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Zira wasn’t sure when was the appropriate time to make such a bold move. It was only their fifth date, afterall. If these even were dates. He certainly hoped that they were, but there was still the whole issue of a kiss. Surely something so intimate was the litmus test in determining whether these outings were, in fact, a date. While somewhat guarded, Anthony seemed to be straightforward, eager to take charge in most instances, and even he hadn’t made that first move. Zira was losing confidence.
They’d spent a lovely afternoon perusing the Victoria and Albert Museum; the William Morris exhibit was one of Zira’s favorites. As he wandered around, smitten with the various textiles and wallpaper, he was taken aback when he caught Athony staring at him. Smirking. That wellworn mischievous smirk. Zira blushed wildly and returned the grin. Had there not been other people around, he might have done the deed right then and there. Instead, his anxiety got the better of him and he moved onto the next piece, all the while knowing Anthony was still watching him.
As the afternoon turned into early evening, they found themselves in St James’s Park. Usually, neither one particularly cared for it, given how many tourists flocked there. Today, however, as if by some miracle, the park was strangely quiet. They walked along the waterfront, chatting and laughing when suddenly, Anthony stopped, forcing Zira to do the same.
That same mischievous grin.
“Promise me you won’t think I’m weird,” he said.
Zira raised an eyebrow, “I don’t think I can promise that. You are, in fact, very strange. But go on.”
Anthony chuckled and reached for his black leather messenger bag, “There’s two things, actually. And the second one is far stranger than the first.”
He pulled out what seemed to be a large sheet of paper, meticulously wrapped in tissue paper – tissue paper that was covered in the V&A logo. Zira gasped.
“What…when did you…You went to the gift shop? When? We were together the whole time!”
“Or were we?” Anthony answered with a wink, “You ran to the toilet, remember.”
“I couldn’t have been gone for more than a few minutes.”
“I’m very fast.”
“Not that fast.”
“Zira, take the gift and say thank you!”
Both giggle and Zira obeyed. It was an A3 sized print. Lemons. William Morris.
“You seemed to really like that one,” Anthony explained.
Zira could feel the tears well in his eyes but even then, with this lovely gift – surely a testament to the date-ness of these excursions – he couldn’t bring himself to fully express everything inside. He blinked rapidly and averted his gaze, still endeavoring to appear friendly, not desperate.
“Thank you,” he sighed, his voice cracking slightly, “This is amazing. I love it. Thank you.”
He felt brave enough to try looking directly at Anthony, but if his goal was poise, that was decidedly the wrong move. He was immediately pulled into Anthony’s stare. Brown eyes. Technically brown. So light that they bordered on yellow. Zira felt himself slipping and he knew he was about to do something unbecoming, but Anthony’s orbital pull was too strong. He was moving closer and he couldn’t stop himself.
The weather had other plans, however. Abruptly, the skies opened up and a spattering of rain descended on the pair.
“The print!” Anthony called, opening his messenger bag, “Don’t want to get it wet.”
Before Zira could properly stash it, however, the rain picked up, turning from simple spitting into hard bullets. Anthony grabbed Zira’s hand and yanked him forward, towards a nearby collection of trees. Despite the chilly rain, the pair were laughing, cackling even.
“Gotta love that English weather,” Anthony said, opening his messenger bag again, “Here.”
Zira stepped forward and was about to slide the print inside when something caught his attention. Something in one of the front side pockets. Something wrapped in several plastic baggies. Condensation clung to the inner walls of each layer.
Pointing at the item, he asked, “What is that?”
“The second, far more strange item I wanted to show you.”
Anthony retrieved the thing and began unwrapping it. He held up a very soggy bag of frozen peas.
“Promise me you won’t think I’m weird.”
“Why do you have frozen peas?” Zira laughed.
“Well, I knew we would come walking in a park. I assumed Hyde Park. I, uh, I like feeding the ducks.”
Anthony became very serious then, “And you don’t feed them bread. Frozen peas. Sliced grapes. Sweetcorn. Never bread.”
And with that one sentence, any strength in Zira was gone. He promptly grabbed Anthony’s messenger bag, stuffing both his print and the peas inside, before placing it on the ground beside them.
He faced his opponent and declared, “Dr. Anthony Crowley, I am going to kiss you now.”
That mischievous grin returned and Anthony snickered, “It’s Dr. Anthony J. Crowley.”
Zira laughed, feeling almost faint. He moved in slowly, gently placing his hands on Anthony’s chest. Their faces were so close. Anthony’s cologne still lingered slightly, now peppered with the scent of rain. That mischievous grin. Those brown eyes, bordering on yellow. Zira stood on his tiptoes and delicately pressed their lips together.
For half a heartbeat, there was only them and the gentle caress of their lips finally touching – and then something else suddenly took over.
A spark. A bang. A cataclysmic event all wrapped up in one kiss. Both Anthony and Zira stepped backwards, holding their heads and wailing in pain. Something was opening up. The searing ache was so terrible that Zira thought he might be having an aneurysm. How long the booming pain lasted, neither one could say but it did eventually pass.
Glancing up at Zira, Anthony asked nervously, “Are you…are you alright? What happened? Was it a static shock or something?”
“I don’t know…” Zira answered weakly, “How could it be a static shock? We’re surrounded by water.”
Anthony rubbed his temples, “I don’t know. I’m not a scientist.”
Zira nearly laughed, “Except you are. You’re an astrophysicist."
Confusion took over Anthony and he needed several seconds to process that information.
“Right. Yeah. Forgot for a second.”
“You forgot that you were an astrophysicist?”
“For Satan’s sake, angel, you’re not helping!”
That made them both stop. Their eyes met.
“Zira, I’m…I’m so sorry,” Anthony begged, “I don’t know what came over me. I don’t know why I yelled.”
The yelling, somehow, felt normal. It was the nickname that threw Zira.
“What did you call me?”
Anthony went back to rubbing his temples, “Zira. I called you Zira.”
“No. You called me angel.”
Their eyes met again and Zira gasped, now fully noticing the change.
“Anthony, your eyes. They’re yellow.”
“I prefer to think of them as cognac brown.”
“No. They are definitely yellow.”
He moved closer. Something was pulling him, pushing him. Something old, long lost. But terribly familiar. Anthony’s eyes were, indeed, a deep warm yellow. The same in every other way, but the colour had no doubt changed. Zira reached forward and pulled his glasses from his face.
“What are you doing?”
“I don’t think you need these anymore.”
At first, Anthony wanted to protest but, to his amazement, the world did, in fact, look clearer now. Fifty years of astigmatism vanished with one bloody kiss. He was now truly panicking.
“Zira,” he cried, “I don’t know what it is, but I think something has happened. Maybe I’m having a stroke. Maybe there’s a gas in the air or something. You felt that, too, right? You felt that? That boom? That crack? Was it just me? Oh, fuck, am I going crazy?”
Zira reached for him, cradling his face.
“You’re not going crazy. You’re fine. I felt it, too. And, yes, I think something is happening.”
As confident as his words seemed, Zira was just as terrified. Still something pushed him forward, something called to him like distant birdsong. Trickles of rain were now bleeding through the canopy above.
He gazed into Anthony’s worried yellow eyes and begged, “Kiss me.”
Anthony shook his head, “I think once was enough, angel. Your kisses do things to me.”
“You did it again,” Zira whispered, “You called me angel.”
Anthony was speechless. The pragmatic side of him screamed for rationality, but some other part of him was screaming, too. Something dark and long lost. He couldn’t refuse. He bent low and kissed Zira again. Just as before, there was peace before the excruciating fissure.
Noise. Pain. Lightning. Thunder. Anthony instinctively wanted to break away, but Zira’s arms wrapped around him and would not let go.
White hot light blazed across their minds as eons of memories and promises filled them up. At first, it came in flickers, nothing more than embers flying off from a massive fire, but ever so slowly the glimmers of something formed images, tastes, smells, and feelings.
Zira thought his skull was being pulled apart but still he clung to Anthony.
A burst of stars.
A garden.
A snake.
A sword on fire.
Crepes.
Jane Austen.
The French revolution
Holy water.
1941.
The Great War of Heaven.
The Great War on Earth.
Jesus.
The flood.
The antichrist.
Nightingales.
Soho.
The flat.
Adam.
Magic tricks.
The gardener.
The nanny.
Nightingales.
Champagne.
The Ritz.
Ox ribs.
Sushi.
The Four Horsemen.
Shax.
Muriel.
The Bentley.
The Bentley!
Rats.
Angels.
Demons.
And, of course, nightingales.
Their minds all at once closed with a force so strong that it flung both of them backwards. They landed on their backs some six feet apart, and by the time they opened their eyes, the rain had let up. Their return to the present moment was slow, but soon enough, moaning and holding their heads, both of them sat up and stared around. And then they stared at each other.
Dirty blonde hair had evolved into white blonde hair. Likewise, ginger had turned to flaming red.
A random jogger passed the pair, shooting them an odd look but not stopping to ask if they were alright. Still, they stared at each other.
“You alright, angel?”
“Yes. I think so. You?”
“Yeah. I’m okay.”
They turned their attention back to the park. The trees. The benches. The ducks. It was all the same. It was home.
Neither one made the first move. They acted almost simultaneously; crawling towards one another and embracing. Hands found their way onto faces. Blue met yellow. No snakelike pupils but yellow all the same.
“We did it.”
“Yeah. Suppose we did.”
“And we’re safe.”
It was hardly a statement, more of a question. Were they?
Crowley placed hand on Aziraphale’s chest. His heart was racing. The scent of his aftershave was now mixed with the scent of rain. He grabbed a fistful of his beloved’s shirt and pulled him closer.
“Yeah. I think we’re safe now.”
He wanted to focus on Aziraphale. He wanted to see him properly and truly believe that this was all that mattered. But his anxiety was getting the better of him and Lorazepam was no match for this. Crowley snapped his fingers. Nothing happened. He tried to focus on Aziraphale as the words came spilling out of him.
“There’s, uh, still a lot to unpack. This is exciting and all that, but, uh, we both still do have human families. You have a sister! What are you going to tell her? I’m still a professor! What do I do for work? This is a lot to process. I was there but now I’m here and I don’t –”
Aziraphale silenced him with a kiss. And there was no pain. No more cracking. There was only the feeling of their mouths pressed together, each eagerly drinking the other one in. Suddenly, Aziraphale broke away.
“I love you,” Aziraphale whispered harshly, fearful that his chance might slip away again, “I should have said it a long time ago. I should have just said it. I know it was implied, but I need to say it. I need to say it outloud –”
Now it was Crowley’s turn. He threw himself at the once-angel, crawling into this lap, holding his face, and smothering him with another beautiful kiss.
“I love you,” he breathed, “I love you. I love you. I love you, Aziraphale.”
A cyclist then passed and rudely shouted, “Ugh! Get a room!”
“You shut your mouth!” Crowley roared, “I’ve been waiting a few billion years for this!”
Aziraphale tried to shush him but was giggling too much to be of any real use. He grabbed Crowley by the torso and fell backwards, pulling his beloved with him. The once-demon laid on top. Blue met yellow.
“I found you,” Aziraphale whispered, “I hoped that I would.”
“Technically, I found you. I came into your bookshop.”
“Yes and then you left. I went after you. I instigated it.”
“But it would have never happened if I hadn’t come into your bookshop. What’s more, you hoped that you’d find me. But I knew that I would find you.”
“You’d lost your memories just as I had! Furthermore, it’s not a competition!”
Crowley kissed him again. There would be very little talking for some time. Only kissing, laughter, longful stares, and the distant sound of a nightingale singing.