Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Crowley pulled the Bentley up to the corner and waited. He was early, because speed limits were only that if you were willing to be limited, so the guy might not be ready yet. Crowley could wait. Not like he had anything else to do.

His phone in the dashboard holster pinged quietly. The GPS had updated to log his arrival.

The name for this pickup was something starting with A, although Crowley couldn’t tell more than that, because most of the name kept glitching out. Like the rideshare app couldn’t decide whether it was proper Unicode or not. Whatever. It was a weird buggy piece of crap, but as far as Crowley had ever been able to figure out, that was probably the only reason it still worked for him in the first place. He was still in the system, still able to claim passengers. Didn’t know where the money went, but it wasn’t like it mattered.

He jumped a little when the other door opened.

“Oh, my,” said a gentle, precise voice. “Are you Crowley? Only, this is an awfully nice car for a rideshare —”

“That’s me.” Crowley squinted at his phone again. “You’re, uh... Az... something?”

“Aziraphale.”

Crowley looked up just as the guy climbed in.

He always snagged whatever riders he felt like, because they were going somewhere interesting or they seemed nice from their in-app profile or just by random urge. This Aziraphale guy had been one of the random urges. He’d requested pickup by a large vehicle, which Crowley hadn’t really cared about when he’d clicked the big green ‘Claim’ button. The app hadn’t stopped him, because it never did anymore.

The Bentley wasn’t that large a vehicle, and Aziraphale filled up the passenger seat with absolutely no room to spare. Not tall — probably a few inches shorter than Crowley — but big. Round. He was dressed like he’d just come from some kind of historical reenactment thing, extremely dapper waistcoat hugging the belly piled softly in his lap. Fancy cream-colored coat. Tartan bow tie.

His face could have been in the dictionary next to the word ‘cherubic’. Round as the rest of him, with bright blue eyes and a sweetly smiling mouth.

The seatbelt fit him. Barely.

“Thank you so much for picking me up,” he said, beaming like it was some kind of personal favor, like Crowley hadn’t just selected him as a paying fare through a second-tier ridesharing app. “I know it’s a rather long trip, but I do promise I can be entertaining company!”

Crowley checked the destination again. From here in Soho to the address in... Tadfield, wherever that was... was supposed to take a couple of hours. Crowley bet he could do it in one if he wanted.

Aziraphale’s smile turned up yet another notch. “Unless you prefer to drive in silence, in which case, mum’s the word.”

He winked. The bastard winked at Crowley, then smiled as innocent as anything, like if Crowley swiped a hand through his pale curls he’d find a bloody halo.

Which was actually really, really tempting. The hair-touching thing. Could see if it was as soft as the rest of him.

Thank Christ for the sunglasses. Crowley made himself look away, watched out the windshield as he pulled back into traffic. “Talking’s fine,” he grunted. “It’s — it’s whatever.” Then, for the first time ever since he’d started this driving gig: “Could just skip the radio’n have a conversation, if you want.”

“Sounds lovely, my dear fellow.”

Crowley felt something in his chest squeeze painfully.

It was unfair — ridiculously unfair, heinously — that he’d never met Aziraphale before... well, before. Maybe he’d only been visiting from this Tadfield place. Crowley hadn’t lived in Soho, but he’d had friends there, and there were good coffee shops. He might’ve seen Aziraphale around if Aziraphale was a local, maybe.

He’d definitely never seen Aziraphale before, though, because he could have lived a thousand years and not forgot him. Easily the most beautiful man he’d ever laid eyes on, if they’d run into each other on the street or in a shop he almost certainly would have asked him to dinner, and even if the two of them didn’t actually hit it off, it would’ve been fine. At least he maybe would have been able to gaze at that round pretty face for an hour or two. Gorgeous. Like an angel, he was. Illegally cute when he’d winked.

But it was too late for that, even if Crowley asked for a date right here and now, even if Aziraphale said yes. Crowley hadn’t really had anyone catch his eye for years now, either before he’d run out of time or after, but he already knew he had absolutely no chance. Aziraphale was a warm, soft, vital presence beside him, heart pumping, blood singing. Alive.

Crowley was a ghost whose rideshare app somehow still worked. As soon as he got bored of ferrying strangers around and maybe lightly spooking a few of them, he and the Bentley would fade back out of reality until the moment he felt like existing again.

It would never work out.

Chapter Text

Five minutes into the ride, and Crowley had already gotten Aziraphale to yelp, dive for the Bentley’s grab handle, and make some very pointed comments about speed limits.

Ten minutes in and he realized he didn’t actually want to go fast for this trip.

Twenty, and he’d dropped to well below the posted limit. Because Aziraphale was interesting, he was clever and opinionated and had already hit Crowley with at least three good solid conversational zingers, and Crowley didn’t want their journey to end.

“Except it is,” he said, sneaking a look at Aziraphale out of the corner of his eye and grinning at his scandalized look. “Right there in the name, isn’t it? ‘White chocolate’. How’re you gonna argue it’s not chocolate, name like that?”

“My good sir,” Aziraphale practically gasped, blue eyes widening. “It barely uses any of the cacao bean at all! You can’t very well expect a bit of labeling to overrule that, unless you also believe that zucchini cheese is really cheese —”

“Eugh, no, obviously it’s not —”

“Well, it’s right there in the name —”

And then Crowley was laughing, hard enough that he might’ve been in trouble if he really needed to pay attention to the road. If he were really using his eyes and his hands to drive instead of echoing old habits through pure force of thought. He was laughing, and Aziraphale was too, and fuck, this was a moment, they were having the kind of moment that Crowley never got to have. He hadn’t really connected with anyone like this in years, let alone with someone half so amazing, and he wished again that they could’ve met while he was still alive.

Aziraphale’s giggles faded into a throat-clearing, then a haughty little sniff. “I do believe I’ve made my point. White chocolate is its own entity, separate from and far inferior to proper chocolate.”

“Okay, give you that one.” Crowley grinned again. “Any thoughts on carob...?”

The tongue-lashing on that subject lasted until Oxfordshire, and Crowley loved every second of it.

Afterwards they talked music, and theater, and good restaurants around Soho — apparently Aziraphale was at least there often, whether or not he lived in this Tadfield place. They disagreed just enough to keep it interesting, and no matter how huffy Aziraphale got, his beautiful eyes never once lost their amused gleam.

It couldn’t last forever, though. Eventually the first sign naming Tadfield appeared alongside their route. 18 miles to go. Maybe half an hour before he said goodbye to Aziraphale, almost certainly forever.

Crowley thought it was his imagination, at first, that the mood got more uneasy as they neared their destination; but after a while it was obvious, unmistakable, and he wondered maybe Aziraphale didn’t want the journey to be over, either. His gentle voice grew more and more uneven as the miles ticked down. Crowley caught his eyes once, and they’d gone quiet, the sparkle faded away.

The Bentley had just entered the village when Aziraphale began wringing his hands. “I don’t — that is, I’m terribly sorry but I can’t —”

The afternoon sunlight through the window lit his hair up in white fire, even though it seemed to throw all the rest of him in shadow. Crowley’s heart felt shadowed, too. “Aziraphale?”

“Would you please let me off by the church up ahead? I’d rather not — I know it’s not the full trip, I’ll update my request in the telephone application so you still receive credit, but this time I —” His soft mouth twisted. “I don’t want —”

Old stone church up ahead, graveyard beside it. Sure. Crowley could stop there. Did, pulling up neatly beside the narrow strip of pavement, not looking toward Aziraphale at all.

“Right,” he said, voice sounding every bit as dead as he was. “Have a nice day, then.”

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Aziraphale fiddling with his mobile. There was a satisfied little hum. “There, I’ve — I’ve given you a top rating, dear fellow. And a tip which hopefully makes up somewhat for...”

Crowley did look at him, then, just as darkened eyes met his. It seemed as if neither of them breathed for a while.

“I’m terribly sorry,” Aziraphale murmured. “Please believe me when I say that this is not because of anything you did wrong. The fault is... is not yours.”

“Okay,” Crowley said, watching the most beautiful man he’d ever seen leave his car.

“Mind how you go.”

Crowley nodded. Stayed there, parked by the church, and continued to watch Aziraphale until his round, pale-coated form disappeared around the corner a block farther on.

“Well,” he said to himself. “That was a thing.”

He turned around in the road to head out of Tadfield the way he’d come in. Once he was back in central London, he let himself and the Bentley fade out of existence. Right about now seemed like a good time for a couple weeks’ nap.

Chapter Text

It was not quite three months later, and Crowley had just dropped a couple off outside a trendy new restaurant, leaving them with a story no one else would ever believe about a spectral rideshare driver with glowing golden eyes. Then he went back to full human-looking as he browsed the app.

When he saw the request for Tadfield, he accepted it without caring that the rider name had glitched out again. He’d been thinking about the place a lot lately. Seemed like a nice little village, well-kept old houses, quiet streets. Bit too quiet for Crowley, he wouldn’t have wanted to live someplace like that, but just to visit — on holiday, maybe, or stopping by to see someone special — yeah, it hadn’t been all that bad, from what he’d seen. There’d even been rainbow flags outside a couple of businesses in the main square.

Crowley maybe shouldn’t have been surprised to spot that curly halo at the same Soho street corner.

Aziraphale’s mouth parted slightly when their eyes met through the window. His cheeks went pink, and Crowley actually made a wounded little noise, because it was so adorable, where the hell did Aziraphale get off being so pretty, with his round blushing cheeks and his soft-looking hair and his soft-looking everything, for that matter; and this was disgusting, the way Crowley wanted to snuggle with him next to a roaring fire and talk about picking out china. They’d talked for all of two hours months ago.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said — Crowley could see the shape of it on those delicate lips. One plump hand fumbled at the door handle. “Crowley,” audible now that the door was open, though Aziraphale only leaned over to see into the car without actually getting in. “I didn’t expect — oh dear. I am sorry; I know our last meeting ended on rather a strange note...”

Crowley looked up at him with a chest full of drunk butterflies. He couldn’t stand the worried look in Aziraphale’s eyes. Didn’t want to think about even the possibility of this still basically total stranger being the least bit upset because of something to do with him. Naturally his mouth took matters on itself, teeth and tongue happily throwing in with the mutiny to say “Could have this meeting end on a better note, maybe. Got time for coffee before you have to be in Tadfield?”

Aziraphale’s eyes and mouth got very, very round, blush spreading over his whole face. Crowley was about to apologize, speed away in shame, die a second time out of embarrassment. What the hell kind of a creep was he? Aziraphale would probably report him, assuming the app would still allow it.

Then those bright eyes flitted away. Back across his face, down, back again, eyebrows rising hopefully —

“Oh,” Aziraphale said. “You... you’d want to do that with... me?”

Crowley watched a tiny smile start to bloom, and realized he maybe wasn’t going to get reported after all. Before he could answer, though (something along the lines of Yes, of course I’d want to do that with you, I want to grab you and hold you and maybe never let go but coffee sounds like an excellent place to start), the smile darkened, turning wistful.

“I’m not sure whether I can, though. Not now I’m — well.”

Neither of them moved, and Aziraphale didn’t say anything more. Didn’t explain what he meant.

“Look,” Crowley said, not the least bit sure where he was going with this. “I’m sorry, of course you’re already seeing someone —”

Aziraphale laughed at that. It didn’t sound like a happy laugh.

“— plus you’ve got places to be, right? One place to be. Important place, yeah? Course it is, wouldn’t pay to go all the way out there otherwise.” He knew he was babbling, but he’d made this gorgeous angel of a man sad, and he didn’t know what else to do except keep talking until he was... was not-sad. “And you’re busy, I’m busy, everyone’s busy these days, no time to just sit around having coffee with some strange driver. Just — just let me prove I’m not a total arsehole, okay? Let me take you to Tadfield. Promise I won’t be creepy again.”

Aziraphale only stared at him for a minute, when he was finally done. Reasonable. It was a lot to take in. Crowley almost certainly was going to die again from embarrassment.

Then those round cheeks curved into a smile that lit his heart up like sunshine.

“I do have to get to Tadfield. I have to visit...”

Aziraphale shook his head, cutting off whatever he’d been about to say next. “If you’d be willing to drive me again, I would be very glad to have your company. The last time was... very enjoyable.”

Crowley grinned. Gestured to the passenger seat. Aziraphale settled his pretty softness down, and made some comment about the weather, and then they were off, debating the merits of rainy versus clear evenings like they’d been doing it for years.

Chapter Text

Crowley started hanging around Soho more often, fading back out for hours or days at a stretch, not weeks. He’d been dead for... what, almost three years now? Spent a lot of it in a nowhere state at first, sleeping the ageless sleep. When that got old, he’d started manifesting in the living world so he could have some human interaction again.

Now, he was existing almost all the time. Not always with the Bentley, but usually. He hadn’t figured out any pattern, but eventually his mobile would ping with a new request for Tadfield, and it was always...

“Aziraphale!”

“Oh, thank heavens,” Aziraphale said, rolling his eyes as he got in. “My last driver was a complete nightmare. Played the most abominable music, insulted me repeatedly, hadn’t even heard of commedia dell’arte...”

“Well hello to you too.” Then Crowley’s brain caught up, and he frowned, taking a corner maybe a little faster than he should have. “Hang on, insulted you? You filed a complaint in the app, right?”

Aziraphale’s voice was much more hesitant when he answered. “Ah. It was more a set of — of observations than insults. I’m sure they meant well, I shouldn’t have brought it up, really —”

“Aziraphale.”

They were friends, now, Crowley was pretty sure. This was the seventh time he’d picked Aziraphale up. About twelve hours so far of chatting with the sweetest bastard of an angel that ever lived. He knew about the bookshop Aziraphale had inherited from his parents, and the taste for fine wine he’d cultivated on his own. Aziraphale knew about some of the many troublesome houseplants Crowley had whipped into shape, and the telescope he’d been obsessed with as a boy.

There was other stuff that hadn’t been discussed, exactly, but which had come across here and there anyway. Like how Crowley had been scared of dogs ever since a run-in with a real hellhound when he was eleven. Like how Aziraphale had been catching shit from arseholes about his weight for maybe even longer.

“It was just a minor annoyance, really,” Aziraphale said now. “I’ve certainly weathered much more pointed comments before, and I’ve no doubt I will again. I just... wish it could have been you driving, instead.”

Crowley winced. “Must’ve really been awful, if hanging around me would’ve been an improvement.”

Silence, then, and when Crowley glanced over, Aziraphale was looking back at him with something complicated in his eyes.

“It’s lovely to spend time with you, Crowley. I hope you realize that.”

That second time they’d met, Crowley had asked Aziraphale out, and been shot down. He’d never tried again. It wasn’t like Aziraphale had gotten any less gorgeous, not like Crowley had gotten any less interested — all their conversations had only made his crush worse. But he’d promised not to be creepy, and he was sticking to that. No more invites to coffee. Definitely no asking whether Aziraphale would be willing to just cuddle for a week or three.

Even though sometimes it really, really seemed like Aziraphale maybe felt something for him, too.

“Thanks,” Crowley mumbled. Then he stared out the windshield and tried to pretend like his face wasn’t lava.

It wasn’t too awkward of a trip, somehow. They even had some fun comparing favorite musicals. As Tadfield got nearer, though, Aziraphale started fretting, just like every other time.

They nearly made it this time, just a couple blocks to go, but then “Stop,” Aziraphale cried. “Stop here, please —”

Crowley stopped.

Aziraphale got out before Crowley could even start to form a question, neatly closing the door before hurrying away. He was going back, though, not towards the address he’d requested but back the way they’d come, which didn’t make a damn bit of sense — and why did this keep happening, what did Crowley keep doing wrong —

He scrabbled at his seatbelt. Hurled himself from the car, following Aziraphale to the pavement. He opened his mouth to shout Aziraphale’s name but what came out was a broken, half-strangled “Angel —”

Aziraphale stumbled to a halt. Turned around, something miserable in his face.

“I’m sorry,” Crowley said. He raised his hands, palms up, not quite begging, but closer than was probably good for his dignity. “I apologize. Whatever I said, I didn’t mean it. Work with me, I’m apologizing here. Yes?”

Aziraphale opened his mouth.

“Good. Get in the car.”

“What? No. Crowley, I can’t, I —”

His eyes glimmered, not at all their usual sparkle, and Crowley realized that Aziraphale was crying. That somehow he’d made this wonderful angel cry. Tears not quite falling as he drifted back towards Crowley, stopping inches away, hands twisting in front of his belly.

“I don’t know why I have to keep going back, but I do.” He blinked, a drop breaking away to slide down one cheek. “Only — only I would terrify them, showing up when I’m not — when they know that I — so I don’t, I just... disappear before we get there. Nobody who sees it happen has ever driven me again, I suppose because it’s so alarming, but that’s all right. I don’t mind.”

“Ang — Aziraphale, what —”

“Except for you, don’t you see?”

Suddenly those hands weren’t twisting together anymore. They were reaching out, taking Crowley’s, holding Crowley’s, and they were warm and soft and trembling almost as much as Crowley’s illusion of breath.

Aziraphale’s blue eyes flickered over the sunglasses, maybe hoping to find Crowley’s eyes behind them.

“I couldn’t bear to frighten you away.”

It was hard, forming any actual thoughts like this, pretty angel gazing up with his eyes still full of tears. Round hands gently squeezing Crowley’s, and when Crowley somehow managed to squeeze back, Aziraphale drew in a tiny gasp.

“Aziraphale,” Crowley whispered. “Why in God’s name would I ever be frightened of you?”

Aziraphale dropped his head. Took a deep breath.

Then he stopped breathing. His hands turned cold, fingers passing right into Crowley’s, like they weren’t even there.

“I’m not among the living,” Aziraphale said.

Chapter Text

“Huh?”

Crowley had heard perfectly fine, of course. And the words had made sense. Except they hadn’t, not at all, because of course Aziraphale was alive. The way his eyes shone, the sweet blush of his cheeks when Crowley said something complimentary — the warmth of him, soft and fat and beautiful —

Only he wasn’t warm now. He was as cold as...

As Crowley was. When he wasn’t hiding it.

Aziraphale’s tears were falling freely, now, his round face pinched with anguish. He was transparent. Just a little, you’d probably have to be pretty close to him to see how the light filtered through him, his hands moving like he wanted to squeeze Crowley’s again, even though they still passed right through him like a gentle kiss of breeze.

He was a ghost. Aziraphale, wonderful, always-out-of-reach Aziraphale, was a ghost.

Crowley grinned. “You absolute angel,” he said. “D’you have any idea how perfect you are?”

Aziraphale startled like he’d been stuck, still-mournful eyes widening. Probably confused, but that was easy enough to correct, because Crowley could also let himself go intangible, not-quite-there to living sight and touch.

His hands grabbed at Aziraphale’s, now they were neither of them solid. Grabbed and held tight, plump fingers fluttering against his own.

“Me too,” he said. “I’m not alive too. Either. Whatever, do — do you want to get coffee now? Dinner? Anything. Did you know you’re ridiculously pretty? Let me buy you sushi.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said, which wasn’t a no. He stared at their hands, their fingers slightly translucent but still fitting perfectly together. “You’re... a spirit, too? Like me?”

Crowley nodded, instead of maybe dancing or shouting or running in little circles until he fell down. “I’m a ghost, Bentley’s a ghost, have been this whole time. Anyway. Date? The anticipation is — well, not killing me, little late for that, isn’t it —”

Aziraphale laughed.

It was the sweetest sound Crowley had ever heard, high and delighted, bubbling like champagne. Even though Aziraphale’s cheeks were still wet with tears, his blue eyes sparkled.

“You aren’t afraid,” he said, voice full of wonder. “You aren’t afraid, and — you want to go on a date with me —”

“How long ago did I ask you to coffee?”

The most adorable blush in history spread over Aziraphale’s face. “I assumed you’d thought better of it.”

Crowley ran through the start of about a dozen words without finding any that would communicate how completely impossible that was, but Aziraphale probably understood, if the way he ducked his head and smiled meant anything.

“I’m not sure I see how we could, though.” Aziraphale didn’t look back up, although he followed when Crowley started back towards the car. “Surely one has to be alive to eat or drink.”

“Don’t need a pulse to sit in a wannabe Uber. Same thing here. You haven’t tried yet?”

He was solid again when he reached for the Bentley, pulling open her passenger door with one hand, feeling Aziraphale’s ghostly touch grow warm against the other. Both of them playing at human again.

“I haven’t,” Aziraphale said. “I’ve only been — dead — barely half a year.”

Crowley raised an eyebrow. “No kidding. Here I had you figured for about 1880, fashion sense like that.”

“Really, Crowley.”

Aziraphale’s hand dropped from his; Aziraphale slid into the Bentley’s seat. The sharp tone of his voice didn’t match his little grin at all. “Do you plan to mock me for the whole of our date?”

“Of our — nope. Nuh, definitely not. On our. Uh.”

Crowley shut the door, carefully, delicately, then barely kept from running around to his own seat.

“Gosh, I hope you let me kiss you goodnight,” his mouth said before he could stop it.

He didn’t see Aziraphale’s reaction, but he heard it, as he clapped both hands over his burning face: another of those silvery laughs, the ones that made him feel something huge and fluttering in his chest. At least it sounded like a happy laugh. Surprised, but happy.

“Just... just tell me where to drive,” Crowley told his hands. “Drinks, dinner, anything. Anywhere you want to go.”

Aziraphale hummed. “There’s an excellent Italian restaurant not too far from here, if you’re amenable.”

“Yeah, okay. Sure.”

“And... you might yet have that kiss, depending on how things go.”

Crowley lowered his hands, staring at the pretty pink-cheeked angel who was smiling right back at him.

“Yeah.” Crowley grinned. “Okay. Sure.”

He waited for Aziraphale to buckle himself in, because being dead was no reason to risk anyone’s neck. Then it was just driving. Driving, following directions given in a beautifully fussy voice, and trying not to get so nervy that he wrapped them around a tree.

They’d be fine, of course. But it’d be awkward, and probably confusing to the tree.

Crowley eased them into a parking space at last, local flora unscathed, just as another group was entering the restaurant. “Huh,” he said, noticing the proportion of suit jackets to humans. “Kind of a posh place, isn’t it.”

“Oh — I’m sure your attire would be just fine, but if you aren’t comfortable —”

“‘S not a problem. Just gotta” — Crowley snapped his fingers — “do that.”

Aziraphale outright gasped, and Crowley felt extremely pleased with himself. He’d been dressed okay but a bit casual, black skinny jeans and long-sleeved shirt. Now the shirt had a collar and was made of deep gray silk. The blazer over it was black, trimmed with red. He left the jeans alone.

“Stunning,” Aziraphale whispered, although Crowley wasn’t sure if he meant the outfit or the trick.

“Simple,” he answered the second option. “You ever decide you want to upgrade your look, you can do it too. We’re sort of magic now we’re ghosts.”

Aziraphale nodded solemnly. “I suspect I have quite a lot to learn about being like... this.”

“Be glad to tell you all about it.” Crowley touched his hand, just briefly, and grinned. “Over dinner.”

Chapter Text

As it turned out, Aziraphale didn’t let Crowley kiss him goodnight after all.

He trailed a little behind as they entered the restaurant, maybe still not trusting that two dead people could successfully sit and eat a meal. The host didn’t so much as blink, though. They were seated at a secluded little table, all white linens and elegant candles.

“Romantic,” Crowley observed, then considered discorporating on the spot.

Aziraphale’s brows pinched together. “I suppose it is. I only ever came here with my family, so I hadn’t really thought about...”

His face brightened again. “Although I was thinking about how handsome you’d be in candlelight.”

Crowley somehow didn’t swallow his tongue, although his next words still came out vaguely strangled. “They the ones you keep wanting to visit? Your family?”

“My sister, and her husband and son. I was on my way to see them when the car...”

Aziraphale’s mouth twitched downwards. “It was too quick to hurt, at least. But I’ve felt this compulsion, after. A need to return to Tadfield, even though I know I’d only frighten them if I completed the journey.”

“Huh. Yeah, that explains it.” Crowley fiddled with his menu, debating whether to offer a comforting hand. “Me, I just went to sleep one night, never woke up. Spent a lot of my first year napping.”

He decided to go for it, and the way Aziraphale smiled when their fingers wove together made him very glad he had. “You keep going back to how you died when it’s still fresh. It’ll fade.”

“I hope it does,” Aziraphale murmured.

“I’ve talked to a few other —” Crowley stopped as their server approached. “Others. Happened the same for them.”

Aziraphale’s eyebrows rose. “Others.”

They ordered quickly, barely waiting for the server to get out of earshot, and then Crowley nodded. “I get the feeling there’s actually loads of them, and they just mostly keep quiet. Just want to, y’know. Whatever the equivalent of live their lives is.”

“Good lord,” Aziraphale said. “I’d thought it might just be... us.”

Crowley rubbed his thumb against Aziraphale’s. “Thought maybe we were fated, did you?”

He’d said it jokingly, expecting a teasing response. Aziraphale just looked at him across the table, though. No sign of laughter in his face.

“Perhaps.”

Other diners talked quietly, clinked silverware against plates. Strings swelled distantly from the speakers in the ceiling.

Crowley pushed his glasses up onto his head, since they were kind of hard to see through all of a sudden.

“Well,” he said. “Told you earlier, we’re sort of magic. Can make people’s suspicion slide off us, like... I don’t know. Whatever it is water’s supposed to slide off of.”

“So no one here will notice anything amiss.” Aziraphale turned to scan the room. “Spirits walk among them, and they’ll never realize.”

“Sure. Bet you most people have seen ghosts, only the ghosts didn’t want to make a big deal of it.”

Aziraphale’s eyes snapped back to him, making contact with Crowley’s own for the first time. It sent a little shiver down Crowley’s spine. Like maybe Aziraphale was finally seeing him.

The laugh that followed made him shiver again.

“I can’t believe this is real,” Aziraphale said. “Any of it. That I’m not alone out there — there are others, and apparently I’m actually magical —”

They were still holding hands, and now he tightened his grip, gentle and warm. “And you.” Blue eyes smiled into Crowley’s. “You’re far too wonderful to be real.”

“‘Mnot,” Crowley mumbled.

One delicate eyebrow arched upward. “Not real?”

“Bastard,” Crowley said, and Aziraphale’s little smirk widened. “Look, here comes our wine. You can drink that instead of tormenting me.”

Dinner was just like their Tadfield trips. Only better, because it was only about them. Nowhere to be except across the table from each other, as Aziraphale made a series of delighted noises over three courses of whatever his heart desired.

They left the Bentley parked, when they finally left the restaurant. Walked without either of them mentioning it down a quiet street. They passed bright-lit houses, an empty playground, a silent school.

Probably they would have found the evening breeze cold, if they’d still been alive. But when Aziraphale moved closer to Crowley’s side, it couldn’t have been for any reason except that he wanted to.

“I had a wonderful time,” he said. “I think I’d best call it a night, though — I’m not really used to, well, being for this long a stretch of time...”

Crowley bumped their shoulders together. “Bit tired, then?”

“A bit.”

They both stopped, Aziraphale first and Crowley to turn back towards him. Aziraphale’s eyes glimmered in the dark like new stars. Too close, their gravity inescapable, so that Crowley leaned down even closer, helplessly —

Aziraphale kissed him. Mouth closed but so, so soft, free hand touching the sharp angle of his jaw for an endless second.

“Please tell me we’ll see each other again,” he murmured.

Crowley garbled out something affirmative.

Aziraphale’s eyes crinkled beautifully. “Good night, you absolute darling.”

He was already fading out to nothing, all that soft warm presence wisping away. Crowley’s answer of “Good night, pretty angel” still reached him, though, because his smile went shy and blushing just before he disappeared.

The night was very quiet for three seconds.

Crowley whooped, punching the air, then nearly tripped over his own feet spinning around in a circle. Aziraphale had kissed him. Aziraphale had kissed him, and he’d had a wonderful time, and he wanted to see Crowley again and yes, that was something Crowley was very very interested in as well, kind of exactly what he wanted out of unlife right now —

“I am an absolute darling!” he yelled at the stars.

He started back towards where they’d left the Bentley, glad there was no one around to see how he kept breaking into something disturbingly close to a skip.

He was dating an angel, though. Just the idea made him feel like he could fly.

Chapter Text

“All right, here I go. Watch carefully...”

Aziraphale shook his hands out with the flourish of a vaudeville magician. When he snapped his fingers, he was suddenly holding a thermos.

He broke into a huge smile, and Crowley wasn’t sure which was going to finally end him for good: that, or the fact that the thermos was tartan.

“Crowley, look! It worked! I imagined it, just like all the ones you helped me with, and —”

It wasn’t that Crowley meant to interrupt him. He was just so beautiful, bright and happy and precious, and Crowley was definitely in love with him by this point, which all added up to needing to kiss him, immediately.

Aziraphale kissed right back, just as sweet as every other time.

“It’s cocoa,” he said finally, “or at least I hope it is.” Soft hands opened the bottle to pour something dark into the cap. “But since I’m still new to all this magic...”

Crowley summoned his own creation, exchanging it for the lidful of cocoa. “Miracles,” he corrected. “When you do it, it’s miracles. Angel.”

For a long moment, Aziraphale stared at what he’d been handed. Just a mug. White, ceramic. Feathery wings where the handle would go. Crowley had seen it in a shop once, and felt like he finally understood who it had been meant for.

“Miracles.” Aziraphale filled the mug, set the thermos down on the park bench, then raised his eyes to Crowley’s. “Yes, I do find myself believing in those, lately.”

The cocoa was warm and rich and delicious, although Crowley would have traded every drop of it for the sight of Aziraphale, face lit up with pleasure, wriggling happily at having gotten the taste exactly right.

It’d been a month since Aziraphale had felt the compulsive draw back to Tadfield. They’d been dating for five. The math suggested they were pretty close to Aziraphale’s one-year deathiversary, but Aziraphale hadn’t brought it up, so neither had Crowley. Dying had brought them together, sure, but it wasn’t important. What was important was them. One pointy-elbowed disaster who drove a magicked-up copy of his granddad’s old car because he thought it was cool. One gorgeous fat angel who could argue philosophy for hours before getting distracted by something about gorillas and nests.

When Aziraphale kissed him again, it tasted like cocoa. It felt like trying to snuggle closer on the bench, only Crowley was still holding the thermos cap, and Aziraphale his mug —

“Bother,” Aziraphale said. Crowley found his hand empty, everything set neatly aside, before the next round of kisses left him wobbly and grinning.

For a while afterwards they were quiet. Aziraphale’s head lay on Crowley’s shoulder, Crowley’s hand running idly through white curls. His other hand had relocated to the front of Aziraphale’s belly. Oddly magnetic, that belly, round and soft; the perfect place to rest a hand, or a weary head. Early on, Aziraphale had asked if Crowley would be willing to touch him there, and Crowley had errored out and been unable to produce words for a solid minute.

Aziraphale leaned against him now, humming occasionally as Crowley petted his hair. He held Crowley close, but showed no desire for anything that’d involve anyone’s pants.

Turned out neither of them was interested in all that. Another miracle, maybe. Another way they were fated to be.

“It’s getting late,” Aziraphale said, sometime after most of the other park-goers had left. “I suppose we’d best be off.”

Crowley kissed his temple. “Want me to take you to dinner? Bet I could find you something nice and scrummy.”

“I think I’d rather go home.”

Crowley pressed a grin to one pudgy cheek. Home.

They walked back to the bookshop together. Aziraphale’s former workplace was closed, which didn’t stop them going right through the door and moving invisibly past the woman organizing the register. The old staircase in the corner creaked beneath their feet.

“Hey,” said the guy sweeping the floor. “Is there someone upstairs?”

Register woman didn’t look up. “There isn’t anything up there but a bit of storage, dearie. That’s just the ghosts you’re hearing.”

“Ghosts?!” yelped the other one.

Aziraphale stifled a laugh as they stepped past the bit of storage and through the wall. There definitely wasn’t anything up here besides the landing, and a tiny bricked-up space which Aziraphale had explained was the remains of the original owner’s flat, back in 18whatsis. It’d been knocked out years later to raise the ceiling of the shop.

Nothing else upstairs. Not for the living, anyway.

The flat they’d magicked together above the shop changed occasionally depending on their whims, but there was always a kitchen, and a sitting room. Two bedrooms at the end of a hall. Sometimes there was a washroom, because Crowley did love a good bath. And the wine cellar, Aziraphale had emphasized, was absolutely necessary. The relative layout of the flat technically put their collection of syrahs and merlots somewhere in midair over the mystery novels, but since it didn’t really exist in physical space, Crowley didn’t figure it mattered.

Aziraphale settled onto their sofa with one of the books he’d nicked from downstairs for this week’s reading. Crowley snuggled up beside him, head on one perfectly fat thigh, one perfectly fat hand brushing through his hair.

“Angel,” he said, when he realized he’d started dozing off.

“Yes, darling?”

“Bed?”

“Of course.” Another tousle of his hair. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Crowley shifted around until he was looking up. Blinked sleepily into Aziraphale’s face, soft and gorgeous and exactly what he wanted to see, now and tomorrow and forever and forever — “Come with me?”

Aziraphale stilled. His gaze moved toward the hallway with its two doors. They’d always separated for the night. Always woken up alone.

Then his eyes held Crowley’s again, and they were as certain as the sunrise.

“Always, my love,” he said, returning Crowley’s sudden grin with an even bigger one. “Anywhere you want to go.”