names, pet and otherwise
Aziraphale is studying the dessert tray, and Crowley is studying Aziraphale. This is as a sort of warm-up to watching Aziraphale actually eat whatever dessert he selects, which isn’t the kind of thing you want to dive right into without preparation, lest the sheer radiant pleasure of it burn your eyes out.
Especially if there’s any sort of sauce involved. If there’s a sauce involved it can, frankly, border on the obscene. He’d seen Aziraphale chase a last drop of raspberry sauce, once, that had run down his hand and all the way up to his wrist, and he’d pulled back the cuff of his shirt and licked–
It occurs to Crowley that Aziraphale has just said something to him, and also that he’s gone slightly cross-eyed. “Hng,” he says intelligently, and then, mentally shaking himself, “What?”
“Did you want something, Anthony?” Aziraphale repeats.
“What?” Crowley says again, bewildered, and looks over his shoulder, as if there might be someone called Anthony standing there.
Aziraphale, apparently giving up on him, turns back to the waiter and says, “He’ll have an affogato.”
“I’ll what?”
“You’ll like it.”
“Bet you I won’t.”
“Then I’ll have it, and I’ll like it,” Aziraphale says, which Crowley has to admit seems reasonable.
While he’s been bickering on autopilot, his brain has had a moment to catch up to events. He waits until the waiter’s gone to say accusingly, “Did you call me Anthony?”
Aziraphale gives him a blank look. “Yes? I know I don’t often, but–”
“Don’t call me that. That’s ridiculous.”
“It is your name, my dear.”
“It’s not,” Crowley protests. “I mean it’s like you and Fell, it’s just for humans. They don’t like it if you’ve only got the one.”
“You’ve been using it for five hundred–”
“Yes, for humans,” Crowley says again, feeling obscurely that this is an important point. “Not for you. You know who I really am, I don’t need a human name with you.”
Aziraphale stops in mid-sentence, and his face softens. “Oh, Crowley,” he says. “That’s– and don’t argue, please– that’s really rather sweet.”
Crowley shuts his eyes and grimaces. “It’s not,” he mutters.
“It is,” Aziraphale says, and favors him with a soft, glowing smile. Crowley decides that, allergic though he is to being called sweet, if it makes Aziraphale look at him like that, he may be able to suffer through it.
It does also have its pragmatic benefits; Aziraphale won’t keep arguing, he’s pretty sure, now that he’s decided Crowley is being sweet. “So you won’t keep calling me by it?” he presses.
“If you don’t like it, of course I won’t. But I can’t just call you Crowley when we’re out like this, can I?”
“Why not?”
“Humans think it’s a surname. People don’t call their–” Aziraphale pauses, and gestures vaguely.
It’s understandable. There’s not a satisfactory word for what they are, really, not in any human language. “Lovers,” Crowley suggests anyway, just to see whether Aziraphale will blush.
“Partners,” Aziraphale says firmly, blushing absolutely scarlet and pretending not to notice Crowley grinning at him. “People don’t call their partners by their surname. It would stand out.”
Crowley looks down at his own outfit, and then, pointedly, at Aziraphale’s. “Yes,” he says solemnly, “of course you wouldn’t want to stand out.”
“Crowley.”
“You could call me Mister Crowley. Very proper. Suits your whole Victorian aesthetic.”
“Yes, very funny.” Aziraphale glares at him. “It’s easy for you, you’ve been sneakily calling me a pet name this whole time.”
Crowley rolls his eyes. “You call me ‘dear,’” he points out. “You’ve done it a dozen times just since we sat down to lunch. Isn’t that good enough?”
“Yes, but I call everybody ‘dear,’ it’s just… habit.”
Which is a fair point, Crowley supposes; he hasn’t kept an exact count, but he’s pretty sure Aziraphale has called their waiter ‘dear’ a half-dozen times as well.
“Well,” he says, “you’ll just have to come up with something else, then. Just– not Anthony. It’s too weird, coming from you.”
“I’ll think about it,” Aziraphale says.
Two minutes later, when the waiter comes back with their desserts, he says, “Thank you, dear–” that’s seven, Crowley thinks absently– and then, turning to Crowley and handing him a steaming cup on a saucer, “That’s yours, my love.”
“Ngh,” Crowley says, coming very close to dropping the saucer.
He has, he realizes, done it to himself again. He’s entirely used to Aziraphale saying my dear; he’s not at all ready for my love, deployed at close range and said with overpowering warmth and affection. Yet another thing Aziraphale does that’s going to take some warming up before he can cope with it; yet another thing Crowley has instigated that’s come around to cause him trouble.
And the cake Aziraphale ordered has chocolate sauce drizzled around the rim of the plate– which means at some point, as soon as he thinks no one’s looking, he’s going to drag a fingertip through it and, yes, there he goes, bring it to his lips and–
Crowley stares helplessly, his own dessert completely forgotten, and wonders despairingly how many more lunches like this he can survive.
