Work Text:
Now
Crowley’s hands trembled as he fixed his buttonhole. A gardenia. Secret love, unspoken love… After the ceremony, he would take it off and crush it under his heel, because those thousands of years of secrets were over.
He barely felt that so so much happiness should be possible. The black fear still lurked that this was a trick, a trap. Every time he had reached out too greedily, happiness had been snatched away. Happiness was a fragile, precious thing, not to be grasped at or it would crumble away. The Fall would be looming, Hell would be plotting, the serpent would be cast out of the Garden and away from the angel of the Western gate, Heaven would tug on Aziraphale’s lead. Crowley had to close his eyes and rest his forehead against the cool glass of the mirror for a moment, to remind himself that this was real, he was in an ordinary hotel—the Signature Suite, neither he nor Aziraphale would settle for less—getting ready for his wedding.
Aziraphale had said he didn’t want to make too much of a fuss. In Crowley’s opinion that could mean anything he wanted anything from a few whispered words alone to a demon grimly hobbling up the aisle of a cathedral in crutches, as a full symphony orchestra played and the pews were draped enough flowers to make a Dutch horticulturist weep tears of joy.
Crowley was prepared for anything. He would get married on the bare surface of the moon, if it was to Aziraphale. As far as he was concerned, they were married already. But when Aziraphale confessed a desire to be married at Gretna Green, Crowley had to tilt his head back to prevent any sign of undemonic sentimentality escaping.
Each of them had helped couples take the long and dangerous trip there in the name of their duties. Sometimes it had even been the same couples, which had led to lively and booze-ridden debates there. Crowley remembered fondly drinking over a merry old gentleman who had gleefully arrived dressed in lady’s clothes to evade his children and marry the stout housekeeper who had warmed his later years.
Of course, a lot of it had been awful, really. The blacksmith sat Gretna Green had seen all too many girls too young to know their own minds being signed up to heartless adventurers who loved only their inheritance. A lot of misery and tragedy had been made by the anvil. Humans always mixed the bad in with the good. But there had been enough couples who had braved their families and the very real chance of death or maiming on the long dangerous road, their white-faced determination blazing into ruddy joy as they realised this was it, they were wed and no one could separate them. They had defied everything to become no longer two people, but an inseparable us.
Crowley had always got very drunk afterwards, and not allowed his thoughts to take solid form, even if he ended up maudlin and staring into his drink while he realised he was alone, no matter how much he tried to convince himself there was an us.
Knowing Aziraphale had felt the same…
He swallowed and opened the dressing room door, and saw his husband-to-be standing before the bedroom mirror, radiant in beige and blue and even more radiant pink on his cheeks as he turned.
“Oh, Crowley. We’re really, truly getting married.”
Crowley strode forward and clasped him tight, heedless of their buttonholes, and they clung together, tight enough that no one and nothing could separate them.
***
A Year Ago
It was a beautiful early Spring day in Tadfield. It usually was at this time of year, full of budding blossoms and hopping birds and determinedly happy primroses. It was as if someone very powerful had done a school project on ‘Seasonal Poems’ and had thought all those trailing periwinkles and bouncing lambs were a pretty terrific idea.
It was an especially beautiful early Spring day to two figures who had lived through more early Spring Days they could count, and were now standing closer together than they had in a long while, living through this day that should not, according to Heaven’s plans, exist.
The Supreme Archangel (recently abdicated from his duties) and a minor Duke of Hell (not once having been caught doing his duties in the full decade he had reluctantly held the title) watched Adam Young running around a field with his stepdaughter on his shoulders. The little girl squealed and hammered her tiny brown bare feet on his chest and giggled. And there was nothing particularly holy or unholy about the scene at all. Warlock sat nearby, tapping on his laptop. The world of theoretical mathematics does not wait on one’s husband playing a giraffe steed for one’s daughter, especially if one doesn’t quite understand why one’s husband insists on calling your toddler Aunty Jane.
Jane. That had been Aziraphale’s doing. A good, plain, simple, and above all human name. God is gracious, it meant. Names shaped things, Aziraphale insisted, so you might as well name the child for what you hoped. An ordinary human Christ and a gracious God. Crowley had scoffed, because look how Warlock had turned out, but…
“He always preferred to be called the Son of Man,” said the demon. His mind went back to heat and dust and the sickening organic smell of blood and sweat, the cries of torture and sorrow in the air, and Aziraphale somehow looking like a cool pitcher of pure water in the scene’s awfulness. Despite Crowley’s anger and grief and pity and guilt, he’d felt like if he could drown himself in Aziraphale’s presence, he would feel clean and cool again.
They wouldn’t let anything like that happen this time around, he silently told Jane. She showed no sign of hearing. She was giggling so dizzily that Crowley, with his nanny experience, predicted she was about to anoint Adam’s curls with vomit.
“Somewhat sexist, I always thought,” said the angel. “But you’re right. Humanity is the trick. Look how Adam turned out. The dear boy looks like his father, don’t you think?”
“No,” Crowley said.
“I don’t mean now, naturally. Before.” The light caught on Adam’s dark blond curls, lighting them up like a halo, little brown hands clenched in it. “Don’t you remember him in the old days? You knew him better than me, of course, working with him in galaxies and… and… the other stuff. Lucifer was the most beautiful of angels, they always said.”
“Not by my reckoning,” Crowley said, without looking at Aziraphale in case his meaning was too obvious. He felt like untold things were always on the verge of slipping out. Ten years of separation, and somehow he had got out of the habit of guarding his tongue. At least the dark glasses shielded his eyes.
Some small bird was welcoming in the Spring, but he couldn’t make out its shape.
“Jane’ll be all right now, I think. Her Dads’ll have their hands full with her, though. Nice lad the first time around, but he was too clever by far and not much for following rules. Dangerous combination.”
“I’m sure she’ll be worth it,” Aziraphale said comfortably. “A useful person to have around the house when she gets older,”
“Especially if you need a table fixed or a few nails banged in. Stroke of genius of yours, placing the Christ child with Warlock,” he added generously.
Aziraphale preened. Crowley could tell without moving his head towards him; certain images were ingrained on the eye of the soul, and how prissy and irritating and just plain irresistible Aziraphale looked when he was complimented was one of them. The shining eyes, the briefly pursed lips, the delicate shading of pink on his cheeks. Crowley didn’t need to look to see some things for them to clench his heart.
“It seemed a good little thought. Warlock has had the benefit of our upbringing and education.”
Crowley raised an eyebrow. “Bang-up job we did of it, too.”
“At least he’s good at maths.” Aziraphale defensively clasped his hands over his rounded stomach.
There was a silence, then Aziraphale tittered while Crowley threw his head back and laughed as he hadn’t laughed for ten years, laughter that rose out of his chest and came out in barks of unrestrained happiness. He never in his existence laughed like that, without bitterness or irony, unless Aziraphale was near. He wondered if Aziraphale knew.
He realised how close they were standing. Of course, they had been close since Aziraphale’s return, sharing the Bentley and tables and first class plane tickets, but this was standing close by choice, as if some invisible barrier had been broken. Aziraphale looked tired; for all his corporation was ageless, Crowley could swear there were deeper crow’s feet giving humour and sadness to his eyes, new delicate lines like the grain of leather in the soft skin around his mouth. Crowley wanted to plant tiny kisses on them. He wanted…
He wanted to jerk his head away, as Aziraphale noticed the scrutiny and turned his own murky blue gaze to him, but Crowley had just helped save the world again. He could be brave.
They breathed the same air for a few moments. Neither of them had to breathe, technically, but they shared the same sharp green air, none the less.
Aziraphale wetted his lips with the tip of his tongue, eyelashes flickering away. “They laugh in Heaven now,” he said. It sounded like an apology. “Just the minor angels at first, but I caught even Uriel laughing the other day. It might be a small goal to have set, but it gave me something to focus on, and… Heaven needed laughter.”
Heaven needed Aziraphale, and didn’t appreciate him. The desolate, useless jealousy and thwarted longing surged up for a moment. Then Crowley pushed it away. Aziraphale was here now, with him, and had handed in his resignation the moment the Second Coming had been officially vetoed. He just had to focus on not scaring Aziraphale off with unwanted passion. Shouldn’t be a problem. He’d repressed it for millennia, until that damn fool from the coffee shop gave him hope.
“Peckish for lunch?” he asked instead, focusing on a goal that he might just have a hope of obtaining. Watching Aziraphale eat again… oh, that was an addiction that had been starved for a decade.
“Oh….” Aziraphale’s hands fluttered. They were standing close enough that his fingertips brushed the front of Crowley’s shirt, sending flickers of fire through him. “Do you know how long it has been since I had decent sushi? Haniel, dear thing, tried to bring me some, but she bought it from a Tesco Metro.”
There was such horror in his voice that Crowley laughed again, rejoicing in being able to. “I can get you to Oxford in ten minutes. Or Tokyo, but we’ll have to wait for a plane.”
“Do you know, now I think about it I’d rather ‘get take-away’” - he pronounced the expression with a quaint care that both annoyed Crowley and made furious affection blaze in his heart — “and eat at home. I’m rather tired. If you’ll take me, my dear.”
Crowley tried not to react too transparently to the first “my dear” he had heard since Aziraphale had returned to Earth, but he could hear the new brightness in his own tone. “Right, London—”
Aziraphale shook his head. His eyes were greener now, and twinkling like a Dickensian side character.
“I don’t mean Muriel’s bookshop.” He said that so easily, as if there was no pain associated with it, as if it hadn’t been crammed with everything he loved, as if its destruction hadn’t devastated him, as if he had been agonised at the thought of Crowley selling even one book. Muriel’s bookshop. Crowley felt, again, like he was spinning rudderless and without a compass. He reached out for Aziraphale’s hand. As their fingers linked and palms pressed together, he felt as if an anchor had dropped. Whatever else was going on, Aziraphale was here again on Earth, and showed no signs of leaving now they had saved the world. And was twinkling shyly at him. “I mean home.”
Crowley raised both eyebrows this time, questioning, and Aziraphale led him to the Bentley. Crowley intertwined their fingers, feeling like it was a promise, and said “Anywhere you want to go, I’ll take you.” He said it under his breath, as if it was a secret, although they both knew it wasn’t.
The piping of the bird followed them. 1
***
The Bentley purred down the A34 through the golden afternoon. Aziraphale sat quietly on the passenger seat, occasionally flexing his fingers where he could still feel the lingering warmth of Crowley’s hand linked with his. He wished he could reach out for Crowley’s hand now, but Crowley was just as likely to let him take it, and the demon’s driving was alarming enough as it is.
They didn’t talk much. Tired with the frantic last few days, he supposed.
They hadn’t talked at all about…. that.
Aziraphale told himself there hadn’t been a time or a place. He had only been able to get away from Heaven for sparse moments, and he’d needed help. There had never been any doubt of who he would go to for help.
Crowley had said it, hadn’t he? That Aziraphale could always rely on him, just like he could always rely on Aziraphale. That they were a team.
Right before he told Aziraphale not to bother and stormed out the door.
That had been it, really. Aziraphale had become, over the millennia — oh, even before that, before time itself — very good at avoiding what he didn’t want to think about. As a protective strategy, it had worked very well. He was almost sure it was one reason he had escaped being kicked out of Heaven during the great Fall. Don’t question, don’t focus on uncomfortable and painful things, don’t ask why your side commits so much cruelty, why suffering is allowed to happen, why the rules keep changing, why the best and most wonderful angel he knew had Fallen, and yet continued to be the same wild, beautiful, good person. Keep your nose clean, encourage the humans, and do good where you can.
Go along with Heaven just as far as you can, and don’t think about how loneliness. Or how the only times the loneliness receded were with an enemy agent with flaming red hair, a sharp tongue and a hot temper.
All the time in Heaven, his mind had wanted to slip away from certain things. Crowley, and all the things Aziraphale had, in his secret heart, dreamed of him saying, but not like that. He had dreamed of Crowley confessing with fierce joy, not with tear-filled eyes and despair-stumbling voice. That forced, heartsick kiss. Crowley’s accusing, pain-racked stare. No nightingales.
Aziraphale had read a story a century ago, and shuddered deliciously. A monkey’s paw. He should never have wished, selfishly and hopelessly, for Crowley to confess his feelings, to kiss him.
But some things didn’t change. He’d needed someone to rely on, and there was no one for him but Crowley. He had to risk the unthinkable risk that Crowley no longer meant it, that Aziraphale could no longer rely on him.
It hadn’t been a risk at all. Crowley hadn’t hesitated to help. And maybe he’d felt the same, because they had acted like that last painful encounter hadn’t occurred at all. No recriminations, no apologies, just the two of them, again, focused on saving their planet. As a team.
But Crowley had held his hand. Perhaps there was a chance for them… now.
Aziraphale had no trouble being brave in the face of destruction by Heaven or of Satan. He had defied them all with barely a tremble in his voice. But to show Crowley what lay at the end of this drive would take an entirely different kind of courage.
“Sure you don’t want to go out for dinner?” There was a wistfulness in Crowley’s voice. Perhaps… perhaps, even after everything, Crowley feared he would be said goodnight to at the front door.
“I thought we’d eat in. I have some champagne I’ve been saving for a celebration—1922, you know, such a well-balanced year.”
The tension at the corner of Crowley’s mouth softened, but he just snorted. “I prefer the years with more alcoholic vintages.”
“I suppose we will drink enough to make up for any deficit,” Aziraphale said airily.
The car slid on down the road, like a large mechanical snake.
“Turn off here, dear.”
“You know, I have a GPS on my phone,” Crowley said, as he took the turn. “You could just give me the address.”
Aziraphale tutted. “How would a phone know where home is?”
Crowley made the kind of groaning wail he made when he was trying to decide whether it was worth the aggravation of explaining something or not. Aziraphale clutched his own knee with joy. Oh, he had missed that sound.
They pulled closer in to where the sea was all salt and wind. A dear little village, not entirely turned over to bed and breakfasts and homestays. Then out along narrow lanes, and…
The Bentley pulled in through the hedges, and up the long drive to the pink-washed house, lit up with the setting sun, glowing and beautiful.
“It looks like just the kind of place you would live,” Crowley said. His voice was thick and indistinct. “Like a chocolate box.”
“That’s extremely rude.”
“You’ve let the self-seeding plants get completely out of hand. Are those granny’s bonnets? You would have granny’s bonnets. An old granny yourself.”
“So easy to care for. And you must remember, I’ve been… away.”
So close to the dangerous subject. Aziraphale closed his mouth.
“Those delphiniums are practically falling over.”
“I suppose they need to be tied to the stake and disciplined.”
“Whole garden needs some discipline.”
The unasked question hung between them. Would Aziraphale want Crowley to give them some discipline? Would he come, if he was asked? It hung heavy between them.
Aziraphale opened his door and stepped inside. “Come in. We need to talk.” He hung up his coat on a peg in the hall and ushered Crowley into the parlour.
The fire obediently flamed up as they entered. A gas fire; Aziraphale might be behind the times in many ways, but he knew his comforts, and he had lived long enough to detest the way smoke hung in the air. He could sense Crowley’s head snapping from side to side behind him, a serpent checking out and scenting his surroundings, looking for danger, scenting the air.
There was no danger for him here. Only overstuffed sofas and even more overstuffed bookshelves, deep armchairs and a really excellent cellar.
“How long have you had this place?”
“Since 2019.” Aziraphale’s voice shook a little at the confession. “I come here, sometimes. Even after I returned to Heaven, sometimes I could escape for a while. It was my bolt-hole.”
“So long as that? And you never told me?” Hurt and wariness. If there had sibilants, there might have been a hiss.
“I never quite got up the courage.” Aziraphale tried to compose himself. “This is my retirement place, if I were ever brave enough to retire.”
Crowley harrumphed. He hadn’t taken a seat; his shoulders were taut and uncertain, his movements even more serpent-like than usual.
“Darling,” Aziraphale said, and Crowley’s chin shot up. Even through the dark glasses, Aziraphale could sense his sclera flooded with gold and his eyes bulging, the pretence of humanity gone at the new endearment. “Darling Crowley, I…. Oh, please, go into the next room. I want you to see something.”
Crowley gave him a wild look, then strode across the room and pushed open the door.
The room beyond was sparse and almost empty. But there was a vast desk, dark and decorated only with a looping carving of a great snake. What had been the sleekest, most expensive and up-to-date laptop in 2020, which now Aziraphale came to think of it was probably less impressive in the 2030s. A severely black sound system.
An exquisite chessboard, set up with black and white pieces. A black silk rug softening the floor. A simple black sofa for napping. The only picture was a preparatory sketch by Lucas Cranac of one of his studies of the Fall of Man, framed on the wall.
Crowley stared at the picture as if it was the only thing that made sense. He cleared his throat. “Looks nothing like them. And I was never a piss-weak tiny snake like that. You saw me.”
“You were quite magnificent, darling.”
Every time he said the endearment, Crowley jumped as if he’d been shot by a paint pellet. Now he turned, pushing his glasses back on his head, his expression wild.
“This room. It’s for me.”
“Yes, Crowley. Waiting for you.”
“Since 2019.”
“Yes.”
“But—why? You never told me…”
“I didn’t dare. I didn’t really think I could ever show it to you.” Aziraphale’s eyes ached with tears. “Asking too much. We were still in danger, and… things never changed between us as much as I had hoped. I was happy, so happy, but… I didn’t think you would ever want to live with me, let alone out in the country.”
“I would have moved in like a shot!”
Aziraphale sniffled. “It was just a little dream I had. It helped, making a place where I could imagine being together one day. And then, after we weren’t speaking… I would slip away sometimes, and imagine I had escaped, and you had forgiven me…”
There were arms around him. Crowley had never held him, not ever. But Aziraphale’s form melted into the embrace as if it had been designed to do so.
“Always forgive you,” Crowley said roughly. “I understand, now. Why you had to. But I could never hold anything against you, not anything, not really. I get angry, but… Aziraphale…”
“I know you don’t want my forgiveness…”
“I think I do, this time. I…I’m sorry, I’m sorry I couldn’t go with you. That I was cruel. To be cruel to you, angel, of all people…”
“I’m sorry I asked when you couldn’t go. I’m sorry I made you think I wasn’t choosing you. I broke your heart, I think,” Aziraphale sniffled. “I certainly broke mine…”
“No, not broken, even if it felt like it. Wouldn’t hurt so much if it hadn’t been whole,” Crowley said into Aziraphale’s curls. His arms were so thin and strong around Aziraphale’s back. They were everything. “Is your heart…. Do you think you can…”
“I want to kiss you,” Aziraphale said, surprising them both. “A real first kiss.”
“Why? You didn’t want my kiss forced on you,” Crowley said, bitterness and guilt in his voice. Aziraphale wasn’t having that.
“Oh, Crowley. I wanted you to kiss me. Just… not then, not like that.”
“I’m sor—”
Aziraphale stopped his words with his lips.
At first it was nothing much. Pleasant, smooth. Not really something for poets to write about.
Then Crowley’s lips parted, and his did, he couldn’t tell which, and their lips lingered over and over again, until Aziraphale couldn’t tell if it was still the first kiss or the second or a hundred in, only that Crowley’s lips were sending fire through him feelings he had never experienced before, things he had read about and put down to human fancy. How wrong he had been.
The first brush of their tongues sent blood to his groin, and he gasped into Crowley’s mouth. How could that even work? There was no reason for their tongues against each other to make him hot and heavy and tight there. He wanted to share the new knowledge with Crowley, but speech would involve stopping kissing, so he pushed his hips against Crowley’s instead.
Crowley moaned into his mouth. Aziraphale had caused that. And oh, the new friction was maddening, headier than the strongest wine. Aziraphale pushed against the lean hip again, and felt Crowley hard against his own more padded hip, and oh, no wonder humans went mad for this, this was almost beyond bearing.
Crowley wrenched his mouth away. His cheeks were red, and his eyes glowing and oh, there was a trail of wetness on Crowley’s lower lip, whose mouth had it come from? The lack of certainty was intoxicating.
“Angel, you’re going to kill me.”
“I certainly hope not. I can’t do without you, Crowley.”
“Me—me neither.”
Last moment of courage. Maybe it didn’t need much courage at all. It would almost take more to hold it back.
“I love you, Crowley.”
Crowley’s response was crushed against the most passionate kiss yet, but Aziraphale could still make sense of the mumbles, pick out a muffled “love you—love you—so much—always.”
They made it to the couch somehow. They didn’t really discuss it, just the need to have nothing between them was so intense, the need to touch and exult.
“Never leave me again,” said Crowley, at a moment when they were tangled and wet with sweat and… other things… and oh so gloriously corporeal, so unlike Heaven, but Aziraphale’s own personal Heaven. He bit little hungry, possessive kisses down Aziraphale’s neck, and Aziraphale cried out, feeling that surely this would bring him to completion, but he was still hard and aching and wet.
“Never. Never. They can’t take me back, it was part of the agreement… I will never, never leave you. Don’t leave me, Crowley.”
Crowley’s hand came around him then, strong and just firm enough, pumping once, twice. “Never leave you. Marrying you.”
And then completion was there, exploding through him, and as further spasms followed by a light warm feeling that soaked into his soul, Aziraphale said, dreamily, “Well, there we are, then. I suppose there should be some kind of ceremony to make me your husband.”
He thought he heard birds bursting into song outside the cottage window, but he couldn’t be sure, because Crowley was spilling into Aziraphale’s own hand, and the groaned out words of love were more lovely than anything else could ever be.
***
The human 2 smiled at the couple standing by the anvil. Odd couple, really, one looking like a decayed rockstar and wearing sunglasses, of all things, and one like an odd professor off the stage. You saw all sorts in this job. You never knew who would turn up to this tourist trap for the romance of it.
But it was a good job — the best. His days were filled with people in love. And oh, these two really were in love. It was in the tremble of the skinny one in black’s mouth, the fierce light in the eyes of the plump one in beige. There was a sense of awe about them, as if they couldn’t quite believe they were here together, and they gripped each other’s hands tightly.
Dear old things. They had probably been together for a very long time.
Hugo Johnson began.
“Tying the knot is a tradition that stretches back to pagan days.”
Aziraphale didn’t need to be told that. He’d overseen so many forms of marriage. Often it had been about property and agreements or children, or just having someone to help scratch a living, but he had always blessed them, hoping the two people bound together would find a way to love, to partners, to always being there for each other.
What Aziraphale and Crowley had always had, even when they pretended not to.
“With this hands-fasting, you leave your own clans and create your own.”
That was what Crowley had always wanted, wasn’t it? Their own side. No Heaven or Hell. then. To finally know that was what Aziraphale had always, in his secret soul, wanted. Them. A group of the two of them… A couple.
Tilting his head back was not enough to stop the tears running down Crowley’s cheeks as the young human wrapped their hands in silk.
“This knot represents eternal love.”
It wasn’t just a matter of words for them.
Aziraphale had loved Crowley in Heaven, before time itself. He’d told himself he shouldn’t love him after the Fall and the War, but even if Crowley’s eyes had been a strange form and colour in Eden, it had still been that clever, rebellious, unexpectedly kind soul behind them, the same fierce joy in Creation that even damnation hadn’t been able to tarnish too deeply.
He would love Crowley past the end of all things. Which, hopefully, would be a very long way away.
Crowley was weeping. Dear boy, why? Aziraphale couldn’t stop smiling. His face ached with it, and he couldn’t stop, but he relished the pain. Let his happiness control his body, without restraint, without guilt.
“May you be given strength for your weaknesses, light for your blindness.”
Aziraphale’s hand was encircling Crowley’s, warm and supportive. Did Aziraphale know he had always been Crowley’s strength? Had he ever wondered why so many demons being degraded and animalistic and drowned in hatred, while Crowley had retained his true self?
He had never been truly able to fall into corruption while the world held the possibility of seeing Aziraphale’s radiant smile and the kindness in his eyes, and to know that, absurdly, that bright-eyed helpful angel still liked him, still found him worthy of smiles and conversation and company.
Liked him. Loved him. And Crowley’s own love had kept him his own. His, and Aziraphale’s. Was there really any difference when it came down to it?
“Love for your loneliness, joy for your anxiousness.”
Aziraphale had been so afraid of loneliness. So afraid of everything, of judgement, of being outcast, of harm coming to his other soul, but loneliness had been his deepest fear. He knew he was an odd duck. Awkward, never quite fitting in.
But he had never, ever, been truly lonely or alone. Even when quarrels had parted them, even if in the terrible time of his return to Heaven, some part of Aziraphale had always known there was a sympathetic soul in existence. No matter how he worried, Crowley would be there for him, in the end.
He hadn’t dared to acknowledge the thought, but he had known Crowley loved him, and that had been the deepest joy.
“Grace for all your needs.”
Crowley needed Aziraphale. That was all he had ever needed, in the end. The world was an awful, gorgeous, fascinating place, and it was a delight to have a companion with him to share it, but in the end, it was just Aziraphale. He’d sit on a rock in space for millions of years if he only had Aziraphale by his side.
“Now, this is where your promises begin. By entering a hands-fasting, will you respect, honour, be trustworthy, and do all within your power to bring happiness to one another?”
“I will.”
They had forgotten that they were supposed to wait for their individual questions, and their vows stumbled over each other as they rushed to promise happiness, Crowley’s sharp bark of laughter and Aziraphale’s titter mingled together, and they held their hands tight.
“Will you laugh with each other, and comfort each other at all times?”
The question echoed their laughter. After all, they had laughed together over millennia. Heaven did not laugh; Hell laughed only bitterly. But together, they had shared real laughter, amusement, fondness, aggravation, admiration, delight.
And as for comfort… Well. They had been each other’s true comfort since the beginning of the earth.
“We will,” they said this time, surrendering to the fact that they were going to answer together.
“Now, I would like you to let go of each other’s hands and step back a little, but keep your hands in the loops.”
There was a reluctance to let go of the anchor of each other’s grips, but after all, there was a certain sweetness in letting go when you knew your hands would be joined again soon.
They passed their hands over and under and pulled the knot tight. But hadn’t they always been knotted together? They had stood side by side and watched a star factory come into being, and something had been tied that could never come untied.
Hugo took the sash from them, and their hands found each other’s again.
“May your love be constant. Let the promises you have made today make you stronger, and let the memory of today live in your hearts forever. Now place your left hand on the anvil first please, sir.”
Aziraphale reluctantly let go, putting his hand on the cool iron.
“You cover his now, sir, because you must protect him.”
Crowley covered it willingly. Wouldn’t he always be there to look after Aziraphale? But Aziraphale’s right hand covered his as quickly, protecting in turn. Crowley laid his right hand over it, gently and lovingly, accepting the promise.
Always there to shield each other.
Hugo smiled at them as he wrapped the knotted sash around their wrists one more time and took up his hammer.
“For hundreds of years, lovers have joined their hands here at the anvil. I am so glad you are part of the tradition today. Congratulations.”
The ringing of the anvil was sharp and clear, but it was almost drowned out by a flurry of piping and gurgles and song from outside. The human didn’t hear them, but the newlywed beings did.
As Crowley pulled out the gardenia and crushed it underfoot, releasing its rich and heavy and above all earthly scent, and as Crowley and Aziraphale gathered each other up in their arms and brought their mouths together in a kiss, the nightingales sang and sang their blessing to the new husbands.
***
1. And the sound of the Messiah vomiting on the hair of the Antichrist and his following lamentations, while a human laughed heartlessly. It seemed fitting, somehow. [ ▲ ]
2. He came from Oxfordshire, originally, where he had been adopted out by some nice nuns, and had no idea his biological parents were American. He was a hefty young man, and his hair had always run to grease no matter what shampoo or vinegar treatments he tried. He had a nice young Scottish wife who shared his passion for tropical fish. [ ▲ ]