Chapter Text
It was a lovely early Sunday morning.
Per the capricious hours posted on the door, the bookshop was closed. It spent most of its time closed lately, and indeed for the last six months, but as it was very occasionally open it could still technically be called a bookshop in the strictest sense of the word.
Aziraphale was sitting at his desk in the back room, scribbling notes to himself for a review of a play they had seen recently. He fiddled with the silver serpent ring on his lefthand finger, rubbing it absently with his thumb. It had only been about a week, and it still felt rather strange to have a ring there. Crowley sat in a chair next to him, shoulder just barely touching his, toying with the remains of a croissant they had picked up for breakfast.
He carefully crossed out an unsatisfactory line and began to write a new one. “What do you want to do this week?” he asked, still squinting at the page.
“I think,” said Crowley casually, “that I would like to marry you.”
His heart gave an enormous lurch, and Aziraphale froze with his pen halfway through the word stupendous. He looked up at him, startled. “What?”
His demon was sitting there watching him with his chin propped up on his fist, a small smile on his lips. His cheeks were slightly pink, but he repeated himself. “I would like to get married to you.”
“But-“ he blinked at him a few times, confused. “I thought- aren’t we already, more or less?”
“Well, yes, but not officially.”
He set down the pen and turned fully to look at him. “By ‘officially,’ do you mean...legally, with a human ceremony?”
Crowley's cheeks were most definitely turning red now. “Yes.”
Aziraphale took a second to process this, then broke into a huge smile. “Really? That’s a wonderful idea.” He stood and wrapped his arms around Crowley, who promptly pulled him onto his lap and kissed him instead.
They broke apart a minute later, and Aziraphale gave his head a slight shake to clear it. “Stop that, or we won’t get anything done today.” Words not withstanding, he couldn’t stop himself from smiling and twining his arms around Crowley’s neck anyway. Heavens, but he was just gorgeous; sometimes it was a struggle to tear himself away for even a minute.
“So...you do want to?” He looked incredibly relieved.
”Yes! I honestly didn’t think you would be interested in any of that, what with all the fanfare involved.”
Crowley shrugged nonchalantly, not loosening his grip on his waist one bit. "There's nothing wrong with a little fanfare every once in a while."
"I should say not." His face hurt, he was smiling so hard. “So. Can we even do that this week? Aren't there a lot of steps to take? What do we need to do?” he asked excitedly.
Crowley grinned too, those beautiful high cheekbones scrunching up as he did, and Aziraphale felt himself melt a little. He never got tired of seeing him smile like that, the smile without a hint of bitterness or tension, that practically lit up the room. Before this year he had only seen that smile a bare handful of times.
“Well, as it happens, I looked into it and it turns out the entire process is massively convoluted. You wouldn’t believe all the ridiculous forms and waiting periods involved.” He kissed Aziraphale’s neck and sighed. “Trust humans to over-complicate something like this.” He kissed him again. “But nothing a little bit of demonic tampering couldn’t take care of.” He twiddled his fingers mysteriously and smirked, looking enormously pleased with himself.
“Hmm.” Aziraphale looked at him skeptically. “What exactly did you do?” He had been doing his taxes for years, and he knew very well how complicated things could be when the government got their hands on it. Crowley sometimes had a rather dubious understanding of some of the more tedious elements of human life, as he tended to skip right over them.
He didn’t mean to doubt Crowley, not exactly. His demon was the most clever, stunning, and marvelous creature to ever walk the planet.
He was also, on occasion, a bit of an idiot.
“Well, I notified the Register, properly, since that part was easy enough. It was just a matter of showing up and then...convincing them that we were both there, signing. As for the other paperwork, I already took care of it.”
“Huh. You don't say.” He was smiling again. “Did you have a day in mind?”
“Well...” Crowley hesitated, his self-satisfied air faltering slightly. “How do you feel about tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow!” Incredulously.
“Too soon? We can always reschedule.”
“No, no, I didn’t say that,” he replied hastily. “Okay, it's still early; we could probably make it work for tomorrow. Let’s see, where could we do this? Surely not a church, but perhaps the register office..." He stopped in the middle of running through a mental list of possibilities. “Wait. Re-schedule?”
"Ah. We- we might have a booking in Westminster, tomorrow."
Aziraphale shifted on his lap and looked at him in surprise, and growing amusement. “A booking? Where at? You’ve put this all together very quickly.”
"Yeah, well...yeah."
“Really? Everything is all in place to get married tomorrow?” He smiled, his excitement rising.
Crowley smiled back, obviously pleased by his enthusiasm. “Well, we still need to come up with two witnesses, but that should be a nonissue. We can just ask Sergeant Shadwell and that woman that you possessed. Handy that they've shacked up together, makes it much simpler.” They had received a cheery little postcard from the couple a few months earlier, from their honeymoon location in Italy.
“Ugh, don’t remind me.” Possessing had been an incredibly unsettling, if necessary experience. “But that is an excellent idea; Madame Tracy is a very reasonable woman. I’ll call them up straight away and see if they are free tomorrow.” He squirmed excitedly. "Oh, good heavens, there is suddenly so much to do." He jumped up off Crowley's lap and pulled him to his feet. "Do I have anything to wear? Do you? Are we doing custom vows? Oh, my- I need to write vows."
Crowley looked like he was trying not to laugh. "You can if you want to, but it's not a requirement."
“Wait- wait wait wait,” Aziraphale said, frowning as another thought occurred to him. “You notified the Register? For tomorrow, specifically?”
“That’s right.” He sounded slightly wary now.
“Doesn’t...I admit, my knowledge on all this is very fuzzy, but I thought that had to be done a ways in advance? Around a month in advance?”
Crowley opened his mouth, paused, and closed it again. He cleared his throat. “Well...yeah.”
He stared at him. “You set this up a month ago? And you're only telling me now?" He felt an enormous grin stretch across his face at the obvious alarm on Crowley’s. “Hold on, you only just asked me and gave me the ring a week ago! Wasn’t that, as the humans say, 'jumping the gun' a bit?”
Crowley just looked at him and slowly turned red. “Well I- I ah, thought...just in case...”
“What if I’d said no?” he asked slyly, raising his eyebrows.
Crowley stared at him, face rapidly draining to slightly pale now. “I-I....”
Aziraphale took pity on him and stopped his panicked stammering with a kiss. “Oh my dear, I’m so sorry, I’m just teasing. Of course I wouldn’t have said no.” He kissed him again and hugged him tight, beaming. At times like these, Crowley's actions spoke louder than his words ever could. “Very sensible, darling. Excellent forward thinking.”
Crowley came down the stairs from the bedroom, hearing the murmur of Aziraphale’s voice as he made the all-important phone call to their witnesses.
Aziraphale had vanished for a couple hours earlier, claiming he had “errands” to run in preparation for tomorrow. Crowley had no idea what those preparations could be, but he didn’t argue. He spent the time wandering idly around, checking and rechecking that he had everything set and ready for the next day.
He had botched his initial plan with the rings so badly that he was determined that nothing go wrong with this part.
As it turned out, arranging a wedding without the knowledge and participation of one of the parties had been even more difficult than rearranging an entire motorway design. He had deliberately neglected to mention the computer hack, late-night paperwork (during the rare interval when Aziraphale was sleeping and he was not), and additional memory-tampering that had gone into making this happen. The legal forms alone had nearly flummoxed him; it was the first time he had ever bothered with that sort of thing, and he was now firmly convinced that someone in his old office had designed the entire system. He would have admired their diabolical ingenuity if he weren't so close to tearing out his hair. He had come very near to giving up entirely and just confessing the whole thing, and ruining the surprise. He was intensely grateful that Aziraphale didn't know more about the process; it would have been mortifying for him to know exactly how much work had gone into it. He smiled fondly to himself. Luckily, his angel was completely oblivious about the minutiae of modern life.
But all was finally in place now, and he was excited - there was something so perfect about joining himself to his angel by the rules of this world. They had chosen this place together, had chosen each other and humanity over every other faction and against all precedent; this felt like the final piece of the puzzle. If they were going to live like humans- more or less- there was no better way to symbolise that choice.
He was also unaccountably nervous. Not about marrying Aziraphale, which as far as he was concerned was a mere formality, but about marrying him in front of other people. He wished there was a way to do it entirely alone, but then he supposed that would defeat the entire purpose.
He walked into the room just in time to see Aziraphale set the rotary phone down in its cradle.
He looked up at him and sighed in frustration. "Well, Ms. Tracy agreed to come, but that madman of hers is off on some kind of week-long mountain trip. Something about...werewolves." He rolled his eyes briefly skyward, praying for patience. "That leaves us one witness short for tomorrow."
"Hrrngh." Crowley scowled. How irritating. That possibility honestly hadn't occurred to him; if anyone’s schedule had been full, he had planned to simply alter it. He sighed, tapping his foot on the floor in thought, then snapped his fingers. "What about that girl, the one with the book and the stupid name?"
"The one you hit with the car, you mean?" Aziraphale said archly. “Anathema.”
"Oh you keep going on about that; it was ages ago. Yes, that one. What about her? She lives here now, doesn't she?"
Aziraphale blew out a breath that was almost a groan and rubbed a hand down his face. "I suppose she is the only other person we know who can be trusted to not ask uncomfortable questions, should the need for any miracles arise. Luckily, I did have the foresight to get her contact information last year. But she might not even agree, she barely knows us." He looked at him, a mix of fondness and exasperation written all over his face. "You know, this wouldn't be an issue if you had told me about this, oh, any time in the last month instead of springing it on me the day before!"
"Sorry..." The truth was that he had intended to ask far sooner, but had been half-certain that Aziraphale wouldn't want to do this at all, and had floundered around all month trying to decide whether to bring it up or let the date pass. His courage last week (and again today) had been born of the desperation that comes with running out of time.
"I'll make the call," he said resignedly.
“Ah- it’s alright, I think I’d better handle it.” The angel opened his little leather address book and paged through it, shaking his head. “You are many things, my love, but diplomatic is not one of them.”
Aziraphale had got the girl to agree, of course, as he very well knew that he would. He was very good with people, even when they were incredibly tiresome; it was part of his endless charm. The two women would meet them at the venue tomorrow. The venue that he still had not specified to Aziraphale.
It was done. All was finally ready. Almost.
Crowley was siting hunched at the small wooden writing desk in the bedroom, the only piece of furniture in the room other than the bed and bedside table. Everything else had been long since removed, as it became a hazard during certain private activities.
He had a piece of paper in front of him and was staring down at it, brow furrowed in thought.
"What are you doing up here?" Aziraphale asked at his shoulder.
Crowley started and nearly leapt out of the chair- he hadn't heard him come in at all, he had been so lost in concentration. He managed to avoid falling, but banged his knee rather badly on the underside of the desk. He twisted around to see Aziraphale standing there looking down at him, obviously fighting not to laugh. He cleared his throat, heart pounding, and tried in vain to regain some semblance of dignity. "Nothing, just..." he cast about for something to say, but Aziraphale wasn't listening. He was looking instead at the paper sitting on the desk.
“Is that your vows? You wrote your own vows? Ooh, let me see!” He reached out his hand, but Crowley snatched up the paper before he could touch it.
“No, no no no, it’s private.” The idea of Aziraphale reading it, analysing it, before the proper time, was cringe-inducing.
Aziraphale looked vastly amused. "Come on,” he teased. “You’re going to be saying these to me tomorrow in public anyway.” He put his arms around his shoulders and reached for it again, playfully trying to grab it, but Crowley held it away just out of reach. It was one of the benefits of having longer arms. “Yes, but until then, it’s private,” he insisted.
"Hmmmm." Aziraphale tightened his arms around him and slowly kissed the back of his neck. "Are you sure you don't want to show me?" he murmured quietly.
"Argh!" Crowley protested, shaking his head. "No, that's not playing fair, you're cheating." He felt his wits softening agreeably, but kept the paper held firmly out of reach.
The angel gave up and straightened with a sigh, hands lingering on the tops of his shoulders. “Fine. Keep your secrets.” Crowley could hear the smirk in his voice.
Crowley stood, folded the paper and tucked it firmly into his inner jacket pocket. “You’re just going to have to wait to be amazed along with everyone else.” He spoke casually, concealing the jolt of nerves he felt at the idea.
Aziraphale glanced up at him, looking entirely too understanding. He leaned in and kissed his cheek. "Don't worry, dear, there won't be many people there."
Aziraphale always saw straight through him, no matter how hard he tried. Crowley sighed and pulled him close, hugging him against his chest. He was comfortably solid and warm in his arms, an anchor keeping him grounded. "I know. That is a relief," he admitted reluctantly. Aziraphale slid his own arms around his waist and held him back, and he felt the small knot of anxiety unravel completely. He sighed again, utterly content. “Any second thoughts?”
“Of course not. I told you before.”
“Well, not so long ago you also said that you didn’t like me.”
“Oh for heavens- I think everything since rather cancels that out. Are you going to hold that over me forever?”
“Probably, yeah,” Crowley drawled. “At least until it stops being fun.” He hugged him tighter, and Aziraphale sighed and rested his head on his shoulder.
“You do know I love you?” the angel murmured.
“I’m starting to get that idea, yeah.” He buried his face in the blond hair and inhaled, enjoying the familiar scent of his aftershave.
“Tea sounds good,” Aziraphale commented after a few minutes. “Or maybe something stronger? It’s just late enough, and I’m a little hungry too...” he trailed off, sounding hopeful.
Crowley smiled to himself. Subtlety, thy name was not Aziraphale. “I’ll go down and get you something. I think we have some chocolates, too, that I can bring up.”
He framed his face in his hands and kissed him, letting his thumbs gently brush his chin. Aziraphale kissed him back, with heat, and he felt his heart stutter. Crowley stroked a fingertip down his face, tracing the lines of his nose and lips, marveling anew at his extraordinary good fortune. “And then I would like to take you to bed, angel. We have a busy day tomorrow, and I want some time with you to myself first.”
As it turned out, the feeling was mutual.