faemused | Open To Anyone For Anything RP Post 2

Even though they're only holding hands, somehow this second act feels as intimate to Aziraphale as if they're curled up together in bed with Crowley twined around his body. They're basking in each other's satisfaction, wrapped in a soft haze of mutual delight, occasionally exchanging little messages of love with a caress of thumbs or a slight shift.

Odile and Odette, when they re-enter, are masked for their trials. The supposed Raven Queen dances with waves and water nixies to music that was once meant for a Prince's ball; the supposed Swan Queen is whirled about by dancers dressed as flame and smoke to music that was once a black swan's triumphant solo. At last, though, both water and fire bend to the lovers' will.

There is an actual gasp from the audience when the two queens, presenting themselves to Von Rothbart, unmask to reveal that they've switched places. Aziraphale can't help grinning. It is a good twist, after all.

And, just as in his story, as soon as the sorcerer moves to threaten Odette, Odile stabs him in the back. His death throes are far more dramatic than the ones Aziraphale wrote, but then it does make them highly satisfying to watch, especially as the raven court reappears to whisk him offstage.

Then, at last, where most productions have a grieving prince throwing himself in a lake and a lot of ladies in tutus gesturing sorrowfully, the show's final pas de deux. The two dancers, in white and black, spin and leap and twine lovingly together, and as the set and the lighting change around them to indicate the warm glow of a rising sun and the shapes of two birds rising into the light of morning, they exchange a final loving kiss.

The applause begins even before the curtain falls. It takes real effort on Aziraphale's part not to brighten the place before the house lights come up, he's so pleased. His story, their story, and human hearts are also moved by it, are delighted that a swan and a raven could make themselves a happy ending in spite of everything that stood in their way.

This act has even more meaning for them than the first would have, given the subject matter. Trickery with fire and water and masks, defiance leading to freedom. Crowley's not sentimental enough to weep about it, but she does lean her head against Aziraphale's shoulder in parts, and she does squeeze his hand a little more fiercely when the disguised swan queen is dancing with flames.

(Shut your stupid mouth and die already. She'll never forgive Gabriel, never. Never forget how satisfying it was to watch the righteous smirk on his face dissolve into confused horror as she stood in the flames unharmed. Never forget how terrifying it was to let Aziraphale walk into Hell for her, her utter overwhelming relief upon seeing that he'd successfully walked back out again. Never take any of what they have now for granted.)

But there's no tragedy here. Not on the stage, where the swan and raven queens claim their own and fly into the dawn; not in the audience, where an angel and demon sit side by side and hand in hand. Maybe they were written for a tragedy originally, but as Adam said: where people are concerned it can always be crossed out and rewritten.

Crowley might not be the sentimental sort ^[1], but when the curtains fall, her clapping is some of the loudest, and goes on the longest.

^[1] This is, of course, complete and profound self-deception on Crowley's part, as numerous of her possessions are tangible proof to the contrary, whatever she claims.

(He’s not sure she’ll ever tell him what happened that day in Heaven; he’s already learned that her eyes harden and flash with anger when she thinks about it, and especially when she has reason to think about Gabriel. It’s not something they talk about much in general, when they talk about their past, but as terrifying an ordeal as it was he’d held tight to his faith that at least Crowley would make it through all right.)

They’re the first two on their feet when the audience rises for a standing ovation. It might be a minor miracle that Aziraphale doesn’t float a few inches off the ground—he’s always felt particularly proud of himself when he’s taken Crowley to a show and the demon enjoys it. Of course he’d known going in that this story would appeal, but it’s one thing to know and another to see it firsthand, to have something that can become a memory.

And it makes Aziraphale happy beyond expressing, watching a crowd cheer for the once-sidelined Odile.

The audience buzzes with pleased chatter as they make their way out. Backstage, the dancers are hugging, crying, complimenting one another on the performance. It’s the perfect level of benevolent chaos for Aziraphale to drop a blessing into, for the company and their director. They may not need it—human gumption gets a lot done on its own—but he privately considers it his thanks for an excellent adaptation of his work.

He slips his arm around Crowley’s waist, snags her hand to press a kiss to her knuckles.

“Not to blow my own horn,” he smiles, eyes glittering, “but I do think that may have been a more enjoyable evening than The Sound of Music.”

(She's told a few bits. The safe parts. That she breathed fire at them (only a little fire), some of her own more flippant feelings about being in Heaven again ("Even worse than I remembered". Maybe someday she'll say more, when it won't hurt either of them. Maybe not. Some doors are better closed.)

Crowley rolls her eyes at this comparison. "That's not hard," she says in the dryest of dry voices, wrapping her free arm around his shoulders in turn. "And you don't even like that musical. But yeah, good show this." Her grin turns faintly wicked. "Think I should pull a Hamlet? It's tempting. I've certainly made worse things popular."

“You certainly have. Don’t think I’ve forgotten Starlight Express.” He leans up to brush a kiss on her cheek. “But I think they’ve earned a breakout hit.”

His heartbeat picks up a little—now, at last, they can head home. Together. The final piece of his plan is finished by this point in the evening, or at least he has faith in the humans he hired. The rest of the night is for the two of them.

A cab pulls up, as if on cue. Aziraphale’s grin widens.

“Shall we head home?”

Crowley cackles. "That one was fun," she admits, smirking. "And you wouldn't believe what I've had them do with the film version of Cats, it's a masterpiece. But I won't go overboard with this one. Cross my heart."

Once upon a time, that promise would have come with any number of detracting adjectives. Cross my black, withered, demonic heart. They'd been funny, and to her mind accurate, and then eventually also a sort of protection. Her demonic, useless heart, which wasn't supposed to feel things like love and certainly wouldn't have been welcomed if offered, or so she'd thought so deep down that the conviction wasn't even conscious...

Aziraphale kisses her cheek and squeezes her arm, and says those magic words, Shall we go home? They still amaze her. The we she's almost used to, but the home idea, that's still new.

Well, home as a physical place, at least. She figured out a century ago that wherever Aziraphale was counted as home. It's still a miracle to Crowley that she gets to share it.

"Yeah," she says softly, smiling at that grin. He looks so happy, and it makes Crowley's heart, whatever the state of it, just melt to see that. "Yeah, let's. I've got to thank you properly for my evening out, and I can't do that here. Not without a lot of miracles or getting arrested."

[ooc: Maybe more of an evil dragon shapechanger guy. A can wear anything for his clothes or under them, Crowley will be happy with anything. ;) I absolutely accept the headcanon that C is responsible for Starlight Express so on. Explains a lot tbh!]

Edited 2019-12-31 00:42 (UTC)

His laughter fills the cab for a moment as they climb in together. "Wicked woman," he scolds affectionately, pulling her into his lap again before he gives the driver the address.

(Though the driver is normally quite a talkative fellow with his rides, for some reason tonight he finds himself perfectly content to keep his mouth shut. Especially whenever he glances in the rear view mirror and catches a glimpse of the redhead with the sunglasses. Oh well. At least they seem to be having a nice evening.)

Again they're enfolded in their own little bubble, only distantly aware of anything besides one another. Aziraphale wants to have the playbill framed; Crowley thinks they should hang it next to his dirty limerick. They laugh and tease and steal kisses, back and forth, and not for the first time Aziraphale finds himself almost hoping one of his old coworkers would dare to have a peek at him. Though probably they'll have convinced themselves by now that watching an angel and demon sinning together will turn them blind, or something equally ridiculous*.

At last they pull up to their own little corner of the city--home, for as long as they want it to be, as long as they happen to be there together.

The painters he hired have been finished for about an hour, and as requested have packed up to take the rest of the night off. Already there's an email sitting in the tray of Aziraphale's dot matrix printer from the young woman who supervised the team, with a quick report on how the job went (smoothly) and an expression of gratitude for hiring a local business (effusive).

Their work is evident above the door.

CROWLEY, FELL & CO.
Booksellers * Established 1800
Unusual * Antiquarian * Out of Print

* There is, in fact, a rumor to this effect in Heaven. Sandalphon started it.

[ooc: RIGHT? And lord have mercy now I want this dragon/princess scenario so much. We should do the thing.]

Crowley isn't expecting anything further. Why would she? Dinner and a show, and an unspoken but safe to assume promise of several hours of shared passion afterwards. That's more that enough to spoil any demon rotten (if it's possible to spoil a demon). Add in the intensely personal aspects of that particular show, and Crowley honestly can't imagine a better evening.

She wouldn't notice the change on her own. How often do you really look up at the sign above a well-known shop? Especially at night, especially when you live there? Especially when you're much too busy filling your eyes by looking at the most beloved being in the universe?

Crowley probably wouldn't notice on her own. But she notices Aziraphale noticing, wonders what's causing the odd note of satisfaction in his face, glances up.

It takes a few seconds to sink in, to recognize her own name there. Next to his. On his shop, his home. A home she now shares, but which has still mostly been his, two hundred years of ownership versus a few paltry months if squeezing her things in next to his, squeezing herself into his life, invading, invited and welcome but still invading and almost pitifully grateful for the privilege. And now her name is above the front door.

Crowley stops dead in her tracks, staring up at it with her mouth open. Behind her sunglasses there are tears in her eyes. Not many. But they're there.

A warm arm steals around her waist.

“I told you.” Aziraphale’s voice is a caressing murmur, low and full of love. “I want everyone who walks in to know this is your home as well as mine.”

He glances up at her, at the shape of her open red mouth, the way her eyebrows have gone still.

“That this is where you belong,” he adds, squeezing her slightly. “With someone who loves you.”

Someone who adores you, worships you, who wouldn’t change you for the world, who has only ever wanted to see you happy. Who draws courage and strength simply from being near you, who will stand at your side until the very stars you built burn to nothing.

Crowley just stares upwards. She manages to close her mouth, but it's possible she's forgotten to breathe for a few minutes. If it weren't for Aziraphale's arm around her, his own steamed breath teasing at the side of her face as she speaks, she'd wonder if she were dreaming. If she could collect her thoughts enough to wonder anything. Which she can't.

With a movement so slow galaxies could be built and burn themselves out before it's completed, Crowley reaches up and pulls off her sunglasses, still not blinking as she looks up. The words are still there.

She gasps with sudden harshness, almost staggering as she breathes in. Aziraphale's arm supports her, she doesn't fall--not again--but she's still unsteady as she turns to look at him, her eyes wide and yellow and overly bright.

Just as slowly as before, she lifts a hand, this time to touch his cheek. The touch is tentative and oddly uncertain, as though she's making certain he's real. She tries to speak, can't, and then suddenly both her hands are on his face, sunglasses dropped forgotten to the pavement, as she kisses him. Tears of fire run down her skin, and the kiss tastes faintly of sulphur.

For several eternal moments he watches her stare at the sign, watches her wide unblinking eyes; at her gasp he shifts in closer, instinctively, his first priority keeping her steady.

Then she touches his cheek, with the same wondering light in those gold eyes as the moment after Aziraphale had dared to make his feelings clear, and his heart gives the same sort of dizzy lifting leap.

His arms are around her before her glasses hit the ground.

Crowley’s tears sting his skin, just a little; even with his eyes closed Aziraphale is strangely aware of how those tears must glitter as they run down her cheeks and cling to her eyelashes. He shifts in their embrace to smooth a thumb across one of her cheekbones, soothing, deeply affectionate.

Again his heart sings, a continuous soft thrum of song every bit as sweet as any hymn he ever sang in Heaven. Our side, our home, our shop, our night. Our life. Not just mine or yours anymore, not ever again, as long as we exist.

They stand there for hours or centuries, locked in place against one another. Maybe she's stopped time, or God has, or maybe the world just gently decides to ignore them for a while. If there are people talking on the pavement as they walk to the club, or cars honking, or noise blaring from the bar down the road, Crowley doesn't hear it. Just her breathing, and Aziraphale's, and the soft noise of their lips touching, parting, meeting again.

The intensity of the moment is almost painful--is it possible to die if sheer devotion, when you're a demon? It might be--and eventually Crowley can't sustain it. It's with as much a sob as a laugh when she breaks off, rests her forehead against his, breathes in the smell of him. "So... you're officially giving me permission to not sell your books?" she manages.

His smile curves softly against her mouth, thumb still caressing away the stinging wetness on her cheek, steady and certain. Though his actual wings remain safely tucked into their interdimensional space, his heart extends sheltering wings around Crowley, as if he could curl his very self around the source of the joy that now rings through him.

“Officially and permanently,” he says, as quiet and sincere as a vow. “Here, and wherever else we may end up.”

They’re still so close that his view of her is a little blurry; nevertheless, he glances up, trying to catch her serpent’s eyes with his own earnest gaze.

“Can you bear one more surprise, dearest?”

"Angel--" Crowley's voice shakes, and she's all but clinging to Aziraphale, though she manages to pull her head back enough for them to look at each other. Her eyes are fully serpentine. "How can there be more than this?" Officially and permanently. Officially and permanently. "How can I ever--"

Whatever she was going to say gets choked off at the end. She shakes her head, laughing again, a little helplessly. "Can it wait until we're inside, at least?"

Aziraphale grins, somehow sly and tender at the same time, and lifts up on his toes a little to press one more kiss to her damp cheek before sliding his arm gently through hers.

“Not out in the cold, I agree.”

The front door recognizes them, as it always does, and swings obediently open. A wave of familiar scent rolls forward to envelop them—that of old paper and leather, cologne, hints of good wine, dust and sunlight even in the middle of a winter night.

When the door closes it leaves them in a soft, deep quiet, the sort that’s perfect for reading or murmuring gentle truths. Aziraphale takes Crowley’s coat, as a gentleman should, before hanging up his own; he lets her lean on him as they make their way upstairs.

Edited 2020-01-02 20:12 (UTC)

The smile makes her shiver. It's one Aziraphale never wore before their relationship began in earnest, open and acknowledged. A smile that just seemes to be for Crowley, one that combines the deep depths of Aziraphale's capacity for devotion (angelic and possibly infinite) with the sneaky bit-of-a-bastardness that Crowley adored in him from the start. It's a devastating combination, one that never fails to melt her from within.

She doesn't really need to lean on him as they go upstairs. But neither of them wants to move away from each other, aside from the small necessary moments like removing coats. And heels, in Crowley's case; she carries those up in her free hand, puts them in the closet in their room. Takes a deep breath before she turns around to look at him, trying to summon up some of her more usual casual flippancy.

(In the back of her mind she can still see the sign outside, official and permanent, their names side by side for all the world to see. Heaven and Hell, God, all the humans, everyone. It's one thing to be claimed in private and another to have it be so publically declared, and it's entirely possible Aziraphale is incapable of understanding just how world-altering it is. Good, yes, fucking miraculous, but also world-altering. Aziraphale might have been rejected by Heaven, but he never Fell. The difference is profound. Crowley doesn't intend to enlighten him)

"So--" she says, slinking back to him, hips swaying. "Keeping in mind that you've already treated me to dinner, a show replete with personal meaning for us, an intermission orgasm, and one of the most public demonstrations of affection imaginable...I'm honestly having trouble imagining how you can have anything else up your sleeve." She puts her hands on his shoulders, slides them down his arms. "Unless it's literally up your sleeve and you're wearing interesting lingerie. Or have some for me to model for you."

His laugh is fond and almost purring; as he steps into her arms his heart swells, nearly aching with satisfaction and joy. It will always feel like a miracle to him, that they can be this close with nothing between them but love—that, like the rest of humanity, they can claim their own little corner of the world and make their way together.

“I’m afraid it’s rather small,” he says, a touch apologetically. “Possibly rather anticlimactic after all that, but I can’t say I have any regrets.”

Aziraphale shifts slightly in her embrace. Behind her back his left hand rests over his right.

“I don’t think I ever told you about the first miracle I ever managed successfully.” Leaning against one another as they are, Aziraphale can feel the faint thump of Crowley’s heart against his own. “I was terrible at it, at first. Right at the beginning. Couldn’t keep anything solid for more than a few minutes. At least not until I put a little fragment of myself into what I was making, just to keep it anchored to reality. Didn’t have to do that again, mind, but something about that helped me get the hang of it.”

Carefully he draws the silver ring off his finger. It’s been there very nearly since the beginning of time—he could have released the energy that made it, let the material vanish back into the firmament and reabsorb the tiny spark of his soul he’d put into it, but he’s never wanted to. It’s his first success, a little reminder that he’s capable of greater things than he thinks. And it’s the only thing that’s been his right from the start, the only constant in his world.

Even in the low light, the small silver wings gleam as he holds it up.

“I’d like for you to wear it,” he says.

Crowley relaxes a little as Aziraphale's arms fold around her, the familiarity of it grounding. When he apologies, she outright snorts. As though anticlimax is a problem their evening is likely to have, either in this moment or later when they finally get to bed. As though it's possible for Aziraphale to somehow let her down, after everything he's given her.

It occurs to her that every gesture of the evening, all of them, are in fact the same thing: Aziraphale's love. Differently expressed, some more tangible than others, but the same at heart. Love might be a four-letter word but Crowley's more than willing to give it, and to accept it, even if accepting such abundant amounts of it is a steep learning curve for a demon. Even such a demon as Crowley.

So she's easier as they hold each other, listening. Surprised and interested.

Staggered all over again as he holds up a ring she recognizes as well as she recognizes his face, his voice, and she realizes what the story he's just told her means. What he's giving her to wear. What it contains.

Once again, Crowley goes absolutely still, her eyes unblinking as she stares.

After a few minutes of silence aside from their quiet breathing, she reaches up and touches--not the ring, but the finger that's worn it for as long as she's known him. "Your hand will look all wrong, without it. Incomplete." She takes a deep breath. "Maybe you'd let me make you one to wear in its place?"

She reaches for his hand, brushes her fingertips over a patch of skin that hasn’t been bare in millennia, and his breath catches at the question she asks.

All of a sudden the moment has become an exchange, private and quiet as any moment human beings share. This can’t simply be a gift—this is a declaration, and it has to be mutual. Otherwise it would be, as she rightly points out, incomplete.

(Incomplete, as he’d tried to resist admitting in the depths of lonely silent moments, like himself without Crowley around. The world has always been a beautiful place, with incredible delights to offer, but all of them are so much richer shared with this one soul. Once he’d thought that meant that his own soul was in some way lacking, that his loneliness was in some way his own fault; now he knows better. The greatest of these is love.)

“I’d be honored,” he whispers.

Crowley closes her eyes for a minute, letting those words sink into her somewhere to be kept and cherished and wondered over. Honored.

Then she sighs and steps back a step so Aziraphale has to let go of her, and shakes her shoulders a little. It's not a large room, but it's large enough to materialize her wings in, if they're kept folded. She sighs again--it's always a bit of a relief to have them out, like an itch or tension so familiar you've learned to ignore it suddenly vanishing. Carefully she reaches back and under, feeling at the feathers, and pulls at a small one. She winces a little as it comes out, but it is small. It'll grow back, and it's not one it harms her to lose.

Then she reaches up to her hair, plucks out a couple strands, and wraps them around the feather.

Right, base materials accomplished. Now for the interesting part. Crowley closes his hands around the feather and concentrates.

She could have just summoned a ring out of nothing, of course; she summons clothes and such for herself all the time. But it wouldn't be the same, wouldn't have the same impact. There's such a thing as style, after all. And gravitas. And equality.

I'd be honored.

It's been hard for Crowley to accept that they're on equal footing now, after centuries--longer--of seeing their relationship as one where she did all the chasing, all the tempting, all the yearning. Thousands of small acts of service to say the things she couldn't say, show the things she couldn't show. Smaller, safer gestures, things Aziraphale would accept, instead of the things he couldn't or wouldn't. But now does.

It's hard, learning to let yourself be loved without fear. For both of them, in different ways. But here they are.

Crowley's hands begin to glow, a pulse of starlight between her closed fingers. As Aziraphale did, she includes a small spark of herself, a grain of soul melded together with feather and hair and spun together, altered, transformed.

It only takes a few moments, and when she opens her hands she's holding a ring. It's a snake, of course, a serpent ouroboros, made from an unknown black metal with faint streaks of red running through it. The tiny, delicate scales shimmer in the moonlight.

Silently, Crowley holds it out to Aziraphale.

Aziraphale draws in a breath at the sight of her wings—oh, but they are beautiful, sleek and black, the feathers gleaming with a faint iridescence like a raven’s. It takes genuine effort for him not to reach out and stroke along the gorgeous dark sweep of them with a finger, or with one of his own primary feathers. But this is Crowley’s moment, and so he simply watches her in reverent silence.

Raven Queen, serpent, best friend, best beloved. Sometimes when he’s fallen asleep he finds himself waking all at once, heart pounding, certain he’s dreamed every loving word and caress that’s passed between them, absolutely sure he’s gone back to being his former self, cowardly and lonely. Lord knows Aziraphale had gotten used to keeping his love silent and secret, had learned to let it out only in tiny fragments, shyly hidden in glances and daydreams and acts of kindness.

And every time he wakes panicked, terrified he’s been wrapped in the strangling vines of I can’t again, there’s an arm around his waist or long warm breaths stirring against his skin, or a familiar voice drowsily murmuring to him. Like the North Star she forged millennia ago, Crowley lights his way, orients him in the world.

The starlight that spills between her fingers limns her face, its sharp and lovely contours; not for the first time he imagines her brilliant against the night sky, spinning clouds of energy and fire into endless points of light. And when she opens her hands the ring she reveals is dark and glimmering with the promise of heat, like the heart of a star, every scale of the serpent’s small body perfectly formed.

It’s beautiful, and immeasurably so for being a part of Crowley. When his trembling fingers curl gently around it he discovers it’s also every bit as warm as her hands.

In silence he slips it onto his finger, and despite the other slight cosmetic changes it does dispel that sense of incompleteness. The ring settles perfectly where his old one used to sit; the scales wink as he turns his hand a little to examine it.

Only then does he let his own wings show—it seems somehow in keeping with the importance and solemnity of the occasion. They stay folded, of course, and their glow is no more intrusive than the moonlight and street light that slants across their faces, but they’re there all the same.

Love, joyful and certain, fills his gaze as he steps in close to her again.

Aziraphale often glows. Usually it's figurative: the warmth of his smile, the aura of his love an almost tangible thing. Crowley can feel it even with her eyes closed, the same way you feel the heat from a fire, the same way you see a bright light even through closed eyelids. It radiates, undeniably. She could find Aziraphale with her eyes closed just by following it, rolls over in the night when nightmares or fears or doubts find her to wrap herself around it until they're banished.

Sometimes it's literal. They're both at it now, glowing, something of their celestial/occult natures on display along with their wings. Crowley's dark feathers glitter as though they've caught stardust in the feathers, and Aziraphale's gleam gently like moonlight. These aren't their original forms, but for Crowley at least it's the one that feels truest, the one that feels most like who she wants to be. Not the gender, that's like putting on a belt or a jacket for her, but the combination of eldrich characteristics and human ones. Part human. Part something else.

Wholly Aziraphale's. More profoundly so now, it somehow feels.

Crowley hasn't taken the offered ring from him yet. When Aziraphale steps forward she holds up her left hand, points to her ring finger. "This one," she says quietly. "I want to wear it on this one."

Though the room doesn’t get brighter, the glow of Aziraphale’s wings grows somehow warmer, as if every beat of his heart is bringing some hidden heat inside him to the surface.

If he tried to put it into writing, he knows, it would take him years and every language he’s ever learned to put into words what happens to his heart when she declares which finger she wants to wear his ring. Never, in any of his wildest dreams, could he have imagined that she would both understand and reciprocate his desire to share a life; this simple, unmistakably human gesture fills Aziraphale’s soul with a deep and resonating joy.

And it’s human vows he imagines, as he takes her left hand gently in both of his own.

This gold and silver I thee give, fragments of themselves exchanged for safe keeping. With my body I thee worship, a devotion they’ve been perfecting for months and in the cloakroom at the Ritz and outside a theatre during intermission and right here in their shared bed. With all my worldly goods I thee endow, everything precious to him under the same roof and shared by the dearest soul in all of creation.

Even in the soft light, her eyes are a rich and molten gold. Aziraphale doesn’t look away for a moment as he slips the ring onto her finger.

Set me as a seal upon thy heart, a seal upon thy arm: for love is as strong as death. Let this, then, be the guiding force in their shared life from now on—love, without regret or hesitation.

This is not something Crowley ever let herself imagine. Not back in the wistful years, where she yearned not quite hopelessly after an angel of the Lord, not in the millennia before she was able to put a name to how she felt, certainly not in that first thunderbolt moment when it began on a wall around a garden. Not even recently, with love open and incandescent between them. She hasn't dared let herself yet want this much. And maybe it's not what Aziraphale meant, even, when he offered her a ring, but Crowley will be damned a second time if she'll miss the opportunity once it was in front of her. It's not as though he can possibly misunderstand what she means.

No planning, no ceremony, no spectators. None needed. Only the two of them. Always and only the two of them, on their own side.

Aziraphale is staring at her face as he puts the ring on her finger, but Crowley looks down at their hands. Hers are long and spindly, the hands of someone who makes things, pries into things, takes them apart and looks at them and then puts them back together differently just to see what happens. His are strong, but the strength has been covered by deliberate softness, manicured, the ages-old callouses of holding a sword replaced by the gentler marks of someone who works with books.

The ring fits her finger perfectly, of course, and glimmers as though it was always meant to sit there.

"Ani l'dodi v'dodi li," she says quietly, tilting her hand to see how the light shines on the ring, to examine this strange, significant new adornment. There could be other words, other vows, but those are the heart of this gesture for Crowley, those words and their meaning in all its terrifying, wondrous simplicity. She finally looks up to meet Aziraphale's gaze. He knows what the sentence mean as well as she does, but she repeats it all the same as she twines their fingers together, gripping his hand. Hers is trembling a little. So is her voice. "I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine."

Edited 2020-01-06 23:25 (UTC)

Her fingers knot gently with his, and his wings spread and curve a little, as if to embrace her or shield her or both. The space between them has grown heavy with quiet, every breath full of meaning, every touch a silent message.

Crowley looks rapt, and perhaps a little frightened—exactly how Aziraphale feels, exactly how most souls would feel upon glimpsing their own personal Paradise. Aziraphale reaches up to trail the fingers of his free hand over her cheekbone, feather-light touch stroking gently over the serpent mark beneath the soft red wave of her hair, in a slow progression down to her jaw. He can remember the first time he wanted to touch her like this—a quiet moment before they’d parted in Rome, laughing about something together.

Thousands of years, and for all that’s changed they have always been a constant for one another, have always belonged. Tonight is just an acknowledgement of that.

(In the kitchen at the Ritz, a champagne flute an angel’s lips have touched suddenly breaks during the dishwashing process. Just crumbles all at once, the confused kitchen staff attest, like someone stepped on it.)

“My beloved is mine,” he whispers, knowing this moment is too sacred to exist in anything but a hush, “and I am hers.”

Hers, his, theirs, as long as the heart and soul are Crowley’s he’ll follow and protect, tease and share. Aziraphale can think of no better way to spend eternity than this: giving and accepting love, defending their side. Together, his heart sings, and somewhere in space a scattered choir of stars whisper it to each other in wonder.

Another eternal moment of watching those beloved gold eyes, and then he leans forward, up just a little, to seal their unspoken vows with a kiss.

Open To Anyone For Anything RP Post 2

...is a trip to the Bastille in the near future? >:D

The chains did suggest interesting possibilities. Though also, Rome. Or Sherwood? ;)

Both is good! Maybe some pirate/highwayman stuff too.

Crowley wants to be a dragon who's kidnapped a Princess because of course he does

holy shit yes please. A would even go femme for that.

Too much for header, see below..

HA! I heard the Cats movie is a living nightmare. Also TA-DAAAAAA.

Haven't seen it but the reviews are hilarious. Also crowley.exe has crashed.

I’ve heard “bewilderingly horny” a lot. Also AWWWW bluescreen demon.

I can't imagine the film is more fun than the reviews. Loving them. And ohhh yes. Kinda broke him.

And the ring hasn’t even come up yet!

Forget bluescreen of death. That's hard drive catching on fire territory.

“Whoops, your hard drive is on fire, better rip your clothes off!”

She's too shaken for ripping atm. Better save that one for another thread. =) (pity, I love ripping)

Time enough for clothes-ripping. ;) (see princess/dragon below...)

It does have possibilities! But gaaah still need to get back to Sherwood!

Take your time! :D also welcome to this headcanon.

Yay headcanon! There are a few other threads I think I owe you too. Inbox is a mess.

I know that feeling. I owe you some, I think!

No worries, of course. =) And gonna blatantly plagerize myself with this but I liked it so there.

I love it and so does Aziraphale.

I just love this image I came up with for making a ring? (didn't cut and paste, just reused idea) :)

It is fantastic and don’t worry, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t recycle good images!

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"Make of our hands one hand, make of our hearts one heart."

And now… a swing at trueform?

yessssssssssssssssssssssss also spot the gratuitous Marvell quote I love that poem

don’t. don’t look at the time stamp. HI.