"There are more of them," Crowley said, upon entering the Mayfair flat to be greeted by a pair of blue eyes looking out from a fluffy face of white fur. "Are they reproducing?"
"Oh,geez, I hope not." Yeshua stared at the new cat reprovingly. "He's out of control."
"The cat?"
"Freddie."
"How many are there?" Crowley asked, looking around.
"Four," Yeshua said with a sigh. "I don't even know what all of their names are anymore. Are you sure you don't want one?"
Crowley tilted his head at the cat, and it mirrored the motion. The fluff of white fur and the color of its eyes reminded him of Aziraphale, and he thought that he might not mind having this one around. "Ask me again after the honeymoon. I don't know how Aziraphale will feel about cat hair in the bookshop. Speaking of which, I'll need you to come over to water the plants while we're gone."
"Sure, if Dad doesn't drag me kicking and screaming back upstairs after the wedding."
oOoOoOo
Adam and Oscar were joined in the lift by a family of German tourists, and Adam shifted closer to Oscar to make room. He could feel the body heat radiating off the other man, and his nerves ratcheted up another notch. He tried to be unobtrusive as he wiped his sweaty palms on the legs of his jeans.
He'd always been pretty confident before when it came to dating. Maybe it was just the knowledge that he could change the world to his will, even if he would never manipulate another person into being attracted to him, or maybe it was because no one he'd ever considered dating knew his big secret, but he'd never really been all that nervous about it before. It was a kind of insulation, that secret; it was such a big part of who he was on a fundamental level that if someone rejected him, without knowing that little it of information, then they weren't really rejecting him at all—just the person he was pretending to be.
Oscar, on the other hand, knew all about Adam's infernal origins. More than that, Oscar was a condemned soul, only allowed to walk the Earth under Adam's supervision. That should make him feel more confident, in control, but somehow it didn't. If he made a move, and Oscar reciprocated his advances, would it just be because he was afraid of the consequences of a refusal? Or, perhaps worse, if he did refuse, did that mean he found Adam so detestable that he wouldn't even go along with it knowing what the reprisal could be? But, that was ridiculous; they'd spent a week together now, and Oscar had to know him better than that.
This wasn't just a whim either. He didn't want some quick, no-strings-attached hook-up. He had connected with Oscar in a way that was more honest and real than he ever had with anyone before. Adam thought that he might like to keep Oscar around for a good long while, if the universe, and his father and Grandmother, would be that kind.
Adam wiped his palms on his trouser legs again and tried to take a few measured breaths without sounding like he was about to hyperventilate.
oOoOoOo
Aziraphale invited Anathema and Madame Tracy in for a cup of tea, before they returned to Tadfield for the night, and they were sitting in the bookshop, phonograph playing quietly in the background, while they sipped from Aziraphale's nicest china tea service.
"Are you feeling nervous about tomorrow?" Anathema asked.
"I think everything will go all right. I'm not as worried about the guests behaving themselves as Crowley seems to be."
"I meant the marriage part. It's a big step."
"Well, we've been partners, or adversaries, in one way or another, since God set the world spinning, so I doubt much will really change."
Anathema made a thoughtful sound. "It doesn't, at first. Introducing him as your husband instead of your boyfriend takes a bit of getting used to, but apart from that it mostly stays the same for a while. The sex eventually tapers off."
"Oh?" Madame Tracy asked, sipping her tea with a slightly smug quirk of her brow. "That hasn't been my experience."
"Maybe that's from the kids then," Anathema said. She let out an exhausted sigh—the animal call of overworked and underappreciated mothers everywhere.
"Well, we've done the child bit already," Aziraphale said.
"That isn't really the same," Anathema argued. "It isn't as though you raised Adam."
"No, not Adam. Warlock Dowling. You can meet him; he'll be at the wedding tomorrow. He was very prompt about sending back his R.S.V.P." Aziraphale smiled proudly at the display of proper etiquette- manners instilled, no doubt, by a certain gardener.
Anathema set her teacup down. "You have a kid? I didn't know you had a kid. Why isn't he in the wedding?"
"Well, he isn't ours exactly… He's the one that we mistakenly thought was the Antichrist. Crowley was his nanny, and I took a position as the gardener, so that we could influence him away from Armageddon. He had parents, of course, but they weren't particularly involved. We had the keeping of him for the most part, and I can certainly see why chasing after children would put a damper on any… bedroom activities."
Anathema snorted. "After chasing two children around all day, the bedroom activity I'm most excited about is sleep."
"You won't have to worry about that though, dear," Tracy said, patting his hand.
They all sipped at their tea for a while, contemplating their respective experiences with life, love, relationships, and child care.
"After a while," Anathema put in, "You stop trying so hard to impress each other. Once you're married, he's not constantly trying to win your affection anymore."
"That part can be nice though," Tracy added. "When you aren't so worried about doing something to scare him away, you can just settle in and be yourself."
"I think I've always been myself," Aziraphale said, furrowing his brow, as he wondered who else he would be.
"I was never all that worried about scaring Newt away. He's like a happy little puppy, whatever I do. I suppose it helps when you're set up by a nice and accurate prophetess ancestor. Agnes wouldn't have steered me in the wrong direction."
"I could have used her help with my Mr. Shadwell."
"She was a fair bit of help keeping Crowley and I out of the soup."
"And averting Armageddon," Anathema agreed, "but I still don't need a 17th century witch giving out spoilers for the rest of my life. That's why Newt and I burned the book."
"Burned it?" Aziraphale choked. "I would have kept it for you, and all of the prophecies had already been fulfilled."
"Oh, not that one, the sequel."
"There's, ah-" Aziraphale coughed and tried to contain his excitement. Mostly he failed; his face lighting up like a child's on Yeshua's birthday. "What's this about a sequel?"
Anathema sipped her tea before answering, and Aziraphale fought the urge to grind his teeth while he waited for her to continue.
"Agnes arranged to send it to the cottage, the morning after… well, everything. It was never published, just a manuscript, but like I said, we burned it. It was Newt's idea. An unscripted life, you know?"
Aziraphale instantly swore his undying hatred for Newton Pulsifer, and damned him to whatever circle of Hell they reserved for Nazis and book burners. He tried to force a neutral expression, but mostly failed; his face fell like Lucifer after the rebellion—straight into a boiling lake of sulfur, and eternal rage.
"You might have given it to another interested party," he said in a clipped tone.
oOoOoOo
Adam fumbled with the key card at the door to their room, not quite managing to get the proper orientation on the magnetic strip in his first three tries. When he finally did manage to get it open, he briefly considered wishing Oscar a good night and fleeing back down to the lobby to book a second room, but he steeled his nerves and followed Oscar inside.
They stood awkwardly for a moment, both looking at the single King sized bed. A number of possible sentences passed through Adam's mind all at once: I didn't think you'd mind sharing, or This was the only room left; you can have the bed, or I don't plan on doing much sleeping, or Since this is your last night here, I thought that there might be a few more experiences we could share, or I'm the fucking Antichrist; I'll just hang upside down in the cupboard like a bat.
Then, Oscar was saying, "This looks cozy."
And, what came out of Adam's mouth was, "This was the only room with a bat in the cupboard."
Oscar furrowed his brows. "I don't believe that I'm familiar with that idiom."
Adam wanted to facepalm. He still held their suits awkwardly up in one hand, so they wouldn't brush the floor. He ignored the question, and used the easy excuse for a tactical retreat. "Just give me a second, and I'll hang these up."
He found the closet, noting that it was bat-free and plenty spacious enough to hide one morbidly-embarrassed Antichrist with still enough room left over to hang their suits. He hooked the hangers over the bar and closed the door, then he just stood there staring at the closed door of the closet for a moment as he took a few deep breaths.
If he really wanted to do this, he had to do it right. He had to just lay it all out there on the table: full on emotional love confession, with a discussion about feelings. Adam didn't like discussing feelings. Emotions just seemed to complicate everything, and voicing them aloud made him feel weak and vulnerable. The very idea of losing his careful measure of control over something as inconsequential as a romance made him uneasy and faintly disgusted with himself, but going into this half-cocked wouldn't be fair to Oscar, so he steeled himself and turned around—ready to pour out his pathetic little heart like a love-sick teenage girl.
Only, Oscar was standing right there behind him. Either Adam had been too preoccupied with his thoughts to notice, or Oscar had moved more quietly than such a big man had any right to.
"I-" Adam started, but his mind failed to find any words to follow, and then Oscar was kissing him.
So, definitely on the same page then, he thought, shocked, but before he could reciprocate the kiss Oscar was pulling away again.
"I should apologize," he mumbled, turning away.
"Wait, what?" Adam was still trying to find his bearings.
"I shouldn't have presumed…" Oscar was saying, and Adam grabbed him by the arm to pull him around to face him.
"You just caught me by surprise," Adam said. "I was getting ready to make this big speech about how much I've come to like you and how nice it's been having you around this week, and you skipped ahead."
"You were?"
"Well,… yeah," Adam rubbed sheepishly at the back of his neck and Oscar smiled at him.
"Well, go on then."
"What? The speech?"
"Yes."
"I can't do it now."
"Why ever not?"
"You kissed me."
Oscar got that amused smile on his face that meant he was messing about. "I should think that would make it easier."
"Yeah, you might think that, but there was all this nonsense about how complicated any relationship between the two of us would be, and how I have no way of guaranteeing what tomorrow will bring, and how I'm a huge idiot when it comes to this stuff, and well… now you kissed me and I don't want to ruin my chances…" Adam couldn't help the nervous laugh that escaped his lips.
Oscar's expression had softened from apprehension to amusement . "I don't think there's much worry of that. I've grown quite fond of you as well, and there's never any guarantee of what tomorrow will bring."
"Yeah, for most blokes it isn't 'there's a good chance you'll be tortured for the rest of eternity under my father's oversight,' though."
"That hasn't been so far from my previous experiences," Oscar said with a wince.
"I can't see you get sent back to that," Adam said. He felt helpless, and he knew that he was ruining the moment even as he said it, but he couldn't help it.
It wasn't fair. Not that he should expect anything else by now. Whatever kind of normal life he was trying to make for himself, he was the son of Satan, and he had finally come to accept that. He spent his weekends in Hell. Jesus Christ was his uncle, and sometimes they got pushed together and started carpentry projects in the middle of the night, and had a slash in some of Crowley's flowerpots. His mother was a demon with a penchant for goats, who liked to hang out at Adam's flat and watch porn. His grandmother was an all-powerful, supreme being, the embodiment of love, and had told him to go to Hell, quite literally, the one time he had spoken to Her. His godfathers were a couple of immortal idiots who were finally getting married tomorrow, after a six thousand year courtship that seemed to have mostly consisted of Aziraphale pretending that he didn't notice how much Crowley was in love with him. He had a pet hellhound and a dinosaur that wasn't exactly a pet, but wasn't precisely not a pet either. Adam had a lot going on in his life. Since he'd turned eleven, his life had just been a long series of complications, and now, with any luck, he was going to fuck Oscar Wilde into the mattress, and wave a fond farewell to any thought that it would all get less complicated.
That was it, the final straw. Time to embrace the madness and go screaming and moaning into that long night. Or… something like that anyway.
Adam grabbed Oscar by the lapels of his ridiculous plum suit and pulled him down for another kiss—one with two eager participants.
oOoOoOo
Freddie had been left outside in the Bentley when they had returned to Mayfair with strict instructions that he wouldn't be allowed into the flat until he fixed it.
He'd moved to the driver's seat, to better commune with the machine, feeling stupid as he rapped his fingertips against the steering wheel and tried to figure out how to let a car down gently.
"It's not you; it's me," he tried, but even when he was talking to a car that seemed like a pathetic line.
The stereo clicked on, and Freddie heard his own voice singing back to him: It started off so well. They said we made a perfect pair.
"Yeah," Freddie said. "It was fun. I enjoyed our drive, but it just isn't going to work out between us."
I can't live without you, his voice sang back to him in another scrap of lyrics.
"That's not true. You don't need me. You wouldn't want me anyway; I'm a mess. And, besides, I'm taken," Freddie said, "and you're a car. You're a lovely car, but you just aren't my type."
I'm in love with my car, gotta feel for my automobile.
Freddie groaned. "That one isn't even mine. That's all Deaky, and it was a sort of a joke."
The music shifted, and Don't Stop Me Now started playing instead. Freddie started tapping his fingers against the steering wheel again in futile agitation.
I'm a racing car, passing by like Lady Godiva.
This whole conversation was starting to feel like an argument with himself.
I'm burnin' through the sky, yeah. Two hundred degrees. That's why they call me Mister Fahrenheit. I'm traveling at the speed of light. I wanna make a supersonic man out of you.
Freddie grimaced. He wondered if it might not just be easiest to try giving the gear stick a blow, after all, despite Crowley's objections. He eyed it, considering, But, no. This was ridiculous. He didn't owe anything to Crowley's mad car. He'd explained himself. He'd tried to be polite. He really was flattered, but he had to draw the line somewhere.
"How about, 'I want to ride my bicycle'. Do you know that one?" he asked.
The music fell silent.
Freddie smiled to himself, thinking that perhaps he'd finally gotten his point across.
The engine suddenly turned over and revved, though Freddie hadn't touched the key. The headlights clicked on.
He sat up straighter in the seat and looked around. "What?" he started, but was cut off as the Bentley jolted forward and sped into the flow of traffic.
He grabbed the steering wheel, and pumped ineffectually at the breaks. "What the hell?"
Roger's drum beats started rolling through the Bentley's interior, thumping through Freddie's chest with a palpable, percussive impact, and he knew the song instantly and felt the cold grip of fear as he heard his own voice sang out the opening line.
And you're rushing headlong you've got a new goal
And you're rushing headlong out of control
And you think you're so strong
But there ain't no stopping and there's nothin'
You can do about it
Nothin' you can do
No there's nothin' you can do about it
No there's nothin' you can, nothin' you can,
Nothin' you can do about it