Warm Grey- An Ineffable Husbands Oneshot
Crowley held the door as Aziraphale stepped into his apartment for the first time. Though there was not much in his apartment normally, aside from plants of course, Crowley had thoroughly cleaned it upon the prospect of Aziraphale’s visit. He felt Aziraphale would appreciate a clean apartment and the place was spotless. Painstakingly, he swept every speck of dirt from the ground, vacuumed the carpets, straightened his draft of the Mona Lisa, adjusted the few books on his bookshelf, and checked if any of his hundreds of plants had any spot or imperfection that could possibly mar the angel’s first experience there.
Aziraphale stood silently barely out of the doorway, his head swiveling about the room. Crowley tugged at his collar, hot and stiff on his neck. Maybe he had overdone it with the cleaning. The bookshop where the pair spent most of their time bulged with antique books and old correspondence letters and ink and a box of sunglasses that Aziraphale had taken off Crowley’s face on several evenings of over indulgence on fine wine. Heaven, as Crowley recalled it was bare, corporate, sterile. A blinding white void where Gabriel clicked around in his scarf, barking orders and sneering at perfectly good angels, well one wasn’t perfectly good. But he scanned his apartment, the grey color darkened the feeling but it was nearly as bare as Heaven, not accounting for the countless houseplants.
Aziraphale turned around to look up at the demon. Crowley defended his empty home “I know it’s not much but I’m no—“
“Oh it’s just lovely. I do adore all your plants. I’ve never been very good at keeping plants alive, but for someone who was made to cause suffering, you’re simply wonderful at it,” Aziraphale said, a blinding smile spreading across his cheeks.
“Ngk yes,” Crowley coughed, his face heating up further. Aziraphale lightly grabbed Crowley’s arm.
“Do you mind me showing me all your plants?” Aziraphale moved his hands on top of Crowley’s, pulling towards himself. Crowley stuttered and the angel immediately dropped his hands, brushing his cream overcoat. “Apologizes, where are my manners? Should I take off my shoes?”
“You take those things off? I’m surprised. I haven’t seen em off your feet in 160 years.”
“Indeed I do. Shoes wear out faster than jackets. This is my fourth pair, but they’re getting harder to find nowadays.”
“Thank Satan they are,” Crowley mumbled.
“Hey. I like them. They’re...timeless.”
Crowley looked down at the shoes. Tan leather covered the toes and sides while chocolate colored suede made up the rest of the shoe, stopping just above the ankles. They were odd but not as dreadful as the shoes Gabriel and the other angels wore, which replaced the swede of Aziraphale’s with a thick sock-like material. At least Aziraphale had the decency to wear laces.
“Just because something is old, doesn’t mean it’s timeless,” he said, shaking his head. With a flick of the wrist, Aziraphale’s shoes as well as his own went from their feet to sitting orderly next to the front door, knocking Aziraphale’s heels into the ground harder than he anticipated. The angel teetered and caught himself on the wall before he could fall over.
“Do you wear high heels?” Crowley giggled, not that he would ever admit to giggling for he is a menacing demon. Aziraphale pulled Crowley by the arm in the direction of the nearest plant, which was not too far in hindsight.
“Enough about my shoes. I want to see your plants,” he whined.
“You do.” Crowley ignored the angel’s whining and answered his own question. “You’re a good few centimeters shorter than normal. When was the last time you took those things off?”
“Gabriel said that I was too short and I needed to be taller to ‘intimidate the wiles of the demon Crowley.’” He emphasized the last half of his statement by wiggling his fingers.
“Head office thought that being taller would make it easier to thwart me?”
“You did a damn good job of it without, what, 2, maybe 3 more centimeters of height. And they seem to be wrong a lot of the time, angel.” Aziraphale grinned up at Crowley. Crowley coughed stiffly and averted his eyes away. He walked towards the kitchen and gestured to a metal, cushioned barstool. Following the suggestion, Aziraphale sat down and felt the cold marble of the counter under his hands. Crowley shuffled around his kitchen, gathering glasses and lingering over vintage bottles of wine. The stool squeaked quietly as Aziraphale swiveled the chair back and forth, swinging his legs with the pivot of the chair.
“Okay so I have a few bottles of wine you might like,” Crowley began. He stuck his head out of the fridge and held up a bottle of wine in each hand, but was distracted before he could finish any comprehensible thought about wine. He had not noticed Aziraphale half-spinning on the barstool with wide eyes and an interested smile. An embarrassed grin plastered the demon’s face. Aziraphale caught Crowley’s eyes, or his sunglasses at least, and ceased his spinning.
“Sorry. That was completely inappropriate. What wine do you have?” Crowley set the bottles on the counter, resting his head in his hands and his elbows on the marble.
“Do it all you want. It’s not like these chairs get much use anyway.”
“Really?” Aziraphale perked up.
“Yeah. Go ahead.” The angel immediately went back to rotating back and forth on his barstool. “But to answer your previous question, I have 1787 Chateau Margaux and 1947 Cheval Blanc.”
“1787? My goodness, Crowley. How have you not drank this by now?” Aziraphale examined the bottle. The label peeled at the corners but the name still stood out against the cream paper.
“Saving it for a special occasion.” Crowley shrugged.
“This can’t be an important enough occasion to warrant drinking a wine you’ve had for over two centries!” Aziraphale shoved the bottle into Crowley’s hands. A little disheartened, Crowley placed the bottle down and proceeded to pour two glasses of the Cheval Blanc.
“Thank you, dear.” Aziraphale picked up his glass and swirled the liquid before raising the glass into the air. Crowley followed suit.
“To,” he thought for a second about what exactly to toast to. “To having you over to my flat for the first time. May the first not be the last.”
“Cheers.” The two clinked their glasses and both took a sip. “So about those plants of yours?”
“You actually want to see them?” Crowley asked, almost dropping his glass in surprise.
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I? They’re just lovely,” Aziraphale gushed, gesturing at the array of houseplants surrounding them.
“I can give you a tour of them.” Crowley stood up and walked over to Aziraphale’s chair. “Some of them have been rather disappointing lately, so I had to do what was necessary to correct their behavior.” Crowley glared at one snake plant that had not put out leaves in a timely manner. Aziraphale popped off the stool and shrugged off his overcoat, placing it delicately on the back of the stool.
“You do keep it rather warm in here,” Aziraphale observed, rolling up his powder blue sleeves.
“I don’t want to sporadically hibernate in my own home. Heating bill is through the roof, though,” Crowley huffed. He extended his elbow out to the angel. “Shall we?”
“Crowley, I didn’t know you could be such a little gentleman.”
“Not a gentleman. Not nice. I just have basic manners. Now are you going to take my arm or not?” Aziraphale took Crowley’s arm with both of his hands and held it gently. The two looked at each other with a sense of mutual admiration. The angel smiled wider, flashing his teeth upwards to his demon. A tinge of pink bloomed on Crowley’s cheeks as a smile fought its way onto his face.
“Onward then,” Aziraphale cheeped, bouncing on his toes. Crowley led him down one of many halls lined with large pots of perfectly manicured tropical houseplants. Aziraphale listened intently as Crowley explained each plant to him, absolutely bathing in every botanical fact and frustration. Crowley seemed reluctant to speak in depth about any of his plants, but soon warmed up to the questions and soft hums of interest. Whenever Crowley had described any of personal projects to his fellow demons, a static room full of disinterested, black scowls bore back at him. Any audible response strikes as a communal scoff that he had become another pet the humans domesticated. Plants served no real purpose to a demon, nothing garnered them seeing that fresh oxygen violated Hell’s atmosphere.
But nothing could breathe in Hell, only bitterness festered in the poorly lit, grimey, abyss. One demon pressed against another, knocking down the cautionary signs as they fought to reach one administrative meeting or conference to slog through in a sardine can of a room. As they strolled around the apartment, Crowley realized how spacious it was, only about four pieces of furniture occupying each room
Azirphale rubbed a leaf of every plant they stopped by with his thumb, despite Crowley informing him multiple times that the variegated version of the same plant would not feel any different than the solid green version. Any time they would exit a room and emerge back into the main room, both of them would take a swig of their wine. At a lost moment, Crowley’s jacket had been tossed onto the stool next to the cream jacket but without the care or concern. Aziraphale continued to hold on to the demon’s arm, even while drinking, convincing him that it would be impolite to reject the previous offer of an arm to hold. The angel warmed Crowley’s torso, rivaling the near sweltering heater. After several hours, a bottle of wine, and many distractions, the pair had seen every plant, sapling, and propagation in the apartment.
Without Heaven and Hell watching them like vultures, any instinct to hide their meetings or speed through any interaction disappeared. They had gone to St. James Park alone 17 times in the last three weeks since the near end of the world. Crowley seemed to only go home to water his plants, essentially finding a new resistance in Aziraphale’s back room.The bookshop’s reopening sparked an unexpected influx of customers that Aziraphale had not seen since the release of the final installment of a certain children’s novel about a wizard boy. The fervor lasted for only a day or two as whispers floated around the streets about a strange man in black sunglasses that never strayed far from Mr. Fell but could be seen no matter where you looked in the shop. One particularly persistent man claimed the man in the bookshop had flicked a forked tongue at him. Smoking passerbys began to cross the street when passing the shop after people reported their cigarettes immediately burning out and smoke billowing out of their mouths, sending them into a coughing fit on the sidewalk. On one cloudy Tuesday, a cardboard box stuffed over the brim with candles, mostly white and partially burned, and “free” scrawled on the side with marker on the side appeared next to the door. Crowley never concerned himself with who took them or when as long as no more candles remained in the bookshop.
“You sure do have a lot of plants, dear,” Aziraphale joked as he and Crowley returned to the kitchen. He topped off his glass with the remaining wine, but whimpered when only a few drops fell in the glass.
“And you sure have a lot of books.”
“Well I sell my books. I own a bookshop,” he defended, trying to appear as the dignified businessman he very much was not. Crowley cocked an eyebrow at his angel, who sold books only when it was practically a matter of discorporation. Aziraphale frowned and glanced away.
“Your bookshop is lovely,” Crowley consoled. “It’s a nice hobby to have ‘n all. Collecting books. Reading. You got loads to do with your time.” Crowley dramatically draped his arms onto the counter, transforming his body into a titled L shape while he looked over at Aziraphale.
“Hobby? I’ve never considered it a hobby really. Well what do you do with your time outside of ‘demoning’? Surely you have a hobby of some sort.”
“You’re a celestial being. You don’t need sleep.”
“It’s the same thing I told you 30 years ago, it just passes the time before I need to make another pull door that seems like a push door.” Crowley shifted so his elbow propped him up while his other hand rested theatrically on his hip.
“I just don’t get it. I’ve never slept and I’m perfectly fine.” Aziraphale glanced down at his socks then back up at Crowley, rocking on his heels while he did so. “Do you get anything out of it?”
“Hell doesn’t bother me aside from all the voicemails and whatnot. Way of avoiding boredom when I couldn’t see you. Can’t do it for too long anymore or else these’ll all die.” He vaguely waved his hand toward the plants. “You wanna try or something?”
Aziraphale crossed his arms and stuck his nose in the air, his face scrunched, his eyebrows furrowed. “Absolutely not. I’ve already tried and I have no intention of doing it again.”
“And when was this? I can’t believe I missed it.”
“When you took your little century long nap, I thought I’d see what all the fuss was about. Humans have been doing it since day one so there must be something special about it, especially you picked it up and all.” Any wrinkle of a discomforted expression melted away. “I didn’t have much to do without the forces of evil to best. All these wonderful love letters I had been getting stopped the day before you fell asleep, and it’s not like there are many people with whom I could find solace by explaining that my hereditary enemy who I was put on Earth to stop had chosen to sleep the next hundred years away, leaving you alone and with you only your books and—“
“Aziraphale,” the demon intervened.
“You didn’t let me finish,” Aziraphale grumbled.
“I know. That was kinda the point of me interrupting you.” Aziraphale huffed. “One bad experience shouldn’t sour your whole opinion on something. You wouldn’t let one mediocre croissant prevent you from eating croissants ever again.”
“Are you trying to get me to sleep with you?”
“Don’t say it like that,” Crowley said flatly.
“Humans gave another meaning to that phrase.”
“What does it mean?” Aziraphale thought for a moment, Crowley questioning how the angel had existed this long. The angel’s eyes turned into saucers as his expression fell. “Oh good Lord.”
“There you go.” Crowley nodded knowingly.
“I don’t want to do that. An angel and a demon. That’s not even possible for us.”
“Exactly. So how about going to actual sleep?”
“Why? Are you tired of me? I can go home.”
“I’m not tired of you. I’m tired from saving the world.” Pouting like a child, Crowley’s head dropped to his shoulder.
“That was weeks ago,” Aziraphale said flatly.
“I know. But it was draining. It’s just one night,” Crowley whined. “We can get crepes in the morning.”
“Ooo that sounds delightful.” Aziraphale brightened and smiled. “Fine. For tonight.”
“Excellent,” Crowley hissed, punctuating his sentiment by whipping off his sunglasses to reveal flaming golden eyes partially covered by heavy eyelids. He again offered his arm to the angel who again accepted it gratefully. “Shall we?”
The bed, adorned with grey silk sheets and an enormous duvet, rested against the back wall of the bedroom with a black nightstand on either side. On the right nightstand sat Crowley’s phone, a propagated hoya carnosa, and a candle scented that smelled of old paper, earl grey, and an underlying note of mahogany. Crowley led Aziraphale into the room and sat him on the bed. He put his sunglasses down on the nightstand, peaking at the time on his homescreen.
“Shit it really is late,” he mumbled to himself.
“Am I supposed to sleep in this? My trousers are going to get all wrinkled and I won’t look decent tomorrow.” Aziraphale whined.
“You’ll look more than decent. Wrinkles or none. But if it makes you happy.” Crowley flicked his wrist in Aziraphale’s general direction and a set of Victorian style blue and white striped pajamas appeared in the angel’s lap.
“Where should I throw my clothes? On the floor like some sort of heathen?”
Crowley took off his tie and tossed it to the floor.
“That’s what I do.” He looked over at Aziraphale who had paused his meticulous unbuttoning of his shirt to purse his lips and cock his head at him. Crowley sighed heavily and snapped. A hanger popped into existence on the bed next to Aziraphale’s pajamas.
“Thank you, dear.” A smile took over the angel’s face.
“You know that you can do your own miracles, angel?”
“But what’s the fun in that?” He made a pushing down motion with one of his hands, swapping his dress clothes for the pajamas and sending the dress clothes to the hanger. Crowley rolled his eyes, proceeding to awkwardly kick his pants to the corner. Choosing to stare at his hands, Aziraphale averted his eyes as the demon exchanged his shirt for a dark grey tank top.
“I don’t care if you look at me. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“I wanted to give you privacy.”
“I feel like 6000 of friendship can throw privacy out the window a bit.” He whipped back the duvet. “Alright, get in.”
Tentatively, Aziraphale sat down on the grey silk and folded his legs. Crowley hopped up onto the bed, his legs slipping down the sheets until copious amounts of fabric smothered his thighs, bouncing the entire bed and, by association Aziraphale, in the process. He turned on his side like a model and shot a sideways smile at the figure sitting upright next to him.
“Lay down.” Aziraphale mechanically extended his legs and let his back fall onto the sheets. With two claps from Crowley, the lights snapped off.
“Your bed is astonishingly comfortable.” He folded his hands neatly on his stomach. “Good night, Crowley.”
The angel closed his eyes for a complete 12.78 seconds before they snapped open. “It didn’t work,” he worried.
“No offense, but obviously whatever you were doing wasn’t going to work. It’s scary to think you're so clever sometimes.”
“Full offense taken. I’m not an expert like you. How do you do it so easily?”
“Well for starters, I don’t lay like I’m saying rosaries. Most people lay on their side,” Crowley explained. Placing his hands under his head, Aziraphale rolled over so that he lay eye level with his new instructor. “And now just close your eyes, relax, and let yourself drift into unconsciousness.”
“That sounds dreadful and scary. I didn’t know sleeping would be so spooky.”
“It’s not spooky. I can’t believe I just said the word spooky in my own house.”
“Of course.” There was a beat of silence.
“Can I hold onto you in case it gets too spooky?” The question phased through Crowley like a bullet through Jello. He pulled Aziraphale into his chest without a word, resting his chin in the white gold curls. Aziraphale wriggled his arms around Crowley’s neck. A lump appeared in Crowley’s throat but was forcefully swallowed away.
“Is this okay?” the demon asked, his voice wavering ever slightly.
“It’s perfect, Crowley.” He shifted his neck to peer up at the golden eyes glued to him. A soft smile called a Aziraphale’s cheeks home. “Do you have any other techniques to fall asleep?”
“Well when I was Warlock’s nanny, I sang him lullabies.”
“And I heard you. Those lullabies were horrid.”
“Well, I thought they were nice. Inspired evil in the child.”
“Evil. What a lovely thing to be serenaded to sleep by,” Aziraphale said dryly.
“You’re in the arms of evil incarnate now. I guess you’ll never sleep.”
A small yawn escaped Aziraphale’s lips, startling the two at first but becoming the center of laughter seeing as it was as normal from the angel as Russian from a duck.
“Guess saving the world is a little draining,” Aziraphale giggled. “But I believe you’re missing one human bedtime tradition.”
“And that would be?” Aziraphale’s soft hands pulled Crowley’s face downward. The angel pushed back a stray lock of ginger hair and placed a soft kiss on his forehead.
“The goodnight kiss, of course.” Crowley’s entire being froze for a moment before enchaining Aziraphale closer to himself, concealing the pink that consumed his cheeks. Aziraphale chuckled. “Good night, Crowley. Sweet dreams.”
Aziraphale returned to his place buried in Crowley’s neck. Crowley squeezed the angel as to confirm that he was indeed real and not the wisp he spoke to in the pub three weeks prior and pecked him gently on the forehead.
jacobvanloon
snowghoul
kaledo-art
2087
turnnoffyourmind
