I really should be writing

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020), Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Zack Fair/Cloud Strife Characters: Zack Fair, Cloud Strife Additional Tags: Porn with Feelings, Love Confessions, Fluff, Smut, Fluff and Smut, First Kiss, First Time, sorta - Freeform, Hand Jobs, It's an Only One Bed fic Series: Part 4 of Final Fantasy VII Summary:

Zack and Cloud find shelter for the night in the middle of a snowstorm. Cloud has some things on his mind.

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Aerith Gainsborough/Tifa Lockhart Characters: Aerith Gainsborough, Tifa Lockhart, Barret Wallace, Cloud Strife Additional Tags: Fluff, First Kiss, This is so soft and gay my dudes Series: Part 3 of Final Fantasy VII Summary:

The party stops at Costa del Sol for some much needed rest, and Tifa wrestles with her feelings for a certain flower girl.

(An alternate take on what happened between 1862 and 1941.)

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Nanny Ashtoreth/Aziraphale (Good Omens) Characters: Aziraphale (Good Omens) Additional Tags: This is so soft and not at all soft at the same time my dudes, Fluff, Smut, Fluff and Smut, Female-Presenting Crowley (Good Omens), Genderfluid Character Summary: Aziraphale adores Crowley in whatever form he chooses to present.

Hell wasn’t at all how Crowley had imagined it to be. It was dark and dirty, with a lingering smell of ash and something even more unpleasant underneath. He’d expected pits of fire, what he’d found instead was a dingy basement with no windows and a lot of cramped, miserable people.

So he did what he had to do. He worked hard, made connections, anything to gain trust and prove that he’d be of more use on Earth. Anything to get out of there as quickly as possible. He knew he’d never be able to redeem himself in Her eyes, never be able to go home. This was his home now. But if he could just get on the right side of the Hellish powers that be, then maybe things wouldn’t be so bad.

He felt cold without his wings.

And so he revels in compliments. An almost-customer commenting on how beautiful his bookshop is. Someone in the line behind him asking where he came by such a lovely vintage coat.

But really, it’s praise from Crowley that he adores. Crowley doesn’t mince words, and if something needs said, he’ll say it. He isn’t one for empty words either, at least not where Aziraphale is concerned. Of course, some things take a little longer to be said, but when he does eventually pluck up the courage, Aziraphale all but melts. And some things don’t need to be said at all - on more than one occasion, Aziraphale has caught Crowley just watching him while he goes about his business, and the look on his face says far more than words ever could.

And of course, different kinds of love give him different kinds of feelings. Someone enjoying a particularly good cup of cocoa may put a little smile on his face, whereas a couple sharing their first kiss is likely to put a spring in his step for at least a week.

What he doesn’t realise, until much too late, is that this means all kinds of love. And it takes him a while to realise just what in Heaven’s name this overwhelming, all-over feeling of elation is that he’s been getting every few days since that lovely newly-wed couple moved in next door.

Of course, in true Aziraphale fashion, when he does finally figure it out, he decides to just blurt it out to Crowley without warning.

“You know, I think I’ve finally figured out what’s been going on with me lately,” he says airily, during their usual routine of afternoon tea.

“Oh, yeah?” Crowley replies, thinking nothing of it.

“I do believe the neighbours have been having a lot of sex.”

“And what about the demon, Crowley?” Gabriel asks, a false smile painted on his face.

“Ah, yes, just what I was getting to,” Aziraphale says, “But first-”

He places a Tupperware container of cookies on the table.

“Cookie?”

This quickly becomes his plan of action every time Crowley is mentioned. Angel food cake, soufflé, chocolate gateau, Eton mess, you name it, Aziraphale’s used it to distract from the topic of Crowley. Gabriel rather looks forward to Aziraphale’s performance reviews now.

Until he and Crowley have another falling out. Aziraphale shows up to his next review glum and empty-handed. Gabriel, who’s developed a slight sugar addiction in the past few months, hunts down Crowley himself.

“I don’t care what it is that you did, or what he did, or whatever. You are going to apologise, and you are going to make things right,” Gabriel hisses, fists curled into the lapels of Crowley’s jacket.

“I have no idea what you’re-”

“Oh, shut up. We all know about you two. Now just fix whatever it is, or so help me, I will make Hell look like a paradise.”

Hands grab at him in the dark, tearing at his wings, pulling them apart. He knows he’s screaming, but no sound comes from his mouth. And then suddenly the whole of Heaven is pulled out from underneath him. 

He’s falling. No wings to protect him anymore, Heaven far above, and Hell far too close. 

“Crowley?” 

He’s been cast out. 

“Crowley!”

When he finally jolts awake, it’s to find himself on the doorstep of Aziraphale’s bookshop. He’s been sleep-walking. Aziraphale brings him inside, and Crowley, in pure exhaustion, doesn’t put up a fight when he’s led to bed and wrapped up in warm arms, small words of comfort whispered in his ear until he drifts off again.

Aziraphale’s eyes widened and he quickly shook his head, narrowly avoiding knocking his drink all over himself.

“Oh, no, no, I don’t dance,” he said nervously.

“Come on, angel, it’s not hard. I’ll teach you.”

Aziraphale’s face suddenly lit up.

“Oh! I do know one dance-” he began excitedly, and Crowley held up a hand to stop him.

“I told you in 1956 and I’m telling you now, you are not teaching me how to gavotte,” he said with insistence.

“It’s a perfectly respectable gentlemen’s dance,” the angel replied with a huff.

Crowley refuses to sneeze around him.

“I’ll break out in a bloody rash if you bless me,” he hisses, holding his nose and glaring at the nearest light source to try and make the sneeze go away.

Maybe they’ll fall out again. Maybe it’ll be forever this time.

What he isn’t expecting at all, is what actually happens.

“Oh, thank goodness, I thought you’d never say it, and I couldn’t bear the thought of it. Could you imagine having to sit with that hanging over your head for the rest of eternity? No, wouldn’t do at all, would it? Of course, the feeling’s mutual, has been for years. Tea, dear?”

After six thousand odd years, Crowley thinks his heart’s finally packing in, because this cannot be happening.

“Coffee- I’m sorry, what?”

Aziraphale gives him a look, the one that says ‘Oh, do keep up, will you?’

“Well, I could hardly say it, now, could I? I can’t afford another letter from upstairs, and I could only imagine what kind of trouble admitting my feelings to a demon would get me into. But now you’ve said it. So it’s alright.”

Crowley’s beginning to wonder if he’d ever left that opium den in 1872, because this has to be a hallucination.

Wildest fantasy.

Dream come true.

“So, you’ve felt- And I’m- And we’re-” Crowley clears his throat. “Right.”

Aziraphale just nods and smiles, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Crowley’s always been the one full of surprises – it’s in the job description of demon, after all – but Aziraphale had always had a knack for pulling the rug out from under his feet.

He looked up at Crowley.

“Is it?”

“No. No, I don’t suppose it is,” Crowley said soberly.

“But it’s going to be the end of you and me.”

Aziraphale looked down at his hands in his lap.

“I don’t want to die,” he said, so softly that Crowley could barely hear him.

“It’s not dying, angel. Just, you know, inconveniently discorporating,” the demon offered lightly.

Aziraphale met his gaze again with great effort. “Not this time.”

Crowley sat down with a sigh. There was no point in arguing anymore.

As long as they don’t greatly upset anyone in their respective departments, they can essentially live forever, and wouldn’t that seem strange to a human, to have a friend of forty years who hasn’t aged a day from the very moment they met?

No, neither of them can let themselves grow close to anyone on earth, and as much as it pains both of them to admit it, even after six thousand years, it’s another reason why they need each other so much.

The last thing he expects is what can only be described as a well-organised hoarder’s nest. He can tell it’s organised not only by how Aziraphale navigates it all with such ease, but by how everything is categorised by item. 

Stacks of newspaper, neatly tied with string, line one wall of what was once a living room, with a pair of paper scissors and a scrapbook sitting open on a little table next to them. Vases and ornaments of all shapes and sizes litter one corner, while books, hardback and paper, occupy another. An entire wall is adorned with paintings. Crowley has never heard of any of the artists.

“Have a seat wherever you like,” Aziraphale calls cheerily from the kitchen.

“Where?” Crowley asks before he can stop himself.

The sofa’s been lost to scrolls of paper of varying ages, and the one armchair is drowning in embroidery hoops.

Aziraphale peeps out from the doorway, somewhat chagrined.

“I know what it looks like,” he starts.

“Oh, good, I thought I was the only one,” Crowley replies. “What is all this?”

“History, dear boy.”

Aziraphale disappears for a moment before reappearing with two mugs - one tea, one coffee. He hands the mug of coffee to Crowley.

Crowley just looks at him. “You do know what the Internet is, right?”

Aziraphale makes a face. “Yes, and how long do we expect that to last, really?” he replies with a sniff.

He perches on the edge of the armchair. Crowley stays standing, still at a loss for words.

“Look, I-” Aziraphale takes a breath before he continues. “I can’t stand the idea of all of these- all of these perfectly good things that someone has put so much time into being forgotten and thrown away. It doesn’t seem right.”

And then it hits Crowley. All the years they’ve been on this Earth, and how quietly Aziraphale’s had to go about living. His work comes first, it wouldn’t do to get close to any human, only to lose them a few decades later. There are no parades for his miracles, no matter the size. He doesn’t want anyone to be forgotten, like he would be.

Crowley takes a sip of his coffee, trying to gather his words.

“You look like you could use a hand,” he says after a while.

It irritates Crowley beyond belief. Six thousand years they’ve known each other, and they’re no closer to it now than they were the day they met.

“You go too fast for me,” Aziraphale had said.

Slow down, was what he meant. I need more time.

So Crowley had stopped pushing, stopped hinting, stopped anything that might drive Aziraphale away.

But it doesn’t stop him from wanting.

He wants Aziraphale to touch him, in the same friendly way he pats the postman’s arm during their usual mid-morning conversation, in the same reverent way he does with his books. The way the thumb of one hand rubs against the back of the other in an almost comforting manner.

What he doesn’t think about, in all of his moping, is why exactly Aziraphale is always touching. And that is quite simply because the angel is as starved of physical affection as Crowley.

He had told Crowley that he wasn’t ready. He hadn’t quite expected Crowley to listen. Demons never did.

To even have the thoughts he had been having, well, Heaven would have a field day. But to say it, to have it out in the open, to the very man who was supposed to be his mortal enemy. He can’t.

And so they continue to skirt around each other, the two of them growing more wanting and weary of it.

It comes to a head by accident one afternoon, when Aziraphale passes a cup of coffee to Crowley. Their fingers graze. Crowley can’t bring himself to pull away, and neither can Aziraphale. Taking his chance, Crowley sets the cup aside and reaches out his hand. Aziraphale seems to hesitate, if only for a moment, before nervously placing his hand in Crowley’s.

“Thank you for waiting,” he says in a small voice.