tries to shake the feeling that Crowley’s still talking at him in circles. “Oh. Well, there was mention of Tadfield. Although I—to be completely honest with you, I only said that in jest. I know you certainly wouldn’t want to follow me there.”Crowley wrings the jacket between his hands. “I’d follow you anywhere,” he says, quietly.“Oh,” Aziraphale says again, and then he adds, with a depth of self-awareness that he only reserves for very special occasions, “I know.”Crowley swallows. He straightens up a little more.“We won’t go to Tadfield,” Aziraphale promises, trying to ease whatever pain he’s caused by his absolutely painful obliviousness. “I won’t make you sing carols or wear a Christmas jumper.”At this, Crowley’s eyebrows go up on his face. “Since when did carols and jumpers come into the picture?”"Ah." Aziraphale feels his cheeks redden. “I may have had a particular reverie in mind.”Crowley’s not exactly smiling, but his face has relaxed a bit. “You did, huh?”“I did, rather. But I think perhaps we ought to indulge one of your reveries this time.” Aziraphale smiles at him. It’s a fragile smile, hopeful, he wants Crowley to accept it as the olive branch it is.For some reason, Crowley’s face reddens too. “Not necessary,” he says, quickly. “Just let’s go somewhere, okay? You choose. I don’t care where. Just… somewhere. Else. What do you say?”“Of course.” Aziraphale smiles a fully bright smile this time. “Leave it to me.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

There’s something wrong with Anthony Crowley.Aziraphale had planned a holiday to Paris. He’d planned it, and they’re there now, it’s Thursday evening and they’re there, they’ve been there all day, they’d left in the morning and taken the train. They’d gone to the Louvre and reminisced about all their old acquaintances, they’d gone to crepes for lunch (of course) and then they’d walked along the Seine, taking in the glittering waters and picturesque bridges and famously ignoring the swaths of tourists. They both remember the days before trains and airplanes, when tourism wasn’t so easy and there were mostly Parisians in Paris. Aziraphale misses those days, though he suspects Crowley doesn’t. Crowley is all for progress in every form, even that which seems to be malignant. Especially that which seems to be malignant, one might say. He is a demon, after all, and tourist traps are rife with malignancy. They make their way to Montmartre, through the winding cobble-stoned hills and past the cafes and theaters and flats where so many artists had made their homes. It’s crawling with tourists too, but Aziraphale thinks that, if you blur your eyes just a bit—if you look through it, not at it, like one of those optical illusion posters Crowley had taught him how to properly view—there is still a lot that’s the same. In the background, at least. In the evening they find a quiet restaurant to dine at, in a narrow building wedged between two others. The food is actually Italian, simple homemade pastas, but it’s divine, it’s perfect and divine, and anyway, the cannoli there are to die for.Crowley doesn’t speak a full sentence the entire time.The entire day. The entirety of the day, Aziraphale does all the talking, all the reminiscing. Aziraphale picks the places they go, he complains about the tourists. He voices the other side of the argument about progress, about the joys of more people getting to experience more places, even if those places are nothing like they used to be because of it. Aziraphale orders their food, Aziraphale chooses their wine, Aziraphale stuffs them into the Métro afterward so that they can go to the Eiffel Tower at sunset, which is, admittedly, and extremely touristy thing to do, but it’s one that even Aziraphale feels has merit. Aziraphale is the one who finishes off the bottle of red that they’d purchased to go with their evening picnic in front of the tower. He even lets a bit dribble down his chin, just to see if Crowley will say something about it.(He doesn’t.)Afterward, they make their way to the hotel that Aziraphale had booked. Crowley’s hands are in his pockets and, keeping with the theme of the day, he is silent. Aziraphale is also silent, but he’s fuming, by this point thoroughly exhausted in his attempt to enjoy a holiday for two all by himself. There isn’t even any smirk on Crowley’s face, this time.They go up to the check-in desk in the hotel lobby, and Aziraphale gives the human there his name (“I speak English,” the human says quickly, adding to Aziraphale’s already foul mood). He’s ready to call it an evening, it’s barely nine-thirty but he can’t take much more of this. He’s wondering why Crowley even deigned to come with him in the first place, if he’d just been planning to brood quietly and hover around like a pathetic excuse for a ghost.“Apologies.” The fellow checking them in is looking at his computer, and he’s frowning. “It looks like we have accidentally double-booked. We only have one room available tonight, not two.”Aziraphale huffs a sigh. When it rains it pours, he thinks, sourly. Lucky for him, he can manipulate the weather. He’s just about to open his mouth to tell the man to check again, when Crowley speaks up from behind him.“That’ll be fine, thanks,” the demon says, and he steps up to take the keys.Aziraphale nearly jumps with shock from the sound of his voice. He’s so surprised that Crowley actually said something that he doesn’t register what it is until the man at the desk says, “There’s only one bed, I’m afraid. Is that alright?”Crowley’s fingers freeze where they’re already curling around the keys. He glances Aziraphale’s way, and Aziraphale has to make a concerted effort not to roll his eyes.“That will be fine,” the angel cuts in. “We don’t plan to do much sleeping.”Crowley makes a sort of strangled, half-baked yelp, and the human chuckles a little, looking from one to the other of them. “Très bien,” he says, letting Crowley take the keys. “Bonne nuit, gentlemen.”“ Merci beaucoup,” Aziraphale replies and stalks off toward the lift. He’s not exactly sure what was so amusing, but he’s not in the mood to examine it any further. He’s brought a few books with him, and he plans to read in the lounge most of the evening, anyway. Honestly, he wouldn’t have got a room for them at all except that he knows Crowley indulges in sleep on occasion, and Aziraphale—silly, silly him—thought the demon might like the chance to enjoy something on this trip.Crowley follows behind him into the lift as the doors are about to close. True to form, he doesn't say anything as he does. It comes to Aziraphale as the lift rumbles on its cables, and he lets his eye roll commence. “He thinks we’re going to have sex, doesn’t he?”Crowley makes another strangled noise. A ravenesque squawk, somewhere between a cough, laugh, and a gurgle. “Pfhuh, ha, yeah.”Aziraphale shakes his head. “Humans,” he mutters as the lift slows to a stop.They find the room. The key opens the door. It’s dark inside, and Aziraphale clicks his fingers in lieu of hunting for a light switch. He takes a turn about the room, inspecting it briefly before removing his coat. He reaches into the inside pocket of it and pulls out two books, setting one on the desk in the corner, then returns to the entrance with the other and finds Crowley still standing in front of the door.The demon is watching him again. Expectantly. Waiting for something, again, and Aziraphale has had enough, he’s just had quite enough. “What?” he spits, squaring off to him in the narrow corridor.Crowley licks his lips. He’s breathing heavily, as if they’ve just walked up five flights of stairs instead of taking the lift like sane people. “You, er…. ” He inclines his head toward the book. “You gonna read?”“I am, yes. No use sleeping away a perfectly good evening.”Crowley doesn’t reply right away. Aziraphale can see his eyes move back and forth over the angel’s face, underneath his sunglasses.“My thoughts exactly,” he says, finally.Aziraphale frowns at this. “You’re not going to sleep?”“Angel,” Crowley says, and the angel can see the beginnings of a smile on the corners of his mouth. “It’s nine-thirty.”“Well, then what do you plan to do?”Crowley’s quiet again. Blast it, blast him , Aziraphale just wants him to give a straight answer for once. Of course, when the demon finally replies, it’s not with an answer but with another question. (Of bloody course.)“Are you going to read in here?”“No,” Aziraphale tells him. “I thought I might go to the lounge. Have a little nightcap.” He shifts his coat to his other arm and adds, “Perhaps have a conversation with someone for the first time today, who knows?”Crowley’s face turns white, then pink. He clears his throat. “Yeah. Sorry. Been kinda… out of it, today.”Aziraphale sighs. “This was supposed to be a fun getaway, you know. To take your mind off of whatever… malaise has afflicted it the last few days. It was your suggestion, by the way.”“I know,” says Crowley, softly.“I am trying, you know,” Aziraphale adds. He feels a tightness in his throat when he says it, and he banishes the feeling immediately.“I know,” Crowley repeats, even softer this time.They’re silent for a moment, standing across from each other in the hallway. “Well,” the angel says eventually, “good night, then.” He starts forward toward the door.“ Bonne nuit,” Crowley says, barely at a whisper, as Aziraphale passes him by.***The sun peeks through the windows in the lounge before Aziraphale returns to the room. The lounge in this hotel isn’t usually open all night, but they’d made an exception in this case. (The barman has been compensated extra, and he will miraculously have the rest of the day off. He won’t be tired, either, from staying up all night.)Aziraphale heads back up the lift, fiddling with the corner of his book. He’d had an outing planned for today, a trip to Versailles. More reminiscing about the past, perhaps a row-boat ride, a picnic on the grounds. An ice cream in the afternoon, and then dinner back in the city, somewhere with at least four courses and preferably a Michelin star or two.Aziraphale doesn’t know if he wants to do it.The previous day had been so miserable, and he’s not looking forward to the same today. He’s trying to think up an excuse as he ascends in the lift, something plausible and non-insulting that he might be able to use to end their trip early. It was only going to be an extended weekend, they would have gone home Sunday, but it’s too much. It’s too much if the next two days are going to be like yesterday.The lift arrives, and Aziraphale walks to the room. He uses the key. He still has nothing to say. I’m going to have to suffer this day, aren’t I? he thinks wretchedly as he opens the door.Crowley is standing there on the other side.He looks miserable. He looks upset. He looks tired, for Heaven’s sake, he doesn’t need to sleep but he looks like a human who does and who hasn’t got a wink of it. His hair is a mess, and he’s only half-dressed—his waistcoat, scarf, and jacket are piled in a heap on the floor behind him.“We need to talk,” Crowley says.Aziraphale turns halfway to close the door behind him. “Alright,” he agrees, cautiously. He gives Crowley another once-over, taking in the dark circles under his eyes, his hunched frame. “Are you—”“The thing is,” Crowley starts.Dark circles under his eyes—His eyes—
He’s not wearing his sunglasses—
“The thing is,” Crowley says, “it’s not enough.”Aziraphale’s hands drop down by his sides. He frowns a little, trying to find a previous conversation on which to tie Crowley’s words. “What’s not enough?”“This.” Crowley gestures between them. “This isn’t—” He takes a breath. “It’s still the same. We’re still the same. Just in a different city.”Aziraphale’s brow wrinkles. He closes his eyes and then opens them again, hoping that somehow things will be clearer when he does.To his disappointment, they’re not. “What are you talking about?”“I’m—I’m talking about the museums! And—and the trains and the lunches and—and the wine —it’s all the same, all the time!”Aziraphale feels a flash of embarrassment, followed by a flash of anger. “You said you wanted to go on holiday.”Crowley groans at the floor.“This is a holiday, Crowley.”“I know. I know—”“This is how I do a holiday.”“It’s not—”“This is how I’ve always done a holiday.”“Aziraphale—”“ I’m what’s not enough?”Against his will—against every part of Aziraphale’s iron will, he feels his eyes well up with tears. He’s generally fond of human corporations (if you take away all the smelly, leaky bits, and the fragility, and the illness, and aging), but sometimes, they’re a nuisance. Sometimes, they’re just a downright pain in the arse.“No,” Crowley growls, firmly. His eyes are practically glowing, he’s burning two holes into Aziraphale’s own. “That’s not what I mean.”Aziraphale takes some breaths through his nose. A few, to try and calm himself. “Then what is it? Because I thought—I thought we were on the same page.” The angel exhales with a force that shakes the air out of his lungs. “We saved the world . We saved each other. You’re my—” he stops himself. It’s out of habit, he realizes, so he pushes on. “You’re my friend,” he finishes, his human voice wobbling over the word.“I know.” Crowley sounds harsh, like he’s feeling every bit of the urge to cry, too. “But it’s not enough .”“My dear,” Aziraphale says, half-feeling like he’s going insane, “are you having a midlife crisis?”Crowley snorts. He groans and runs a hand over his face.Aziraphale laughs a little, too, mirroring the sentiment. “I’m sorry, but, my goodness. I don’t know what’s going on. Just tell me, Crowley.” He takes a step toward the demon and, in a fit of desperation, gathers his hands up in his own. “Just tell me what to do. Tell me what’s wrong, so that I can help you.” He dips his head forward to catch Crowley’s eye, which is still somewhere down around their joined hands.Crowley’s face is close to his. His eyes are close. The slit pupils widen a little, slightly, at the shadow Aziraphale’s head has cast over them. Widen, just like human eyes do, just like most eyes do, letting in more light so that they can see.Crowley doesn’t tell him.Crowley doesn’t say anything. Crowley stands there looking into his eyes, and then he suddenly lurches forward. He closes the remaining space between their faces, closes off his pupils to all light entirely, as he shuts his eyelids and kisses him.And kisses him.He kisses him.***The thing is, Aziraphale’s not stupid.There’s this thing that happens to humans sometimes. It’s called “illness anxiety disorder.” It’s when a person’s fear of getting ill ratchets so high that they actually think they’re sick. In severe cases, their body may manifest symptoms of the illness that they don’t actually have. This process may also work in the reverse: it’s called the placebo effect. Whereby a person is actually sick, but thinks they’re getting better–typically with the aid of faux medication–and so they feel better. They’re not actually better, not in every case, anyway. Sometimes they are, but sometimes they’re not actually cured, in the same way those with illness anxiety disorder are not actually sick. In addition, sometimes the placebo effect may be used to treat illness anxiety disorder.The mind is a powerful thing.Angels are good at using mind power. Mind over matter. Force of will. You have to have a powerful mind to be able to have faith. To be able to blindly follow a God and a Plan that you don’t understand and all because someone simply tells you to. You have to be able to face contradiction within yourself, sometimes; sometimes you have to hold two disparate ideas in your head and make them both make sense. Sometimes you make them make sense by making them disappear altogether. Angels are good at that, at making ideas disappear. It’s called denial.Aziraphale, through the course of human history, has learned that denial is not always the best remedy to a distressing situation. This is a lesson he’d learned again most recently, in fact, when the world didn’t actually end. To be sure, denial has the power to make things feel better. They feel like they’re working the way they’re supposed to, like they're not broken—like they’re not sick—even though they really are. They feel better, but they’re not better, and the more you deny it, Aziraphale has learned, the worse time you will have reconciling it in your mind when you finally face the truth.That’s not what’s happening here.Crowley is kissing Aziraphale, and Aziraphale is not in denial. He’s not. He’s not been telling himself one thing for thousands of years and actually believing something else. He’s done it with Heaven, sure—told himself that the Great Plan was the reason for everything, for death, for war, for famine, for sickness, for corruption, for natural disasters, for unnatural disasters too–because it’s easier to swallow horrible things when you believe there is a good reason behind them. It’s easy to say they’re good when they’re bad; it’s easy to deny. And Aziraphale had, he’d denied and denied and denied until the world had been about to end and he couldn’t anymore.That’s not what Aziraphale’s doing here.Alright, he will admit, he did it for a while. He did tell himself that Crowley was a fiend, not a friend. He told it to himself on the wall in Eden, he told it to himself at the Ark. He’d tried, halfheartedly, to tell it to himself after what happened with Job, but it had never really stuck by that point. By then, his entire facade of denial—the entire fortified tower he’d built up around his own thoughts about whether the horrible things that Heaven had been doing to humans were actually good—had started to crumble. By then he’d started to see in shades of gray instead of black and white, but it had been hard. It had been a lot of work, it had taken a lot of effort, and it had been draining. It was draining to confront truth, to confront the things you were afraid of, to accept that things aren’t easy, aren’t simple, aren’t black and white, aren’t good and evil. Sometimes they’re somewhere in between. They’re messy when they’re in between, and they’re unknown, and there’s no rulebook you can follow to sort them. You just have to meander your way through and try things and see if they stick. And then there’s always the constant fear of them not sticking, of you getting it wrong, and if you get it wrong—If you get it wrong, it’s no one’s fault but your own.Sometimes, he’d told himself Crowley was a fiend even when he didn’t really want to. The Bastille, for example. They’re in France, now, right? It’s a perfectly topical example. Aziraphale had been trapped in the Bastille, and he’d immediately accused Crowley of inciting the French Revolution. As if Crowley had wanted people to chop off each other’s heads. Crowley, who hadn’t even been able to kill Job’s goats , for Heaven’s sake.But it was easier. It was easier to fall back on, it was easier to say. It’s easier to blame someone else than to have your whole worldview turned upside down. It’s easier to fall back on the simplicity of everything being out of your hands. If the Revolution had been Crowley’s fault—just another one of Hell’s evil deeds—then it certainly hadn’t been anyone else’s. Humanity would’ve been following along with the Great Plan, if it weren’t for Crowley being evil. Without Crowley being evil, Aziraphale had been forced to confront the idea that humanity had done it all by themselves. Or worse, that Aziraphale giving them the flaming sword had somehow made them do it.Or, even worse, that evil had been part of the Great Plan all along.Aziraphale had admitted that Crowley was a friend sometime around 1941. Thereabouts. Sometime around a blown-up church and a magic show and a toast in the back of his bookshop. He’d admitted it, he’d stopped being in denial, and that had been terrifying. Aziraphale had been petrified. Because he was friends with a demon—a demon, and adversary, the adversary—and Heaven would not approve. There was no way around it, and it meant that they had to be careful. It meant that if they were going to keep being friends, they couldn’t get caught, because if they did, they would both be in trouble. The worst Aziraphale could do was Fall; the worst Crowley could do was much more than that.Admitting they were friends had also forced Aziraphale to admit that Crowley had been right all those years ago when he’d asked for the holy water. Crowley had accepted the truth of their friendship already, he’d accepted it long before Aziraphale ever had, and it had left Aziraphale wondering if Crowley had ever been in denial of it in the first place.And so Aziraphale had given him the water.Because Aziraphale’s not stupid. He’s quite intelligent, actually. It takes a lot of brain power to put yourself as deeply in denial as Aziraphale had done, and it takes even more to get out of it.He’s not stupid. He’s not. He’s not been telling himself one thing for thousands of years and really believing something completely different.So why, then—why does he feel so stupid right now? ***Crowley kisses him, and Aziraphale pulls away. He feels like someone’s just branded his lips, touched them with white-hot coals, scalded them with boiling water. His hand flings to his mouth, on reflex.“What are you doing?” he asks, even though that’s a stupid question. He knows it’s a stupid question, but he’s asking it anyway. It’s a way to fill the silence. He would have spent that silence reeling if he hadn’t. He’d rather ask a question than be reeling.Damn it to Hell. He’s reeling anyway.“I...” Crowley breathes, like he’s got very little air behind it. “Angel, I...”Aziraphale is blinking. His eyes are stinging and he’s blinking a lot. It’s a reflex that humans bodies have when they’re about to cry, and Aziraphale is doing it a lot, a lot. More, Crowley had said.
Not enough.
Crowley has been waiting. He’s been smirking and waiting. He’s been waiting since the world didn’t end, he’s been quietly and patiently waiting all week, and now it’s Friday, it’s been five days that he’s been waiting, and all Aziraphale can think of is how long he’d probably been waiting before that.Aziraphale breathes like his body has suddenly remembered it needs to do so to survive. It’s a sharp inhalation, one with audible sound. It gets stuck in his lungs when he does it.“I should go,” he says, when it comes out again.“No.” Crowley lunges forward and grabs Aziraphale by the shirtsleeve. His eyes are wide. They’re so wide, his pupils are wide, his irises are yellow. It’s terror that’s making them yellow and wide. “Don’t.”Aziraphale thinks he’s definitely going to cry. He doesn’t want to. He certainly doesn’t want Crowley to see it when he does. “Let me go.”Crowley shakes his head. “No.”Aziraphale is aghast. His eyes go wide too. He pulls his arm away from Crowley’s hand, and Crowley’s fingers follow it, gripping onto the fabric, claw-like.“I love you,” Crowley says.Aziraphale makes a noise like a sawblade on a felled tree. Like a drag of sharp teeth through thick, splintered bark. He stutters, his whole body stutters, frozen, like the heart of time itself has skipped a beat.“Let me go!” he shouts, and this time, Crowley does.Crowley’s face is crumpling, Aziraphale's is too. The angel’s tears are blinding him, and he fumbles behind him for the doorknob.“I have to go,” he says as he finds it. He twists it open at the same time he twists around.His lips are still burning.He escapes without closing it behind him. Down the corridor and past the lift to the concrete stairwell at the end of it. He flies through the heavy metal door, throwing his whole body into the bar that proclaims that all you have to do is PUSH to get it open. He sails down the steps, down all five floors, his footfalls echoing in a thunderous tumult around him.Crowley doesn’t follow him down.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

That’s not what he says.

“

I love you too. Alright? Now pick up the damned phone.”

That’s not actually what he says.

***

Actually, Aziraphale doesn’t say anything. He hangs up the phone again, for the seventh time that day, and he sighs.

Not enough,

Crowley had said, and something about that rubs Aziraphale the wrong way. Because it’s been six thousand years, hasn’t it? It’s been six thousand years and a flaming sword, it’s been Job’s children, and Jesus Christ, and the Arrangement. It’s been a thwarted Apocalypse and a quiet night in Mayfair and a promise to save each other or die trying.

Not enough? All of that, all of that, that’s not

enough?

It rubs him the wrong way. Crowley shouldn’t need whatever he—this—this corporeal

closeness

. He shouldn’t need that. It’s not enough to lend your entire body to someone to protect them? It’s not enough to give someone a suicide pill, despite the fact that you wouldn’t be able to live without them if they used it? That’s not

enough?

It’s everything,

Aziraphale thinks, angrily.

Everything.

He picks up the phone for the eighth time.

He puts it back on its cradle.

Because it’s not about corporeal closeness. Aziraphale likes when Crowley is close to him. Next to him in the theater, across from him at the dinner table. Aziraphale likes the line of Crowley’s thigh resting along the line of his own on the park bench. He likes Crowley’s smell, he likes the warmth and humidity that radiates from his skin. He likes Crowley’s hair, he’d run his hands through it that night, that quiet night in Mayfair after they’d swapped the first time. He hadn’t been able to help himself. He’d always wondered how it would have felt between his fingers.

(It had felt soft.)

They’d shared bodies, for Heaven’s sake. It’s not about bodies. It’s not about kissing—

kissing

, Aziraphale thinks, with a jolt that clenches the muscle of his human heart,

holy God in Heaven, I have kissed Crowley—

It’s not. Aziraphale is not averse to kissing, not in the least.

Then what is it that he’s averse to?

Love?

Aziraphale shivers, standing in front of the rotary dial. He’s not averse to love. What a silly thing to think. What an absolutely barmy thing to fathom. He’s an angel. He’s an angel, love is what he

does.

But what about being loved?

Aziraphale reaches for the receiver again like he’s trying to steady himself. He closes his eyes, because they want to blink a lot.

It’s easy for him to love. He’s had lots of practice at it. Like God, for example. He loves God. It’s easy to love God, that’s why so many people do it. It’s easy because with God, there’s no risk. She is always there, loving you back, unconditionally. Not like people. People can choose not to love you back. They can choose to love you, and then stop. It’s a risk. It’s a risk.

It’s a risk to be loved by anyone other than God.

Well, that’s okay, isn’t it? Aziraphale has taken risks before. He’d worn a demon’s body into Hell. Risk?

Pft

. What’s he thinking? You silly, you ninny, you absolute twit! You’ve taken risks! So many risks. You stood with a flaming sword against Satan himself at the end of the world. You have taken risks, and you can’t take this one?
Besides, Aziraphale thinks, his hand curling around the phone until his knuckles turn pale. Besides, it’s Crowley. It’s Crowley. He’s loved you for thousands of years, and you’ve had some spats, you’ve been rude to him, you’ve treated him appallingly—really, absolutely awfully—and he hasn’t stopped. You’ve denied that he loves you for years, until this very moment, in fact, and he still hasn’t stopped. Think about that. Think about it, Aziraphale. The facts are in front of you. The evidence is clear.

But,

Aziraphale retorts in his own head,

Crowley stopped loving God.

It’s easy to love God, and Crowley had stopped.

It’s not so easy to love Aziraphale.

Aziraphale is stubborn, he’s soft. He gets tetchy about little things. He has impossible standards. He likes to spend weekends reading in his shop, late nights shutting out the world. He’s boring. He’s boring, he’s worn the same clothes for centuries, he knows nothing of fashion. He knows nothing of art. He enjoys the theater, he enjoys classical music, he enjoys books, he knows nothing about anything else. What’s worse, he has no

desire

to know. He’s stubborn, and he’s stuck, and he has no desire to get unstuck, because it’s terrifying to get unstuck, it’s terrifying for things to change, because what if they get worse? What if they change and get worse? This is good enough, isn’t it? Isn’t it enough to go to dinner, and to shows, and to films, and to drink tea and wine and to read books for eternity?

The worst part,

Aziraphale thinks into the silence of the bookshop (the sort of silence that’s only accompanied by the falling of dust and the tick of a grandfather clock and the creak of old wooden rafters in the cooling night)

the worst part is that Crowley is right.

It’s not enough.

It’s not enough, and Aziraphale knows it. Of course he knows it. He knows it the way a human body knows how to breathe, how it knows to make its heart beat to survive. He knows it the way plants know to turn to the sun for light, the way animals know to find a dark, quiet place to die. He knows by instinct. He doesn’t have to know it acutely, he doesn’t have to actually think about it directly. It’s there, in the background, if you blur your eyes a little bit. If you look through it, not at it.

But, the thing is, knowing something and admitting it are two very different things.

***

“I brought your book,” Crowley says.

He’s standing in the vestibule again. It’s Saturday evening. He’d ignored Aziraphale’s seven rings the night before and now he’s standing in the bookshop and holding the book that Aziraphale had left in the hotel when he’d hightailed it out of there like a bat out of Hell.

It makes sense, Aziraphale thinks, looking up from where he’s been restoring a fourteenth-century manuscript. It makes sense that he would be here. Crowley has always been the brave one.

Aziraphale stands and takes off his spectacles. He folds them and puts them on his desk, together with the white gloves he wears for restoration work.

“Crowley, I should—”

Crowley holds up a hand. “Nope. No. Not doing that.”

“But my dear, I owe you an—”

“Nope. You don’t owe me anything. Okay?” The demon waves his hand back and forth, like he’s smearing away fog off a mirror. “Nothing. I shouldn’t have—have—” he stutters, fumbling over his words.

“Oh, but—”

“It’s me who should be apologizing.”

“Oh, no.” Aziraphale steps toward him, almost like he’s trying to block the words from spreading any further than they already have. “Please, don’t.”

They are quiet for a moment. Crowley’s still holding onto the book with both hands.

“It’s enough,” Crowley blurts. He’s standing very still, and he’s squeezing the book so tightly that Aziraphale is worried about it being crushed in his demonic grip. “Just. I want you to know that. It’s enough. More than enough. More than I ever thought I’d have, really.”

Aziraphale blinks. He wants to reply, but he’s not sure how.

“So.” Crowley looks down at his hands, and he holds the book out to him. “Book.”

Aziraphale shuffles forward and takes it.

“And,” Crowley says, “when you’re ready to forgive me—er,

if

you’re ready, um—maybe dinner? Not today. Doesn’t have to be today.”

Aziraphale brings the book to his chest, wrapped into his arms. It’s warm from Crowley’s grasp.

“Promise I’ll talk this time,” the demon adds.

Aziraphale should be happy. Crowley has come back—Aziraphale hasn’t scared him away for good. He’s here and he’s brought the book, and he’s saying it’s alright. Everything is alright again, and he doesn’t need more, he can settle for what they have.

“Will you?” Aziraphale asks, with an attempt at a smile. He should be happy, but he’s finding it difficult to smile at all.

“Yeah.” Crowley sounds relieved. “Loads. Won’t be able to shut me up.”

“Oh, no,” Aziraphale replies, a soft lilt of jest in his voice. “What have I done?”

Crowley smiles too, and Aziraphale feels his own a little easier to wear. “Just remember, you asked for it.”

“I did,” Aziraphale says, softly. “Thank you, my dear.”

He looks down at the book. It's a book about stars.

“Don’t mention it.” Crowley shrugs with one shoulder, awkward now in the middle of the floor. He looks around a bit, his hands now in his pockets. “Right. I should–I should probably–”

“What about, instead of dinner,” Aziraphale interrupts, setting the book down next to the register, “what if we go for a drive?”

***

Aziraphale looks up at the black night sky through the top of the windscreen as he turns out onto the motorway. It’s not completely black, of course—there are some clouds and, more importantly, there is light pollution from the city. It’s rare anymore to see a completely black night sky. Though, he thinks, if there weren’t any clouds or light pollution, it wouldn’t be completely black, either.

“You sure you know how to drive?” Crowley is sitting rigidly in the passenger seat, like he’s ready to sprint over and grab onto the wheel should Aziraphale have a moment of madness and spin them into the oncoming lane.

“Of course I do.” Aziraphale ducks his head to look at the sky again. “Although I don’t think it matters. Your car seems to know exactly what I want without me even having to ask.”

Crowley’s bracing himself between the door and the dashboard even though they are well within the speed limit. “You don’t

ask

a car to drive, Aziraphale,” he growls. “It’s not sentient, it’s a

machine

.”

The Bentley revs suddenly, and Aziraphale's foot drops a few inches as the accelerator depresses.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that, my dear. Ah, here we go.”

They’ve passed all the largest buildings, and the horizon is beginning to open up. Aziraphale gives the sky another glance and then clicks his fingers. A sunroof appears overhead, the window rolling back automatically to let in the outside air.

Crowley turns from where he’s been looking out the windscreen. “

What

,” he hisses, his jaw practically unhinged, “are you

doing

to my

car?”

Aziraphale smiles a little at the sunroof. “I promise it’s only temporary.”

“My car doesn’t have a ssssunroof. It’ssss never had a ssssunroof—”

“Do you trust me?”

Crowley’s jaw snaps shut. He looks equal parts furious and dejected.

“Well?” Aziraphale prompts.

Crowley breathes in and out through his nostrils. Aziraphale can see him move his tongue between his clenched teeth. “Yes,” he huffs, finally. “Satan help me.”

“Good.” Aziraphale ignores that last bit. “Now stand up.”

The angel looks back out the windscreen, waiting for a response. Crowley doesn’t say anything, he just sits there for a few seconds, probably trying to decide whether he wants to simply comply or to grumble about it first.

“Chop chop,” Aziraphale adds, tapping his fingers above him on the roof.

Slowly, Crowley shifts in his seat. Aziraphale purposely does not look as the demon reaches up through the sunroof and pulls himself to standing. The wind whips over him as he does, and the angel glances up to see Crowley’s hair being tossed backward in the breeze.

Aziraphale swallows, and he snaps his fingers again.

All the lights in the city go out.

Not just all the lights in London—all the lights in the surrounding cities, too. For miles and miles, he switches off the lights. (And, miraculously, every human in the immediate vicinity has suddenly gained immaculate night vision.) He snaps again to clear away the clouds. It takes a mere moment for the residual light to clear, and the sky—well, Aziraphale won’t say it darkens. Because it doesn’t. It lightens, actually. It's sparkling and glowing with the fiery brilliance of millions of stars in the universe.

Aziraphale looks back up at Crowley again. He doesn’t need to really pay much attention to the road anymore. The other motorists are all pulling over and getting out of their cars, staring up at the spectacle.

Crowley is staring at it too.

Aziraphale keeps one hand on the steering wheel. With the other, he reaches up and enfolds Crowley's own hand in its grip.

Crowley lets him.

“I don’t know if you recall,” Aziraphale says, his words carrying above the sound of the wind rushing around Crowley’s head, “but I watched you create stars.”

Crowley doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t look down. He looks up, up above, up,

up.

“I helped you, actually,” Aziraphale adds, remembering. “Once. I got to see the look on your face…. How much you loved it.”

Aziraphale tightens his right hand on the wheel. He looks at the road, at all the people marveling at the magnificence of the Milky Way. He doesn’t need to look up to see it anymore. It’s shining right at him, it’s blazing into his eyes.

He tightens his left hand too.

“They took it away when you Fell,” he says, softly.

Aziraphale doesn’t look at Crowley. The demon isn’t saying anything, but he hasn’t let go of Aziraphale's hand, and he hasn’t sat down. He’s listening, and looking up, and Aziraphale thinks he’d probably like some privacy while he does.

“Bastards,” the angel adds, and Crowley’s hand twitches.

He continues, “I’m not a Starmaker. I could never make them even if I wanted to. But I was thinking, with everything that’s happened this past week… well. I thought perhaps I might be able to lend you a little bit of the Heavenly power you’d need, if you wanted to do it again.”

The demon is standing at an angle, his legs leaning from the base of the seat and back against the backrest. He’s still holding onto the top of the car, steadying himself on the edge off the sunroof. Aziraphale turns his head and looks at his legs, the length of them, the line of them. Crowley’s human body, angled toward the sky.

“Would you like to try?” the angel asks.

The demon replies, his voice scraping rough through the wind,

“Yes.”

Aziraphale clenches the steering wheel. He clenches Crowley’s hand. He opens up the channel between them—the same one they’d used to swap bodies—and he feels Crowley open it on his end as well. He’s not sure if they can share power this way, the same way they’d shared corporations, but he doesn’t see why they can’t. After all, their bodies are just vessels. Even their metaphysical ones. There’s no reason they can’t move power between them.

Aziraphale breathes in. He feels the weight and heat of his celestial power inside him. It resides deep in his back, under his spine, between the space where his wings join with it. It had been quite interesting the first time he’d felt it in his human body. It had felt like an ache, almost, a heated pressure on his back, gravity pulling it down heavy in the physical world. Or, perhaps not really like an ache, but more like the

release

of an ache—like the counter-pressure on an ache, a massage of stiff, sore muscles. That warm, sharp release of pain, kneaded out from within.

It makes his eyes water. It makes him shiver in his seat. He gathers it together, the power, holding it between his shoulders. He smooths his fingers inside of Crowley’s palm, using his thumb to squeeze their hands together so that there is no empty space between them. He breathes in again, as deep as he can, and then he pushes.

He pushes the power down his arm and into his hand. He pushes it into Crowley’s palm, a little at first, just to test it, to see if it will go, not too much, too fast. Crowley takes it, that little bit. His thumb tightens on the back of Aziraphale’s hand, and Aziraphale hears him gasp.

It’s working,

he thinks, and so he gives him more.

He gives him more and more, and Crowley takes it. He stands there and takes it, draining it out of the angel, holding it inside himself—

impossible,

Aziraphale thinks, lightheaded and staring at the road, it’s impossible, but it’s happening, he’s taking it all, he’s taking everything I can give him, the weight of it, the sharp stretch of it, the expansion of it, boundless like the universe, unending and unconditional

–

–love

.

Angels get their power from love. Love from the Almighty, to be precise. Aziraphale doesn’t know where demons get theirs, but he doesn’t like to think it’s hate that gives it to them. The opposite of love. He likes to think that maybe, somehow, they make their own power from within. He likes the idea that they found their own way when they Fell, that they found their own weight and strength, that they shaped their bodies and soothed the ache with something that they’d crafted for themselves. That demonic power

belongs

to them—a selfish power, in a way, but why wouldn’t it be, why wouldn’t you feel selfish about it, possessive of it, prideful? Why wouldn’t you have pride, if you had been able to create for yourself what Heaven had told you only God could provide?

Aziraphale has had a lot of time to think about it. About the things people create for themselves, through no help from Heaven. About the feelings they feel and the lengths they go to to feel them. Any lengths. They will go to any lengths to feel love.

Aziraphale has wondered too, sometimes, if he could create his own. He loves God, surely he loves God, but it’s like sunlight on a lake. It’s a refraction, a reflection and refraction of God’s own love back out of him. He loves God with the love She gave him, and he loves humanity with it too, because he’s an angel and that’s what he’s supposed to do.

Angels are not supposed to love demons.

But here he is, an angel, sending love down through his arm and into a demon’s body—and the demon is the one taking it, he’s taking it, he’s taking all of it, and the demon is the one reflecting it back out.

The stars begin to pulse.

Like they are beating hearts, they begin to pulse. Like they are coming alive, like they are living, breathing creatures in the sky. Crowley has taken the power, the love that Aziraphale has given him, and he’s put it into the stars. He’s made them breathe, he’s given them hearts. He’s made them shine brighter, he’s made them proud. They are proud of themselves, they are happy. Like they are sentient, they are not just machines, not just factories toiling away day in and day out. Aziraphale can feel that they are happy; he can feel the radiant glow of happiness; he can feel the effervescent shine of love.

Or maybe that’s just Crowley’s love he feels.

There's something hot on his palms. It’s flowing the opposite direction from the push of Aziraphale’s love. It’s coming into him, hot and liquid, molten gold into his hands. It comes up his arm and into his body, making him hot, too, radiantly hot, radiantly happy. It’s like the heat, Aziraphale thinks, that had been in the kiss. The kiss that Crowley had given him, the one that had burned on his lips, and Aziraphale closes his eyes. He knows it exists, Crowley’s love. He’s denied that it exists even though he’s known it, but here, like this, feeling it in the physical world–a tonne of power in his arm and in his chest and behind his ribs and between his shoulders and in the metaphysical bones of his wings–it’s hard to keep on denying.

The Bentley drives straight on the motorway. Straight and true, between the lines of vehicles on either side, the masses of people lining the way.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale breathes, feeling lightheaded still. Lightheaded and warm, even warmer inside, a warmth warmer than he knows his own power can create. He keens, leaning his head against Crowley’s leg, as if he's being drawn to Crowley’s body. As if it's a magnet, and he, a solid piece of iron.

“Aziraphale.”

The angel feels his name more than he hears it. It travels down from Crowley’s mouth, down his flank, down through his hip and into Aziraphale’s cheek as it rests against his trembling thigh.

“Do you feel it?” Aziraphale whispers. It’s a stupid question, he knows, and he whispers it too quietly for Crowley to hear.

Crowley hears it anyway.

“Yesss."

“I can't say it.” Aziraphale's voice is thin and brittle, strung tight by the power and by the admission. By the honesty, which he drags from himself, which he struggles to give, but which Crowley deserves. “Not yet. But I want to, my dear. Someday, I will."

He feels a wetness on his face. His eyes are still closed.

“I promise, I will," he says.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

There’s something wrong with Anthony Crowley.It’s been a few months since the world didn’t end. They’ve been good months. Aziraphale is sure they’ve been good, because they’ve been everything he’s ever wanted. They’ve been breakfast, lunch, and dinner, nearly every day, with his favorite person in the entire world. They’ve been walks in the park and evenings at the theater and even a picnic on one particularly warm autumn afternoon. They’ve been chocolates, and wine, and tea, and warm buttery pastries from the new coffee shop over the road. New restaurants and old ones; new shows and old ones; new books and old ones too, so many books, read under a blanket with the rain sluicing down the bookshop windows and the demon curled up for a nap on the sofa across from him. They’ve been conversations, quips and gentle barbs and ridiculous rants and drunken diatribes and laughter and spats, too, occasionally, but that’s just par for the course.It’s normal. Crowley’s normal.Crowley shouldn’t be normal.Aziraphale had thought it would have been satisfying, what he’d done: the stars moved by his lending of angelic power, showing Crowley what it felt like to be loved. Showing Crowley the things that Aziraphale can’t give him yet, the things he can’t say out loud. The things he’s still working up the courage to stop denying. He’d thought it would’ve been enough, enough to satiate the demon–to satiate them both–while Aziraphale worked on the rest.It isn’t enough.It hasn’t satiated anything, and Aziraphale doesn’t know how Crowley can be so normal, when Aziraphale is absolutely miserable.Because he can’t stop thinking about it. About the power, Crowley's power, warm in his chest and between his shoulders and warm in the pit of his stomach. Scorchingly warm, fiery hot. Even after their hands had separated it had still been hot, to the point where Aziraphale thinks that perhaps not all of it had been returned to where it belonged. That he still might have some of Crowley’s power inside him. He wants to ask the demon if he feels the same, but it’s been months now and he hasn’t, because Crowley is acting normal, and because he’s afraid if he does, the demon will suggest they trade it back.Aziraphale doesn’t want to trade it back.He’s warm, he’s burning, he’s scorching, he’s miserable, and he doesn’t want to trade it back.In fact, he wants more. ***
Honk!
Aziraphale hears a car horn blare from outside his bookshop. It’s nearly half-eight in the morning, and he’s just been going through his backlog of new volumes to be shelved. That’s his excuse, anyway. He’s been going through them, sure, but he’s also been carefully listening for the tinkling of the bell above the door and a serpentine footfall which would signal the arrival of the particular demon he can’t seem to get enough of. The sound he actually hears isn’t the one he’s expecting, but it still signifies the same thing.
Honk! Honk! 
Aziraphale tries not to trip over the volumes as he rushes to throw open the shop’s doors.“Get in, angel!” The demon is shouting at him from the driver’s seat of his Bentley. He’s got the window rolled down and one arm hooked out of it. The other arm is on the steering wheel, and he’s parked halfway over the pavement in front of the shop. People are side-stepping around him, some of them giving him dirty looks. The dirtier the look, the more genuinely the demon smiles back at them in return.“What in God’s name are you doing?” Aziraphale demands.“Nothing in God’s name!” Crowley shouts over the sound of a lorry rumbling by.Aziraphale rolls his eyes. “Fine. What in Satan’s name are you doing?”Crowley leans farther out of the window and gives the angel a look over the top of his glasses. “Still nothing,” he says, and grins. "Retired, remember?" Aziraphale purses his lips together. A man holding four coffees in each hand bustles by the car, lifting the drinks over his head in an effort to avoid spilling them. The pedestrians are having to walk tightly together around the narrowed pavement, and it’s creating a bit of a bottleneck. “Fucking cunt,” he grumbles loudly, and Crowley lays on the horn in reply.
Hooooonk!
The man doesn’t jump at the noise, but the woman walking in front of him does—backwards, into him, and the drinks start to tip over into the crowd. Aziraphale waves a hand reflexively, and all is saved.The man still scowls at Crowley. It’s the sort of scowl that would have been accompanied by a rude hand gesture had the man had a free hand. Crowley waves cheerily back at him. “Crowley!” Aziraphale stands on the top step with his fists by his sides. “Can’t you park normally for once?”“'M Not parked,” Crowley replies. “I’m waiting for you to get in.”“But I—ugh!” Aziraphale turns around and pulls the shop's keys out of his pocket (despite having left them next to the register when he came out of the door). He locks up and hurries to the car.“Finally,” Crowley says when the angel sits next to him. “You were really holding up traffic out there.”“Oh it was my fault, was it?”“ Move your bloody car!” someone screeches from outside.“Sorry!” Aziraphale yells out the window, as Crowley grins and puts the car in gear. He floors it round the corner, causing a cyclist to skid to a stop at the intersection. “What the devil’s got into you?” the angel demands.Crowley gives him a side eye with one eyebrow raised. “Good morning to you too," he says. "Thought you’d be happy to see me.” He shifts to the next gear. “I just saw you last night,” Aziraphale reminds him (as if this matters at all). “An entire eight hours ago,” Crowley agrees.The purse of Aziraphale’s lips tightens a little. He looks away, out the windscreen. “I didn’t say I wasn’t happy,” he admits, and he can practically feel the radiance of Crowley’s grin beside him. “Now, are you going to tell me where we’re going, or are you planning to continue this as a kidnapping?”Crowley scoffs. “I resent that,” he says, making another harrowing turn. “Anyway, I thought you could probably figure it out on your own.”Aziraphale looks at him again. He notices this time that Crowley’s not wearing his usual black garb. The shirt he’s wearing is midnight blue, actually—so dark that it’s nearly black—and it’s not really a shirt at all. It’s a jumper, and it looks to be hand-knitted.“What—” Aziraphale begins, before he gets a good look at the image on the jumper. It’s a sort of cartoon, a crudely-stitched scene of a reindeer pulling a sleigh. The sleigh is positioned over what appears to be some poor old woman who is lying in a rather large puddle of blood. One of her legs—as well as her head—appear to have fallen off. There are two small children standing next to her holding gifts, and everyone, from the reindeer to the children to the dismembered woman’s head, is smiling happily.Aziraphale looks up at Crowley, whose grin has quieted to a smirk and who is now paying abnormally close attention to the road (for once).“That’s a Christmas jumper,” the angel deduces, managing to ignore the gore.“Is it?” Crowley glances down at himself. “Looks like a brutal murder scene, to me.”Aziraphale blinks a lot, and he says, “We’re going to Tadfield.”Crowley’s smirk widens. “Would you look at that,” he murmurs.Aziraphale’s stomach does some swoopy thing. Some swoopy, burning thing, like someone has used a bellows on a blacksmith’s fire. Molten metal stomach, Aziraphale’s going to name it.“For Christmas?” he asks, his voice doing some swooping thing too.“For Christmas,” Crowley confirms.Christmas is in two days. Two days. Two days. Two days in Tadfield, two festive days in the quaint, idyllic village where they’d saved the world. Two more days of Christmas jumpers (hopefully not all as grotesque as the one the demon is currently sporting), and probably hot cocoa, and decorated trees and roaring fireplaces and possibly, possibly, quite possibly, carols.It’s good. It’s good, it’s very good.Aziraphale is trying very hard to believe it’s good.But his stomach is hot, and his lungs are hot, and his hand is itching with pinpricks of flames and all he can think about is that they’re in the car, they’re sitting in the same car where Aziraphale had got the heat inside of him in the first place, and about how it hadn’t been enough.God help him, it’s still not enough. “Still think it’s a kidnapping?” the demon asks.“Oh, yes.” Aziraphale feels lightheaded as they pull out onto the motorway at just over a hundred miles per hour. “But I suppose it's for a good cause.”***They stop for breakfast when they arrive. It’s a bit of a greasy spoon that proclaims to have the best full English in Oxfordshire (and, after wiping the last few crumbs from his face, Aziraphale thinks there might be something to that claim). They walk down the main street, poking into the shops. There’s one with homemade soaps; one with polished wooden furniture; one with felt hats and leather gloves and silk scarves. Aziraphale tries on a hat with a bright orange ribbon that he adores, because it reminds him of the one he’d worn in 1941. He asks Crowley what he thinks, and Crowley stands behind him, looking at him in the mirror, his hands in his pockets and the hideous Christmas jumper still on display as he says, “Suits you, angel.”  Aziraphale’s heated stomach nearly swoops all the way back up to his heated lips.They go to lunch. Aziraphale orders soup, realizes it’s a horrible idea because his stomach is already too hot, eats it anyway (it’s delicious) and then has to miracle away the sweat on his brow which he’s unsure of is from the soup, his already too-hot human body temperature, or Crowley silently staring at him through his sunglasses every time he puts the spoon into his mouth.And then, Crowley drives them to the inn.It’s the one Aziraphale had mentioned before. The one up the hill just off the main street with the ivy crawling up the sides. It’s picturesque, the very image of holiday spirit, with Christmas lights twinkling from the ivy and a great big evergreen wreath on the front door. The inside is even lovelier, there's a cozy sitting room with cushioned armchairs and a large stone hearth decorated with tinsel and stockings. There is a tree that’s as tall as the ceiling, strung with red and gold ornaments, more golden tinsel, and a sparkly angel up at the top. Aziraphale hears Crowley check them in while he’s admiring the tree.Crowley has gotten them two rooms.Aziraphale doesn’t know how he feels about that, so he deliberately tries not to feel anything. He’s very good at not feeling anything, usually. It’s been an advantage, as an angel stationed on Earth, not to feel. You can’t go around miracling every human’s problems away every time you feel bad for them. That sort of thing can get you a strongly worded note from Upstairs (not that notes from Upstairs will be forthcoming any longer). Not to mention, problems are all part of the Almighty’s plan, anyway. Or so he's been told. Crowley comes over to stand next to the tree with him. He looks up at the top of it. “Sort of strange, isn’t it?” he says, cocking his head at the angelic figurine. “I’ve never seen an angel climb a tree.”“You know,” Aziraphale says, thoughtfully, “I don’t think I ever have, either.”“Might’ve helped if you had, though. At the beginning.” Crowley rocks his head to the side, giving him a sly glance.Aziraphale turns to him. “You mean, climb the Tree of Knowledge?” Crowley shrugs. “Woulda scared the shit of Eve. Angel popping out of the branches. ‘Hello there, were you going to eat this apple? Very bad idea, my dear.’”Crowley’s voice is such a close approximation of Aziraphale’s own that Aziraphale can’t help but laugh. “Good Lord. Can you imagine?”“Would’ve thwarted my plans, that’s for sure.”Aziraphale chuckles again. There’s some image in his head of a big black snake watching him dangle—probably ungracefully—from one of the boughs.“What plans?” the angel replies. He peers over at Crowley. “As if you knew what you were doing.”“Oh, I knew.”“Mhm.” Aziraphale looks up at the angel topper again. It’s got white, curly hair and a flowing white robe. Its wings are covered in golden glitter. It’s holding a trumpet in its hands, and it’s looking off into the distance as if possessed by divine rapture. “I seem to recall you were confused about the signage.”“I knew exactly what I was doing.”“‘Making some trouble,’” Aziraphale quotes, smiling.“Always,” Crowley agrees. He looks down at his hands, and he holds one toward Aziraphale. “Here. Your key. You’ve got the view of the village. So you can wake up on Christmas morning and see all the sparkling little snowflakes on all the little rooftops.”The demon is sneering a bit, like he’s making fun, but Aziraphale knows better. He knows it’s a nicety that Crowley has given him the room with the better view. He takes the key, his fingers brushing Crowley’s as he does, and his insides churn like an over-boiling pot. He tries to find something to say.“And what’s your view of?” he asks, making himself look up at Crowley’s face.Crowley’s looking at him too. “A tree,” he says. Aziraphale manages to roll his eyes. He picks up his bag from the ground (he’d miracled a fully-packed one into the boot as soon as he’d found out where they were headed). “Well, watch out. You’ll have quite the scare when I suddenly appear in your window tonight.”Crowley laughs at this. A genuine laugh, the kind where his head is thrown back on his neck. “Angel, if you climb that tree, I will—I will—I dunno. Do something I’d never, ever do.”They start toward the staircase, suitcases in tow. “Hm,” Aziraphale considers. “Like go caroling?”“Oh for Hell’s sake.”“Would you?”“I– Listen, it doesn't matter, because there’s no way on Earth you’re going to climb that tree.”“It depends. What carols are in the mix? Hark! The Herald Angels Sing? Deck the Halls?” “Oh, shut up.”“Ah, I know: Jingle Bells!” Crowley turns his head halfway around as he ascends the stairs. “Actually, I know a version of that song I wouldn’t mind singing on people’s doorsteps.”They finish creaking up the staircase. Their rooms are at the end of the corridor, straight across from one another. There’s a window between them on the wall. Aziraphale can see the edge of the town on one side and a dense forest on the other. Sunlight is poking through the tops of the trees, dappling the carpet. They find the doors to their rooms, then turn around to look at each other.“Dinner at five?” Crowley suggests. Aziraphale frowns. “Isn’t that a bit early?” “Everywhere around here closes early, angel.”“Ah, yes." Aziraphale shifts his suitcase from one hand to the other. "Village life.”“This was your idea, you know.”“Yes, I forgot I’m the one who kidnapped you . Five is fine.” The angel thinks a minute. “What about tomorrow? It’s Christmas Eve. All the restaurants here will probably be closed.”Crowley’s eyes glimmer in the afternoon sun, and he taps the side of his nose. “Not to worry. I’ve got a plan.”***The Plan, as it turns out, is dinner at Anathema's.Crowley's got a new jumper the following day. This one is actually black, and it’s got words on it instead of pictures. Two words in fact: the first is Santa, with a big red “X” through it, and then the correction in larger, non-crossed-out print, SATAN. “Lovely,” Aziraphale deadpans when he sees it.Crowley grins and spins around to show him the giant pentagram on the back. “Thought you’d like it,” he says. He shakes his shoulders a little. The points of the star wiggle back and forth. Somehow, they remind Aziraphale of wings, rustling to a settle.The jumper turns out to be a hit at Anathema’s. She’s thrilled when she sees it, and she’s even more thrilled when she opens the gift Crowley has brought her (Aziraphale is flustered; for one, because he hadn’t had a chance to get them any gifts at all, what with dinner being a surprise; and for two, because Crowley had done so instead) and receives one in her size. Newt is there, too, and for him Crowley has brought some sort of computer part. This, of course, means very little to Aziraphale, but Newt seems to be overjoyed. His curse seems to have been lifted since the world didn’t end, and apparently he’s been building his own computer (“But… don’t they have factories for that?” Aziraphale asks, incredulously) and has been having trouble finding a few of the necessary pieces. How Crowley had known this ahead of time, Aziraphale isn’t sure. He certainly… he certainly hasn’t been keeping in contact with Newt socially . Right? And yet, Crowley is asking Anathema about her herb garden, and Newt about his luck with his last job interview, both things that Aziraphale is quite sure they haven’t discussed in the ninety minutes or so that they’ve been there.They open gifts, they have drinks. It’s just the four of them, a quiet, intimate night at Jasmine cottage. Newt has made a roast, which takes much longer to cook than he’d expected, and so they have another round of drinks, and then another, while Aziraphale miracles the vegetables to stay hot and the mashed potatoes not to harden. There is hot cocoa after dinner—drinking chocolate, Anathema calls it—some delightfully rich concoction with just a hint of cinnamon, and there are Christmas biscuits too. Aziraphale can hardly taste any of it. At some point—some point after they’d arrived, some point after they’d opened gifts, after they’d settled into their third glasses of wine—Aziraphale had stopped talking. He’d instead started staring, staring at Crowley, watching him make conversation—bloody pleasant conversation, with humans no less—as if he's never seen him before. As if there’s something wrong with him. As if there’s something wrong with giving gifts and making conversation and offering to open another bottle of wine when they drain the current one. As if there’s something wrong with Christmas in Tadfield, where it will merrily and magically snow in just a few short hours. As if there’s something wrong with Anthony Crowley, when in reality, there’s not. There’s not. There's never been anything wrong with Anthony Crowley.There’s a whole lot wrong with the angel Aziraphale, though.The world hadn’t ended, and Crowley had kissed him. Crowley had said, “I love you.” He’d planned a surprise trip to Tadfield, he’d brought gifts for two barely-acquaintance humans, and Aziraphale knows he’d purchased that hat from the shop. Aziraphale knows it, because Aziraphale had made some excuse about how perhaps the orange ribbon wasn’t quite right for his complexion when he’d hung it back on the stand, and then he’d sighed, forlornly, and he’d given Crowley a sideways glance as he’d done so. The demon has purchased it and he's probably miracled the ribbon to be just this side of burnt, instead of bright. He's probably going to give it to him tomorrow as they sit and drink their morning tea by the hearth in the inn and watch the snow come down outside. Aziraphale should be happy. He should be ecstatic about all of it, but all he feels is uncomfortably hot.Perhaps it’s the swirl of demonic power that has been unable to escape. Perhaps it’s been burning him up, leaving empty space behind. Space that can only be filled by one thing, Aziraphale thinks, and of course, it’s the one thing that he can’t admit. There’s something wrong with him, that he can’t admit it. He should be able to. What’s stopping him from admitting it, now? He has no excuse. He’s not even denying it anymore, and he has no excuse. He’s just scared. He’s terrified.He’s a coward. He’s always been a coward. He gave away his flaming sword, right? He said it was to protect the humans, but it wasn’t, of course it wasn’t. It was to protect himself. He just didn’t want to ever have to use it. The beginning of the world, a tree and an apple and a flaming sword, and Aziraphale should have climbed that tree like Crowley had said. He should have done a lot of things. He’d told Gabriel he didn’t know that Crowley had been there, tempting Eve, that he hadn’t felt a dark presence rumble up from Below, hadn’t seen the glint of sun off black scales as they disappeared into the undergrowth. He’d been examining the pears, a few trees away, and he hadn’t known what was going on until it was already too late. It wasn’t true. He just hadn’t wanted to know.“You alright, angel?” Crowley murmurs. “Hm?” Aziraphale is still sitting in front of the hearth, although the fire has burned down. Newt has got up to return the empty biscuit tin to the kitchen, and Anathema has got on the phone with her mother back in America.“I said we’d probably better be off,” Crowley says, looking at him carefully.“Oh. Right. Yes. Sorry. I was just… thinking.” The angel stumbles back to himself, setting his empty mug of chocolate down on the coffee table. “Yes, I think we’d better go.”They make their goodbyes and head out into the crisp evening air. The sky is clear at the moment, but there are some clouds building up on the horizon. Snow clouds, Aziraphale can see. They are bright, light and bright, reflecting the lights of the city with a purplish hue. There are a few stars in the sky, only a few, those that have been able to make their way through the clouds and the hue.Aziraphale stops in his tracks, staring up at them.The demon turns around. He takes a few concerned steps toward the angel. It makes sense, the angel thinks, for him to be concerned. The angel is crying. “Aziraphale?”Aziraphale looks back at Crowley on the path. He draws a steadying breath. He’s scared, he’s a coward, there’s something wrong with him, and he just wants it all to stop. “Do you want to do it again?” he blurts, before he can think twice.Crowley’s eyes go wide. Aziraphale sees a hint of a familiar expression pass over his face. It's gaunt, like hunger. There’s no confusion there, the angel notices, at what he’s suggested. Crowley seems to know exactly what Aziraphale is talking about, even as vague as his question is. Perhaps, he reasons, Crowley has been thinking about it just as much as Aziraphale has.“Do you?” Crowley asks, and Aziraphale knows the answer to this one. This is an easy one. He nods. Crowley sways a little on the path. Aziraphale has a brief, mad thought that he’s going to fall over, and he steps forward to catch him. And then, somehow, Crowley is holding onto his hands.He’s closed the distance between them, and he’s holding onto his hands. He’s reached for them and he’s found them in the dark. Like he’s marked where they were, like he’s had them marked for some time already, like he’s been waiting to hold them, his fingers twitching at the ready. They tremble, the fingers, as the demon pushes both of their palms together, holding them tightly between where they stand. They are standing so close that Aziraphale can feel condensation from Crowley’s breath on his face. Droplets of water, mixed with carbon dioxide. The droplets are warm. Aziraphale looks up at Crowley’s eyes through his sunglasses. The demon’s breath is shaking out moisture, and the stars are shining in the sky behind him. Above him. Like a ring over top of his head, like a crown, like– like a–Crowley opens the channel between them with a breathy sigh.It’s a flood. Aziraphale has seen it before, flash floods in places where it rarely ever rains. Where there are empty, dry basins carved in the dust, gullies that wait and wait to be filled. They've been cut from rain long ago, enormous, tumultuous rain, solid streams of water that sliced into the ground, chiseling paths. They’ve been there for years, some of them for centuries, for millennia. They wait and they wait, for months at a time, for years, sometimes, to be filled again.It’s like this sort of flood, when Crowley’s love comes into him.Aziraphale gasps. He can't help himself. He closes his eyes, feeling the hot liquid flood of Crowley’s power coursing into him through his palms. It meets the heat he already has, the heat that has been inside him since the last time. The one that’s been burning. He keens like he did before, except this time he keens with his whole body, and this time Crowley keens too.They meet somewhere in the middle. Their foreheads touch. Their eyes are both closed. They’re sharing power, the power to create stars, and they’re not even looking at the bloody sky.“I’ve wanted—” Crowley whispers, then ends the thought with a wordless groan as Aziraphale makes an attempt to push back. Finally, he pushes back with some of his own power, even though he thinks it’s been leaking out anyhow. It's been seeping into Crowley’s hands without any effort of his own. Maybe even Crowley has been drawing it into himself, purposely.“Me too,” the angel whispers back. The wind picks up. The chill deepens in the air. Aziraphale's not sure exactly what time it is, but he thinks it may be close to midnight. He wouldn’t put it past the weather to start snowing right exactly at the stroke of it.“We…” he tries, and then he shudders as another wave of Crowley’s power rushes through him. “Oh.” “ Angel,” Crowley chokes.Aziraphale readjusts his grip on Crowley's hands. He moves his fingers, threading them through each of the demon’s and hooking them around his knuckles. Their thumbs tighten around one another’s. The power starts to flow again, moving cyclically, in one hand and out the other. Swirling, pulsing, like blood from a heart. Circulating, getting stronger with every pass.Crowley's head slides down, dropping to Aziraphale's shoulder. He breathes onto Aziraphale's neck. “We should… we should go,” Aziraphale manages.Crowley nods. He doesn’t move, doesn't release his hands.The wind stops. Aziraphale feels the snow begin to fall. He opens his eyes and looks to the side where the flakes are coming down, silent and heavy, onto Anathema’s garden.“It’s snowing,” Aziraphale says softly. There’s a pause, and then Crowley’s fingers slide back. Their hands drop away from each other’s. They lean away, separating themselves. Crowley's head is angled toward the ground, and Aziraphale thinks it makes sense—he can’t look at the demon, either.He looks, instead, at the sky.“Right,” Crowley says, as if they haven’t been standing too long in silence. Aziraphale hears him turn around and head toward the car.“ Crowley.” The demon stops mid-step at the sound of his voice. Aziraphale is still looking up at the sky, which is nearly blinding him with starlight. Whether their power had called the stars closer or made them stronger, Aziraphale doesn’t know, but there are no clouds up there even though it's snowing. It’s snowing still, somehow, and to him it looks like what's falling from the heavens is the stars themselves. But this is not what he’s looking at. This is not why he’s called Crowley's name to stop him, to make him follow his gaze.There is a ring of new stars in the sky.The ring is rounded at the top with a concave dip in the center. The bottom is pointed, the largest and brightest star anchoring it at the very tip. Aziraphale isn’t sure which one of them made it; Aziraphale can’t make stars, but his power had been inside Crowley and Crowley’s power had been inside Aziraphale, so perhaps they’d both made it. Perhaps they’d made it together. All Aziraphale knows for certain is that, this time, he doesn’t need anyone to draw the lines between them.                                                           *    *  *                  *    *    *                 *                  *      *                   *               *                       *                       *                 *                                          *                      *                                 *                           *                     *                                 *        *                                   *“Ngk,” Crowley says, somewhere on the path below it. The demon’s neck is still craned back. Each of his sunglass lenses is reflecting the image of the starry heart, and his mouth is making a tight, thin line on his face. “Crowley,” the angel says, again.Crowley looks down at him. His mouth is thin, Aziraphale notices, because he’s biting his lips together. Aziraphale feels something break away inside of him. Something slides away, like a curtain that’s been over a window. Drops down, like the side of a packing crate wrenched free. It drops with a shake, and a whoosh, and heavy thud in his mind.  There’s something wrong, he thinks , but I’m ready now to make it right. He says, “I love you, too.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Aziraphale isn’t quite sure how they make it back to the inn. They may have teleported. Or perhaps the Bentley had driven for them. They don’t speak on the way back, Aziraphale is sure they don’t speak. If they had, he doesn’t remember it. He doesn’t even remember getting out of the car and following the demon up the stairs to their rooms. One moment he’s watching a heart in the sky and saying the words, and the next he’s standing in the corridor upstairs, outside the doors to the rooms, and looking at Crowley standing across from him.Crowley isn’t wearing his sunglasses. Aziraphale doesn’t remember him taking them off, but he’s not wearing them now. His eyes are shining yellow. There is starlight in the building. They can see the heart from the window. “Can I,” Crowley asks, then clears his throat because he sounds like he’s choking. “Can I kiss you?”Aziraphale looks at him from the other side of the hall. He nods. Crowley makes his way across the carpet. Carefully, like he’s measuring every footfall. He takes up the angel’s hands, holds them again in his own, just holds them without any power, pressed together between their chests. He watches Aziraphale’s eyes, pausing for a moment, as if he’s giving him a chance to reconsider. As if he wants the angel to be sure. He must find encouragement from what he sees, because he suddenly dips his head forward and to the side and closes his eyes, and he touches his lips to the angel's.  It’s so soft, Aziraphale thinks, closing his eyes too. He hadn’t realized how soft it could be, when lips touch. He’d been too shocked last time to notice. Aziraphale twists his hands in the demon’s grip, pressing their palms together again. He opens up the channel of power, and then he kisses back. Crowley makes a groaning noise into his mouth. He collapses forward, his weight against the angel’s as they back into the door. He pushes Aziraphale’s hands with his power, both demonic and human, until they’re back against the door too. He drags his thumbs along the tender webbing on the angel's, and he kisses him deeper again, his lips parting open this time, grinding their palms together on the hard wood.Aziraphale feels like he's spinning. He’s lost awareness of his surroundings. He’s not sure what his back is against, except that it’s hard, he's trapped between a hard, flat surface and the demon’s warm human body, and he thinks he might want to live there forever. They have all the time in the world, the world that didn’t end, and he’s pretty sure he wants to live right there for the rest of it. He tilts his head more to the side. He whines a little into Crowley’s mouth. Crowley melts against him, absolutely melts, like he’s an ice cream on a hot summer day. Except he tastes better than an ice cream, Aziraphale thinks. He tastes better than anything Aziraphale’s ever tasted, and Aziraphale has tasted a lot. Crowely breaks away from Aziraphale’s mouth, nuzzling his cheek, still plastered against him on the door. He kneads into his palms again, sending another roll of power through the angel’s body. The angel shivers underneath him, and they both groan this time.“We should move from here,” Crowley whispers, dragging his nose back toward Aziraphale’s ear.“Mhm,” Aziraphale agrees. The sound rumbles deep inside his chest. “Where are we, again?”Crowley’s breath on his neck is a gentle laugh. “We’re at the inn, angel.”“Oh, good,” Aziraphale says, eyes still closed and his head still dropped back against the door. “You can stay in my room, if you like.”Crowley’s face is so close that Aziraphale can actually feel when he smiles. It’s such a strange, joyous feeling, and it gives him another bout of vertigo. “It’s got the better view,” the angel adds, dizzily.“Bugger the view,” Crowley whispers, right into his ear. Aziraphale swallows. Crowley’s nose slides down his neck, pushing against the muscle of his throat when he does.“Do you think we can get inside without letting go of our hands?” Aziraphale asks him. Crowley tightens his fingers where they’re intertwined with the angel’s. “Let’s find out,” he replies, and then he pushes them both through the door. It’s a delicate miracle to perform, not in the least because it involves two people. To manage it, they both have to imagine the same thing together: that the door isn’t so solid, that it’s more like butter than wood. Like something you can push through, easily through and out the other side. They do it, they do it together, and it happens so smoothly that Aziraphale is left wondering whether they ever need to bother with opening doors ever again. They both grin, still holding hands, now in the quiet lamplight of Aziraphale’s room. And then Crowley kisses him again. He really kisses him, he really does this time, inhaling as he goes, opening his mouth and tipping Aziraphale’s head backward with the force of it. His lips move, they’re opening, closing, his nose scrunched into the side of Aziraphale’s cheek and his power jolting through Aziraphale’s corporation like an electric current. Aziraphale is hot. He’s burning hot, fire in his hands and his arms and his chest and his back, his stomach, burning up his insides in the most wonderful of ways. He feels grateful that he doesn't need to breathe, and he briefly wonders how humans do this, how they kiss this way and breathe at the same time. How their bodies do it, how they can even remember that they need to. Crowley uses his tongue, just a little at first. Aziraphale feels the slick of it slide across his teeth and brush the edge of his own, and the contact feels like drowning. Like a flood again, like drowning in a flood, a flash flood into the angel’s mouth. The wet press of it somehow amplifies the power that moves through him; they’re sharing power in their hands, but now they’re doing it in their mouths, too, and Aziraphale hadn’t known it was possible to do it that way. He hadn’t known any of this was possible, but especially not that.  Crowley backs off immediately, breaking from the overwhelming sensation. “Holy fuck,” he swears, panting.Aziraphale can’t reply. He’s panting too, like he’s been running a marathon (or, if he’s being honest, like he’s been running at all). “Did you feel that?” the demon demands. He’s still holding Aziraphale’s hands, and Aziraphale feels rather grateful for it, because he thinks that if he wasn’t, he’d probably be keeling over. He’s still not sure if he can speak, so he nods vigorously, hoping that Crowley can see it with how close they’re still standing.  “Fuck,” Crowley says again, and then they come back together. The power, the hot aching massage, the flood coursing through Aziraphale’s body, speeds up. It pounds through him, throbbing back between his shoulder blades, deep within him by his wings. It’s by the base of his wings, crossing through the physical plane and licking up the edges of his feathers. It’s a sensitive spot, back there; the source of an angel’s power is in their wings, and Crowley’s own power has finally found it. “I–” Aziraphale gasps, cutting himself off with a wordless moan. He clenches his wings in the metaphysical plane, tightening them around the power, just as he’s tightening his fingers in Crowley’s grip. They’re not kissing anymore, Crowley’s head has dropped to his shoulder again, and he’s making these noises into it, these little mewling noises, and Aziraphale thinks he must be feeling it too, Crowley is feeling the same thing, Aziraphale’s power in his back, on his wings, on his black velvet wings– Aziraphale wants to touch them. He suddenly wants to touch them. He knows there’s a part of him back there that is, his power is back there, but he wants to touch them with his hands, too. His human hands. He wants to merge his physical body with Crowley’s metaphysical wings, to make contact between the planes, it shouldn’t be possible but he thinks he might be able to do it if he tries. He’d have to let go of Crowley’s hands, though, and he doesn’t want to do that, because if he does it might break the connection. The connection is still through their hands, which are sweating, now, slick against each other, a thousand degrees warmer than they should be, trembling with how hard they’re pushing together. So Aziraphale tries to imagine it instead. He imagines feeling through to Crowley’s wings, imagines running his hot, slick hand over the delicacy of Crowley’s feathers, the sleekness of the primaries and the secondaries, the downy fuzz at their base. He’s never done that, he’s never felt anyone else’s, he’s only ever felt his own. Angels don’t touch each other’s wings. They would never even think to touch each other’s wings. Angels don’t touch each other at all.  “I–” Aziraphale tries again, not sure what he’s going to say, only knowing he’s compelled to say it, “I want to touch you–”“Yesss.” Crowley hisses into the angel’s shoulder, his mouth open on the fabric of his jacket. “I want–I want to feel you–”“Yes, angel, yesss–”Aziraphale moans with joy. He feels so hot, and so powerful, and so loved , and so good . All of this, all of it, it just feels so damned good. “ Crowley!" he gasps. "It’s so–it’s so good … oh… did you–did you know that it would be– oh, God!”  Aziraphale cries out as the power bursts into white-hot flames behind him. For a moment, he’s terrified he’s actually on fire. His wings open, ripping through the planes, bursting forth like they’re exploding from him, like they can no longer be contained. They’re hot, they’re so hot that they’re humming, they’re making noise with the raging fire inside them, singing a high-pitched cry of ecstasy. Aziraphale’s human muscles respond to it, they tense up and spasm together as the wings draw them out, as they enter the physical world, as they rewrite all the anatomy of his human body to accommodate them. It’s white in the room, it’s white behind his eyes, it’s white like the light of a star, like a star being born, I watched stars being born, Aziraphale thinks, I watched them come into the universe, I watched Crowley make them, I watched the look on his face when he did– Aziraphale shivers in Crowley’s grasp. He shakes apart, his wings fluttering in the last throes of their emergence. His muscles relax as they become used to the sensation, and the wings shudder into a fold, like a bird that has landed from the sky. Soaring, now landed, settling down into a comfortable rest. Aziraphale’s eyes are still closed, he realizes. He forgets how long they’ve been closed. Perhaps for a while. Perhaps the white starry light had been in his mind, not in the room. Or perhaps it had been in both. He opens his eyes to check.The room is still dim, the lamp is still on. Crowley is still holding his hands, though the power has subsided, and Crowley’s own wings are a streak of onyx behind him. Crowley’s head moves off of the angel's shoulder, rights itself with almost a drunken movement, overcorrecting and rocking back on his neck before settling somewhat straight. His face is flushed scarlet, his lips swollen and wet, and his eyes–his glorious, serpentine eyes–glimmering gold and brass and copper in the light.“What just happened?” the demon says. He’s blinking slowly, like he’s trying to remember how to work his eyelids.Aziraphale similarly moves his tongue. “I… I’m not sure.” He thinks a minute. “Divine ecstasy?”Crowley snorts. “I’d be toast if that was the case.”Aziraphale considers that. He thinks it's probably true. “Some kind of ecstasy, anyway,” he amends.“Yeah.” Crowley’s open mouth curls up on one side. “Some kind.”Their hands fall down between them, though their fingers still interconnect. The channel is still open, but the power has settled. The flood has stopped, the water grown placid. “Whatd'ya think we did to the stars this time?” Crowley says, after a minute. Aziraphale raises his eyebrows and lowers them again. “Honestly, I’m a bit afraid to look.”Crowley lets go of one of Aziraphale’s hands, but keeps the other one as he goes to the window. He pulls him along, behind him, and Aziraphale follows. They peer out of the window. The snow clouds are in, they’re covering the sky, and the snow has already accumulated a few inches on the rooftops. The lights from the dwellings glow in the dark. Above these they can see the heart of stars, the one they'd made before, that seems to have followed them there. Or maybe they had called it to them. Maybe it will follow them, always marking them, showing them the way. The heart is so bright that it's shining right through the clouds, like the sun through a fog. “Still there,” Crowley murmurs, looking up at it. Aziraphale watches him while he does. The demon’s mouth is smiling, his eyes are twinkling. The starlight is sparkling off his eyes like they’re made of glitter, like the angel’s wings from on top of the tree. Aziraphale has seen this look before on his face. Once before, long ago, before the world didn’t end. In fact, before it even began. Crowley looks proud. ***Crowley’s jumper on Christmas morning is red. Brilliantly red, strikingly red, a deep, bold ruby. Like holly berries on a wreath, like blood from a heart. Like red, delicious apples.On the front it says, “Joy.”On the back, “To the World.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

There is a fire in the hearth on Christmas morning. There is soft music playing on the radio. The snow is still falling outside, there are miniature drifts on the windowsills, and the scene looks like a winter wonderland. Aziraphale and Crowley have settled themselves into two armchairs just to the side of the fire, close enough to feel a radiant warmth but not close enough to overheat. There is a tartan blanket on the back of each of the armchairs in the room; these were not there before the angel and demon had descended the stairs, but they’re there now, as if they always had been. The other guests in the room are beginning to make good use of them. Crowley turns his neck to peer outside. Some children from the cottage across the street have dragged their parents into the cold to try out their new sled. Aziraphale sips on a cup of tea, glancing out there too. “Now wouldn’t it be just so nice if those poor parents had something hot to drink right now?” he says, to no one in particular.No One In Particular rolls his eyes. “Would it?”“Most definitely. It would make their Christmas much more enjoyable.”There are three children, and the eldest seems to have commandeered total use of the new sled. The other two are complaining. The middle child is shouting, and the youngest is trying to pelt them with poorly formed snowballs. Crowley scratches his chin, and the eldest suddenly receives a perfectly-sphered snowball right to the face. They start to wail, and the middle and the youngest rejoice, going after the abandoned sled. “Really, my dear,” Aziraphale huffs. “At least do the drinks, too.”Crowley, who is watching the scene with barely concealed glee, grumbles at this. “Fine, there,” he says, waving a finger at the window.The parents are suddenly each holding steaming mugs of coffee. They look down, then up at each other, shrug, and clink cups. “Happy now?” the demon sneers. Aziraphale wiggles a little under his blanket. “Immensely.”The radio switches songs. O Come All Ye Faithful begins to play, and Crowley relaxes back into his chair. “Do you actually remember the birth of Jesus Christ?” he asks.Aziraphale pauses his teacup where it has nearly touched his lips. He glances at the demon, who is smirking over the top of his own cup. His unobstructed, golden eyes are twinkling with mischief, the fiend.“You know I do,” the angel replies. He takes the sip of his tea. He closes his eyes and sighs afterward, a breathy sound of pleasure, knowing Crowley is watching him while he does.“Dunno,” says the demon. “You were quite drunk.”Aziraphale’s eyes fly open. He sets the cup in the saucer with a bit more force than is necessary. “I was not!” He lifts his chin a little higher in the air, collecting himself. “I was merely hung-over.”At this, Crowley grins. “I bet you were.”“Your fault, by the way,” the angel adds. “You knew Heaven had miracled-blocked that entire region. And you still tempted me into drinking all night.”“Well,” the demon offers, “it was Saturnalia.”“Yes, and you were Bacchus himself.”Crowley laughs, his head tipped back.“I’ve never forgiven you for that, by the way,” Aziraphale tells him.“Aw, c’mon. It was a fun night.” “Yes, but you weren’t the one vomiting off the side of a camel all morning.”Crowley laughs again. “You weren’t really.”“I was! The looks I got from Gabriel. We were supposed to be processing to Bethlehem with the ‘utmost reverence’ for the Almighty’s newborn son, and I couldn’t stop retching. It was dreadful.”“Why on Earth did they think miracle-blocking was a good idea?”“Oh, I don’t know. Something to do with Jesus’s own miracles making a bigger impact. I suppose they figured if the area had been miracle-starved in recent memory, everyone would be much more impressed by the son of God.”Crowley considers this. “I guess it worked.”“I guess,” the angel echoes, bitterly. Crowley leans forward in his seat. “Do you forgive me now?”Aziraphale studies Crowley’s face. The lines on his forehead, the flecks of ochre in his irises. The curve of his nose and the way his mouth is curled up on the side, hopeful and teasing. “Never,” Aziraphale replies.Crowley smirks. He reaches a hand over the arm of the chair, over to Aziraphale’s chair and to Aziraphale’s own hand. He turns the hand over with a gentle press and threads their fingers together. “How about now?”Crowley hasn’t even opened the channel of power, and Aziraphale already feels hot. “Crowley,” he admonishes, murmuring low, “I don’t think this is the sort of thing we should aim to do in public.”He watches with satisfaction as Crowley blushes all the way up to his ears. “We’re not in public,” the demon notes, but he lets go of Aziraphale’s hand anyway. His face matches his jumper, Aziraphale notices.“There are other people in this room.”“So? They wouldn’t notice a thing. And even if they did, who cares?” The angel raises an eyebrow. “My dear,” he says, with a hint of mild surprise, “I didn’t realize you were such an exhibitionist.”Crowley hasn’t taken a drink of his tea, but he still makes a choking noise. “Bastard,” he grumbles, but he’s smiling. He reaches around the other side of his chair and produces a large gift box, wrapped in golden paper with a red bow on top. He slides the box over to Aziraphale on the coffee table in front of them. It’s just a smidgen bigger than the size of a hat.“Do you forgive me now?” he asks smoothly.Aziraphale looks at the box. There is an overwhelming feeling in his chest, in his throat, behind his eyes. Like the sort of feeling you might get, he thinks, when you’re about to take a bite of your favorite dessert. Knowing what it tastes like, already expecting it, expecting it and getting just as you’ve expected. That sharp satisfaction on your tongue, that familiar comforting flavor. It feels like fantasy meeting reality, like knowing something true. It feels like belief. It feels like faith.Aziraphale opens the box. Inside is the hat, the one he’d tried on at the shop, its orange ribbon now miracled to compliment his complexion. He turns it in his hands, puts it on his head, and smiles at the demon across from him.The demon smiles quietly back.Aziraphale doesn’t know if the sun will come up tomorrow. He doesn’t know if his books will still be there in the shop when he returns, or if he’ll even have a shop at all. He doesn’t know if the world that hadn’t ended might almost end again, or if, someday, it will succeed. But this, he knows. It’s the one thing he knows, the one thing he believes, the one thing that can be relied upon, even if the skies fall and the universe turns to dust and God Herself forsakes him–impossible as it is to fathom. Even if there is nothing else, he believes in this. In Crowley’s love. And, for the first time in perhaps his entire existence, he believes in his own, too.Aziraphale says, “Yes.”***The following day they drive back to London. They get lunch on the way. They stop for a quick tour of a local historical museum in another village, a small, little-known hamlet in between. They have tea in the bookshop; they browse records down the street for Crowley’s collection. They go to dinner, to the Ritz, they pop champagne, they listen to this night’s pianist serenade them with their rendition of A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square . (The pianist hadn’t known they were going to play it; they hadn’t even known the song before now. But somehow, miraculously, it comes to them, like divine inspiration, or perhaps like demonic intervention. Sometimes, it’s really very hard to tell the difference between the two.) They hold hands under the table.When they leave, starlight shines on the street.It’s Sunday. It’s like a thousand other Sundays in years past, and like a thousand other Sundays will be, hopefully, in the future.And it is enough.