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anyway sure sure we laugh but they really did spend six thousand years in love and terrified about it and i think in the post-armageddon world like. the absence of terror is the terrifying thing. having spent so long looking over each shoulder and slipping past each other in the dark, trying to find each other now in the light–how unsettling that must be.
how devastatingly difficult that must be.
to reach for his hand and have to remind each other that it’s okay. to lead each other through the first stumbling paces of a slow dance and have to take a breather to swallow back the panic. it’s okay, they tell each other, again and again, trembling fingers on pale faces. it’s okay.
but even immortal beings change and grow and learn, and there is hope here, in this repetition, in this reassurance. it’s okay, it’s okay. crowley initiates a hand-hold one late april night, slipping his hand over aziraphale’s on the table, and aziraphale does not take his hand away. it’s okay, it’s okay. aziraphale sits next to crowley on the sofa one mid-june morning, handing him a cup of coffee, and crowley leans in against him. it’s okay, it’s okay. in september they kiss, all gasping breath and brushing lips, but neither of them draws away.
i love you, aziraphale says, in december. he says it quietly, but not because he’s afraid of who might hear. he says it gently, because crowley needs gentle things still, sometimes. after lifetimes and lifetimes of fear and hurt and ragged optimism, crowley deserves gentle things sometimes.
crowley is quiet for a long time, swirling the wine in his glass. then he sets the glass aside, takes off his sunglasses, and looks at aziraphale with wet eyes. do you ever miss heaven? he asks.
aziraphale shakes his head. no.
do you regret what happened? crowley presses. do you ever think about going back?
no, aziraphale answers.
if i—if i didn’t love you back, he says, choking on the words a little, would you go back to them?
aziraphale sets his glass aside too, and gets to his knees in front of crowley, taking his hands, pressing his lips to the knuckles. no, he says. if you had your choice, heaven or hell, where would you be, crowley?
with you, crowley says instantly.
so why is it so very hard to believe the same of me? that i would choose you? aziraphale cups one hand to crowley’s cheek. i am not giving up anything by loving you, dear boy. i am finding what i have wanted to find for a very long time.
and if they come for us again? he asks. he’s pressing his cheek hard into aziraphale’s hand though, and aziraphale leans in to press their foreheads together.
then we face them side-by-side. i love you. aziraphale is so close now he can feel the shudder in crowley’s breath when he says it. i love you. i am not afraid.
it’s crowley who closes the distance, who presses in, his mouth hot and desperate and seeking. it’s crowley who slides his arms around aziraphale’s neck, pulling him closer. it’s crowley who makes the noise deep in his throat, the noise it makes when something breaks free: longing, maybe, and hope, and something like belief—faith, not in a higher authority or an ineffable plan, but just in this, here, in them, in crowley&aziraphale, aziraphale-and-crowley, in their heartbeats crashing together and their hands pressed palm to palm.
aziraphale holds him, kisses him back and holds him, stroking soothing paths down his ribs and up his spine. it’s okay, he whispers, taking each biting kiss and turning into a tenderness between them. it’s okay, it’s okay.
crowley kisses him one more time, and it’s slow, this time, and soft, as if he’s finally found the calm in the center of him. as if aziraphale has soothed the shaking out of his limbs and steadied the ground inside his mind. he presses his cheek to aziraphale’s cheek and just listens to him for a moment: the rhythm of his breath, the shift of his clothing. the whisper of his eyes opening and closing, lashes against lashes. the drum of his heart.
i love you, crowley says.
he says it quietly, but not because he’s afraid of who might hear. he says it gently, because aziraphale needs gentle things, sometimes, even if he doesn’t say so. after lifetimes and lifetimes of fear and hurt and ragged faith, aziraphale deserves gentle things sometimes.
he says, i love you, and he knows it’s going to be okay.
it’s okay, it’s okay. it’s okay.
i love you. it’s okay.