Note: This chapter is slash (not graphic slash, but they are together) For the many of you who like that, enjoy, for the few of you who don't, sorry and I'll try to do something else next time. :)

Mine Eyes Have Leisure for Their Tears

Aziraphale rolled over and remembered Crowley wasn't there. So this is what it felt like to have a spouse die.

Aziraphale and Crowley had been apart from each other before, but not since they had admitted their love for one another. And since then, everything had been different. Many people had suspected Aziraphale was gay, but Crowley's flamboyance far outstripped his in the end. Once he got over the shock of falling in love, everyone knew. He had no desire to hide it. Maybe Crowley's expressiveness stemmed from his supposed inability to prove Hell wrong.

One day, though, Crowley didn't come home. At first, Aziraphale chalked it up to his being busy tempting people, but but after a few days, he still hadn't returned and the angel had begun to wonder if it had anything to do with those rude boys who called them names, names Aziraphale didn't understand but Crowley took offense at.

Crowley had told Aziraphale there were people who didn't like their lifestyle, there were people who wanted them out of town or... the thought chilled Aziraphale... out of life. Aziraphale tried and failed to push the awful thought from his mind. Crowley had been different these last weeks. He had been nicer, not that he hadn't always been nice, but he had almost... human... as of late, and Aziraphale wondered if the human-hearted man he loved would return.

He told himself Crowley was a demon. He would have to return. But even if he had not turned human, would Hell give a new body to a demon who loved an angel? Aziraphale had eternity to find out. It all felt surreal, but he wasn't dreaming or Crowley would be there. He rarely slept when Crowley wasn't. Aziraphale didn't understand why others had animosity toward himself and Crowley, who loved each other just as much as other men loved their wives, but he had a feeling this animosity contributed to Crowley's disappearance. A feeling wasn't proof though, and Aziraphale needed proof, even if it came in the form of a body because at least that would tell him for sure what had happened. Even if Crowley was gone for good, certainty would offer the tiniest of comforts.