Crowley/Aziraphale slash. You know you dig it, c'mon, don't give me that look. {{This is God. You have been warned.}} *~*~*~*~*~*~* I Want Love Written by: AngelAnne *~*~*~*~*~*~* "I want love, but it's impossible A man like me, so irresponsible A man like me is dead in places Other men feel liberated... And I can't love shot full of holes I don't feel nothing, I just feel cold Don't feel nothing, just old scars Toughenin' up around my heart..." -- Elton John - "I Want Love" There were plenty of nice, cozy little bars in Soho. Aziraphale only frequented one, and that was because it was across the street from his bookstore. The daunting storm had driven away even the heartiest drunks, and so he had the place all to himself. He was drinking enough for all of them. He'd meant to invite Crowley out for a good round of drunk, but the demon was nowhere to be found. He needed this time to brood, anyway, and what better way to do it than a dark bar on stormy night. "Posh'tv'ly poetic," he slurred, trying to get his eyes to focus on the bottle of...whatever it was exactly he was drinking. "Er shumthin. I think." He'd been drinking for far too long. He'd been at the table since the rain had come in, and that was nearly five hours ago. It was now 12:30 in the morning, and he had no plans of going anywhere. Which was good, because he wouldn't even trust himself walking after all that whiskey. And wine. And vodka. And a couple of screwdrivers for good measure. There were at least dozen glasses on his table, each of them tipped on their side with small amounts of liquid still in them. He'd just kept ordering drink after drink, and even though the bartender knew he should have stopped after the entire bottle of 80 proof had been downed, he kept bringing out more alcohol. Lightning flashed in the street, followed by a positively bone-vibrating clap of thunder. The power flickered, but Aziraphale didn't seem to notice. He had important things on his mind that were waging war with the thick, hazy sludge that was his thinking capacity at the present. He didn't know what to do about Crowley. Because he had to face it - he loved the demon. A lot. And he knew that sort of thing Just Wasn't Okay. If angels could go out and love any being they came across, well, there'd be chaos! Of course, he'd never actually asked if it was against the rules, but truth be told - he was afraid to. He was afraid what he'd do if the answer was "yes, it's bad, and you're being kicked out of Heaven, you nutcase." It began after the near-Apocolypse. He'd thought for sure it would be the end of it all, but...well, it hadn't been. Things just went on as they always had, and it was unsettling. Especially since he hadn't expected to make it this long, let along past the end of the world. Or the non-end, anyway. It had been that one moment, standing with Crowley and holding that flaming sword, when he'd finally realized how much a part of his life the demon was. How much he really, really loved him. And it scared the crap out of him. It was a sin. A sin to even talk to the demon, befriend him, any of that, but he'd gone steps beyond. The only person he wanted to spend his life with was Crowley. Heaven, Hell, whatever, so long as Crowley was there. But he didn't want Hell. As much as he wanted Crowley, he didn't want to fall. Because even after the botched End, he couldn't hate God. It was an ineffable plan, complicated Solitaire, seeing how things worked after all. He needed God like he needed Crowley. He didn't want to find out if he could have both. So he played it cool, pretended that he wasn't in love, nothing had changed. Sometimes he pictured himself as a demon, and it scared him. He had always been the light to Crowley's...not quite dark. Gray? Off-light? So if there was no light... It haunted him from time to time; strange eyes, red like blood, his blonde hair stained and strange, his wings with black feathers and scales, claws -- Aziraphale grabbed his head. "Shtop it, brain. Shtop that thish inshtant, d'yah hear me?" The bartender pretended he heard nothing, and just continued to wash glasses behind the counter. The worst part - worse than falling, worse than the love - was that Crowley didn't love him back. How could he? He tempted mortal women all the time, danced in those strange modern clubs with the smoke and pulsing beats, and above all, wasn't stupid enough to fall in love. He'd already fallen, so he was ahead of the game. He'd always told Aziraphale that he was just enough of a bastard to like, but he...something about the demon was always untouchable. It was just another thing to love. "It hurtsh..." he said miserably. "I wash sho shecure b'fore you had t'go and ruin it, with yer beautiful eyes and yer...yer caring. Damn you, Crowley." Rain was pouring unbelievably hard on the roof of the bar. Wind made the windows creak. "I knew what I had and what I'd always have." He took a swig of wine straight out of the bottle. "And you went and...and you tempted them with that apple, and you got us into quite a messh, didn'tcha? And we had th'arrangement and it all went well and yah don't even know what yah do t'me yah bastard..." He heard what it was like to fall falling; his wings creaked, hot air on his neck, all the light being sucked out of him, replaced with bitterness and anger and darkness like a void... He was always clinging desperately to God. He could almost thinking about giving Crowley up, if he could just stay an angel. Because without being an angel... Crowley hated demons. He hadn't actually fallen, hadn't chosen to take the nosedive from the light. He'd just tripped one day, missed a stair, gotten stuck on a treeroot. To Crowley, demons were sad beings. They had seen the glory of God and decided that it was alright, but there was something better. And if Aziraphale fell, then he'd just become something Crowley hated. More than anything, he didn't want to be something Crowley hated. The bartender realized he wouldn't be getting any other customers, and decided it was fine time to take a piss. He set down his glass and towel and headed for the back room. " 'jusht want 'n answer..." Aziraphale said softly. "I wanna figger out why thish ish sho damn frushtrating." The world abruptly ended for Aziraphale. There was a crunch as the giant tree crashed through the ceiling and collapsed upon his table. Rain poured furiously down upon his broken body and the shattered glasses, washing around all the blood on the floor. ------ The Bentley might as well have been on fire, for the way Crowley was driving. He had his lights on and honked occcasionally, but he wasn't stopping for any red light or stop sign that came his way. Something was wrong. Well, he didn't actually know something was wrong. He'd been sitting around on his pristine couch, reading a copy of "The Alienist" (a fantastic murder mystery; he'd known Theodore Roosevelt for a brief time, the man was quite fond of snakes) when something with the force of a two-ton truck had slammed into his chest. Aziraphale. He'd been in the car before you could say, "Don't forget your keys!" He loved thinking about Aziraphale, and hated it for the same reasons. Aziraphale made him think, made him question, and for once, made him want to love without sex (though it could be a side-bonus, were the angel so willing.) He let his car take him wherever he was intended to go, thinking and occasionally turning the steering wheel. There was one big problem with loving the silky, smiling angel - it would tempt him. Crowley could tempt the whole world, but he never wanted to tempt Aziraphale. Because if he fell...if he fell... Crowley didn't like thinking about it. The core of everything he loved about the angel was just that - he was an ANGEL. And he still wanted to be in the company of this stupid demon who hadn't even meant to become one in the first place. Without his annoying do-good nature, his beautiful white wings and above all his pure light, he wasn't Aziraphale. He was just a body. No, he would never tempt Aziraphale; he'd never dream of it. He would pretend until the end of time that he wasn't in love, if it would mean that his angel would stay forever untainted. It would break his heart (despite popular belief, he did still have one) if something were to break the beauty of Aziraphale and his light. He came to a screeching halt outside a bar in Soho. It was such a screeching halt that he was thrown from the car, rolling end over end and coming to a stop only after getting covered in mud. He sat up on the pavement, blinking as rain pelted him furiously. He stood up slowly, trying to figure out exactly how that happened. Ah yes, no seatbelt. He looked around a bit. Yes, there was Aziraphale's bookshop, the porn store in the building next to it, some fire trucks, a fallen tree, Aziraphale's body-- Whoa, wait, back up. "No." Crowley immediately went into denial. Aziraphale wouldn't be so stupid as to let his body just...die like that. In a bar. Crushed by a stupid damn TREE of all things. He got closer, because demon or not Crowley had always been morbidly curious. Aziraphale's perfectly pressed white suit was soaked crimson through and through. His hair was stained red by blood from a huge wound on his head. His eyes were closed, and he was clutching a somewhat broken shotglass in his hand. He was not noticed by the medical technician as he felt for Aziraphale's pulse. He wasn't expecting to find one, he was just prodding his denial along in its merry way. "You stupid, stupid angel," Crowley muttered. This would be a large amount of paperwork upstairs. God might even figure out what Aziraphale had been doing down here this whole time and he'd never see Crowley again... "How could you do this to me?" He staggered back to the Bentley, feeling numb. He sat down behind the steering wheel but left the ignition off. He just let himself fall forward, sunglasses falling unoticed onto the slick pavement. "Stupid, stupid angel..." ------ Aziraphale blinked. Well, he was home. The big question was "why?" {{You're dead. That is, your body is dead.}} "Oh," Aziraphale said, as if he'd just been told his new haircut was nice. "That's...not a good thing." {{No. Most definitely.}} "A big tree fell on me," he observed, like he was commenting on a particularly blue sky. {{Yes.}} "Ooh boy..." Aziraphale felt the need to sit down. As he did so, a very nice wooden chair appeared beneath him. He got comfy. {{You're troubled.}} "Can't fool you, I guess..." Aziraphale sighed. {{About love.}} The angel swallowed. No, this was the conversation he'd been dreading. This was the one where he would learn the truth; he couldn't love Crowley if he wanted to be an angel, he was being kicked out, he was going to be damned for A Very Long Time That Looks a Lot Like Forever. "Am I...I mean to say, is it...er..." Aziraphale was having a very hard time being articulate. There were just some things that were difficult to think about around God, because he could be peeking into your head at any given moment. {{Love is no sin, Aziraphale. Why do you worry so?}} "Because it isn't just love! It's a fallen angel, not just any fallen angel, but CROWLEY! Anthony J. Crowley! The snake of Eden, that really annoying bastard that's not evil enough to hate but not good enough to tell him about...about..." {{You love him, Aziraphale. Why do you worry so?}} "Because I don't want to fall! Okay? Are you happy? I don't want to lose sight of everything I've ever known!" Aziraphale was on his feet now. "I don't want to lose sight of light and You and...and...if I fell...Crowley would hate me." {{Crowley was an accident. The falling, I mean. I never wanted him to fall, you must believe me. It was just...one day, he just missed a step, and then he was gone. If he ever asked, why...}} "What?" {{Never mind. Want to know what's important here?}} Aziraphale nodded. "If you wouldn't mind." {{You love him. That's what's important. You cannot spend every second of your life wondering if you're going against My Will. My plan is not ineffable for nothing, Aziraphale. If I did not want you to love Anthony J. Crowley, you would not. Do you see now? Don't question what happens to you. Let it happen, for that is how it's supposed to happen. Every now and then things go a little off, like the...well, you know, but that's how Life is. If it was perfect,it would be terribly boring. Love the demon, Aziraphale. Love is no sin. Why do you worry so?}} Aziraphale felt as though something heavy was off his shoulders. "...thank you." It was the only thing Aziraphale could say that was sufficient to describe how he was feeling. "But, I'm going to need a new body." {{I will find someone to work on that for you. For now...get comfy. It could be awhile.}} ------- It was four weeks, actually. One miserable month. For Crowley, it never ceased raining. He spent a lot of that time sitting on a bench in Hyde Park under a magnificent tree - Crowley was nothing if not a lover of irony - thinking. Thinking about every century, every decade, every year even he'd spent in the company of Aziraphale. It was silly to think he wasn't coming back down. Just because neither of their bosses had bothered to contact them after the whole...well, you know, it didn't mean what he was sure it meant. Right? There could be another reason, or... "Who am I trying to kid?" Crowley said, sparkling serpent eyes watching a beer can roll along in the breeze. He let his coat flap around as his hair stuck to his head, damp and generally icky. "They know about this. They KNOW I love him, and they'll do this just to spite me." Despite how much he hated the movie, he had to admit he had a wonderful life with Aziraphale. Apples and oranges though they may have been, they were both complicated personalities. Those kinds of people got along very well with each other. He always thought he'd never be smart enough to fall in love. Or stupid enough, depending on how the relationship was faring. And then he was, and he had to keep it all to himself. Lust was a sin, but...how could love be a sin, too? Love was the greatest thing in the world, so why was he afraid to tell the angel? Because the angel could fall. As rock steady as he was in his belief, if there was even one moment of faltering - he himself was proof - well, that was it. One tempting, one moment of allowance, and there would be no more Aziraphale. He'd be someone else entirely. "Why Crowley, you seem surprised. This is what you wanted, isn't it?" Stained hair, stained wings. Different smirk that didn't belong. Eyes... No, no, that wasn't how he wanted it at all. He just wanted love. That was it. No sex, no lust, none of that. Just love. L-o-v-e. He was smitten and terribly embarrassing though it was, it was the most wonderful thing he'd ever encountered. Stealing car radios and pushing little old ladies into oncoming traffic didn't even compare. Since that one night, Crowley hadn't even bothered with sunglasses. They were really superficial, after all, and he didn't need them if it was going to keep raining. He was just wearing his long black overcoat, black slacks, white shoes (a present from Aziraphale he'd found in the back of his closet) and his drippy hair. His mind kept going back to that one moment. Aziraphale's broken body, all that blood and all that alcohol... He'd been torturing the angel. The angel was being hurt because of him. For Crowley, it was one of those moments where your entire brain went, "You stupid fucking moron." Someone kissed his cheek. He jumped in surprise, but was even more surprised when he saw the being responsible for the kiss. "So...you're back." He said this as if he were commenting on a snappy new suit. "I am." Aziraphale looked confused. "Where are your sunglasses?" "Lost them. I've been meaning to get another pair, but you know how it is, you get caught up in --" "I love you." " -- things. Oh." Crowley stopped. "You...do?" "Yes. I love you. I'm not afraid to say it," Aziraphale said, grinning. It was a beautiful sight. "I love you, Anthony J. Crowley. Love. Love love love." "Angel, stop it!" Crowley was feeling panicky. He knew what would happen if he kept saying those things. One wrong move. Aziraphale did stop. "I'm sorry." "You can't love me. You know why?" Crowley said angrily. "You'll FALL, angel! And I don't want that! You'll be just like me, all empty and bitter and worthless." "You stop it," Aziraphale countered. "You're not worthless, you stupid demon. You're brilliant. You're wise and you're confused and sweet and bloody complicated and I love that about you." "Stop it, Aziraphale! You're. Going. To. Fall." Crowley spelled it out as if Aziraphale was a small child working on his vocabulary. "Stop loving me. Please, if you...if you value yourself...you don't know how much it sucks being me." "Love is not a sin. Why do you worry so?" And Aziraphale kissed Crowley again, sweetly on the lips this time. "Do you understand now?" Crowley just stared. He didn't move; he was frozen in that one position. Aziraphale swallowed.So he had been right. The demon didn't love him in return. Oh well, it would be alright. They would just go along like they always had, demon and angel, apples and oranges. He could not let Crowley see that he was crushed. "I'm sorry, Crowley. I shouldn't have done that. I know you don't love me; I don't know why I fool myself like this. All this time I'd been praying you loved me too, that this could work out. It was silly. I'm silly." Crowley realized something - if Aziraphale was going to fall, it would have happened a few minutes ago, right after the first "I love you." So he kissed Aziraphale this time, again a sweet touch on his lips. "Stop babbling," he commanded, hitting the angel on the nose with his finger. "And don't apologize. I love you too, and you're making a fool out of yourself." "Oh." It was a moment of realization. "Well, I haven't fallen yet, so I think we're in good shape." "Yes." There was silence. The rain had begun to clear up. "Don't you want to dry off?" Aziraphale eyed Crowley's clothes. "You look like you've been sitting out here for hours." Crowley chuckled. "You're rather wet yourself, you know. We'll go back to my apartment and get comfortable." Aziraphale smiled. "I like that. Oh, by the way..." "Mm?" "I thought you hated those shoes!" "I've found a new fondness for them."