Work Text:
For some reason, Aziraphale’s desk has developed a wobble. The floors of the bookshop are old and warped in some places, but usually the spot the desk occupies under the window holds it steady enough. It’s rare for a day to pass without Aziraphale sitting here and pouring over some new acquisition or revisiting a favourite, and he likes to lay his hands against the wood, either side of the book, and rest some of his weight there. Now, one of the front legs has a half-inch of space under it and every time Aziraphale moves a manuscript or turns a page, the whole blasted table tilts, the front leg hitting the ground and the opposite corner rising a half inch. It keeps jolting him out of his thoughts, making him sit back in his chair and then the desk just reverses the move and settles onto its preferred three legs.
Eventually he realizes that this isn’t sustainable, huffing and mumbling his annoyance to himself. For over ten minutes he fiddles with the desk’s position, trying to toe the legs into slightly different spots on the floorboards, until a particularly hard push against it sends two books falling to the floor. As he picks them up, brushing them off carefully, he decides to call Crowley over to help.
“Just, grab a hold of that end – very carefully, dear – and shift it a little bit to your right,” Aziraphale tells him after he explains the problem.
They lift the desk, slowly so as not to topple any more of the books or lamps, and then set it back down, slightly further from the window. Crowley pushes an experimental finger into the unsteady corner and scowls when it tilts. “Still uneven,” he says.
Aziraphale places his hands on his hips and exhales a frustrated puff of air.
“You could just miracle it,” Crowley tries, already knowing the answer.
Aziraphale just gives a sharp shake of his head. It wouldn’t be the same.
Crowley keeps a smile from crossing his lips, shoves his hands in his pockets, and awaits further instruction.
As Aziraphale resumes nudging and poking at the desk by incremental millimetres, Crowley catches sight of Nina and Maggie across the road. They’re sitting at a table just behind the glass of the coffee shop, holding hands and leaning in close as though they’re discussing something a bit secret, or perhaps a bit naughty.
Crowley’s eyes narrow; he’s not sure how long Nina and Maggie have been together, but it’s been at least long enough for Maggie to have confided in Aziraphale that she was deliriously happy and that also, it was a secret and, specifically, not to tell Crowley because Nina couldn’t stand the ‘I told you so’s. Long enough that Aziraphale had held onto that secret for all of three days and then, bursting to tell him, had told him, and then felt bad and made Crowley promise not to say anything.
And that was four days ago, so, definitely, certainly at least a couple of weeks, maybe a month. In fact, it’s very likely that Nina and Maggie have been together together for longer than Crowley and Aziraphale have been kissing, although Crowley shouldn’t be drawing comparisons because they are just humans in love and him and Aziraphale are immortal and ethereal, a demon and angel, forging a new and unknown path, also in love. With kissing. It’s bound to be quite a different matter entirely, he assumes.
Nina’s gaze meets Crowley’s from across the road and he arches an eyebrow as she quickly pulls her hand back from Maggie, saying something that makes Maggie look up in his direction.
This is his chance.
Crowley steps forward, into Aziraphale’s space, grabs the lapels of his jacket and pulls him in to kiss him squarely on the mouth. Crowley keeps his eyes open, watching as surprise makes Aziraphale’s eyes go wide and just for a moment, Crowley wonders if he’s completely misjudged the circumstance. But then Aziraphale’s eyelids flutter closed and his mouth softens, fitting properly into the curve of Crowley’s lips, as he kisses him back.
Aziraphale’s hands go easily to Crowley’s hips, a gentle welcoming squeeze and then moving over his jacket, up Crowley’s sides and across his back, embracing him as Aziraphale moves to deepen the kiss. Crowley feels Aziraphale lean into it, resting weight against his chest, his body soft and pliant. Aziraphale’s mouth opens around a pleased sigh and he licks out at the crease of Crowley’s lips.
Still gripping him by the lapels, Crowley turns Aziraphale, pressing him back up against the desk, so that he can sneak a peek across the road at their audience.
Both Nina and Maggie are watching, seemingly somewhat surprised, Maggie with a hand raised in what probably started as a friendly wave. Crowley’s eyes close again and he gives in to Aziraphale’s tongue still catching increasingly insistent at where he’s got Crowley’s bottom lip caught between his own. Just for a second, he lets himself get lost in it, giving in to the pressure of Aziraphale’s tongue, welcoming it into his mouth so that he can catch at it against his teeth. Crowley’s whole body chases Aziraphale’s as he leans back against the desk and moans unexpectedly low and loud and into Crowley’s mouth.
Then Crowley steps back because the point is not to put on some sort of show for the ladies across the street, but simply to make them aware. Except pulling away from Aziraphale draws an unmistakably desperate whimper coupled with a look of frustration from him and it’s only as he steps back, brushing imaginary dust from his hands, that Crowley realizes Aziraphale has managed to perch himself on the edge of the desk and is now slipping off it and back to his feet.
The desk falls back onto its preferred three legs with a knock and Aziraphale visibly works to settle his breathing. He’s giving Crowley a look that indicates he might be in trouble although Crowley can’t fathom why that might be. Looking over Aziraphale’s shoulder, Crowley is also bewildered to realize their audience has disappeared.
“What –” Aziraphale stops to clear his throat because that came out raspy and rough. “What on earth was that about?”
At this point, Crowley has to notice him. Even after clearing his throat, his voice is still lower than it should be, scratchy around the edges like he just ran a mile or ate something too spicy or had been kissing Crowley for hours (and they haven’t done that yet, their record is about forty minutes). His bowtie is askew, sitting at a forty-five degree angle and the top button beneath has popped loose. His cheeks are flushed and his lips still wet and none of that tallies with what was a relatively chaste, very quick smooch to impress the neighbours. He looks hungry and annoyed, as though some dim-witted waiter had cleared his plate before he’d finished eating –.
“Crowley?” Aziraphale asks.
Motioning towards the window, Crowley says, “I wanted Nina to see.”
It’s obvious that Aziraphale doesn’t comprehend the ploy, particularly since Nina is no longer sitting there. “May I inquire as to why?” He sounds curt, snippy even.
Crowley figures this is probably not the right time to go back over Aziraphale’s failure to keep Maggie’s secret. “I just thought they should know, is all…” That doesn’t seem enough for Aziraphale who crosses his arms over his chest and raises an eyebrow at him. “You know, that we’re…” Crowley motions back and forth between the two of them.
“Kissing?” Aziraphale offers.
“Well, yeah… no, that we’re partners, dating.” And now Crowley rolls his eyes at himself. They are not dating. They’re… “That we’re together. You know what I mean. Nina and Maggie were the ones that told me we had to talk to each other more and that kind of got things going. And I still don’t know why she hasn’t told me that her and Maggie are now a thing –”
“You’re upset that Maggie told me and then told me not to tell you.”
“Don’t be so stupid!” Aziraphale has hit the nail on the head there and Crowley isn’t quick enough to think of a reasonable alternative.
“Right.” It’s clear from how Aziraphale clips the single syllable that he isn’t buying into Crowley’s bullshit and is genuinely a little bit annoyed at him. Before Crowley can say anything, the bell above the bookshop door rings and Maggie walks through, closely trailed by Nina.
Crowley’s back to the door, he steps close to Aziraphale, reaching out and righting his bowtie with quick, careful fingers as he slips his sunglasses from his pocket and over his eyes with his other hand. He turns to face the two women and leans back on the desk in a slouch that causes it to tilt again and make both him and Aziraphale jump.
A corner of Nina’s mouth quirks up as she greets them, “Hello boys.” She walks the few steps from the entrance to corner them in the alcove by the bookshop window and gives an animated eyebrow waggle. Maggie follows along beside her, pleasantly smiling even as her eyes do appear to twinkle.
Aziraphale remains gracious, as always, a broad, welcoming smile that seems genuine slipping into place, as he says, “Nina, Maggie, how lovely of you to pop by. How are you both?”
Maggie lets Nina answer for both of them: “We’re good, very well, thanks. Not popping by though, I think your boyfriend kind of invited us around.” She throws a pointed look at Crowley who, at the very least, acknowledges the faux pas with a head tilt to the ground and a flush to his cheeks.
Aziraphale flusters, hands out in front of him, fingers grasping at nothing and Crowley doesn’t know why. “Yes, well…” Aziraphale leaves that hanging for a beat too long as he casts an inscrutable look at Crowley. “Can I perhaps entice you to a cup of tea?” he offers.
Nina steps forward, trapping them both even tighter in the alcove with the desk. “So you two are together-together now then?”
Maggie makes a grab for Nina’s wrist but after a moment, Nina shakes her free and tilts her chin up, resolute, waiting for an answer.
Crowley aims for aloof and misses: ‘Yu-up” He pops his lips on the ‘p’ and regrets starting this. The calculating eyes of Nina are stuck on him, Maggie’s are focused on Aziraphale off to the side, and Aziraphale, usually so calm, is still prickly beneath the surface. It had not previously occurred to Crowley that making Nina and Maggie aware of his and Aziraphale’s togetherness – of their kissing – might mean that Nina and Maggie will have thoughts and opinions about their relationship. That there might be questions put to him that he’ll need to answer; it’s unsettling.
Nina nods but it isn’t approving, it’s certainly not the happy, gleeful way Crowley imagined – and disdained – she’d react when he imagined telling her. If anything, it’s skeptical. “And how’d that happen?” Beside her, Maggie grabs Nina’s wrist again, this time with both hands, holding on as she makes a sound, a click of her tongue and a hum that all at once conveys that that isn’t an appropriate question but also does nothing to stop Nina from asking it.
“Well…” Crowley drawls, deflecting, as Aziraphale’s crossed arms tighten beside him, fingers against his own ribs starting to tap. “We could ask you the same thing?”
He intends it to be a gotcha moment but all he gets is the slightest flaring of Nina’s nostrils and the tensing of her forearm, already captured and soothed under Maggie’s hands.
Aziraphale unwraps his arms and slides a couple of inches along the desk to none-too-covertly elbow him in the ribs. Maggie grins though, and then drops her gaze to the floor, blushing.
Nina sighs, her free hand coming up to press at the back of her neck, and then relents with a lopsided smile as her hand slides into Maggie’s, fingers interlacing for a reassuring squeeze. “Look, I’d been single for long enough. And felt like I was ready, so I took her a coffee and I asked her out… and that was that.” She shrugs, nonchalant but the depth of it, the risk, is coming off her in waves. “The usual way,” she says.
Crowley nods and after too long, seems to offer his blessing. “Yup.” After another long pause, Aziraphale and Maggie still exchanging increasingly meaningful looks and Nina, chin-up, still defiant, Crowley adds, “Same for us.”
Nina barks out a laugh and Maggie tuts and Crowley has no idea what they know, he’s not even sure what they remember about all the demonic and heavenly happenings that have occurred over the last few months, although he suspects they remember more than they strictly should. It occurs to him for the very first time that Aziraphale might have already told them something about him and them and the kissing.
Before he can ask, or clarify, Aziraphale places a gentle hand across his forearm and explains, “Actually, we started talking to each other,” he begins. “Like you said, well like Crowley said you said, we really needed to stop and talk to one another. So we did, we had several, very frank conversations which were not particularly comfortable but also… quite delightful. Except at the same time, well, it was the second coming, actually, and it felt like probably the world was going to end again, so we might have skipped a few steps and ended up professing our undying love to each other. Or rather, that came first, and then the talking.” He says it like the backwards of it all is just now occurring to him.
Nina’s mouth has dropped open and Maggie’s brow has suddenly furrowed. Aziraphale pauses, squeezes Crowley’s forearm and then wrist and coaxes him into interlacing their fingers, their clasped hands resting between them on the desk, mirroring the women in front of them.
Crowley keeps his chin high and his mouth set in a non-committal line even as his heart hammers at the vulnerability of being like this with Aziraphale in front of others.
Aziraphale continues: “Then, when it was all over – the second coming, not the world – we thought we better keep talking and being in love. And to be honest, it was all going along quite famously, it was really quite silly of us not to have figured it out sooner, and then a few weeks after that we thought we should probably try kissing again.” He sounds oddly proud of that breakthrough, while Crowley is slightly mortified at how ridiculous their love story sounds when explained like this. It is also in this moment, that Crowley recognises that it was entirely Aziraphale’s doing that they ended up romantic about it at all.
“Huh,” says Nina.
“Did you say the second coming?” asks Maggie.
Ah, so at least there was something Aziraphale hadn’t told her.
“It’s fine now,” Crowley offers, his tone brokering no further discussion, but soothing nonetheless.
Aziraphale squeezes his hand and Crowley looks up to be caught in his gaze, undeniably loving and no longer frustrated, which is a relief.
“Yes, it’s all rather wonderful, now,” Aziraphale says, looking back to Nina and Maggie. “Now, unfortunately, we were just about to shut up shop as we have inventory out the back that needs cataloguing.”
Surprise crosses Crowley’s face: not only does he not do inventory, he isn’t even sure what cataloguing inventory means.
Nina looks like she suspects Aziraphale’s obvious lie but she simply nods and allows Maggie to tug her in the direction of the bookshop door.
“Enjoy inventory,” Maggie says and Crowley realizes she also knows it’s a lie.
Nina chuckles. “Yes, and if you decide to get naked on the desk later on, perhaps think about closing the curtains.”
Maggie flips the sign on the door to ‘Closed’ and they’re gone before either Aziraphale or Crowley manage to say anything.
Aziraphale drops Crowley’s hand and Crowley takes his sunglasses off, pinching at the bridge of his nose.
“The cheek of that woman,” Aziraphale offers, moving in the direction of the spiral staircase. “Not the worst idea, though.”
And that leaves Crowley gobsmacked for a moment before he realizes that Aziraphale probably just means the bit about the curtains.