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Crowley shuts the Bentley door and runs a hand over her warm bonnet as she gives off the slightest shudder… More like a pur as she locks herself up for the night before settling; settling like she’s ‘home.’
Crowley can’t help a fond smile as he better positions the last moving box for the day on his hip. This one is just a few odds and ends: some toiletries and items that fall into the category of ‘general bath things’. He’d been surprised to discover that Aziraphale even had a bathroom, let alone that the Angel liked to indulge in grooming ‘the human way’ and soaking in warm baths in his gargantuan clawfoot tub.
Perhaps they’d take a bath together sometime? There’s certainly enough room for two human-shaped beings to enjoy it… No… No, he's not quite ready to let his brain indulge fully in that fantasy… especially since he’s still not quite sure what this whole ‘Moving into the Bookshop’ thing really truly means for him…
***
‘Safety’ was a word Aziraphale had used. The Demon had taken a long nap at the height of the pandemic. He hadn’t gone to sleep just because he’d been hurt or disappointed that Aziraphale hadn’t seemed too keen on them breaking lockdown rules and bunking together at the time. He'd been hurt and disappointed because he'd thought they'd been building towards a relationship that was ‘closer’ than it had been in the previous 6000 years.
He’d gotten used to weekly dinners and outings starting in the Fall of 2019. Falling asleep on the couch and staying the night in the bookshop’s backroom when he’d been too drunk to sober up. Helping the Angel pass out candy on Halloween from the Bookshop stoop. Museums and plays and concerts. Christmas High Tea at the Ritz and a proper exchange of presents on the actual day (they’d gotten each other a pair of cufflinks from the same shop near Crowley’s flat… how nauseating). Plus a few winter drives, cozy movie nights, and… Most exhilarating of all, more causal touch between them…
Hands on shoulders as they passed each other in the rows of books, a hand on a lower back ushering the other through a doorway, a smattering of hugs and cheek kisses in greeting, leaning on one another on a drunken night indulging in the fruits of the bookshop wine cellar. And… somehow most exciting of all… holding hands when they went to see a play based on a Dylan Thomas poem starring one of the Angel’s favorite actors.
They had gone to see that play on March 13th, 2020… A Friday… Crowley should have known…
And so they’d spent some time apart, and then the Angel had checked in… And declared they couldn’t ‘break the lockdown rules’ despite their extraordinary and privileged abilities to protect themselves and others. And so, the touch of the Angel’s hand gripped in his own still a tangible memory… Crowley had gone to bed…
He recalled a few bleary phone calls, and holding onto consciousness long enough to assure the Angel he was alive before letting a snakey snore escape his lips… and then, with the worst morning breath he’d experienced in 100 years, he’d awakened much more firmly, and not just to the sound of his phone…
He’d awakened on the bookshop sofa… in the Summer of 2021… over a year since that fateful phone call.
“Well you see Crowley dear…” the Angel had sputtered with a deep blush on his cheeks, hands shifting between wringing themselves together and pulling at his well-worn waistcoat, ”...so much time had gone by, and I was worried about someone from your lot, or worse, my lot, taking advantage of you in your vulnerable state and I just thought it better if… well if you were nearby! So, two months ago I… well I summoned you here… I had a terrible headache for a week after mustering up the miracle energy needed to do it, but I was successful nonetheless! It was… it was for the sake of safety!”
“So you could… guard me…?” Crowley had asked with a cough, having not spoken other than to grunt at Aziraphale on the phone in nearly six months.
Aziraphale had given him one of those ‘looks’... and Crowley couldn't help but feel anything other than fond. “Have you kept me on this couch the entire time, or did you move me around the place like a display mannequin?”
The Angel had huffed in response, “I did not leave you out or prop you up or allow a single living soul to even look at you Crowley! I have mostly kept the bookshop closed save for a few lovely days this Spring when I followed the protocols and allowed one person at a time to enter and browse. You have mostly stayed on the couch!”
“Mostly?” he’d asked, eyebrows cocked to his hairline.
“Well I do have a flat upstairs so… Occasionally, when I got a bit peckish, and wanted to use my kitchen I would… take you upstairs and leave you on my other couch while I worked on my baking projects…” The Angel’s blush had gotten even worse as he spoke.
“Take me upstairs as in… carry me?”
“Look, you’re awake now and rules have lessened in severity and if you wish to return home I understand but… Please believe I was… I was worried about you Crowley. And, and I was lonely. And… and the instant I hung up the phone last year I’d regretted telling you not to come over. I don’t know why I didn’t. Some sort of lingering fear about the past I suppose. It’s… it’s hard to forget…”
“Millenia of facing a lot more than rude notes if our offices knew we were friends?” Crowley had offered.
“Yes. Yes that.” Aziraphale had replied sadly. “But, in holding on to that fear, I’d allowed myself to forget something very much more important. The fact that we don’t have a side anymore. That we’re on our own side, like you said. And, us being on our own side doesn’t look like me leaving you in your flat alone for months on end. It looks like… well…”
“It looks like you bringing me over here to watch over me but being too polite to wake me up from a nap I don’t actually need? For the sake of… safety…?”
Crowley had expected a huff in exchange for that quip… and had gotten near hysterical laughter in return. They both had laughed, the entire thing feeling so very silly, and yet such a very ‘Aziraphale’ thing to do.
And so, Crowley had stretched, Aziraphale had asked for a hug, and then, pulling away, had made the most surprising request in their 6000 year history...
“Dear boy, I’ve gotten quite used to you being here, and it’s been so wonderfully reassuring to be able to look after you, even though I know you are more than capable of looking after yourself. Would you allow me to do what I should have done last year, and invite you to stay here for a while? Would you… could you find it in your heart to slither over and eat some cake and drink some wine with me every day… just to see what it might be like?”
Perhaps it had been his sluggishness from having slept for a year, or the complete shock of the request, or the sincerity in the Angel’s blue eyes, or something else entirely, but all the Demon could bring himself to say was a breathy and quiet, “Yes…”
***
And so, here he is.
The request is less than 2 days old, and a few boxes of things have been brought over.
Spots in the cluttered bookshop appearing as if by magic to make room for his plants and other essentials he cannot be without.
Tomorrow he’ll go out and bring one or two more plants into the space; new ones. A bit of greenery that he can say belongs to ‘them’ and not just to him.
He still doesn’t entirely know the status of this new ‘arrangement’ of theirs.
Is it still purely platonic? Is their careful affection with each other going to grow? Dare he dream of baths together upstairs?
He finds that he doesn’t quite care. It took 6000 years to get here, and he’s very willing to wait and see what another 6000 will bring… especially if said 6000 are starting here, with them calling the Bookshop ‘home’.
Crowley walks up to the front door and doesn’t even need to snap for the doors to let him in. He is immediately struck by the hearth-warm sense of place he feels in the cluttered yet beautiful space.
Aziraphale is sitting near his cash register and not in his usual armchair by the couch in the back, fully engrossed in a copy of ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ that he likely picked up hours ago ‘just to peek at’ and simply couldn’t put down.
Crowley thinks of disturbing him, but the Angel looks quite focused on the story.
Crowley thinks of venturing over to the couch, but that would be out of Aziraphale’s sight and company, which is not somewhere he ideally wants to be at this moment.
Crowley thinks of sitting near the Angel, but there is only one chair, currently occupied by said Angel.
But just as Crowley is about to clear his throat in interruption, he looks down to see that the chair Aziraphale is sitting on is suddenly twice as wide as it was… leaving a perfect spot for him to perch.
The Demon smiles. He doesn't know if this is the Bookshop’s doing, Aziraphale’s or maybe even his own… but a spot has been made for him by the Angel’s side… and he can certainly take a hint, no matter the source.
He takes a seat and leans back without hesitation into Aziraphale’s side, the warmth causing delicious tingles all up and down his corporation. Sweet sighs escape both of them as a comfort is found they both seem to need, but still lack the language to ask for.
“Read to me, Angel?”
Without a beat of hesitation, Crowley hears the pages flip back to the start of the book, and a melodious voice he has listened to since the dawn of humanity starts the story over again…