The Fate of a Demon and an Angel

Disclaimer: Ha! I don't own anything here. I'm simply playing in this sandbox for the time being. All of the toys will be given back, once I've finished.

This is my first Good Omens/Ineffable Husbands fic. Please be kind to me!

The idea of this stemmed from the idea that Adam didn't quite get everything in Aziraphale's bookshop right when he reset the world after the Nah-Pocalypse. Given that a very specific angel didn't actually see the bookshop until after the Great Switcheroo, I have a feeling that Crowley knew exactly what was wrong with the bookshop as soon as he walked in, wearing the angel's face. Everything just sort of unfolded from there.

At any rate, please enjoy this!

The bookshop didn't smell right.

In the wake of the Apocalypse-That-Did-Not-Happen, Adam Young, formerly the Antichrist and possibly now just an ordinary eleven-year-boy from Lower Tadfield, had gotten pretty much everything right when he had reset the world in the wake of throwing the proverbial bird at both Heaven and Hell. To the casual observer, Aziraphale's much-beloved bookshop looked and felt just as it had before it had burnt down. Oh, there were certain titles there that hadn't been there prior to the End Times, but that could easily be chalked up to being the additions of an imaginative boy.

Everything was the same as it had been before – save for the distinctly-unique mix of warm cocoa, old leather, and just a hint of lavender that Aziraphale had cultivated over the years.

Crowley, currently wearing the face of the aforementioned angel in anticipation of the retribution of his companion's former bosses (if Agnes Nutter's final prophecy proved to be correct), noticed the lack of smell right off the bat. The shop meant so much to Aziraphale. He would notice right away if something as fundamental as its smell was off. That would knock him completely out of sorts – and the demon could not abide by that.

So, he did the only thing that he could do to resolve the issue.

Crowley performed a miracle and the bookshop was back to just how it should be. Inhaling, he grinned mildly, feeling the strangeness of that particular action performed with the unfamiliar yet oh-so-familiar features of Aziraphale. Now, everything was just as it should be.

That settled, the demon masquerading as an angel left to meet up with an angel currently wearing the face of a demon.

Much later, once they had gotten the eyes and weight of both Heaven and Hell off of their shared backs and they had switched back to their rightful faces, the angel and demon shared an extended dinner at the Ritz. Too many dishes and many bottles of wine were shared between them, resulting in Crowley and Aziraphale being in a pleasantly tipsy state once they finally left the Ritz.

Crowley slung an arm casually around Aziraphale's shoulders and Aziraphale made no move to step away from that touch. In fact, the angel leaned a little into that touch, his own arm working its way around the demon's waist, steadying Crowley as he swayed a bit on his feet.

Making a light humming noise, Crowley steered them in the direction of the bookshop.

He wanted Aziraphale to see the restored bookshop – and to see if the angel noticed the restored proper smell.

When they finally walked into the shop, the closed sign swinging in the door behind them and the lights coming up almost immediately, Crowley watched Aziraphale closely to see his reaction as he took in the sight of his restored bookshop.

A thoroughly soft smile worked its way across his lips. Briefly, his eyes flicked over the bookshelves, stopping on the newly-arrived titles housed there, though he didn't comment on that. After taking a slow turn of the store, Aziraphale inhaled deeply and held that breath in his lungs for a long moment before he released it.

"It's just right," he said at last.

"Good," Crowley replied. He leaned against one of the bookshelves, his hands shoved casually into his pockets. He sniffed, pulling a face. "Because Adam didn't get it quite right when he fixed everything."

"Oh, my dear Crowley."

Aziraphale spoke his name so gentle and so achingly sweet. The demon blinked and focused intently on the angel. That was a mistake because that was when he saw the soft expression being directed at him. For six thousand years, he had made it a point of learning all of the myriad of expressions that frequented Aziraphale's face. It was always the sunniest and softest looks that made Crowley go wholly weak at the knees. As a demon, he shouldn't have wanted to receive those looks from an angel, but those soft, fond expressions were an addiction that Crowley did not want to quit.

And then he saw the tears welling up into Aziraphale's eyes.

His gut twisted angrily when he saw that change. Immediately, Crowley was moving and crossed the distance between the angel and himself.

Without even thinking about it, he pulled Aziraphale close to him, one hand on the small of the angel's back and the other at the back of his neck. When the angel didn't pull away from this embrace, the demon leaned forward to press his forehead against Aziraphale's.

"Zira, ar-are you okay?"

Those word came tumbling out before Crowley had even registered that he had thought them. Even as he spoke them, the demon did not regret giving voice to them, not if the way that the angel leaned into his embrace was anything to go by. The affectionate diminutive slipped out readily and, by the way the angel's eyes brightened up upon hearing that, he liked it. Crowley filed that reaction away into some part of his brain for future use.

"You made sure that everything was right? For me?"

"Yes," Crowley breathed.

Aziraphale exhaled once and blinked away tears. Then he did something Crowley could never had dreamed or hope that he would do.

"You astound me," the angel said before he reached up, grabbed the lapels of Crowley's jacket, and pulled him in for a soft kiss.

That single action took no longer than a few moments, but it took that long for the demon to register what had happened and that the angel had initiated such an intimate action. When Aziraphale pulled back, a surprisingly fetching blush working its way across his cheeks, Crowley grinned, a low, near-feral growl rumbling out from the back of his throat. He saw the moment of doubt that flashed through the angel's eyes, the clear thought that he should step away from the demon's embrace and make some excuse for his action.

But Crowley didn't give him that chance.

Instead, he pulled Aziraphale back in, the hold on the angel's waist tightening, and went in for a second kiss. He was rewarded for this effort when Aziraphale gasped a little bit at this more intense embrace, which allowed Crowley the entrance he needed to sneak his tongue in.

Six thousand years is a long time to know someone and to develop something far more than friendship with that same person. Crowley wasn't sure when exactly they had made the official steps from being on opposite sides of the war to being colleague and then friends. If he was being wholly honest, he wasn't even sure when he knew that he was in love with Aziraphale, but he knew here and now, in the wake of preventing Armageddon from happening, that he loved the angel with every fiber of his being and that he had felt as such for a long time now.

Aziraphale leaned into this kiss, one of his hands reaching up to cup Crowley's cheek, his thumb rubbing across the demon's skin gently. The angel met passion with equal passion and Crowley took that as a sign that his feelings were well-met and well-reciprocated.

When they broke for a second time, silence hung over them for a moment. Neither made any real effort to move away, choosing to stay wrapped up in one another's embrace.

The angel was warm in Crowley's embrace. That was possibly a side-effect of his genuine sweetness and goodness. The demon had long-suspected that Aziraphale, unlike many of the angels who populated Heaven, genuinely cared for and loved humanity and everything that populated Earth.

At some point (and Crowley honestly didn't know when), Aziraphale managed to disentangle them enough to grab hold of Crowley's hand and lead him upstairs. Of all the years that the two had been spending time here, neither had spent much time in the bedroom. The angel didn't sleep very much and hadn't indulged in the luxury nearly to the same degree that Crowley had. But that being said, he did keep a bedroom made up, if only for the human appearances of it all.

They took the slow route to getting to the bedroom. Oh, either one could have performed a miracle and gotten them there in an instant, but they both wanted to savor taking the long way.

Doing it the slow ways, apparently, their style.

Aziraphale might have been the one to lead Crowley up to the bedroom, but that didn't mean that Crowley was going to make it easy for him., The demon did have a reputation to maintain.

By the time they made it to the ill-used bedroom, they had both lost almost all of their outermost and upper layers, those particular articles of clothing littering a trail behind them. Even as they entered that space, Crowley managed to turn Aziraphale towards him, using enough leverage to press himself close against the angel, who tilted his face up to him just so.

Soft, warm fingers reached up and pressed against the demon's cheek briefly before the angel carefully, tenderly pulled the dark glasses from his face.

"There you are."

Those words, so reverently spoken, shot through Crowley faster than any weapon ever created by Heaven, Hell, or humanity.

Over the millennia, he had taken to hiding his yellow snake eyes away from view, knowing that most humans found it unsettling and that most angels saw them as a marker of his fall and his role in the First Temptation. Even among demons, he faced criticism for his eyes, that he was somehow lesser because they were the only clear physical marker that he was something other than human, when most of Hell's lot took great pride in corrupting their appearances into the worst imaginable.

And yet, here was Aziraphale, standing here warm in Crowley's embrace, softness and comfort to the demon's hard edges – and Crowley felt that same sense of elusive peace that always seemed to follow the angel around. It was intoxicating and it had taken him far longer than he'd care to admit that he reveled in this feeling, this warm familiarity, more than anything else – because it had taken him this long to acknowledge what it was.

This was love, pure and simple. It wasn't the broad-spectrum love for humans, Earth, and all the physical delights that came with living in this world. Nor, of course, was it the sense of righteousness and goodness that went hand-in-hand with being an angel.

No, this was love, simple and focused and specific. It was the love of one being for another, of an angel for a fallen angel; of a demon for an angel in return.

What happened next was a flurry of touches and kisses and sensations.

After six thousand years, Aziraphale and Crowley knew one another better than any couple did, when a relationship turned physical. Though there was some tentativeness in their touches and some awkward bumbling to overcome, it wasn't hard to find each other's rhythms and to bring it to something much more and much higher.

A sense of intense satisfaction filled Crowley when, at last, they collapsed onto the bed, sated and satiated from their exertions and efforts. He reached over to loop an arm around Aziraphale, pulling the angel into him as he slipped one leg between Aziraphale's. The angel didn't fight the contact. Instead, he leaned into the embrace, draping an arm across Crowley's waist, his fingers dancing in soft circles across the demon's skin.

Neither felt the urge to speak, so they lay there, staring at one another and taking in the sight of who lay before them.

It wasn't until sunlight streamed through the window that Crowley even realized that he slept. Blinking to focus, the demon became acutely aware that he was alone in the bed, only the indent in the sheets next to him a signal that he had shared the bed with someone else. He frowned as he sat up, the blanket that had been covering him falling to his waist.

One look around told him where his angelic companion was.

Aziraphale was perched in the window seat, looking out over Soho with a mug in one hand. The early morning sunlight streamed through the windows, catching the angel in just the right light that it took Crowley's breath away.

"Angel," he said, the word tumbling out immediately and without thought, which caused Aziraphale to turn towards him, blinking as he came back to the present.

"Oh, good morning."

Silence hung in the air between them for a moment, though it was awkward.

At last, Crowley stretched from his position and slithered from the bed in a movement that was akin to his other form, crossing the room to join Aziraphale at the window. Once he got there, he saw that the mug his angel was holding was his favored winged one, though it was nearly empty by now, an indication that the demon had slept longer than he had originally thought that he had.

"Don't know if upstairs would be too happy about this," Crowley commented lightly, nodding towards the mug. "About what's happened between us, if they find out."

"Neither would downstairs, I imagine," Aziraphale replied, something akin to a smile ghosting across his lips and a hint of a laugh tinging his voice. "Though I certainly won't go volunteering that information." Pride and love filled the angel's eyes at that. "Neither upstairs nor downstairs have any right to our personal lives, not any more, I should think."

A brief gasp of a laugh escaped the demon's mouth unexpectedly. Crowley reached out and snaked an arm around Aziraphale, pulling him up and away from his seated position in the window. The angel responded reflexively by setting the mug down in the spot that he had just vacated and leaning into Crowley's embrace. There was an ease and a comfort to their touches now.

Aziraphale closed the final distance between them and kissed Crowley again, all softness and warmth.

This moment, here in the morning light, was pure and perfect.

And then everything shifted.

Crowley felt a something rush over him, over them, in this moment. He frowned when he pulled back from Aziraphale's kiss, an action that he would never have willing done, especially now that he knew the sweetness and love of such things.

Almost reflexively, he called out his wings and flared them out high over them, mindful of the angel in his arms. Aziraphale must have felt the sensation as well because he flicked his wings out wide, wrapping them around the duo. Over the millennia, they had rarely felt the need to call out their wings. Doing so right before Satan had made his appearance during the final face-off had been necessary and instinctive.

Now, however?

Though it had been reflexive and a natural response to whatever it was that had passed over them, it had also felt incredibly right.

It also gave them information that neither demon nor angel would have expected.

"Crowley!" Aziraphale exclaimed in surprise. His eyes were quite wide as he took in the full sight of the demon. "Your wings!"

"Your wings too, Aziraphale," Crowley shot back, his gaze roaming.

Aziraphale's wings, in short, were no longer the pure white long associated with Heaven. Oh, the feathers were still light, but they were rich creams and deep silvers now. The colors darkened as they cascaded downwards. Seeing this unexpected change, Crowley flicked one of his wings forward so that he could see what changes had caught his angel by surprise, he saw that he no longer had the full black that fallen angels had. Heavy greys and bright platinum flushed through his wings, lightening as they fell towards the floor.

"What do you think that means?" Aziraphale asked at last.

Crowley returned his gaze to his angel and grinned. Heaven and Hell were very stark in their opinions regarding wings. The angels of Heaven maintained the pure white while Hell's fallen took the ebony black. Wings colored in between was simply Not Done.

But here they were with wings colored in brilliant colors that were neither black nor white.

"I think," Crowley replied, grinning madly now as he shifted his wings over them, "that this means that we're on our side and it's permanent now. You don't mind that fact, do you, Az?"

The angel snorted and grinned. "Of course not, my dear boy. The only side I want to be on is ours, with you."

That news came as a welcome relief and was accompanied by a quick fluttering sound and a rush of displaced air dancing around them.

Crowley frowned a bit, but was silenced when Aziraphale laughed and leaned in to kiss him again. Reflexively, the demon reached up and laid a hand on his angel's cheek, his thumb brushing lightly against Aziraphale's skin.

When the kiss broke, more natural this time, Crowley caught sight of his hand on Aziraphale's cheek and saw that there was something that had not been there only moments before – and he realized that it was his left hand that he had lifted. The significance of it all took an extra moment to sink in.

There was a golden band, a wedding band, sitting on the third finger of his left hand.

"You've figured it out, haven't you?" Aziraphale asked at last.

Crowley looked back at him and blinked. He reached back to the windowsill and picked up a fresh piece of paper sitting next to his winged mug, lifting it enough to wave it before the demon's face. As the angel did that, Crowley caught sight of a new ring on the angel's left hand that matched his own unexpected one. Quickly, Crowley caught hold of Aziraphale's hand, stilling its progress. In that moment, he caught sight of what was written on the piece of paper and saw Certificate of Marriage printed across the top of it.

"Is that? Are we?" Crowley exhaled, trying to make sense of the rush of thoughts and emotions bouncing around in his mind. "How? Who?"

"God, I suppose." Aziraphale shrugged. "She must still have an Ineffable Plan in the works."

All of the pieces fell into place in the demon's mind.

With the utmost care, he reached out and brushed his fingers against one of Aziraphale's wings, reveling in the silky softness of his feathers. The wing twitched and trembled at that touch, earning a quirk of the lips from Crowley when he looked back up at the angel, his angel.

His husband.

"Zira, angel," Crowley said, a serious note edging its way into his voice, "there is only one thing we still sort out."

Aziraphale quirked an eyebrow at him. "And what's that?"

Crowley's grin turned wide and properly happy. "Where do we want to live? Your place or mine?"

"Oh, Crowley, really!"

I hope everyone enjoyed this. Please review and let me know what you all thought all of this.