Summary:

It's been two years since the Apoca-didn't and Aziraphale and Crowley still aren't a couple - much to Crowley's dismay. Aziraphale has his reasons, but Crowley doesn't feel those apply to them. But if Aziraphale won't listen to him on the subject, maybe he'll listen to their good friend Shakespeare.
-or-
Crowley professes his love for Aziraphale through virtue of a single, passionate kiss and traumatizes a room full of pre-teens in the process.

Notes:

Written for the tumblr inbox ask prompt - 'Crowley and Aziraphale perform/inspire Shakespeare'

"Are we really going to do this?" Crowley groans, re-reading the flier Aziraphale had printed for his recent venture, one that he's managed to strong-arm Crowley into participating in against his will and better judgement.

"Of course we are!" Aziraphale lightly punches Crowley on the shoulder in a gesture that makes the demon lean away suspiciously. "Buck up! It's going to be fun!"

"Your definition of fun and my definition of fun seem to vary greatly, angel."

"Look …" Aziraphale rounds up old rags and a bottle of wood polish and begins tidying up a space he has affectionately begun to refer to as his Globe Theater West "… we made a pledge ..."

"You. You made a pledge."

"... to help support youth theater in Soho. And putting on a performance of Shakespeare is the easiest way to start."

"You could have donated the play books. That would have been easier."

Aziraphale peeks up from the bookshelf he's polishing and glares at the demon reclining a short distance away. "Bite. your. tongue. Besides, whether you realize it or not, we've been presented with a golden opportunity."

"And what's that?"

"It seems an inordinate amount of young men signed up for my workshop as opposed to young women, so this gives us the perfect excuse to perform Shakespeare's works the way they were done from the beginning."

"In a large, open-air theater that smells like horse shit, where a handful of audience members die before the end of the second act?"

"No, where men play most of the roles, including the ladies' parts."

"That's going to go over well." Crowley chuckles. "Did you set aside enough money to pay for therapy and legal fees? 'cause you might just need it."

"Nonsense. And to kick things off, you and I are going to show them how easy it will be."

Crowley arches a brow. "Is that so?"

"Yes."

"And what, pray tell, have you chosen for us to perform?"

"Romeo and Juliet," Aziraphale answers with a wistful sigh.

Crowley lowers his glasses, fixing Aziraphale with a cold, yellow stare. "It better be the scene where they both die."

"Don't be ridiculous! We're going to do an uplifting scene. One that everyone knows and loves. One of the most popular scenes in the play."

"Them dying is pretty damned popular. Especially among thirteen-year-olds."

"Yes, but anyone can die."

Crowley sighs. Without being told, he knows exactly what scene Aziraphale is referring to, and try as he might, there's no way he's going to win this argument. If he leaves now, that doesn't mean he's getting out of this. Aziraphale can miracle anywhere Crowley ends up with a snap of his fingers.

Or he could bless the front doors so he can't leave.

He's not opposed to performing Romeo and Juliet. He's performed plenty of Shakespeare in his time. But with regard to this scene in particular, there does happen to be one tiny catch.

He stands from his seat and walks over to the bookcase Aziraphale has scrubbed nearly spotless. "I've never kissed you before, angel."

"Neither have I," Aziraphale replies without looking up. "Kissed you, I mean. But we'll be actors plying a craft. I'm sure we can do it for the sake of the performance."

"Is that really how you want your first kiss?"

"I …" Aziraphale stops what he's doing, kneels up and rests his hands on his thighs "… how do you know it would be my first?"

Crowley shrugs. "Lucky guess."

"It's just a kiss." Aziraphale goes back to his polishing. "Part of the scene. It doesn't have to mean anything."

"Oh, it doesn't have to mean anything," Crowley snaps sarcastically. "All right then. It won't mean anything."

"You don't have to take a tone with me."

"Tone? Tone? What tone? There's no tone. I don't have a tone."

But there was a tone, and Crowley couldn't help having it.

He'd thought that after the Apoca-didn't, things would change between them. That they'd be together. But every time he brought it up, Aziraphale changed the subject. Eventually the subject simply drifted away. But it's not that Aziraphale ignored it. He admitted that he was afraid of things changing between them if they took any further steps, but he didn't exactly specify which changes in particular frightened him. So in order not to lose Crowley altogether, he chose 'standing still' to 'moving forward'.

Crowley understood that sort of, but it still bruised his ego.

More than that - it hurt his feelings.

What Aziraphale said made sense … for humans. But they weren't humans. And they weren't invincible. Even though they'd managed to get Heaven and Hell off their backs, that didn't mean there weren't targets painted on them.

Immortal they may be, but eternity isn't assured for anyone.

Crowley could ask poor Ligur about that one.

Or, more to the point, he can't.

It's been nearly two years and Crowley still looks over his shoulder from time to time.

In Crowley's opinion, if there's something they want to say or do, they should consider doing it now.

"I'm just sayin', if that's how you feel about it ..."

"Yes," Aziraphale says softly, speaking to his own reflection in the gleaming wood. "That's how I feel about it."

"End of discussion, I take it?"

"End of discussion."

"Fan-fucking-tastic, that is."

"Dearest …" Aziraphale peeks over the side of the bookcase at the persnickety demon pacing between the stacks "… can we please try and make this a pleasant afternoon for the children? No need to get them caught up in our personal melodrama when there's so much of Shakespeare's to be explored."

"Absolutely. No problem at all. Completely pleasant, me. I swear. There's no alcohol in that scene, if I remember correctly," Crowley jokes, attempting, in some small measure, to diffuse the tension he helped create.

Aziraphale rewards his efforts with an understanding smile. "None at all."

"Well ..." Crowley drops down on the sofa and starts pouring himself a drink anyway – the first of many. "This is going to be a long afternoon."

"All right, ladies and gentlemen!" Aziraphale addresses the nine boys and three girls on the roster with a giddy clap. "Welcome, welcome, welcome to our first ever youth theater workshop! I'm so so glad you all could make it! Thank you for your interest!"

"We're here cuz Adam signed us up," Wensleydale rats out his friend.

"Not me," Warlock says. "I don't bend to the will of my peers."

"Then why are you here?" Brian asks, not at all impressed with Adam's recent addition to their group - the dark-haired, occasionally foul-mouthed miscreant with moony eyes for Adam.

Warlock's gaze falls to his boot as he worries a spot on the floor with his toe. "Nanny made me come."

Adam elbows Warlock in the side.

Warlock smirks.

Brian rolls his eyes.

"Okay then. I've printed up the scene we'll be performing so you can follow along." Aziraphale passes around handouts while Crowley lurks in the corner, as helpful as a bronze statue. "Brian and Adam, you both said you were interested in playing Romeo …"

"Yup," Adam replies.

"I … I was." Brian glances nervously around at the other boys in the room and the three girls, one of them his best friend Pepper. "Now I'm not so sure …"

"Great!" Aziraphale rallies on, ignoring Brian's anxiety. "We'll sort out Juliet later." He winks at the young ladies. "No need to assume."

"Why can't we start with one of the fighting scenes?" Pepper asks.

"Yeah, why can't we start with one of the fighting scenes?" Crowley groans.

"Because fighting is easy. There's a lot of fighting in Romeo and Julie, don't you worry. But the meat of this play is the love story. Two houses, alike in dignity, and yet …"

"… they couldn't get their act together for the sake of their kids," Pepper finishes.

"Exactly," Aziraphale says proudly. "But the love Romeo and Juliet shared, their connection to one another …"

"… was probably hormonal," Crowley finishes.

"Crowley!"

"It was! They knew one another for what? All of four days? And in that time, six people died! Their adolescent urges weren't just insatiable! They had a body count!"

"That definitely sucks all the romance out of it, doesn't it?" one of the non-Pepper girls says.

"Just giving you the facts, miss," Crowley says. "To be honest, those statistics are pretty light considering an average weekend in Verona during the Renaissance ..."

"I think that's a discussion best left for another time," Aziraphale says, reigning the class back in. He grabs a chair, sets it in the center of the space in front of the twelve children, and sits down in it. "Why don't we get a move on so we can start assigning the rest of the roles? Hmm?"

"Yay," Crowley cheers dismally, dragging over a second chair, scraping two of its feet loudly along the surface of the wood floor. He flips it around and straddles it facing Aziraphale because sitting in a chair the way it's meant would be too easy.

Aziraphale leans towards the sullen demon. "Now please, try and do your best," he says in a low voice. "We don't have to be the greatest Shakespearean actors that ever lived, but we should give it a decent go."

"Sure. Anything you say," Crowley agrees, unenthused as he may be.

"You start. Whenever you're ready."

Crowley looks at his script, a single cursory glance to make sure he remembers the scene correctly. He may prefer Shakespeare's comedies, but he's seen Romeo and Juliet a number of times, if only for the extreme absurdity of it.

Though, admittedly, several of those times have been because of Aziraphale.

Aziraphale positively adores Romeo and Juliet. Absurd or not, it's one of Aziraphale's all-time favorites, and in a rare moment of sentimentality, Crowley decides to do his best not to ruin that.

It's not until he's prepared to start that Crowley sees an opportunity.

Aziraphale hasn't been listening to him, not where it pertains to the two of them. Of course, Crowley has never exactly been good with words. He's more of a show, don't tell sort of demon. And he has to give himself credit for the fact that he's been showing Aziraphale for thousands of years how he feels about him.

But maybe this time around, good old Willy could lend him a hand.

Crowley had originally planned on being detached for this scene – good enough for youth theater, but not necessarily award worthy. Instead, he puts down his script, takes Aziraphale's hand, and gets ready to knock the angel out of his socks.

Besides, if that kiss at the end isn't going to mean anything, there's no reason for him not to put his all into it.

Aziraphale sees Crowley take his hand and his eyes go wide. He hadn't expected this. He'd been prepared for the bare minimum, if not less. Maybe it's written in the script, he thinks, looking at the page he printed, searching for any hint of stage direction (of which there is none). This scene is often performed with the actors holding hands. Crowley would know that, but Aziraphale didn't think he would do it. He looks from their hands up to Crowley's eyes, and that seems to be Crowley's cue to speak.

"If I profane with my unworthiest hand," he begins with an air of soft intimacy, but enunciating so the kids gathered can hear, "This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:

My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand

To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss."

Aziraphale sits up straighter and clears his throat, mildly uncomfortable by the amount of emotion Crowley was able to invest into those few lines. He, too, sets his script aside, pale blue eyes staring deeply into Crowley's and not looking away, almost as if the demon had presented him a challenge.

"Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,

Which mannerly devotion shows in this;

For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,

And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss."

Aziraphale doesn't play it campy. He opted for a pared down, actors' studio inspired version of this scene – no floofy costumes, no backdrops, no props, no music. Just two performers and Shakespeare's words to set the scene. And he didn't change his voice, try to make it high-pitched so the kids would know he was playing a girl. The gender of the characters doesn't matter. The words, the emotions, the conflicts – those are the things that matter in this scene. Aziraphale chose to perform the role of Juliet as another aspect of himself, in love with someone he isn't supposed to love. Someone he's terrified of losing.

Whom he fell in love with all the same.

But unlike Juliet, he'd rather that love go cold than see the object of his affections perish because of it.

He does have to admit that after 6000 years, it's wearing on him.

Does he really want to stand still when moving forward could be so exciting?

He's spent his entire existence inspiring love in others. If he lets an opportunity for love pass him by, would another 6000 years be worth it?

"Have not saints lips," Crowley says, "and holy palmers too?"

"Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer."

"O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do." Crowley inches closer, moving his chair with demonic power to keep it silent – preserve the mood. He's nose to nose with Aziraphale when he says, "They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair."

"Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake."

"Then move not," Crowley says in a velvety whisper against Aziraphale's lips that the angel has never heard before, "while my prayer's effect I take." He raises a hand, runs the back of it down Aziraphale's cheek, ending with a finger beneath his chin. He glances at Aziraphale's mouth, his breath hitching when Aziraphale holds his.

And here it is – the kiss that will mean nothing.

Not for Crowley. For him, this kiss means everything.

Can a single kiss translate all the love he has for his angel? How continuing on the way they are has been slowly shattering him to pieces?

He prays it can. He's never been able to put it into words.

He leans closer, the chair he's on tipping to reach, but before their lips touch, Aziraphale leans away.

Crowley jerks back, staring at Aziraphale in agony, his stony eyes drenched in heartache. But Aziraphale smiles. He reaches up with his free hand and passes it over Crowley's eyes. Then he carefully removes the demon's glasses. In a second of mild panic, Crowley turns away, searching out of sight of the audience for a reflective surface to look into.

What was Aziraphale doing?

What had he done!?

Crowley finds one over Aziraphale's shoulder – the sliver of a mirror peeking out from behind one of the bookshelves. At first blush, he sees himself with hazel human eyes. But they shimmer with magic – Aziraphale's magic. If he concentrates, Crowley can see his yellow eyes underneath. But for the benefit of those who don't know he's a demon, Aziraphale has come up with this.

Because he does want to kiss Crowley, more than anything. More than he ever let on.

And he doesn't want anything getting in the way.

Aziraphale leans in – innocent Juliet luring Romeo back - but Crowley catches him, capturing his mouth with his own and breathing him in as if Aziraphale is his first breath of air in forever. Their hands, only politely grasping before this point, hold one another, fingers weaving together, so infinitely matched nothing could break them apart.

Crowley doesn't move farther than an inch away when that kiss ends and he recites his next line. But he has to, because it's too fitting not to say. "Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged."

Aziraphale doesn't open his eyes when they part, too star struck to remember where they are, what they're doing … or the fact that twelve pairs of eyes are watching them at this moment.

In retrospect, perhaps Crowley was right. Maybe he should have had Crowley kiss him once before this … for practice. So he wouldn't be caught out of left field.

But he's waited this long for perfection.

And that kiss definitely left perfection in the dust.

"Then have my lips the sin that they have took," he manages in a trembling voice.

"Sin from thy lips?" Crowley murmurs, eyes sweeping over Aziraphale's face, drinking him in. "O trespass sweetly urged! Give me my sin again."

"Yes, please," Aziraphale whispers.

Crowley grins. "That's not the next line, angel."

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a fu-"

Crowley swallows his angel's profanity with another kiss, sliding a hand up the back of Aziraphale's neck and into his hair, grabbing gently and pulling him closer. Aziraphale's hand finds Crowley's neck and does the same. And with that one kiss, Crowley and Aziraphale have jumped straight from Act I to Act III.

Twelve jaws drop.

Brian looks at Pepper, but Pepper shakes her head. "Don't even think about it," she says. "I'm playing Mercutio."

He turns and looks at Wensleydale, but Wensleydale backs away. "Look, you're one of my best friends in the universe, but I'm not doing that."

Adam looks over at Warlock, eyebrows raised. Warlock shrugs. "Yeah, all right," he says. "Go grab a chair."