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Aziraphale had his realization on the bus.
Aziraphale wasn’t thinking about anything in particular. He looked out of the window at a construction site and thought to himself, idly, that an awful lot of construction seemed to be going on these days. The thought had vaguely cross-referenced itself with the rather nice young lady he had met at the bookshop today, a woman, practically a girl, with a quite deep voice who introduced herself as Janine and had a little pin with “she/her” on her cardigan.
They had had a pleasant chat while he helped her find the geology books she was looking for.
It occurred to him now, as he sat on the bus, that it actually might be possible for him to become a man.
Oh dear, he thought.
*
Aziraphale was nearly forty, married, childless, typically enough feminine. He attracted little attention. No-one but his husband thought him at all odd or unusual. And indeed, Crowley only thought that in the most affectionate way.
He had some friends, mostly women. He had a cat.
Aziraphale’s gender had always been an issue he avoided looking at directly. Discomfort, longing, and frustration were all the sort of emotions he was frankly used to denying in himself, and the longer he went without examining them, the more it seemed futile to even start.
Except, of course, for the fact that Transgender people were real and Aziraphale might have to go the rest of his life making pleasant conversation with them while pretending he wasn’t consumed with envy.
*
He and Crowley had met at university. Aziraphale had been taking English, a degree that wasn’t anticipated to lead to a career, because his parents expected him to marry and have babies. It was a heavy and unpleasant obligation.
Crowley was majoring in Astrophysics but had taken a literature class as an elective, almost entirely for the pleasure of arguing and sowing chaos.
He hadn’t been handsome back then, not the way he was later, but he had been cute, with his DIY haircut and bony cheekbones.
Crowley had lounged at the back of the class, in his leather jacket with the little bisexual pride pin on, and had captivated Aziraphale’s attention entirely, for Aziraphale was fascinated by gender-non-conformity. He loved outcasts and weird people, people who reminded him of himself.
And he loved people who were willing to get into genuine debates with him about subjects he cared about. He and Crowley between them monopolized class discussion time with their endless arguments about literary analysis.
Crowley, young, sexy, passionate, whose respect for Aziraphale was obvious in every hotly contested point, was the most alluring creature Aziraphale had ever seen. Immediately after their third debate was ended by the professor telling them to get out before the next class arrived, Aziraphale cornered him in the hallway and asked him out on a date.
Crowley said yes.
Aziraphale had only ever dated girls before, but being with Crowley was different. Crowley’s body, the roughness, the hairiness of it, the angles and bones, was deeply appealing. He spent hours just looking at it, at dinner, in the dark of the theatre, in class, memorizing its unique shape. Crowley was sweet and funny, generous and clever. He bought Aziraphale small gifts (he always seemed to know what to buy) and did him small favours at every chance.
Aziraphale had expected Crowley to treat him differently, now that they were together. To stop respecting his opinion, to push and pressure him, to talk down. But nothing really changed except for a lot of snogging.
Crowley was so incredible it left Aziraphale breathless, tripping over himself to do Crowley favours, to give him things, to make him laugh.
It was only two weeks before Aziraphale nervously invited Crowley up to his room.
He sat Crowley down on the bed and fumblingly tried to explain several important things to him.
“I- ah- first noticed you for the pin you wear. The bisexual one.” Crowley’s eyebrows raised in an expression of pleasant surprise. “You see, I’m also bisexual. And I’ve never been with a man before, only with women. So I’m a bit inexperienced, I hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course I don’t mind! We have something in common, actually, because I’ve mostly dated men.”
For some reason, that knowledge made Aziraphale oddly happy.
“There is one more thing, before we, um, have sex. I have a sort of horror of… pregnancy. The whole idea is very disturbing and I would like to avoid it.”
“Hey, don’t worry. We’ll use protection. Even if we, I don’t know, even if we were together forever we wouldn’t have to have kids. Really.”
That was when Aziraphale had a realization of a different sort.
*
Aziraphale was fidgety and evasive over dinner and he could tell that Crowley noticed, but he didn’t quite have the courage to make his vast revelation. What if he wasn’t sure? What if he came out only to go back in again? How would that make Crowley feel?
“You’re not talking much, angel,” said Crowley.
“Just tired, dear.”
“Not ill or anything?”
He smiled. “No.”
*
That night, when Crowley was in bed asleep, Aziraphale stayed awake at his computer, googling with great trepidation.
He wasn’t even sure what he was looking for- just that he needed more information before proceeding. There were articles about ‘rapid-onset gender dysphoria’ and ‘desisters’ and there were articles clearly aimed at teenagers, encouraging them to have hope for their future.
Aziraphale vacillated between being thinking that he must really be transgender and thinking that it wasn’t even remotely possible.
His head was doing him in.
*
Aziraphale had sort-of assumed he must be a lesbian from the time he was quite young. The first time he ever saw an older woman, fat and strong looking, with men’s clothes and a man’s haircut he’d been astounded. Here was something he had the chance to become, someday.
When he asked his mother about the woman, his mother pulled him away from her.
“She’s a lesbian, Aziraphale,” she said and he knew just from her voice that that wasn’t a very good thing to be.
It was frightening, to be doomed to be a lesbian, doomed to be something his parents would disapprove of once they found out. It was a heavy weight to carry alongside the other heavy weights his parents made him shoulder, since Aziraphale was their only child and therefore responsible for fulfilling all of their dreams and ambitions. But yet, there was really nothing else he could be.
As he grew, Aziraphale found he struggled to adapt to his body. With every passing year it seemed more alien to him, until it became so foreign that he frequently failed to recognize himself in the mirror. He told no-one, of course. Wasn’t this the way all girls felt?
When he was old enough to be rebellious, he bought men’s clothing in secret and snuck off to wear it at LGB clubs and organizations. The young women there liked him, called him handsome, and flirted with him. This was how he learned that there was something more to lesbianism than hiding his hair under a hat and wearing a men’s flannel shirt.
But while he was good at every other part of being a lesbian, at holding doors open for women and blushing when they called him a gentleman, at letting them feel the muscles on his arms, he was not good at the romantic aspects of it. He was unenthusiastic, they said. He lacked passion. He would really have preferred to be friends with all his various girlfriends and it seemed they shared the sentiment, losing interest in him rapidly.
Worse, still, was the embarrassing fact that he nursed secret crushes on boys. While his ex-girlfriends talked loftily about the fact that men were evil and being attracted to them was a betrayal, he concealed deep and abiding feelings for one of the gay men in their circle, who was tall and dashing and wore an earring in his right ear.
One day, he tremulously confessed this dark secret to his girlfriend at the time. To his alarm, she laughed.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “You’re bisexual! Just like half our friends. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“But I like being masculine.”
“So? Wear men’s clothes and date men. No-one can stop you.”
It was a nice sentiment, but he never managed to actually put it into practice. Going to university might, for some, have meant greater freedom, but for Aziraphale, it meant much less. He was now accountable to his parents for any time not spent studying, and expected to look and be professional. His mother daily badgered him about finding a husband. When he finally brought Crowley home to meet his parents, they were almost relieved enough to overlook how scruffy he was. Almost.
*
In the midst of Aziraphale’s internet despair, he discovered a link that purported to be a photography project about senior transgender people.
He was spellbound.
Aziraphale was not yet forty, over a decade younger than any of the people he was looking at. He stared, mesmerized, at his own future.
Some of them looked visibly transgender, others did not. They didn’t seem to care what they looked like though, presenting their names and their faces matter-of-factly to the camera, as if daring the viewer to see them as anything but themselves.
He clicked through the portrait gallery, astounded as the images kept coming: a seemingly endless succession of wrinkly Americans. He paused longer at the men, or those he guessed to be men, taking in their flat chests, their beards, with wonder. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined he might someday have a beard.
His favorites were the handful of images that he interpreted to be trans men who were in relationships together. They stood or sat with their lovers, arms around each other, looking into the camera almost boastfully. I am a man, and I am loved for it, they seemed to say. Despite everything I am a man and I am loved for it.
*
Crowley did not become massively popular with Aziraphale’s parents, which was part of the appeal, really. He didn’t dress well, he wore his hair long more often than not, and he openly told anecdotes about his past relationships with men.
“What can you possibly see in him?” his mother would say, pulling him to the side for a serious talk at dinner parties.
Just knowing that Crowley was nearby made Aziraphale bold. He squared his jaw. “I love him, that’s what I see in him. And he loves me.”
The demands of professionalism and maturity made menswear a thing of the past for Aziraphale, and indeed any outward sign of gender non conformity. Crowley, whose intellectual job didn’t care that he dressed like a Goth or went to Pride events, became, paradoxically, Aziraphale’s only link to anything unconventional.
He got used to it. He dressed the way he guessed a stereotypical woman of his age might dress. He assumed all the other women who dressed the way he did felt like they were wearing drag every day.
His being attracted to women seemed like a dream, like it was something that had happened to someone else. Who were those women? What had he liked about them? He certainly hadn’t loved them the way he know loved his husband. Even though some parts of him rebelled, he started to think that really he was probably straight after all.
*
The next day Aziraphale was full of nerves. He could barely eat at breakfast, instead sitting at the table staring into space, uncertain if he was excited or afraid for what was to come.
Crowley noticed, of course, but Aziraphale said merely that he would tell Crowley about it later.
When he dressed for work, he dug out some comparatively masculine clothes, which actually made him feel worse rather than better. They were women’s clothes, cut to accentuate the figure, so he changed again and put something on that was more feminine, but at least shapeless.
At dinner-time, when they sat down together, Crowley looked about as nervous as Aziraphale felt.
“There was something you were going to talk about?” he said.
“Um, yes.” Aziraphale didn’t know how to start.
“Is it bad news? I kinda need to know, angel.”
“Oh, well it’s good news… or it might not be I suppose. It’s not very serious. But it is important.”
“You’re not…” Crowley’s eyes flicked meaningfully up and down.
“No, no of course not. No, I’m…” Aziraphale stalled. Now was his last chance to avoid saying it out loud and therefore to avoid whatever consequences the truth would have for their relationship. He wasn’t actually sure that he could get the words out of his mouth.
“I’ve been thinking,” he started again. “And I’ve come to the conclusion that I might…be…transgender?”
Crowley’s eyes almost came out of their sockets. “Oh,” he said. “Wh-”
“It’s- it’s very new and I haven’t suspected it for long, so who knows? It might not turn out to be the case. It’s just a thought, really.”
“Trans. God, angel.” Crowley wiped his eyes.
“You’re crying.” This was a disaster. Aziraphale started to formulate some way of taking his statement back when Crowley reached across the table and took his hand.
“I’m so happy for you, angel. Thank you for telling me.” He wiped the tears from his eyes and offered a watery smile. Aziraphale breathed an enormous sigh of relief.
“Your welcome,” he laughed. “Thank you for taking it well.”
“So, um, are you my husband now? Spouse? It is too soon to think about that?”
“Oh I think let’s stick with spouse for now, though I think it’s going to be husband eventually.” Even that was frightening to admit.
“And your name? Pronouns? You don’t need to make a decision yet,” he added hastily.
“Um. It is presumptuous to say that I might like to try he/him?”
“Nothing is presumptuous, angel.”
“I don’t know about my name yet either.”
“Don’t worry about it. Can I hug you?”
Crowley came around the table when Aziraphale nodded and bent to wrap his arms around him.
“This doesn’t change the way you feel about me?” said Aziraphale, somewhat muffled.
“No. why should it?”
“Well you might not… be attracted to me.”
“I’m bi! I like everyone regardless of gender. You know that.” His voice was gently chiding.
“Don’t you think of me as a woman?”
“I can change the way I think of you.” He pulled back and knelt before Aziraphale’s chair. “If you’re a man, if you’re a non-binary person, whatever, then that is a part of you that I love. I don’t love you in spite of yourself. I will love your identity and celebrate it and discover it with you, yeah?”
Aziraphale nodded and swallowed. “Thank you,” he said. “And, um, I think I might also be gay? So, you know, don’t worry that my feelings for you could ever change.”
“So you used to think you were a lesbian, then bi, now you’re trans and gay? Bit greedy, mate.”
Aziraphale laughed wetly. “You’re impossible.”
“And you’re stuck with me.”