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It begins, as so many things do for them, in the park.
Aziraphale gives a hmm of pleasure as he finishes his ice lolly, dabs at his mouth with a napkin, and enfolds the wooden stick inside it. “I recently read,” he says to Crowley, as if he is about to impart some interesting tidbit about the migratory patterns of the barn swallow, or perhaps some humorous anecdote from the time of Plato, “about a very interesting thing called 'sexual roleplay.'”
Despite having the throat flexibility of a snake, Crowley chokes on his last bite of Cadbury Flake.
“I do think I'd like to try it,” Aziraphale goes on, apparently oblivious that he has, with a handful of words, succeeded in both horrifying and arousing Crowley to a length not seen in six millennia. “If you're amenable, of course.”
“What...” The word comes out as a squeak. Crowley coughs and tries again, “What roles, exactly, would you want us to play?”
“Humans,” Aziraphale says.
“That's a very broad category.”
A storm cloud appears in Aziraphale's eyes. How could I have said something wrong already? Crowley thinks. That is the most factual response I could possibly have given. “You and I,” Aziraphale responds. “But humans. We meet as humans, we go out together as humans. We...” He raises his eyebrows meaningfully, and awfully delicately for someone who has spent more than one evening fingering Crowley's arse with one hand, while simultaneously tossing himself off with the other and sucking on Crowley's cock. “As humans. If,” he adds, “we decide we're compatible in that way.”
“All right.”
“Really?” The storm cloud turns into a bright sunny smile. It will blind Crowley if he lets it. It's done so before.
“Why not? How do you want to meet? Here in the park?” Crowley can do that. It has shades of their actual first meeting, with a few key differences.
“Oh, nobody meets in the park these days, dear. Everyone meets...” Aziraphale hesitates, as if struggling to remember some difficult foreign phrase. “On the line.”
“You don't even have a smart phone, angel.”
“I have a computer.”
“That runs Windows 3.1.” Crowley has no idea how. He's considering inviting Newt over, just so he can take one look at the thing and force Aziraphale to buy another.
“Well, I'm sure you can help me with that part.” Aziraphale clasps his hands together. “Oh, darling, this will be fun, won't it?” Crowley decides to reserve judgment on that.
Back at the bookshop, Crowley watches as Aziraphale miracles himself the latest iPhone, brilliant white with a picture of little angel wings on the PopSocket. “It's just for these purposes,” Aziraphale says. “I absolutely do not want one really, all right, dear? So please don't think you're going to start texting me cucumber emoticons and what have you.”
“Got it. No cucumber emoticons for you.”
Crowley assumes they're going to exchange a few flirty emails to get this thing going, but Aziraphale's plans are more detailed than that.
“Help me create a file here,” he instructs Crowley, finding and downloading a dating app amazingly quickly for someone with no experience of post-1994 computer technology. “A real one.”
“Is that necessary?”
“Don't be jealous, darling. I'll only respond to you, of course.”
“I'm not sure if...”
Aziraphale brings out the big guns: the Eyes. Crowley has done so much for the Eyes, it's pathetic, but he can't stop himself. It's impossible. “All right,” Crowley gives in, of course. He's rewarded with a kiss on the cheek and the opportunity to create an online dating profile for the only being he's ever loved.
Even though he personally invented the “mirror selfie”, Crowley takes a photo of Aziraphale for him to put on his profile. At first, Crowley was going to oppose that, too, but then he remembered that he knows human men. He's had thousands of years worth of knowledge of them. They have no class, no sense of style. There's no way they'll appreciate a snack—and Crowley makes an effort to keep up with all the latest slang, despite the looks it earns him from youths who seem several decades, but are in fact several millennia, younger than him—like Aziraphale.
He still makes sure the picture of Aziraphale is at a bad angle, blurry and chopped off at the top.
Within ten minutes of posting it, Aziraphale has fourteen dick pics in his inbox.
“Oh, my!” His eyes are saucer-wide as he shows the phone to Crowley. “Look at that one! It can't be an asset, can it, dear? I mean, how does the poor man function in daily life? He can't possibly walk easily with...that between his legs. Looks more like a medical condition than a penis.”
“I'm sending you a message,” Crowley replies, as Aziraphale's inbox dings again, and again. “Then we're deleting your account.”
Crowley hurriedly creates his own profile, leaving everything blank but the name, only to realize he's not sure what to say. Aziraphale is sitting right there in front of him, scrolling through pictures of other men's cocks like he's examining first editions for spinal damage, and Crowley can't think of a single thing to write to him. Of course I can't, he thinks. Six thousand years and it took the end of the world to get him to even look at me.
“They just keep coming, darling,” Aziraphale says. “And, funnily enough, that's exactly what one kind fellow has promised will happen to me if I meet him at his flat in Pimlico in three quarters of an hour.”
You're very attractive, Crowley types, which should win prizes for directness, if not for poetry. I would like to meet you in person.
A few seconds later, Aziraphale smiles, then replies. Thank you for the message. What do you do for a living?
“Aziraphale!”
“I want to do this right. Of course, if you're not interested, there's a gentleman, and I use the term loosely, who has promised to choke, spelled c-h-o-c-k, on my cock until I come, spelled c-u-m. No points for spelling, but he is quite handsome.”
Crowley sighs. I'm in... Crowley tries to think of a boring human occupation. Motorway planning.
That sounds fascinating. I work in a bookshop, myself.
I'd love to hear more about it, Crowley lies. But that's what humans do on these things, isn't it? Lie?
He expects Aziraphale to keep dragging it out. Instead, the next message reads, Would you like to meet for a meal this evening?
The Ritz?
That's a little steep for me. I know a sweet little bistro in Holborn. Giovanni's. What do you think of that?
Pick you up at eight?
I'd rather meet you there, if you don't mind.
“What? Why?”
“I read that it's safest to meet in a public place when on a first date.”
“Where are you reading these things?”
Aziraphale clears his throat as if he is about to recite Shakespeare. “'Hello Sexy, You look like a hot teacher. How would you like to discipline a naughty schoolboy'?”
“How are you even planning to get there? I drive you everywhere, angel.”
“I'll take the 'Tube'.” Only he, Crowley thinks, could put verbal quotes around something that's been around since 1863.
“You hate the Tube map. You say it reminds you of a colourful snake mating ball.” And was that ever something he regretted telling Aziraphale about. The peals of laughter rang well into the night, despite Crowley's repeated explanations that he had never, personally, participated in anything of the sort, and he wasn't actually a snake any more than he was actually a human being.
“Yes. Well. I shall overcome, my dear. You know, I did survive for quite some time without you around.”
“Fine.”
“All right, then.” Aziraphale puts down the phone. “If you'll excuse me, Crowley, dear. I hate to be rude, but I have to prepare for a date.”
Crowley's epic eyeroll is, unfortunately, lost behind his glasses, but that is his lot in life. As, apparently, is going home to prepare for a first date with a being he'd known for six thousand years and been enthusiastically shagging for six weeks.
***
Giovanni's, Crowley decides, is exactly the type of place a motorway planner would meet a bookshop employee. He has no idea where Aziraphale found it. Probably the same place he got his advice on role play and dating safety. He orders the most expensive bottle of wine available, a robust little darling listed only as “red” in the menu. The approximately-twelve-year-old girl who brings it to the table offers to open it for him.
“That's all right, love,” Crowley replies. “I think I can unscrew the top myself.”
By the time he's three glasses in, the wine isn't tasting all that bad. He is, however, wondering if standing him up is part of Aziraphale's role play game. He takes his phone out of his pocket, but sees no new messages. Apart from a flurry of dick pics from strangers.
“Terribly sorry I'm late.” Crowley looks up. Aziraphale appears to be damp, although it isn't raining out, and he has the tight-lipped, empty-eyed smile he normally uses with customers who manage to slip past all his cleverly designed defences and make their way into his shop. “I had some trouble with the Tube.”
“Should I ask?”
“Best not.” He holds out a hand. “I'm Aziraphale.” Then he smiles, for real, and Crowley's stomach flips as if they really are on a first date.
Or maybe it's just the wine.
“Crowley,” he says, pouring Aziraphale a glass. “It's a pleasure to meet you.”
Aziraphale is very funny. Crowley doesn't know why he always forgets that. He looks and dresses like the uptight offspring of a spinster librarian and a prudish Victorian parvenu, although come to think of it, Aziraphale has quite a few stories about Victorian parvenus who were anything but prudish. In reality, Aziraphale is as witty as Wilde and as flirtatious as a horny deb at her first ball. He flicks his eyes up and down Crowley all the way through their watery minestrone and white bread buns. When the twelve-year-old brings their main courses, he says, “Oh, that looks lovely,” and points at Crowley's fettucini alfredo. Are you blind? Doesn't seem to be the response he's looking for, so as Aziraphale tucks his paper napkin into his collar Crowley says, “Would you like a bite?”
“Oh, yes, please. I'll give you some of mine.” Without waiting for Crowley to demur, he spears a tomato-sauce slathered ravioli and holds it out. Crowley reaches for his fork, but Aziraphale pulls the ravioli out of his range. “I don't mind...helping you. Open up.” They've tried sexy feeding before. Mostly, Crowley feels like a human infant, being forced to swallow foods he has no interest in. This time it feels different. The ravioli tastes like it came from a tin and was half-reheated in a microwave, but the way Aziraphale gives it to him, the look in his eyes and the little smile when he reaches across the table and dabs some, probably non-existent, sauce from Crowley's lips, makes Crowley forget about the first date thing and say, “I want you.”
Aziraphale laughs and makes himself blush. At least, Crowley assumes it's on purpose. “That's very forward, Crowley. We've only just met.”
“I...I feel like I've known you forever.” For whatever reason, this seems like the right thing to say. Aziraphale fusses, the way he does when he's particularly pleased with something, picking up his water glass, putting it down again, moving his dessert spoon to the left and then to the right. When he looks up again, it's with a big, genuine smile.
“Go on, then.” He says. “Give me a bite of yours.”
The fettucini is sticky and overcooked. When Crowley holds out the fork, Aziraphale takes it into his mouth, giving a low moan as if it were caviar, or the finest quality fresh sushi. After an extended moment, he pulls off the fork with a smack of his lips, then pokes his tongue out to sweep up the sauce. “Delicious,” he says, languidly flicking his eyes along Crowley's body again. It sends a shiver through Crowley, and it almost makes him feel sorry for all those poor big-dicked assholes online who will never get to meet Aziraphale. Almost. “I must say, this date is turning out even nicer than I imagined. You really are quite a gentleman, Crowley.”
Of all the things he's been accused of, that's never been one. A smile creeps onto his face and, before he knows it, he's grinning like an idiot.
Dessert is a slice of tiramisu that's still frozen in the middle. When the bill arrives, Aziraphale looks at him pointedly.
“Let me,” Crowley says. It's what usually happens anyway.
“Oh, no, I couldn't. We should at least pay our own ways.” It's a bluff. Crowley calls it.
“All right, then.”
“Oh. Well. I...”
“Fifty-fifty. That all right with you?” It's not. Aziraphale must have carried money at some point, since, as he says himself, he survived for long stretches of time without Crowley's presence, but every single time they've gone out together, Crowley has paid.
“I don't...That is to say, I haven't actually...”
“Did you forget your wallet?”
Aziraphale's eyes brighten as he grabs this lifeline. “Yes! I must have done. How silly of me! Dreadfully sorry. I'll have to get it the next one.”
“No problem,” says Crowley, the gentleman, as he gets out his wallet. “Does that mean you want to do this again sometime?”
“If you're interested.”
Even if I was actually paying with my own money, that smile would make it worthwhile, he thinks. Until he sees the astronomical number at the bottom of the bill, and immediately curses the restaurant to close within a week due to a sudden and persistent infestation of rats. Harsh, maybe, but he's doing the rest of London a favour.
As a sop, he makes sure the young server will shortly be offered her dream job as a penguin keeper at the London Zoo.
When they get outside, Aziraphale makes a show of admiring the Bentley in a way he never has before. Even the first time he saw it, that night during the Blitz when they were the only ones out, driving silently through empty streets, he ignored Crowley's attempts to show off his baby.
“I was distracted,” Aziraphale explained testily, when Crowley recently brought it up. “I'd only just realized my hereditary enemy was capable of returning the depth of emotion I'd felt for him since time immemorial. I couldn't concentrate on bloody windshield wipers.”
Now, however, he says, “It's such a beautiful car! And you clearly take such good care of it.”
Pride blooms in Crowley. “Yeah, well.”
“Have you ever had sex in it?”
“What?”
“It's just that back seat looks awfully accommodating. Almost like a sofa.”
“I haven't.” Aziraphale knows that. He knows the number of people Crowley has ever had sex with, anywhere, can be counted on one hand, and he knows none of them involved love. How could they? They were humans. Crowley's not. Aziraphale's not.
Aziraphale lowers his eyes, then brings them back up, a cheeky grin on his face. “Would you like to?”
All of a sudden, it's too much. Crowley needs to call a time out on this. “Look, Aziraphale, we need to take a break. Are you seriously asking me? Or are you, you know, asking the human who designs roadways?”
“Motorways.”
“Does it make a fucking difference?”
“That's my question to you.” Aziraphale's smile doesn't waver. A couple look at them on their way into the restaurant. Crowley resists the urge to tell them to save themselves while they can, and instead opens the car door.
Aziraphale gets in the other side, fortunately. It means Crowley can answer without being overheard. “Yeah, it makes a difference.” He sighs. “I didn't realize it until now, but it does. I spent six thousand years pretending to be someone else, you know?” Secret agents and black knights and firm-but-fair nannies. Caribbean pirates and Russian duchesses and, thanks to the Arrangement, battlefield bloody angels. Now, Crowley's finally himself, at least as much as he can be if he wants to stay on Earth. “I don't want to do that anymore. I want to be real, especially when it's just you and me.”
Silence. This is it, Crowley thinks. He's going to bugger off. Crowley doesn't want to play his game anymore, so Aziraphale is going to leave him. Literally get out of the car, probably sever their ties. Crowley waits for it. And waits. And just when he can't take it anymore, Aziraphale says, “I'm sorry.”
He can't have heard right.
“Pardon?”
“I'm sorry. I've been a terrible nuisance, making you play my game.”
“No, no, you didn't make me...”
“Teasing you with those other men. It was quite terrible. Do you forgive me?” He looks sincere. He is sincere. Crowley can feel it.
“Yeah. Of course, angel. No question.” I would forgive you anything. It's true. Always has been. Kind of scary to think of, but there's no point in denying it.
Aziraphale reaches over and takes Crowley's hand. “I've wanted you for ever so long, darling. Now that I have you, I find myself worrying you might get tired of me.”
“Tired of you?” The words make no sense. In this context, Crowley's brain is unable to compute them.
Aziraphale goes on. “I'm not very interesting, I know that. And you're so...” He waves a hand. “Everything. I don't want you to feel bored, or as if you're stuck with me.”
“Stuck with you?” Crowley is aware he sounds like an idiot, or a well-trained macaw. He can't manage anything else. So instead of wrestling with words, which have never been his friends, he leans over the gearshift and kisses Aziraphale.
Aziraphale kisses back. Just like he did the first time, he grabs hold of Crowley's jacket with one hand, and eases off his glasses with the other. Crowley understands. They aren't the most comfortable things to have pushed against your face. He moves back, just enough for Aziraphale to get them off and drop them somewhere in the footwell, then returns.
The first time, it was brief. Aziraphale started it, which was good, because Crowley would never have had the courage to. Standing in the lobby of the Ritz, he took hold of Crowley's jacket, like Crowley was thinking of going somewhere, and pressed their lips together. When he pulled away, his cheeks were scarlet, but there was a defiant look in his eyes, a look Crowley had seen many times before. A look he loved.
“Want to get a room?” Crowley asked, not even sure what he was asking. Did angels have sex? Did this one? Would he do it with a demon? Would he do it with Crowley?
“I want us to make love,” Aziraphale replied, neatly answering all four of those questions. They did. Several times in a row. It was the most thrilling experience of Crowley's long existence, and if Aziraphale thought he could ever tire of it, could ever tire of Aziraphale's big eyes and bowties and tartan and books and stubborn insistence, against all the logic of Heaven and Hell and Earth, that the correct way to pour was tea before milk, then Crowley was not doing his job properly.
“I,” Crowley says, lips against Aziraphale's mouth so he can feel it as well as hear it, “am crazy about you.” Literally. It's insane for them to be together, but it's all Crowley has ever wanted, since he climbed up on that wall in Eden with the intention of teasing an angel, and came back down ready to marry one. “I will never not want you.” He can't conceive of the notion. He doesn't remember much about his time as an angel, but Crowley is absolutely certain that if he and Aziraphale knew one another in Heaven, Crowley loved him just as much there. There is no plane of existence in which he wouldn't.
Aziraphale pulls him closer still, into a tight embrace that pushes the gearstick into Crowley's thigh. He ignores it. “My dear,” Aziraphale whispers into his ear. “Darling.”
“I've got a game for you,” Crowley says. He aims for a light, playful tone, but it sounds deadly serious, probably because he is. “We can play 'stay with me forever and never disappear again.'”
Aziraphale makes a noise halfway between a sigh and a sob. “I like that game.”
“Good. It's my favourite. Well,” he adds, his heart easing, “that and charades. Love a really good game of charades, me. Did you know it's one of mine? Didn't invent it, but it was my idea to make it mandatory whenever a family gathers at Christmas.” Hell didn't appreciate the nuance, of course. They never did.
Aziraphale laughs and pulls back, adjusting his rumpled jacket. He doesn't return to his usual seat, however. Instead, he stays close, resting his hand on Crowley's thigh as Crowley retrieves his glasses. “I believe a cup of tea is customary after a dinner date,” he says, primly, as if they haven't just slobbered all over one another, physically and emotionally.
“Your place or mine?”
Crowley swallows. “How about...how about ours?”
Aziraphale beams, like they're once again fresh off their incredible victory and toasting the world. “Ours,” he repeats, the word infused with love. Then, after a moment, “Ah, which one do you consider ours, my love? Because while I do like your lovely flat, it is ever so stylish and you have that wonderful statue, there is a certain, ah, hominess to the shop that I would sorely miss...”
They go to the shop. And, while Aziraphale is off filling their cups with tea and then milk, Crowley very quietly and very discreetly turns the iPhone with the angel wing PopSocket into a pile of smouldering ash.