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Aziraphale hummed to himself (and, because he was an angel, in harmony with himself) as he pottered around the shop, tidying up (because he was Aziraphale, ‘tidying up’ meant rearranging the clutter rather than actually tidying). It was a rainy grey London day, but that rain was out there, not in here, it had dampened the enthusiasm of any potential customers so that he’d had the place to himself most of the day, and now he had treated himself to an (unscheduled) early closing day.
It was 1953, no Antichrist in sight, Gabriel had just last week actually told him “Good job” after a completed assignment, and Crowley was taking him out to dinner on Friday night. Aziraphale was happy.
Perhaps that was why he decided to go through a box of old books that hadn’t been opened in a century. Mind, he knew what was in it; Aziraphale would never bother with a catalogue of his collection because he knew exactly what he had and where he had put it. The only problems he ever had in locating his books were when humans rearranged his shelves (really, was it so difficult to put things back where one got them from?) or when Crowley got mischievous (which perhaps Aziraphale might encourage, just a little, but of course it was better that he expend that energy on teasing Aziraphale rather than Tempting the humans; nothing to do with enjoying the attention.)
It was pleasant to meet some old friends, to look over their crackling pages, to remember where they came from, to plan a re-reading order. And then, to his surprise, a loose page floated to the floor out of an otherwise sturdy-looking book. He bent down to pick it up, caught a glimpse of the words, and paused. That was not a page from a book.
Straightening, he laid it on his desk, smoothing out the parchment and frowning down at it. Now why in Heaven’s name would he have someone’s marriage lines?
His eyes flicked over the page, taking in the elegant script, and then he went quite quite still. Stiller than humanly possible. His heart paused; his breathing stopped; he failed to blink.
No. Not possible. It couldn’t be.
Circulation system still in abeyance, he reached out one shaky hand to run his finger over the names written one beneath the other at the top of the page. How could it be? Why would his or Crowley’s names be written on any marriage lines, let alone together?
But the document was genuine. He could tell from the vellum, the ink—written materials were his chosen area of expertise after all. It was authentic. It was real.
But how? He didn’t remember a wedding. Surely he’d remember getting married. Wouldn’t he remember that?
He wished he could remember that.
Aziraphale ran his fingers over the names again, gently, feeling the slight indentations where the pen had pressed into the parchment. Of course it wasn’t real, even if the paper was; it could never be real. Crowley wouldn’t ever—Not with him. But it was pleasant, wasn’t it, to imagine it could be real.
(About an hour later he remembered to start breathing again.)
The next day Aziraphale checked the Closed sign was on his door and headed off in search of a picture framer.
The woman in the shop was a little surprised to be presented with a piece of old parchment, but her face softened as she pieced out the old-fashioned copperplate. “A family heirloom, is it?”
“Oh, er, something like that, yes. My, er,” he tried to calculate human lifespans, “great, great, great? grandparents.”
“How sweet!” He gave her a puzzled look. “For a marriage to still be celebrated two hundred years later.”
Aziraphale relaxed into a soft smile. “Yes,” he agreed. “Yes, it is.”
“Now, what kind of frame did you have in mind?” she asked, and Aziraphale spent a happy three quarters of an hour fussing over getting things just right.
Crowley should never have seen the finished product. Crowley never went into the flat above the bookshop: Aziraphale barely ever set foot up there, so Crowley never did. No one did. So it was perfectly safe for Aziraphale to hang up the framed marriage lines, to display them proudly on the wall, to put them where he could go and look at them whenever he wanted to, as if they were real. Where he could avoid them when everything was too much (such as after dropping off a tartan flask in 1967) but where he could spend an hour staring at them and daydreaming (after, say, an evening at the opera where Crowley had catered to every whim with an indulgent look).
His own little piece of hope, where no one could see it and no one could judge, and absolutely no one would ever know. Not even Crowley. Especially not Crowley.
And then the world didn’t end. The world didn’t end and he and Crowley didn’t die despite the combined efforts of Heaven and Hell. Earth was still spinning and the ridiculous, wonderful humans were still living and the two to them were disowned by their respective sides. No more sneaking around, no more furtive meetups now and then. Now he met Crowley every single day and the world around them spun with potential and the air between them crackled with it and Aziraphale wasn’t sure exactly where they were going but he was enjoying the ride far too much to dream of questioning it.
When you had nearly everything you had ever wanted (more than you dared dream was possible) it seemed a bit rude to even consider demanding more.
Then Crowley went upstairs in search of a book he was sure would prove his point, jumping up the stairs two at a time in his enthusiasm. Crowley went upstairs for the first time in history and Aziraphale didn’t even think about it. Crowley was such a part of his everyday life now that it was impossible to remember he hadn’t been in every nook and cranny of Aziraphale’s bookshop, of his life. Crowley went upstairs and all Aziraphale did was shake his head at the demon’s misplaced determination and sip his cocoa, serenely unaware of the bomb about to go off over his head.
Then he heard Crowley’s voice float down the stairs. “Angel? What—what is this?” Trying to be cool and collected in that very Crowley I am breaking open here fashion.
In his entire existence Aziraphale had sworn precisely once. This seemed an excellent time to double his tally. Then he took a deep breath he didn’t technically need and slowly trod up the stairs, placing each step very carefully as if the boards might disappear from under him.
Yes, Crowley was standing in front of the framed marriage lines, eyes glued to the page. Strange how much effect one small piece of paper could have, Aziraphale noted distantly.
On the spindly-legged Victorian knick-knack table underneath was a vase of flowers Crowley had given him back in 1800, still blooming as fresh as the day they’d been presented. The flowers were flanked by a couple of framed polaroids of the pair of them. (Crowley had been utterly obsessed with polaroids when they first came out and it hadn’t been difficult to abstract a couple from his collection.) It wasn’t much. Not when compared to the comfortable clutter of downstairs. And yet... It was hardly a subtle display, was it? Not with the marriage lines with both their names written out together across the top.
“Um,” Aziraphale said articulately.
Crowley didn’t turn around. “So... This is a thing.”
“Um,” Aziraphale tried a second time. It didn’t help. “Er,” he added. Also unhelpful. “Oh dear.”
Apparently realising he wasn’t going to get anything better, Crowley said, voice very carefully even, “So, were you ever planning on telling me that we were married?”
He still hadn’t turned around and that wasn’t helpful either. Aziraphale had no idea if he was mad or amused or upset or...
“I wasn’t planning on it, no,” he said honestly.
“Is it real? It looks real. But I don’t remember it. You’d think I’d remember something like that. Wouldn’t I remember something like that?”
“It’s real,” Aziraphale said firmly, though whether the news was good or not he had no way of knowing. “I don’t remember it either, but the lines are quite genuine. I checked. I found them in one of my books. I don’t know how they got there.”
“But you framed them.”
“Well, yes.” Obviously. Aziraphale twisted his fingers together and wished Crowley would turn around.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Ah, yes, that was hurt. Not an emotion Aziraphale wanted to identify, but at least he knew how Crowley felt about that. “You could have told me.”
“You might have told me to destroy them,” he said honestly.
He could see the tension in Crowley’s back, even if he couldn’t see his face. “But—but why would you care?”
He wouldn’t lie to Crowley. Aziraphale had had to lie to him too many times in the past and he had promised himself after the Apocalypse-that-wasn’t that he would not do so again. That didn’t mean he could look at him, though. “It was nice,” he addressed his fingers.
“Nice?” That wasn’t a sneer at Aziraphale’s choice of word, but rather utter confusion.
“Yes, nice.”
“What could possibly be nice about being married without your knowledge?”
Aziraphale flinched but soldiered on. “It was nice to think that there had been a moment, whatever caused it and however fleeting, when you thought that being married to me was a sufficiently acceptable idea to actually go through with it.”
Crowley finally turned then, as if pulled around by a string like some wooden toy. Aziraphale didn’t look up, busy contemplating the toes of his shoes and praying incoherently.
“Wait—You want to be married to me?” He couldn’t have sounded more bewildered if Aziraphale had suddenly announced his desire to wed Sergeant Shadwell.
Gathering all his rapidly-fraying courage, Aziraphale looked up. Crowley didn’t look upset or angry, just stunned and bewildered. “Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I?”
“Why would you?” Crowley retorted, as if that was the more natural question.
Oh, but that was easy to answer, wasn’t it? “Because you’re kind and clever and generous and witty and—and charming.”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
“I am not!” Aziraphale snapped, stung.
“You are. I’m not all...” His fingers scribbled incoherent sigils in the air before he concluded lamely, “That.”
“You’re lovely,” Aziraphale said sincerely.
“I’m not lovely,” Crowley protested, appalled. “I’m a demon!”
“You’re a lovely demon.”
Crowley stared at him. And then stared some more. Aziraphale managed to (mostly) hold his gaze. “Aziraphale,” he finally said slowly, “if you’re trying to tell me something, I’m not getting it.”
“Oh, for Adam’s sake!” Aziraphale said crossly, though he couldn’t have said if he was annoyed at Crowley or at himself. He straightened his waistcoat defiantly. “I’m in love with you, Crowley. And I should like to be married to you, because that’s what one does when one is in love. And I think that you are lovely and I think that being married to you would be lovely. But there is obviously no obligation for you to do anything about any of that, I just do wish you would stop thinking so meanly of yourself. Though I suppose that is my fault, isn’t it, all those times I—But you must know, Crowley, I never meant it. Not like that. I only ever wanted to keep you safe, as impossible as that seemed. But we are safe now, so you should know. And you’re right, I should have told you. It was cowardly of me not to, and it really is ill-becoming of me to continue to hide like that. I’m sorry.”
Crowley was staring at him. Aziraphale subsided like an unwound clock.
“Yes, well.” He straightened his cuffs and cleared his throat. “I apologise if that’s not—”
“Angel?” Crowley asked hoarsely.
“Yes?”
“Can I kiss you?”
Aziraphale felt himself brighten. “Oh, Crowley, that would be lovely.”
Crowley’s face did that twisty thing it did when he wasn’t sure if he loved or loathed something. “ ‘Lovely’,” he mocked. “Lovely.”
But he said the second one into Aziraphale’s mouth so Aziraphale could catch it on his tongue, and Aziraphale didn’t mind. Not at all.
God, who had been behind a particularly opportune episode of mutual drunkenness, a confused drunken suggestion (but not the mutual agreement: that was Free Will in action), a priest’s cheerful glossing over of both tipsiness and (apparent) gender, and the convenient amnesia of two immortal beings not usually prone to forgetting even drunken shenanigans, gave the satisfied smile of a being who has completed a tricky but worthwhile piece of work, and left them to it.
(As it turned out, Aziraphale was quite right. Crowley was lovely, kissing Crowley was lovely, and being married to Crowley was loveliest of all.)
Fin