A few days after the averted apocalypse, Aziraphale was back at his immaculate antique bookshop, learning to bake brownies for the first time, off a YouTube video.
The warm smell of cocoa waltzed through the threadbare kitchen, tripping along the ancient bookshelves, and mixing ever so faintly with the smell of parchment, dust and the finest ground coffee beans. Aziraphale smugly hummed a tune that faintly resembled La Vie En Rose thrown glaringly offkey, as he carefully blended the flour and chocolate powder, and tenderly poured in a cup of milk. He even licked off the chocolatey bits that clung to his fingers, with evident glee and when he finally set the mixture to bake, checking the time in his antique pocket watch, he looked ridiculously pleased with himself.
Straightening his bowtie in a small gilded mirror, he dialed Crowley's number.
The demon who was lounging in his roller-back chair after having a stern word with his houseplants, picked the call on its very first ring.
"Hello, Aziraphale", he intoned smoothly, "What's the occasion?"
Aziraphale's cheeks turned slightly pink. "Oh, nothing much, I'm afraid. You see, I'm baking a batch of brownies, and I was just wondering if you'd like to come over and share."
Crowley's lips twitched, as he considered the words, stretching the silence to a little over five seconds, which was time enough for Aziraphale's immortal heart to skip two beats and softly mumble to the receiver, "Only…if you…want to."
"Ha!", laughed Crowley, adjusting his aviators. "I'll be there in an hour, tops."
Aziraphale jittered about the kitchen, with the excitement of a mouse who has discovered that the pantry has more food than he'd ever hoped for in his wildest dreams. He almost squeaked, as he adjusted his cream suit, and brushed some stray crumbs off his collar.
Fifty minutes later, a shining black Bentley drove up to the front of a quaint bookstore in London, and a red-haired demon stepped out in a dark suit and leather boots. He rang the doorbell and as he waited, he took a swig of cider from his hip flask.
Aziraphale did not answer the door.
When the angel failed to answer even after the seventh ring, Crowley was fairly confident that he'd managed to disable the doorbell. He softly cursed and used a little of his magic to jimmy the lock open. The interior of the bookshop looked as glorious and stuffy as before, crammed with ancient tomes, rare first editions and autographed copies, and books of prophecies and manuscripts written in languages extinct or unknown to humanity. Atop a small desk, lay scattered sheaves of paper, fountain pens and quills, an antique telephone and a well-oiled typewriter, alongside small porcelain figurines. A gramophone half-hidden among the piles of books and crumbling antiques, gaily hummed a Frank Sinatra tune. In fact, everything felt so ordinary, Crowley was confused for a solid minute, trying to figure out what exactly was out of place.
He sniffed the air and then noticed the wispy grey smoke that faintly emanated from the half-closed door of a storeroom, and edging forwards, his nose was nicely assaulted with the ghastly smell of something burning.
Aziraphale had not only turned a dusty storeroom into a rudimentary kitchen, but he'd also neatly succeeded in burning it down.
"Now that smells like home", Crowley announced, inhaling the pungent fumes, as he looked around from the utensils on the sink to Aziraphale's hunched form, his head half-inside the small oven, wrapped in a haze of smoke and over-burnt chocolate. His shock of fluffy white hair had turned an untidy grey.
Quivering, Aziraphale slowly turned, his hands clutching a tray that resembled a mass of molten plastic and congealed dark chocolate sauce, topped with a few black mounds that still smoked and sizzled. His face that was covered in soot, wore a dismal expression, as he said apologetically, "They got burnt".
He said it with all conviction and the frustration of a child who was confident that the entire universe had conspired to do him a personal injury.
Crowley shook his head and kneeled in front of him. "So?"
Aziraphale sighed. "I'll, I'll bake another batch once I clear up the mess."
The demon surveyed the wreckage and calculated that it shouldn't take more than thirty seconds for Aziraphale to miracle away the damage.
Twelve, if they did it together.
He flexed his fingers. "I see you tried to do it the human way."
"Yeah, I wanted to go for a more authentic flavor. Real brownies", the angel mumbled sadly, "Not the miraculous ones."
"Well you know what?", said Crowley, picking up a burnt-brownie and biting into it. "These are real enough."
A faint trace of color returned to Aziraphale's cheeks, which Crowley noticed even despite the thick layer of soot that covered the angel's face.
The brownie was burnt into a crisp and the texture was too hard for even Crowley's razor-sharp incisors to properly crunch into, and Aziraphale had mixed in more sugar than required, all of which helped the demon formulate the blueprint of an innovative punishment that should win him back in hell's good books after the fiasco from a few days before. He just needed to send Satan a quick email and get it approved.
And as his angel looked on rather expectantly, Crowley's eyes flashed with mischief and he leaned in and said with as softness and sincerity as an exiled celestial dwelling in the flaming underworld could muster, "They taste heavenly."
A small smile lit the angel's face and Crowley released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.
Instinctively, he reached out and cupped Aziraphale's still-warm cheeks in his hands and wiped the soot from his face.
Crowley had miscalculated. It took them twenty seconds to restore the storeroom-turned-kitchen to its former pristine state and another minute to assure Aziraphale that baking another batch of brownies was a bad idea, and besides there was a quaint café downtown he'd been meaning to check out in a long time.
"They've got crepes", the demon promised. "I checked online."
"That sounds lovely", Aziraphale replied, shuffling his hands nervously in his pockets.
As they made their way to the main room in the bookshop, Crowley took out his hip flask and offered Aziraphale a drink, to which he immediately protested.
"I'm not too sure. I mean, hell's cocktails can be…quite strong."
Crowley shrugged. "Oh, come on. It's cider and I spent a decade personally seeing to the vineyard this was brewed in."
Their fingers faintly brushed as Aziraphale took the flask and gingerly sipped. It tasted raw and richly sweet, and Aziraphale could almost imagine the glistening edges of the apples, the mossy pebble-strewn path in the orchard that lay dappled with Mediterranean sunlight, an overlooking villa painted in white and blue, wrapped in ivy, and that wistful Edenic smell of an endless summer that reminded him of when he'd met Crowley properly for the first time, many thousand years ago.
He'd supposed Crowley didn't remember it. As an angel, he had a knack for noticing the little finer things in life and lingering over them, while Crowley tended to live in the moment and go with the flow.
Aziraphale had been wrong about Crowley before and he was warmly pleased to be wrong again, as he took a second sip, letting the luscious sensation wash over him and tingle beneath his skin. He felt giddy and the disaster in the kitchen may have never happened
"Quite strong", he declared firmly, his twinkling eyes reflecting in Crowley's own.
The demon took back the flask and drank a few more swigs. His gaze travelled along the familiar room, before noting a battered book on one of the shelves: Further Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Concerning the World That Is to Come. Ye Saga Continues.
He blinked a few times, as though the drink may have deceived his eyes. "That old witch even wrote a sequel, did she?"
"It came in the mail anonymously, yesterday", the angel replied gaily. "Possibly the only copy in existence."
Crowley reached forward to grab it but his fingers fumbled and it fell to the floor. With the faintest tremor in his voice, he asked, "Did you read it? Is there another War scheduled anytime soon?"
Perhaps what he intended to ask instead, was this: Is there anything about us…our future?
Perhaps he was afraid the question would show on his face, so he bent down and picked it up. As if on cue, the book had opened to a specific page and both their eyes fell upon the words:
When the leaves shall die and black besmirch the angel's face, your cocoa tainted forever shall lie, until the devilish grace, shall offer cider in friendship free, and ye two fools must make the choice to be-
Crowley's fingers had stained the ink from the rest of the words.
"The choice!", he exclaimed, looking to Aziraphale's face for answers.
"I haven't read it", the angel replied truthfully.
They regarded each other for a long moment, until Crowley broke into a laugh and tossed the book into a pile behind him, and together they merrily walked out of the bookshop and down a foggy street in London on a cold autumn evening.
A/N: Good Omens is one of my all-time favorite mini-series. David Tennant and Michael Sheen are gifts to humanity. This is the first time I wrote about the Ineffable Husbands, and I hope you enjoy reading it! Please, please let me know what you think!
I'm also on tumblr as ladyofthelake666, so feel free to shoot a message, if you want. The pandemic has been lonely enough and I'm always up for fangirling/talking!