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CIRCA 30 AD
“That was not very nice,” Aziraphale said in a patronising tone, watching as Crowley ruefully retreated into the bushes, his serpentine demonic pupils dilating as he saw Aziraphale waiting.
The flame-haired demon hissed, forked tongue flashing lightning quick between his teeth as he transformed from snake back into the human form he preferred. “What are you doing here, Aziraphale?”
Aziraphale watched patiently as Crowley patted out a spark from his black tunic and composed himself with all the dignity he could muster, given the circumstances. Then, he cleared his throat and looked up at Aziraphale again. “Well, angel?”
“I could ask you the same thing, biting that nice, loyal religious Disciple. No wonder he threw you in that fire,” Aziraphale intoned disapprovingly. Crowley hissed again, then sighed. He was physically immune to the fire he’d been thrown in—in fact, he’d positively enjoyed the experience of flames licking at his scales—but his pride could still be bruised, and there was nobody who could bruise it like Aziraphale, despite the fact they were supposedly on opposite sides.
“I reckon I did him a favour,” Crowley remarked, not meeting Aziraphale’s stern gaze, “because now all those villagers think he's some kind of all-powerful god.”
“Besides… Paul,” Crowley shivered as soon as the divine name rolled off his snake’s tongue. Was he never going to be able to say Paul again without wanting to retch at its holiness? He sighed, and tried again. “He is not nice. Nice is reserved for people like… people like you.”
Colour flooded Aziraphale‘s cheeks and he looked flustered as he stumbled for a response, Crowley watching him with a victorious smirk.
“Of course we’re nice, we’re- we’re the angels of Heaven for Christ’s sake!”
This did not satisfy Crowley—one of Heaven’s past occupants—who tilted his head, grin getting wider at Aziraphale’s obvious discomfort. The demon laughed and stepped towards Aziraphale.
Then he took another step. Aziraphale watched him with bated breath, but did not step back.
“I think,” Crowley whispered, voice barely audible but still capable of giving Aziraphale goosebumps, “I’d best be off.”
Aziraphale blinked, desperately trying to come up with an excuse for the demon to stay just a second longer.
“Places to go,” Crowley continued, eyes unconsciously drifting to rest on Aziraphale’s mouth, “people to tempt.”
Crowley stepped back, and Aziraphale practically stumbled forwards to close the distance between them again. “What about me?”
Crowley pretended to think for a moment, eyes so dilated they were almost black. “I suppose you could come with me. Back to my place, I mean.”
He watched carefully as Aziraphale’s jaw dropped, his mind temporarily stopping functioning. “But I can't- you’re the enemy!”
Crowley acknowledged the angel's statement with a smile and cheerless mock salute, before sauntering off in the direction of the trees. He wasn’t too disappointed, he told himself. This was only the first time he’d offered, and Aziraphale did have eternity to accept.
The angel watched Crowley until he was out of sight, before unleashing a heavy sigh. He’d done the right thing, hasn’t he? He scolded himself. Of course he had, Crowley was a demon and he was an angel. They were on opposite sides.
They, of course, weren’t on opposing sides at all. They were on the third side—just with their other members yet to be born.
Aziraphale turned back to look at Paul, gloating by firelight to the villagers. He didn’t look very nice, now that he seriously thought about it.
1666 AD
Crowley was covered in other people’s blood and it was glorious. He hadn’t been able to take credit for such a marvellously bloodthirsty battle since at least last year, and this time he’d actually been whispering things in William of Normandy’s ears rather than simply pretending he had.
The English archers had been a bit of an unforeseen problem, of course. Crowley was fairly envious of Aziraphale for creating them, although he’d be in hysterics if he found out that his supposedly harmless idea for defending British farmers using sticks and string had actually won England numerous wars. Crowley was also envious of Ligur—something he did not like to be—because when he’d raised the problem of these archers to Hell, he had suggested cutting their fingers off, and this had proved to be highly successful when utilised by the French.
However, there wasn’t much that could put a dampener on a glorious moment like this, and Crowley had a twisted smile on his lips as he plunged his sword into yet another poorly-armed oncoming Brit.
He spun his sword onto his next foe, but faltered when the blade met tartan.
“Crowley! Please don’t discorporate me… I’m afraid I’m rather out of my depth, here.”
Crowley blinked, serpentine pupils almost expressionless and many questions springing to mind. “Rather out of your depth? Angel, you’ve jumped in the deep end a bit here, don’t you think?”
It was Aziraphale’s turn to blink. Dressed in his best tartan formal wear with only a single white hair out of place on his entire head, he was the direct opposite to Crowley: clad in armour that was scratched and bloodied, with his hair an obtusely orange nest for lice and—if you looked close enough, which Aziraphale did—roaring flames.
“I didn’t mean to get involved in all of this fighting,” Aziraphale sniffled, looking around the gloomy battlefield at numerous dead bodies. “Do you think my people would mind if I miracled a few back to life? Just the ones with families-“
“Angel,” Crowley said, hacking at a soldier charging from his left with his broadsword, “why don’t we get you out of here?”
The angel (his angel) nodded, trying not to look at the body at Crowley’s feet—a few metres from its head. Out of here sounded better.
“I have a place, where I’ve been lodging, just a few-“ Crowley was rudely interrupted by a roguish man with a dagger, whom he disposed of, “just a few miles west from here. I could take you there, if you agreed.”
Aziraphale disagreed, obvious in the scrunch of his nose, although it could’ve been disapproval of the corpse that had landed nearby, and not of Crowley’s proposition. “I don’t think that’s entirely appropriate, Crowley. Perhaps a nice, quiet inn? Neutral ground.”
Crowley didn’t tell Aziraphale that he’d been staying at an inn, but pretended to consider before assenting.
The two began to make their way in no particular direction except away, and Crowley grabbed Aziraphale’s hand to swerve him out of a manic French barbarian’s path.
Aziraphale didn’t let go until he had to pay for the inn. (It was three shillings and change, and Aziraphale insisted on paying despite Crowley’s objections because he owed Crowley from a dinner in 1252.)
1899 AD
“You’ve been granted bail, Mr. Fell. Count yourself lucky you have rich friends,” the guard hissed with saliva to spare as he unlocked the concrete cell in which Aziraphale had spent the last few hours.
Aziraphale smiled brightly at the annoyed guard as his handcuffs were removed. He flexed his fingers and stood from his seat on his stiff mattress.
“Thank you,” he intoned politely with another angelic smile. The guard ignored him and stepped aside to let him exit the cell, causing Aziraphale to sigh and leave wordlessly.
He looked left and right, only to see more cells all around. From the one across from him, an inmate bared his abnormally sharp teeth.
Aziraphale was beginning to regret choosing to indulge this unique experience rather than miracle himself away earlier.
“Lost, angel?” a familiar voice asked in a cocky tone and Aziraphale smiled before he turned to face the demon.
“A little,” Aziraphale admitted. “It’s all so… grey.”
Crowley raised an eyebrow and pointed down the corridor to his right. “That’s how we get out.”
His short stay in prison must have been quite traumatic, because the sight of light at the end of the corridor made Aziraphale let out a breath he didn’t know why he’d been holding (he didn’t need oxygen after all). As an afterthought, he wondered if Crowley had noticed how shaken he was, and hoped not because he wasn’t up to defending himself from a demonic tirade. Crowley had noticed, but decided not to mention it to allow the angel to retain a shred of self-confidence.
Aziraphale smiled again. “Lead the way.”
It took a few minutes of mindless walking before Crowley asked what Aziraphale had dreaded.
“How did you get in here anyway? Don’t you have one of those moral compasses?”
“I do!” Aziraphale exclaimed. “I believe in saving the planet and being nice to the elderly and all that jazz.” He wriggled his fingers on the last word.
Crowley looked sceptical. “What did you do, angel?”
As far as Aziraphale was concerned there were two options: pretend not to have heard, or actually answer. He chose the former, until his nervous gaze met Crowley’s and his determination crumbled.
“I didn’t know it was such a big deal, this withholding information from the police thing. I thought it wasn't terribly wrong. It wasn’t an issue a few hundred years ago like murder… but they got awfully cross when I wouldn’t tell them where that poor boy who’d taken the bread had run and called me all sorts of nasty things.”
Crowley gave Aziraphale a meaningful look, and the angel sighed.
“Yes, I’d do it again, Crowley! That poor, unfortunate urchin had lost three fingers already, and if he enrols in the workhouse—which they all do, eventually—he’ll lose even more! If I can keep him safe on the streets for one more day, then I know it doesn’t make a terribly big difference in the ineffable plan, but if everybody helped hungry kids like him-“ Aziraphale rambled defensively.
Crowley looked at his pink cheeks as he stopped listening to the angel’s argument and smiled to himself. The fact Aziraphale still had faith in the ineffable plan made him lo- made him like him more than he already did.
“-so really, we should all help out because it’s not their fault that their parents died on them,” Aziraphale concluded as the men reached the lobby of the prison. There was an officer watching them attentively from the reception desk, paperwork ready in one hand, but Crowley sent him to sleep with a flick of his wrist and his head was only prevented from hitting the desk with a dangerous thud by Aziraphale, who intervened with a pious glance in Crowley‘s direction and a snap of his fingers.
The demon pretended to be deeply engrossed in humming, and held one of the giant prison doors open for his accomplice with a grin.
After a few hours in a musty and damp concrete cell, Aziraphale was glad of the cool sea breeze and non-artificial rays of the Sun. He composed himself with a happy sigh, ignoring Crowley’s pointed look at the display.
“Let’s go to the beach,” Aziraphale declared, beaming at Crowley. The demon, dressed in a full black suit and top hat, looked up and down Aziraphale, wearing his slightly dishevelled tartan suit and matching bowtie.
And, despite his better judgement, he ran a hand through his loose hair and said, “Lead the way.”
Aziraphale took Crowley’s arm—the demon decided not to protest at the contact, just hope that they wouldn’t both be subsequently arrested for homosexuality so soon after leaving prison—and the unlikely duo made their way down the street, in the direction of the sea.
Aziraphale loved beaches. In his divine opinion, they eased the soul and freed the mind. Crowley’s opinion of them was far less poetic, and more along the lines of they’re okay but I try to avoid them.
Demon and angel stopped at the edge to take in the sight of dull, yellow sand and crashing blue waves being egged on by the violent, but very British, wind. Crowley wrinkled his nose, Aziraphale simply expanded his grin.
“Ice cream, Crowley?” the angel inquired, dragging Crowley cheerfully by his arm towards a half-deserted van on the beach edge.
“In this weather?” Crowley snorted, pulling his arm from Aziraphale in a half-hearted attempt to retain what dignity he had left.
The youth in the van surveyed them with a quizzical expression, his waistcoat only partially buttoned up. “What can I do for you, sirs?”
Crowley answered first, his eyes flashing with something menacing that made their server squirm in discomfort. “I’ll have the chips.”
The server blinked and moved towards the back of the van. “Any sauce with that?”
Crowley hissed. “No.”
“And you, sir? We have an excellent range of homemade ice creams from New Forest.”
This pleased Aziraphale greatly. “Homemade? What can you tell me about the family who made them? Any children, cats, dogs… oh, I do love a good dog. Golden retrievers especially.”
“Whatever you want, sir. The cranberry cone is on special offer,” the server said with a lack of emotion.
“He’ll have that,” Crowley informed the server before Aziraphale could be even more of an embarrassment than he already was.
The server handed them their respective orders and rattled off the prices. Aziraphale miracled up the money to pay, and then the men began to walk the length of the empty beach.
Aziraphale licked his ice cream diligently and demolished it in the time it took Crowley to nibble a single chip. A seagull landed by them and joined them in their walk. Crowley watched it waddle with amusement.
By the time Crowley had finished his fifth chip, there was a whole flock swarming his and Aziraphale’s feet.
“Headed anywhere in particular, angel?” Crowley asked, hands in pockets.
“They repossessed my house, so…”
Crowley tossed a chip for the birds gathered where the sea met the sand. It seemed Aziraphale expected him to offer, like always.
“I’d offer if I didn’t know you’d turn me down, angel,” Crowley sighed, watching as Aziraphale nibbled on a chip.
Aziraphale nodded and gave Crowley a small smile, straightening his bowtie. “I’ll find somewhere. You know… I’ve always wanted to run a bookshop.”
Crowley snorted. “You’d never sell anything! It’d be more of a… glorified storage unit.”
Aziraphale ignored him. “I could call it A. Z. Fell’s Books. It’d be in Soho, of course.”
“A. Z. Fell’s Books? What’s wrong with plain old Aziraphale?” Crowley complained half-heartedly as he threw another chip to the pesky gulls.
“You get to be Anthony J. Crowley. So I’m Aziraphale Zira Fell!” Aziraphale explained as if it was a perfectly rational choice of name.
“Right… it’ll never work out, angel,” Crowley chuckled with confidence.
1947 AD
Crowley was lurking. He was good at it, a skill fine-tuned by years of tempting and planting doubt.
Lurking amongst the shelves of A.Z. Fell & Co. was one of his specialities. Sometimes, Aziraphale noticed him and they went to the Ritz or the park, making Crowley’s hours of lurking completely worth their while. And sometimes, the angel didn’t notice—but that was always worth it too, because Crowley could observe him at work—utterly lost in his love for the written word.
The demon watched from the science-fiction section as Aziraphale—flustered-—tried to usher an overly keen customer from his shop. He smiled as the angel turned and brushed himself down with an endearing sigh before noticing Crowley in the corner of his eye.
Aziraphale waved at him. Bemused, Crowley waved back, stepping closer to him.
“I almost didn’t recognise you,” Aziraphale said in a cheerful tone. He always sounded like he wanted to hug you and feed you cake, which Crowley had found embarrassingly reassuring.
Instead of displaying any of this emotion, Crowley raised an eyebrow, perfectly aware of what Aziraphale was referring too but wanting him to bait it out of him nonetheless.
“The- what are they called? These new-fangled eye-things…”
“Eye-glasses, angel. Although I suggested he might be better off marketing these darker ones as sunglasses,” Crowley drawled, pulling his glasses off his nose to twirl theatrically in his fingers.
Aziraphale nodded appreciatively. “I might look into some of those for reading purposes, what with these new computers.”
“Did your people have a hand in those?” Crowley mused, moving deftly through the shop to retrieve one of the bottles of vintage wine and two clean drinking glasses.
“No! All that bad impact on the environment… we could never be so barbaric!” Aziraphale protested, taking the glass Crowley offered to him and watching patiently as he poured the wine, before sloshing the red liquid about thoughtfully.
“Huh, maybe I should say that one was mine, then.” Crowley downed his glass unceremoniously and began to pour himself another.
There was a silence as the pair drank, until the bookshop door chimed to signal a customer who turned on their heels at the sight of the two people drinking.
Aziraphale tutted, but didn’t have the energy to pretend he enjoyed entertaining customers only to never let them finish a purchase.
“I, uh, have some more of these eye-glasses and some information back at my apartment, if you were serious about wanting a pair.” Even to Crowley, it sounded pathetic.
Aziraphale shook his head. “I’ll just miracle up a pair, you know how it is.”
Crowley set his glass down on a nearby bookshelf, half-finished, and sighed. “Well, angel, I have a business appointment to attend.”
Aziraphale looked up, face betraying his dismay. “So late?”
Crowley just nodded. “I’ll pop by the shop tomorrow, if you like.”
He received no response, so slunk his way out as another customer barged viciously in, bombarding Aziraphale with questions on books that weren’t—really—for sale.
1976 AD
“Angel,” Crowley greeted. “Good. I have something here that I wanted to play you. You do have a record player, I recall.”
Aziraphale did not protest as Crowley made his way hurriedly to the backroom, carefully unwrapping something from a brown paper parcel. He revealed a record from the creased paper and—with extreme care—placed it on Aziraphale’s unused record player.
Aziraphale smiled politely as the demon placed the needle on the track he wanted and the song began to play. Crowley folded his arms and watched Aziraphale listen to the lyrics for a few seconds before striding towards him and taking both his hands.
“It’s called dancing,” Crowley said, interrupting Aziraphale’s noises of complaint and putting one of the angel’s hands on his waist and the other on his shoulder.
“I put a leg forward, and you put one back, see,” Crowley explained, his tone soft and careful. “And then we go to the side- like so.”
Aziraphale didn’t speak, simply followed the demon’s instructions as if under a spell. He knew what dancing was, but it had never been like this before.
But, of course, the moment ended almost as quickly as it had begun as the song ended and Queen’s Tie Your Mother Down began.
Crowley stopped himself from tutting, and Aziraphale withdrew from his arms, still smiling. “What was that song called, Crowley?”
Crowley laughed. “Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy. My good friend, Freddie Mercury, wrote it and it... reminded me of you.”
It’s about you, Crowley could’ve added, but his mouth was dry enough as it was. He watched dutifully as Aziraphale located one of his many notepads and jotted down the song with a promise to look into buying it, although perhaps as a single, his expression said enough about his thoughts on Tie Your Mother Down. (Crowley, personally, had yet to find a Queen song that he disliked.)
Aziraphale smiled at him brightly. “Thank you, Crowley. I didn’t know demons could dance... like that.”
”We don’t normally, but I learnt a trick or two while tempting around Europe... they call it the waltz,” Crowley replied with a subconscious grin. “Hastur and Ligur and all that lot... they just do that dodgy disco dancing stuff.”
”How barbaric,” Aziraphale commented without much conviction.
The two continued staring at each other.
Crowley had to ask. They both knew that by this point.
“I probably have a spare copy at my place... you know, if you really want one. I could show you a few more dances... like the tango, from Italy,” Crowley tried.
Aziraphale shook his head. “I’ll teach you the gavotte, though.”
Crowley chuckled. “Go on then, angel.”
2019 AD
It was dark, that was how they noticed the headlights as the van turned into the road, crunching the gravel under its wheels. It approached the bench at a snail’s pace, slowly illuminating the night.
Crowley looked up first, and watched with a bemused smirk as the delivery man climbed out of his vehicle and made his way over.
“Hello gentlemen,” he greeted, somewhat warmly, in an accent Crowley couldn’t be bothered to place.
Aziraphale beamed at the man. “Hello! How has your day been?”
The delivery driver chuckled. “You wouldn’t believe me, to be honest. Nobody ever will.”
He laughed to himself, and handed Aziraphale his clipboard. “Where’s the parcel, sir?”
“Oh! Of course, here you go,” Aziraphale retrieved a parcel from under the bench. The delivery man dutifully inspected the scales and crown, as Crowley handed him the sword Aziraphale had been sitting on.
The silvery man, unfazed by the sword’s flames, thanked the gentlemen and took the clipboard back from Aziraphale, satisfied with his grand-looking signature on the dotted line.
“Have a pleasant evening,” Aziraphale told the driver, and he smiled back, then turned and walked back to his van.
“What a nice man,” Aziraphale commented.
Crowley snorted at Aziraphale’s casual use of the word nice. “Where are you headed, angel?”
The demon stood to hail the double-decker bus approaching. It’s display read Oxford.
“That won’t take us to London!” Aziraphale protested, as the bus pulled over.
Crowley grinned toothily at him. “It will, the driver just won’t know why in the world it is.”
Aziraphale sighed. “I have nowhere to go, even when I reach Soho…”
“Oh, right, the bookshop,” Crowley realised. “I am terribly sorry, angel, but it’s quite gone.”
The bus doors opened, and the pair were greeted by the confused-looking driver.
Crowley leant his arm on the side with a smirk. “Two single tickets.”
The driver nodded apprehensively, tapping on his tablet and issuing Crowley two tickets. The demon grabbed them and led Aziraphale to a bus seat.
“You didn’t pay!” Aziraphale protested, watching as Crowley slumped into the window seat.
“Don’t look at me like that, you’re going to have to stay at my place.”
It wasn’t a request, not like all the times before. It was a fact, and Crowley wouldn’t know what he would do if Aziraphale denied it this time.
Aziraphale looked into the demon’s eyes with hesitation before answering. “Okay.”
Crowley blinked. Okay? He had waited centuries—no, millennia—for Aziraphale to accept his offer, and that was all the angel had to say.
But Crowley could deal with okay, he could deal with anything with Aziraphale on his side. Their side.
The demon took his angel’s hand in his own. He watched Aziraphale carefully, waiting for him to flinch or reconsider. The angel stared straight back at him, despite his sunglasses.
When the bus eventually pulled up in a London square overlooking several over-priced apartments, Crowley stood and led Aziraphale off the bus and up a flight of rickety outdoor stairs to Apartment 666.
“This is it, then? Your elusive apartment?”
Crowley chuckled, fitting the key in the lock and kicking the door open with his foot. “Not elusive. You’re the one eluding it.”
It was spotless and very… modern. It was starkly different to Aziraphale’s ancient yet homey bookshop, in fact it looked positively unused. It was, however, very Crowley and that made Aziraphale smile.
“Wait until you see the plants,” Crowley said with a touch of pride. “They’re the best in London.”
Aziraphale followed the demon—who sauntered confidently now he was in his element—into the largest room in the apartment, which was covered from the floor to the ceiling in spotless green leaves.
“There’s the succulent I gave you!” Aziraphale exclaimed with delight at the plant right in the room’s centre. His smile grew and he waved at the small plant.
“Do you have a couch? I better prepare for the night,” he said, turning to Crowley.
“A couch? No, sorry,” Crowley said unapologetically.
Aziraphale glanced over his shoulder at the living room. “I swear I saw one-“
Where the sofa had been, the room looked positively bare. Aziraphale blinked. As he watched, the armchair mysteriously vanished too.
“Where am I going to sleep then?” Aziraphale asked, pivoting to face Crowley, who looked rather smug.
“You’ll share my bed.”
“With you?”
Crowley grinned. “Who else would you like it to be with?”
It took a minute for Aziraphale to see that Crowley was joking. When realisation flooded his features, his cheeks coloured pink.
“I’ll- uh- clean my teeth,” Aziraphale spluttered. He stumbled off, but came back shortly.
“The bathroom’s that way,” Crowley pointed.
Aziraphale got ready in a flustered silence and Crowley simply fluffed the pillows on his bed, before removing his leather jacket and sunglasses and settling on top of the duvet for the night’s sleep.
When the angel returned from the bathroom, carefully hanging his beige jacket on a hook and undoing his bowtie, he looked at Crowley and smiled. The demon’s eyes were shut and his body relaxed. Aziraphale wasn't sure he'd been aware that demons could become dependent on sleep when corporeal. Unaware that the demon was still very much awake, Aziraphale lay on top of the dark-coloured sheets and tuned out Earth’s—or rather Crowley’s—background love static.
Aziraphale’s very presence was enough to make Crowley feel irrationally safe. He had waited a long time for this small step, and now he was happy.
2019 AD (A DAY LATER)
Crowley woke to the sound of his television at top volume. The presenter was teaching complex origami, and Aziraphale—enthralled—was using one of Crowley’s napkins to attempt replicating the presenter’s elaborate swan. (Aziraphale’s napkin was a crumpled mess, but he looked awfully proud so Crowley nodded at it respectfully for the angel’s benefit.)
The demon would have preferred to sleep in longer, but he wasn’t going to push it so he snapped his fingers to sort out his crumpled clothes and messy hair. Then, he made his way to the normally immaculate kitchen, and was greeted with complete carnage.
“Angel!”
Aziraphale set down his delicate creation with care, then followed Crowley’s call to the kitchen. When he saw the demon’s expression, his face fell.
“Oh, is it that bad?”
It was, indeed, that bad. All of the cabinets were open, with previously untouched pots and pans spilling over onto the floor. The oven was both on and open, and the toaster was sparking up a small storm. The fridge was letting off an annoyed klaxon sound at being left open for so long. Perhaps that was why the TV had been turned up so high.
“That food,” Crowley began, “has been in there—for emergencies—since 1874.”
He was nowhere near as mad as he made himself seem, but he didn’t feel like wasting energy dealing with Aziraphale’s mess. Especially as the only emergency he’d been preparing for was the event of Aziraphale coming over.
“I’ll miracle it all back to normal,” Aziraphale promised in a nervous tone. “I just thought… after all this time…”
“What angel?” Crowley asked with genuine curiosity.
Aziraphale blushed. “You might have wanted me to use it.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Crowley scoffed. “You’re ridiculous! Stay with me does not mean destroy all my possessions!”
“I thought…”
Crowley was really getting worked up over nothing. He knew it was just a kitchen, but in a way it wasn't. It was everything. The world had almost ended, and Aziraphale was all he really had left, but he couldn’t even keep a kitchen tidy. Hell, he couldn’t even take a hint, because this was not how last night was meant to have played out.
“What’s in a thought? It’s actions that matter and you’ve- you’ve gone an’-“
“Actions? Actions, that’s what you want?”
Crowley all but hissed. “Yes!”
At that, Aziraphale grabbed the demon by the jacket and pulled him forwards, claiming his lips in a kiss. It took Crowley a minute to realise what was happening before he reacted, kissing him slowly—as if Aziraphale was likely to break at his touch. He brought a hand slowly up to cradle the angel’s face, just as he pulled away.
Crowley took a deep breath, despite not being reliant on oxygen. It had been rather chaste, but he wasn’t complaining.
“You know, angel,” he whispered, “the kitchen looks better this way.”
Aziraphale grinned his infectious grin. “I knew you’d come round to my point of view! Now, come on, we have a lunch date with Shadwell and Tracy and I simply must show them my wonderful new origami trick!”
A few minutes later angel, demon and a thoroughly dishevelled napkin left the apartment to depart on their next adventure. Aziraphale discovered that his bookshop was okay, and the Sun kept shining like nothing had changed.
But it had, even if they couldn’t feel it. For miles away, Adam Young awoke from his nap in second period maths with a jolt and said, “Oh.”
And then he smiled. Reality smiled back. It had been waiting for this moment a long time, ever since Crowley had first braved the suggestion that he and Aziraphale could ever be more than rivals. And now... they had their own side. They’d won more than they thought they had, too... Aziraphale had unintentionally won Crowley’s heart in exchange for a flaming sword many years ago.
Adam’s teacher gave him an evil glare as he chuckled and rested his head back on his desk.
It was ineffable, really. They were fools to think that it was any other way. (And fools they were, indeed, because they had resisted it for so long.)
That was the excuse Adam gave his teacher and his parents when they insisted on an intervention session about his recent behaviour.
They didn’t believe him, but that wasn’t the point. He could live with a long and painful lecture, but not with the unresolved romantic tension between his guardian angel and guardian demon.