Smaller Stars

A/N: You know what's awesome? When your favorite book gets adapted to a mini-series and the end result is perfect. I've watched Good Omens through two times already. I'm effervescent.

Warning: this story is the product of too much wine in the authoress.

The angel was obvious when he worried. Written all over his face. Faint quiver in the lip, eyes gone all wide, nostrils flared. Fidgeting of those tiny hands.

The thing was never trying to determine whether Aziraphale was worried or not, no, the thing was trying to figure out WHAT he was worried about. Aziraphale had spent 6,000 years worrying about one thing or the other - he had quite literally invented the word neurotic. So that begged the question; what was Aziraphale all up in a fuss about? They'd saved the bloody world, hadn't they? And did quite a good job of it, minus some discorporation, and...well maybe Adam had done most of the heavy lifting, but he was the Antichrist. That was kind of his job, yeah? The heavy lifting part? They were just there to guide them, even if they were spectacularly late to that particular task.

So. What was bothering Aziraphale? He'd been like this for weeks. Never mind the fact that usually the anxious angel would share without hesitation. He rarely had reservations about voicing his concerns. So if he was holding back, it was something he didn't want Crowley to know, which narrowed things down even further, as over time Crowley had picked up that there was very little Aziraphale didn't want to tell him. Their separations over history seemed to have been a kind of snowball effect for both of them, wherein everything that happened to them apart was merely added to the list of things to recount when they were together. A bit like coming home from work and telling the wife all about what a day from Hell (or, uh, Heaven) you had.

Actually...maybe a bad comparison. Though Aziraphale in an apron with dinner on the table wasn't a bad mental image.

Funny, then, that the next time he sauntered into the angel's bookshop, Aziraphale was in the flat above, in a pink and yellow flowered apron, cooking up...something. It smelled a bit on the fire-y side, whatever it was.

"Thought we were going out?" Crowley asked lightly, leaning against the threshold to the kitchen. He couldn't for the life of him remember the last time he saw the angel in the kitchen. It would have had to have been the 50s, if even that early. Aziraphale thrived on going out and trying new restaurants, and after he discovered Yelp, forget about it. Rather pointless, all of that, considering he dished out five stars to nigh on every place they went to, regardless of the experience. "I wouldn't want them to lose business on my account, Heavens no," the angel had said, and Crowley had just smiled.

Smiled as he was smiling now, when Aziraphale turned and the fading sunlight outside the window touched the side of his face. He beamed at Crowley. "Oh good, you're here. I know, I know, not exactly what I promised—but apparently the Ritz was booked for the evening."

"You didn't just miracle us a reservation?"

"Well, I could have, but...well. I thought I'd try cooking."

Crowley laughed. "Angel, when was the last time you cooked?"

"After they invented the wood stove I certainly tried my hand at it...didn't have a particular talent. But between all the cook books I have laying around the shop and the internet, you'd be amazed what you can accomplish," the angel shared cheerily.

Crowley noted the fire-y smell had gotten...more fire-y. "So...what are you making?"

"Poached duck egg with roasted onion consommé, lemon thyme and smoked duck!" Aziraphale replied promptly. "Well the duck may have been a BIT over-smoked. But I'm sure I can fix things. Just, give me a moment, if you would..."

Crowley discretely worked a demonic miracle that saved the duck, in the hopes Aziraphale wouldn't notice. The angel was like this about certain things, about doing them the natural way, the human way. Couldn't do much about the egg poaching though, there was only so much within his power. He idled against the counter, watching Aziraphale work with interest. The angel consulted several open cookbooks frequently, and his phone once or twice. Crowley was surprised when the final product rolled out; aside from his missteps with the duck, everything turned out looking...

Fuck. He couldn't put a positive spin on it. It looked like Aziraphale had gone into St. James's park and murdered a duck with his own two hands and thrown it on a plate. A pregnant duck, at that, with the way the eggs turned out. And he had managed to reburn the duck that Crowley had saved. All that was edible was the roasted onion consommé, and even that tasted a bit like asphalt.

"Oh, drat," Aziraphale cursed, utterly crushed. "I followed the instructions to the letter! I don't understand where I went wrong..."

Crowley tried not to smirk, but failed.

"This isn't funny!" Aziraphale snapped, surprisingly forceful. "I wanted to do something nice for you—for us, I—I mean, but I budged it all up."

"There, there," Crowley said, patting the angel on the shoulder. "Do you want me to..." He made a vague gesture. "Anywhere in the world, angel. What are you hungry for?"

"This isn't about..." the angel seemed the epitome of frustration. "I wanted to speak to you about something important. Not in public."

"So you...made duck?" Crowley gingerly picked up the plates of Aziraphale's...efforts...and dropped them in the kitchen trashcan. "Aziraphale, you can talk to me about anything, whenever you want. We don't need pomp and circumstance, or burnt duck. Plus, I rather like ducks. Maybe best not to eat them."

He never did figure out whether they had ears or not.

"Yes, but it's a serious conversation."

"We have serious conversations all the time. Are you going to tell me why you've been so off since the Almostacolypse?"

Aziraphale nervously fiddled with the chain of his pocket watch. "It...didn't seem relevant in the immediate aftermath, but—well, I'm rather cross with you!"

Crowley bounced both eyebrows in surprise. "Now that's interesting."

"It's not interesting! I—Crowley, you..." The angel seemed to be at a loss for words. "Why on earth, when you thought I had died and the world was coming to an end, did you NOT bugger off to Alpha Centauri! You were sopping drunk in a bar in East London and the world was ending around you! You would have died, surely, if everything that had happened hadn't happened!"

Crowley stiffened incrementally. Huh. So this was what had the angel so riled up? Him slamming bottles of wine while doomsday cascaded down around him? "You wanted me to bugger off?"

"No, no—what I'm saying is, all hope appeared lost. And you didn't do anything else to, ah, stop the train, as it were. And you didn't flee. You just...gave up, and waited for death! Why?"

"Look, I wasn't..." Crowley shook his head. "It's not like I was suicidal. Just, didn't seem like there was anything worth doing at that point, y'know? Whole...fire and blood, thing. Seas boiling. M25 all ablaze, etcetera. What was the point of doing much of anything?"

"Then why didn't you run?" Aziraphale demanded. "From an outside point of view, this does seem like a roundabout suicide attempt, and that concerns me!"

Crowley didn't want to think about that brief period when he'd assumed Aziraphale was dead. He'd rather like to block it out for the rest of eternity, much like most of the 14th century, and bolo ties.

He didn't know how to explain how he'd felt in those moments following the burning of Aziraphale's bookshop, the surety that he'd lost his angel, his best friend, the other side to his coin. Head to tails and all that. It had just become a matter of, well, why bother with it all? Was there really all that much weight to saving the damned world if Aziraphale wasn't going to be there when all the fire and brimstone was done with?

He hadn't wanted to live in a world the angel wasn't in.

"I didn't want to die. I just didn't particularly want to be alive. There's a difference. A ssssubstantial difference."

Aziraphale frowned. "You only hiss when you're nervous. You're not being honest with me, Crowley."

He'd done absolutely nothing to assuage his fears then. Great. Meant they had to keep talking about it. "What's it matter, Aziraphale?" he whined, almost petulantly. "It's over. No more apocalypse. You're alive. Everything's fine."

"You said it yourself this isn't the end," Aziraphale reminded him. "So what about next time? If I..." He didn't seem to be able to get the word out of his throat, "die, rather permanently, I need to know—"

"Need to know what, angel? That I'll live on?" Crowley filled in. "What's the point?"

"The point! It—it—"

"Aziraphale," Crowley cut across him. "You're not gonna die. Calm down. Have a glass of wine." Crowley twirled his fingers and a bottle of their favorite vintage appeared on the counter.

"Crowley..." Aziraphale took a few steps towards him. "I recently picked up a lot of those self-help books that humans seem to love so much. Most of the advice isn't applicable, but I do believe we're what you call codependent. If you want to die because I die, that's very unhealthy."

Crowley whipped off his sunglasses, tossing them on the rarely used kitchen table. His patience was wearing thin. "What do you want me to say? Because at this rate I'll say it just to end this conversation."

"Why didn't you go to Alpha Centauri?" Aziraphale asked in slow, measured tones, stratosphere blue eyes digging into Crowley's. "A real answer."

Crowley sighed, unable to pull his eyes away from Aziraphale's. Why, oh why, for the love of all that was Damned and all that was Good (or supposedly Good) did the angel have to be so insufferably pretty? No, pretty, that didn't quite cover it. Ethereal, celestial, beautiful. That all worked. Not that he'd ever say that aloud. Sober. Like now. He really needed a glass of that wine.

"Well, you tell me. If you'd thought I'd died, what would you have done?" Crowley asked lowly. "Of course...we're not even friends, and you don't like me—"

"I didn't mean that! I told you I didn't mean that!" Aziraphale protested, and he rested a hand on Crowley's arm. "Crowley, you are my best friend. My..." he hitched in a breath. "W-Well, you're everything," he stammered.

"Everything?" The word caused his stomach to twist in an entirely too human way.

Aziraphale tittered with no small dose of anxiety. "Yes."

"So. What would you have done?" Crowley asked, and they were still staring at each other, and that angel was...very close. He could smell him, taste that celestial tint in the air around him, ozone and then something distinctly Aziraphale, something old and warm and soft. A quilt you wrap up in when it gets cold, a favorite mug filled with hot tea. Comfort.

"I...suppose..." Aziraphale licked his lips. "I suppose I would have settled for smaller stars, and let come what may."

"To be clear then, you're chastising me for doing what you would have done in my shoes?"

Barely anything seemed to separate them now. Aziraphale grimaced. "You've made your point. Is it bad? That we're like this? Depending so much on one another?"

"Who else would we depend on?" Crowley countered. Gripped by sudden whimsy, he wrapped a long-fingered hand around the back of Aziraphale's neck.

The angel blushed furiously. "You, ah...you did say our side."

"Our side. You, me, and all of humanity. But I'm substantially more interested in you than them. Because without you, well. Everything else just goes all gray and boring," Crowley said, already fearing he'd said too much. "If we're codependent, then we're codependent. I don't like the alternative. Do you?"

Aziraphale gazed up at him. "No. No, I don't think I do."

Just do it. Do it! Grow a sack! You're a demon! You should practically be Sacks R Us! a voice screamed at him from the back of his head. 6,000 years is enough of a slow burn, get on with it!

"Aziraphale—" just as Crowley was about to steel himself to possibly, possibly, at least try some lip-to-cheek contact, Aziraphale pressed his mouth insistently against Crowley's.

Crowley melted into it almost immediately; it was abundantly clear the angel had not done a great deal of kissing in his long life, if anything at all, but what he lacked in experience he made up for in sheer determination. That, and the fact that it was bloody Aziraphale kissing him. Crowley had INVENTED pining. He was the first and the very best, and he had dreamed of this countless times over the millenia, sure that it would never happen, because—well, angels just don't roll that way, right?

Apparently not.

Aziraphale pulled him closer, their chests brushing. Crowley dug his hands into the angel's blond locks and held him there tightly. Neither of them held any desire for this to end anytime soon.

It was Aziraphale who eventually pulled back, flushed and breathless. "To be perfectly honest with you, I've wanted to do that for a dreadfully long time."

"Not as long as me," Crowley growled, and he returned to the angel's lips with ardor.

They broke apart again several minutes later, when Crowley had Aziraphale pressed firmly against the counter and had unbuttoned his shirt halfway and done away entirely with the apron. They just watched each other for a few long moments, reveling in the closeness of one another.

Crowley smiled, wide and true. "Yeah...the smaller stars, they're not so bad, are they?"

"I'd say not," Aziraphale chuckled quietly. "Crowley, my dear...this isn't going to make things odd between us, is it?"

Crowley just shook his head, still smiling. "It wouldn't be us if it wasn't odd, angel."

And then Crowley kissed Aziraphale again.

And again.

And again.