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“Oh my goodness! And who do we have here?”
The cat rubbed its cheek against Aziraphale’s hand as it stepped daintily through the petunias. Aziraphale fussed over the creature, delight crinkling the corners of his eyes.
“My, my, someone looks like she would appreciate a saucer of cream!”
“We are not acquiring a cat, angel,” groaned Crowley from his position on his knees nearby, as he pulled out a weed and chucked it in a bucket. The cat rolled onto its back and accepted Aziraphale’s eager belly rubs as if it begged to differ.
“Foolish demon,” chided Aziraphale fondly. “You know as well as I do that it is cats who acquire people. Or people-shaped beings.”
“Well then, we are not being acquired by a cat,” said Crowley firmly, and returned his attention to the flower beds. Their cottage had come with a well-kept mature garden, which Crowley was going to keep much of, but he was looking forward to making his own additions, a few interesting varieties which would do well in the South Downs soil.
“Look, she has the same colour eyes as you!”
Crowley growled quietly and rolled the eyes in question. Crowley didn’t need to wear dark glasses in their garden, which meant Aziraphale could see that, if he was looking.
“Such beautiful eyes, I rather think,” continued Aziraphale softly.
“Speaking of eyes, you’d better stop giving me that look.” Crowley waved his trowel irritably in Aziraphale’s direction
“What look? I’m not giving you a ‘look’.”
“That… puppy dog expression you do, with your big eyes and your little pout. You know.”
“Poppycock.”
“It’s playing dirty. You know I’d do anything for you when you do that face. You could launch a thousand ships with th–”
The cat temporarily forgotten, Aziraphale had crossed the distance between them and hauled a startled Crowley to his feet, grabbing him by the lapels and pressing their mouths together.
Crowley made a surprised noise into Aziraphale’s mouth but then a quick hand-cleaning miracle was done, and his hands found Aziraphale’s waist, while he kissed Aziraphale back.
This was a thing they did now, although it was taking Crowley a while to get used to it. Stupid really, since it was Crowley who started it, back on that terrible day in the bookshop. He wondered if that angry, desperate kiss was why Aziraphale seemed to think every romantic moment needed to involve seizing Crowley’s lapels and dragging him bodily into a clinch.
Perhaps he should explain that they didn’t have to do that every time.
But – not just yet. There was something to be said for being on the receiving end of Aziraphale’s overenthusiastic snogging. The angel had walked him backwards and was pressing him up against the wall of the cottage, his tongue in Crowley’s mouth, one hand gripping his shirt as if he was about to rip it off, and Crowley couldn’t be happier. In return, he slipped his fingers through Aziraphale’s curls, partly to rejoice in their softness, and partly to hold him in place, to keep Aziraphale’s mouth on his.
Crowley would eagerly surrender to being smitten, in all senses of the word, by Aziraphale.
Aziraphale’s soft moan into his mouth made his heart pound in his ears and made desire coil low in his belly; responses that were to be expected for a human corporation in this situation. Perhaps the two of them might eventually do something about these sensations the way humans did. They hadn’t tried it so far, and there was no particular rush after all – it had taken them six thousand years to progress to kissing, and they could take as long again to go further if they wanted to. Or they might never go any further. It didn’t bother Crowley; whatever Aziraphale gave him of himself was enough, would satisfy him wholly, because it was Aziraphale.
Aziraphale sighed, a sweet, contented little noise, and drew back, and Crowley pulled him gently into an embrace, with the angel’s head resting on his shoulder. He tightened his arms around him for a moment, and couldn’t resist placing a kiss on his forehead.
Then Aziraphale stepped back and straightened his bowtie. His blush looked good on him.
Crowley returned to inspect the petunias, to make sure they were suitably petrified of their new master. A few minutes later, a cat flap manifested itself in the kitchen door with a rush of demonic energy.
There were words Crowley was intending to say to Aziraphale, sometime soon. But there was no hurry. And Crowley quite liked using their familiar, comfortable language too, the language that was as old as their friendship itself.
He could already imagine the beaming smile and the soft “Oh, Crowley!” when Aziraphale noticed the addition.
***
A small black cat with yellow eyes wandered at its leisure into the cottage, where it did indeed find a saucer of cream. And later on, an angel would treat a demon to a spot of lunch at the local pub. If today’s special mysteriously turned out to be filet mignon, to the surprise of the chef, nobody would remark on it. And Aziraphale, the sneaky bastard, would feign complete innocence. They would walk back home casually holding hands.
Even later, as the evening light turned the leaves of their apple tree gold and foxes began to wake in their dens, the two of them would sit and talk, lounging comfortably on their overstuffed sofa in a living room that doubled as a library. With a few bottles of wine for company and music on the gramophone, they would converse late into the night, toasting to the memory of old friends long gone, gossiping about new neighbours, arguing about Sondheim, and making plans for the garden.
Crowley would sleep for a few hours, for the sheer luxury of it, while a pyjama-clad Aziraphale sat in bed next to him, reading whatever bloody book he was in the middle of now. And in the morning Crowley would wake to find a fresh cup of tea on the bedside table, and a cat curled up on the chair.
And if he gave the cat a few scratches behind the ears, that was between him and the cat.