"I didn't know that you were bringing mother," Yeshua hissed, grabbing God's arm, as soon as Mary had finished berating him with motherly affection and gone to take her seat.
"I know. Is there some reason that I shouldn't have?"
Yeshua scowled. "If you know everything, why do you bother asking questions?"
"Because if I don't prod you, you won't say what you actually mean. And, until you voice your opinions, you can't ever seem to manage to figure out what they are."
"You have an answer for everything," Yeshua grumbled.
"I've been informed that it's 42."
Yeshua frowned.
God sighed. "Never 've been getting up to things that you oughtn't to. I brought Mary to ensure that you behave yourself on your last night on ," She added, smirking a bit, "I needed a date."
"I don't want to go back Upstairs."
"I know."
Yeshua huffed. "Don't start anything with Lucifer. You agreed to a truce."
God inclined Her head in a short nod. "If you're finished, I think you should check on Crowley."
"I see He's brought His little strumpet," Lucifer grumbled. "Hypocrite. How He has the nerve to saddle her with the title Virgin, after six children, I can't even begin to imagine."
"Six?" Adam raised a brow. "She still looks pretty good for having six kids."
He'd given up on ever trying to figure out the whole pronoun thing where God was concerned. Lucifer seemed to be perfectly happy suiting pronoun to incarnation where Azazel was concerned, but God was always a big, biblical "He,"- note the uppercase, to show deference, while injecting as much cynicism and disdain as possible in a single personal pronoun.
"Recorporated body," Lucifer scoffed, easily extending the cynicism and disdain to include The Virgin Mary. "He could have made her look thirteen again, if He wanted to. I get a thousand souls a day for pedophilia, but He knocks up a thirteen-year-old girl, slaps on a miracle, calls it The Immaculate Conception, and parents fill up auditoriums to watch children perform plays about it."
Adam shifted uneasily. "It was socially acceptable at the time, though. She was set to be married either way. I suppose, if it hadn't been for Yeshua, she would have lost her virginity sooner, so really the whole Immaculate conception thing… delayedthe pedophilia." Adam winced and shook his head. "Nope. You're right. It's pretty fucked up however you look at it. Anyone who's ever married or impregnated a thirteen-year-old deserves to be in Hell. I don't care what century they were born in."
Lucifer favored his son with a look of approval. "Perhaps you should tell Him that."
Adam glanced over at God. "Nope. No one is telling anyone anything. Everyone is going to play nice and get along. Nothing is going to spoil this wedding. You're here for Crowley and Aziraphale, not to pick a fight with Grandma. I expect both of you on your best behavior. Anyway, you've agreed to a truce. If you break it, you'll just be confirming everything She's ever accused you of."
Adam watched with no little satisfaction, as this last statement changed the look of cruel mischief that had been glinting in his father's eyes to a harder kind of determination. Pointing out an opportunity to prove God wrong about anything and everything was the surest way to ensure that Lucifer would do exactly that, and Adam wasn't above using that to his own ends.
The sorts of psychological tricks that Adam had picked up babysitting for Anathema had been invaluable when it came to dealing with his father. There wasn't much difference between an unruly toddler and The Lord of Darkness. They both thought they knew everything, stubbornly denied all authority, and threw temper tantrums when they didn't get their way, but they were easy enough to handle once you understood how their minds worked. Of course, William and Agnes had never sent him flying across a room when they were in a snit.
"You'd both better go and sit down. We'll be starting in a bit. Just have to fetch the grooms."
oOoOoOo
Yeshua had returned to Crowley's tent, expecting to find him laying on the ground, drunkenly rambling to himself about the mating habits of waterfowl, or something similar. He should still have enough time to argue him into sobering up before the ceremony and get him to where he was supposed to be.
Instead, he found the tent empty, and his first thought was that Crowley had done a runner. Yeshua's second thought was that he knew exactly where Crowley had run to.
Adam's first thought upon entering Aziraphale's tent was not again.
He wasn't surprised. He really wasn't. There were only so many times that you could walk in on the same two people having sex before it stopped being embarrassing and just got annoying. Instead of turning away, he crossed his arms, rolled his eyes skyward in the universal, silent prayer of 'God give me strength,' despite the fact that She wasn't currently at home, and cleared his throat loudly.
The writhing mass of black and white feathers paid no notice to him whatsoever, and Adam glared at the spectacle of Crowley's pale, skinny arseclenching and bobbing as he thrust his hips into what was presumably Aziraphale,bent over the table. Thankfully, the anatomical specifics were hidden from Adam's view by all the feathers, but it certainly sounded like Aziraphale—not that Adam would have expected it to be anyone else.
He cleared his throat again, just as Yeshua arrived beside him.
Yeshua did turn quickly to avert his eyes, with a startled grunt, and Crowley finally noticed their audience and looked over his shoulder at them.
"Really?" he demanded. "How have you still not figured out knocking? Were you born in a barn?"
Yeshua silently raised his hand, still not turning around.
"It's a tent, Crowley," Adam said, deadpan. "You're getting married in less than ten minutes. I suggest you put your clothes back on."
With that, Adam stepped back from the doorway, and let the tent flap fall closed behind him.
Aziraphale's muttered, "Oh, bugger," followed him out.
"I guess we've failed in our duties as best men," Yeshua said with a forlorn sigh.
Adam shrugged. "I'll drag them up to that altar in their pants, in ten minutes, if I have to. Unfortunately, it won't be anything that I haven't seen before."
"You don't think they're actually going to… finish, do you?"
"I don't care if the do, but I'm honestly not above separating them with a garden hose, if they're still at it when the wedding march starts."
Yeshua grimaced.
oOoOoOo
God and Mary had taken seats in the front row on the right side of the aisle and, not to be outdone, Lucifer and Azazel had seated themselves in the front, on the opposite side.
Lucifer pointedly refused to make eye contact, while God smiled serenely and made no pretense of not watching them.
The backed chairs were not at all suited to comfortably seat anyone with wings, so Lucifer and Azazel were both forced to sit sideways, facing each other. Thus, Lucifer had a perfectly polite excuse for turning his back to God, and Azazel had an excuse to slide her knees between his thighs.
Oscar, who had taken a seat beside Freddie in the second row, before any of the other guests had arrived, was ready to crawl out of his skin with the sheer force of the guilty terror he felt in such close proximity to his new lover's parents.
Freddie just seemed to be enjoying the show.
oOoOoOo
"So, are you with Heaven or Hell?" Pepper asked Warlock Dowling, by way of polite small talk, as they waited for the ceremony to begin.
"Excuse me?"
"Are you a demon or an angel?"
She had such a mildly curious expression on her face as she asked, that Warlock still thought he must have misheard her, but then he realized that it was Halloween, and everything clicked together. Nanny Ashtoreth and Brother Francis had obviously elected to have a themed wedding. The left side of the aisle seemed to have gotten into the spirit of the thing slightly more than his fellow guests on the right side, but maybe there was going to be some kind of surprise flashmob later, and he hadn't been included due to travel constraints.
"Neither," he said, "or both. I guess I'm neutral."
"Like Aziraphale and Crowley then. That's cool," she nodded. "I'm Pepper."
"Warlock," Warlock said, waiting for the inevitable comments on his unusual name.
Pepper didn't even blink. Instead, she asked, "Are you at university?"
Warlock decided right then that he liked her, and started telling her about his studies in philosophy at Harvard.
oOoOoOo
Aziraphale and Crowley were both looking thoroughly rumpled as they exited Aziraphale's tent, but at least they were wearing clothes again.
"I hope you both know just how utterly ridiculous you are," Adam told them.
"Your feathers are all ruffled now," Yeshua despaired.
Crowley shook out his wings, which only seemed to exacerbate the problem. The frantic strain of near panic was gone from his face, and instead he wore an almost angelic look of serene acceptance. "S'fine."
Aziraphale just looked slightly dazed- like he'd had all the brains fucked out of him. "We've decided to walk down the aisle together," he said.
"What about the procession?" Adam asked.
"Fuck the procession," Aziraphale said, and he hooked his arm through Crowley's, smugly pleased with himself. "We've always done things our own way, and we've always done them together. Why should this be any different?"
Just then, the wedding march started.
Adam blew out a breath. "Okay. Fuck the procession. Let's do this thing."
"Just," Yeshua said, and before he could object, he'd leant in and snatched Crowley's sunglasses off of his face."You shouldn't hide your eyes when you make an oath."
Crowley was still spluttering in outrage, as Yeshua folded them neatly and tucked them into the inside pocket of his jacket, and Aziraphale pulled him toward the bandstand.
So, it was a very red-in-the-face former demon and a rumpled former angel with a serious case of sex hair that lead the procession of two slightly confused witches, one Christ, one Antichrist, and a pair of children who had started up a mixed martial arts battle that was one part pillow fight and one part tactical, flower petal exchange, down the aisle.
Their guests looked on in bemusement—none quite so confused by the proceedings as Warlock Dowling.
Crowley's anger had distracted him enough to get him down the aisle without really noticing that it was even happening, and he'd finished grinding his teeth by the time they all took their places before the bandstand, so that he was left with just the sense of wonder at what they were about to do.
Aziraphale was all too aware of every step, but he just concentrated on Crowley's arm in his and put one satin heel in front of the other. He smiled fondly at Crowley's shell-shocked expression, reached up to tuck a loose lock of ember hair into place, and gave his hand a squeeze, before they turned from each other to face the officiant.
"DEARLY BELOVED, WE ARE GATHERED HERE TODAY-"
