@sleepymccoy I couldn’t get this idea out of my head so I decided to write something.
Crowley froze, staring down at his phone in shock as his face turned beet red. His thumb hovered over the now dark screen, wondering what he should do now. Wondering what Aziraphale would do.
The words had slipped out automatically, and it wasn’t until .5 seconds after he had hung up the phone that he realized what he had said. Six thousand years of hiding and even straight up denial, and this was how it came out? Seriously? It was true, yes. But this is not how he had wanted to say it, if he ever did gather up the courage.
After what seemed like an eternity but was only about 20 seconds, the phone vibrated in his hand, and Aziraphale’s name popped up on the screen. Crowley swallowed hard and answered, heart pounding in his ears. There were a few seconds of silence, and he could feel Aziraphale’s shock through the phone.
“Yesss?” he asked hesitantly, grimacing.
“S-sorry,” Aziraphale said. “What did…what was that last part?”
“Uh, it was nothing, angel, really. An accident. Just forget it happened ok?” Crowley’s words tumbled out in a rush, and he tried not to start panicking.
“An accident,” Aziraphale repeated. “How do you even say I…say that by accident?”
“It was automatic,” Crowley protested.
“Automatic implies you’re used to saying it,” he said guardedly.
“Yes,” Crowley admitted, trying desperately to think of something. He didn’t like the angel’s tone. He wasn’t quite sure what it meant, and he certainly didn’t want to scare him off or go too fast again. “Because…because I say it to my boyfriend all the time.”
Fuck. No, that’s even worse.
There was a long, long moment of silence from the other end. Crowley thought he might just discorporate from the tension. Then he was afraid Azirphale had.
“I didn’t know you had a boyfriend,” Aziraphale said finally, his voice surprisingly calm.
More silence. “Well what’s his name?” Aziraphale asked impatiently.
“Oh, um…” Crowley looked around the room desperately for an idea, finally landing on the new film about Bohemian Rhapsody. “Freddie.”
“Not long, only a few weeks.”
“Oh. Well when can I meet him?”
“Well he’s very busy,” Crowley said hastily. “I’m not sure.”
“Uh huh. Listen, I’ve gotta go now…”
“Well of course. Don’t let me stop you.”
The phone call dropped with a dry click. Crowley sank into the couch, wondering what he’d just gotten himself into.
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Aziraphale supposed it was the almost-apocalypse that had done it. As far as he knew, Crowley had never had a relationship with anyone in all of creation. But now that Hell was leaving him alone, he supposed he felt free to pursue it. And by all means, good for him. Aziraphale tried to be supportive, he really did. In fact, he understood the freedom of not having ethereal beings breathing down your neck and just waiting for you to screw up. He had been hoping, in the months following the armageddidn’t, that maybe his own friendship with Crowley was growing into something more. Apparently not.
The angel stared hopelessly at the mess of notes on his desk, everything that he compiled about Freddie Scott over the last two months. Tall, between 20s-30s, musician, black hair, traveling journalist, only child, nighttime janitor, lived somewhere in the greater London area but was rarely home, delivery truck driver, didn’t like sushi, bar tender, glasses, occasionally takes care of his elderly grandmother in Scotland, red hair (dyes it?), does not know the gavotte, dog walker, marathon trainer, and owns a tabby cat.
He had still never met him. Freddie was always busy at one job or another, and when he was free, Crowley had insisted that they needed time with just the two of them. Aziraphale was determined to find him, maybe discreetly show up at one of his eight jobs if he could ever figure out the schedule. It wasn’t like he was spying, he told himself. He just wanted to meet him. Friends did that, right? They had to approve their best friend’s significant other. And if he just so happen did not approve, he had ways of making Freddie disappear quicker than customers at his bookshop.
He’d tried to track him down using a phone book, but it turns out that those had been obsolete for several years and no one had told him. Eventually he had to turn to the internet, but there were hundreds of Freddie Scotts in the greater London area and surrounding countryside. Aziraphale had stalked several of them, but none matched the description Crowley gave. If they looked the part they didn’t have any of the jobs right. Or if they had the jobs right they were either too old or too young. To make matters worse, he hadn’t seen or heard from Crowley in nearly a week. Actually, he hadn’t seen much of him since the new boyfriend had come around. He missed him.
“Ooh, I know!” he said aloud, a new idea striking him. He picked up the phone and quickly dialed Anathema.
“Well I was beginning to think you’d forgotten about us,” she said teasingly a few seconds later. “It’s been two months since we’d heard from you.”
“Crowley has a boyfriend,” Aziraphale blurted before he could stop himself.
“That’s…certainly an odd way of putting it,” Anathema said slowly. “I’d worked that out for myself by now.”
“You knew? Have you met him? I’ve tried to find out who he is but it turns out there’s a million Freddie Scotts, well, not technically but it feels like it, and he’s always so busy so I haven’t even met him yet. I think Crowley’s too embarrassed, but is he embarrassed for us to meet him or is he embarrassed for him to meet us? Please, you’ve gotta help me, maybe you can invite us all over for dinner in a few weeks, that way he has plenty of time to make sure his schedule is clear…”
“Ohhhhhhh, I see,” Anathema said after taking a second to process the information. “So…You’ve never met him?”
“No,” Azirpahale said miserably. “I haven’t even seen a picture.”
“I’ll call Crowley,” she grinned. “Maybe I can figure something out.”
“Oh, thank you,” he sighed, relieved.
He could hear her smiling through the phone, which was a little unnerving. Did she know something he didn’t?
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Crowley glared at his phone, although it seemed like that was all he did since he’d accidentally invented a boyfriend. Anathema had been pleasant enough, but she had pushed a little too hard for dinner. She almost seemed to be implying that she knew Freddie was fake. He had been forced to accept and promised to bring Freddie with him this time, so now he had to figure out a good way out of this. The dinner was scheduled in three weeks, which gave him plenty of time to figure it out. He agonized it for over a week.
Maybe he could hire somebody to play Freddie. But no, that wouldn’t work. Crowley knew that he could never pretend like that, not if Aziraphale was there. What made everything worse was that the angel had been so supportive. There hadn’t even been a hint of jealousy, which in turn was making Crowley a little green with envy. Why didn’t it bother him?
Maybe there would be a family crisis. His grandmother in Scotland (or had he said Ireland? He couldn’t remember now) hadn’t been doing so well last time Freddie had gone to visit to get out of a movie with Aziraphale. On the other hand, if there was a family crisis then the others would absolutely insist that he go in moral support. And as much as he wanted to avoid all the questions that would come at dinner if Freddie wasn’t there, he didn’t want to miss yet another get together. Crowley missed their little trips out to Tadfield. He missed seeing everybody. Especially Aziraphale.
There was really only one option left, aside from telling the truth, which Crowley would never admit to. He grabbed a few bottles of wine and headed down toward the Bentley.
A few minutes later, he knocked on the door of the bookshop, doing his best to look crestfallen.
“Crowley?” Aziraphale asked, confused by the sudden appearance. “What…?”
“Freddie and I broke up,” Crowley said quickly.
“Oh!” he said in surprise, trying to contain a sudden rush of emotions. “I mean, I’m so sorry, do come in.” He locked the doors behind him quickly. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“No, I’d rather just drink and then never talk about it again.”
“Fine by me. I’ll go grab some glasses.”
Aziraphale went off to the kitchen with a little extra bounce in his step. Crowley watched him with a slight frown. Maybe he hadn’t been as happy about “Freddie” as he had let on. True to his word, nothing more was mentioned. Things carried on almost normally. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there was quite a lot to talk about when they’d hardly exchanged more than a few words in the past few weeks. There had been many times when Crowley had started to call Aziraphale to tell him something but had stopped at the last second, afraid that more questions about Freddie would be asked. So the time passed quickly, and it wasn’t long before they’d worked their way through several bottles of wine. This was the point when inhibitions began to float away, and tongues accidentally loosened.
“It’s a shame, really,” Aziraphale said off-hand. “I never got to meet him.”
“Who?” Crowley asked, already forgetting.
“Ah.” He took another long swig from the bottle. Just the mention of his imaginary ex-boyfriend gave him a headache. “You wouldn’t have liked him.”
“Why’d you say that?” Aziraphale asked, in a pitiful whine.
“You just...wouldn’t,” Crowley said lamely. It was very hard for him to think at the moment, but the last thing he wanted was to sober up.
“You didn’t want him to meet me, did you?” He sulked.
“That’sss not true,” Crowley slurred defensively.
“Did he not want to meet me? What did you say about me anyway?”
“Look, it’s not a problem, ok, it’s over now. Can we just not talk about it?” Crowley begged.
“Ssorry, I know,” Aziraphale said, waving a hand apologetically. “You just never said anything about him.”
“He was a very hard person to describe...”
“I waited outside your flat once,” he continued miserably. “In disguise. I waited hours and hours and hours trying to see him.”
“Because that’s what friends do...no no that’s not right. Hang on, round two.” He looked down at his feet, trying to concentrate. “You’re my best friend, Crowley. I had to make sure he was good enough for you. It was wrong of me I know, but I don’t understand why you didn’t trust me to meet him. Am I really that much of an..hic…embarrassment to you?”
“What—no, no of course not.”
“Oh for heaven’s sake Aziraphale, I made him up!!”
Aziraphale blinked at him owlishly. Cringing, Crowley sank deeper into the couch, wanting very much to turn into a snake.
“You mean...he’s not real?”
“No,” he muttered, blushing deeply.
The silence was unbearable. Then a slow smile crept across his face, and Aziraphale began to giggle uncontrollably. Crowley had not expected this reaction.
“You...you panicked,” Aziraphale wheezed. “You made up a boyfriend!!”
“Look can we please just never mention this again?”
“Oh no,” he said, falling out of his own chair and crawling over to the couch. “I am never gonna let you live this down.”
Crowley squirmed, unsure how to react with the angel this close. Aziraphale placed a tender hand on his cheek and smiled softly.
“But my dear boy,” he sighed. “I am glad.”
He leaned forward and kissed him gently. This time Crowley really did almost discorporate in shock. He really hadn’t expected that. Aziraphale grinned.
“I love you too, Crowley.”
Crowley blinked and then, deciding he didn’t really trust himself to say anything, pulled Aziraphale back in for another kiss.
