Chapter Text
Ezra stopped mid-step, his foot only hitting the ground through the auspices of gravity and not by any effort of his own.
The QE2 – Queen Elizabeth II – assigned tables for the dining room by cabin. As Ezra was in his cabin alone and furthermore on this trip alone, he had been expecting to be seated at a table full of strangers. He had not been expecting to be seated with what was possibly the most gorgeous woman he’d ever seen in his life. She had on a slinky black dress that accentuated her long lean body, and a riot of scarlet curls cascaded down her back and over her shoulder. She wore a pair of sunglasses, indoors and at night, and yet somehow managed to make them appear a glamourous fashion statement.
Ezra became painfully aware of his own outfit. The trousers and shirt were probably fine, but he knew the velvet waistcoat and tartan bow tie tended to make him look old fashioned and dowdy; not the most attractive traits in anyone, much less someone just scooting past his mid-twenties. Normally he didn’t mind – he liked his sense of style – but these were hardly normal circumstances. On the plus side, this outfit also tended to make him look rather gay. He found that term far too limiting a label for himself in most cases, but it this particular case it meant that when he inevitably made a tit of himself, the gorgeous red-head would assume it was because he was just generally a tit, and not because he was already hopelessly infatuated with her. The former seemed less embarrassing somehow.
He forced himself forward and took a seat at the table next to her. “Hello,” he said, which as opening lines went he supposed was fairly middle of the road.
She reached one finely manicured finger up to tilt her sunglasses downward, revealing gorgeous amber eyes. She looked Ezra up and down with amusement, but also he thought appraisal. And not necessarily negative appraisal either. “Hello,” she said. “A. Julia Crowley, though I go by Crowley.” She offered him her hand.
“Ezra Fell,” he replied. “Pleasure to meet you.” And then, tit that he was, he took her hand and rather than shaking it he pressed a kiss to the back of her knuckles.
Slowly, her lips curled up into a smile.
Crowley gazed at the sleeping Ezra - the beautiful halo of his white-blonde hair, the way his lashes fanned over his delightfully round cheeks, the smear of lipstick by his left ear he’d missed wiping off the night before - and thrice-damned herself for a fool. He was just so charming and clever and sweet with a biting sarcastic edge and so attractive – handsome and soft in just the perfect amounts – that she’d forgotten her single solitary rule. If there was a chance it was going to be more than a one night stand, always tell them first.
This was a purely practical consideration. Because if they were going to turn out to be the type of person that accused her of being a disgusting temptress that had tricked them or any foul nonsense like that, then they tended to be more violent – metaphorically and in one case that very, very quickly learned the error of his ways, literally – if she waited until after sex to tell them. Besides, if she told them and got that reaction first, it meant she avoided the slimy feeling of knowing she’d slept with someone like that.
Ezra wouldn’t be violent about it, she was sure. She hadn’t known him for longer than an evening, but that just didn’t seem in his nature. He might still be disgusted though. In fact, it seemed almost inevitable that he would be, given how Crowley’s luck worked.
Ezra’s eyes opened. He was smiling at first, but the expression dropped almost immediately. “Was I that bad last night?” he asked.
“No! No, of course not,” she said. If anything that was the exact opposite of the problem. “I need to tell you something.”
“You’re already seeing someone,” Ezra guessed with a resigned acceptance.
“No, that’s not –“ She sighed and turned away. “I’m not always a woman, alright?”
“What else are you then?” Ezra asked.
Maybe because she had been waiting for him to be disgusted, she heard a mocking tone in his voice. “What else do you think I am, an aardvark?”
“I confess aardvark wouldn’t have been my first instinct in regards to what kind of animal you’d be. Given your tattoo, I probably would have said snake. A cat maybe. But actually, I assumed you meant something along the lines of sometimes you’re a woman and sometimes you’re a man, or something in between the two, or agender entirely.”
She looked back at him. He didn’t look mocking in the slightest. He looked patient, curious, and interested yet unconcerned. “Man or woman. I tend to oscillate between being mostly one or the other. More often a man, but more woman overall,” Crowley said slowly. “You… you don’t mind?”
Ezra gave a confused head tilt. “Why would I mind? You are a magnificent creature. Man or woman doesn’t change that. Besides,” he gave her a very charming smile, “I’m sure you’d look absolutely smashing in a suit.”
Crowley lunged at him, straddling his waist and pinning him to the bed. She devoured his mouth with a deep, hungry kiss.
“So last night was alright then?” he asked cheekily when she released the kiss for air. His lips were already beginning to look red and swollen again.
“Last night was bloody perfect,” she said. “You’re perfect, and you’ll be very lucky if I let you out of this room anytime over the rest of the trip.”
“To the contrary, my dear.” Ezra reached up and tucked a loose curl behind her ear. “I shall consider myself very lucky if you don’t.”
Ezra felt a distinct pang of loss as he pulled his coat from the closet where it was nestled among Crowley’s clothes and placed it in his suitcase. She had brought her things over to his cabin on the third day of the voyage, and while they hadn’t spent all their time in his room – not even the majority of it really, if one discounted sleeping – neither of them had been long out of each other’s sight since then. And now it was nearly over.
They hadn’t talked about what they were doing next. That was, they had each talked about their individual plans – Ezra working toward opening his shop for rare and antique books and services, and Crowley sorting out her parents’ estate with the hopes of ending up with enough inheritance to get her started toward owning her own vineyard – but they hadn’t talked about any plans together. Realistically, they probably couldn’t have any future plans together for the long term, not if Crowley wanted her vineyard in Napa and Ezra wanted his bookshop in… well, really he could own a bookshop most anywhere, couldn’t he? Just because he’d always envisioned London didn’t mean he had to settle there if another opportunity presented itself. If.
Ezra glanced over at Crowley. She was still lounging in bed, watching him pack with an air of casual indifference. But he thought he could see something just a little too careful, too studied, about her indifference.
“You know what I realized, my dear?” Ezra said with some studied casualness of his own. “We never did get around to getting those oysters for you to try.”
“No we didn’t,” Crowley drawled. “Too bad.”
“Well. Well, I was thinking…” Ezra looked down at his suitcase. His nervous hands were doing a much better job of making a general mess of things than anything that could be called packing. “There’s this lovely restaurant near my flat that does remarkable things to oysters. We could go sometime if you like.”
An abrupt sound from the bed made Ezra look over. Crowley was sitting up now, the blanket thrown haphazardly about her waist, her pyjama top falling off one shoulder, and her hair had formed a fluffy snarl on the left side of her head. Ezra didn’t know if she’d ever looked more attractive. “Yes. When? Yes,” she said, her words stumbling over each other in their haste to get out.
Ezra wouldn’t have been able to help the grin that spread across his face, and he didn’t bother to try. “Tomorrow night?”
“Tomorrow night,” she agreed. She straightened her top and made some attempt to finger comb her hair. “Can’t wait, angel.”
His smile miraculously grew. “Me either,” he said, and he began humming while he packed.
The words stuck in Crowley’s throat, unable to force their way past the lump there. She’d been standing in Ezra’s doorway mute and near tears for going on two minutes now, and he was beginning to panic. She gave up on words and instead reached into her purse and pulled out the stick in there. Ezra took it and read it almost automatically, though she doubted he needed to read it to know what it said.
“Oh dear,” he said. “You… you’d better come in.” He gently placed a hand on her back, led her into the flat, and sat her down on the sofa. She waited there staring at nothing while he bustled about in the kitchen. A few minutes later he returned, handing her a mug of tea before sitting down next to her with his own mug.
Crowley took a sip and made a face when the flavor wasn’t what she had been expecting. “Sorry. That’s the only herbal tea I have on hand,” Ezra said. “I thought it best to avoid caffeine, just in case. That is, I know those tests aren’t always entirely accurate, but-“
“I’ve got four more at home, all positive,” she interrupted. “It’s probably safe to say it’s accurate.” She took another sip of the not-right-tasting tea, then set the mug down on the coffee table.
“Right,” Ezra said. “I think this is the part where I say I support whatever decision you want to make, whether it’s to keep them or, well…”
“They’re a baby. You can’t kill kids,” she snapped. Part of her knew that whatever was growing inside her was probably nothing more than a blob of undifferentiated cells at the moment, but she didn’t care. Because she could see them in her mind, a beautiful little baby with round cheeks and a bright smile and white-blonde curls and amber eyes. They were a little piece of her and a little piece of Ezra mixed together, and she already loved them so much.
“Good. Alright. So we’re keeping the baby,” Ezra said. He sounded faint.
“I’m sorry, angel; I’m so sorry,” Crowley said, the words rushing out of her. “I know this isn’t what we planned, it’s too much, it’s too fast, and-“
“Marry me.”
She let out a strangled noise and pushed herself back into the far corner of the sofa. She refused to look at him, to see the dutifulness and resignation there. “No! I can’t let – you can’t – you’re not obligated to –“
“Crowley, love. Please look at me.” She froze. Love. He’d called her love. They hadn’t… she let her eyes drift upward. Ezra was smiling at her. He reached into the pocket of his waistcoat to pull out a ring. A golden ouroboros, with rubies for eyes. Her beautiful, soft, sweet, charming bastard of an angel. “I got this the day we landed in London. I know this is sudden, and probably quite reckless, but you are the most amazing, impossible person I have ever met, and I love you. I don’t want to pressure you if you’re not ready, but –“
“Angel, if you don’t put that ring on my finger in the next five seconds, I’ll….” Wait longer, probably. She’d wait five seconds, five minutes, five years, ten years, a hundred, a thousand, six thousand. Crowley would wait from the very beginning of the world to the very end if she had to. But that didn’t make an especially good threat, so she left the words hanging.
Luckily, a threat wasn’t necessary, as Ezra immediately slid the ring onto her left hand. “Marry me, love?”
“Of course I’ll marry you, you stupid-“ He kissed her. Crowley wrapped her arms around him and was blissfully and incandescently happy.
“Mother would have wanted you to get married in a church,” Michael said.
Ezra frowned at his older sister. “I think what Mother would have wanted was for me to be happy.” Being very much the baby of the family, Ezra had only been six when their mother died, and had thereafter been raised by Michael and their brother Gabriel. Raised might have been a strong word for it, given their very hands-off parenting style, but Ezra had long since decided that was understandable under the circumstances. The point being, he didn’t remember their mother nearly as well as his siblings did, but what he did remember of her was composed entirely of love and warmth and acceptance.
“Of course she would have wanted you to be happy,” Michael said with a roll of her eyes. “But Mother also would have wanted you to get married in a church.”
As Mother was gone and Crowley was here and the one getting married, Ezra thought Mother’s hypothetical church wedding desires were largely irrelevant. He didn’t say that to Michael though. It didn’t seem worth the argument.
“Oh what’s this?” The ultrasound tech said, and Crowley immediately began panicking. She’d done something wrong and the baby was hurt, the baby was dying, the baby – “A second heartbeat! You both are having twins.”
“Twins,” Crowley breathed, and it was like every part of her sighed in satisfaction. The little baby in her mind was joined by a second near-identical one. They were having twins. That was, Crowley abruptly realized, exactly what she wanted. “That’s one for each of us,” she said to Ezra.
“One for each of us?” he echoed looking confused and a bit alarmed by the statement.
She rolled her eyes at him. “To name, angel. One for each of us to name.”
The wedding was far from perfect. There were too many compromises they’d had to make, compromises in the name of time, in the name of expense, in deference to Crowley’s pregnant state, in the name of mollifying Ezra’s family. Crowley’s solitary bridesmaid was a cousin she hadn’t spoken to in years even before she’d moved to America and had only been selected to block Michael’s dutiful volunteering to take the spot when Ezra had explained Gabriel couldn’t be his best man as they hadn’t planned on having bridesmaids and groomsmen. Aziraphale wasn’t wearing a tuxedo, as they hadn’t wanted to spend the money to buy one and Crowley had insisted he couldn’t rent one for his own wedding, and so was instead wearing the outfit he’d had on the night they’d first met. It was romantic and clashed horribly with the colour scheme. Their outdoor garden venue had been rained on, so they had to hastily relocate to the back-up indoor option which left a lot to be desired. In many respects, the wedding was a mess.
But Crowley, Crowley was perfect. Crowley with her stunning red hair half pinned up and the rest spilling down her back and shoulders. Crowley with her exquisite custom-tailored – the one expense Ezra had refused to spare – crimson dress, embellished with beaded and embroidered black snakes. Crowley with her magnificently swelling pregnant belly, though the detailing of the dress did a wonderful job of tricking your eye from noticing. Crowley with her sensible and comfortable sparkling black trainers. Crowley. Beautiful, impossible, perfect Crowley who was looking at Ezra like she thought he was perfect too.
Crowley sank down into her chair, more grateful for the footstool they’d tucked under the head table for her than she had possibly ever been for anything in her entire life. She was seriously questioning their decision to rush this wedding through before she gave birth. At the time it had made sense to try to get it done when they didn’t have two babies to contend with, but what she hadn’t considered was she still had two babies to contend with regardless. It was just that now they were stuck inside her, rather than physically separate and able to be handed off to someone else for a while.
“Feeling a bit worn out there?”
Crowley offered Gabriel a thin smile. It was a polite enough question, but something about the way he’d asked it felt smarmy and judgmental. “Yeah, a bit.”
“Understandable, what with…” He looked pointedly down at her stomach. “Anyway, I just wanted to stop over here and let you know how glad we are that Ezra married you, given everything.”
“Everything,” Crowley echoed. She also looked pointedly down at her stomach.
Gabriel laughed. “Well obviously we’re glad he doesn’t have any bastard children running around too. But no, I was talking about how Ezra is gay or bisexual or whatever it’s called.”
“He’s pansexual, actually,” Crowley gritted out.
“See what I mean? Always coming up with ridiculous new words, these people. I don’t know how they expect anyone to keep track. The point is, we’re glad he finally had the sense to settle down with a woman. A real woman.”
If Crowley’s feet weren’t so swollen, she would stand up and punch him square in the face. She seriously considering making a go at it anyway when Ezra rushed up. “Gabriel! Sandalphon was looking for you.”
“Really Ezra,” Gabriel said, giving Ezra a condescending clap on the shoulder. “If you want sometime alone with your lovely wife, all you had to do was say so.” He winked at them and strode off. Smug wanker.
It was unfair the way Crowley kept getting more attractive, and without even trying. That was, without trying to be attractive; her sweat-soaked hair and the way she was passed out in exhaustion proved how very hard she’d been trying over the past twelve hours. “I love you,” Ezra said, and he pressed a kiss to the side of her heard.
“Mmmm, angel?” she said, her eyes fluttering open.
“I’m here, darling,” he answered.
“Babies?”
“They’re here too.”
Crowley blinked, looking surprised to find two new-borns cradled to her chest. She smiled softly at the pair of them. “They’re perfect.”
“Yes they are,” Ezra agreed, stroking a tiny cheek. “You did a marvellous job, my dear.”
“Course I did,” Crowley agreed. “But it’s your turn next time.”
“Is that so?”
“It is. Look, I already knocked out the first two for us. More than my fair share of childbirth. So the next one’s your turn.”
Ezra huffed out a laugh. “I don’t think it works that way.”
“Eh, you’re clever, angel; you’ll figure it out,” Crowley said.
“Of course, love. Anything you want.”
“What do you want from me, Crowley?” Ezra said. The distress was palpable in his tone, but for once Crowley didn’t care. She forced herself not to care.
“What I want,” she said as she continued shoving things haphazardly into her suitcase, “is for you to stand up for me.”
“I do!” Ezra protested.
“No, you redirect the conversation. It’s not the same thing.”
“Yes, well maybe most of the time… but I stand up for you too,” he said.
“Not enough,” said Crowley. She snatched her hairdryer and began trying to stuff it into the already packed suitcase.
“I’m sorry. But you don’t know how Gabriel and Michael can be – they’re close-minded and stubborn and –“
“I don’t give a fuck how they can be,” Crowley said. “They can either support us, or they can fuck off.”
“Yes, but…” he sounded sad and lost, and she did not care. “They’re my family.”
Crowley snarled and chucked the hairdryer at him. It nearly hit him in the head. She decided she didn’t care about that either. She zipped her suitcase up and stalked off to the baby’s room.
“Crowley!” Ezra said, truly panicked now.
She had been planning to… but she couldn’t. She couldn’t do that to him. She picked Adam up. She placed a kiss on his forehead and breathed him in. Then she set him back down. She picked up Warlock instead. “I’m going back to America, angel. I’m buying a plane ticket and leaving. And when I’m off on my vineyard, I won’t even think about you.”
She made it as far as opening the front door before Ezra caught up with her. “You can’t leave, Crowley!” he said. He had picked up Adam and was holding the baby like he was the only thing keeping him from falling apart. There were tears in his eyes and she mentally begged him to say something, anything. Just give her a reason, any reason, any stupid excuse, to stay.
He didn’t say a word. “Have a nice life,” Crowley said, and she slammed the door behind her.
“You know what, Gabriel? Fuck off,” Ezra said, slamming the phone down.
In the next room, Adam began crying. “Oh no, my dear boy, I’m so sorry,” Ezra said as he hurried into the room and picked Adam up. He gently rocked the baby and placed a kiss on his head as he made soft reassuring noises. Adam didn’t stop crying. It seemed like he’d been crying near constantly for the past month. Ezra could sympathize with the feeling.
“Shhhh, it’s alright. Your mother and brother will be…” Ezra choked on the words. He’d offered the reassurance hundreds of times of the past weeks, but he couldn’t force it out anymore. He couldn’t force himself to believe it was true anymore.
Ezra clenched his eyelids shut, trying to hold back the tears. He could hear Crowley echoing in his head one for each of us. “I don’t think they’re coming back,” he whispered against Adam’s forehead. “I’m sorry; it’s my fault. I should have… But you’ll be alright. I’ll take care of you, and we’ll figure it out. I promise.”
Anthony J. Crowley stood with one hand in the pocket of his jeans and the other holding a baby carrier. A breeze gusted through, rustling the leaves of the grape vines and tousling his freshly shorn hair. Taking in the sight of his new home, Crowley felt smaller than he ought to. Like a piece of himself was missing. Be honest. Two pieces and while they were out of reach, they weren’t missing; he knew exactly where they were.
He pushed the feeling away. He’d sat in that flat in Mayfair for six weeks waiting, and Ezra had never come for him. He’d made his choice, and it was time for Crowley to move on.
He smiled down at Warlock. Warlock looked solemnly and trustingly back. “Alright hellspawn. Let’s do this.”