31 Days of Kisses: A Good Omen Advent Calendar

Unspoken

Prompt: Wish

TV Canon. I apologise in advance for this shameless sappiness.

Over the centuries, Crowley has assembled a collection of endearments he absolutely does not call Aziraphale.

Aziraphale himself scatters "dears" like confetti, and worst of all means them. His humans get on Aziraphale's nerves sometimes (often) but they are precious to him, like children who can't be trusted not to get grubby fingers on his precious books, but still get their grazed knees kissed better. while being scolded for being careless. "Dear one" meaning my precious, my valuable one, sliding into a noun over the ages: my dear.

Crowley knows that in a way being called "my dear" or "dear boy" or "my dear fellow" isn't special at all, and in another way, it is the most special and unbelievable thing in the world, that Aziraphale would casually include a demon, an enemy, in his affections. As if Crowley belonged there, as if he deserved it.

(*If I scraped my knee, would you kiss it better? I would cherish the scolding. No one kissed me better when I took that final casual step into the fire pit and my wings burned and my bones broke and the lava burned my skin to scales. No one scolded, either. No one thought it was worth telling me that I could do better. You, only you think I can do better. I am only dear to you.)

Crowley has called people "dear" too when it was fashionable. My dear boy, dear old bean, dear thing, dear lady, dear old desk clerk. But never Aziraphale. Because his treacherous forked tongue might slip and say "dearest", because that his one of the names he uses in his head. Most precious, most valuable.

Dear friend, an accidental alliance born of proximity, in the Garden. Forged in sidelong looks and smiles, fragile courtesy, an unspoken agreement that fighting was just unpleasant and it was better to have someone sympathetic around for a chat.

"Dear" slipped into "dearling" into "darling" some time around the sixteenth century. Aziraphale would give an unexpectedly mischievous smile, a sparkle in his eyes, say something utterly ridiculous and darling, oh, the darling. The sweetheart.

That was impossible, too. Crowley wasn't supposed to love sweet things (and there it was: my love, my beloved, impossible to voice when he wasn't supposed to love at all.) "Sweetheart"--the dangerous double meaning of "you are sweet to my heart" that was the only bloody worthwhile thing to emerge from the fourteenth century, dangerously creeping into "you are mine" in the sixteenth century.

So many words to mark Aziraphale's many sweetnesses.

(I am sweet on you. Crowley had first overheard that in the seventeenth century, and had been so mortified by his undemonic blushes at its utter perfection that he had cursed every single road across the island to mud. Angels were supposed to be the beings of love; how did humans come up with so many words to express it?)

"My sweet; honey; sugar." So many words for Aziraphale's many sweetnesses, for the joy Aziraphale found in all the sweetness of the world, be it in food or a breeze or music.

"Dove." First back in Rome, when it had been fashionable. Watching the pale hair, the gentle expression, remembering from long, long ago the spread of perfect soft wings. The name had never left Crowley, popped into his head every time he wanted to wrap his arms around softness, bury himself in it. My dove, sweet dove.

"Lambkin; poppet; duck; baby." Completely ridiculous names for a being of fire and steel, a holy soldier who could smite Crowley back to hell any time he chose, a being of terrifying intellect. Almost irresistible words for a being with a soft cloud of hair and who cushioned his angelic ferocity with soft flesh and soft smiles. Whose face lit up with joy over a treat, who played the adventurer double-crossing Nazis, who was earnest and mischievous and utterly delightful. Delightful, my delight. Oh, there was no end to the names Crowley did not call Aziraphale.

My desire, my passion, the sting in my loins, my fire, mine, mine, mine. The most impossible of all.

(But Crowley cried them out alone in the night when the wanting was too much, and all he had was himself and his own longing, spilling uselessly. Demons were born to lust, he told himself, don't besmirch him with your desperation. He's an angel.)

Angel. Angel was safe. Angel was a statement of fact. Crowley didn't like angels. He'd been one, it was rubbish, better be a demon, Hellfire and all. In the end, the fact that he didn't like angels and Aziraphale didn't like foul fiends, was precious in itself because they knew themselves to be the exceptions, and what was more special than that?

And then when the miracle happened, when the world hadn't ended and they hadn't been destroyed and a future of our own side stretched ahead of them, and most miraculous of all Aziraphale's arms had come around his back, that beloved mouth whispering words of love against his shoulder as if Aziraphale, too, had been holding them back for centuries--

--there were too many endearments. They choked Crowley. He couldn't choose one.

So he kissed him instead. Gently, reverently--then Aziraphale's mouth opened against his and the rest came out, the yearning and fire and possessiveness, and they were kissing deeply and passionately.

When their mouths parted what spilled out was: "Angel. Aziraphale. My own."

Perhaps the most forbidden endearment of all. Staking claim. Panic seized him, but his arms tightened around Aziraphale, fingers sinking into all that softness, silently pleading with him not to go.

Aziraphale lifted gentle fingers--oh, those beautiful fingers--and stroked a sharp cheekbone as if it was the softest thing in the world.

"Oh, Crowley. My heart's wish," Aziraphale breathed, and perhaps that was what they all meant, after all.