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It was a week after the apocalypse-that-wasn’t and an angel and a demon were sitting in the back room of the bookshop sharing a celebratory (they’ve been celebrating every night since the new beginning) bottle of wine (or 3) between the two of them.
“What was being back in heaven like?” Aziraphale asked abruptly, cutting Crowley’s drunken rant about dolphins (“They pr-proc- fuck for fun like humans. A human fucked a dolphin! How did they even get their di-“) off.
Crowley blinked, startled out of her tirade for a moment before groaning and dropping her head back into the couch cushion and slinking further into the floor, “Ugh, angel please don’t ruin my happily sloshed mood with this again.”
“I mean, I know you were, well,” she continued as though uninterrupted, thankful Crowley was a few wine glasses ahead of her. She tried asking a few days before, and the demon had faltered just enough that she knew something must have crossed the demon’s mind. Her lips quirked up into a wry smile as she brought her wine glass to her mouth, “preoccupied, but..”
“It was just peachy, angel. Loved what you lot have done with the floors,” Crowley snorted into her drink, downing her glass and going to refill it again.
“Crowley dear, please,” Aziraphale huffed, moving the wine bottle just out of reach. “I’m being serious. We’ve been through enough together,” she gave Crowley A Look, “Truthfully, what was it like being back after all these years?” After the fall.
Crowley rolled her eyes but Aziraphale saw through her pretense of nonchalance and looked at Crowley expectantly, her gaze never wavering.
“Well”, her demonic companion started after a few more moments, feeling suddenly too sober.
Heaven was light, she wanted to say. Heaven was pure, it was the brightest white. a white that chilled you to the bone and was all consuming like an avalanche in a snowstorm, it burned like frostbite. Heaven was white like a ghost and even more haunting. Heaven sparkled like the brightest teeth, but it’s smile was cold and crushed you all the same. Heaven was no Heaven at all.
“Not as good as being here,” she said finally.
With you.
“Come now, dear girl, really,” Aziraphale huffed out a laugh. She knew what Heaven felt like. She knew what Hell felt like, now. “I suppose it would be hard to tell, really, with all that, well you know,” she waved her hand vaguely, “awful busin-“
Crowley cut her off, catching the angel’s hand in the air and pulling herself up to her knees from where she sat on the floor.
“Crowley..?” It was Aziraphale’s turn to be startled, looking down in the suddenly serious serpent eyes before her (Her eyes really were quite beautiful. She’d always loved them).
Crowley dropped her gaze and took a steadying breath. She clasped the angel’s hand between both of her own as though in prayer, running her thumb across the angel’s knuckles. She held the angel’s hand as though something special, something to be revered. And in Crowley’s mind it was.
Crowley opened and closed her mouth several times, trying and failing to voice what she’d been meaning to for what feels like since the beginning of time itself. In the end she pulled their joined hands to her mouth and kissed the angel’s knuckles, hoping, hoping, Aziraphale would understand.
Physical contact was by no means new between them, not in the many years they’ve known each other, but they were gestures that were socially acceptable for the time, or when they stumbled together drunk into, usually, Aziraphale’s bookshop. But they were never touches that said, don’t let go, touch me more. They never said, choose me not them.
They never were gestures that said I love you.
Crowley felt Aziraphale gently shake her hand free and steeled herself for the impending rejection. She could hear it now, I don’t feel that way, or Perhaps you should head on home and We can just forget about this, dear.
A hand wrapped around her chin tentatively, pulling the demon’s eyes up to meet the blue ones in front of her. The angel’s other hand cupping Crowley’s cheek gently, her thumb smoothing across the demon’s striking cheekbones. Crowley realized she had stopped breathing completely, (She didn’t really need to, but she didn’t need to do a lot of things. Like driving, enjoy fine wine, love an angel. It just came naturally), drawing in a desperate breath. Demon’s don’t feel love like angels could, but there was no missing the warmth and love radiating off the celestial being in front of her.
Looking up at her angel (because Aziraphale was hers. They were each other’s before they were anyone else’s now) she could feel what heaven really was. what it really should be.
What it could be, maybe.
Her angel was light. Her angel was pure, the brightest white. A fresh snowfall on christmas morning, with a cup of fresh hot cocoa to warm you up after. Her angel was white like the soul of a newborn child, brimming with life. Her angel sparkled like the North Star, offering guidance and hope to all that look upon it.
“Not as good,” she repeated, with more reverence than a demon should rightly be able to muster.
“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale breathed, slipping out of her armchair and to her knees in front of the demon, resting her forehead against the demon’s.
Crowley nearly wept at the adoration dripping from her angel’s voice. Aziraphale felt like let me hold you and I won’t let you go.
Aziraphale pulled Crowley into a tender kiss, a kiss that felt like I choose you, not them. It felt like I’ve been so foolish, forgive me. It felt like I love you.
Crowley grasped desperately at Aziraphale’s lapel and returned the kiss, hoping she felt like I’d always choose you, I didn’t mind the wait, I love you.
They broke apart and Aziraphale kissed Crowley’s lips once more (that said I adore you) before moving to her cheeks (and that said I’m sorry), her eyes (that said you’re beautiful), her forehead (and that said I treasure you).
You are my heaven, Crowley wanted to say. And she did so by sliding her hands around the angel’s neck and tumbling into Aziraphale’s lap, pushing them both against the ground.
They shared a breathless laugh and as the evening turned into night and the night turned into day, and the day into night, they shared more of what they felt for each other but seldom with words.