Crowley had been dreaming of this day for…well, for a long time. But somehow his fantasies had never included a human chasing him with an overlarge crucifix and a jar of holy water.
The demon had never figured out how such tiny bells managed to make jingling sound so unfriendly, but he had come to welcome the noise. It was familiar. Like the hum of the Bentley purring beneath his feet, or the annoyed huff currently emanating from the back of the shop.
"Look, closing time is just about t — oh! Crowley! What a pleasant surprise." Aziraphale's features softened into a warm smile as he emerged from the back room. He hurried forward to greet the demon. "It's been too long."
"It's been a week, angel," Crowley laughed, but he agreed. Things had changed after the Apocalypse hadn't happened, and now it was a rare day the two didn't meet to eat, talk, drink, or reminisce. "My people finally contacted me, asked why I haven't been turning in reports, so I guess I still have a job."
"But they still haven't mentioned the whole…Armageddon thing, right?" Aziraphale asked worriedly.
"No, not a word of that," Crowley reassured him, placing a hand on the angel's shoulder. They didn't know whether Adam had messed with their Superiors' heads or if Heaven and Hell were simply pretending nothing had happened — you never knew with bureaucrats — but either way, it had been nearly half a year and neither of them had faced any consequences as of yet for their actions.
"Good, good," Aziraphale said, brushing at a nonexistent bit of dust on Crowley's sleeve. "If anything were to happen to you, now, well…I don't know what I would do, Crowley."
It was not a good time for Crowley's sunglasses to slip down the bridge of his nose. But slip they did, and their eyes met over the frame. Aziraphale's eyes were glistening, earnest as anything. Crowley's slitted pupils dilated.
A dusty cough echoed through the room, which had quickly returned to its usual state of grime and disorder after Adam had willed it back into existence. Aziraphale had sold all the first editions the young antichrist had filled the new shop with, which were not to his taste but which were worth a lot of money, and had lost no time finding new volumes to stuff the shelves with.
"Humph, I thought I'd scared away — ahem, that all the customers had gone," Aziraphale said. A head poked out from between two bookshelves: a young woman, in her early twenties or so, short red hair blazing even in the limited light of the shop.
"Just give me a few minutes, I'm almost done," she told them, her accent rolling with an Irish cadence.
"Oh goodness!" Aziraphale exclaimed, eyeing the books piled high in her arms with alarm. "You can't — I'm sorry, but you simply cannot buy those. Please put them back."
"What, all of them?" she said in surprise, looking down at the volumes. "I don't under—"
"Yes, yes, all of them, put them back now," Aziraphale snapped, "and then be on your way. Er, please."
"Unbelievable," the woman muttered under her breath, turning back to the shelves. She began shoving books in at random; Aziraphale let out a dramatic gasp and rushed to her side.
"On second thought just hand them over and be on your way," he said quickly, taking the books from her.
"What's wrong with you?" she demanded, standing her ground as he tried to propel her towards the door. "Who the bloody hell owns a bookshop and doesn't let people buy any of the books?"
While Crowley loved watching a good quarrel unfold between his angel and a disgruntled customer, what he wanted right now was to be alone with Aziraphale. He decided to step in.
"Lissssten," he hissed, making sure she got a good look at his gleaming golden eyes, "I think it would be bessssst if you got going."
The woman's eyes widened with an emotion Crowley couldn't identify, but it was akin enough to fear to satisfy him. "You—you're—you're—" she spluttered, backing away towards the door.
Crowley gestured, and the door swung open as if caught on a gust of wind. He bowed her out as she half-staggered, half-ran away, glancing behind her several times to stare some more.
"Now dear, I thought we had agreed to keep a low profile…" Aziraphale chided.
"Eh, to hell with low profiles," Crowley said, heart suddenly racing. Aziraphale had neared him once again, and was it just him or was it getting rather warm—
"Crowley," Aziraphale said firmly, gazing into the demon's eyes again. "Do you know, I am getting the strangest reading from your aura right now."
"I-is that right?" Crowley stammered. "F-funny stuff, auras, who really knows how to read them properly." He tried desperately to clamp his down, but it remained stubbornly wild, waving forwards and back like a time-lapse tide.
It was much too hot in this shop. And Aziraphale's face was so close to his—
And then their lips connected. Only then did Crowley realize with a start that the angel's aura was just as wild as his own. The erratic colors met and merged, bright and warm and washing over their tangled arms, their flushed faces, their chests pressed close.
Crowley shifted the tilt of his head, and their glasses clinked together. With an impatient snap of his fingers his shades dissolved, but Aziraphale just laughed low in his throat and pulled away to take his own spectacles off. He folded them, carefully, and placed them on a nearby shelf — too slowly for the demon, who hissed and pulled his angel close to him again.
After several minutes that felt both longer than all their six thousand years and shorter than a breath, they pulled apart again. Neither being needed to breathe, yet both were breathing hard.
Aziraphale's dark curls were sticking out every which way, disheveled by Crowley's fingers. The demon felt suddenly embarrassed, and unconsciously stepped backwards, putting some space between them. Their auras, however, still mingled, a blushing, rosy hue.
"Well," said Aziraphale, his voice calm, almost businesslike, "this is quite the development."
Crowley laughed, and the tension drained from his limbs. He wandered over to the shop's counter and leaned against it, grinning goofily at the angel. "It's about time," he said, running his fingers through his own tousled hair. He thought a moment. "It's…you're okay with it, right?"
"Yes." Aziraphale joined him at the counter, took his hand in his. "Dear me, yes."
"Step away from him!"
Crowley tore his gaze away from Aziraphale's to look toward the front door, which had just been thrown open. The bells jangled angrily above the determined face of the same young woman Crowley had chased from the shop ten minutes before. She was panting, as if she had been running as fast as she could, and she was brandishing a crucifix like an ornate, unwieldy gun.
"Demon!" she barked. "You leave this man alone!" She waved the heavy crucifix clumsily with one hand, stepping forward. Crowley rolled his eyes — until he noticed what she had tucked under her other arm.
A jar of water, which he could only assume was…
"That's right. Holy water, fiend," she snarled, following his gaze. "Prepare yourself to meet your—"
"Dear girl, please," Aziraphale said, throwing up his arms and stepping in front of Crowley, whose blood had drained from his face. "There is no need for this, no need at all."
"He has you under his thrall, don't you see that?" she implored of the shopkeeper, fiddling with the jar's lid as she spoke. "He's going to take your soul, just like Bea's, if I don't do something—"
"Az, she's got the lid off, Az — Aziraphale!"
Water arched across the space between them, and for a moment, time froze in a tableaux: the scared but determined girl with her arm extended, the stout shopkeeper in his tartan jumper and the horrorstruck demon behind him.
The ripping of wool: the angel had thrown his wings open, but too late — Crowley howled as droplets of holy water splashed across his skin like a morning mist. He crumpled to the floor, hands over his face.