Chapter Text
It started with a new pair of glasses, their case carefully wrapped in a light blue bow and placed next to Crowley’s wine glass on their table at the Ritz.
“Whassis, angel?”
“Just a small gift, something the recipient typically opens to find out the contents, dear boy.”
The look Crowley gave Aziraphale would’ve given anyone else worry, but the angel was more than used to their game and knew without question that there was no real malice on those curled lips. If anything, Aziraphale would wager Crowley held a bit of pride for influencing God’s most angelic angel to indulge in bouts of mild bastardry.
Crowley snagged the ribbon from the case and opened it to find the new glasses, a pair not terribly dissimilar from the pair already resting on the bridge of his nose. He gingerly plucked them from the felt and, with full expectation that no nosy table neighbors would notice, set his existing pair on the table to better inspect the unexpected gift. Aziraphale, paranoid as always to be misunderstood, started to explain himself before Crowley could open his mouth.
“I know, of course, that you’ve already got your usual pair, but I do remember you mentioned you had recently run out of backups. A-and I noticed just yesterday at brunch that these,” he said, carefully tapping a finger on the arm of the sunglasses sitting between them on the table, “have rather a few nicks and chips, perhaps lost their luster a touch. Of course you don’t have to wear these if you’d rather not! I just thought white gold would look rather fetching in place of the usual silver, especially with that dashing new shade of red you’ve chosen for your hair.”
Crowley could’ve sworn he saw color come to Aziraphale’s cheeks as he drew back into himself, hands fidgeting with his signet ring. Crowley had gotten a good look at the glasses while Aziraphale overexplained. The style itself was practically identical but where the sides and arms were usually a rather dark silver with a matte finish, a lovely white gold now gleamed in contrast to the dark lenses. Aziraphale was right, these would stand out against the deeper red he’d changed his hair to on a cheeky lark. Well, “a cheeky lark” might be an oversimplification of what had really happened, which was actually a mad fit of last minute corporation preening before taking Aziraphale for a night at the opera the week prior.
~~~
“For the love of—no, that’s not it either!” Crowley growled, mussing his scruffy copper locks into a neutral state once more. He was very nearly ready to call it quits, to just run his fingers over his hair once and let it fall into its default artful tousle. He sighed and steeled himself. No, tonight was for Aziraphale. His fussy angel loved a bit of dressing up for the fun of it. He would appreciate if Crowley put in that little bit of extra effort to look nice for their…not date?
Crowley hadn’t phrased it as such, but he so desperately wanted it to be a proper date. He’d psyched himself out before he could ask Aziraphale to the opera in as many words and it came out less like a request to have a special night together and more like a casual suggestion for one of their usual outings. Crowley had hung up that phone call and promptly screamed into a pillow. How in all the kingdoms of Heaven, Hell, and Earth was a demon meant to get his desire to court an angel across if he couldn’t stop talking to him like they were just friends?!
With renewed resolve, Crowley stared his hair down in the mirror. He’d been at this preening of his corporation for hours, picking the perfect suit, shoes, and accessories. Courting rituals would be a whole Heaven of a lot easier if he could just whip out his immaculately groomed wings and get a yes/no answer like Earth birds. He just needed to step away for a moment, look for inspiration elsewhere. His hair had been through so many changes over the years, it was hard to come up with something he hadn’t already done. He checked the time on his phone and hissed. If he was going to do something, he needed to find that inspiration fast. Sure, he had a good bit of time before he needed to pick Aziraphale up, but this was still just one part of the process he liked to go through to clean up the pleasantly methodical human way.
Just as he was nearly able to tear his eyes from roving over his reflection, something behind him caught his attention. He turned to his silk dressing robe flung haphazardly on the door handle of the linen closet. It was perhaps a bit shorter than would be considered decent on someone with legs the length of his own, but the vivid garnet color had him raising a brow. He’d never considered changing more than just the way he styled his hair. It had been the same hint-of-brown shade of red since he first figured out how to shift from his snake form into a newly-issued corporation not too long before meeting a certain angel on top of the Eastern wall of Eden. It was new. It was flashy. It was perfect. He just needed a bit of a refresh!
Grabbing the gown and turning back to the mirror, Crowley held the garment up next to his head, focusing intently on his hair until the light shade bled into something richer. Seeing he matched the color perfectly, he threw the gown to the side and considered his appearance again and decided something was still missing. His thoughts of Eden reminded him of the ringlets he used to allow to fall around his face, the curls Aziraphale had once lamented over Crowley’s decision to move on from. The angel had casually admitted to him, years after the fact, that the loose waves Crowley had sported as Noah loaded up the Ark were “quite exquisite” and “suited him so terribly well” that he’d been disappointed he could see so little of them under Crowley’s shroud when they witnessed the Crucifixion.
If that wasn’t inspiration enough, he didn’t know what else would be. Surely a friend could call another friend “quite exquisite” platonically, but it was the best lead Crowley had in terms of Aziraphale’s preferences for Crowley’s physical appearance.
Raking fingertips thrumming with a little demonic miracle through darkened strands, his hand drew away letting long groups of waves fall to tickle at the bottom of his shoulder blades. Shaking the lengths out, he knew before he even looked back to the mirror that his angel was in for a treat.
~~~
Aziraphale’s fawning over the new hair color and the way it was styled for their evening out (a casual ponytail made to look effortlessly classy with a small braid above one ear) combined with his vocal approval of Crowley’s deep forest green suit jacket had sustained the demon’s good mood for days. Crowley felt his ears heat just the slightest bit, silently added Aziraphale’s “dashing” description to the long list of things to overthink later.
“No, no, Aziraphale, these are brilliant, really! Thank you, angel.” Crowley immediately slid them on, tucking the original pair into the case before moving it off to the side and returning his undivided attention to Aziraphale, propping his arm on the table and a hand under his chin with a small, almost shy smile that Aziraphale couldn’t help but mirror.
He noticed that Aziraphale’s eyes lingered on him a moment before skittering away, taking back up his dessert fork and gushing over the tiramisu, as if nothing more had happened than a simple gift from one friend to another. But with the way Aziraphale’s gaze flickered back to hold on Crowley multiple times through the rest of dessert and the inevitable nightcap at the shop, each look followed by a tiny smile to himself, Crowley had the nerve to hope that the changes to his look had done something after all. That something between them was slowly, strangely, but quite possibly shifting.