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It's funny, really, but Aziraphale doesn't realize he's stopped worrying about the possibility of Heaven and Hell coming after them again until the day it finally happens.
They're in Crowley's flat, about to part for a few hours after a lovely, lazy morning together -- chocolate croissants in bed, so delightfully decadent -- because Aziraphale has books patiently waiting to be cataloged, and he's learned from unpleasant experience that it's probably better for all concerned if he gives Crowley some privacy while he does his "gardening."
They pause in front of the door as Crowley gives him a small, soft kiss goodbye, a gesture familiar enough now to feel casual, even ordinary, but not quite familiar enough yet that the very ordinariness of it doesn't still give Aziraphale a little thrill of wonder.
Crowley obviously senses the change in the atmosphere first. His body tenses, his warm, expressive lips suddenly growing stiff and still, his fingers tightening on Aziraphale's shoulders where, a moment ago, they rested light and easy.
Aziraphale starts to make some sound of protest or concern, but it dies on his lips as he suddenly feels it, too, a heavy presence in the air, like a storm about to break. A cloying set of mingled metaphysical odors: rot and sulfur, and flowers dipped in antiseptic.
"You see?" says Gabriel, standing behind them now. "There. You see?"
Beside him, the Lord of the Flies emits a disdainful buzzing grunt.
Crowley turns away from him, dropping his hands from Aziraphale's shoulders and swiveling to face the intruders. But Aziraphale can't bear the loss of contact with him, not now. Blindly, he reaches out to find Crowley's hand already reaching back. Their fingers interlace, and the frantic beating of Aziraphale's heart slows, just a little.
"Gabriel," he says, only a little unevenly. "To what do I owe..."
He stops. He closes his eyes for a moment, and opens them again. Our side, he reminds himself, the words a talisman in his mind. He knows where his loyalties and his obligations lie now, doesn't he, and Gabriel is no part of them, not anymore. He holds Crowley's hand, and straightens, and looks the archangel directly in the eye. "No," he says. "No. You are not welcome here."
"Yeah," says Crowley. "You're really, really not." His voice is low, dangerous, confident, even though his hand is clutching Aziraphale's as if he's desperately afraid to let go. Aziraphale is so very proud of him. "Lord Beelzebub," he continues, twisting the sound of the title from respect into mockery. "Have you forgotten what happened to the last demon who came after me in my home?"
They should have replaced the holy water. They really should have.
"We know how you did it," says Beelzebub.
"Not Ligur," Gabriel clarifies. "Nobody cares about him." Aziraphale glances at Beelzebub, but she shows no sign of disagreeing. "Your little trick," Gabriel continues, "with the hellfire and the holy water? You must have thought we wouldn't figure it out, but, I gotta say, the answer is pretty damn obvious."
Crowley has gone very, very still.
"Obvious," Beelzebub says, "and dizzguzzting."
"Ugh, I know." Gabriel makes a sour, revolted face and gives a theatrical little shudder. "Aziraphale, I knew you had some weird tastes, but letting a demon inside you? I mean, that's just... ick!" Beelzebub gives him a look that would probably kill a human, but he ignores her.
And all Aziraphale can think is, but we had theater tickets for tonight.
They were supposed to have a lovely evening. And a lovely night, and a lovely morning, and... Well, perhaps not a lovely rest of eternity, perhaps that might have been too much to ask for, but they should at least have had more than this. It's been two years, only two, and they still have over six thousand to make up for.
Crowley lets out a long, hissing sigh.
Aziraphale waits. Crowley will come up with something, surely. Clever, brilliant Crowley, with his clever, brilliant serpent's tongue. He'll know what to say. Surely.
But all he says is, "I'm sorry, angel."
Aziraphale grips Crowley's hand, holding it more fiercely than he ever held his flaming sword, and Crowley turns to face him again. There is no white left in his eyes. Aziraphale finds them terribly beautiful, and terribly sad. "Don't you dare be sorry," he says. Embarrassingly, there is moisture in his own eyes. He blinks it away. "Don't you dare." He has more to say, so much more, about how much these last two years have meant to him, about how glad he is that they're together now, whatever might happen next.
But Gabriel interrupts them. "Yeah, so, here's the thing. We're going to need a demonstration."
Aziraphale blinks. Crowley blinks. Impossibly, they turn their attention away from each other and focus on Gabriel.
"A... demonstration?" Crowley's voice is less a hiss now and more of a croak.
"Trust me," Gabriel says, "I know it's weird." He blows out his cheeks in an expression of exaggerated embarrassment. "And, believe me, I have no desire to watch you two..." He makes an impatient circling gesture with one hand, as if he can't quite remember the phrase and is waiting for an assistant to jump in and supply it.
"Having zzzex," says Beelzebub.
"Yeah, that. Trust me, I am not looking forward to watching that. But we do need to see how it works. So. If you could just... You know."
Aziraphale feels a strange, surreal detachment, as if he's somehow stepped sideways into some other, far less comprehensible reality. "I'm sorry," he says, "did you just say...?"
Crowley squeezes his hand, hard, and with clear communicative intent.
"Oh," says Aziraphale. "Oh, yes. Yes. Sex. Yes, of course. You want to watch us... watch us having sex. Because that's how we did it. Of... of course."
"Ha!" Gabriel slaps his knee. "I knew I was right, obviously, but it's good to hear you actually admit it."
"Wait," says Beelzebub. "You were right? I'm the one who zzzzaid--"
"Still taking credit for other people's work, I see," says Aziraphale, interrupting. "Well, I suppose it's good to know that some things never change."
"Aziraphale, I have no idea what you're talking about. Can we please just do this? You two just... go do whatever it is you do, so we can see how you do it, and then we'll get out of your hair. Okay?"
"Or else what?" says Crowley.
"Excuzze me?" says Beelzebub, with an expression Aziraphale can only describe as a sort of amused sneer. Or possibly a sneering amusement?
"You heard me." Crowley shifts beside him, his posture taking on a familiar attitude of slouching defiance. "Or else... what? What are you going to do if we refuse? Offer me another nice relaxing bath? Give Aziraphale the chance to spit fire at you again? Because, believe me, that was a lot of fun the first time." Aziraphale gives his hand a squeeze, this time. "Or so I hear," he adds. Perhaps a little too hastily, but Aziraphale thinks he pulled it off.
"Oh, well," says Gabriel, "I've had a few thoughts about that."
"You have?" Beelzebub mutters.
Gabriel ignores her. "See, we came up with a little theory. One you pretty well confirmed when we popped in here to find you sucking each other's faces off."
"Oh, really now," says Aziraphale. He may still have some of that sense of floating unreality, but he's quite sure they were not "sucking each other's faces off." Perhaps if they'd come by last night...
"So we know you've been... been..."
"Having zzzzex," says Beelzebub again.
"Mating," says Gabriel. "And not just with those stupid human bodies we issued you with. Right?"
"Actually," says Aziraphale, latching on to the only part of this statement he understands, "You didn't issue me with this one. The Antichrist did."
"Whatever, Aziraphale. The body isn't important." Gabriel rolls his eyes upward, as if asking God to grant him the gift of patience. If only the Almighty were taking his calls, Aziraphale could suggest several much more apposite gifts for Her to bestow upon him. "What's important is that while you've been doing whatever weird, disgusting human things it is you two do with your bodies, you've also been mating your celestial essences, haven't you? And leaving little pieces of each other behind. That's how you did it! Just enough demon in you--" He points at Aziraphale. "--to survive the hellfire, and just enough angel in you--" He points at Crowley. "--to not dissolve in the bath."
Aziraphale blinks. Is that... is that even possible? As far as he's aware, he and Crowley have never left anything inside each other during sex but seminal fluid, a fair amount of lubricant, and, on one memorably embarrassing occasion, a sex toy that required the use of a miracle to extract.
He gives Crowley a quick, questioning look, and sees only confusion looking back at him. Confusion Crowley quickly covers up. "Yeah. Yeah, you got us. That's how we did it. It was fucking. We did it with fucking. You two should go and try it. Might improve your dispositions."
Both the archangel and the Prince of Hell visibly flinch. Aziraphale actually finds himself laughing, a short, sharp, not quite entirely hysterical sound.
"Go ahead and laugh, traitorzzz," says Beelzebub. "But conzzider thizzz. If there izzz just a zzmall amount of each of you inzzide the other, it may be that enough hellfire--"
"Or holy water," adds Gabriel.
"Yezzz, thank you, or enough holy water--"
"Applied over a long enough period of time," says Gabriel, "well, it might just finally burn those little pieces away." He makes a gesture, as if brushing dissolving fragments of their souls from his clean, white hands.
Aziraphale hates him. He's not sure he ever quite realized that before. He truly, genuinely hates him. It's a strangely liberating realization.
"And we have a long period of time," says Beelzebub. "We have eternity, if nezzezzary."
"So, that's plan B," says Gabriel. "Plan A is, you show us how it works, and we go away and see what we can do with that knowledge."
"By fucking each other," says Crowley. Beelzebub glares at him.
"I really, really hope there's a better way to do it," says Gabriel. "But if we go with Plan A, that's our problem, and your only problem is figuring out how to live with your disgusting, perverted selves afterward."
"Oi!" says Crowley.
"So, it's that," says Gabriel, "or it's Plan B, where we haul you guys back out of here and see if maybe a few centuries might be enough to burn--"
"Or dizzzzolve," says Beelzebub.
"Burn -- or dissolve -- the metaphysical contaminants out of you. It's your choice." He spreads his arms in a manner Aziraphale would think of as "beseeching" if only it weren't so hideously smug.
"It won't work," says Crowley.
"Well, then" says Gabriel, "you can save us all a lot of wasted time and frustration by giving us what we want so we don't have to try it."
"That won't work, either," says Crowley. "Trust me, you're not going to see anything."
"Crowley." Aziraphale takes a deep breath.
Crowley looks at him. "What?" I'm trying to talk our way out of this, angel, his expression says. It also says he's not doing a very good job of it, and is trying not to admit it to himself.
Aziraphale swallows. "I think we should just... do it."
"What, in front of them?" Crowley looks appalled. "Angel..."
"Crowley." I won't let them take you, won't let them destroy you, not if there is the faintest hope of preventing it. I won't sacrifice our future together just to... to what? To preserve our dignity? When have we ever been that dignified to begin with? And if we are perhaps about to die anyway, then I don't care who might be watching, I would never pass up the chance to make love to you one last time. He tries to put all that into his eyes, into his face. It is entirely possible that Crowley knows him well enough by now to read it there.
Out loud, he says, "It isn't as if we haven't done it before."
The look Crowley is giving him is agonizing. Gently, he touches the demon's face.
"They won't see anything," says Crowley. He sounds frightened. He sounds like there's a great deal else he'd like to say right now, too.
"Just because they might not be able to perceive, or... or understand it," Aziraphale replies, swallowing a little, "that doesn't mean it isn't real."
Slowly, Crowley nods. The look in his eyes says he hates this, hates everything about it. But he's done plenty of things he's hated before. He did work for Hell, after all.
And he won't hate it once they start. Aziraphale will make certain of it. If it is to be their last time together...
"Good!" says Gabriel. "Finally!"
"Fuck off, Gabe," says Crowley. "I'm not doing it for you."
Beelzebub's mouth opens.
"Or for you," Crowley says, before she has the chance to say anything. He hesitates, clearly trying to come up with something to add, something cutting and brilliant that will fully express his feelings about the situation. "Wanker," he manages, a bit unoriginally but with feeling.
"Well, I'm not doing it here on the floor," says Aziraphale, gathering his resolve. "Come to bed, darling, won't you?"
**
They undress each other slowly.
There is a voice in Crowley's head, a nervous, desperate, jangly thing that's whispering at him distractingly. Hurry up, it's saying. Hurry up, hurry up, get it over with. It's demanding that they get the unbearable, contemptuous weight of their ex-bosses' eyes off of them, off of Aziraphale, off this naked, vulnerable, private thing the two of them do together, as soon as inhumanly possible.
He doesn't listen to it, listens instead to the other one, the one that sounds like Aziraphale, saying if this is our last time together, if we never get to see each other again...
He can't let that voice go any further. So he gives in to it. He takes his time.
A third voice, one that, if he's honest about it, sounds a little bit unhinged, pipes up as he leans in to kiss Aziraphale. What do these idiots know about human sex, that voice is saying, never mind sex between angels and demons? Probably don't even know how long it's supposed to last. Maybe if we go slower, slower, infinitely slow. We could make it last, make it never stop. Wouldn't be a terrible way to spend the rest of eternity, would it?
But, even with all of Aziraphale's stupid layers, they're already running out of clothes.
Fuck.
"Go on," says Aziraphale quietly. "It's all right, Crowley." He caresses Crowley's chin and gives him a smile so soft and so brave and so Aziraphale that he has to close his eyes against it for a moment.
"Okay," he says, and his voice mostly manages not to crack on the word. "Okay. Yeah." He takes hold of the waist of Aziraphale's underwear, his ridiculous, old-fashioned, deeply stupid underwear.
Crowley loves that underwear. Loves it so much. He can't quite seem to work his fingers when it's time to let it go.
So Aziraphale does it for him, gently pries his fingers from the garment, and lets it fall around his ankles. He steps out of it, primly, carefully, the way he always does, and now they're naked. In front of... them. Which shouldn't be so blessed awful. These bodies were naked when they got them. Heaven, these wankers probably had to inspect and approve them beforehand. It shouldn't bother him like this.
It seems not to be bothering Aziraphale. The angel is already half-hard. He usually is, by this point in the proceedings, but like this? Knowing who's in the room with them? Crowley can't help but love the sight of Aziraphale, the feel of him, even now, but he's never been more flaccid in his life.
Oh, Satan. Is he even going to be able to perform at all? Having to use a miracle for this would be one humiliation too many.
Aziraphale leans forward, kisses his neck, trails warm, familiar lips up to rest against his ear. "It's all right," he whispers. "It's still us, Crowley. Never mind what they want." The angel presses against him, warm and soft and solid. "Know that I want you. Even like this."
And, oh, that does it, does something, does what they need it to do. A wave of love and arousal and need washes over Crowley. He wraps his arms around Aziraphale, pulls them together, as hard as he can, as close, as if they could do what those idiots think they've done this way and melt themselves together until they can never be fully separated again and live.
"That's it," says Aziraphale, as Crowley groans, involuntarily, and rubs his rapidly hardening cock against the angel's thigh. "My darling, yes, that's right."
"For Zzzatan's zzake," says a voice behind them, "how long are they going to keep doing thizzz?"
"I have no idea," says Gabriel. "Really, is this part even necessary? Can't you just get to the... the..."
Despite himself, not wanting to, Crowley raises his face from Aziraphale's shoulder and looks over at them. Gabriel is making some sort of vaguely rude gesture.
"What even izz thizz?" says Beelzeub. "All thizzz zzzoftness. This, this..." Beelzebub makes a face, as if she's just eaten something horrible. Beelzebub, who he has seen as a swarm of flies dining on dung. "Ugh," she finishes, apparently unable to come up with a word strong enough to capture her disgust.
"I know, right?" says Gabriel. "I guess this kind of mockery of true, divine Love is what you have to make do with when you turn your back on Heaven." He clicks his tongue. "It's sad, really."
"Oh, truzzzt me," Beelzebub says, "we don't go in for that zzort of thing in Hell, either. It's zzzo.... pathetic. Zzzzo weak."
Well. So much for Crowley's erection.
Aziraphale turns to face them, and Crowley thinks for a moment he's going to pull away.
But he doesn't. His skin is still warm against Crowley's where their bodies are pressed together. His arm circles Crowley's waist, his fingers splayed out to cradle the bony curve of Crowley's hip.
His face... his face is blazing. There is so much holy radiance in his eyes that for a moment Crowley almost flinches away. But Aziraphale holds him close, holds him tight, and he is fine. He feels safe, which is ridiculous. But true.
"That," Aziraphale says, in the voice he uses to tell people that his first edition of Nostradamus is Not For Sale, "is quite enough."
Gabriel and Beelzebub actually go silent, their faces wrinkling up in shock. Crowley's guessing they've never heard his angel take that tone before. Possibly they've never heard anyone take that tone before, not to them.
"Enough," Aziraphale repeats. "It isn't weak, it isn't pathetic, and it certainly isn't disgusting! It's love. An expression of love. A human expression, yes. But has it never occurred to you, never once, that the humans might understand something you don't? That perhaps the Almighty created them, and created this world, because what already existed wasn't... wasn't complete? Because, you know, I don't believe it was. That we were."
"Now, look, sunshine" Gabriel begins, but Aziraphale cuts him off, and, oh, Crowley has never loved him more than he does in this moment.
"No. You look. I really must insist! What Crowley and I are doing, what we do together, is human, yes. It's human, and Earthly, and it's beautiful. Do you want to know why we chose Earth, and chose each other, over Heaven and Hell? Why we risked our lives to preserve this beautiful, precious, ridiculous world? This is why. Because Earth is the place -- the only place, it seems -- where one can have true love and pleasure and... and freedom, and good. Not righteousness, and not the evil that demons substitute for it and pretend is their good, either, but real goodness. This, this... coming together and loving each other, after everything, after you both tried so hard to keep us from even understanding that such a thing was possible. This is better, more loving, more--" With the arm not currently curled around Crowley, he gestures at them, sharp and accusing. "--more truly godly than anything you, Gabriel, have ever managed in your entire, miserable existence and more justifiably rebellious, Lord Beelzebub, than you have ever been in yours."
Crowley finds himself not even breathing. He doesn't think Gabriel and Beelzebub are, either.
"You wanted us to demonstrate," says Aziraphale. "Well. Consider this a demonstration. You look at what Crowley and I have, both of you, you look at it and you see it, because it's what the Almighty made the world for, and I hope, I genuinely, truly pray that one day you will finally understand that for yourselves."
There is a moment of stunned silence. Then, "Wow," says Gabriel. "Just, wow. That was quite a speech." He's trying to sound belittling, trying to sound in control, but he's not doing a very good job of it. He's rattled. Crowley's angel, his beautiful, badass angel, has rattled him. Crowley smirks. It's the first time he's felt up to smirking since these two arseholes showed up in his flat, and, oh, but it feels good.
Beelzebub gives them a weary look, and it crosses Crowley's mind to wonder, just for a moment, how much of the content of Aziraphale's speech was new to her and how much she, unlike Gabriel, might actually have some idea of what it is she's missing. "Can we juzzt get on with it, pleazze?" she says.
Aziraphale, looks at Crowley, gently questioning.
"Oh, heaven, yes," Crowley says, heartfelt and breathy. "Stop talking to these two idiots and take me, angel. Right fucking now."
Aziraphale laughs, all that blazing holiness melting into fond, smiling softness, just for him, and kisses him. "Let's show them how it's done, then," he says.
**
It feels different this time.
Well, of course it does. Usually when he makes love to Crowley, there isn't an archangel and a Prince of Hell watching them do it. But it isn't that, not really. Not even if part of him, just for a moment, is very tempted to put on a show for them, to make it a dazzling spectacle of passion that they'll never forget
It isn't the residual thrill of fear and triumph and the very human adrenaline surge that he feels after finally standing up to his boss -- his former boss -- like that, either, although that certainly does add a bit of spice to things.
In truth, once they're in the bed together, his hands on Crowley's skin, his lips on Crowley's lips, their limbs entwined, the fact of their audience's presence seems to fade into insignificance. He doesn't care about them. They don't matter, not the way that Crowley does, the way having Crowley in his arms matters.
Their threat still does, of course, the knowledge that this could be the last time he'll slide his hand slowly up Crowley's thigh, the last time he'll hear that little hissing pleasure-gasp he's only just begun to get used to but but knows he'll never tire of, not if they live through this to meet the end of time together.
But that isn't it, either.
Or maybe it is. Maybe that is the reason why he feels so... so focused in such a strange new way. Why he feels more conscious than ever not only of their physical bodies and their emotional selves, but of their ethereal forms, as well. Why, when he kisses his way down Crowley's neck, down the pale, red-dusted planes of his stomach, he is so deeply aware, this time, of the serpent beneath the skin, why he imagines he can taste starlight and sulfur as well as the salty tang of human sweat, and feel beneath his tongue the textured sleekness of immaterial scales.
He becomes aware, as Crowley clutches at his back and grinds against him, of the feel of his wings. He hasn't manifested them. They never do, not for this. Not after a few awkward but entertaining attempts made it quite clear to them that human sex was not something that was ever meant to happen with two pairs of wings in the way. But he can feel them, anyway, in the place where they always exist, one step removed from Earthly reality.
He can feel Crowley's wings, too, brushing his, feather against feather, feel them mantling around him, enveloping him as his own physical form envelops Crowley's, as Crowley's arms encircle him, fingers digging into the muscles of his back.
That's never happened before.
Distantly, he can hear Gabriel saying something snide, can hear Beelzebub answering disdainfully, but he doesn't listen to what they're saying, he doesn't care, because his body is entering Crowley's now, that familiar, shocking-sweet intimacy, and Crowley is... Crowley is...
Crowley is coming into him somehow, in some fashion he doesn't quite understand, and he can feel... Oh, he can feel Crowley, feel the surprise and the triumph and the bliss of what he's doing, the bliss, the bliss, and they're one, they're one, and this is possible, of course it's possible, how did they not know this was possible, is knowing all it really takes?, and they are inside each other, all of Crowley in all of him, all of him in all of Crowley, and it feels like being created, like that moment when God made him, and like sex, and like like Crowley Crowley Crowley and like bliss, like bliss, like bliss...
**
Crowley comes back to himself slowly. He feels dazed, and except for Aziraphale -- still atop him, still inside him -- everything feels slightly unreal, the way it feels, for a moment, when he's shoved back into his body after discorporating.
Actually, maybe that sort of happened? He isn't at all sure. For what was easily the single most memorable experience of his life to date, the details are surprisingly hazy, a complicated blur of love and lust and Aziraphale, and something else, something really profound that he doesn't quite seem to have any words for.
Does he feel... Does he feel different? He does, he's positive of it. Completely, utterly, eternally different, and yet... And yet not. Like whatever just happened is something that started happening so long ago that he's already perfectly used to it. Like it's the sort of change that isn't a change at all. Like getting the paperwork done to get something you already know as a fact declared to be officially true.
Speaking of people who demand you file unnecessary paperwork...
He lifts his head a little, careful not to disturb the angel currently nuzzling in a vague, disorientated fashion at his neck, and looks over at their audience.
Fucking Heaven, even if they do die after this -- and somehow, he doesn't think they're going to -- it might almost seem worth it for the looks on those idiots' faces. He laughs, softly at first, then raggedly, joyfully, entirely unable to stop, as Beelzebub and Gabriel's faces shift from stunned shock, to confusion, to dismay, to anger, to shock again, in a fascinating, hilarious cycle. He could watch it all day.
Aziraphale looks over, too, and makes an adorable little "hmph" sound. Slowly, he slides out of Crowley with that stupid squelchy noise that always makes them laugh. Although since Crowley's already laughing, it just ends up making him stop, instead. Aziraphale rolls off of him, and instantly cuddles right back up against him.
He looks exactly like Crowley feels. And he feels... Well, he feels like Aziraphale in post-coital snuggle mode, which is an excellent version of Aziraphale indeed, but there's something else, too, in the feel of his body against Crowley's, in the solidity of his presence at Crowley's side. A sort of rightness, a new kind of rightness, layered in on top of all the ways it's already felt right.
"Darling," Aziraphale says. His voice is hesitant, and he pauses afterward to wet his lips, but the way he says it, the way he says that word, it's so fucking soft, and Crowley loves it. He's allowed to love it, and there isn't a blessed thing those two tossers standing there in his bedroom can do about it, and isn't that just the best thing in the history of Creation? "What..." Aziraphale begins again. "That is, do you know exactly what we...?"
But Gabriel is interrupting. Satan, but Crowley wants that guy out of his flat. Out of their lives. Right now. "You saw that, right? I'm not going crazy here? What am I saying. Of course I'm not, I'm an archangel, that's impossible. But you saw that, right?"
"I zzzzzzzzaw," says Beelzebub, putting a lot more "z"s into the word than usual.
"Okay, well, see," says Gabriel, "now I'm just confused. Because that." He thrusts a finger vaguely in their direction. "Is not what I expected. They probably just left tiny flecks of essence in each other, you said. Or temporary traces they'd have to periodically renew, you said. Easy enough to overcome either way, you said. But correct me if I'm wrong -- which I'm not -- but that--" He jabs his finger at them again. "-- looks very large, and very fucking permanent."
Huh, Crowley thinks, how about that. But what he says, somehow, is, "So, you admit it was all Beelzebub's idea?"
"Shut up, snake." says Gabriel. Crowley grins, and he feels Aziraphale's arm tighten around him.
"Make me," says Crowley. He feels dizzy. Giddy. And maybe he's jumping to conclusions, but... he doesn't think he's jumping to conclusions.
Or if he is, Aziraphale is jumping right there with him. "You can't, can you?" he says, his voice strong and silky against Crowley's ear. "We really are immune now, aren't we?"
"You... you weren't before," says Beelzebub. It's less a question an more a horrified realization. "You tricked uzzz?"
Aziraphale begins to laugh, big, happy belly laughs that ripple through Crowley where Aziraphale presses against him, making him shake with secondhand delight.
He grins, his biggest, snakiest grin. "Get out," he says, and no words have ever felt better in his mouth. Not even when he first told Aziraphale he loved him, because this time, at least, there isn't any mortifying stuttering.
"Now, look," says Gabriel.
"Get. Out," says Aziraphale. "Really, I do insist!"
"This angel is mine now," Crowley hisses. "Not yours."
"Quite," says Aziraphale. "And this is my demon. Not yours. That should be quite evident now, I think."
Beelzebub makes an intensely frustrated sound, one that starts with a gah and ends with an amount of buzzing he's genuinely kind of surprised she's capable of. It's almost impressive. Not as impressive as what they just did, but still. He's feeling generous.
Well. Almost generous. "And good luck re-creating that, guys," he says. "Maybe you'll have fun trying, but I gotta say, you really ought to pick better partners than each other."
"I do believe," says Aziraphale, "that it would be likely to take some time for them. That felt..." He looks at Crowley with infinite fondness. "Well. It felt like the culmination of six thousand years of intimacy, didn't it? I'm not at all certain it would have worked, otherwise."
He's right, Crowley realizes with a surprising lack of surprise. That is what it had felt like. He'd known how to reach out for Aziraphale like that because he'd known Aziraphale. Known what he was like inside well enough to reach in and touch...
He shakes his head before he can get too lost in the memories. Not that that doesn't sound like a really nice time. "Whatever," he says. "That's their problem now. Although they'll have a lot more problems if they don't get out. Seriously, go. Now. Last warning before we come after you with all that hellfire and holy water we're immune to." He says it completely matter-of-factly. Truth is, he's not even feeling angry at them anymore. Or gleefully nasty. Or even amused at how, for once, somebody else's plans have come back to bite them on the arse like this. He's just... done. Done with them, forever.
Gabriel opens his mouth as if to say something, but shuts it again when Beelzebub grips his arm, urgently and hard. They both look very, very frightened. Excellent. Maybe this time, they won't come back.
He gives them a little hiss, just for emphasis, just for show, but by the time the sound is finished flickering off his tongue, they're gone.
The room is suddenly very quiet.
Crowley rolls his body into Aziraphale's, circles his arms around him, buries his head in the angel's neck.
For a long moment they stay like that. Together. Only together.
"Crowley," Aziraphale says finally, slowly. "What we did... That is, what just happened..."
"Yeah," says Crowley, his lips against the warm, lovely skin of Aziraphale's neck. "Pretty sure we're kinda married now."
"Oh." Another quiet moment passes. It's a peaceful moment. He's not afraid of it. "Good," Aziraphale says, at last, and nuzzles his face into Crowley's hair. Crowley can feel him smiling, even though he's not entirely sure how.
After a pleasant interlude of mutual nuzzling, Aziraphale says, with amusing, exaggerated casualness, "So, is there any particular way you'd like to celebrate our unexpected metaphysical nuptials?"
"We could do that again." Crowley flicks his tongue against Aziraphale's neck, the way he likes, and is rewarded by a shivery little gasp. "Minus the audience? Doubt we'll leave anything new inside each other, but I wouldn't say no to recreating the experience."
"Already?" says Aziraphale. His voice is softly teasing and transcendently happy. "We have all of eternity, you know."
"We do," says Crowley. "We do." He flips Aziraphale over, covering the angel's wiggling, delighted body with his own. "We do," he says and kisses him.
"We do," Aziraphale breathes, caressing his cheek. "Oh, you're right. You're right. We should celebrate, shouldn't we?"
So they do. It is less surprising than the first time, but no less intimate, or blissful, or overwhelming.
It never is, not in an eternity of celebrations.