Crowley doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to it.
The thing is, he should’ve expected it. Aziraphale’s not actually stupid, even if his magic tricks are. He can read Crowley as easily as any one of his books; he can see Crowley where he hides behind his sunglasses.
And Aziraphale doesn’t love by halves.
There is a blanket on the sofa in the back room and a potted fern by the register out front. There is a rather particular blend of earl grey in the cupboards and a coffee cup with a devil’s tail handle on the rack by the sink. The daily crossword is on the table, left out for Crowley to find, and although Crowley knows Aziraphale will have already done it once this morning, he’s miracled the answers away and instead written into the boxes: GOOD MORNING.
Crowley is sure there would be a little heart drawn in next to it if Aziraphale thought Crowley wouldn’t find it incredibly twee. Crowley picks up a pen–not a pencil–and fills the heart in himself. I love you, he thinks, shading it in, permanently.
If he ever finds a note without a heart on it again, he’ll be surprised. But he’ll never quite be used to it.
He fell in love with Aziraphale’s heart, with Aziraphale’s courage, with Aziraphale’s kindness. He fell in love with the way Aziraphale acted on impulse, the way he embraced recklessness and pretended like he didn’t. He fell in love with the elegantly manicured hands and the outdated jacket and even the stupid magic tricks, but Crowley never dared to think that Aziraphale would direct all that affection and all that joy and all that love onto him.
Maybe he wouldn’t have, in another universe. In this one, though, Aziraphale is free, and he loves like it.
Crowley should’ve expected that Aziraphale would love him in exactly the way that he loves Aziraphale.
A throat clears behind Crowley; he turns to see Aziraphale standing in the door, worn waistcoat, familiar smile. “Morning,” Aziraphale says. “Sleep good?”
“Yeah,” Crowley says, mouth dry.
“Good,” Aziraphale says, his smile widening, and then he’s off like a shot, making tea, telling Crowley about a book dealer he’s meeting later to see about a supposed Shakespearean folio, about a customer who’d come in looking for the shop next door again and wasn’t it a bit obvious that this wasn’t that sort of shop, about how he had a craving for gnocchi and if Crowley wouldn’t mind perhaps they could go out later and scrub up something, maybe that little place over on Marylebone Road that had the gorgonzola chicken Crowley liked so much that one time, and Crowley soaks it all in, soaks Aziraphale all in, all the curiosities and the interests, all the ways Aziraphale says we and us, all the ways it’s so easy for Aziraphale to wrap himself around Crowley, to give of himself to Crowley, to let Crowley in, to make space for him.
Aziraphale hands Crowley’s mug to him and kisses the corner of his mouth. “You all right?” he asks.
“Yeah,” Crowley says, coming back to himself a little. He leans over and kisses Aziraphale properly, slow and careful; Aziraphale tastes like tea and sugar. “Yeah, I’m all right. Perfect, even. Brilliant.”
Aziraphale grins. “We’ve got to leave by ten if we want to meet this book dealer on time. Don’t take too long getting ready.” And then he kisses Crowley one last time and goes back down to the shop.
Crowley constantly feels like he’s falling in love all over again; he constantly feels like Aziraphale is falling in love with him all over again. It feels like delicate spring shoots and brilliant pink and gold sunrises and warm cups of tea, like being taken care of and being wanted and being held close in the depths of the night.
It feels like reaching out for six thousand years, and finally finding the hand in the dark.
He doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to it.
He doesn’t think he wants to.
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