Chapter Text
Crowley had been at the premiere for exactly forty-seven minutes, which meant he had approximately thirteen minutes left before he could reasonably claim a headache and slip out into the blessed anonymity of a London night.
He’d already done his bit, smiled for the photographers outside the Leicester Square cinema, deflected three separate questions about whether he’d consider returning to the fantasy series that had made him moderately famous fifteen years ago (no, absolutely not, he’d rather eat glass), and fielded one particularly tedious conversation with a producer who kept calling him “Anthony” despite being corrected twice.
The after-party was being held in some aggressively trendy venue in Soho, all exposed brick and Edison bulbs, the sort of place that served drinks with names like “The Hemingway Daiquiri” and charged fifteen pounds for them.
Crowley was nursing a gin and tonic that tasted suspiciously of cucumber and standing near a potted fern, which he’d discovered was an excellent strategy for looking occupied whilst actively discouraging conversation.
He was very good at parties in the way that cats were very good at swimming.
Technically capable, deeply resentful of the necessity.
“There you are!”
The voice cut through his carefully cultivated invisibility like a knife through butter.
Crowley didn’t need to turn around to know it was Anathema Device, mostly because no one else could pack quite that much gleeful determination into three words.
“I wasn’t hiding,” Crowley said, turning to face her.
“You were absolutely hiding. You’re doing your fern-adjacent thing.” Anathema was wearing a leather jacket over a vintage dress.
Her hair was pulled back in an elaborate arrangement of plaits that had probably taken an hour and looked like she’d done it in thirty seconds.
She was also looking at him with an expression Crowley had learned to be deeply suspicious of, the sort of expression that suggested she was about to meddle in his life in some irrevocable way.
“The fern and I are having a meaningful conversation about photosynthesis,” Crowley said. “Very deep stuff. Don’t want to be rude and abandon it mid-flow.”
“Shut up. I need you to come with me.”
“No.”
“I’m not asking.”
“That’s literally what ‘need you to come with me’ means. It’s functionally a request, Anathema, you can’t just…”
But she’d already grabbed his wrist, fingers surprisingly strong for someone who claimed to subsist entirely on herbal tea and optimism, and was towing him through the party with the focused intensity of a woman on a mission.
Crowley, who was six foot one and could theoretically have resisted, found himself following anyway.
This was how it always went with Anathema.
She’d decided something, and the universe had learned it was easier to just go along with it.
“Where are we going?” Crowley hissed, narrowly avoiding a collision with a waiter bearing a tray of canapés.
“You’ll see.”
“That’s not an answer. That’s the opposite of an answer. Anathema…”
“Trust me.”
“I absolutely do not.”
“Yes, you do. You’re just committed to the bit.” She glanced back at him, grinning. “Besides, when have I ever steered you wrong?”
“Edinburgh, 2015. You said that pub was ‘just round the corner.’”
“It was round the corner. Several corners. That’s still technically round a corner.”
They’d reached the far side of the room now, near the windows that looked out over the street.
A knot of people were gathered there, laughing at something Crowley couldn’t hear.
Anathema slowed, scanning the group with narrowed eyes.
“Right,” she said, mostly to herself. “There.”
She’d stopped in front of a man who was standing slightly apart from the main conversation, holding a glass of what looked like wine and wearing an expression of polite interest that Crowley recognised instantly as the face of someone who would very much like to be at home with a book.
He was shorter than Crowley and dressed in a waistcoat and bow tie that should have looked ridiculous but somehow didn’t.
His hair was pale blond, starting to silver at the temples, and curled softly around his ears in a way that suggested he’d stopped paying attention to it sometime in the previous decade.
He had the kind of face that was difficult to age, could have been between forty and fifty, with laughter lines around his eyes and a mouth that looked like it smiled easily and often.
Crowley felt something odd happen in his chest, a sort of stuttering sensation like missing a step on a staircase.
“That’s Aziraphale Fell,” Anathema said, and her voice had gone oddly serious, which was somehow more alarming than her usual chaos. “You’ll probably marry him. I’ll introduce you.”
For a moment, Crowley’s brain simply refused to process the statement. It was too absurd, too immediate, too Anathema.
“I’m sorry,” he said slowly. “I’ll what?”
“Marry him. Well, probably. The odds are good.” She was already moving towards the man, who had noticed them approaching and was looking faintly alarmed. “Aziraphale! Hello!”
“I’m not marrying anyone,” Crowley said to the back of her head. “Anathema. Anathema, that’s insane. You can’t just...”
But she was already there, beaming up at Aziraphale Fell with the radiant certainty of someone who had decided how the universe was going to work and saw no reason why it shouldn’t cooperate.
“Anathema,” Aziraphale said, and his voice was warm, surprisingly deep, with the faintest trace of something that might have been West Country softened by decades in London. “How lovely to see you. I didn’t know you’d be here.”
“Last minute thing. Industry obligations, you know how it is.” She gestured at Crowley, who was seriously considering whether he could still make a run for it. “This is Crowley. Anthony Crowley. He’s brilliant and miserable and has been hiding behind a fern for the last twenty minutes. Crowley, this is Aziraphale Fell. He’s brilliant and cheerful and has been pretending to enjoy a conversation about tax incentives for film production.”
“I wasn’t pretending,” Aziraphale said, and then paused. “Well. Perhaps a bit.”
“See?” Anathema looked between them with satisfaction. “You’re already getting on. Right, I’m off to find the canapés before they run out of the good ones. You two talk. About anything. Theatre, television, the existential horror of being perceived. Whatever.”
And then she was gone, melting back into the party with the same decisive energy with which she’d arrived, leaving Crowley and Aziraphale standing there in a bubble of awkward silence.
“I’m so sorry,” Crowley said finally. “She’s, uh. She’s a lot.”
“No, no, not at all.” Aziraphale smiled, and it was a good smile, the kind that crinkled his whole face and made him look younger and more mischievous. “I’ve known Anathema for years. One learns to simply accept whatever’s happening and hope for the best.”
“That’s terrifyingly accurate.”
“She means well.”
“That’s what makes it worse, honestly. If she were malicious, you could at least prepare.” Crowley realised he was still holding his gin and tonic and took a sip. Still cucumber-y. Still terrible. “I’m Crowley. As advertised. You’re Aziraphale Fell.”
“Guilty as charged.” Aziraphale tilted his head slightly. “I know your work, actually. You were in ‘The Resurrectionist,’ weren’t you? A few years back?”
Crowley blinked. “You saw that?”
“Oh yes. Utterly gripping. I’m fairly certain I watched the entire series in one sitting, much to the detriment of my sleep schedule.” Aziraphale’s smile had gone a bit sheepish. “Your character, the doctor, Sebastian. He was marvellous. That scene in the fourth episode, with the body in the river? I’m still thinking about it.”
Something warm unfurled in Crowley’s chest.
‘The Resurrectionist’ had been a small BBC drama, barely promoted, cancelled after one series despite decent reviews.
He’d loved it, loved the script and the character and the long night shoots in Edinburgh, but hardly anyone had actually watched it.
Crowley had made peace with that, mostly.
It was how these things went.
“That’s, uh. Thanks. Really. Most people know me from the fantasy thing, if they know me at all.”
“‘Serpent’s Crown’?” Aziraphale’s nose wrinkled slightly. “I tried to watch it. Couldn’t quite get past the second episode, I’m afraid. Bit too much CGI and shouting for my taste.”
Crowley laughed, surprised and delighted. “Oh thank God. I thought I was the only one who felt that way, and I was in it.”
“Were you? I had no idea.” Aziraphale’s eyes widened with mock innocence, and Crowley realised with a little jolt that he was being teased.
“All right, you got me. Yeah, I was. Worst eighteen months of my professional life. I spent half of it strapped into leather armour that didn’t breathe and the other half being shouted at by a director who thought ‘method’ meant ‘being an arse to everyone.’”
“And yet it made you famous.”
“And yet it made me famous,” Crowley agreed. “Which is its own special kind of curse. Now I get offered every moody supernatural anti-hero going, and if I turn them down, my agent acts like I’ve personally insulted his mother.”
“The tyranny of typecasting.” Aziraphale sighed. “I understand completely. I made the mistake of playing a vicar in a cosy mystery series, and now every casting director in London thinks I’m either a man of the cloth or a serial killer. Sometimes both.”
“‘The Tadfield Mysteries’?”
“The very same. Four series. I spent more time in that vicarage than in my actual flat.” Aziraphale paused. “Please don’t tell me you watched it. I’ll die of embarrassment.”
“I watched it,” Crowley said, and he was grinning now, couldn’t help it. “My mum loved it. Used to phone me every Sunday after it aired to tell me about the latest murder. She kept saying you reminded her of someone she knew in the village, which I think was meant as a compliment.”
“Oh Lord.”
“Yeah. You solved the murder with the poisoned jam, and she called me in tears. Properly sobbing. Said it was the most emotionally affecting moment she’d seen on television in years.”
Aziraphale had gone pink. “That’s, oh gosh, that’s very kind of her. I think. Is that kind? I can’t tell.”
“It’s kind. She’s got terrible taste, but she’s kind about it.” Crowley heard what he’d said and winced. “I didn’t mean your show has terrible taste. Bugger. I meant…”
“No, no, I know what you meant.” Aziraphale was laughing now, a warm, wheezing sound that made his eyes crinkle. “It was a perfectly dreadful show. I loved every minute of it, but it was absolutely dreadful. We once had a murder by a budgerigar. A budgerigar, Crowley.”
“Did the budgerigar have a motive?”
“Jealousy over a cuttlefish bone, if I recall correctly.”
They were both laughing now, and it felt easy, natural, like they’d been doing this for years instead of minutes.
Crowley found himself leaning against the window, the party fading into background noise, his entire attention focused on the man in front of him.
“So why do you do it?” Crowley asked. “If you’re getting typecast into vicar roles and murder mysteries?”
Aziraphale’s expression softened. “Because occasionally, just occasionally, you get a script that’s actually good. A character with layers, a story that matters. And then it all feels worth it, the terrible auditions and the poorly written parts and the budget cuts. You get to make something real.”
“Yeah,” Crowley said quietly. “Yeah, exactly that.”
They talked.
They kept talking.
At some point, Crowley acquired another drink, something that wasn’t gin and didn’t taste like cucumber.
Aziraphale led them to a slightly quieter corner, away from the main crush of the party, and they kept talking.
About theatre, which Aziraphale loved with an earnest passion that was somehow not embarrassing.
About television, which Crowley defended with more vehemence than he’d intended.
About the peculiar horror of auditions, the imposter syndrome that never quite went away no matter how many jobs you booked, the way you could love the craft and hate the circus simultaneously.
“I keep waiting for someone to realise I have no idea what I’m doing,” Aziraphale confessed at one point.
They’d migrated to a pair of chairs near the back wall, the party continuing around them in a blur of noise and movement. “That I’m just making it all up as I go along.”
“Everyone’s making it up,” Crowley said. “The people who act like they know what they’re doing? They’re the best actors of all.”
“That’s either very reassuring or very depressing.”
“Can’t it be both?”
Aziraphale smiled. “I suppose it can.”
Somewhere around the two-hour mark, Crowley realised he’d completely forgotten about his escape plan.
He’d forgotten about the party, about the tedious small talk and the terrible drinks and the photographer who’d called him “Antonio” outside the cinema.
He’d forgotten about everything except the man sitting across from him, gesticulating enthusiastically about a production of ‘The Tempest’ he’d seen at the Globe, his face animated and open and entirely unconscious of how endearing he looked.
And then, quite suddenly and with the force of a revelation, Crowley thought: Oh. Oh no.
Anathema’s words came back to him with the weight of a prophecy. You’ll probably marry him.
It was absurd. It was impossible.
They’d known each other for two hours.
You didn’t decide to marry someone after two hours, that wasn’t how adult humans functioned.
That was how rom-coms functioned, how fairy tales functioned, and how Anathema Device’s bizarre and slightly alarming worldview functioned.
And yet.
Crowley looked at Aziraphale, really looked at him, at the way his hands moved when he talked, the little furrow that appeared between his eyebrows when he was thinking, the gentle laugh lines around his mouth.
He thought about the ease of their conversation, the way Aziraphale seemed to understand things Crowley hadn’t realised he needed someone to understand.
He thought about how he hadn’t wanted to leave, how he still didn’t want to leave, how he could quite happily sit here talking about nothing and everything until the staff kicked them out.
He thought: I’m going to marry him.
And then, with significantly more panic: Oh God, she was right. Anathema was right. I’m never going to hear the end of this.
“Are you all right?” Aziraphale was looking at him with concern. “You’ve gone a bit pale.”
“Fine,” Crowley said quickly. “Yeah. Just thinking.”
“Nothing too strenuous, I hope.”
Crowley laughed, and it came out slightly strangled. “No. Nothing strenuous. Just, uh. Existential crisis. Standard party fare.”
“Ah yes. I usually have mine around midnight. You’re right on schedule.”
“Do you ever get tired of it?” Aziraphale asked suddenly. “The whole thing, I mean. The industry.”
Crowley considered this, swirling the remains of his drink. “Yes and no. I get tired of the nonsense around it. The politics, the egos, the way everyone’s constantly performing even when they’re not on camera. But the actual work?” He shrugged. “That bit I still love. Most days, anyway.”
“That’s the trouble, isn’t it? The work itself is wonderful, but it comes wrapped in so much…” Aziraphale waved his hand vaguely.
“Bullshit?”
“I was going to say ‘complication,’ but yes, bullshit works just as well.” Aziraphale took a sip of his wine. “I sometimes think about what it would be like to just do theatre. Small productions, rep companies, that sort of thing. No auditions for cereal ads, no self-tapes where you’re essentially performing for a camera in your bathroom.”
“God, self-tapes are the worst.”
“The absolute worst. I did one last month where they wanted me to play opposite a tennis ball on a stick. For a romantic scene.” Aziraphale’s expression was pained. “I had to gaze lovingly at a tennis ball, Crowley. And deliver the line ‘You’re the only one who’s ever truly seen me.’”
Crowley nearly choked on his drink. “No.”
“Yes. And do you know what the worst part was? I didn’t book it. Apparently, my chemistry with the tennis ball was lacking.”
“That’s devastating. I’m sorry for your loss.”
“The tennis ball and I could have had something special.” Aziraphale was grinning now. “Alas, it wasn’t meant to be.”
“What was the part?”
“Oh, some sort of romantic lead in a Netflix thing. I can’t even remember the title now. Something about a bookshop owner falling in love with a mysterious stranger who turns out to be a time traveller. Or a ghost. Possibly both.” He paused. “Actually, knowing Netflix, probably both.”
“Would you have taken it if they’d offered?”
“Probably,” Aziraphale admitted. “Which is rather depressing when you think about it. I’d have convinced myself it was actually quite good, that the script had potential, that it would be fun. And then I’d have spent six months with a job because I had gazed lovingly at a tennis ball and questioned my life choices.”
“That’s the job description, though, isn’t it? Questionable choices and occasional moments of brilliance.”
“Mostly questionable choices in my case.” Aziraphale’s smile turned self-deprecating. “I once played a sentient potato in a children’s educational program about healthy eating.”
Crowley stared at him. “I’m sorry, you what?”
“A sentient potato. Named Pip. I had to wear a large foam costume and sing about the importance of vitamins.” Aziraphale had gone pink again. “It was meant to be a one-off, but apparently, I was quite good at it, because they asked me back for three more episodes.”
“Did you go back?”
“Of course I did. It paid very well, and they had excellent craft services.” He sighed. “I drew the line at the Brussels sprout spin-off, though. A man must have some standards.”
“A sentient potato,” Crowley repeated, delighted. “This is the best thing I’ve learned all evening.”
“Please don’t tell anyone.”
“I’m absolutely telling everyone. This is going in my back pocket for emergency conversation material.”
“You’re terrible.”
“I know.” Crowley leaned back in his chair, feeling more relaxed than he had in months. “For what it’s worth, I did an advert for car insurance where I had to pretend to be a cool, rebellious driver. They wanted me in sunglasses, leather jacket, the whole bit. And then the tagline was ‘Drive safe with SafeMotor Insurance.’”
“Oh no.”
“Oh yes. The director kept telling me to be ‘dangerous but responsible.’ I still don’t know what that means.”
“That might be worse than the potato.”
“It’s definitely worse than the potato. At least the potato had artistic integrity.”
They were both laughing again, and Crowley felt that strange sensation in his chest intensify, like something clicking into place that he hadn’t known was misaligned.
They talked for another hour.
Exchanged numbers, because it seemed like the sensible thing to do, the professional thing, though Crowley’s hands were shaking slightly as he typed Aziraphale’s contact information into his phone.
Made vague plans to get coffee sometime, nothing concrete, just the sort of thing you said when you’d had a good conversation with someone and wanted to leave the door open.
When Crowley finally left, it was past midnight, and the party was starting to thin out.
Aziraphale was being cornered by someone who wanted to talk about a potential project, and Crowley took the opportunity to slip away before he could do something stupid like suggest they leave together or confess that he’d just had a completely unhinged realisation about their future.
The night air was cold, sharp with the promise of autumn. Crowley stood outside the venue for a moment, breathing it in, trying to steady himself.
His phone buzzed. A text from Anathema: “well???”
He didn’t reply.
Didn’t know what to say.
He walked to the tube station in a daze, the streets of Soho bright with light and noise, and took the Northern Line back to his flat in Angel.
It was only when he was home, sprawled on his sofa in the dark, that he bothered to turn on the television.
Some sort of late-night film channel, the kind that played old British dramas in the small hours when no one was watching.
The screen flickered to life, and there he was.
Aziraphale Fell, younger by perhaps a decade, dressed in Victorian costume, standing in what looked like a drawing room.
The credits at the bottom identified it as an adaptation of ‘The Woman in White,’ one of those lavish period pieces the BBC used to make.
Crowley stared at the screen.
At Aziraphale, who was delivering his lines with the same gentle earnestness he’d had in person, the same little furrow between his eyebrows.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Crowley said to the empty flat.
The universe, as usual, declined to comment.
He watched anyway.
Watched until his eyes grew heavy and his thoughts began to blur, and the last thing he remembered before sleep took him was Aziraphale’s face on the screen, smiling at something, and the bright, frightening certainty lodged firmly under his skin that everything had just changed, and he hadn’t been ready for it, and it was far too late to back out now.