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It had been months since that terrible day at the bookshop, and a wedding reception was about the last place Crowley wanted to be. Especially the wedding reception of Beelzebub, his former boss, and Gabriel, the former boss of his… well… of Aziraphale. Even more especially when Gabriel and Beelzebub’s relationship was part of what sparked him to confess to his… to Aziraphale. They had exactly the relationship Crowley had wished for, but had been deprived of, and he hated them for that.
It was clear from the event itself that neither of the newlyweds particularly knew or cared how weddings worked. Clearly, a wedding had been someone else’s suggestion, and Crowley was determined to get revenge on whoever it was. The ceremony itself had been bizarre and nonsensical— Not to mention the guests, half of which were extraordinarily confused humans who Crowley wasn’t even certain that the couple had known prior to today, who were wandering around and vaguely wondering where they were and how they had gotten there.
Nobody made any speeches, because who would and what would they say? The music was similarly on-brand: an appalling mix of demonic screaming, Everyday by Buddy Holly played on repeat, and various songs from The Sound of Music soundtrack.
Gabriel and Beelzebub themselves were nowhere to be found. Crowley wasn’t all too surprised— he was used to both of them outsourcing things that they didn’t want to do to other people, without either of them having to lift a finger.
Crowley’s plan had been to stand in the corner, get wasted, and talk to nobody. Shouldn’t have been too unbearable, given that that’s basically what he’d been doing every day since the argument anyway. Just as he finished pouring what he intended to be the first of an obscene amount of drinks, though, he saw something he had absolutely not prepared for. Aziraphale, sitting at a table all by himself, staring rather solemnly at a drink of his own.
It only made sense that he would be in attendance, in retrospect. Crowley thought back to the list of people that Gabriel and Beelzebub might consider inviting to their wedding, and it was a short list. Crowley suspected Aziraphale was there for the same reason he was: the invitations had said that attendance was mandatory. It wasn’t like Gabriel or Beelzebub had much power anymore, now that they were no longer in charge of their respective head offices, but Crowley was pretty sure that neither he nor Aziraphale wanted to get on their bad sides. Both of them knew far too well what both of the newlyweds were capable of throughout past encounters with them to risk it.
Aziraphale looked uncomfortable, lonely, and not at all happy to be there. Made sense. Crowley suspected nobody in attendance really was, aside from the two who were getting married themselves.
It wasn’t like Crowley had been purposefully trying to figure out any information he could about Aziraphale since he’d left, or anything. But if information happened to come his way, then Crowley really had no other option than to pay attention to it. It was a perfectly normal thing to do, and it certainly wasn’t desperate. At least, that’s what he had told Muriel when they questioned him about it.
In any case, Crowley had heard enough second-hand gossip to know that Aziraphale had recently been replaced as supreme archangel. The information came as no great shock: Crowley always knew that Aziraphale didn’t fit in in Heaven. He suspected that deep down, Aziraphale had known it, too.
The fact that Aziraphale had managed to escape Heaven’s punishment when the supreme archangel position inevitably hadn’t worked out came as slightly more of a surprise to Crowley, though still wasn’t all too shocking. As much as it may have annoyed Crowley to admit, Aziraphale was clever. Not clever enough to fix Heaven’s broken system from the inside like the angel had clearly hoped, but clever enough to figure out a way to escape his own demise. Now, it seemed, he was in a similar position to the one he had been after the body swap. Heaven may not have liked him, but they were willing to leave him alone.
The thought of Aziraphale alone felt wrong somehow. Seeing him there, at that big empty table, Crowley couldn’t help but feel a little bad for him. He wondered what it might be like, to have been excited enough about a job to desert your oldest and closest friend for it. To have been excited enough to confidently run back to the cold, uncaring place that abused the both of you. To have it then blow up so miserably in your face.
As if on autopilot, and before he could think better of it, Crowley sauntered over to Aziraphale’s empty table. He brought his drink with him, and grabbed a piece of the very generic-looking cake on the way, just so he could give it to Aziraphale when he got there. Even now, it didn’t feel right to approach the angel without some kind of offering or excuse.
Aziraphale didn’t say anything when Crowley sat down at the seat beside him, but he did perk up a bit, a surprised look on his face.
Crowley passed the piece of cake to Aziraphale, silently.
Aziraphale nodded in appreciation.
Crowley sneered in response.
“This doesn’t change anything, by the way,” said Crowley, quickly. “I still hate you. But there’s no other interesting person to talk to at this Satan-Forsaken event, and I’m bored out of my mind.”
“Did you just call me interesting to talk to? I’m flattered.”
“Shut up.” Then he sighed. “I knew this was a mistake. I’m going over there.”
“No, wait—“ said Aziraphale, reaching out for Crowley’s hand. “Stay. Please.”
Crowley yanked his hand away from Aziraphale’s as though it was made of holy water. “Why should I?”
“I don’t want things to go on like this forever. I feel there are some things that I need to say about what happened between us.”
Crowley grabbed the napkin that had been sitting on the table, and balled it up in his hand. “Alright, sure. You want to talk about the way things went down? How about we start with how you somehow expected me to return to the place that damned me, and the place that tried to destroy you forever, then acted like it was my fault for refusing?” The emotions were all coming back to Crowley now, and suddenly, he felt like he was back in the bookshop, watching Aziraphale’s grinning face as he delivered the worst offer Crowley had ever received.
Aziraphale swallowed hard. “That’s… that’s what I’ve been meaning to say. I truly apologize for everything. The longer I stayed up there, the more I regretted what I said to you. I was focusing on how happy you had been when I met you, and not thinking about… everything else. It was misguided, but I thought that taking on the position would make you happy and safe.”
“No you didn’t. You thought it would make me back into the person you wanted me to be. Somebody you thought was worthy of your love.” Crowley’s fingers were turning white around the balled up napkin now.
“Crowley. You… you are. Worthy of my love, I mean. Frankly, I’m not certain that I’m worthy of yours.”
“And you call me a liar,” snarled Crowley. “I was beginning to believe that, before. You actually had me convinced that you cared about me, that you finally saw Heaven for the twats they were. I thought we could be like…” he gestured around the wedding, clench on the napkin even tighter now.
“…Like these two. I was willing to give up everything to be with you, and you ran off to Heaven at the next available opportunity they gave you. Do you even know what it was like? Do you have any idea what they’ve put me through? What they’ve put us through?”
This is when the napkin burst into flames. Crowley’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, and he snapped his fingers to extinguish the fire. They both stared at the napkin’s charred remains.
“Goodness! Did you mean to do that?”
“Yes,” lied Crowley. “I was proving a point.”
“What point?”
“The napkin is me. That’s what they did to me.”
Aziraphale looked at Crowley as though he had just said something tragic and profound rather than a lame excuse to cover for the fact that he had just accidentally set a napkin on fire.
“I’m not sure if it will make a difference to you, but that’s a large part of why I accepted the position. I understood the flaws in Heaven, and I thought I could fix it. I wanted to make it into what it should have been all along. I believed I could make Heaven better for you, not the other way around.”
“Oh yeah? And how’d that work out for you? Make a lot of positive changes up there, Mr. Mighty Supreme Archangel?” It was cruel, Crowley knew. That should have been a good thing— it should have made him feel smug and proud. He was a demon, after all. And he was talking to the person who he was supposed to be furious at, wasn’t he? But seeing Aziraphale’s forlorn face, seeing the hurt in his eyes, made Crowley want to apologize and reassure the angel, to make a lighthearted joke to ease the tension, to go and get him another piece of cake. All of the things he would have done before. All of the things that he had sworn he would never allow himself to do again.
“No. Certainly not,” said Aziraphale, a sad smile on his face. Suddenly, Crowley felt as though he was about to cry, and that was decidedly not good. Demons didn’t cry. Especially not in response to upsetting the being who had broken their hearts. Although demons didn’t technically have hearts, either, so maybe this whole imaginary scenario was irrelevant.
Aziraphale took a sip of his drink, then fidgeted with the glass. “I… I wouldn’t blame you if you don’t want to talk to me again. You don’t have to. It is rather nice to sit by you again, if that counts for anything. In silence or otherwise.”
“Do demons have hearts?”
Aziraphale, who was used to Crowley’s conversational non-sequiturs at this point, and was honestly just glad he was still willing to talk to him, said, “physical hearts? I would assume not.”
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Probably for the best— if we did, I’d probably have gotten a heart attack ages ago from all the stress over the years.”
“Oh, most certainly. We both would have discorporated hundreds of times over by now.”
Crowley shuddered. “Imagine the paperwork.”
“Arguably worse than an eternity in Heaven. And I’ve learned recently that that’s saying quite a lot. Do you know what they call food there? Gross matter. Can you believe that?”
“Really? That’s worse than calling rock music bebop.”
“If you’re referring to that monarch music of yours, it is bebop.”
“Queen,” corrected Crowley.
“Precisely what I said. And I still fail to understand what’s so intriguing about biting dust that they decided to devote an entire song to it.”
Crowley couldn’t help it: he laughed.
It was the first time Aziraphale had seen Crowley smile since before their argument. He was grateful to see him happy again, even though he may not have exactly understood what it was that Crowley found so funny.
“Satan, I’ve missed talking with you, you know that?” Crowley said, and his whole body relaxed when he did, as though the words themselves had been a struggle to hold onto, and now that he had finally said them aloud, he was free.
Aziraphale looked surprised. He wasn’t expecting that.
“I mean it. I’d gotten so used to calling you up whenever I’ve got something to say. Had no idea how much I relied on it, until it wasn’t an option anymore, and suddenly, I was going on hour-long monologues to my plants and detailing all of my problems to that human from the coffee shop. If I’ve learned one thing from our time apart, it’s that humans aren’t nearly as fun to get drunk with as you are. They never go for spontaneous swims in public fountains, for one.”
Suddenly, Aziraphale’s cheeks went as red as Crowley’s hair. “You— you had promised to never bring that incident up again!”
“I’m a demon. I lied.”
“Well, for the record, I didn’t ‘go for a swim’, I tripped and fell. With how dark it was out, how was I expected to know there was a fountain there? Given the circumstances, it was a perfectly natural mistake. Really, it was the fault of whoever designed the park and decided to put that enormous fountain there in the middle of the walkway.”
Crowley smirked. “So the two bottles of wine you drank prior to that had nothing to do with it?”
Aziraphale grinned a little, despite himself. “Well… I didn’t say that.”
There was that smile again, the one that Aziraphale had begun to fear he wouldn’t get to see for the rest of time.
“I’ve missed talking with you, too,” said Aziraphale. “Nobody to talk to in Heaven, just—“
“Celestial harmonies?”
Aziraphale gave him a pointed look.
“…sorry. Go on.”
“It’s dreadfully lonely up there. The longer I was up there, the more I worried about you, and how you might be faring, and the worse I felt about my actions.”
“You were worried about me?”
“How could I not be? I had said some terrible things to you, that day I left.”
Crowley winced a little in memory. “Yeah, you really did.”
Aziraphale fidgeted with the glass again, looking down at it with pain in his eyes. “I truly am sorry about that. I was caught off-guard, and I… I spoke without thinking. It wasn’t fair to you, and I recognize that. And I do mean what I said earlier— about wanting to make Heaven better for you, rather than the other way around. You’re just perfect the way you are, Crowley. I sincerely apologize for not making that clear.”
That’s when Crowley grinned a little. “I want a proper apology.”
Aziraphale blinked in disbelief. “Really, Crowley…”
“With the little dance,” continued Crowley, putting on his best Aziraphale voice.
Aziraphale sighed, gritted his teeth, and prepared to dance.
Aziraphale’s rendition of the apology dance was even more polished than Crowley’s had been when he had done it the last time. To be fair to Crowley, though, Aziraphale had significantly more opportunities to practice it over the years.
“I’d say that was even better than the one you did in ‘41,” said Crowley, when he was done.
“Does this mean you forgive me?” Asked Aziraphale, a flash of relief crossing his face.
“Nah, it’s gonna take a whole lot longer than that. This isn’t just a little spat over crepes or something. Probably gonna keep bringing this up for centuries, if I’m honest. It’ll be a great way to guilt you into doing favors for me, if nothing else.”
“I won’t blame you if you do. I’m just grateful that you don’t hate me anymore.” Then he paused, a worried expression on his face. “Am I correct in assuming that? That you don’t hate me anymore, I mean?”
Crowley made a noise of disbelief. “Don’t tell me you ever actually believed that. I couldn’t hate you if I tried… and trust me, I tried. When I saw that you were going to cry earlier, I was about five seconds away from getting up to grab you another piece of cake.”
“Oh, good,” said Aziraphale, letting out a relieved sigh. “And I’m glad you didn’t get me more of that cake. I didn’t want to be rude earlier, but it truly tastes terrible.”
“Yeah, well, it’s provided by Gabriel and Beelzebub. What did you expect? There’s no way they’re actually going to eat any of it— gross matter and all, like you said. I feel like the only reason they have it is because they think it’s what a wedding is supposed to have.” Then Crowley tilted his head in consideration. “I wonder what sort of imbecile gave them the idea to have one in the first place.”
“Well…” said Aziraphale, a little guiltily.
“Don’t tell me it was you! Why?”
“Gabriel asked me what humans generally did to celebrate their love for one another. I didn’t want to lie. Besides, I didn’t imagine they would ever actually go through with it.”
Crowley groaned. “You could’ve just told him about snogging.”
Aziraphale straightened up, appalled. “That’s certainly not what he meant.” Then, feeling that it was about as good of a segue as any, Aziraphale said cautiously, “…speaking of which, I feel there’s something else that we need to address.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well. I feel like we should address the, um. When you kissed me.”
Crowley tensed up at the mention of what he had hoped he’d get lucky enough to never have to discuss. “Right. Yeah. That.”
“Did you— did you mean to do it?”
“No, I tripped and my mouth fell directly on top of your mouth.”
“Really?”
Crowley narrowed his eyes beneath his glasses. “No! Of course not! You don’t grab somebody by the collar and kiss them for fifteen seconds straight on accident.”
“Oh.”
“What, did you really hate it that much?”
“No! Certainly not! I rather thought… well… I understand how terribly it went down the last time we tried it. I thought you would perhaps be interested in a do-over.” Aziraphale took another sip of his drink, averting eye contact. “That is to say, would you be at all displeased if I were to try it again?”
“Alright, if I heard that right, and let me point out that you’re not making that easy… are you asking if you can kiss me?”
“Well… if that’s alright with you, of course. I understand if you aren’t interested, what with the way that I reacted last time. I wouldn’t want to push you into anything you’re uncomfortable with. In fact, I wouldn’t blame you if you never wanted to do it again, ever.”
“What a miserable thought that is.”
“Am I to take that as a yes?“
“For the love of—“ sputtered Crowley, “how much bloody confirmation do you need? By the time this conversation is done, every human at this party will have gotten old and died, and—”
Crowley didn’t get to finish the rest of the sentence.
It was the second time either of them had kissed anyone in their six thousand years of existence, not to mention how terribly things had worked out the first time they had tried. It was awkward, and inexperienced, and neither of them had any idea where they were supposed to put their hands.
None of this really mattered, though. They were finally doing what they had both longed to do for millennia. It was sweet, and loving, and all of the things the previous kiss had not been.
Neither of them had wanted to pull away, so for a good while, they didn’t. It wasn’t like either of them needed to stop and catch their breath, since neither of them technically needed to breathe in the first place. It only felt natural for Aziraphale to scoot onto Crowley’s lap, and for Crowley to reach for the buttons on Aziraphale’s waistcoat and begin to undo them. He was on the third button down when he felt it snap off between his fingers, falling off of the shirt and onto the tablecloth next to them.
Crowley looked at it a little guiltily, suddenly feeling the need to defend himself.
“Okay, I know I set fire to a napkin earlier, and all, but I can almost guarantee that that wasn’t my fault.”
Aziraphale looked at the missing button, clearly more than a little annoyed, but admitted, “this waistcoat’s over a century old. It was bound to fall apart at some point.”
“I don’t get why you don’t just miracle clothes on like I do. You wouldn’t have to worry about them getting all old and worn out like that. Plus, easier to take them off that way, too, if you catch my drift.”
It was around this point that Aziraphale realized that the wedding of their former bosses was decidedly not the ideal place for a make out session.
“I truly abhor having to point this out, but I don’t really believe we should be doing this here.”
Crowley looked around both of them suddenly becoming aware of their surroundings again.
“Yeah. Probably not,” Crowley conceded. Then he grinned. “Hey, since Mr. And Mx. Insufferable over there don’t seem to notice or care that we’re here, how would you feel about miracling out of here and continuing this back to your bookshop?”
“I’d like nothing better,” said Aziraphale, eyeing Crowley up and down in a way that Crowley suddenly realized he’d seen the angel do dozens of times before, and kind of made Crowley wonder just how long Aziraphale had wanted this. Maybe even for as long as Crowley himself had.
“Great,” said Crowley. Then he paused, suddenly remembering something that was probably important to point out before they got there. “Before we go, I should probably warn you that Muriel’s made a few changes to the place.”
That’s all it took for Aziraphale’s expression to shift from enamored to extremely concerned. “Oh no. What did they do? Please don’t tell me they reorganized the layout at all.”
“Well…”
Aziraphale buried his head in his hands.
“It’s not that bad!” Said Crowley, then he cringed a little. “Well, it could be worse. They didn’t sell anything. Not anything important, anyway.”
“Okay, we are going back there immediately. I need to sort this out.”
“Wait, but—“ sputtered Crowley, “what about the kissing? And the—“
“There’s an infinite amount of time for all of that. Right now, I need to sort out my books.”
“Glad to see your time in Heaven hasn’t changed you.”
“What was that?”
“Nothing, angel. Let’s go.”
Several hours had passed at the reception, and all of the remaining guests had decided to leave, or found themselves miraculously back home, wondering where they had just been, but unable to remember any specific details.
Gabriel and Beelezebub decided this was a perfect time to make an appearance– that way, they didn’t have to bother with talking to anyone.
The pair strolled through the cleared-out room, looking around. The tables were all empty, aside from one particular table, where they found two half-finished drinks, a barely eaten slice of cake, a single button, and an incredibly charred napkin.
“What in Heaven’s name happened over here?” Asked Gabriel.
Beelzebub looked unsurprised. “Aziraphale and Crowley, almost certainly.”
“Ah. That would explain it.”
“Why did you want to invite them so much, anyway?”
“They really helped me out back when I was Jim. Besides, Aziraphale informed me that that’s what you do at a wedding. You invite acquaintances who aren’t particularly fond of you, but still feel pressured to come anyway, out of obligation. Isn’t that fun? That’s the main reason I wanted to have this celebration in the first place.”
Beelzebub looked at their husband, a wicked grin on their face. “Downright demonic, darling.”
“I’ve learned from the best.”