You Are So Loved! | Good Omens - Ineffable Husbands Fic

finally

Aziraphale doesn't believe his own ears at first. His smile fades slowly into an expression more serious and he looks down into his glass, hoping an answer would reveal itself to him, but nothing bobs to the top of his wine like letters in an alphabet soup. All he has are the words--the truth--that Crowley has spoken into existence in the low-lighting of the store.

He feels his face loosen and a wave of an odd emotion comes over him--not a somber feel, it was something else. It takes him a moment, but Aziraphale eventually recognizes the feeling as none other than that of relief. He still has to question it though, for just a moment. 'Did Crowley really just say that? Maybe I misheard, maybe I'm hallucinating, there's no way--surely he--'

But Aziraphale couldn't deny the truth of that anymore, and switched to the next doubt. 'Did he mean it? He is drunk after all, and people throw the term around so casually now, I'm sure I'm just overthinking it--'

That is, until, he realizes that this is Crowley. Of course he meant it. 'Who am I kidding? He practically let me take him on a date and he helped me get dressed, he even suggested suspenders and a bowtie to make me feel more comfortable, he won me a bear, he--! He made me a lovely book of pressed flowers that he likely grew himself and that must've taken him so long!'

Not to mention the time he saved Aziraphale from being guillotined. And then later from being blown to smithereens. The time he saved the books. The time he made Hamlet such a huge success. And then of course there's all of the lunches and dinners he's suggested and paid for.

Though, the main reason Aziraphale stops trying to deny what Crowley has admitted to him, is the question of 'Who else would have possibly loved me so much?'

Because yes, Crowley is a demon. But he's also more human than anyone Aziraphale has ever met in last 6,000 years.

So it all clicks in his head. And Aziraphale feels quiet tears making their way down his face. The cry didn't come like a storm, but with the peaceful coldness of a sudden and greatly needed rain. He sat on the sofa, looking over the shelves while he tried to compose himself, but his eyes fell back over Crowley and he knew there was no stopping it. He let the tears wash away all of the doubt, fear, and low self esteem that's been building up over the entirety of his partnership with Heaven and he knows what's true: They really are on their own side. And there is nothing anyone can do about it.

His demonic counterpart is looking at a spot on the floor with half-lidded eyes and smiling silly, his brain a ball of serotonin just rolling around his swaying head. For a few moments he is stuck in this weird, drunken trance, but then his ears catch something. A sniffle. He looks up to his Angel and sees the wetness of his face, and before he can ask what's wrong to any extent, he realizes what he just said. 'Oh no,' he thinks. 'I made my angel cry.'

He shot up from the chair, making it produce a high-pitched scream as it scrapes against the floor, and he starts to panic, not knowing what to say or how to fix it. He drops his nearly empty glass, and it lands shattering on the hard floor. His hands move to his hair which is now down and he's pulling at it from his scalp as he fidgets looking for words, all of his movements fast and big in his anxiety and pain he feels at what he's just done; his misinterpretation changing everything. Words spill out of his mouth in a fast string that hardly makes sense as he starts to apologize. "Sh*t, Ang--Aziraphale I'm so sorry, I can't believe I just did that, I never wanted to hurt you, I never meant for this to happen. SH*T! I-I- I'll leave you alone, I'll--we can pretend this never happened, please, I know this isn't what you wanted! I- I'll go now! I'll make it better! Please..."

He stumbles around the room, his head dizzy and his sight blurring with tears of his own. He manages to avoid the mess at his feet, then miracles it back into a newly formed glass, the little wine that had been left in it now gone from existence. He finds his flannel on the floor and his shoes he had kicked behind a shelf an hour or so before, falling to the floor two different times in his reckless, panicked, drunken escape. He rushes to the door, his vision and thinking as unclear as ever. All he knew was that he needed to get out of there.