Chapter Text
“Oh, would you look at that!”
It’s an icy January evening, terrible strolling conditions for humans but acceptable ones for inhuman beings with the ability to regulate their respective body temperatures (well, one of them; the other is still a bit cold-blooded and hasn’t quite shaken the occasional urge to coil up on a rock in the sun). When Aziraphale stops abruptly in the middle of the pavement, Crowley practically skids in an attempt to avoid running into his back.
“I had heard there was to be a London revival,” Aziraphale continues, gesturing towards the poster that’s caught his attention. A crowd of pedestrians weave around them, the busy, evening procession of Londoners stopping for no one, and a nearby stroller nearly Tokyo-drifts atop the ice in their direction.
“What’s that?” Crowley asks peevishly, looking up from his mobile phone and miracling the mother back on course before the child dirties his trousers.
Aziraphale puts a hand to Crowley’s back and guides them out of the direct line of the crowd. “The Donmar. It seems they’re putting on a revival of ‘Rochelle, Rochelle’, starting next month.”
The digital signage in front of Crowley no more gives away the plot of ROCHELLE, ROCHELLE — as it is stylized in large, pink block letters — than it does persuade him that he wants to find out. Against a gray, nondescript background, a blonde woman looks forebodingly into the distance, a troubled expression on her face. The tagline at the bottom of the poster reads: “A young girl’s strange, erotic journey from Milan to Minsk”. It looks absolutely dreadful.
“…Sounds interesting,” Crowley says slowly, reluctantly imploring.
Aziraphale’s expression brightens, latching onto any opportunity to continue. “Interesting, yes. What’s interesting is openly inviting the comparison between Bette Midler and Sheridan Smith.” His acerbic statement can’t help but betray his enthusiasm. “Bette originated the role on Broadway in 1995 in a limited run, but I never managed to catch a performance. Gabriel had put me on assignment to determine whatever it was the ‘dot-com bubble’ was meant to be and I just kept putting the trip to America off.”
“What did it end up being?” asks Crowley, who had forgotten he had purchased ‘the dot-combubble.com’ that very same year.
“No idea,” Aziraphale says. “I never ended up going. I believe I told Gabriel it was a terrorist organization. Anywho, the musical was an investor’s nightmare, but managed to gain a cult following in the years since.”
“That does sound interesting. I can get us the tickets. It starts when? On the fourteenth?” The date on the poster registers immediately, though Crowley can’t exactly place why. Except—he looks down at the phone in his hand, and the website he’d been refreshing once every half hour since last Sunday.
“You know,” he adds, with purposeful indifference, “I think ‘The GR33N’ is opening that day.”
“You mean the ‘GR-thirty three-N’?”
“You don’t have to pronounce the—” Crowley stops himself. “Yes. The ridiculous one on Haymarket we keep passing by, with all the fake plants in the windows, and the sign for tagliatelle alla bolognese made vegemite style, or something—”
“It’s ‘vegan’ style, dear,” Aziraphale corrects him, with about as much enthusiasm as if it were, indeed, vegemite style. He concedes, “Which I hear is all the rage with the younger generation. We at least owe them a visit, what with all the speculation we’ve been doing. I mean, how on Earth does a chef rumored to cook with a rat under his toque blanche earn a Michelin star? Utterly preposterous!” But Aziraphale’s voice betrays his suspicious intrigue. He continues hurriedly, “Do you think it really opens that very same day?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. Probably not. I can check—” Crowley holds his phone up for Aziraphale to see, where the website for the restaurant is already pulled up. “Oh, wouldn’t you know it, I was right.”
“February 14th,” Aziraphale repeats, reading off the screen. “How serendipitous. We could easily make a day of it.”
“February 14th,” Crowley echoes, something about that date still not quite leaving him.
“A ridiculous dinner and a ridiculous show,” Aziraphale continues, becoming quite animated at the prospect. “What a wonderful idea. The winter months in London do get so monotonous after the Christmas season. You don’t hear me dole out too much praise to the pagans, but at least they had figured out how to break up the cold and the wet with all manner of solstices and festivals to keep things lively.”
"Christians have never been able to crack it,” Crowley agrees vaguely. “Do you remember how disappointing the Feast of Saint Valentine ended up being in the 5th century?"
"They served haggis ! Now that, that was cold, and wet! And humans have managed to fix it now so that the next holiday doesn’t even come around until—”
“February 14th,” Crowley squeaks.
Aziraphale’s eyes narrow at him, and then—“Oh!”
Oh, indeed. While the Feast of Saint Valentine had been underwhelming at the time for a certain angel and demon, humanity had certainly taken a liking, and even improved upon that original conception since. Valentine’s Day . Aziraphale’s mind whirls through the modest sensibilities of Austen, around the playful flirtation of Much Ado, and directly to the Nelly Furtado vinyls he keeps hidden beneath the rug. The amorous connotations of doing dinner and a show together , on the day for being together in that explicitly romantic way, for the very first time, are not lost on him. He feels his face flush entirely red to the tip of his nose, cheeks blazing like a hearth in winter, his ability to regulate his body temperature in the cold January winter be damned.
All that goes through Crowley’s mind are visions of him deflating slowly, like a balloon, and falling in a pitiable heap to the ground, the high-pitched whine of all of the air escaping ringing in his ears, and it is somehow enough to activate the part of Crowley that knows he should be speaking, speaking now, speaking fast—
“Which holiday is that?” He manages weakly, swaying like he’s about to faint. “The pumpkin one?”
At that, Crowley feels the shift in Aziraphale’s demeanor at his side more than he sees it, can sense the air between them bubble with something sickeningly sweet and pink. “Crowley,” Aziraphale says softly, indulgently, his eyes doing that thing again where the pupils turn into literal, pulsing hearts. “If you wanted to celebrate our first Valentine’s Day together, all you had to do was—”
“I swear I didn’t know what day it was when I suggested it, angel,” Crowley says, changing course, though not unlike a train about to fly entirely off its track, “That was not—”
“What I mean to say is, it’s natural as a couple to want to…” Aziraphale nearly makes an effort to tread lightly. Just barely misses the mark. “…C onsummate our relationship in a human fashion—”
“You called us a couple .” Crowley interrupts, half like it’s a question, half in a desperate attempt to keep himself from shooting off like a bloody rocketship at hearing the word ‘consummate’ in Aziraphale’s voice. It’s obscene, talking like that in public.
“Well… we are together,” Aziraphale says carefully, surreptitiously studying Crowley out of the corner of his eye. “That’s the sort of thing humans call a ‘couple’.”
Crowley doesn’t react much, save for the complete and total shutdown of his nervous system. “Since— since when do we go by what humans say?”
He says ‘humans’ like it's a slur. Aziraphale raises his brows, nods back to the poster of ‘Rochelle, Rochelle’. “Well, if we’re talking about attending human shows on a human holiday and eating vegan food, I think it’s fair to figure out where we… fit into all of that.”
“Right.”
“Right! So.”
“…So.” Crowley glances fleetingly at Aziraphale, then double-takes at his imploring expression in alarm. “Sorry, what—what was the question? Again?”
“A couple,” says Aziraphale. “We’re a couple. You know that, I know that, you said your whole ‘the group of the two of us’ bit. And even God…” He trails off uncomfortably. No use getting into all of that now, months after the whole Second-Not-Coming nonsense. He asks, “But are we a… ‘Valentine’s Day’ sort of couple?”
“I don’t even know what that means,” Crowley protests desperately.
“It means…” Aziraphale doesn’t have the pop-culture knowledge that Crowley has when it comes to romantic films and what two man-shaped-beings usually do inside of them, but he’s maintained a subscription to a literary-journal-turned-women’s-magazine since the nineteenth century, which makes him feel perhaps even more prepared. And scandalized. “Hm. What does it mean? Let’s see… we haven’t gone for an afternoon delight together. I’ve read that is something human beings of the couple variety get up to, albeit I’m not sure what it entails. Unless shutting the bookstop down an hour earlier to go for turkish delight at the Quo Vadis to beat the dinner rush would apply here.”
Crowley begins walking, purposefully leading them away from any incriminating posters that may or may not prompt any more love-related catastrophes. “It does not apply, here” he replies testily, “And I don’t know where you read that expression, but I know for a fact it’s not from Milton —”
“Nor have we discussed whether or not our love languages are compatible.”
“That’s—yeah, that’s from Cosmo.” Crowley’s voice goes a bit pointy, in vogue with the rest of him. “I know that’s from Cosmo, who do you think pitched the journal’s revamp in the 60’s? Told them they needed more personality quizzes. Women love having personalities. Don’t even know why you still—”
“We’ve kissed, though.”
Crowley cuts himself off with a choking noise.
They haven’t shared many kisses, not really. Not proper ones. It’s more than Aziraphale had ever expected to have, of course, just a peck in greeting and a slightly longer peck in farewell, and it’s lovely, but… Aziraphale can’t quite stop the craving for more. He can’t help it. His chocolate panna cotta with spiced pepita brittle doesn’t walk off the plate after one bite, with a “see you tomorrow, angel” thrown over his shoulder, before Aziraphale has had a chance to enjoy it as thoroughly as he’d like.
“We… have, yeah,” Crowley finally admits, gruff and raspy like he’s admitting to a crime. Aziraphale turns his head to look at him, at the tightness of his complexion, the answering flush creeping its way down his neck. Aziraphale nearly feels pride at Crowley’s admission, until Crowley continues with, “Tons of humans do that. Remember our trip to Rome, in the early days? Nearly positive we were at ground zero for the impetus of herpes.”
“That’s not—” Aziraphale starts, feeling rather petulant. He sighs, adds, “We hug, too.”
“Did you mean for that to sound as English as it came off?” Crowley says, stubbornly. “Humans hug all the time.”
“We play with each others’ hair!”
“Yeah? So do monkeys.”
“And we hold hands.”
“Not that often,” Crowley replies dismissively, as if on instinct.
There’s a pregnant pause. They both glance down between them, where their hands are comfortably, absently clasped together without either of them having consciously made the move to do so.
Crowley is really starting to look rather green. “We should call it off, then? I’ll just— yeah, I’ll call it off. We can do something else on the 14th, like—” He flounders in a few sounds that aren’t quite English. “I don’t know, talk and eat and drink in front of each other, at the bookshop, at a respectable distance on our respective chairs. With our respective trousers on. Platonically.”
“Oh, I don’t see the need for all that,” Aziraphale says, quite seriously. “The 14th is just any other day, after all.”
“Any other day,” Crowley repeats immediately, latching tightly onto it like a lifeline, voice cracking on the ‘any’.
“Just so. You said it yourself, dear boy, there’s no point in describing ourselves in human terminology.” Aziraphale waves the crosswalk sign to green, not quite in the mood to wait the handful of seconds for it to change naturally. They cross back onto Whickber street. “You are a demon—”
“Allegedly.”
“—And I, of course, am an angel. There’s nothing human about our love for each other, not in a way anyone could possibly begin to conceptualize.”
“No, yeah, absolutely.” Crowley nods in relief. He lays a gentle hand on the small of Aziraphale’s back as he switches the side he’s walking on. “Humans have no idea how deep our– eugh, our feelings go. Remember when those two lesbians tried? Mucked things up for us? What were their— I think one of them might have been named Jim—?”
“Maggie,” Aziraphale replies definitively. “One of them was Maggie, I’m certain of it. Couldn’t tell you the other one.”
“The other one was the troublemaker,” Crowley replies gravely. “Good thing we’ll never see them again.”
The air around them quiets, somewhat knowingly, expectantly. Both Aziraphale and Crowley decidedly choose to ignore it.
“So we’re in agreement, then,” Aziraphale says as they approach the bookshop. “We’ll go out on the 14th for a lovely evening completely independent of the human holiday it just-so -happens to fall on. We’ll go to the establishment that serves grass, we’ll see an ambitious rendition of Rochelle et cetera, we’ll come back to the shop, and then we’ll…” He trails off meaningfully, hoping Crowley will be the one to voice what the both of them are thinking.
Crowley doesn’t, of course, because he’s watching Aziraphale dig for the keys in his pocket like he has x-ray vision. “Then we’ll say goodnight,” Crowley finishes distractedly.
“Yes, of course, precisely like we’re doing now.” Aziraphale unlocks the bookshop door, and turns to face Crowley on the stoop. “Goodnight, my dear. Do drive safe.”
To where? Crowley doesn’t reply. Instead he leans forward to give Aziraphale a chaste peck on the lips. Neither of them linger. “Always do,” he replies. “I’ll go on and get the tickets, then. And the reservation.”
“Yes,” Aziraphale says, before adding on for both of their benefits, “Because it’s just a day amongst dozens in a year.”
“Right, of course. I mean—hundreds, yeah, but I’ve already forgotten what it stands for.”
“Of course you have,” Aziraphale says, going to duck inside before hesitating, stuck halfway over the threshold. He adds on, almost compulsively, “It stands for Valentine’s Day, actually, but again. No need to emphasize it and its… amorous connotations. Or floral connotations. Or confectionery… ahem. Well. In any case, we have nothing to worry about.”
“Nothing at all.”
“Because the 14th of February is any other day, after all.”
“Just any other day,” Crowley agrees.
