Chapter Text
Freedom, it seemed, was not too much different from Before.
At the very least, Aziraphale thought that things would have felt more...well, monumental somehow. Like everyone around him should know what had almost happened and live life to the fullest and the air would be filled with birdsong. However, apart from the few changes brought about when Adam changed reality, he hadn't noticed too much of a difference. His bookshop still barely sold any books, the humans all acted exactly the same as before, and London was still as dreary as it had ever been. The ducks in St. James's Park still quarreled over bread, the menu at the Ritz was the same, the sun still rose in the East and set in the West, et cetera. All still the same as Before.
Though there was one difference. One that, to the average person or celestial entity, may not be enormous in the grand scheme of the entire universe, but was fundamental to Aziraphale nonetheless, and thinking of it sent waves of tingly excitement through his body.
Now that Upstairs and Downstairs were no longer looking over their shoulders, he and Crowley were free to spend as much time together as they pleased. Aziraphale had seen more of his demonic companion in these past few years than he had in several centuries combined, and wasn't that just magnificent to think about? Days filled with walks in the park, afternoons at the bookshop or in cafes, evenings dining out in fine restaurants or sharing drinks, their conversations flowing as easily as the liquor did. If he was honest with himself, this small handful of years were some of, if not the happiest times of Aziraphale's immortal existence.
On the anniversary of the world not ending, they had made it a point to have a long dinner at the Ritz. Crowley claimed it was to celebrate not losing wine or pianos or veal shanks, but Aziraphale privately held the date fast in his heart as something far more personal. It was the day (thereabouts) where they had finally cast off their shackles and were allowed to simply be, with no pretense of work to disguise the fact. The point where they could finally let their friendship flourish and grow.
It was at one of these dinners at the Ritz where the Subject was first broached.
By Crowley, naturally.
In hindsight, the demon had been building up to the Subject all night. He'd let Aziraphale rant about a customer with eyes on his precious first edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray with hardly any input, not even his usual teasing, hadn't asked for a top-up of his wine for at least an hour, and, at one point, had even nibbled almost thoughtfully on a bread roll.
Before Aziraphale could figure out what was going on with him, Crowley finally spoke.
"So...have you ever...done it, then?"
The angel frowned. "Done what?"
"You know..." Crowley waggled his eyebrows. Though he lounged in his chair like he always did and his tone was exceptionally casual, his mouth was a tense, unsmiling line.
"I'm afraid I don't." Aziraphale pouted and raised his wineglass to his lips. "You're acting very strange tonight, my dear."
The demon sighed and shifted a bit. "Relations, angel. I'm asking if you've ever had relations with anyone."
He snorted. "We both have, Crowley."
"Not that kind! Physical relations! Intimacy!" Two spots of pink bloomed on Crowley's cheekbones. "Sex, for Someone's sake!"
Aziraphale inhaled sharply and choked on his wine. He spluttered and coughed into a miraculously obtained handkerchief, face and throat burning. After a moment's hesitation, Crowley leaned over and thumped him a few times on the back. Which didn't exactly help, if the angel was entirely honest. Though it was enough of a distraction for him to recover.
"Crowley, you can't...you simply...you cannot possibly ask if I've...if I've ever...partaken in...fornication." This last word was whispered from behind the handkerchief with a quick glance up at the ceiling, as if all the angels of Heaven were still eavesdropping.
"First thing's first, angel, nobody has ever called sex 'fornication,' not even when that word was new." Crowley cringed and shook his head. "And second, yes, I am asking. Can't blame me for being curious, you know. I mean, we've indulged in all manner of Earthly delights over the centuries," he gestured at the food-laden table between them, "and there's been a few centuries where we never saw each other at all. Now that we have no Gabriel or Beelzebub looking over our shoulders..." He leaned forward and grinned. "No reason to hold back anymore, is there?"
"Well, of course, but, well, I mean..." Aziraphale wrung the wine-stained handkerchief in his hands. "I...I...I could...I could...I could never. No. Not once. Not ever. It. It isn't right."
Crowley propped his chin up on his palm. His dark glasses reflected twin images of Aziraphale's flushed and embarrassed face. The corner of his mouth twitched. "Too holier than thou to enjoy baser pleasures of the flesh, then?"
If the angel went any redder, he'd surely burst into flames. He swallowed heavily and fixed his gaze on the dessert platter. His fingers left off worrying the kerchief to worry the wineglass instead. Because, at the end of the day, he wasn't really sure if he was too holier than thou when it came to...that. Aziraphale was terrible at denying himself when it came to indulgences, as his collection of books and soft belly could attest to, and he had certainly...observed those particular activities before. He'd seen generations of humans sneak away in pairs or groups, had heard Eve's pleasured cries ringing throughout Eden in the days before humanity's expulsion, and had even read (only a little guiltily) endless passages in books describing shared pleasures of intimacy. He had even, very much by accident and quite unfortunately, stumbled across a secret 'meeting' spot of Lord Byron's during one of his parties while his host and a guest were in the midst of...well. Best not to dwell on the details.
With all that in mind, Aziraphale really just didn't see the appeal of...that sort of intimacy. Not for himself, anyway. He certainly had never wanted that with any human. Their lives were so brief it just didn't seem right to lay with one when he had outlived their ancestors' ancestors and would live long after their last descendants had passed into dust. His fellow angels, on the other hand, would rather walk straight into hellfire than touch each other even over their clothing, so se were they in following the Virtues, and he'd never particularly found any of them even remotely attractive. He was sure the feeling was perfectly mutual there. On the other hand, though Lust was a capital S sin, he definitely was not interested in any of the denizens lurking in Hell.
Well.
Strictly speaking, he supposed that wasn't true.
Though he wasn't technically a part of Hell anymore, was he?
Aziraphale shuddered and tried to disguise the motion with a long sip of wine. "I...I never said that. Just...I could never...with humans. It wouldn't be right. Not for an angel. But..." Aziraphale quickly picked up a fruit tart and jammed it rather inelegantly into his mouth in the hopes that it would be enough to distract from this increasingly awkward topic.
Judging by how Crowley sat up and stared at him, it hadn't worked. "Oh really? Not even Oscar Wilde? You loved Oscar back in the day, don't tell me you didn't." The demon's voice dropped to a low purr that rumbled in the base of Aziraphale's spine. "And we both know what sort of things he liked to get up to in his free time."
"Certainly not! He was a dear friend, nothing more!" The angel reached out again, but there was nothing left on the dessert platter now. He lifted up his hand and fired off a miracle to get a waiter to their table as soon as possible. "A-Anyway, what about you, then?"
"Me?" Crowley snorted. "Course I have. All part of being a demon, isn't it? Sins of the flesh or whatever."
"Ah. Quite."
A white-hot, writhing, ugly rage uncoiled in Aziraphale's stomach and clenched his heart in an iron fist. Unbidden, images of the handsome demon clasped in a stranger's arms flitted through his mind; scarlet hair sweat-slicked, back arched, mouth open in a silent cry of ecstasy...it was wrong, it shouldn't be a human there, not with him, not with Crowley...
The wine stem creaked in his fist.
"You all right, angel?"
He blinked the images away and forced a smile on his face. "Of course, my dear. As you said, we can both indulge as we please." The waiter arrived with a fresh bottle of Hermitage. Aziraphale quietly made his glass a bit bigger during the refill. "Far be it from me to judge you."
Crowley was quiet for a few minutes. The waiter removed the empty plates and promised to return with more wine and nibbles, should it be required. Once he had turned away to check on another table, a wicked grin stretched over the demon's face, and he leaned closer to Aziraphale.
"You're jealous, aren't you?"
He was beginning to think Crowley was purposefully waiting for him to drink before saying anything. As it was, he spluttered on his wine again. "I-what-I mean, no I'm not! I'm an angel, I don't get jealous."
"Oh, sure, of course you don't. You're just riled up for a reason entirely unrelated to our present conversation-"
"You know perfectly well that this entire conversation is completely out of the ordinary for both of us!"
"-and it's entirely coincidental that you got upset after asking me that."
"Oh, really now!" he huffed.
Crowley laughed and leaned back in his chair. His arm lay across the back and he crossed his ankle over his knee; it was an entirely inappropriate way to sit in a restaurant with the Ritz's status and he was sure the demon was doing it to continue getting on his nerves. "So tell me then, angel," he said, "why would you care if you're not jealous?"
"You are my friend," he said, rather petulantly, "and I worry about you."
The demon considered this for a moment. "Sure. But friends don't grind their teeth quite like that when they're worried. Nor do they hit you with the 'far be it from me to judge your sinful lifestyle' line." He put on a high-pitched posh affect and wiggled his head about as he said this.
"I did not say that."
Crowley leaned in closer. "What I think...is that you are jealous." He waggled his eyebrows again. "And you did say that you'd never consider sex with humans..." His grin seemed to have stretched impossibly wide, like the Cheshire Cat's. "Doesn't take a genius, angel."
Several different responses whirled through Aziraphale's head, but all of them died before they could reach his mouth. The angel immediately broke eye contact and stared into the scarlet depths of his wine. He felt rather like a bug in a bell jar, trapped and exposed for any who wished to see him in his entirety.
It was no secret that he considered Crowley to be an exceptionally beautiful being. Even back in the Garden Aziraphale had marveled at how lovely the demon was, with his curly red hair and blazing gold eyes, and that wonder had only deepened with the passage of time. His eye had certainly not been the only one caught by Crowley's sharp angles and sharper wit. He was truly the embodiment of temptation, and many humans had succumbed to it and approached him with Lust dripping from their every word.
Though, until this very moment, Aziraphale had thought Crowley uninterested in human advances. He'd always denied their attentions, at least in Aziraphale's presence. He supposed he couldn't speak for the demon's activities during their years apart. He'd even mentioned it himself, hadn't he? That must be why he was so curious in the first place.
That thought made the hot feeling from earlier twist his intestines into a knot.
To distract from this, Aziraphale instead looked back on all the instances of touch they had shared over the centuries. Brushes of hands across backs or shoulders, presses of sides and thighs while sitting, kisses on cheeks when in fashion, handshakes that lingered a few moments longer than strictly necessary. Each brief moment thrilled, like an electric shock, made the angel's heart race and his body tremble. No other person, no other being had ever had an effect on Aziraphale like his best friend did. He'd never really touched anyone else unless it was absolutely necessary, and hated the increasing touchiness of modern humans. Crowley's touch had been the only one he'd ever actively craved, actively wanted with a desperation that, frankly, scared him sometimes.
Aziraphale's free hand began to tremble. He kept his eyes firmly on his wine and mumbled, "I...I won't deny...thatIfindyouquiteattractive but-"
"What was that?"
He dared not look up. He could only imagine the gleeful look on the demon's face right now. "If you really must know...I'd only ever...well. You're the only person I'd ever...but it doesn't matter, does it? I mean...it's not like...you never...expressed any interest."
Crowley inhaled sharply. "Uh...hmm. Well."
Aziraphale finally glanced up. For the first time since this very long and incredibly awkward conversation had started, Crowley looked like he'd been caught off guard. He had straightened up in his seat and his mouth flopped open and shut for a few seconds.
"Well what?"
The demon finally recovered and attempted to sink back into nonchalance. "It'sss perfectly normal."
Though it was certainly telling, Aziraphale chose to ignore the hiss. "Surely not. Otherwise you would have said something by now."
Crowley folded his arms over his chest and shrugged. "Humans do it all the time, you know. Get attracted to their mates-their friends, I mean. Without..." He trailed off and let out a long breath. "So...we could. If you want. That's what I'm saying."
Briefly, Aziraphale wondered if it would be too unseemly to sprint for the exit. Deciding it was, he pressed forward. "Could...what, exactly?"
It gratified him slightly to notice that Crowley was also becoming uncomfortable. He was shifting around in his chair, breathing a little too quickly, and rapidly tapping his foot. His fingers drummed a matching beat on the tabletop. "You know...do it casual like. Humans call it...they call it...I dunno, something to do with benefits. Took credit for inventing the idea, back in the day, but it's always existed. Relations. Of that sort."
The angel now wondered if he'd perhaps managed to fall asleep for the first time in a century or so, and if he was about to wake up from this bizarre conversation with his head resting in one of his romance novels. "And this...would mean...this would mean that...that you and I...we...we would..."
Aziraphale couldn't bring himself to say it. Speaking the words into the world would make them real and from there the angel could not go back. He'd fought against his rather inconvenient feelings for centuries now, but ever since that fateful day in 1941 when Crowley had saved his books, the dam holding them back had weakened, sprung leaks, and he'd let so much more of his fondness for his demon friend out in that time. Back Before, the threat of Heaven and Hell punishing Crowley were enough to at least keep the dam holding, keep the feelings under control, keep the demon at arm's length.
Now, though?
His blood rushed with the thought, with the possibility, even as anxiety wrapped its iron bands around his chest. A cold sweat dotted his forehead and palms, sharply contrasting with the sudden heat rising in his body. For a brief moment, Aziraphale slotted himself into the stranger's place from his earlier fantasies. He shivered and felt a flush creep down his collar. He tried to speak, but found his vocal chords had stiffened into uselessness. Every thought spiraled around this conversation, fighting against the well of emotions threatening to overtake him.
Taking his silence as an answer, Crowley held up his hands and scowled. "Look, it's no big deal if you don't want to, alright?" When Aziraphale was still silent, he sagged into his chair and dropped his head back. "Hnnnnngh, well, how about this then. I'll give you a week, and if you're interested, you can come to my place and we'll discuss further. Think of it as modifying the old Arrangement or whatever. If I don't hear from you about it, I'll drop it forever. K?"
This. This he could work with.
"I...that's...yes. Yes, that's all right."
A brief flicker of emotion flashed across Crowley's face, too quick for Aziraphale to parse it, before he grinned again. "Right then."
Then, instinctively, Aziraphale held out his hand. Crowley raised an eyebrow, but reached out to shake regardless. Instantly the touch of their hands was like gripping a live wire. Crowley's skin was cool to the touch, but it caused another wave of heat to wash over the angel's body. He suddenly wished that Crowley wasn't wearing his sunglasses so he could know his actual thoughts on the situation. Whether he was affected by this in the same ways Aziraphale was.
As quickly as it started, the handshake ended. Crowley tilted his head and smirked. "Well then. See you at mine sometime this week?"
Aziraphale downed the rest of his drink in one swallow.
"I...I shall...I shall see you at yours then...I suppose."
Not long after that, they paid the bill and left. Both the walk to the Bentley and the drive to the bookshop were done in complete silence. It only made Aziraphale feel even more uncomfortable. Already things felt like they shifted between them and he wasn't sure if they could go back. If he could pretend this entire conversation hadn't happened. Because now the possibility was there, dangled in front of him, agonizingly tempting, but threateningly ruinous too. The start of something new, or the end of everything. He fretted so much he barely noticed when they'd arrived, only registered his muttered "Mind how you go" as he was on the doorstep, couldn't remember what Crowley said in response, if anything.
About an hour later, Aziraphale knew he wouldn't be able to last a week. If he tried, he'd fret himself to the point of discorporation. Or he'd talk himself out of it. Hide in his bookshop until the week was up and he could pretend everything would go back to normal. And that simply wasn't fair.
Not to Crowley, sure. Definitely not to himself, either.
So, despite his own feelings on the matter, there was really only one thing to do.
Aziraphale would go to Crowley's in the morning. And whatever would happen, would happen.