#be sad when it eventually went kaput. i had to prevent that from happening

[spotforme]

it's very stupid

[luckyspike]

Do I Have To (Cry For You) - A Good Omens Fanfiction

So there’s this Nick Carter song I was listening to while I was mowing the grass and I caught a case of feelings from it so instead of pulling weeds or doing anything moderately useful like laundry i wrote this story instead

in which crowley and aziraphale finally fucking talk about their stupid feelings for each other

it’s soft af

they dont bone down sorry

(link to AO3 if you prefer to read there)

-

The angels - one of which was Fallen, but who’s counting - dined at the Ritz, and a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square. And then, after one angel (not Fallen) consumed the entirety of two entrees and one heavenly dessert, the pair walked to Soho, elbows brushing the whole way, shoulder-to-shoulder, warm and soft and mellow, conversation washing over them and topics changing like currents in a stream. They walked with practiced ease to a bookshop, where they stopped, and looked up at the illuminated sign.

“Just like it always was,” Aziraphale sighed fondly, his voice thick with … something, love and joy and sadness, and a sappy little smile on his mouth.

Crowley snorted. “Some of the books are a bit newer, I think, but you’ll sort that out soon enough.”

Aziraphale didn’t look over, although he twitched a little. “Oh? What a surprise. Perhaps, ah … well, you were here this morning, so perhaps you could show me?”

“What, and spoil your fun?” You go too fast for me, Crowley. “Nah, I’m beat anyway. Think I’ll head back to Mayfair, sleep for a week or two.”

The angel’s smile faded, and his lips pressed to a thin line. “I do have a few bottles of quite nice wine. We could work on them. I’ve been saving them for a special occasion, and I can’t much think of one more special than averting armageddon.” He did look over now, cautious. “Go on, have a few glasses and we’ll sort through the new books. They’ll have to be re-shelved.”

Crowley might have whined. Something inside him did, anyway. Yes, it whined. Yes, have a glass and sleep on his couch and -

You go too fast for me, Crowley.

“Wouldn’t like to impose,” he said instead.

“I’m inviting you in.”

“I’m really tired, angel.”

“Then sleep on the couch.” Aziraphale was getting annoyed now, brow furrowed, well on his way to frowning with disapproval. “Come in, Crowley.”

Crowley turned to him then, scowling. “Bit much for one night, don’t you think, Aziraphale?”

That stopped things faster than Crowley’s work at the airfield the day prior. Aziraphale blinked, and put his head to one side. “I - what? What do you mean a bit much?”

Crowley groaned, and pushed his sunglasses up, the better to rub his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Save the world, dinner at the Ritz, drinks at your place, crash on your couch, eh? I’m not blind*!” He dropped his hands, but his glasses stayed pushed up, mussing his already-messy hair. “Give up with the tempting, Aziraphale. We switched back eight hours ago.”

[* Although, taken literally, this was somewhat of a lie. Fortunately, Crowley was not intending to be taken literally, and although not 20/20, his metaphorical vision was considerably better than his literal 20/200.]

“Tempting?” Aziraphale sputtered for a minute. “Crowley, I - my dear boy, that is to say … Crowley, this is hardly anything new!”

“Not all at once! Aziraphale, listen, we’ve done a lot in the last day or two, and - and I thought I lost you and then I didn’t, but now you’re back and -” Oh no, he thought, I can’t stop talking, and even as he thought it the spirit of something - possibly God, or possibly 6000 years of repressed affection, but who knows - seized his tongue and pressed on, “- and I didn’t lose you and I can’t do it again, angel, don’t make me step away again.”

“Step away?” Aziraphale gestured emphatically to the doors of the bookshop, dramatic and annoyed and now a little angry. “I’m literally asking you to step inside!”

Crowley opened his mouth. Gestured weakly to the door. And then it came out, blurted and desperate and exhausted, “It just seems a bit fast, doesn’t it?”

Aziraphale froze. Then, slowly, he lowered his hands to his side. He took a breath, chest rising and falling deliberately. “Anthony Crowley,” he said quietly, calmly, “please go into the bookshop.” He looked to the demon, expression firm and brooking no argument. “I think we need to have a conversation.”

Crowley went inside.

“1967,” Aziraphale said, as soon as the doors closed behind them. “You’re talking about 1967.”

Crowley turned to face him, hands in his pockets, eyes downcast behind the glasses. “Yup,” he replied, with no small degree of misery.

The angel shook his head. “Oh, Crowley. Now, shut up for this part, because I’m going to say some things you’re going to hate, but I do rather think you’ll like it at the end bit.”

“Uh?” Crowley looked up, brows knit, concern etched on every line on his face, and then a little alarm, when Aziraphale grabbed his shoulders. “Uh!”

“You idiotic, oblivious, considerate, soft, patient, infernal creature,” Aziraphale snapped, shaking Crowley a little with every adjective. “You’ve been standing on the brakes since 1967?”

“Yeah,” Crowley said, a little weakly, wondering when Aziraphale would get to the part he’d like. So far it wasn’t looking good.

“And you didn’t think my feelings toward you would change?”

Crowley frowned. “You did refuse to run away to Alpha Centauri when -”

“Because Alpha Centauri isn’t Earth!” He swept a hand around himself. “Crowley, yesterday I thought - well, I thought that we didn’t have to change. I thought we could avert the war and go back to being a fairly incompetent angel and demon, and I figured at some point I would probably tell you that -” and now it was Aziraphale that was floundering, his tongue running away with the conversation with very little input from his brain but quite a lot from his soul, “that, that Crowley, demon and angel or angel and Fallen angel or however you want to look at it, I figured at some point I would - I would tell you that … that I really quite like you.” He took a breath, and then scowled. “Oh, sod it, that’s not very accurate, is it? I love you, Crowley, I do, and at this point it’s ridiculous to pretend otherwise.”

“Love?” Crowley repeated, faintly, painfully conscious of Aziraphale’s hand on his shoulder. “You …” He gestured between them, vaguely, and trailed off.

“Yes. Yes, Crowley, I love you and at this point it’s ridiculous to feel afraid that if anyone knows about it it’ll get messed about,” he said bitterly. “That was the fear, all along, wasn’t it? And that created the problem. I didn’t want things to change, so I couldn’t change. If I just pushed back hard enough, I thought, nothing would change, at least not soon, and maybe eventually I would tell you how I felt.” He sighed. “I’ve been rather a misery to be around, I’m afraid."

“Never,” Crowley said, completely genuine. “When, er … how?”

“The eighties,” Aziraphale groaned. “Oh, thirty years, Crowley. But I thought, no, the less said the better, if you don’t change anything nothing will mess it up, you won’t get in trouble. But then the world was supposed to end and blast it all rather than admit how I felt to you and help you, I decided to double down on being distant and try to prevent Armageddon with sheer stubbornness, just so I wouldn’t ruin everything before I had the chance to let you know.” He let his head fall back, eyes closed, another groan of frustration and hurt rushing out. “It was all rather beastly of me.”

“A bit, yeah,” Crowley agreed. “Sorry. The eighties? Was it that day down in Blackpool?”

“I am sorry,” Aziraphale said, softly, letting his hand finally fall from Crowley’s shoulder to his own side. “And to think that tonight I’d try to force it, like I haven’t led you to believe -”

Crowley blinked, and then, without truly knowing why, grabbed the angel’s shoulders. “Hey. Aziraphale?” Blue eyes met his - truly his, because his glasses had slid down to the tip of his nose quite a bit ago, now - and he swallowed. Worked up a shaky little smile. “I forgive you. For what that’s worth.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale’s face softened, the anger and hurt crumbling away, and for a second they were back on a hot, sunny wall, with stormclouds mounting in the distance and all of eternity stretched out before them. “Oh, my boy. It means quite a lot to me.” He seized Crowley, pulling the other into an embrace, and was not at all surprised to find it returned with more strength than the demon’s skinny frame looked capable of. “Thank you, Crowley,” he murmured into the nape of Crowley’s neck. “For everything.”

There was silence, and Crowley continued to hold Aziraphale tight, like a man crossing a desert might hug the first tree of a vast, lush forest, when he comes upon it.

“You know,” Crowley said after a while, his breath brushing Aziraphale’s hair, making it tickle a little, “you being a gigantic bloody prude might have saved the planet, though. If you’d just come out with all this two days ago we would’ve been off to the stars and this place’d be kaput.” Aziraphale, unable to help himself, snorted a laugh into Crowley’s lapel. “So I guess there’s that.”

“They do say everything happens for a reason.”

“Don’t start with that toss.” He nuzzled Aziraphale, just behind the ear, a soft brush from the tip of his nose, and then released him, taking a half-step back. He pushed his sunglasses up his nose and stuffed his hands back into his pockets. “Well.”

Aziraphale sighed. “I am sorry, Crowley. Really. If you …” He swallowed. “If you don’t want to stay, I understand. I’m sorry for being so pushy earlier. Get some rest, and … I’ll be here when you’re ready.”

“Ready?” Crowley barked a laugh. “Angel, you said it yourself - I’ve been standing on the brakes for fifty years for you. I’ve been ready.”

“Ah.” He frowned, a little sad, but then took a breath, and raised an eyebrow, and allowed himself a little half-grin. “I thought I heard you say you were tired, though.”

Crowley hummed, and moved to stand next to Aziraphale, one arm slung over his shoulders as he steered him toward the back room, the two of them in lock-step. “And I thought I heard you say you have some nice wine and a couch to crash on.”

“Ah, well. So you did.”

-

I've been all around the world, done all there is to do But you'll always be the home I wanna come home to You're a wild night with a hell of a view There ain't no place, ain't no place like you There ain't no place, ain't no place like you

- Backstreet Boys (No Place)