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Chapter Text

The rest of the day was terse and awkward. This did not mean it was horrible.

Crowley and Aziraphale were quite used to terse and awkward, and even more, they were used to avoiding things, leaving them unsaid and unaddressed, used to moving on without ever really talking about what they were moving on from. 

So what if Aziraphale knew Crowley was Thirty-Two-Questions-ing him and didn’t bring it up? Back in Rome, he’d definitely noticed Crowley eye-fucking him in the bathhouses and didn’t bring that up. They’d just gone to lunch together and acted like it never happened.

And so what if Crowley knew that Aziraphale knew and still didn’t confront Aziraphale about it? Back in the Bastille, he’d known Aziraphale had purposefully gotten himself imprisoned just to be saved by Crowley and he didn’t ever confront Aziraphale about that either. They’d just had dinner together, Aziraphale’s treat, and ignored it. 

The point was: this whole leaving things unsaid thing— it was standard for their relationship. They had perfected the art of graceful degradation, knew how to have a good day even with the discomfort and tenseness hanging over them.

Which was to say: Crowley and Aziraphale got pissed drunk after breakfast and called it a day early without ever talking about how Crowley had been Thirty-Two-Questions-That-Lead-To-Love-ing Aziraphale. They’d never needed to talk about it — what they meant to each other — before, and they certainly did not need to talk about it now. They would go through this like normal, make it out alive like normal. 

Guilt, regret, and anxiety rang through Crowley. Like normal. Aziraphale sat prim and proper with his hands on his lap, aloof and polite and unconfrontational. Like normal.

Aziraphale went back home to the bookshop early. He pecked Crowley’s cheek goodbye before he left, as if nothing were amiss. Crowley accepted the kiss gracefully without flinching, pretending as such. He fell asleep at eight PM, and he did not wake up until late afternoon the next day. 

Crowley was fully prepared to fall back into old, familiar habits and let this shameful moment wash over him like the first rainstorm, waiting it out until it turned into nothing more than a light drizzle, until it passed them both by. He was entirely expecting this to become another bullet point on the miles long list of significant, unaddressed events which made up the bulk of his and Aziraphale’s relationship.

He knew the script. He co-wrote the script. He’d act by it.

The ringing of his phone woke him up. Aziraphale’s contact peered at him admonishingly as he blinked himself awake. No doubt the Angel was calling to invite Crowley for lunch again, time together they’d spend pointedly ignoring the cursed article Crowley was stupid enough to trust.

Blearily, a little bit spitefully, the demon answered.

”Hello?”

Right on cue, as expected, Aziraphale invited, “Good afternoon, Crowley, I’m at the bookshop, and I’ve just ordered some takeout and am waiting for it to arrive. Would you care to join me for lunch?” 

He knew the script. Do something regrettable, ignore it pointedly during lunch. He wrote the script. He’d act by it.

The script was safe.

Didn’t mean it was a particularly pleasant or satisfying script, though.

Crowley held the phone away from his face and sighed deeply. He brought it back closer, and with some feigned enthusiasm, he replied, “I’ll be there in twenty.”

He accepted the invite, of course he did. But he didn’t really understand why they ever even bothered to have these post-fuck-up lunches. Whether it was to absolve for the crime of having affection for each other, or to make sure they were still good, it felt pointless. Nothing would change, because neither of them wanted it to change.

Still, he accepted. Because the script was sacred. The script ensured they’d work even through the most uncomfortable situations. The script was safe.

He arrived at the bookshop in fifteen minutes. The bell rang jovially above him as he entered. Aziraphale stood in front of the entryway twiddling his thumbs nervously.

Crowley prepared to launch off on a tangent about the weather or something as equally unimportant so as to ease the tension, but before he could, Aziraphale interrupted. 

”Did you Thirty-Two Questions That Lead To Love me?” 

And that certainly was not a part of the script.

Every atom in Crowley’s body urged him to turn back on his heel and walk out and away…. But then that was never really an option— not with Aziraphale in front of him, a paragon of all things Crowley could never be asked to walk away from.

And every self-preserving thought in Crowley’s head begged him to deny, begged him to lie outright because Aziraphale was a kind enough angel to have allowed the lie to exist unquestioned between them should Crowley choose to…. But Crowley couldn’t listen to himself— not when Aziraphale eyed him with such earnestness, not when he trusted so wholly that Aziraphale would not be cruel.

The choice of cowardice presented itself easily to Crowley. But how could he choose it, when Aziraphale was standing in front of him, asking him to be brave? 

Crowley bit back the lashed animal inside of him. He steeled himself, shaking with it, and nodded, as gracefully as one could have managed in this situation, being confronted with his own actions, feeling naked under Aziraphale’s unreadable features. 

“Yes,” Crowley answered truthfully. 

Aziraphale nodded, offered Crowley a small smile, and turned around, beckoning Crowley to follow. “Come on, then. Food’s getting cold. Let’s continue in the back.” 

Crowley stared helplessly after him. “Continue?” He parroted dumbly. 

“The questions, dear.” And without elaborating, Aziraphale disappeared behind a shelf. 

21. Make three true "we" statements each. For instance, "We are both in this room feeling..."

The tension was as palpable as it was one-sided.

Crowley didn’t even really know that tension could be one-sided until then, until he sat on the couch like he’d done a million times before and felt, unlike the million times before, like there was a metal rod up his ass preventing him from lounging his entire body across the cushions like usual, like his heart was beating so fast in his chest it felt like it was going to explode and take the entire block with it, and he glanced anxiously at Aziraphale and realized the angel seemed perfectly unbothered, contently eating away at his chop suey from the takeout box with his pale blue eyes fixed on Crowley. Expectant.

It became pretty clear, by the seventh tense and silent minute that Aziraphale was waiting for him to break the silence. Which— what the hell, first of all. And Crowley tried to summon up the courage, he really did, but, by the tenth tense minute, it seemed to become pretty clear to Aziraphale instead that Crowley could endure an anxious lunch. 

The angel sighed heavily, not quite disappointed. “All right. I’ll begin.” 

If Crowley were not sweating buckets through his palms across from Aziraphale, and if he were not so preoccupied with trying not to discorporate on-spot with the sheer amount of possibilities for where this conversation could go buzzing around in his hyperactive mind, then Crowley might have remarked, snarkily, You try forgetting your lines after six-thousand years of performing the same script! But, as it was, Crowley could only give a feeble grunt. 

“Can I borrow your phone?” Aziraphale asked.

Dear Lord. “Why?”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes. His lips tugged upwards into a smile, fond as if addressed to a clueless child. “You know why.” 

“Yes, but must we?” Was it not enough that Crowley was caught? Did they truly have to finish it? What kind of sick joke was the angel playing at? 

And then the angel’s eyebrows pinched together. “Well… didn’t you want to in the first place?” 

Crowley wondered if this was some sort of like punishment-situation. Get caught smoking a cigarette and be forced to finish the whole pack type thing. It sure fucking felt like it. But Crowley wasn’t an insolent teen caught smoking at the courtyard. And Aziraphale wasn’t a cruel man. So the demon was at a loss for what exactly was happening. 

Whatever. If it was a punishment, Crowley would take it gracefully.

Aziraphale reached an open palm across the table. The phone weighed heavier than most things as Crowley handed it over, turned on to that fucking article.

“Make three true ‘we’ statements each,” Aziraphale read. “For instance, ‘We are both in this room feeling….’ “ He beamed at Crowley. Crowley tried his hardest to detect cruelty in it but found, disconcertingly, nothing in it but earnestness. “Oh, fun!” Crowley felt like doubling over and hurling. But, sure. Fun. “Want to start?” 

Crowley swayed in his seat. “Do I have to?”

”Have to what?” questioned Aziraphale. “Answer the question? Or start?”

“Either. Both.”

Aziraphale gave a soft smile. The edges of his eyes crinkled with a fondness Crowley felt undeserving of. “You don’t have to start. But I should like us both to answer. That is how the game works, after all.”

Game. 

Game, he said, but it was never a game to Crowley.

What a kick in the head. The word rang bitterly around Crowley’s head, taunting and mocking. Game. He nodded, because he could do nothing else, and he stared pointedly at his hands. 

“You start.” He gathered his hands on his lap, and awaited Aziraphale’s first statement. 

With ease, Aziraphale spoke: “We are okay.” 

Crowley’s head snapped back up. His eyes met Aziraphale’s. Behind his glasses, a brow arched above the lens. Are we? the look questioned. Are we okay? Do you promise?

Aziraphale gave a sure nod, and it was the certainty of it that convinced Crowley, lulled him to a sense of safety, security. It was the lack of nerves, the lack of anxious fiddling fingers, the soft and relaxed way in which he held himself like he truly believed that they were okay that made Crowley believe it as well. He’d believe anything Aziraphale said, if Aziraphale said it like that.

After a moment, the angel gestured for Crowley to carry on the conversation. 

And it was daunting, continuing this “game” when all the other times they’d have just brushed it under the rug and walked all over it pretending nothing was under there, when all the other times they’d have staunchly ignored everything that would have threatened the dynamic of their friendship. It was daunting.

But Aziraphale was staring intently at him with his stupid expectant eyes again, wide and gleaming, and Crowley knew if he refused to answer, another long silence would ensue. Best to play along now. He gathered his stupid courage. 

“We’ve been through this before,” he said. You go too fast for me, Crowley, resurfaced in his head. Aziraphale eyed him and nodded. He continued, “A million times. Too far too fast. Always rushing, why are we always rushing? Don’t answer that, I’m not done talking. What was I saying? Right— We’ve been through this before. I get ahead of myself, I become too forward. It blows up, and you’re getting out of the car saying I go too fast for you, and I think, God, this is it, it’s over. Except it’s never over. We’ve been through this before— it’s proof that we’ve gotten past it before.”

He looked up at Aziraphale with hesitance, uncertainty. Aziraphale had a sad smile on his face that reached his eyes and made them droop. 

“We know this isn’t like that,” was the angel’s response. And what a terrifying fucking sentence. 

We know this isn’t like that, because we’d never talked about it before.

We know this isn’t like that, because you were caught, but we’re still playing.

We know this isn’t like that, so how will we know if we’ll survive it this time?

”I can hear you thinking,” Aziraphale chuckled, though Crowley failed to see the humor in it. He flashed him a hopeless look. “Yes, we’ve never talked about our… feelings before, not like this. Yes, it’s uncharted waters. But what’s so bad about exploration?” Crowley gave Aziraphale a deadpan look, and Aziraphale laughed nervously. “Listen, between the two of us, weren’t you always the optimist? Why is it so difficult for you to apply your optimism now? 

Because you bloody caught me trying to Thirty-Two-Questions you and you’re just fucking going along with it, Crowley almost snapped. What am I supposed to make of that? Is this a punishment? A trap?  

He didn’t understand, and he was getting frustrated with it. “I’d like to use that ‘we-statement,’ now.”

Aziraphale gestured invitingly. “By all means.” 

“We — our friendship, you and me, us — are too damned important.”

”Agreed,” said Aziraphale, and Crowley doubted he understood. “Consider my ‘we-statement,’ then: It’s precisely because our friendship is so important that we need to honor it. Ignoring this conversation would be undermining to our relationship.”

Crowley sniffed. He glared at the floor. “The ‘we’ needs to go in the front.”

”Don’t nitpick.”

”It’s the rules. It’s a ‘we-statement’ because the we goes before the statement. What you did is just a ‘statement-with-a-we.’”

Aziraphale glared. ”We are lucky I am kind.” 

The demon heaved a long suffering sigh. “We are lucky I care for you.” 

22. Complete this sentence: "I wish I had someone with whom I could share..."

“Are the rest of these questions going to be fill in the blanks?” Aziraphale frowned. 

Crowley shrugged. He gave a brief scroll through the rest of Set Three, skimming through the questions, and he cringed at the state of them.  

“No,” he answered, wishing so terribly to know if these questions were a grave he could crawl out from now that he’d dug them both so deep. “But they’re a bit… vulnerable. The question are, uh, meant to get deeper the further into the sets we go.”

“Hm,” hummed Aziraphale. An odd look sat atop his face, then, and he regarded Crowley with a new nervousness. “Do you… regret it? Asking these questions?”

Crowley swallowed. “I don’t know yet.”

And it was the truth. He was certainly beginning to regret it, but that was just because he was caught. He still owed so many joys found these past three days to these questions. Cooking for Aziraphale, sleeping at Aziraphale’s, having Aziraphale sleep at his. Not to mention sleeping with Aziraphale, having Aziraphale’s lips on his own, the intimacy. Everything, he owed to these questions.

It was just that, if it all went tits-up now, the questions would be to blame, too. Crowley would have been fine stopping the game two sets in and never finishing, would have been fine never broaching the subject again, never talking about it, never getting to have sex with Aziraphale again. But he’d never forgive himself if these questions ended with their relationship getting irreparably broken, if Set Three ruined them.

So he didn’t know if he regretted asking the questions. Because it hadn’t ended yet.

He looked at Aziraphale with his own inquiring gaze, “Do you wish I never asked them?”

Aziraphale paused to think. Crowley allowed the minute’s contemplation. 

“No,” Aziraphale said, finally. And it shocked Crowley, just a little. “I don’t. It’s been… a dream, so far.”

Crowley’s face scrunched up in a pained expression. So far caught in his ears and echoed in his head. He didn’t understand why Aziraphale couldn’t just let them quit while they were ahead. 

“Why are we still playing, angel?” he breathed. “This could go so… horribly wrong for the both of us. What if you found out something so appalling about me that ruined six thousand years of friendship?”

Six thousand years worth of what-ifs piled on top of each other in Crowley’s mind, thought after terrifying thought. What if you catch a glimpse of just how much love I hold for you and realize it’s all too much? What if you realize I’d been doubtless from the beginning and it scares you? What if you see just how fast I can be? 

”That won’t happen,” laughed Aziraphale, but his fingers fiddled nervously.

Crowley crossed his arms. “Still. Why risk it?”

Aziraphale shrugged. “Why does anyone risk anything?”

”I don’t know, angel,” Crowley groaned. “For something better?”

A determined look crossed through Aziraphale’s features. “Then, that. That’s why we play. For a chance at something better.”

Crowley sighed, and he tried not to make it sound so long-suffering. He tried to embrace the risk just as Aziraphale had. Tried, and tried, and tried.

”Right,” Crowley managed, as casually as he could. “We ought to answer the question then, huh? Fill in the blank, angel. You wish you had someone with whom you could share what?”

Aziraphale shrugged. ”I’ve no answer for this one.”

“Oh.” Crowley tried not to let his heart break. “Um. Why?”

“I already share everything with you. Everything.”

”Oh.” Crowley tried to keep his heart from soaring. “Everything?”

”Body, mind, and soul,” confirmed Aziraphale, looking wistfully away, as if to say it while looking at Crowley would be too much, as if it was taking all the bravery inside of him to even get it out at all. It warmed Crowley. Here was Aziraphale, putting in the effort, saying, I must admit this now— I must get it off my chest. “Every thought, want, whim. Everything I am, everything I own. I don’t wish to share more, because I already share all.”

A silence, not uncomfortable, stretched between them. In the silence, a feeling took up residence in Crowley’s lungs, making him tense.

Crowley let out a choked-up laugh, soft. “I, uh. I feel like any answer I could give would pale in comparison to that, angel.” 

Aziraphale matched the laugh. “Forgive me, for the rhapsodics. I’m beginning to feel it’s pathological.”

”I’m not complaining.”

“I simply want you to know— it’s reciprocated.”

Crowley pursed his lips. He nodded tersely. Something had taken up residence in his chest and it was clawing at him like a monster. 

“Go on and give your answer, dear. Doesn’t have to be poetry. I’ll be dramatic enough for the both of us.” 

“I suppose, what I really want to share with someone right now, is a sip of something warm.”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “Tea or coffee?” he asked, standing up. 

“Coffee.” 

And Aziraphale walked out the room. 

The second he was gone, Crowley snapped his fingers, transported himself into the Bentley, and drove away.

Right. Not the bravest thing. Not the kindest. Not… commendable at all, really. 

But Aziraphale was speaking so softly, so solemnly, and it was all beginning to feel a little bit like a trap. Not that Aziraphale would be cruel enough to trap Crowley, to lure him into a false sense of security and pull the rug out from under him, laughing when he fell. Just that… just that Aziraphale didn’t know what he was saying, talking about reciprocation. 

And how could he? He didn’t understand the full extent of Crowley’s love for him. Aziraphale couldn’t reciprocate Crowley’s love, because Crowley’s love was a lovecraftian thing— larger than worlds, larger than words, unkillable monster.

The angel thought he could reciprocate, but Crowley knew better.

The angel tried to express it. All the flowery language, all ways he was saying I love you without actually saying it.

God. 

If Crowley heard an I love you from the angel’s lips now, it would kill him.

He had no doubts that the angel loved him, don’t get him wrong. He knew the angel was capable of loving him, and probably, the angel did, because the angel would not lie about that. What he had doubts about was whether they loved each other the same. 

The intensity of his love for Aziraphale disgusted him. He had to stifle it. All throughout the ages, he’d had to stifle it. It was too much to be said out loud, and all the times when bravery, courage, and hope attempted to get it out of him, the angel had pushed it back with rejection. Crowley’s love— A minotaur in a labyrinth— It had accumulated inside of him for six thousand years and had grown into something that could kill men if given a physical form.

No, Crowley had to hide it, couldn’t let it be free. It was too much to be seen. 

So, running away. He was not proud of it. 

But what if he’d stayed? What if he’d surrendered to his urges, bared himself, declared to Aziraphale, I have loved you since I saw you in Eden and first understood what it meant to see the one thing you can’t have dangled in front of you. I tempted Eve to eat that apple because I figured one of us ought to have a taste of something they couldn’t have. Late nights, I’ve prowled forests, deserts, streets with you as my compass. Haven’t you noticed that I’m there wherever you are? That I’ve been wherever you were? I look for you everywhere. The only times I’m not looking for you are when I’m with you. I have taken all that you allowed me to take, and still, I am starving for more. I have always wanted more when around you. I fear I cannot be satiated. 

What if he’d stayed? What if he said all that? And what if Aziraphale refused him? Like he’d done so, so many times before?

What if he asked, Can you reciprocate that? Aziraphale could only answer, No.

Crowley couldn’t handle that. A million indirect rejections, he could handle, but a direct one? Lord, have mercy on his soul. 

Running away. He was not proud of it, but if he’d stayed, he would have undoubtedly confessed, and if he’d confessed, Aziraphale would have undoubtedly refused him. And if Aziraphale refused him, he would die. No, Crowley couldn’t have stayed. He would live to die another day.

Crowley pulled the Bentley over at Battersea Park. He miserably flung open the car door and slunk from the driver’s seat to the outside, walking with a subdued saunter to his and Aziraphale’s fourth alternative rendezvous spot, the bandstand. The day had left him weary, and Aziraphale had always made him sentimental.

Why he chose such an accursed spot to sulk in exactly, Crowley didn’t know.

Self-loathing might have been in play, because why else would Crowley want to revisit the place the love of his life cried out, I don’t even like you. Maybe he needed to shock himself back into reality. The past three days had promised him so much for his future with Aziraphale, but Crowley needed to remind himself of what happened here that day — Him, desperately begging Aziraphale to run away together, and Aziraphale, proving, like he did time and time again, that there were more important things to him than Crowley — to keep his hope in check.

Anyway, whatever it was that led him here — self-flagellation or reality check — the bandstand was good for both.

Crowley folded himself into a sit on the steps of the bandstand and braced himself for a long, tormenting contemplation.

23. If you were going to become closer with your partner, please share what would be important for them to know.

He expected Aziraphale to look for him.

Of course he did. That’s why he didn’t go back to his flat or any of their usual haunts. But what Crowley really did not expect was for Aziraphale to actually find him.

Having his eyes adamantly glaring holes into the ground for the past hour or three, Crowley was not aware of Aziraphale’s presence until the brown leather loafers were right in front of him, and when his eyes traveled up to see Aziraphale looking reproachfully down at him, Crowley just about wished that looks had the power to kill so he could just discorporate on the spot and save them both the trouble of an awkward conversation. 

“That was rude,” Aziraphale chided, his eyes thinned into annoyed slits, his lips pulled into a tight frown.

Crowley cringed.

“Sorry.” For what it was worth, he really was. “How did you find me?”

“Fourth alternative rendezvous,” answered Aziraphale, clipped with annoyance. “But I did not expect to find you here.”

”You looked anyway.”

”You disappeared on me,” Aziraphale sniffed, placing a hand on his hips. “What else was I supposed to do?” 

Crowley shrugged. He tried to kick a pebble, but only succeeded in pushing it back. 

"I don’t know, wait for me to come back?”

He didn't know why he said that, and he sort of wished he could kick himself for it, because no matter what circumstance, it felt nice to be pursued by Aziraphale. 

Aziraphale sighed. It was clear he still had not forgiven Crowley for disappearing, but some part of him must have understood at least a little bit of why he felt he had to, because instead of turning on his heel and stamping away, Aziraphale just wordlessly sat on the steps beside Crowley. The silence that encased them was companionable but somber, with a long, long history.

Eventually, Aziraphale broke it. 

“Why the bandstand?” 

Self-torment. Wake-up call. Either or, but saying that would concern Aziraphale. Crowley settled on, “It’s familiar.” He glared at his feet. “And that’s just what you do, when you’re running away. You go back to what’s familiar.”

Aziraphale frowned at him. He turned his head to examine their surroundings briefly, and he frowned at all that, too.

“Your idea of familiar is what?” He turned to the middle of the bandstand, where they once stood opposite of each other, and gave a small shrug. “Chaos? I suppose it was a chaotic day.”

”Not chaos,” Crowley half-growled. “Rejection.”

”Oh,” said Aziraphale.

”Yes.” He didn’t have it in him to gaze bitterly at Aziraphale, so he gazed bitterly at his feet again. “Oh.” 

Aziraphale looked at him sadly. “I’m sorry about that day.”

”I forgave you ages ago.” 

“I’m sorry anyway.” A forlorn sigh, an attempt at a comforting touch of the arm that failed half way. “I think about it often.”

Crowley continued staring at the ground. “So do I.”

“I didn’t mean any of it, you know?”

”Do you remember what you said?”

”Yes.”

Crowley longed to play it back again, anyway. ”You said, ‘We’re not friends, I don’t even like you.’ You said, ‘We’re on opposite sides.’ “ He swallowed thickly. “I asked you to go away with me, together, and you said, ‘It’s over.’ It’s over.”

”I remember,” said Aziraphale. “I also remember you left first. Walked away. And you came back, like you always do, to ask the same question again. And again, I said no, and again, you said, ‘When I'm off in the stars, I won't even think about you,’ and you drove away.” 

“Nothing changes,” Crowley whispers, to himself, to the world, to Aziraphale. “Nothing ever changes. I always ask, and you always say no.” 

I love you more than you love me, this statement meant. 

Aziraphale shifted closer. Their shoulders bumped. The touch electrified Crowley, shocked his head into snapping up to look at Aziraphale. 

“You always leave before I have the chance to take it back.”

Let me prove you wrong, this response meant.

“I deny things out of force of habit,” continued Aziraphale, and as quiet as his admission was, it was solemn, significant. “I deny feelings. And truth. And you. It’s a problem.” He interrupted himself with a sigh. “I’m trying to cultivate new habits, though.”

A feeble laugh made its way up Crowley’s throat. “Am I making that difficult?” 

“Yes,” breathed Aziraphale. “Let me love you.” 

Crowley flinched involuntarily. He scrunched his eyes shut and forced his body to relax before opening them again, relaxed. “Would you like to continue the questions?”

The angel eyes him with some concern. “I don’t want you to force yourself.”

”No.” He shook his head fiercely. “It’s good for me. I like it. I want it.” 

“Do you promise?”

”Yes.”

”Then, please, let’s continue.”

Crowley fished the phone from his pocket. His hands did not shake, because he willed them not to. But they were definitely strained with the desire to shake. 

“If we were to become closer, share what would be important for the other to know.”

Crowley blinked at the screen then turned to Aziraphale. “Can I answer this one first?”

A hand patted Crowley’s knee encouragingly. ”Go ahead.”

“You need to know now that I’ve looked for you in every crowd since I first laid eyes on you. I’ve… from the very beginning, I’ve loved you.”

The enormity of this truth occupied the space between them and everywhere else. Since Eden, Crowley had sought Aziraphale out in every Bible story he was present in, and in the crowds they happened to share, Crowley found every excuse to talk to the angel. Sometimes, he couldn’t even make up an excuse in the time it took to bound right over and talk to him.

He had loved Aziraphale from the moment they met. 

Aziraphale…. Well.

Crowley swallowed down a lump forming in his throat and breathed out, his voice strained, “I know you’ve grown to care for me.”

In that righteous, angelic, indescribable way, Aziraphale must care for Crowley. But his affection was formed in increments. Unlike Crowley, who was entranced from the moment of introduction and refused to miss any opportunity to interact since, Aziraphale, historically, was not so eager to be pulled into Crowley’s orbit as Crowley was pulled to his. Instead of interest, it was coincidence (and later, convenience) that brought the angel to the demon. Aziraphale didn’t seek him out for his friendship. Aziraphale sought him out to uphold their Arrangement. 

And sure, the natural recourse of that proximity was closeness. And sure, they were inseparable now, a bonded pair. But the point was…. From where Crowley was standing…..

“You had doubts,” Crowley said, his eyes fixed on his hands. “That’s fine. It took you some time to warm up to me. That’s fine. I was doubtless from the very beginning. I cared for you from the very beginning. So forgive me, then, for assuming our affections are different. For assuming that I care for you differently.” 

He did not have to look up to know the look Aziraphale was giving him. He could feel the intensity of pale blue eyes over him like a heatwave in mid-July, could feel the gravity of Aziraphale’s downturned lips pulling on him like a black hole.

Aziraphale reached out and touched Crowley’s elbow. His voice was barely above a whisper when he asked, “ ‘Differently,’ Crowley? How do you care for me differently than I care for you?” 

Laboriously. Warringly. I crumble under the weight of it. So strongly that it renders me weak. 

“Deeply,” Crowley settled.

“Ah,” said Aziraphale. “You must know: Me, too.” 

Crowley shook his head. “I care for you beyond civility. Beyond the care someone must have for their neighbor. Beyond amicability. Beyond physicality. You are more important to me than even myself. Than even the world.”

Aziraphale nodded. “Crowley, you must know: Me, too.” 

Crowley shook his head. “Not like a friend.”

“No?”

“No,” he confirmed. “Like a lover.”

And Aziraphale reached out and held his hand.

“Dear, please know: Me, too.” And the enormity of that admission hung between them like stars exploded into existence as he cupped Crowley’s hand in between both his palms, like Crowley’s fingers were something precious— a jewel, or a secret, or a promise.

“I never had doubts,” said Aziraphale. “For all that I wished I did, for all that I pretended I did, I never had doubts. You must know this. You must.” 

Crowley trusted him. 

He nodded his head. “I do now.” 

Aziraphale grinned at him. He stood up with an exaggerated heave, and offered a hand down to Crowley.

“Shall we go back to the shop? It’s getting chilly.”

With a soft sigh, Crowley took the hand, allowed himself to be pulled up to his feet. “Let’s,” he said, and they walked away from the bandstand without dropping each other’s hands. 

24. Tell your partner what you like about them; be very honest this time, saying things you might not say to someone you’ve just met. 

On the drive back, Crowley let Aziraphale ask the next question, as a peace offering and an apology for leaving. He also drove a little slower, so the fifteen minute drive from Battersea Park to Whickber Street took the long ten and not the usual, speeding five. The Bentley, sensing that Crowley was atoning, helped out by playing Schumann and Vivaldi, two of Aziraphale’s favorite composers. He could tell Aziraphale appreciated this by the effervescent smile Aziraphale wore as he read the twenty-fourth question aloud.

“I’ll answer first!” Aziraphale volunteered, and Crowley groaned.

”Oh, you’ll say something profound and poetic again,” he complained lightly. “Give me no chance of competing.”

”Being nice isn’t a competition,” laughed Aziraphale.

Crowley took a moment to look away from the road to grace Aziraphale with a deadpan look.

“You’re a literal angel,” he drawled drily. “Of course it’s not a competition. It’s hardly even fair.” 

“Oh, fine,” the angel relented. “You go first, if you’re so threatened.” 

“I will, actually, thanks.”

”Go on, then.” Aziraphale brushed off his lap as if in anticipation for something. “Tell me what you like about me.” 

Crowley rolled his eyes. The second movement of Ryom-Verzeichnis 576 faded out into Édith Piaf’s La Vie En Rose. Romantic French filled the car, and Crowley couldn’t contain a second eyeroll at the Bentley’s antics. (“He doesn’t know how to speak French, remember?” “I do!”)

“I like that you try so hard to see the good in me. It’s not optimism— Lord knows you’re not an optimist — it’s… something else entirely.” Crowley took a left turn, eyes on the road in thought, admiring Aziraphale’s trust in his morality now that he’s acknowledged it out loud. “Determination? Stubborn certainty? Dunkirk spirit? You have just, the completest trust that I’m going to make the right decision. Bloody annoying, sometimes, but endearing all the time.”

”Well, you are. Always been good, you.”

”See!” he huffed. “I’m a demon. It’s astounding to me that you believe that. Wonderful, you”

Aziraphale raised a brow. “Really, though? You used to hate when I did.”

“I only hated it because I knew you were right. Didn’t want you getting a big head about it.”

”And now it’s fine if I get a big head?” 

“It’s grown on me.” 

Aziraphale snorted.

How easily the moment flowed through them made Crowley a bit lightheaded, considering he’d just run away from Aziraphale hours before, but Aziraphale was always very quick to forgive, and the both of them always bounced back from adversity.

Perhaps that was another one of Crowley’s favorite things about Aziraphale too— how enduring his friendship was. 

“Funny you should say that,” grinned Aziraphale, “because the thing I like about you is how you do good, always.”

Crowley groaned. “Come on.”

”It’s true! We just established it was true! And you hate being recognized for it, so it’s really, truly just acts of kindness, from the goodness of your own heart, no strings atta—“

”You’re killing me, angel.”

”You love it.”

”Announce it to the world, why don’t you?” 

Aziraphale pushed the Bentley’s window down and cupped his hands around his mouth. Before he could actually announce it to the world, though, Crowley pushed the window back up, laughing.

“Bastard.” 

25. Share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life.

They moved the conversation to Aziraphale’s bedroom upstairs, because Crowley needed to lie down. He read out the next question tiredly before dropping the phone onto the bed and throwing himself after it. 

He lied diagonal on the bed with his face in the pale yellow sheets, starfished-out to stretch his limbs while Aziraphale lay supine beside him, his feet hanging from the edge of the mattress, planted on the floor. It was easier, to talk while lying down like this, because then they didn’t have to deal with looking at each other.

Crowley had read that somewhere before— that honesty came easier when people weren’t facing each other. It was why couples who sat next to each other in booths generally lasted longer than couples who sat across from. He wasn’t entirely sure if there was truth in that or if it was just another thing humans made up to sit closer to someone they liked, but he recited it as if it were fact in his head every time he and Aziraphale went out to dine together. 

Anyway. 

An embarrassing moment in his life. Not very difficult to pinpoint, considering he’d lived quite a long one and had ample opportunity to make a fool of himself, but it was a little bit hard to pick one to share to Aziraphale without entirely humiliating himself in front of his crush. Beside him, Aziraphale seemed to be realizing this for himself as well, because the angel was humming contemplatively and breaking off into audible cringes every so often. 

“Have you got one?” Crowley heard Aziraphale ask. 

Crowley thought.

There was that time in the fifteenth century when he wholeheartedly believed Aziraphale had been communicating to him through doves and deluded himself into thinking the angel was confessing his undying love. And there was that other time around 380 BC when he got drunk with Plato in a cave in Athens and got so shitfaced they both grew scared of the shadows on the cave wall, believing it was actually the end of the world outside by the way the torchlight flickered around their menacingly dark silhouettes. That time when he tried to get into chariot racing. His very brief career as a bard to impress Aziraphale. His very brief career as a DJ that impressed no one but himself. The person he unwittingly becomes every time he stepped into America.

All were too humiliating. He’d not confess these sins of humility to Aziraphale at least without some alcohol in his system. Didn’t want Aziraphale thinking less of him now, when he’d just gotten Aziraphale to confess.  

“Not yet,” Crowley lied. “You?”

Aziraphale sighed heavily, as if deciding to bite the bullet. “During a drunk night at a party—“

Crowley propped himself up, grinning like a shark, “Oh, this is going to be good.”

”—I told Oscar Wilde—“

Crowley groaned and flopped back onto the mattress. 

”—about our relationship, you and me, and he had the brilliant idea to write A Picture Of Dorian Gray about us and our dualisms. To, err, make you jealous?” 

He straightened up. “What?”

”Have you ever read it?” Aziraphale asked.

“Have I ever— I’ve lost nights to that book.”

”Oh, really?” A genuinely shocked expression appeared in the angel’s features, and then a mischievous little smirk replaced it. He continued, “Oscar wrote from what I told him about you, about us. Lord Henry— he was meant to be you—“

”Yes, I gathered the literal devil with the house in Mayfair known for his temptations was meant to be me—“

”—and I was meant to be Basil Hallward. Dorian… well, a self-indulgent self-insert. You know how Oscar was.”

”You fucker. Basil was in love with Dorian in that book, did you know? And Lord Henry was so clearly in love with Basil. Made me jealous for years, like your fucking playwright knew something about me. Taunting me for it.”  

”Yes, he thought that would get you riled up. He was perceptive, Oscar. Knew you loved me long before I accepted it.” 

Crowley held himself back from marveling at that.

He still couldn’t entirely believe, even when Aziraphale had already said so, that the angel had loved him for that long. He couldn’t wrap his mind around it. So he just buried his face deeper into the angel’s duvets and said, “I hated that book. Made me seem like an asshole.” 

”Well, that was partly the point,” sighed Aziraphale. “The point was, we were fighting over the, err, Holy Water request, and you weren’t talking to me so I started talking to Oscar instead. I suppose I told him a little too much, and now, well… now some of my most embarrassing, humiliating feelings towards you during that era of our lives are studied in literature classes everywhere as one of the most homoerotic works in history.” 

Crowley sighed but couldn’t resist a laugh. “Assholes, the both of you.”

“It’s a point of embarrassment for me, remember. I encouraged him writing it because I thought it might get you upset enough to talk to me again.” Aziraphale cringed at the admission, and his embarrassment made Crowley smile unwittingly. “Didn’t work, obviously, we didn’t speak next until 1941. And the damned book got Oscar killed.”

Crowley recalled when that news reached him. Wilde being tried in court and sentenced to hard labor, returning home after serving with a broken body, succumbing to it. He often wondered how Aziraphale took that news, often considered giving the angel a visit to pay his condolences but figured it would be unwelcome. 

“I’ll give it to your partner in crime,” Crowley said, earnestly, “he had guts, being gay in the nineteenth century.” 

“Yes, I suppose I can’t have too many qualms about Dorian Gray. Oscar was quite proud of it, even to the end. It grew to be much larger than just a story about us. A didactic piece of literature, commendable as its author. Still a bit embarrassing, but he was a good man.” Aziraphale nudged him with a small sigh. “Your turn.” 

Crowley groaned into the blankets.

He was very glad he wasn’t facing Aziraphale for this admission, and he was also quite glad for the scent of the angel in the sheets his head was buried in. Very comforting. 

“Funniest thing,” Crowley began, “just last week, as I was surfing the interwebs, I came across the damnedest little article.”

“Oh, dear Lord,” laughed Aziraphale. 

“Yeah, you know where this is going.” Crowley flipped his body supine and glanced beside him to Aziraphale, who was containing a smile. “Figured it would be harmless, trying out the article with my best friend, as long as he didn’t find out, because as it so happened, the article had a very compromising title.” 

Aziraphale was giggling. “I cannot believe you Thirty-Two—“

“Can you blame me?”

A soft smile overtook Aziraphale’s features, lit him from the inside and escaped through the pores of his skin, making him a beacon of warmth Crowley couldn’t keep his eyes off of.

“No,” said the angel, and he turned his body and inched closer to Crowley, “but I can thank you.” His face grew closer and closer to Crowley’s until those blue eyes were half lidded and those pink lips were ghosting over Crowley’s own. “Would you kiss me?”

“Don’t have to ask twice,” Crowley breathed, and closed the gap between them.

26. When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself?

Kissing Aziraphale was addicting. Anyone could have guessed that, but truly, once Crowley began, he couldn’t stop. There was something intoxicating about kissing once Crowley had finally allowed himself to actually kiss Aziraphale and not just kiss back. Taking, rather than being taken.

For his eagerness, Aziraphale laughed against him, which only encouraged Crowley more. 

Chaste kisses deepened as lips slid and locked against each other. Crowley pulled Aziraphale down until he was half resting against Crowley, half atop him, and still, Crowley pulled him closer, fingers fisted into the front of Aziraphale’s clothes, nostrils flaring with hot breath as he refused to even separate to exhale through his mouth like proper.

Aziraphale tried to pull away, grinning. 

“I need to—“ Crowley chased, captured the angel’s mouth with his own “—Crowley, dear, breathing—“

”Breathe through your nose,” Crowley huffed impatiently, and tried to chase upwards again, groaning with mild annoyance when Aziraphale pushed him back down on the mattress, laughing.

”I think, dear, we ought to slow down and talk.”

Slow down. Oh, the amount of times that’s been asked of him. Crowley froze and could not help the fear from showing on his features. He let go of Aziraphale’s shirt, buried his fingers on the duvets instead. “Too fast?” he asked, self-consciously.

”Oh, no, no, Crowley, not like that.” Two warm hands cupped Crowley’s face, held him like something precious, held him comfortingly and reassuringly. “I just thought— the last time we, err, you know—“

”Fucked?” suggested Crowley. “Shagged? Jumped my bones?” 

”Knew you in the biblical sense,” Aziraphale decided. 

Crowley groaned. Made a show of trying to push Aziraphale off him for using that affront of the human language without actually pushing Aziraphale off.

“There are a million better euphemisms for sex than that, angel. Say ‘slept with.’ Say ‘were intimate.’ Say ‘went all the way.’ Don’t bring the bloody Bible into it.” 

“Anyway.” Aziraphale glared at him lightly. “The last time we slept with each other, I fear we left too much unsaid.”

Crowley grumbled under his breath. He knew Aziraphale was right, knew that communication was maybe a weak point in their relationship, but still— “Could we talk in between kisses?” 

Aziraphale looked at him with fond smile. “Are you so hungry?”

”Now that I’ve had a taste? Starving.”

The angel sighed out a dramatized breath, exaggerated and tender. He leaned down and pressed a sweet kiss onto Crowley’s inviting lips, and hummed, “Oh, sure, then.”

Crowley leaned up excitedly and kissed again, deeper. He allowed Aziraphale to pull back after a few seconds however, and fell back against the comforter, satisfied with intermittent kissing for now. “All right. Carry on with the next topic of conversation, will you?”

”Oh, dearest, I’ve lost my train of thought.” 

“Ought we consult the article then?”

”Yes, I suppose.” 

Aziraphale pushed off him and reached for his discarded phone. The angel faced the lock screen to Crowley, unlocking with the demon’s facial recognition before scrolling through the article again. Crowley’s head swam with the domesticity of it. There was some sort of a ritual in letting your partner — were they partners now… he ought to ask later —have free reign over your phone, Crowley thought.

”When was the last time you cried in front of another person, or by yourself?” said Aziraphale, settling down to lie beside him, still facing him. “oh, this one is difficult.”

”Why?”

”I don’t cry.” 

“Sure, you do,” argued Crowley. “Everybody does.”

Aziraphale fixed him with a confused look, all arched brows and narrowed eyes, like he couldn’t ever fathom crying for himself. He turned to Crowley, allowed the small peck Crowley graced on his lips, and asked, ”When have you ever seen me cry?”  

“There was that time— No, nevermind, you didn’t cry. Just looked like you did.” Crowley spent a moment thinking. “Oh! When you… no, not then either.” And he wracked his memories trying to find one recollection of the angel with tears rolling down his cheeks just once, found himself shocked when he came up empty. He regarded Aziraphale with a new expression then, wide-eyed and disbelieving.

“Shit. You don’t cry.” 

Aziraphale shook his head in confirmation.

Crowley continued to stare. “Why? I’ve seen you want to cry. Can’t say you don’t ever get the urge.” 

“Prefer to skip all that business,” Aziraphale shrugged. “Messy. Leave the crying to the humans. I’m an angel.”

”So, what, you just… miracle your tears away?”

”No miracle necessary.” Aziraphale looked proud. “My eyes are trained.”

”Trained.”

”Obedient. No tearfalls here.”

Crowley sat up. “But crying’s good. It’s— There’s a reason why humans do it.”

The angel looked even more confused. “But I’m an angel.”

“Doesn’t stop you from eating! Why should it stop you from crying? Even I cry, and I’m a demon! You were there the last time I cried— Armageddon, when I thought you’d died, remember?”

The angel nodded but then shrugged again. “I don’t judge you for crying, it’s just… I don’t want that for myself.”

”Nobody wants it, but it’s important.” Crowley couldn’t fucking believe what he was hearing, and Aziraphale just looked so… nonchalant about it. Like he wasn’t just admitting to six-thousand years of emotional repression. 

Aziraphale pulled a face. 

Unbelievable. “You’re saying, what, you just… deny yourself a cry? Any time it comes up? Have you ever cried?”

“Once. Edinburgh 1827. You saved that young girl, and you got recalled to Hell.” 

Crowley remembered. He eased up a little. “Ah.” 

“Yes,” agreed Aziraphale. “I was so scared for you. The tears came so quickly, I had no time to stop them. I sobbed, and it was only for two minutes, but the feeling was all-encompassing, it felt like hours.” Aziraphale’s voice shook, involuntarily. “The tears felt like punishments. And it was all my fault. That whole night was all my fault. If—If I hadn’t gotten rid of that first body—A human died—You were gone—“

Crowley shook his head, interrupted, “Not your fault. Never your fault. We made our own choices, we did. Doesn’t matter anymore.”

Aziraphale nodded miserably. “I was so worried.”

Crowley made a show of looking strong, jutting his chin up and flashing Aziraphale a smile. “I survived, didn’t I?” 

Aziraphale returned the smile slowly, looking less miserable. He sighed and nodded again, and then he looked away. “I loved you so much, and I was just beginning to realize it when you were pulled away.” 

Crowley asked, ”You really loved me that long?”

”Far longer. Is it so difficult to believe?”

”It’s…” Crowley trailed off, trying to gather his thoughts, make sense of his feelings. “You never expressed it. I didn’t have a lot to go off of.” He laughed, not bitterly but forlornly, to himself. “I had resigned myself to a life of unrequited certainties.”

”I’m sorry I was slower at it than you,” apologized Aziraphale sincerely. “I’m sorry I made you doubt my feelings.” And then he looked at Crowley. “Do you still doubt them?”

”I don’t know.” He exhaled through pursed lips. “It’s… really hard to believe. I feel like I’m dreaming.” 

Aziraphale leaned forward and pecked him on the lips. “Rest assured, it is reality. You’ll wake up to me every day. I promise.” 

27. Tell your partner something you wouldn’t change about them.

“Stop making out with me and read the next question.”

”Why?” groaned Crowley. “The questions have already led to love. We speedran it, this should be my reward.” 

“Oh, come on. Be good and entertain me.”

Crowley blinked at Aziraphale, and then relented. 

“Fine.” Crowley made a show of reaching for his phone and reading the next question. “Something I wouldn’t change about you. Easy,” he said upon reading it out loud. “I wouldn’t change anything about you.” And he tried to lean forward to capture Aziraphale’s lips with his own, but Aziraphale leaned away laughing.

”Nothing at all?” the angel teased. “I’m sure we would have gotten here quicker if I’d been more forward. Or fearless.” 

Crowley shrugged. “We got here eventually. That’s perfect for me.” 

Aziraphale smiled. “Wouldn’t change anything about you either.” 

“Glad for it,” Crowley smirked, and he watched Aziraphale inch forward with a promising look, hungry for the next kiss the angel graced him with, hungry for the length it lasted, groaning against it and then groaning again when Aziraphale pulled back, the fucking tease. It was diabolical, to tease just as soon as Crowley had finally been given permission to want. Crowley’s head had started to spin. 

Aziraphale smiled, “Next question.” 

“Aziraphale.”

”I love hearing what you have to say,” said Aziraphale, still smiling fondly. “You must forgive me for wanting to know everything.”

Crowley softened, but the dull ache of want still throbbed in him. Feebly, he begged, “Aziraphale….” 

Crowley eyed him with a pleading gaze. He probably sounded a bit pathetic, or at best, whiny, but he couldn’t be blamed. Aziraphale was dangling an apple in front of him, telling him he couldn’t bite. Or worse and more aptly, Aziraphale was allowing him tastes of an apple, telling him he couldn’t finish. And the bastard was laughing at him. 

“Just one more,” promised Aziraphale. “One more question.” 

“And then…?” Crowley trailed off hopefully.

Aziraphale grinned and nodded. “And then.” 

28. What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?

“Nothing,” Crowley answered, as soon as the question was read aloud. “Nothing at all, if it’s you.”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes. ”Now you’re just being impatient and difficult. You don’t think that. Give a real answer, or this won’t count and I’ll have you read another question.”

Crowley’s heart nearly fell out his ass.

“I’m not just saying that!” he insisted, both affronted at the accusation and afraid of the possibility of this questioning being dragged out longer. “It’s true, I swear. You could make fun of my whole existence, all my vulnerabilities, and I wouldn’t care. Because it’s you. Joke of my Fall, poke fun at my appearance. I wouldn’t even think to be mad.”

Crowley thought saying that was a bit romantic. But Aziraphale only frowned slightly and inched away. They were still on their sides, laying down and facing each other, but the space between them grew. And Crowley couldn’t help but feel he said something wrong, then. Fucking questions. He had been so close to having Aziraphale flush against him, and now Aziraphale was distancing himself. 

“What did I say wrong?” Crowley sighed. 

“No, nothing.” Aziraphale had an unconvincing, concerned look in his eyes. “Just— you’d really let me cross those boundaries?”

Crowley shrugged. “There are no boundaries for you.”

And Aziraphale flinched again. “Shouldn’t there be?”

“There never have been.” He explained, “Remember, you used to hate me for being a demon? All the microagressive statements? And I used to laugh at you for being a lousy angel? I don’t think jokes could compare to how we used to treat each other.” 

Aziraphale inched further away. 

Crowley cursed. “Okay, I definitely said something wrong.” 

A shake of the head, a grimace. “Not wrong. You said something true.”

”And you’re inching away.”

”And I’m discovering: perhaps we need boundaries.” 

Crowley pursed his lips. He tried, lightly, “Can we do boundaries after we have mind-boggling sex?”

That earned him a glare. Which— fair. 

“Fine,” Crowley relented, sighing. “What are you thinking?”

“Think of one thing you don’t like me doing to you. Tell me what it is. Whatever it is, I’ll stop doing it.”

Crowley’s brows knitted together. “I don’t want you stopping doing anything,” he said. “I like you how you are.”

”Even when I hurt you?”

”Yes.”

”You shouldn’t.” Aziraphale leveled him with a hard look, stern and with so much care, “I don’t like hurting you. You shouldn’t like being hurt.”

”I’ll tolerate it.”

”You don’t have to.” A warm hand reached out and cupped Crowley’s face, warm and sweet and gentle, a caress to the cheek, a thumb over lower lip. “Tell me what I do that hurts. I’ll stop.” 

Crowley sighed against the hand on his cheek. He answered, truthfully, because Aziraphale asked so nicely, “I don’t like when you imply I’m bad because I’m a demon.” 

“I’ll never do it again,” promised Aziraphale. “I’d like for you to stop making dramatic exits in the middle of important conversations.”

“Done.”

A finger went to trace Crowley’s jawline. “Any more?”

Crowley shrugged. The touch felt nice. It grounded him. He didn’t want it pulled away. “I actually don’t like talking about my Fall,” he admitted.

The hand carded its way through his hair. “I’ll stop bringing it up.” Aziraphale paused. And then he confessed, “I don’t like when you insult God. It makes me feel afraid.”

They traded boundaries, dislikes, and wants, back and forth, and the hand on Crowley traveled all across his head, his face, his neck, and Aziraphale came closer and closer again, until they were kissing once more, and the knowledge of each other’s preferences were clear in their minds. The kisses grew in length until there were no pauses, and their tongues melded against one another in their opened mouths, tasting and licking into each other. 

Crowley shuddered against Aziraphale, ground his hips sideways into the angel and groaned into open mouth. Aziraphale allowed it, smiling against Crowley, his knee folding up to rest between Crowley’s legs, against his crotch, a point of friction Crowley gladly rutted against for relief.

His cock throbbed tight inside his jeans, he felt Aziraphale’s hands reach down to cup him, and he moaned, in Aziraphale’s mouth and then out into the open air when Aziraphale pulled back from the kiss to sit up, maneuvering his face to kiss down Crowley’s neck instead.

Crowley didn’t have time to mourn the loss of a tongue sliding against his own before he was celebrating the warmth of love bites being sucked into the sensitive skin just below his jaw, right on his jugular, and it felt, strangely, like worship.

He felt himself twitch against his jeans, against Aziraphale’s knee, and he longed to be free of the restraints of pants. 

“Angel,” Crowley gasped out, “pants.” 

Aziraphale paused sucking on his neck. “Properly,” he reminded, and pushed himself off the bed. 

Standing up, the angel began to unbutton his own clothes, working from the up down, and Crowley watched with hungry eyes as Aziraphale undressed before blue eyes landed on him and rolled, the angel snapping to remind Crowley to undress himself as well.

Crowley, remembering not to miracle himself naked like last time, hastily raised his hips off the mattress, kicked off his jeans, and sat up to pull his shirt off, throwing it carelessly to the corner of the room.

He watched, then, in nothing but his boxers, as Aziraphale threw his own shirt off and let his trousers fall to his ankles before stepping out of them. He eyed the exposed skin hungrily, realizing that this was the most he’d seen of Aziraphale in… ever, and the tent of his cock twitched.

Aziraphale leaned over him on the bed, kissed him down until his head rested on the mattress, until his bare knee was between Crowley’s bare legs, until his thighs rested against Crowley’s crotch with nothing but the sheer fabric of his boxers standing in the way.

”So beautiful for me, love,” Aziraphale murmured, hands running over the dips of his ribs and then lower, flat against his naval, pressing. Crowley moaned with both the touch and the words. “So good.”

Those words. His angel was unreal. Crowley let out a high whine.

”Do you like that? Praise?” 

A breathy laugh escaped Crowley’s lips. “Is that question twenty-nine?”

”You’re ridiculous,” grinned Aziraphale.

“Touch me.” 

The angel arched a brow.

”I am touching you, darling.” He pressed his lower half against Crowley, clothed cocks grinding against each other’s thighs, and it made Crowley gasp, but it wasn’t enough. 

“More,” Crowley half begged. “More.”

”Say ‘please.’ “

Aziraphale raised his head to make eye contact, to watch Crowley say it, and with him above Crowley, the demon was forced to look up, forced into an angle which made the angel look more like a god, haloed by the new sunset outside, gold and streaming in through the windows, haloed by the warm tones of his bedroom, haloed by the effervescence he was exuding himself. Lovely, in spite of all the teasing. 

“Please.”

Pink lips curled upwards into a self satisfied smile. “Good boy.” 

The hand on his naval trailed down and disappeared under his boxers. Warm fingers wrapped around Crowley, and still under the fabric, unfairly unseen, they pumped once, twice, leaking precum coating the entirety of the shaft with each lengthy pump. 

“Fuck,” Crowley cursed, back arching, head rolling back, eyes fluttering shut. He already sounded wrecked, and he would be embarrassed if not for the fact that Aziraphale throbbing against his thigh confirmed the angel’s increasing arousal at his pleasure. “I—“

Aziraphale rutted against him. “Yes?”

”I need to see. Everything— off. Please.”

Aziraphale arched a brow. He ran his hand down Crowley’s shaft again, made Crowley shudder with the feeling, bucking up involuntarily.

“Oh, fuck it,” he sighed, and miracled the last bits of modesty off, leaving them both fully bare against each other, warm and flush. 

“Pretty,” Aziraphale breathed, and Crowley hid his blush with his hands.

Aziraphale pulled the hands off. The angel’s hand not wrapped around and slowly running up and down the length of Crowley cupped the demon’s cheek before the ring and middle fingers pressed against the line of his lips. Instinctively, those lips parted and Crowley opened. The fingers slipped in, pressed down against his tongue, and Crowley watched with the digits in his mouth, entranced, as Aziraphale’s gaze turned hungry when the tongue wrapped expertly around the fingers, enthusiastic and pornographic and inviting. 

Want, the gesture exuded. I want all you will give me. 

The fingers retreated out his mouth, wet with spit, and Crowley had no time to mourn the loss before they were pressed against his opening, that tight ring of muscle, sensitive and shuddering. 

“Fuck,” Crowley cursed, and Aziraphale began tracing him, the slick pads of his fingers easing him to relax, his voice deep and reassuring and the only thing Crowley could hear aside from the blood rushing in his own ears as he urged, “Relax, dear. Be good for me. Tell me what you want.”

”Skip it,” Crowley rushed out, squirming against hands, fingers, skin, desire. “Skip all of it, angel, and just get inside of me.” 

Aziraphale smiled down at him but shook his head. “Have to prepare you, dear.”

“Miracle it,” Crowley insisted. 

“I want to do it this way. Don’t you?” A dangerous spark of light flashed past Aziraphale’s blue eyes, sharp and suggestive and so in control it made Crowley want to whimper. “Don’t you like my hands? My fingers inside you? Stretching you?”

”I—I do—“ groaned Crowley. “I want you—Want your hands—“

”Good. Lovely boy.” 

Crowley longed to say more. Longed to insist skipping the prep anyway. But the praise traveled up his head like alcohol, made him drunk until he could do nothing but moan loudly as fingertips dipped inside him, exploring, scissoring him opened, preparing.

Crowley’s cock thrust weakly into Aziraphale’s closed hand while the angel’s fingers fucked into him in turn, making his hips shudder, his moans into helpless, babbling stutters, and just like when the same fingers retreated from his mouth, they retreated from his hole, leaving Crowley with an indescribably feeling of emptiness but fueling him with the promise for more. He clenched around nothing, whined.

Aziraphale pulled away momentarily to pump himself, coating his cock with precum, and he raised a palm to Crowley’s mouth, ordered, “Spit.” 

Crowley did as he was told, and he watched with unconcealed amazement and arousal as the angel coated his shaft with the saliva, watched as Aziraphale guided his tip to Crowley’s opening, watched the tip disappear inside of him as much as he could before his eyes wrenched closed and his whole body arched with every inch Aziraphale pushed in, shaking with friction, aching for more.

“Taking me in so well,” panted Aziraphale, the rapidness of his breaths matching the throbbing of his cock inside Crowley. “Beautiful. Precious.” 

“Angel, fuck me before I come.”

Aziraphale laughed. 

Aziraphale fucked him tenderly, agonizingly slowly at first until the pressure built and the both of them relaxed into the act, the angel pulling out until his tip caught on Crowley’s hole and then pushing back in, repeatedly until his pace quickened with the need for release, and eyes rolled back until all that could be seen was all that could be felt— Crowley, around Aziraphale, inside Crowley, around Aziraphale— in tandem, as one.

Aziraphale thrust in, a quick snap, and Crowley shuddered around him, skin flushed and pink and sensitive, and that shuddering resonated all around Aziraphale, made them both moan loud into the open air, slick with sweat against each other, and truly, humans were onto something when they invented such a carnal expression of want.

“Need you,” Crowley heard himself say, through the thick haze of sex, panting and moaning against Aziraphale. “Need you.”

”You have me,” replied Aziraphale, leaning down to press kisses down the arched and open expanse of Crowley’s neck, his adam’s apple, adoring, reverential. “Tell me when you’re close.” 

“Inside of me, please.”

”You have me,” promised Aziraphale, and his pace quickened with newfound vitality. 

Skin met skin with barely any time separated, cock burying itself deep into Crowley then pulling out to do so again in less than a moment. If the pace set before was agonizingly slow, this one is satisfyingly fast, charged with the desperation for release, leaving no time for Crowley to recover, constantly stimulating, hitting his prostrate with every rapid thrust.

The thrusts turned sloppy, the pleasure had Crowley seeing stars, and inside of him, the pressure built and built and built until— 

“Now, now, now—“

Aziraphale spilled into Crowley, white hot warmth inside of him, filling, and Crowley’s come coated their chests streaks of white. Aziraphale collapsed on top of him, cock pulled out to leave Crowley clenching around nothing, breathing heavy.

”I love you,” said Aziraphale, and Crowley blinked blearily at him. 

“I love you, too. So much.” 

And because sex made Crowley bone tired, he dozed off not long after to the feeling of Aziraphale miracling them clean.

29. If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven’t you told them yet?

Crowley awoke late in the evening.

Aziraphale was not by his side, but he didn’t panic, because he could hear the angel from a few rooms away, could hear his stride, soft but plentiful quick-steps against the hardwood flooring, the loud clinking of glass and plates and utensils against a filled sink. And he could smell whatever was cooking.

He pushed himself off the plush mattress, snapped a comfortable pair of Aziraphale’s cotton pyjamas on, and stepped out the bedroom shirtless, rejuvenated with the last bits of sleep and sex clinging to him, and out into the hall, getting ever closer to the ruckus at the kitchen, the warm and savory aroma of—

“Never thought I’d live to see the day you’d be cooking a casserole,” Crowley teased, sauntering into the room as best he could with limbs that felt too loose, with a mind still rushing with afterglow. He wished he could brag about this to someone, he longed to gloat, Look at me. I just fucked an angel, and he’s cooking me dinner! And it only took me six thousand years!

Aziraphale turned his head to face him, the largest smile splitting his face, brighter than anything Crowley had ever seen or made before. 

“I’m learning,” said the angel, glowing under the warm kitchen lights. “And casseroles are really just baking. Sticking to what’s easy, for now, but trust, once I get the hang of this, I’ll give you a run for your money.”

”I have no doubts about it.” 

Crowley stepped closer, snaked his arms around the angel’s middle, rested his head on his shoulder. His heart soared with the ability to do so, soared with the possibility of getting to do this every blessed night, should the whim ever strike him. 

“Smells good.”

“Let’s hope it tastes as good once it cools.”

Crowley pressed a kiss to Aziraphale’s neck — he could do that now — and then removed himself, taking a seat down at the breakfast bar, watching steam rise from the ceramic casserole dish. Aziraphale turned to do the dishes used during the preparation of the cooking, turned his back to Crowley, oblivious to the way Crowley’s serpentine eyes remained watching him.

Over the sound of the kitchen sink, Aziraphale asked suddenly, “Crowley, dear, have you got your phone?”

“Yes.” He miracled the phone in his hands. 

”Want to read me the next question? While we wait?”

“Anything you want,” said Crowley, and he read out loud, “If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven’t you told them yet?”

Aziraphale continued doing the dishes. He made pondering noises as he did.

When he spoke, it was not an answer to the question, but rather a comment, romantic as morose. “I think if I were to die tonight, I should die so happily, as contented as I am.” 

Crowley appreciated the sentiment but frowned slightly anyway. “If you were to die tonight, angel, I would be proper pissed.”

Aziraphale chuckled. And then he answered, “I’ve said all there is to be said. Or I’ve said all that matters. I’ve told you I love you, yes?” 

“Yes.”

”Then I would have no regrets.”

Crowley smiled. “Sap.” 

A question he’d been pondering for a while struck him suddenly, then, as he was reminded by the domesticity of the moment, a type of thing that extended beyond friendship. 

And the question that popped into his mind did not necessarily need an answer, not after all they’ve talked about, not after all they’d done, but Crowley longed for the confirmation nonetheless. 

“Angel?” he asked. 

Aziraphale hummed. “Hm?”

”What… are we?” 

Aziraphale turned around from the dishes. He leveled Crowley with a disbelieving gaze. “Huh,” he said. “We’ve never said, have we?”

”It’s been eating me up,” admitted Crowley. “Best friends, that’s all we’ve ever been. Are we still best friends?” 

“Yes,” Aziraphale nodded, matter-of-factly. “But we are also partners. Lovers.” 

And he turned back to the sink, and Crowley grinned, laying his uncertainties to rest. Lovers. They were lovers. He couldn’t believe it. 

“I would die with no regrets, too,” he said, apropos of the twenty-ninth question, and waited for the food to cool. 

30. Your house, containing everything you own, catches fire. After saving your loved ones and pets, you have time to safely make a final dash to save any one item. What would it be? Why?

They ate side by side, at the breakfast bar, in fierce debate over the thirtieth question, Aziraphale gesturing wildly and mindlessly with a fork, Crowley sipping on a glass of red wine, cackling.

Crowley, who had very few sentimental possessions in his flat, chose his phone to save without needing much thought, and spent the next couple minutes teasing Aziraphale about his book hoard, insisting that Aziraphale would have much trouble picking out what to save while Aziraphale argued otherwise. 

”Listen!” the angel huffed. “As someone whose house, containing everything they own, did catch fire—“

”Oh, you didn’t even know!” Crowley interrupted. He was grinning quite widely. “Didn’t see it on fire! Didn’t even see the aftermath! Might as well have never happened on your end!”

”The sorrow was real.”

“Oh, make your point, angel.”

”My point is— my Breeches Bible. That’s what I’d save. It’s not even a competition.”

Crowley rolled his eyes. Pious angel. He sipped his wine, asked, “Why?” 

“D’you know why it’s called the Breeches Bible?”

Crowley shook his head, and he prepared himself for another one of Aziraphale’s history lessons, setting his glass down on the counter and leaning back against his seat, attention fully on the angel as he began to speak. 

“Really, it’s the Geneva Bible, but it’s also called the Breeches Bible because there’s a very slight translation difference in Genesis Three, verse seven.”

”Ah,” acknowledged Crowley. He was familiar with that part of the Bible. His debut. “Genesis Three. Adam and Eve.”

”Yes. The Breeches Bible had them fashion breeches out of fig leaves to hide their shame.”

Crowley snorted. “And in the case of a fire, you’re rushing to save the bible where Adam and Eve discover pants?” he joked.

Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “My copy holds something no other bible of its likeness has.” 

“What?” Crowley teased. “A piece of the original fig?” 

“No. I’ve placed the photograph of us, shaking hands at the West End after my magic show in 1941 in the breeches page.” Aziraphale grinned fondly at him. “It is my most prized possession, besides you.”

Crowley considered this answer, and then he shrugged. “All right. You sentimental old man. You win. That’s a damn cute answer, and I’ve no complaints.”

Aziraphale wiggled in his seat, self-satisfied. 

31. Of all the people in your family, whose death would you find most disturbing? Why?

They did the dishes together, hip to hip like the humans did, and once again, Crowley found it in himself to praise the ingenuity of humanity in his mind. Doing the dishes together, Crowley scrubbing and rinsing, Aziraphale drying and putting away— what a damn good ritual. Domestic, sweet, and intimate. Humanity knew what they were doing, making this a two-person activity. 

Anyway. 

They did the dishes together. Aziraphale went on Crowley’s phone to ask the next question. Crowley refused to give a straight answer. Not because he hated the questions — Crowley figured he owed his life to them now, and would be eternally grateful to online articles — but because a bittersweet feeling had begun to creep over him. 

It was nowhere near as intense as the guilt and anxiety he had felt earlier this morning, but it still felt, on some level, impactful, knowing that the questions were nearing their end, and what started this whole thing and gave them exigence to finally communicate their long-repressed affections had reached it’s penultimate question. 

Aziraphale had already answered — “The Almighty, duh.” — and was prodding at Crowley to give his own answer, but Crowley was trying to branch off on a side conversation about God, Death, and the unanswerable questions of the universe just to drag it out. Aziraphale was not letting it happen. 

“Just answer the question, Crowley!” Aziraphale groaned. 

He had run out of dishes to wash, and he leaned against the sink watching Aziraphale dry the last ones before putting them away in the cupboards.

“Come on, angel, it’s the second last question. Drag it out with me, why don’t you?” 

Aziraphale shrugged, but he softened just a bit. “I thought you wanted it to end. What were your words? ‘The questions have already led to love’? Not like they can take it away. Hurry on up and answer the question, dear.” 

Crowley rolled his eyes. “I wanted it to end, and now I don’t. I’m complicated like that.”

Aziraphale finished putting the dishes away. The leaned against each other without moving from the sink, and slowly, one of Aziraphale’s arms snaked around Crowley’s waist. Touch. That was a human thing first, wasn’t it? How delightful. 

Lord, the humanity praising had become pathological. Love had ruined Crowley’s blasé disposition. He couldn’t even blame himself.

”Answer the question so we can move on to the next one.”

Crowley slumped glumly. “The last one,” he muttered. “What’ll we do when it’s over?”

Aziraphale shrugged. “Lots of kissing, I suppose.”

Crowley straightened up. “Well, why didn’t you say so?” He gave Aziraphale a light glare, faux-annoyed. “Refresh the question. Let’s get this shit over with, then.”

Aziraphale laughed. “Of all the people in your family, whose death would you find most disturbing? Why?”

”Easy,” Crowley said. “You’re my only family. Obviously, you. Now read the last one. Quickly, angel.”

”Reign in your enthusiasm, dear,” Aziraphale joked, and he walked them both away from the sink and to the sitting room. 

32. Share a personal problem and ask your partner’s advice on how they might handle it.

In the sitting room, Aziraphale poured them both a drink which Crowley set about explaining his personal problem, as per the last ever question in the Thirty-Two Questions That Lead To Love. The lights were dimmed and unoppressive, amber glow, and as Aziraphale settled closely beside him, Crowley found himself unable to help the smile that crept onto his lips. 

”Suppose you were in love with your best friend for six thousand years. Only he didn’t acknowledge you were best friends until year five thousand, nine hundred, and fifty. Suppose that you’ve made up your mind about your love for him being unrequited, or at least impossible. Suppose, for whatever reason, you put your trust in an article promising love for thirty-two questions. And then, suppose he says he loves you. Suppose you become lovers. Dream come true, except now, I’ve become overwhelmed with excitement.” 

Aziraphale hummed with acknowledgment. “Overwhelmed how?” 

“Overwhelmed like a forbidden apple has been dangling in front of me all this time, and now I’m given permission to eat it.” 

The angel kissed him chastely. “So take it.” It was that easy.

“But the point is— Do I savor the apple or eat it like I was starving?”

Blue eyes softened as they regarded him, sparkling with fondness, catching the amber of the light in the room in star-shaped irises, entrancing and entranced.

”The apple is not a finite thing in our case, love,” Aziraphale sighed, love-filled. “You can have your way with me for the rest of time. Savor or starving, as many times as you would like, until you’re sick of it.” 

Crowley kissed him, deepened it, pulled back after an eternity. “Could never get sick of you.” He nuzzled up against Aziraphale, said, “Your turn now.”

Aziraphale hummed. He shrugged. 

“Suppose you’ve been in love with your best friend for six thousand years,” he began, grinning slyly, and Crowley laughed out loud. “Only you were convinced, for the longest time, that you were hereditary enemies and couldn’t accept the fact that you loved him until year five thousand, nine hundred, and fifty. Suppose, then, he gets brave and takes the advice of an online article. Suppose that everything lines up for you, and you’ve accepted that you love him, and for the first time in your life, you let yourself have and be had by him, guiltlessly, fearlessly. And you become lovers. Only now that I know how good it is, I’m full of regret for not having the guts to have taken it sooner.”

”Oh, angel.” 

Aziraphale smiled sadly. “We lost so much time.” 

“We’ll make up for it.” Crowley’s hands held Aziraphale’s face. “The rest of time, remember? Savor or starving. As many times as we want. We’ll make up for it.” 

Aziraphale kissed him.

“My dear,” he said, “I love you.”

And Crowley’s heart sang. 

“I love you, too, angel.”