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Crowley’s plants are the most luxurious, verdant, and beautiful in London. Also, the most terrified.
Most of them, anyway.
Because the thing is — Crowley’s a demon, right, obviously, no doubt about that, but he’s not stupid, unlike some other demons he could name.
He needs the fear to keep his plants in line, keep them growing well, because even if they liked him — which they don’t, demons aren’t liked, they are feared — not even plants are going to do something just because they like him. Nobody ever has. Even Aziraphale is only his friend because he’s useful, really, and the angel is significantly more intelligent than a bunch of leafy slackers who only learned how to be semi-sentient because he bullied them into it.
No, he absolutely needs his plants to be afraid, but it would be stupid and cruel and wasteful to get rid of them just because they’re not absolutely perfect. So, whenever a plant develops some imperfection, he shouts at it, takes it to the kitchen and sits it on the counter. Then, to the plant’s complete confusion, he pulls a head of lettuce out of the fridge and runs it through the garbage disposal he only ever uses for threatening purposes. Then he grabs an empty plant pot from under the sink and goes back to the plant room to show it off.
By the time he gets back to the kitchen, the plant he’s left there is no longer confused, and also very much no longer afraid of him.
What he does with the plants afterwards tends to vary. The common ones he rehomes largely at random, just driving around with them until he spots an appropriate place. Proper demonic activity, that. He tends to choose mostly places that’d have a lot of humans passing through them — offices, waiting rooms, hospital wards, the like. Decent chance there’s going to be someone with allergies there. He’d done a whole report for Hell on allergies and allergy medicines and all the miserable bits of that; it’d gotten him a commendation.
The less common ones he picks and chooses places for specifically. Some go to plant nurseries, some to botanical gardens. Some of the very rarest ones, he’s even snuck into Kew; a couple of them, as it turned out, were species that had been previously thought extinct, or had been entirely unknown. He’s very proud of that, which is, as far as he’s concerned, great for him. Pride’s a sin, after all.
Very occasionally, he keeps a plant. It’s usually the ones he’s raised from seed himself that he keeps, because bless it all, after all that effort he’s spent taking care of them and getting them to grow properly, he’s not going to just discard them the moment something first goes wrong. That’d just be — who does that? Nobody smart, is who.
They recover pretty quickly from their issues, anyway. In fact, even though they’re not afraid of him, when he scolds them — quietly, so the ones in the main plant room won’t hear — and tells them to stop slacking and improve, they still do. Must be that conditioning thing he remembers reading about somewhere, likely in the same magazine he got the talking to plants idea from. He scolds, they thrive. It’d probably even work if he just talked to them about the weather, or the newest Bond film, or whatever, as long as he used an appropriate tone of voice. ‘S bloody weird, if you ask him, but eh, whatever works.
By now, he’s got plants that used to be his scattered all over London. If he concentrates, he can feel them, can know the location of every single plant he’s ever touched and how well each of them is doing — they’re all thriving, naturally. That’s normal, as far as he can tell. He’s affected them, influenced them, so it makes sense that they would remain connected to him somehow.
A fair bit weirder is the more general plant sense he also seems to have developed; and how, sometimes, a plant that’s never been his just — calls to him through that. He’ll be walking or driving down the street, and he will suddenly know, somehow, that there’s a plant nearby that nobody is really taking care of, one that’s close to death through no fault of its own. He can feel those plants as if they were his, even though they’re not — well, not until he brings them home with him, anyway. Because that’s what he does. Often, but not always, it happens when he’s rehoming one of the failures.
It’s convenient, he has to admit. He’s not actually had to buy a plant in decades. Sure, he does make the occasional purchase every now and then, when the fancy takes him, but even if he didn’t, his plant room would still be full. Plus, he figures it all counts as demonic activity. Stealing is a sin, too, after all — it’s not like he asks the plants’ incompetent owner if he can take them, he just grabs them — and it surely vexes people to have their property disappear with no explanation.
Whatever the condition of the new plant, it doesn’t get any special treatment. He places it in the plant room, usually in the spot previously occupied by the last plant he’d rehomed, and sternly informs it that from now on, it’s going to get proper care, so it had better shape up, or else; and leaves the task of informing the new arrival of the expected behaviour to the other plants. By the time the next shouting session comes around, the new plant is just as terrified as the others. It’s only fair, anyway — every single one of his plants had been in a pretty bad way when he first got it. There’s no satisfaction in using an already perfect plant as a starting point; there’d be nowhere for it to go but down, he’d be just setting it up for failure.
* * *
In all of London, there is only one plant Crowley will never shout at. Naturally, it belongs to Aziraphale.
He’d given it to the angel back in 1800 for the opening of the bookshop, as a sort of a housewarming gift. Nothing special, just a small peace lily in a small pot, mostly just chosen because it would last at least a little longer than cut flowers. Maybe Aziraphale would look at it and think about him, every now and then, he’d thought. Probably not, but still, he could hope.
Then, between one thing and another, he hadn’t seen Aziraphale very often at all for quite a while after giving him the plant, and never at the bookshop; so almost a century and a half had passed before he’d seen it again.
It had been in 1941. He hadn’t been planning to enter the bookshop at all, he’d just planned to drive Aziraphale home and then go back to his place, where he could deal with the searing pain in his feet without having to worry about such a tiny, trifling thing as dignity; but Aziraphale had noticed him limping, and had insisted, and — well, Crowley has never truly been able to refuse the angel anything.
And so he’d limped into the bookshop and towards the back room, as directed; and had stopped dead in the doorway. “Uh, angel? Is that…”
“Sit down, Crowley, and take off your shoes,” Aziraphale had snapped, from the kitchenette; Crowley had hastened to obey. “Is what…?”
“The plant,” Crowley had said, sinking into an armchair and not quite managing to smother the sigh of relief at being off his feet, nor the whimper of pain at taking off his shoes. His socks appeared to be quite firmly stuck to his feet. “Is that the one I gave you?”
“Oh, yes.” Aziraphale had walked into the back room, carrying a large basin of water, some extremely soft-looking towels slung over an arm. “That’s Ophelia.”
Of course the angel had named it after a character in bloody Hamlet. It had grown truly massive — taller than him, even, with a plethora of glossy leaves and a quantity of flowers each broader than his hand.
It also seemed, somehow, to be glaring at him. “I get the feeling it doesn’t like me much.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Crowley, she’s a plant,” Aziraphale had said, setting the basin down in front of the armchair. “She doesn’t — oh, your poor feet.” Aziraphale had sunk to his knees in front of Crowley then, and that was an image that was going to stick with him for a good long while.
They’d talked no more about the plant. Aziraphale had distracted Crowley with tales of his exploits working for British Military Intelligence, while doing his best to take care of his feet. There hadn’t been much that could be done about the holy burns, of course, but between the analgesic ointment the angel had somehow procured, the wine he’d plied him with, and the conversation, Crowley had ended the night in considerably less pain than he’d begun it. It had been good to be in Aziraphale’s company again.
Later, with the help of the plant sense he’d developed after he started keeping plants himself, he got to know Ophelia a little better. It wasn’t that it didn’t like him, specifically; it was, more simply, that it didn’t like anyone who wasn’t Aziraphale. It had gained its semi-sentience from being around the angel, much like Crowley’s plants had gained theirs by being around him; it was from Aziraphale that the plant took its behavioural cues, and Aziraphale did not much like anyone entering his bookshop. Once Ophelia realised that Aziraphale did not mind Crowley visiting, and that Crowley had no interest in buying any of Aziraphale’s books, its attitude towards him thawed a little.
At least, he thinks it did. Even after decades of being acquainted with it, trying to get a solid read on it is like trying to grab a fistful of water — the harder he tries to get a hold of it, the more it slips through his fingers.
It’s fitting, really. It makes sense. It’s Aziraphale’s plant, after all; and like with Aziraphale himself, Crowley can only get so close, and no farther.
* * *
For the two centuries and change Aziraphale has owned it, Ophelia has done nothing but thrive; which is why Crowley is so surprised when Aziraphale phones him, a week after the averted Armageddon, to ask for help.
“I don’t know what’s wrong,” Aziraphale says. “She’s drooping and wilting, but I haven’t changed anything. She can’t be thirsty, can she? I watered her two days ago, her soil is still moist. You’re so good with plants, all of yours are so lovely — perhaps you could come and take a look? If it’s not too much trouble, of course.”
“No trouble at all, angel,” Crowley says. He hasn’t seen Aziraphale in a week, not since they had lunch at the Ritz; he’s been trying to give the angel space, wait for him to call. After everything that happened, he doesn’t want to be too pushy. “I’ll be right over.”
Five minutes, several broken traffic laws, one major and four minor demonic miracles later, he’s at the bookshop. Through the window, he can see Aziraphale pacing around worriedly; but as soon as he walks in, the angel stops pacing and smiles at him, and fuck, Crowley would do absolutely anything for that smile.
“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale breathes, “thank you for coming so quickly. I do hope you can help her.”
“Not to worry, its — her, I mean,” he amends quickly, “her kind is pretty sturdy. We’ll have her back in shape in no time, I promise.”
The issue is, having promised that, he can’t actually find anything wrong with Ophelia. She’s wilting dramatically, like she’d do if she were parched, but the soil in her pot is indeed still moist. Even checking with his plant sense offers no clues; she’s as happy and comfortable as he’s ever felt her, which is to say, no more grumpy than usual.
“Anything?” Aziraphale asks, hovering anxiously.
“She probably just needs to be repotted,” Crowley says, trying not to sound too dubious. “It’s been a while since you’ve done it, hasn’t it?”
“Er.” Aziraphale looks a bit guilty. “I’ve just been miracling her pot larger whenever it looked too small for her. Should I not have done that? Could that be why, do you think?”
“Nah, if the miracling were the issue it’d have happened sooner. But you’ve not done it in a while?”
Aziraphale shakes his head.
“She’s probably feeling a little cramped, then. Let’s do it the proper way, though. Come on — we’re going to the garden centre.”
* * *
The garden centre, while large and sprawling, is also a place Crowley visits regularly, so it doesn’t take them long to locate an appropriately-sized plant pot and a few bags of potting soil, as well as a few basic tools. Then, while they’re in the queue for the checkouts, Aziraphale wanders off to look at the impulse-purchase shelves, and returns with two small cyclamens, one white, one dark red.
Crowley finds himself thinking of Victorian flower language, and winces, and hopes that Aziraphale isn’t; and then, a moment later, chides himself for the thought. The angel has proven he can be quite direct when he wants Crowley to back off; he’d not use a plant with an ambiguous meaning, he’d just tell him outright.
Aziraphale holds the plants out to him. “Are these easy to take care of? I’ve been thinking for a while that I wanted a bit more colour in the bookshop, and these are beautiful.”
Crowley takes them from him and gives the labels a cursory read. “Yeah, just follow the instructions, they’re pretty thorough. If they give you any trouble, give me a call, but they shouldn’t. I mean, who w—” He manages to choke back the words just in time. Who wouldn’t thrive in your presence, he’d almost said. Likely not something Aziraphale’s interested in hearing, and definitely way too fast. Maybe in a few more centuries. “Who better to take care of some plants than the former guardian of Eden, right?”
“Ah, you know I had nothing to do with that part of it, my dear. I have no particular expertise, not like you.”
“You’ve kept Ophelia alive just fine for quite a long time.”
“And now she’s wilting,” Aziraphale murmurs, “and I have no idea what’s wrong. If you weren’t here —”
“You’d have figured something out,” Crowley says, gently.
“Still.” Aziraphale smiles. “I’m glad you’re here.”
Aziraphale just cares about the blessed plant, Crowley tells himself as they pay for their items and walk out to the Bentley. That’s all this is. If the angel were interested in any sort of relationship with him beyond the politely friendly, he’d have let him know.
Still — “Lunch, before we get back? There’s a lovely Italian place not far from here.”
Once again, Aziraphale smiles brightly at him. “Let’s.”
* * *
The repotting works. They do it together, Crowley guiding Aziraphale’s hands and showing him the right way, all the while yelling at himself inwardly for giving Aziraphale one less reason to call for him in the future; and then Crowley lets Aziraphale talk him into staying — not that it takes much — and they order takeaway for dinner, and the wine and conversation both last deep into the night and well into the early hours of the morning. By the time Crowley drives back to his place, still drunk on Aziraphale’s smiles, Ophelia is already looking less wilted.
A week passes, and another. Aziraphale doesn’t call, and, of course, Crowley doesn’t call him, either. It’s obvious the angel wants his space.
Another week passes, and then, Aziraphale does call. Ophelia is wilting again.
“Could be she needs fertiliser,” Crowley says. “I’ll bring some over.”
He does. Ophelia perks right up. Crowley and Aziraphale go out for a walk together, then stay out for dinner, and then, of course, have drinks at the bookshop. It’s lovely.
Crowley goes back to his place.
A week passes. They don’t call each other.
Another week. Aziraphale calls. Ophelia is wilting again.
* * *
“Honestly, angel, by now I’m out of ideas.” Crowley frowns, carefully stroking Ophelia’s wilting leaves. “I’ve tried everything I know. Nothing seems to stick.”
“And it’s getting worse,” Aziraphale says, mournfully.
It is. When this all started, Ophelia would go two or three weeks between each wilting spell; now, they happen every two or three days. “I could try to heal her. It’s not something I often do with plants, and I don’t know if it’d work, but I could try.” Even though he doubts it’ll do anything. His plant sense is still telling him there’s absolutely nothing wrong with her, and it’s never been wrong before.
“Oh, could you?” Aziraphale’s eyes are wide and hopeful. “Unless — there’s no danger to her, is there? If it doesn’t work?”
“Nah, no danger, not for a one-off thing. Either it works, and she’ll improve, or it doesn’t, and she’ll be no worse off. If you miracle a plant healthy all the time, they’ll get used to it and start slacking, and then they’ll be in trouble — they won’t survive on their own.” He’d made that mistake once, and only once. “But doing it just the one time is fine. Sometimes it’s necessary.”
Carefully, keeping track of what happens through his plant sense, he pours a healing miracle into Ophelia. The energy runs through the entire plant, seeking anything that might be wrong and finding absolutely nothing to fix —
— but nevertheless, Ophelia very promptly perks up.
Aziraphale’s wide, relieved smile is utterly devastating in its brightness.
* * *
To say that Crowley has a splitting headache would be to understate things by quite a lot. There’s a dying plant right in his neighbourhood, and it’s been calling out for help for days, and — he can’t. Normally, he’d already have grabbed it, but — it’s in a church. The last time he’d set foot in a church had been in 1941, when saving Aziraphale, and it had taken him months to fully recover from that. He’s not — it would not end well. He can’t. Nobody would expect him to — well, the plant clearly does, but the plant has no idea. He can’t be blamed for this.
He could just call Aziraphale, and ask — nah. ‘Hey, angel, I know you don’t want to spend time with me at all, but would you, by any chance, be willing to steal a plant from a church for me?’ Nah. Stupid idea. Best not.
Maybe he should just take a nap. That might help.
* * *
A pounding on the door wakes him not long after he’d finally managed to fall asleep. And that had been such a nice nap, too. He can already feel his headache returning.
“Crowley?”
“Aziraphale?” Crowley peels himself out of bed, snaps his fingers to change from his pyjamas into his usual clothes, and heads to the door. It’s strange for Aziraphale to just show up at his place. He’s always welcome, of course, Crowley hopes he has made that very clear, but Aziraphale always calls first, and they always meet at the bookshop. The night after the averted Armageddon was the only exception. “What’s going on?”
He opens the door. Aziraphale is standing there, looking utterly miserable, cradling Ophelia’s pot in his arms. The plant is entirely wilted. “I’m sorry,” Aziraphale says. “I should’ve called, I just — she was fine earlier today, but then I got distracted by a book for a few hours and when I looked up — she’s not dead, is she?”
“She isn’t,” Crowley reassures him, quickly. He can feel Ophelia clear as day through his plant sense, and she is doing just fine. More than, in fact — she’s thriving. She’s the healthiest he’s ever felt her. It’s just that she’s also looking the worst she’s ever looked.
It’s all coming together to form a picture he doesn’t much like.
“Oh, thank goodness,” Aziraphale says. “Can you help her?”
“Yeah.” He’s pretty sure he can, at least. Maybe it’s just the headache talking, but he rather thinks it’s time for a good shouting session. “But —”
“But?”
But he doesn’t want Aziraphale to see him doing that. “I was hoping you might do me a favour, actually.”
“Anything,” Aziraphale says, immediately. “What do you need?”
“Ah, nothing complicated — come on, come in, give her here, don’t just stand there.” He pulls Ophelia out of Aziraphale’s arms, gently, and ushers him inside. “I was going to ask you tomorrow, but you’re here anyway, so — there’s this, uh. You know the church two blocks down from here?”
“I do.” Aziraphale sounds cautious. Crowley can’t blame him.
“There’s a plant in there that I want, and obviously I can’t get it myself. Thought maybe you could help.”
Aziraphale frowns. “You want me to steal a plant from a church? Now?”
“Please.”
“I — alright. I don’t understand this, but alright.” Aziraphale nods. “I trust you. What kind of plant is it?”
“You’ll know it when you see it.” He can’t really describe it, having never seen it himself. He could, of course, just tell Aziraphale to grab the dying one, but if he knows the angel well enough — and after six thousand years, he would hope he does — that’s the one he’ll grab, anyway. Not giving any details means Aziraphale won’t ask any questions.
“Alright,” Aziraphale says, again. “I suppose I’d best be off, then.”
Crowley nods. “Ophelia will be fine, I promise.”
“Thank you.” Aziraphale smiles at him — a little sad, not as bright as usual, but still a smile — and vanishes, with the ripple of energy that indicates a miracle.
Right. That ought to give him about five minutes.
He carries Ophelia into the plant room and sets her down in the middle of the floor, none too gently, with a loud thud. “Alright, you overgrown, pathetic excuse for a houseplant. I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing, but it ends now. You’re upsetting Aziraphale for no reason, and I won’t stand for it any longer.”
Ophelia just sits there and looks wilted.
“I can tell you’re just pretending, you know. Do you want to end up in the garbage disposal? Is that what you want? Because that’s what happens to rebellious little houseplants who don’t do what they’re bloody well told!”
The shout echoes around the room; his plants, predictably, start shaking. Ophelia just sits there, unmoving. He would swear she’s staring him down.
Crowley sighs. “Yeah, not much of a threat when you know I’m not going to go through with it, is it?” he says, wryly. “Can’t get rid of you without upsetting the angel. Come on. Give me a clue, at least. Why are you doing this?”
Very slowly, leaving no doubt that she’s doing it deliberately, Ophelia unwilts, her leaves and flowers returning to their full height and pristine condition.
“Right.” Crowley crosses his arms, and scowls at her. “Talk.”
Ophelia rustles. A large bundle of leaves gathers together and points, firmly, first at Crowley, then towards the entrance door.
Crowley splutters. “What — no! I’m not bloody leaving, this is my flat!”
Ophelia’s leaves sag briefly, giving the distinct feeling that she would be heaving an unimpressed sigh if that were physically possible.
“Well, be clearer, then.”
Ophelia repositions herself, bringing two flowers and a single leaf forward and arranging them into — something that looks very like an angel, with the leaf forming the body, and the flowers forming the wings.
“Aziraphale? What about him?”
Ophelia brings two leaves and a flower forward and arranges them into the same shape.
“I guess that’s me.”
Ophelia rustles, and makes the angel shape wilt.
Crowley winces. “Yeah, obviously Aziraphale doesn’t much fancy being around me, I figured that much —”
Ophelia rustles loudly; she’s echoed by every single other plant in the room, bloody traitors one and all. The message is rather obvious — they want him to shut up and stop interrupting.
“Alright, alright,” Crowley mutters, sourly. “I get the point. Carry on.”
Ophelia brings the demon shape near the angel shape; the angel shape perks up and wiggles. Then she moves the demon shape away, and the angel shape wilts again.
Crowley stares. “What.”
Ophelia repeats the motions several more times. Demon and angel together, all fine. Demon and angel separate, angel wilting.
“He’s… sad when I’m not around?” Crowley says, slowly.
Ophelia rustles and brings up a whole cluster of leaves, gathering them near the angel. The angel wilts; the leaf cluster wilts, too. Then she brings the demon near, and the angel and the leaf cluster both perk up.
“You’ve been wilting — deliberately wilting — so I would go visit him and he’d be happier?!”
Ophelia rustles. Crowley can feel her radiating smug satisfaction.
“What the fuck,” he says, with great feeling.
Immediately, he’s bowled over by a wave of sympathy — coming from his own plants. The one nearest to him brings over a leaf to pat him comfortingly on the shoulder.
“But — you’re meant to be afraid of me,” he says, helplessly. “I shout at you all the time. I threaten you with the garbage disposal. Obviously I haven’t actually destroyed — I mean — fuck.”
There is a pause, and then his plants start shaking, sort of half-heartedly.
“Don’t tell me you’re only afraid of me because I expect you to be.”
The plants stop shaking, and there is another pause. The nearest plant pats him again. He would swear Ophelia is laughing at him.
“You had better still grow properly, or so help me —” He cuts himself off. Or so help him — what, exactly? There are no threats he could possibly make. The only way he could make them truly afraid of him again would be to destroy one of them for real. For all his shouting and threatening and posturing, that is something he’s never been willing to do; and it seems they all know it, have known it for a while, and —
They’ve just been doing what he wanted them to do. It’s not that they grow well because they are terrified; they grow well and they are terrified, because that’s what he expects of them. They’re plants. They’re not particularly smart, Ophelia excepted. They just — want to please him.
“Fuck,” he says, again, mostly because it’s either that, or descending into incoherence, and the latter won’t do him any favours.
Ophelia rustles, then reaches over with a leaf and pats him on the head.
Crowley hisses. “Now look here, you jumped-up weed —”
The tell-tale ripple of energy of a miracle announces Aziraphale’s return. “Crowley?”
“We’re not done,” Crowley mutters threateningly. Ophelia pats him on the head again, and he rolls his eyes. “In here, angel,” he calls, louder. “Did you get the plant?”
“Well, I got a plant,” Aziraphale says, walking into the room. “It’s probably not the one you wanted, but I couldn’t just leave it there, the poor thing is almost dead. How is Ophelia?”
“Ophelia is perfectly fine.” Crowley glares pointedly in her direction. She’s standing proud and straight, naturally, and it looks like she’s put in some extra effort and made her leaves all glossy. “And no, that’s exactly the plant I wanted.” It’s a poinsettia, which makes sense — likely forgotten from Christmas.
Aziraphale looks between him and all of his perfect plants, then at Ophelia, then down at the poinsettia, frowning. “But…”
Crowley walks over and takes the dying plant from him. It’s in such poor condition that he knows immediately it’ll never recover without help. He sets it down on a plant stand and runs a healing miracle through it. “Now, don’t get used to this,” he says, as gently as he knows how. “You’re on your own from here.”
The poinsettia rustles at him, happy and unafraid; the rest of his plants echo it. This’ll take some getting used to.
“Oh,” Aziraphale says, very softly. “Is that what you did for Ophelia?”
“No. We just had a talk, she and I.”
“A talk? Crowley, she’s a plant. She can’t talk.”
“She has her ways of getting her point across, believe me.” Crowley gives her another glare. “She’s a bit more independent than the average plant.”
Ophelia rustles in confirmation.
“Apparently,” Crowley continues, “she’s been deliberately wilting in order to get us to spend time together.”
Aziraphale blanches, then goes red. “I owe you an apology, then. I’ve been talking to her, but I never thought —”
“You don’t need to apologise for —”
“— that she was actually listening, we’ve seen each other so little in the last few months —”
“— for wanting to spend time with me, I don’t actually —”
“— and I understand, of course, that you have better things to do than spend time with me —”
“— would you just stop for a second and listen to me —”
“— so, once again, I am very sorry, I’ll just get her and we’ll be out of your way in but a moment, I can assure you this will never —”
“Aziraphale!” Crowley grabs Aziraphale by the shoulders and gives him a slight shake. “Stop.”
Aziraphale freezes and falls silent, staring at him wide-eyed.
“I don’t mind,” Crowley says, very gently. “I would spend every day with you, if you’d let me.”
“But — you never call.” Aziraphale’s voice is very small. “I thought — after all the ugly things I said to you, I thought you didn’t really want to be around me anymore. That you were just trying to pull away, to let me down nicely.”
“I thought you wanted space.” Crowley sighs and pulls him close. “You never call, either. I didn’t want to go too fast, didn’t want to end up pushing you away like I have before. I’d rather be just friends, and see you once a month, than never see you again.”
Aziraphale leans his head on Crowley’s shoulder and wraps his arms around him. “So what you’re saying is, we’re both idiots.”
Ophelia rustles, loudly and pointedly, and Aziraphale chokes out a startled laugh.
Crowley chuckles. “That’s the point she’s been trying to make, it seems, yeah.” He looks at Ophelia over Aziraphale’s shoulder. The plant has made angel and demon shapes out of her flowers and leaves again, and is busily mashing them together in a kissing motion. “Ngk. Stop that right this instant, or I swear, I will set you on fire and use your ashes as fertiliser for better-behaved plants. See if I don’t.”
Aziraphale peers up at him. “What is she doing?”
“Uh. She, uh —” Crowley can feel himself blushing. “She appears to be hinting that we should kiss.”
Aziraphale turns to look, then turns back to Crowley, eyebrows raised. “I’m not sure I would call that hinting. It doesn’t quite have enough…”
“Subtlety?”
“Just so.” Aziraphale looks like he’s biting back a smile. “Nevertheless, I would like that. If you are amenable, that is.”
“If I’m amenable,” Crowley echoes, after a stunned pause. “To the kissing.”
“To the kissing,” Aziraphale confirms, solemnly.
“Yeah,” Crowley manages. “I — yeah.”
Aziraphale smiles, wide and soft and happy, and lifts a hand to cup Crowley’s cheek. “Yes?”
In lieu of an answer, Crowley leans in and kisses him.
The kiss is gentle, soft, barely more than a press of lips to lips; and they have, of course, kissed each other on the lips before. In the long march of human history, the endless chain of infinite moments the two of them have spent dancing around each other, there have been times where such a kiss was the appropriate greeting between equals, between friends. It’s not new.
What’s new is the way they fit within the circle of each other’s arms, like they were always meant to be this way, made to be this way, belonging nowhere so much as right here, right now, with each other. Like pieces from two very different puzzles somehow slotting together to form a complete picture, more beautiful than anything. Like finding a safe refuge in a wild, unknown country, like gentle, comforting warmth after millennia spent in the cold.
Like coming home.
What’s new, too, is how Aziraphale’s hand slides to the back of his head and curls there, possessive, tangling in his hair; how his lips part on a choked-off noise that Crowley has never heard him made before, that he can only describe as hungry. What’s new is the discovery that Aziraphale, apparently, kisses like he eats — slow, and thorough, and determined to enjoy every last moment of it to the fullest.
There’s a warm feeling growing in Crowley’s chest, pulling him under like a riptide and threatening to overflow, wholly unfamiliar in its enormity; it takes him a few moments to place it as happiness. He has been happy before, of course, but never quite like this, never so fully and completely, wrapped up in his angel — his angel! — and knowing that there is nothing that will keep them apart, not even their own doubts. Not anymore.
The kiss feels like it could go on forever; and perhaps it might have — Crowley would be perfectly content with that — except they’re interrupted by a loud rustling, coming not just from Ophelia, but from all the plants in the room, too.
With some effort, Crowley pulls away from Aziraphale and opens his eyes, realising only then that he has no idea when he’d closed them.
(Art by the lovely Viridis.)
The room is a riot of flowers. Every single one of his plants is in full bloom, even the ones that are theoretically non-flowering — which is most of them, by deliberate choice. He hadn’t wanted brightness or cheer, when he’d picked his plants; but they seem to have decided, all on their own, that it’s high time that changed. Even the poinsettia, still weak as it is, has managed a fresh cluster of bright red bracts. Ophelia, for her part, has arranged her flowers in pairs to form heart shapes, and is cheerfully waving them around.
“Oh, dear,” Aziraphale mutters, his blush reaching all the way to the tips of his ears. “Did I do that?”
“No,” Crowley says, still a little dazed. “That actually — that was me.” He can feel it, through his connection to the plants.
“You?” Aziraphale blinks. “Of course — that makes sense. They’re your plants. They’re like Ophelia.”
“Yeah. Bit less so, I’ve not had them for as long, but — yeah. And I, uh, I — you —” Bless it all, this shouldn’t be so hard. “I’m just — happy. I love you, and I’m happy, and they responded to that. They’re not even bloody supposed to be able to bloom.” He can only hope that it’s limited to his flat, and there isn’t a sudden epidemic of previously non-flowering plants blooming all over London.
“Well.” Aziraphale smooths his hands down Crowley’s chest, curls them in the lapels of his jacket. His bright, fond smile makes Crowley feel all dazed and warm again. The plants rustle and, somehow, grow more flowers; Crowley flushes, and Aziraphale laughs. “I have it on good authority that love can make people do all sorts of wonderful, impossible things.”
“They’re not people, they’re plants,” Crowley says, weakly. “Bloody stupid plants, don’t know what’s good for them. ‘M a demon. Not meant to —” To be loved. Not for who and what he is, rather than in spite of it. Not by plants, and certainly not by Aziraphale, for all that he’s been dreaming of it for millennia.
“For all that I have, at times — too often, lately — been an utter fool, I’d like to think I’m at least a little bit smarter than a plant,” Aziraphale says. He’s still smiling, though it’s turned a little wry. “And I happen to agree with the plants, at least on this. I love you. I have for a very long time.”
“You like tartan, angel,” Crowley mutters, desperately trying to get a hold of himself before he does something terribly undignified, like bursting into tears. “Your taste has always been questionable.”
Aziraphale gives Crowley’s lapels a firm tug. “Shut up and kiss me again.”
Helpless, Crowley does.
All around London, despite the dreary, inclement January weather, flowers bloom.