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Crowley had taken up a therapist. It wasn’t doing much for him, really, but the short, salt-and-pepper haired man was a perfect person to vent his frustration at when he was particularly annoyed at the Earth, or Aziraphale, or the general state of things.
It wasn’t as though he could bitch at Hastur or Ligur anymore, because Hastur was Below and Ligur had been thoroughly destroyed by his unfortunate encounter with holy water, so Crowley had to find another outlet. Aziraphale was an option, of course, but there was a Thing... he didn’t quite want to touch there, and Crowley didn’t think he should be the one to mess it up.
So therapy it was, then. It was all the rage, anyway. Everyone’s mum, brother, and dog had a therapist those days.
He didn’t know his therapist’s name. Considering his therapist’s manner, and Crowley’s general lackadaisical take on things like ‘names’ and ‘genders’ and ‘human proclivities’, he decided it was probably something like ‘Bob’.
“What’s bothering you, Anthony?” Bob said, peering across at him, notebook and pen held at the ready. He was a hard-set man, almost. Small, but poised as though he was ready to argue. It was an admirable position.
“Nothing isssss bothering me.” Damn that hiss. Hastur always used to mock him for it, at least until Crowley had accidentally splashed him with a drop of holy water on one of their missions one time and he’d resoundingly cut it out. Crowley fiddled with the arm of the chair, noticed he was doing it, and then stopped.
“Mmmm.” Bob said, non-committedly, and wrote something in his notebook.
“It’s just - I spend six thousand years with him,” To his credit, Bob didn’t flinch at the amount of years, “and he’s still driving me up the wall. I even offer up my flat because his bookstore burned down before the not-end of the world, and he didn’t take it. That was an offer from the heart ! And I never do anything from the heart. For Heaven’s- Hell’s- Shit. Whatever. We go out to dinner at the Ritz, and I don’t even make anyone break up, or spill their wine or choke on their food, and he doesn’t even notice. It’s so hard being nice, Bob, you have no idea. It’s a struggle.”
“Mmmm.” Bob said, even more non-committedly, and wrote something else in his notebook. “I take it the he you’re referring to is the same one from all of our other sessions?”
“Of course. Who else would I be talking about? Who else do I talk about?”
“You’ve waxed lyrical about the waiter at the Ritz, the postman who keeps on throwing your parcels at your front door and about a male prostitute whom you met in 1952.” Bob said dryly, flipping through his notebook. “None of those encounters appeared to be as polite, however.”
“Whatever.” Crowley didn’t really care.
“How would you describe your relationship with this man, Anthony?” Bob asked, as though he wasn’t very interested at all. That was a lie, for he really wanted to know the identity of Crowley’s strange fascination, but the demon had been keeping surprisingly mum on the subject.
“He’s a thorn in my side.” Crowley snapped. That too was a lie.
“Mmmm?”
“...He’s my… best friend.” And really, Crowley had had a fair shortage of those lately. Voluntarily cutting himself off from his home to avoid utter death and destruction had been preferable to having a lot of friends.
Demons weren’t that great at making friends anyway.
“Just friends?” Bob eyed him idly, curiously.
“That is none of your businesssss!” He hissed, and sprang from his chair to tower over the therapist. Aziraphale wasn’t like that. Angels weren’t... like that. They didn’t go in for such trivialities, such pleasures of the flesh and emotion and all that. It was beneath them. He’d know. He knew .
Bob didn’t move, though he looked Crowley up and down with a practised glance. He didn’t seem too afraid either, which made a change. People always seemed to be a little wary of Crowley. “Please take a seat, Mr Crowley. You’ll disturb the neighbours.”
The neighbours, in fact, were a series of demonic creatures, who eagerly sprang from their beds in the morning and returned home at night, their worlds a morass of bureaucracy, bitching and white bread. They weren’t home to hear the yelling.
Bob knew there were Tory politicians next door and didn’t much care about them, but it was the morals of the thing. “Please, Anthony.”
“Fine.” Crowley sank back to his seat, idly wondering if sticking around was worth it. However, he’d paid his money (reluctantly), and it was a few hours till tea.
“Tell me, Anthony, if you could change one thing about your life right now, what would it be?”
Well, that was just silly. The only thing he wanted to change was the Thing around Aziraphale, and he didn’t know what that was, really.
He left the therapist’s office at 1.59pm, and ran smack into the angel, who was coming in through the door, a basket of freshly baked muffins in his hands.
“Aziraphale?”
“ Crowley?” Aziraphale gasped, looking completely and utterly flummoxed.
“What the Hell are you doing here?” Crowley stole a muffin off of the stack and bit into it. It was chocolate, with deep rich notes and the promise of something a little darker. He’d describe it as Heavenly, but he still didn’t quite feel comfortable saying that word.
“I am going to…” Aziraphale stiffened, a little like he wanted to dance around the word, “...therapy.” He frowned, “What are you doing here?”
“Encouraging the Tories next door to rise up and destroy their own party from the inside?” Crowley said, blithely, and shoved the rest of the muffin in his mouth. “Wha- do- -ou -th-nk?”
“...Therapy? You?” Aziraphale looked even more surprised, if that was truly possible. It was almost endearing to see him so baffled. “But… you’re you!”
“Really, angel?” Crowley took another muffin for the road. “After six thousand years in this body I hadn’t noticed. Consider it as an utterly selfish, very villainous take on self improvement.”
Aziraphale smiled then. There was genuinity in it. It felt right to see him looking so pleased with himself for once. “Oh?” He said. And then again, softer, “Oh.”
“Yes.” Crowley replaced his indoor sunglasses for his outdoor ones with one smooth movement. “Afternoon tea at the Ritz later? My treat. For last week.”
The angel blinked. “I’d… quite like that, actually. Five-thirty?”
“I wouldn’t miss it.”
“Mr Fell!” Bob calls from behind them, “Would you like to come in for your appointment now?”
“Of course, Robert.” Aziraphale patted Crowley on the wrist and took his basket of muffins into the office. “Tell me, how’s your wife?” He disappeared into the office, still chattering inanely about something or another.
Crowley turned to leave, having done his good deed for the day.
“Anthony?” Bob asked, with the oddest look on his face. “You don’t own a black Bentley, do you?”
“I do.” He replied, though he wasn’t sure why it mattered. “Why?”
“Mmmm.” Bob wrote something down in his little notebook. “No reason. See you next week.”
Humans.
They supped at the Ritz, chased pastries down with good tea and even better wine, and walked along the river all the way back to the bookshop.
“That was lovely,” Aziraphale beamed, “Would you like to come in? I have an excellent Riesling just going to waste.”
There was a chill in the air, autumn turning slowly into winter, and the idea of being inside the bookshop, with its antique but endearing smell and warmth was… pleasant. His angel looked so relaxed, so happy to be there, and he couldn’t resist.
He found it so hard to say no to Aziraphale.
“Who would I be if I left a Riesling untouched?” Crowley murmured, and followed him in.
“Are you honestly saying that you’ve not cleaned your wings since the Apocalypse that Wasn’t?” Crowley wasn’t drunk, not really. Just a little warm, a little tipsy, a little bit loose in the tongue.
Alcohol was a temptation, but not one of the ones that he’d created. No, that’d fallen entirely on the shoulders of the humans. However, he did have a fondness for it, and Aziraphale did too.
“I…” Aziraphale sighed, and swigged heavily from his bottle. They’d both abandoned their glasses long ago. “You mightn’t remember. Up in Heaven. We used to fix each other's wings, and it was something... good. Comforting. I just - It doesn't have the same meaning to it if you do it yourself. It feels almost wrong. Angels are beings of comfort, Crowley - I don't know if you remember that - but despite the political nonsense and everything, angels are good at touch."
It was one of the most honest declarations he'd had from Aziraphale in years, and he'd known him for millennia. He shook his head. "You're such a martyr, angel."
"Hardly." Aziraphale sat back and placed his bottle on the floor next to him. "I'm just honest."
"You could have just... asked."
"Asked? Crowley, you're not-"
He shrugged. It wasn't like it was a hardship. And Aziraphale’s wings were… magnificent. He was beautiful in a way that a lot of angels weren’t. Soft, like he fitted his face, and comfortable. With unique edges and scars. "The fact that you’re neglecting basic hygiene on the sake of principles is ridiculous. I left Hell for a reason. Stop letting Heaven walk all over you.”
“I haven’t let Heaven do very much lately.” Aziraphale said, sharply, and there was almost a hint of annoyance in his eyes. “Exiles, the pair of us.”
“And for good reason.” Crowley wasn’t going to feel sorry for him. Their lives had improved dramatically since the Powers that Be had stopped sticking their noses in where they weren’t wanted. “Let’s see.”
Aziraphale rolled his eyes, but shrugged out of his coat. He spread his wings wide, and they… did not look good.
Crowley inhaled sharply. “What the Hell have you been doing to yourself?”
Aziraphale’s wings weren’t just ruffled, they were in bad shape. Feathers mismatched and sticking out at odd angles, strange darker patches, feather decay - Aziraphale was a mess. If Crowley was the sort to feel sympathy pains, his wings would be aching.
“Some of us, and by that I mean you, weren’t thrust unwillingly into the body of a woman for a few days.” Aziraphale shook out his wings with a huff. “Adam might have tried his best, but I don’t think that everything went as smoothly as it should have. I’ve not been feeling my best. If it’s any consolation, I’ve not seen any feathers fall out for days.”
As he ruffled his wings again, another feather fell to the ground. Aziraphale winced. “Hmm.”
“Thrust into a woman…” Crowley snorted, but caught himself when his angel glared at him. “Sorry. Let me help.” He settled down onto the floor behind Aziraphale. It wasn’t comfortable, but most things weren’t. “Sit back a bit.”
Aziraphale did, after a few moments of hesitation. “You’re being surprisingly nice, Crowley, what’s going on-”
“Shut up. I'm not nice.” Crowley hissed. “Contrary to popular belief, I don’t actually want you discorporating because of poor self-care. Who else could I talk to?”
“Self-care?” Aziraphale mused, stretching out his wings again. One wingtip brushed against Crowley’s face. “Sorry. You sound like Robert. Why were you going to therapy, anyway?”
“Can’t a man see other men occasionally?” Crowley said, evasively, and smoothed out a few of the primary feathers on Aziraphale’s left wing. They were silken under his touch, soft and good and far too holy. “What were
you
doing at therapy?”
“Robert gave me some rather good advice after you left me for Alpha Centauri. Along the lines of, “I’ve been there before, you’re better than him.” Considering the circumstances, I figured it was worth paying for.”
“That’s not an answer.” Crowley plucked a tiny feather that was far too mangled to be useful. Humans. Humans would have no clue about what was best for them. Humans couldn’t even avert their own destinies or create miracles or know what wine was best or anything. Humans. He plucked another feather, in a way that was probably slightly too sharp for Aziraphale’s liking.
The angel tensed. A shiver ran through his back. “Maybe not for you. We just… talk. Robert’s a member of the Tuatha Dé Danann so he gets the never-aging thing, a little.”
“Mmmm.” Crowley replied, and plucked at another little feather. That solved one mystery, at least. He didn’t quite understand the other human faith groups. He knew they fitted in alongside his ideas of Heaven and Hell and all that, somehow, but he’d never really put much thought into it.
Aziraphale trembled a little under his hands and fluttered his wings. The feeling made something in the pit of Crowley’s chest pang, just a little. He didn’t want to like it.
“What do you do at therapy?” Aziraphale asked, completely cutting off his train of thought.
“Talk.”
“I know that. What about?”
“Well-” Honesty was never Crowley’s policy, and he didn’t really want to tell Aziraphale about the Thing, and how he was the cause of said Thing, so he lied through his teeth. “Politics. The weather. Things like that.”
“ Liar.” Aziraphale chuckled, heavily and a little darkly, from somewhere in the back of his throat. “You barely even notice when it’s raining.”
“Fine then, what do you talk about?” He’d reached the top of the angel’s wing, and could feel the ridgeline of bone underneath the down and taut skin. He rubbed along the edge, felt muscle under the tight flesh.
Aziraphale leaned back into him, all his hesitance over the wing-cleaning forgotten. He’d relaxed into the idea, apparently, or maybe that was just the booze. “You, mostly.”
“ What? ”
“Don’t sound so surprised. Who else would I talk about?”
That was actually a good point. Aziraphale was friendly with the postman, several members of a local rare book club (because of course he was) and Anathema, but there wasn’t actually anyone who he saw on a regular basis, barring Crowley. But still, it was the Thing of the thing.
Crowley reached his shoulders and kneaded gently between them. Aziraphale’s back was tight and uncomfortably knotted. He increased the pressure. “Fair. I hope you’re not ruining my reputation with my own therapist.”
“Since when did you care about having a positive reputation with anyone?”
“Well…” He had him there. Crowley was generally fine with being a bit of a bastard. He’d reined himself in as of late, but that was only because of Aziraphale. “Point taken.” He pressed down harder on one knot in Aziraphale’s back.
Aziraphale made a pleased, almost satisfied sound under his touch. “Uh. There. More. If you wouldn’t mind?”
Crowley rolled his eyes. The politeness. Honestly. But he liked when Aziraphale sounded pleased, wanted him to sound pleased again. So, he dug in. “What fiendish things were you telling Bob about me?”
“Well…” Aziraphale sounded nervous, so Crowley went back to his massage. It seemed to relax him, but only slightly.
“I promise I won’t be offended by it.” Crowley wasn’t offended by much, except for whenever his plants disobeyed him. That was, however, the plants' problem.
“Well, he seemed to figure out that I’ve been in love with you since 1941,” Aziraphale said, blithely, apparently just deciding to go balls to the wall with the whole thing, “So mostly about how you’re an absolute thorn in my side and really need to get your act together before I find another fallen angel to fall in love with.”
What. The fuck.
“Too much?” Aziraphale said, and pushed away from his grasp. He turned, looked Crowley straight in the eyes. “I can go back to pretending that we’re both just emotionally repressed humans, if you like. Might be easier.” Though his tone was flippant, there was a tensing around his eyes that seemed to belie a discomfort, a genuinity beneath the snark.
“Shh.” Crowley held up a finger. “Just. Shh. For a second. Thinking.”
Love. Love? Demons didn’t love. They lusted, and they felt rage and they felt horror and violence and pain and vice and the worst feeling of all, sarcasm, but love was… something he was less familiar with. He just… didn’t know if it was for him.
But Aziraphale had stuck around for millennia, being virtuous and kind and a little bit of a bastard sometimes, but never a drain or an irritant or anything like anyone else he’d been with.
Could it be love?
He didn’t know.
It was odd to be at a loss. That’d never happened before. He didn’t like the feeling. Didn’t like being balanced on a knife’s edge. He’d tried to give up that sort of anxiety after they’d saved the world.
They.
Them.
For the love of everything.
Of course. The Thing. The feeling he’d been having for so long that he couldn’t seem to shake. That Thing.
It couldn’t be.
Was it?
Was it?
Was it lo-
“Crowley, you’ve not said anything for five minutes. I counted.”
Crowley blinked, to see Aziraphale’s face about an inch from his own, and suddenly he got it. He got everything. “You are the most perplexing being I’ve ever had to deal with, angel.”
“Likewise.” Aziraphale laughed, a little self-consciously, and drew back. “I’ve not seen you speechless in six thousand years.”
“It’s your fault.”
“It sure is.” The angel worried his lower lip a little, wings fluttering. He shuffled away, “So should I just- go? Because, I’d absolutely understand if-”
“Stop thinking so much.” Crowley grabbed him by the collar. “You are the bane of my existence, angel, but do you really think I’d have stuck around for so long if I didn’t at least…” He still couldn’t bring himself to say the words. He was still a demon, after all. “You know. Everything. You’re- I just-”
“I understand.” Aziraphale said, and kissed him.
And it might have been a little too human, and a little too much, but it felt right, in a way that a lot of things hadn’t felt right for quite some time .
God peeked down from above, halfway through a copy of the Fortean Times . About time, they thought, and went back to listening to Queen and reading about UFO sightings. They also made it snow in Egypt, to the shock and chagrin of local climatologists, but that was just a bit of a hobby.
Later that week, Aziraphale bid Crowley off to his therapy session with a kiss and a chocolate muffin.
Crowley suspected he was just doing it to show-off to Bob, but he didn’t really mind.