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“Would you and your husband like some hors d’oeuvres?”
“Oh, we’re not –”
“Yes, please, that would be lovely. Thank you.”
Crowley pauses halfway into his chair to peer over the rims of his glasses.
This leaves him in an awkward, undignified squatting position he’d never have adopted by choice. But the comment from across the table has overruled any sense of style or decorum and narrowed his focus to a single, shocked, suspicious glance because –
did he really just –?
Fortunately, Aziraphale is too busy allowing the young lady whose mistake had prompted the problematic commentary to divest him of his coat, so he fails to notice Crowley’s impromptu bodily contortion. The waitress in question, coat now folded over one arm, glances Crowley’s way as Aziraphale settles himself into his own chair, and while her professionalism keeps her from vocalising any disapproval, the look in her eye is enough to snap Crowley out of his paralysis and see him quickly readjust his glasses and sit all the way down. For a second the waitress looks poised to cross over and ask Crowley if she can take his jacket as well. Then she (wisely) thinks better of it and marches away.
Crowley returns to staring at his dining companion, this time from behind the safety of his shaded lenses. The glass does nothing to obstruct his view of course, demon eyesight is not so easily diminished and lowering the glasses had been about as useful as heater in a sauna. But Crowley had felt compelled to do something to try and better assess his friend because –
had he really said –?
And –
did he know –?
There’s nothing in Aziraphale’s behaviour to suggest anything out of the ordinary. He has that typical, anticipatory smile he always gets before a meal, hands fussing with the intricately folded napkin and rearranging his glass and silverware just so across the table. Their table, as the two of them have taken to calling it, since their visits to the Ritz have progressed from passing fancy to comfortably domestic regularity.
He can’t have meant it, Crowley decides. He’s being too normal. He didn’t hear the girl, that’s all.
But what if, he thinks again, distractedly unfolding his napkin and twisting it into a perfect fabric replica of a duck that opens its beak in a silent quack of surprise at its own existence before being flattened into a napkin again, what if – he did mean it?
It’s at that moment Aziraphale looks up and directs his smile at Crowley and Crowley realises the only solution to his dilemma is to take the metaphorical bull by the horns and ask.
(Crowley had once had occasion to take a literal bull by its horns several centuries ago in Spain. He claimed to be attempting to destabilise the region by interfering with the favoured national pastime of running madly from enraged animals with pointy bits on their heads, thus diminishing city-wide moral. He continues to neither confirm nor deny Aziraphale’s insistence that the intervention had more to do with the six year old girl who’d inadvertently wondered into the bull’s path on her way to retrieve a fallen doll. In any case, after calming the beast and sending it on an amiable, if anticlimactic, journey to the nearest pasture, Crowley had come to the conclusion that when it came to bulls the metaphorical ones were a great deal more troublesome than the real thing, by and large)
“You, uh, you did hear what she said, didn’t you angel?” Crowley says, trying to affect a casual air by bending one arm across the table and leaning over it. This would have worked better if the unfolded napkin hadn’t been concealing his cutlery, causing him to dig his elbow into the prongs of his fork.
“About the hors d’oeuvres?” Aziraphale answers, while Crowley springs back, rubbing his arm.
“No,” Crowley mutters, crushing the napkin into a ball and stuffing it under the table. “I mean, what she called us.”
Aziraphale blinks at him. Cherubim-like. Too sickly sweet to be innocent, surely?
Crowley leans forward again, successfully this time.
“And the way you answered,” he goes on. “You do know what it implies? What she thinks we are now.” When Aziraphale continues to look blank Crowley adds, with a touch of impatience – “To each other.”
“Ah.” Angelic eyes flicker downwards. “Yes,” Aziraphale mutters to the tabletop. “That was rather my fault I’m afraid.” A spot of pink colours his cheeks as he looks up. “She asked for our booking when I arrived and I told her party of two name of ‘Fell.’ Then you joined me and, well, it seems she made assumptions.” There’s an air of helplessness in the shrug that follows, but Crowley has known the angel too long to be wholly convinced by it. “Humans and their labels,” Aziraphale goes on with a tinkle of laughter. Brief and a little forced. “I understand the importance, of course, but I must confess –” He lowers his voice. “I do get them all a bit muddled sometimes.”
“Hhm,” Crowley answers.
“I thought it would be easier to accept her assessment of things, instead of trying to explain the whole, you know –” He bobs his head from side to side. “Mortal enemies, outcasts of Heaven and Hell.” His lips press together as he struggles with how best to continue the description of their post-apocalyptic Arrangement. “Etcetera,” he settles on.
“Right.”
It’s plausible. Confusion over human terminology does have precedent. Only a few decades ago Aziraphale had walked into a Protestant church in Belfast and asked if he was late for Mass. That one caused a right kerfuffle, no mistake. In the end they’d agreed that Crowley could take credit for the initial fallout, while Aziraphale offered the clean up as a victory for his lot.
But this isn’t something as fiddly as religious denomination. And if he’d allowed the young girl to keep her assessment he’d clearly grasped the meaning early on. Soon enough to protest, at least, and after over six thousand years of immediate ‘oh no he’s not my friend’ at every possible opportunity the idea that not objecting today was easier seems... unlikely.
Then there’s the other thing.
“It’s just,” Crowley starts. “We didn’t have a booking. We never have a booking. We just, turn up. And ask for the table.”
“I know,” Aziraphale says. “But, it seemed so important to her that we have one. I didn’t want to disappoint.” He tilts his head, looking at Crowley properly for the first time since they sat down. “If the misunderstanding bothers you, I can call her back and explain.”
“What? Nah.” Crowley leans back in his chair, waving a hand. “No. Bother me? Doesn’t bother me. Not at all. Nope.” He adds a shrug for good measure.
“Oh. Good.” Aziraphale smiles and relaxes into his chair as well, with a sigh that sounds, inexplicably, like relief.
Could just leave it there. Probably should.
But Crowley has never been good at doing what he’s supposed to and surviving Armageddon has done nothing to change this.
“Although…” he starts again, deriving no little enjoyment from the way Aziraphale freezes in the act of reaching for the complimentary jug of ice water at the centre of the table, wide eyes giving him the anxious, panicked look of a chastised puppy. “If we are planning to keep up the, uh… the…”
“…charade?” Aziraphale offers without moving.
Crowley frowns. No, that doesn’t feel right. But he can’t think of anything better.
“Whatever you want to call it,” he hedges. “There is something else the humans will be expecting.”
“Oh?”
With a flick of his wrist Crowley brings his left hand forward and up, ring finger twitching.
“Oh yes of course!” Anxiety forgotten, Aziraphale draws back and clasps his hands together in a clap of delight. “Rings. That’s how they’re doing it these days, isn’t it? In this part of the world anyway.”
For centuries now, yes, Crowley thinks. But he doesn’t get the chance to say it because Aziraphale has unfolded his hands and started circling both forefingers around each other. Over and over they go, round and round, to a dizzying crescendo.
There’s a feather light touch across his skin and Crowley stares as a band of silver unfurls from misty ephemera into reality.
He turns his hand to find a design cut into the other side – two wings interlocked in a protective embrace.
It’s predictable, flamboyant, saccharine and so perfectly wonderful Crowley finds himself quite incapable of saying a word.
Fortunately Aziraphale takes it upon himself to make up the deficit.
“They’re typically plain, I know,” he says with the rueful air of someone who is experiencing absolutely no remorse whatsoever. “But I find unadorned jewellery so very dull. I thought a little embellishment couldn’t hurt. What do you think? Is it suitable?”
Crowley is still staring at the ring, watching the feathered edges glint in the light.
“Crowley?”
“It’s fine,” Crowley coughs, dropping his hand to the table.
There’s another strangely heavy sigh and the answering smile the angel gives him when Crowley looks up seems muted.
“Well then,” Aziraphale nods. “That’s that. Now.” He glances at his own left hand and rubs up and down the corresponding finger. “What would be best for me…?”
He hums a little, but after spending millennia in each other’s company Crowley has come to know the weight and timbre of the angel’s thoughts by rote, much in the same way a human child might learn their times table. It’s now a basic, background knowledge tidied away in the recess of his mind, ready for retrieval as and when. Doing so now tells Crowley this is not a hum of deep thought but a precursor to something else.
And, sure as 2 x 2 equals 4, Aziraphale lifts his eyes and gives Crowley The Look.
The Look has gone through various permutations over the years, but in the last hundred or so Aziraphale has managed to get it down to a fine art. Lord only knows (and presumably she does) how often Crowley has wished he’d paid just a little closer attention back when the angel first started, so he might have built up some kind of resistance. But by the time he realised the danger it was much too late.
The trick is in the way it isn’t just pleading. It’s a hopeful please and presumptive thank you at the same time. It’s a lift of an eyebrow, a ‘would you perhaps?’ and ‘no, of course not, I quite understand,’ a wide-eyed blink, a parting of the lips and ‘oh, I’m so glad that you’re going to.’
Irresistible. Every time.
And the angel has the gall to call Crowley the wily one.
Oh well, what the Hell.
Crowley twists his newly bejewelled hand in the air.
Anyone watching might have mistaken the gesture as a mime for changing a light bulb, or unscrewing a jar (if the jar happened to be upside down). But what Crowley was actually doing was pulling raw firmament from the ether, which is much easier than either of those things. If you’re a demon.
A glowing circle of metal, still molten red, slithers across Aziraphale’s knuckles and tightens round the base of his finger with a snap. Crowley blows lightly to cool it and it settles into a slightly thicker, less gleaming silver than he’d been gifted. Better for picking out the warm yellow mounted at the top.
“Oh!” Aziraphale holds his hand out in front of him, fingers splayed. “Oh, my dear!” He beams down at the ring, twisting it with his other hand to bring the serpentine shape into the light. “How lovely.”
My dear.
A whole bunch of new things have started cropping up between them lately. This being one of them.
Or, well. New-ish.
There’d been a time, oh, thirty years or so ago give or take, when Aziraphale had called him that often. Enough for Crowley to start taking it for granted anyway. Or perhaps it hadn’t been often at all, perhaps it had only been once or twice but had felt, all at once, so comforting and so familiar it just seemed like something that always was between them. And always would be.
Until it wasn’t.
The loss had crept up on him. A niggle in the back of his mind he couldn’t place leaving Crowley restless and irritable at inopportune moments. Until one day he realised it had been over fifteen years since the angel last used the endearment and then, of course, Crowley noticed every time he failed to utter it. Which, as it turned out, was every time.
Or it had been.
There were a thousand reasons that might explain why he’d stopped – an unrelated reprimand from Heaven making him overly cautious; a throwaway comment from Crowley he’d taken offense to; a kind word from Crowley he’d taken the opposite of offense to; an article in some highbrow journal discrediting the word for some preposterous reason or another; a commendation from Heaven prompting a resurgence of loyalty. The list was endless and Crowley had spent many a night driving himself to distraction (and not always figuratively either, to many a traffic officer’s dismay) working through each possibility one by one to try and figure it out.
No need for that this time though because there is only one possible reason why he’s started again.
The same reason for every other change to their daily lives these last few, short months.
Namely, the apocalypse that wasn’t and the vast, gaping absence of ties to their respective Head Office for the first time in literally forever.
Crowley had thought this change would be nothing but good – restoring some much needed peace and tranquillity.
So far he’d been right about the ‘good’ part.
But while stopping Armageddon had been no picnic, it turned out surviving it was just as much of an emotional rollercoaster. Because there was simply no telling day to day what was going to happen anymore. Some days it was business as usual with Crowley shouting at his plants and Aziraphale refusing to sell any books and the two of them laughing or bickering in the park. Then some days Aziraphale might wrap an arm about Crowley’s shoulders during the walk home, or rest a hand on his knee as Crowley tried to park, or brush crumbs from Crowley’s lips with his fingers. Or call him ‘dear.’ Or fake their marriage.
All Crowley can do is ride out each twist and turn with as much cool as he’s able. A feat he’s managed remarkably well so far, in his opinion. But then, he had driven over a hundred miles in a burning Bentley. This was nothing compared to that. Right?
“It’s got your eyes,” Aziraphale goes on, rubbing the yellow gems in the metallic snake’s head with his thumb. “What’s the stone? Garnet?”
“Sulphur.”
In a blink Aziraphale’s joy turns to a familiar glare of consternation.
“Really?”
In return Crowley gives what the young Antichrist has recently informed him (under strict instructions he never reveal where he heard it to Mr and Mrs Young) is known in modern vernacular as a ‘shit eating grin.’ Apparently Crowley is rather good at them.
Aziraphale huffs.
This is more like it, Crowley thinks. Something demonic from him. Huffy outrage from his angel. This is the dance he knows. The one they’ve been making since the Garden.
Then Aziraphale looks back at the ring, turns his hand so the sulphuric eyes of the ouroboros catch the light and his disapproval melts away. Instead his eyebrows flick up and he dips his head with a new hum. An ‘oh well actually –’
“You know, Crowley. There’s something… Perhaps I should… What I mean to say is –” he says. Or rather doesn’t.
If demons needed breath Crowley would most certainly be holding his as he waits for the angel to continue, watching as Aziraphale’s hand drops to the table, his eyes sweeping up, lips parting.
“It’s the hors d’oeuvres.”
“What?”
“Behind you.”
The young girl from before leans over Crowley’s shoulder and delivers a platter of bread, olives, oil and various other nibbles that Aziraphale immediately diverts his full attention to.
“Is there anything else I can get for you?” the girl asks with a sparkling smile.
After a brief pause in which Crowley decides that, no, he doesn’t actually want to miracle those gleaming teeth black and rotten, he flashes a toothy grin back. The girl shuffles a few paces away, unnerved.
“A bottle of champagne please,” he says. “The most expensive you’ve got.”
Aziraphale pauses in the act of breaking bread to look over, blinking a mild inquiry at the request. He’ll never turn down an opportunity for champagne of course, but the two of them don’t make a habit of it. Usually they prefer wine and save the sparkling variety for special occasions.
(Occasions such as, but not limited to - national holidays, international holidays, local holidays, royal birthdays, celebrity birthdays (within reason), nights at the opera, significant sporting events (neither of them follow sport, save the occasional game of cricket, but ‘it’s the principle of the thing’), saving the world and so on.)
It’s more dignified that way, Aziraphale insists.
“Of course, sir, I’ll bring you some right away.” More relaxed now Crowley has engaged her in official duties the girl dares a bit of polite banter. “Are you celebrating something?”
“Yes,” Crowley drawls. “We’re celebrating our marriage.”
He leans into his chair, right arm draped over the back, fingers of his left hand drumming across the table to show off the ring. If the angel wants a fake marriage then Crowley is damn well going to give him one. As brash and as loud as he can.
“Oh, it’s your anniversary?”
“You could say that.”
The girl frowns a little at this enigmatic response and Crowley, grinning again, subtly nudges her attention towards Aziraphale by glancing his way. Aziraphale puts his bread back on the platter and spends a touch longer than necessary brushing crumbs from his fingers, flustered by the unspoken question.
“Yes, well, you see, er.”
Watching Aziraphale try to lie is always fun.
He’s actually very good at it – his gardener act with Warlock had been flawless and that was just one in a long line of deceptions he’s performed in the service of Heaven over the years. But that was the catch – the service of Heaven part. Convince him something was endorsed by his snot-nosed compatriots, or was at least required for some ‘greater good,’ and he would engage in all manner of absurd and questionable behaviours in order to perform it. But once anything questionable – such as lying – became solely for personal gain he started to second guess himself in ways that invariably tripped him up.
It was absolutely ridiculous, a little bit adorable and very, very funny.
And now, of course, with no Heaven or Hell to endorse any of their behaviours, almost all their choices, questionable or otherwise, were for personal gain. So it was all too easy to push the angel into these little flusters.
It is, admittedly, a little bit cruel. But demon habits die hard. And besides, Aziraphale was the one who started this, springing the marriage lie on Crowley unawares. Crowley was merely trying to determine how far the angel intended to take it. If doing so made Aziraphale uncomfortable in turn, well, that was only fair, wasn’t it?
“We haven’t actually had a ceremony.”
Not a lie. Clever.
But if Aziraphale hoped this response would satisfy the girl he is sorely mistaken, for instead of ending the matter with the usual nod and smile dictated by the service industry the waitress drops her professional demeanour in favour of an outpouring of personal sympathy.
“Oh, that’s such a shame! I’m so sorry.” She moves closer to the table. “It’s terrible, isn’t it, how many unfair, prejudice laws there are in the world?”
“Oh, erm. Yes. Terrible,” Aziraphale mutters.
Crowley grabs an olive and pops it into his mouth, still grinning. It’s not quite popcorn, but it’ll do.
“But you know,” the girl goes on, glancing between them. The look she gives Crowley is notably softer this time. “It’s never too late. My grandmas have been together almost eighty years and they finally got married last October.”
This puts Aziraphale on more solid footing.
“They did? That’s wonderful,” he beams and the delight is genuine.
Crowley shakes his head.
To think after all this time, after all they’ve been through, everything they’ve witnessed, human happiness can still touch Aziraphale so deeply. Countless wars, persecutions, executions and betrayal and none of it has diminished the angel’s capacity for unbridled joy over small pleasure and minor victories, regardless of whether or not they’re his own. That’s a miracle greater than any Heaven or Hell could hope to accomplish. One of the many unbearably sweet, hopelessly enchanting quirks that continue to set his angel apart.
“They went all out for it, too.” The girl is leaning in now, all eagerness at the way the conversation is gaining momentum. “I mean, when you’re over eighty years old you’ve earned it, I think. They hired this incredible venue. An old manor house in the country. I could write down the details for you if you like?”
She whips a notebook and pencil from her apron and blinks bright, innocent, inquiring eyes at Aziraphale. Clearly thrilled at the thought of being able to do a good turn for what she believes to be a deeply committed, tragically persecuted couple.
“That’s – well – thank you,” Aziraphale stammers, flinching when she begins a fast-paced scribble across the page. “But I don’t – I don’t think that’s really necessary…”
He turns to Crowley in panic, but Crowley just shrugs.
You made this bed, angel, he thinks. Time to lie in it.
Though since it’s a marriage bed, technically he supposes they’re both meant to –
No. Better not go there.
He has his answer now that’s what matters. He wanted to know how far Aziraphale was willing to take the deception and it would seem the answer is – not this far.
And that’s fine. That’s fair. That’s – not disappointing or anything.
Crowley searches for a drink to hide his not disappointment behind and finds their table sadly lacking. He’s just about to pull an old trick with the water he’d perfected several thousand years ago when the girl lifts her head.
“Oh my gosh,” she exclaims, the lead of her pencil still pressed against the page. “They also had the most amazing caterers. Their wedding cake? Was divine.”
Aziraphale blinks.
When he looks up there’s a new light in his eye and when he speaks next it’s very slow, very deliberate and very, very interested.
“Really?”
It all goes downhill from there.
Before Crowley knows it Aziraphale and the girl are in deep discussion about flavours and cake toppers and the best days to organise tasters. At some point Aziraphale acquires pencil and paper of his own and starts making studious notes, but it’s not until Crowley catches words like ‘lavender’ and ‘chilli’ and ‘lemongrass’ that he realises the situation has grown well and truly out of hand.
Fortunately the waitress had remembered her duties in the midst of menu planning for what are now, apparently, genuine impending nuptials and dashed off to retrieve the promised champagne. Aziraphale’s glass remains untouched, but Crowley had downed two in quick succession as soon as the alcohol arrived and is considering dispensing with a third and simply imbibing direct from the bottle.
“I’m sorry,” the girl says, after a lengthy description of her grandmas’ wedding reception main course (sea bass with sizzled ginger, garlic and spring onion). “I wish I could stay longer, but I have to get back to work.”
She gives a sheepish smile to a gentleman in an official looking tux glaring at her from the other side of the restaurant and it occurs to Crowley that considering how long she’s been at the table it’s suspiciously miraculous that one of her superiors hasn’t reprimanded her already.
“Of course, you mustn’t let us keep you,” Aziraphale tells her. “You’ve been very kind and most helpful. Thank you.”
“My pleasure! Congratulations to both of you. And if my grandmas were here I know they’d wish you the very best as well. And be glad that you didn’t have to wait eighty years!”
Aziraphale chuckles politely while Crowley buries his face in his champagne flute (he’d decided to pour a glass after all).
“Eighty years,” he mutters. “That’s nothing. Try six thousand.”
The girl laughs.
“Yes, they tell me it can feel as long as that sometimes. Anyway, enjoy your meal.”
They haven’t actually ordered. But Crowley has no doubt a waiter will bring them something suitable in due course anyway.
As he reaches for the bottle to fill his once more empty flute he catches Aziraphale watching him. The furrow across his brow is almost a question, it just needs a little more time to work up to it. It’s the look of someone who’s stumbled and found themselves somewhere unexpected. Somewhere they can’t tell if they’re meant to be or not.
It must have been that crack about waiting six thousand years. That had been a bit… revealing. Came very close to exposing a truth they’ve both been exceptionally good at never exposing, regardless of how deeply, powerfully and painfully known it’s grown between them. Crowley should probably do something clever to distract from that.
He thinks a moment then says –
“What?”
Aziraphale looks back to his notes.
“Nothing.”
His lips fold together as he runs a finger down various neatly penned lists, stopping every so often to circle a few words.
“I quite like the idea of lavender in a cake,” he says, overly bright, as Crowley begins his sixth glass of champagne. “But then, there’s always lemon. Everyone enjoys a good lemon cake, don’t they? Or –” He looks up, distracted by his own prattle into real excitement. “Do you think they might be willing to make a Battenberg layer?”
“Dunno. S’pose.” Crowley swirls his glass, watching the bubbles circle and pop.
There’s a pause. Then –
“Are you alright?”
“M’fine. Absolutely tickety boo.”
A doubtful silence follows this assessment.
“If exotic flavours aren’t to your taste, I’m happy to stick with chocolate.” Aziraphale makes the offer softly and hesitant. Probably considers it an olive branch. “Can’t go wrong with chocolate.”
It’s the kindness that really gets under Crowley’s skin. Here he is doing his level best to get nice and drunk and frustrated, prepared to push himself into a rage at the nearest opportunity, and the angel has to go and ruin it by being kind. It doesn’t stop Crowley’s anger, just deflates it a bit, like a balloon being slowly untied so the air putters out in slow, gradual puffs.
“I don’t care about the bloody cake!” he snaps, sending a splash of champagne over his shoulder as he waves his hands for emphasis.
A flash of hurt passes across Aziraphale’s face and oh, that’s just not fair.
“Well,” the angel pouts. “You’re clearly upset about something. If it’s not the cake then what is it?”
Crowley opens and closes his mouth a couple of times. Then once more.
Of all the oblivious, feather-brained questions.
“I – wuh – it – you –” He stabs his glass back on the table. Hard enough to snap the stem, but Aziraphale fixes it with a flick of his wrist before anymore of the drink can spill. “S’just – this is ridiculous. We came here for afternoon tea and now we’re getting married!”
Azirapahle sits up very straight and sets down his pencil and paper, right hand folding over his left. Obscuring the ring. Or protecting it.
“You don’t want to.”
His voice starts to lift at the end, then stops. The momentary tremor is the only part of him that isn’t utterly composed and the sudden cold falls just the wrong side of unnerving.
Add to that the fact the assumption is not, as a matter of fact, entirely accurate, and Crowley finds himself even more at a loss for words than before.
“Tha – I – I didn’t – that’s not – ssss –” He grits his teeth with a long, sharp hiss of frustration. “Six thousand years, angel! Six thousand. And you’ve barely held my hand. And suddenly, what, just like that we’re – we’re ripping up curtains? How can you –?”
“I believe the phrase is ‘picking out’ –”
“Ripping, picking, cakes, curtains! Chocolate, dandelion!” Crowley throws up his hands and slumps back against his chair with an audible huff. He folds his arms across his chest and looks away. “Pick what you like. I don’t care.”
Even though he keeps his eyes firmly on the duck a l’orange being served two tables over he can still feel the hurt and confusion emanating across from him in waves and he hates it twice over. Firstly, because any pain Aziraphale feels always cuts Crowley just as deep, that’s just the way of things, nothing to be done about it. Secondly, because how dare Aziraphale be hurting when he’s the one responsible for putting Crowley in this foul mood in the first place.
Can he really be so stupid as to not see the problem yet?
A tiny, still functioning part of Crowley’s mind gently pulls out a couple of memories for consideration. Revolutionary France – crepes, capture and the Bastille. And a more recent encounter on the streets of Soho – a stubborn rejection and desperate, hopeless faith in an audience with the Almighty.
Alright, perhaps Aziraphale really doesn’t get it. And Crowley supposes he hasn’t been particularly communicative himself.
He could try to explain. It was hardly going to make things any worse.
But when he opens his mouth to give voice to the words all that comes out is an inaudible mumble.
“Beg pardon?”
“I said you could have asked me!”Crowley yells, loud enough to stop half the restaurant in its tracks and turn all eyes on their table. With an impatient wave of Crowley’s hand those same eyes slide away and everyone continues about their business, unaware of ever having been distracted. “That’s all,” Crowley adds, dropping his hand to the table and daring to glance Aziraphale’s way. The paralysed, open-mouthed shock he finds there has him promptly avert his eyes again, this time to the bright twinkle of the chandeliers above them.
Silence follows.
It continues to follow for a good, long while. Like a big, black, dirty stray that’s certain you’ll give it food if it sticks with you long enough and refuses to be dissuaded.
Until finally Crowley feels something warm touch his hand. He’s been so focused on counting the fractures of light in the chandelier glass he actually jumps and the touch gentles around his fingers, comforting and soft.
When he blinks down he finds Aziraphale waiting quietly, his hold on Crowley’s hand firm, but not so tight Crowley can’t pull away if he chooses.
He doesn’t.
Crowley hadn’t been lying, or even exaggerating, when he’d said the two of them had barely held hands. In fact you’d only need one hand, a human one, to count the number of times it’s happened, and half of those were perfunctory (helping each other up after a fall, yanking the other out of danger, passing notes in the park).
Except the last time of course. That day after they’d wisely chosen their faces, hoodwinked Heaven and Hell in extravagant fashion and come here to celebrate in much the same. After an exceedingly good meal, even better champagne and even better company, they’d stumbled out into Berkley Square and walked along hand in hand. Although they’d gone for lunch it was late evening by the time they left (something that, mysteriously, none of the staff bat an eyelid at, or even seemed aware of), so Crowley had offered Aziraphale a lift home, or back to his, whichever. The angel declined, something about wanting the walk to clear his head. But he’d walked with Crowley back to the car, or perhaps he’d walked Crowley back to the car, proceeded to thank him for a wonderful evening and then, without pause or fanfare, as natural as breathing (for things that needed breath, obviously), as though it were something they’d been doing for years and years and years, Aziraphale had lifted Crowley’s hand and pressed it to his lips. “Goodnight, my dear,” he’d said. “See you tomorrow.” And he’d left. Leaving Crowley to stare after him, heart pounding, like a heroine in one of those Jane Austen novels he insists he’s never read (but secretly owns several well worn, personalised, signed editions). It had taken him a good ten minutes to calm down enough to get inside the Bentley and a great deal more before he was ready to drive, spent mostly in an attempt to distract himself from the whole affair by listening to the faint, unidentified sound of birdsong pushing its way through the ever present rumble of London traffic.
“You’re right, of course,” Aziraphale tells him now and, though it’s a struggle, Crowley manages to wrench his focus from their joined hands to hear the words. “You so often have been.” Sunglasses are no barrier for an angel, never were, so Aziraphale finds his gaze as fast and sure as if they aren’t there. He sounds a little breathless and a short, watery smile crosses his face, rising up from somewhere very deep inside of him. “It’s only that…” He takes in a breath he doesn’t need. “Things are so different now. It’s hard not to get swept away in…” For a moment his gaze drifts, eyebrows lifting, a wistfulness playing about his lips. “In the freedom of it all.” His eyes grow wide and bright as he scans the room, as though seeing it all for the first time, before winding their way back to the table and his own free hand. The starched white of the tablecloth highlights the dark silver and yellow circling his finger. “And I suppose,” he adds. “I thought in a way we’d already…” He shakes his head. “But, no.” He looks up again. Crowley hasn’t moved so it’s an easy thing for their eyes to lock back together. “It was thoughtless of me.” His voice softens and slows for the next part. “I’m so sorry.” Handholding and an apology? With words and everything? ‘Different’ doesn’t begin to cover it, honestly. “I certainly didn’t intend for this –” Aziraphale lifts his empty hand, worrying the ring from behind with his thumb. “– to seem a mockery, or a joke, or –”
“A charade?”
Aziraphale stills his thumb and curls in his fingers.
“No.”
He swallows, resting his curled hand back on the table.
“I’ve gone about this all wrong, haven’t I? If the idea upsets you then we needn’t say another word about it. I’ll drop the whole thing. But –” There’s a split-second hesitation, then he’s pressing on. “But before we do that could I, perhaps, ask just one question?”
Crowley doesn’t trust himself with words anymore, so he lifts a shoulder in a vague approximation of a shrug and makes a sound somewhere between a ‘nnn’ and a ‘neh.’
The hold about his hand tightens.
“Dearest.”
That one’s definitely new.
“Would you like to get married?”
There’s no Look. No pouting. No smugness.
There’s just a nervous, hopeful flicker at the corner of Aziraphale’s lips and all at once Crowley realises this is real. It’s been real all along. Aziraphale never meant this as a fake marriage, he meant it as a real marriage. He’d just neglected the proposal.
And of course he had. It’s such a very Aziraphale thing to do that Crowley gives himself a long, hard, mental kick for not realising sooner.
It’s an oversight the angel is now doing his utmost to correct, however. If he asked, Crowley has no doubt Aziraphale would leave his chair and drop down on one knee. Magic up a string quartet even. A shower of rose petals. The whole nine yards.
It’s almost tempting.
And maybe Crowley really would have asked, if he wasn’t so thoroughly speechless.
“Ah – whu – um – uh –” he struggles while Aziraphale lifts his eyebrows – apprehensive, but also encouraging. “I – uh – I th – yeah.” He nods. “I’d like that. Yeah. Okay.”
There’s a pause as both of them adjust to this, reality shifting around them not unlike it had at the airbase. A change in perspective making something very old into something new. A long, unspoken truth now universally acknowledged.
Then Aziraphale’s whole being brightens along with his smile.
It’s the kind of radiance that puts the moon and stars to shame, and would give the sun a run for its money too. Crowley senses a cluster of waiters and diners in their vicinity stop what they’re doing to stare in wonderment and well they might. Angelic light does that. Ordinarily Crowley might have been miffed at having to share it, but he knows in this instance this particular display is exclusively for him, so it doesn’t matter who else sees it really.
The glow travels down Aziraphale’s arm to where their hands meet with a tingle of warmth and Crowley wraps his fingers about the angel’s and joins it with a light of his own. Demons are supposed to radiate foulness and ill-will and suchlike of course, but that’s just the company mandate. The Fall may have inflicted certain, irrefutable changes on every former angel, but the limitations of their ethereal powers remained essentially the same. So with great relish Crowley defies his former employers’ regulations and lets the fullness of all his joy and awe and love shine through him.
Once the moment’s over and they’ve each dimmed back to their usual selves, Aziraphale with a satisfied sigh and Crowley with a self-conscious cough, the whole restaurant has ground to a halt. All around them customers and staff are paused in the middle of walking, eating, drinking and, in one man’s case, blowing his nose, all with far off, dreamy, blissful expressions on their faces.
Crowley and Aziraphale ignore this.
“Maybe, um. Maybe we shouldn’t, just yet, though,” Crowley says. “I mean. We should probably take some time. Do it properly.”
He thinks back to a hot summer night, not so long ago really. To a tense conversation in the Bentley, heavy with things unsaid. And one thing said very clearly. You go too fast for me.
The irony is not lost on him.
Or Aziraphale, it would seem, from the soft, understanding way his lips fold in response.
“Well there’s no rush,” Aziraphale answers. “After all, we have all the time in the world.”
As if the lightshow wasn’t bad enough, Crowley is appalled to find himself grinning back – wide and open and fresh as that first day he’d slithered into Eden. He brings his free hand to his lips to stop himself and wrests his gaze away.
“Oh,” he says, noting the paralytic, awe-struck state of the rest of the clientele. “Speaking of the world.”
Aziraphale follows his gaze.
“Whoops,” the angel mutters, clicking his fingers.
There’s a jolt as everyone comes back to themselves, followed by a smattering of cries and curses as people react to various spillages from unattended forks and spoons, angled glasses and bottles of wine and an unwiped dripping nose.
Then the world carries on as normal.
Normal, with the addition of two rings sparkling in the light, and two hands still clasping each other across a table.