A/N: Right so my friends dad is having a white Bentley at his wedding (I doubt it's a '26) so I tell my friend Mistiness of it and this kinda happened, it is a combined effort but like 70/30 to her, so props to her!
"What do you mean you want to spray paint it white?" Crowley demanded, queasiness beginning to set in. The angel had to be having him on; no one in their right mind could seriously consider the re-spraying of a black vintage Bentley in white.
"Just for the day..." Aziraphale tried. The angel had known that the Demon would be difficult about this aspect of his complicated plan for the ceremony but, with his usual level of mild mannered tenacity, he'd convinced himself that it was worth a try. He tried to look imploringly at Crowley who sat opposite him across the low coffee table, slumped on his favourite white leather sofa.
"Uh no, not happening." The Demon said firmly, keeping his face impassive. That was the best way of dealing with the angel he'd found; a flat refusal was usually enough to derail him from whatever he was going on about.
"But white symbolises purity." the angel attempted to argue. He wasn't going to give this one up without somewhat of a fight. He often thought that Crowley saw him as something of a push over; an unfortunate demonic attitude in the Angel's opinion. Still, a liking for peace should never be interpreted as a lack of argumentative power.
The demon chuckled with true amusement at this and shrugged his shoulders under his smart black jacket. "I'm never pure; not once over these 6 millennia have I been pure, Angel." He reminded his companion a little snidely, flicking down his sunglasses in point of fact. Really? Aziraphale had thought that that flimsy defence had any hope with him? Had the Angel ever been good at arguing, Crowley would have sworn he was losing his touch; as it was, he hoped the topic would now be dropped.
"Now is always a good time to start...turn over a new leaf as they say." Aziraphale tentatively pushed a little further, pointing at one of Crowley's terrified, if very verdant, houseplants. He knew he would probably never change the Demon but it didn't mean he would ever stop trying.
"Do the words 'wedding' and 'night' make any connections in that angelic, overly simplified brain of yours?" the Demon batted back, trying to make the Angel feel as uncomfortable as he did about the proposed transformation of his beloved car. This was starting to feel like a grand slam at Wimbledon and Crowley was surprised to find his usually non-combative opponent was actually putting up the semblance of a fight. It was slightly refreshing.
"Yes dear," the angel seemed totally unperturbed, going so far as to fold his manicured hands carefully in his lap as he spoke, "I did have a couple of ideas for that.". The demon often tried to put him off with insinuations of that kind; Aziraphale was determined that it wouldn't succeed on this occasion.
"Really?" the Demon tried to hide his surprise but the drawing out of the word in an attempt to make it sound disinterestedly sarcastic didn't quite disguise the effect of the Angel's comment. Surely the Angel was talking of something entirely different than Crowley's much darker mind supposed…he had to be…
"Of course, we will get to know each other in a very…" there was a slight pause for emphasis, "biblical sense.". A small, oh so ironic smile was pulling at the angels lips by the time he finished this very deliberate pronouncement. A previously unfelt sense of empowerment was filling Aziraphale's chest; this felt intoxicatingly good.
"I don't remember any of that in the bible," the demon blustered, his cheeks glowing a mild, un-infernal red. He wasn't used to this and, though he'd never admit it, he was more than a little disconcerted by this new side to his lo- friend of centuries.
"You have to learn to read between the lines dear boy." Aziraphale looked at him pointedly, resuming his impassive demeaner. He didn't get to see the demon get this close to being flustered very often; he found it quite endearing.
"You didn't..." Crowley's black eyebrows rose as he came to the quite startling conclusion. Once again, he had to be mistaking the Angel's meaning; it was inconceivable that….
"You know nephilim were abundant at one time," Aziraphale interrupted, speaking as if to a small child but not one that he particularly disliked. His angelic nature required him to be gentle even when teasing.
"Even still..." Crowley persisted, his voice becoming more admiring than startled. A sly smile spreading across his face at the thought of his frumpy angel doing such things. This really was a turn up for the antique books.
"Best not to dwell on the past, eh?" Aziraphale primly ended that trail of thought. He still had his limits and this rampant talk of sinful behaviour had been going on quite long enough for his restrained taste.
"I mean I'm a tempter but I left that side of it to the incubi. You on the other wing, holy holy angel of the lord, you doing the nasty?" Crowley was grinning widely now, enjoying himself and all the images his mind could conjure up at such short notice.
"You mean you, tempter of Eden, Serpent, creature of the fiery pit, etc. etc., have never made love?" came the quick retort and the demon wasn't smiling any longer. The angel suddenly had the feeling that he had gone just a bit too far. Ah well.
"Look, I'm not supposed to love…" Crowley hurriedly amended in a bid to rescue the fast deteriorating situation, "lust yeah but generally I inflict it on others.". This had escalated disturbingly quickly.
"Really my dear, you do shock me..." The angel was smiling broadly now: not smug but as damn close as he could possibly get. He shouldn't be getting pleasure from this but he couldn't deny the fact that he was.
"Well, there's no need to rub it in..." his counterpart sniffed. Sulking, he decided, was definitely in his nature. He did not like being played with and he was sure, though he never would have thought him capable of it until now, that that was what the angel was doing, whether he intended to or not.
"Wouldn't dream of it..." this smile was definitely entering the neighbourhood of smugness.
"You're laughing at me in your mind aren't you?" Crowley asked petulantly, resisting the urge to toss his head in a very undemonlike manner. "Well, aren't you?" he pressed when Aziraphale failed to respond after a moment. Crowley was getting distinctly hot under the collar.
"I never make light of virtue..." The angels delight at his mischievous words was becoming impossible to hide. The idea of attaining a victory over the demon, however minor or petty, was just too good for even an angel to resist.
"Listen," Crowley said firmly, "back to the point, the Bentley. Will. Not. Be. White.". The demon was attempting to regain control of the conversation with the less than skilful steering of it back towards the original subject.
The angel sighed; he was going to have to let it drop, seeing as the Demon had so conveniently reintroduced the earlier argument. "Well if you're going to be that difficult about it…". There was a contemplative pause while he thought of some compromise, "How do you feel about decking it out in some lovely flowers in that case? Some nice red roses would complement the paint work so well...even you can't object to that, surely?" He gave Crowley a winning smile.
"I think you'll find I can and do, very strongly" the demon pulled a pout any spoilt child would be proud of, straightening up on the sofa so that he could fold his arms over his chest. His shoulders hunched forward, completing the childlike pose.
"I thought red was positively devilish," Aziraphale pointed out quite logically, inwardly shaking his head at Crowley's infantile behaviour.
"Broadly speaking yes but roses are... romantic." Crowley was going to fight this corner all the way and he was prepared for the long game. After all what's a few months till the wedding compared to the actual fight that had lasted almost 5 thousand years?
"Perish the thought," His angel muttered, discarding a few rough sketches of how he thought the vexatious car should look on the troublesome day into the waist paper basket. "Really, anyone would think you were planning a funeral." The demon really was being even more unreasonable than his usually perverse self. It was getting a little frustrating.
"If you do anything to that car I might well be!" Crowley groused, still not happy that the angel wouldn't leave his beloved Bentley alone.
"Now now, there's no need for that" Aziraphale was perusing more papers but still had the authority to admonish without even looking properly at his demon. His finger scanned down a list of invitee's while his mind tried to think of any one of his few living acquaintance's whom he might have forgotten. He had point blank refused the Demon's wish that the service should be strictly private; that wasn't how things were done in the angel's world.
"Leave. The. Car. Out. Of. This." This was to be the last said on the subject if it killed him Crowley vowed silently, intimidating glare hidden behind his sunglasses. This was getting stupid.
"Sometimes I would hazard you care more about that car than you do me." The angel said so softly it barely reached Crowley's ears. It was a silly thought (how could anyone care more about an inanimate object than a person?), yet Aziraphale could never quite dismiss it when talk of the car started up. He was very accommodating but being second best was never a comfortable position for anyone. Least of all second best to an automobile, no matter how valuable.
"Listen! It's not like that." he started up, suddenly angry at being unjustly accused. "Just the car is a unique and rare car and I don't want it to overshadow what we are going to be doing on the day is all." he ended quite lamely. He cared, he really did, it was just that for someone such as himself, so stuck in his ways it was hard to show. What ways they were too. He was trying, honest to go-sa-someone. Aziraphale was just so kind and considerate and believed everyone else should be able to show that they were as well. Sometimes they were as stubborn as each other and it was infuriating.
"You're creeping again you little snake," the angel observed. Despite this complaint though, he understood the effort involved to even say that and took it as an unspoken apology. The demon couldn't help who and what he was.
"Well of course but that doesn't make it any less true," Crowley attempted a genuine smile and succeeded as well as could be expected from one of his ilk.
"Fine," Aziraphale decided to drop the subject once and for all, "the car will stay as it is.". He saw the triumphant expression beginning to cross Crowley's face and felt honour bound to continue. "Providing," he warned, raising a chastening hand, "you agree not to play any 'bebop' at the reception.". Now this was becoming a hostage negotiation.
Crowley's tone was long suffering but fond none the less: "Look, we've been over this time and ag-"
"I won't have it." The angel interrupted, "its classical or nothing. And no excuses about the audio tapes having been in the glove compartment for more than a fortnight this time; I know for a fact that you now use those compact discy things nowadays."
"I-" Crowley tried but realising the futility he changed tack. "Fine, providing you promise you won't make me gavotte! That's one of the reasons I spent a lot of the 19th century in bed, remember." While not quite as bad as the 14th Crowley had still found the 1800s bad enough to drive him to sleep through the majority of them. Aziraphale adversely seemed to be still living in that century, at least his music taste was.
"You missed quite a good century though dear" the angel commented neutrally. He'd quite enjoyed the 19th century. The highlight had to have been learning to gavotte; he never could understand why Crowley refused to learn himself. Demons were meant to be better dancers than Angels after all.
"I hardly think-" before Crowley could get a full sentence out Aziraphale was in full rant mode.
"The Brontes, Rossetti, Darwinian theory," the angel broke off and allowed himself a little chuckle, that had been a good joke back in 1861, "Queen Victoria, the great exhibition-" he continued the quite probably endless list of the centuries attributes.
"Huge glass dome, lots of crackpot inventions...yeah, been there, done that." The demons flippant tone would probably just make Aziraphale worse. This banter was usual and it didn't bother either of them that much anymore. Still Crowley couldn't believe the angel had tried to use an exhibition that had included such things as the 'emergency corset' (a garment which would 'pop open' in case of an emergency the nature of which was never explained) to 'sell' a century.
"Your cultural awareness could use a little honing you know..." Aziraphale remarked wearily. Crowley's tastes were really rather obscure and crude, at least in his eyes.
"The Stones, Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper…" the demon raised a single eyebrow, waiting for the response to his challenge.
"Don't talk bebop to me, not culture at all," the angel scoffed, not even deeming to look at Crowley.
"Just because they come after 1901 doesn't mean they aren't culturally relevant. That's just y-" Crowley stopped and gulped imperceptibly, not wanting to finish his sentence at the risk of being pinned with more than the righteously wrathful glare the angel was levelling at him. It had been a while since Aziraphale had been riled enough to start throwing things but Crowley well remembered the unfairly good aim possessed by the usually peaceful angel. It made him want to wince just recalling it.
"Are you calling me old fashioned?" Aziraphale asked his tone dangerously soft with the undercurrent of 'be-careful-what-you-say-or-you-might-not-make-it- to-the-wedding-night'.
"Not at all..." Crowley decided that a quick, non-confrontational response was probably the safest bet.
"Yes you are," the angel countered, a slight pink flush staining his usually untroubled cheeks.
"I just think a little modern music will do you good," Crowley tried to pacify him, though he had to admit he found the angel even more fascinating when he got riled. "Adele or Josh Groban might be up your alley…". His full body shook in a shiver of disgust even to utter the blessed names. The things he did for lo… er companionship.
The angel sitting across from him stifled a laugh, as he pulled up a book of samples to cover his grinning face. "Please don't if it will cause that much pain to you. It wouldn't do to have you collapsing before you've drunk enough to make it legitimate…"
Crowley had to laugh slightly, "look who's talking."
"I can't think what you mean," Aziraphale replied prudishly, flipping over a page and trying to focus on the white lace he was considering for table cloths at the reception.
"Oh yes you do," Crowley said pointedly. He knew that they both intended to drink solidly at the party after the ceremony; that was, after all, the entire point of having one, despite the angel's talks of finger buffets and string quartets.
"Honestly," Aziraphale sighed again, peeking at the Demon from over his samples, "you really are the limit."
"Well yes," Crowley shrugged, a smirk crossing his face, "and you're going to get landed with me…for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part…"
"Huh?" the angel asked, a little puzzled that he would bring up the part of the marriage vows that didn't, couldn't apply to them. They didn't need money, they couldn't get ill and they couldn't die…well, not in the human sense.
"Just our little joke," The Demon said silkily as he reached over to flick the book out of the angels hands, "now, stop being boring and lets have some unrestrained fun while we're both still free."