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1925, somewhere in Oxford
“Angel? What on earth is that between your legs?”
Crowley had stepped out of his lodgings and turned at the sound of a metallic bell chirruping at him from down the lane, only to see Aziraphale coming towards him on a bicycle, of all things. They’d become all the rage in Oxford, particularly since women had been allowed to study at the College a few years earlier.
Crowley found them a menace – faster and quieter than carriages, he had more than once stepped off a pavement only to be nearly knocked down by four or five young women speeding along on their two-wheeled contraptions, front baskets full of books, capes jauntily flapping behind them.
Aziraphale came to a halt in front of Crowley now, slightly out of breath. “I beg your…? oh, this! Isn’t she a beauty.” The angel beamed and swung his leg over to stand next to Crowley. “My new velocipede. It looked so much fun I decided to procure one for myself. Have you tried? It’s far easier on the buttocks than a horse.”
“Nah. I’m going to skip this invention and wait for the automobile. They’re going to be all the rage in a couple of years.”
Aziraphale pulled a face, Crowley was reminded of the first time he’d been persuaded to try whiskey. “Those awful motorised things? Far too fast for me. This is much safer. And you get to enjoy the fresh air! It’s quite invigorating.” He patted the brown leather seat, and the cream-painted bicycle seemed to lean into his touch. Crowley felt a moment of empathy – possibly envy – and cleared his throat.
“So why are you here anyway? Just to show off your new toy? You know I have a busy day of… wiles. You know. For you to thwart.”
“Wiles?” Aziraphale lifted an eyebrow. “The only wiles I’ve seen since you’ve been in town, is you whiling away afternoons down by the river.”
“Been watching have you?” Crowley teased, crossing his arms as he leant against his doorframe. It was true, of course. Since the Great War, things had been quiet Downstairs. Too many new admissions, Crowley supposed, keeping everyone busy and forgetting that he was still loafing about top-side. He thought the same was happening for his friend, who similarly seemed at leisure.
“Well,” Aziraphale huffed defensively, “it’s my job. Checking to see if you need.. thwarting.” He brightened again as an idea came to him. “Why don’t you hop on? You can sit sideways, here you see?” he put his hand on the cross bar. “I’ll do all the pedalling.”
Crowley opened his mouth the say he wouldn’t be getting on a bicycle, not even at gunpoint, when his brain made a helpful calculation regarding where he would have to sit, in relation to the angel’s seat and the handle-bars.
“Yep. Yep ok.”
“Oh! Oh really?” Aziraphale looked absurdly pleased and Crowley felt guilty, for a moment, that perhaps his friend hadn’t realised Crowley would be to all extents and purposes sitting in his lap. “Sure.” He said gruffly. “Show me what all the fuss is about. Those penny-farthings looked ridiculous.”
“Oh yes, I never bothered with those. This model was called the bone shaker,” Crowley raised an eyebrow, suddenly rethinking his spontaneous agreement to get on the thing, but Aziraphale added quickly, “But I’ve had the latest pneumatic tyres installed for a smoother ride.” Aziraphale lifted his hands like a magician revealing his trick as he said pneumatic tyres, and the bicycle obediently stayed upright.
“Right then,” Crowley took a breath. “You get on, then I’ll work out how to, um,” he gestured at the cross bar.
Aziraphale put his leg over the bicycle and settled on the seat proudly, before looking at Crowley expectantly.
Right. Crowley eyed the cross bar. Now or never.
Ten minutes later Crowley found himself perched sideways on a juddering bar of metal, frantically trying to keep his too-long limbs from catching a pedal, or a wheel, that flew beneath him, or his shoes from dragging on the cobbled road, while Aziraphale wove along Cornmarket.
The angel sat upright, glowing with enjoyment as he watched the smart shops go by, his curls bouncing with the gentle breeze of forward motion, humming brightly to himself and smiling at everyone they passed.
“Isn’t this lovely, Crowley!” he declared with a grin. “So invigorating!”
Crowley had resisted grabbing the beige-clad forearm in front of him for the first 50 yards of their journey. But a sudden right-turn had left him with little choice than to reach out and steady himself for fear he would be thrown forward and onto the road. Now he could feel the heat coming from the angel through the layers of linen, even as he tried not to grasp too tightly.
He cursed this unsteady contraption for providing the excuse, but not allowing him to fully enjoy, this stolen moment of closeness.
Aziraphale turned left towards the river, and Crowley squawked as he was suddenly pitched backwards.
“You’re going to discorporate me!”
“Don’t be silly, you’re perfectly safe. Oh look! There’s that new shop. The “Wool Worth”. Have you been in?”
Crowley didn’t look. And didn’t bother correcting Aziraphale that it was Woolworths, because a sturdy, warm arm was now pressed against his lower back, keeping him steady on his precarious perch.
He focused on the tune Aziraphale had been humming since they’d set off, in a last-ditch attempt not to lean into the accidental embrace.
“What are you humming, Angel? I don’t recognise it.”
“Oh! It’s a music-hall song. Very modern. You perhaps haven’t heard of it.”
Crowley flattered himself with having been at the cutting edge of most human inventions and cultural trends for the last few centuries, at least. He’d popped over the water recently to see the Ford factory, and stayed to listen to the new Jazz coming from the States. But he didn’t know this tune.
“How modern?” he asked suspiciously. This was the angel who had only just dropped the “newfangled” epithet every time he mentioned Beethoven.
“Oh! I saw it performed in London in 1892! I may even buy the phonograph.” He added saucily, as if he were doing something very modern and very daring.
Crowley opened his mouth to tease, or possible argue. But then shut it. Fair enough. A thirty-year-old song was very modern for the angel. And Crowley realised he hadn’t thought about his imminent discorporation, tangled in the wheels of a speeding velocipede, or the fact he was caged between Aziraphale’s arms on either side of the handlebars, for almost 15 seconds.
“Will you sing for me?” he asked now.
Aziraphale had a beautiful voice. Pitch perfect. They all did - celestial harmonies and all that. But Aziraphale’s had gotten throatier and more indulgent with his time on earth, getting better with every century, which was usually how often Crowley had the opportunity to hear it.
“Oh, alright then,” Aziraphale looked sweetly pleased to be asked and Crowley’s mouth quirked in response.
Daisy, Daisy,
Give me your answer, do!
I'm half crazy,
All for the love of you!
It won't be a stylish marriage,
I can't afford a carriage,
But you'll look sweet upon the seat
Of a bicycle built for two!
“Bicycle built for two, eh? Now there’s an idea.” Crowley lifted his hand. “Do you mind, Angel? I know this is your new bi—velocipede.”
Aziraphale, clearly in a light and carefree mood thanks to the brisk cycle in beautiful weather, said, “Of course, my dear. I’ll change it back later.”
One upwards snap and the bicycle became a tandem – or, Crowley knew from current parlance – the “courting bike”.
It was no longer brown and cream, but all black. The cross-bar now lengthened and formed a black leather seat, and he stretched his legs to place them on a new set of peddles and leant forward to grasp the polished silver handlebars. “Alright back there, Angel?” he called over his shoulder to the seat behind him.
“Oh! Tickety boo!” Aziraphale chirped back, and Crowley could hear the smile in his voice. “Shall we while by the river for a spell?”
Crowley looked down into the ox-blood wicker basked, now attached to the handlebars in front of him, where a bottle of red, a wedge of cheese and a handful of grapes had miraculously appeared at the same time as the bicycle received its make-over.
“That sounds just the thing, Angel. This cycling business is thirsty work.”
100 years later, somewhere in the South Downs
Crowley slipped out of the cottage and into the spring sunshine as soon as he was sure Aziraphale was sufficiently absorbed in the wedding scene in Jane Eyre, a biscuit suspended from his fingers on route to his mouth as he sat in his favourite chair.
He popped his sunglasses on slunk across their daisy-dotted front lawn, round to the garage. The Bentley sat inside, pristine and expectant.
“Sorry old thing,” he placed a hand on the gleaming black bonnet. “Angel and I will be going out for dinner later, you’ll get a stretch then. Right now I have plans for her.” He nodded his head towards another black, gleaming machine, sitting tucked and hidden behind the lawn mower.
One hand on the handlebars, Crowley pushed the bicycle up to the front door of the cottage, its wheels clicking gently. He rang the front door bell, and listened with a fond smile to the sounds coming from inside.
“Crowley! Crowley my dear, there’s someone at the door…. Crowley?! Oh for…” a kerfuffle, soft footsteps, then, “Hang on a tick I’m just com… Crowley? Why on earth are you—” Aziraphale paused in the open doorway, his eyes settling on the bicycle.
“Hello Angel. Do you like my new velocipede? ”
“They call them bicycles these days you know,” Aziraphale murmured, smiling down at the black frame, the pewter handlebars. “Where did you get it?”
“Bought it a while ago, been waiting for the weather to turn so we could take her out.”
Aziraphale’s eyes lifted in surprise. “We? It’s only built for one, my dear.”
Crowley grinned, swung his leg over and steadied himself on the seat. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten how it’s done.” He patted the cross-bar for good measure. “Come on, Daisy.”
Aziraphale caught the reference immediately, of course. They had discovered, during these quiet years together in the cottage, that Aziraphale had stored away every stolen moment they’d enjoyed over the millennia – hoarded those gilded memories just like Crowley had. Their day by the Thames in Oxford, cycling back to their separate lodgings tipsily singing Daisy Bell on the tandem bicycle, was one they both recalled with much affection.
“Oh!” Aziraphale lifted his hand, gave his fingers a wiggle. “So did you want me to..?” he nodded down at the cross-bar.
“Absolutely not,” Crowley declared. “Anathema’s bike was never the same after you fiddled with it. Come on, up you get.”
Aziraphale folded his hands across his stomach, raised one eyebrow. Crowley grinned. That was the angel’s challenge accepted eyebrow. He reached back into the hallway, pulled on his faun jacket and cream coat from the hook by the door. “I know it’s sunny my dear, but it’s still rather fresh out.” he explained as he turned back to Crowley, still sitting astride the bicycle. Crowley’s mouth softened at Aziraphale’s continued fondness for human habits. “Right then, let’s see what all the fuss was about shall we?”
Crowley rolled his eyes then, ready to defend himself – he’d been on a bone-rattler on the cobbled streets of Oxford after all, this would be as smooth as butter in comparison! – but Aziraphale chose that moment to lift himself lightly onto the cross bar, one thigh brushing across Crowley’s knees. Crowley immediately took hold of the handle-bars, caging the angel securely between his arms, his chest pressing against Aziraphale’s shoulder. All snarky comments about the last time they’d done this flew from his head.
He swallowed. “R-Right then Angel. Ready for an adventure?”
Aziraphale smiled back at him, eyes sparkling, hair shining. They were very close.
“Always, my dear.” And with that, Crowley pushed off down the front path, onto the lane towards the village, bordered with spring daisies.
Aziraphale leant back onto Crowley’s arm, and began to hum Daisy Bell.