Chapter Text
“What are you looking for in a partner?”
There was so much light, blinding his eyes. So many cameras pointed right at him. So many people surrounding him, looking at him, waiting for him to speak.
“Aziraphale?”
He blinked. “Sorry?”
“What are you looking for in a partner?”
“Oh.” He forced his mouth to make a smile, and made a sound that could very barely be interpreted as a tiny laugh. “I don’t— I’m not— I haven’t really— er. C- company, I suppose?”
There was no answer. One of the shapes between the cameras made a big, circling motion. It took a few moments before Aziraphale realised that the sign meant they wanted him to elaborate.
“And,” he continued, looking down at his hands, almost expecting them to be covered in notes like they’d been when he was a child, “and— and— kindness?” He raised his eyes again, observing the shapes one by one, trying to determine if his answer had been the correct one.
No one said anything. The shadow — well, the hand that belonged to the shadow — kept making that same circling motion. Over and over and over and…
“I don’t spend that much time with people,” Aziraphale admitted.
“Let me rephrase the question,” said the voice. “What kind of person do you wish you had in your life?”
“Oh,” Aziraphale said again. It was an excellent word when one wanted to postpone an answer. “I don’t mind being alone! I do so enjoy a good book. I’m re-reading Emma right now, by Jane Austen, and—“
“I’m sorry for being blunt,” the voice cut him off sharply, not sounding sorry at all, “but if that’s the case, then why are you here?”
The hand motion was back, urging him to continue, go on, get to the point, they didn’t have all day, they had many people to see, many applicants, certainly more interesting ones, better looking ones, ones more likely to get a match in the first place.
Aziraphale tried to focus on one of the cameras again, but in the end he still couldn’t be sure which ones of the blurry shapes were cameras and which ones were people.
Nevertheless, he forced another smile. “Company?”
The TV production was hosting a Hen Party in a cellar. Not a doomsday cellar, as Aziraphale’s first instinct had told him, but a club that happened to be a cellar. Aziraphale rarely attended clubs. Maybe this was why.
He hadn’t even made it down the stairs before the sharp voices of women screaming cut through the air, making him jump. So it was that kind of cellar.
“Aziraphale?” someone said. “Aziraphale Fell?”
Aziraphale barely registered the person coming towards him before their arms were already flung around him. It wasn’t until they let go that he recognised who it was. “Anathema Device?”
“I can’t believe you’re here!” She kept her hand on his arm. “Isn’t this exciting?”
Her hair was longer now, but apart from that, she looked just the same. The glitter makeup, the dark green dress, the lopsided smile as she eyed him up and down, trying (and failing) to discreetly determine his mood.
“Quite,” Aziraphale agreed. “And — quite a coincidence, no?”
“Small world!” She kept touching his arm, like she’d used to at university. He had never minded it back then - they’d been friends, after all - but there was something about the ten years since he’d last seen her that made the contact a bit too intimate for his comfort.
He tried to push the thought down. This was Anathema. He’d missed Anathema.
Oh! Maybe he should tell her that.
“I’ve missed you,” he said.
There! That wasn’t so hard, was it?
Especially not considering the way she lit up, her smile filling her whole face, erasing all traces of the previous worry. “I’ve missed you too, you dummy! I heard you got to take over the bookshop! I was so happy for you. And a little jealous, I can admit,” she added with a laugh.
“Don’t be,” he said, feeling his smile become strained. “Safety nets make cowards of us all.”
Anathema scoffed and punched his arm gently. “Don’t believe I’m letting you get away with that! But first things first!” Before Aziraphale could react, she was dragging him across the room towards the table of chattering women. “Everyone, this is Aziraphale! We actually went to uni together.”
Every single lady around the big table screamed.
Well, not ’screamed’, Aziraphale reminded himself. It wasn’t a massacre (even if they were in a cellar). This was wooing. Not that he’d heard the sound of wooing since he’d tried to make friends with Anathema’s crowd back in their university days. Now, as he sat down and tried to keep up with the anecdotes and the inside jokes — weren’t they all supposed to be strangers? How did they already have inside jokes? — he wondered if perhaps he’d dodged a bullet in not being successful.
“So you’re the gay man!” one of them said, slapping his thigh, as if his sexuality somehow made that okay.
He smiled and nodded affirmatively. Anathema shot him an apologetic look from across the table.
In her defense, these women weren’t her friends either.
“Is your lad with the men, then?” another lady asked.
“I suppose so,” Aziraphale said.
“You excited?”
He nodded, a small nod, apparently too stiff, since it made someone shout “aww, he’s nervous!”
Aren’t you!? Aziraphale wanted to shout at them. Considering the statistics of domestic abuse, and in his case homophobia, shouldn’t they all be afraid? But this might not be the best crowd to run the numbers by.
He couldn’t think of anything better to say, but it turned out he didn’t have to. Another one of the ladies asked him that same question he’d been asked many months ago; the one he’d answered with nothing but stunned silence. “So what are you hoping of getting, then?”
All that time, and he still didn’t have a proper response.
He bit down his ‘for starters, I was hoping of getting a ‘who’ and not a ‘what’’, and went for what had become his default answer: “Just some company, really.”
This was met with another “aaawwww” spreading across the table. Anathema raised her glass and gave him a wink.
That actually made him feel a bit more relaxed. This was why he’d been friends with her at university, he remembered with sudden clarity.
“Just imagine, girls!” one of the ladies said, and everyone turned their focus to her. “And boy,” she added, and it took everything Aziraphale had not to roll his eyes. “By this time, in a few days, we’re all gonna be married!”
“To complete strangers!” someone else added, as if that detail had somehow not been made clear to everyone involved.
Another scream — no, a woo, he owned a bookshop, he ought to be able to differentiate between these synonyms — and they all clinked their glasses together.
This was the first hen party Aziraphale had ever been to. He did not envy his husband-to-be; the stranger who, somewhere out there, had to endure this exact night with just as many straight men. He hoped his fiancé was more socially adept than Aziraphale.
“Let me rephrase the question,” the voice behind the camera said. Since that first session, Aziraphale had learned that her name was Frances. “Is there any kind of person you wouldn’t want in your life?”
“No smokers,” Aziraphale said immediately. “No smoking in the bookshop, for obvious reasons. No cigarettes, no candles. Well, candles are okay, but only in the flat. In the kitchen. In the sink.”
A few of the shadows hummed amusedly, as if fire safety was something to mock. He wasn’t able to tell whether any of the laughs belonged to Frances.
“Do you often worry about things lighting on fire?” she asked him.
“Yes,” Aziraphale said immediately. “Yes, I do.”
Aziraphale’s future husband was late.
All in all, not the best of signs, but Aziraphale did his best to stay positive. He kept trying to pretend that the cameras surrounding the ceremony were part of his extended family, filming a regular wedding tape. Not that his parents would ever have approved of any of this, but it was nice to pretend.
He’d been worried that his side would be noticeably more empty than his husband-to-be’s, but although the difference was obvious, it wasn’t as blatant as he’d feared. Anathema was sitting there, with her new husband Newton. Their wedding had been yesterday. Aziraphale had been invited at the last second, and ended up spending the evening taking care of the new husband’s grandma. (Someone had to do it, and it had been that or mingle with Anathema’s other friends.)
Anathema and Newton were the only people on Aziraphale’s side of the aisle. The lady at the bank hadn't been able to make it. Aziraphale didn’t blame her. He was starting to wish he’d had other plans, as well.
In the middle of his husband’s side was an older man, probably in his sixties. He was glaring at Aziraphale, who was starting to feel more uneasy by the second. Why did the man look so angry? Did he not approve of gay marriage? But then, why was he here in the first place? Maybe the anger was personal. Maybe he was the husband’s disapproving father, who had simply taken one look at Aziraphale and promptly concluded ‘not good enough’.
Well. They’d find out soon.
In the far back of his husband’s side, there was a gang of people dressed in black, also all staring at Aziraphale. Well, sneering might have been a better term, but Aziraphale didn’t want to assume the worst of his new husband’s guests. (Not yet, anyway.)
In an attempt to avoid their eyes, Aziraphale turned around to look at Frances instead. She was officiating. Not as a priest, but as a layman. Aziraphale wasn’t sure what his thoughts were on that matter.
Aziraphale’s parents had been strictly Christian. During his childhood they had taken him to church every Sunday, but once he moved out, Aziraphale had left it all behind him. He had never considered marrying at all — for him, it hadn’t been legal until recently — so he’d never decided on the matter of civil or church. The TV-show, on the other hand, had urged him to agree to a civil wedding, outside, with Frances officiating, and so he had.
He had worried a bit about the outside aspect of it all, it being England and everything, but despite the odds, the weather was actually decent. Plus, in all honesty, Frances’s presence was making him feel a bit better. Sort of like a friend, or a mother, waiting for his new love with him.
Love. He almost scoffed at the thought. This was not the time to get ahead of oneself.
“What else are you afraid of?”
Aziraphale had several answers ready. “Falling. Driving. Traffic in general, really. People.”
“You’re afraid of… people?”
“Oh! Not like that! I don’t fear for my safety, per se, but I do find big groups of people to be a bit… daunting. Doesn’t everyone?”
Frances ignored that last part. “What do you do when you have to handle these things?”
“I don’t fall that often,” Aziraphale said, mostly as a joke, but no one laughed. Anticipating when these people would laugh was proving quite impossible. "Except when I dream, but then, that’s not real, is it? So it isn’t a… problem… um.” He was rambling. Get to the point. “I can drive, but I don’t like doing it. I prefer to walk, or take taxis. That way I can take things at my own pace. I’m a bit… slow, in general, or so I’ve been told. When it comes to people, I…”
He trailed off, not sure how to continue. Should he tell Frances and the cameras about how he kept chasing away customers from his shop, in case they wanted to buy something from his parents’ old collection? Or about how he’d let Anathema’s calls go to voice mail after leaving university, until she’d stopped calling altogether? Should he tell them about how he’d spent the better part of more than a decade alone in the bookshop, and only recently decided that it was time to meet some people?
Frances tried another question. “Are you close to your parents?”
“They’re dead,” Aziraphale said. “That’s how I ended up running the shop.”
“I’m sorry,” Frances said. It even sounded like she meant it. “Is there anyone else you’re close with?”
Did the lady at the bank count? The one who always helped Aziraphale with his taxes once a year? Probably not.
“Like I said,” he said, with that same forced smile he always used in these interviews, “I’m looking for some company.”
Almost ten minutes past the hour — not that Aziraphale kept watch, there merely happened to be a watch on his wrist and it was hard not to glance at it from time to time — music started to play. The people in the chairs rose, and down the aisle walked… walked…
Huh. The man was wearing sunglasses. To a wedding. His own wedding. Not the choice Aziraphale would have made, he admitted, but not a deal breaker either. Merely a bit… difficult to tell whether their eyes actually met or not as he made his way down the aisle, but Aziraphale could live with that.
During the hen night a few days ago, several of the ladies had asked him what his ideal husband would look like. If he was honest, Aziraphale had never thought much about that part. Regardless of what he told the cameras when pressed, Aziraphale wasn’t actually hoping for anything to come out of this experiment. For better or worse, he would have someone around for six weeks, and afterwards, they’d go their separate ways. It was as simple as that.
Still, he couldn’t help but feel a small, regretful sense of relief as he looked at his husband-to-be. Even with the sunglasses covering his eyes, he was admittedly rather good looking. Too good looking. If this had been real life, he was very obviously a man who would never have looked twice at Aziraphale.
His hair was red, and reached him to his shoulders. He was taller than Aziraphale, but only just, and he was dressed in a black blazer on top of a black shirt with black trousers.
All black, and sunglasses. Like he was going to a funeral. Aziraphale threw a quick glance at his own cream-coloured suit, tartan vest, and bow-tie, suddenly feeling rather silly.
No. He would not feel silly. This was his wedding day.
Arm in arm with the husband-to-be, giving him away, was an older lady. His mother, most certainly. She looked like his complete opposite. Her hair was curly and held up by a light green bandana, and she was wearing a large, frilly dress in all the colours of the rainbow. (Was that a painfully on-the-nose statement about gay pride? Or was it just a rainbow? Aziraphale wondered if he’d ever know)
While the husband looked as serious as if he really was going to a funeral, his mother was giving Aziraphale the brightest smile he’d ever seen. He smiled back at her as well as he could, ignoring the emerging feeling of impending doom starting to build in his stomach.
Once they reached the altar and the husband was standing in front of Aziraphale — only a foot away, did he have to stand so close? — Aziraphale felt the sharp scent of smoke.
No, that was just paranoia. It was fine.
“Uh,” said the husband. “Hi. I’m Crowley.”
Crowley. Of course his name was Crowley. Every single thing about his demeanor screamed Crowley.
But that wasn’t everything.
Aziraphale sniffed, discreetly. And then one more time, not so discreetly, and he didn’t even have time to hide his frown before it was there, out in the open.
The scent — no, the smell — was even stronger coming from Crowley’s mouth. His husband smelled like cigarettes.
Aziraphale opened his mouth to say something, but Frances started to talk before he had a chance.
“Dearly beloved,” she said, wearing the same smile he imagined she wore behind all those cameras during the interviews, “we are gathered here today to celebrate this joyous occasion in which Aziraphale Fell and Anthony Crowley embark on this crazy journey together!”
“Anthony?” Aziraphale mouthed.
Crowley just shrugged.
“I’ll be honest,” Frances said with a small laugh, “when we met with all our candidates, both Aziraphale and Crowley were rather difficult to place. But then we considered putting them together, and… everything simply clicked!”
Did they, now? Aziraphale thought, focusing his eyes somewhere to the side of Crowley.
“Aziraphale,” Frances continued, “you didn’t have much to say when we asked what you wished for in a partner, except for someone to keep you company. And we really believe Crowley will be a perfect match for you. He’ll pop your social bubble, challenge your paranoia and match you intellectually.”
What the hell is that supposed to mean?
No, she means well. Be nice.
There was no way to know for sure, but he could swear Crowley was rolling his eyes under those glasses. Maybe that was why he was wearing them in the first place; so he could freely roll his eyes at people without them noticing. Clever, Aziraphale had to give him that.
“Crowley, Aziraphale is the perfect partner to bring you down to earth and give you a safe, stable life at home.”
Wow. Did they mean for Aziraphale to become a housewife? Just because he lived in the same building as the bookshop, and as a result worked from home, that wasn’t —
Crowley coughed a little, interrupting his thoughts. If anyone other than Aziraphale heard, they didn’t show it.
“What about intimacy?”
“… intimacy?” Aziraphale widened his eyes. “What kind of intimacy? I’ve had sex, if that’s what you’re asking. I’ve enjoyed sex! I just haven’t had the opportunity lately, or the need to seek it out, or, or, what I mean is—”
He stopped talking at the sound of a soft laugh coming from Frances’s direction. “Sex is included, sure,” she said. “But I was actually more curious about the other aspects of the word. Physical closeness in general. Touch, for instance.”
“I don’t have a problem with physical touch,” Aziraphale said, perhaps a bit too fast. “I mean… I don’t enjoy it when it comes to strangers, but no one does!”
“You didn’t shake hands with the production team when you arrived.”
Aziraphale looked at his hands folded together in his lap, holding on to each other like safety nets. “I apologise,” he said quietly. “That was very rude of me.”
“I believe you have prepared vows?” Frances said, looking expectantly from one to the other.
Right. The vows. Aziraphale had prepared them, of course, not that he knew what to vow to someone he’d never met before. He took out the folded note from his inner pocket, and started to read.
“’Reader, I married him.’” He stopped, his eyes glued to the words staring back at him from the paper, realising his mistake. “Right. Technically, we aren’t married yet, but that’s… um. Not important.” He cleared his throat and started over. “’Reader, I married him. I do not know who he is, or what he is like, but I would like to assume that he doesn’t have an abused wife hidden in the attic, so that’s already a point in his favour.’”
When he finished, people were silent for a bit too long, as if they were waiting for him to continue. Once they realized he was done, vague clapping could be heard from across the chairs. Aziraphale gathered his courage and raised his eyes to look at the walking sunglasses in front of him, but he could not for the life of him make out what impression they were wearing.
“Wow,” Crowley said finally. “Something to live up to.”
Aziraphale looked a bit awkwardly from side to side, folding the paper neatly at first, before giving up and crumpling it into a ball. “It’s Jane Eyre.”
For a brief second, Crowley looked like he was about to say something, but ultimately changed his mind. “Right,” he said instead. “My vows. Er. ‘I don’t know you, but I hope things will be good. Or not-bad. Or whatever.’”
“How romantic,” Aziraphale said before he could stop himself.
“At least I didn’t compare you to bloody Rochester,” Crowley muttered, turning back to Frances. “We getting on with it?”
They exchanged rings quickly, both retrieving their hands as quickly as possible once it was done. Still smiling, as though nothing particularly noteworthy had occurred, Frances resumed her speech. After a while, Aziraphale stopped listening, slowly succumbing to the panic he’d postponed until this very moment.
He was marrying a smoker who wore sunglasses to his own wedding. He was about to invite a smoker to the bookshop. He was probably about to kiss the smoker. On the mouth.
Aziraphale had tried not to think too much about the kissing part, but now that they were here, it was becoming more and more difficult to ignore.
Sure enough, before Aziraphale knew it, both he and Crowley had croaked out one “I do” each, and Frances had clasped her hands together. “You may kiss the groom!”
It couldn’t have lasted longer than a second, but it was the longest second in Aziraphale’s life. Not the kiss, the kiss was over within the blink of an eye, but the moment leading up to it. He and Crowley looked at each other, as much as they could look at each other with those sunglasses in the way, and leaned towards one another until their lips were touching and Aziraphale had to hold his breath so as not to be consumed by the smell of cigarettes.
“Right,” he mumbled once they were several feet apart, and Frances exclaimed: “I now pronounce you husband and husband!”
“What are your thoughts regarding eye contact?”
Aziraphale found it rather noteworthy that they had placed him on a chair with nothing but shadows looking back at him, and yet they were the ones confronting him about eye contact.
“I have no trouble with eye contact,” he said firmly.
“Do you consider eye contact intimate?”
Everyone does, he wanted to shout, but he held it back. “No,” he said, not sure if he meant it. “I don’t think that much about eye contact.”
As Aziraphale walked back up the aisle next to Crowley, far enough apart so that Crowley could not take his hand, but close enough to not be considered rude, Aziraphale thought back to that conversation with Frances about eye contact.
Had they considered Crowley as a match for him as far back as then? Had Frances been wondering about Crowley’s sunglasses and whether or not they would be an issue?
Supposedly, he could ask her about that later, but he doubted he’d get much information. Frances seemed nice enough, but she very rarely gave any of his questions any proper answers. He wondered if Crowley had gotten the same impression.
“Well, that was a thing,” Crowley said once they were out of earshot. Without talking about it, they were both heading down the field, towards the lake where the photographer (and likely a few more people from the TV crew) was waiting.
“That was a wedding,” Aziraphale replied, surprised at his own annoyance that somebody called a wedding a ‘thing’.
“Yeah, obviously, didn’t miss that part,” Crowley said with a shrug, and waved abruptly in Aziraphale’s general direction. “Neither did you, from the looks of it, since you’re dressed like a wedding bride and everything.”
“Excuse me, I am a—“ Aziraphale stopped, and started over. “First of all, it’s just ‘bride’ , the wedding part is implied. Second of all, the way I dress is none of your—“ he stopped himself again, in the nick of time before he started swearing. “And for what it’s worth, claiming that I intended to dress up as a bride, for my own wedding, is highly misogynistic, and frankly similar to when heterosexual people ask who is the woman and who is the—“
“Fine,” Crowley cut him off. “You’re right. That was rude of me. First impression, I’m rude, figured you’d noticed that by now. So are you, by the way.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Rude. Very rude, in fact. No wonder they matched us. Popping bubbles and bringing down to Earth, my arse, I’m not a bloody balloon. They just took the two rudest pieces of shit and paired us up so we could bother each other instead of anyone else. Clever, I’ll give them that.”
Aziraphale was at a loss for words. Thankfully, at this point, they’d reached the lake and the photographer was running eagerly towards them, camera in hand.
Arguing while posing for photographs was a new experience for Aziraphale, but he supposed it was never too late to try new things. Posing romantically while still refusing to touch the other person did not make things any easier, but Aziraphale was resilient.
“I am not rude,” he hissed at Crowley between flashes, keeping his smile in check for the cameras.
“Really making a good case for it, too.” Crowley didn’t bother to smile for the cameras. He didn’t even take off his glasses. All in all, Aziraphale could have sworn he was doing his best to look as intimidating as he possibly could.
“I am not the one who did not even bother to chew some gum between having a smoke and showing up late to my own wedding—”
“… just proving my point, here, you know…”
“— and while we’re at it, there will be no smoking whatsoever in any proximity to my bookshop. No smoking, no fire, no cigarettes, no lighters, nothing.”
“What about matches?”
“None!”
“Fine. I can live with that.”
Aziraphale opened his mouth to keep arguing, but had to snap it shut when he realised that Crowley had agreed to his terms. “Good,” he said instead, a bit unstable. “I’m glad we could reach a mutual understanding—“
“Eh, wouldn’t call it mutual, but you can tell yourself whatever you want.” On the photographer’s instructions, they switched pose. “So if you’re not dressed like a bride on purpose, what’s the deal with that whole look? Trying to show off what a special snowflake you are by dressing up as one?”
Aziraphale clenched his jaw. “The way I dress—“
“Right, right, you said. Not a snowflake, then. A wedding cake? Keeping with the theme?”
“It is none of your—”
“An angel, then? To match your name? Azi-raphael, was it?”
“Aziraphale.”
“Potato, potahto. So it is an angel look you’re going for?”
Aziraphale decided to try the well-proved technique of ignoring the questions instead of dignifying them with an answer. Unfortunately, Crowley seemed to take his silence as a yes.
“So you’re religious? Did it bother you that they wanted a civil wedding? Did your parents not approve, is that why your side was basically empty? Okay, mine wasn’t exactly fully stocked either, but we’re talking about you now.”
You’re talking about me, Aziraphale kept himself from saying.
Crowley kept going. “So what was it that made them boycott? The civil ceremony, or the TV show in general? Or just the marrying a stranger-part? Bet you’re regretting that part as well now, aren’t you? Oh! Was it the old marrying a man-part? That’s a classic, I’ll admit, but—“
“Do you ever stop talking?” Aziraphale snapped.
“Nope,” Crowley said happily. “But believe it or not, that’s a good thing! If I ask you too intruding questions, you can just withhold your answer until I move on to the next one.”
“So you are aware that those questions are terribly intruding?”
“Sure! But I’m your husband. You can tell me anything!”
“Great!” A voice said from the side. It took a few seconds for Aziraphale to realise that it belonged to the photographer. “Could we just get a last picture with the two of you kissing?”
“No!” they both said in one voice. It must have been the first time they agreed on something.
“What do we think of Crowley?” Frances asked, standing a little bit behind the man holding the camera too close to Aziraphale’s face.
Aziraphale smiled, fixing his eyes at Frances, unwilling to let any of his discomfort show. “He’s very handsome,” he said truthfully.
She smiled back, waiting for him to elaborate.
“His hair is nice,” Aziraphale kept going. “And he… he… seems very keen to get to know me.” At least if the amount of questions were anything to go by. “It will be six interesting weeks,” he concluded.
“Or rest of your life,” Frances pointed out.
At this point, the inside of Aziraphale’s mind could accurately be described with the word scream. Not a woo. Just a terrified, agonizing scream.
“Right,” he said.
The look Frances gave him made him think of a proud mother giving her son away to the highest bidder.
The TV production had rented a castle for the wedding party, which was a bit much, considering the camera crew consisted of more people than the entire wedding party. As soon as Aziraphale entered the near-empty ballroom, Anathema ran up to him and gave him a hug. Newton tagged along behind her like a puppy.
“How are you feeling?” she asked. “Anthony isn’t here yet,” she added when Aziraphale started to look around.
Crowley wasn’t there, but his guests were, and Anathema was looking at him with that hopeful smile. He remembered that smile. It meant something akin to please let this make him happy. It never did, but he knew what to say to make the traces of worry go away.
“I feel good,” he said, letting her keep her hands on his arms. “He seems lovely, and he really is handsome, and I believe we’ll get along great.”
“Aww, angel, I’m touched!” a voice said from behind him, making every cell of his body freeze to ice.
“Hello, dear,” he said, turning around to face his new husband. “This is my friend Anathema, from university.” Crowley shook Anathema’s hand without a word. “And her husband, Newton. They are also in the show, same as us.”
“Right. Hiya, Newt!” Crowley turned to shake Newton’s hand. “Thought I recognised you from the stag night.”
Aziraphale had… completely forgotten that Crowley would have already met Newton.
“Hello, Crowley,” Newton said, and his smile actually seemed genuine. “Congratulations on the wedding.”
“Likewise.” Crowley turned to Anathema. “Any dirt I should know about the angel here?” He nodded in Aziraphale’s direction.
Anathema threw him a secretive smile. “Find out for yourself,” she said, before giving Aziraphale a wink and walking away from them, Newt following suit.
“Newt seems nice,” Crowley said next to him, taking a sip of his champagne. (Wait, there was champagne? How big was this room?) “Most of the straight guys were grade A dicks, but I liked Newt. What were the gals like?”
“Perfectly lovely,” Aziraphale lied, taking the opportunity to walk away from him as soon as he caught sight of the champagne table.
He did not get very far before the short woman in the rainbow dress who had walked Crowley down the aisle appeared out of nowhere, blocking his way. Behind her, the angry (possibly homophobic) man from the ceremony gave Aziraphale the same angry glare as before.
“Hiya, dear, I’m Tracy,” the woman said, offering her hand, not for him to shake, but for him to kiss. Her nails were painted in a shade of yellow brighter than the sun.
“Hello!” Aziraphale reluctantly took the hand and gave it a quick peck before letting go. He would not make Crowley right by being rude to his mother, of all people. “I’m Aziraphale.”
“I sort of gathered.” Tracy eyed him up and down. Aziraphale felt as though he was on display.
“You are… Crowley’s mother, I presume?”
For a brief second, Tracy’s smile disappeared, and he thought he might be staring into the eyes of the devil. Then the smile came back, and Tracy was laughing at him. “Oh, no, just his sugar mommy,” she said with a small giggle. “Come along, Mr Shadwell!”
Grumbling, and keeping his glare at Aziraphale, the man followed her to where Crowley was standing with his gang of what Aziraphale had decided were probably mafia members. Aziraphale made the rest of his way to the champagne table and grabbed a glass.
The rest of the evening passed by in a blur. Not because of the alcohol, but because Aziraphale tried desperately to forget every part of it as quickly as possible. The whole ceremony was, after all, just a necessary evil to get to the part where he could share his life with someone, if only for a few weeks. Even if that someone was Crowley.
Although Crowley’s group of friends seemed to ignore Aziraphale like the plague, Crowley did come up to him from time to time, trying to make conversation. Aziraphale never said much, or even looked at him.
At one point, Crowley tried to take his hand, and Aziraphale actually made the effort to hold it for a few seconds, before he let go with a small “pardon” and walked away. He wasn’t sure what was happening, or why he was doing this to himself, but here he was.
“It is a stressful occasion,” Frances came up to tell him out of nowhere, “but also a joyous one! Try to enjoy it!”
Aziraphale smiled at her, and promised he’d try. And in his defense, he did try! But no matter how much he tried, he couldn’t help but feel that he’d rather be at home, alone, with his books.
Anathema came up to him, again and again. “Are you okay? Aren’t you going to dance? Are you excited about the honeymoon?”
“We’re not going on a honeymoon,” Aziraphale said. “I didn’t want to leave the shop behind, and according to Frances, Crowley had his own responsibilities. Oh, don’t look so disappointed,” he added when Anathema’s smile faded. “Could you really imagine me on a beach in Miami?”
“You deserve a beach in Miami,” Anathema protested. “Or whatever else you want.”
“You’re very kind,” Aziraphale said, unable to think of anything else to say.
“So, in the books you’ve read, are there any gentlemen in particular you’ve been drawn to?”
Aziraphale lit up. Now, this was a question he knew how to answer. “Mr Darcy, of course! Both the Pride and Prejudice one and the Bridget Jones one. In my teenage years, I considered Mr Rochester a true romantic hero. Of course, since then, I’ve realised that there are aspects to his character that are… less charming. Gilbert Blythe was another, though I’m afraid I’m much too old for him now.” He’d meant that as a joke, but as per usual, no one laughed. “And Mr. Knightley, naturally. Emma,” he added, just in case.
“Any modern gentlemen?” Frances asked. “From contemporary literature?”
“Bridget Jones is contemporary literature,” Aziraphale said, failing to hide his annoyance.
Aziraphale wasn’t sure what determined the end of the party, but after several hours he found himself in Crowley’s black car. Apparently it was a vintage one, which Crowley had made sure to tell him.
The fact that Crowley was obviously proud of the car, did not keep him from driving at around ninety miles per hour in central city traffic.
“Cat - cat - CAT!!” Aziraphale screamed, squeezing his eyes shut, preparing for the inevitable moment of death when Crowley would either hit oncoming traffic or the cat crossing the street.
“Cats are quick,” Crowley said casually beside him. Aziraphale kept his eyes shut for the remainder of the travel time. If they hit the cat, or died, he didn’t notice.
Once Crowley parked the car, Aziraphale stayed in his seat, frozen from pure shock.
Crowley left the vehicle, walked around it, and opened the door for him. “After you,” he said, gesturing for Aziraphale to get out.
Aziraphale did, but in silence, making sure not to give Crowley a single look as he walked past him towards the most luxurious building he had ever seen. “This cannot be our hotel.”
“If you say so, angel,” Crowley said with a shrug. For a brief second, Aziraphale thought he was reaching for Aziraphale’s hand again, but if he did, he changed his mind.
“You keep calling me ‘angel’,” Aziraphale mumbled as they entered the building.
“Sure! You dressed up like one, so I figured I could keep up the gimmick.”
“I did not dress up like a— oh, never mind.”
Crowley had already walked up to the reception and soon came back with the key to their room. “You were wrong, angel. This could be our hotel! Since it is, and all.”
Aziraphale followed Crowley to the lift without a single word, only slightly aware that he was doing the angry pout his mother had used to tease him for.
The room was way too big to have only one bed, and yet, there it was, mocking them with its solitude.
“Which side to you want?” Crowley asked, throwing himself on one side before Aziraphale could answer.
Aziraphale walked to the other side and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Do you ever take those things off?”
“What things?” Crowley pointed to his face. “These?” And then he took off the sunglasses, like it was nothing, like he was surprised Aziraphale had even asked about them.
That turned out to be a bad idea. Not for Crowley, who simply blinked a few times and then looked at Aziraphale with his eyebrows raised expectantly.
No, this was a bad idea for Aziraphale. He shouldn’t have asked. If he hadn’t asked, he could have spent the night blissfully aware that he was married to — not to mention sharing the bed with — the most gorgeous man he had ever seen in real life. As luck would have had it, he also just so happened to be the rudest.
If Aziraphale’s thoughts were visible on his face, Crowley didn’t show it. “Guess I’ll take this side,” he said simply, before grabbing a few things from his bag and heading off to the bathroom.
Aziraphale stayed on the bed, staring at the wall in front of him as if it might help him reach a solution. Truth was, there was no solution. Aziraphale had accidentally married the popular bully in high school, if the popular bully had also somehow been a gay goth. And here he was.
Crowley came out of the bathroom almost ten minutes later. He stopped short in front of the bed, giving it an accusing glare. “A pillow wall? Really?”
“It’s not personal,” Aziraphale said.
“Bit hard not to take personally, though, isn’t it? ‘No offense, o husband of mine, but here’s a wall of pillows in this giant bed, to make sure my fingers not so much brush the tips of your hair!’ Don’t take it personally, my arse.”
Without another word, he crawled in under the bedsheets with his back turned to Aziraphale and turned off his bed lights. Aziraphale stared the silent lump next to him, not sure what to say, not sure what he’d done wrong, before ultimately making his own way to the bathroom.
He couldn’t be sure if Crowley was asleep once he came out, so he tried to move as silently as possible as he turned off the remaining lights and walked in the darkness to his side of the bed. He crawled into the bedsheets slowly so as not to shake the mattress, his own back turned towards Crowley.
It was going to be a long night.