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Crowley and Aziraphale attend weddings, sometimes. What better place to fill their annual blessing and/or tempting quotas, after all? They switch off who does what, of course. Wouldn’t want to get out of practice.
No matter the wedding they find themselves at, they’ve learned to rely on a few touchstones. Crowley usually suggests that at least one of the groomsmen spike the punch, or spike it more (and he is of the opinion that this counts as both a blessing and a temptation, given that they are committing the sin of drunkenness, but typically there’s at least one blessed little bundle who appears nine months later, presumably from the effects of said punch). Aziraphale usually eats at least one completely delightful thing, although he skips the perennially dry chicken dish in favor of beef or fish. “You’ve got to temper so much joy with a little disappointment,” Crowley tells him once, by way of explanation, at a hastily thrown together shotgun wedding in the 1930s. “Besides, humans like consistency at big life events, and who am I to deny them? So, if I’m in attendance, they can count on three things: they’ll always get sauced if there’s alcohol to be found, they’ll find someone to fuck if they’re looking for that, but the chicken will always be dry.”
There’s a fourth very consistent thing that Aziraphale wants to add, but refrains from: Crowley will always look utterly, distractingly gorgeous at the weddings they attend. Oh, not that he isn’t atttactive as a basic condition of his corporation; demonic attributes being what they are, it’s rather impossible for him look anything but. However. When it comes to his sartorial choices at matrimonial events, merely ‘gilding the lily’ isn’t good enough for Crowley. Rather, he smelts down an entire bar of gold and dips the entire blessed bouquet in, not stopping until even the stems are plunged deep and shining.
The first time Aziraphale sees Crowley dressed in black tie at a Vanderbilt reception in the early 20s, slim cut trousers accentuating that narrow waist and those swaying hips, copper-flecked burgundy hair slicked up and combed over, black silk top hat tucked under one arm, mouth tipped up in an impish grin, the angel completely forgets to breathe for a full thirty seconds, and he’s almost sure the demon notices.
“Don’t you look dashing, dear boy,” he manages, finally.
Crowley barks out his usual scoffing laugh. “What, this old thing? Had to drag it out of mothballs. Have you seen the stuff the flappers down in New York are wearing? Much more fun.”
Aziraphale catches a glimpse of the emerald green suspenders under Crowley’s jacket later that evening over cigars and brandy, and has to feign a hitherto unknown interest in signing the wedding guest book until his blush fades.
Crowley had been adamant, when they’d started doing this, that unless the wedding was outdoors, he could not be expected to attend the ceremony. Churches were right out for obvious reasons, and while synagogues were slightly more tolerable, it was a fact of his existence that most houses of worship repelled him, no matter which branch of the Abrahamic religions they were consecrated under. And while Aziraphale had seen the effects these places had on Crowley first hand, part of him was fairly certain that the demon used the extra time just to fuss over his cuff links.
—
A few decades later, they attend a wedding in Paris, and Crowley sends Aziraphale a note a few days before.
“The happy couple to be has asked the guests to step it out. Highly recommend a visit to your tailor if you’ve not been already. Something a bit more modern than last century. I’ll treat you to crepes the next morning if you manage to shock me. See you there.”
Aziraphale isn’t one to ignore a gauntlet when it’s been thrown directly at his feet. He’s also been craving crepes from Josselin for years now. So he allows himself a look at some fashion plates, a bit of window shopping at some of the more timeless boutiques in Savile Row, and he pulls something together. A classic tuxedo, jacket and trousers in charcoal gray rather than the harsher black, and shades of cream for the shirt and waistcoat. He tucks a yellow rose into his boutonniere and pops up in the middle of the 6th in Paris on a gorgeous April afternoon, the smell of lilacs heavy in the air. There’s a rather rowdy jazz quartet in the Rue Guillaume Apollinaire and he tosses a franc into the open trumpet case as he walks by on his way to the Eglise St-Germain-des-Pres. After the priest drones on for a full thirty minutes about the sanctity of marriage, the newly married couple’s first kiss comes as welcome relief, and he proceeds out with the rest of the guests to throw rice on the church steps after them. A red-winged blackbird flashes by out of the corner of his eye, and he watches it take lazy swoops through the Square Laurent Prache, the low setting sun setting off its ruby feathers.
He doesn’t see Crowley during the vin d’honneur (though the sparkling pinot noir is a wonderful surprise), and as the guests sit down to dinner, Aziraphale begins to worry that he’s perhaps been stood up. He sips at his third coupe of pinot - blessing is thirsty work, after all - and attempts to make conversation with his table, has to keep shooing away a woman in a long black dress from the empty seat beside him, until she sits down and murmurs,
“Ange! Tu ne me connais pas?” and clicks her tongue in a gentle scold.
Aziraphale’s heart stutters in his chest as he meets familiar fever-yellow eyes.
Crowley is a vision. Her torso is encased in a long black silk gown that belts in at the waist with a burgundy lace overlay on the high-necked bodice. Black silk opera gloves are drawn up to her elbow, dark glasses have been made delicate, a moonstone choker glimmers at the hollow of her throat, and her dark red hair is gathered in loose, messy curls at the nape of her neck. Aziraphale catches himself lifting a hand to brush an errant wave back from her face, snatches it to take one of her hands instead, raises it to his lips, but stops just short of kissing it. He thinks he catches the merest hint of a shiver as it runs through Crowley, lightning quick, and Aziraphale doesn’t trust himself to speak.
“Tell me, what damnable power do crepes hold over you?” she asks as she spreads herself over the chair next to him, her voice low and rich.
“Whatever do you mean?”
“If their siren call manages to inspire you to show up here looking like that, well.” She slides him a coy glance out of the corner of her eye. “Eve gave it all up for a mere apple, and not even one seduced by heat or chased in honey. More fool, she.”
Her boldness inspires him to his own. “My interest was caught not by the prize, but rather by the conditions set for winning the challenge in the first place. So?” He gestures to his tuxedo; he knows he’s well dressed. “Have I done it, then? Shocked you?”
Crowley slides a laugh between sharp canines but averts her gaze. “Have you ever - well, no, you wouldn’t have done, but -” she stumbles. “Yes, rather like I’ve stuck a fork into an electrical socket.”
The band strikes up with, “They Can’t Take That Away from Me”, and she bites out a smile. “The way your smile just beams, the way you sing off key, the way you haunt my dreams…”
“Come on, angel,” she says, holding out a hand. “Think I’ve got an empty line on my dance card, what d’you say?”
“Oh, I… don’t dance,” he replies, which is patently false, but Crowley really doesn’t need to know about his late nights at Portland Place. She’d never take no for an answer if she did.
“Suit yourself,” she says casually, finishing her Champagne and shrugging herself out of the chair. “Come find me later, then. I’ll be busy breaking hearts in dark corners.”
(The crepes are lovely, but not half so memorable to Aziraphale as the sight of Crowley, back to his classic black jacket and masculine corporation the next morning, sprawled on a bench at the Luxembourg Gardens, still-tousled curls shining copper and garnet in the sun, hints of lipstick at the corners of his mouth, sipping at a cafe au lait, his eyes bright with laughter in a rare moment of unguarded delight. Aziraphale tucks this gorgeous tableau away, and far, and deep, and takes it out sometimes in the evenings to gaze at it under the soft amber lamplight of if-only.)
—
They only manage to properly gate-crash once, at a bar in New York in the mid 90s.
“What do you suppose is going on up there?” Aziraphale asks, lifting his chin to indicate the rather loud party raging above their heads on the balcony upstairs.
“Don’t really think about it much, to be honest,” replies Crowley, taking a sip from his sidecar.
“Oh, Crowley, not that Up There, I meant the damned racket upstairs, just now!”
“Why don’t you go find out,” he suggests, raising an eyebrow. It feels like a dare, feels like I’ll buy you crepes if you manage to shock me, and Aziraphale cannot resist, doesn’t even think about resisting, before he’s on his feet and heading up the staircase.
It only takes him a moment to figure it out, and he comes back down at once, taking the stairs two at a time, practically bouncing. “It’s a wedding!” he says, delightedly. “Oh surely they won’t notice a couple of extra cake slices missing…”
“We’ve not been invited, angel,” Crowley says, a sly smile touching his mouth.
“But they have those wonderful candy coated almonds, Crowley, please? I know you’ve got the time, you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t.” He nearly pouts and catches himself. Just putting the words Crowley and please next to each other, separated by not even a single breath, is danger enough.
Crowley tips his head back, finishes half his sidecar in one long gulp. “All right then, no need to bat your lashes at me.” Aziraphale looks away for a second, and when he has his face back under control again, Crowley’s sighed his way to his feet, dressed in a charcoal gray turtleneck and black velvet blazer with a burgundy satin pocket square. “Shall we?”
—
At one wedding, a few years before the Armaggedon’t, Aziraphale discovers for himself what it feels like for a metal object to meet an electrical current. They’re sitting at a table to one side of a large field, and everyone else’s attention is drawn elsewhere as an unscheduled fireworks display begins bursting in the sky. Aziraphale turns toward them too, turns away from Crowley for just a moment - at which point Crowley leans over, breath brushing against the angel’s neck, and breathes into his ear,
“And the night will weld this dust of bright Infinity to forms that we may touch and call and see,[1]
and Aziraphale shudders, flushes, pulse pounding, a low thrum exploding within his core. He knows, instinctually, what Crowley is offering - those three words, touch call see, echo in his head no matter how many times he refills his glass. Touch call see. And he can’t quite meet Crowley’s eyes for the rest of the evening, terrified that if he does, he won’t be able to disguise how desperately he wants just that.
—
Shortly after lockdowns are lifted, several years after the Armaggedon’t, they receive an actual wedding invitation in the post, addressed to ‘The Mssrs Anthony J Crowley and A.Z. Fell’, which arrives at the bookshop on a Wednesday afternoon. Aziraphale splits open the envelope to lift out a card written in fine copperplate requesting his and Crowley’s presence at the wedding of Anathema Device and Newton Pulsifer, the following month, at the Tomintoul Field of Hope in the Scottish Highlands.
“That’s a dark sky park!” exclaims Crowley over the phone. “One of the best ones in the world, for my money, which I did give them, back when they were first getting it up on its feet. Haven’t been for ages.”
“Ah, that would explain why the ceremony starts at eight in the evening. Shall we go, then?”
“Don’t see why not. First time we’re doing this as proper guests, isn’t it? Still, better avoid the chicken. Old habits, you know.” Aziraphale can almost hear the grin in Crowley’s voice. “Is it fancy dress?”
“Celestial best, seems rather open to interpretation,” says Aziraphale, frowning. “I’ll send you a picture, I can’t make heads or tails of it myself.”
“Oh, no need, angel, that’s easy. Step it out, remember, except with stars and… shiny glowy stuff.”
Aziraphale is confronted, quite against his will, with the memory of Crowley draped across a Parisian park bench ninety years ago, powdered sugar from Aziraphale’s crepes dusting his shirt collar, and plucks up his courage like a dropped napkin. “I’ll buy you a rather nice bottle of Glenlivet if you manage to shock me.”
Crowley chokes out a laugh. “Oh, only rather nice, eh? I’ve been coveting their 25-year for quite a while now, but it’s meant to be a bit more than rather nice.”
“Well, I suppose you’ll just have to step it up, if that’s to be the prize,” says Aziraphale, fishing out the gauntlet he’s been carrying in his pocket for nearly a century and finally flinging it back from whence it came. “I’ll see you there.”
It’s a simple enough job the night before, taking his usual suit jacket and convincing the fabric to shift to midnight blue, and adding some gold embroidery thread in star patterns and swirls on the lapels, much like the nebula he remembers so fondly. He does miracle up a new waistcoat in a slightly lighter shade of blue to add dimension to the jacket, since the ecru velvet one he prefers for every day is a touch too precious to risk spending so much time outdoors. He tucks the suit away in a wardrobe and stays up all night reading, but try as he might, thoughts settle down in the back of his mind of what Crowley might do under the influence of their newfound freedom.
It’s dark already when he arrives that evening at the Field of Hope, the stars and moon peeking out from behind wispy clouds, and the ceremony space is lit entirely with candlelight: lit pillars line the aisles and mark the boundaries, and there’s a small dais up front with a large chandelier. The reception, he assumes, will take place in the large white tent with softly glowing candelabras. The lack of bright light makes everything more beguiling, more intimate, and this makes Aziraphale brave. Well met by moonlight,”[2] he murmurs into Crowley’s ear as he walks up to him that night in the Field of Hope. Crowley whirls to face him, shoulders hitching just a little with surprise, eyes wide and golden.
“Indeed,” Crowley manages, looking Aziraphale up and down. “The stars needn’t hide their fires this evening[3], angel, they couldn’t if they wanted to.”
Aziraphale swallows hard. Crowley, saying those words, at any time, in any manner of dress, would be temptation enough. But tonight he is resplendent in a black jacket and pants with a metallic band stripe up each side, deep blue waistcoat with silver brocade, and (shockingly) a burgundy silk cravat with a star-shaped silver and pearl lapel pin. And in an obvious nod to the last time this challenge was issued, his hair is longer than usual, wine-red curls dripping down to just above his shirt collar. “So?” He spreads his hands wide. “Are we stopping at the distillery tomorrow on the way out, d’you reckon?”
“No need,” Aziraphale replies, and gets a tiny bit of dark satisfaction watching Crowley’s shoulders slump ever so slightly. “The 25-year, was it? You’ll find a bottle of it on our table in there.” He nods towards the reception tent.
Crowley tilts his head, makes a noise of interest in his throat, shifts his weight so that his hips swish just so. “Well, that didn’t take long.”
“What?”
“You slip loose of Heaven’s bonds for, what, all of three years now? Hardly any time at all, as far as we’re concerned. And if I didn’t know better, angel, I’d say you’re using this wedding as an convenient excuse to get me tipsy and pliable.”
Aziraphale feels that same dark thrill in his gut as he replies, in an undertone, “If that were all I was interested in, I could just have you round to the bookshop on a rather ordinary Tuesday.”
He watches Crowley’s jaw drop for an instant before the demon recovers himself. “You know, my schedule does happen to be open early next week,” he says mildly, but Aziraphale can hear the effort behind his light tone; the low light catches on the side of his face and the angel can see the hint of a flush there.
At that moment, the string octet behind the dais hits their first downbeat of the night, mercifully allowing Aziraphale to avoid needing to put any money where his mouth might want to be (and oh, he fails utterly at avoidng thinking in specifics of where those places might lie, given their current proximity). The crowd hushes and turns as one to watch Newt come down the aisle with two groomsmen, looking excited and nervous, as the music continues. Aziraphale thinks he recognizes the quick flurry of notes, but he can’t place it - it’s something modern, maybe post-romantic? But Crowley makes a little hum in his throat. “Jupiter, nice.”
“Holst?”
“Yeah, there’s a lovely sort of choral march coming up if I’m - aha.” Crowley smiles, pleased, as the tempo slows down and the two violists take their time, soaking up the limelight (goodness knows it’s one of the only times they take center stage). ‘Lovely’ is an understatement; the piece is grand, unhurried and stunning. The string octet expands to include a French horn, clarinet, and - the two timpani make Aziraphale gasp when they strike for the first time, as they’ve been hidden skillfully behind the rest of the musicians. And then Anathema makes her entrance, and everyone stands to greet her as the music swells.
She’s in a long Victorian style gown, all ivory silk that catches the candlelight and glimmers, wearing a sapphire and silver circlet, and, because she’s Anathema, a silver dagger on a chain around her throat. Scattered applause rings out as she makes her way up the aisle to meet Newt, and the final notes of Jupiter fade up into the night sky. The ceremony is a mixture of universalism and Wicca, with not one mention of a specific higher power, merely “the universe” and “threads of fate that unite us all” and “divine timing”, and Aziraphale thinks, that’s all very well, but Whom exactly are we referencing in the space between those euphemisms?
He chases that rabbit trail down a ways, because it’s easier than thinking about how he and Crowley are standing so close that he can feel the heat from him, and all too soon, Newt and Anathema have kissed and are striding, smiling, back up the aisle, and the musicians play them off with what Crowley tells him later is actually the start of the piece. “Believe I’ll take that drink now,” mutters Crowley darkly then, as the rest of the wedding guests begin to mill around and migrate into the tent, which glows amber in the dark, and night has fallen thick and fast around them.
There are, incredibly, skylights in the tent, so that the guests can look up and watch the sky without needing to leave the warmth (or the open bar) for too long. They have a small table to themselves, which Aziraphale swears he didn’t plan, but sometimes things like this just happen. Crowley removes the bottle of whiskey from its box and uncorks it, drawing in its scent langorously, and there’s a charge to him tonight, a kind of tension, that works its way into his gestures, into the way he holds Aziraphale’s gaze, bold and unburdened. And yet he makes no obvious advances, no overtures, leaving Azirapahale all the room in the world to back away, give himself room. But Aziraphale stays just where he is, shakily balanced on a knife’s edge, until the dancing begins, and he feels the blade of that knife begin to cut into his feet.
“It’s an athame, that’s what she was wearing around her neck,” Crowley’s saying, “it’s a dagger usually, ah, used in Wiccan rituals,” and he’s had a few glasses of the Glenlivet 25 by now, and Aziraphale is tired, so tired, of being still. He feels himself begin the inexorable slide off that painful ledge, says, “Crowley,” in a low, urgent voice, truly does not know what words might escape his lips next, but - and then the cellos start an insistent pizzicato.
“Softly, angel,” Crowley mutters, watching Anathema and Newt in each other’s arms.
“The book of love is long and boring, no one can lift the damn thing, it’s full of charts and facts and figures… and instructions for dancing.”
Aziraphale reaches out and catches Crowley’s left hand in his right, captures it, brings it to his mouth properly, as he should have done all those years ago, and presses a kiss quietly into his skin, so quiet that only the planets spinning above in their endless orbit might hear.
“And you - you could sing me anything.”
In the half-light, he can see Crowley’s profile, watches his eyes fall shut behind his glasses, watches the bob in his throat as he swallows, watches the shudder in his spine as the sensation of Aziraphale’s lips against his skin breaks across him, a wine-dark wave cresting in a sea of longing, an ocean of want. It spills over, soaking them at long last, and Crowley turns to him, eyes open, begging, pleading.
“Crowley,” Aziraphale breathes, and allows his tongue to caress the name in ways he’s only dreamed of.
“You would make a tame snake of me, and I would let you,” Crowley replies, under his breath, and tilts his face just so, and there are many things Aziraphale is prepared to do with this damned and lovely creature in public, but kissing him for the first time is not one of them. It cannot be, will never be, and Aziraphale needs to get both of them outside, alone, immediately, now. He hasn’t let go of Crowley’s hand, and raises it to his lips again, and snaps the fingers on the other, and they’re spun fast and just far enough away.
The night air hits Aziraphale, so cold and clear that it would have taken his breath had he any left to spare. They steady themselves against each other, and Aziraphale watches Crowley’s gaze begin to travel upward towards the sky. Before he loses his nerve entirely, he reaches out and gently takes Crowley’s glasses off, tucks them into his jacket, and drinks in this moment, of Crowley bathed in infinite starlight, infinite possibilty.
Slow seconds pass before Aziraphale says, “Doubt thou that the stars are fire, doubt that the sun doth move, doubt that truth be a liar, but never doubt[4] -” but Crowley cuts him off.
“Haven’t, not for a single moment,” and he closes what small distance remains between them to claim Aziraphale’s mouth with his, presses him close as the dark sacred night presses against gathering dawn, and Aziraphale finds them forming a brand new horizon with each sigh from Crowley’s lips. Crowley breaks the kiss just long enough to to look up, and Aziraphale follows his gaze to see a celestial ceiling, light-splattered, glowing green and purple to the north, and Crowley says, “We could go, you know, if you wanted.”
“The only world I want to know is right here,” says Aziraphale firmly, and kisses him again.