Chapter Text
14th November, 2019
Dear Diary,
Today proved to be a cold one. There’s talk of snow in the air already, and most of the other shopkeepers are worried it’ll keep customers away from what has already been a sparse month for ‘trade’. I have done my bit to assure them their businesses will continue to thrive. They did not appear to believe me. In fact, Maggie mentioned my having to perform a miracle.
I do wonder whether they know, sometimes.
Crowley visited again. He’s still living in his Bentley. I have told him he doesn’t need to, that there’s a perfectly good bedroom in my bookshop whenever he pleases, but he likes to keep his space. I suspect his plants would prefer the ample light streaming through my windows in a nice, stable environment but I digress.
While we’re no longer required to do a dance of smoke and mirrors to avoid the eyes of our previous employment, it does seem to have become habit. Crowley likes to arrive and make excuses as to who he is to passersby. He may enjoy the mysterious aura he believes follows him around. What usually follows is he throws open the doors and stands there dramatically, as though awaiting applause for his grand entrance.
On this occasion he did exactly that. And, diary, well…
He had a proposal for me.
“You’re never going to believe this,” he said.
Naturally, my interest was piqued. I think he could tell because he got that little smirk he does when he’s thought of something clever or when he knows he has my attention.
And he knows I’m neither patient with nor good at guessing games.
“Must you stand there all night?” I said. “You’re creating a draught.”
He clicked the door closed and ambled in, shutting out the cold November air as he approached my desk. He held an envelope between his fingers, raised it between us, and twirled it.
“We’ve been invited to a wedding.”
Oh, the way my heart leapt! There’s no greater expression of love than a union between two people before God. I admit I may have shown a little more enthusiasm than I cared to, because Crowley’s smirk broadened into that of a rather tempting large smile.
“A wedding! How wonderful!”
But I didn’t know of anyone who would be inviting us to a wedding. Everyone we know is in Heaven or Hell, dormant since the failed apocalypse. Or at least, we hope so. We’re certainly still careful how we go about things, even since the Ritz.
Crowley handed me the envelope and I tore it open immediately.
“Anathema and that squirrely bloke,” Crowley explained as I read. “They’re having a—”
“—a handfasting?” My eyes settled on the word, written in beautiful cursive letters. “But that’s—but why?”
“Surely you can’t expect Anathema to want a holy matrimony, angel.” Crowley said this as he leaned on the bookshelf, folding his arms and regarding me above his black glasses. “She and her beau were almost killed as pawns of war.”
“Yes, but…”
“Besides, everyone was pagan once.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. Sternly. “We weren’t pagan.”
“Swings and roundabouts. Anyway, it’s nice they thought of us, yes?”
“Yes, of course!”
It’s always wonderful to be invited. To be considered and included in someone else’s life events. Being on the edge of things isn’t always the most social path. It was as I scanned the invitation I realized the date.
“It says here the wedding is on the 16th of November.”
Crowley made a noise.
“But that’s two days away! Why did you get this so late?!”
“Hell don’t exactly have the best postmen, angel.” Crowley gestured to the invitation, as though expecting me to hand it back. “Anyway, thought you might get a kick out of it.”
“A kick?” Automatically, I handed the invitation back to him and he made a beeline for the nearest whiskey decanter. I like to keep a few around because I never know which one he’s going for next. I waited as he poured from the 1869 vintage malt. “What do you—aren’t we going?”
He paused, glass halfway to his mouth. “To a wedding?!”
“Crowley! You can’t come here and get me all excited for a—for a ‘handfasting’—and then take it away!”
I don’t believe he was being cruel in this oversight, more that Crowley doesn’t really take the opportunity to think he’s genuinely been included. I can imagine having such an insular life for so long can make his miss things that are well intentioned, such as an envelope addressed to “The Black Winged One and the White Winged One” with our names misspelled beneath, and believe it was a mistake in admin.
Crowley stood a moment, whiskey temporarily forgotten. “I—I didn’t imagine they genuinely expected us to go, honestly.”
“Well why would they invite us otherwise?!” I made my way over to him, an energy I can never explain sparking through my body. Crowley had the familiar look in his eye, the one where he knows he’s going to listen to me then roll his head and give in to my demands argument request. “It would be so nice to see them again, don’t you think? And it’s in Oxford! There are so many memories there—”
“Yes, ones I’ve tried very much to bolt away.”
“—and we can have a happy ending to that chapter!”
Crowley blinked. “I thought—I mean—I already am happy. As far as it goes.”
“You know what I mean. We must think of what to wear!”
“We?! No, Aziraphale, I’m not going.”
“Of course you are.”
“I’m not.”
“Don’t be silly.”
I’m sure he said something else but at that point I was already crossing to the staircase, wondering what clothes I may already have that were suitable for a wedding ceremony. Or, I suppose, a pagan ritual.
I don’t, as it turns out, have anything suitable for a handfasting in a glade at the late stage of Autumn where winter is biting at our heels.
But Crowley did say he’ll bring some whiskey.
Until then, dearest Diary…